Apparently the controversy is that Archbishop Samuel Aquila is a believing Catholic – fancy that. Also apparently the Pope actually handpicked a bishop who believes and proclaims the faith – quite shocking.
The Denver news station that printed that story wants to make sure you get the message with the poll they put at the bottom of the story.
So far the “I’m Catholic, and yes I am” and “I’m not Catholic, and yes I am” have the majority of the votes. Though internet polls are pretty useless.
49 comments
Even useless things have some merit.
For the record: I am not Catholic, am against abortion, debating about civil union.
Vote here: http://kdvr.com/2012/07/18/web-poll-will-you-stand-against-abortion-civil-unions-with-denvers-new-archbishop/
If you are against abortion and civil unions don’t have abortions or civil unions. What is bizarre is how anyone would think their opinion should affect other people’s doing those things.
Salvage is right!
That is an historical and very valid argument. Slave owners used it: If you don’t want to own slaves, then don’t own slaves. Don’t tell the rest of us what to do. Slavery is legal….. it is my right…”
It’s refreshing to know that in this day and age of recycling, we can recycle arguments as well.
Yeah, the big difference between slavery and abortion is that the slaves weren’t inside the bodies of the slavers. See that’s the bit you’re not understanding / choosing not to understand, a fetus is not a person.
Not sure if you were applying that silly metaphor to civil unions, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt there.
First, Puff’s argument was not a metaphor, it was an analogy. If you wish to convey the impression of knowing more than others here, get your terms right.
Second, and here liews the crux, about your statement regarding ‘fetus’: Whether or not the being in the womb of the mother is a fetus or a baby is a matter of First Principles, an assumption upon which logic and reasoning is based. We believe it is human, you do not. There can be no reconciliation, and apparently no proof may be provided to change anyone’s mind here. However, seeing as we make the assumption that a baby in the womb is a human being, your point is null and void as far as we are concerned, and Puff’s analogy was accurate. You may as well have written to us: “If you don’t like murder, don’t commit one.”
Finally, you are now encouraging us to take the stance that since it does not affect us, or have anything to do with us, we shold have no opinion and stay out of the argument. However, a few days back whent he topic at hand was circumcision, you rebuked someone with the words: “It doesn’t affect me so what does it matter!?!? A truly awesome counter-point except:..” and then you continued on to mock the poster for taking that stance, by pointing out that a botched circumcision lead to the death of a baby. So you say in this case that it doesn’t affect us, so stay out of it when we take a stand for what we believe are babies, but mock us for saying it doesn’t affect us and then take a stand for babies yourself.
Your logic and consistency, sir, are sadly lacking.
> We believe it is human, you do not.
And you are wrong, human beings do not live inside their mother’s wombs. Science and physical facts back me up on this.
> “It doesn’t affect me so what does it matter!?!?
Because killing a child / hurting a child / risking a child for a deeply silly superstition is clearly foolish. There is no argument to be made to justify circumcision unless it somehow saves the kid’s life.
The child is a person (unlike a fetus which is not, again, science, facts etc.)
Saying you have no problem with circumcision because it doesn’t affect you is clearly ridiculous.
A woman deciding what she does with her own body conversely not only doesn’t affect you it is very much none of your business. What is or is not in her womb is only her concern. If you insist that once a woman becomes pregnant she loses her rights to her person then it can be argued that a rapist was trying to save the egg that was about to be washed out by the selfish cow’s biology. After all if four cells splitting is a person than it’s not unreasonable to back a step and declare sperm and egg persons too, they not being attached to each other notwithstanding.
That of course would be insane.
The problem with abortion is not the nature of the fetus / child the problem is that the mother, the woman is the absolute master of her body in every way and dimension. I know your church has taught you that women are second class citizens who should always obey the penis bearer bet in her husband or father so I understand why you can’t understand this.
What I can’t understand is why you think two different things are the same thing.
To slave owners slaves weren’t persons either.
There is no difference in denying person-hood an a human being because nature and his DNA decrees s/he has melanin which darkens the skin, or denying person-hood on a human being because nature and DNA decree that s/he must develop in the womb.
