Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts

Birds of a Fundy Feather

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There is a scientific principle called Like Aggregation. It states that objects of similar size and weight will aggregate towards one another or join together, this being due to ocean currents and winds, the response of the objects to magnetic fields, and other factors. This effect is something we take for granted, but we see it every time we observe a wad of cat hair or a clump of dirt lying around.

It is very interesting to see a spiritual side to this principle at work in the lives of people, as well as inanimate objects. As human beings, we find that those who think like us, act like us, are comfortable and willing to associate with us, and will side with us in arguments, tend to gravitate toward us. This is why street thugs, choirboys, and presidents aren’t seen hanging out together at shopping malls!

In 1997, during my last year at preaching school, I saw this principle at work like I never had before. On the way home from a lectureship in Denton, Texas, we students were making reference to the powerful preaching we heard while at the lectureship when the subject of abortion came up. This led to the subject of Eric Rudolph, the famous abortion clinic bomber and domestic terrorist. He was first becoming recognized back then, and we soon found ourselves talking about his crimes, when out of the blue, one very vocal preaching student said, “I honestly can’t condemn him for what he did!” It was like someone dropped a pistol! There was the usual stunned moment of silence as the students began to look around at each other and then back at the speaker to clarify the shocking statement just made. “Honestly, murderers need to die. Abortionists are murderers. I can’t condemn this guy at all for what he did.”

I was unprepared to see one of my own brethren defend the likes of this monster. I said to him again, this time with a partial grin on my face as though I knew he was about to cop to pulling my leg. “Seriously…” With not the slightest of hesitation or anything but a serious, almost angry expression on his face because I didn’t believe him, he said, “Does it look like I’m kidding?” I realized then that he wasn’t, and at this point, just waited for some of the other guys to jump in and tell him what a nut he had become. No one did. Looking to see why, I glanced over the bus seats and got a load of the facial expressions of others. To my amazement, I beheld what appeared to be nods of approval, maybe a few disturbed looks, but not one horrified expression in the bunch.

I seemed to be alone. No one else saw this as a terrible sign of a dangerous dogma. I can remember thinking to myself, “I am riding with potential terrorists! These people are not that far removed from Subway-bombing Jihadists!” Of course, I quickly put the thought behind me, assuming perhaps they were speaking out of anger and not serious reflection. This didn’t seem likely though, since even when I described the agony of having to undergo multiple painful skin-graphs and reconstructive surgeries, loss of hearing, loss of sight, chronic pain, missing limbs, and any number of other injuries that come from incendiary devices like explosives, I got no reactions from them. They seemed unphased, able only to think about the heavily influential anti-abortion materials they had been fed. This was probably the first red flag that went up in my head, showing me just how dangerous any religiously motivated ideal can be.

Even being consumed in the very same radical dogma they were, I still found this disturbing. I was apparently the only one who was truly appalled. My brethren would never have had the courage or the desire to do what Rudolph did, but they couldn’t fault him for it either. What was so sad was that they didn’t realize how they had stooped to the level of the desert-roaming radical groups they claimed to oppose. They became Christian terrorist sympathizers who entertained the idea that maybe God was using Rudolph to extend the arm of divine justice on those “ godless baby-murderers” who worked in abortion clinics. “Thus saith the Lord, my servant Eric Rudolph shall bring justice…” Scary indeed to think about! The Bible doesn’t say this, but it might as well have in the minds of these believers. It is the cauterizing lesson of humanity—if no one is around for us to hate and oppose, we eventually become what we once hated and opposed the most!

In my first home church, I was asked to march in several anti-abortion rallies but never did. The whole idea seemed a bit radical to me, but as a young Christian man, I found that the proponents of abortion rallies argued their case well, “Joe, why won’t you march? If we can intimidate just one young girl into staying away from the slaughterhouse so that her child lives, we’ve saved a life. God wants you to do that!” I once thought to respond, “Well, we could handcuff ourselves to the doors and that would stop people too!” They quit trying to convince me to join them after a while, but listening to their boasting from pulpits on how they had such huge turnouts at the rallies was still disgusting. You never saw the eyes of believers light up with hatred as when standing outside a Planned Parenthood facility!

As I look back on these events, I remember how grandma’s old saying went, “Birds of a feather flock together.” Life dictates that you won’t have to wait long for someone to show their true colors. People’s convictions make them act like they do. The things they say, the rash statements they make, those with whom they side in arguments…all signs of their indubitable selves. And the fruits of that nature can be clearly seen; Rudolph’s deeds are right in line with the beliefs of many Christians, one of those being that God wants abortionists to pay for their sins in blood (Genesis 9:6). A lot of believers might disagree on how to go about shedding this blood, but that is a minor detail in comparison to the big picture. Be it government or vigilante justice (whichever happens to come through quickest for the believer’s holy cause), they want action here and now! God hates “hands that shed innocent blood” (Proverbs 6:17), even though, ironically, when all the hype is cleared away, the Bible itself is found to be a pro-abortion book (see Genesis 38:24; Exodus 21:22-23).

The Christian fundamentalist mindset is dangerous. It devalues life and appreciates one that exists only in fantasy. It enslaves the rational mind, empowering an otherwise conscionable individual to do inhumane things with feelings of integral justification, or at the very least, creates support and sympathy for those who so act.
(JH)

How to Write a Philosophy or Ethics Paper.

