A woman in the UK has learned that
she is pregnant with decephalic twins -- conjoined twins that share a body but each have a head. She has rejected abortion and is praying that her babies thrive like Abby and Britty Hensel in the US. Prayers, everybody!
38 comments:
That mother is everything that is wrong with the UK today. What about starting a career and being able to financially look after yourself before you bring in any children into this world that you expect the rest of the hard working population to pay for. This is why you have such a difference between the European and American comments. The Europeans know they will have to support these twins wheras the American are happy to have as much as half their population without medical and social services.
This is what you get for trying to fool nature with infertility treatment - nature fights back. If she's that desperate for a child she wants others to support - what about fostering or adoption - that would have been the truly Christian thing to do, wouldn't it?
and finally:
If I had to be joined to someone bodily 24/7 - please somebody, put me out of my misery and shoot me.
Lilliput
Wow. Talk about compassion.
For your information, the birthrates of Europeans are declining dramatically, and they're being replaced by immigrants - mostly radical Muslims.
This woman is everything that's RIGHT with parenthood and womanhood.
You simply PROVE that all the pro-abortion crap about it being "the mother's choice" is a big, fat lie. It is no longer a CHOICE, but an OBLIGATION to abort when a child is imperfect and makes you feel uncomfortable.
There are twins with this condition who live in the US. They love their lives and are thriving. It's not easy, but the notion that death is preferable is just sick.
That's what you don't understand Amy, its sick to you, but its not sick to me. Can you undderstand that? If the thought of being attached to somebody 24/7 is enough to send me to suicide, I certainly wouldn't want it for my child. Can you understand that Amy, that people are different and think different things?
Also, you're very quiet on the economic front - is it ok to have kids you can't afford?
"For your information, the birthrates of Europeans are declining dramatically, and they're being replaced by immigrants - mostly radical Muslims."
Are you saying its the radical Muslims that should be having the abortions?
Also, you're very quiet on the economic front - is it ok to have kids you can't afford?
No. But that doesn't justify killing them. If you can't afford kids, don't have sex or use contraception. Or put them up for adoption.
But of course, those are NEVER acceptable options. It's always have sex, and kill kids if you can't afford them.
The thing YOU don't get is that the though of aborting a child - be that child healthy and merely unwanted or disabled or born to poor parents - is sick to me.
EVERYONE has the right to life. No one has the right to decide a human being is not a human being because they're imperfect, or because of their parent's bank account balance.
No one said YOU would have to raise a disabled child. There are many people out there who lovingly adopt disabled children.
It is sad, and evil, to decide that "choice" means eliminating the disabled and the poor. That was the exact vision Margaret Sanger, a proponent of eugenics and a raging racist, had for our world. But I love how you attempt to say I should shut up and let this evil go on without opposing it.
Would you kill your child if she were hit by a car and paralyzed? How could you look her in the eye and tell her she'd be better off dead than disabled?
Are you saying its the radical Muslims that should be having the abortions?
No, but I am saying what is considered culture, life, and law in Europe and specifically London will be heavily influenced by demographics.
Western nations are aborting themselves out of existence. And in the next 50 years or so, the shift from European culture to Islamic culture will have a tremendous impact.
And Islam's record on women's rights is, um, less than stellar. The West has no idea that by killing its offspring they're determining their fate.
I give this mother two thumbs up! Sounds like her greatest desire is to be a mother, and she's not going to throw that away because her child(ren) are going to be different from those around them.
Amy,
Do you realise that there are a greater number of children available then adoptive parents? The majority of those are children with special and behavioural needs - so your comment about plenty of people to adopt is preposterous. People want perfect white babies - thats the way it is!
For the European whites to have countless children to even up the muslim children is ridiculous. Its because we have fewer children who are more educated that we are more sophiticated about our human rights - whats the point of popping out children that we cannot emotionally and academically educate - they will drag us right back to the dark ages anyway so it won't solve the problem.