Deny person-hood for one reason, deny person-hood for any reason, the result in the same. The legitimization of atrocities against fellow human beings.
Learn the difference between “human being” and “person” You are confusing them.
Human being is a scientific term and science tells us that the foetus growing in a human female is human, it can’t be anything else. It can’t be feline, canine, bovine, equine, it is perforce human.
Law confers personhood. It is personhood that pro-choicers deny the unborn human being. The result of the pro-choice position is therefore : A human foetus though human is not a person because it grows in the mother’s womb, and has no civil rights or protection.
Bear,
Your analysis was excellent.
Puff,
I agree completely that this is the ultimate point. Denying the personhood for one is an attack against us all. For if they can take away the personhood of any of us, they can take away the personhood of all of us.
Also, we must remember that we are writing our arguments for those interested in seeking knowledge and gaining wisdom. Our brother salvage has no interest in engaging in debate. He apprehends no logic and understands few of the essential terms he is using.
Particularly note his appeal to science and facts, neither of which are on his side, but there he is using them like an invisible shield.
Let us continue to pray for our brother salvage and wish him happiness…
Seeing as science still debates this point, namely, at what point do fetuses/babies become human, your assertion that science has settled the point is incorrect. That you call such things “facts” is interesting, and I shall get to that in a moment. As it stands, with science still divided, and cannot be resolved for the time being, on the issue, I return to you: It is a matter of first principle whether or not the child is human before it leaves the womb. We either assume it to be, or we assume it not to be. No proof can convince neither one side nor the other that they are wrong. Do not bother asserting blandly that your side is right and ours is wrong, or that our science is not science at all, as you will only show ignorance. Seeing that we believe it to be human whether in the womb or out, then it should not be difficult for you to see that we are not talking about two dissimilar things, but the same thing: the death of a child.
Your analogy of the rapist is off the mark and completely irrelevant. We argue that life begins at conception, not before. You say it could be argued, and we may both agree that it is insane to make such an argument, but we have never raised such an argument. You have simply raised a straw man argument.
You also mistake Church teachings on women: the Church does not teach that at all. Again, you are off the mark. It is clear now that you do not hat ethe Church, but rather the entity that you believe the Church to be, which is something completely different. What you know is wrong.
So you cite your facts and your straw men, and fail to see how we are not impressed. Let us try, then, the words ‘fact’: it bears it’s root in the latin word Fiat, in that it is a thing that is created, a thing that is made. As such, it exists only under construction, provisional rather than a found, or revealed, or a pre-existing thing. They always come with their own built in point of view. Stating that such a thing is a fact does not make it so, except in the point of view that calls for such a fact to support it. You have just cited facts against the Church, but they are nothing but your own imagination. The opposite of your provisional is Truth, and that is what you are struggling against.
>Seeing as science still debates this point, namely, at what point do fetuses/babies become human,
Nope. No debate, medical science is quite clear on the mater, it defines a fetus as one thing and a child as another.
There is of course a philosophical debate about when life begins but that like most of those it’s meaningless in the harsh glare of reality.
> we are not talking about two dissimilar things, but the same thing: the death of a child.
Nope. An abortion kills a fetus of that there is no doubt but it does not kill a child anymore than killing sperm and an egg kills a fetus.
>We argue that life begins at conception, not before.
Oh. So you get to set the arbitrary line that life starts? How fortunate for your argument! Well I argue that life begins at the sperm and the egg, so checkmate! and rapists are just as noble as people who hang around clinics talking women out of abortions.
> You have simply raised a straw man argument.
Sigh. No, I do not, I’m not saying that you think rapists are pro-life, I’m saying your argument if taken one step backward could justify rape. Just as the rapist assumes they have rights to the woman’s body because of their pro-life views so do you. The fact that the rapist views the sperm and egg as human and you view the fetus as human is mere semantics.
>You also mistake Church teachings on women: the Church does not teach that at all.
Uh huh.
