What if you had been aborted?
What if you parents had been contracepting "effectively" at the time of your conception?
What if your dad had managed to convince your mom that the "timing" of your impending arrival outside the womb was all wrong, and they'd made an appointment to visit a "clinic" one Saturday morning?
What if your mother's first trimester ultrasound during your first 90 days on earth had revealed a "genetic abnormality" and the technician had successfully "counseled" her to terminate the pregnancy?
What if your mother was raped and she was persuaded to destroy the resultant "product of conception," you?
What if you were created during an inopportune or inconvenient time in your parent's lives?
What if we could make life and death decisions concerning the very existence of our fellow human beings and market it as "choice..." and get away with it?
Goodie Goodie, I be the first on this thread. . .I have no problem with abortion, and have helped several people obtain those services. Just curious though, you mention "contracepting" as if that is the same as abortion. Certainly you do not see those as comparable? Please school me.
ReplyDeleteOnly if you promise not to drop any f bombs on this thread, haha.
ReplyDeleteAs medical research, common sense, and a cursory examination of the drug warning label on a pack of Ortho will tell you, contraceptives function in two way:
1. By suppressing ovulation, (non-abortifacent) thereby removing a necessary component of fertilization, aka conception.
2. By reducing the quality of cervical mucus (try not to gag, now) and by thinning the uterine lining, thereby preventing implantation of a fertilized egg should breakthrough ovulation occur. (abortifacient)
In laymen terms, fertilized egg=zygote/human person, and implantation = tertiary stage of human pregnancy, following conception and travel down the fallopian tube.
BTW, you have not helped several people obtain "services," but rather, have collaborated in the death of innocent human persons. I'm still praying for you...
remember, no f bombs!
Not a problem. Easy to let your language go given the anonymity of the internet. Easy to forget that one is in mixed company.
ReplyDeleteBut I am not sure about pill=abortion. How about vasectomies, tubal ligations, etc? No conception even happening. Obvious we see the abortion thing different. .that is ok. I did help women access services, and would do so again at any time if asked.
My indictment of the religious right/anti abortion types is their rhetoric and reality are incongruent. Why are there so many of kids available for adoption in Texas (I live in Dallas area) and nobody wants them. I talking several hundred just languising in foster care group homes and by age 17 the streets. Many to most will end up in the penal system. The answer: they are disabled, low functioning, mostly non white people that those dumb protestors do not want in their families.
Anti abortion movement is only pro natalist. Once zygote pops his head through woman's vaginal cavity, pro life movement is done with them. None of the demonstrators who harrassed us are inconveniencing themselves or altering their comfort levels.
Irondog,
ReplyDeleteI will take this opportunity to agree with some of your points.(hurray!) Pro-Lifers DO need to do more to help besides just protest the aborting of human life...This is exactly what John Paul II meant about "building a CULTURE of Life." Life, cannot be merely an issue, it has to be a culture. I would refer you to Dr. Ray Guarendi (drray.com), a catholic psychologist and speaker who has adopted, I believe, 10 children, from something like 6 different ethnic/racial backgrounds. Plus, he always would take the roughest cases, children who are older, have behavioral issues, etc...and through good love and discipline they all are doing great. I saw him speaking just the other day on a show and he was ripping into the same point you were making...about how orphanages would quickly cease to exist if Christians stepped up to the call of their faith.
Glad we could agree...but you are still dead wrong about abortion. (had to mention it:)
knowing nothing about you, who you are etc. . .to what degree has being "pro life" (wont deride you as natalist) inconvenienced your life? What sacrifices have you made or intend to make?
ReplyDeleteI love it that anti choicers make comparisons of abortion to the Holocaust, slavery, etc. funny. Those who opposed Hitler usually did so knowing full well it was only a matter of time b-4 they got that bullet between the eyes but they did so anyway. I think of Sophie School.
Beyond running their mouths, anti choicers risk nothing, and do even less. you are right, it anti choicers LIVED their faith instead of running their mouths, there would not be one single orphanage in this country. U & "Jenny" sound like decent kind hearted human beings.
Irondog,
ReplyDeleteIt's a fair question...my father started a women's resource center about 25 years ago. Along with giving pregnancy tests...they encourage the mothers to not abort their children and then follow that up with material support (maternity clothes, baby food, baby clothes, etc...) and classes from volunteer women helping teach these women (who often come from chaotic family systmes) how to mother...if the mother decided to not put their child up for adoption. Growing up I helped with this, also...early on in life my parents would take in unwed mothers and give them a home environment while they were going through pregnancy.
