Is abortion biblical?

Shanadeus

I found an interesting article on why the bible isn't against abortions and thought I'd share it with you all:

Abortion is Biblical

One sided. That's the abortion stance of most Christians -- one sided. We hear the Christian Coalition speak against abortion. We hear Focus on the Family tell Republican candidates it will not support them unless they state their opposition to abortion. We hear Operation Rescue's Christian members praying God will turn back the clock and make abortion illegal again. Over and over we are bombarded with the "Christian" perspective that abortion is outright wrong, no exceptions.

With all these groups chanting the same mantra, there must be some pretty overwhelming biblical evidence of abortion's evil, right?

Wrong. In reality there is merely overwhelming evidence that most people don't take time to read their own Bibles. People will listen to their pastors and to Christian radio broadcasters. They will skim through easy-to-read pamphlets and perhaps look up the one or two verses printed therein, but they don't actually read their Bibles and make up their own minds on issues such as abortion. They merely listen to others who quote a verse to support a view they heard from someone else. By definition, most Christians, rather than reading for themselves, follow the beliefs of a Culture of Christianity -- and many of the Culture's beliefs are based on one or two verses of the Bible, often taken out of context.

This is most definitely the case when it comes to abortion. Ask most anti-abortion Christians to support their view, and they'll give you a couple of verses. One, quite obviously, is the Commandment against murder. But that begs the question of whether or not abortion is murder, which begs the question of whether or not a fetus is the same as a full-term human person. To support their beliefs, these Christians point to one of three bible verses that refer to God working in the womb. The first is found in Psalms:

Psalm 139:13-16 wrote:

"For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to Thee, for Thou art fearfully wonderful (later texts were changed to read "for I am fearfully and wonderfully made"); wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from Thee, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them."

Although this passage does make the point that God was involved in the creation of this particular human being, it does not state that during the creation the fetus is indeed a person. According to Genesis, God was involved in the creation of every living thing, and yet that doesn't make every living thing a full human person. In other words, just because God was involved in its creation, it does not mean terminating it is the same as murder. It's only murder if a full human person is destroyed.

But even if we agreed to interpret these verses the same way that anti-abortion Christians do, we still have a hard time arguing that the Bible supports an anti-abortion point of view. If anything, as we will soon see, abortion is biblical.

Anytime we take one or two verses out of their context and quote them as doctrine, we place ourselves in jeopardy of being contradicted by other verses. Similarly, some verses that make perfect sense while standing alone take on a different feel when seen in the greater context in which they were written. And we can do some rather bizarre things to the Scriptures when we take disparate verses from the same context and use them as stand-alone doctrinal statements. Some prime examples of this come from the same book of the Bible as our last quote. Consider these verses that claim that God has abandoned us:

Psalm 60:1 wrote:

"Why dost Thou stand afar off, O Lord? Why dost Thou hide Thyself in times of trouble?"

Psalm 10:1 wrote:

"How long, O Lord? Wilt Thou forget me forever? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me?"

Psalm 13:1 wrote:

"O God, Thou hast rejected us. Thou hast broken us; Thou hast been angry; O, restore us.

Not only can we use out-of-context verses to support that God doesn't care for us anymore, we can even use them to show how we can ask God to do horrible and vile things to people we consider our enemies. In this example, King David even wanted God to cause harm to the innocent children of his enemy:

Psalm 109:8-12 wrote:

"Let his days be few; let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children wander about and beg; and let them seek sustenance far from their ruined homes. Let the creditor seize all that he has; and let strangers plunder the product of his labor. Let there be none to extend lovingkindness to him, nor any to be gracious to his fatherless children."

Are we indeed to interpret that God, speaking through David in these Psalms, is saying we have been abandoned by God and that when wronged we can ask God to cause our enemies to die and cause our enemies' children to wander hungry and homeless? Indeed, it would seem the case.

But rather than interpret that God is with us as a fetus, but forgets us as adults, and yet will allow us to plead for the death of our enemies, we need to look at the greater context in which all these verses are found: songs.

Called Psalms, these are the songs of King David, a man of great faith who was also greatly tormented. He was a man of passions. He loved God, lusted for another man's wife, and murdered him to get her. He marveled at nature and at his own existence. All his great swings in emotion are recorded in the songs he wrote, and we can read them today in the Book of Psalms. What we cannot do is take one song, or one stanza of a song, and proclaim that it is indeed to be taken literally while taking other stanzas from David's songs and claim they should not be taken literally.

Yet that is exactly what anti-abortion Christians are asking us to do. They use those few verses from the Psalms to support their dogma that abortion is wrong. They proclaim those verses as holy writ and the other verses as poetry that we should not be following. Clearly, this is a perfect example of taking verses out of context. And it leads us to only one conclusion: if we cannot trust that God wants to kill our enemies and abandon us, we must also conclude that we cannot trust that God has defined the fetus as being a person.

