Almost scared to ask. . .

[Recovering]

(01-16-2012 11:30 PM)Tchaiko Wrote:  Ok. So here it is. After coming out of fundamentalism, I've tried to logically go through everything I believe. And I ran into this issue. I'm scared to present this because I know it will get tons of trolls and people thinking much worse of me because I pose this question. Like I said, I just came over this while logically thinking through everything. I didn't invent this to defend or attack anything. I just saw an inconstancy and don't know how to logically resolve it. Here goes.

All children under the age of accountability go to heaven, right? After that, they have the choice of either accepting or rejecting Christ. Why then is abortion so wrong?? It sends to heaven souls that might have rejected Christ years down the line.

Again, I'm not trying to defend abortion. I currently am trying to make sense of it all, and refuse to have a view on it until I get this issue worked out to my own satisfaction. I just want to know what other Christians (because the premises are Christian) of varying levels of conservatism think.

I think you're missing a couple fairly big things in this thread. First, assuming all babies go to heaven (which others have pointed out may not be the safest assumption, but let's go with it for the moment), abortion may not be the worst thing ever for the baby, just like martyrdom isn't the worst thing ever for a Christian. You get to skip a whole lot of messy stuff and go to heaven. However, assuming abortion is murder (again, an arguable point) it is pretty much the worst thing ever for the person making the decision to abort. Given this framework, the baby goes to heaven, but that poor mother is a murderer. That is pretty awful.

Second, as I'm sure you're aware, the whole "greater good" can be a pretty terrifying moral guide. All sorts of awful, non-Christian things fit neatly in a "greater good" scheme. I am aware that this isn't much of an argument if you don't accept general Christian morality in the first place, but since you're working assumption is that all babies go to heaven, I think it's fair to assume you do. :-)

[FmrMarine]

It is only a mind-boggling conundrum if you approach it from the standpoint that Christianity is true and there is an omnisicent god who has a plan for each of our lives, including aborters and abortees so to speak. If you approach it from the standpoint that god is imaginary, it all makes sense.

[Darrell]

Quote:It is only a mind-boggling conundrum if you approach it from the standpoint that Christianity is true and there is an omnisicent god who has a plan for each of our lives, including aborters and abortees so to speak.

Which is, in fact, the point of view this thread is coming from.

But do feel free to start another thread discussing it from the alternative point of view.

[Persnickety Polecat]

(01-16-2012 11:30 PM)Tchaiko Wrote:  Ok. So here it is. After coming out of fundamentalism, I've tried to logically go through everything I believe. And I ran into this issue. I'm scared to present this because I know it will get tons of trolls and people thinking much worse of me because I pose this question. Like I said, I just came over this while logically thinking through everything. I didn't invent this to defend or attack anything. I just saw an inconstancy and don't know how to logically resolve it. Here goes.

All children under the age of accountability go to heaven, right? After that, they have the choice of either accepting or rejecting Christ. Why then is abortion so wrong?? It sends to heaven souls that might have rejected Christ years down the line.

Again, I'm not trying to defend abortion. I currently am trying to make sense of it all, and refuse to have a view on it until I get this issue worked out to my own satisfaction. I just want to know what other Christians (because the premises are Christian) of varying levels of conservatism think.

I personally believe this is an area that should be left to each individual woman. The Old Testament law placed a higher value on the life of a woman than on her unborn child. That does not mean her child had no value, and I think any woman who has ever been pregnant knows that her child has value (certainly to her), but it does mean that there was a difference. If a woman was hurt and lost her baby, there was a civil penalty. If she was hurt and died, there was a criminal penalty. Therefore, it does not seem to me that abortion was considered murder in those days.

As to now, I do not want the government that intimately involved in my life or body. I do not want them telling me I have to continue a pregnancy to term, nor do I want them telling me I have to terminate a pregnancy. Bodily autonomy is a very sacred thing, and women should not have to forfeit it to the government.

I'd rather see more systems put in place to cut down on the perceived need for abortions than making abortions illegal. I don't ever want to see a woman subjected to an inquisition over whether or not she had a miscarriage or an abortion (I'm looking at you, Georgia) or forced into procedures against her will.

I find it interesting that the party who is constantly arguing that the government is overstepping its bounds is the exact same party who is all up in a woman's uterus. I guess they only want the government out of the business of the white, middle-class businessman.

[Persnickety Polecat]

(01-17-2012 03:58 AM)Qrayze Wrote:  I'm having a really hard time thinking that this topic is black and white when there are so many variables/shades of gray.

