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Guest
I was pointing out that making abortions illegal does not prevent them. With no legal abortions, women still kill the baby (while killing themselves).
You still have not presented a good reason why one person is allowed to enslave another for use of their organs.
Oh, but look, I keep answering your points. Why not do me the same courtesy?
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Armor_of_God
Guest
So, if you feel that what you are doing is sufficient support for the cause you are fighting for, why are you asking different standards of others? Why do you see adoption as the only satisfactory way those opposed to your views can “practice what they preach”, so to speak? How do you know Ronald E. doesn’t provide counselling and other support to those contemplating abortion, those who have been affected by abortion, or those who are seeking adoption? How do you know he doesn’t belong to a pro-life organization or have involvement in educational services regarding the impacts of abortion on women?
God is doing something about it, through His parishioners. We are the Body of Christ on earth - His hands and feet, His Heart and His eyes. This forum is one way of God “doing something about it”.
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Armor_of_God
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When united, the two gametes become one entity with all requirements to qualify as a unique human being. Because of this potential, the sperm and egg should be respected on their own. Both the gametes and the zygote contain human life, but only the zygote is a human being, in the sense that it can have a name and a gender.
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My position does not bring unwanted babies into the world to parents who didn’t want babies in the first place.
This god of yours does not exist. If the believers stopped acting irrationally, there would be no reason to imagine that a god exists.
Your god IS the imagination of parishioners.
You seem to be forgetting a key ingredient here…let’s see…oh yes, I remember.
A person willing to share their body with a baby. I have noticed that in most of these ‘reasons’ that you offer are ignoring the personhood of the mother.
If she is unwilling, how dare you insist that she be a slave to another human? What gives anyone the right to take someone elses organs against her will?
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Armor_of_God
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A,
I find your approach to young human beings to be inhuman.
I cannot relate to your logic, comparing a fetus in the womb to a hijacker or a fully-grown person with selfish or malicious intent. I cannot relate to your assumption that a baby in the womb should have the same responsibilities as an adult. I cannot understand your apparent hostility and disdain for someone who is innocent, and who has come into existence from others’ actions.
I can only assume that you would not feed your newborn baby or change its diapers if you didn’t feel like it. Following your logic, I also don’t see what would stop you from forcefully slapping your two-year-old across the head if they smacked you (as two-year-olds are apt to do from time to time). Following the logic further, I can only conclude that if you were starving, you would kill your five year old if they tried to take food from you.
I truly do not feel that I can engage in meaningful dialogue with
you on this.
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Ronald_E
Guest
A, I want to look in depth at women would go against their natural instinct to have children and choose abortion.
I have deduced that it is an adaptation to death that males have created that has influenced women to choose abortion.
Your desire to help women obtain abortions and to counsel them afterwards seems to come from a genuine care for them. However, in my opinion it does not help them to define themselves separate from the pressures that influence them to get abortions. Abortion is a symptom of a basic fear of being alone in a dangerous and uncaring world in which the woman is subject to a system created by males that do not value life outside of how it can be useful to them
There is too much to put here at this time.
One other thing. The amygdala in the primitive part of the brain is responsible for fight or flight. Every sensation is directed to the amygdala for potential action. The prefrontal cortex is the problem solving part of the brain.
The amygdala in the female is larger than in the male which makes her more alert to danger.
The prefrontal cortex in the female is 21 percent larger than in the male which will influence her to think more about a problem. The male will tend to be more physically reactive.
At this most basic level there is an inherent difference in how each will basically relate to different situations.
I have a textbook on adult attachments that illustrates the physiology of stress in the male female relationship.
When a child in the womb becomes an unwanted burden it is because the woman is not secure in her environment that is created by males.
I have deduced that it is an adaptation to death that males have created that has influenced women to choose abortion.
Your desire to help women obtain abortions and to counsel them afterwards seems to come from a genuine care for them. However, in my opinion it does not help them to define themselves separate from the pressures that influence them to get abortions. Abortion is a symptom of a basic fear of being alone in a dangerous and uncaring world in which the woman is subject to a system created by males that do not value life outside of how it can be useful to them
There is too much to put here at this time.
One other thing. The amygdala in the primitive part of the brain is responsible for fight or flight. Every sensation is directed to the amygdala for potential action. The prefrontal cortex is the problem solving part of the brain.
The amygdala in the female is larger than in the male which makes her more alert to danger.
