For some reason, it wouldn't let me respond to your comment...
So, I added a new post about it.
And my response is this:
My good buddy! I knew you would love that! But in reality, I was (as I'm sure you realized) referring to the following sentence, when I said that I didn't want to be too inflammatory. I mean, people get downright offended by a Christian who would dare say that Islam was to blame for anything (like 9/11, or.....).
And before the "fringe extremist" argument is presented, please look up the evidence regarding those who reside in the middle east who supported the "9/11 jihad" after it was carried out.
And...Obama being anti-life is fairly obvious. Wait...omit "fairly". Are you kidding? Do you know that in the MAJORITY of states here, in the good old U-S-of-A, if a pregnant woman is murdered, then her murderer is charged with a DOUBLE homicide? If a pregnant woman is murdered, then...HEY!!!...the baby in her body is considered a human being. But if a woman is pregnant and chooses to kill the baby in her body, then well, that's a choice she makes about her body. Please! What if the baby is born, and then 5 minutes later, the mother decides that she does not want to be a mother, and kills her baby? The answer is, she would have committed the most unspeakable murder anybody has ever heard of. But, that same crime committed 10 minutes earlier, it's supported as a choice.
I urge you to search for the testimonials of some people who have worked at clinics who subscribe to the type of evil that our president is now enacting into law. Do you know what he thinks should be done with babies who survive abortions? Check it out. He thinks they should be thrown in the garbage, alive. This is fact. To oppose this is to be ignorant of the facts, or to be stoic beyond what my mind is capable of.
Let me know your thoughts.
Hey Matt - I apologize if I came off as overly-abrasive. This can be a hot-button issue for me...it's more passion than anything.
ReplyDeleteSinner Saved,
ReplyDeleteYou appear to be under the impression that I am pro-choice. Where did you get that idea?
Not every non-Christian is an abortion supporter, you know?
And I will quite openly state that the teachings of Islam hold some responsibility for the atrocities that are carried out in its name. I think there are many other factors in play also, but I do not think Islam is the 'religion of peace' that its followers claim it is.
Regards,
PS. I've never had a blog posting addressed to me before; I feel so special! Cheers.
Good point. I didn't mean to peg you as a supporter of abortion, though. I was more aiming to reinforce the things I said about our president. He really is an extremist about some of these issues...it's something like a "gross over-compensation" by the American public, in response to the last president (who, for the most part, they did not like).
ReplyDeleteAnd yes...when I titled the blog and it showed up, I thought...wow, when Matt sees that, he's going to light up! Ha!
Do you think Obama wants babies to be killed in the womb?
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure he'd rather this didn't happen, but the problem is; how do you legislate and enforce this stuff?
If a woman has an abortion; who do you charge with murder?
The mother?
The doctor?
The attendants (as accessories)?
The husband (if there is one)?
What if you ban abortions and then there's a sudden rise in back-street abortions (which are often botched and endanger the mother's life) - how do you manage this?
I have similar thoughts on drug use - I'd rather heroin users be registered and given a place to shoot up that isn't going to endanger anyone else than have them roving the streets, shooting up in playgrounds and parks.
My issue is generally with enforcement and effectiveness. I just don't think an abortion 'ban' would be the cure-all that some people hope it would be.
As always, I'm interested in your thoughts.
Matt said -
ReplyDelete"I'm pretty sure he'd rather this didn't happen, but the problem is; how do you legislate and enforce this stuff?"
Make it illegal.
"If a woman has an abortion; who do you charge with murder?
The mother?
The doctor?
The attendants (as accessories)?
The husband (if there is one)?"
All the above -(The husband could never have known about the abortion...we would find that out in the trial).
"What if you ban abortions and then there's a sudden rise in back-street abortions (which are often botched and endanger the mother's life) - how do you manage this?"
There are always consequences for breaking the law. No different with drug abusers. If a person OD's on a drug and survives he is responsible for his own actions. The difference here is that usually the person who OD's harms only himself but an abortion kills an innocent person everytime.
"My issue is generally with enforcement and effectiveness. I just don't think an abortion 'ban' would be the cure-all that some people hope it would be."
Doesn't matter. Murders (other than abortions) happen everyday in this country...it is illegal to murder someone. The ban against murder is not a 'cure all'...they still happen. But we bring the accused people to trial and sentence them accordingly.
Sorry for jumping in Sinner Saved...
Dawg
Wayne,
ReplyDeleteGood points all, and I don't particularly disagree with any specific issue.
Question for you guys.
You're in a fertility clinic when a fire breaks out. There are two ways out and you have to move immediately. Both ways will guarantee your safety, but you can't back0track once you've decided which way to go.
On the way to exit #1 is a 4 year old girl, crying.