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[Written by John W. Loftus] Here are the guidelines to writing a Philosophy or Ethics paper that I use for my classes:
A philosophy paper is a defense of a thesis, in which the thesis is explained and analyzed, arguments are given in support of the thesis, possible objections to the thesis are stated and examined, and responses are given to the objections. A philosophy paper thus has five parts (which I will expect you to follow). Include a sentence outline of your argument. 1. The statement of the thesis. 2. The analysis and explaining of the thesis. 3. The arguments in support of the thesis. 4. The examination of objections to the thesis. 5. The response to the objections. When choosing a thesis statement I want you to argue against a particular author with whom you disagree. Your chosen topic must be one discussed in our philosophy/ethics textbook--no exceptions. Read essays until you come across a philosophical essay with which you disagree. Then defend your point of view against the criticisms of that essay. Research into other authors to help you in your debate. 1) The Thesis is a statement that makes some clear, definite assertion about the subject under discussion. Be sure to begin your paper with a thesis statement showing what you will attempt to show, and how you will do this. Let me know which sentence is your thesis statement by labeling it as such. Be specific. Don’t just say you will examine the question at hand. A philosophy paper is very much like debating on behalf of, or against a position. You should state that a particular author with whom you are debating is wrong in certain areas, and that your position is better. If the subject is the existence of a Supreme Being you might want to defend: a) The teleological argument for the existence of God shows that a designer God exists; b) It is highly unlikely that a good God exists given the amount of evil in the world; or c) Human beings are incapable of knowing whether there is a Supreme Being. Inadequate thesis statements include: a) Why I believe in God; b) The Quest for God; or c) God in Contemporary Thought. These statements do not assert anything--they are topics. The first one above “Why I Believe in God” is a personal report of how you feel or believe, which is not a philosophical argument. When writing about the topic of Abortion good thesis statements are: a) Abortion should be legally wrong under all circumstances; b) A woman should have the absolute legal right to have an abortion; and c) Abortion should be illegal except to save the life of the mother. Inadequate ones include: a) Abortion pro and con; b) The scientific status of the embryo; and c) The legally of abortion in America. 2) The analysis and explaining of the thesis. Here you need to explain just what you wish to defend. In the case of Abortion you will need to distinguish between legal problems and moral problems--are you arguing both? Clarify what circumstances, if any, abortion is morally wrong. Can it be morally wrong yet not legally wrong? At this stage you are not really arguing your case, just explaining what you mean by your thesis statement. This sets the stage for the rest of your paper, for the reader can then judge how well you’ve defended your thesis by how you interpret it. In the case of a Supreme Being, are you arguing for (or against) a loving God, a creator God, or the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent benevolent God in the Bible? Again, be very specific. Remember, the bigger the claim, the harder it is to defend it. 3) The arguments in support of the thesis. Here is the heart of the paper where you argue your thesis. You must offer reasons (arguments) to support your thesis statement that are intended to persuade someone who disagrees. Just ask yourself, “If I didn’t already believe my thesis, would these reasons convince me that it was true?” In the case of a Supreme Being you may want to defend the cosmological argument, the teleological argument or the moral argument for the existence of God. Just defend one of them, not all of them, thank you. In the case of Abortion you might try to defend the absolutist thesis that abortion should always be legally wrong. Here you would have to argue that abortion takes an innocent human life. You would have to show that it is human life and it is immoral to take a human life no matter what the circumstances. You would also have to defend a legal principle which defends the right to legislate on this and other similar moral issues. 4) The examination of objections to the thesis. The difficult trick here is to research and state the strongest possible objections to your thesis. Don’t just put up some cream-puff objections that anyone can knock over! There is nothing that wins a reader over more than to have the author say, “Now someone may object, but what about this, and this” when that is just what the reader is thinking, and then having the author come up with really plausible replies to the objections. Here you will have to seriously deal with a philosophical author who disagrees with your viewpoint. Allow that author to speak. Use “the principle of charity” that states we should present the best possible interpretation of an author’s argument for our debate. Otherwise we end up attacking a charicature of his or her argument rather than the argument itself (known as “the fallacy of the straw man”). As a research paper I will expect you to utilize the arguments and counter-arguments learned in class, class readings, and outside readings. 5) The response to the objections. Having stated the objections, answer them and then you are done! As before, use all the skills at your disposal to convince someone who disagreed with your viewpoint. [You may combine part 4 with part 5, answering objections as you go.] At the end of your paper offer a summary paragraph of what you have shown in your paper. Footnotes can be placed at the end of the paper. You will be graded based in descending order upon: 1) how you defend your thesis statement, 2) clarity of thought and presentation; 3) your research, and only if it becomes noticeable, 4) grammar and spelling. While a survey of positions on a particular topic can be helpful, you must show how one position offers criticisms of the other, and not merely state that they are different (which is obvious). Your use of the Bible, the Koran, and so on, should be very limited. While religious teachings may be the source of your beliefs, you are being asked to defend them with philosophical reasons. Again, pick an author or topic that you find in our textbook or that we discuss in class with whom you disagree. Describe the author’s position you wish to evaluate in some detail. Then evaluate it by using the help of other philosophers who have written about it, without neglecting you own informed arguments. ------------------------------------------------- Adapted from Robert Wolff’s About Philosophy, (pp. 425-437) by John W. Loftus.