For indeed, if we allow that kind of thinking we could also make an argument that God is willing to maul children to death if they make fun of a bald guy who just happens to be in God's favor. You think I'm joking, but I'm not. In the book of Second Kings, our hero, the Prophet Elisha, who was quite bald, so it seems, was taunted by a group of young boys. Elisha's response was bitter and cruel:

2 Kings 2:22-24 wrote:

"...as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, 'Go up, you baldhead; go up you baldhead!' When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number."

Did God kill those forty-two kids for making fun of a bald prophet? We can certainly make an argument for that if we use the anti-abortionists' kind of thinking.

Likewise we can also use the anti-abortionists' methods to establish that God approves of pornography, as seen in these following verses by Solomon as he pondered the female body:

Song of Solomon 7:1-3,7-9 wrote:

"How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince's daughter! The curves of your hips are like jewels, the work of the hands of an artist. Your navel is like a round goblet which never lacks for mixed wine; your belly is like a heap of wheat fenced about with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle."

"Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I said 'I will climb the palm tree, I will take hold of its fruit stalks.' Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the fragrance of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine."

Pretty steamy stuff. Taken by itself, it would appear God is indeed promoting a written form of pornography. But just like Psalm 139:13-16, we cannot take it by itself. Instead we must take it within the context it was written.

The same is true with the other two verses used by anti-abortion Christians to defend their cause. From the book of Jeremiah, these Crusaders are fond of quoting the phrase, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee," from the first chapter. But they never quote the entire passage, which changes the meaning considerably:

Jeremiah 1:4-10 wrote:

"Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 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. Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant."

This is a special event -- the birth of a prophet. God brought the prophet Jeremiah into the world for a divine purpose, and because of that, God was planning Jeremiah's life "before" he was even conceived. God was preparing him to do miraculous things, such as speak on behalf of God while still a child and setting him up as an overseer of nations and kingdoms. But the anti-abortionists simply overlook this on their way to claiming that the one phrase they quote proves God sees us as individual people while still in the womb. God saw Jeremiah in that way, but to claim it applies to all of us is akin to saying that we were all prepared as children to speak for God, and that God has placed all of us "over the nations and over the kingdoms" of the world. In essence, to claim this verse applies to anyone other than Jeremiah is to claim that we are all God's divine prophets. We are not; therefore, we cannot apply these verses to our own lives.

Shanadeus

Another problem in this passage is the phrase, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee." In Psalm 139:13-16 the anti-abortionists claim that because God was active in the creation of King David in his mother's womb that we must conclude the fetus is recognized by God as being a person. But here we see God stating that he knew Jeremiah "before" he was formed in the womb. By anti-abortionist logic, we would have to conclude that we are a human person even before conception. Since this is a ridiculous notion, we must, therefore, conclude that the anti-abortionist is interpreting these verses incorrectly.

The last verse most often quoted by anti-abortion Christians relates the story of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, while both were pregnant. When they meet, the pre-born John the Baptist leaps in his mother's womb at Mary's salutation. Let's read the original:

Luke 1:39-41 wrote:

"And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda; And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth. And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:"

As much as the anti-abortion lobby would like this to mean that all fetuses are sentient persons because one is recorded as knowing Mary's words and then leapt inside the womb, the logic is as flawed as the Isaiah misquote. Again we have a miraculous event. Again we have a divine prophet whom God had ordained since before he was conceived. And this time it's even more miraculous, because the gestating John the Baptist is reacting to the approach of Mary, who at the time was pregnant with Jesus. Unless we believe all of us are chosen before birth to be the divine prophet ordained by God to herald the arrival of Christ on earth, then we cannot claim this passage refers to us. And indeed, it does not. While gestating fetuses are known to move and kick as their nervous systems and muscles are under construction, only divinely-inspired babies understand the spoken words of the mother of Jesus and can leap in recognition.

The point to all this is simple: we cannot take the verses we like and interpret them to support what we want to support. And, more to the point, we cannot simply accept what some Christian leaders proclaim as being God's word on a given subject without carefully reading the full text of the book and taking into consideration the entire context. We cannot, as we have shown, simply interpret those few verses from Psalms, Isaiah, and Luke as a reason to be against abortion. And, as we will see in a moment, there are still other verses -- if interpreted in the sloppy manner demonstrated by anti-abortion Christians -- in the Bible that could easily lead us to argue that indeed God, at times, supports abortion. Let's take a look.

In the full context of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon makes the point that much of life is futile. Over and over he writes that if life is good then we should be thankful. But when life is not good, Solomon makes some interesting statements:

Ecclesiastes 6:3-5 wrote:

"If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, however many they be, but his soul is not satisfied with good things, and he does not even have a proper burial, then I say, `Better the miscarriage than he, for it comes in futility and goes into obscurity; and its name is covered in obscurity. It never sees the sun and it never knows anything; it is better off than he.'"

