Monday, November 03, 2008
Does abortion end a life -- or prevent one?
"In no Christian intellectual stream do we find a unified tradition teaching that human life is present from conception -- so this is not a viable basis for supporting laws banning all abortion."
Read it all, by Celia Chazelle, on Theolog, the blog of The Christian Century.
Read it all, by Celia Chazelle, on Theolog, the blog of The Christian Century.
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Real public dialogue often runs into dead ends because so many pro life holders are not interested in tradition, even though they speak its name.
In one corner, the living Pope "tells me what tradition weights." And those who hide behind the skirt of the Roman Catholic church.
In the other corner, the heritage of agrarian, anti-intellectual American protestantism that tends often to skip completely over all christian history back to the Bible. And what they read there is not there but exists in them earlier than the text and completely unconscious. And that is modern science. Such people are moved with tremendous sentimentality of ultra-modern pictures within the living womb of the living embryo and fetus. Who can blame them? The pictures and video are extremely moving. Moving in similar ways to the Great Awakening and Second Great Awakening, Azusa street, etc. But always after such an awakening, the business of faith seeking understanding carries the rest of days which are challenging, sometimes dull, sometimes exciting, with a few punctuated moments of awakening.
But these folks, with the marvels of in vitro pictures and videos in their minds eye, then read the Bible and see in ancient passages a writer who did not even know gravity but knows in vitro embryonic development and laid down a testament of the sacredness of zygotic and embryonic life.
Neither are interested in respecting the tradition of using God's gift of minds in faith seeking understanding.
In one corner, the living Pope "tells me what tradition weights." And those who hide behind the skirt of the Roman Catholic church.
In the other corner, the heritage of agrarian, anti-intellectual American protestantism that tends often to skip completely over all christian history back to the Bible. And what they read there is not there but exists in them earlier than the text and completely unconscious. And that is modern science. Such people are moved with tremendous sentimentality of ultra-modern pictures within the living womb of the living embryo and fetus. Who can blame them? The pictures and video are extremely moving. Moving in similar ways to the Great Awakening and Second Great Awakening, Azusa street, etc. But always after such an awakening, the business of faith seeking understanding carries the rest of days which are challenging, sometimes dull, sometimes exciting, with a few punctuated moments of awakening.
But these folks, with the marvels of in vitro pictures and videos in their minds eye, then read the Bible and see in ancient passages a writer who did not even know gravity but knows in vitro embryonic development and laid down a testament of the sacredness of zygotic and embryonic life.
Neither are interested in respecting the tradition of using God's gift of minds in faith seeking understanding.
"In medieval times cats were thought of as the witch's familiars. If a pregnant woman was suffering agonizing pains, it was believed she was bewitched and that she had kittens clawing at her inside her womb... As late as the seventeenth century, an excuse for obtaining an abortion was given in court as removing "cats in the belly."
--Desmond Morris
Sorry any rationale conversation about abortion seems to bring out the kooks. Just thought I get this in early.
--Desmond Morris
Sorry any rationale conversation about abortion seems to bring out the kooks. Just thought I get this in early.
I was going to say that you really liked beating the hornet's nest, but it looks like they aren't biting today, ER. Too bad, because a nice brouhaha about abortion on election day would be more fun than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
I like to think it's because they really don't like to think, and the attached makes one think -- so they don't know what to do.
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