One way would be to try to show that abortion ISN'T the taking of an innocent human life and therefor NOT a sinful proposition for Christians. It's really quite simple: a Christian cannot support legalized abortion, at least not how it stands now. There's really no special power or ability required to make this determination. Only honesty.
Great speech! That's the first time I've heard the stupid legislation to protect insignificant little fishies and mollusks and insects compared to the indifference by politicians and Liberal activists towards actual pre-born living human beings.
It makes the holocaust of abortion even more abhorrent.
We need more of this! It's about time Republicans and Conservatives stepped up and starting bringing what we stand for to the forefront. There have been too many RINOs in the past embarrassed by our positions and unwilling to stand up for them. This is a nice change.
It's way beyond tiresome to have to keep saying this, but many solid Christians are willing to allow for those three, and without a doubt, the last one, life of the mother. But in rape, there are two victims: the mother and the child. Neither deserve to suffer for the mother being raped. Incest does not guarantee a handicapped child, or one so badly handicapped that anyone should feel they are god enough to say they should die rather than live. But still, to put all these together represents perhaps 1-3% of total abortions, if that.
So the comment then, that a Christian cannot support legalized abortion, is meant for the 97-99% of abortions that are merely done as birth control for those who just had to get laid no matter what the consequences.
It's funny (not really). I heard Dennis Prager speaking the other day about some area, perhaps Berkley or Frisco, that passed, or is trying to pass, a law outlawing circumcisions. They will defend the right to kill the unborn, but removing foreskin? Heavens to Betsy, no!
No, No, and Yes, but in the case of the last, ONLY if it is to actually save the life of the mother, and not some ambiguous "save the health of the mother" crap.
See Jim, what you and your Lib friends don't seem to get is that in cases of rape and incest, the most innocent of all parties is the baby, yet you would kill the baby. Why punish the most innocent with a death penalty? Seems illogical to me, but here again, Libs want to avoid the responsibility of having to raise a child conceived as a result of a bad personal decision.
"The incarnate Christ who reigns in heaven is greater than Islamic/Christian fundamentalist, casuistic, industrial, patriarchal control of the womb."
And He's greater than so much more. So what? Is this some kind of pass for the killing of one's own child before it sees the light of day? He's greater than matriarchal control of the womb as well.
"I am a Christian.
I support a woman's right to choose."
I support every person's "right" to choose. But not to choose murdering children, ripping them to shreds, burning the crap out of them with whatever solutions, denying their God-given right to life.
Everyone has a "right" to choose. But that "right" is superceded by their obligation to choose wisely, especially in manner that will bring no harm to children.
It is a poor and exceedingly sorry Christian who would support a woman's "right" to choose to terminate the life of a child simply because it grows within her, as if that location gives her absolute sovereignty over that life. It doesn't, and any Christian worth his salt knows it.
I also support a woman's right to choose. She can choose to keep her pants on and her legs together. She can choose not to have sex if she doesn't want a baby. And she can also choose to live with the consequences of bad decisions, such as the decision not to do any of the above.
But when she chooses to destroy another human life simply because she doesn't want to live with the consequences of such bad decisions, she no longer has that right because it infringes on the baby's right to life.
Jim,
""[Rape and incest are] a result of a bad personal decision."
Really? So the victim is at fault, huh?"
No, Jim, the victim is not at fault, although it could be argued that in the case of incest, there is no victim. Some incestuous relationships are consensual.
But, the baby is not the criminal in any case. Why would you want to execute the baby for crimes committed against it's mother by a third party?
That's just illogical and stupid. You're just stupid.
I believe in the living incarnate Christ, born of a virgin - who conceived in her womb without benefit of fertilization by a male gamete, but later "bore a son."
1. One cannot believe that the moon is made of cheese because we've been there with instruments that prove otherwise. Your "reasoning" simply shows you don't know what you're talking about when you talk about science.
2. Case in point, "life" comes in many forms. An ant is life. It is not a human being. An embryo is indeed life. An embryo is not a human being; so is a zygote and a fetus. Like the ant, this does not make any of the three a human being. No science says it does. Except the kind that thinks God made fossilized footprints with plywood in order to test your faith.
3. The point of conception - a sperm fertilizing an egg (which, according to scripture, did not happen in the case of Jesus' incarnation) - produces a zygote, Idiot, not a fetus. After cell division, the zygote becomes a embryo, not a fetus, Idiot. This is, boiled down for you, medical science.
4. You should refrain from talking about science until you get your education.
5. The only long established truths around here of which I am aware is your idiocy and Ma's sycophancy toward the Islamo-fundamentalism of 4simp.
Wow! Feodor dares calls someone an idiot and then follows it up with his own idiocy! Incredible how he shows up to prove his lack of wisdom!
It is true, Mark used a less than accurate term to label the stage of development immediately following conception/fertilization. That's a simple mistake.
But to then say that a HUMAN zygote, or a HUMAN embryo is not a human being is like saying that a toddler is not a human being, or an adolescent is not a human being. Sure, an ant is life, but it is not HUMAN life nor will it ever be. A HUMAN at any stage of its development is still the same human being from start to finish. THAT is what science tells us. What is more, that is what common sense tells us. Feodor's comments tells us just as plainly that he lacks common sense or wisdom on any level. All those books...
Let's look at his other silly points:
1) Mark's point is that science tells us a new human being is present at the point of fertilization. You can say whatever you want about what a fetus is to your simple mind, but that does not make it true. And science tells us this as plainly as it does that the moon is not made of green cheese.
2) Covered above.
3) "...a sperm fertilizing an egg (which, according to scripture, did not happen in the case of Jesus' incarnation)..."
How do YOU know? Do you know for certain that God did not create a sperm cell to impregnate Mary? Do you know for certain that He did not cause an ovum of hers to fertilize in a manner that would equate to being fertilized by sperm? Scripture only tells us that Mary did not lie with a human being to conceive. It does nothing to explain the biology of her conception other than to say that God caused her to be pregnant. You speculate in a totally biased manner. What's more, what God does in His infinite power, glory and wisdom has nothing to do with how we deal with each other, which, according to His will would preclude people destroying their own children before they have left the womb as if they were not human beings. Only Nazis and Klan members treat other people as if they were less than human for superficial reasons such as race, ethnicity or size/age.
4) Take your own advice here.
5) Those are "truths" you've invented in order to feel superior. Whatever you need to do to make yourself feel so or to sleep better at night, why, you just go right ahead, little feo. We'll play along for...oops!...time's up!
1. Remove a zygote from the womb and you will not have a human being. Remove an embryo from the womb and you will not have a human being. Remove a fetus from the womb and you will not have a human being.
2. Your idiocy is uncovered above.
3. Jesus Christ is incarnate from the virgin Mary, not from God. Christ is one with the Father from God, not from Mary. Any simple Christian knows this.
4. Only Nazis and Klan members treat other people as if they were less than human for superficial reasons such as race, ethnicity or size/age, sexual orientation, gender, physical limitations, illness, economic status, creed.
Totally agree. But you don't, do you?
5. Feeling superior is not something that takes any effort here. For me it's like grace: tt comes free and unbidden. Why do you think I visit?
Errata: "Remove a fetus from the womb and you will not have a human being." Should be read, "Remove a fetus too early from the womb and you will not have a human being."
If you're trying to confirm my opinion regarding you lack of wisdom and overall stupidity, you're doing a great job.
1) Remove a zygote from the womb and you will have a human being still in its zygote stage of development. Just because it doesn't look like your average voter, doesn't mean it isn't a human being.
2) You haven't proven that in the least. Not doing too well making defending yourself from the charge, though.
3) Duh! What's your point? I haven't stated anything that conflicts with this. I only spoke to your arrogant presumption that you know the details and mechanics of how God brought about Mary's pregnancy.
4) "Only Nazis and Klan members treat other people as if they were less than human for superficial reasons such as race, ethnicity or size/age, sexual orientation, gender, physical limitations, illness, economic status, creed.
Totally agree. But you don't, do you?"
But you DON'T agree. You treat the unborn as not even being a human being simply for the stage of development through which it happens to be passing. I don't. I know it's still a person as it passes through those stages. So, like the Klan, who considers black people less than human because of their color, you consider the unborn as less than human because of their size/age. Totally apples to apples.
Yet, I don't disregard anyone's humanity. Like the average person with more wisdom than yourself, I can distinguish between, for example, a person's orientation, which doesn't preclude them from humanity, and their behavior, which doesn't necessarily deserve tolerance simply because it springs from orientation.
I'd say, "nice try", but I'd be lying. That was lame.
5) "Feeling superior is not something that takes any effort here."
No shit. It's called pride, arrogance, and what little Alan calls, "jackassery". It comes natural to you and has been manifest from your first appearance. It is totally unjustified except in your own fevered imaginings. No one here is intimidated by condescension from assholes. Try as you might.
"Why do you think I visit?"
To display your stupidity while you posture as wise? That would mean you like to entertain, play the fool (I know--you're not playing). Perhaps it's masochism. Something about being exposed as such a fraud excites you. Other than that, it must be for the education. No one you know has more than shit for brains, so you come here. Well, I'm here for you, boy.
I believe life begins at conception. Let me be clear about that.
However, I am totally opposed to threatening and killing abortion providers.
There is a Nebraska Bill LB232 by Sen. Mark Christensen that includes a justifiable homocide clause in defense of a fetus. Raw Story reports: "It would allow any third party the chance to use self-defense as a legal justification for killing someone believed to be threatening the life of a fetus. Although it may not have been Christensen's intent, critics fear that the language could make way for legalized killings of abortion doctors, who are already frequent targets of death threats from anti-abortion activists."
If it is the simple math of 1. a spermatically fertilized 2. ovum, then Jesus is not a human being. And if it is simple math, then my sperm are all half human. Remove my sperm from my testicles and, according to your "science," we still have half a human being. Every woman's period flushes half a human being away. Why does God do this, go about killing half human beings as a matter of biologic course.
Though your mathematical reduction of science does explain why it is a sin to spill your seed. As a Christian, you don't masturbate, do you, Marshall?
Scripture is clear about this.
I know some pretty smart people, Fartshall, don't kid yourself. They have the decals on their back windshield to prove it.
A third party to use self-defense. A third party that is a "self."
Yep, you guys are too smart for the sciences all right. What kind of math uses language that is not conscious of a distinction between force used by a third party from force used by the first party?
I'm going to use some self-defense right now and declare that you, Fartshall, are a dangerous threat to the intelligence of all eight people who stop by here and I'm going to stop it. Like I've done today.
OK, Genius. Why don't you educate us? Tell us, at what point in gestation does a zygote become an embryo? At what point does an embryo become a fetus? At what point does an embryo become a baby? And most importantly, at what point during gestation does any of these become human?
If you don't know, and you don't, stop being so stupid.
Your arrogance is only surpassed by your enormous ego.
Because, Idiot, you are not teachable. Plus, you're not willing to pay.
Regarding the second reason, I'd offer a sliding scale, but then we're back to the first reason: you're not teachable.
To be teachable, one has to have an open mind and heart and a humility on approach. You lack all three qualifiers and two of the three nominatives. What you do have is approach. Not enough.
Marshall, on the other hand, has all the rest but does not have approach, so they lie dormant. In fact. they have lain dormant so long they are atrophied.
4simp has none of the qualifiers and none of the nominatives. So, Mark, you're one ahead of him.
Regarding killing 1-3% of innocent babies, Marshall said, "Of course not. Why would you even ask such a silly question?"
Because you said it is OK to kill them to save the life of the mother. So it's OK to kill some innocent babies but not others. It's like being partly pregnant.
I just read over at Geoffrey's that you're about to become a Grandpa. Congratulations!!! Is this your first? You're world is about to change for the better. Nothing better in life than grandkids! My daughter is due next week. Her daughter will be my fourth. Two girls, two boys.
Thank you so very much! Actually, she's my step-daughter, my wife's first. I've been in her life since she was three and we're quite close. We are overjoyed at the prospect, none so much as my wife, who has been pining to be a Granny since the girl first got married.
As for you, congratulations once again! Yours beats ours by about a week. Here's to both being healthy and happy!
I didn't say it was "OK" to kill the child if the pregnancy threatened the mother's life. To pretend that this particular situation is in any way similar to all the others, however, is ludicrous. I would hope most in this situation would put it in God's hands and take a chance on life, but I wouldn't presume to speak for any woman who fears death to have to face it without any say in the matter. Where the pro-aborts squawk about telling a woman what to do with her body, this is the only true case where the woman is in that position.
Also, to look at the situation from another perspective, if only those three cases, rape, incest and the life of the mother, were considered by all on both sides of the debate to be the most extreme, I would consider it tragic that children are still put to death, but would give thanks to God that the other 97% are finally protected. Not ideal, but a far cry better than what exists now.
Stupid question from an equally stupid source. The question is, "What is human about a HUMAN zygote?" The first answer, and one that any biology student would know is, DNA. It is absolutely human DNA that is unique to the given zygote in question. Since it is human DNA, it has all the info it needs to develop into a full grown voter.
"If it is the simple math of 1. a spermatically fertilized 2. ovum, then Jesus is not a human being."
You are making assumptions of which you are not the least bit qualified to make. You have no idea of the details of Jesus' human conception. What's more, it means nothing that Jesus came to be in a manner no other human being did. It is irrelevant to the extreme.
"And if it is simple math, then my sperm are all half human."
When do we get to see this supposed intelligence you claim to possess in such abundance? Jerk yourself a soda and get back to me when one of your sperm cells grows up to be half a human being. No one in their right mind (which excuses you) pretends that a human exists BEFORE the sperm fertilizes the ovum. It is at that moment when a new human being is conceived (hence the term). Conversely, a human must be conceived via the process of the fertilization of the ovum.
"Every woman's period flushes half a human being away."
No. It doesn't. It flushes out an unfertilized ovum, not a human being, half or whole.
"Though your mathematical reduction of science does explain why it is a sin to spill your seed."
Not because it's "half a human being", you twit.
"I know some pretty smart people..."
So you tell yourself. If that's true, it's too bad it isn't contagious. You could use it.
"What kind of math uses language that is not conscious of a distinction between force used by a third party from force used by the first party?"
From Wikipedia (because it's just so convenient):
The right of self-defense (according to U.S. law) (also called, when it applies to the defense of another, alter ego defense, defense of others, defense of a third person) is the right for civilians acting on their own behalf to engage in violence for the sake of defending one's own life or the lives of others, including the use of deadly force.
Boy, you're stupid.
"I'm going to use some self-defense right now and declare that you, Fartshall, are a dangerous threat to the intelligence of all eight people who stop by here and I'm going to stop it. Like I've done today."
You've done nothing but provided entertainment as you try to convince us that you're intelligent. You've got to do quite a bit better to prove you're the intellectual giant you tell that guy in the mirror you are. No doubt he's the only one who believes you. He's an idiot, too.
Regarding the Nebraska law, Geoffrey posted a similar story about a similar law in S. Dakota (I think it was). When I reviewed the bill, it spoke of illegal activity only. Abortion, sadly, is legal. To kill a legalized baby-killer would not qualify under the S. Dakota law. I'm guessing the Nebraska deal is the same thing. If so, and in that case, anyone who tried to use the law to justify killing a legalized baby-killing abortionist would be tried for murder. Strange world we live in, isn't it?
HA! You can't answer the questions, because you don't know the answers.
Score one for the pro-lifers.
Since you don't know the precise moment your "fetus" becomes a human baby, you have no right running around supporting the murder of pre-born human beings.
Give it up, Feo. You know you're wrong. You're just too arrogant and narcissistic to admit it openly.
I do appreciate the new thing you taught me regarding "self-defense." I did not know that the doctrine of defense of others is included in the legal concept of self-defense. Thanks.
I also appreciate, MA, your giving the obvious and scientific answer to what defines the human: DNA. But I'd ask you to think again, and this time from a better Christian perspective.
DNA is simply the sequencing of nucleotides that operate as the instruction manual for the development and maintenance of a species. As such, DNA chains are somewhat prone to change. This change can tend toward evolutionary adaptations that serve as a benefit in a given environment. So, in this case, what is now human as we understand it, once was not. And, in the future, will be something else entirely new.
The other kind of change that can occur is deficient. A breakdown or mutative dysfunction can occur. In these cases as well, the DNA sequencing is not normatively human. Millions of human persons do not have the requisite DNA that the rest of us have and that you think makes a human being. They are different. But no less human.
Additionally, rather than a deficiency, a normative sequencing for other kinds of species very closely parallels ours. Some up to 93% to 95%. So, if those species have almost the same exact DNA chain sequencing as human beings, shouldn't they be considered 93% to 95% human? After all, Marshall, in your words what makes us human is DNA. Some humans and some Apes are just a little off the normative human DNA sequencing. From your definition, nothing distinguishes them: they are both either really close to be being human or neither can be.
You clearly do not get the implications of your answer. For my sperm is 50% of the DNA needed for a human being. Without that 50%, no human being is possible. So, my sperm should be dearly protected if God is so heavily invested in DNA as to make that the complete and absolute condition for being human.
For Mark, I'll say simply that a human being is finally made when he or she is perfected as the creation which God intended. Until that day, no one is fully a human being.
But, legally, I agree that a fetus is not a human being until it can live independently of the womb. Only then.
Oh, and if Jesus was conceived by a process of God making sperm, then he was not immaculately conceived AND there was an incarnation (an enfleshment) of God that preceded Jesus: the sperm.
And that scenario is blasphemy. Of which I am sure you are now reminded.
I don't know what you're trying to achieve with your last bit of ramblings, but the suggestion that some humans don't possess the necessary DNA to be human is pretty stupid. Either they are human or they are not. Aside from yourself, find a human who is not a human. Go ahead. I dare you. I'll wait here.
No ape has ever been found to be simply a hairy human with thumbs on his feet. An ape is an ape and its DNA is only of an ape's kind. In the same way, a human being is never an ape and always a human because of its DNA. Nothing YOU'VE said changes that simple fact of life. Similarities between various creatures are only that---similarities. To suggest it means anything more without some evidence to support it is BS evolutionary guess work so common to so-called progressive Christians and secular people alike. The relative quantity of similarity, even 99% similar, would still mean the other species is non-human because of that missing 1% which no offspring of that species will ever possess.
"Some humans and some Apes are just a little off the normative human DNA sequencing. From your definition, nothing distinguishes them: they are both either really close to be being human or neither can be."
My definition says nothing of the kind. Mine says that humans have human DNA, DNA that makes them human beings, distinct from the mothers that bore them, making them individual human beings not part of the mothers that bore them. Humans that are "a little off the normative human DNA sequencing" lack nothing that makes them human. Otherwise they wouldn't be human, nor would they have been conceived of human parents. A male and a female joining in intercourse has never produced anything but another human.
Indeed, my last comment on the subject, that provoked the above quotes, lacked that secondary aspect. I provided a "first answer" to the question of what makes a human zygote a human being. The second answer is just that, that the human zygote is the result of a male and female coming together in intercourse. It is the result of the activity designed by God for the purpose of producing another human being. It cannot be anything but a human being in it's earliest stage of development.
And once again,
"After all, Marshall, in your words what makes us human is DNA."
...is not what I said. I said what makes us human is human DNA, together with the fact that we are each a product of the function God designed to provide for new human beings.
"For my sperm is 50% of the DNA needed for a human being."
All sperm is always half of what is needed to create a new human being. It can never create a new human being without the other necessary ingredients---the rest of the DNA from the mother. The point at which the 50% from joins with the 50% of the other is the point at which a new human being exists. It's that simple. Trying to suggest sperm is half as important as a whole zygote, embryo, fetus, baby, toddler, adolescent, teenager, adult, old dude, is incredibly stupid excuse for logic, being that it isn't logic at all. What it is is merely a pathetically bullshit argument to support the killing of the unborn.
"So, my sperm should be dearly protected if God is so heavily invested in DNA as to make that the complete and absolute condition for being human."
YOUR sperm should be destroyed at all costs. But there are some Christians who believe that sperm should not be spilled without the intention of procreation, or the expectation of it, or the willingness to let God decide if any of them will fertilize the wife's ovum. I don't know how they support that belief Biblically, but I respect that devotion. It actually sounds proper to me, though I haven't looked deeply enough at the topic to have formed an opinion.
"But, legally, I agree that a fetus is not a human being until it can live independently of the womb."
So "legal" has more weight to you than "moral" or "righteous"? Slavery used to be legal. Legal isn't as important as "moral" or "righteous". It also seems as if "legal" is more important to you that clear science that states a new human being is present at conception. You could not be more subjective and selfish in your belief regarding this issue.
"Oh, and if Jesus was conceived by a process of God making sperm, then he was not immaculately conceived AND there was an incarnation (an enfleshment) of God that preceded Jesus: the sperm."
First of all, "immaculate conception" refers to Mary, that she was born without the stain of original sin. "Incarnation" refers to God becoming flesh, that is, Jesus. There is no mention of anything other than the fact that He was born of a virgin. But that is only meaning that no human impregnated her. God did that. The means by which He accomplished that miracle is never explained. The details and how He affected her biology to accomplish this fantastic miracle are not given to us. There is no blasphemy in speculating that He might have miraculously provided that other 50% (which made Jesus a male---can't get a male without a male donor). Whether He created a little holy sperm cell or simply planted the other 50% of the necessary DNA in Mary's ovum is not info that we have. For all we know, He didn't use either and just put in a zygote that then went and did what zygotes do when not experiencing interference by the mother or her paid baby assassin.
Thus, you've merely made up some crap that you can use to suggest I might be blaspheming.
I provide this link both because it was very easy to find and copy and paste, and because I think it'll hack off Alan if he reads my blog and finds I've copied and pasted something, but not what he demanded of me.
But it is the Nebraska bill to which you refer and I see no issue with it anymore than I did with the S. Dakota bill of which Geoffrey spoke. They are two of a kind and each are quite specific in their own way. This one stipulates lethal force must be used only after other actions are exhausted. What it lacks that the other had is a reference to illegal activity on the part of the perpetrator seeking to cause the miscarriage.
But this is how it would work. Your daughter is expecting. Suppose she had a secret admirer/stalker who resented her having been impregnated by another man (in this case, her husband). He breaks in, or catches her in public and begins to attack her in a manner that would kill the baby inside her without killing her (this is hypothetical---work with me). She begs the guy to reconsider, to stop and leave her alone, but he won't listen and moves on her aggressively. He's too big for her to fight off, especially in her pregnant condition, and too fast to outrun. Fortunately, she has her trusty Glock 9mm in her pocket and shoots the dude in the head. In some states she has just committed a serious crime, and indeed, a similar scenario actually played out in another state and the bill's author hoped to prevent that in his state. (The woman got off)
To carry on, suppose she was tied down and the attacker is about to do his evil deed when your son-in-law walks in with only seconds to fire on the dude with his sub-machine gun (or whatever). Under this bill, he would not be charged, but his actions would be considered justifiable, that the child was worthy of such extreme measures to protect it.
If the bill's language suggested some kind of illegal assault on the unborn is necessary to be protected under it, the bill would be perfect as it would not protect anyone who killed a certified baby-killer for hire, known as an abortion doctor, performing his evil under the legalized procedures that allow it.
Those who squawk about the bill being used to justify killing such heinous practitioners care nothing about human life and are just trying to prevent anything that might lead to a reversal of the most pathetic SCOTUS decision mankind has ever known.
"In other words, Marty, to oppose the bill is to oppose your daughter's and her husband's right to defend the life growing within her."
What nonsense! You hypothetical is ridiculous. And there is no way under existing law that Marty's daughter or her husband would not be justified in using deadly force against the hypothetical perpetrator REGARDLESS of his motive or target. He is clearly committing illegal entry, assault and battery, perhaps kidnapping-all whether Marty's daughter is pregnant or not. Deadly force is obviously justified.
Therefore, this bill in completely unnecessary unless there is another agenda involved, which there obviously is.
Only white people talk so glibly about slavery as if it's a metaphor. This includes the march toward gay rights - gay white people often claim the mantle of the "civil rights struggle," and black folks generally, and gay black folks specifically, are offended by this.
You, too, are appropriating the black experience without understanding.
What I recommend as "legal" is what I find to be just given the historical context of the present and its limitations. With more information, or more technical power, things can change. The law cannot change in a free, democratic society because certain faith claims demand it. Christ did not ask the Roman occupation to end by political means. He preached love and tolerance, trusting that peoples can witness the truth of love and come to the love of truth.
You, and all witless conservatives, would make a truer witness if your protestations to love the fetus, to love the embryo, and to love the zygote, were preceded by a show of greater love for those already living but who are born in an unjust society that does not ensure standard norms of health insurance, developmental experiences, and educational access necessary before he or she are evaluated as what kind of mind, what kind of talent, what kind of personal discipline they may possess.
Don’t tell me you understand the plight of the descendants of slavery - much less love them - until you demonstrate you love them enough to relieve the legacies of slavery that keep poor children in poverty regardless of their will power. ____________
As for the immaculate conception, the theological term was applied to the second person of the Trinity in the few centuries before the concept of the Trinity was established by the time of Chalcedon. It was later transferred to the Blessed Virgin Mary. ___________
Lastly, that very same Orthodox settlement as to the nature of Christ stipulates that Jesus' divine nature is one with the Father, as he himself says. Among other things, this means that the Son is uncreated. So, on God’s side of the conception partnership with Mary, one cannot say that God “created a little holy sperm cell or simply planted the other 50% of the necessary DNA in Mary's ovum..." or that even that God "just put in a zygote."
Not without proposing blaspheming unorthodoxy – or being a liberal Christian.
I was only explaining to Marty the reasoning behind the bill. The idea for it was provoked by an actual event that is similar to the hypothetical. The woman was arrested and convicted, but later it was overturned. This bill seeks to prevent such episodes on behalf of the mother or any third party that would engage the attacker set on causing harm to the unborn against the wishes of the mother. Like feodor, many people do not consider that unborn child to be a person endowed by its Creator with the right to life. The charges against such perpetrators would not then rise to the level of homicide if the unborn isn't specifically granted what it is: the right to be considered a person like you and me.
As to the mother, or protector of the mother, an argument would have to be made that gives them justification for the level of force used for said protection. If the attacker were merely punching the mother in the stomach in hopes of killing the child within, one would have to prove the mother's life was at risk in order to justify lethal force.
"Only white people talk so glibly about slavery as if it's a metaphor."
Not true at all. Rational, reasonable people with common sense that can easily see the similarity between denigrating another based on color, or ethnicity or size and age can then justifiably use slavery as an analogy to illustrate what others like yourself, who lack those attributes, or more precisely, dispense with them in order to serve their selfish agendas, are doing with their lame arguments in favor of treating these innocents as less than human.
I have full understanding of the ramifications of such an analogy. It is apt and perfectly applied to the case of abortion because it is doing the exact same thing, without question.
"The law cannot change in a free, democratic society because certain faith claims demand it."
Faith claims are entirely unnecessary to support changes in this law. And I give you this: I am not on my game supposing you to be truly a man of God as your appeal to legalism over morality now shows. Science alone is enough to support my position as it is totally aligned with the opinion (not to mention fact) that from the point of conception, a new person exists.
"He preached love and tolerance, trusting that peoples can witness the truth of love and come to the love of truth."
Nice try (not really). Jesus would never tolerate those who pretend such a thing as what passes for justifications the abortionists use. He certainly wouldn't tolerate the justifications themselves, as He was too honest to pretend they possessed any merit. Funny how you lefties always default to pleas for love and tolerance in defending sinfulness.
"You, and all witless conservatives, would make a truer witness...etc..."
Now you're really scraping the bottom of the bog. You ascribe the plight of all who suffer to conservatives? You pretend that one must ignore the fate of 1 million unborn Americans per year to address ills that are the result of liberal thought as much as anything else (mostly the result of liberal thought)? What a line of crap!
"Don’t tell me you understand the plight of the descendants of slavery - much less love them - until you demonstrate you love them enough to relieve the legacies of slavery that keep poor children in poverty regardless of their will power."
Frankly, I support the philosophies and political candidates that would do that very thing if not for the opposition of buffoons like yourself and the rest of the leftist company of clowns. Your support of these descendants is the real lie and proof that it is YOU who lacks understanding.
"Lastly, that very same Orthodox settlement as to the nature of Christ stipulates that Jesus' divine nature is one with the Father, as he himself says."
I've not rejected that concept in any way, shape or form, despite your wanting it to be so. I've merely stated, factually, that you have no idea of the methods employed by God to make His miracles happen. You are making shit up in a poor attempt to prove you possess understanding.
"So, on God’s side of the conception partnership with Mary, one cannot say that God “created a little holy sperm cell or simply planted the other 50% of the necessary DNA in Mary's ovum..." or that even that God "just put in a zygote.""
One can speculate anything with regards to just how God made a miracle happen. As Mary experienced a full pregnancy, it is easy to see that Jesus wasn't a fully formed adult within the womb. There's no verse that indicates she was showing from the moment of conception. There's nothing to suggest that Jesus was a fully formed baby, only microscopic at first and then slowly growing until birth. We have no way to know just how God does what He does. You like to pretend you know what is or isn't true about that which we have no knowledge whatsoever.
D'oh! Came back to read the thread and accidentally deleted my comment. I think it was something like, "Too bad so many "Christians" (the fake kind) and Christians (the seriously confused kind) support legalized abortion."
Saving the life of the mother is a given, as it is consistent with the pro-life ethic. I know "few" pro-lifers and none object to that. But that is less than 1% of the cases.
Re. rape & incest -- abortion often hides the crimes -- and Planned Parenthood will gladly take your tax dollars to help hide them!
And if you think the death penalty is just for the completely innocent offspring of a rapist, you must be super-duper-pro-capital punishment for rapists.
I typically ignore Feodor but couldn't resist that pro-murder bumper sticker slogan. Looks like Feo is bad at finishing his sentences, so I'll do it for him. He supports a woman's right to crush and dismember an innocent but unwanted human being -- even another female!
And, uh, what about the choice of the female in the womb -- if you chop her up then aren't you taking away her right to grow up and have an abortion? Oh, the circularity of pro-abortion arguments.
"The incarnate Christ who reigns in heaven is greater than Islamic/Christian fundamentalist, casuistic, industrial, patriarchal control of the womb."
That same Christ said not to shed innocent blood and to protect the weak. And what horrible faux feminist philosophy to rationalize death.
"Remove a zygote from the womb and you will not have a human being. Remove an embryo from the womb and you will not have a human being. Remove a fetus from the womb and you will not have a human being."
Sorry, couldn't resist one more. Now I see where some people get the "Christians are anti-science" meme from -- people like Feo.
The unborn are unique, living human beings from conception. That is a scientific fact. This is a link that all pro-lifers should save -- http://tinyurl.com/yfje8lq . It lists all sorts of quotes, including those of mainstream embryology textbooks. Pro-aborts like Feo ignore science AND common sense.
Beings reproduce after their own kind. What else would two humans create?
This is simple: Human zygote, human fetus, human baby, human teen, etc. Human beings at a particular stage of development.
If you remove an embryo from a womb you'll have a human being. A dead human being, which is exactly what Feo & Co. don't mind.
Now I remember why I ignore him! And so sad that I won't be back to read his ad hom replies. Sorry, Marshall, he's all yours!
Oh. So you believe people who have never been shown to be perfect. You have absolute faith that some in the appropriate field of science state categorically that they can tell what happened 6000 years ago (or 100 x that), without any possibility that they could be flat out wrong. That instruments invented by imperfect human beings less than 100 years ago are accurate in determining what happened before there were any humans around to witness the events. That they are bound by the limitations of their instruments and human abilities has no impact on your certainty regarding the age of the earth or universe. I see. Talk about blind faith!
Science thinks the universe is slightly more than 6k. I'm pretty sure there is consensus on that one.
When Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa chime in with:
"Now I see where some people get the "Christians are anti-science" meme from.."
4Simpsons and yourself are anti-science, at least in the "where did everything come from" debate. That may be okay for you. Just don't act surprised when you get called out for it. Its not a bad thing.
Consensus does not equal fact or truth. Consensus is a group of people seeing things the same way. When this group of people can recreate a universe, I'll be more impressed with them. Until then, they are just people who have made their best guess. I don't spend a lot of time on the subject of the universe's origin or age. What good does it do? I believe in a God for Whom all things are possible, including creating everything in an instant, while to imperfect humans with imperfect inventions it may look as if it took a gazillion years. You're free to believe what you like. You're also free to pretend you're more sophisticated for that belief, despite how untrue that is. I don't much care. Your beliefs, should you ever risk stating one, are of no great importance to me, especially hidden away within your witless mind.
4simp whines his willful ignorance and then departs, unable or unwilling to wait for reality (he reminds me so much of people who suffered sexual abuse at an early age):
4simp: "What else would two humans create?
A: Depends upon when you ask.
4simp: "If you remove an embryo from a womb you'll have a human being."
A: No, you'll have a human embryo. If you remove a foot, you'll have a human foot. Not a human being.
4simp: "This is simple: Human zygote, human fetus, human baby, human teen, etc. Human beings at a particular stage of development. "
A: Apparently not simple enough. A fertilized egg is not a being. It is a fertilized egg. A zygote is not a being. An embryo is not a being. A human being can exist independently of another body, meaning, namely, a being can breath. And very quickly, it can eat, open its eyes, remember, and call out for attention and alarm. In other words it has to have the rudimentary apparatus for being sentient.
4simp barely qualifies. He may have to look up sentient.
"4simp whines his willful ignorance and then departs, unable or unwilling to wait for reality"
If we wait for you to bring a sample, we'll die of old age. You haven't brought any here.
"4simp: "What else would two humans create?
A: Depends upon when you ask."
Unless this is supposed to be another failed attempt at cleverness, it's a pretty stupid reply. Obviously, the question refers to the likely consequence of intercourse. It can only create another human being because that's the purpose of the act.
"4simp: "If you remove an embryo from a womb you'll have a human being."
A: No, you'll have a human embryo. If you remove a foot, you'll have a human foot. Not a human being."
A human embryo is a human being. A foot, human or otherwise, is not. That an embryo wouldn't survive outside the womb is only due to having it's natural progression disrupted. It isn't meant to be outside the womb. God didn't create it to do so.
"A fertilized egg is not a being."
But a fertilized human ovum is a human being. So is a human zygote and embryo. They are all various stages of every human being's development.
"A human being can exist independently of another body, meaning, namely, a being can breath."
Fish breathe, plants breathe, microscopic organisms breathe. Breathing is the utilization of oxygen for life, and a single cell uses oxygen. It breathes. It just doesn't do it by the expansion and contraction of lungs. So what? Is that YOUR idiotic line of demarcation for granting personhood to another human being, as if you have the right to make such decisions?
"In other words it has to have the rudimentary apparatus for being sentient."
