Atheist Tuesday: I, too, was blind like you

56 Comments"180" MOVIE

Some atheist responses to my pro-life post from yesterday:

“It doesn’t occur to you that our planet can only support a finite number of people and we are rapidly approaching that limit, does it? …Forgive me if I don’t want to risk the planet and the human species just because you have a problem with abortion and birth control.”

“Stop beating around the bush. Just say it. You think we’re Nazis. You’ve gone completely bonkers and think that allowing a woman the choice to abort her child is even remotely equivalent to a broad plan to wipe out a race of people.”

“I am not for abortion as a form of birth control, but I am not going to say we need to outlaw it because there are valid reasons for abortion.”

It was at a Singles Retreat, three months after I committed my life to Jesus, that a petition was passed around from table to table in the dining room. A new abortion clinic was ready for business in my city and I was asked to sign the petition in opposition to it’s opening.

I refused. “I can’t sign it,” I protested, “I am for abortion.”

I still remember the reaction I received from the believers sitting around me: none. No one took me aside to straighten me out. Not one person wagged a finger. No disgusted looks were hurled in my direction.

I was shown grace that day.

As a new believer I was still conditioned to the calloused thinking of the world: “Life did not begin at conception but at some arbitrary time in the future.” “It was a woman’s right to choose.” “Since it really isn’t a baby yet, it’s not murder.”

As a result of my evolutionary mindset at the time I could not discern truth from error. I was blind, cold, heartless.

My beliefs—before Christ—contributed to at least three infant deaths during my years of indiscretion. I never had to rationalize that it was right because I never thought about it at all.

It was more convenient that way.

I was shown grace that day in 1992, in the dining room at Alpine Christian Conference Center, because other believers in that room understood that people change slowly in Christ’s economy. I once bragged to a Bible study leader how I was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, flaunting my membership in a political party that held those very same views. He responded quite calmly with, “That will change.”

And it did. In fact, everything changed.

As I walked with Jesus I valued life more. I understood that humans were created in the image of God and were created with purpose. Over time I became pro-life and switched to a more conservative political view.

I came to my senses.

But it started with repentance and trust in a Savior who rescued from Hell an accomplice to murder like me. For a heart to change from choice to life, it must start there, at the cross.

So until the atheists at this blog understand this truth, I’ll show them grace…without mincing words.

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Fetuses not human? Click here for photos. (Caution: Graphic!)

See the similarities between the Holocaust and today’s abortion issue. Click here to watch the 180Movie.

Comments (56)

  1. Nancy Rice

    Reply

    You don’t know me, Jim, but you are the blinded one. If it is just some tissue or cells, than what is the big deal? It’s a baby from conception, a person with her own DNA separate from the mother’s. She is a unique individual person. Euthanasia and capitol punishment are wrong. Killing humans is wrong, and a baby is a person, no matter how small. Science has proved numerous times that life begins at conception.

    • BathTub

      Reply

      “Science has proved numerous times that life begins at conception.”

      Sorry Nancy, but that shows that you are just repeating a platitude you heard somewhere, without thinking about what you are saying.

      Sperm are alive, Eggs are. Life doesn’t begin at conception it continues through conception. A better comment would be ‘a unique life begins to form at conception’.

      But why is ‘life’ an important standard for you?

      Where the people God drowned in the flood not alive? Or the rest of the life on the planet?

      Were the First Born of Egypt that God sent the Angel of Death to kill as punishment for the actions of Pharaoh (who’s heart God had repeatedly hardened for his own glory) not alive?

      Were the Amelekites not alive? The Ammonites? The Edomites, The Moabites?

      Were the Youth that God tore apart with bears for calling a prophet bald not alive?

      Was Jephthah’s daughter that God demanded as a sacrifice not alive?

      You know that’s barely scratching the surface of the ‘life’ that God has slaughtered which you and pretty much all the other Christians here will defend as righteous and good like Glenn did yesterday, and then have the amazing gall to turn around and make us out as the Nazis as Steve alludes to below.

    • Bizzle

      Reply

      You mean “he” is a unique individual person. Ugh this political correctness crap irks me to no end.

  2. Steve Sanchez

    Reply

    Jimbo,

    I know that you appreciate science. So would you change your position if confronted with scientific facts?

    “I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception…human life is present throughout
    this entire sequence from conception to adulthood…anyinterruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human life.