Clearly there is a quality of life issue being put forth in the Scriptures. And in this case, Solomon makes the point that it is sometimes better to end a pregnancy prematurely than to allow it to continue into a miserable life. This is made even more clear in these following verses:

Ecclesiastes 4:1-3 wrote:

"Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them. So I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil activity that is done under the sun."

Here we have an argument for both euthanasia and abortion. When quality of life is at stake, Solomon seems to make the argument that ending a painful life or ending what will be a painful existence is preferable. Now remember, we're not talking about David's songs here. We're reading the words of the man to whom God gave the world's greatest wisdom.

And Solomon was not alone in this argument. Consider the words of Job, a man of great faith and wealth, when his life fell upon the hardest of times:

Job 3:2-4 wrote:

"And Job said, 'Let the day perish on which I was to be born, and the night which said, "a boy is conceived." May that day be darkness; let not God above care for it, nor light shine on it.'"

Job 3:11-19 wrote:

"Why did I not die at birth, come forth from my womb and expire? Why did the knees receive me, and why the breasts, that I should suck? For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept then, I would have been at rest, with kings and with counselors of the earth, who rebuilt ruins for themselves; or with princes who had gold, who were filling their houses with silver,. Or like the miscarriage which is discarded, I would not be, as infants that never saw light. There the wicked cease from raging, and there the weary are at rest. The prisoners are at ease together; they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master."

And again a few chapters later Job reiterates the greater grace he would have known if his life had been terminated as a fetus:

Job 10:18-19 wrote:

"Why then hast Thou brought me out of the womb? Would that I had died and no eye had seen me! I should have been as though I had not been, carried from womb to tomb."

Clearly there is a strong argument here that the quality of a life is as important if not more important than the act of being born. Indeed, we could claim that the Bible supports ending a pregnancy in the face of a life without quality. And, if I wanted to be bold, I could claim that this interpretation is in fact a biblical mandate to support the use of abortion as a way to improve our quality of life. And taking these verses to their extreme, I could claim that abortion is not just a good idea, it is a sacrament.

Actually, I will stop short of making that claim. In fact, I will stop short of making the claim that the Bible condemns or supports abortion at all. It does neither. The condemning and supporting comes not from the words of the Bible but from leaders within our Culture of Christianity who use verses out of context -- the same way I just did to support abortion -- to support their views against abortion. The condemning and the supporting comes not from the Scriptures but from average Christians who take the easy way out, accepting one or two verses of the Bible as proof that their leaders are speaking the gospel truth. The condemning and supporting comes not from God but from those who do not take the time to read the Bible, in its own context, and decide for themselves the meanings therein.

For indeed, there is one passage in the Bible that deals specifically with the act of causing a woman to abort a pregnancy. And the penalty for causing the abortion is not what many would lead us to believe:

Exodus 21:22-25 wrote:

"And if men struggle and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

This is a very illuminating passage. In it we find a woman losing her child by being stuck by men who are fighting. Rather than it being a capital offence, however, it is relegated to a civil matter, with the father-to-be taking the participants to court for a settlement. But, as we read on, if the woman is killed, a "life for a life," then the men who killed her shall be killed. Some have claimed that the life for a life part is talking about the baby. But from reading the context we can see this is not true. It also states a tooth for a tooth and a burn for a burn. Babies don't have teeth when they are born, and it is highly unlikely a baby will be burned during birth. It is pretty clear that this part refers to the mother. Thus we can see that if the baby is lost, it does not require a death sentence -- it is not considered murder. But if the woman is lost, it is considered murder and is punished by death.

It's important to note that some anti-abortion lobbyists want to convince us the baby in this passage survived the miscarriage. They point to the more "politically-correct" translation they find in the New International Version of the Bible. There it translates the term "miscarriage" into "gives birth prematurely" (the actual words in Hebrew translate "she lose her offspring"). While this may give them the warm and fuzzy notion that this verse might actually support their cause if maybe the child survived, it is wishful thinking at best. In our modern era of miracle medicine only 60% of all premature births survive. Three thousand years ago, when this passage was written, they did not have modern technology to keep a preemie alive. In fact, at that time, more than half of all live births died before their first birthday. In a world like that, a premature birth was a death sentence.

Others have looked to the actual Hebrew words, themselves, to try and refute these verses. They note that the word "yalad" is used in verse 22 to describe the untimely birth, and that yalad is also used in other places to describe a live birth. They then go on to say other places in the Bible use the words "nefel" and "shakol" to describe a miscarriage. Therefore, the argument goes, the baby in Exodus 21:22 must have been born alive. It's easy to see how a novice might make this mistake, but a closer look at the words in question reveal the flaw in this argument.

