Whether we like it or not, when we vote for president we are not voting for Pastor-in-Chief. Rather, we are voting for Commander-in-Chief. The qualifications for the two jobs are different. Further, Trump has expressed regret for offensive things he has said. Hillary has not shown regret for the numerous lies she has told—many of which the FBI has reported. Also, we must remind ourselves that we are all fallen creatures in a fallen world. We don’t have any perfect candidates. So we must choose among imperfect ones. Finally, we have aborted nearly 60 million unborn human beings under Roe v. Wade since 1973—a decision that Hillary ardently supports. Reportedly, Hitler only killed about 12 million people. So when Hillary supporters point to Trump’s flaws, do we not have a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black!
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All the candidates engage in offensive activities, some more than others. Most evangelicals would not vote for any of them to be pastor of their church. But we are not voting for a pastor but for a politician. Many evangelicals envision an ideal candidate who is superior to the ones we have. The problem is that we do not have the choice to vote for this ideal candidate but only for the real ones that are on the ticket. In an ideal world this would not happen, but we do not live in an ideal world but in a real one—a real fallen world. And in such a world we can only choose the best one available, not the best one conceivable. An as an evangelical Christian living in this real fallen world, it looks to me that Trump, as imperfect as he may be, comes closer to what we need in America now than Hillary Rodham Clinton.
For reluctant conservatives who were looking for someone more to the right of center, we must remember that conservatism does not equal Christianity. Likewise, neither does liberalism equal Christianity. But when I am sick, I choose the most competent doctor who may or may not be the most Christian doctor. Likewise, the most competent political leader may not be the most Christian one.
— Norman Geisler, Christianity Today, Evangelical Views of the 2016 Election: Norman Geisler on Why He’s Supporting Trump and Not Changing His Mind, October 11, 2016
Nothing like good ‘ol Christian hypocrisy
So now Hillary Clinton is responsible for every single abortion ever performed in this country? Funny, I live a block away from iur local clinic, and I had no idea Hillary was over there working. /sarcasm
Look, I have 2 adult sons and I had 3 pregnancies. Having a miscarriage is sad. But I realized quickly that it would have been REALLY bad if I lost the then 4 yr old Jacob.
It’s a religious sentiment that somehow, a fertilized egg, zygote or fetus are deserving of the same rights as a newborn baby. The fact of the matter is, brain waves in the fetus don’t become fully activated until about the 3rd trimester. Most of the pro-life crowd doesn’t care if the baby of a single, poor mom doesn’t have much money. I even argued with a Tea Party supporter about hungry children losing SNAP and her attitude was, let the parents take care of the hungry child. So…make the mom have a baby she doesn’t want, and let it go hungry. I don’t believe these people have a particle of empathy. And the pastor is full of sh#t.
If we are going to talk about the unborn we should probably mention how many go down the toilet without the mother ever knowing. Also if Trump actually truly regretted anything he’s said, he should own up to it and at least make an attempt to stop saying shit. Its painfully obvious he really doesnt regret anything unless he has to and even then its half hearted.
Yes. It would seem God is the biggest abortionist out there. So many conceptions never make it past 12- 20 weeks.
I can ‘understand’ death of people as a result of the fall – but why would god allow so many ‘souls’ to never even be born.
All the above comments are absolutely right. The claim that abortion is murder is simply an assertion and is nothing more than that; an assertion. It’s a philosophical position that can be held equally by atheists, but somehow the religious right seem to feel it is there’s and there’s alone. My assertion is that murder can’t be committed until a baby is actually born and exists independently of its mother.
Comparisons with Hitler should always be avoided, especially by the religious right. Ironically it’s actually their type of psychology, that of unthinking obedience, credulity, and hatred of a wrongly perceived enemy, that allowed Hitler, and other dictators, to rise to power in the first place.
Just curious, but according to your philosophy hypothetically a woman in labour could have her baby killed before it exits her body and that be morally ok? But for some reason as soon as it exits her right to kill it ends?
I am not having a go and maybe I have misunderstood but i find this approach problematic.
Also if a baby has no rights in the womb, say a pregnant woman is attacked and her baby dies as a result, according to your approach the attacker could only be prosecuted for the assault on the woman and maybe sued for her loss but you couldn’t prosecute him for murder/ manslaughter of the unborn. Is this not problematic?
Also after a child is born courts recognise the rights of a father to have a say / input in the child’s life (in instances of divorce). Does the father have no say in the child’s life before it is born? If not why not? What changes after birth? The woman carried the child and went through hell to deliver it but we don’t say that she has sole rights of access / input.
I think that both sides of the pro life / pro choice debate need to think through their position a bit more.
