(September 10, 2015 at 6:21 am)robvalue Wrote: If you're part of a religion such as Christianity or Islam, then aborting your children before they are born (or killing them just after they are born) is the most loving thing you can do for them.

First of all, you eliminate the risk that they might end up in hell by failing to follow the rules correctly.

Second, they go straight to heaven without any of the pain or heartache this life brings. They begin infinite happiness right away.

And third, it's insurance against them picking the wrong religion.

Even if we pretend there is definitely a god, and it's definitely either Yahweh or Allah, that means every Christian and Muslim is taking a risk. If they don't kill their baby, it might not go to heaven by picking wrong. You may be in the wrong religion and it may copy you, or you may be in the right religion and it may stray to another.

By killing it, the God can't say it picked wrong, so must send it to heaven! Even if you've picked wrong, in which case you're going to hell regardless, you save your child the same fate.

The ultimate act of love! So how can you object, and why don't you do it? Is it because you're hedging your bets in case the whole thing is actually made up?

Hey Rob, I'm a little late to the party but your reasoning sounds like the end justifying the means fallacy. Perhaps you could reason that abortion would be the easiest way for the child to obtain their divine reward but if you believe that the fetus is as equal as any beating heart then you can't justify doing something immoral for a seemingly moral outcome. It would be murder because it was an unjustified taking of a beings life.

(September 12, 2015 at 7:15 am)Won2blv Wrote:

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(September 10, 2015 at 6:21 am)robvalue Wrote: If you're part of a religion such as Christianity or Islam, then aborting your children before they are born (or killing them just after they are born) is the most loving thing you can do for them.

First of all, you eliminate the risk that they might end up in hell by failing to follow the rules correctly.

Second, they go straight to heaven without any of the pain or heartache this life brings. They begin infinite happiness right away.

And third, it's insurance against them picking the wrong religion.

Even if we pretend there is definitely a god, and it's definitely either Yahweh or Allah, that means every Christian and Muslim is taking a risk. If they don't kill their baby, it might not go to heaven by picking wrong. You may be in the wrong religion and it may copy you, or you may be in the right religion and it may stray to another.

By killing it, the God can't say it picked wrong, so must send it to heaven! Even if you've picked wrong, in which case you're going to hell regardless, you save your child the same fate.

The ultimate act of love! So how can you object, and why don't you do it? Is it because you're hedging your bets in case the whole thing is actually made up?

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Quote:Hey Rob, I'm a little late to the party but your reasoning sounds like the end justifying the means fallacy. Perhaps you could reason that abortion would be the easiest way for the child to obtain their divine reward but if you believe that the fetus is as equal as any beating heart then you can't justify doing something immoral for a seemingly moral outcome. It would be murder because it was an unjustified taking of a beings life.

Hey, God says it's OK to kill babies.  He does it to punish their parents.  So if God approves how can it be wrong?

Hosea 9:16 (CEV)"...Even if you had more children
and loved them dearly,
    I would slaughter them all."

Quote:It would be murder because it was an unjustified taking of a beings life.

What business is it of yours if some woman you've never met has or does not have a kid?  Who died and made you the fucking king?

(September 12, 2015 at 7:15 am)Won2blv Wrote: Hey Rob, I'm a little late to the party but your reasoning sounds like the end justifying the means fallacy. Perhaps you could reason that abortion would be the easiest way for the child to obtain their divine reward but if you believe that the fetus is as equal as any beating heart then you can't justify doing something immoral for a seemingly moral outcome. It would be murder because it was an unjustified taking of a beings life.

Murder is an unlawful killing of another person. So no, abortion cannot be murder. Sorry about your luck, Chuck.

(September 12, 2015 at 4:11 am)Starvald Demelain Wrote:

(September 10, 2015 at 12:31 pm)Godschild Wrote:  This has to be the sickest thing I've seen here, you need help and I advise you to run not walk to get it and may God have mercy on you. There are so many things wrong with this one has trouble trying to find a starting point, anyone who would not just suggest murder but to advocate it is sick beyond belief.

GC

By fundamentalist Southern Baptist lore, didn't your god literally kill every baby on the earth in the flood? -Not to mention everyone else save for a certain family that got incestuous later on- 

He struck in Egypt too, specifically targeting firstborns -large or small- didn't he? 

If anything is sick here, Godschild, it's your belief system and not the satire that was intended to jumpstart your religion-addled mind. You sanctimonious, dense, twit.

Not only that, but how many unborn did their god kill in the flood?

I've done some rough calculations, but even with the most conservative of numbers, Yahweh is directly responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of unborn children by flooding the planet.

I realize that WLC has argued that Yahweh's if fully justified in doing so, but come on....

Thanks for the replies everyone No one has convinced me of a good reason to not kill your own babies, but I appreciate them trying. To me, the best and most honest reason is that it's betting everything on Christianity all being true. If actually it isn't, you just killed your baby for no reason. I'd be interested if anyone would admit to enough doubt to simply keep them from doing this.

Shining Finger: I was only kidding about posting this on a Christian forum, sorry! I'd most likely get instantly banned. I don't think I could hack being on one anyway.

