How does one respond to the fairy, leprechaun unicorn, etc. comparisons?

[PRmerger]

Regarding atheist heroes, I shouldn’t have to do all this work

Oh, TruthSeeker, absolutely you should. *** You ***made this claim. Not I. Back it up.

[SIGN]

I’m sure atheists do do heroic things.

[/SIGN]

Instead of spending forever proving that people who don’t believe in god can be just as heroic as those who don’t, I’ll provide this link I quickly found by a google search:

workswithoutfaith.org/2007/04/atheist-hero-who-deserved-better.html

Does the military pay its soldiers?

Just wondering.

I would think that if I got paid to do something, it really wouldn’t be considered sacrificial love.

I dunno.

 

[PRmerger]

Regarding atheist heroes, I shouldn’t have to do all this work if you’re unwilling to do it. Instead of spending forever proving that people who don’t believe in god can be just as heroic as those who don’t, I’ll provide this link I quickly found by a google search:

workswithoutfaith.org/2007/04/atheist-hero-who-deserved-better.html

Just so we’re on the same page, TruthSeeker, I’m not claiming that atheists can’t do good things and that atheists are all big meanies.

I’m just saying that I’ve never heard of any atheist who did something as manifestly sublime, profound and gratuitiously *good *as what Maximilian Kolbe did. Give his life out of love for a stranger.

 

[PRmerger]

Also, it seems that whenever people’s faith is seriously being challenged on a forum, theists generally try to make atheists do a ton of work to avoid certain issues (like is the sadistic Yahweh in the OT doing morally acceptable things).

:crying::crying:

Regarding morality, people sometimes do things for nothing more than the good of others.

Ok.

But an atheist hasn’t given his life in a concentration camp for another, as far as I’ve heard. Just because.

Also regarding morality, I think there are principles that if generally adopted, will benefit everyone. One may label this “morality”.

You would label it “moral” if Maximilian Kolbe had given his life for one of yours, although it benefited no one else in society, right?

If St. Kolbe’s heroic action is to be attributed to religion, then St. Thomas More’s actions of torturing and murdering people for owning a Bible in English should also be attributed to religion.

The actions of the proponents of an ideology who break its rules do not disprove the truthfulness of that ideology.

Regarding murder, the Bible says that Joshua had everyone in various cities killed because Yahweh commanded it, which indicates that the Israelites took Yahweh’s orders to kill everyone (including women, children, and babies) seriously.

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you’re reading it literally when it was to be taken metaphorically.

If that’s so, it took Christianity a long time to figure that out.

Is there a society that figured it out earlier?

Where do the anti-slavery Christian principles you’re talking about come from? Is it Leviticus 25? In not, whatever it is seems to contradict Leviticus 25.

The Word of God, natch.

 

[ddarko]

No. I demonstrated that premise 2, with how you described what you meant by “morality”, assumed the conclusion (god exists), which is the definition of circular reasoning:

Would you agree that if the proposition is assumed in one of the premises, that it’s circular reasoning (as the article said)?

I’m saying that YOU are presuming the existence of god by how YOU CHOSE to define the word “morality”. I do not define “morality” as you do.

If those presuppositions assume the conclusions, it’s circular reasoning (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning).

Morality would be no more pointless than civil law. Civil law, as well as government, is a creation of men for the benefit of men. Morality is also a system of ideas of right or wrong conduct that can be for the benefit of man, protecting against infanticide, genocide, and pedophilia for the sake of the harm they do to individuals.

Under my view that would be wrong because I accept and assume that how people treat each other aught to be centered around the goal of helping ourselves and others to living happy, fulfilling lives. The extermination of the Jews is 100% against that.

If god told you to kill his son (like Abraham), or you were a leader of a country and god told you to exterminate another race (similar to Hitler, and the same as with Joshua killing every person from many places), under your mode of thinking that would be moral. So stop being naïve. THINK!!!

That reminds me, I’m still waiting for you to reply to AntiTheist:

In fact, DON’T RESPOND TO THIS MESSAGE WITHOUT RESPONDING TO THIS QUESTION BY ANTITHEIST.

What’s the difference between what Joshua did in the OT, and doing exactly what Hitler was doing if god commanded you to?

Also, what’s the difference between your thinking that whatever god says is moral is moral, and the thinking that Muslims have that if their god says it’s good to kill others in suicide attacks?

