Pat Robertson: There could be demons attached to your thrift store finds (punished, Jews)
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This is ridiculous. Your logic is terrible. If you are giving someone an option to choose to do something you are supporting that cause. Saying that you are giving someone a choice is political nonsense. You won't support someone having the option for something you don't agree with.
Do you believe witchcraft exist?
That's your opinion. We can agree to disagree.
What an eccentric notion of logic you advance. Obviously, well, apparently not so obvious to you, providing options and endorsing one of those options are very different things. I can support your right to select your own religious convictions without it suggesting that I think you should have religious convictions. Is that not so? That simple example escaped your consideration before you presented the above falsehood?
As for agreeing to disagree, it is unclear to me why we need to make an agreement to do what we have already been doing through several posts.
Last edited by Grandstander; 03-06-2015 at 09:35 PM..
Actually, he's lying about that, too. His real name is Marion Gordon Robertson. He calls himself "Pat" because he thought it sounded more masculine.
It is supposedly a nickname his older brother gave him when he would "pat" him on the head. Marion is both a male and a female name, so it makes sense he would stick with Pat, especially with his low opinion of women.
This is ridiculous. Your logic is terrible. If you are giving someone an option to choose to do something you are supporting that cause. Saying that you are giving someone a choice is political nonsense. You won't support someone having the option for something you don't agree with.
Do you believe witchcraft exist?
That's your opinion. We can agree to disagree.
I give people an option to go to church but I sure as hell don't support it. On the other hand I give women an option to have an abortion without necessarily "supporting" that either.
In both cases I'm not the one living with the consequences. So while I possess a moral view on both I don't seek to impose it on other people, forcing them to live my decision trapped in their circumstances.
Now if only fundies could grasp that simple concept.
This is ridiculous. Your logic is terrible. If you are giving someone an option to choose to do something you are supporting that cause. Saying that you are giving someone a choice is political nonsense. You won't support someone having the option for something you don't agree with.
I'm sorry, but that's just completely illogical. I believe that you should have the choice to teach your children that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that Jesus owned a pet velociraptor, but that doesn't mean I think you should teach them that. I think you'd have to be nuts to do it, and that you'd be doing your children a serious injustice, but it's your right to do so.
This is interesting, though. Whether you realize it or not, it offers a very revealing glimpse into the kind of mindset that lends itself to fundamentalist thinking. This is frighteningly rigid, black and white, judgemental thinking - you're saying that basically anything at all that someone does is your business to judge and try to interfere with if you don't agree with it. No matter what someone wants to do - no matter whether they think it's their business, and nobody else's - you have the right to try to stop them if you think it's wrong. In other words, the concept of other people's right to self-determination, to live their lives in accordance with their own conscience, is completely antithetical to you. If you think it's wrong, then they should not have the freedom to do it.
I suspect that you don't realize that's what you're saying, but it is. And it speaks volumes about why so many of us are so rabidly, vehemently opposed to letting religious fundamentalists have any control whatsoever over our lives and the laws of the society in which we live. Fundamentalists are the most anti-American group of citizens in present-day society; whenever the Constitution runs up against your bible, it's the Constitution that you try to shred.
And the truly terrifying thing about that is that you just cannot comprehend why that should be a problem. This is why fundamentalism is a plague on democracy.
Last edited by Mr. In-Between; 03-07-2015 at 12:00 AM..
Giving someone a religious right and giving someone a right to abortion are not comparable. Choosing another religion does not result in the lost of life. That would be like me trying to decriminalize murder and letting people choose if they want to murder someone or not. Giving someone that option doesn't mean it's right. There are certain things that should not be advocated because you are in essence enabling people. The choice that women are given is taken (of course except for situations of rape) when they decide to have sex with that man. It is irresponsible to suggest that a woman does not have a choice to engage in sex (again except for rape). The decision to abort a child is often times a decision made in avoidance of personal responsibility for one's action. Choosing a religion does not impact anyone's life besides your own, abortion impacts the life of the mother physically, emotionally and spiritually, impacts the father, and it takes the life of a child. No comparison.
Last edited by justtitans; 03-07-2015 at 06:28 AM..
If you are giving someone an option to choose to do something you are supporting that cause.
It can be true that being passive in the face of a moral wrong can be effectively the same as supporting it. If I stand by while someone is beaten to death, in a situation where I had both the right and the ability to stop the beating, then the outcome is roughly the same as if I had participated in or at least encouraged the beating.
The problem comes in where you start seeing moral responsibility where it doesn't actually exist, or more exactly, seeing harms where they don't actually exist or where you personally don't have enough information about the people and situations involved to judge morally, even if it was your responsibility to do so. This tends to happen with things where the benefits and harms aren't terribly clear and simple. Christianity's system of rules and regulations on such matters usually avoid the need to ponder tricky issues and simply declare some things taboo in order to avoid considering the matter. This provides faux moral clarity but it also provides faux moral responsibility.
This is what I call "boundaries 101". Other people have boundaries -- boundaries you or I might not understand or agree with, but which still must be respected. One way to think about it is that if you don't respect other people's boundaries, you are also not allowing the full personal responsibility for their decisions to rest with them.
The problem with fundamentalist "thinking" in this area is that it does not properly recognize where other people leave off and individual fundamentalists and their churches begin. You find it irresistible to encroach people's boundaries and reach into their personal lives and decisions because you confuse you being uncomfortable with their decisions, with some kind of right to participate in them.
It can be true that being passive in the face of a moral wrong can be effectively the same as supporting it. If I stand by while someone is beaten to death, in a situation where I had both the right and the ability to stop the beating, then the outcome is roughly the same as if I had participated in or at least encouraged the beating.