The prefrontal cortex in the female is 21 percent larger than in the male which will influence her to think more about a problem. The male will tend to be more physically reactive.
At this most basic level there is an inherent difference in how each will basically relate to different situations.
I have a textbook on adult attachments that illustrates the physiology of stress in the male female relationship.
When a child in the womb becomes an unwanted burden it is because the woman is not secure in her environment that is created by males.
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phooney
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Your God never seems to do anything except through his parishoners. Why doesn’t he do something explicitly and directly through himself?
The prophecies that Socrates4Jesus presented were robbed of any prophetic/evidential power they may have had because (among other qualms) they were either acted out by people who were aware of the prophecies or were recorded by people well after the fact with extreme bias, and with little archaeological confirmation.
I think you do yourself a diservice when you (collectively) attribute your good deeds to a poorly defined external omnipotent entity. If you do something that is ‘good’ then it was you that did it, and I thank you for it.
Over the past week or so while I’ve been on holiday, I see the topic has once again turned towards abortion. As far as the question of God’s existence is concerned, I don’t think anybody can really use it as evidence either way, therefore I don’t really consider it an especially pertinent topic, for the purposes of these threads. I haven’t commented on it specifically and see no reason to go into it too deeply.
However, what I wonder about is if anybody as a Catholic, or theist in general, as a better reason for their morality then “because God said so”. I am assuming that the sanctity of human life has been traced back to the moment of conception via god’s word somewhere in your mythos anyway.
How, WITHOUT, presupposing that god is love/good can one determine that god is the moral benchmark? By following the bible literally, one would show oneself as ignorant of modern science and as obsolete in modern morality as a caveman. By claiming, arbitrarily, that some of the bible is metaphor one is left in the same position as anybody that claims any book is the holy book and claims arbitrary metaphor. It robs all such books of any authority.
The last option that seems available is leaving the interpretation up to other people. More learned people. People who have more time to delve into the deeper meaning of what is written. To trust in them. This solves the problem of the interpretation being personally arbitrary.
However, it leaves the basis for one’s morality being in the trust of one group’s biassed interpretation of an uncorroborated past.
I feel to be on much ‘firmer’ ground if I continue to pursue my model of morality based on a falsifiable premise, evolution. Thus far, as far as morality is concerned, it seems to explain much in agreement with the evidence and has no real scientific problems. Sure there are unknowns, but this only represents an area of research, not an inherent problem.
As far as my position on abortion is concerned… I’m not really sure. I think along the same lines as Prot (rhymes with ‘goat’) from K-Pax. He says something along the lines of “The day after conception it is no more conscious than a rock, the day before birth it is no less conscious than you or I.” I have not really put much thought into defining the specific day when such a transition would occur.
I think the catholic position on the matter has some inherent flaws, and I think the position of pro-full-term-abortion has many flaws. In both, for the above reasons, I think a religious basis for the decision is irresponsible.
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Eden
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Why would atheists spend so much time at a Catholic forum? There must be something missing in their lives, that they feel so passionately the need to be in the company of believers.
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phooney
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Thanks for your contribution.
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Eden
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You are quite welcome.
Thanks for your contribution.
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phooney
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KatyElizabeth
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He is only 14. i thought that I read in AAA forum that you had to be 16 to committ a grave sin that would cause excommunication. (I think it was a thread about a woman who had had an abortion at 17).My 14 year old has decided he is now atheistI know he is searching and confused (welcome to the teen years). Because I ONCE was an atheist, I am aware of all the “logic” he tries to use in support of this. When I point out how ILL-logical being an atheist is, he just says that being a Christian is too hard and not believing in easier and more fun
like me, there will come a time when the emptiness of being an atheist will be overwhelming, and that is when he will return to the fold of God’s love and mercy.
Being an atheist is indeed easy, no going to Church, no praying, etc…but there will come a time when all that “Easy” will feel empty. Just believing that when we die that is IT seems so dark, empty of hope. I know, I was once there.
I pray for my son and for all atheist who are lost, even though they may not feel lost at the moment.
The Joy and Peace of soul in believing and knowing our Lord far outweighs the nothingless of atheism. Its OTHERWORLDLY:thumbsup:
This is the age when normal adolescent development leads to rebellion and questioning.
The best you can do is set a good example of how happy your Faith makes you and then with lots of prayer your son will return to the Faith that raised him.