    “I am no more prepared to say that these early stages represent an
    incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty is not ahuman being. This is human life at every stage.” —Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, professor of obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania

    “After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being.”

    “[it]is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception. —Dr. Jerome LeJeune, past genetics professor at the University of Descartes in Paris

    “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.” —Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth of Harvard University Medical School

    Citations: Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary
    Committee S-158, Report, 97th Cong., 1st Session, 1981

    Now Jim, given these scientific facts, would it be unreasonable to conclude that your dehumanizing the pre-born are not unlike those who would classify Jews as non-human during WW2 era Germany?

    • Garrett

      Reply

      Oh yes, some cherry-picked quotes from a thirty-year-old senate committee.

      Let’s just slap a lab coat on you, Steve.

  3. Nicholas Landsman

    Reply

    Amen! Pastor Steve, as news of encouragement, there is a new interest group at my school, “Pro-life is good,” and I signed up as soon as I heard about it. There is an OB-Gyn in the LA area providing guidance, and may be one of the only OBs in the area that actively promotes pro-life medicine, if you will. If you are interested, next time I see you I can pass on the contact info…
    God bless, keep up the encouragement!

    Grace and peace to you in God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,

    Nick

  4. Steve Sanchez

    Reply

    Here’s another one… from 1981.
    Hey, you guys like quotes from that old, old book by Darwin, dont you? The point of these old quotes is that they have always been around. People tend to ignore truth.

    Dr. Thomas Hilgers states, “No individual living body can ‘become’ a person unless it already is a person. No living being can become anything other than what it already essentially is.”     —Thomas W. Hilgers, Dennis J. Horan and David Mall, eds., New Perspectives on Human Abortion (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America Inc./Aletheia Books,1981), 351.

    Will you admit now, atheists, that if you were in Nazi Germany you might have classified members of a certain race as non-persons, too?

    • Patrick

      Reply

      Like I have said before I love this “180” argument you are using now a days. Others call you blind and then you turn it around and say they are blind. How Peewee Herman of you.

      Will you admit that even though the Jews and others (handicapped, Gypsies, and Slavs) who did nothing wrong and were tortured and killed in the holocaust are now according to your religion burning for all eternity in Hell because they did not accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior?

      • Steve Sanchez

        I don’t know where they are.

        I do know that we are all sinners. And there is punishment for sin whether you believe that or not

        So, Patrick, unless you repent, you too will perish.

    • Nohm

      Reply

      Steve wrote: “Hey, you guys like quotes from that old, old book by Darwin, dont you?”

      Steve, you’re exhibiting projection; your statement says more about your views than it does about ours. We largely don’t care what Darwin said, because his science was 150 years ago. We care what current evolutionary biology says.

      Darwin is not the pope of biology.

      When have you ever seen atheists using Darwin quotes? Please point out a time when it’s happened here on your blog.

      Steve wrote: “Will you admit now, atheists, that if you were in Nazi Germany you might have classified members of a certain race as non-persons, too?”

      Please show how “a clump of cells without a brain is not a person” leads to “you might have classified members of a certain race as non-persons”, without using a slippery slope fallacy.

      The brain is the determining agent, Steve. Hence your “members of a certain race” does not match, regardless of your view on anyone else’s morals; you’re factually incorrect.

    • BathTub

      Reply

      No Steve, it’s only creationists like yourself who idolize Darwin. Why else bring him up in irrelevant situations like this? And bring up evolution in general?

      I have no idea how on earth your random quote is meant to connect to your ‘atheists are really Nazi’s’ follow up.

  5. Christopher

    Reply

    Here’s two things that might make things clear.

    1) An opinion from a scientist is NOT science. Ok? You want us to see the science? Fine. Bring on the facts, not opinion.

    2) Is someone dead when they have no brain Steve? Of course they are. They have become a dead body. So if they aren’t a living person when they have no brain how can that state of affairs magically change when that brainless human is in the womb? Fact is that there is a period when the brain begins to develop. Before then those clumps of cells are human life just like the cells on my fingers are human life…but they’re not a human being.

    Understand now? Of course you do. Going to admit you were wrong? Of course you won’t! The God that you worship – your own ego – would never allow it would it Steve?

