If I vote for a president who is pro abortion and he is elected president and puts people on the Supreme Court bench to legalize abortion, am I condoning abortion or am I taking part in other men's sins by voting a person into office that I know will help murder many more babies?

Abortion already is legal, Tony.  Presidents have been trying to pack the court with justices whose agenda would be to criminalize it.  Obama would stop trying to do that.  The technical issue is not abortion, but privacy rights.  The question before the court is whether it should continue to treat a woman's choice to continue or end her own condition of pregnancy as a matter that the government can interfere with.  The current law is that government bodies have no stake in the matter until at least the third trimester.  People like you want to change the law to use the government to impose their religious opinions on people who do not share those opinions.

Quote from: Tony N on October 27, 2008, 11:31:21 AM

If I vote for a president who is pro abortion and he is elected president and puts people on the Supreme Court bench to legalize abortion, am I condoning abortion or am I taking part in other men's sins by voting a person into office that I know will help murder many more babies?

Abortion already is legal, Tony.

Yes, and 'legality' is not the question. Seriously Cop. your grasp of the English language has been lacking these past few discussions.

Presidents have been trying to pack the court with justices whose agenda would be to criminalize it.  Obama would stop trying to do that.  The technical issue is not abortion, but privacy rights.

No the technical issue is and always has been: Is it a human being?

The question before the court is whether it should continue to treat a woman's choice to continue or end her own condition of pregnancy as a matter that the government can interfere with.  The current law is that government bodies have no stake in the matter until at least the third trimester.  People like you want to change the law to use the government to impose their religious opinions on people who do not share those opinions.

Exactly, and there's nothing to be ashamed of in doing so, as by allowing abortion it is imposing a religious belief on us who don't share your opinion. Difference is we don't demonstrate the hypocriscy of decrying it while doing it at the same time.

Hi Zag, if I thought my vote for a candidate actually meant something I would not vote for McCain either. I would vote for one of the other parties. But since that vote would count for nothing I guess I won't be voting for who the next president will be. All the other parties are disenfranchised and marginalized. It is too bad because some of the other parties have had people that would have made a much better pres. than we've had.

I hear ya, Tony.

 There is a biblical way of having an abortion. A method that is not only approved by God, it was invented by him. He describes it himself in the book of Numbers (5:11-31).

It's a bit long and complicated, so I'll break it up.

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying ... If any man's wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him, And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner; Numbers 5:11-13

The first thing to notice is the context. This procedure is only intended for married couples, specifically for any man that suspects that his wife has been messing around. No proof is necessary; suspicion alone is sufficient to God.

Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon ... And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water ... And the priest shall set the woman before the LORD ... and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse.... (5:15-18)

OK, I am leaving some of the details out here, so if you're going to try this at home, make sure to follow God's instructions exactly. There's no guarantee any of this will work otherwise.

And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse: But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband: Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. 5:19-22

This is the part that fooled me. I get the idea that if the woman has been unfaithful, then the magic bitter water will do something awful to her. But I wasn't sure just what. What does it mean to have your belly swell and your thigh rot? But then I saw the footnote in the NIV that said it meant this: "cause you to be barren and have a miscarrying womb."

So if the woman is guilty (had sex with someone besides her husband), then the bitter water will make her unable to have children in the future. And if she is pregnant at the time, it will abort the pregnancy.

And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed. This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled; Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before the LORD, and the priest shall execute upon her all this law. Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity.5:27-31

It's all part of God's wondrous Law of Jealousies. God's magical abortion procedure. A priest, some bitter water, and a wife that you think might have been unfaithful.

So if God has his own abortion procedure, abortion can't be wrong, right?

It may not be that easy

• You need to be under the law of Moses
• You need to be a circumcised Jew
• You need to be in covenant with God to do all the law
• You need to have a working tabernacle in Israel sanctioned by Yahweh
• You need to have dirt from the floor of said tabernacle to put into a crock of water
• You need a priest under the Levitical priesthood under that covenant to offer up the sacrifice of jealousies
• Yahweh must be IN the tabernacle in order for the priest to stand the woman before Yahweh

I don't know if this will actually give the woman an abortion but it might.

Hopefully, most Christians will be able to produce similar excuses for ignoring passages like that.

Allow me.  *Ahem*  Thepassagethatyouarereferingtocomesfromtheperiodo fDIRECTTHEOCRACY andthereforeanythingnastyinitiscompletelyok! [Deep breath] Murderabortionsslaverychildabusekidnappingincesta ndrapeareallperfectlymoralsolongasgodtellsyoutodo them.