Or it might be more accurate to say, “ If you don’t present any thing that I’ll admit is logical…”

You don’t know what deductive logic is. You incorrectly think its circular…
You can’t get it in to your head that if morality is created, we have NO obligation to follow it. Hitler is just as good as Mahatma Gandhi…
You want to get rid of religion because its an invention but you want to stick to morality which YOU also claim is an invention…
Worst of all, you don’t get the fact that God can take away all our lives because he gave us life. Hitler didn’t give us life so he can’t take it away. How can you miss simply things like this is beyond me!

Seriously, with ALL possible respect I can give you, get off this forum and GET A PROPER EDUCATION before you say stuff like this. It’s EMBARRASSING to you and a waste of time for me and anyone else that debates you.

If you cannot understand algebra, there is no point in giving you a proof for a algebraic theorem. You just don’t get it.
Similarly, if you don’t get LOGIC, there is no point in REASONING with you. It’s like banging ones head against a wall.

God Bless

 

[TruthSeeker60]

I happen to be checking this thread very late at night, so I’m not going to answer all your posts now. However, for the moment I want to answer this:

TruthSeeker60;7218734:

Yahweh himself ordered the people be killed, forced to marry people who killed their families (rape), and forced to marry rapists.

Maybe. Maybe not.

The Bible says that Yahweh did those things. I can’t remember on top of my head exactly where he did, but he did.

The forcing women to marry rapists is Yahweh speaking in Deuteronomy 22:28-29.

 

[PRmerger]

The Bible says that Yahweh did those things. I can’t remember on top of my head exactly where he did, but he did.

The forcing women to marry rapists is Yahweh speaking in Deuteronomy 22:28-29.

“But suppose that he didn’t do this. We mentioned earlier the question of whether God ever gave this kind of command, and we said that the answer to this question is either yes or no. To this point, we’ve been considering what if the answer was yes. But what if it was no?” ibid

 

[Pieman333272]

I happen to be checking this thread very late at night, so I’m not going to answer all your posts now. However, for the moment I want to answer this:

The Bible says that Yahweh did those things. I can’t remember on top of my head exactly where he did, but he did.

The forcing women to marry rapists is Yahweh speaking in Deuteronomy 22:28-29.

Let’s start with women marrying rapists, only because you put this first.

This, believe it or not, helped the women in the culture. First of all, it stopped men from raping women - they didn’t, as a result of this law, rape just because they felt like having sex or had one too many Corona Lites, because they wouldn’t want to marry her too. Also, remember cultural context, and in this case, illegitimate children were not given as much respect, especially by the priests, and God did not even want them appearing at his congregations (before you call God racist or cruel remember that this was a different time, and cleanliness was a big thing for God’s satisfaction). Now, did you also know, independently of the law, the Israelite men had a low chance of marrying a virgin, and even lower chance of marrying a single mom. This made sure the virgin could be married, have a legitimate child, and have a lower chance of rape if it didn’t happen.

 

[PRmerger]

Sources, please. Motivated out of love, of course, must be shown in your citations. And sacrificial love for strangers. Of one’s life.

Incidentally, TruthSeeker, regarding the honorable Pat Tillman, who heroically gave his life as a soldier…any evidence that he actually was an atheist? I know it’s been accepted that Pat Tillman was an atheist–but what evidence do we have, perhaps from his own writings?, that he had declared himself an atheist?

 

[tonyrey]

Why do you believe in goodness if the universe is amoral?

You have evaded the question:

Why do you believe in moral values if the universe is amoral?

What about dashing babies against rock? Forced marriages (rape)? Infanticide? Forcing raped women to marry the rapist?

These are not Christian precepts!

There are certain principles regarding behavior that I hold because they have beneficial effects on everyone. One could call these principles “morality”.

“beneficial” begs the question. You need to explain **why **anything should be good or evil in an indifferent universe.

However, if you’re going to claim that morality comes from your god, you have a ton of explaining to do.

You have far more explaining to do if good and evil have popped up out of the blue!
Value presupposes purpose. That which is purposeless is valueless.

Did civil law pop out of nowhere?

Civil law popped out of human decisions. Civil law has been, and is, very often unjust. It is therefore absurd to equate what is right and just with human decisions.

Did the notion that slavery is wrong pop out of nowhere? If not, where did it come from?