On the way to exit #2 is a flask containing 100 fertilized eggs that are to be used in artificial insemination - all of them are viable and will be carried to term if they survive the fire.
Who do you save? The fertilized eggs (100 of them), or the little girl?
I'm interested in hearing your answer and your reasoning.
Matt
Matt o' Matt -
ReplyDeleteWhy am I in a fertility clinic?
Well, just in case I ever am and a fire breaks out....I'd like to see the probabilities of this ever happening tho ;)
I save the little girl of course. There is no guarantee the fertilized eggs would ever bond to the wall of a uterus someday.
Matt,
ReplyDeleteMy good buddy!
Do I think Obama WANTS babies to be killed in their mothers' wombs? Well...no, I don't suppose he goes to bed and dreams about how wonderful that is. However, I do know that he has two choices: to be FOR it, or to be AGAINST it. He chooses the former. Not like the average liberal, though...he chooses the former with gusto.
And man, the idea of having clinics for heroin users to shoot-up...what?? Why would any society ever do that? Should we then give psychopaths clinics in which they can torture animals, instead of having them do it on their own? Do we give pedophiles clinics in which they can view pictures of small children? The plain truth is that you, or I, or Wayne Dawg, or anyone can choose, today, tomorrow, right NOW, do become heroin addicts. But, well, why would we do that? We wouldn't. There are consequences to stupid actions like this. You go to jail, or you die. Either way, your life is ruined.
As far as your question about the fertility clinic...that's a conundrum. I'd like to think that I would do everything I could to save them all.
I would do anything I could to prevent a woman from getting an abortion. I'll tell you that right now.
I thought some more about your fertility clinic question. I realized that it's does not prove what you think it proves.
ReplyDeleteConsider this hypothetical situation:
You're at a high school basketball game when a fire breaks out. There are 101 people there (including you and your wife of 25 years). You only have time to save one person...
Well, who would it be? Do you see how this relates to your question?
With the ability to save only one person, you would certainly save your wife. But that does not reduce the value of the 99 other lives which would be lost that day.
I realize your question was about one person versus 100 "fertilized eggs", but the point is the same.
It's just like abortion; the baby is not in front of the woman, kicking, laughing, and crying like it would be a few months from the time of abortion. Therefore, it's not really a person.
Relativity does not discount the value of life.
Because you know somebody well does not mean his/her life is more important than the person you don't know at all.
Wayne,
ReplyDeleteI said;
"On the way to exit #2 is a flask containing 100 fertilized eggs that are to be used in artificial insemination - all of them are viable and will be carried to term if they survive the fire."
You said;
"There is no guarantee the fertilized eggs would ever bond to the wall of a uterus someday."
I was quite clear in my hypothetical that the eggs would all be carried to term. Does that change your answer? I don't think it will.
Sinner Saved,
You avoided answering the question altogether.
Is there any reason why you both had trouble coming up with an answer that took account of all the proposed elements?
There's nothing wrong with saying that you'd save the little girl; we all would. The question is; why? What if, instead of fertilized eggs, it was a 8 month pregnant woman?
I don't particularly like these ethics questions, but they are useful for self-analysis and understanding why you make the decisions you do.
Sinner Saved,
You asked; "And man, the idea of having clinics for heroin users to shoot-up...what?? "
My cousin was a heroin addict, he checked in to an experimental clinic where they provided heroin and clean needles. After three months they had his addiction down to once a week and, eventually, he went totally clean. They were only able to do this because they had him in a controlled environment where they could monitor his condition and provide the care, physical and psychological, that he needed. If he had stayed on the streets, shooting up in back alleys, he'd be dead or in jail by now. As it is, he's healthy, clean and his wife is expecting - life saved.
So yeah, I support shooting galleries.
You also said;
"Because you know somebody well does not mean his/her life is more important than the person you don't know at all."
I disagree. My wife/child is far more important than any other person on the planet. I would gladly die or kill someone to protect my family.
In the basketball fire scenario, I would save my wife (she'd probably have to save me actually!). If my wife wasn't there, I would save the most vulnerable/youngest person I could find. [assuming I'm not a coward, of course, I wouldn't want to presume heroism having never been in such a position!]
I hope I've answered you questions, perhaps you could answer mine?
Cheers guys,
"On the way to exit #2 is a flask containing 100 fertilized eggs that are to be used in artificial insemination - all of them are viable and will be carried to term if they survive the fire."
ReplyDeleteMy bad - I did miss that part.
That does change my answer!
I holler at the girl to follow me out (which she does) while I grab the fertilized eggs (that will grow full term) and we all make a dash to safety!!
The question, and others like it, still does not change the fact that innocent humans die every day from abortions.