A selfishly subjective opinion not shared by science. A perfectly natural one for a false priest, however.
Exactly. A breathing fish is a being. A fish being.
Plants have respiration to count on.
What microscopic organisms do you have in mind, Fartshall, that you thin breathe?
What, in God's name, do you know about science? The kind that faith filters through belief or the kind that builds on observed data and scientific laws?
I'd find it funny the way you talk about science... except that we seem to have a deep run on anti-intellectualism among popular buffoons and rednecks - your swimming pool - that is drowning US.
If you weren't so intent on pretending you're intelligent and smarter than I am, you would have seen that I equate breathing with the mere processing of oxygen for life. Not all micro-organisms need oxygen, but many, if not most do. We breathe to supply it to each cell in our bodies. But each cell and most micro-organisms require oxygen for life.
But you, in your quest to justify the killing of the unborn, want to pretend that a functioning diaphragm and pulmonary system is required in order for one to be considered a human being, or a being of any kind. Why not skin color, you bigot.
I take that back. You're worse than a bigot. Blacks were once considered 3/5 of a person for reasons of representation. You don't even give that to the unborn. That's true scum of earth stuff, you false priest.
Science? I know science is the best understanding we have of God's creation and how it works. It is not the basis for morality and the respect of human life. You have set yourself up as a god to believe you have the right to determine when one is a person/human being and when one isn't. You, of all people with whom I've had the pleasure to converse on the internet, are the least worthy of such sovereignty. You are the Pharisee who thanked God for not making you like the rest of us.
You dare question how others regard science when you use nothing of science to prove the beginning of life, but only subjectively pick and choose what you believe makes for a good starting point other than that which is the true starting point: conception. Science backs Neil and myself perfectly on that. YOU are the true Homer. And Homer is closer to a real human being than you are. You're a poor example of a Christian, a student of science and a worse example of a human being.
C.S. Lewis said: Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil. I think there are some men who prove this to be true. mom2
"I'm saving all my DNA because this is considered a human being."
By whom? No one here has said anything like that. You're hallucinating. (And how DOES one "save" one's DNA, anyway?)
"And the Earth is 6,000 years old.."
Don't think anyone here has said that either. I know my position is that I don't know how old the earth is and that I don't think science has "proven" it, but only given it's best guess based on the limitations of the human abilities that played a part in the determination. I can live with either age as either age is possible for God. Being the clinical idiot you are, who will LOL at the drop of a hat, you are stuck with whatever science says until they adjust their figures the next time some wise guy with a new telescope and slide rule comes up with a new equation.
Nonetheless, Fartshall, your unwise leap, "I equate breathing with the mere processing of oxygen for life," would bring rust in under the definition of life and kill off the life of obligate anaerobes.
So, that's a no go.
And remember, the password of the day was "being," not life. A being is prepared to breathe through the mouth, eat through the mouth, eliminate waste by itself, and store its own sensuous memories.
Lastly, the inhumanity is yours, for making a moral equivalency between (how many?) living, walking, breathing, creating, inventing black people to fertilized eggs.
Tell me again, you post-racial racist, how did it happen that white Europeans justify chattel slavery? By beginning with similar exploitative taxonomy.
It's interesting how Liberals draw science like a gun. If science seems to support their arguments, as when scientists speculate the world is billions of years old, they are quick to point that out, but when science says life begins at conception, they reject that because it doesn't support their arguments.
Another interesting thing about that:
The big bang/billions year old earth theory is just that. A theory. Can't be proven one way or another. When human life begins is established scientific fact. Their is no dispute among scientists about that.
Do I agree that the theory of evolution, its truth or falsehood, is of fundamental importance to the Christian faith? This question can have several senses, in some of which the answer yes would most seriously misrepresent my position. I believe that Man has fallen from the state of innocence in which he was created: I therefore disbelieve in any theory which contradicts this. It is not yet obvious to me that all theories of evolution do contradict it. When they do not, it is not my business to pronounce on their truth or falsehood. My 'message' on any biological theorem which does not contradict (or which I, with my imperfect process of reasoning, do not perceive to contradict) the Creed, is not 'equivocal' but non-existent: just as my message about the curvature of space is not equivocal but non-existent. Just as my belief in my own immortal & rational soul does not oblige or qualify me to hold a particular theory of the pre-natal history of my embryo, so my belief that Men in general have immortal and rational souls does not oblige or qualify me to hold a theory of their pre-human organic historyóif they have one."
And December 9, 1944: "Thanks for your interesting letter of the 8th. I can't have made my position clear. I am not either attacking or defending Evolution. I believe that Christianity can still be believed, even if Evolution is true. This is where you and I differ. Thinking as I do, I can't help regarding your advice (that I henceforth include arguments against Evolution in all my Christian apologetics) as a temptation to fight the battle on what is really a false issue: and also on terrain very unsuitable for the only weapon I have. Atheism is as old as Epicurus, and very few polytheists regard their gods as creative.
Exactly where, Mark, does your "science" come from? Huckabee?
Science worth its name would never claim to provide "proof" of anything. Since real science understands that we are always interpreting data with limited minds and limited instruments, the best we can do about anything at all, is a theory. A theory is 1. the best logical argument we can make about causal relations and 2. which are developed from mountains of observational data available and present to anyone else looking into the matter and 3. consistent over time.
No such theory is agreed upon by scientists regarding human beinghood. That is why our laws are written the way they are.
Feodor, don't worry about how much education I have. All the education that you can acquire will not save you. The truth will set you free and that truth is found in Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, the life! mom2
"By whom? No one here has said anything like that. You're hallucinating.
Really? Sure seems that way. If a human embryo is saved b/c it has potential to be a human being. And considering that one day life will be generated using DNA. In order to save future lives, I'm saving DNA.
"And how DOES one "save" one's DNA, anyway?"
I'm glad you asked. The short answer is... Mostly in plastic bags. I save every hair and skin cell. Its a tough job but somebody has to do it.
The real question is, Why do you support the death of so many people. Save DNA and Save Lives!
"The big bang/billions year old earth theory is just that."
Much like gravity. Mark, I can sell you some earth boots to keep you firmly attached to our planet. I'll even throw in a tin-foil hat... For FREE!!!
You seem to demand inclusion, but I think "clinical idiot" isn't quite accurate for you. There's something far more psychotic, far more sociopathic about you.
Mom2 is not agreeing with you in any way, shape or form. She is saying that because you were removed to early, your development was affected. I'll leave it to her to judge which of us is closer to her meaning. Any wagers? I insist and demand that she be perfectly honest and objective in her response, should she decide to weigh in. Ante up, worm. This might be your chance to be right for a change.
Thank you for the CS Lewis quote. It aligns perfectly with my recent response to the dim Parkie, with the exception that he didn't even go as far as me in admitting what he does believe. For sure, he did not give an opinion on whether or not an embryo is a person. All he was saying was that whatever the truth, it does not affect the truth of Christianity. Try paying attention. Drop all the names you want, Feo. You continue to demonstrate your inate inability to understand what you read, no matter how much you do or who writes it. You seem to think that reading a lot of books makes you intelligent or wise. Some day you'll have to demonstrate that for us.
As to that race related remark, you foul bigot, what is inhuman about drawing the accurate and factual parallel between your treatment of people based on their age/size/stage of development, and the treatment of blacks and other minorities by Klan members based on race? You'd have to demonstrate or provide proof that the unborn are not human beings. You can't. You can only parrot the many subjective and self-serving excuses for maintaining the heinous policy of abortion on demand for anyone, at any time, for any reason. In your stupidity and arrogance which you use instead of wisdom and intelligence, you suggest my defense of life is akin to some bigotry against other life. Maybe you ARE a clinical idiot from the same institution as Parkie.
I almost forgot that idiotic comment about rust. As you say, the operative word here is "being". Rust is the result of oxidation, not utilizing oxygen for life, you condescending putz.
And I wasn't omitting life forms that exist in an absence of oxygen. I was commenting on your stupid suggestion that one needs to inhale and exhale in order to be a human being. You may want to consider that the more you concentrate on trying to sound smart, the more you expose how stupid you really are. And hey, as my sparring with Parkie should inform you, I can do this all day. You wanna just put out an argument, or continue to be slapped down? You want cheap grace, you're at the wrong blog.
So. A being is that which exists. It is any living thing. By your definition, you don't qualify because you don't eliminate waste, but retain it, as you are so full of it. Of course, most of your commentary is crap, so I guess you do eliminate some of it in by typing.
You say no consensus exists for the beginning of human life. What embryologist or biologist was consulted for the bullshit Roe v Wade decision? How does he match up with the total body of work on the subject? It's a common sense issue that does not require scientific consensus, despite how it aligns with that common sense. The act of intercourse is by its design, meant to bring about a new human being. The product of that act, when not disrupted, IS a new human being. All other "theories" are invented by those with a self-serving interest in aborting that result. Anyone who calls himself a Christian must be a false one to dispute that obvious fact. Parkie is another story.
M.A., You are the one with the correct interpretation of my remark. I try to use as few words as possible with Feodor, since he has already determined that I am uneducated and illiterate. mom2
"Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love."
This part you know, mom2.
This is the part you do not know:
"If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love." ... But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers..."
I'm pretty sure I picked Lewis up from the floor where mom2 dropped and left him. Notice how she had nothing to say to defend her blind use of him. She knows not whereof she quotes.
Any demands you make for perfect honesty and objectivity and whatever you think of as perfect alignment wont make it out of the fun house of mirrors you and mom2 live in. So I'd wager she'll lie to save face.
Pay up.
"You seem to think that reading a lot of books makes you intelligent or wise."
You keep saying that and I swear to you I can't imagine what you think you mean. Tell that to a doctor or a lawyer or professor of geology or an electric lineman or a Supreme Court Judge or an accountant or simply a kindergarten student. Even those helicopter "theologians" of yours have read an awful lot. I promise you this much, it can't hurt. ________
Science is on your side? On 4simp's side? Don't drink the Kool Aid too long, Marshall. Your losing touch with reality.
Remember you just claimed that "a fertilized human ovum is a human being. So is a human zygote and embryo. They are all various stages of every human being's development." Can you hear yourself?
Various stages of development indicate that the thing in question has not develpED yet. A thing is only a thing when it is that thing. Not when it is developing toward that thing.
A human being is the finished thing. The thing developing is not yet the the developed thing. That's why we use different nomenclature: zygote, embryo, fetus, person.
Oh, and that's why the law is the way it is: Science.
Being sentient is a category science considers when determining life. It was why "quickening" - seen as a sign of sentience - used to be a marker for when abortion was murder and before which it was not.
Currently it is conceptualized as the ability to feel pain, which, Fartshall, science finds not likely to occur before the third trimester, though the appearance of the thalamus - at 26 weeks - may indicate a slightly earlier marker for pain and suffering.
And if it's science you need, as you obviously do, try, Moore, Keith and Persaud, T. The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, who write that viability has not precise threshold in terms of age, weight, or development.
As for the ability to breath, it seems important to me - in the absence of your readiness to make sense - that the primary cause of death for pre-term babies is the failure of the respiratory system. (That's they system required for breathing, Marshall.)
All of this, to sum up, is a small part of what science tells us as drastically simplified by me for your sake.
And what science tells us is what the law listens to. Which is why the law is what it is.
So, you were saying science is on your side? And on 4simp's side? _______
"what is inhuman about drawing the accurate and factual parallel between your treatment of people based on their age/size/stage of development, and the treatment of blacks and other minorities by Klan members based on race?"
As I said - I'd think it'd be clear - a fertilized egg is not "people." A zygote is not "people." To compare people who have had flesh whipped off of them, who have had limbs chopped off, who have been chained, sold on the auction block, lynched, stripped of name, home, family, identity... all while alive and breathing, suffering torture and remembering...
to morally equalize such experiences of the living to a fertilized egg is as abhorrent a rhetoric as I can imagine.
And I find it more than curious that you don't reach for an analogy to Jews. Though now, of course, no one can stop you.
You are not my neighbor. I don't have to love you. You're the Pharisee (a thought I've mentioned before and I see Fartshall has stolen as if it's his own). You're the Galatian sister that St. Paul had such anger toward; you're the immature apostle who wants to use Jesus' power for human judgment to whom Jesus says, "get behind me, Satan."
Feodor, rant on if it makes you happy. I have better things to do than even get upset with you. There is so much in the Bible that I can see you don't believe and I do not want to waste my time. Only the Holy Spirit can change people and I will leave that to Him. I do hope you seek the Truth. mom2
I would like to ask Feodor at what term in the pregnancy he would consider the fetus to be a human and also at what term does he classify as viable. Just wondering. mom2
"I would like to ask Feodor at what term in the pregnancy he would consider the fetus to be a human and also at what term does he classify as viable. Just wondering. mom2"
I see you have no answer, Feodor. I have a bit of news for you, I had a premature baby that was born only 6 mos. into my pregnancy. He could not eat, but he sure is a human and was when he was born and let me know he was alive by kicking and moving before birth. mom2
You have my answer and then you say I have no answer? Why would you say that?
And your personal story, however meaningful to you, does not prove what God has in mind or science indicates as the norm. Surely you don't think you're experience serves as Truth do you?
My reaction to that last comment was a chuckle and I said out loud to myself "Oh, mercy"! We all need it, and you are among us! Good night, Feodor. May the Lord open your eyes. mom2
I'm glad it gave you a chuckle. But it was satire. I did not mean what I wrote. My point was to respond as Marshall responds to real life evidences, which is namely, to isolate what he's being confronted with from meeting his version of the truth. Nothing can disturb his hold on the Truth. Not facts, not truths, not people's lives.
And I hope you considered it idiotic, obfuscatory, and unreasonable.
My real response follows. And maybe we can have one good back and forth on your questions.
mom2, Your questions (and my answers, which are no different than what medical science tells us the extent that it covers, and then I share the spiritual and moral reasonings of millions of Christians):
1. "What term in the pregnancy he would consider the fetus to be a human..."?
When it is viable, which is impossible to give exact number of weeks for, since it depends on course of development, luck, pre-natal health of the mother, normal and happy pregnancy, etc., etc.
2. "What term does he classify as viable"?
Normally, about 28 weeks. Sometimes less, on occasion more, for above reasons. This is not clockwork and no one can say for sure, not even the best of doctors. No one can know what will happen. About a quarter of the babies born at 23 weeks of gestation survive; 50 percent of babies born at 25 weeks, and the great majority of those born after the 26th week survive.
3. "What about a premature birth, is it a human?"
Of course. Any birth delivers a human soul to the world.
Now, if you want to talk about what's sacred, that's a different story. But I doubt Marshall wants to see a difference between sacred and human - rigid and locked in on the white man's simple as he is.
I often start out with the single exclamation, "Wow!" when I've just read the wild comments such as those of Feodor's. That exclamation seems somehow lacking here.
CS Lewis was not the only name you put forth, but how nice of you to find a way to again show your false priest nature as you chose to denigrate her understanding by saying you picked his name off the floor where she dropped it. And of course, being the good neighbor you are, you assume she would lie about what she meant by her earlier comment. Nice.
But we know you're a false priest as your comments so readily and eagerly prove. So we can move on.
As to doctors, lawyers and others who have read and studied much, I would be equally disappointed if they misapplied what they read as you do so often, as if you mean to. That has been my whole point, which should have been easy to discern for such a well educated snob like yourself. It isn't what or how much you read or study, it's how you apply it, how you demonstrate your understanding of it. That's what makes your constant name dropping so laughable. I don't care what you read or who. It HASN'T helped you if you don't properly understand it, and it HAS hurt you if you improperly apply it. What's more, it hurts anyone who puts any stock in what you say or think, for now they, too, are gone astray. What follows is an example of your idiotic reasoning:
A zygote is not a human being because it is only a stage of development. The being is what it is when fully developed. Isn't that what you're trying to pass off as intelligent reasoning? If so, then that dismisses all those who have not yet reached physical maturity, including 9 yr olds for example. Children are not yet fully developed and are in a particular stage of development short of completion. So is a human zygote and embryo.
Being sentient is what science considers when determining life? Says you. Science talks about cellular activity in terms of living and non-living cells (the latter no longer serving a purpose, much like you), so sentience is NOT a determining factor in the manner you think.
Perhaps you can offer more books for me, but before you do, be certain that they make the statement wherein proof is given that things like "viability" determine personhood or status as a human being. I doubt you can. What you will do is continue to give personal opinion about when that state is reached based upon personal biases, but not science. You cannot and I defy you to try.
Indeed, science does not make such judgments. But it does say when a new human being exists, and that is at conception, when the human female ovum is fertilized.
The law is another matter entirely. What science was used to determine that life does NOT begin at conception? Where has Roe v Wade used actual science, rather than the biased opinion of the Justice, to determine that a human being is NOT being killed by abortion? The law, particularly politicians who write and push for the adoption of laws, do not listen to science as you like to think they have in this case. They NEVER got around to first determining when life begins before cramming Roe down our throats.
Then of course we have the rank stupidity of your comical position on race, formed as a result of your imaginary marriage to a woman of color. What level of idiot does one have to be to assume that length of life is a worthy factor in determining the level of atrocity for mistreatment of another human being? Because a person has lived some years it makes it worse to mistreat him, compare to another who hasn't lived as long? Can I beat a man once and be less a cretin than he who beats another man repeatedly? Likely in your eyes. Review the methods of abortion and tell me that there is no suffering. Even single celled creatures have a survivor mechanism, but in film of abortions, one plainly sees the pain in the face of the child being torn apart. You ARE the person you describe who brutally treated the black slave. You are would be his equal if not for your total dismissal of the humanity of the unborn. That makes you a worse type of vermin than the brutal slave owner. And yes, you are worse than the Nazi or islamist who regards Jews as animals, for your regard the most defenseless of our kind as things unworthy of consideration.
The conundrum before is now is, is Feo's contemptible because his opinion is contemptible, or is his opinion contemptible because HE is contemptible? What a tough call!
God, Marshall, you use the English language to such desultory effect. I do have three more books to drop on you and plead that you do whatever it is that you do to a book to make use of it:
The Elements of Style: 50th Anniversary Edition by William Strunk and E. B. Whiite
How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom
How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning by Antony Flew [You ought to like the title at least.] ________
Again, besides Lewis, whom mom2 dropped, I don't find any other names that I dropped. To what could you be referring? ________
Concerning (Good god, I can't believe I'm heading into this) development and developed, the reason we give our age as dating from our birthday is because that is when we are delivered as a developed and now aging human being. There is a qualitative difference between not being born and being born. It's right there on your driver's license for fuck's sake and when the doctor's office asks your age they are not going to secretly add the eleven months it took you to be born.
Everyone recognizes the difference except half-thinking extremists.
Given your system, there can be no point when a human being is fully developed. Pray tell, what would be your (horrible) idea as to when the developing stops? Clearly after the age of 9. But what age, Marshall. It seems to me you have no point when development is reached and therefore your tortuous use of conceptual language is senseless. Having no point you can identify, you have no point.
That is until you now make one up even as you have just today made up all of your comments today.
Yet again, you try to pirouette out of senselessness with more fresh spun senselessness and we are all bored to hell.
"The product of that act, when not disrupted, IS a new human being."
Exactly. The development of the ingredients becomes the product at birth: voila, a human being. Just like flour and sugar and eggs and milk are not a cake. Just like dough is not a cake. Just like rising dough is not yet a cake and is pretty indigestible. Then, at 350 degrees, a cake is finally formed after 50 minutes. 49 is okay. 48 not bad. Even 43. But earlier than that no one can eat it and walk away happy.
The product of the process, when the process is not interrupted, IS a BRAND NEW human being. Before then, the product hasn't arrived. _______
"Because a person has lived some years it makes it worse to mistreat him, compare to another who hasn't lived as long?"
Yes, you piece of shit, when the other hasn't yet lived, when the other is not, in moral reality, an other at all, it makes you a pile when you do. When you compare a two month old to a fertilized egg, you've descended to the order of disabled thinking of a Mengele.
The Elements of Style: 50th Anniversary Edition by William Strunk and E. B. Whiite
Is that where you learned your "style"? I'm not impressed.
How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom
I know how to read and I know why I do. Your problem is you read and think that because of having done so that you are somehow improved. Unfortunately, if any improvement has indeed resulted, the question becomes, just what the hell were you like before you opened a book? Because if reading more results in becoming more like you, I hope never to read again.
How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning by Antony Flew
I see you offer books you haven't read yourself. Why is that? Why don't you read it first, and if an improvement in your ability to reason is apparent, then I'll know that it may be worth my time.
The reason we give our age as dating from our birthday is because from the dawn of time that's how it's been done. There's no reason to change it. What's more, the exact day of conception is difficult to accurately assess. The exact day of birth is obvious.
"There is a qualitative difference between not being born and being born."
But none between what is born or what is unborn. Both are human beings. Aren't you paying attention?
"Everyone recognizes the difference except half-thinking extremists."
Ah, there's the rub. It doesn't require "whole" thinking to understand the obvious. One is a human being from the moment one is conceived until one dies, and at every stage of life in between. No one except non-thinking false priests even care about the difference between being born and unborn except in specifically speaking of one who is on either side of that divide.
"Given your system, there can be no point when a human being is fully developed."
Not quite accurate. There is no point at which a human being is not developed enough to deserve respect and dignity and the God-given right to life. Although I don't really respect you in the least, Feo boy, I do respect your right to life no matter how annoying it is for the rest of the world.
"Pray tell, what would be your (logical) idea as to when the developing stops?"
Two answers:
1. Stupid question. It's moot. Irrelevant. Of no concern. Why would I even care to note such a thing?
2. Death.
A third answer, of course, is that it is obvious that a child is not fully developed. It won't be until at least it has developed the capability of procreating. So at whatever point that happens for a given child, it is not fully developed and in a stage of development just as is the zygote. But both zygote and child are human beings. Where's this "crtical reasoning" you studied?
"That is until you now make one up even as you have just today made up all of your comments today."
Of course I make up my own comments. I certainly wouldn't use yours. They're stupid. But you certainly have made up yours, just as every pro-abortion cretin has, because one needs to make shit up, like some point other than conception to label another as human. You can't make your demands justified and righteous without making up your crappy little self-serving and subjective arguments about when life begins, otherwise you have to face the truth: you favor the murder of unborn human beings. And that's just what Nazis, Klan members, islamists and other scum of the earth have done to justify their treatment of other people. They hide behind weak arguments that seek to prove the others are not human beings endowed with the same unalienable right to life.
The sad truth is that your anger and name calling expose you. You dare call ME the piece of shit while insisting those that are people are not. You dare compare ME to Mengele when you are exactly what he was. You are so pathetic that you can't even see you speak about the unborn just as he did about Jews and other groups of people. Here's a funny comment:
"Yet again, you try to pirouette out of senselessness with more fresh spun senselessness and we are all bored to hell."
First of all, who's "we"? You and the crabs in your shorts? And do you call the biggest, pinchiest crab, "Parklife"?
Like all lefty hacks and beggars, you decry as senseless that which causes you to see yourself for what you are. Lefties can never stomach their own reflections.
The Elements of Style: 50th Anniversary Edition by William Strunk and E. B. Whiite
How to Read and Why by Harold Bloo
How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning by Antony Flew
LOL.. Ma.. you crack me up. Just how dim is that bulb? Really, take a long walk to the library and check these books out. They are not exactly about what you think they are about. The walk and the books would be good for you.
Have you put in your application for "Biggest Loser"?
"Ah, there's the rub. It doesn't require "whole" thinking to understand the obvious.
LOL.. even better comment than the first one. Ma admits to being less than whole.
"Not quite accurate. There is no point at which a human being is not developed enough to deserve respect and dignity and the God-given right to life. Although I don't really respect you in the least, Feo boy, I do respect your right to life no matter how annoying it is for the rest of the world."
Oh my.. MA.. first you dont wanna read. Then you lie. What is worse? You "respect" life so much that you're dying to destroy / invade / conquer / pillage the Mid-East.
One major difference between Ma and the rest of America is that he has zero ability to look in the mirror and decide for himself. On top of that, he uses a really old book (ironically) to guide him through life. Many thinking adults, living in contemporary society, use some combination of science and culture.
""from the dawn of time that's how it's been done.""
Feo the fool responds,
"And then they went out and mowed the lawn.
Marshall's "science"!"
I didn't say it was scientific. I said that's how it's been done. Anyone with critical reasoning skills would understand the implied question: why do it any other way?
I say,
""a child is not fully developed. It won't be until at least it has developed the capability of procreating.""
Feo, not content with the foolish statements with which he's already sullied this conversation, says,
"So you would allow 11 and 12 year-old girls to marry. Fully developed, ready to go, living out their role just as God intends.
Marshall's "logic"!"
Absolutely astounding that one can condescend as Feo does, adamant in the laughable belief that he possesses some higher level of intelligence and reasoning powers, and still come to these incredible leaps of logic. And that's using the word "logic" in the extremely loosest sense.
So, Feo. Do you harbor some inate desire for 11 yr old girls? If so, I think you're aiming way out of your league.
Obviously, it is only physically that an 11 yr old might be fully, or adequately, developed as a human being. Mentally and emotionally, they may have a long way to go. YOU, for instance, may NEVER be fully developed in that manner. We can only hope.
He says,
"Dare? It's requisite."
What is required is to go back and re-read, assuming you've read it at all, that book on critical reasoning. What YOU dare to do is call evil good. Real Christians are required to avoid such behaviors.
I didn't drop those names. C.S. Lewis did in his well known academic book, The Allegory of Love: a Study of Medieval Tradition."
That would be fine if we were reading Lewis. We weren't. We were reading something far less intelligent, something that mimics the sound of intelligence without possessing a shred of it: Feodor's comments, wherein he engaged with name droppping. Boy are you stupid.
"The closed mind, mom2, is always the one that is anxious about differences of the wide world and scared of learning about it.
Which of us does this describe?"
How typical of the self-absorbed and Pharisaical self-satisfied progressive to assume we are in any way afraid to learn about new things or "differences of the wide world" simply because our conclusions about them are different than or in opposition to theirs. As such, this shows that the real anxiety and fear resides within them. The poor little pants wetters.
Speaking of jokers, Parkie has chimed in. I don't have the time to address all of his silliness at present, but I will address one comment. He claims I'll never get out of my box. This is just what I addressed regarding Feo's punchline. Parkie, like all lefties, assume closed mindedness on the part of conservatives when we've simply rejected the lefty stupidity after reviewing it. We don't live in a box, Parkie, you sorry boy. We live in a place called, "the real world".
BTW, do you intend to ever offer something in the way of an opinion on anything, rather than simply slamming the opinions of others without once demonstrating what might be wrong with those opinions? What do YOU know? What have YOU learned? About anything? I'm more than happy to provide a forum for you to show how stupid you are. I just think you might benefit by taking a risk now and then. Probably not, but one never knows.
"Parkie, like all lefties, assume closed mindedness on the part of conservatives when we've simply rejected the lefty stupidity after reviewing it. We don't live in a box, Parkie, you sorry boy. We live in a place called, "the real world"."
"BTW, do you intend to ever offer something in the way of an opinion on anything, rather than simply slamming the opinions of others without once demonstrating what might be wrong with those opinions?"
The point was that mom2 is trying to say something persuasive and would like to quote Lewis because she thinks of him as a representative of intelligence for the side of conservative Christianity. The truth is that his theological approach would severely disappoint you and mom2 despite popular reception. But one would only know this if one had reapply read deeply in his work. The moral of the story is don't quote someone who actually does not agree with you version of the truth.
By analogy you are doing the same thing with the science that had been dogmatically filtered and centrifuged and doled out in partial and misrepresentative scraps to you yawning yap.
That mom2 does not know who those guys were signals that she also does not know enough about Lewis' interests and therefore so completely misunderstands what Zlewis means by learning and values in learning that she - and you - fail to recognize that you both stand for one side of what Lewis argues against: anti-intellectual Puritan values that so corrupt learning as to make it anxious and destructively, inhumanely imprisoning rather than exploratory, expansive and potentially liberating. The other side of things which Lewis deplored would be an amoral pursuit of learning that did not have service to humankind as it's mission.
And, again, what you do with science is analogously similar - to great detriment to your grasp of the whole and your capacity for compassion.
And, for me, you two represent the deepest of antipathies to the Incarnational life of the risen Christ and his Gospel message.
There. I told the truth. Let those with ears hear. Let those with hardened hearts keep on truckin'.
I don't think Feo has read any of the books he claims to have read. I don't think Feo has even a tiny bit of the education he claims to have. All of the things he claims to have read can be found on the internet, complete with Liberal so-called scholars to explain the Liberal point of view, which usually doesn't comport with true Christians (ie, The Jesus project, etc). It is easy to copy and paste other people's opinions. Feo probably has never had an opinion of his own in his pathetic little life.
I don't think Feo is really married a to black woman (any black woman who would stand for his racist attitude would have to have an extreme inferiority complex and no self esteem at all) If he really is married to such a woman, he must beat her regularly.
No one who is a true Christian would ever say abortion is simply a matter of the woman's choice. That viewpoint totally ignores what the baby would want if given a voice.
Feo, in my opinion, is an anti-Christ, and demonstrates that every time he comments on abortion.
Parklife is simply an intellectual midget in a world full of giants.
When Jesus said, "Suffer the little children to come to Me" Feo probably thinks Jesus meant children are supposed to suffer, hence he supports abortion.
(The only pronoun that can be used is the neuter. The sex is undetermined until two months in. So no "ask him" or "ask her". Just "ask it." So what is a human being without gender?)
Thanks, Mark, you've further blown up your side of the "baby starts at fertilization" argument.
By us perhaps. But the sex is determined at conception depending upon whether the father donates an X or Y chromozome. So thanks, Feo, you've further blown up your side of the "baby doesn't start at fertilization" argument.
"Just ask any zygote, it'll tell you."
You are a much lower life form and we defend your right to life. As stated, all living things have some level of defense mechanism, some survival response to what it perceives is harmful. I have no doubt that if you were to attempt to destroy a zygote (use one from your family or some other slugs), you would see, under a microscope, some manifestation of flight from the danger. Thus, one could conceivably "ask" the human zygote and find it prefers to live.
Mom2's Lewis quote is perfectly appropriate here and would be if she read it on that little piece of paper from inside a fortune cookie. But you reassure yourself by imagining we can't properly understand Lewis unless we know his shoe size and favorite color. But you keep stroking yourself if it helps you sleep better. We uneducated types see right through you. Again you try to salve your wounds by pretending we are "anti-intellectual Puritans" because we don't buy into your cheap and subjective attempts to dismiss the humanity of the unborn. Rather than either of us being anti-intellectual, we are the parents of small boy named Feodor who continually tries to put one over on us and can't understand why we won't swallow your bullshit. (That's pretty much the dynamic between conservatives and libs. Libs are so immature no matter how enlightened by their "education" they believe themselves to be. We conservatives would merely nod and say, "Whatever you say, child." as we carry on with our chores if you weren't so freaking dangerous to, not just yourselves, but to all of society.
Here's this putzy small child trying to find ways to justify the ludicrous notion that the unborn is not a person endowed by God with the unalienable right to life and has the unmitigate effrontery to suggest that WE corrupt learning!
And then he dares to talk of learning as liberation. So he's corrupted the obvious, the scientifically supported, the logical truth about human biology in order to liberate himself and other cretins like him from the responsibility every person, especially Christian person (false ones like him or otherwise) has for the care of the offspring they purposely invite into existence.
You dare speak of compassion as you dismiss the humanity of the unborn. You shit on the risen Christ and His Gospel message with such an unholy perspective.
I enjoy shredding your pretentious crap and fruitless attempts to prove you are somehow morally or intellectually superior to me or anyone else. But then I am struck with overwhelming sadness at the realization that you truly believe the things you say. It damn near crushes me. You are one totally lost individual.
"There. I told the truth."
No. You told what you so desperately wish the truth would be.
And then there's little Parkie, the resident idiot. My own personal troll who LOLs a lot, types a lot of words, and never says a thing. Let's review some of his latest buffoonery, shall we?
"Ma loves what Michael Vick did to dogs?"
From which foul orifice of yours did you pull out this little gem? What could I have possibly said to lead you to say something this incredibly stupid?
""Jews as animals"
oh.. dont get me started.."
As if you would have anything clever or intelligent to say. Are you going to try to pretend islamists DON'T consider Jews to be apes and pigs? You couldn't get started if I hit you with a 2x4.
"Ma.. you are the worst scientist of all time!"
Never claimed to be a scientist, short bus rider.
"LOL.. Ma.. you crack me up."
Yeah. The insipid and incessant "LOL"s suggested as much.
"Have you put in your application for "Biggest Loser"?"
How could I hope to compete with you? There is no bigger loser than my very own troll, Parkie-boy.
""Ah, there's the rub. It doesn't require "whole" thinking to understand the obvious.
LOL.. even better comment than the first one. Ma admits to being less than whole."
And proving you are a loser, you miss the point. What I admitted, you sorry simpleton, was that for most of us, deep thought is not required to understand the obvious. As you missed that obvious point, you cannot be included in "most of us". You can, however, clean the spittoons.
"Oh my.. MA.. first you dont wanna read. Then you lie. What is worse? You "respect" life so much that you're dying to destroy / invade / conquer / pillage the Mid-East."
First, I read all the time. Secondly, I didn't lie and you couldn't prove I did if your worthless life depended upon it. Where did you get this "dying to destroy / invade / conquer / pillage the Mid-East" crap? You're taking hallucinogenics again, aren't you, you bad troll.
"One major difference between Ma and the rest of America is that he has zero ability to look in the mirror and decide for himself."
I'm dying to know how idiots like Parkie come to this conclusion. Is it because I maintain so many traditional beliefs? That can't be it, because I decided for myself that the beliefs I maintain are more solid and beneficial to the world then what lefties try to force us to believe. I would compare myself to what Parkie has decided for himself, but being spineless, he's not offered a hint of what that might be.
"On top of that, he uses a really old book (ironically) to guide him through life. Many thinking adults, living in contemporary society, use some combination of science and culture."
There are about 2 billion Christians in the world. Stats show something like 75% of the USA is Christian. Thus, not too many thinking adults think like Parkie. (Note that I didn't even include Jews, muslims, hindus, buddhists, etc)
"All that and Mom2 is just not that smart."
As if you're qualified to judge. When you one day man up and offer substance (or your version of it), then we'll talk about who is or isn't smart. I gotta tell ya...I don't think much of your chances.
As I read all this bantering back and forth among you guys and gal, I have to say that I see truth on both sides here. For the most part, Feo is right when he talks of how science views viability of the unborn.
And he made a really good point that no one has picked up on: "Now, if you want to talk about what's sacred, that's a different story".