The word yalad is a verb that describes the process of something coming out - the departing of the fetus. Since it is describing the process, and not the result, it could be used to describe either a live birth or a miscarriage. Shakol which shows up in Hosea 9:14, is also a verb, but its meaning is to make a woman barren. Now a barren woman certainly might miscarry, but with this understanding of the word, it's clear why the writer of Exodus would not have used it since this miscarriage was caused by an accident, not by barrenness. And the word nefel is not even a verb. It's a noun. True, as a noun it is the term for a miscarried fetus, but the writer wasn't using a noun. He was using a verb to describe the coming out of the fetus. Thus, if I were describing a man falling to his death, I would use the verb "to fall" which can be used for both those who die and those who survive a fall, but to describe the man himself I would use the word the "fatality." So we can see that while a novice might mistake a verb for a noun and come to the wrong conclusions about the original Hebrew words used in the Exodus passage, a more careful look proves that the words only describe the action of losing the fetus, not the fetus itself. And that being the case, we can't use the Hebrew translations to determine if the fetus was alive or not when it came out - so we are forced to accept that in all certainly, considering the medical knowledge at the time, the preemie died. This makes it even more clear that the "tooth for a tooth" passage refers only to the mother, not to the miscarried fetus.

What has been so clearly demonstrated by the passage in Exodus - the fact that God does not consider a fetus a human person - can also be seen in a variety of other Bible verses. In Leviticus 27:6 a monetary value was placed on children, but not until they reached one month old (any younger had no value). Likewise, in Numbers 3:15 a census was commanded, but the Jews were told only to count those one month old and above - anything less, particularly a fetus, was not counted as a human person. In Ezekiel 37:8-10 we watch as God re-animates dead bones into living soldiers, but the passage makes the interesting note that they were not alive as persons until their first breath. Likewise, in Genesis 2:7, Adam had a human form and a vibrant new body but he only becomes a fully-alive human person after God makes him breathe. And in the same book, in Genesis 38:24, we read about a pregnant woman condemned to death by burning. Though the leaders of Israel knew the woman was carrying a fetus, this was not taken into consideration. If indeed the Jews, and the God who instructed them, believed the fetus to be an equal human person to the mother, then why would they let the fetus die for the mother's crimes? The truth is simple. A fetus is not a human person, and its destruction is not a murder. Period.

It is time to stop the one-sided view of abortion being proclaimed by Christian leaders. These leaders do not -- despite their claims -- have a biblical mandate for their theologies. It is time to stop preaching that the Bible contains an undeniable doctrine against abortion. It is time to stop the anger and hatred being heaped on abortion doctors and upon women who have abortions, especially when it's done in the name of a God who has not written such condemnations in his Bible. It is time to stop, because the act of making a judgment against people in God's name, when God is not behind the judging, is nothing short of claiming that our own beliefs are more important than God's. We must stop, because if we don't, then indeed the very type of theological argument being used against abortion can be turned around and used to proclaim that abortion is biblical.

So what are your thoughts on this?

Would those who are not pro-choice (because that's what I believe the article says is what the bible teaches, doesn't sound like it'd be pro-abortion completely) because of your religion reconsider if you found the arguments in this article strong enough?

Taxexemption

I know this topic is about whether or not abortion is biblical, however, I don't think you'll succeed in convincing most people it is regardless of your ability to back it up with scripture.


I personally don't care whether a fetus is a person or not. I am pro-abortion. It is hard enough to become a successful contributing member of society even with all of the advantages that come with having parents who care for you and attempt to guide you through life. Not having parents puts you at a distinct disadvantage. Also there is over-population and the environment to worry about. We don't live in a society with a robust social safety net that will do everything it can to ensure the success of orphans, we generally as a society don't care that much about these kinds of people. By forcing them to be born despite the mothers wishes, we are setting them up for failure.


We generally don't have a problem aborting children with physical or mental defects, not having parents in itself causes children to drag through life a plethora of emotional baggage. I am pro-abortion, in all cases where the mother wants one.

tinwhiskers

Biblical text and the social positions supported by Christians are only loosely connected. A fact required by the internally contradictory and/or barbaric nature of many biblical stances. They do the same thing you have done here, pick a position and then find scripture to support it, a countervailing argument from scripture is of no consequence.

Atomika

tinwhiskers wrote: »

Biblical text and the social positions supported by Christians are only loosely connected. A fact required by the internally contradictory and/or barbaric nature of many biblical stances. They do the same thing you have done here, pick a position and then find scripture to support it, a countervailing argument from scripture is of no consequence.

AKA, "You can use scripture to prove other scriptures, but you can't use scripture to disprove other scriptures."

Known also by its shorthand, the "LalalalalalalaImnotlisteningtoyoulalalalala!" defense.

ATIRage

I think it is a luadable effort to see if there are theological reasons for being pro choice as opposed to pro-life. I am not a theology expert, nor do I read the bible all that much (I'm buddhist). I'll leave alone my legal arguments for why abortion is acceptable.