In my profession, I offer reduced rates for families with 3 or more children, or difficult financial situations...and waive the fees entirely in situations in which a family or individual cannot pay, I try to make time to see them anyway.
Also, my wife and I are expecting our first child.
We will see what the future brings.
Good work. I do a lot of stuff similar to what you described as a guidance counselor, and sometimes in the community clinic. But I have encouraged/suggested/enabled abortion with high school girls and in one case a parent. And would do so at anytime if asked.
ReplyDeleteBut still your community is largely all talk blah blah blah blah. In Texas we have these big massive mega churches, with 1000s of members. You would think a fraction, maybe 1 of 10 or 1 of 20 would make available their homes for these kids already available for adoption. And not just take them in. I mean ADOPTION with the role/responsibiity/liability of family and parenting. I could taken people in too knowing it was a voluntary siutation I could end capriciously when I felt like it.
Waiting for what the future brings? Why wait. You could adopt right now, quickly and w/out expense from the state. Granted these are not high functioning kids who would really be a credit to you. But hey, what is the real difference between not wanting to birth one, and letting one languish to die slowly of attachment disorders, failure to thrive syndrome, psychotic episodes and all the other developmental delays associated with abandonment, chemical addiction, and loneliness. But heck, at least they were not aborted. I guess all that catholic rhetoric about the "dignity of the person" the "value of life" etc etc are only platitudes for birthin'Once they are here, oh well.
Irondog,
ReplyDeleteI agree...I forget who said it..but there is a famous quote that the greatest argument for Christianity is Christians...and the greatest argument against Christianity...is Christians. I grieve over my own failings of holiness...and I grieve over the failings of so many other Christians...but I rejoice in the holiness of the saints and aspire to follow them in serving Jesus Christ. One question I would ask you is; who does more than Christians to help the poor? I think if you look at the charity done in this world- and through the past 2,000 year history of the world- the greatest percentage is performed by Christians.
I appreciate your encouragement for me to act more quickly in adopting children, and I have seen wonderful cases of adoption (our neighbors back home adopted two Chinese children...and our small town had a fundraiser for them and raised something like $20,000 for them to take their whole family over there to get the children and help them raise them). I hope I am not just being selfish is not adopting right now (I wouldn't put it past myself) in thinking I have a responsibility to my deptors and family first. I owe my deptors to work to pay back my college loans, and I owe it to my family to give myself to them first, and then seeking to help others. I just think that is the order that works best over the long haul...but I do need to fill more of my life with doing good, and fewer selfish pursuits...thanks for the prodding.
This does make me curious...you had mentioned that you had qualms with Mother Teresa in other posts...and it would seem that Mother and her sisters dedicate their lives to loving all of these unfortunate children and the poor with their whole hearts and lives...what fault do you find in them?
Who does more to help the poor? I would suggest who over history has caused the social injustices, inequalities, class rigities, political structures that has resulted in so much poverty, war, pestilence, etc. The church!!! Look at the colonia movements in Africa, Latin America, etc all in the name of religious conversions and the mess left behind by the Europeans. I was in Spain this summer and saw a great display of torture instruments used against jews and muslims and other heretics. Had that Hanibal Lector feel to it.
ReplyDeleteMother Teresa was an idiot. A self centered narcisist who used that "role" to serve her own emotional needs. In counseling we call that "needy helper syndrome" where one meets their emotional needs via the helping relationship with another. It is a type of co-dependency. She would have been miserable without others' misery. Dont fall for that silly veneration stuff.
Your reaons for not adopting. . .debt, job, other kids, etc. . .are these not the same reasons you all in the catholic right admonish those of us who "contracept?" If we can avoid parenting of kids who are already here but thrown away and unwanted, dying a slow death of loneliness and disregard, why is avoiding parenting of kids not yet even conveived so problematic? The rhetoric and witness of the christian right becomes so easy then to dismiss and ignore. Just thinkin'
Irondog,
ReplyDeleteIn regard to reasons to not adopt versus reasons to contacept...it is very simple. Adoption is a good deed...and we are not obligated to perform all good deeds...whereas to abort or contracept is an evil deed...and we are obliged to not do evil.
