By saying some actually do drink the kool-aid?
He genuinely believes abortion is murder. With that as a given, killing people 100% of the time with an abortion is worse than some people dying less than 100% of the time without. The math is simple for him (and many like him). It is easy to call the opposition sheep but they really aren't an "other", nor are they (all) prone to violence. It is why I don't see violence as a certainty. Because the followers of the faith, of the GOP in particular, are not necessarily prone to using that tactic.
I sometimes wonder how people with this stance wrap their brains around IVF. Because more than double the amount of embryos are disposed of than embryos/fetuses removed by abortion. If "life begins at conception", are we removing IVF services as well? I find myself thinking about this more often than I'd like because the Catholic church next to our house has been flying a "pray for the 63 million aborted babies" banner for some time (which makes me wretch for a number of reasons), and according to the church, IVF is "against God's will". But I know for a fact* that a significant amount of the kids enrolled in both their school and their CCD program are children conceived through IVF treatments. So, are these parishners sinners? Murderers? Are their children unnatural? Or, as usual, if the money comes in, the church will ignore it's own dogma?
I wasn't talking about ppl dying without it, but just that he's consistent about preventing deaths through gov action, just with helping pregnant women of colour so that they don't die more often from complications then white women (or, you know, other women on colour in developed places outside the US).
Yeah, that is incredibly stupid. If he's against abortion in all cases, then 100% of the time people will die when there's no chance for the foetus to live.
Don't worry, i'm sure they'll just say it's only God's will if the embryo get implanted... while also trying to ban Plan B.
If you're really curious, I would bet that in general it isn't known to the church who was conceived and how, but a) all Catholics are sinners, so the idea that these parishioners are sinners is a given b) yes, IVF causes deaths the same way abortion does, so they should repent of the sin. Maybe they have, maybe they haven't. As we can see with Pelosi, Biden, and PM Trudeau, many Catholics do not adhere to the doctrine of the Church and consider themselves faithful Catholics. They sort of pick-and-choose what parts to follow and what not to, often in line with cultural norms and values. As for the teaching of the Church on the children, there is nothing unnatural about the children, they are not illegitimate (I know you didn't say this but it is sometimes brought up. The Church believes illegitimacy is a legal construction, not spiritual. No children are illegitimate spiritually, that is matter for the laws of the land), and they are made in the image of God and inherently valuable human beings who are loved, whose sins are paid for with Christ's death and resurrection, just like all of us. If the parents did tell the church that they conceived via IVF, that wouldn't impede the child's baptism, admission into schools, etc. The parents have sinned, but not the child. The Church's dogma is not to reject children born of IVF, or any method. If we one day grow a child in a vat, it will be as human as we are now, with all the attendant divine image.
Jesus didn't die for your sins. He died for mine.
Let's be real... he was dead, what, three days? Jesus gave up his weekend for your sins.
Man, tell that to Adam and Eve's children. They fucked up so bad a guy had to get nailed to a cross several thousand years later
I know you're being sarcastic, but we draw a distinction between Original Sin and particular sin (the sins we commit as individuals). However, if there's one thing I definitely flirt with heresy on, it's whether I accept the Church's full teaching on Original Sin, so I sympathize with your point to an extent.
So, I'm not religious, so obviously I also don't believe in original sin, but I do like the stories and myths of religions (note: it's organized religion I don't like, and to be honest human organized anything I'm pretty skeptical of).
(note: I don't know anything about the chabad movement, this isn't an endorsement, they're just the first website that came up when googling for Torah chapters)Deuteronomy 30:11-14 said:
I mean, this is basically exactly where my 'heretical' thoughts on Original Sin as Christian/Church doctrine come from. If we affirm that the Tanakh is true, which we do, then how can we leave out not just the verse you quoted from Deuteronomy which says the law is close and not hard to fulfill (Paul arguably misquotes/misuses this passage in one of his letters), but other passages where God says all that is necessary for repentance is to turn to Him and repent, or Ezekiel where God says he wishes for the wicked to repent. I tend to read Jonah too as a lesson about how non-believers can be more 'righteous' in their lives and repentance than believers, which is basically anathema to Christian doctrine.