It is true that the unborn's life isn't viable outside the womb until a certain amount of time. And there are those who do not consider the unborn a person until birth. I personally disagree with that, but I cand understand why they hold that view.
For me, all of life is sacred from the moment of conception and is the reason I am opposed to terminating that life. This includes termination by abortion, war, executions, murder, oppressive political systems, suicide, or whatever interferes with right to life. It involves access to clean drinking water, housing, health care, education, etc.
So now, perhaps Feo could clarify for me when and where he believes life is sacred.
Feodor, I said a prayer for you. I don't know why you have such harsh feelings. I just read a very good sermon that was preached by Charles Hadden Spurgeon. He has so much written about him that can be so helpful to us. Look at what is going on in this world! The time is late, if you really think all life is sacred let's shown concern. God help us all! mom2
"I can't imagine a when or a where life is not sacred."
Except for those you don't consider human: the unborn. In your hubris, you suppose they are non-beings, non-human, non-persons, as if you are God. Thus, your claim to revere life as sacred is hollow and a lie, as false as you are.
Creation is sacred and holy, Marshall. The Bible tells me so. That does not make everything a human being. The Bible tells me so. And everything is short of perfection. The Bible tells me so. But human beings can participate fully in God's own nature because they have a conscious will capable of acting in the world in freedom by sharing grace with a creation that has no conscious. The Bible tells me so. A fertilized egg does not have consciousness. Science tells me so. Even a blade of grass, sacred and holy, turns to the sun. Science tells me so. This does not make it a human being. Science tells me so. A fetus is worth less than a human being. The Bible tells me so.
If we look with the long view, mom2, never in the history of humankind have so many been as healthy, as educated, as mobile, as protected as today. Peace reigns in a greater portion of human communities than ever before. Progress is happening every day. And more and more people are reaching for democratic freedom on their own terms.
You need a break from television in order to regain a holy and humane view.
"Creation is sacred and holy, Marshall. The Bible tells me so."
Which Bible? The one Christians use, or the one "progressives" use? Which verse in the Christian Bible tells you this? I believe after the Fall, God cursed the ground. So, which part of creation is the ground, and where does the ground end and the rest of creation begin?
"And everything is short of perfection. The Bible tells me so."
Few prove that so well as you.
"But human beings can participate fully in God's own nature because they have a conscious will capable of acting in the world in freedom by sharing grace with a creation that has no conscious. The Bible tells me so."
My, how you can babble! "Participate in God's own nature?" Just how does THAT work? Sounds like progressive nonsense meant to sound like profound insights.
"A fertilized egg does not have consciousness. Science tells me so."
Wow. You actually hit on something that can justly be called "fact". Now perhaps you can show how science uses that fact to prove the fertilized egg is not a human being. Good luck with that. Forgive me if I don't wait around for the impossible.
"Even a blade of grass, sacred and holy, turns to the sun. Science tells me so. This does not make it a human being. Science tells me so."
Can't recall ever supposing a blade of grass, or even an entire lawn, is a human being. Can you perhaps find a more incredibly stupid analogy? Try this: Even a chair isn't a human being.
Of course, and you really need to pay attention to this, Feo boy, a blade of grass is not the product of a man and woman coming together to engage in the procreative act. Therefor, as opposed to a human zygote, it isn't, nor will it ever become, a human being.
"A fetus is worth less than a human being. The Bible tells me so."
This is some Hindu comic book Bible you're reading, isn't it? It certainly isn't the Christian Bible. If it was the Christian Bible, the verse that could even imply this would be known to all. It would have been seared into everyone's mind since Roe v Wade.
This is further proof of just how false a priest you are. To actually have the gall to claim that the Bible states that the fetus is worth less than a human being (especially since the human fetus IS a human being), is about the stupidest, most inane thing you have ever said on a blog. And that's saying something.
But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; Ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being. Job 12:7-10
In past generations he allowed all the nations to follow their own ways; yet he has not left himself without a witness in doing good--giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy. Acts 14:16-17
The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat. Psalm 19:1-6
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host!
Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created; He established them forever and ever; he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, ire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!
Mountains and hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!
Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and women alike, old and young together!
Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven. He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all this faithful, for the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the Lord! Psalm 148
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I will establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." Genesis 9:8-11
If you will only heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today--loving the Lord your God, and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul--then he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil; and he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat your fill. Take care, or you will be seduced into turning away, serving other gods and worshiping them, for then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain and the land will yield no fruit; then you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you. Deuteronomy 11:13-17
Notice, Marshall, just two lines above, the phrase, "good land."
I took the time since you asked and so you would not remain in ignorance.
"'Participate in God's own nature?' Just how does THAT work? Sounds like progressive nonsense meant to sound like profound insights."
No, your Bible, Marshall, says it works like this:
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature... 2 Peter 1: 3,4
I took the time since you asked and so you would not remain in ignorance.
Now, since you have clearly not read very well, or studied very long, why don't you take the time and lift yourself out of ignorance on the rest.
Or are you even a greater fool than you now appear?
Oh! what a special day! I've even literally marked in on my calender that March 12 is "Feo's Day!" It is a day which commemorates the day Feo actually responded directly to a question and provided an actual answer that wasn't just psuedo-intellectual drivel! Well, let's just say that he provided a verse that uses the expression: "participate in (God's own) the divine nature". But he distorts the verse and its meaning with this crap:
"...because they have a conscious will capable of acting in the world in freedom by sharing grace with a creation that has no conscious."
...which I don't see reflected in the verse or the context in which we find it. What's more, the verses certainly don't add credibility or validity to whatever he was passing off as a point. So maybe a celebration is not really called for.
And when we look at the previous comment, well, he provides nothing for which I should feel the fool or be accused of being in ignorance. The actual point of the verse from 2 Peter I get, and had gotten without even remembering the text whence he drew it. (Too bad he doesn't.) But the several previous verses he presents do nothing to support his earlier comments of which I had shredded so easily.
To be clear, I get that those verses come from the Bible, and my Bibles have them in various but similar forms as well. But I didn't ask for those. I asked, where does the Bible say creation is sacred and holy? The verses offered don't answer the question. They say nothing of the kind. He points to two words at the end of his offerings, but that obviously refers to the good land to which God led the Israelites, the Promised Land. It wasn't referring to the whole of creation. Also, "good land" doesn't necessarily equate to "sacred" or "holy" land, even if it's God saying it.
Furthermore, nothing he offered comes within light years of demonstrating where the Bible might say that a human fetus is worth less than a human being. Even combined with his appeals to science, that a fertilized egg has no consciousness and that a blade of grass is not a human being (*snicker*), he's done nothing to prove anything with which a supporter of abortion can take to the bank.
If the ignorance from which you hoped to liberate me, Feo, concerned an understanding of your level of competence and wisdom, I'm already quite familiar with your lack of both. The only one who becomes a greater fool than already known is yourself. In this your competence is astounding and if not for Parkie, without comparison.
It is much as I said to Parkie; if you are an example of the benefits of higher education and reading, it doesn't speak well of higher education and reading.
When God calls something good, Marshall cannot call it holy or sacred, "even if it's God saying it."
God can't even argue with Marshall. So who am I compared to God? And God is less than Marshall.
Maybe God was calling it good like chocolate cake is good, or espresso is good. Or the movies of Clint Eastwood or the jazz of Coltrane. Maybe God was just taking a whizz and saying, "hey that's cool, though."
As for the unconscious cosmos that has no freedom of will needing us, that would be from Romans 8:
"For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God."
Because when God calls something "good," God does not necessarily refer to a holy, moral good. God has down time, too. Isn't that right, Marshall?
As for 2 Peter 1, how you throw out the concepts of "freedom of will" and "sharing grace with the world" but don't tell us why or how you do that while claiming to understand the passage without benefiting us with it is simply your unending avoidance and cowardly escapist act of running away and on, leaving the point I make still standing while, speaking over your spineless back, you say, "can't see it, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah."
"he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you MAY escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and MAY become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you MUST MAKE EVERY EFFORT to support your faith with goodness... and godliness with mutual affection, and MUTUAL AFFECTION WITH LOVE. For if these things are yours and are INCREASING among you, they keep you from being INEFFECTIVE... Therefore, brothers and sisters, BE all the more EAGER TO CONFIRM your call and election."
"nothing he offered comes within light years of demonstrating where the Bible might say that a human fetus is worth less than a human being."
Not only the fetus, the slave as well.
Exodus 21
“Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death.... When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his money... When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman's husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.... When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be clear. But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death. If a ransom is laid on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is laid upon him. If it gores a man's son or daughter, he shall be dealt with according to this same rule. If the ox gores a slave, male or female, the owner shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned."
And here, Leviticus 27, is how different ages are priced according to worth, the infant being the least, and females at all levels less than males:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When a person makes an explicit vow to the Lord concerning the equivalent for a human being, the equivalent for a male shall be: from twenty to sixty years of age the equivalent shall be fifty shekels of silver by the sanctuary shekel. If the person is a female, the equivalent is thirty shekels. If the age is from five to twenty years of age, the equivalent is twenty shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female. If the age is from one month to five years, the equivalent for a male is five shekels of silver, and for a female the equivalent is three shekels of silver. And if the person is sixty years old or over, then the equivalent for a male is fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels."
Again, in Numbers 3, the infant not a month old does not count as much:
"Enroll the Levites by ancestral houses and by clans. You shall enroll every male from a month old and upward... Counting all the males, from a month old and upward, there were eight thousand six hundred, attending to the duties of the sanctuary.... Then the Lord said to Moses: Enroll all the firstborn males of the Israelites, from a month old and upward, and count their names."
And here, in 2 Samuel, David recognizes Marshall's plan for justice (the man should die) but God takes a rather brutal, apparently excessive liberal approach (you shall not die, but I will kill the child):
'Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity." Nathan said to David, "You are the man!... You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites... Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun." David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." Nathan said to David, "Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die."'
And here is God talking in Hosea 13, with no acknowledgement of anything like a human life in the fetus:
"Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction? Compassion is hidden from my eyes. Although he may flourish among rushes, the east wind shall come, a blast from the Lord, rising from the wilderness; and his fountain shall dry up, his spring shall be parched. It shall strip his treasury of every precious thing. Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open."
Marshall, you talk about light years when you can't even read what's on your shelf.
All those books and all that time spent nourishing the very great and precious promises God have given me and everyone will not save you from returning to the vomit of human judgment and imprisonment in sin from which Christ, with his grace which freed our ability to co-participate in that grace, liberated us.
It's up to the will of your consciousness, to the sensitivity, the choice of your conscience.
All those books, all that education may indeed by a waste on you. I thank God that Christ doesn't think that's my fault.
I see, false priest. So what you're saying is that because I didn't refute and correct one of your many weak arguments, that this oversight makes me a coward and a fool? You're actually basing some kind of victory on this? You're doing a happy dance now? How pathetic.\
My comment was meant to provoke clarification on how you are using that verse to make your argument. Look at your quasi-insightful comment again:
"But human beings can participate fully in God's own nature because they have a conscious will capable of acting in the world in freedom by sharing grace with a creation that has no conscious."
I have less idea of what this is supposed to convey than you do and was hoping you could craft some sort of explanation.
2 Pet 1:3-4 shows that God has made available all we need spritually through our knowledge of Him. Through these He has given us those great and precious promises. We are enabled by our knowledge of Him to avoid corruption. In that way we are participating in, but not equal to, the divine nature. What confounds is this meaningless "sharing grace with a creation that has no conscious" blather. Share grace with a "thing"? I don't think so, Chuckles.
You should remember that when you, Feodor the foolish, stop and think about anything, you enter dangerous territory you are ill equipped to confront. What follows is further proof:
"When God calls something good, Marshall cannot call it holy or sacred, "even if it's God saying it."
Let's remember what He was calling "good"---the land to which He would lead His Chosen People. THAT is the verse which YOU offered to make your point. He was speaking of a specific plot of land that you, in the foolishness you call superior critical reasoning and thought, interpret to mean the entirety of creation. Even if we were to recall Him calling His creation "good" in the early verses of Genesis, we cannot redefine "good" to mean "sacred and holy" even if He didn't later curse the ground (rather than Adam and Eve). What is sacred and holy cannot at the same time be cursed.
To suppose then that I am arguing with God is buffoonery (an area of your expertise), since you can't establish that if God calls something "good" that it remains sacred and holy (if it ever was made so simply by God calling it "good") after He curses it, or that because He calls the Promised Land "good" that that goodness extends to all of creation.
Moving on:
You Exodus 21 offering does not support your point and your critical reasoning skills are further exposed as faulty. The verse about hitting one's slave does not place a value difference on the life of the slave, especially since the death of the slave would result in punishment. But the verse does not assume homicidal intentions on the part of the slaveholder. So to strike the slave in a manner that brings death would not be equal to murder unless it could be proved that murder was intended. At the same time, the death of the slave brings about punishment, just as an unintentional killing of anyone else does. The slave is not less of a human being than anyone else. You fail.
Likewise in the verses related to the unintentional striking of a woman during a fight, and the subsequent miscarriage that might occur, the punishment is also predicated on whether or not the mother OR child is injured or killed. There is no determination that either the woman or child is less human than a man. You fail again.
The verses regarding the ox goring another refers to a random incident compared to one where there is a history of the animal attacking people. In the latter case, a death penalty is due the owner of the ox, or the family of the deceased may spare the owner by collecting a ransom based not on whether the victim is considered less of a human being, but according to the economic considerations of the victim. It was a way of sparing the ox owner's life. But the ransom was determined by how much the family loses by the economic potential of the victim. The father of the family, for example, provides more economic benefits to the family than his toddler daughter and the ransom is based on that, not that the father is more human than the toddler. A big fail for you. A double fail actually since this goes for the Leviticus 27 stuff.
In your Numbers 3 offering, you fail (a common theme) to consider what is being done. To count only those older than a month is different from the counting of other tribes where they counted only those over twenty years of age. In the latter case, they were only counting those old enough for military service. The Levites were not counted in that manner as they were priests and not soldiers. The counting was only for census and was based on how many they could muster for battle. FAIL!!
2 Samuel:
David is willing to give his life for his sin. That's how remorseful he was. God had other plans for David, but punished him in what I would consider a far worse manner, by taking his child. This does not imply that God determines one to be more of a person or a human being than the other, but only that one plays a greater role in His divine plans. Big distinction that I would think one with trained critical reasoning skills would understand. Apparently I'm wrong on that score. We both fail. (Not really, because I don't really think much of your crticial reasoning skills.)
And in your Hosea offering, while there is, as you say, "no acknowledgement of anything like a human life in the fetus", there is equally no acknowledgement of anything like no human life in the fetus. So this is an incredible fail for you because you could have used anything, such as "Feodor is an incredible butthead" to make your point with equally impotent affect. For while the statement is true, you are a butthead, it has no impact one way or the other on your heinous position that a human fetus is not a human being.
Maybe "light years" didn't go far enough in describing the futility of using the Bible to support your evil. All the education your parents paid for and all the books you've spent time pretending to digest have done you no good. You're still a stupid person lacking wisdom.
I do not pretend that I am in possession of great wisdom. I don't feel that I am. That just makes you a bigger fool and idiot to be so easily taken to school by someone like me. Where has your education ever made me stop and say, "Gee, Feodor. I can't think of one single flaw in your comment."? The big joke is that when I see a new comment in my email inbox, I always have the fear that maybe this is the time when you or one of the other various suspects might present just such a comment. Then I read the comment and wonder why I ever feel that fear in the first place. Knowing my own intellectual limitations, you can't know just how folks like you pump up my self image. Knowing my own intellectual limitations, you can't know what an unmitigated idiot that makes YOU, to be so easily exposed as the fool you are.
Oh, I don't think you'll ever admit how much more I know than you do about theology and biblical studies and church history, Marshall. Even Satan knows God but will not acknowledge his superior.
That's not to be expected.
But try this out; expand your mind and find out what half the world's Christians believe:
I see you've snuck in a couple whilst I typed. That's OK. I would also rush to defend myself if so exposed as you are of being a dolt. Yet you offer nothing that supports your initial claims about the humanity of the unborn and now seek to shift away the course of discussion. (Haven't you tried to accuse ME of that tactic?) Psalm 82 certainly doesn't support the position. And if you are using it to support your line about participating in the nature of God, you fail yet again. Really, I can't imagine WHAT you have in mind by posting it.
"Oh, I don't think you'll ever admit how much more I know than you do about theology and biblical studies and church history, Marshall."
Oh, I have no doubt you have read more, been taught more and have perused more obscure details regarding the faith and its history. No doubt whatsoever. MY claim is that it hasn't helped your understanding of the faith in the least, as evidenced by your many attempts to poorly apply Scripture to defend you goofy opinions. I don't knock education and reading. I just think your a poor poster child for it. If I was tasked with extolling the virtues of higher education, reading, theological study, I would not use YOU as an example of how it pays off. Knowing bits of info is not wisdom. Having read and been taught, even to the point of achieving a diploma, does not indicate intelligence, but only that you met the requirements for attaining the grades. I don't care that you "know" more than I do, especially since it hasn't made you more intelligent than me.
To put it another way, if your reading and education made you intelligent, I'm already a freakin' genius without having made anywhere close to the same effort. You give education and reading a bad name.
BTW, when have you polled the world's Christians in order to know what half of them believe?
Marshall, you can't even read Exodus 21 without stepping all in it.
If a person strikes another person and they die, the striker is to be put to death on the altar. If a person attacks father or mother or kidnaps another person, the offender is to be put to death.
If a person strikes another and they do not die, but suffer for a while and then live, payment is due as punishment. Here we have a distinction between being killed on the altar and punishment.
Then follows the bit about the slave, who is property. If the slave dies, payment is due. If the slave does not die, no punishment is due.
Different values for different human beings.
As for the the strikers of a pregnant women, in the Hebrew the miscarriage is already effected. The difference between punishments is what happens to the woman, not the fetus. The fetus is counted only in terms of money. The woman's life is counted as a life.
"But the ransom was determined by how much the family loses by the economic potential of the victim."
How you can say this straight faced and deny this is not a calculus of human worth, especially given the passage from Leviticus is incredible. Your talent in ignoring the most obvious is well honed and makes you the incredible idiot that you are.
And then there's the way you consider the divine nature to be simply avoiding corruption. Is avoiding corruption the very nature of God for you? It leaves with no wonder how you can view creation the way you do since this is the way you view the Creator. In God's image and likeness we are made. Which for you means simply avoiding wrong turns like avoiding the wrong boxes in hopscotch. Man, what a God you have, Marshall, holding one foot, trying not to fall in the wrong boxes and making way to the end. Fabulous sense of the divine, the holy and the sacred life that is ours.
No wonder you can't deal with Theosis and Orthodoxy.
No wonder you can't deal with Scripture's exhaltation of God's holy and sacred creation which he continues to create and renew, blessing it, giving it the sacred and holy role of testimony to God's greatness and graciousness.
What a putrid protestantism you have descended into, unable to sing like the Psalmist.
Praise the LORD, my soul. LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty.
The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers,[a] flames of fire his servants.
He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth.
He makes springs pour water into the ravines; it flows between the mountains. They give water to all the beasts of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. The birds of the sky nest by the waters; they sing among the branches. He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work. He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for people to cultivate— bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts. The trees of the LORD are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. There the birds make their nests; the stork has its home in the junipers. The high mountains belong to the wild goats; the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.
He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down. You bring darkness, it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl. The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God. The sun rises, and they steal away; they return and lie down in their dens. Then people go out to their work, to their labor until evening.
How many are your works, LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number— living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.
May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works— he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke.
I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the LORD. But may sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more.
You are like Job, thinking you are standing up to all tests, all while missing the deep, true, Godly point of it all.
Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? .... Will the wild ox consent to serve you? Will it stay by your manger at night? Can you hold it to the furrow with a harness? Will it till the valleys behind you? Will you rely on it for its great strength? Will you leave your heavy work to it? Can you trust it to haul in your grain and bring it to your threshing floor? ... Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread its wings toward the south? Does the eagle soar at your command and build its nest on high? ... Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength it has in its loins, what power in the muscles of its belly! Its tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are close-knit. Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like rods of iron. It ranks first among the works of God... Nothing on earth is its equal— a creature without fear. It looks down on all that are haughty; it is king over all that are proud.”
God renews the ground, animals praise him, nature serves him by serving his creation, the stars sing with the angels and Leviathan is among the best of all that God has made.
If you don't get how sacred and holy all this is, then God help you Marshall. You are missing out on very great and precious promises and the offer to co-participate in this kind of divine activity.
Would that you were a better biblical Christian, much less one that pays attention to the different sphere of science. One can make you a God-like lover of all creation. The other can make you an exceedingly wise and smart lover of all creation.
Two flailing strikes, Marshall. And time is slipping by. All those gifts, all those promises... and nothing in your hands.
I'm not going to continue showing you how badly you understand Scripture, Feo. I simply don't have the time I did a mere two months ago for such pleasures. And believe me. It's a real pleasure. You can copy and paste the entire Bible if it pleases you, but it doesn't show you understand any of it.
I told you God cursed the ground after Adam's sin. When, exactly, did he lift that curse? How can anything God cursed be sacred and holy? Your Psalm doesn't say. Your exerpt from Job doesn't say. What's more, YOU don't say. You just want to ramble on pretending you've received some great insights that I'm missing. What pretentious crap from an incredibly pretentious fraud! The only thing I've been standing up to here is continued tap dancing around the heinous opinion that the unborn is not equally endowed as we with the unalienable right to life. You dare posture yourself as more knowing, more in tune, more Christian with such a hateful and contemptible opinion as that!
As to Exodus 21 (I can't help but trash your stupidity one more time), it is YOU who steps in the feodor. You can't seem to distinguish between punishments for intentional killing and accidental. You can't seem to notice that a couple of those Ex 21 rules have to do with broken Commandments. But never and nowhere in that chapter do we see one human said to be less human than another and definitely not the unborn. In the section regarding the pregnant woman, there is NO distinction betwen to whom the injury must occur before any eye for an eye is exacted.
"How you can say this straight faced and deny this is not a calculus of human worth, especially given the passage from Leviticus is incredible."
Because this is what it means and why it was done in this manner. If both the father and his infant son were to be killed, which loss had the greater economic impact on the family? We don't do things that way these days, chump, but they did back then for that reason.
"And then there's the way you consider the divine nature to be simply avoiding corruption."
I didn't say that, fool. Read it again and have someone help you with the big words.
"It leaves with no wonder how you can view creation the way you do since this is the way you view the Creator."
I've never spoken of my view of creation, except to say yours is pretentious bullshit. I acknowledge that God had cursed the ground for Adam's sin so thus it cannot be both sacred and cursed at the same time. You wax poetic and consider that evidence to the contrary. You offer verses that do not show the curse was ever lifted. You're an idiot.
"In God's image and likeness we are made."
So is the unborn.
"No wonder you can't deal with Theosis and Orthodoxy."
Who says I can't? You? The false priest with the corrupted understanding of the faith? As if you'd know.
You wouldn't know a Biblical Christian if he prayed over you. And you are definitely not God-like in any sense of the term, you Pharisee, nor are you wise or smart. But you are a sad, pathetic worm of a human being for all your self-praise while daring to dismiss the humanity of the unborn. May God have mercy on your horribly soiled soul.
Feodor: "I can't imagine a when or a where life is not sacred."
Is it sacred in the womb?
Really, this is one area where I agree with Marshall and his counterparts. It may be the only area of agreement however. But, I will not go so far as to label you a false priest, Feodor. I have quite a few christian friends who are pro-choice. They are also against the death penalty. I have to say, I don't understand that at all. But I still consider them my brothers and sisters in Christ.
I do wonder though, if not sacred in the womb, when does life become sacred?
Marty, you are not reading the thread - not that you can blamed. When I say - to you (with Marshall I'm rarely saying anything straight because that's futile with fools) - that I cannot imagine a When or a Where in which life is not holy and sacred, I mean it.
The collection of Scriptures I laid at Marshall's feet proclaim that very thing. The Creation is holy and sacred. A fetus in the womb is holy and sacred. A fertilized egg is holy and sacred. Sperm is holy and sacred. The wind in the new mown grass will be holy and sacred just as soon as Spring gets here but in the meantime, the gray clouds of Winter are holy and sacred, too.
Now all Marshall sees is the Fall and that's because he's been led by the nose instead of the heart and brain when reading scripture. It is because Sunday School in the Western church - primarily those of Roman Catholic and radical protestant churches - only teach Augustine. Augustine wrote of a lot on sin and the sinful flesh, which in his time was all they could conceive, and he traced that back to the Fall. What he ignored was indeed written by other theologians but, because they were not writing explicitly to argue against other Christians but were writing more constructively, they don't have a pithy scheme that is reducible to Sunday School and country preachers and the host of this blog.
People like Irenaeus, Origen, but particularly the three theologians who become the "fathers" of the Eastern church like Augustine is for the West. In fact, there are four central preacher/theologians, but the three most applicable for you and me around this issue would be Basil of Caesarea, his brother, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus.
And they were much better at reading all of Scripture in a much less anxious way.
From them, we are redirected back to the narrative of Noah, where God makes a renewed covenant with humankind and with all of his creation. It's a new day, a new start, and in that spirit, psalmists sing of nature's praise for and service to God, where each has a role in a continuum that includes humankind, the apex of creation. It is this covenant that is made sure and more powerfully active in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. God became human so that humans can become like God and so in union with God. This gift is not offered to any other kind of God's creation.
But notice that the incarnation of God is centered on the nativity, not the annunciation. I'd ask Marshall straight out if he celebrates the Feast of the Annunciation more strenuously than the Feast of the Nativity (Christmas) because, to his way of thinking, the conception is the real beginning of God on earth.
But he'll smoke and mirror his way out of the logical step for him because of the awkwardness it puts him in and because he knows but will not tell how the four gospels do not reflect his thinking.
So, Marty, life in the womb is sacred and holy and has its testimony of God's grace and the holiness of all of life. So, too, Leviathan, who gets two chapters of high praise from God in Job, such that Leviathan is the among the highest, most esteemed of creation.
This, of course, indicates that there is indeed a hierarchy. As does the passage in Romans where the cosmos groan inchoately, waiting for the redemption of humankind who will, as the firstborn of all creation, lead it into redemption as well.
So, reproduction presents us with a few theological layers of holiness beginning with sex, itself holy and sacred as a sacrament of union between two people which has the serendipitous effect of teaching us about the depth and passion of union with God. As for pregnancy, the holiness grows from fertilization through the process of gestation until we have a viable, conscious fetus capable of retaining its own sense memories and ready to breath. (And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.)
Only the viable, conscious, ready to breath fetus has attained the highest of sacred and holy roles in creation that the adult parent has. Until then, its role is less sacred and holy. A fertilized egg is not a human being. As is easy for all non-spiritually imprisoned people readily see.
Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
God, Marshall, you can't even get Sunday School right.
Feodor I read the thread (mostly), but I have to admit that I have a hard time understanding what you write and why you write it, so I really appreciate your straightforward answer to me. It was quite clear. Thanks.
I'm really not familiar with the church fathers all that much. I'm not at all read on the subject. You have given me a place to start learning.
I understand you not thinking the fetus as human, but it is life that will develope and become a person if it's nurtured. As I've said life for me begins at conception, and that applies to all of life, even the blade of grass or a flower. I love flowers and you will find me planting seeds and doing all I can - trimming, pruning, etc. to keep my flowering plants alive for as long as possible. All things die, it is the nature of life, but I feel we must protect all life from harm...yes, even life in the womb or a seed in the ground. I even rescue animals and birds. To terminate any life, in whatever stage of developement, to me is destroying what God has created and I just don't see any justification for it.
"but it is life that will develop and become a person if it's nurtured."
No. There are millions of miscarriages every year. Birth is not a fait accompli, and we must think it is when we have the higher order of life in mind: the mother and father.
And before we say that is an act of nature and we must respect that, tell me where in all the rest of our relationship with nature we leave it alone? We did not leave it alone ecologically and now we must reorganize ourselves for the purpose of changing nature in a different way.
We breed livestock, forcibly. We chemically sterilize pests and intrusive species in order to keep the population down. If you wanted to build a new deck or a new gazebo, the flowers would surely be pulled out. We bulldoze, dig, level, fill in, pave, build. We seed the clouds, we split the atom.
Genesis tells us we must till the ground but also that we are stewards. Again, from Chapter 8:
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything."
If the fertilized egg - the zygote - and the embryo and the nonviable, not ready to breath, not yet conscious fetus is holy and sacred but not yet a human being made in the image and likeness of God, then it must take a back seat to the divine image and likeness that is the mother and the father.
And even when the fetus reaches that spiritual stage, when one life only can be saved, we must treasure and keep the life that has a storehouse of memories of life lived with God: the fuller being, the one who has lived among us as Jesus lived among us.
There is no doubt that in saving a life in such a way, there is the tragedy of losing the life not yet begun. And, to my mind, there is tragedy in every abortion. It is a sorry, terrible choice made to preserve higher treasures already stored by the grace of God and to avoid wrecking those treasures. But in many cases, this tragic choice is the right one. And may be there should be a rational, spiritual reflection on means to curb abortion. Teen pregnancies are currently going down due to sex ed. and use of condoms. This can only be celebrated.
But one who argues that every conception is a human being then is honor bound to argue for a society that will provide for that being when necessary. And such a one is honor bound to be militantly protective and financially supportive of orphans, or warring against child abuse and sex abuse and sexual slavery and slavery of all kinds. This must be expected because life is holy and sacred.
And yet, we never hear about these wrap-around issues. We don't because the right's agenda is not truly concern with a life. It is concern for doctrine.
An argument that gives absolute right to a fertilized egg over a breathing human being made in the image and likeness of God is not really an argument at all. It is a self-deluding destructive nihilism. And one that is empty of the Gospel understanding of the human being.
Sorry, Marty, doing too many things at once. I am egregiously remiss for not emphasizing prevention. If I took your position - and I am theologically there but not practically there for reasons of compassion with living human beings - then you, and me as well, should be arguing for all and any means of prevention.
Abstinence for teenagers, condoms at all times, and funding for Planned Parenthood which gives free health care to the poor and needy, young and scared.
"No. There are millions of miscarriages every year. Birth is not a fait accompli, and we must think it is when we have the higher order of life in mind: the mother and father."
should read:
"No. There are millions of miscarriages every year. Birth is not a fait accompli, and we must not think it is when we have the higher order of life in mind: the mother and father.
Wow! I know I said I wouldn't, but I can't help but let such unmitigated bullshit stand as sound theology. Such convoluted crap can only be tolerated by response, particularly since deleting is not my style when letting fools expose themselves is so much more gratifying.
So, I guess I must spend my limited time once more correcting the psuedo-intellectualism, the quasi-Christian corruption that passes as understanding to the fool and false priest known as "Feodor".
And yes, Marty. He is a false priest. He claims to have been trained as a priest and he speaks falsely. If ever there was evidence, it is in this latest vomit of arguments that dismisses the humanity of the unborn. He is false like the Klansmen and other ministers who twisted the Bible to justify their enslavement of blacks. He is false like Fred Phelps, who distorts the Bible to justify his hatred of homosexuals. Feodor is cut from exactly the same cloth.
But where to begin regarding his latest pile of entrails? Let's start with this:
"An argument that gives absolute right to a fertilized egg over a breathing human being made in the image and likeness of God is not really an argument at all."
Straw man time! Never have I said, nor has any other, such as Neil, said anything that can be used to suggest we place the unborn over the life of the mother. This is called, "lying". What we do is call attention to those cretins, like Feodor, who put the lives of the born over the unborn. To normal people, they are equal and equally endowed by God with the unalienable right to life. I believe I've made that statement at least one other time in this very thread. EQUALLY endowed. Why, we even allow for the woman whose life is threatened by the pregnancy to make the choice to risk her life or abort. THAT is at least a form of self-defense that makes the abortion justifiable in that case.
But to suggest that any and every other reason to abort is a case of where we'd say the unborn is more important than its mother is ludicrous. We're saying that the mother has not provided a justifiable reason to kill her child, that no threat to her exists that can justify it. Any suggestion of a threat must be compared to the exact same threat if the unborn were any born person. If we and/or the law would not consider it justifiable, then it cannot be for the unborn. That's called critical reasoning and logical thinking, but it is based on the unborn being people. Feodor refuses to concede they are people so he can kill them willy-nilly.
"But one who argues that every conception is a human being then is honor bound to argue for a society that will provide for that being when necessary."
This assumes we don't. But as Neil rightly points out, if Feo opposes wife-beating, his house should be filled with abused women, because he can't oppose anything without providing for the victims of the behavior he opposes. It's a bullshit argument that bullshit people like Feodor love to have in their bags of tricks. But it doesn't wash for its weakness.
It also assumes that we don't seek to remove the conditions under which such situtations occur. Neil is outspoken in his support for CrisisPregnancy Centers, as well as a volunteer. I donate to such places and causes even with my meager financial situation. Feodor supports Planned Parenthood which provides only that which moves one toward aborting their child, and they do it with my tax dollars against my wishes. Feo supports death. I support life.
Feo wants condoms passed out. I want a society that returns to a culture that influences most people toward a pure lifestyle that puts sex back where it belongs, amongst the married who can provide for the children they produce. Feo wants to provide for people to have sex when the groin moves them to, damn the consequences.
"And one that is empty of the Gospel understanding of the human being."
Feo has provided nothing that shows Scripture aligns with his poor understanding of the human being. What he HAS done is offer verse after verse upon which he projects his preferred interpretation where the words themselves do not. He would call this critical reasoning or deeper meaning. But it is only him and his corrupted nature putting words into Scripture's mouth.
"But in many cases, this tragic choice is the right one."
To the self-centered, perhaps. Unless the life of the mother is threatened, there is no other case where that is the "right" option. You confuse personal convenience with righteousness. Common amongst the corrupted left.
"And may be there should be a rational, spiritual reflection on means to curb abortion."
Been there, done that. It's called "abstinence" and progressives abdicate their responsibility on this score, saying that kids (and adults) are incapable of controlling their urges. Thanks to the Feo's of the world, that almost true. But it wasn't that way years ago. The percentage of virgins used to be much higher years ago. No one died as a result of no sex back then. But the Feo's of the world have produced a culture that tells the youth of today, "Go for it!"
"Teen pregnancies are currently going down due to sex ed. and use of condoms."
Doubtful, as far as the use of condoms go. If condoms are seen as a viable preventative measure, sex will continue as if that is true. Failed condoms will result in more pregnancies. This has been the case and with it, disease is spread.
"If the fertilized egg - the zygote - and the embryo and the nonviable, not ready to breath, not yet conscious fetus is holy and sacred but not yet a human being made in the image and likeness of God, then it must take a back seat to the divine image and likeness that is the mother and the father."