It is implicit in the command of Jesus to love others and and be prepared to die for them if necessary. It is absurd to expect a list of laws and crimes after we have been told we are all members of the same family with one Father in heaven. That is the basis of the principles of liberty, equality and - above all - fraternity…

 

[donsnow]

Dear TruthSeeker,

There’s forum rule against posting overly long arguments. I do try to keep my posts to one frame. So there is room to answer them in one frame. Please, you too, try to abide by the rules.

Now, TruthSeeker,

This post is in answer to your posts #s 268 and 269 on page 18 of Windfish’s thread.

I’ve told others and I’ll repeat it to you: my reason is handmaid to my faith. I will not allow any exercise of reason which attacks faith, by myself nor anyone else, to swerve me from my faith.

Part of any believer’'s (NOT theist: that is another Satanic trap, for a Christian to allow another to catalog him or her in any non-Christian or extra-Christian term, such as “theist”. I’m not a theist, I’m a Christian, don’t call me that again, I don’t have to make the mistakes you made.) duty to God and to him or herself in this contentious age, is to protect their faith. Don’t blame me, nor God, for your not protecting your faith.

Now, I have answered your questions. BTW, Elisha said, “If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and devour them” or words to that effect. God, not Elisha, slew the king’s men.
Anyway, it is Satan’s pride that thinks he knows better than God. I’d advise you not to fall into that trap, either.

Now, this is Windfish’s thread, not yours to tell me to leave and not mine to tell you the same.

I don’t have to put up with your endless questioning my answers. That is the trap you fell into: relentless questioning. I won’t put up with it. I answered your questions, let’s move on to different things to question. My answers don’t have to satisfy you, they satisfy me; it’s my faith I’m protecting from your doubt. I will not allow you to shred my faith like you were naive enough to let others shred your faith.

If you persist in going over the same questions or in questioning my answers, you will compel me to put you on my ignore list. Now, let’s move on to different questions.

God loves you,
Don

 

[tonyrey]

An omniscient god would not allow there to be any errors of any kind in his holy book that he uses as the foundation for his religion. The Catholic Church teaches that the entire Bible is inspired, meaning it can’t be wrong in whatever literary sense (literal, liturgical, rhetorical, etc.) is without error.

You are confusing inspiration with infallibility.

One must remember, regarding morality in the OT, that an omni-benevolent god would teach what is good and what is not regardless of how moral the people he’s teaching to are. Also, Yahweh himself ordered the people be killed, forced to marry people who killed their families (rape), and forced to marry rapists.

Any statement in the OT that contradicts the teaching of Jesus is false and reveals the limitations of primitive scribes.

Tonyrey, I would expect you to know what your church teaches (which it seems you don’t regarding the Incarnation unless I misinterpreted you). I’m a theology major at a Catholic college, and I’m telling you that you’re disagreeing with your own church when you say that Mary did not give birth to god. The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus was both fully man and fully god. The First Council of Nicaea in 325, the Council in Ephesus in 431, and especially the Council in Chalcedon in 451 all taught this. I was required to take a “theology of Christ” class that was all about this. Look up the Catholic teaching on the Incarnation to discover what your church teaches.

Your knowledge is misinterpreted in that case. Mary did not give birth to God because she didn’t exist before God! She gave birth to Jesus in His humanity - **not **in His divinity. You would be more accurate if you were a Philosophy major!

Regarding morality, people sometimes do things for nothing more than the good of others.

What do you think that proves?

Also regarding morality, I think there are principles that if generally adopted, will benefit everyone. One may label this “morality”.

“benefit” is interpreted in different ways according to your metaphysical views (or lack of them). It is useless as a definition of, or foundation for, morality

When an atheist does a good thing, he/she doesn’t credit it to his/her atheism…

What does he/she attribute it to? Chance?

… however when a theist does a good thing, it is often attributed to his/her religion.

That is because religion provides a rational basis for belief in goodness whereas materialism doesn’t.

(while the atrocities done for religious reasons are often not appreciated).

Atrocities done for “religious” reasons are done for distorted views of religion.

If St. Kolbe’s heroic action is to be attributed to religion, then St. Thomas More’s actions of torturing and murdering people for owning a Bible in English should also be attributed to religion.