Women can be priests, cardinals and Popes? They can be put in positions of power and policy? Over other women perhaps and with the men’s permission but over men? No sir! You must have a penis to be in charge. Your god is quite clear on that, it won’t do business with women folk, well unless it’s to impregnate them, that’s something women are good at right? Cooking, cleaning and procreation, that’s a woman’s role is it not?
Eve, she screwed everything up right? Wrecked your god’s paradise? And that’s why women have pain in childbirth right? Paying for that sin? Shall I dig up some fun sermons that expand on the subject? Shall I point out the Church laws that made women chattel?
See what I did there? I backed up my opinion with facts (well save the Eve thing, that’s just myths but you think them real so close enough), that means you’ll ignore them or blabber about how I don’t know what a fact is or some other chaff.
Just how you completely skipped over my main point, I’ll state it again so you can pretend it was never said; women are the complete masters of their bodies, nothing goes in, nothing comes out without their permission. It’s that simple. You can’t say what they do with their body, your god can’t, your priests can’t, no one.
But please, tell me I’m wrong, tell me the minute the egg splits he ceases to be a person and is instead an incubator whose only right is to spawn the child. After that’s done she may go back to being a person.
Once again, if you don’t like abortion, great! Don’t have one but don’t think your opinion on the matter extends beyond your own womb.
>To slave owners slaves weren’t persons either.
Nope, and they were wrong.
Just as you are if you think a fetus is a person and whatever rights you want to give a fetus it will always have one less than the woman carrying it.
>Human being is a scientific term and science tells us that the foetus growing in a human female is human,
Sure, it’s a human fetus, not a human being, not a person.
>A human foetus though human is not a person because it grows in the mother’s womb, and has no civil rights or protection.
Correct! That’s it in a nutshell. The woman carrying the fetus on the other hand has civil rights and protection yet you seem to want to take them away. Why is that?
Bear,
Notice how our brother salvage appeals to principles he does not comprehend? Notice how he invents things and calls them facts?
This is the problem with trying to engage him. There is a modern tendency to equate personhood with power. Ever since Sartre there has been a move to define things like personhood not with a thing’s nature but with how it acts. Thus even though the fetal human and the adult human have the same essential nature, we can devalue the fetal human (or the sick human) because they behave differently. Also if women and men serve different functions it must also be a difference in value.
But that would be lost on our brother salvage as would the irony of the pope bending his knee to the “demigod” (as our brother salvage calls her) Mary. As I said before, irony can only appreciated by those who use reason.
Let us continue to offer him up in prayer. May I humbly suggest to anyone reading this post that we offer up 1 Hail Mary for our brother salvage’s happiness for every time he posts here.
Ave Maria,
Gratia Plena
Nope. No debate, medical science is quite clear on the mater, it defines a fetus as one thing and a child as another.
Wrong.
http://familydoctormag.com/sexual-health/251-when-does-life-begin-medical-experts-debate-abortion-issue.html
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/21/tory-mp-calls-for-abortion-debate-using-modern-medically-accurate-evidence/
(((Sure, it’s a human fetus, not a human being, not a person.)))
OH! My head hurts! 🙁
Sorry Victor! 🙂
Fiat Lux folks
Peace
Sorry. Hit the submit button by mistake.
Continuing.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3514547
I could go on, but I’ll leave it here. The debate is continuing, even among doctors and scientists, QED. Incidentally, the debate will continue, because that is what scientistss do: debate and discuss their findings. Knowledcge is almost never settled, and what we know is constantly being reorganized by new discoveries.
Next point.
>Nope. An abortion kills a fetus of that there is no doubt but it does not kill a child anymore than killing sperm and an egg kills a fetus.
We are still stuck on first principles. You insist on the term fetus, I say baby. A debated science is on your side, experience is on mine. How often have you heard anyone ask a pregnant woman how her fetus was coming along, or what sex the fetus would be? The term fetus is used by prochoicers to deflact attention away from the idea of killing a baby. However, at least one prochoice feminist is quite clear that she does accept that abortion kills babies, she merely does not care:
http://www.salon.com/2008/09/10/palin_10/
>Oh. So you get to set the arbitrary line that life starts? How fortunate for your argument! Well I argue that life begins at the sperm and the egg, so checkmate! and rapists are just as noble as people who hang around clinics talking women out of abortions.