Sez you. Scripture does NOT support this in any way, and you have provided nothing but your arrogant contradictions that only provoke laughter.
"And before we say that is an act of nature and we must respect that, tell me where in all the rest of our relationship with nature we leave it alone?"
All of nature is not human life, and your own offerings show that all of nature is for our use. All of nature is not equal to human beings. But miscarried children are simply premature deaths, just as born people drop dead from conditions that were not detected. As the Bible does not address it, one cannot arrogantly proclaim that God does not provide for those unborn whose lives have been terminated by abortion or miscarriage. So the true Christian errs on the side of life. The false offers lame and corrupt interpretations to allow for killing children.
That's all the time I have now, kiddies. Feo won't likely hold off before I can shred the rest of his goofiness (the Noah stuff is coming), but hopefully he will so that I won't have more trash on my limited time.
I simply cannot let bad theology stand on this blog. Not when it is used to justify the killing of the unborn. Such a false priest he is.
I see Marshall is hiding behing Neil's skirts again. ______
Fail and wail, Fartshall:
“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though[a] every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”
Feodor: "If you wanted to build a new deck or a new gazebo, the flowers would surely be pulled out."
I'd pull the flowers out in such a way as to be able to replant them in another spot.
"And even when the fetus reaches that spiritual stage, when one life only can be saved, we must treasure and keep the life that has a storehouse of memories of life lived with God: the fuller being, the one who has lived among us as Jesus lived among us."
Feodor, Marshall said that you are a trained priest. Is that a Catholic priest or some other denomination such as Episcopal or something?
I was born in a Catholic hospital. My mother had to sign a paper that if something happened during birth and one life or the other had to be saved, they would save me rather than my mother. She agreed to it and signed the paper.
With regard to prevention, we probably agree on that one.
Marty, I grew up in the Church of Christ (the conservative group not the New England one) in Texas, eventually going to Yale Divinity School. During my time there getting two degrees I became an Episcopalian and worked at Yale Psychiatric Hospital. After four years, I also sought to be ordained in the Episcopal Church and was ordained a deacon in Connecticut and a priest in Pennsylvania.
Ah...a fellow Texan! Church of Christ. Wow. Can't get much more conservative than that. My son-in-law grew up in that denomination. Left a pretty bad taste in his mouth.
My daughter used to sing in the choir at Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Houston. A beautiful Episcopal Church with a rich history.
Are you still in the ministry? I would have asked you this by e-mail, but didn't see one on your profile.
"...eventually going to Yale Divinity School. During my time there getting two degrees I became an Episcopalian and worked at Yale Psychiatric Hospital. After four years, I also sought to be ordained in the Episcopal Church and was ordained a deacon in Connecticut and a priest in Pennsylvania."
Pretty amazing. They must give out degrees just for showing up, because Feo's understanding of Scripture is crap. It appears the Episcopalians in Pennsylvania aren't too fussy, either.
"I see Marshall is hiding behing Neil's skirts again."
Sure, Sparkie. Like I need to hide from the likes of you. Like I need help to expose your poor understanding of Scripture. You WISH you had a handle on the faith as firmly as does Neil.
Let's look at your Noah offerings. Notice that nothing in any of it shows God lifting any curse. Notice how He merely says He will never again curse the ground. He did it twice. I'll let you find the second occasion. But God saying that He won't curse the ground again is not the same as Him saying that the ground is now sacred and holy.
Your problem, that is, your problem here (your underlying problem is vast and requires professional help and likely a real priest), is that you seem to have difficulty accepting that the world, tainted by Adam's sin as it is, can still proclaim God's power and majesty. It's still a beautiful place, even with you in it. All sorts of vermin infest God's creation and despite you, it's still awesome. But sacred? You've yet to prove that anymore than you've been able to prove there's some Biblical support for your Klan-like attitude toward the unborn (which you couldn't--epic fail--so you moved to this sad attempt, whereby you continue to fail).
Anyhow, I don't suffer from that affliction and am constantly amazed at how God's glory is revealed all over this vast universe. Yet it is not sacred and holy if it is also cursed, which it is.
You know, there was one small section of sacred ground that comes to mind. But I don't think it still is. Can you guess little Feo, where it was?
That's rich. Parkie, who comes here only to disrupt and mock while never actually adding to the discussion, dares speak of class. While Feo, who refers to me as "Fartshall" (all that education and no wit or cleverness), and accuses me of bigotry and racism while never providing support for the charge, dares speak of gentility. I'm not the least bit surprised.
"Marshall...conveniently escapes, "Never again will I curse the ground...""
How exactly have I escaped? I've responded directly. YOU, however, are trying to escape explaining how that statement equates to making the ground sacred. I'm still waiting for that.
The problem here is in the process of cursing. I submit that once cursed by God, always cursed until He lifts the curse. Sort of like Persia was Persia until it became Iran.
In any case, once God cursed the ground, I don't think He needs to be consciously and continually cursing it for it to remain cursed. It's enough that He cursed it once that it remains so. There has been no reversal of the curse that I can recall, nor that Feodor can find, apparently, as he hasn't yet. He only throws out a few verses and proclaims that creation was made sacred and holy while nothing in those verses say anything like that. Extolling the virtues of creation is not the same as proving creation is holy and sacred. God promising to never again curse the ground is not God proclaiming the ground is holy and sacred.
This must be what Geoffrey means when speaking of "layers of meaning". I guess one can see what one finds pleasing and insist the words on the page mean just that, whether they actually do or not. But that's not drawing meaning from the words, that's projecting meaning onto the words. To put it another way in this case, putting words into God's mouth.
"Well, if that's the case then what difference would it make to destroy that which is cursed?"
Well, none, except that we are instructed to be good stewards. The curse God levied is the consequence of Adam's sin. It is not license to sin even more. Indeed, to destroy the earth, or parts of it, might be harmful to other people. If you destroy a rock, it means nothing unless that rock is part of a home's foundation or some equally meaningful thing. The rock alone is just a rock.
Also, your devotion to life is a bit over the top. I'm concerned with human life only. That is not to say that I don't care if Michael Vick abuses dogs, but my concern is more for why he would do that than for the dogs. And no, I am not ambivalent regarding the suffering the dogs endure. I just think of the person first and what brought him to do what he does. Even the most heinous people, those who abuse and murder children, I would be overjoyed if there was some way that would change them into champions of children. If we could do that, and know they'd remain so, I would not seek the death penalty for them.
But it is human life that matters and except where it is a matter of property being destroyed, i.e., someone's ox being killed, God never seems to give much thought to the lives of animals. Nothing in any of His laws for our behavior regard the lives of animals.
I do respect those who put a higher price on life of all kinds. But in my case, I pretty much stop at the point of people killing and destroying flora and fauna for the mere fun of it, without good cause.
But you come really close to condemning yourself with every bowl of salad.
Ma, you sort of jumped in and jumped out of that one. But, how happy it makes me that you can pick and choose which animals are more important than others. Can you provide a list of animals, in order of importance. Thanks! You are the best.
"But you come really close to condemning yourself with every bowl of salad."
LOL...I love salad...life giving life.
"Also, your devotion to life is a bit over the top"
Not as over the top as the pastor I currently work with. He won't even spray ants or roaches. I've seen him save mice from the trap and those sticky pads the exterminator puts out.
I'm glad to hear you don't talk to your plants. That would have really distorted my opinion of you. As to your devotion to life, perhaps it's the way you explained that made you sound over the top. As to the pastor, he's a goner.
Wow. It's like no trouble for you to just jump right out and lie, is it? Who are you quoting here:
"I don't care if Michael Vick abuses dogs"
You do realize that other readers can simply scroll up and see that no one, least of all me, said that, don't you?
I wonder what it would be like if you were to add to the conversation, rather than just wet yourself in your vain attempts at cleverness. Don't your rubber shorts get clammy?
"The gentility, to point out the obvious, is between Marty and myself"
Just imagine, if you can, how much better and nicer things would be if you had been genteel from the first time you posted on a conservative blog, rather than condescend like the arrogant, prideful asshole by which so many people have come to know you.
What's this supposed to mean?
" - and which Fartshall uses as a handy escape hatch."
"Escape hatch"??? Escape from what? And why did you add this again:
"I will not curse the ground again."
Do you suppose typing it over and over again will make it magically become what it isn't: the lifting of a curse or the making of the ground sacred and holy? Give it up, fool, or prove your case. As it stands, you've got nothing. (Big surprise)
For the benefit of those not named Parklife, I would like to reiterate and/or clarify one point, if I have not done so already or enough.
I have no problem with those who wish to regard life or creation as sacred. Indeed, I regard human life as sacred, including of course, the unborn, who are absolutey and without question equally human and equally endowed by God with the unalienable right to life as are the born.
But the question here, since Feo ran from the debate on that fact regarding the unborn, is whether or not God has proclaimed creation sacred and/or holy. For all of Feodor's supposedly superior knowledge and understanding, he has failed (epic fail, as the kids like to say) to provide any Scriptural support for that belief.
I wish more people regarded God's creation as sacred. I'd consider mankind as truly advanced if it would at the very least consider human life sacred, whether born or unborn.
It is as vain a wish as hoping Parkie would exhibit something akin to a real contribution to a discussion.
"I wish more people regarded God's creation as sacred."
Interesting that you would whine about this when you care less about other animals when compared to humans. Ma, you just pick and choose what you care for. Call it living a lie, or disingenuous but you really only care about humans, sad but true.
"I'll bet they think you're REALLY clever!"
Sooo.. still haven’t gone on that hike? Really, how fat are you? Step away from the burger!
"Call it living a lie, or disingenuous but you really only care about humans, sad but true."
There's no lying necessary, little troll-boy. I value people far more than I do animals. Only twisted, pathetic trolls think the lives of animals can compare in value. I'll even put it this way: if you and my own pet were trapped inside a burning building, and I could only save one of you, after letting you get your ass scorched first, I would save YOUR miserable troll self. But then, I would do the same for bin Laden, John Wayne Gacy, and any other human being. Only assholes would save the animal and let the person die. I'm guessing you're an asshole. But I'd still save you before trying for the animal. Does that clear things up for you, little troll-boy?
Yet, despite my proper regard for humans over animals, I still revere God's creation and am quite fond of animals. You can't fathom this because you're a pathetic little troll-boy. But some day, if you really care, you'll come to understand so much more and no longer LOL at all that escapes that empty but pointy little troll head of yours. (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here.)
Just another pathetic attempt by a christian. Good luck with that whole getting into heaven thing. The real question is... can you post something not laced with insults? Perhaps you should start going to church during the week too.
Well, well. Isn't that just like a troll? Parkie comes here and from the first visit is smarmy and insulting, and now he'd prefer to be treated in a manner better than what he serves up. Poor little troll. He expects to treat Christians like crap but insists they act like Christians in return, or else he has proven some point that no Christian would have argued, or so he believes. Christians aren't Christ, little troll. They are people and people get fed up. Lacking perfection, they have their limits. In my case, I have never pretended to be pious like my man Danny T. If a troll visits, I recognize his troll-like being and act accordingly.
The best part is that the troll can always repent and become another welcome visitor and be treated like a human being. So the choice is yours, troll. In the meantime, I say again, if you, like Feodor, expect kindness, when from your first visits you both have acted poorly, then you can, and I mean this in the best manner possible, pound sand up your asses.
So there are your three choices, sad, pathetic little troll-boy. You can
1. Carry on as before and find only what a troll can get.
2. Leave.
3. State plainly that you wish to begin engaging in serious discussion like a normal person and from that point find that all your previous crap will be forgotten.
Take note. I'm not a stick in the mud. I can take snark and even Rickles level insult. But you'd damned well better have some substance to go with it. I, as host, have sovereignty in deciding when a visitor has crossed the line of decency and decorum. I post no rules detailing where that line is. Visitors must simply be cool and take their chances.
What's it gonna be, troll? I can work with any decision you make.
lol... ma.. did you grow-up with parents in the house? Or just wolves?
Sadly, ma... I have hardly been mean to you. You're the one with consistent comments about "pounding... ass". Bottom line, you live in your box and seem happy making disparaging comments. Sounds Great!
And really.. who are you kidding? You are just mad at Feo b/c he knows more about the bible. Even when you fought back, it didnt end well for you. Eventually you fell into the "false priest" meme. How convenient.
Oh.. and back to the topic of misrepresentation... I believe it was you that equated a John Meyer song with an entire generation of people.
Ma, reading your blog and your comments you sound like a scared fat old man. Not that its a bad thing. The only evidence you accept is that already approved by your little brain. Fortunately, most of us don’t live in this world.
Finally, its the weight thing that worries me. I mean, we cant have you in the hospital. Thats why I comment here. Just to make sure you're still alive!
What I take note of is how your troll your own blog.
Your offerings are reactive and avoidant, almost altogether devoid of substance. And then, just a few notes above, you seem jealous of the gentility between Marty and myself and wish that I treated you with more gentility (why offer to kiss a viper is what I'd counter with).
So, your problem with Parklife's comments, at least as you've stated them here... take out the plank out of your own eye before noting the speck in someone else's. ________
Moving on, but pointing out what weak sauce you offer lately, you really expect anyone to take your reasoning below as logic? [Regarding God's declaration of no more cursing of the ground after the curse of the flood:]
"nothing in any of it shows God lifting any curse. Notice how He merely says He will never again curse the ground."
How blind do you want us to be? In Chapter 3, God says the ground will be cursed for Adam because of his sin. By chapter 7, and many generations later, he curses all of creation with the flood. That would be two curses now, site specific as it were. And after the second one God actually swears, he vows, he makes a promise!
“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Sunday School would recognize that God has cursed the earth again because he is grieved again, but this time makes solemn vow, a covenant (and surely even you know how important that is in God’s relationship with the Creation), never again. God has cursed Creation twice and will not do it again.
Again. No more curses. Only promises that Creation will serve its holy and sacred role: “…seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."
The way you put it here – obviously in order to try to escape admitting how you’ve once again misread scripture – God keeps repeating himself like a gibbering idiot. The curse is “not lifted,” just repeated and repeated again like a blathering fool. Marshall: he cursed the ground in Chapter 3 once for all. Then Genesis 6, God says, stating nothing new, that he curses the ground and carries out a flood. Then, in Genesis 8, what you take it to mean, God says, but stating nothing new, “I cursed it once. It lies cursed. I will not curse it again, because it is cursed. I cursed it. The flood has nothing to do with it, and I promise never to do this again, but that is not cursing. I cursed it once. I don’t have to do it again because I am God. This story has nothing to with falling out of love again with my creation and cursing them with a flood and now promising never to curse again – even though that is what I am saying – I am not promising to never curse again, I am only stating, for the third time, that I did not curse it again, I already did that. OK? OK”
There is the unmistakable curve of troll logic in your fantastically ignorant and disingenuous suggestion.
Sadly, honesty is something that escapes you (feo, too). You've been a horse's ass since the first time you've visited, always leaving sad attempts at cleverness, but no substantive comments demonstrating a desire to truly engage. If you have been doing so to be entertaining, you have, as I've said repeatedly failed for you don't have the talent for it. Cheap shots that aren't funny aren't exactly acts of kindness. You're a punk. But you make a perfect troll. While you choose to continue, I so choose to continue responding to crap with crap of my own. Don't get all weepy about it, you little weasel, get lost or get serious and engage.
"You are just mad at Feo b/c he knows more about the bible."
You don't know enough about the Bible to make such a determination. What's more, I have no doubt he knows more about the Bible in an academic sense. He fails miserably in a wisdom sense. His understanding is idiotic and inane and full of meaningless progressive crapola, but not a true Christian understanding, as evidenced by his ramblings on this very thread, not to mention his heinous opinion of the unborn.
"Even when you fought back, it didnt end well for you."
You don't know enough about the Bible to make such a determination. The fact is, it's going quite well. So well in fact, that from my perspective it's not a fight at all. It's just me schooling someone who should know better. He bailed on his defense of his heinous anti-unborn child position by shifting to his equally failing "creation is sacred and holy" argument. It's like shooting fish in a barrel with a freakin' cannon.
"Eventually you fell into the "false priest" meme."
You're an idiot. I've been referring to him as a false priest, which he is, since his first mistake of trying to arrogantly condescend to those who have a better grasp of Scripture than he could ever hope to have. The sad part is, he's too arrogant and condescending, too prideful, too full of his own self-satisfied sense of himself that I fear he puts his soul at risk. He's shown that he can't teach Scripture and he rejects learning from the likes of me and those I consider more knowlegable. But his falseness is manifested in his unChristian positions, like his abortion stance and his support of homo behavior.
"I believe it was you that equated a John Meyer song with an entire generation of people."
And I believe it is YOU who needs to delve into the archives to get the exact wording if you hope to run with that. Also, I believe it is you who fails to understand the concept of generalizations. I did not equate the song with an entire generation. But I will say that many of his generation feel as he does. I know too many smart kids to trash the entire generation, but that doesn't mean a generalization of the generation is not appropriate. I'm betting the distinction is lost on you.
"Ma, reading your blog and your comments you sound like a scared fat old man."
I get the following from many blog opponents, not just you. But it's an easy shot for a troll-boy to make despite it's inanity;
"The only evidence you accept is that already approved by your little brain. Fortunately, most of us don’t live in this world."
Who doesn't do this? YOU? So you accept evidence that your tiny, chipmunk brain DOESN'T approve? You actually buy into things that seem absolutely ludicrous to you? Why would you do this?
The fact is that everyone filters data through their own perspectives. That which doesn't compute gets rejected. Unless you're a troll-boy who accepts that which makes no sense. Most people do not act like you, troll-boy. You really need to stop making such pronouncements.
"Finally, its the weight thing that worries me. I mean, we cant have you in the hospital. Thats why I comment here."
What a troll-like thing to say! What prompted your little troll mind to fixate on my weight? Does your therapist know you do this? How about your nanny?
But truly, the reason why you comment here (and I use the term "comment" VERY loosely), is because you're a sad, pathetic little troll-boy who gets no attention elsewhere.
"What I take note of is how your troll your own blog."
What the hell are you talking about, now?
"Your offerings are reactive and avoidant, almost altogether devoid of substance."
Lately, my offerings have been mostly ripping on troll-boy and explaining why your comments don't answer the question of where God made creation sacred and holy. You still haven't come through. I've avoided nothing.
"...you seem jealous of the gentility between Marty and myself and wish that I treated you with more gentility (why offer to kiss a viper is what I'd counter with)."
Not jealous at all. It's nice to see that you can speak in civil tones to anyone for a change. As to how you treat me, I could no longer care less. But, as your parenthetic remarks prove, just like Parkie, you pretend you once were civil and were never treated in kind. That makes YOU a liar, just like it makes Parkie a liar. We've been through this before, false priest. From your first visit you've been, like Parkie, a horse's ass. Now you want to play the victim. Try that crap somewhere else, fraud. It doesn't play here. You can, like I suggested earlier to the troll-boy, choose from one of the following:
1. Carry on as before and find only what a troll can get.
2. Leave.
3. State plainly that you wish to begin engaging in serious discussion like a normal person and from that point find that all your previous crap will be forgotten.
For you, Feo, #3 means dropping this posture of being the arrogant asshole who thinks he knows everything and just make your case in the very tone of grace that your friend Dan Trabue demands. You're simply not that wise. Were you, being an arrogant asshole on top of it would be worse. But you're just an arrogant asshole who only THINKS he know a lot.
"How blind do you want us to be?"
I don't "want" you to be blind, you blind fool. I want you to open your freakin' eyes!
"In Chapter 3, God says the ground will be cursed for Adam because of his sin. By chapter 7, and many generations later, he curses all of creation with the flood. That would be two curses now, site specific as it were."
You forget when he cursed the ground for Cain's sake, that it will never produce for him. That makes two before He gets to the flood.
" And after the second one(third) God actually swears, he vows, he makes a promise!"
But does not lift the previous curses or proclaim creation sacred and holy. You see, you found where He curses the ground, but only choose to infer that he either lifted the curses or proclaimed anything to be sacred and holy.
"Again. No more curses. Only promises that Creation will serve its holy and sacred role: “…seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.""
Yet, you provide no verse that states creation even HAS a sacred and holy role. Once again, you project your preferred meaning onto the text. You can't do that. Not honestly, that is, which might be hard for a false priest.
"There is the unmistakable curve of troll logic..."
I would agree if Parkie had said that. But he didn't. Neither did I. SOUND logic, the kind I use, states that God cursed the ground and Scripture states this. God did NOT proclaim creation sacred and/or holy and nothing in Scripture contradicts this. God only promised never to again curse the ground. Scripture plainly states this. God never lifted the curse and nothing in Scripture contradicts this.
The question now before us is this: What is greater than "epic fail"? because we need a term that truly reflects how badly you have failed to support your diversionary attempt to prove God has proclaimed creation sacred (not to mention your vain attempt to prove the Bible supports your position on the non-humanity of the unborn).
Marshall, look up the word "again" and study it's definition. Write it out on a card. Say it out loud. Ask your neighbor what they think the definition is; ask your wife.
Again. "Never again will I cures the earth."
Not, "I need never again curse the earth."
After the curse of the flood, God promises: I will never again curse the earth like the repeated times I have done so in the past."
That you cannot admit to this simplicity is testament to your cowardice and chronic immaturity. ____________
"you pretend you once were civil and were never treated in kind."
No. You lie. Did no such thing. My response to your request is why should I show gentility to you ("why offer a kiss to a viper?"). You and I never had a moment of gentility. Your character is so blaringly ignominious, I did not come in with charm. It just did not seem to fit the tenor of the way you carried yourself.
Liar. ______
"Yet, you provide no verse that states creation even HAS a sacred and holy role."
Marshall, if you cannot read God's own promise in Genesis 8 ("seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease"), if you cannot read the Psalmists I have quoted, if you cannot read the passages of Job I have quoted, if you cannot read the Song of Solomon...
and know that the cosmos have a divine and sacred purpose set by God, then you don't have an ounce of Christian understanding.
One thing you will not find in Holy Scripture is this phrase: The Bible. So I guess it does not really exist. ________
Psalm 102: "In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands."
Isaiah 48: "“Listen to me, Jacob, Israel, whom I have called: I am he; I am the first and I am the last. My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I summon them, they all stand up together."
From Psalm 104, the nail in your coffin (how many times have you already failed and died, Fartshall?):
"When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.
May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works—"
YOU RENEW THE FACE OF THE GROUND.
idiot. ______
Psalm 104
Praise the LORD, my soul. LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty.
The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers,[a] flames of fire his servants.
He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth.
He makes springs pour water into the ravines; it flows between the mountains. They give water to all the beasts of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. The birds of the sky nest by the waters; they sing among the branches. He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work. He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for people to cultivate— bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts. The trees of the LORD are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. There the birds make their nests; the stork has its home in the junipers. The high mountains belong to the wild goats; the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.
He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down. You bring darkness, it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl. The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God. The sun rises, and they steal away; they return and lie down in their dens. Then people go out to their work, to their labor until evening.
How many are your works, LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number— living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.
You're too easy. Can you give me something that is at least a little challenging? Tell you what: I've never gotten into Shakespeare. Why don't you throw some of his stuff around? I don't stand a chance against someone who knows Shakespeare. Then, you could say anything, like you're doing here, and I'd have to concede because I wouldn't know which play or sonnet whence it came or anything about it.
But 104 does NOT support your contention. I suppose you're just going to repeat things, and throw verses at me until you find one that isn't so obviously lacking in support for your opinion. That's OK. It's not like I've had to research anything to see the desperation of your attempts to appear more knowledgeable. What I've not seen is the proof for which I've been waiting and for which your inane pronouncements demand.
Now let's look at definitions.
Again, "Never again will I curse the ground." Never once more will He curse the ground. He will not curse the ground in addition to previous instances where He had already done so. He will not do it a 2nd (or 3rd, or 4th, or 5th) time.
It does NOT mean, "I hereby lift the curse I had previously placed on the ground."
It does NOT mean, "I hereby proclaim creation sacred and holy."
That you cannot admit to this simplicity is testament to your stupidity and desperation to prove you are what you are not. So here's a word for YOU to look up and study: "FAIL" Learn it well, fool. It's synonymous with "FEODOR".
"You and I never had a moment of gentility."
True. It would not have been so had you not come on the scene like the arrogant and condescending horse's ass you are to this day. Never have I visited another blog and started in on the hosts or his guests. My shots have always been provoked. As I explained to little Alan, who frequents Geoffrey's and Dan's blogs, my jackassery (a word he coined) is not a preemptive weapon. I don't roll that way, as the kids like to say.
"Your character is so blaringly ignominious, I did not come in with charm. It just did not seem to fit the tenor of the way you carried yourself."
And this is how a false priest justifies his arrogant and condescending horse's ass demeanor. If you truly know so much more about the faith, then you know the real meaning of "to whom much is given..."(probably not, but if you can say, perhaps you can then tell Dan).
"Marshall, if you cannot read God's own promise in Genesis 8..."snip"...and know that the cosmos have a divine and sacred purpose set by God, then you don't have an ounce of Christian understanding."
So which are we arguing now: that creation has a "divine and sacred purpose" or that creation is sacred? Those are NOT the same things. Even Satan is a creation of God? Is HE sacred? I should think not. But is HE part of God's "divine and sacred" purpose? He's part of creation, is he not?
Just the same, there's a world of difference between the two. So what we have here is yet another desperate diversion from your failure to prove your point. From the unborn as equal to any other born human, to the ground is sacred, to creation is sacred, to creation is part of God's "sacred and divine" purpose. When you get to "the sky is blue", I'll be totally unable to say you're wrong again.
Still, sacred and divine purpose does not equate to a sacred and holy creation or the removal of the curse He laid upon the earth. You are winning the battle if failure is the goal.
"One thing you will not find in Holy Scripture is this phrase: The Bible. So I guess it does not really exist."
But I'm pretty sure you'll find "Scripture" or "Scriptures" in the Holy Bible, and I use that term as often as "the Bible". In fact, look to the 2nd to last paragraph of my last entry before the last three of yours and you'll see I said "Scripture" does not support your opinion. But be that as it most definitely is, the lack of the phrase "The Bible" within the Bible itself is about as good a proof of your desperation as any I could find.
"You've lost your grip so you want me out."
You can't support that opinion, either. Others have asked me why I bother with the likes of you and Parkie, and even Dan. It's because I really don't hate anyone, even assholes. I have high hopes and prayers for the worst of you. I welcome anyone who wants to comment. What I did was offer you three choices regarding how to deal with my demeanor in dealing with you. You've obviously picked door number one, or are planning to implement the option behind door number two. I was hoping you were capable of trying out door number three. Am I wrong? Do you want so bad for me to be wrong that you will NOT go with #3? Dan wishes he was this gracious.
Just to be clear, I wasn't necessarily stating that I consider Dan to be an asshole. I don't. Do I so consider Feo and Parkie? They seem to insist upon it.
Since Feodor likes to quote Holy Scripture to support his blatantly unbiblical argument that a fetus in the womb is not human, let him try to wriggle out of this one:
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." Jeremiah 1:5
Since Feodor claims that ALL God's Creations are sacred, how does he justify his apparent belief that a human fetus is the exception to the rule?
Feodor, epic fail. You didn't explain how A fetus is the exception to the rule that was alluded to by you, yourself. YOU are the one that insisted ALL creation is sacred. A fetus, a zygote, an embryo, whatever you want to call it--ALL are creations of God. Therefore, by your own definition, they are sacred. I ask you once again to explain how you can support the baseless theory that anyone other than God has the RIGHT to destroy what God has created and declared sacred.
Even though the Bible - unrecognized by the Bible - does not say anything like fetuses, embryos, zygotes are holy and sacred, do you think one can say they are?
"Even though the Bible - unrecognized by the Bible - does not say anything like fetuses, embryos, zygotes are holy and sacred, do you think one can say they are?
And on what basis?"
What was put to you is that YOU said all creation is sacred and holy, yet you do not seem to recognize the sacredness and holiness of the unborn. It was YOUR inconsistencies that questioned. You cannot accuse us of being inconsistent by using YOUR words against us. Not in an honest disussion, anyway. I know honesty is a tough thing for you false priests, but do your best, such as THAT is.
And BTW, this "Bible doesn't mention 'the Bible'" meme doesn't even rise to the level of cheap argument. The Bible doesn't need to use the word "Bible" in order for it to be used to support for an opinion. You are not demonstrating your "superior" knowledge with such lame tactics. You're supposed to be the educated one. When do we get to see proof?
You wish to infer from the text not meaning, but what you'd prefer it means. Mark's inference is logical, because it refers to God relating to Jeremiah while he was yet unborn. Your inference regarding the sacredness of creation, while decent on the surface, is not logically drawn from any text you've yet offered, put willfully projected onto them by you for your own purposes. What's more, it raises a conflict between your position that all creation is sacred and holy, and your support for the destruction of the unborn.
215 comments:
1 – 200 of 215 Newer› Newest»Good for him!
Too bad there are so many Christians (the horribly confused kind) and "Christians" (the fake kind) that support legalized abortion.
Why'd you back out, Jim? I would have loved to have you explain your comment. I'll save it for awhile.
Save it; publish it. I don't really care. I removed it because I didn't think it would further any discussion.
Some people apparently have the ability or power or hubris to judge how Christian a Christian is. How can anyone argue with 4simp?
One way would be to try to show that abortion ISN'T the taking of an innocent human life and therefor NOT a sinful proposition for Christians. It's really quite simple: a Christian cannot support legalized abortion, at least not how it stands now. There's really no special power or ability required to make this determination. Only honesty.
Great speech! That's the first time I've heard the stupid legislation to protect insignificant little fishies and mollusks and insects compared to the indifference by politicians and Liberal activists towards actual pre-born living human beings.
It makes the holocaust of abortion even more abhorrent.
We need more of this! It's about time Republicans and Conservatives stepped up and starting bringing what we stand for to the forefront. There have been too many RINOs in the past embarrassed by our positions and unwilling to stand up for them. This is a nice change.
DF
"a Christian cannot support legalized abortion"
Rape? Incest? Save the life of the mother?
Jim,
It's way beyond tiresome to have to keep saying this, but many solid Christians are willing to allow for those three, and without a doubt, the last one, life of the mother. But in rape, there are two victims: the mother and the child. Neither deserve to suffer for the mother being raped. Incest does not guarantee a handicapped child, or one so badly handicapped that anyone should feel they are god enough to say they should die rather than live. But still, to put all these together represents perhaps 1-3% of total abortions, if that.
So the comment then, that a Christian cannot support legalized abortion, is meant for the 97-99% of abortions that are merely done as birth control for those who just had to get laid no matter what the consequences.
It's funny (not really). I heard Dennis Prager speaking the other day about some area, perhaps Berkley or Frisco, that passed, or is trying to pass, a law outlawing circumcisions. They will defend the right to kill the unborn, but removing foreskin? Heavens to Betsy, no!
"Rape? Incest? Save the life of the mother?"
No, No, and Yes, but in the case of the last, ONLY if it is to actually save the life of the mother, and not some ambiguous "save the health of the mother" crap.
See Jim, what you and your Lib friends don't seem to get is that in cases of rape and incest, the most innocent of all parties is the baby, yet you would kill the baby. Why punish the most innocent with a death penalty? Seems illogical to me, but here again, Libs want to avoid the responsibility of having to raise a child conceived as a result of a bad personal decision.
It goes right along with what I've been saying:
Libs want freedom from personal responsibility.
"[Rape and incest are] a result of a bad personal decision."
Really? So the victim is at fault, huh?
So Marshall, killing 1-3% of innocent babies is OK?
I am a Christian.
I support a woman's right to choose.
The incarnate Christ who reigns in heaven is greater than Islamic/Christian fundamentalist, casuistic, industrial, patriarchal control of the womb.
Jim,
"So Marshall, killing 1-3% of innocent babies is OK?"
Of course not. Why would you even ask such a silly question?
Feodor,
"The incarnate Christ who reigns in heaven is greater than Islamic/Christian fundamentalist, casuistic, industrial, patriarchal control of the womb."
And He's greater than so much more. So what? Is this some kind of pass for the killing of one's own child before it sees the light of day? He's greater than matriarchal control of the womb as well.
"I am a Christian.
I support a woman's right to choose."
I support every person's "right" to choose. But not to choose murdering children, ripping them to shreds, burning the crap out of them with whatever solutions, denying their God-given right to life.
Everyone has a "right" to choose. But that "right" is superceded by their obligation to choose wisely, especially in manner that will bring no harm to children.
It is a poor and exceedingly sorry Christian who would support a woman's "right" to choose to terminate the life of a child simply because it grows within her, as if that location gives her absolute sovereignty over that life. It doesn't, and any Christian worth his salt knows it.
Feodor,
I am a Christian.
I support a baby's right to life.
I also support a woman's right to choose. She can choose to keep her pants on and her legs together. She can choose not to have sex if she doesn't want a baby. And she can also choose to live with the consequences of bad decisions, such as the decision not to do any of the above.
But when she chooses to destroy another human life simply because she doesn't want to live with the consequences of such bad decisions, she no longer has that right because it infringes on the baby's right to life.
Jim,
""[Rape and incest are] a result of a bad personal decision."
Really? So the victim is at fault, huh?"
No, Jim, the victim is not at fault, although it could be argued that in the case of incest, there is no victim. Some incestuous relationships are consensual.
But, the baby is not the criminal in any case. Why would you want to execute the baby for crimes committed against it's mother by a third party?
That's just illogical and stupid. You're just stupid.
I am a Christian.
I support a woman's right to choose.
I believe in the living incarnate Christ, born of a virgin - who conceived in her womb without benefit of fertilization by a male gamete, but later "bore a son."
I do not believe that a fetus is a human being.
You can believe the moon is made of green cheese, Idiot. It doesn't make it true.
Medical science has determined that life begins at conception. There is no longer any doubt about that.
The "fetus" is a human baby at the instant of conception. It is established medical science.
I can't believe you've resurrected that old fallacious argument.
Well, I guess when you have no logical argument you have to fall back on long since refuted falsehoods.
For the sake of your own pride, you continue to argue in vain against long established truths. How pathetic you are!
Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18
@Idiot,
1. One cannot believe that the moon is made of cheese because we've been there with instruments that prove otherwise. Your "reasoning" simply shows you don't know what you're talking about when you talk about science.
2. Case in point, "life" comes in many forms. An ant is life. It is not a human being. An embryo is indeed life. An embryo is not a human being; so is a zygote and a fetus. Like the ant, this does not make any of the three a human being. No science says it does. Except the kind that thinks God made fossilized footprints with plywood in order to test your faith.
3. The point of conception - a sperm fertilizing an egg (which, according to scripture, did not happen in the case of Jesus' incarnation) - produces a zygote, Idiot, not a fetus. After cell division, the zygote becomes a embryo, not a fetus, Idiot. This is, boiled down for you, medical science.