In regards to the evils of religion...I would argue that anything involving human beings is going to have it's fair share of evil- not to excuse it- but it doesn't mean religion is the problem...it is just something that evil human beings use to further their own ends. AND as the last century has SO clearly and painfully shown...man with God is certainly capable of doing a lot of evil...BUT man without God is capable of SO MUCH MORE...germany, russia, china...hundreds of millions of people slaughtered in the last century by atheistic regimes. So much for the argument against God from that side...
Finally, you are about as wrong as you have ever been in regards to Mother Teresa...I can hardly imagine the state of darkness you are in to view her work in such a way. The concept of self-sacrifice and self-giving love is TOTALLY foreign to you. It is little wonder though...for someone who does not know Jesus Christ and understand what it means to live in his grace and follow him wouldn't.
Who can help the poor rightly if she is such a poor example?
Sorry for the tardy response. . .prepping for 1/2 marathon soon. . .not adopting is an evil if you and your ilk are truly living your faith. . .not doing something is comparable to doing something evil or bad. You are the one that Jesus will judge for not doing something (i.ed, feeding me when I was hungry, clothing me when I was naked, yadda yadda yadda) Jesus will ask you where were YOU (not the ding dong atheist online) when he was in the orphanage, when he was dying a slow death from attachment disorders and neglect. And blogging with some online pro choice atheist is hardly a suitable substitute.
ReplyDeleteyou would think that as big as texas is that 300-400 kids could find homes, that is slightly more than one or two per county. But no!!
Stalin and Hitler are hardly examples of atheistic government. Hitler was a confirmed catholic, Luther highly anti semitic (went to Holocaust museum, and they very well document church complicity in mass murder). The church (of any denomination) is hardly on the forefront of social change and revolution. Saying "we not as bad as Hitler or Stalin" is hardly a convincing defense of your faith, does little to sway me or my wife.
Regarding mother t, check out Youtube with Penn & teller and Christopher Hitchens. She was a wackadoo, a sadomasochist, and would have been miserable w/out the misery of others. And that she is so unique amongst your crowd is why you venerate her and other aforementioned examples. If the church as a whole really lived its faith, mother t would hardly be on the radar. She is an anomaly most of you will not replicate.
Love the bewildering Godspeak, the religious jibber jabber about self sacrificing love. Could of heard that one on a Lifetime, television for women, movie. In the darkness, what the %$#@ does that mean? Cliches & bumberstickers for the unthinking mind.
Irondog,
ReplyDeleteWe are all called to avoid all evil...but we are not all called to do all good. Even those who adopt cannot adopt all kids...people who become priests and nuns cannot also be parents...those who dedicate their lives to teaching cannot also dedicate their lives to medicine or public service etc... We all have an individual part of the body in which to work.
I maintain that Stalin, Hitler, and the Chinese governements WERE atheistic...despite hitlers youth...he was an atheist (as much as anybody CAN be) and certainly not trying to follow the gospel.
"television for women"
Sounds like another example of your core anti-woman views coming through. Yes, women value self-sacrifice...and that is a good thing because being a good mother requires it.
If you look at Mother Teresa's life and the life of Christ (and the lives of all the saints) you will find they are all VERY similar: filled with a lot of prayer, a lot of love and service to others and encouraging them to come to God, a lot of suffering for at least some portion of their lives, and a lot of imposed discipline and dying to self in order to more fully follow God. We esteem Mother Teresa because her life was closely resembled to Christ's. If you attack her life you must attack his...which I'm sure you will have no problem with...but it will not be a strong argument for a Christian to esteem Mother Teresa less. I ask you what is your opinion of Christ?
When I say you are in darkness, I mean you do not see the world as it is. You disagree, and that's natural...but it does not mean you are not still blind to the world as it is.
"The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 1 Cor:1
God is love...and the vision of that love as shown to us by Christ is him on the cross, "For no greater love has a man but to lay down his life for his friends." Total, self-sacrificing love. That is God's love for us, and that is how we who have been born into His Life are to love Him, and those in our life. That doesn't make sense until you encounter Christ.
u need to drop the Hitler, Stalin china analogies. . .to say "be a christian. we havent killed as many as Hitler" does not close the sale
ReplyDeleteNo proof outside the buy-bull that there was even a Jesus that lived. He was most likely a composite of several alleged messiahs and Ezekiels. Even Josephus' work has largely been discredited by secular, I mean legitimate, scholars.
I am not anti women, just anti kitsch. The View, Oprah, Lifetime, and other gaggling chick chat shows are gawdy and anti intellectual. My wife hates that stuff.