    • FortC

      Reply

      Christopher,

      If someone is brain dead, do you have to use means like those employed in abortion to end their life or will their body just cease to function on it’s own unless extraordinary measures are kept in place to keep the body alive? In other words left alone they will die. This is not so in the case of the developing human being in the womb. If you just leave them alone in most cases they will continue to develop and grow and eventually be born. So your attempt at a parallel fails to prove anything except your callous indifference.

      • Geoff Alfassa

        I like FortC’s comment, and would like to further his point to the extreme for the purpose of showing what a distinction a brain dead person is from a baby in the womb who doesn’t have a fully developed brain:

        Kill all the brain dead people in the world: the human race will go on.
        Kill all the undeveloped brain babies in the world: the human race will eventually die out.

        From a purely humanistic point of view for the advancement and progression of human kind, applying the ethic inferred by Chris to mass scale would bring about the end of the human race.

        But perhaps that’s not a problem, for you maybe you aren’t a humanist, but rather a nihilist, in which case you have no argument here because Christians should just appear as silly people who have a weird way of making their lives meaningful to themselves.

      • Geoff Alfassa

        Most cases? Can you find me some info on that, really interesting, all I could find was the following:

        Miscarriage is the most common type of pregnancy loss, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). Studies reveal that anywhere from 10-25% of all clinically recognized pregnancies will end in miscarriage.

        from

        http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancycomplications/miscarriage.html

        If 25% is accurate that is still much higher than I previously anticipated, but I would by no means qualify that as most.

        And another thing to think about, if 75% of brain dead people came out of their brain dead state over say 9 months in the hospital, I bet you there would be no question about whether to leave them on life support or not. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think most people would view you as pretty immoral if you didn’t at least wait and see.

        love and peace

      • Garrett

        Except nobody is suggesting abortion on a wide scale.

        Are you even paying attention?

      • Christopher

        Fort C wrote “If someone is brain dead, do you have to use means like those employed in abortion to end their life or will their body just cease to function on it’s own unless extraordinary measures are kept in place to keep the body alive? In other words left alone they will die. This is not so in the case of the developing human being in the womb. If you just leave them alone in most cases they will continue to develop and grow and eventually be born.”

        Very good. You can’t think worth a dqarn but you can write word salad like the dickens. What I am arguing is that since life ends when the brqain no longer functions we may also assert that life begins when the brain begins to function. I never agued that the beginning of life and the end were the same state. Understand now or must I find an eight year old to explain it to you?

        Fort C then finished off by adding “So your attempt at a parallel fails to prove anything except your callous indifference.”

        Callous indifference to what? Your ego and the ego worship you give yourself?

        Then we have Geoff Alfassa who wrote “I like FortC’s comment, and would like to further his point to the extreme for the purpose of showing what a distinction a brain dead person is from a baby in the womb who doesn’t have a fully developed brain”

        Hear that whooshing sound? That’s the sound my point makes going way over your head. For the third time I am NOT arguing that a living fetus and a dead person are the same. I am arguing that since we can assert that life ENDS when the brain stops functioning then we can logically assert that life begins when the brain STARTS functioning.

        Now I believe you and Fort C have some appologies to make. Of course if you worship your own egos as I think you do then there is no way known you will ever admit you were wrong. It would be far to crushing to the ego.

    • Glenn Parker

      Reply

      Christopher, I agree with your statement “An opinion from a scientist is NOT science.”

      However, scientists do not agree with that in general and I don’t believe you do either. Since the past no longer exists and is therefore not testable in any sense, “historical science” can only be a story woven through the opinions and beliefs of people in the present. Get enough people to buy your story and it becomes “science”.

      • vintango2k

        Wow Glenn… just wow… you’re talking about pseudoscience, not science, science that we use has been tested, is being tested, and is being improved upon as we speak. I know you’re mistrustful of scientists because they say things that messes with your dogma, but it just shows you need to get out there and talk with people and do some research, that’s all.

      • Glenn Parker

        vintango2k,

        Actually, I am a senior-level researcher. What I am saying is based on professional experience, not imagination. Perhaps you are posting outside your own expertise.

      • Nohm

        But Glenn, you are not a senior-level researcher in this area.

        There are particular subjects that we have talked about in the past (such as Kitzmiller v. Dover) where your research was lacking.

        Your statements on “historical science” are, at best, controversial.