I don't think it's black and white at all.

[Darrell]

Quote: Bodily autonomy is a very sacred thing, and women should not have to forfeit it to the government.

And I would counter that neither should the unborn child.

I don't really want to have yet another abortion debate here and now because it's a bit off-topic from the original post. But suffice it to say that every argument about abortion ultimately comes down to whether or not the unborn human being is in fact a human person deserving of human rights.

Quote:I find it interesting that the party who is constantly arguing that the government is overstepping its bounds is the exact same party who is all up in a woman's uterus.

If you believe that abortion is the taking of innocent life then it is a very legitimate function of government to protect the innocent.

[Don]

Let me throw this out. It is not an "age" of accountability but a "knowledge" of accountability. I do not believe that any innocent has sin imputed to them. This includes those who are mentally incapable of knowing right from wrong. I do not know what takes place in their mind and souls but I believe the Bible is clear on who is held accountable for their sin.

So there are two issues here. When is sin imputed and and what does God's law say about murder? (I know the law of the land parses the definitions of life, personhood, and murder down to the nth degree) Additionally then what does God say about murder? What does God say regarding personhood? What does God say regarding imputation of sin?

In Genesis 9:6 God is very specific was to why murder is a sin. (of course murder is specifically listed as a transgression of God's law in Exodus 20 and again in Deut.5)

What does God say regarding life? It begins in Genesis 2 with the work of God. In Isaiah 44 he says three times "formed... from the womb." Jeremiah confrms this in 1:5. So personhood is established by God.

What it boils down to is the view of God.
It is not even a matter of intellect but a matter of will. It goes back to Romans 1:18-3:18. This passage speaks to the will rather than the intellect. They knew of God and were without excuse, it is their willful disregard, their willful disobedience that is sin.

So when is sin imputed? In Romans 5:12-17 we see that the power of sin is in the law and sin is not imputed where there is no law, yet we know that the law is written on the hearts of men so that none are without excuse. So when are we without knowledge of the law? This is where we see Romans 7:7-9 talk about a time before we know the law... before we have the knowledge that we are accountable to, the knowledge that condemns us.

So where is the "logic" in the argument that for the greater good it is better to kill babies before they reach the knowledge of accountability? All that amounts to is rationalization for murder. As sinful creatures it is easy for us to rationalize murder, even on mass scale. Look to the eugenics programs of the early 20th century. How many were murdered for the greater good? They were portrayed to be a blight on society. Once demonized and rationalized that the retarded, the handicapped, the moronic, the mentally and physically handicapped were of no use to society it was easy to exterminate them. Then it becomes easier to view others as vermin, pigs, lice, anything other than human and millions were exterminated simply for being Gypsy, Polish, communists, and Jews. All we need do is program the masses to believe such life is worthless... or just a blob of parasitic flesh.

[lucrezaborgia]

(01-16-2012 11:51 PM)Darrell Wrote:  Those choices of life and death are not up to us. We are not given the mission of forcibly sending souls into the kingdom of heaven against their will by violating the explicit commands of God against the taking of innocent life. It is antithetical to the Gospel and to Scripture.

Yet according to Scripture, God has given humans the choice of life or death. He did it over and over during the clearing out of the promised land.

In more modern times, medical professionals make these choices all the time. Who gets an organ transplant? In an emergency situation, who is treated first? In these situations, no one is explicitly taking a life, but they aren't always saving life either.

[Darrell]

Quote:Yet according to Scripture, God has given humans the choice of life or death. He did it over and over during the clearing out of the promised land.

I'd more characterize it as God giving divine authorization using human instruments. He could have made everyone drop dead of a heart attack. Instead he ordered them killed. But the important bit there is that HE ordered it.

I don't claim to be able to understand it completely why he did that. But I do know that it's not really an apples to apples comparison unless you're claiming that every abortion is the result of an explicit Divine mandate.

Quote: In these situations, no one is explicitly taking a life, but they aren't always saving life either.

And again that's a small but vital distinction.

[lucrezaborgia]

(01-17-2012 08:41 PM)Darrell Wrote:  unless you're claiming that every abortion is the result of an explicit Divine mandate.

If god says to a woman in prayer to have an abortion, is it the devil or is it god?

Also, this verse has always puzzled me:

Quote:O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
blessed shall he be who repays you
with what you have done to us!
Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock!

http://esv.scripturetext.com/psalms/137.htm

Life does not seem so sacred in this psalm and in the OT, life often isn't sacred at all as long as it's not the Jews who are suffering.