I don't really have a good buddhist explanation for why abortion is acceptable:
I feel that each person's actions makes them responsible at the end of their life for what they have done, abortion is no different. I don't know how to term abortion as a moral bad or good and dont really think abortion should be put in those terms.

Christians care to comment?

Machismo

I don't get it. So Jeremiah is somehow different from everyone else in that he is pre-ordained with a purpose, but everyone else isn't, therefore, abortion is condoned since we are just plebs?

Atomika

Machismo wrote: »

I don't get it. So Jeremiah is somehow different from everyone else in that he is pre-ordained with a purpose, but everyone else isn't, therefore, abortion is condoned since we are just plebs?

I think it's more that the most commonly referred-to line of scripture in the pro-life rhetorical arsenal is probably waaaaay more specific than they want to admit.


Religious partisans tend to use scripture the way studios use quotes to put on their bad movies.

"Quite a . . . tremendous . . . work of . . . art! A . . . masterpiece!" Peter Travers, Rolling Stone*





*"Quite a shock I had watching this tremendous shit-pile, I saw a work of such huge failure that didn't even begin to approach anything like art! Any asshole that likes this festering wound of a movie needs his fucking head examined, and should go back to his trailer park where he can watch this movie from his tattered couch covered in stains from Cheetos and KC Masterpiece!"

jothki

Exposure: If it's good enough for Moses, it's good enough for our children.

RiemannLives

The opposition to abortion among the proto-orthodox (eg: the group that centuries later would become Catholic, and from which every single sect of Christianity surviving today is descended from) got started fairly early in the 2nd century. This occured well before the New Testament was created as a canon and even before some parts of it were written (remember, the half or so of Paul's letters that are not forgeries were the earliest by far, then mark, then matthew and luke and acts, then john, then the rest).

As has been mentioned, this argument is not grounded in scripture because the idea of "scripture" in the sense we mean it did not exist yet. The opposition of the proto-orthodox to abortion had to do with the politics of the many competing christian sects in the late 1st and early 2nd century.

Irond Will

I changed the title of this thread because it was embarrassing me

also, this is an intersection of charged topics, so I expect all of you to be on your very best behavior

and will tolerate nothing less

Lolken

I'm not sure about Protestants, but Catholic and Orthodox believers should remember that Augustine faced doubt about abortion - and wound up supporting it, since Roman law didn't prohibit it, IIRC.

joshofalltrades

I was always taught in my BIBL courses that there's no teachings on abortion because there was a fundamental difference in how pregnancy was viewed in that area and at that time; always something to be celebrated, and your fellow Christians picked up any slack you may have needed help with.

This is a huge failure of modern Christianity. The community aspect of a lot of the early church, ie "everyone shared all that they had and no one was left wanting for anything" is largely ignored today. So you get the worst of both worlds: brethren who will insist you keep your child but will do nothing to support you or the new kid. It's frustrating to me.

jothki

joshofalltrades wrote: »

I was always taught in my BIBL courses that there's no teachings on abortion because there was a fundamental difference in how pregnancy was viewed in that area and at that time; always something to be celebrated, and your fellow Christians picked up any slack you may have needed help with.

This is a huge failure of modern Christianity. The community aspect of a lot of the early church, ie "everyone shared all that they had and no one was left wanting for anything" is largely ignored today. So you get the worst of both worlds: brethren who will insist you keep your child but will do nothing to support you or the new kid. It's frustrating to me.

How objective were those courses in general?

The Muffin Man

Atomic Ross wrote: »

Machismo wrote: »

I don't get it. So Jeremiah is somehow different from everyone else in that he is pre-ordained with a purpose, but everyone else isn't, therefore, abortion is condoned since we are just plebs?

I think it's more that the most commonly referred-to line of scripture in the pro-life rhetorical arsenal is probably waaaaay more specific than they want to admit.


Religious partisans tend to use scripture the way studios use quotes to put on their bad movies.

"Quite a . . . tremendous . . . work of . . . art! A . . . masterpiece!" Peter Travers, Rolling Stone*





*"Quite a shock I had watching this tremendous shit-pile, I saw a work of such huge failure that didn't even begin to approach anything like art! Any asshole that likes this festering wound of a movie needs his fucking head examined, and should go back to his trailer park where he can watch this movie from his tattered couch covered in stains from Cheetos and KC Masterpiece!"

Well let's be fair.
When Movie critics do it, they tend to lie less ;-)
Well, okay.
They lie the same amount, they just parse it better.

"Such a brilliant masterpiece...
...of shit."
"The pinnacle of filmmaking...
...for retarded monkeys who can barely think."
"Breathtaking...
...rack on the girl in the third row."
"An accomplishment humanity strives for..."
...to be snuffed out."

Thanatos

The Bible says whatever the person reading it wants it to say at the time.

Of course there's biblical support for abortion; there's biblical support for pretty much any position you could ever (or never) want to take, from being pro-child-rape to being pro-slavery.