      • vintango2k

        What are you researching Glenn? And I work with scientists at a research institution so I know somewhat about the process. I was commenting on your last line, ‘Get enough people to buy your story and it becomes “science”, that’s like saying if I’m just good enough at lying about this research and as long as no one checks my work no one will ever find out I’m just making stuff up…. as if there weren’t half a dozen research candidates out there just waiting for an opportunity to prove my hypothesis wrong for a chance to further a field of study.

      • Glenn Parker

        Okay, which statement do you guys have trouble with:

        1. The past no longer exists.
        2. The past cannot be tested.

        If #1 is true, then #2 is a corollary.

        If you find someone who is able to travel to the past to test theories, then I will concede your superior knowledge in this area.

      • Glenn Parker

        vintango2k,

        Surely you have heard of “science” that has been disproven? If not, you should read more. In each case as the “science” is disproven, we have another case of the (faulty) majority opinion being accepted. Surely I don’t need to explain this to you. The only sane conclusion: majority opinion rules.

        Nohm, which area are we discussing? Science is science, no? You’d be the last to admit that the veracity of science depends on the field of study.

      • Christopher

        Glenn asserted “Get enough people to buy your story and it becomes “science”.

        Very Good glen…and totally accurate except the part where you defined science as “Get enough people to buy your story and it becomes “science”. That part was totally wrong.

        Now either you don’t know anything about science in which case you shouldn’t make statements about an area in which you are ignorant, or you are trying to deceive.

        The fact is that science depends upon evidence, not majority opinion! If you truly did know science you’d already know that. Why didn’t you know that Glen?

      • vintango2k

        Glenn, what field are you studying? And I disagree with you that the majority opinion doesn’t simply rule because its the majority opinion, the majority opinion forms based on the conclusions that are derived by the evidence available when the results become as close to certain as can be attained in science.

        Yes the past can not be tested in laboratory experiments because its the past but that doesn’t mean the experiment can not be replicated by someone else in the present day to test to see whether the results derived in the past are different from the results derived in the present day. Things like Newtonian Physics and Cell theory and… Evolution…. are not just conjured into existence and maintained by the majority of scientists because they felt like it that’s the tactic of the preacher (see Steve’s Sermon on Laminin for an example), its because the conclusions that are derived from the evidence available have become borderline irrefutable.

        People do try, however, like the Discovery Institute, to disprove evolution, and they fail to deliver every time for the same reason… I can keep trying to prove a yellow duck is blue but after all the testing is done, and the evidence for the yellow status is piling up, more and more, and there’s no evidence for the blue duck than my hypothesis is wrong, and the yellow duck theory becomes the consensus science, not because I WANTED it to, but because that’s the most probable conclusion that can be drawn based on the evidence.

      • vintango2k

        I’m also aware that science does change, top notch researchers are MADE by trying to disprove accepted science, and some scientific theories have been overturned in the past, which is perfectly fine. Darwin was wrong on a lot of his theories when it came to evolution and much of what he said has been discarded in lieu of new evidence and testing.

        I’m glad that we have people who go against the majority of opinion to try and shake things up. When the foundations of modern physics were being established in the early 20th century, Einstein and his lot lost the argument in favor of quantum mechanics despite his theories being the established science. The opinion changed based on the evidence. You do have hold outs who put too much emotional investment in their own established theory but a good scientist knows when to identify someone who clings to the pre-established dogma based on personal or emotional reasons and not rational ones.

        Science does change but for good reasons. Glenn do you honestly think that we’d have the modern wonders that surround us on a daily basis, such as gene therapy or high speed computers, if people were just making stuff up?
        If we can’t test history directly, we can attempt to replicate the conditions and conduct experimentation in the present to see if we get similar or different results. NASA does something similar to this, when they artificially generate the atmospheres of other worlds in order to test new probes. No we’ve never actually BEEN to the planets they’re synthesizing but through inference we can create an accurate facsimile. The success comes when the probe works or the lander successfully touches down. The failure comes when the majority of scientists ‘make stuff up’… which is great because then when they’re wrong you go back to the drawing board and actually try things that will yield positive results.

    • Garrett

      Reply

      Garret –
      My name is right there. There is no excuse for not spelling it correctly.

