10 Jun 2009, 11:43 am
10 Jun 2009, 12:37 pm
10 Jun 2009, 2:49 pm
DW_a_mom wrote:
Ragtime,
I am going to ask you to accept that there are intelligent, rational, moral, and even deeply religious Christian people who believe, with all their heart, that an unborn child in certain stages is not a viable "life" that can be murdered. And to accept that in a democratic society these intelligent, rational, moral and religious people have a right to act within their own conscious.
I am going to ask you to accept that there are intelligent, rational, moral, and even deeply religious Christian people who believe, with all their heart, that an unborn child in certain stages is not a viable "life" that can be murdered. And to accept that in a democratic society these intelligent, rational, moral and religious people have a right to act within their own conscious.
You're asking too much - acceptance, something Ragtime will not give to anyone he feels superior to - which is nearly everyone who doesn't agree with him.
amazon_television
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10 Jun 2009, 5:17 pm
DW_a_mom wrote:
Ragtime,
I am going to ask you to accept that there are intelligent, rational, moral, and even deeply religious Christian people who believe, with all their heart, that an unborn child in certain stages is not a viable "life" that can be murdered. And to accept that in a democratic society these intelligent, rational, moral and religious people have a right to act within their own conscious. You may work to persuade them differently, but you cannot and should not deny them that courtesy. It is the foundation for all we believe in as a society.
And I say that as one who does NOT believe as they do, but believes, in my own conscious, that it is a baby I would never abort.
But I HAVE engaged in lengthy conversations with such people, and have come to understand that they did not reach their positions lightly nor for selfish reasons.
You cannot equate unborn beings that are not viable outside of the womb with born individuals who were quite aware of what was being done to them and why. At the early stages, the fetus truly is a collection of cells with the potential to become a human being. Much by the hand of God can change that reality. 20% of pregnancies miscarry in the first trimester. Many others will go wrong of their own accord long before birth. And a human embryo looks exactly like most animal embryos. Its the programming, of course, that is different.
And that collection of cells cannot live without its mother. Yes, it becomes a whole different story once the fetus is viable outside of the womb, and past that I find it quite difficult for anyone to argue it isn't a human life, but then new considerations kick in, like how medical difficulties might weight the life of the mother against the life of the unborn. And so on.
Sharing everything from all the conversations I've had would take hours, and I don't have hours to spend on it. But it is wrong to place what is essentially your own personal opinion above those of a very large group of people, and say they are wrong to the point of needing coersion, and you hold the only truth.
That is, in the end, the problem I have with the pro-life movement as it currently exists. While I have saved specific unborn babies from abortion because of my conversations with their mothers, I cannot see myself as part of a movement that refuses to see the complexities in life and respect the difficult decisions made by others. I saved lives by showing women choices, not by taking them away.
I am going to ask you to accept that there are intelligent, rational, moral, and even deeply religious Christian people who believe, with all their heart, that an unborn child in certain stages is not a viable "life" that can be murdered. And to accept that in a democratic society these intelligent, rational, moral and religious people have a right to act within their own conscious. You may work to persuade them differently, but you cannot and should not deny them that courtesy. It is the foundation for all we believe in as a society.
And I say that as one who does NOT believe as they do, but believes, in my own conscious, that it is a baby I would never abort.
But I HAVE engaged in lengthy conversations with such people, and have come to understand that they did not reach their positions lightly nor for selfish reasons.
You cannot equate unborn beings that are not viable outside of the womb with born individuals who were quite aware of what was being done to them and why. At the early stages, the fetus truly is a collection of cells with the potential to become a human being. Much by the hand of God can change that reality. 20% of pregnancies miscarry in the first trimester. Many others will go wrong of their own accord long before birth. And a human embryo looks exactly like most animal embryos. Its the programming, of course, that is different.
And that collection of cells cannot live without its mother. Yes, it becomes a whole different story once the fetus is viable outside of the womb, and past that I find it quite difficult for anyone to argue it isn't a human life, but then new considerations kick in, like how medical difficulties might weight the life of the mother against the life of the unborn. And so on.
Sharing everything from all the conversations I've had would take hours, and I don't have hours to spend on it. But it is wrong to place what is essentially your own personal opinion above those of a very large group of people, and say they are wrong to the point of needing coersion, and you hold the only truth.
That is, in the end, the problem I have with the pro-life movement as it currently exists. While I have saved specific unborn babies from abortion because of my conversations with their mothers, I cannot see myself as part of a movement that refuses to see the complexities in life and respect the difficult decisions made by others. I saved lives by showing women choices, not by taking them away.
I'm pretty sure Ragtime has long since detached from this thread. He seems to get legitimate enjoyment from needling people with these threads, and then he gets bored after a couple days and makes a new thread with a new "angle" on doing the same thing. He hasn't posted in this thread in several days (ever since he made the "liberals/Israel bombing" thread), and I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't even read it anymore. And now that Israel thread is 8 pages long, and he hasn't posted in it since page 1, and has turned his attention to Obama. I think it's the emotions he stirs, more so than the content of his arguments, that truly strokes his sense of intellectual superiority, which is what he is doing (under the guise of flexing his sense of moral superiority
)
10 Jun 2009, 6:54 pm
amazon_television wrote:
I'm pretty sure Ragtime has long since detached from this thread. He seems to get legitimate enjoyment from needling people with these threads, and then he gets bored after a couple days and makes a new thread with a new "angle" on doing the same thing. He hasn't posted in this thread in several days (ever since he made the "liberals/Israel bombing" thread), and I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't even read it anymore. And now that Israel thread is 8 pages long, and he hasn't posted in it since page 1, and has turned his attention to Obama. I think it's the emotions he stirs, more so than the content of his arguments, that truly strokes his sense of intellectual superiority, which is what he is doing (under the guise of flexing his sense of moral superiority
)Well ...
You never know what other like-minded people may be reading.
amazon_television
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amazon_television
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Joined: 17 Feb 2009
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