MagicPrime

Machismo wrote: »

I don't get it. So Jeremiah is somehow different from everyone else in that he is pre-ordained with a purpose, but everyone else isn't, therefore, abortion is condoned since we are just plebs?

Well. Jeremiah was a bullfrog.

joshofalltrades

jothki wrote: »

joshofalltrades wrote: »

I was always taught in my BIBL courses that there's no teachings on abortion because there was a fundamental difference in how pregnancy was viewed in that area and at that time; always something to be celebrated, and your fellow Christians picked up any slack you may have needed help with.

This is a huge failure of modern Christianity. The community aspect of a lot of the early church, ie "everyone shared all that they had and no one was left wanting for anything" is largely ignored today. So you get the worst of both worlds: brethren who will insist you keep your child but will do nothing to support you or the new kid. It's frustrating to me.

How objective were those courses in general?

As far as college bible classes go, they weren't bad. I had one professor that I still really love, because he runs his classroom pretty much like D&D as a moderator who occasionally interjects very reasoned viewpoints. And he was an amazing speaker. We had atheists, buddhists and christians all in one room, and nobody was penalized points for holding a specific view. It was pretty refreshing.

A lot of my classes taught that Christianity is really very broken. I tend to agree. Modern Christianity is a facade and a shade of what Jesus would have wanted it to be.

DarkPrimus

Thanatos wrote: »

The Bible says whatever the person reading it wants it to say at the time.

Of course there's biblical support for abortion; there's biblical support for pretty much any position you could ever (or never) want to take, from being pro-child-rape to being pro-slavery.

I can't remember who said it, but I heard a quote that the Bible isn't a moral compass so much as a moral mirror - whatever sort of values you want justification for, you'll find.

jothki

Thanatos wrote: »

The Bible says whatever the person reading it wants it to say at the time.

Of course there's biblical support for abortion; there's biblical support for pretty much any position you could ever (or never) want to take, from being pro-child-rape to being pro-slavery.

That seems as apathetic a position as believing that the bible supports exactly your current views. It's a piece of literature, and can be impartially analyzed.

If you want to claim that it contradicts itself, sure. But that doesn't mean that the messages themselves are muddled. If you want to claim that some of the things it advocates are horrific, then that's perfectly fine as well, but that often falls outside the scope of a particular analysis.

Hexmage-PA

I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that there's a section in the Old Testament that pretty much describes how to perform an abortion ritual on women suspected of adultery.

I don't have time to see for sure right now, but I will later.

CangoFett

Irond Will wrote: »

I changed the title of this thread because it was embarrassing me

also, this is an intersection of charged topics, so I expect all of you to be on your very best behavior

and will tolerate nothing less

Thats not a very good haiku.


Even taking the authors consideration of the psalm verse taken out of context, I cant imagine God, as seen in the bible, be pro-abortion. It just seems... out of character. On a theological point, for abortion to be acceptable, wouldnt the fetus have to be soulless? At what point does it have a soul in that case? As soon as it crowns during birth? Full birth? 38 weeks after conception?

jothki

CangoFett wrote: »

Irond Will wrote: »

I changed the title of this thread because it was embarrassing me

also, this is an intersection of charged topics, so I expect all of you to be on your very best behavior

and will tolerate nothing less

Thats not a very good haiku.


Even taking the authors consideration of the psalm verse taken out of context, I cant imagine God, as seen in the bible, be pro-abortion. It just seems... out of character. On a theological point, for abortion to be acceptable, wouldnt the fetus have to be soulless? At what point does it have a soul in that case? As soon as it crowns during birth? Full birth? 38 weeks after conception?

Did they even believe in souls when the psalm was made?

Bedlam

Hexmage-PA wrote: »

I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that there's a section in the Old Testament that pretty much describes how to perform an abortion ritual on women suspected of adultery.

I don't have time to see for sure right now, but I will later.

Theres a bit in numbers where women suspected of adultry are to be brought ot the priest and made to drink a concoction. If they lie and were unfaithful they are rendered baren and if they tell the truth and were faithful they are unharmed.

It really dosent have anything to do with fetuses. Or it didnt strike me as that way when I read it.

Hexmage-PA

Bedlam wrote: »

Hexmage-PA wrote: »

I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that there's a section in the Old Testament that pretty much describes how to perform an abortion ritual on women suspected of adultery.

I don't have time to see for sure right now, but I will later.

Theres a bit in numbers where women suspected of adultry are to be brought ot the priest and made to drink a concoction. If they lie and were unfaithful they are rendered baren and if they tell the truth and were faithful they are unharmed.

It really dosent have anything to do with fetuses. Or it didnt strike me as that way when I read it.

Oh, that's the one I was thinking about. Thanks!

So, based on that, it seems that the Bible is definitely in favor of forced sterilization.

