Regarding Abortion -- God's "WIN-WIN-WIN" Situation

God is omniscient and omnipotent. That means that He has always known everything about everything, past present and future. And that He may freely interact, uniquely, with any person, group, or all humanity, however and whenever He chooses.

Trillions (indeed, even octillions) of years ago, God knew just which human entities from gametes on -- sperm & ova, inclusive) would be born, and which ones would NOT, for whatever reason. In the case of Jeremiah, He interacted before Jeremiah reached the womb -- while Jeremiah was still at the sperm-and-ovum stage! (Jer. 1:5). In that particular case, at least, Jeremiah had been instilled with his soul while he was still at the sperm-and-egg stage -- the stage at which the Bible says God interacted with Jeremiah. So it's very possible that God instills all souls at that stage... since God already knows which of them will later become people, and which ones will not. And if He does choose to instill souls in all of those, then heaven must be a very populated place. And any potential people that happened to have been aborted then got a free pass to heaven. And missed the risk of not making it there, that's faced by all of us here on earth... God's "basic training grounds."

These pillars are incomprehensibly huge! It takes four years for light to travel, at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, from one end to the other of the taller one! But this is only an infinitesimal part of the universe. Think... perhaps akin to one molecule within one grain of sand vs. all such molecules from all the other grains of sand in the world.

And then, there also is the very real possibility that God chooses to instill souls only in the entities that He knows, beforehand, will be born. Then there are no free passes to heaven, except for infants and children below each one's age of accountability. Presumably. But that's no loss to the quadrillion human reproductive-process entities (RPEs) at Stage One which are electively aborted daily, worldwide, by men. Which, like the later-stage RPEs, never experienced conscious awareness, so never knew the difference.

Any way you look at it, it's a "win-win" situation for God. Which makes it no great surprise that neither He nor Jesus ever said so much as one single word against abortion in the Bible. And if He had felt so inclined, He certainly could have, via His writers. By the time of Christ, abortion had already been practiced for at least 1,000 years. (Mostly via abortifacients.) And from His vantage point in eternity, and through His omniscience, He already knew that in our age, abortions would be performed a billion times over any given 18-year-long period. But still probided no admonitions against it. (For anyone who's thinking about "Thou shalt not kill," at this point, I caution you against stepping on any ants! The Bible never accords any importance to RPEs, nor defends them. With only one exception. A passage In which the fetus was regarded merely as property. And which condoned slavery! (Ex. 21:20-25.)

Since abortion is a highly-beneficial remedy that enables millions of women to put their lives back on track, and gives them another chance to pursue the full ranges of future opportunities that they'd had before the ill-timed pregnancy, the availability of it is far more in line with God's compassion (and the compassion that Jesus commanded us to show to our neighbors), than it would be for women to be cruelly forced, instead, by their neighbors, to gestate unwanted pregnancies to term against their will, and thus have many of their opportunities and their well-being destroyed. (Particularly since God also was/is well-aware that most women who do obtain abortions go on later to have children, by choice, when the timing is better, and the circumstances and prospects for long-term stable family environments are far more favorable.)

Finally, God is a God of loving compassion and second chances. The woman at the well had sinned, but Jesus gave her her life back. Perhaps sin might have been involved in a given person's getting pregnant, in this discussion. (Whether or not that was the case is beyond this discussion's scope.) But if so, it wouldn't be at all hard to imagine Jesus blessing her getting her life via this remedy. (And if she had sinned in the course of getting pregnant, can't you almost hear Him saying to her, gently, "Go. And sin no more." (?) )

So for God, the status quo is "win-win-win" -- all the way!

Originally written on 10-21-2001.

Atheists UNITE to Fight the RRR Cult. Will this awaken Actual Christians to the need to JOIN them against that common foe?

E. Iowa atheists speak up.

They unite to fight sway of religion over government.

by Molly Rossiter
The Cedar Rapids Gazette

Jaime Sabel and her husband, Brian, started Iowa Secularists in 2004 to form ‘‘a community of non-believers’’ in the Iowa City area. Now their non-profit organization has 150 members statewide and 50 more on mailing lists. They are part of a growing group of atheists across the country becoming more vocal fighting what they call a budding ‘‘theocracy,’’ caused by an increase in religious issues they say are being injected into government.