4. You should refrain from talking about science until you get your education.
5. The only long established truths around here of which I am aware is your idiocy and Ma's sycophancy toward the Islamo-fundamentalism of 4simp.
Wow! Feodor dares calls someone an idiot and then follows it up with his own idiocy! Incredible how he shows up to prove his lack of wisdom!
It is true, Mark used a less than accurate term to label the stage of development immediately following conception/fertilization. That's a simple mistake.
But to then say that a HUMAN zygote, or a HUMAN embryo is not a human being is like saying that a toddler is not a human being, or an adolescent is not a human being. Sure, an ant is life, but it is not HUMAN life nor will it ever be. A HUMAN at any stage of its development is still the same human being from start to finish. THAT is what science tells us.
What is more, that is what common sense tells us. Feodor's comments tells us just as plainly that he lacks common sense or wisdom on any level. All those books...
Let's look at his other silly points:
1) Mark's point is that science tells us a new human being is present at the point of fertilization. You can say whatever you want about what a fetus is to your simple mind, but that does not make it true. And science tells us this as plainly as it does that the moon is not made of green cheese.
2) Covered above.
3) "...a sperm fertilizing an egg (which, according to scripture, did not happen in the case of Jesus' incarnation)..."
How do YOU know? Do you know for certain that God did not create a sperm cell to impregnate Mary? Do you know for certain that He did not cause an ovum of hers to fertilize in a manner that would equate to being fertilized by sperm? Scripture only tells us that Mary did not lie with a human being to conceive. It does nothing to explain the biology of her conception other than to say that God caused her to be pregnant. You speculate in a totally biased manner. What's more, what God does in His infinite power, glory and wisdom has nothing to do with how we deal with each other, which, according to His will would preclude people destroying their own children before they have left the womb as if they were not human beings. Only Nazis and Klan members treat other people as if they were less than human for superficial reasons such as race, ethnicity or size/age.
4) Take your own advice here.
5) Those are "truths" you've invented in order to feel superior. Whatever you need to do to make yourself feel so or to sleep better at night, why, you just go right ahead, little feo. We'll play along for...oops!...time's up!
Fartshall,
1. Remove a zygote from the womb and you will not have a human being. Remove an embryo from the womb and you will not have a human being. Remove a fetus from the womb and you will not have a human being.
2. Your idiocy is uncovered above.
3. Jesus Christ is incarnate from the virgin Mary, not from God. Christ is one with the Father from God, not from Mary. Any simple Christian knows this.
4. Only Nazis and Klan members treat other people as if they were less than human for superficial reasons such as race, ethnicity or size/age, sexual orientation, gender, physical limitations, illness, economic status, creed.
Totally agree. But you don't, do you?
5. Feeling superior is not something that takes any effort here. For me it's like grace: tt comes free and unbidden. Why do you think I visit?
Errata: "Remove a fetus from the womb and you will not have a human being." Should be read, "Remove a fetus too early from the womb and you will not have a human being."
Feo,
If you're trying to confirm my opinion regarding you lack of wisdom and overall stupidity, you're doing a great job.
1) Remove a zygote from the womb and you will have a human being still in its zygote stage of development. Just because it doesn't look like your average voter, doesn't mean it isn't a human being.
2) You haven't proven that in the least. Not doing too well making defending yourself from the charge, though.
3) Duh! What's your point? I haven't stated anything that conflicts with this. I only spoke to your arrogant presumption that you know the details and mechanics of how God brought about Mary's pregnancy.
4) "Only Nazis and Klan members treat other people as if they were less than human for superficial reasons such as race, ethnicity or size/age, sexual orientation, gender, physical limitations, illness, economic status, creed.
Totally agree. But you don't, do you?"
But you DON'T agree. You treat the unborn as not even being a human being simply for the stage of development through which it happens to be passing. I don't. I know it's still a person as it passes through those stages. So, like the Klan, who considers black people less than human because of their color, you consider the unborn as less than human because of their size/age. Totally apples to apples.
Yet, I don't disregard anyone's humanity. Like the average person with more wisdom than yourself, I can distinguish between, for example, a person's orientation, which doesn't preclude them from humanity, and their behavior, which doesn't necessarily deserve tolerance simply because it springs from orientation.
I'd say, "nice try", but I'd be lying. That was lame.
5) "Feeling superior is not something that takes any effort here."
No shit. It's called pride, arrogance, and what little Alan calls, "jackassery". It comes natural to you and has been manifest from your first appearance. It is totally unjustified except in your own fevered imaginings. No one here is intimidated by condescension from assholes. Try as you might.
"Why do you think I visit?"
To display your stupidity while you posture as wise? That would mean you like to entertain, play the fool (I know--you're not playing). Perhaps it's masochism. Something about being exposed as such a fraud excites you. Other than that, it must be for the education. No one you know has more than shit for brains, so you come here. Well, I'm here for you, boy.
I believe life begins at conception. Let me be clear about that.
However, I am totally opposed to threatening and killing abortion providers.
There is a Nebraska Bill LB232 by Sen. Mark Christensen that includes a justifiable homocide clause in defense of a fetus. Raw Story reports: "It would allow any third party the chance to use self-defense as a legal justification for killing someone believed to be threatening the life of a fetus. Although it may not have been Christensen's intent, critics fear that the language could make way for legalized killings of abortion doctors, who are already frequent targets of death threats from anti-abortion activists."
What is human about a zygote? Anyone?
If it is the simple math of 1. a spermatically fertilized 2. ovum, then Jesus is not a human being. And if it is simple math, then my sperm are all half human. Remove my sperm from my testicles and, according to your "science," we still have half a human being. Every woman's period flushes half a human being away. Why does God do this, go about killing half human beings as a matter of biologic course.
Though your mathematical reduction of science does explain why it is a sin to spill your seed. As a Christian, you don't masturbate, do you, Marshall?
Scripture is clear about this.
I know some pretty smart people, Fartshall, don't kid yourself. They have the decals on their back windshield to prove it.
A third party to use self-defense. A third party that is a "self."
Yep, you guys are too smart for the sciences all right. What kind of math uses language that is not conscious of a distinction between force used by a third party from force used by the first party?
I'm going to use some self-defense right now and declare that you, Fartshall, are a dangerous threat to the intelligence of all eight people who stop by here and I'm going to stop it. Like I've done today.
OK, Genius. Why don't you educate us? Tell us, at what point in gestation does a zygote become an embryo? At what point does an embryo become a fetus? At what point does an embryo become a baby? And most importantly, at what point during gestation does any of these become human?
If you don't know, and you don't, stop being so stupid.
Your arrogance is only surpassed by your enormous ego.
"Why don't you educate us?"
Because, Idiot, you are not teachable. Plus, you're not willing to pay.
Regarding the second reason, I'd offer a sliding scale, but then we're back to the first reason: you're not teachable.
To be teachable, one has to have an open mind and heart and a humility on approach. You lack all three qualifiers and two of the three nominatives. What you do have is approach. Not enough.
Marshall, on the other hand, has all the rest but does not have approach, so they lie dormant. In fact. they have lain dormant so long they are atrophied.
4simp has none of the qualifiers and none of the nominatives. So, Mark, you're one ahead of him.
Regarding killing 1-3% of innocent babies, Marshall said, "Of course not. Why would you even ask such a silly question?"
Because you said it is OK to kill them to save the life of the mother. So it's OK to kill some innocent babies but not others. It's like being partly pregnant.
Hey Marshall,
I just read over at Geoffrey's that you're about to become a Grandpa. Congratulations!!! Is this your first? You're world is about to change for the better. Nothing better in life than grandkids! My daughter is due next week. Her daughter will be my fourth. Two girls, two boys.
Marty,
Thank you so very much! Actually, she's my step-daughter, my wife's first. I've been in her life since she was three and we're quite close. We are overjoyed at the prospect, none so much as my wife, who has been pining to be a Granny since the girl first got married.
As for you, congratulations once again! Yours beats ours by about a week. Here's to both being healthy and happy!
Jim,
I didn't say it was "OK" to kill the child if the pregnancy threatened the mother's life. To pretend that this particular situation is in any way similar to all the others, however, is ludicrous. I would hope most in this situation would put it in God's hands and take a chance on life, but I wouldn't presume to speak for any woman who fears death to have to face it without any say in the matter. Where the pro-aborts squawk about telling a woman what to do with her body, this is the only true case where the woman is in that position.
Also, to look at the situation from another perspective, if only those three cases, rape, incest and the life of the mother, were considered by all on both sides of the debate to be the most extreme, I would consider it tragic that children are still put to death, but would give thanks to God that the other 97% are finally protected. Not ideal, but a far cry better than what exists now.
"What is human about a zygote?"
Stupid question from an equally stupid source. The question is, "What is human about a HUMAN zygote?" The first answer, and one that any biology student would know is, DNA. It is absolutely human DNA that is unique to the given zygote in question. Since it is human DNA, it has all the info it needs to develop into a full grown voter.
"If it is the simple math of 1. a spermatically fertilized 2. ovum, then Jesus is not a human being."
You are making assumptions of which you are not the least bit qualified to make. You have no idea of the details of Jesus' human conception. What's more, it means nothing that Jesus came to be in a manner no other human being did. It is irrelevant to the extreme.
"And if it is simple math, then my sperm are all half human."
When do we get to see this supposed intelligence you claim to possess in such abundance? Jerk yourself a soda and get back to me when one of your sperm cells grows up to be half a human being. No one in their right mind (which excuses you) pretends that a human exists BEFORE the sperm fertilizes the ovum. It is at that moment when a new human being is conceived (hence the term). Conversely, a human must be conceived via the process of the fertilization of the ovum.
"Every woman's period flushes half a human being away."
No. It doesn't. It flushes out an unfertilized ovum, not a human being, half or whole.
"Though your mathematical reduction of science does explain why it is a sin to spill your seed."
Not because it's "half a human being", you twit.
"I know some pretty smart people..."
So you tell yourself. If that's true, it's too bad it isn't contagious. You could use it.
"What kind of math uses language that is not conscious of a distinction between force used by a third party from force used by the first party?"
From Wikipedia (because it's just so convenient):
The right of self-defense (according to U.S. law) (also called, when it applies to the defense of another, alter ego defense, defense of others, defense of a third person) is the right for civilians acting on their own behalf to engage in violence for the sake of defending one's own life or the lives of others, including the use of deadly force.
Boy, you're stupid.
"I'm going to use some self-defense right now and declare that you, Fartshall, are a dangerous threat to the intelligence of all eight people who stop by here and I'm going to stop it. Like I've done today."
You've done nothing but provided entertainment as you try to convince us that you're intelligent. You've got to do quite a bit better to prove you're the intellectual giant you tell that guy in the mirror you are. No doubt he's the only one who believes you. He's an idiot, too.
Marty,
Regarding the Nebraska law, Geoffrey posted a similar story about a similar law in S. Dakota (I think it was). When I reviewed the bill, it spoke of illegal activity only. Abortion, sadly, is legal. To kill a legalized baby-killer would not qualify under the S. Dakota law. I'm guessing the Nebraska deal is the same thing. If so, and in that case, anyone who tried to use the law to justify killing a legalized baby-killing abortionist would be tried for murder. Strange world we live in, isn't it?
Feo:
HA! You can't answer the questions, because you don't know the answers.
Score one for the pro-lifers.
Since you don't know the precise moment your "fetus" becomes a human baby, you have no right running around supporting the murder of pre-born human beings.
Give it up, Feo. You know you're wrong. You're just too arrogant and narcissistic to admit it openly.
Fartshall, and Marty,
I do appreciate the new thing you taught me regarding "self-defense." I did not know that the doctrine of defense of others is included in the legal concept of self-defense. Thanks.
I also appreciate, MA, your giving the obvious and scientific answer to what defines the human: DNA. But I'd ask you to think again, and this time from a better Christian perspective.
DNA is simply the sequencing of nucleotides that operate as the instruction manual for the development and maintenance of a species. As such, DNA chains are somewhat prone to change. This change can tend toward evolutionary adaptations that serve as a benefit in a given environment. So, in this case, what is now human as we understand it, once was not. And, in the future, will be something else entirely new.
The other kind of change that can occur is deficient. A breakdown or mutative dysfunction can occur. In these cases as well, the DNA sequencing is not normatively human. Millions of human persons do not have the requisite DNA that the rest of us have and that you think makes a human being. They are different. But no less human.
Additionally, rather than a deficiency, a normative sequencing for other kinds of species very closely parallels ours. Some up to 93% to 95%. So, if those species have almost the same exact DNA chain sequencing as human beings, shouldn't they be considered 93% to 95% human? After all, Marshall, in your words what makes us human is DNA. Some humans and some Apes are just a little off the normative human DNA sequencing. From your definition, nothing distinguishes them: they are both either really close to be being human or neither can be.
You clearly do not get the implications of your answer. For my sperm is 50% of the DNA needed for a human being. Without that 50%, no human being is possible. So, my sperm should be dearly protected if God is so heavily invested in DNA as to make that the complete and absolute condition for being human.
For Mark, I'll say simply that a human being is finally made when he or she is perfected as the creation which God intended. Until that day, no one is fully a human being.
But, legally, I agree that a fetus is not a human being until it can live independently of the womb. Only then.
Oh, and if Jesus was conceived by a process of God making sperm, then he was not immaculately conceived AND there was an incarnation (an enfleshment) of God that preceded Jesus: the sperm.
And that scenario is blasphemy. Of which I am sure you are now reminded.
Feodor: "Fartshall, and Marty,
I do appreciate the new thing you taught me regarding "self-defense."
I do hope you understand that I oppose that Nebraska bill. I thought I made that clear.
Feodor,
I don't know what you're trying to achieve with your last bit of ramblings, but the suggestion that some humans don't possess the necessary DNA to be human is pretty stupid. Either they are human or they are not. Aside from yourself, find a human who is not a human. Go ahead. I dare you. I'll wait here.
No ape has ever been found to be simply a hairy human with thumbs on his feet. An ape is an ape and its DNA is only of an ape's kind. In the same way, a human being is never an ape and always a human because of its DNA. Nothing YOU'VE said changes that simple fact of life. Similarities between various creatures are only that---similarities. To suggest it means anything more without some evidence to support it is BS evolutionary guess work so common to so-called progressive Christians and secular people alike. The relative quantity of similarity, even 99% similar, would still mean the other species is non-human because of that missing 1% which no offspring of that species will ever possess.
"Some humans and some Apes are just a little off the normative human DNA sequencing. From your definition, nothing distinguishes them: they are both either really close to be being human or neither can be."
My definition says nothing of the kind. Mine says that humans have human DNA, DNA that makes them human beings, distinct from the mothers that bore them, making them individual human beings not part of the mothers that bore them. Humans that are "a little off the normative human DNA sequencing" lack nothing that makes them human. Otherwise they wouldn't be human, nor would they have been conceived of human parents. A male and a female joining in intercourse has never produced anything but another human.
Indeed, my last comment on the subject, that provoked the above quotes, lacked that secondary aspect. I provided a "first answer" to the question of what makes a human zygote a human being. The second answer is just that, that the human zygote is the result of a male and female coming together in intercourse. It is the result of the activity designed by God for the purpose of producing another human being. It cannot be anything but a human being in it's earliest stage of development.
And once again,
"After all, Marshall, in your words what makes us human is DNA."
...is not what I said. I said what makes us human is human DNA, together with the fact that we are each a product of the function God designed to provide for new human beings.
"For my sperm is 50% of the DNA needed for a human being."
All sperm is always half of what is needed to create a new human being. It can never create a new human being without the other necessary ingredients---the rest of the DNA from the mother. The point at which the 50% from joins with the 50% of the other is the point at which a new human being exists. It's that simple. Trying to suggest sperm is half as important as a whole zygote, embryo, fetus, baby, toddler, adolescent, teenager, adult, old dude, is incredibly stupid excuse for logic, being that it isn't logic at all. What it is is merely a pathetically bullshit argument to support the killing of the unborn.
"So, my sperm should be dearly protected if God is so heavily invested in DNA as to make that the complete and absolute condition for being human."
YOUR sperm should be destroyed at all costs. But there are some Christians who believe that sperm should not be spilled without the intention of procreation, or the expectation of it, or the willingness to let God decide if any of them will fertilize the wife's ovum. I don't know how they support that belief Biblically, but I respect that devotion. It actually sounds proper to me, though I haven't looked deeply enough at the topic to have formed an opinion.
"But, legally, I agree that a fetus is not a human being until it can live independently of the womb."
So "legal" has more weight to you than "moral" or "righteous"? Slavery used to be legal. Legal isn't as important as "moral" or "righteous". It also seems as if "legal" is more important to you that clear science that states a new human being is present at conception. You could not be more subjective and selfish in your belief regarding this issue.
"Oh, and if Jesus was conceived by a process of God making sperm, then he was not immaculately conceived AND there was an incarnation (an enfleshment) of God that preceded Jesus: the sperm."
First of all, "immaculate conception" refers to Mary, that she was born without the stain of original sin. "Incarnation" refers to God becoming flesh, that is, Jesus. There is no mention of anything other than the fact that He was born of a virgin. But that is only meaning that no human impregnated her. God did that. The means by which He accomplished that miracle is never explained. The details and how He affected her biology to accomplish this fantastic miracle are not given to us. There is no blasphemy in speculating that He might have miraculously provided that other 50% (which made Jesus a male---can't get a male without a male donor). Whether He created a little holy sperm cell or simply planted the other 50% of the necessary DNA in Mary's ovum is not info that we have. For all we know, He didn't use either and just put in a zygote that then went and did what zygotes do when not experiencing interference by the mother or her paid baby assassin.
Thus, you've merely made up some crap that you can use to suggest I might be blaspheming.
Marty,
I provide this link both because it was very easy to find and copy and paste, and because I think it'll hack off Alan if he reads my blog and finds I've copied and pasted something, but not what he demanded of me.
But it is the Nebraska bill to which you refer and I see no issue with it anymore than I did with the S. Dakota bill of which Geoffrey spoke. They are two of a kind and each are quite specific in their own way. This one stipulates lethal force must be used only after other actions are exhausted. What it lacks that the other had is a reference to illegal activity on the part of the perpetrator seeking to cause the miscarriage.
But this is how it would work. Your daughter is expecting. Suppose she had a secret admirer/stalker who resented her having been impregnated by another man (in this case, her husband). He breaks in, or catches her in public and begins to attack her in a manner that would kill the baby inside her without killing her (this is hypothetical---work with me). She begs the guy to reconsider, to stop and leave her alone, but he won't listen and moves on her aggressively. He's too big for her to fight off, especially in her pregnant condition, and too fast to outrun. Fortunately, she has her trusty Glock 9mm in her pocket and shoots the dude in the head. In some states she has just committed a serious crime, and indeed, a similar scenario actually played out in another state and the bill's author hoped to prevent that in his state. (The woman got off)
To carry on, suppose she was tied down and the attacker is about to do his evil deed when your son-in-law walks in with only seconds to fire on the dude with his sub-machine gun (or whatever). Under this bill, he would not be charged, but his actions would be considered justifiable, that the child was worthy of such extreme measures to protect it.
If the bill's language suggested some kind of illegal assault on the unborn is necessary to be protected under it, the bill would be perfect as it would not protect anyone who killed a certified baby-killer for hire, known as an abortion doctor, performing his evil under the legalized procedures that allow it.
Those who squawk about the bill being used to justify killing such heinous practitioners care nothing about human life and are just trying to prevent anything that might lead to a reversal of the most pathetic SCOTUS decision mankind has ever known.
In other words, Marty, to oppose the bill is to oppose your daughter's and her husband's right to defend the life growing within her.
"In other words, Marty, to oppose the bill is to oppose your daughter's and her husband's right to defend the life growing within her."
What nonsense! You hypothetical is ridiculous. And there is no way under existing law that Marty's daughter or her husband would not be justified in using deadly force against the hypothetical perpetrator REGARDLESS of his motive or target. He is clearly committing illegal entry, assault and battery, perhaps kidnapping-all whether Marty's daughter is pregnant or not. Deadly force is obviously justified.
Therefore, this bill in completely unnecessary unless there is another agenda involved, which there obviously is.
BTW. Are you watching "V" or something?
Fartshall,
Only white people talk so glibly about slavery as if it's a metaphor. This includes the march toward gay rights - gay white people often claim the mantle of the "civil rights struggle," and black folks generally, and gay black folks specifically, are offended by this.
You, too, are appropriating the black experience without understanding.
What I recommend as "legal" is what I find to be just given the historical context of the present and its limitations. With more information, or more technical power, things can change. The law cannot change in a free, democratic society because certain faith claims demand it. Christ did not ask the Roman occupation to end by political means. He preached love and tolerance, trusting that peoples can witness the truth of love and come to the love of truth.
You, and all witless conservatives, would make a truer witness if your protestations to love the fetus, to love the embryo, and to love the zygote, were preceded by a show of greater love for those already living but who are born in an unjust society that does not ensure standard norms of health insurance, developmental experiences, and educational access necessary before he or she are evaluated as what kind of mind, what kind of talent, what kind of personal discipline they may possess.
Don’t tell me you understand the plight of the descendants of slavery - much less love them - until you demonstrate you love them enough to relieve the legacies of slavery that keep poor children in poverty regardless of their will power.
____________
As for the immaculate conception, the theological term was applied to the second person of the Trinity in the few centuries before the concept of the Trinity was established by the time of Chalcedon. It was later transferred to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
___________
Lastly, that very same Orthodox settlement as to the nature of Christ stipulates that Jesus' divine nature is one with the Father, as he himself says. Among other things, this means that the Son is uncreated. So, on God’s side of the conception partnership with Mary, one cannot say that God “created a little holy sperm cell or simply planted the other 50% of the necessary DNA in Mary's ovum..." or that even that God "just put in a zygote."
Not without proposing blaspheming unorthodoxy – or being a liberal Christian.
Jim,
I was only explaining to Marty the reasoning behind the bill. The idea for it was provoked by an actual event that is similar to the hypothetical. The woman was arrested and convicted, but later it was overturned. This bill seeks to prevent such episodes on behalf of the mother or any third party that would engage the attacker set on causing harm to the unborn against the wishes of the mother. Like feodor, many people do not consider that unborn child to be a person endowed by its Creator with the right to life. The charges against such perpetrators would not then rise to the level of homicide if the unborn isn't specifically granted what it is: the right to be considered a person like you and me.
As to the mother, or protector of the mother, an argument would have to be made that gives them justification for the level of force used for said protection. If the attacker were merely punching the mother in the stomach in hopes of killing the child within, one would have to prove the mother's life was at risk in order to justify lethal force.
Feodor,
"Only white people talk so glibly about slavery as if it's a metaphor."
Not true at all. Rational, reasonable people with common sense that can easily see the similarity between denigrating another based on color, or ethnicity or size and age can then justifiably use slavery as an analogy to illustrate what others like yourself, who lack those attributes, or more precisely, dispense with them in order to serve their selfish agendas, are doing with their lame arguments in favor of treating these innocents as less than human.
I have full understanding of the ramifications of such an analogy. It is apt and perfectly applied to the case of abortion because it is doing the exact same thing, without question.
"The law cannot change in a free, democratic society because certain faith claims demand it."
Faith claims are entirely unnecessary to support changes in this law. And I give you this: I am not on my game supposing you to be truly a man of God as your appeal to legalism over morality now shows. Science alone is enough to support my position as it is totally aligned with the opinion (not to mention fact) that from the point of conception, a new person exists.
"He preached love and tolerance, trusting that peoples can witness the truth of love and come to the love of truth."
Nice try (not really). Jesus would never tolerate those who pretend such a thing as what passes for justifications the abortionists use. He certainly wouldn't tolerate the justifications themselves, as He was too honest to pretend they possessed any merit. Funny how you lefties always default to pleas for love and tolerance in defending sinfulness.
"You, and all witless conservatives, would make a truer witness...etc..."
Now you're really scraping the bottom of the bog. You ascribe the plight of all who suffer to conservatives? You pretend that one must ignore the fate of 1 million unborn Americans per year to address ills that are the result of liberal thought as much as anything else (mostly the result of liberal thought)? What a line of crap!
"Don’t tell me you understand the plight of the descendants of slavery - much less love them - until you demonstrate you love them enough to relieve the legacies of slavery that keep poor children in poverty regardless of their will power."
Frankly, I support the philosophies and political candidates that would do that very thing if not for the opposition of buffoons like yourself and the rest of the leftist company of clowns. Your support of these descendants is the real lie and proof that it is YOU who lacks understanding.
"Lastly, that very same Orthodox settlement as to the nature of Christ stipulates that Jesus' divine nature is one with the Father, as he himself says."
I've not rejected that concept in any way, shape or form, despite your wanting it to be so. I've merely stated, factually, that you have no idea of the methods employed by God to make His miracles happen. You are making shit up in a poor attempt to prove you possess understanding.
"So, on God’s side of the conception partnership with Mary, one cannot say that God “created a little holy sperm cell or simply planted the other 50% of the necessary DNA in Mary's ovum..." or that even that God "just put in a zygote.""
One can speculate anything with regards to just how God made a miracle happen. As Mary experienced a full pregnancy, it is easy to see that Jesus wasn't a fully formed adult within the womb. There's no verse that indicates she was showing from the moment of conception. There's nothing to suggest that Jesus was a fully formed baby, only microscopic at first and then slowly growing until birth. We have no way to know just how God does what He does. You like to pretend you know what is or isn't true about that which we have no knowledge whatsoever.
Jim: "Therefore, this bill in completely unnecessary unless there is another agenda involved, which there obviously is."
I agree.
D'oh! Came back to read the thread and accidentally deleted my comment. I think it was something like, "Too bad so many "Christians" (the fake kind) and Christians (the seriously confused kind) support legalized abortion."
""a Christian cannot support legalized abortion"
Rape? Incest? Save the life of the mother?"
Saving the life of the mother is a given, as it is consistent with the pro-life ethic. I know "few" pro-lifers and none object to that. But that is less than 1% of the cases.
Re. rape & incest -- abortion often hides the crimes -- and Planned Parenthood will gladly take your tax dollars to help hide them!
And if you think the death penalty is just for the completely innocent offspring of a rapist, you must be super-duper-pro-capital punishment for rapists.
"I support a woman's right to choose."
I typically ignore Feodor but couldn't resist that pro-murder bumper sticker slogan. Looks like Feo is bad at finishing his sentences, so I'll do it for him. He supports a woman's right to crush and dismember an innocent but unwanted human being -- even another female!
And, uh, what about the choice of the female in the womb -- if you chop her up then aren't you taking away her right to grow up and have an abortion? Oh, the circularity of pro-abortion arguments.
"The incarnate Christ who reigns in heaven is greater than Islamic/Christian fundamentalist, casuistic, industrial, patriarchal control of the womb."
That same Christ said not to shed innocent blood and to protect the weak. And what horrible faux feminist philosophy to rationalize death.
"Remove a zygote from the womb and you will not have a human being. Remove an embryo from the womb and you will not have a human being. Remove a fetus from the womb and you will not have a human being."
Sorry, couldn't resist one more. Now I see where some people get the "Christians are anti-science" meme from -- people like Feo.
The unborn are unique, living human beings from conception. That is a scientific fact. This is a link that all pro-lifers should save -- http://tinyurl.com/yfje8lq . It lists all sorts of quotes, including those of mainstream embryology textbooks. Pro-aborts like Feo ignore science AND common sense.
Beings reproduce after their own kind. What else would two humans create?
This is simple: Human zygote, human fetus, human baby, human teen, etc. Human beings at a particular stage of development.
If you remove an embryo from a womb you'll have a human being. A dead human being, which is exactly what Feo & Co. don't mind.
Now I remember why I ignore him! And so sad that I won't be back to read his ad hom replies. Sorry, Marshall, he's all yours!
"Now I see where some people get the "Christians are anti-science" meme from.."
haha.. says the guy leading the charge against the big bang.
Who says Neil disputes the big bang theory? I saw a great bumper sticker that says something like,
"I believe in the Big Bang Theory. God spoke and BANG! the universe began!"
.. and the universe is 6,000 years old.
BANG!
Oh. So you believe people who have never been shown to be perfect. You have absolute faith that some in the appropriate field of science state categorically that they can tell what happened 6000 years ago (or 100 x that), without any possibility that they could be flat out wrong. That instruments invented by imperfect human beings less than 100 years ago are accurate in determining what happened before there were any humans around to witness the events. That they are bound by the limitations of their instruments and human abilities has no impact on your certainty regarding the age of the earth or universe. I see. Talk about blind faith!
My dear sweet Marshall...
Science thinks the universe is slightly more than 6k. I'm pretty sure there is consensus on that one.
When Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa chime in with:
"Now I see where some people get the "Christians are anti-science" meme from.."
4Simpsons and yourself are anti-science, at least in the "where did everything come from" debate. That may be okay for you. Just don't act surprised when you get called out for it. Its not a bad thing.
How's that hike going for you?
Consensus does not equal fact or truth. Consensus is a group of people seeing things the same way. When this group of people can recreate a universe, I'll be more impressed with them. Until then, they are just people who have made their best guess. I don't spend a lot of time on the subject of the universe's origin or age. What good does it do? I believe in a God for Whom all things are possible, including creating everything in an instant, while to imperfect humans with imperfect inventions it may look as if it took a gazillion years. You're free to believe what you like. You're also free to pretend you're more sophisticated for that belief, despite how untrue that is. I don't much care. Your beliefs, should you ever risk stating one, are of no great importance to me, especially hidden away within your witless mind.
4simp whines his willful ignorance and then departs, unable or unwilling to wait for reality (he reminds me so much of people who suffered sexual abuse at an early age):
4simp: "What else would two humans create?
A: Depends upon when you ask.
4simp: "If you remove an embryo from a womb you'll have a human being."
A: No, you'll have a human embryo. If you remove a foot, you'll have a human foot. Not a human being.
4simp: "This is simple: Human zygote, human fetus, human baby, human teen, etc. Human beings at a particular stage of development. "
A: Apparently not simple enough. A fertilized egg is not a being. It is a fertilized egg. A zygote is not a being. An embryo is not a being. A human being can exist independently of another body, meaning, namely, a being can breath. And very quickly, it can eat, open its eyes, remember, and call out for attention and alarm. In other words it has to have the rudimentary apparatus for being sentient.
4simp barely qualifies. He may have to look up sentient.
M.A., Feodor explained his problem. He was removed from the womb too early. mom2
"4simp whines his willful ignorance and then departs, unable or unwilling to wait for reality"
If we wait for you to bring a sample, we'll die of old age. You haven't brought any here.
"4simp: "What else would two humans create?
A: Depends upon when you ask."
Unless this is supposed to be another failed attempt at cleverness, it's a pretty stupid reply. Obviously, the question refers to the likely consequence of intercourse. It can only create another human being because that's the purpose of the act.
"4simp: "If you remove an embryo from a womb you'll have a human being."
A: No, you'll have a human embryo. If you remove a foot, you'll have a human foot. Not a human being."
A human embryo is a human being. A foot, human or otherwise, is not. That an embryo wouldn't survive outside the womb is only due to having it's natural progression disrupted. It isn't meant to be outside the womb. God didn't create it to do so.
"A fertilized egg is not a being."
But a fertilized human ovum is a human being. So is a human zygote and embryo. They are all various stages of every human being's development.
"A human being can exist independently of another body, meaning, namely, a being can breath."
Fish breathe, plants breathe, microscopic organisms breathe. Breathing is the utilization of oxygen for life, and a single cell uses oxygen. It breathes. It just doesn't do it by the expansion and contraction of lungs. So what? Is that YOUR idiotic line of demarcation for granting personhood to another human being, as if you have the right to make such decisions?
"In other words it has to have the rudimentary apparatus for being sentient."
A selfishly subjective opinion not shared by science. A perfectly natural one for a false priest, however.
"Fish breathe, plants breathe, microscopic organisms breathe."
Exactly. A breathing fish is a being. A fish being.
Plants have respiration to count on.
What microscopic organisms do you have in mind, Fartshall, that you thin breathe?
What, in God's name, do you know about science? The kind that faith filters through belief or the kind that builds on observed data and scientific laws?
I'd find it funny the way you talk about science... except that we seem to have a deep run on anti-intellectualism among popular buffoons and rednecks - your swimming pool - that is drowning US.
I'm very glad to see mom2 agree with my reasoning.
If you weren't so intent on pretending you're intelligent and smarter than I am, you would have seen that I equate breathing with the mere processing of oxygen for life. Not all micro-organisms need oxygen, but many, if not most do. We breathe to supply it to each cell in our bodies. But each cell and most micro-organisms require oxygen for life.
But you, in your quest to justify the killing of the unborn, want to pretend that a functioning diaphragm and pulmonary system is required in order for one to be considered a human being, or a being of any kind. Why not skin color, you bigot.
I take that back. You're worse than a bigot. Blacks were once considered 3/5 of a person for reasons of representation. You don't even give that to the unborn. That's true scum of earth stuff, you false priest.
Science? I know science is the best understanding we have of God's creation and how it works. It is not the basis for morality and the respect of human life. You have set yourself up as a god to believe you have the right to determine when one is a person/human being and when one isn't. You, of all people with whom I've had the pleasure to converse on the internet, are the least worthy of such sovereignty. You are the Pharisee who thanked God for not making you like the rest of us.
You dare question how others regard science when you use nothing of science to prove the beginning of life, but only subjectively pick and choose what you believe makes for a good starting point other than that which is the true starting point: conception. Science backs Neil and myself perfectly on that. YOU are the true Homer. And Homer is closer to a real human being than you are. You're a poor example of a Christian, a student of science and a worse example of a human being.
BTW, I think Mom2 thinks you're an abortion.
C.S. Lewis said: Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.
I think there are some men who prove this to be true. mom2
Lol.. "Science?"
And the Earth is 6,000 years old.. oh.. and humans are not animals.
I'm saving all my DNA because this is considered a human being.
"I'm saving all my DNA because this is considered a human being."
By whom? No one here has said anything like that. You're hallucinating. (And how DOES one
"save" one's DNA, anyway?)
"And the Earth is 6,000 years old.."
Don't think anyone here has said that either. I know my position is that I don't know how old the earth is and that I don't think science has "proven" it, but only given it's best guess based on the limitations of the human abilities that played a part in the determination. I can live with either age as either age is possible for God. Being the clinical idiot you are, who will LOL at the drop of a hat, you are stuck with whatever science says until they adjust their figures the next time some wise guy with a new telescope and slide rule comes up with a new equation.
"...oh.. and humans are not animals."
We're not. Can't speak for you, though.
mom2 writes no such thing, Marshall. She is agreeing with me by joking that I am no human being because I came out too early.
