Please please please stop putting Pat Robertson in with real conservatives.
He is not our spokesman.
I notice you didn't mention Falwell. And when I see the GOP publicly disown Robertson and Falwell and others of their ilk of the Religious Right, I'll stop mentioning them. As of right now, however, they have tremendous influence politically with the GOP.
I don't have anything in particular against Falwell though I don't agree with him doctrinally. However he sticks his foot in his mouth far less the Robertson and for that he is the superior of the two.
I consider myself part of the religious right in so much that I vote for candidates that I feel best represent me in the spirit of truth, fairness, and a desire to uphold the laws of the land. The GoP need not disown Robertson as they never "owned" him to begin with. Just because someone speaks in your name doesn't mean they speak on your behalf.
even killing terrorists goes against "thou shalt not kill". Christ said if they strike your right cheek, offer your left. or something to that effect. he didn't say if they strike your right cheek, bomb them to smithereens
If Thou Shalt Not Kill is cut-dry-paste in its simplicity... you necessarily need to be 100% against:
1) War of any kind - even just wars.
2) Killing in Self Defense.
3) The Death Penalty.
Ect...
Not to mention, the bible itself is full of tons of people being killed - both "by" god and in god's name... usually for rather silly reasons. This especially applies to persons of cultures outside jewish ones - though it also applies to those within jewish culture that god didn't like.
What they really probably meant by "thou shalt not kill" was "thou shalt not kill thy fellow jews... provided they don't break god's law."
As for abortion, to say that ""life" begins at conception being scientific fact, therefore abortion=murder" is somewhat of a straw-man. Cells are certainly alive, but that isn't the point of the debate. The cells in my pinky finger and my spleen are alive. Bacteria is alive. Viruses are alive. Raccoons are alive. None of these are granted "murdered" status if they are destroyed.
The actual question is: when does that clump of cells living inside a pregnant woman's gut and feeding off her energy become a human being? Or more specifically, when does it become a human being that is due the rights and protections that rational beings are entitled to?
Is it a human being the moment that singular cell is created? (If so, does that mean any unused sperm/egg is equal to the death of a human being? - each contains a complete human genetic code). Is it a human being when it "looks" like one in the womb? Or when it begins to have brain activity? When it can theoretically survive outside the womb? Or when it's actually out of the womb? That's the real heart of the debate.
Yamori wrote:Is it a human being the moment that singular cell is created? (If so, does that mean any unused sperm/egg is equal to the death of a human being? - each contains a complete human genetic code). Is it a human being when it "looks" like one in the womb? Or when it begins to have brain activity? When it can theoretically survive outside the womb? Or when it's actually out of the womb? That's the real heart of the debate.
Well, like you said it's a debate. An unused sperm/egg would not be the same as a fertilized one. An unused sperm/egg is really only 1/2 of the picture as far as the blueprint goes. By themselves, they would never create a human. I call an embryo a human because given time, that's what it would be. I think it is ridicuous to have laws in place banning the killing of a baby after a certain deadline but not before. It's the same creature.
the main difference is that at one point the baby can live on it's own, before then it's just like any other part of the woman's body. This is going to sound like a really cold way of seeing things, but if you cut an arm off it dies, if you remove a clump of cells, it dies, if you remove an embryo it dies. It's not alive.
Yes that is true. However (and this is where the debate comes in) a clump of cells that is not alive SAVE for the passage of time, should be considered alive throughout it's entire existance and treated as such.
Donnel wrote:Yes that is true. However (and this is where the debate comes in) a clump of cells that is not alive SAVE for the passage of time, should be considered alive throughout it's entire existance and treated as such.
see I don't really agree with this, there is a lot more to it then just the passage of time. A big number of pregnancies don't last past the first few months because of various factors. In a lot of cases the embryo is not a viable one. In these cases it was a lump of cells that was never going to become alive. I think something is alive when it's actually alive, not just because it has the potential to be