Protestant propaganda! Historians have long been divided over More’s religious actions as Chancellor. In fact he was a humanist with a reputation for honesty who was regarded as quick, impartial and fair in his judgments and believed - like Colet and Erasmus - there was a need for greater religious tolerance!

 

[Rocinante]

Incidentally, TruthSeeker, regarding the honorable Pat Tillman, who heroically gave his life as a soldier…any evidence that he actually was an atheist? I know it’s been accepted that Pat Tillman was an atheist–but what evidence do we have, perhaps from his own writings?, that he had declared himself an atheist?

i think like anyone else, what we know about him comes from his friends family and perhaps personal writings.

is there some reason why you think we ought to be especially sceptical about tillman’s lack of religion? as though he may have been secretly communing every week at the catholic church?

do you have this level of skepticism about religious dogma?

 

[PRmerger]

Dear TruthSeeker,

There’s forum rule against posting overly long arguments. I do try to keep my posts to one frame. So there is room to answer them in one frame. Please, you too, try to abide by the rules.

Actually, Don, it was me, PRmerger, who posted the long posts from the article by Jimmy Akin.

But let’s not allow it to become a diversion created by TruthSeeker. Regardless of the length, it was indeed trenchant, eh?

 

[PRmerger]

i think like anyone else, what we know about him comes from his friends family and perhaps personal writings.

is there some reason why you think we ought to be especially sceptical about tillman’s lack of religion? as though he may have been secretly communing every week at the catholic church?

do you have this level of skepticism about religious dogma?

In my past conversations with atheists, many have been quite skeptical of Jesus’ claims to have been divine, to have started a church, to have been our atonement. They ask for his own writings as verification of such.

I’m just applying the same paradigm.

Do you have this level of skepticism regarding Pat Tillman’s atheism?

What words did he say that professed atheism?

 

[donsnow]

Actually, Don, it was me, PRmerger, who posted the long posts from the article by Jimmy Akin.

But let’s not allow it to become a diversion created by TruthSeeker. Regardless of the length, it was indeed trenchant, eh?

Hi, Little friend,

Well, actually what I did is what I always do on a thread. I go to my last post and start reading from there. TruthSeeker had already made several long posts, one of six frames to another poster.

Now, next, I’m thinking of an insurance commercial, and not the details, but the principle of it, where the question is, was Abraham Lincoln honest in all things? Martha has asked him if her clothes makes her behind look big. He hmmms and haawws and finally, with thumb and forefinger, indicates, just a little.
Now we aren’t married and unlike ever to be so, but I am an honest man. And, the rule is no overly long posts. And, even I found it good reading. And, I can see why you posted the whole article. But, dear friend, two pages of this thread is an overly long post.

On the other hand!

Personally, I don’t go to utube links because my computer is so slow downloading video.

God loves you,
Don

I’d rather believe in God and His love and enjoy it, rather than question it to the point of Divine exasperation.

 

[PRmerger]

Now, next, I’m thinking of an insurance commercial, and not the details, but the principle of it, where the question is, was Abraham Lincoln honest in all things? Martha has asked him if her clothes makes her behind look big. He hmmms and haawws and finally, with thumb and forefinger, indicates, just a little.

HaHA! LOVE that commercial! It’s a dangerous question to ask, and to be asked, IMHO!

 

[PRmerger]

God could simply make someone cease to exist as opposed to letting them suffer, but he chooses not to.

Huh. Just saw this post.

Existence is an irrevocable gift. God is a gentleman and does not revoke that which he has given. It’s up to us to choose our final destination.

BTW, I’ve read a fair amount of what Kreeft has written before. That view on hell was the view that my Bible professor had, which at that time I agreed with.

Interesting, TruthSeeker, but irrelevant.

However, by choosing sustain one’s existence (it’s often said that god sustains one’s existence), god is choosing to have someone suffering in hell forever.

Yes, sadly, there are some things that even God cannot do. He cannot and will not revoke his gratuitous gift of the immortal soul.

And, as Pope JPII said, “Is not hell in a certain sense the ultimate safeguard of man’s moral conscience?”

 

[TruthSeeker60]

Part 1/1

Not allow any theological errors? You betcha!