      I never said anyone suggested abortion on a wide scale. I was making a point. Apply a good act on mass scale the result should be mass goodness. Apply a bad act on a mass scale the result should be massively bad. I would hope that we could all agree the extinction of the human race is massively bad.
      This is ridiculous thinking. People are sick, so what if we gave everyone medication? Well, that would be a massive waste of resources since not everyone needs the medication. How about giving people cookies? Some cookies make people sick; sometimes terminally so! My point is that not every good action will be good when done on a large scale.

      I’m trying to!
      Not very convincing when you can’t be bothered to spell my name correctly.

    • Christopher

      Reply

      Geoff

      Once again the point goes whooshing.

      You wrote “I mean a newborn’s brain isn’t fully developed yet, it’s only a quarter of the size of your brain, so maybe that doesn’t qualify as functioning yet. And then it wouldn’t qualify as being a human being. According to your logic. But by 3 years old its at about 80% of an adult brain and 90% by age 5, so tell me at what point is a brain functional?

      I hope you see that a brain is functional when it is functioning appropriately for its stage of development.”

      Geoff let me point out the obvious. A clump of cells, even fetilised cells do NOT have a brain. That being so the brain cannot be at any stage of development at that point. Since it may be logically argued that life begins when the brain begins to function and a clump of cells, fertilized or otherwise, has no brain then life CANNOT begin at conception.

      Yo then quote me as stating “Fact is that there is a period when the brain begins to develop.”

      You then assert “I think this is seen right after conception. Are not the brain stem and spinal cord the first things to develop when an embyro has been planted?”

      You are joking right? According to the mayo clinic “The fifth week of pregnancy, or the third week after conception, marks the beginning of the embryonic period. This is when the baby’s brain, spinal cord, heart and other organs begin to form.”

      Since this happens in the into the fifth week of pregnancy then the fetus cannot have any brain function before then. That being so life CANNOT begin at the point of fertilization can it?

      You also wondered why I reacted the way I did to your previous post.
      It is quite simple. FortC used an incredibly illogical argument & then accused me of callous indifference. You then added “I like FortC’s comment…”

      So you too were, in effect accusing me of callous indifference as well. Perhaps you should pay more attention to your insults.

  6. Steve Sanchez

    Reply

    Please remember, I’m comparing all those who would de-personify a person in the womb with those who would de-personify a certain class or race of people during WW2.

    I do understand that all atheists aren’t as hardened and calloused as those who defend murder here at this blog.

    • Garrett

      Reply

      The difference Steve is that we don’t consider fetuses something to be wholly eliminated. Fewer abortions are a good thing because it means fewer unwanted pregnancies. But ONLY if the women chose that freely as opposed to being pressured or outright bullied into EITHER an abortion or no abortion.

      If we declared fetuses to be an undesirable part of society that is in need of purging, then I guess you might have a point. Instead, you are making yourself look like an idiot. A very offensive idiot that is spitting on the graves those that died in the Holocaust.

    • BathTub

      Reply

      Do you think the Egyptian First Born were de-personified first, or just killed outright by God?

  7. thesauros

    Reply

    Or you can just do this. Pick any day in the life of the child and ask yourself, “Was there human life yesterday?” And then keep going until you reach your answer – i.e. the moment of conception.

    • Garrett

      Reply

      Sperm and eggs are also alive, so we can take a step before conception!

      How far do you want to take this?

  8. Nameless Cynic

    Reply

    OK, Steve, if life does begin at conception, wouldn’t Heaven be filled wall-to-wall with little floating fetuses? But then again, since they were never baptized and never accepted Jesus into their unformed hearts, they would have gone straight to Hell, where their little unborn souls could simply be used as fuel for the furnaces. This would be very efficient, and exactly the way that a loving God would have designed the system.

    Regardless of that, though, where do you stand on the following Bible verses?

    Happy is the one who seizes your infants
    and dashes them against the rocks.
    (Psalm 137:9)

    At that time Menahem, starting out from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and everyone in the city and its vicinity, because they refused to open their gates. He sacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women. (2 Kings 15:16)

    Give them, O LORD—
    what will you give them?
    Give them wombs that miscarry
    and breasts that are dry.
    (Hosea 9:14)

    The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
    because they have rebelled against their God.
    They will fall by the sword;
    their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
    their pregnant women ripped open.
    (Hosea 13:16)

    So abortion is a sin, unless you disagree with someone’s politics or religion?