Styrofoam Sammich

As a former Catholic, if you're traditional, the Pope's word is God's word and if he says abortion is bad God thinks abortion is bad.

So in that case the bible is irrelevant.

But then again, Catholicism is crazy.

joshofalltrades

God sure does change his mind a lot if the Pope overrides what's written.

Thanatos

jothki wrote: »

Thanatos wrote: »

The Bible says whatever the person reading it wants it to say at the time.

Of course there's biblical support for abortion; there's biblical support for pretty much any position you could ever (or never) want to take, from being pro-child-rape to being pro-slavery.

That seems as apathetic a position as believing that the bible supports exactly your current views. It's a piece of literature, and can be impartially analyzed.
If you want to claim that it contradicts itself, sure. But that doesn't mean that the messages themselves are muddled. If you want to claim that some of the things it advocates are horrific, then that's perfectly fine as well, but that often falls outside the scope of a particular analysis.

How can it not muddle the messages when it's constantly contradicting itself?

The fact that there are verses all over the place that contradict other verses makes it kind of useless as a guide to living.

Styrofoam Sammich

joshofalltrades wrote: »

God sure does change his mind a lot if the Pope overrides what's written.

Usually its a subject they frown on. If you get an answer it ranges from "A better understanding of God" to "God's law changes to reflect the times"

How palatable these are varies from person to person.

Than, the level of inconsistency varies from person to person depending on how the interpret the whole thing. If you view the old testament as simple historical context and information, and not law to be adhered to, as many do, then the amount of inconsistency is cut significantly.

jothki

Thanatos wrote: »

jothki wrote: »

Thanatos wrote: »

The Bible says whatever the person reading it wants it to say at the time.

Of course there's biblical support for abortion; there's biblical support for pretty much any position you could ever (or never) want to take, from being pro-child-rape to being pro-slavery.

That seems as apathetic a position as believing that the bible supports exactly your current views. It's a piece of literature, and can be impartially analyzed.
If you want to claim that it contradicts itself, sure. But that doesn't mean that the messages themselves are muddled. If you want to claim that some of the things it advocates are horrific, then that's perfectly fine as well, but that often falls outside the scope of a particular analysis.

How can it not muddle the messages when it's constantly contradicting itself?

The fact that there are verses all over the place that contradict other verses makes it kind of useless as a guide to living.

Which puts it on the same level as 99% of all other literature.

RiemannLives

Styrofoam Sammich wrote: »

joshofalltrades wrote: »

God sure does change his mind a lot if the Pope overrides what's written.

Usually its a subject they frown on. If you get an answer it ranges from "A better understanding of God" to "God's law changes to reflect the times"

How palatable these are varies from person to person.

Than, the level of inconsistency varies from person to person depending on how the interpret the whole thing. If you view the old testament as simple historical context and information, and not law to be adhered to, as many do, then the amount of inconsistency is cut significantly.

No, not really. Each of the gospels present a dramaticially different picture of what Jesus was about and the things he did. And Paul himself (the earliest source, and the only known author of any part of the NT) did not care at all what Jesus said or did during his life: only about his death and ressurection.

Even Acts, which is largely about Paul, has several important contradictions with the letters by Paul (and about half of those are later forgeries - such as Timothy I-II and Titus - or mis-attributions - such as Hebrews).

Thanatos

jothki wrote: »

Thanatos wrote: »

How can it not muddle the messages when it's constantly contradicting itself?

The fact that there are verses all over the place that contradict other verses makes it kind of useless as a guide to living.

Which puts it on the same level as 99% of all other literature.

Most other literature doesn't present itself as the be-all and end-all of human knowledge.

Styrofoam Sammich

RiemannLives wrote: »

Styrofoam Sammich wrote: »

joshofalltrades wrote: »

God sure does change his mind a lot if the Pope overrides what's written.

Usually its a subject they frown on. If you get an answer it ranges from "A better understanding of God" to "God's law changes to reflect the times"

How palatable these are varies from person to person.

Than, the level of inconsistency varies from person to person depending on how the interpret the whole thing. If you view the old testament as simple historical context and information, and not law to be adhered to, as many do, then the amount of inconsistency is cut significantly.

No, not really. Each of the gospels present a dramaticially different picture of what Jesus was about and the things he did. And Paul himself (the earliest source, and the only known author of any part of the NT) did not care at all what Jesus said or did during his life: only about his death and ressurection.

Even Acts, which is largely about Paul, has several important contradictions with the letters by Paul (and about half of those are later forgeries - such as Timothy I-II and Titus - or mis-attributions - such as Hebrews).

You'll note I didn't say it removes all. But the big overarching inconsistencies aren't as big. Its pretty common to view the new testament as a series of personal accounts as well, which isn't a particularly dishonest way to go about it either.

Styrofoam Sammich

Thanatos wrote: »

jothki wrote: »

Thanatos wrote: »

How can it not muddle the messages when it's constantly contradicting itself?