If you argue with him, I believe, it will drive him harder to prove his points. Sometimes kids want someone to listen to the arguments because they are hearing these things everywhere and can not help but wonder. It is more of a question on their part but it comes out as statement of fact.
What if you said something like, “It sounds like you think it would be nice if we could all just do what we felt like when we wanted to?”, in a non-sarcastic way and it might cause him to think about the fallacy that that idea actually is.
His moral core that you instilled in him is still there. Just be present and available in his life so he will not start to engage in risky behavior.
IMO. I hope I am not being offensive.
I had a similar situation.
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Armor_of_God
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We just can’t behave while you’re away, Phooney!
You’re going to have to curtail your vacations…
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Eden
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As short as my comment was, it was a “contribution”. Your attempts to spread the belief in nothing here is ultimately futile. It’s not surprising, then, that you are drawn to the emptiness and futility of atheism. But, still, I find it fascinating that you are expending your energy so zealously on nothing. On the surface, sure, you are here to convince believers that God does not exist. But with 2,000 years of Catholic history and over 1 billion members today, your posts on Catholic.com are not going to put even a dent in the faith of Catholics or in the Catholic Church itself. Surely, you realize that your efforts are futile. Yet, you carry on, confident in the conviction that your posts on this forum have some larger purpose. What is that purpose, though? The only one that makes sense is that you are seeking something more profound than the belief in nothing. And so, with the pretext of promoting atheism, you surround yourself with the company of believers. May you be blessed on that journey, exploring the complex mysteries of God and the profound meaning of human life.
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phooney
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For people like you, I created my signature to save me further trouble.
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Alverno
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I guess the presence of Atheists in their little niche thread here at CAF is as threatening to some as a rattlesnake in a childrens nursery. The newcomers have their hand at trying to give credence to their beliefs in hope that these “heathens” will be miraculously converted. Others say their peace and offer a veiled blessing like “I hope that God gives you what you deserve”, amen. You can sense that they would like to say something else much stronger but then they would be exibiting their anger and either be accused of not being Christian-like by the non-believers, or be admonished by the monitors. So the beat goes on. I really am not sure what attracts these “lost” souls to this site, but it really doesn’t matter. They have a reason and that’s good enough for me. I mean, if they bother you well, look at another thread. Although I do not share their views on spiritual matters and I do not choose to engage them in sanctimonious lectures, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about them. They are people like us who go through life like we do and sometimes life ain’t easy for any of us. So visiting this thread is like going to another country. It’s a nice visit but I wouldn’t like to live here. And yet it doesn’t bother me that these folks stop to visit. In fact it is a little like entertainment to view the discourse that bounces back and forth. They have been here longer than I have and most likely they will still be here after I depart. At first I thought that they were just trolls disagreeing with others as if they were “sock puppets”. But I can see that for the most part they are sincere in their convictions, as I see it if they bother me then there must be something wrong with me. And I must work on me. To that end is perhaps why God wants them here. And once again, that’s good enough for me.
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Ronald_E
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Phooney, I missed you. It was not God or the bible that convinced me that love is at the core of creation. Actually, I did not start to read the bible until 4 or 5 years ago and then I realized I did not hate Christianity, I had actually hate Christians because what I read actually was different from what I heard from Christians. I am old, maybe I said this before.
My focus for years was on why am I so messed up. I discovered that I did not fit in anywhere because I was not made to fit into a system that had been built on fear and all the other feelings and outcomes that result from fear. Fear Kills!
I hope you had a good holiday.
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Eden
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Atheism is more than a lack of belief in God. It is a belief that your life is a journey toward becoming nothing, a return to the state from which you believe life began. From nothing, to something, to nothing again.
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I have been asking why one human has the right to use anothers organs without permission. I don’t think it is an inhuman question, and I suggest that you think about whether this is a personal attack.
I do not treat is as a human - but you do. If it is a human, why does it not have the basic responsibilities of a human?
You would have to ask my daughter.
Many do. Would you think it was a good idea to deny them abortion?
I don’t think you are following my logic at all. If I decided to keep a baby it would be because that baby was wanted. You would make a woman keep a baby against her own wishes, if you had your way. That is how babies get slapped around, starved and born with alcohol and drug problems.
No problem, there are many other topics we could pick up. I hope we can find one, too.
Whatever the reasons for a woman wanting to avoid having a baby (perhaps she is married to a known pedophile and doesn’t dare to bring a child into the situation) she should be given her choice because it is her body, and so her choice to make.
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