Made up mostly of atheists Jaime Sabel Started Iowa Secularists and agnostics, Sabel said, Iowa Secularists has provided a forum to ‘‘fight for the separation of church and state.’’

‘‘Last year there was proposed legislation that didn’t go anywhere saying that the Pledge (of Allegiance) had to be recited, and those who didn’t want to say it had to keep a respectful silence,’’ said Sabel, 29, of Iowa City.

‘‘That was in contrast to what atheists and secularists in general want to keep separate. I think secularists are more aware of what they have to lose because of this push by the religious right.’’ According to a new study by the Barna Research Group, about 9 percent of the American population, or roughly 20 million people, openly identify themselves as an atheist, agnostic or having "no faith." Of those, 56 percent say radical Christianity is a threat to the United States.

Meanwhile, 63 percent of Christians perceive the nation is becoming more hostile and negative toward Christianity.

‘From many points of view, the militant atheists and the militant evangelicals are peas in a pod — they both advance an array of question-begging arguments and act uncharitably toward their opponents,’’ said Howard Rhodes, a University of Iowa professor of religion, ethics and politics.

‘‘Given that most of the underlying issues are political, this kind of public discussion runs the risk of undermining essential aspects of democracy. Each side seems to say the other is not welcome in this society.’’ Membership in organizations geared toward non-believers is rising, and books touting the non-existence of God, such as ‘‘The God Delusion,’’ are hitting best-seller lists across the country. ‘

‘The fact that many educated persons of a certain class simply regard theism as unbelievable is not new,’’ Rhodes said. ‘‘What is new is the fact that many of them have felt compelled to denounce aggressively and in public the beliefs of their fellow theistic citizens.’’ Kirkwood for Reason, a student group for atheists, agnostics and secularists at Kirkwood Community College, is in its first year with 14 active members. Chairman Mike Ireland, 26, has started a Secular Student Alliance chapter on campus, as well. ‘‘A certain amount of the momentum can be attributed to a response to the increased pressure fundamentalist Christians are putting on government,’’ Ireland said.

Lydia Hartunian, faculty adviser for Kirkwood for Reason, has just started a nonprofit group, Iowa Atheist Alliance.

‘‘When President Bush got re-elected, the country seemed to be more divided. Now it is kind of a war between whether we want to be a theocracy or whether we want to be a secularized nation as the founders intended,’’ said Hartunian, who teaches humanities and philosophy at the Cedar Rapids community college.

• Contact the writer: (319) 398-8288 or molly.rossiter@gazettecommunications.com.

COMMENTARY

This blog supports the religions (or lack thereof) of ALL people, including atheists. The only thing we oppose in that regard is when thoughtless and hateful people use it as an excuse to attempt to discriminate against any people or groups, or deny or erode civil/human rights and personal liberties.

So this is a microcosm of a very interesting new development. Atheists, who have mostly been without much in the way of organizations, are now beginning to come together all over America in a dramatic fashion to oppose bigotry. It's not just happening in Iowa!

Fascinatingly, most atheists, just like an incredibly large number of normal (actual) Christians, are amazingly unaware of the huge dichotomy that exists between two groups of professing Christians. MOST of society has no idea that in the USA, professing Christians exist as (1) actual Christians who are mostly everyone's quiet, sensible, unobtrusive, tolerant, relatively-intelligent, work-a-day and egalitarian next-door neighbors. Fully 94% of the USA's professing Christians, and the group to which I belong... and (2) the pseudo-Christians and low-IQ propaganda-brainwashed actual Christians, and their cunning and deceitful leaders, who together comprise the RRR Cult... the "Religious" Radical Right. Only a mere 6% of Americans who profess Christianity. But they comprise one very obnoxious, control-freakish, busybodyish, rights-disrespecting and -hating, high-profile, strident, and noisome faction. America hasn't been infested with a more dangerous crowd of bigoted losers since the agendas of the segregationists swirled down the Drain of Extinction over 40 years ago. And they are so much like the segregationists, in terms of their level of abject ignorance, hatefulness, and warped mindset against legitimate liberties as to be downright scary.