Hardly checkmate. This is a nonsequitor, followed by a nonsequitor, and unworthy of any attention. Use logic, please.
>Sigh. No, I do not, I’m not saying that you think rapists are pro-life, I’m saying your argument if taken one step backward could justify rape.
Yes, the argument could perhaps be taken one step backwards, perhaps even in the way you do, although as it stands it is another non sequitor, and it can, and also has been taken forward. Ethicists have taken the Church’s argumetn that there is no difference between a child in the womb and a child out of the womb and argued that, as it is acceptable to terminate or kill a child in the womb, it should be acceptable and legal to terminate one out of the womb, up until an arbitrary line at some future age. That is, as I said, an argument that can and has been made. It is not an argument that has been made. If you wish to defeat my arguments, stick to the ones that I am making , and not the ones I did not. You are deep in logical error.
>Women can be priests, cardinals and Popes? They can be put in positions of power and policy? Over other women perhaps and with the men’s permission but over men? No sir!
Curious you should mention that. A nun has just been put in charge of education at the USCCB, which puts her in authroity over other men. Otherwise, your point is taken, with a caveat I am about to make.
>You must have a penis to be in charge.
Um, not exactly. No mortal man is the head of the Church, God is. But you don’t believe that, so, moving on.
>Your god is quite clear on that, it won’t do business with women folk, well unless it’s to impregnate them, that’s something women are good at right? Cooking, cleaning and procreation, that’s a woman’s role is it not?
If you can show me where the Catechism of the Catholic Church- the repository of the Church’s teachings and the faith, states that these are the sole roll of women, I would very much like to see that. That would indeed be backing up your arguments with facts. What you did was spew nonsense and call it facts. You are back to arguing against your idea of what the Church is, which is quite different from what the Church actually is.
>Just how you completely skipped over my main point, I’ll state it again so you can pretend it was never said; women are the complete masters of their bodies, nothing goes in, nothing comes out without their permission. It’s that simple. You can’t say what they do with their body, your god can’t, your priests can’t, no one.
You are now raising the issue of Rights. You may not use that word, but the concept is at the heart of your bland assertion. I could have addressed this earlier, but it is a rather large topic and complicated one. However, you are throwing it back into the ring, so have at it. If you wish to continue this debate, I would like to know what is your definition or idea of rights- what does it mean, where do they come from, who has them, who does not. Clearly you cannot mean rights as a god given thing, as you are not a believer. So that leaves either nature, or law, or power. Let me know what you think a right is, and we will continue from there.
Oddly enough your assertion that no one is allowed to tell women what to do is contradicted by your final statement:
>Once again, if you don’t like abortion, great! Don’t have one but don’t think your opinion on the matter extends beyond your own womb.
…wherein you tell others what to do. Interesting power you claim for yourself. Try to be less contradictory in your next answer.
To go back to the original post, why do people who are not Catholic feel they have the right to an opinion about who is appointed archbishop? Or Pope for that matter. I don’t think I even know who the local Anglican archbishop is.
Jes,
Hehe.
Good point. We must be doing something right and the Church must have more influence than the mainstream media lets on.
I am sick to death of the comments by Salvage & others similar. They are so totally illogical and obstinate in their lack of logic. I wish they would just go away.
Joan,
I agree with you that our brother salvage is obstinate in his lack of reason and logic. I am not sure, though, that I wish him to go away. I am conflicted. I know that he will not listen to reason. But I pray that we can still in some way be witnesses to Christ’s love.
I am reminded of the great classic movie “Quo Vadis.” When someone in the crowd voices their understandable disgust at Nero and call him a beast, Peter says, “No man is a beast. He is but sick. Sick in mind and spirit.”