Anon:
You're also a great example of why socialized medicine, well, sucks.
There ARE people to adopt; unfortunately, the cost associated with adopting is unattainable for most. But the notion that people want "perfect white babies" justifies killing everyone who isn't is perfect is, well, sick.
And the notion that fewer kids equal a better educated, "sophisticated" culture is a joke. Our culture doesn't understand what rights are anymore. Time was RIGHTS protected you from the government taking things away, and that the right to LIFE was a fundamental given.
Not any more. Today, our "rights" are to murder our imperfect offspring, guarantee sick time, and things like gay "marriage" rather than the actual RIGHTS of freedom of speech, the right to life/liberty/happiness, religious freedom, etc.
As a culture, lower birth rates haven't made us better. Our drive to destroy future generations has made us the most unintelligent people to live on the face of the planet.
And we get dumber every single day.
Amy, you wrote: "EVERYONE has the right to life. No one has the right to decide a human being is not a human being because they're imperfect, or because of their parent's bank account balance. "
Do patients who need transplants have the right to life? If yes, why haven't you donated one of your kidneys?
And when I was in med school, there was a two-headed fetus in a jar in the dissecting room.
If I had to be joined to someone bodily 24/7 - please somebody, put me out of my misery and shoot me.
and
Can you understand that Amy, that people are different and think different things?
EXACTLY!
Just because YOU wouldn't want to live a particular life, why should that give you some kind of right to deny somebody else any life at all, just because it's not the life you want?
I bet there are people in this world who, if somebody said they had to trade places with you or die, they'd say, "I'd rather die!" Maybe they'd not want to be the sex you are, or they're much richer or better looking or healthier. For some reason, your life would be horrible to them. Should they be allowed to put you out of your supposed misery?
Go check out the Hensel twins -- THEY ARE HAPPY. Why should somebody else have had any right to decide that their lives weren't going to be worth living?
If I had to be joined to someone bodily 24/7 - please somebody, put me out of my misery and shoot me.
and
Can you understand that Amy, that people are different and think different things?
EXACTLY!
Just because YOU wouldn't want to live a particular life, why should that give you some kind of right to deny somebody else any life at all, just because it's not the life you want?
I bet there are people in this world who, if somebody said they had to trade places with you or die, they'd say, "I'd rather die!" Maybe they'd not want to be the sex you are, or they're much richer or better looking or healthier. For some reason, your life would be horrible to them. Should they be allowed to put you out of your supposed misery?
Go check out the Hensel twins -- THEY ARE HAPPY. Why should somebody else have had any right to decide that their lives weren't going to be worth living?
Elgi Ha who I suspect is SoMG -- are you really too clueless to grasp that pregnancy is a naturally occurring, healthy process, whereas A TRANSPLANT IS SURGERY?
The day ordinary human interaction can cause a kidney to simply move from one person's body to the other's, then we can discuss if organ transplants are like pregnancy.
Anon (Lilliput?),
I've taken the liberty of writing a blog post listing all of the adoptive couples I know. Feel free to read it. Only one couple out of all the people I personally know who have adopted children, adopted white newborns; and I know several adoptees who were both non-white and older babies or children when they were adopted.
Granny,
I think it's pretty obvious that SoMG and Egli Ha are the same person, which means he should be permanently banned because of his deceit.
SoMG/Egli Ha,
One big difference between abortion and transplants is the following:
Abortion is an unnatural act that takes a human life.
Your continuing correlation between abortion and transplant refusal is not accurate. Let me outline a situation that is more correct.
Let's say that I am the only person in the world who can donate you a kidney. Right now, you are in perfect health, but I give you a drug which causes your kidneys to shut down. Since I am your only hope of continuing to live, if I refuse to donate a kidney, you will die. It will be a passive death at that point... yet I was the one who caused your kidneys to shut down. In my book, that's just as much murder as if I held your head under water, and you drowned. Would anyone not convict me because I said, "I didn't kill him -- I just removed him from an environment in which he could breathe"? Or, "I didn't kill him, I just removed a vital organ, and he naturally expired"?