So you're still refusing to honestly/properly answer the question, Wayne.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder why.
Feel free to ask me any morally vexing hypothetical in return, if this is making you uncomfortable.
Matt
I did answer the question!
ReplyDeleteThese kind of questions are lose/lose questions to answer.
Like this one: Can God create a rock so heavy He can't lift it?
The question is really irrelevant.
Dude, we are talking about real human lives here...not made up 'what if' questions. Millions of humans are killed, destroyed, annihilated, eradicated (or what ever adjective we prefer to use) every year because people think that the human is just a 'bunch of cells' or 'it's too little to live outside the womb'.
Let's just end the taking of innocent humans lives at any stage of development.
Wayne,
ReplyDelete"Like this one: Can God create a rock so heavy He can't lift it?"
No Wayne, that's a paradox that has no answer. It is a silly question because there is no logical answer.
A hypothetical question puts you in a position where you have to make a choice. The purpose is to make you think about why you would make that choice. If the choices given are (a) or (b) and you say 'well, I'd do (c)' then you're not answering the question, you're avoiding it.
In simplistic terms, it is thought that given a choice between 1 stranger and 100 strangers, most people would chose to save the 100. The 'what if' that is introduced is 'what if those 100 strangers were fertilized eggs instead of fully developed humans' would that change your answer? If so, why?
PZ Myers at Pharyngula said something interesting about this issue. He was saying that the sperm and egg are both 'alive' before conception (that is, they're not 'dead'). Are they human then?
I have told you before that I am against abortion, so I'm not defending it. I'm just trying to gain a deeper understanding of people's motivations and feelings on the subject, that's all.
You ended with;
"Let's just end the taking of innocent humans lives at any stage of development."
What about terminally ill patients who want to die because they can't take the pain any more?
Just askin'...
Also, guys, have you heard anything from 'Carefulwhatyousay'? Her blog went private and wanted to make sure she was ok.
ReplyDeleteIf either of you have her email and can send her a message, just let her know that her blogging presence is missed.
Thanks.
Wayne: That's funny! Before I got on my computer I was thinking, "What would I do? I would save the girls and the eggs!". Good man.
ReplyDeleteReally, though...I was thinking about this whole question today. And I came to the conclusion that I don't think it warrants an serious reply. I don't think an honest reply is really possible, given the impossibility of the hypothetical situation.
If it's a 4 year old girl and a bunch of eggs, then I think we would all grab them all up and get out of there.
If we really only could choose one, I think sure, we'd all choose the crying 4 year old.
The problem with saying that we some KNEW that all the eggs would be carried full-term and born as crying little babies is that...well, we could never know that.
And that just leads to more and more hypothetical hybrids. Like, if we could know that they'd all be carried full-term, then would we know what they'd look like as babies? Would we know all of their eventual names, family members, careers, etc.? What if we knew that one of them would be a mass-murderer? What then? Of course, I am not actually posing these questions, but just using them for illustrative purposes.
The point of my dumb hypothetical hybrid is that nobody would REALLY know how they'd act in a situation that is impossible. We can say we know, but we don't.
I wish I had a better answer for you, but that's like starting a question with, 'If you were God...".
By the way, are you a fan of Batman, Matt? A comic book guy, perhaps?
ReplyDelete"You can save your love or your sidekick, but only one!! What's it going to be, Batman?!?! HA HA HA HA!!"
:-)
I'd save my love any time; sidekicks are a dime a dozen! Besides, I'm Batman - I work alone...
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, comic books frequently present situations where the hero has to chose between two courses of action that are evenly weighted. Mostly the purpose is to illustrate what their priorities are i.e how seriously they really take crime-fighting when compared to their wife/brother/mother being in danger.
There's never a right answer to any of these questions and, of course, if you could simultaneously do both things (save both parties), then you would do just that. But that doesn't help you to analyze your motivations and that's the whole point.
Believe me, I do understand that it is an highly implausible scenario and lose/lose all the way. There are whole fields of psychology dedicated to understanding why people make the choices they do in these scenarios and I'm no expert by any means.
But you have said that if you had to save one, you'd save the girl. The question is; why the girl and not the other 100 humans?
I don't expect or require an answer, it's called 'hypothetical' for a reason, but that's the real question behind the scenario.
Cheers for the discussion guys, it's a pleasure as always.
Matt
"What about terminally ill patients who want to die because they can't take the pain any more?"
ReplyDeleteNo one can stop someone from taking their own life if they really wanted to. But here the thing, they are the ones making a choice for themselves.....to compare abortion and the taking of one's own life is incorrect.
To really make the comparison the same, we would see a caregiver making a choice outside the ill persons knowledge and desire for their own life, and killing him because it was incovenient for the caretaker to keep on caring for the ill person.