As he hurls his verbal stones at us, let us return that hatred with love and wish him happiness
Dear Salvage,
I am distressed at your view about the unborn child. Certainly we were all once this “being inside the womb” and we are human. Perhaps it’s a little difficult to picture the humanity from the cells to the smiling babe, so try it in reverse. Start from a beautiful baby just starting to laugh in response to human interaction; go back to the newborn baby; go back further to the 7-month old unborn child; go back to a 3-month unborn child; go back to the first beginnings of a human life.
Scientists have done the same “going back” to discover our wonderful beginnings in the “Big Bang”. Was that not the start of the universe and necessary for the rest? Is not the fertilized egg the start of a human being and necessary for the rest? Are we not to love this precious beginning?
God bless you.
Nice Lady,
Beautiful reflection
>I am distressed at your view about the unborn child.
Oh dear, well brace yourself but I’m not in the minority, there is a reason why abortion is legal in all but the most awful countries in the world.
>Certainly we were all once this “being inside the womb” and we are human.
Sure, and we were all once sperm and egg.
>Perhaps it’s a little difficult to picture the humanity from the cells to the smiling babe, so try it in reverse.
Not at all, it’s a fascinating progression, Dawkin’s latest book actually goes into minute details of the process, he describes it a bit like origami, going from a simple piece of paper to an incredibly detailed construct. Dawkins is always at his best when talking science.
> go back to the first beginnings of a human life.
My parents groping in the back seat of a Volkswagen Beetle with Derek and the Dominos “Layla” playing in the background? No thank you!
>Scientists have done the same “going back” to discover our wonderful beginnings in the “Big Bang”.
Sure, some 14.5 billion years, hey why did your god day it took it six days?
>Was that not the start of the universe and necessary for the rest?
I would assume so.
>Is not the fertilized egg the start of a human being and necessary for the rest?
Most definitely.
> Are we not to love this precious beginning?
We? No, what does someone else’s reproduction have to with anyone else?
See all of this balderdash does not address my main point, which no one here EVER addresses because you’re theists and when presented with a point that you can’t answer you just skip away and act as if it was never made.
Here it is in all-caps because I hope that you will see it and it will somehow penetrate:
SOMEONE ELSE’S INSIDES ARE NOT YOUR BUSINESS!
SOMEONE ELSE’S SEX LIFE IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS!
If you don’t like abortion, great don’t have one! And that is the entire length, depth and width of the value of your opinion on the subject.
If you think it’s a baby inside you with full rights then fine, it’s a baby inside you with full rights. If you think it’s lump of tissue and you want it out, then fines, it’s a lump of tissue inside you with no rights. If you were gang raped and don’t want to carry whichever rapists’ child it is, then you won’t, if you do then you will.
PRO CHOICE MEANS IT’S THE WOMAN’S CHOICE.
Not mine, not yours, not Tim Tebow’s , not the Pope’s no one.
When a woman becomes pregnant she does not cease being a person, I know your church teaches you that women are second class to begin with and steeped in sin but those are silly superstitions from very silly people and if you want to believe them fine but they are not a license to enforce them on others no matter how righteous and superior it makes you feel.
Yes, babies are nice, yes babies come from a fetus just as a fetus comes from sperm and egg those facts do not change the woman’s right to her own body. If you insist that a fetus is a person then the EXACT same arguments can be applied to a sperm and an egg making a woman’s monthly period homicide by indifference.
Furthermore if you were truly pro-life you would be pro-contraception because those in fact prevent abortion far more than shaking beads outside a clinic.
And pro-life would also be very keen on free medical care for everyone as that would save lives and you would be anti-war because that ends lives.
Strangely I never see these thoughts on any American Catholic rightwing blog, they seem silent on all issues of life save abortion. That they just can’t stop screaming about.
>I am sick to death of the comments by Salvage & others similar. They are so totally illogical and obstinate in their lack of logic. I wish they would just go away.
Ha! Ha! Yes! There is no logic when I say that a woman’s body is her own because she is a person with rights!
I know, it sucks that in this world there are people who don’t agree with you and say so with facts and reasons. Oh why can’t everyone think like you?!?!
Freedom is a terrible thing but maybe one day there will be a President that thinks just like you and they will make your wish come true. It’s happened in other places, like Italy in the 1930s.
