Barbara said:
When I hear opposition to birth control my ears perk. I know your position is different now.
I understand how you could have taken it that way. I’ve got a bad habit of not being as clear as I should be at time. Thanks for keeping me on my toes.
Barbara said:
It bothers me when I see families in extreme religious sects with huge broods. It appears to indicate sexual addiction on the part of the parents. Plus, we the taxpayers are subsidizing them.
Again, I understand. However, be careful how you stereotype. I’m sure that there are those that fit into your idea of large families, but I'm sure there are many exceptions as well.
Now, I fear that our conversation may be moving a bit off topic, even though I understand that at times, you have to take care of the things that that surround a topic in order to get back to the topic. After all, few things as as simple as one might wish them to be.
Barbara said:
StoveBolts said:
I believe that the accounts within the bible I have posted speak volumes. You see, we all have to believe in and idea. The question then becomes, which idea are you willing to accept to function as a foundation to base your perception of reality on?
I don't understand this part.
As far as the Bible speaking volumes on the subject of abortion, one will either be able to, or will not be able to see what the Bible has to say on this matter depending on which lense (idea) one is looking through. Jesus was known for asking questions when asked a question. Do you know why? Along that line, why is it that even some of the “Teachers†of Torah didn’t recognize Jesus as the Christ? Simple, they were looking through the wrong lense (idea). On the other hand, we have the Bereans, who tested and studied scripture and concluded that Jesus was the Christ. Ironically, both parties were reading the same scriptures… What I wrote was pretty, but then the Bible tells a beautiful story of God’s great love for humanity. A love so strong that he sent his Son for us.
When I read scripture, often I see God revealing himself through redemptive history and hence, it forms a picture in my mind of who God is and what his nature is like. And that picture is often evolving as God liberates me from the sin that binds me. When I speak of an Idea, what I’m speaking about is how I view God acting in present time which forms the foundation of how I view or percieve a given situation with the understanding that my vision is limited.
To move it into a secular realm, lets apply this to a fetus. You say that a fetus isn’t a person. Well, in a sense your right. After all, God did say that we were brought forth from the dust of the ground. Lets take a look at this.
First off, if you went to the science lab and ran some tests, you’d find out that humans really aren’t made up of anything special. Where just this organized piece of meat and bones. Heck, if you look at the periodic table, were made of the stuff that other stuff is made of. So really, from a purely objective view, your right. A fetus isn’t a person. It’s simply a bunch of cells.
The problem I see with that idea is this. Both you and I and the rest of humanity fall into that same category. So then, we have to eliminate what were made of as a qualifier for what a ‘person’ truly is. Now, I’m sure that one could argue about the current state of that cells, how they are arranged, what the cognitive state etc are, but then, that’s really just an opinion isn’t it? Now, some could conclude that the reality of the matter is this. A fetus doesn’t think like us, it doesn’t act like us but in all honesty, by using these statements as qualifiers to discredit the title of “Person†to a fetus, is simply an agreed upon reality based on perception of a group of individuals and thus, is really very subjective in nature. Besides, taken to the extreem of this kind of thinking, we have Hitler as an example where the Jews really weren’t “people†or for even a toned down version, we have the mentally ill being dumped into these awful hospitals and shut up through the means of psychotropic drugs to make them more “Manageableâ€Â.
It really is very bias, but then again, it’s the lense I choose to view what surrounds me. Others really aren’t different to this regard. We all view our surroundings based on our percieved reality which I believe is often driven by the primary idea that we hold dear to our hearts for whatever reason or another.
Take for example the mother who gets pregnant when she is very young and has an abortion. At the time, she may feel guilt, perhaps not, but she has the procedure anyway. Several years later perhaps she has a child, and while enjoying her newborn, the guilt of aborting her previous child meets her head on. Now, depending on her esteem she will probably do one of two things. First, she may try to justify her guilt so she doesn’t have to deal with the inner anguish, perhaps even to the degree of minimizing the fetus to a simple clump of cells to avoid the inner struggle she’s having. I believe they call that detachment, which initially is very normal, but it has to be worked though if one wants to be free from it. Facing oneself honestly is often a difficult task and the thing about the past is this; one can’t change the past, we can only change how we view that past.
Now, the second thing that the mother might do is this. She might be overcome with guilt, but instead of trying to justify her guilt, thus avoiding it, she may just accept her anguish. This too can be dangerous if she stays in her pity, but accepting the guilt is the first step to moving through it. To move through it, is to accept the reality and to put things within there proper context. It’s not about “I should haveâ€Â, but rather, “It is what it isâ€Â, to but it plainly. The hard part is identifying “What IT isâ€Â.
I realize that this is long, but I believe it needed to be said. But the fact remains, that when the male’s sperm penetrates the woman’s egg, there is a spark of new life,and that life is a person, it just can’t articulate in a manner that we can fully understand.
Does that clear things up? If you would like, I can give scripture that agree’s in principal with what I’ve stated.
P.S. Take a look at my Sig...
NKJV) Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of a man [is] the lamp of the LORD, Searching all the inner depths of his heart.
: (Thanks Scott for quoting it) . I agree with your thoughts, and if we were to focus more on these items than the argument at hand, I think God's light would shine brighter than ever!