Let me think of the people I know who adopted:
1. Sister's old boyfriend and his wife -- took in 18-month-old girl they were told was developmentally disabled. Adopted her at around age 3. (Turns out she just needed attention; she's not disabled after all.)
2. Schoolmate's family -- 5-year-old Korean girl.
3. Sister and BIL - took in 4-month-old bi-racial child of HIV-positive drug addict. Adopted at about age 3.
4. Online friend -- Chinese baby girl, abandoned at orphanage.
5. Other online friend -- three kids with Down syndrome.
6. Sister's (white middle-class) friend -- black infant.
7. Old boss -- white newborn.
8. Couple at church -- two older Asian kids.
Hm.... one of 8 adopted a white newborn.
I can't find data on what percentage of adoptions are healthy white newborns; all I know is that from my own experience it's unusual.
....are you really too clueless to grasp that pregnancy is a naturally occurring, healthy process, whereas A TRANSPLANT IS SURGERY?
Ha! For some of us, a pregnancy is a horrible, unhealthy process, that ends in major abdominal surgery.
I'm happy for the mother, and I wish her and the twins well.
Did anyone else notice that the father is her fiance, not husband, even though he's described as Roman Catholic? Guess he's not devout!
He's also 32, and she's 25, and since say they've been together for 8 years, it sounds to me like a case of a grown man pursuing a high school kid. Oh, but I really shouldn't make that assumption about people I don't know, should I? ;)
First of all, I didn't say abortion was LIKE refusing to donate an organ. Nor did I compare the two, nor make a metaphor between them, nor "correlate" them (whatever that means). I just suggested that if, as someone said, EVERYONE has the right to life, then the patients who need transplants do too. They're part of "everyone", right???
Kathy, you wrote: "Let's say that I am the only person in the world who can donate you a kidney. Right now, you are in perfect health, but I give you a drug which causes your kidneys to shut down. Since I am your only hope of continuing to live, if I refuse to donate a kidney, you will die. It will be a passive death at that point... yet I was the one who caused your kidneys to shut down. In my book, that's just as much murder as if I held your head under water, and you drowned. Would anyone not convict me because I said, "I didn't kill him -- I just removed him from an environment in which he could breathe"? Or, "I didn't kill him, I just removed a vital organ, and he naturally expired"?
Interesting example. The key reason it is essentially different from abortion, and says nothing about abortin, is: I was alive and healthy before I started interacting with you (before you gave me the drug). Your having taken my health and independence from me is what makes you guilty and obligates you to help me deal with the problems you have caused. Having harmed me, you must now make me whole again.
On the other hand, what was the fetus before it started interacting with the mother? NOTHING. What Dr. Seuss called "a wasn't". ("A wasn't has no fun at all, no he doesn't!")
You have not harmed the fetus nor taken anything from it by conceiving it. On the contrary, you have given it life. Even if you abort it, it's still better off than if you had kept your legs together; now it gets a short life in utero. That's just so much gained. For this reason you are not guilty and not obligated to give it a longer life just because you gave it a short one, just as donating blood does not obligate me to also donate the next transfusion the patient might need.
And if I were SoMG, and GG banned me permanently, what would stop me from coming up with yet another screen name and continuing to post?
Maybe the fetus had some kind of mysterious fetal religious experience before getting aborted. Maybe it clasped its little fetal hands together and prayed to Baby Jesus. Oooops--can't do it--arms too short.
GG, you wrote: "The day ordinary human interaction can cause a kidney to simply move from one person's body to the other's, then we can discuss if organ transplants are like pregnancy."