The problem comes in where you start seeing moral responsibility where it doesn't actually exist, or more exactly, seeing harms where they don't actually exist or where you personally don't have enough information about the people and situations involved to judge morally, even if it was your responsibility to do so. This tends to happen with things where the benefits and harms aren't terribly clear and simple. Christianity's system of rules and regulations on such matters usually avoid the need to ponder tricky issues and simply declare some things taboo in order to avoid considering the matter. This provides faux moral clarity but it also provides faux moral responsibility.
That's an over generalization on how Christianity views these things and based on teaching, your assessment is not accurate. You are basing it on what you see, not what has been taught.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
This is what I call "boundaries 101". Other people have boundaries -- boundaries you or I might not understand or agree with, but which still must be respected. One way to think about it is that if you don't respect other people's boundaries, you are also not allowing the full personal responsibility for their decisions to rest with them.
So what's the difference if that mother kills her 1 year old child? Should I still attribute that to her personal decision about what's best for her and her child or should I care that a life was lost?
The boundaries are slippery. We aren't talking about controlling everyone's every decision, we talking about not advocating certain behavior. You are making a broader point that doesn't illustrate the essence of the issue here. You are making the issue very trivial and simplistic when it really isn't as simple as you are making it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
The problem with fundamentalist "thinking" in this area is that it does not properly recognize where other people leave off and individual fundamentalists and their churches begin. You find it irresistible to encroach people's boundaries and reach into their personal lives and decisions because you confuse you being uncomfortable with their decisions, with some kind of right to participate in them.
No one is infringing on a person's boundaries. It's called compassion. So based on your logic and the example you have used here, the next time that I see a one year old baby sitting in a car on an 80 degree day, I should ignore it and mind my business because I would be infringing on someone's boundaries by trying to help that child.
Giving someone a religious right and giving someone a right to abortion are not comparable. Choosing another religion does not result in the lost of life. That would be like me trying to decriminalize murder and letting people choose if they want to murder someone or not. Giving someone that option doesn't mean it's right. There are certain things that should not be advocated because you are in essence enabling people. The choice that women are given is taken (of course except for situations of rape) when they decide to have sex with that man. It is irresponsible to suggest that a woman does not have a choice to engage in sex (again except for rape). The decision to abort a child is often times a decision made in avoidance of personal responsibility for one's action. Choosing a religion does not impact anyone's life besides your own, abortion impacts the life of the mother physically, emotionally and spiritually, impacts the father, and it takes the life of a child. No comparison.
Virtually everyone believes taking a two year old to be murdered by someone is evil and wrong. Fewer than half the people in this nation side with your idea that an underdeveloped embryo is "life." If so women should be able to take it out of their bodies at six weeks development and it will live.
If the goal in this nation were ti REDUCE abortion it would be accomplishable. But, as the Crocodile points out, painting the issue in simple black and white is simply stupid. It is not a simple issue. But that is how simple minds work---and why those simple, fundamentalist minds are dividing and destroying America.
YOU forcing someone to live with YOUR decision that they have a child they cannot afford or which is the result of incest or rape doesn't impact your life. And fundamentalist inevitably back right wing politicians who are never going to increase funding for children born to poor folks or disabled. The extent of their and YOUR hypocrisy is shown with your emotional response to this next suggestion---we make all abortions illegal but the nation provides one million dollars to any mother birthing a child who has a household income of less than $250,000.
You cry, "we can't afford that." And that tells me you really don't have a pure motive in regard to ending abortion. You have a punitive motive. And that is simply disgusting.
I wish we could give you guys Texas and move all of you there. Then the rest of us would set up stations to help your young people as they flood across the borders to freedom. It happened in a different fashion before. Read about the Shakers.
Virtually everyone believes taking a two year old to be murdered by someone is evil and wrong. Fewer than half the people in this nation side with your idea that an underdeveloped embryo is "life." If so women should be able to take it out of their bodies at six weeks development and it will live.
If the goal in this nation were ti REDUCE abortion it would be accomplishable. But, as the Crocodile points out, painting the issue in simple black and white is simply stupid. It is not a simple issue. But that is how simple minds work---and why those simple, fundamentalist minds are dividing and destroying America.
YOU forcing someone to live with YOUR decision that they have a child they cannot afford or which is the result of incest or rape doesn't impact your life. And fundamentalist inevitably back right wing politicians who are never going to increase funding for children born to poor folks or disabled. The extent of their and YOUR hypocrisy is shown with your emotional response to this next suggestion---we make all abortions illegal but the nation provides one million dollars to any mother birthing a child who has a household income of less than $250,000.
You cry, "we can't afford that." And that tells me you really don't have a pure motive in regard to ending abortion. You have a punitive motive. And that is simply disgusting.
I wish we could give you guys Texas and move all of you there. Then the rest of us would set up stations to help your young people as they flood across the borders to freedom. It happened in a different fashion before. Read about the Shakers.
A child can start having a heart beat as early as 6 weeks, yet we are still advocating women getting abortions after that point. Regardless of how you view it, a rock doesn't have a heart beat. A heart beat is a sign of life. What is being advocated isn't merely about if something has life or not, it's a selfish decision that is being made that women have been empowered to make without taking personal responsibility for their own actions.
If you go out and have sex with a man, you are making a choice to take the risk of pregnancy. We aren't stupid. We know that sex CAN lead to pregnancy, so every time you do it, you are taking that risk.
So at what point should I start caring about this child's life? When the child is born? It's not important when it has a heart beat? Who makes the determination when I should care about this child's life?
If anything, what you and other are doing are making this a black and white issue. I don't believe abortion should be an option because I believe it can be avoided to even get to that point and it does damage to all that is involved.
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