I mean -- didn't America outgrow such abject stupidity when the segregationists either grew up or crawled into closets, to defend themselves against public scorn? Tragically, I don't think we did. Sadly, I'm afraid that when Jerry Falwell started the so-called "Moral Majority" (to his everlasting disgrace!), a million or more former segregationists, still as ignorant and hateful as ever, scurried over there and found a new home! NOW they could have a NEW and more "respectable" ste of targets for their vitriolic hate: women and gays. The RRR Cult is a repressive crowd of losers in many ways, but their primary goals are to destroy forever the right of girls and women to have safe and legal access to the hugely-beneficial remedy for the unwanted medical condition of ill-timed pregnancy -- the reversal of that condition. Abortion. Despite the fact that:

Reproductive-Process Entities (RPEs) : People :: Acorns : Oak Trees

And to deprive homosexuals of the SAME rights that heterosexuals have with respect to housing, the workplace, military service, and to marry their partner of choice. (Nothing in the Constitution governs the gender composition of married couples.) The RRR Cult lyingly calls all of those equal rights "special" rights, when it's homosexuals who are seek them. How ludicrous and stupid! And the RRR Cult leaders' lemmings swallow all of that mindless and hateful tripe, hook, line, and sinker!

Homosexuality is merely a variation of NORMALCY. Just like handedness, race, and eye color. It takes a very ignorant person to seek to discriminate against anyone on the basis of any such variations.

Fortunately for America, society is awakening to their idiotic bigotries, and is starting to fight back, as we saw in the story above. And it's a good thing, too! UNchallenged, the RRR Cult -- the USA's very own home-grown version of the TALIBAN -- could be gravely dangerous to America and it's future. They would absolutely love to turn this nation into a tyrannical theocracy, no matter how much they may pretend to be patriotic.

Consider this. 83% of Americans profess Christianity. 6% of them (the RRR) works out to be just 5% of the nation's population as a whole. And as long as that cult survives to infest society, we must keep THIS analogy in mind:

RRR Cult : Society :: 5% Arsenic solution : Glass of drinking water

So BRAVO to the atheists, who recognize this awful threat, and are organizing to oppose it! May they become very effective in achiving this goal. But while they are doing it, they need to remember that they are not fighting "Christians." The 94% of us that are their good and fair-minded neighbors. They are fighting a small percentage of pseudo-Christian bigots who lyingly claim to be Christian, but couldn't be more UN-Christian in the way they behave.

MEANWHILE, it's time for the actual Christians to awaken to the threat, and JOIN the atheists against this common enemy. There are 250,000,000 of us in America. And there are 20 million atheists and agnostics. For a total of 270 million. And those of other faiths can join us. 15 million more. For a total of 285 million, opposing the RRR Cult's mere 15 million. Together, we can easily relegate the RRR's loathsome agendas to the dustbin of history, to moulder with those of the segregationists, overnight! The time for apathy is over. It's time to spread the word, and educate society (which mostly is comprised of actual Christians who don't know these facts yet) about this. It's time for a call to arms against America's liberty-hating internal Taliban.

Here's HOW the RRR cultists unwittingly ENCOURAGE their opponents. (This may come as a very pleasant surprise!)

Since establishing this blog and inviting people to visit and read its premiere article on the significant and powerful impact that 1 Cor. 5:12-13 can have upon the loathsome, anti-personal-liberties agendas of the "Religious" Radical Right, some people have made a very interesting sort of response.They are that relative handful of people who claim to be Christians, and claim that I am NOT one, and that dire things will happen to me when I die. Here's what's interesting about that. Anyone who has been a human rights advocate and activist for as long as I have probably wasn't too far from me in the early 1960s, when I was a worker in Mississippi in Civil Rights Movement I, and experienced the same sort of things that I did. Whenever we cornered a segregationist and proved his agenda to be wrong with solid FACTS -- he invariably would respond by calling US bigots, and in the process be very upset.

If further challenged to back his stance with actual FACTS, he’d sulk and walk away. Because no such thing as a fact that could support their hateful treatment of blacks even existed. And as the time drew closer to the day when segregation would become extinct, they got more and more strident, calling us (the freedom-fighters) un-Christian, hateful, and bigoted. This actually got to be very entertaining, because the more they screeched and yowled that we were the bigots, and the more upset with us they got, the more we realized that we were WINNING the war against that form of bigotry.