OK. Suppose there's a mysterious force, we don't understand it, but every so often it "magically" causes a healthy kidney to disappear from someone's body and reappear inside the body of a patient who needs a transplant, saving the patient's life. We don't understand how it works, but you can feel when it's about to happen and you can prevent it by taking an anti-kidney-transport pill, which causes your kidney to remain inside your body but then the patient will die of kidney failure.
So now, instead of causing the patient to die by NOT doing something (not donating the kidney), you're causing the patient to die by DOING something (taking the anti-kidney-transport pill).
Under these circumstances, would taking the anti-kidney-transport pill be murder? Or does your right to keep your kidney EVEN BY ACTIVE MEANS overtrump the patient's right to life?
I think it's pretty obvious that your ownership of your body implies that taking the anti-kidney-transport pill would be justified, not murder, even though it ACTIVELY causes an innocent person to die.
Conclusion: the distinction between killing and letting die is nowhere near as clear as Catholics think it is, certainly not clear enough to justify banning abortion.
Grannygrump, you're correct and I concede to the fact that not everyone has to think like me and therefore, I have to accept that this lady has to have the freedom to have her twins in the same way that she has to accept that I have the freedom to terminate. Its a personal choice.
The fact that you have listed me 8 or so kind hearted couples who have adopted out of the ordinary kids is great, but it doesn't alter the fact that worldwide there are more children who need adoptive parents then adopters available. Why can't you guys just admit that?
As for the cost of adoption being out of reach - it doesn't cost anything here in the UK so I don't know about the States.
"You're also a great example of why socialized medicine, well, sucks."
What exactly sucks, Amy, the fact that everyone has a right to life saving medical care? G-d help you if you're not able to keep up withyour insurance payments - cause for sure He will be the only one.
Lilliput
Hi Kathy
Thank you for the blog post.
I'm trying to find some numbers to back my belief that there are more children available foradoption then prospective parents - but haven't found anything yet.
Here is someone else more clued up then I am on the business of babies:
http://www.birthmothers.info/infant.pdf
Let me know what you think
Lilliput
Here are some American statistics from 2001:
http://www.achildswaiting.com/adoptive_parents/adoption_statistics/adopt_stats.php
59% of children adopted are under 1 years old.
Lilliput
Eli:
The more outrageous your "hypothetical" situation is, the more it shows your premise - that abortion is okay - is actually very, very weak.
Abortion is an unnecessary procedure, that ends a life and possibly the life of the mother.
Not even in the same realm as a kidney transplant.
And if, a few posts later, you say a baby killed by abortion had a "short life", but simultaneously is "a wasn't", then your whole kidney-transplant premise is bunk because someone in need of a transplant has also had, in your words, "a short life."
It's amazing the knots you people will twist yourselves into to justify grave evil.
At the end of all things, I will be able to say I spent my life being a vocal defender of the innocent unborn and their mothers. My conscience will be clear.
I hope and pray you come to a realization that allows you the same comfort.
Yes Amy
The thought of millions of starving uncared for children worldwide gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.......can you step into the realworld for a minute please?
If you banging down the doors of countries where women don't have access or power to use contraceptives then you're making the world a better place - otherwise you're just adding to their problems.
Lilliput
Lilliput:
Mother Theresa worked with and among some of the world's most impoverished people. She saw the true "salt of the earth" and - inspite of it - was one of the most pro-life people in human history.
She said, rightly so, that saying there are too many children is like saying there are too many flowers.
And she was right.
I DO live in the real world, where innocent children are the victims of self-centered, self-serving, selfish people like you who have no problems sacrificing them on the altar of convenience to "make the world a better place."
It is a nightmare, and the Culture of Death that you so heartily embrace is one I want nothing to do with and will fight with every fiber of my being until the day I die.
And when I shed this mortal coil, I will go to my grave knowing I fought on the side of what was right.
Will YOU be able to say the same thing? Your attempts to justify great evil as humanity tell me no.