If you can't even understand mom2, how are you going to understand English, much less logical reasoning?
(By the way, I love how mom2 quotes an Oxford don on learning. I would imagine she couldn't find Oxford on a map, much less comprehend Chrétien de Troyes, Bernard Silvestris and Alain de Lille.)
Nonetheless, Fartshall, your unwise leap, "I equate breathing with the mere processing of oxygen for life," would bring rust in under the definition of life and kill off the life of obligate anaerobes.
So, that's a no go.
And remember, the password of the day was "being," not life. A being is prepared to breathe through the mouth, eat through the mouth, eliminate waste by itself, and store its own sensuous memories.
Lastly, the inhumanity is yours, for making a moral equivalency between (how many?) living, walking, breathing, creating, inventing black people to fertilized eggs.
Tell me again, you post-racial racist, how did it happen that white Europeans justify chattel slavery? By beginning with similar exploitative taxonomy.
It's interesting how Liberals draw science like a gun. If science seems to support their arguments, as when scientists speculate the world is billions of years old, they are quick to point that out, but when science says life begins at conception, they reject that because it doesn't support their arguments.
Another interesting thing about that:
The big bang/billions year old earth theory is just that. A theory. Can't be proven one way or another. When human life begins is established scientific fact. Their is no dispute among scientists about that.
C.S. Lewis, September 23, 1944:
Do I agree that the theory of evolution, its truth or falsehood, is of fundamental importance to the Christian faith? This question can have several senses, in some of which the answer yes would most seriously misrepresent my position. I believe that Man has fallen from the state of innocence in which he was created: I therefore disbelieve in any theory which contradicts this. It is not yet obvious to me that all theories of evolution do contradict it. When they do not, it is not my business to pronounce on their truth or falsehood. My 'message' on any biological theorem which does not contradict (or which I, with my imperfect process of reasoning, do not perceive to contradict) the Creed, is not 'equivocal' but non-existent: just as my message about the curvature of space is not equivocal but non-existent. Just as my belief in my own immortal & rational soul does not oblige or qualify me to hold a particular theory of the pre-natal history of my embryo, so my belief that Men in general have immortal and rational souls does not oblige or qualify me to hold a theory of their pre-human organic historyóif they have one."
And December 9, 1944: "Thanks for your interesting letter of the 8th. I can't have made my position clear. I am not either attacking or defending Evolution. I believe that Christianity can still be believed, even if Evolution is true. This is where you and I differ. Thinking as I do, I can't help regarding your advice (that I henceforth include arguments against Evolution in all my Christian apologetics) as a temptation to fight the battle on what is really a false issue: and also on terrain very unsuitable for the only weapon I have. Atheism is as old as Epicurus, and very few polytheists regard their gods as creative.
Exactly where, Mark, does your "science" come from? Huckabee?
Science worth its name would never claim to provide "proof" of anything. Since real science understands that we are always interpreting data with limited minds and limited instruments, the best we can do about anything at all, is a theory. A theory is 1. the best logical argument we can make about causal relations and 2. which are developed from mountains of observational data available and present to anyone else looking into the matter and 3. consistent over time.
No such theory is agreed upon by scientists regarding human beinghood. That is why our laws are written the way they are.
Feodor, don't worry about how much education I have. All the education that you can acquire will not save you. The truth will set you free and that truth is found in Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, the life! mom2
"By whom? No one here has said anything like that. You're hallucinating.
Really? Sure seems that way. If a human embryo is saved b/c it has potential to be a human being. And considering that one day life will be generated using DNA. In order to save future lives, I'm saving DNA.
"And how DOES one "save" one's DNA, anyway?"
I'm glad you asked. The short answer is... Mostly in plastic bags. I save every hair and skin cell. Its a tough job but somebody has to do it.
The real question is, Why do you support the death of so many people. Save DNA and Save Lives!
"The big bang/billions year old earth theory is just that."
Much like gravity.
Mark, I can sell you some earth boots to keep you firmly attached to our planet. I'll even throw in a tin-foil hat... For FREE!!!
And with his last comment, Parkie confirms my diagnosis that he is a clinical idiot. You may now point and laugh.
Feo,
You seem to demand inclusion, but I think "clinical idiot" isn't quite accurate for you. There's something far more psychotic, far more sociopathic about you.
Mom2 is not agreeing with you in any way, shape or form. She is saying that because you were removed to early, your development was affected. I'll leave it to her to judge which of us is closer to her meaning. Any wagers? I insist and demand that she be perfectly honest and objective in her response, should she decide to weigh in. Ante up, worm. This might be your chance to be right for a change.
Thank you for the CS Lewis quote. It aligns perfectly with my recent response to the dim Parkie, with the exception that he didn't even go as far as me in admitting what he does believe. For sure, he did not give an opinion on whether or not an embryo is a person. All he was saying was that whatever the truth, it does not affect the truth of Christianity. Try paying attention. Drop all the names you want, Feo. You continue to demonstrate your inate inability to understand what you read, no matter how much you do or who writes it. You seem to think that reading a lot of books makes you intelligent or wise. Some day you'll have to demonstrate that for us.
As to that race related remark, you foul bigot, what is inhuman about drawing the accurate and factual parallel between your treatment of people based on their age/size/stage of development, and the treatment of blacks and other minorities by Klan members based on race? You'd have to demonstrate or provide proof that the unborn are not human beings. You can't. You can only parrot the many subjective and self-serving excuses for maintaining the heinous policy of abortion on demand for anyone, at any time, for any reason. In your stupidity and arrogance which you use instead of wisdom and intelligence, you suggest my defense of life is akin to some bigotry against other life. Maybe you ARE a clinical idiot from the same institution as Parkie.
I almost forgot that idiotic comment about rust. As you say, the operative word here is "being". Rust is the result of oxidation, not utilizing oxygen for life, you condescending putz.
And I wasn't omitting life forms that exist in an absence of oxygen. I was commenting on your stupid suggestion that one needs to inhale and exhale in order to be a human being. You may want to consider that the more you concentrate on trying to sound smart, the more you expose how stupid you really are. And hey, as my sparring with Parkie should inform you, I can do this all day. You wanna just put out an argument, or continue to be slapped down? You want cheap grace, you're at the wrong blog.
So. A being is that which exists. It is any living thing. By your definition, you don't qualify because you don't eliminate waste, but retain it, as you are so full of it. Of course, most of your commentary is crap, so I guess you do eliminate some of it in by typing.
You say no consensus exists for the beginning of human life. What embryologist or biologist was consulted for the bullshit Roe v Wade decision? How does he match up with the total body of work on the subject? It's a common sense issue that does not require scientific consensus, despite how it aligns with that common sense. The act of intercourse is by its design, meant to bring about a new human being. The product of that act, when not disrupted, IS a new human being. All other "theories" are invented by those with a self-serving interest in aborting that result. Anyone who calls himself a Christian must be a false one to dispute that obvious fact. Parkie is another story.
M.A., You are the one with the correct interpretation of my remark. I try to use as few words as possible with Feodor, since he has already determined that I am uneducated and illiterate. mom2
"Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love."
This part you know, mom2.
This is the part you do not know:
"If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love."
...
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers..."
So, Feodor, are you trying to provoke me in your "loving" way. It is useless, until you look in the mirror and apply your own words to yourself. mom2
"Drop all the names you want, Feo."
I'm pretty sure I picked Lewis up from the floor where mom2 dropped and left him. Notice how she had nothing to say to defend her blind use of him. She knows not whereof she quotes.
Any demands you make for perfect honesty and objectivity and whatever you think of as perfect alignment wont make it out of the fun house of mirrors you and mom2 live in. So I'd wager she'll lie to save face.
Pay up.
"You seem to think that reading a lot of books makes you intelligent or wise."
You keep saying that and I swear to you I can't imagine what you think you mean. Tell that to a doctor or a lawyer or professor of geology or an electric lineman or a Supreme Court Judge or an accountant or simply a kindergarten student. Even those helicopter "theologians" of yours have read an awful lot. I promise you this much, it can't hurt.
________
Science is on your side? On 4simp's side? Don't drink the Kool Aid too long, Marshall. Your losing touch with reality.
Remember you just claimed that "a fertilized human ovum is a human being. So is a human zygote and embryo. They are all various stages of every human being's development." Can you hear yourself?
Various stages of development indicate that the thing in question has not develpED yet. A thing is only a thing when it is that thing. Not when it is developing toward that thing.
A human being is the finished thing. The thing developing is not yet the the developed thing. That's why we use different nomenclature: zygote, embryo, fetus, person.
Oh, and that's why the law is the way it is: Science.
Being sentient is a category science considers when determining life. It was why "quickening" - seen as a sign of sentience - used to be a marker for when abortion was murder and before which it was not.
Currently it is conceptualized as the ability to feel pain, which, Fartshall, science finds not likely to occur before the third trimester, though the appearance of the thalamus - at 26 weeks - may indicate a slightly earlier marker for pain and suffering.
And if it's science you need, as you obviously do, try, Moore, Keith and Persaud, T. The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, who write that viability has not precise threshold in terms of age, weight, or development.
As for the ability to breath, it seems important to me - in the absence of your readiness to make sense - that the primary cause of death for pre-term babies is the failure of the respiratory system. (That's they system required for breathing, Marshall.)
All of this, to sum up, is a small part of what science tells us as drastically simplified by me for your sake.
And what science tells us is what the law listens to. Which is why the law is what it is.
So, you were saying science is on your side? And on 4simp's side?
_______
"what is inhuman about drawing the accurate and factual parallel between your treatment of people based on their age/size/stage of development, and the treatment of blacks and other minorities by Klan members based on race?"
As I said - I'd think it'd be clear - a fertilized egg is not "people." A zygote is not "people." To compare people who have had flesh whipped off of them, who have had limbs chopped off, who have been chained, sold on the auction block, lynched, stripped of name, home, family, identity... all while alive and breathing, suffering torture and remembering...
to morally equalize such experiences of the living to a fertilized egg is as abhorrent a rhetoric as I can imagine.
And I find it more than curious that you don't reach for an analogy to Jews. Though now, of course, no one can stop you.
mom2,
You are not my neighbor. I don't have to love you. You're the Pharisee (a thought I've mentioned before and I see Fartshall has stolen as if it's his own). You're the Galatian sister that St. Paul had such anger toward; you're the immature apostle who wants to use Jesus' power for human judgment to whom Jesus says, "get behind me, Satan."
See, you're doing it right now.
Feodor, rant on if it makes you happy. I have better things to do than even get upset with you. There is so much in the Bible that I can see you don't believe and I do not want to waste my time. Only the Holy Spirit can change people and I will leave that to Him. I do hope you seek the Truth. mom2
I would like to ask Feodor at what term in the pregnancy he would consider the fetus to be a human and also at what term does he classify as viable. Just wondering. mom2
I am - but I wont find it here.
I hope you realize that as soon as a Christian thinks they have the Truth on the world... they don't.
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.
"I would like to ask Feodor at what term in the pregnancy he would consider the fetus to be a human and also at what term does he classify as viable. Just wondering. mom2"
How about, at birth? Or a day or two after?
That does not answer my question, Feodor. What about a premature birth, is it a human? mom2
How does this not answer the question:
Nothing's human until it's born breathing eating on its own, and then maybe not for another day or two.
I see you have no answer, Feodor. I have a bit of news for you, I had a premature baby that was born only 6 mos. into my pregnancy. He could not eat, but he sure is a human and was when he was born and let me know he was alive by kicking and moving before birth. mom2
You have my answer and then you say I have no answer? Why would you say that?
And your personal story, however meaningful to you, does not prove what God has in mind or science indicates as the norm. Surely you don't think you're experience serves as Truth do you?
My reaction to that last comment was a chuckle and I said out loud to myself "Oh, mercy"! We all need it, and you are among us! Good night, Feodor. May the Lord open your eyes. mom2
I'm glad it gave you a chuckle. But it was satire. I did not mean what I wrote. My point was to respond as Marshall responds to real life evidences, which is namely, to isolate what he's being confronted with from meeting his version of the truth. Nothing can disturb his hold on the Truth. Not facts, not truths, not people's lives.
And I hope you considered it idiotic, obfuscatory, and unreasonable.
My real response follows. And maybe we can have one good back and forth on your questions.
mom2, Your questions (and my answers, which are no different than what medical science tells us the extent that it covers, and then I share the spiritual and moral reasonings of millions of Christians):
1. "What term in the pregnancy he would consider the fetus to be a human..."?
When it is viable, which is impossible to give exact number of weeks for, since it depends on course of development, luck, pre-natal health of the mother, normal and happy pregnancy, etc., etc.
2. "What term does he classify as viable"?
Normally, about 28 weeks. Sometimes less, on occasion more, for above reasons. This is not clockwork and no one can say for sure, not even the best of doctors. No one can know what will happen. About a quarter of the babies born at 23 weeks of gestation survive; 50 percent of babies born at 25 weeks, and the great majority of those born after the 26th week survive.
3. "What about a premature birth, is it a human?"
Of course. Any birth delivers a human soul to the world.
Now, if you want to talk about what's sacred, that's a different story. But I doubt Marshall wants to see a difference between sacred and human - rigid and locked in on the white man's simple as he is.
I often start out with the single exclamation, "Wow!" when I've just read the wild comments such as those of Feodor's. That exclamation seems somehow lacking here.
CS Lewis was not the only name you put forth, but how nice of you to find a way to again show your false priest nature as you chose to denigrate her understanding by saying you picked his name off the floor where she dropped it. And of course, being the good neighbor you are, you assume she would lie about what she meant by her earlier comment. Nice.
But we know you're a false priest as your comments so readily and eagerly prove. So we can move on.
As to doctors, lawyers and others who have read and studied much, I would be equally disappointed if they misapplied what they read as you do so often, as if you mean to. That has been my whole point, which should have been easy to discern for such a well educated snob like yourself. It isn't what or how much you read or study, it's how you apply it, how you demonstrate your understanding of it. That's what makes your constant name dropping so laughable. I don't care what you read or who. It HASN'T helped you if you don't properly understand it, and it HAS hurt you if you improperly apply it. What's more, it hurts anyone who puts any stock in what you say or think, for now they, too, are gone astray. What follows is an example of your idiotic reasoning:
A zygote is not a human being because it is only a stage of development. The being is what it is when fully developed. Isn't that what you're trying to pass off as intelligent reasoning? If so, then that dismisses all those who have not yet reached physical maturity, including 9 yr olds for example. Children are not yet fully developed and are in a particular stage of development short of completion. So is a human zygote and embryo.
Being sentient is what science considers when determining life? Says you. Science talks about cellular activity in terms of living and non-living cells (the latter no longer serving a purpose, much like you), so sentience is NOT a determining factor in the manner you think.
Perhaps you can offer more books for me, but before you do, be certain that they make the statement wherein proof is given that things like "viability" determine personhood or status as a human being. I doubt you can. What you will do is continue to give personal opinion about when that state is reached based upon personal biases, but not science. You cannot and I defy you to try.
Indeed, science does not make such judgments. But it does say when a new human being exists, and that is at conception, when the human female ovum is fertilized.
The law is another matter entirely. What science was used to determine that life does NOT begin at conception? Where has Roe v Wade used actual science, rather than the biased opinion of the Justice, to determine that a human being is NOT being killed by abortion? The law, particularly politicians who write and push for the adoption of laws, do not listen to science as you like to think they have in this case. They NEVER got around to first determining when life begins before cramming Roe down our throats.
Ma loves what Michael Vick did to dogs?
...Woof...
Then of course we have the rank stupidity of your comical position on race, formed as a result of your imaginary marriage to a woman of color. What level of idiot does one have to be to assume that length of life is a worthy factor in determining the level of atrocity for mistreatment of another human being? Because a person has lived some years it makes it worse to mistreat him, compare to another who hasn't lived as long? Can I beat a man once and be less a cretin than he who beats another man repeatedly? Likely in your eyes. Review the methods of abortion and tell me that there is no suffering. Even single celled creatures have a survivor mechanism, but in film of abortions, one plainly sees the pain in the face of the child being torn apart. You ARE the person you describe who brutally treated the black slave. You are would be his equal if not for your total dismissal of the humanity of the unborn. That makes you a worse type of vermin than the brutal slave owner. And yes, you are worse than the Nazi or islamist who regards Jews as animals, for your regard the most defenseless of our kind as things unworthy of consideration.
The conundrum before is now is, is Feo's contemptible because his opinion is contemptible, or is his opinion contemptible because HE is contemptible? What a tough call!
"Jews as animals"
oh.. dont get me started..
Ma.. you are the worst scientist of all time!
"you can offer more books for me"
ha.. why would anybody do this..
Ma.. you have no intention of ever leaving your box.
God, Marshall, you use the English language to such desultory effect. I do have three more books to drop on you and plead that you do whatever it is that you do to a book to make use of it:
The Elements of Style: 50th Anniversary Edition by William Strunk and E. B. Whiite
How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom
How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning by Antony Flew [You ought to like the title at least.]
________
Again, besides Lewis, whom mom2 dropped, I don't find any other names that I dropped. To what could you be referring?
________
Concerning (Good god, I can't believe I'm heading into this) development and developed, the reason we give our age as dating from our birthday is because that is when we are delivered as a developed and now aging human being. There is a qualitative difference between not being born and being born. It's right there on your driver's license for fuck's sake and when the doctor's office asks your age they are not going to secretly add the eleven months it took you to be born.
Everyone recognizes the difference except half-thinking extremists.
Given your system, there can be no point when a human being is fully developed. Pray tell, what would be your (horrible) idea as to when the developing stops? Clearly after the age of 9. But what age, Marshall. It seems to me you have no point when development is reached and therefore your tortuous use of conceptual language is senseless. Having no point you can identify, you have no point.
That is until you now make one up even as you have just today made up all of your comments today.
Yet again, you try to pirouette out of senselessness with more fresh spun senselessness and we are all bored to hell.
"The product of that act, when not disrupted, IS a new human being."
Exactly. The development of the ingredients becomes the product at birth: voila, a human being. Just like flour and sugar and eggs and milk are not a cake. Just like dough is not a cake. Just like rising dough is not yet a cake and is pretty indigestible. Then, at 350 degrees, a cake is finally formed after 50 minutes. 49 is okay. 48 not bad. Even 43. But earlier than that no one can eat it and walk away happy.
The product of the process, when the process is not interrupted, IS a BRAND NEW human being. Before then, the product hasn't arrived.
_______
"Because a person has lived some years it makes it worse to mistreat him, compare to another who hasn't lived as long?"
Yes, you piece of shit, when the other hasn't yet lived, when the other is not, in moral reality, an other at all, it makes you a pile when you do. When you compare a two month old to a fertilized egg, you've descended to the order of disabled thinking of a Mengele.
"Again, besides Lewis, whom mom2 dropped, I don't find any other names that I dropped."
Chrétien de Troyes, Bernard Silvestris and Alain de Lille. Sound familiar, Einstein?
The Elements of Style: 50th Anniversary Edition by William Strunk and E. B. Whiite
Is that where you learned your "style"? I'm not impressed.
How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom
I know how to read and I know why I do. Your problem is you read and think that because of having done so that you are somehow improved. Unfortunately, if any improvement has indeed resulted, the question becomes, just what the hell were you like before you opened a book? Because if reading more results in becoming more like you, I hope never to read again.
How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning by Antony Flew
I see you offer books you haven't read yourself. Why is that? Why don't you read it first, and if an improvement in your ability to reason is apparent, then I'll know that it may be worth my time.
The reason we give our age as dating from our birthday is because from the dawn of time that's how it's been done. There's no reason to change it. What's more, the exact day of conception is difficult to accurately assess. The exact day of birth is obvious.
"There is a qualitative difference between not being born and being born."
But none between what is born or what is unborn. Both are human beings. Aren't you paying attention?
"Everyone recognizes the difference except half-thinking extremists."
Ah, there's the rub. It doesn't require "whole" thinking to understand the obvious. One is a human being from the moment one is conceived until one dies, and at every stage of life in between. No one except non-thinking false priests even care about the difference between being born and unborn except in specifically speaking of one who is on either side of that divide.
"Given your system, there can be no point when a human being is fully developed."
Not quite accurate. There is no point at which a human being is not developed enough to deserve respect and dignity and the God-given right to life. Although I don't really respect you in the least, Feo boy, I do respect your right to life no matter how annoying it is for the rest of the world.
"Pray tell, what would be your (logical) idea as to when the developing stops?"
Two answers:
1. Stupid question. It's moot. Irrelevant. Of no concern. Why would I even care to note such a thing?
2. Death.
A third answer, of course, is that it is obvious that a child is not fully developed. It won't be until at least it has developed the capability of procreating. So at whatever point that happens for a given child, it is not fully developed and in a stage of development just as is the zygote. But both zygote and child are human beings. Where's this "crtical reasoning" you studied?
"That is until you now make one up even as you have just today made up all of your comments today."
Of course I make up my own comments. I certainly wouldn't use yours. They're stupid. But you certainly have made up yours, just as every pro-abortion cretin has, because one needs to make shit up, like some point other than conception to label another as human. You can't make your demands justified and righteous without making up your crappy little self-serving and subjective arguments about when life begins, otherwise you have to face the truth: you favor the murder of unborn human beings. And that's just what Nazis, Klan members, islamists and other scum of the earth have done to justify their treatment of other people. They hide behind weak arguments that seek to prove the others are not human beings endowed with the same unalienable right to life.
The sad truth is that your anger and name calling expose you. You dare call ME the piece of shit while insisting those that are people are not. You dare compare ME to Mengele when you are exactly what he was. You are so pathetic that you can't even see you speak about the unborn just as he did about Jews and other groups of people. Here's a funny comment:
"Yet again, you try to pirouette out of senselessness with more fresh spun senselessness and we are all bored to hell."
First of all, who's "we"? You and the crabs in your shorts? And do you call the biggest, pinchiest crab, "Parklife"?
Like all lefty hacks and beggars, you decry as senseless that which causes you to see yourself for what you are. Lefties can never stomach their own reflections.
"from the dawn of time that's how it's been done."
And then they went out and mowed the lawn.
Marshall's "science"!
_________
"a child is not fully developed. It won't be until at least it has developed the capability of procreating."
So you would allow 11 and 12 year-old girls to marry. Fully developed, ready to go, living out their role just as God intends.
Marshall's "logic"!
_________
Dare? It's requisite.
Chrétien de Troyes, Bernard Silvestris and Alain de Lille.
I didn't drop those names. C.S. Lewis did in his well known academic book, The Allegory of Love: a Study of Medieval Tradition.
Lewis dropped them. You know, the guy mom2 quotes to point out her sense of the dangers of learning.
Feodor, go out and play. You might learn something. Your closed mind should just hang up the "closed" sign and stop being annoying. mom2
The closed mind, mom2, is always the one that is anxious about differences of the wide world and scared of learning about it.
Which of us does this describe?
The Elements of Style: 50th Anniversary Edition by William Strunk and E. B. Whiite
How to Read and Why by Harold Bloo
How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning by Antony Flew
LOL.. Ma.. you crack me up. Just how dim is that bulb? Really, take a long walk to the library and check these books out. They are not exactly about what you think they are about. The walk and the books would be good for you.
Have you put in your application for "Biggest Loser"?
"Ah, there's the rub. It doesn't require "whole" thinking to understand the obvious.
LOL.. even better comment than the first one. Ma admits to being less than whole.
"Not quite accurate. There is no point at which a human being is not developed enough to deserve respect and dignity and the God-given right to life. Although I don't really respect you in the least, Feo boy, I do respect your right to life no matter how annoying it is for the rest of the world."
Oh my.. MA.. first you dont wanna read. Then you lie. What is worse? You "respect" life so much that you're dying to destroy / invade / conquer / pillage the Mid-East.
One major difference between Ma and the rest of America is that he has zero ability to look in the mirror and decide for himself. On top of that, he uses a really old book (ironically) to guide him through life. Many thinking adults, living in contemporary society, use some combination of science and culture.
All that and Mom2 is just not that smart.
I say,
""from the dawn of time that's how it's been done.""
Feo the fool responds,
"And then they went out and mowed the lawn.
Marshall's "science"!"
I didn't say it was scientific. I said that's how it's been done. Anyone with critical reasoning skills would understand the implied question: why do it any other way?
I say,
""a child is not fully developed. It won't be until at least it has developed the capability of procreating.""
Feo, not content with the foolish statements with which he's already sullied this conversation, says,
"So you would allow 11 and 12 year-old girls to marry. Fully developed, ready to go, living out their role just as God intends.
Marshall's "logic"!"
Absolutely astounding that one can condescend as Feo does, adamant in the laughable belief that he possesses some higher level of intelligence and reasoning powers, and still come to these incredible leaps of logic. And that's using the word "logic" in the extremely loosest sense.
So, Feo. Do you harbor some inate desire for 11 yr old girls? If so, I think you're aiming way out of your league.
Obviously, it is only physically that an 11 yr old might be fully, or adequately, developed as a human being. Mentally and emotionally, they may have a long way to go. YOU, for instance, may NEVER be fully developed in that manner. We can only hope.
He says,
"Dare? It's requisite."
What is required is to go back and re-read, assuming you've read it at all, that book on critical reasoning. What YOU dare to do is call evil good. Real Christians are required to avoid such behaviors.
Check out THIS lame angle"
"Chrétien de Troyes, Bernard Silvestris and Alain de Lille.
I didn't drop those names. C.S. Lewis did in his well known academic book, The Allegory of Love: a Study of Medieval Tradition."
That would be fine if we were reading Lewis. We weren't. We were reading something far less intelligent, something that mimics the sound of intelligence without possessing a shred of it: Feodor's comments, wherein he engaged with name droppping. Boy are you stupid.
I saved teh punchline to the joke that is Feodor:
"The closed mind, mom2, is always the one that is anxious about differences of the wide world and scared of learning about it.
Which of us does this describe?"
How typical of the self-absorbed and Pharisaical self-satisfied progressive to assume we are in any way afraid to learn about new things or "differences of the wide world" simply because our conclusions about them are different than or in opposition to theirs. As such, this shows that the real anxiety and fear resides within them. The poor little pants wetters.
"That would be fine if we were reading Lewis."
Speak for yourself, Marshall, mom2 and I are reading Lewis.
Try and pay attention.
Speaking of jokers, Parkie has chimed in. I don't have the time to address all of his silliness at present, but I will address one comment. He claims I'll never get out of my box. This is just what I addressed regarding Feo's punchline. Parkie, like all lefties, assume closed mindedness on the part of conservatives when we've simply rejected the lefty stupidity after reviewing it. We don't live in a box, Parkie, you sorry boy. We live in a place called, "the real world".
BTW, do you intend to ever offer something in the way of an opinion on anything, rather than simply slamming the opinions of others without once demonstrating what might be wrong with those opinions? What do YOU know? What have YOU learned? About anything? I'm more than happy to provide a forum for you to show how stupid you are. I just think you might benefit by taking a risk now and then. Probably not, but one never knows.
"Speak for yourself, Marshall, mom2 and I are reading Lewis."
YOU dropped the names here. This is a good training exercise for you by showing some honesty on this insignificant point.
"Parkie, like all lefties, assume closed mindedness on the part of conservatives when we've simply rejected the lefty stupidity after reviewing it. We don't live in a box, Parkie, you sorry boy. We live in a place called, "the real world"."
Touché my friend. You have me convinced that you are not a box-loving-Con. Tell me again how the universe is 6,000 years old or how you hate gay people.
"BTW, do you intend to ever offer something in the way of an opinion on anything, rather than simply slamming the opinions of others without once demonstrating what might be wrong with those opinions?"
D-d-d-did I hurt your feeeelings?
Gosh these conservatives are sensitive.
Honesty:
The point was that mom2 is trying to say something persuasive and would like to quote Lewis because she thinks of him as a representative of intelligence for the side of conservative Christianity. The truth is that his theological approach would severely disappoint you and mom2 despite popular reception. But one would only know this if one had reapply read deeply in his work. The moral of the story is don't quote someone who actually does not agree with you version of the truth.
By analogy you are doing the same thing with the science that had been dogmatically filtered and centrifuged and doled out in partial and misrepresentative scraps to you yawning yap.
That mom2 does not know who those guys were signals that she also does not know enough about Lewis' interests and therefore so completely misunderstands what Zlewis means by learning and values in learning that she - and you - fail to recognize that you both stand for one side of what Lewis argues against: anti-intellectual Puritan values that so corrupt learning as to make it anxious and destructively, inhumanely imprisoning rather than exploratory, expansive and potentially liberating. The other side of things which Lewis deplored would be an amoral pursuit of learning that did not have service to humankind as it's mission.
And, again, what you do with science is analogously similar - to great detriment to your grasp of the whole and your capacity for compassion.
And, for me, you two represent the deepest of antipathies to the Incarnational life of the risen Christ and his Gospel message.
There. I told the truth. Let those with ears hear. Let those with hardened hearts keep on truckin'.
I don't think Feo has read any of the books he claims to have read. I don't think Feo has even a tiny bit of the education he claims to have. All of the things he claims to have read can be found on the internet, complete with Liberal so-called scholars to explain the Liberal point of view, which usually doesn't comport with true Christians (ie, The Jesus project, etc). It is easy to copy and paste other people's opinions. Feo probably has never had an opinion of his own in his pathetic little life.
I don't think Feo is really married a to black woman (any black woman who would stand for his racist attitude would have to have an extreme inferiority complex and no self esteem at all) If he really is married to such a woman, he must beat her regularly.
No one who is a true Christian would ever say abortion is simply a matter of the woman's choice. That viewpoint totally ignores what the baby would want if given a voice.
Feo, in my opinion, is an anti-Christ, and demonstrates that every time he comments on abortion.
Parklife is simply an intellectual midget in a world full of giants.
When Jesus said, "Suffer the little children to come to Me" Feo probably thinks Jesus meant children are supposed to suffer, hence he supports abortion.
"... what the baby would want if given a voice."
Just ask any zygote, it'll tell you.
(The only pronoun that can be used is the neuter. The sex is undetermined until two months in. So no "ask him" or "ask her". Just "ask it." So what is a human being without gender?)
Thanks, Mark, you've further blown up your side of the "baby starts at fertilization" argument.
"The sex is undetermined until two months in."
By us perhaps. But the sex is determined at conception depending upon whether the father donates an X or Y chromozome. So thanks, Feo, you've further blown up your side of the "baby doesn't start at fertilization" argument.
"Just ask any zygote, it'll tell you."
You are a much lower life form and we defend your right to life. As stated, all living things have some level of defense mechanism, some survival response to what it perceives is harmful. I have no doubt that if you were to attempt to destroy a zygote (use one from your family or some other slugs), you would see, under a microscope, some manifestation of flight from the danger. Thus, one could conceivably "ask" the human zygote and find it prefers to live.
Mom2's Lewis quote is perfectly appropriate here and would be if she read it on that little piece of paper from inside a fortune cookie. But you reassure yourself by imagining we can't properly understand Lewis unless we know his shoe size and favorite color. But you keep stroking yourself if it helps you sleep better. We uneducated types see right through you. Again you try to salve your wounds by pretending we are "anti-intellectual Puritans" because we don't buy into your cheap and subjective attempts to dismiss the humanity of the unborn. Rather than either of us being anti-intellectual, we are the parents of small boy named Feodor who continually tries to put one over on us and can't understand why we won't swallow your bullshit. (That's pretty much the dynamic between conservatives and libs. Libs are so immature no matter how enlightened by their "education" they believe themselves to be. We conservatives would merely nod and say, "Whatever you say, child." as we carry on with our chores if you weren't so freaking dangerous to, not just yourselves, but to all of society.
Here's this putzy small child trying to find ways to justify the ludicrous notion that the unborn is not a person endowed by God with the unalienable right to life and has the unmitigate effrontery to suggest that WE corrupt learning!
And then he dares to talk of learning as liberation. So he's corrupted the obvious, the scientifically supported, the logical truth about human biology in order to liberate himself and other cretins like him from the responsibility every person, especially Christian person (false ones like him or otherwise) has for the care of the offspring they purposely invite into existence.
You dare speak of compassion as you dismiss the humanity of the unborn. You shit on the risen Christ and His Gospel message with such an unholy perspective.
I enjoy shredding your pretentious crap and fruitless attempts to prove you are somehow morally or intellectually superior to me or anyone else. But then I am struck with overwhelming sadness at the realization that you truly believe the things you say. It damn near crushes me. You are one totally lost individual.
"There. I told the truth."
No. You told what you so desperately wish the truth would be.
And then there's little Parkie, the resident idiot. My own personal troll who LOLs a lot, types a lot of words, and never says a thing. Let's review some of his latest buffoonery, shall we?
"Ma loves what Michael Vick did to dogs?"
From which foul orifice of yours did you pull out this little gem? What could I have possibly said to lead you to say something this incredibly stupid?
""Jews as animals"
oh.. dont get me started.."
As if you would have anything clever or intelligent to say. Are you going to try to pretend islamists DON'T consider Jews to be apes and pigs? You couldn't get started if I hit you with a 2x4.
"Ma.. you are the worst scientist of all time!"
Never claimed to be a scientist, short bus rider.
"LOL.. Ma.. you crack me up."
Yeah. The insipid and incessant "LOL"s suggested as much.
"Have you put in your application for "Biggest Loser"?"
How could I hope to compete with you? There is no bigger loser than my very own troll, Parkie-boy.
""Ah, there's the rub. It doesn't require "whole" thinking to understand the obvious.
LOL.. even better comment than the first one. Ma admits to being less than whole."
And proving you are a loser, you miss the point. What I admitted, you sorry simpleton, was that for most of us, deep thought is not required to understand the obvious. As you missed that obvious point, you cannot be included in "most of us". You can, however, clean the spittoons.
"Oh my.. MA.. first you dont wanna read. Then you lie. What is worse? You "respect" life so much that you're dying to destroy / invade / conquer / pillage the Mid-East."
First, I read all the time. Secondly, I didn't lie and you couldn't prove I did if your worthless life depended upon it. Where did you get this "dying to destroy / invade / conquer / pillage the Mid-East" crap? You're taking hallucinogenics again, aren't you, you bad troll.
"One major difference between Ma and the rest of America is that he has zero ability to look in the mirror and decide for himself."
I'm dying to know how idiots like Parkie come to this conclusion. Is it because I maintain so many traditional beliefs? That can't be it, because I decided for myself that the beliefs I maintain are more solid and beneficial to the world then what lefties try to force us to believe. I would compare myself to what Parkie has decided for himself, but being spineless, he's not offered a hint of what that might be.
"On top of that, he uses a really old book (ironically) to guide him through life. Many thinking adults, living in contemporary society, use some combination of science and culture."