How would you know if something is a theological error? If the book that is in question is the source of one’s theology, then there’s no way to prove that it’s theologically wrong unless it very clearly contradicts itself on theological issues. The Bible does seem to contradict itself on the issue of whether Jesus would inherit David’s throne, which, for reasons I don’t want to delve into now, is a fundamentally theological issue:

Would Jesus inherit David’s throne?
Yes. So said the angel (Luke 1:32)
No, since he is a descendant of Jehoiakim (see Jechoniah in Matthew 1:11 and his father Jehoiakim in I Chronicles 3:16). Jehoiakim was cursed by God so that none of his descendants can sit upon David’s throne (Jeremiah 36:30)
My prof gave a marginal explanation for this.

Bible scholars will tell you that this is of great significance in part because this fulfills the Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7:12-13). The Davidic covenant refers to both an earthly kingdom and an eternal kingdom according to theologians. Because it was important that Jesus sit on David’s throne, Luke used a different geneology (Luke 3:23-38), but this doesn’t take away from the fact that Matthew 1 uses a geneology that includes Jehoiakim (even though it seemed he tried to exclude Jehoiakim by saying Jehoiakim’s father was the father of Jehoiakim’s son, although that may partially be to get “14”s in the geneology, which has Davidic significance).

TruthSeeker60;7218734:

PRmerger, if you weren’t posting that article as something to refute the other side (and hence putting the burden of refuting it on the other side), why did you post the entire thing, as opposed to just posting a link?

It’s really quite simple. I know many people won’t take the extra step to click on a link. So I just provided it for them.

That’s not the point. The point is that in posting something really lengthy that’s not yours, you’re unfairly putting someone in a position where he/she has to time-consumingly refute the entire article in order to refute your point. Basically, it’s unfair tactics for debating someone on a forum. What would be fair is to present your summary of what is contained in the article, which the other side can then refute using an amount of time more proportionate to what you invested. In other words, imagine if I, instead of doing my own work, copied and pasted a chapter of a book that claimed to refute Christian theology.

Can I cite youtube videos?

If it’s supplementary to one’s post in such a way in which one doesn’t have to refute the entire video itself to refute your point, I don’t think that’s unfair.

Does the military pay its soldiers?

What’s military pay compared to a multi-million dollar NFL contract? In comparison, Pat Tillman seems to have given up quite a lot from just that aspect alone (not to mention his life).

TruthSeeker60;7218734:

Also regarding morality, I think there are principles that if generally adopted, will benefit everyone. One may label this “morality”.

You would label it “moral” if Maximilian Kolbe had given his life for one of yours, although it benefited no one else in society, right?

If a principle regarding behavior benefits those people it does effect, I consider it to be a moral principle. The fact that a principle, or an action deriving from a principle, does not effect everyone does not mean that it’s good or bad. It may be a different issue if it’s a situation of double effect (which I don’t want to go into now).

 

[TruthSeeker60]

Part 2/2

TruthSeeker60;7218734:

Regarding murder, the Bible says that Joshua had everyone in various cities killed because Yahweh commanded it, which indicates that the Israelites took Yahweh’s orders to kill everyone (including women, children, and babies) seriously.

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you’re reading it literally when it was to be taken metaphorically.

So you’re proposing that perhaps Yahweh metaphorically told the Israelites to invade, kill everyone including infants, several times?! :ehh: It doesn’t exactly seem like something that would be meant as a metaphor.

Is there a society that figured it out earlier?

A better question is did non-Christians persons, as opposed to societies, figure it out earlier?

Wouldn’t societies have abolished slavery earlier if god explicitly condemned it? Pro-slavery advocates in the US south mentioned god’s lack of condemnation of slavery in the Bible, as well as his allowing it in the OT, as evidence that slavery is OK.

“But suppose that he didn’t do this. We mentioned earlier the question of whether God ever gave this kind of command, and we said that the answer to this question is either yes or no. To this point, we’ve been considering what if the answer was yes. But what if it was no?” ibid

If Yahweh didn’t commend in Deuteronomy 22:28-29 that raped women had to marry the rapist, then the Bible incorrectly stated that he did (and there is no reasonable way that could be interpreted as metaphorical).

TruthSeeker, regarding the honorable Pat Tillman, who heroically gave his life as a soldier…any evidence that he actually was an atheist?

On a matter of what he believed, a statement from a family member, a contemporary of him, is sufficient to justify belief that Pat Tillman was an atheist. Are there any contemporary writings of Jesus? Remember, the gospels were written decades after the alleged death of Jesus (and we only have copies of copies of those with interpolation).