All good questions and demonstrates why debate is important. Dealing with your points
1. An unborn baby can be protected by referring to it as ‘an unborn baby’. So it isn’t the same offence as killing a person who has actually been born, but does become an offence in its own right. I think this also answers your point about harming the foetus during labour but, if not, I’m happy to expand.
2. Rights of the potential father whilst the woman is carrying the foetus are, ultimately, nil. It is to be hoped that potential fathers will naturally be involved in such decisions, but the reality is that most women contemplating abortion don’t have the support of the father. And if you start giving men rights, how would you deal with rapists, who feel they want some input, or even men who are at antagonistic terms with the woman?
Of course there are problems around certain things, life is messy. But no woman who is in labor to have her baby is going to suddenly change her mind, and have it killed. It’s never happened. Babies at full term can survive outside the mother. Even if the mom is psycho in labor and started screaming to kill her baby, nothing would happen. The doctors would ignore her and assume she’s having some kind of mental episode. So you can set your mind at rest.
Okay, I didn’t become completely, 100% pro-choice until after I had kids and was done having them. As a married woman, if I had become pregnant and didn’t want to have another baby, I would have talked to my husband etc and decided what to do. But that is ME. A woman carries the baby all by herself, so it is her decision if she chooses to abort. Now, that wouldn’t protect her from any consequences of that act, for example, her husband being devastated and choosing to divorce. But those consequences don’t involve THE LAW.
There are laws if a pregnant woman is attacked and the fetus dies. But I believe it is a state by state thing. Look, my understanding is if fetus dies from an attack during the 3rd trimester, said fetus is usually (frequently?) treated as a baby at full term. Fetuses are very rarely aborted in the third trimester. By then the reasons to abort is if there is a horrible deformity to the fetus that would cause only pain and suffering, or the mother could die.
You say that both sides have to think about stuff, but you choose only to attack the pro-choice side. Seems like a little bit of disingenuousness on your part.
I didn’t intend to attack, only to question what I thought Geoff was saying : that whether terminating a life qualified as murder or not depended on it being in or out of the womb. It is perhaps morally problematic to suggest that just because a baby has not emerged from the womb you can do what you want with it – hence the admittedly bizarre hypothetical labour example!
I didnt want to appear disengenous. Personally I have changed my opinion on abortion recently having previously thought it was always wrong and that life begins at conception. Having seen embrios at early stage look practically identical to dolphins I am not sure whether an embrio counts as a human life as we know it. So in that sense termination is not the termination of a human. Willing to be corrected though.
I am however uneasy about abortions for purely social reasons at later stages as arguably all human life is precious and i am not sure that being unborn disqualifies you from human rights. The question I am not sure about is when does a foetus count as a baby?
Legally, when the fetus is born he/she is a baby. But usually around 24 weeks a fetus can survive outside a mother (with medical help). That is viability. Usually there are no abortions of convenience at that point and going forward. I do know that the brain waves in the fetus are fully developed around the same time.
Almost all abortions in the 3rd trimester are due to severe deformity of fetus or threat to the mother’s life. This is something that the WOMAN should get to decide, not a church, not the doctor, not the administrators at the hospital. A woman died in Ireland due to the Catholic doctors refusing to abort the fetus. And the fetus was already doomed. So the mother died for nothing, no reason except to satisfy the Catholic Church.
So where I’m going with this is this: it’s a woman’s choice because it is her body. Do you know that at one point early on, the Southern Baptist Church did NOT believe in interfering with a woman’s choice? They felt it was sad but not their business. The Religious Right needed a cause to get Christians riled up to vote the way they directed, and abortion was chosen as the cause.
Ah, yes. Abortion is exactly like killing millions of already born human beings (NOT!). Notice how the old white men insist on controlling everyone else’s life? Hitler. Hillary = Hitler. Is THIS why so many evangelicals are still voting for Trump? Really? It saddens me that so many are willing to simply believe and go along without even the simplest of research. Why is there not curiosity? Good grief!
God had an idea before time began and it was an entire human life every time the sperm mates with an egg! Bingo! Meet Paul or Polly. The myriad failures of this attempt at life just show how powerful the devil is! This is why we have to go and shoot doctors who perform abortions! The Devil! See how clear it is? Nobody matters but Jesus first and the Devil doesn’t like it so he builds abortion factories and deludes the weak-minded women who should be married to Steven Anderson and bearing children untill they cannot do so any more. What is there to be curious about? By golly, a woman must not even enter a church with her head uncovered and when she does get into one, she must be silent. God made a perfect fallen world and we men sure know it.
“We’re voting for President, not pastor!”
Awww… cute little parrots. And they each think they’re the first one to say it.