I think salvage has had a bad week. Extra prayers.
Ave Maria, Gratia Plena
Ave Maria, Gratia Plena,
To Joan and others,
Do not be distressed by the rants of our brother salvage. Notice his complete lack of understanding in the science of biology. Also notice his lack of understanding when using words like “rights” “freedom” and “person.” And finally his historical allusions are contextless and actually work against his point.
Rants are not about trying to engage in rational dialogue. They are about hitting. But maybe he will pull a Foreman ala Rumble in the Jungle.
Yes, Jes, let us pray for his happiness…
>I think salvage has had a bad week.
Um, my opinion on the rights of women or anything else of value doesn’t actually change with my moods… oh wait, unless what you mean by that is my opinion is couched in and shaded by emotion rather than the facts that I listed so you don’t have to acknowledge much less address them?
Yes, that is often what theists do to avoid giving their desperately firm opinions any sort of thought.
It’s so strange how you think a fetus should be more important than the actual born woman and how you stop being pro-life once it’s born.
>Extra prayers.
This is also strange, does your god work on a quantity v. quality system? Like the penance for sins, do sin x and recited pray y z amount of times, does your god track and measure these things? Does it listen to every single word at every single repetition and then tallies totals? Why does your god need mortals to say these things? Wouldn’t it already know how repentant the practitioner is?
It’s fascinating how much Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and theism have in common.
Ave Maria Gratia Plena
That a human being or person comes into existence at the moment of fusion of ovum and sperm, is a matter of objective reality – and opinion has no relevance thereto. We all have a moral duty to protect the innocent and defenceless from attacks on their very lives. There is objective truth and we cannot rationally deny the existence of same. A “civil union” suggests public recognition and status for a certain type of relationship, meaning everyone in the relevant jurisdiction has a right and duty regarding recognition of immoral/unnatural relationships that can only harm the individuals and society as a whole.
>We all have a moral duty to protect the innocent and defenceless from attacks on their very lives.
Really? So you’re off to Syria, Iraq, Somalia and other places where this happens all the time?
Once again this “pro-life” attitude is limited to the womb.
>of immoral/unnatural relationships that can only harm the individuals and society as a whole.
How? It’s weird how theists whose god hates sex say stuff like this but they are never able to produce the actual harm they fret about.
Please explain how two gay people living together affects anyone other than the two people living together?
You can’t win folks!
You’re http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damned
if ya answer salvage butt then again, you’re kind of damned if ya don’t so take you’re pick! 🙂
If “I” were ya, I would simply start praying that U>S (usual sinning) gods don’t make too much of “IT”! 🙁
HOW MANY TIMES MUST me, myself and i tell you that you’re not a god sinner vic but just a ficment of our imagination! 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hUxECgPxyEw
sin, You don’t exist anymore than salvage, he/s does so why don’t you just exit this world of GOD (Good Old Dad) cause “IT” is in God that we trust! ?
Peace
This is not about “choice” at all because the unborn child has no “choice” to be born if the mother makes a different “choice” Because of both of these things mostly abortion most of the developed world the lack of people is connected to the economic crisis now.
>This is not about “choice” at all because the unborn child has no “choice” to be born
Of course it doesn’t have a choice, it’s a fetus. Sperm and eggs don’t have choices either. The only one who has a choice is the woman.
Do you think a fetus is more important than a woman?
>Because of both of these things mostly abortion most of the developed world the lack of people is connected to the economic crisis now.
Huh? No, there isn’t a lack of population affecting the economy in the Western World, where do you get that idea?
The only time a lack of people has impacted the economy of the West was during the various plagues Europe suffered where whole populations vanished and spread out to avoid infection.
The economic crisis stems from crooked bankers making bets with other people’s money, losing, stealing more other people’s money, losing that and then demanding that governments cover them and governments doing so.
You should probably read more about this stuff, you clearly don’t understand what it’s all about.
At any rate so your arugment is that women should not be allowed to have abortions because that effects the economy? So your wallet dictates what women can do with their body and reproduction choices?