The less condensed version: it's a case of 'do as he says, not as he does' with God.  If God (to take a random example) suddenly tells End Bringer to be gay, then he'll be down at that nightclub like a shot with a clear conscience and a Village People t-shirt, because if you get instructions directly from the big cheese, then (conveniently) nothing you do can possibly be wrong.  Israelite nastiness is all officially rubber-stamped as far as this theory goes, which saves a lot of brainwork resolving the sheer weirdness of some of it, Dotard's example being a case in point.  i don't think this sort of thing is going to convince the ones who need convincing, although i agree it's a good one.

Tony, I didn't see any of those requirements listed there, but I'm glad you can talk yourself out of actually believing that we ought to engage in such behavior, even if it does take some effort to do so.  Hopefully, most Christians will be able to produce similar excuses for ignoring passages like that.  Leviticus especially poses problems for those Christians who are not adept at reconciling what they want to believe with what the Bible appears to want them to believe.

Well of course you don't see any of those requirements because if you did you would see that such a system cannot possibly work today because those things only work under the law of Moses with a tabernacle and God being amongst His peope in Israel.

And the text does not specifically state that the woman aborts her baby. These are not excuses but facts.

If God (to take a random example) suddenly tells End Bringer to be gay, then he'll be down at that nightclub like a shot with a clear conscience and a Village People t-shirt, because if you get instructions directly from the big cheese, then (conveniently) nothing you do can possibly be wrong.

How wrong you are. The difference between homosexuality and whatever other "nastiness" your arguemnt from outrage sights is that homosexuality is an inherent sin. There is no circumstance that justifies it. As such 'God' would be commanding to do something inherently sinful, and thus of course would never command such a thing as it's against His nature. So you fail. Again.

Israelite nastiness is all officially rubber-stamped as far as this theory goes, which saves a lot of brainwork resolving the sheer weirdness of some of it,...

Pretty much because the issue come's down to God being "nasty" or not. And since we see God directly using floods, plagues, judgements, and condemning mankind to death in it's entirety, being outraged that a nation was used as a medium for His will is seen to be shallow and empty.

Dotard's example being a case in point.  i don't think this sort of thing is going to convince the ones who need convincing, although i agree it's a good one.

Problably because it doesn't prove anything that most people educated on the matter haven't already been saying themselves. Dotard mistakenly takes an example where abortion is legitimate in one circumstance (just punishment) and this is meant to somehow bring us to the conclusion that this gives carte blanche? I'd like to see how that follows.

I don't recall ever saying killing was inherently wrong as there are circumstances where it's justified and moral. Unfortunately for abortion 98% of it is "on demand" that is not justified and is indeed murder. I recall you have personally challenged my views on the rare instances where abortion is indeed legitimate DB, thinking I'm somehow contradicting myself. Sighting another rare instance that justifies it doesn't even make me raise an eyebrow.

If morality is circumstantial--that is, it varies according to circumstances--then your entire concept of "moral absolutism" merges with what you have been calling "moral relativism".

Probably because what it refers to is that absolutely everyone is to behave this way or take a certain course of action relative to the circumstances. Not a person can do what is relative to his feelings and that's alright just for him.

Suddenly, it is not the behavior that you are judging good or bad, but the behavior relative to circumstances.

Yes, suddenly it's a bad behavior because it's inappropriate to the circumstances.  

So one can legitimately look at the terrorist behavior of Bill Ayers in the 1960s and 1970s as morally justified by the circumstances.  That is what Ayers argued then and now.  You can look at the destruction of the WTC by terrorists as quite possibly justified by circumstances, which is what the terrorists argue.  You can no longer argue that abortion is ipso facto immoral, because circumstances may justify its morality.  Welcome to the world of moral relativism.

Wrong, that is exactly the world of moral objectivity. The only question would be if the circumstances do indeed call for that behavior. You are not saying anything new, nor contradicting to what pro-lifers have been argueing for a long time. As it's already acknowledged that killing isn't ipso facto immoral, as abortion can be justified if the life (note not lifestyle) of the mother is in danger from the pregnancy.

You have been contradicting yourself in the sense that you have been disguising your moral relativism as somehow different from DB's or mine.  All you are doing is condemning the behavior of others on the basis of your own very subjective opinion and claiming that it is stamped with God's approval.

The bolded area shows where you fail. Again. As circumstances being grounded in reality means exactly that I have more than just subjective opinion.

The fundamental flaw in your argument is that, assuming the existence of God, nobody is an authority on what God wants.  So trying to claim that authoritarian religious morality is somehow superior to secularist morality is nothing more than a smokescreen for megalomaniacal insistence that your moral opinion trumps everyone else's.

Bwahahahahaha The Word of God is exactly an authority of what God wants. Assuming there is a God, all that's left is to determine if it is indeed His Word. As such secularist authority just becomes children whinning to have their way in the face of an Authority.