As far as Carefulwhatyousay goes.....I posted there a couple weeks ago but have not visited since.......I will do that right now..thanks for the heads up on her.
For the record: I did not answer your hypothetical question. I said in a "real-world" version of it, where we could not possibly know if the eggs would be carried full-term, then I think we would all grab the girl (if we only could save one).
ReplyDeleteRegarding your original hypothetical question, I said I thought an honest answer was impossible (see three posts above).
Just for the record!
I'll tell you what I REALLY think.
I think you need to stop messing around and get to know Jesus Christ. Death is not hypothetical; it happens every day. God doesn't want you to remain lost.
I feel like we know each other well enough now that we can be frank, don't you?
:-)
Always my pleasure.
Well, you can be Frank if you like, Sinner Saved, I'll stay as Matt if it's all the same to you.
ReplyDelete/bad joke.
Both of you were fully correct and justified in all the points you made in the two comments above, especially the comparison of abortion to terminally ill patients - that was spot-on.
"God doesn't want you to remain lost."
If there is a God and it's the God of the Bible and if He doesn't want me to remain lost - I'm sure He'd do something about it...like making His presence known to those who seek Him.
I've told you before that I honestly wanted to find God and have a relationship with Him. Nothing happened.
There is no good reason for me to believe that God even exists, let alone has plans or desires for my eternal soul.
No fault of yours, of course, and I know it's not your job to convince me - just tellin' it like it is.
Wayne, let me know if you hear back; she was posting a lot about intelligent design / evolution and then seemed to get confused and ran off!
Cheers,
Matt: I had a premonition regarding your joke. In fact, I almost capitalized the "f" in "frank" when I typed it!
ReplyDeleteWayne: I agree with Matt: Excellent point, my man. I feel like the "abortion bubble" has got to burst soon. I call it "America's holocaust". Soon enough, somebody has got to do something.
I'll tell you two something that I've not mentioned on this blog before: My wife and I are expecting our first child! (disclaimer: Sinner Saved held all the views and opinions expressed in this blog regarding life before his wife was expecting their first child). What an amazing experience! I am so blessed.
Matt - allow me to quote you:
"If there is a God and it's the God of the Bible and if He doesn't want me to remain lost - I'm sure He'd do something about it...like making His presence known to those who seek Him."
Like what? Fulfill hundreds of prophecies written about in the Old Testament, that no human could possibly satisfy? Send His son, a part of Him, to die for our sins, so that we may have a choice to accept (or refuse) the offer of eternity with Him? Endure the torment of the Cross for this reason? Give us His own Word, to see and study as plain as day?
He didn't have to any of these things.
My goodness, study the prophecies. They are absolutely incredible. Christ is irrefutable.
My friend, God has done more than His share.
Sinner Saved,
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to you and your wife, that is excellent news! I wish you all the best health and happiness as you begin this new adventure in your lives together; I'm sure you will be an incredible father.
The apologetics can wait for another time and post, I think.
Regards,
Matt
Way to go on your first child!! May God richly bless you and your wife with a healthy, God fearing child!!
ReplyDeleteMatt - I tried to get into Carefulwhatyousay and it blocked me. It says her blog is by invitation only...I could not figure out how to contact her.....
Thanks Matt! That was very nice of you to say.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks Dawg! I pray that I will be a good example.
I thoroughly enjoy our conversations, fellas.
No worries Sinner Saved, I meant every word.
ReplyDeleteThanks for trying Wayne, I got the same thing too. Not a lot that can be done really; such is the anonymity of the internet, I guess!
Take it easy.
I have noticed that many who visit here don't sign their real names. Why are they so secretive and cryptic?
ReplyDelete2) If the people would only read the Bible which is mostly written on the 4th and 5th grade level-- many of these basic, fundamental questions would not be asked....duh..lol.
Cordially,
Tom S
tschuckman@aol.com
Disabled Vietnam Veteran: 68-70, and Christian.
Hey Tom,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. There is nothing more important than studying the Word.
I'm curious: which questions were you referring to?
-Sinner Saved
Curious person here too, Tom!
ReplyDelete"If the people would only read the Bible which is mostly written on the 4th and 5th grade level-- many of these basic, fundamental questions would not be asked....duh..lol."
Don't you think that's kind of insulting? You're basically calling people idiots if they have questions about the Bible. You're also assuming that people who have questions haven't read the Bible.
It also does a disservice to the many theologians who have spent their lives studying the text and are still finding new things within it's pages.
Please elaborate.
ExPatMatt
(that's my birth name and I'm sticking with it!)
I've been seeing a lot of these fly-by postings recently - it gets quite annoying.
ReplyDeleteAh well, onwards and upwards!