Really? If so that’s pretty… um, I’m not sure what word would describe that but it wouldn’t be a nice one. Can you please explain what you mean because on the surface it looks pretty crazy so I’m assuming I’ve gotten it wrong.
Dear Salvage,
I prayed for you today at Mass. God bless.
Ave Maria gratia plena
Ave Maria gratia plena
May I also suggest: the Prayer of Divine Mercy
Eternal Father, I offer You
Ave Maria gratia plena
Ave Maria gratia plena
Linda and Joannie,
Notice how our brother salvage rants when he cannot make an argument. He wields the talking points of people he thinks are smart and uses them as a bludgeon.
I am particularly amused by his line about theists “whose God hates sex.” I had thought that our brother salvage had plumbed the depths of his ignorance. And he says things like this that show me that his ignorance may, in fact, hold no bounds.
I remember being in a class where a student asked the guest teacher:
“Why do we still believe in God?”
“What do you mean?” the guest teacher asked.
“Well, doesn’t the whole sex thing disprove God. I mean, that’s where we come from, right?”
I was only 14 and I was still taken aback by the sound of real ignorance. I still am.
I often wonder if our brother salvage knows what he is fighting against. I know he is not fighting the Catholic Church because he has no idea what the Catholic Church is. He is shadowboxing against an imagined enemy fashioned in his mind. It is no wonder that he cannot hear us. He is already writing our own thoughts in his head. A pity.
Let us continue to pray for his happiness…
Salvage, half of all fetuses end up as women. And no, I don’t think the fetus/baby is more important than the mother, nor any the less. Of course both deserve a decent chance at life, but is abortion always the answer? For that matter, is it possible to abuse reproductive rights the other way? I’m thinking of the Octo-mom.
>Salvage, half of all fetuses end up as women.
Slightly more actually.
>And no, I don’t think the fetus/baby is more important than the mother, nor any the less.
No, I would say less just as the sperm and the egg is less than the fetus.
>Of course both deserve a decent chance at life,
Deserve is a funny word, in this life does anyone really ever get what they deserve?
>but is abortion always the answer?
No, of course not. The “answer” is women have complete control over their bodies in all circumstances. When they become pregnant they are the ones who decide the “answer” and anyone else’s opinion is meaningless.
>For that matter, is it possible to abuse reproductive rights the other way?
Oh yes, of course and the disgusting display that is “Octo-mom” is a perfect example. But again, it’s her body and her life, if she wants to keep on spitting out kids like a demented Pez dispenser that’s her business. Are we going to force her to get sterilized? Take away her children?
When it comes to our bodies and how many or few kids we have we are the only ones who can say what can and cannot be done, to give even the slightest inch would be an invitation to dictatorship.
You have China and their horrific forced abortion policies at one end and Ceauşescu of Romania’s equally horrific forced birth policies at the other.
Both are evil despite the exact opposite of their goals.
Leave people’s bodies alone, worry about your own, why is that such a hard idea to grasp for the people of a free nation?
Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Once again our brother salvage shows us his ignorance. I am particularly taken with his use of the word “evil.” I have no idea what our brother salvage means by this, and neither does he, since he has no idea what “good” means.
Let us continue to pray for his happiness…
CS: also, I wonder what “important” means to him, or why a grown woman is more important than an unborn one, or what “control” entails and why it should be given to one human being rather than another and so on and so on. Or, more fundamentally, what “ideas” and “logic” actually are, since they are not material.
I continue to think that we should thank him for the great education he is providing here on the popular type of atheism he represents.
Roberto,
Well said. Best atheist I ever read was Sartre, who understood the logical implications of meaninglessness. These new atheists like Dawkins don’t hold a candle to him.
What’s that you say sinner vic?
You say that sal-v-age is not a person but a reproductive computer and “IT” is being tested on a pass atheist and if this computer chip manages to succeed then the aliens are free in a hundred years or so to mass produce children who are not really humans and then comes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon
Don’t be silly sinner vic! You know as well as “I” do that “IT” is not possible and me, myself and i thank GOD (Good Old Dad) that you don’t really exist sinner vic!