There are about 2 billion Christians in the world. Stats show something like 75% of the USA is Christian. Thus, not too many thinking adults think like Parkie. (Note that I didn't even include Jews, muslims, hindus, buddhists, etc)
"All that and Mom2 is just not that smart."
As if you're qualified to judge. When you one day man up and offer substance (or your version of it), then we'll talk about who is or isn't smart. I gotta tell ya...I don't think much of your chances.
Jesus, God, Marshall, you really do live in treehouse hamlet in the middle of an immense maze surrounded by a fetid moat. Don't you?
As I read all this bantering back and forth among you guys and gal, I have to say that I see truth on both sides here. For the most part, Feo is right when he talks of how science views viability of the unborn.
And he made a really good point that no one has picked up on: "Now, if you want to talk about what's sacred, that's a different story".
It is true that the unborn's life isn't viable outside the womb until a certain amount of time. And there are those who do not consider the unborn a person until birth. I personally disagree with that, but I cand understand why they hold that view.
For me, all of life is sacred from the moment of conception and is the reason I am opposed to terminating that life. This includes termination by abortion, war, executions, murder, oppressive political systems, suicide, or whatever interferes with right to life. It involves access to clean drinking water, housing, health care, education, etc.
So now, perhaps Feo could clarify for me when and where he believes life is sacred.
I can't imagine a when or a where life is not sacred.
Feodor, I said a prayer for you. I don't know why you have such harsh feelings. I just read a very good sermon that was preached by Charles Hadden Spurgeon. He has so much written about him that can be so helpful to us. Look at what is going on in this world! The time is late, if you really think all life is sacred let's shown concern. God help us all! mom2
"I can't imagine a when or a where life is not sacred."
Except for those you don't consider human: the unborn. In your hubris, you suppose they are non-beings, non-human, non-persons, as if you are God. Thus, your claim to revere life as sacred is hollow and a lie, as false as you are.
"He has so much written about him that can be so helpful to us."
Words I apply to Charles Darwin and Hans Urs von Balthasar.
Two intellects who marveled at life's holiness.
Creation is sacred and holy, Marshall. The Bible tells me so. That does not make everything a human being. The Bible tells me so. And everything is short of perfection. The Bible tells me so. But human beings can participate fully in God's own nature because they have a conscious will capable of acting in the world in freedom by sharing grace with a creation that has no conscious. The Bible tells me so. A fertilized egg does not have consciousness. Science tells me so. Even a blade of grass, sacred and holy, turns to the sun. Science tells me so. This does not make it a human being. Science tells me so. A fetus is worth less than a human being. The Bible tells me so.
"Look at what is going on in this world!"
If we look with the long view, mom2, never in the history of humankind have so many been as healthy, as educated, as mobile, as protected as today. Peace reigns in a greater portion of human communities than ever before. Progress is happening every day. And more and more people are reaching for democratic freedom on their own terms.
You need a break from television in order to regain a holy and humane view.
"I don't know why you have such harsh feelings."
"M.A., Feodor explained his problem. He was removed from the womb too early. mom2"
Physician, heal thyself.
That would be scripture talking to you, mom2.
Feodor, I was being sarcastic. The dreadful thing about you is that you seem to be serious. mom2
"Creation is sacred and holy, Marshall. The Bible tells me so."
Which Bible? The one Christians use, or the one "progressives" use? Which verse in the Christian Bible tells you this? I believe after the Fall, God cursed the ground. So, which part of creation is the ground, and where does the ground end and the rest of creation begin?
"And everything is short of perfection. The Bible tells me so."
Few prove that so well as you.
"But human beings can participate fully in God's own nature because they have a conscious will capable of acting in the world in freedom by sharing grace with a creation that has no conscious. The Bible tells me so."
My, how you can babble! "Participate in God's own nature?" Just how does THAT work? Sounds like progressive nonsense meant to sound like profound insights.
"A fertilized egg does not have consciousness. Science tells me so."
Wow. You actually hit on something that can justly be called "fact". Now perhaps you can show how science uses that fact to prove the fertilized egg is not a human being. Good luck with that. Forgive me if I don't wait around for the impossible.
"Even a blade of grass, sacred and holy, turns to the sun. Science tells me so. This does not make it a human being. Science tells me so."
Can't recall ever supposing a blade of grass, or even an entire lawn, is a human being. Can you perhaps find a more incredibly stupid analogy? Try this: Even a chair isn't a human being.
Of course, and you really need to pay attention to this, Feo boy, a blade of grass is not the product of a man and woman coming together to engage in the procreative act. Therefor, as opposed to a human zygote, it isn't, nor will it ever become, a human being.
"A fetus is worth less than a human being. The Bible tells me so."
This is some Hindu comic book Bible you're reading, isn't it? It certainly isn't the Christian Bible. If it was the Christian Bible, the verse that could even imply this would be known to all. It would have been seared into everyone's mind since Roe v Wade.
This is further proof of just how false a priest you are. To actually have the gall to claim that the Bible states that the fetus is worth less than a human being (especially since the human fetus IS a human being), is about the stupidest, most inane thing you have ever said on a blog. And that's saying something.
All that education...all those books...
"Which Bible?"
Yours Marshall:
But ask the animals, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
Ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of every human being.
Job 12:7-10
In past generations he allowed all the nations to follow their own ways; yet he has not left himself without a witness in doing good--giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy.
Acts 14:16-17
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them;
and nothing is hid from its heat.
Psalm 19:1-6
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his host!
Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for he commanded and they were created;
He established them forever and ever;
he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.
Praise the Lord from the earth,
you sea monsters and all deeps,
ire and hail, snow and frost,
stormy wind fulfilling his command!
Mountains and hills,
fruit trees and all cedars!
Wild animals and all cattle,
creeping things and flying birds!
Kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all rulers of the earth!
Young men and women alike,
old and young together!
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
his glory is above earth and heaven.
He has raised up a horn for his people,
praise for all this faithful,
for the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord!
Psalm 148
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I will establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
Genesis 9:8-11
If you will only heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today--loving the Lord your God, and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul--then he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil; and he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat your fill. Take care, or you will be seduced into turning away, serving other gods and worshiping them, for then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain and the land will yield no fruit; then you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.
Deuteronomy 11:13-17
Notice, Marshall, just two lines above, the phrase, "good land."
I took the time since you asked and so you would not remain in ignorance.
"'Participate in God's own nature?' Just how does THAT work? Sounds like progressive nonsense meant to sound like profound insights."
No, your Bible, Marshall, says it works like this:
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature...
2 Peter 1: 3,4
I took the time since you asked and so you would not remain in ignorance.
Now, since you have clearly not read very well, or studied very long, why don't you take the time and lift yourself out of ignorance on the rest.
Or are you even a greater fool than you now appear?
Oh! what a special day! I've even literally marked in on my calender that March 12 is "Feo's Day!" It is a day which commemorates the day Feo actually responded directly to a question and provided an actual answer that wasn't just psuedo-intellectual drivel! Well, let's just say that he provided a verse that uses the expression: "participate in (God's own) the divine nature". But he distorts the verse and its meaning with this crap:
"...because they have a conscious will capable of acting in the world in freedom by sharing grace with a creation that has no conscious."
...which I don't see reflected in the verse or the context in which we find it. What's more, the verses certainly don't add credibility or validity to whatever he was passing off as a point. So maybe a celebration is not really called for.
And when we look at the previous comment, well, he provides nothing for which I should feel the fool or be accused of being in ignorance. The actual point of the verse from 2 Peter I get, and had gotten without even remembering the text whence he drew it. (Too bad he doesn't.) But the several previous verses he presents do nothing to support his earlier comments of which I had shredded so easily.
To be clear, I get that those verses come from the Bible, and my Bibles have them in various but similar forms as well. But I didn't ask for those. I asked, where does the Bible say creation is sacred and holy? The verses offered don't answer the question. They say nothing of the kind. He points to two words at the end of his offerings, but that obviously refers to the good land to which God led the Israelites, the Promised Land. It wasn't referring to the whole of creation. Also, "good land" doesn't necessarily equate to "sacred" or "holy" land, even if it's God saying it.
Furthermore, nothing he offered comes within light years of demonstrating where the Bible might say that a human fetus is worth less than a human being. Even combined with his appeals to science, that a fertilized egg has no consciousness and that a blade of grass is not a human being (*snicker*), he's done nothing to prove anything with which a supporter of abortion can take to the bank.
If the ignorance from which you hoped to liberate me, Feo, concerned an understanding of your level of competence and wisdom, I'm already quite familiar with your lack of both. The only one who becomes a greater fool than already known is yourself. In this your competence is astounding and if not for Parkie, without comparison.
It is much as I said to Parkie; if you are an example of the benefits of higher education and reading, it doesn't speak well of higher education and reading.
All that education...all those books...
When God calls something good, Marshall cannot call it holy or sacred, "even if it's God saying it."
God can't even argue with Marshall. So who am I compared to God? And God is less than Marshall.
Maybe God was calling it good like chocolate cake is good, or espresso is good. Or the movies of Clint Eastwood or the jazz of Coltrane. Maybe God was just taking a whizz and saying, "hey that's cool, though."
As for the unconscious cosmos that has no freedom of will needing us, that would be from Romans 8:
"For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God."
Because when God calls something "good," God does not necessarily refer to a holy, moral good. God has down time, too. Isn't that right, Marshall?
As for 2 Peter 1, how you throw out the concepts of "freedom of will" and "sharing grace with the world" but don't tell us why or how you do that while claiming to understand the passage without benefiting us with it is simply your unending avoidance and cowardly escapist act of running away and on, leaving the point I make still standing while, speaking over your spineless back, you say, "can't see it, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah."
"he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you MAY escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and MAY become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you MUST MAKE EVERY EFFORT to support your faith with goodness... and godliness with mutual affection, and MUTUAL AFFECTION WITH LOVE. For if these things are yours and are INCREASING among you, they keep you from being INEFFECTIVE... Therefore, brothers and sisters, BE all the more EAGER TO CONFIRM your call and election."
"nothing he offered comes within light years of demonstrating where the Bible might say that a human fetus is worth less than a human being."
Not only the fetus, the slave as well.
Exodus 21
“Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death.... When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his money... When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman's husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.... When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be clear. But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death. If a ransom is laid on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is laid upon him. If it gores a man's son or daughter, he shall be dealt with according to this same rule. If the ox gores a slave, male or female, the owner shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned."
And here, Leviticus 27, is how different ages are priced according to worth, the infant being the least, and females at all levels less than males:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When a person makes an explicit vow to the Lord concerning the equivalent for a human being, the equivalent for a male shall be: from twenty to sixty years of age the equivalent shall be fifty shekels of silver by the sanctuary shekel. If the person is a female, the equivalent is thirty shekels. If the age is from five to twenty years of age, the equivalent is twenty shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female. If the age is from one month to five years, the equivalent for a male is five shekels of silver, and for a female the equivalent is three shekels of silver. And if the person is sixty years old or over, then the equivalent for a male is fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels."
Again, in Numbers 3, the infant not a month old does not count as much:
"Enroll the Levites by ancestral houses and by clans. You shall enroll every male from a month old and upward... Counting all the males, from a month old and upward, there were eight thousand six hundred, attending to the duties of the sanctuary.... Then the Lord said to Moses: Enroll all the firstborn males of the Israelites, from a month old and upward, and count their names."
And here, in 2 Samuel, David recognizes Marshall's plan for justice (the man should die) but God takes a rather brutal, apparently excessive liberal approach (you shall not die, but I will kill the child):
'Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity." Nathan said to David, "You are the man!... You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites... Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun." David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." Nathan said to David, "Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die."'
And here is God talking in Hosea 13, with no acknowledgement of anything like a human life in the fetus:
"Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction? Compassion is hidden from my eyes. Although he may flourish among rushes, the east wind shall come, a blast from the Lord, rising from the wilderness; and his fountain shall dry up, his spring shall be parched. It shall strip his treasury of every precious thing. Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open."
Marshall, you talk about light years when you can't even read what's on your shelf.
All those books and all that time spent nourishing the very great and precious promises God have given me and everyone will not save you from returning to the vomit of human judgment and imprisonment in sin from which Christ, with his grace which freed our ability to co-participate in that grace, liberated us.
It's up to the will of your consciousness, to the sensitivity, the choice of your conscience.
All those books, all that education may indeed by a waste on you. I thank God that Christ doesn't think that's my fault.
This really is an amazingly choice piece of smarmy and cowardly spineless shifting, when we stop and think about it:
"The actual point of the verse from 2 Peter I get, and had gotten without even remembering the text whence he drew it."
And what was the point of the verse, pray tell, that you got and did not mention?
You're a fool's fool, Marshall. A cup winning idiot. Mark has the excuse of shallow capacity. You don't. You're just blatantly yellow.
I see, false priest. So what you're saying is that because I didn't refute and correct one of your many weak arguments, that this oversight makes me a coward and a fool? You're actually basing some kind of victory on this? You're doing a happy dance now? How pathetic.\
My comment was meant to provoke clarification on how you are using that verse to make your argument. Look at your quasi-insightful comment again:
"But human beings can participate fully in God's own nature because they have a conscious will capable of acting in the world in freedom by sharing grace with a creation that has no conscious."
I have less idea of what this is supposed to convey than you do and was hoping you could craft some sort of explanation.
2 Pet 1:3-4 shows that God has made available all we need spritually through our knowledge of Him. Through these He has given us those great and precious promises. We are enabled by our knowledge of Him to avoid corruption. In that way we are participating in, but not equal to, the divine nature. What confounds is this meaningless "sharing grace with a creation that has no conscious" blather. Share grace with a "thing"? I don't think so, Chuckles.
You should remember that when you, Feodor the foolish, stop and think about anything, you enter dangerous territory you are ill equipped to confront. What follows is further proof:
Beginning with your 2:14PM comment:
"When God calls something good, Marshall cannot call it holy or sacred, "even if it's God saying it."
Let's remember what He was calling "good"---the land to which He would lead His Chosen People. THAT is the verse which YOU offered to make your point. He was speaking of a specific plot of land that you, in the foolishness you call superior critical reasoning and thought, interpret to mean the entirety of creation. Even if we were to recall Him calling His creation "good" in the early verses of Genesis, we cannot redefine "good" to mean "sacred and holy" even if He didn't later curse the ground (rather than Adam and Eve). What is sacred and holy cannot at the same time be cursed.
To suppose then that I am arguing with God is buffoonery (an area of your expertise), since you can't establish that if God calls something "good" that it remains sacred and holy (if it ever was made so simply by God calling it "good") after He curses it, or that because He calls the Promised Land "good" that that goodness extends to all of creation.
Moving on:
You Exodus 21 offering does not support your point and your critical reasoning skills are further exposed as faulty. The verse about hitting one's slave does not place a value difference on the life of the slave, especially since the death of the slave would result in punishment. But the verse does not assume homicidal intentions on the part of the slaveholder. So to strike the slave in a manner that brings death would not be equal to murder unless it could be proved that murder was intended. At the same time, the death of the slave brings about punishment, just as an unintentional killing of anyone else does. The slave is not less of a human being than anyone else. You fail.
Likewise in the verses related to the unintentional striking of a woman during a fight, and the subsequent miscarriage that might occur, the punishment is also predicated on whether or not the mother OR child is injured or killed. There is no determination that either the woman or child is less human than a man. You fail again.
The verses regarding the ox goring another refers to a random incident compared to one where there is a history of the animal attacking people. In the latter case, a death penalty is due the owner of the ox, or the family of the deceased may spare the owner by collecting a ransom based not on whether the victim is considered less of a human being, but according to the economic considerations of the victim. It was a way of sparing the ox owner's life. But the ransom was determined by how much the family loses by the economic potential of the victim. The father of the family, for example, provides more economic benefits to the family than his toddler daughter and the ransom is based on that, not that the father is more human than the toddler. A big fail for you. A double fail actually since this goes for the Leviticus 27 stuff.
Psalm 82 (for your further education):
God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
"How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."
They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
I say, "You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you;
nevertheless, you shall die like men, and fall like any prince."
Arise, O God, judge the earth; for to thee belong all the nations!
_________
I say, "You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you...."
Moving along (isn't this fun?),
In your Numbers 3 offering, you fail (a common theme) to consider what is being done. To count only those older than a month is different from the counting of other tribes where they counted only those over twenty years of age. In the latter case, they were only counting those old enough for military service. The Levites were not counted in that manner as they were priests and not soldiers. The counting was only for census and was based on how many they could muster for battle. FAIL!!
2 Samuel:
David is willing to give his life for his sin. That's how remorseful he was. God had other plans for David, but punished him in what I would consider a far worse manner, by taking his child. This does not imply that God determines one to be more of a person or a human being than the other, but only that one plays a greater role in His divine plans. Big distinction that I would think one with trained critical reasoning skills would understand. Apparently I'm wrong on that score. We both fail. (Not really, because I don't really think much of your crticial reasoning skills.)
And in your Hosea offering, while there is, as you say, "no acknowledgement of anything like a human life in the fetus", there is equally no acknowledgement of anything like no human life in the fetus. So this is an incredible fail for you because you could have used anything, such as "Feodor is an incredible butthead" to make your point with equally impotent affect. For while the statement is true, you are a butthead, it has no impact one way or the other on your heinous position that a human fetus is not a human being.
Maybe "light years" didn't go far enough in describing the futility of using the Bible to support your evil. All the education your parents paid for and all the books you've spent time pretending to digest have done you no good. You're still a stupid person lacking wisdom.
I do not pretend that I am in possession of great wisdom. I don't feel that I am. That just makes you a bigger fool and idiot to be so easily taken to school by someone like me. Where has your education ever made me stop and say, "Gee, Feodor. I can't think of one single flaw in your comment."? The big joke is that when I see a new comment in my email inbox, I always have the fear that maybe this is the time when you or one of the other various suspects might present just such a comment. Then I read the comment and wonder why I ever feel that fear in the first place. Knowing my own intellectual limitations, you can't know just how folks like you pump up my self image. Knowing my own intellectual limitations, you can't know what an unmitigated idiot that makes YOU, to be so easily exposed as the fool you are.
Oh, I don't think you'll ever admit how much more I know than you do about theology and biblical studies and church history, Marshall. Even Satan knows God but will not acknowledge his superior.
That's not to be expected.
But try this out; expand your mind and find out what half the world's Christians believe:
orthodoxwiki.org/Theosis
Feo,
I see you've snuck in a couple whilst I typed. That's OK. I would also rush to defend myself if so exposed as you are of being a dolt. Yet you offer nothing that supports your initial claims about the humanity of the unborn and now seek to shift away the course of discussion. (Haven't you tried to accuse ME of that tactic?) Psalm 82 certainly doesn't support the position. And if you are using it to support your line about participating in the nature of God, you fail yet again. Really, I can't imagine WHAT you have in mind by posting it.
"Oh, I don't think you'll ever admit how much more I know than you do about theology and biblical studies and church history, Marshall."
Oh, I have no doubt you have read more, been taught more and have perused more obscure details regarding the faith and its history. No doubt whatsoever. MY claim is that it hasn't helped your understanding of the faith in the least, as evidenced by your many attempts to poorly apply Scripture to defend you goofy opinions. I don't knock education and reading. I just think your a poor poster child for it. If I was tasked with extolling the virtues of higher education, reading, theological study, I would not use YOU as an example of how it pays off. Knowing bits of info is not wisdom. Having read and been taught, even to the point of achieving a diploma, does not indicate intelligence, but only that you met the requirements for attaining the grades. I don't care that you "know" more than I do, especially since it hasn't made you more intelligent than me.
To put it another way, if your reading and education made you intelligent, I'm already a freakin' genius without having made anywhere close to the same effort. You give education and reading a bad name.
BTW, when have you polled the world's Christians in order to know what half of them believe?
Marshall, you can't even read Exodus 21 without stepping all in it.
If a person strikes another person and they die, the striker is to be put to death on the altar. If a person attacks father or mother or kidnaps another person, the offender is to be put to death.
If a person strikes another and they do not die, but suffer for a while and then live, payment is due as punishment. Here we have a distinction between being killed on the altar and punishment.
Then follows the bit about the slave, who is property. If the slave dies, payment is due. If the slave does not die, no punishment is due.
Different values for different human beings.
As for the the strikers of a pregnant women, in the Hebrew the miscarriage is already effected. The difference between punishments is what happens to the woman, not the fetus. The fetus is counted only in terms of money. The woman's life is counted as a life.
"But the ransom was determined by how much the family loses by the economic potential of the victim."
How you can say this straight faced and deny this is not a calculus of human worth, especially given the passage from Leviticus is incredible. Your talent in ignoring the most obvious is well honed and makes you the incredible idiot that you are.
And then there's the way you consider the divine nature to be simply avoiding corruption. Is avoiding corruption the very nature of God for you? It leaves with no wonder how you can view creation the way you do since this is the way you view the Creator. In God's image and likeness we are made. Which for you means simply avoiding wrong turns like avoiding the wrong boxes in hopscotch. Man, what a God you have, Marshall, holding one foot, trying not to fall in the wrong boxes and making way to the end. Fabulous sense of the divine, the holy and the sacred life that is ours.
No wonder you can't deal with Theosis and Orthodoxy.
No wonder you can't deal with Scripture's exhaltation of God's holy and sacred creation which he continues to create and renew, blessing it, giving it the sacred and holy role of testimony to God's greatness and graciousness.
What a putrid protestantism you have descended into, unable to sing like the Psalmist.
Praise the LORD, my soul.
LORD my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with splendor and majesty.
The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.
He makes winds his messengers,[a]
flames of fire his servants.
He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.
He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
it flows between the mountains.
They give water to all the beasts of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.
He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to cultivate—
bringing forth food from the earth:
wine that gladdens human hearts,
oil to make their faces shine,
and bread that sustains their hearts.
The trees of the LORD are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the junipers.
The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.
He made the moon to mark the seasons,
and the sun knows when to go down.
You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.
The sun rises, and they steal away;
they return and lie down in their dens.
Then people go out to their work,
to their labor until evening.
How many are your works, LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.
There the ships go to and fro,
and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
All creatures look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works—
he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
who touches the mountains, and they smoke.
I will sing to the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
May my meditation be pleasing to him,
as I rejoice in the LORD.
But may sinners vanish from the earth
and the wicked be no more.
Praise the LORD, my soul.
Praise the LORD.
You are like Job, thinking you are standing up to all tests, all while missing the deep, true, Godly point of it all.
Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
“Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
....
Will the wild ox consent to serve you?
Will it stay by your manger at night?
Can you hold it to the furrow with a harness?
Will it till the valleys behind you?
Will you rely on it for its great strength?
Will you leave your heavy work to it?
Can you trust it to haul in your grain
and bring it to your threshing floor?
...
Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom
and spread its wings toward the south?
Does the eagle soar at your command
and build its nest on high?
...
Look at Behemoth,
which I made along with you
and which feeds on grass like an ox.
What strength it has in its loins,
what power in the muscles of its belly!
Its tail sways like a cedar;
the sinews of its thighs are close-knit.
Its bones are tubes of bronze,
its limbs like rods of iron.
It ranks first among the works of God...
Nothing on earth is its equal—
a creature without fear.
It looks down on all that are haughty;
it is king over all that are proud.”
God renews the ground, animals praise him, nature serves him by serving his creation, the stars sing with the angels and Leviathan is among the best of all that God has made.
If you don't get how sacred and holy all this is, then God help you Marshall. You are missing out on very great and precious promises and the offer to co-participate in this kind of divine activity.
Would that you were a better biblical Christian, much less one that pays attention to the different sphere of science. One can make you a God-like lover of all creation. The other can make you an exceedingly wise and smart lover of all creation.
Two flailing strikes, Marshall. And time is slipping by. All those gifts, all those promises... and nothing in your hands.
I'm not going to continue showing you how badly you understand Scripture, Feo. I simply don't have the time I did a mere two months ago for such pleasures. And believe me. It's a real pleasure. You can copy and paste the entire Bible if it pleases you, but it doesn't show you understand any of it.
I told you God cursed the ground after Adam's sin. When, exactly, did he lift that curse? How can anything God cursed be sacred and holy? Your Psalm doesn't say. Your exerpt from Job doesn't say. What's more, YOU don't say. You just want to ramble on pretending you've received some great insights that I'm missing. What pretentious crap from an incredibly pretentious fraud! The only thing I've been standing up to here is continued tap dancing around the heinous opinion that the unborn is not equally endowed as we with the unalienable right to life. You dare posture yourself as more knowing, more in tune, more Christian with such a hateful and contemptible opinion as that!
As to Exodus 21 (I can't help but trash your stupidity one more time), it is YOU who steps in the feodor. You can't seem to distinguish between punishments for intentional killing and accidental. You can't seem to notice that a couple of those Ex 21 rules have to do with broken Commandments. But never and nowhere in that chapter do we see one human said to be less human than another and definitely not the unborn. In the section regarding the pregnant woman, there is NO distinction betwen to whom the injury must occur before any eye for an eye is exacted.
"How you can say this straight faced and deny this is not a calculus of human worth, especially given the passage from Leviticus is incredible."
Because this is what it means and why it was done in this manner. If both the father and his infant son were to be killed, which loss had the greater economic impact on the family? We don't do things that way these days, chump, but they did back then for that reason.
"And then there's the way you consider the divine nature to be simply avoiding corruption."
I didn't say that, fool. Read it again and have someone help you with the big words.
"It leaves with no wonder how you can view creation the way you do since this is the way you view the Creator."
I've never spoken of my view of creation, except to say yours is pretentious bullshit. I acknowledge that God had cursed the ground for Adam's sin so thus it cannot be both sacred and cursed at the same time. You wax poetic and consider that evidence to the contrary. You offer verses that do not show the curse was ever lifted. You're an idiot.
"In God's image and likeness we are made."
So is the unborn.
"No wonder you can't deal with Theosis and Orthodoxy."
Who says I can't? You? The false priest with the corrupted understanding of the faith? As if you'd know.
You wouldn't know a Biblical Christian if he prayed over you. And you are definitely not God-like in any sense of the term, you Pharisee, nor are you wise or smart. But you are a sad, pathetic worm of a human being for all your self-praise while daring to dismiss the humanity of the unborn. May God have mercy on your horribly soiled soul.
Feodor: "I can't imagine a when or a where life is not sacred."
Is it sacred in the womb?
Really, this is one area where I agree with Marshall and his counterparts. It may be the only area of agreement however. But, I will not go so far as to label you a false priest, Feodor. I have quite a few christian friends who are pro-choice. They are also against the death penalty. I have to say, I don't understand that at all. But I still consider them my brothers and sisters in Christ.
I do wonder though, if not sacred in the womb, when does life become sacred?
Marty, you are not reading the thread - not that you can blamed. When I say - to you (with Marshall I'm rarely saying anything straight because that's futile with fools) - that I cannot imagine a When or a Where in which life is not holy and sacred, I mean it.
The collection of Scriptures I laid at Marshall's feet proclaim that very thing. The Creation is holy and sacred. A fetus in the womb is holy and sacred. A fertilized egg is holy and sacred. Sperm is holy and sacred. The wind in the new mown grass will be holy and sacred just as soon as Spring gets here but in the meantime, the gray clouds of Winter are holy and sacred, too.
Now all Marshall sees is the Fall and that's because he's been led by the nose instead of the heart and brain when reading scripture. It is because Sunday School in the Western church - primarily those of Roman Catholic and radical protestant churches - only teach Augustine. Augustine wrote of a lot on sin and the sinful flesh, which in his time was all they could conceive, and he traced that back to the Fall. What he ignored was indeed written by other theologians but, because they were not writing explicitly to argue against other Christians but were writing more constructively, they don't have a pithy scheme that is reducible to Sunday School and country preachers and the host of this blog.
People like Irenaeus, Origen, but particularly the three theologians who become the "fathers" of the Eastern church like Augustine is for the West. In fact, there are four central preacher/theologians, but the three most applicable for you and me around this issue would be Basil of Caesarea, his brother, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus.
And they were much better at reading all of Scripture in a much less anxious way.
From them, we are redirected back to the narrative of Noah, where God makes a renewed covenant with humankind and with all of his creation. It's a new day, a new start, and in that spirit, psalmists sing of nature's praise for and service to God, where each has a role in a continuum that includes humankind, the apex of creation. It is this covenant that is made sure and more powerfully active in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. God became human so that humans can become like God and so in union with God. This gift is not offered to any other kind of God's creation.
But notice that the incarnation of God is centered on the nativity, not the annunciation. I'd ask Marshall straight out if he celebrates the Feast of the Annunciation more strenuously than the Feast of the Nativity (Christmas) because, to his way of thinking, the conception is the real beginning of God on earth.
But he'll smoke and mirror his way out of the logical step for him because of the awkwardness it puts him in and because he knows but will not tell how the four gospels do not reflect his thinking.
So, Marty, life in the womb is sacred and holy and has its testimony of God's grace and the holiness of all of life. So, too, Leviathan, who gets two chapters of high praise from God in Job, such that Leviathan is the among the highest, most esteemed of creation.
This, of course, indicates that there is indeed a hierarchy. As does the passage in Romans where the cosmos groan inchoately, waiting for the redemption of humankind who will, as the firstborn of all creation, lead it into redemption as well.
So, reproduction presents us with a few theological layers of holiness beginning with sex, itself holy and sacred as a sacrament of union between two people which has the serendipitous effect of teaching us about the depth and passion of union with God. As for pregnancy, the holiness grows from fertilization through the process of gestation until we have a viable, conscious fetus capable of retaining its own sense memories and ready to breath. (And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.)
Only the viable, conscious, ready to breath fetus has attained the highest of sacred and holy roles in creation that the adult parent has. Until then, its role is less sacred and holy. A fertilized egg is not a human being. As is easy for all non-spiritually imprisoned people readily see.
"When, exactly, did he lift that curse?"
Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
God, Marshall, you can't even get Sunday School right.
Epic Fail.... of Biblical proportions.
(I'm actually laughing at you today.)
What follows will be that old-time conservative obfuscatory reading.
Feodor I read the thread (mostly), but I have to admit that I have a hard time understanding what you write and why you write it, so I really appreciate your straightforward answer to me. It was quite clear. Thanks.
I'm really not familiar with the church fathers all that much. I'm not at all read on the subject. You have given me a place to start learning.
I understand you not thinking the fetus as human, but it is life that will develope and become a person if it's nurtured. As I've said life for me begins at conception, and that applies to all of life, even the blade of grass or a flower. I love flowers and you will find me planting seeds and doing all I can - trimming, pruning, etc. to keep my flowering plants alive for as long as possible. All things die, it is the nature of life, but I feel we must protect all life from harm...yes, even life in the womb or a seed in the ground. I even rescue animals and birds. To terminate any life, in whatever stage of developement, to me is destroying what God has created and I just don't see any justification for it.
"But notice that the incarnation of God is centered on the nativity, not the annunciation."
Yes I see that and it does help me to understand your position, but I still stand firm in my own belief regarding life.
"but it is life that will develop and become a person if it's nurtured."
No. There are millions of miscarriages every year. Birth is not a fait accompli, and we must think it is when we have the higher order of life in mind: the mother and father.
And before we say that is an act of nature and we must respect that, tell me where in all the rest of our relationship with nature we leave it alone? We did not leave it alone ecologically and now we must reorganize ourselves for the purpose of changing nature in a different way.
We breed livestock, forcibly. We chemically sterilize pests and intrusive species in order to keep the population down. If you wanted to build a new deck or a new gazebo, the flowers would surely be pulled out. We bulldoze, dig, level, fill in, pave, build. We seed the clouds, we split the atom.
Genesis tells us we must till the ground but also that we are stewards. Again, from Chapter 8:
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything."
If the fertilized egg - the zygote - and the embryo and the nonviable, not ready to breath, not yet conscious fetus is holy and sacred but not yet a human being made in the image and likeness of God, then it must take a back seat to the divine image and likeness that is the mother and the father.
And even when the fetus reaches that spiritual stage, when one life only can be saved, we must treasure and keep the life that has a storehouse of memories of life lived with God: the fuller being, the one who has lived among us as Jesus lived among us.
There is no doubt that in saving a life in such a way, there is the tragedy of losing the life not yet begun. And, to my mind, there is tragedy in every abortion. It is a sorry, terrible choice made to preserve higher treasures already stored by the grace of God and to avoid wrecking those treasures. But in many cases, this tragic choice is the right one. And may be there should be a rational, spiritual reflection on means to curb abortion. Teen pregnancies are currently going down due to sex ed. and use of condoms. This can only be celebrated.
But one who argues that every conception is a human being then is honor bound to argue for a society that will provide for that being when necessary. And such a one is honor bound to be militantly protective and financially supportive of orphans, or warring against child abuse and sex abuse and sexual slavery and slavery of all kinds. This must be expected because life is holy and sacred.
And yet, we never hear about these wrap-around issues. We don't because the right's agenda is not truly concern with a life. It is concern for doctrine.
An argument that gives absolute right to a fertilized egg over a breathing human being made in the image and likeness of God is not really an argument at all. It is a self-deluding destructive nihilism. And one that is empty of the Gospel understanding of the human being.
Sorry, Marty, doing too many things at once. I am egregiously remiss for not emphasizing prevention. If I took your position - and I am theologically there but not practically there for reasons of compassion with living human beings - then you, and me as well, should be arguing for all and any means of prevention.
Abstinence for teenagers, condoms at all times, and funding for Planned Parenthood which gives free health care to the poor and needy, young and scared.
Finally,
"No. There are millions of miscarriages every year. Birth is not a fait accompli, and we must think it is when we have the higher order of life in mind: the mother and father."
should read:
"No. There are millions of miscarriages every year. Birth is not a fait accompli, and we must not think it is when we have the higher order of life in mind: the mother and father.
Wow! I know I said I wouldn't, but I can't help but let such unmitigated bullshit stand as sound theology. Such convoluted crap can only be tolerated by response, particularly since deleting is not my style when letting fools expose themselves is so much more gratifying.
So, I guess I must spend my limited time once more correcting the psuedo-intellectualism, the quasi-Christian corruption that passes as understanding to the fool and false priest known as "Feodor".
And yes, Marty. He is a false priest. He claims to have been trained as a priest and he speaks falsely. If ever there was evidence, it is in this latest vomit of arguments that dismisses the humanity of the unborn. He is false like the Klansmen and other ministers who twisted the Bible to justify their enslavement of blacks. He is false like Fred Phelps, who distorts the Bible to justify his hatred of homosexuals. Feodor is cut from exactly the same cloth.
But where to begin regarding his latest pile of entrails? Let's start with this:
"An argument that gives absolute right to a fertilized egg over a breathing human being made in the image and likeness of God is not really an argument at all."