The fact that there are verses all over the place that contradict other verses makes it kind of useless as a guide to living.

Which puts it on the same level as 99% of all other literature.

Most other literature doesn't present itself as the be-all and end-all of human knowledge.

Well in all fairness none of them sell as well either.

jothki

Thanatos wrote: »

jothki wrote: »

Thanatos wrote: »

How can it not muddle the messages when it's constantly contradicting itself?

The fact that there are verses all over the place that contradict other verses makes it kind of useless as a guide to living.

Which puts it on the same level as 99% of all other literature.

Most other literature doesn't present itself as the be-all and end-all of human knowledge.

So spend a paragraph or two describing how pretentious it is, and move on. There's no need to take it particularly seriously if you feel it doesn't deserve it.

Atomika

joshofalltrades wrote: »

A lot of my classes taught that Christianity is really very broken. I tend to agree. Modern Christianity is a facade and a shade of what Jesus would have wanted it to be.

Well, most of "modern" Christianity has little to do with the teachings of Jesus, and more emphasis on the letters of Paul and random bits of whichever Old Testament stuff sounds important, to the point where the term, "Christian," is almost a misnomer.


Also, the common perception of Jesus is a lot more upbeat and positive than what's down in scripture. The Biblical Jesus is kind of an entitled prick, and judgmental as fuck.

Styrofoam Sammich

Is it being entitled if you really are god?

ElJeffe

jothki wrote: »

Thanatos wrote: »

jothki wrote: »

Thanatos wrote: »

The Bible says whatever the person reading it wants it to say at the time.

Of course there's biblical support for abortion; there's biblical support for pretty much any position you could ever (or never) want to take, from being pro-child-rape to being pro-slavery.

That seems as apathetic a position as believing that the bible supports exactly your current views. It's a piece of literature, and can be impartially analyzed.
If you want to claim that it contradicts itself, sure. But that doesn't mean that the messages themselves are muddled. If you want to claim that some of the things it advocates are horrific, then that's perfectly fine as well, but that often falls outside the scope of a particular analysis.

How can it not muddle the messages when it's constantly contradicting itself?

The fact that there are verses all over the place that contradict other verses makes it kind of useless as a guide to living.

Which puts it on the same level as 99% of all other literature.

Hey man, I have formed my entire worldview on the tenets laid out in Everybody Poops.

Thanatos

jothki wrote: »

Thanatos wrote: »

jothki wrote: »

Thanatos wrote: »

How can it not muddle the messages when it's constantly contradicting itself?

The fact that there are verses all over the place that contradict other verses makes it kind of useless as a guide to living.

Which puts it on the same level as 99% of all other literature.

Most other literature doesn't present itself as the be-all and end-all of human knowledge.

So spend a paragraph or two describing how pretentious it is, and move on. There's no need to take it particularly seriously if you feel it doesn't deserve it.

The issue is that regardless of how seriously I take it, people with a lot of decisionmaking power take it very seriously. People who know how to make bombs out of domestic cleaners take it very seriously. People who are willing to murder doctors take it very seriously.

So it isn't really my seriousness I'm worried about. I would also hesitate to make a biblically-based pro-choice argument anywhere in public; seems like it would be a good way to get shot.

Styrofoam Sammich

Thanatos wrote: »

jothki wrote: »

Thanatos wrote: »

jothki wrote: »

Thanatos wrote: »

How can it not muddle the messages when it's constantly contradicting itself?

The fact that there are verses all over the place that contradict other verses makes it kind of useless as a guide to living.

Which puts it on the same level as 99% of all other literature.

Most other literature doesn't present itself as the be-all and end-all of human knowledge.

So spend a paragraph or two describing how pretentious it is, and move on. There's no need to take it particularly seriously if you feel it doesn't deserve it.

The issue is that regardless of how seriously I take it, people with a lot of decisionmaking power take it very seriously. People who know how to make bombs out of domestic cleaners take it very seriously. People who are willing to murder doctors take it very seriously.

So it isn't really my seriousness I'm worried about. I would also hesitate to make a biblically-based pro-choice argument anywhere in public; seems like it would be a good way to get shot.

Yet we still manage to do pretty good with so much of the world heavily invested in such a dangerous ideology.

Thanatos

Styrofoam Sammich wrote: »

Thanatos wrote: »

The issue is that regardless of how seriously I take it, people with a lot of decisionmaking power take it very seriously. People who know how to make bombs out of domestic cleaners take it very seriously. People who are willing to murder doctors take it very seriously.

So it isn't really my seriousness I'm worried about. I would also hesitate to make a biblically-based pro-choice argument anywhere in public; seems like it would be a good way to get shot.

Yet we still manage to do pretty good with so much of the world heavily invested in such a dangerous ideology.

We manage to do so well in spite of so much of the world being heavily invested in such a dangerous ideology, not because of it.