“I” don’t Victor? 🙂
No you don’t! I’ve just been watching too many movies lately that’s all! 🙂
Peace
Personally I would have sterilized the O-M several children ago.
Yes, I understand about reproductive rights, and the debate over a woman having children she may not want. But it’s one thing to end a life supposedly “not wanted”, and another to prevent having to make that decision at all. I am pro-birth control (one reason I fear I will never be Catholic) but anti-abortion because of that difference.
>Personally I would have sterilized the O-M several children ago.
Oh me too, she’s clearly unhinged and I don’t think it likely that the children are going to be raised in any positive way.
> I am pro-birth control
Extremely sensible, I myself feel about the same way. If I had ever gotten a woman pregnant I would have agree to any deal that she have the baby from marriage to her signing away all parental rights but if she wanted to have an abortion for whatever reason I would have no choice but to comply.
It’s not fair but that’s the reality.
I would never have an abortion if I were a woman and I wouldn’t ask a woman to have one but there is simply no way I can have any say in what another person does with their own body. My contribution of sperm is nowhere near enough currency to acquire any say.
Fortunately I have always been super careful using birth control on the rare occasion needed so I have never been in the situation. Taking responsibility often solves problems before they happen.
>(one reason I fear I will never be Catholic)
Yeah, Catholics are more anti-sex than pro-life, if they really hated abortion and thought it murder they would be handing out condoms and oral contraceptives outside schools rather than glowering at women going into clinics.
Of course what’s hysterical is every Catholic girl I’ve been with / many that I know used the pill, had premarital sex and pretty much did as they pleased. But that’s all theist, they always pick and choose the bits they like and scowl at the others in their sect who pick and choose differently, then schism then another strain of the religion.
So you’re Protestant but even that’s a broad category with dozens of splinters and even splinters of those until you get to the fringes where Branch Davidians and Fred Phelps lurk.
It’s truly bizarre that your god cannot effectively communicate how it wants to be worshipped. Or perhaps it enjoys the inevitable conflicts that arise? Maybe it’s lost control like Mickey Mouse and his mops.
Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Panda Rosa,
Many of our Protestant brothers and sisters such as yourself often puzzle at the Church’s teaching. You are correct to make the important distinction between the presence and absence of the human person, which is why birth control per se is of a different kind of sin than abortion.
But the two are connected inasmuch as they flow from what John Paul the Great called the “Theology of the Body.” Unlike our brother salvage, you have demonstrated that you are a person who is honest and seeks after truth. Would you like to enter into dialogue about contraception?
I also think that our brother salvage has revealed something that should give us all great pause. He says that every Catholic girl he met committed wanton mortal sin. I cannot know the truth of his claim, but I believe that our brother salvage’s words remind us how important it is that we all become saints.
We must be saints. I heard Fr. Larry Richards once say that our lives may be the only Gospel some people read. When we fail, we not only fail ourselves, but the entire Church. And I know I fail often. I beg the Lord not to let my sinfulness be an obstacle to my students knowing Him.
But the lived experience of knowing someone fully dedicated to the Lord, like Fr. Larry Richards, can completely reorient your understanding of Him. Let us pray that our brother salvage comes into contact with a saint, thus bringing him greater happiness…
> He says that every Catholic girl he met committed wanton mortal sin
AHAHAHAHH! WANTON! AHAHAHAHAHAHH! I’ve been skipping your posts cuz you’re very silly but I’m glad I read that one. WANTON! They were also hussies and floozies too.
And it’s in this very thread that you took great umbrage with me saying how your god hates sex, of course that’s silly, your god isn’t real so it doesn’t hate anything, it’s you guys that hate it.
Well have a fear and loathing of it at the very least.
But the reality is the vast majority of people do have sex without your god and its mortal representative’s approval and they’re all “sinners” are they?
Because sex is bad right? But it’s wrong to say you and your god hate it?
Weird, your god fills us to the brim with hormones and an emotional demand to be close to another and yet throws us into Hell for acting on those impulses.
Makes perfect sense! If your god is the sadistic loony from the “Saw” movies.
Ave Maria, gratia plena