    • BathTub

      Reply

      Psalm 137:9 is used waaay to much given that’s it’s not a command from God but rather a revenge fantasy of a exiled Hebrew… but it’s still considered holy enough to be compiled as part of the psalms.

      Either way the bible is filled to the brim with God slaughtering people, you just don’t need it.

    • Nameless Cynic

      Reply

      Really, Steve? Your answer is “Well, if you’d read them, you’d understand.” Don’t you know me better than that?

      ‘Tub covered Psalm 137 (and you’re right, btw – it does get used too much. But only because it’s the perfect example: Holy Scripture, right? Breathed out by God? So it must be OK.

      In the Book of Kings (of which 2 Kings is obviously chapter 2), we’re covering the history of Judah and Israel for about 400 years after David. And Menahem may not have been a nice guy, but he was a general who took control of the kingdom back from the invader. And despite God’s propensity to punish kings He was unhappy with, Menahem ruled for about 10 years and then died of natural causes.

      Hosea was one of the Minor Prophets, and he was prophesizing what would happen to Israel for abandoning God (sorry, “G_d”). So that makes it OK? I thought abortion was ALWAYS bad.

      In Genesis 38:24, there’s a pregnant woman convicted of prostitution. Though the leaders of Israel (you know, G_d’s “chosen people”) knew the woman was carrying a fetus, they still decided to burn her. Why does the fetus have to die for the mother’s crimes?

      Come on, Steve. Is abortion always bad, or are there exceptions? Is it OK to force abortion on people you don’t agree with, or when they aren’t following YOUR religion, or when they’re a criminal?

  9. Arlene

    Reply

    BathTub, you speak of times that God killed people to defend your stand that it is OK to kill unborn babies? It is a sin to kill. Our God is sovereign. He is the Creator of this world and had His reasons for killing people that we may never understand. He is not accountable to us, but we are accountable to Him. If you died tonight, where would you spend eternity?

    • vintango2k

      Reply

      So the Egyptian babies had it coming? What higher, gentle, loving purpose could the slaughter of the first born possibly serve if you think babies are so innocent? I find that there’s a certain cognitive dissonance between when God decides to kill babies and when people decided to abort fetuses over which is good and which is evil, in that one can justify what God did as good and loving and what people who abort do as evil and vile. You’re quick to use the word genocide to describe what’s happening today, but what of the genocides written about in the old testament… the kind where God decided to wipe out everyone, including the elderly and the infants?

    • BathTub

      Reply

      My point, once again, is that the religious people here use completely false standards that they do not honestly hold.

      Arlene I will ask you a question that has terrified every Christian I have asked it to into silence (running away is silence).

      Given Gods actions in the bible, is there any level of atrocity that can’t be justified?

      • Arlene

        BathTub, Are you a good person? We can “justify” all the actions we want. However, when we face the perfect Judge on Judgment Day, we will be accountable for those actions.

        Again I say, God has reasons for doing things that we may not now understand. God is good and whatever He decides to do is for good. He has killed to draw others back to Him. Watch the movie “Courageous.” Look how much good came out of the death of someone. Jesus died for your sins — look at the good He can do for you, if you will repent and trust Him.

      • Christopher

        I’m not Bathtub Arlene but perhaps I may chime in.

        You wrote “Again I say, God has reasons for doing things that we may not now understand”.

        Moral relativism is the idea that there is no objective right or wrong – morality depends upon the circumstances [like God’s will].

        You are a moral relativist Arlene. If God declares that killing is wrong then you’d refrain from killing. If God says killing is good then you’d kill as many as you can see. Isn’t that true? It is from what you’ve declared above.

        You went on to write “God is good and whatever He decides to do is for good”.

        So anything is good, no matter how evil if God does it. Gotcha!

        You went on to write “He has killed to draw others back to Him”. So an omnipotent God couldn’t carry out His will any other way than by performing an evil act.

        Let me put this simply.
        1) Anyone who orders an evil act is Himself evil.
        2) Orders to attempt genocide [no matter the reason] are evil.
        3) The fundie interpretation of the bible has God ordering an attempt at genocide.
        4) Either the fundie interpretation of the bible is wrong or God is evil.

        It’s that simple Arlene.

      • Steve Sanchez

        Christopher,

        Excellent job in judging God by your standards.

        I remember once getting bitten by my pet mouse when I closed my hand over it as a kid.

      • Christopher

        Steve wrote “Excellent job in judging God by your standards.”