Kingpin: I appreciate the answer but I didn't properly understand it. In your case at least, would it be fair to say that you wouldn't kill your child simply because there is reasonable doubt that they would actually go to heaven? I agree, having kids is a totally selfish action. There is no requirement at all. To then risk them going to hell so you can enjoy having them on this planet seems wrong to me. I wouldn't bring a kid into this world anyway because it's shit enough already; add in the possibility of hell and I'd never ever touch it with a barge pole.

Sure this life has good parts. But if people really believed what they say they believe about heaven, this life is 0% of your existence, and 0% enjoyable compared to the rest of your existence. It comes down to these numbers: you're risking that 100% enjoyment going down to 0% (plus torture!) enjoyment for 100% of their life, for the sake of 0% of 0% relative enjoyment.

Won2b: That's the even more stupid thing, no one has dislodged my logic in the slightest, so yes this is a major win for the child. The fact that God will turn around and call the best thing you can do for them murder shows the whole system is arse fucked. You could call it end justifying the means, sure. But the stakes are so high it seems ridiculous to take any other course of action if you really believe what you say you believe. The fact that people won't even consider this form of action is lots of evidence that they have reasonable doubts at least.

People want to believe this stuff, and maybe they convince themselves they do believe it. But actions, baby. Actions speak the loudest.

GC didn't tell me what happens to murdered babies, did he? Or did I miss or? Or actually address my points at all.

PS: Let me make an analogy. You're about to sit down to a massive meal, with thousands of courses. You have two options:

1) Start at the first main course. All your courses, including this first one, are guaranteed to be perfectly delicious.

2) Have a starter first. The starter isn't nearly as good as the main courses, in fact there will be horrible bits in it too. Also, if you have the starter, there's a good chance that the rest of the thousands of following courses will all be absolutely disgusting but you must eat them anyway. Or they might all be delicious as in choice 1.

Which would you chose? Which would you want a friend to choose for you, if the choose had to be made on your behalf?

(September 11, 2015 at 10:49 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(September 11, 2015 at 10:44 pm)Losty Wrote: I don't think anyone really believes all lives are worth the same.

Maybe not, but I think it's something we should all strive for.

This is a religious point of view I will never understand.  If there is something you know or suspect is not true, why would you strive to believe the opposite?  

I can understand someone who feels strongly about the sanctity of life and is against killing of any kind.  But why jump from there to the position that every life is equal, which we all pretty much feel is absurd on the face of it.  Do you think your God values Hitler and yourself equally?  

There is some tension in holding to the sanctity of all life while at the same time recognizing that some people have done really despicable things, but there is integrity in accepting both truths.

(September 14, 2015 at 8:56 am)Whateverist the White Wrote:

(September 11, 2015 at 10:49 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Maybe not, but I think it's something we should all strive for.

This is a religious point of view I will never understand.  If there is something you know or suspect is not true, why would you strive to believe the opposite?  

I can understand someone who feels strongly about the sanctity of life and is against killing of any kind.  But why jump from there to the position that every life is equal, which we all pretty much feel is absurd on the face of it.  Do you think your God values Hitler and yourself equally?  

There is some tension in holding to the sanctity of all life while at the same time recognizing that some people have done really despicable things, but there is integrity in accepting both truths.

What I meant by that is that it's easy for us to value some lives more than others... for example, we care more about the people we love than we do all other people. But that does not necessarily mean that the life of someone we don't love is worth less than that of those we do. 

The idea that some lives are worth less than others has led to some horrific things throughout history. And that's why I said we should strive to value all life equally. Even the people we don't love, and even the people we hate.

The problem with the afterlife being 100% of our existence is it reduces this life to a meaningless test for god's benefit.

The atheist generally believes this life is 100% of their existence.

The religious theist generally believes this life is 0% of their existence.

To whom do you think this life is more valuable and meaningful? This is a little off topic, but interesting I think.

(September 14, 2015 at 11:43 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(September 14, 2015 at 8:56 am)Whateverist the White Wrote: This is a religious point of view I will never understand.  If there is something you know or suspect is not true, why would you strive to believe the opposite?  

I can understand someone who feels strongly about the sanctity of life and is against killing of any kind.  But why jump from there to the position that every life is equal, which we all pretty much feel is absurd on the face of it.  Do you think your God values Hitler and yourself equally?  

There is some tension in holding to the sanctity of all life while at the same time recognizing that some people have done really despicable things, but there is integrity in accepting both truths.

What I meant by that is that it's easy for us to value some lives more than others... for example, we care more about the people we love than we do all other people. But that does not necessarily mean that the life of someone we don't love is worth less than that of those we do. 

The idea that some lives are worth less than others has led to some horrific things throughout history. And that's why I said we should strive to value all life equally. Even the people we don't love, and even the people we hate.

Agreed 100%.  This kind of goes hand in hand with the discussion in the "evil" thread, where we are discussing inherent or intrinsic worth of humanity.  CL is right in saying that we personally place different value on persons around us then those we may never have met, or those we read about doing horrible things, but that same person may have a completely different value to someone else.  Because this "value" is contradictory, it stands to reason that either that person (and all persons) have intrinsic worth (despite subjective opinion), or no worth.