Lilliput,
I don't disagree with you that there are more people wishing to adopt a white newborn than there are newborns available; some people are racist or want a child similar to them with genetics or appearance. I was just pointing out that just because there are some, it doesn't mean that all adoptive parents are holding out for the white newborn, refusing to adopt any who do not meet that criteria.
Adoption is very expensive in the States, unfortunately (the pdf you linked to discusses it in length -- as for my thoughts on that pdf: it was heart-breaking, and I feel for mothers who have had their children taken from them by force or coercion; but it doesn't change my views on abortion. There is an underbelly to just about every industry or area of life -- that's one thing that's just as sure as death and taxes -- that humans can find a way to make anything worse). Many of the adoptive couples I know have gone to other countries -- I can only assume the reasons. Probably it was cheaper and/or easier (less red tape) to get a child from a foreign country; although some people have the altruistic motive of taking a child from poverty, abandonment and perhaps even death in some less-developed countries, and bringing them to the States where they can have every necessity and luxury available.
One of the problems with foster care is that in the U.S. there has been a greater attempt at keeping families intact. If you read my blog post, one of the adoptive couples had fostered two brothers for about 3 years before they were returned to their mother. The younger boy had lived with the foster parents almost as long as he had lived with his biological mother. But the foster parents would have adopted them in a heartbeat if they could have; and the boys wanted to be adopted by my friends. While I applaud the efforts at keeping biological families intact, and giving parents the opportunity to become stable and worthy of taking care of a child (these two boys were not abused, just neglected; the mom got off drugs finally), it does throw the children into limbo for a longer period of time, many times moving them out of the "adoptable" age that many couples want. So it's a two-edged sword.
Yes, worldwide there are a lot of children languishing in foster care, orphanages, or on the streets. It's a sad commentary on the state of the world. But there are roadblocks to adoption that would put them out of the reach of many adoptive couples. For instance, a couple may have enough money to take care of a child, but not have thousands of dollars at hand to defray the expenses associated with adoption -- whether that's fees for lawyers and adoption agencies, or plane tickets to a foreign country and whatever money exchanges hands there. Some countries also have restrictions on who may adopt babies -- for instance, I heard of one man who was tempted to "convert" to Islam in name so that he could adopt a baby from an Islamic country -- they had a rule that only other Muslims could adopt Muslim babies. There are countries in which children are orphans because of the horrible state of violence of the country -- civil war, genocide, or whatever. The rulers of these countries who withhold food from their citizens or outright murder them, simply because they disagree with them or are from the "wrong" tribe would not likely show mercy or compassion to the children left orphaned, in allowing them to be adopted out to a Western couple.
One couple I didn't mention in my blog post (friend of a friend of a friend), went to the Philippines as missionaries (their 5 biological children were older, but they had adopted I think a family of 5 Hispanic children); and while they were there, they started an orphanage to care for other children, adopting several more Filipino children (I think 8 more). But there were many times significant roadblocks to actually being allowed to adopt these children. Health problems eventually forced the mom to have to come back to the States, where they now live with their 13 adopted children -- none of whom are white, and all of whom were older. In addition, there were numerous people (my mom included) who sponsor(ed) one or more children in the orphanage in the Philippines as well as orphanages in India -- for something like $25 a month, an orphan could be fed, clothed, educated and housed over there. Although they would not get the "family environment" they would get if they were adopted by a U.S. family, they are being cared for in their own country, instead of starving on the streets.
I say all this to say -- I don't necessarily disagree with all that you've said. I understand the desire of couples to have a healthy white newborn; or at least a baby or child who will not have developmental problems and has not been abused and have emotional problems, or what-have-you. But there are numerous reasons behind the orphans of other countries, including here in America, beyond the number of available children and the number of available adopting couples.
Amy,
So you like Mother Theresa, have you read these perhaps:
http://www.newstatesman.com/200508220019
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=6711
and there's a book:
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1168
You'll have to excuse me if I can't believe anything she says.