        Excellent job yourself in missing the point and NOT applying the standard found in the bible.

        Many, many writers in the bible declared God righteous did they not? Since the only standard humans have is a human standard then they were judging God by their standards were they not?

        You could argue that they were judging God by God’s standards but:
        1) It’s circular [liars judged by their own standards never lie, murders never murder, etc]
        2) God has already violated His own standards – remember “Thou shalt not MURDER?

        Don’t really think a lot about what you read in the bible do you Steve?

        Now of course there is a way out. The fundie interpretation of scripture could be wrong. Simple.

        Ah but then you would need to admit that fundyism is mistaken and turn away from it to the truth. You won’t do it that because that would mean admitting that you were wrong and your ego will never allow that – will it Steve?

      • Patrick

        Steve wrote:

        “Christopher,

        Excellent job in judging God by your standards.

        I remember once getting bitten by my pet mouse when I closed my hand over it as a kid.”

        It actually sounds more like judging God by Gods standards.

        So are you God or the mouse in the scenario you provided. If you are the mouse then you should probably bite right about now.

      • BathTub

        Congratulations Arlene on avoiding the question.

        Once again Steve, my point is you don’t hold the standards you pretend you do.

    • Nameless Cynic

      Reply

      In the ground, Arlene. (Or in my case, I’ll be donating my remains to a medical school, to do with what they wish. Perhaps they can help someone.)

      Death is the end. Why does that frighten you? I’ve raised three kids, had a pretty good life; why do you think that there has to be more? Making up stories about what happens after you die is a little childish, isn’t it?

    • Nameless Cynic

      Reply

      And I’d like to apologize, Arlen. I completely ignored the first part of your response and only responded to the last bit. Other people might roll like that, but I try not to.

      Our God is sovereign. He is the Creator of this world and had His reasons for killing people that we may never understand. He is not accountable to us, but we are accountable to Him.

      So you accept that the Being who you worship commits the most monsterous barbarities? Really? Then why do you worship Him?

      I occasionally see people trying to justify this, and it invariably ends badly. William Lane Craig, for example, tried it like this:

      if we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.

      So, essentially, if you bomb a church, it’s no sin, right? If I stand outside a church with an AK-47 and murder all the happy saved Christians exiting the service, I am doing the Lord’s work.

      It’s too bad I’m one of those “immoral” nonbelievers who doesn’t believe in Heaven, so I can’t justify it that way.

      (I’ll be honest, I’m cribbing a little bit here, but there’s only so many ways to answer the same question over and over. As a side-note, if you support Mr Craig’s argument, doesn’t that put the lie to the idea that abortion is immoral? It’s just sending them to heaven.)

    • Nohm

      Reply

      Arlene wrote: “BathTub, you speak of times that God killed people to defend your stand that it is OK to kill unborn babies?”

      Goodness, no.

      He’s speaking of those times to point out that people are being hypocritical; they get upset if a doctor performs an abortion, but have no problem with God’s genocides.

      “Our God is sovereign. He is the Creator of this world and had His reasons for killing people that we may never understand.”

      We read this as you saying, “He declares a morality that He doesn’t follow.”

      Again, hypocritical.

      “tIf you died tonight, where would you spend eternity?”

      I don’t know, and I don’t think you know either.

    • Nohm

      Reply

      Arlene wrote: “If you died tonight, where would you spend eternity?”

      Why would I believe that I would “spend” “eternity” anywhere? What reason is there for thinking this?

    • Patrick

      Reply

      Arlene, Do you remember existence before you were born? How do you know your brain will live on in all eternity? If you know what everyone else does that your brain dies with the body, how do you know if there is any part of you that will exist in eternity? If there is something that lives on, how could you say that it would be anything like what your brain/ego has created of itself in this world at this time?

      As I see it, “IF” there was a part of me that lives on in eternity, then it must have existed before in all eternity and more than likely will have no connection left to the physical plane and this human experience. My body (brain, heart, and parts) is alive and wants to stay living. Once it is dead it ceases to function. Fear is a creation of the mind/body. Fear is how “they” (the church) get you to worry about your so called afterlife. Fear dies with you.

  10. BathTub

    Reply

    Wow Steve, have you read today’s entry at Ray’s Daily Evidence Blog? It describes the standard of evangelism around here perfectly.

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