For me, it's more the idea that, on a scale from -100 to 100, "Original Sin" says my initial starting condition MUST be the -100, NO EXCEPTIONS. Personally, this strikes me as conflicting directly with the idea of "free will." The idea that every human is born burdened with an entire lifetime's worth of what amounts to spiritual student loans constitutes anathema, for then what would be the point of living? And I know the usual answer is something along the lines of, "To allow sufficient time to grow closer to God and allow yourself to be saved by accepting Him into your heart," but to me that just sounds like a glorified version of, "It's Yahweh or the highway."
Were you not criticising the likes of Joe Biden or Justin Trudeau for being pro choice and still calling themselves Catholic? Is this not also picking and choosing? Or did I misread your intent in that statement?
You know, i looked it up for Catholics just to be sure it was the same as here (i was pretty sure it was, because that's not one of the few things that have become slightly different over teh year beside the Pope's role), and, yeah, baptism is supposed to cleat up OS.
I am critical of it, but I meant to be more neutral-sounding in as much as "There are Catholics like this," which is just, well, true. I guess it came across as critical anyway.
I mean, obviously I struggle with the doctrine, so I am not a great person to defend it, but the numbers thing/loan analogy is not quite right. It's more like, "Given the ability to pursue the good or wicked ends, you will naturally incline yourself to wickedness." To what degree this is the case varies on denomination. Calvinists believe in something called Total Depravity - 'no good without God,' or the idea that Original Sin has made it impossible for humans to choose good other than what God allows them to choose. This is very antithetical to free will.
Well yeah, I don't even know about this one. I think about why it's called the Sin of Adam. I suppose it's because he was made first, but the Original Sin was a joint effort. I've heard people say semi-seriously that the 'real' Original Sin wasn't eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, but Adam saying 'She made me do it!' when caught.
The problem is that we believe there is a human life at stake. To us there's no difference than saying "Well your religion says you can't kill people, but don't force me to not kill people."
That’s a bullshit comparison and you know it. It’s a religious belief that life begins at conception is it not?
That could be said of almost any religious belief.
Doesn't matter if you think a life is at stake. Do you have both kidneys? There are people on transplant lists who will die if you don't donate one. Should the government be able to force you to donate one to keep from killing someone by their inaction?
Even if it is, and I do think there's some scientific basis for the belief, my hypothetical isn't supposed to be a direct comparison, but rather... I can't pretend it's just an abstraction. Objectively, I think it's a human life.
I'm opposed to laws that forbid treating ectopic pregnancy, as I said. There should be exemptions. I mean, the procedure is 'an abortion' but as I said, the fact of the matter is that we either jeopardize two lives, or save one, and saving the one is the right choice.
The law isn't the only thing that matters. How people want to count censuses, give tax credits, etc, is a legal construction. It's like borders. Canada and the US are legal constructions, our border isn't a real thing that exist in a vacuum, but the land is. In this case, the government may not count the unborn, but the fact is that they are human lives. And when people say we should give child tax credits to pregnant women, I am for that. It makes sense. But that's not going to tell us whether or not this is a human being. It just tells us how to govern.
Well, our government doesn’t consider them citizens until they’re born, have a birth certificate, and have an SSN right? Otherwise I should have been able to claim my unborn child as a dependent.
No, as I said, I think secular democracy is a good thing.
Again, you think. Would you really believe that without your faith? You can say it’s based on philosophy and science, but you just spent how much time explaining why your faith did not allow for abortions to be done.
The problem with this is that to reach your goal of protecting lives, you're sacrificing others because the people you've allied yourself with are not being in any way reasonable. They're denying abortion in cases of detached placentas, and fatal birth defects. They're denying abortion care in cases where the fetus is already dead. I know you're against those cases, but you've allied yourself with people who are willing to kill women because they get more political power for being pants-on-head stupid about the issue.