"And when I shed this mortal coil, I will go to my grave knowing I fought on the side of what was right."
Well, Amy, there you must be really unique because I'm one of the many people who don't have a clue anymore of what's right or wrong in the long term. And anybody who feels 100% right about anything is deluding themselves. Even science works on theories which have the most evidence but they are never facts - only theories.
Kathy, thanks for your post.
Rumors and myths about Mother Theresa abound, and if she were as cruel as you - and others - claim, the thousands of people who showed up at her funeral wouldn't have, would they?
I have 100% certainty that I'm right about certain things because I believe in the truth of Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Church. You may not like it, and prefer to "not know" what's right or wrong in the long term, but I do.
"I have 100% certainty that I'm right about certain things because I believe in the truth of Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Church. You may not like it, and prefer to "not know" what's right or wrong in the long term, but I do."
Amy, your people have caused unbelievable misery in this world. They have also destroyed uncountable people and cultures in the name of "Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Church". This is not rumour, it established fact. I know its painful when you love sonething to see its negative parts but what I'm trying to say is that there is nothing that is 100 right or wrong.
I hate wikepedia but at least its a start for you to read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_abuses
I hope that if there is a G-d, He/She/It/They will save us from both the Christians and the Muslims as they are each as bad as each other.
Lilliput
Lilliput,
I think you mean well, but I do take offense at the statement that "Christians and Muslims are each as bad as the other." There is no doubt that so-called Christians (maybe even some well-meaning Christians, but many many more 'Christians' in name only) have done some terrible things over the centuries; but true Christians should not be lumped in with false professors.
I guess you're an agnostic, because you say "if there is a God"; I don't doubt that there is a God -- the God of the Bible. There are many false religions around -- including Islam; and many false denominations of Christianity that no more look to the Bible for what they should do than atheists or Muslims do. I am not a Catholic, and Amy and I will part ways very quickly if we discuss religion too long. Therefore, I feel no need to defend Catholicism for what you have justifiably accused it of. However, not all Christians are Catholics (and more than a few Catholics are/were not true Christians, as measured by the Biblical standard of what Christians are supposed to be).
You may never become a Christian, and may never even believe that there is a God while you live; but I would ask you to look more closely at what the Bible says Christians should look like and how they should live before making the blanket statement that "Christians are as bad as Muslims". (As a brief example, how many suicide bombers are Christians, and how many are Muslims?) Then use *that* standard for determining who is a real Christian and who is a false one -- the Bible says that the followers of Christ will be known "by their fruits" -- that is, their actions, and what they produce. By that standard, you can separate true Christians from false ones (including those who abuse little children and murder the innocent).
Kathy
I am actually not an atheist, I do believe that its very healthy for human beings to believe in a G-d - it gives us someone to talk to and we don't feel so alone. I do not believe that this G-d has given us a set of rules or instructions to live by - because He seems to have told different people different things and we can't prove that one set of rules is any more real then the other - so its better for everyone if we drop the rules all together.
Its very convenient to say that Christians only do good things, and all the bad things ever done in the name of Jesus were done by non Christians. Muslims also say the same thing - suicide bombers are not true Muslims as its forbidden to kill in the Quraan.
Both are ridiculous statements - and no one (who isn't Muslim or Christian) believes them.
Unfortunately, there are sentances in the holy books - both Christian and Muslim, that allow evil to happen. People use them as a basis for their evil - eg Hitler got the majority of his supporters in Church. If you look through the years Kathy, you will see that Christians and Muslims are responsible for probably equal number of deaths. You have to consider the crusades, witch hunts etc
Sorry Kathy, thats the way it is.....
Lilliput,
You will also see if you look very far on this blog many examples of "pro-choice" people who have coerced or forced women to have abortions against their wills -- one recent example mentioned was a couple who took their teenage or young-20-year-old daughter, bound, in their trunk to an abortion facility. Another was a woman who forged a signature for her son's girlfriend to have an illegal abortion, although the young couple wanted to get married and raise their baby. You would not want me to use these examples as "this is what the pro-abortion belief gets you; sorry, but that's the way it is."