Love the cult talk about m. teresa. Saints? Agatha had her boobs sliced off. Sebastian with his arrows? Joan of Ark who the church killed and later cannonized. . .she was mentally ill with dilusions. Virgin of Guadalupe (who occasionally appears in tortillas and hot mole suace) was the Aztec goddess Tonantzin the Spanish had to coopt into catholocism. The Spanish could not kill her so that had to catholize her.
Amazing you still do not deny the apathy and hypocrisy of your church. There is not one family in each Texas county that will take in these thrown away kids? I might be more persuaded if youa all taught me your faith by what you do and not by what you say.
Irondog,
ReplyDeleteI only use the atheistic regimes of the last century because you strongly imply (if not explicitly state) that religion is the greatest evil and we would all be better off without it. I don't claim it proves that any religion is true, or that God is real, but I do seek to demonstrate it is not this great scourge that if we could just shake off would suddenly free all the good people of the world to stop doing the bad things that religion makes them do and start behaving civilly.
There is absolutely not enough room (or time in my life) for getting into scholarly debate of the historical reliability of the gospels. I will merely state that we have more evidence that Jesus lived and that people trusted the historical truth of the gospels from this day straight back to the beginning centuries.
As for your constant mockery for any spiritual phenomenon...your argument seems to be: spiritual things don't exist...something claims to be spiritual....therefore it is false. Not very good logic. Let us take Our Lady of Guadalupe...how do you explain the tilma? Modern scientists have not been able to explain it. The photographic reflection in the images eyes of the people in the room when it was unveiled...that we didn't even know about until we had the modern tools to look that closely? What is your explanation of that besides "it is spiritual so it must be false and a clever trick from those ignorant, backwards catholics."
Do not think we will make more progresss. I embrace rational existentialism, but reject affective spiritual stuff. You have your group think and religiosity. Like Morpheus told Neo in the Matrix: it is too painful to exist without it, you are hopelessly beholdent to it. I cannot challenge irrationality, dillusions, and fantasy.
ReplyDeleteI can challenge and document historical abuses of the church, religious entities, etc. 911 was a faith based initiative by religious ding dongs who had more faith in their faith than you do. These mass murderers certainly were willing to suffer more for their god than you will for yours.
The tilma in Mexico. I have been there. I have seen it. It is not real. You can blow your nose on it. Read up on your pre columbian history and see what a fraud it is like the shroud of turin. If you believe that is a miracle, than I have some nice beachfront property in Nebraska to sell you. Rationally yours from Big D, Texas. (how bout' them cowboys?)
Irondog,
ReplyDeleteAgain with the mocking...but no sound reasons to rationally explain even the phenomenon of the eyes on the tilma...
I agree...until God really shakes you up...we are not going to make any progress intellectually. I keep writing and arguing mainly to remind myself to keep praying for you everyday...because it is only grace that can help a case such as yours...but I'm not worried...God is a hard one to keep at bay.
sound reasons to explain the phenonomon? R U serious. Just cuz u cannot splain it does not make it supernatural. They used to say epilepsy or lepresey were demonic possessions, but do u believe that. The earth is not flat.
ReplyDeleteUntil god shakes me up? Only grace can help me? Invoking the divinity, always the last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt.
Regards from the rational thinking minority.
Was just thinking yesterday while doing a 12 mile run. . .i notice none of these fetus centered rants extend to the death penalty. Your concern for "life" does not extend to the convicted, which makes me wonder if one life is extendable, then why can we not extrapolate to others "life" cases such as down syndromes. Unwanted is unwanted.
ReplyDeleteWhat if your parents decidedto go to the Frrank Zappa concert instead of get it on the night you were concieved?
ReplyDeleteLiife is an inherently meanigless endeavor save for the meaning we assign - deal instead of BSing yourselves.
Get in touch with your cosmic meaninglessness...
and ps...
ReplyDeleteContraception is murder, but dropping 1000 LB bombs on innocent civilians in Afganistan and Iraq is downright Christly.
Never got that one
good call anonymous. but the reason i was conceived was cuz they did go to that frank zappa concern. come to think of it, i was probably conceived on the 3rd row, section D of the ampitheatre. Life has no meaning beyond what you make of it. It is not a condition, rather meaning is a verb, it is something we ultimately chose to do. Annd your right never understood how abortion of a zygote unrecognizable to the naked eye is murder, but a half million dead iraqis makes one's lord and savior proud
ReplyDelete