Straw man time! Never have I said, nor has any other, such as Neil, said anything that can be used to suggest we place the unborn over the life of the mother. This is called, "lying". What we do is call attention to those cretins, like Feodor, who put the lives of the born over the unborn. To normal people, they are equal and equally endowed by God with the unalienable right to life. I believe I've made that statement at least one other time in this very thread. EQUALLY endowed. Why, we even allow for the woman whose life is threatened by the pregnancy to make the choice to risk her life or abort. THAT is at least a form of self-defense that makes the abortion justifiable in that case.
But to suggest that any and every other reason to abort is a case of where we'd say the unborn is more important than its mother is ludicrous. We're saying that the mother has not provided a justifiable reason to kill her child, that no threat to her exists that can justify it. Any suggestion of a threat must be compared to the exact same threat if the unborn were any born person. If we and/or the law would not consider it justifiable, then it cannot be for the unborn. That's called critical reasoning and logical thinking, but it is based on the unborn being people. Feodor refuses to concede they are people so he can kill them willy-nilly.
"But one who argues that every conception is a human being then is honor bound to argue for a society that will provide for that being when necessary."
This assumes we don't. But as Neil rightly points out, if Feo opposes wife-beating, his house should be filled with abused women, because he can't oppose anything without providing for the victims of the behavior he opposes. It's a bullshit argument that bullshit people like Feodor love to have in their bags of tricks. But it doesn't wash for its weakness.
It also assumes that we don't seek to remove the conditions under which such situtations occur. Neil is outspoken in his support for CrisisPregnancy Centers, as well as a volunteer. I donate to such places and causes even with my meager financial situation. Feodor supports Planned Parenthood which provides only that which moves one toward aborting their child, and they do it with my tax dollars against my wishes. Feo supports death. I support life.
Feo wants condoms passed out. I want a society that returns to a culture that influences most people toward a pure lifestyle that puts sex back where it belongs, amongst the married who can provide for the children they produce. Feo wants to provide for people to have sex when the groin moves them to, damn the consequences.
furthermore....
"And one that is empty of the Gospel understanding of the human being."
Feo has provided nothing that shows Scripture aligns with his poor understanding of the human being. What he HAS done is offer verse after verse upon which he projects his preferred interpretation where the words themselves do not. He would call this critical reasoning or deeper meaning. But it is only him and his corrupted nature putting words into Scripture's mouth.
"But in many cases, this tragic choice is the right one."
To the self-centered, perhaps. Unless the life of the mother is threatened, there is no other case where that is the "right" option. You confuse personal convenience with righteousness. Common amongst the corrupted left.
"And may be there should be a rational, spiritual reflection on means to curb abortion."
Been there, done that. It's called "abstinence" and progressives abdicate their responsibility on this score, saying that kids (and adults) are incapable of controlling their urges. Thanks to the Feo's of the world, that almost true. But it wasn't that way years ago. The percentage of virgins used to be much higher years ago. No one died as a result of no sex back then. But the Feo's of the world have produced a culture that tells the youth of today, "Go for it!"
"Teen pregnancies are currently going down due to sex ed. and use of condoms."
Doubtful, as far as the use of condoms go. If condoms are seen as a viable preventative measure, sex will continue as if that is true. Failed condoms will result in more pregnancies. This has been the case and with it, disease is spread.
"If the fertilized egg - the zygote - and the embryo and the nonviable, not ready to breath, not yet conscious fetus is holy and sacred but not yet a human being made in the image and likeness of God, then it must take a back seat to the divine image and likeness that is the mother and the father."
Sez you. Scripture does NOT support this in any way, and you have provided nothing but your arrogant contradictions that only provoke laughter.
"And before we say that is an act of nature and we must respect that, tell me where in all the rest of our relationship with nature we leave it alone?"
All of nature is not human life, and your own offerings show that all of nature is for our use. All of nature is not equal to human beings. But miscarried children are simply premature deaths, just as born people drop dead from conditions that were not detected. As the Bible does not address it, one cannot arrogantly proclaim that God does not provide for those unborn whose lives have been terminated by abortion or miscarriage. So the true Christian errs on the side of life. The false offers lame and corrupt interpretations to allow for killing children.
That's all the time I have now, kiddies. Feo won't likely hold off before I can shred the rest of his goofiness (the Noah stuff is coming), but hopefully he will so that I won't have more trash on my limited time.
I simply cannot let bad theology stand on this blog. Not when it is used to justify the killing of the unborn. Such a false priest he is.
I see Marshall is hiding behing Neil's skirts again.
______
Fail and wail, Fartshall:
“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though[a] every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease."
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”
I'll just touch on a couple of things for now:
Feodor: "If you wanted to build a new deck or a new gazebo, the flowers would surely be pulled out."
I'd pull the flowers out in such a way as to be able to replant them in another spot.
"And even when the fetus reaches that spiritual stage, when one life only can be saved, we must treasure and keep the life that has a storehouse of memories of life lived with God: the fuller being, the one who has lived among us as Jesus lived among us."
Feodor, Marshall said that you are a trained priest. Is that a Catholic priest or some other denomination such as Episcopal or something?
I was born in a Catholic hospital. My mother had to sign a paper that if something happened during birth and one life or the other had to be saved, they would save me rather than my mother. She agreed to it and signed the paper.
With regard to prevention, we probably agree on that one.
Feodor: "If I took your position - and I am theologically there but not practically there for reasons of compassion with living human beings"
I'm glad to see you recognize a theological reason for my position. :)
And compassion...yes, always.
Marty, I grew up in the Church of Christ (the conservative group not the New England one) in Texas, eventually going to Yale Divinity School. During my time there getting two degrees I became an Episcopalian and worked at Yale Psychiatric Hospital. After four years, I also sought to be ordained in the Episcopal Church and was ordained a deacon in Connecticut and a priest in Pennsylvania.
Ah...a fellow Texan! Church of Christ. Wow. Can't get much more conservative than that. My son-in-law grew up in that denomination. Left a pretty bad taste in his mouth.
My daughter used to sing in the choir at Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Houston. A beautiful Episcopal Church with a rich history.
Are you still in the ministry? I would have asked you this by e-mail, but didn't see one on your profile.
Marty. Feo.
You are more than welcome to chat amongst yourselves. Just clean up after yourselves when you are done.
Marty,
If he offers you some of his chips, don't take 'em. He doesn't wash after he pees.
"...eventually going to Yale Divinity School. During my time there getting two degrees I became an Episcopalian and worked at Yale Psychiatric Hospital. After four years, I also sought to be ordained in the Episcopal Church and was ordained a deacon in Connecticut and a priest in Pennsylvania."
Pretty amazing. They must give out degrees just for showing up, because Feo's understanding of Scripture is crap. It appears the Episcopalians in Pennsylvania aren't too fussy, either.
"I see Marshall is hiding behing Neil's skirts again."
Sure, Sparkie. Like I need to hide from the likes of you. Like I need help to expose your poor understanding of Scripture. You WISH you had a handle on the faith as firmly as does Neil.
Let's look at your Noah offerings. Notice that nothing in any of it shows God lifting any curse. Notice how He merely says He will never again curse the ground. He did it twice. I'll let you find the second occasion. But God saying that He won't curse the ground again is not the same as Him saying that the ground is now sacred and holy.
Your problem, that is, your problem here (your underlying problem is vast and requires professional help and likely a real priest), is that you seem to have difficulty accepting that the world, tainted by Adam's sin as it is, can still proclaim God's power and majesty. It's still a beautiful place, even with you in it. All sorts of vermin infest God's creation and despite you, it's still awesome. But sacred? You've yet to prove that anymore than you've been able to prove there's some Biblical support for your Klan-like attitude toward the unborn (which you couldn't--epic fail--so you moved to this sad attempt, whereby you continue to fail).
Anyhow, I don't suffer from that affliction and am constantly amazed at how God's glory is revealed all over this vast universe. Yet it is not sacred and holy if it is also cursed, which it is.
You know, there was one small section of sacred ground that comes to mind. But I don't think it still is. Can you guess little Feo, where it was?
Marshall can't deal with gentility and he conveniently escapes, "Never again will I curse the ground..."
---------
Marty - stil in ministry but not in the parish.
Marshall: "Yet it is not sacred and holy if it is also cursed, which it is."
Well, if that's the case then what difference would it make to destroy that which is cursed?
So much for lifting up holy hands.
"If he offers you some of his chips, don't take 'em. He doesn't wash after he pees."
Classy...
Why cant we all just get along?
That's rich. Parkie, who comes here only to disrupt and mock while never actually adding to the discussion, dares speak of class. While Feo, who refers to me as "Fartshall" (all that education and no wit or cleverness), and accuses me of bigotry and racism while never providing support for the charge, dares speak of gentility. I'm not the least bit surprised.
The gentility, to point out the obvious, is between Marty and myself - and which Fartshall uses as a handy escape hatch.
"I will not curse the ground again."
"Marshall...conveniently escapes, "Never again will I curse the ground...""
How exactly have I escaped? I've responded directly. YOU, however, are trying to escape explaining how that statement equates to making the ground sacred. I'm still waiting for that.
The problem here is in the process of cursing. I submit that once cursed by God, always cursed until He lifts the curse. Sort of like Persia was Persia until it became Iran.
In any case, once God cursed the ground, I don't think He needs to be consciously and continually cursing it for it to remain cursed. It's enough that He cursed it once that it remains so. There has been no reversal of the curse that I can recall, nor that Feodor can find, apparently, as he hasn't yet. He only throws out a few verses and proclaims that creation was made sacred and holy while nothing in those verses say anything like that. Extolling the virtues of creation is not the same as proving creation is holy and sacred. God promising to never again curse the ground is not God proclaiming the ground is holy and sacred.
This must be what Geoffrey means when speaking of "layers of meaning". I guess one can see what one finds pleasing and insist the words on the page mean just that, whether they actually do or not. But that's not drawing meaning from the words, that's projecting meaning onto the words. To put it another way in this case, putting words into God's mouth.
Marty,
"Well, if that's the case then what difference would it make to destroy that which is cursed?"
Well, none, except that we are instructed to be good stewards. The curse God levied is the consequence of Adam's sin. It is not license to sin even more. Indeed, to destroy the earth, or parts of it, might be harmful to other people. If you destroy a rock, it means nothing unless that rock is part of a home's foundation or some equally meaningful thing. The rock alone is just a rock.
Also, your devotion to life is a bit over the top. I'm concerned with human life only. That is not to say that I don't care if Michael Vick abuses dogs, but my concern is more for why he would do that than for the dogs. And no, I am not ambivalent regarding the suffering the dogs endure. I just think of the person first and what brought him to do what he does. Even the most heinous people, those who abuse and murder children, I would be overjoyed if there was some way that would change them into champions of children. If we could do that, and know they'd remain so, I would not seek the death penalty for them.
But it is human life that matters and except where it is a matter of property being destroyed, i.e., someone's ox being killed, God never seems to give much thought to the lives of animals. Nothing in any of His laws for our behavior regard the lives of animals.
I do respect those who put a higher price on life of all kinds. But in my case, I pretty much stop at the point of people killing and destroying flora and fauna for the mere fun of it, without good cause.
But you come really close to condemning yourself with every bowl of salad.
BTW, Marty. You don't talk to your plants, do you?
No.
"I don't care if Michael Vick abuses dogs"
Ma, you sort of jumped in and jumped out of that one. But, how happy it makes me that you can pick and choose which animals are more important than others. Can you provide a list of animals, in order of importance. Thanks! You are the best.
Btw, ever go on that hike? I ask b/c I care.
"But you come really close to condemning yourself with every bowl of salad."
LOL...I love salad...life giving life.
"Also, your devotion to life is a bit over the top"
Not as over the top as the pastor I currently work with. He won't even spray ants or roaches. I've seen him save mice from the trap and those sticky pads the exterminator puts out.
Marty,
I'm glad to hear you don't talk to your plants. That would have really distorted my opinion of you. As to your devotion to life, perhaps it's the way you explained that made you sound over the top. As to the pastor, he's a goner.
Parklife,
Wow. It's like no trouble for you to just jump right out and lie, is it? Who are you quoting here:
"I don't care if Michael Vick abuses dogs"
You do realize that other readers can simply scroll up and see that no one, least of all me, said that, don't you?
I wonder what it would be like if you were to add to the conversation, rather than just wet yourself in your vain attempts at cleverness. Don't your rubber shorts get clammy?
"The gentility, to point out the obvious, is between Marty and myself"
Just imagine, if you can, how much better and nicer things would be if you had been genteel from the first time you posted on a conservative blog, rather than condescend like the arrogant, prideful asshole by which so many people have come to know you.
What's this supposed to mean?
" - and which Fartshall uses as a handy escape hatch."
"Escape hatch"??? Escape from what? And why did you add this again:
"I will not curse the ground again."
Do you suppose typing it over and over again will make it magically become what it isn't: the lifting of a curse or the making of the ground sacred and holy? Give it up, fool, or prove your case. As it stands, you've got nothing. (Big surprise)
"I don't care if Michael Vick abuses dogs"
Umm.. Ma.. you wrote that. Its taken out of context just like every good conservative hit-job. I thought you would be able to relate to it more.
"rubber shorts"
Not sure what you are talking about. Is that some fat person thing from the 1800s that you're into?
My cats and dogs are waiting on your list. The fish dont seem to care all that much.
"Its taken out of context just like every good conservative hit-job."
Lying comes naturally to you, it appears. At least you have one talent.
"My cats and dogs are waiting on your list. The fish dont seem to care all that much."
How nice. You do have some friends. I'll bet they think you're REALLY clever!
For the benefit of those not named Parklife, I would like to reiterate and/or clarify one point, if I have not done so already or enough.
I have no problem with those who wish to regard life or creation as sacred. Indeed, I regard human life as sacred, including of course, the unborn, who are absolutey and without question equally human and equally endowed by God with the unalienable right to life as are the born.
But the question here, since Feo ran from the debate on that fact regarding the unborn, is whether or not God has proclaimed creation sacred and/or holy. For all of Feodor's supposedly superior knowledge and understanding, he has failed (epic fail, as the kids like to say) to provide any Scriptural support for that belief.
I wish more people regarded God's creation as sacred. I'd consider mankind as truly advanced if it would at the very least consider human life sacred, whether born or unborn.
It is as vain a wish as hoping Parkie would exhibit something akin to a real contribution to a discussion.
"I wish more people regarded God's creation as sacred."
Interesting that you would whine about this when you care less about other animals when compared to humans. Ma, you just pick and choose what you care for. Call it living a lie, or disingenuous but you really only care about humans, sad but true.
"I'll bet they think you're REALLY clever!"
Sooo.. still haven’t gone on that hike? Really, how fat are you? Step away from the burger!
Parkie, Parkie, Parkie,
You're such a queer little troll.
"Call it living a lie, or disingenuous but you really only care about humans, sad but true."
There's no lying necessary, little troll-boy. I value people far more than I do animals. Only twisted, pathetic trolls think the lives of animals can compare in value. I'll even put it this way: if you and my own pet were trapped inside a burning building, and I could only save one of you, after letting you get your ass scorched first, I would save YOUR miserable troll self. But then, I would do the same for bin Laden, John Wayne Gacy, and any other human being. Only assholes would save the animal and let the person die. I'm guessing you're an asshole. But I'd still save you before trying for the animal. Does that clear things up for you, little troll-boy?
Yet, despite my proper regard for humans over animals, I still revere God's creation and am quite fond of animals. You can't fathom this because you're a pathetic little troll-boy. But some day, if you really care, you'll come to understand so much more and no longer LOL at all that escapes that empty but pointy little troll head of yours. (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here.)
Buh-bye, now.
lol.. ma..
Just another pathetic attempt by a christian. Good luck with that whole getting into heaven thing. The real question is... can you post something not laced with insults? Perhaps you should start going to church during the week too.
Still no update on the hike?
Well, well. Isn't that just like a troll? Parkie comes here and from the first visit is smarmy and insulting, and now he'd prefer to be treated in a manner better than what he serves up. Poor little troll. He expects to treat Christians like crap but insists they act like Christians in return, or else he has proven some point that no Christian would have argued, or so he believes. Christians aren't Christ, little troll. They are people and people get fed up. Lacking perfection, they have their limits. In my case, I have never pretended to be pious like my man Danny T. If a troll visits, I recognize his troll-like being and act accordingly.
The best part is that the troll can always repent and become another welcome visitor and be treated like a human being. So the choice is yours, troll. In the meantime, I say again, if you, like Feodor, expect kindness, when from your first visits you both have acted poorly, then you can, and I mean this in the best manner possible, pound sand up your asses.
So there are your three choices, sad, pathetic little troll-boy. You can
1. Carry on as before and find only what a troll can get.
2. Leave.
3. State plainly that you wish to begin engaging in serious discussion like a normal person and from that point find that all your previous crap will be forgotten.
Take note. I'm not a stick in the mud. I can take snark and even Rickles level insult. But you'd damned well better have some substance to go with it. I, as host, have sovereignty in deciding when a visitor has crossed the line of decency and decorum. I post no rules detailing where that line is. Visitors must simply be cool and take their chances.
What's it gonna be, troll? I can work with any decision you make.
Feo, take note.
lol... ma.. did you grow-up with parents in the house? Or just wolves?
Sadly, ma... I have hardly been mean to you. You're the one with consistent comments about "pounding... ass". Bottom line, you live in your box and seem happy making disparaging comments. Sounds Great!
And really.. who are you kidding? You are just mad at Feo b/c he knows more about the bible. Even when you fought back, it didnt end well for you. Eventually you fell into the "false priest" meme. How convenient.
Oh.. and back to the topic of misrepresentation... I believe it was you that equated a John Meyer song with an entire generation of people.
Ma, reading your blog and your comments you sound like a scared fat old man. Not that its a bad thing. The only evidence you accept is that already approved by your little brain. Fortunately, most of us don’t live in this world.
Finally, its the weight thing that worries me. I mean, we cant have you in the hospital. Thats why I comment here. Just to make sure you're still alive!
What I take note of is how your troll your own blog.
Your offerings are reactive and avoidant, almost altogether devoid of substance. And then, just a few notes above, you seem jealous of the gentility between Marty and myself and wish that I treated you with more gentility (why offer to kiss a viper is what I'd counter with).
So, your problem with Parklife's comments, at least as you've stated them here... take out the plank out of your own eye before noting the speck in someone else's.
________
Moving on, but pointing out what weak sauce you offer lately, you really expect anyone to take your reasoning below as logic? [Regarding God's declaration of no more cursing of the ground after the curse of the flood:]
"nothing in any of it shows God lifting any curse. Notice how He merely says He will never again curse the ground."
How blind do you want us to be? In Chapter 3, God says the ground will be cursed for Adam because of his sin. By chapter 7, and many generations later, he curses all of creation with the flood. That would be two curses now, site specific as it were. And after the second one God actually swears, he vows, he makes a promise!
“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Sunday School would recognize that God has cursed the earth again because he is grieved again, but this time makes solemn vow, a covenant (and surely even you know how important that is in God’s relationship with the Creation), never again. God has cursed Creation twice and will not do it again.
Again. No more curses. Only promises that Creation will serve its holy and sacred role: “…seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."
The way you put it here – obviously in order to try to escape admitting how you’ve once again misread scripture – God keeps repeating himself like a gibbering idiot. The curse is “not lifted,” just repeated and repeated again like a blathering fool. Marshall: he cursed the ground in Chapter 3 once for all. Then Genesis 6, God says, stating nothing new, that he curses the ground and carries out a flood. Then, in Genesis 8, what you take it to mean, God says, but stating nothing new, “I cursed it once. It lies cursed. I will not curse it again, because it is cursed. I cursed it. The flood has nothing to do with it, and I promise never to do this again, but that is not cursing. I cursed it once. I don’t have to do it again because I am God. This story has nothing to with falling out of love again with my creation and cursing them with a flood and now promising never to curse again – even though that is what I am saying – I am not promising to never curse again, I am only stating, for the third time, that I did not curse it again, I already did that. OK? OK”
There is the unmistakable curve of troll logic in your fantastically ignorant and disingenuous suggestion.
Troll-boy,
"Sadly, ma... I have hardly been mean to you."
Sadly, honesty is something that escapes you (feo, too). You've been a horse's ass since the first time you've visited, always leaving sad attempts at cleverness, but no substantive comments demonstrating a desire to truly engage. If you have been doing so to be entertaining, you have, as I've said repeatedly failed for you don't have the talent for it. Cheap shots that aren't funny aren't exactly acts of kindness. You're a punk. But you make a perfect troll. While you choose to continue, I so choose to continue responding to crap with crap of my own. Don't get all weepy about it, you little weasel, get lost or get serious and engage.
"You are just mad at Feo b/c he knows more about the bible."
You don't know enough about the Bible to make such a determination. What's more, I have no doubt he knows more about the Bible in an academic sense. He fails miserably in a wisdom sense. His understanding is idiotic and inane and full of meaningless progressive crapola, but not a true Christian understanding, as evidenced by his ramblings on this very thread, not to mention his heinous opinion of the unborn.
"Even when you fought back, it didnt end well for you."
You don't know enough about the Bible to make such a determination. The fact is, it's going quite well. So well in fact, that from my perspective it's not a fight at all. It's just me schooling someone who should know better. He bailed on his defense of his heinous anti-unborn child position by shifting to his equally failing "creation is sacred and holy" argument. It's like shooting fish in a barrel with a freakin' cannon.
"Eventually you fell into the "false priest" meme."
You're an idiot. I've been referring to him as a false priest, which he is, since his first mistake of trying to arrogantly condescend to those who have a better grasp of Scripture than he could ever hope to have. The sad part is, he's too arrogant and condescending, too prideful, too full of his own self-satisfied sense of himself that I fear he puts his soul at risk. He's shown that he can't teach Scripture and he rejects learning from the likes of me and those I consider more knowlegable. But his falseness is manifested in his unChristian positions, like his abortion stance and his support of homo behavior.
"I believe it was you that equated a John Meyer song with an entire generation of people."
And I believe it is YOU who needs to delve into the archives to get the exact wording if you hope to run with that. Also, I believe it is you who fails to understand the concept of generalizations. I did not equate the song with an entire generation. But I will say that many of his generation feel as he does. I know too many smart kids to trash the entire generation, but that doesn't mean a generalization of the generation is not appropriate. I'm betting the distinction is lost on you.
"Ma, reading your blog and your comments you sound like a scared fat old man."
Only to a troll-boy.
Furthermore...
I get the following from many blog opponents, not just you. But it's an easy shot for a troll-boy to make despite it's inanity;
"The only evidence you accept is that already approved by your little brain. Fortunately, most of us don’t live in this world."
Who doesn't do this? YOU? So you accept evidence that your tiny, chipmunk brain DOESN'T approve? You actually buy into things that seem absolutely ludicrous to you? Why would you do this?
The fact is that everyone filters data through their own perspectives. That which doesn't compute gets rejected. Unless you're a troll-boy who accepts that which makes no sense. Most people do not act like you, troll-boy. You really need to stop making such pronouncements.
"Finally, its the weight thing that worries me. I mean, we cant have you in the hospital. Thats why I comment here."
What a troll-like thing to say! What prompted your little troll mind to fixate on my weight? Does your therapist know you do this? How about your nanny?
But truly, the reason why you comment here (and I use the term "comment" VERY loosely), is because you're a sad, pathetic little troll-boy who gets no attention elsewhere.
Feo,
"What I take note of is how your troll your own blog."
What the hell are you talking about, now?
"Your offerings are reactive and avoidant, almost altogether devoid of substance."
Lately, my offerings have been mostly ripping on troll-boy and explaining why your comments don't answer the question of where God made creation sacred and holy. You still haven't come through. I've avoided nothing.
"...you seem jealous of the gentility between Marty and myself and wish that I treated you with more gentility (why offer to kiss a viper is what I'd counter with)."
Not jealous at all. It's nice to see that you can speak in civil tones to anyone for a change. As to how you treat me, I could no longer care less. But, as your parenthetic remarks prove, just like Parkie, you pretend you once were civil and were never treated in kind. That makes YOU a liar, just like it makes Parkie a liar. We've been through this before, false priest. From your first visit you've been, like Parkie, a horse's ass. Now you want to play the victim. Try that crap somewhere else, fraud. It doesn't play here. You can, like I suggested earlier to the troll-boy, choose from one of the following:
1. Carry on as before and find only what a troll can get.
2. Leave.
3. State plainly that you wish to begin engaging in serious discussion like a normal person and from that point find that all your previous crap will be forgotten.
For you, Feo, #3 means dropping this posture of being the arrogant asshole who thinks he knows everything and just make your case in the very tone of grace that your friend Dan Trabue demands. You're simply not that wise. Were you, being an arrogant asshole on top of it would be worse. But you're just an arrogant asshole who only THINKS he know a lot.
"How blind do you want us to be?"
I don't "want" you to be blind, you blind fool. I want you to open your freakin' eyes!
"In Chapter 3, God says the ground will be cursed for Adam because of his sin. By chapter 7, and many generations later, he curses all of creation with the flood. That would be two curses now, site specific as it were."
You forget when he cursed the ground for Cain's sake, that it will never produce for him. That makes two before He gets to the flood.
" And after the second one(third) God actually swears, he vows, he makes a promise!"
But does not lift the previous curses or proclaim creation sacred and holy. You see, you found where He curses the ground, but only choose to infer that he either lifted the curses or proclaimed anything to be sacred and holy.
"Again. No more curses. Only promises that Creation will serve its holy and sacred role: “…seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.""
Yet, you provide no verse that states creation even HAS a sacred and holy role. Once again, you project your preferred meaning onto the text. You can't do that. Not honestly, that is, which might be hard for a false priest.
"There is the unmistakable curve of troll logic..."
I would agree if Parkie had said that. But he didn't. Neither did I. SOUND logic, the kind I use, states that God cursed the ground and Scripture states this. God did NOT proclaim creation sacred and/or holy and nothing in Scripture contradicts this. God only promised never to again curse the ground. Scripture plainly states this. God never lifted the curse and nothing in Scripture contradicts this.
The question now before us is this: What is greater than "epic fail"? because we need a term that truly reflects how badly you have failed to support your diversionary attempt to prove God has proclaimed creation sacred (not to mention your vain attempt to prove the Bible supports your position on the non-humanity of the unborn).
Marshall, look up the word "again" and study it's definition. Write it out on a card. Say it out loud. Ask your neighbor what they think the definition is; ask your wife.
Again. "Never again will I cures the earth."
Not, "I need never again curse the earth."
After the curse of the flood, God promises: I will never again curse the earth like the repeated times I have done so in the past."
That you cannot admit to this simplicity is testament to your cowardice and chronic immaturity.
____________
"you pretend you once were civil and were never treated in kind."
No. You lie. Did no such thing. My response to your request is why should I show gentility to you ("why offer a kiss to a viper?"). You and I never had a moment of gentility. Your character is so blaringly ignominious, I did not come in with charm. It just did not seem to fit the tenor of the way you carried yourself.
Liar.
______
"Yet, you provide no verse that states creation even HAS a sacred and holy role."
Marshall, if you cannot read God's own promise in Genesis 8 ("seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease"), if you cannot read the Psalmists I have quoted, if you cannot read the passages of Job I have quoted, if you cannot read the Song of Solomon...
and know that the cosmos have a divine and sacred purpose set by God, then you don't have an ounce of Christian understanding.
One thing you will not find in Holy Scripture is this phrase: The Bible. So I guess it does not really exist.
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Psalm 102: "In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands."
Isaiah 48: "“Listen to me, Jacob, Israel, whom I have called:
I am he; I am the first and I am the last.
My own hand laid the foundations of the earth,
and my right hand spread out the heavens;
when I summon them, they all stand up together."
From Psalm 104, the nail in your coffin (how many times have you already failed and died, Fartshall?):
"When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works—"
YOU RENEW THE FACE OF THE GROUND.
idiot.
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Psalm 104
Praise the LORD, my soul.
LORD my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with splendor and majesty.
The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.
He makes winds his messengers,[a]
flames of fire his servants.
He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.
He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
it flows between the mountains.
They give water to all the beasts of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.
He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to cultivate—
bringing forth food from the earth:
wine that gladdens human hearts,
oil to make their faces shine,
and bread that sustains their hearts.
The trees of the LORD are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the junipers.
The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.
He made the moon to mark the seasons,
and the sun knows when to go down.
You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.
The sun rises, and they steal away;
they return and lie down in their dens.
Then people go out to their work,
to their labor until evening.
How many are your works, LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.
There the ships go to and fro,
and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
All creatures look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
You've lost your grip so you want me out.
Plain and simple.
Feodor,
You're too easy. Can you give me something that is at least a little challenging? Tell you what: I've never gotten into Shakespeare. Why don't you throw some of his stuff around? I don't stand a chance against someone who knows Shakespeare. Then, you could say anything, like you're doing here, and I'd have to concede because I wouldn't know which play or sonnet whence it came or anything about it.
But 104 does NOT support your contention. I suppose you're just going to repeat things, and throw verses at me until you find one that isn't so obviously lacking in support for your opinion. That's OK. It's not like I've had to research anything to see the desperation of your attempts to appear more knowledgeable. What I've not seen is the proof for which I've been waiting and for which your inane pronouncements demand.
Now let's look at definitions.
Again, "Never again will I curse the ground." Never once more will He curse the ground. He will not curse the ground in addition to previous instances where He had already done so. He will not do it a 2nd (or 3rd, or 4th, or 5th) time.
It does NOT mean, "I hereby lift the curse I had previously placed on the ground."
It does NOT mean, "I hereby proclaim creation sacred and holy."
That you cannot admit to this simplicity is testament to your stupidity and desperation to prove you are what you are not. So here's a word for YOU to look up and study: "FAIL" Learn it well, fool. It's synonymous with "FEODOR".
"You and I never had a moment of gentility."
True. It would not have been so had you not come on the scene like the arrogant and condescending horse's ass you are to this day. Never have I visited another blog and started in on the hosts or his guests. My shots have always been provoked. As I explained to little Alan, who frequents Geoffrey's and Dan's blogs, my jackassery (a word he coined) is not a preemptive weapon. I don't roll that way, as the kids like to say.
"Your character is so blaringly ignominious, I did not come in with charm. It just did not seem to fit the tenor of the way you carried yourself."
And this is how a false priest justifies his arrogant and condescending horse's ass demeanor. If you truly know so much more about the faith, then you know the real meaning of "to whom much is given..."(probably not, but if you can say, perhaps you can then tell Dan).
To continue...
...you drool:
"Marshall, if you cannot read God's own promise in Genesis 8..."snip"...and know that the cosmos have a divine and sacred purpose set by God, then you don't have an ounce of Christian understanding."
So which are we arguing now: that creation has a "divine and sacred purpose" or that creation is sacred? Those are NOT the same things. Even Satan is a creation of God? Is HE sacred? I should think not. But is HE part of God's "divine and sacred" purpose? He's part of creation, is he not?
Just the same, there's a world of difference between the two. So what we have here is yet another desperate diversion from your failure to prove your point. From the unborn as equal to any other born human, to the ground is sacred, to creation is sacred, to creation is part of God's "sacred and divine" purpose. When you get to "the sky is blue", I'll be totally unable to say you're wrong again.
Still, sacred and divine purpose does not equate to a sacred and holy creation or the removal of the curse He laid upon the earth. You are winning the battle if failure is the goal.
"One thing you will not find in Holy Scripture is this phrase: The Bible. So I guess it does not really exist."
But I'm pretty sure you'll find "Scripture" or "Scriptures" in the Holy Bible, and I use that term as often as "the Bible". In fact, look to the 2nd to last paragraph of my last entry before the last three of yours and you'll see I said "Scripture" does not support your opinion. But be that as it most definitely is, the lack of the phrase "The Bible" within the Bible itself is about as good a proof of your desperation as any I could find.
"You've lost your grip so you want me out."
You can't support that opinion, either. Others have asked me why I bother with the likes of you and Parkie, and even Dan. It's because I really don't hate anyone, even assholes. I have high hopes and prayers for the worst of you. I welcome anyone who wants to comment. What I did was offer you three choices regarding how to deal with my demeanor in dealing with you. You've obviously picked door number one, or are planning to implement the option behind door number two. I was hoping you were capable of trying out door number three. Am I wrong? Do you want so bad for me to be wrong that you will NOT go with #3? Dan wishes he was this gracious.
Just to be clear, I wasn't necessarily stating that I consider Dan to be an asshole. I don't. Do I so consider Feo and Parkie? They seem to insist upon it.
Since Feodor likes to quote Holy Scripture to support his blatantly unbiblical argument that a fetus in the womb is not human, let him try to wriggle out of this one:
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." Jeremiah 1:5
Since Feodor claims that ALL God's Creations are sacred, how does he justify his apparent belief that a human fetus is the exception to the rule?
Mark,
Nowhere, in the assorted books that were written separately, does it ever say that all fetuses, all embryos, all zygotes are holy and sacred.
So, using Marshall logic, one cannot say they are.
All it says here is that God had a particular thing in mind to make: the prophet Jeremiah. So God did.
Feodor, epic fail. You didn't explain how A fetus is the exception to the rule that was alluded to by you, yourself. YOU are the one that insisted ALL creation is sacred. A fetus, a zygote, an embryo, whatever you want to call it--ALL are creations of God. Therefore, by your own definition, they are sacred. I ask you once again to explain how you can support the baseless theory that anyone other than God has the RIGHT to destroy what God has created and declared sacred.
So you disagree with Marshall, then?
Even though the Bible - unrecognized by the Bible - does not say anything like fetuses, embryos, zygotes are holy and sacred, do you think one can say they are?
And on what basis?
"Even though the Bible - unrecognized by the Bible - does not say anything like fetuses, embryos, zygotes are holy and sacred, do you think one can say they are?
And on what basis?"
What was put to you is that YOU said all creation is sacred and holy, yet you do not seem to recognize the sacredness and holiness of the unborn. It was YOUR inconsistencies that questioned. You cannot accuse us of being inconsistent by using YOUR words against us. Not in an honest disussion, anyway. I know honesty is a tough thing for you false priests, but do your best, such as THAT is.
And BTW, this "Bible doesn't mention 'the Bible'" meme doesn't even rise to the level of cheap argument. The Bible doesn't need to use the word "Bible" in order for it to be used to support for an opinion. You are not demonstrating your "superior" knowledge with such lame tactics. You're supposed to be the educated one. When do we get to see proof?
You wish to infer from the text not meaning, but what you'd prefer it means. Mark's inference is logical, because it refers to God relating to Jeremiah while he was yet unborn. Your inference regarding the sacredness of creation, while decent on the surface, is not logically drawn from any text you've yet offered, put willfully projected onto them by you for your own purposes. What's more, it raises a conflict between your position that all creation is sacred and holy, and your support for the destruction of the unborn.
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