Now I’m seeing those same sort of strident (and lame) attempts to reverse the bigotry... this time being attempted by the RRR Cultists. But what those poor, ignorant pseudo-Christian lemmings don’t seem to realize is that there are still a LOT of us former Civil Rights workers out and about, and we still are fighting bigotry. And we’ve gotten pretty good at it, with all those decades of experience. We’ve seen that response from bigots before, and we know what it means.

FACTS beat ignorance every single time, in the end! And we are just as dedicated to winning the day for women and gays today, as we were for the blacks, 45-50 years ago. So I think that we should be thanking those cultists for tipping their hand, and letting us know just how desperate they truly are, as they watch their hate-agendas swirling inexorably and irreversably closer to the Drain of Extinction. So I have to wonder just how many of them actually realize that by trying to verbally turn the tables, they actually are giving the liberty-defending egalitarians in Civil Rights Movement II great encouragement!

So whenever an RRR cultist gets upset with you, and tries to accuse you of being guilty of his hateful shortcomings -- you might want to try really hard to stifle that hearty laugh you feel welling up inside you. Or not.

1 Cor. 5:12-13 -- Your KEY to Defeating the Hateful Agendas of the PSEUDO-Christians!

Have you EVER told a LIE?

If you have, then guess what? You've broken one of the Ten Commandments! (Read on, no matter what your faith may be, or what you may or may not believe. This gets good!)

What about shopping? Have you ever done it on Sunday? (Or Saturday, if that happens to be your religion's sabbath?) Then, by golly, you've broken yet another Commandment!

Have you ever attended a seance? Played with Tarot Cards? A Ouija Board? Had some tea leaves read, or in any other way had dealings with a soothsayer or fortune teller? ANY of those things? Yeah? Hoo boy!! You're in BIG trouble now! The Bible says that associating one's self with attempting to divine the future, or with trying to contact the spirit world is an "abomination" to God, and engaging in any such practices carries a penalty of DEATH!

SIDE NOTE: As a normal Christian (and we should never be confused with the hateful and delusional pseudo-Christians of the "Religious" Radical Right -- the RRR Cult), any proselytizing I do is of the passive (non-invasive) variety -- such as leaving sensible (non-bigoted) tracts lying around for people to either take or leave. So I won't be discussing salvation in here. Just in case you might have thought that was coming. It is very important that society comes to the full realization that normal Christians are everyone's sensible, fair-minded, pretty intelligent, ordinary, unobtrusive, work-a-day next-door neighbors. Unlike the RRR cultists, we are quiet, low-profile, and friendly people who usually have a live-and-let-live attitude with respect to the personal affairs and behaviors of other people. Very few of us ever engage in any form of busybodyism or discrimination. In America, 83% of the population professes Christianity. Only a mere 6% of those are obnoxious and bigoted RRR Cultists. The other 94% of us are normal and tolerant. We comprise about 250,000,000 of the USA's 300 million people. IF we were anything like the RRR cultists, America would be a tyrannical theocracy that would make Iran look benign by comparison. So PLEASE -- keep these two completely opposite groups of people straight in your minds, and don't blame "Christians" when you see hatefulness and bigotry. We do NOT deserve to be wrongfully painted with the RRR Cult's brush. (And one more thing... the RRR loves to make people think that Christians oppose abortion. That's a major LIE. Fully 2/3 of Americans support the right to choose, and reliable polls show that has been consistently true for over 30 years. And 5/6 of Americans are normal Christians. Do the math. Most of us are sensibly Pro- Choice! When it comes to breaking that Commandment against lying, RRR cultists are experts at it.)

The above comment needed to be said, in context with this post, and should always be kept in mind. I invite you to make copies of it, or netter yet, even this entire article, to pass out and send to your friends. And a way for you to e-mail it to them is provided below, as well.

Whether or not the Bible is relevant to you, the reader of this, it is very relevant to the RRR cultists. Or, at least, they do a really good job of pretending that it is. Since they practice cafeteria theology with it constantly. Whenever any passage seems to support their hate-agendas toward personal liberties, they cite it to beat the band. But when a passage contradicts them, or would prove them to be a collection of hypocrites, they studiously ignore it! Just as they usually ignore soothsayers and mediums... and have no major agendas against them.