And if you look just in the past hundred years, you'll see that non-religious people -- Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, the leader of Cambodia at the time of their great genocide whose name escapes me, and many others -- were responsible for killing tens of millions and maybe hundreds of millions, without culling through thousands of years for examples -- just in one relatively short time frame. But I wouldn't say, "If you look through the years, you will see that atheists and agnostics are probably responsible for as many deaths if not more than religious people, so being non-religious is just as bad as being religious."
I reserve the right to distance myself from those who claim to ascribe to certain positions that I also hold, when they take these positions to untenable extremes. Just as my being pro-life does not require me to give assent when some nut-case or other decides to bomb an abortion mill. Just as your having "someone to talk to" that you call G_d doesn't require you to rubber-stamp whatever any other person does who has a similar view of God. Just as my being a mother doesn't mean I have to approve of the way every other mother raises her child.
Kathy
The point of this discussion was that nothing is 100% right or 100% wrong and even if (and its a big if) it were, we in our human condition would not be able to discern which is which.
I love this blog because of the fact that it has highlighted to me that there are many instances where Pro-choice is about not having a choice, and pro-life is more about being right or religion then about somebody's life.
Both are a mixture of good and bad - just like everything.
I thinkyour views of distancing yourself from "the nutcase" but I was wondering then if you could accept the fact that "suicide bombers" are not in fact Muslim if the more moderate Muslims say that they are not.
Lilliput
Lilliput,
We disagree on this -- I do believe that things are right or wrong; I see very few shades of gray. But I do agree with you that we humans often have trouble discerning which is which, and very often one person will think that something is right when another will think it wrong.
I see your point in your last paragraph. To answer honestly, no, I would not call the suicide bombers anything but Muslim, because not only do they identify themselves as such, but are paid by (or their families are given the reward) Muslims, they consider it a part of a Muslim holy war, and they are enthusiastically supported by the majority of Muslims. Moderate Muslims may be horrified by what is happening in the name of Islam (although I wonder how much of that is just a show to lure non-Muslims into believing the lie that Islam is a peaceful religion), but I think they would do well to see that the Qu'ran does in fact condone and even mandate this violence against non-Muslims, and it should make the non-violent Muslims either work harder to turn Islam into a peaceful religion or cause them to leave the religion entirely.
But Kathy,
If that's what you honestly think about the Muslims then you have to allow people to think the same about the Crusaders, Witch hunters who also took their cue from lines in the new testament which more then encourage the process of converting the entire world to Christianity. I know you cannot see the hypocracy because you're too close, but believe me its there.
As for knowing right and wrong - if everything was that obvious, why isn't it heaven on earth?
Lilliput,
Would you mind showing me the chapter & verse that the Crusaders and witch hunters took to justify their deeds? Thanks.
Hi Kathy
Here you go - its wikipedia (crass I know, but at least its a start)
For the Crusades:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/But_to_bring_a_sword
For Witchhunts:
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (Exodus 22:18) And, "A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones." Leviticus 20:27).
There is something in Romans too - I will try to find it.
Look at the causes section here -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt
i think its fascinating, especially for this blog.
I hope this is useful.
Lilliput
Leviticus is not in the New Testament; and "but to bring a sword" is grossly taken out of context. I have often noted that it is possible to say that the Bible declares there to be no God. It does -- in one of the Psalms. The only thing is, it is preceded by the phrase "the fool has said in his heart..." Context is important; and while I concede that there may have been some people who took the statement from Jesus as advocating violence, doing so was about the same as saying the Bible declares there to be no God. And whoever did that also seems to have suffered from a "god complex" if he confuses himself with Jesus. And it completely ignores all that the New Testament has to say in regard to violence and the way a Christian is to behave, and, well, pretty much the entire New Testament.
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