In my past conversations with atheists, many have been quite skeptical of Jesus’ claims to have been divine, to have started a church, to have been our atonement. They ask for his own writings as verification of such.

I’m just applying the same paradigm.

Actually, taking a sibling’s word that someone was an atheist is in a completely different ballpark from taking the word of manuscripts for which we only have copies of copies with interpolation, which were written decades after the alleged events, that a person was born of a virgin, was god, and rose from the dead. Difference include:

contemporaries vs written decades later
original source vs copies of copies of copies
extraordinary claims (which require extraordinary evidence to justify belief in)
contradictory sources

These are not trivial differences!

Existence is an irrevocable gift. God is a gentleman and does not revoke that which he has given. It’s up to us to choose our final destination.

Would it be gentlemanly to make choose to sustain one’s existence once they will only suffer forever?

Wouldn’t god, who is said to be omnipotent and keep everything in existence, be able to make someone cease to exist completely?

He cannot and will not revoke his gratuitous gift of the immortal soul.

Why not? If he actively sustains the existence of one’s soul, couldn’t he let that soul cease to exist? Or are there some things which god does not sustain their existence?

Regarding morality actions of atheist, I’d be interested if anyone could name a moral action that a theist can do, but an atheist can’t make because of his lack of belief in a god.

 

[TruthSeeker60]

Ddarko, you cowered away from answering AntiTheist’s question.

You cowered away from answering

Let me explain to you, step by step, how your approach to the argument from morality is circular. This is what you said:

The moral argument is as follows

1. If God does not exists, objective morality does not exists
2. Objective morality exists
3. Therefore God exists

It’s this, with how you validate 1 and 2 by your presuppositions, rather than by itself, that I think is circular. Your key presupposition is “Morality is God’s nature”, post 191.

It’s impossible for premise 2 to not be valid if “Morality is God’s nature”. I think this is why you consider premise 2 to be valid (if this is not the case, correct me and tell me why you think objective morality exists). If so, than number 2 assumes “Morality is God’s nature”.

Another way of looking at it is this:

If morality was not god’s nature, than why would objective morality require a god? If objective morality doesn’t require a god, than the premise “If God does not exists, objective morality does not exists” is not valid.

Now lets consider the question, can morality be god’s nature if god doesn’t exist? If the answer is no, then your thinking is circular. Nature means “The essential characteristics and qualities of a person or thing” (answers.com/topic/nature). Something cannot have characteristics or qualities unless it exists. Therefore, morality cannot be god’s nature unless he exists. Therefore, the idea “Morality is God’s nature” presupposes the existence of god.

Basically, the way you define morality, the premises of the argument from morality both individually per-suppose the existence of god. You consider premises 1 and 2 to be correct because you think “Morality is God’s nature”, but that idea presupposes the existence of a god.

You can’t get it in to your head that if morality is created, we have NO obligation to follow it.

Why are you obligated to obey god? Is it for his own sake or is it because he’ll punish or reward you? If it’s for his own sake, than why can’t people do good and avoid evil for their own sake? If it’s because god will punish or reward you, than why can’t a system be set up where people will be punished or rewarded for their actions?

You want to get rid of religion because its an invention but you want to stick to morality which YOU also claim is an invention…

Here you go making assumptions about me yet again. Where on this thread did I say that I wanted to get rid of religion because it’s an invention? Just because something is an invention doesn’t mean it’s bad.

In part because religiosity, even Christian religiosity, is correlated with crime, violence, and low IQ, I think people would be better off if belief in religion gradually decreased. The Journal of Religion and Society, as reported by The Times, said. “In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.”
timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article571206.ece

Worst of all, you don’t get the fact that God can take away all our lives because he gave us life.

This somewhat reminds my of pro-choice protestors saying that they can kill the baby in their body because it belongs to them and they have rights over it. There’s actually very little difference between these claims by pro-choice activists, and what you and other theists are saying (I know that you’ll probably say that god was the ultimate creator of the baby).

Whenever someone has brought that up, I’ve asked if, or stated that, they would think that they would have authority to do whatever they wanted to to conscious beings that they created. In other words, if you created a universe with human beings, would you be able to morally do whatever you want to them, or do you not have absolute rights over them. I want people to take ownership of their beliefs and acknowledge their consequences.