And, for example, you will never see an RRR Cult leader cite I Corinthians 5:12-13. (And thus, the mostly-ignorant lemmings of the cult are generally unaware of its very existence!) Here's what it says, in the NIV Bible.

12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside.

Do you have ANY idea of the very magnitude of the command issued to Christians in that passage? It literally tells the RRR Cult (and anyone else who feels so inclined) to BUTT OUT of the personal affairs of people in society, in general. It makes it crystal clear that the Bible neither authorizes nor appoints ANY person to act as an enforcer of its precepts vis-a-vis society! In short, the Bible authorizes NO Gestapo!

That is DEVASTATING to the RRR Cult. It de-legitimizes ALL of their intrusive and obnoxious agendas against personal liberties.

Here's why. Take note of the words, "Are you not to judge those inside?" That refers to the only controlling action that the Bible authorizes for Christians: CHURCH discipline. Congregations are authorized to take certain (non-torturous or lethal) measures to "correct" the "misbehaviors" and "sins" of fellow believers. But NO one else!

And there goes the very linchpin of all of the hate-agendas of the RRR Cult, right down the drain! Society needs to learn this, and to -- on that basis -- reject all of the cult's loathsome agendas against tens of millions of people in society.

Okay -- that being said, let's get back to LYING.

The RRR Cultists do that habitually. For example, they claim that abortion is sinful, and that the Bible opposes it. Wrong. Abortion is nothing but a hugely-valuable remedy, and it harms people no more than a squirrel's dining on acorns affects oak trees. And it's not even mentioned in the Bible, much less condemned. (And it could have been, if God had felt so inclined when He inspired the writers of the Bible. Since abortion was already being practiced (mostly via abortifacients) in biblical times. And already had been for at least 1,000 years before that.)

And they lie about same-sex marriage (SSM), claiming that "traditional" marriage must be "defended" against it. So we've seen a rash of so-called "Defense of Marriage" laws and state constitutional amendments passed at the cult's urgings. But in reality, there's nothing around that could possibly be more harmless than SSM. There's no way that any opposite-sex couple's marriage could be harmed in the slightest if a gay couple in their community were to be legally married. And gays don't engage in more sex because they get married, so gays' having sex can't be used as an argument against SSM. Any sexually-active person, gay or straight, will have sex whether he/she is married or not. (Those "sanctity of marriage" arguments that the RRR loves to spew are meaningless, too. Consider: How "sacred" are the millions and millions of NON-religious marriages that are performed by JPs, ship captains, judges in courthouses, etc.? And those arguments that "marriage is for producing children" doesn fly, either, as a reason for excluding gay couples from the institution. Since millions of couples are sterile, or prefer not to have kids... and yet are allowed to marry, without challenge.)

There's a LOT of ammo in this post that you can use against the RRR Cult. Not the least of which is to point out all of the hypocrisies I've revealed about them in here. They whine about gays, and seek to make the lives of millions of them miserable by subjecting them to dismissal from military service, and discriminating against them in the areas of housing and the workplace. And they oppose SSM.

Isn't that interesting? Don't we always hear the RRR cultists claiming that they are "pro-life?" Consider this: One of the key things that marriage does is to provide an extra incentive for the couple to remain monogamous and faithful to one another. Now granted, we all know that this doesn't work out that way, a large percentage of the time. But suppose that SSM were universally legal, and that tens of thousands of gay couples got married. That extra incentive to remain monogamous would work with some of them, and that means that some folks who otherwise would likely contract HIV/AIDS via casual sex -- wouldn't. So legalizing SSM clearly would save some lives. So -- the next time you talk to an RRR cultist, remind him/her of this, and then ask the person this question: "How much is ONE person's life worth? By opposing SSM, which is harmless, you are contributing to the condemnation of some people to deaths that otherwise would not have occurred. And you call yourself 'pro-life?'"

Finally, ask them why they are picking on homosexuals and their behavior when there are FAR MORE people engaging in practices that the Bible condemns at least as much. If you happen to be gay, tell them that you might listen more to them AFTER they have launched an all-out campaign (of at least the magnitude of their crusades against women and gays) against Tarot Card and Ouija Board Players, fortune-tellers, and mediums.

Take the above talking points and run with them! The RRR Cult is eminently defeatable!