Weird Time for Christians

[funhusker]

From your article:

"More recently, in an April interview with WND’s Aaron Klein, Mr. Singer said bluntly: “I don’t want my health insurance premiums to be higher so that infants who can experience zero quality of life can have expensive treatments.”

This is why I have such a hard time wrapping my head around the efforts to end coverage for pre-existing conditions by many Republican politicians....Their arguments are fundamentally the same as Dr. Singer's....

 

[Landlord]

This really isn't worth responding to but I'll play along.   That is some crazy thinking there LL - what are you drinking/  :wasted With your reasoning  we should also be all for killing babies and children up to the age of accountability (actually some leftists claim that babies should be eligible for abortion even after birth.)

We have no inconsistencies - God has a purpose for each life.  Killing the baby in the womb is killing a person made in God's image, with a destiny in front of them.  Abortion takes away that right of choice to follow one's destiny, to live purposefully, and to live in a way that honors God.  Your equation leaves out the grace of God at all levels as well. We may find out in the end that God is more gracious than any of us think. 

So let's flip the argument.   When one devalues life in any form (pre-born, elderly, those with disabilities) one devalues all of life.  How can leftist say they are pro-needy when they abandon the 'neediest' in the womb and talk of ending the life of elderly who become a burden on society - another needy.   Then there are those leftist nations that look at automatic abortion for those with down's syndrome and other disabilities.  Talk about inconsistent.   

If you kill an unborn baby, all you're robbing them off is 1-100 or so years in a fallen world, with a high likelihood that they will turn from their destiny and go to hell for eternity. If you kill them, they still get eternity in heaven forever and ever and ever, and eternity is what it's all really about, right? 

 

[Mierin]

Professor Singer is 72 years old.  Perhaps we need to look at mandatory suicide for old people to keep our health care costs down in order to avoid expensive treatments as well. 

I know it’s a little tongue in cheek but the old farts (like my mom) really are dragging us down ‘cause there are way too many of them. We just need to figure out a way to outlast them. But that’s their parents’ generation’s fault.

 

[StPaulHusker]

If you kill an unborn baby, all you're robbing them off is 1-100 or so years in a fallen world, with a high likelihood that they will turn from their destiny and go to hell for eternity. If you kill them, they still get eternity in heaven forever and ever and ever, and eternity is what it's all really about, right? 

Hell of a hill you've chosen

 

[Landlord]

Hell of a hill you've chosen

I'm entertaining a hyperbolic hypothetical.

If one truly believes:

• heaven and hell and the ability to decide which one you end up in

• children up to a certain age/maturity aren't held accountable

• most human beings who live on planet earth do not accept god's gift of salvation and end up in hell

What would be the reason not to abort babies, send them straight to heaven, and let them bypass the horrors of this world and even the chance that they could go to hell if they had lived in it?

 

[funhusker]

I'm entertaining a hyperbolic hypothetical.

If one truly believes:

• heaven and hell and the ability to decide which one you end up in

• children up to a certain age/maturity aren't held accountable

• most human beings who live on planet earth do not accept god's gift of salvation and end up in hell

What would be the reason not to abort babies, send them straight to heaven, and let them bypass the horrors of this world and even the chance that they could go to hell if they had lived in it?

You should start a daycare service!  

 

[TGHusker]

This is why I have such a hard time wrapping my head around the efforts to end coverage for pre-existing conditions by many Republican politicians....Their arguments are fundamentally the same as Dr. Singer's....

Good take.  And very true.  Primary  for the benefit of their corp insurance company donors.  

 

[TGHusker]

I'm entertaining a hyperbolic hypothetical.

If one truly believes:

• heaven and hell and the ability to decide which one you end up in

• children up to a certain age/maturity aren't held accountable

• most human beings who live on planet earth do not accept god's gift of salvation and end up in hell

What would be the reason not to abort babies, send them straight to heaven, and let them bypass the horrors of this world and even the chance that they could go to hell if they had lived in it?

Then it is better to abort all of us from the beginning  and then there will be none of us ... end of the discussion, human kind and sadly most of all HB .  However.....

It is better to have loved and failed then to never have loved at all.   Interpretation -   Love involves free choice.  God chooses to love us.  His 'bet' is that we will also love. If one believes in damnation (most end up in hell), or limited damnation(only the hitler types end up in hell ), or universalism (all get saved because of Christ's sacrificial death) it doesn't negate God's desire to display his love to all - young, middle age and old.  

 

[Landlord]

Then it is better to abort all of us from the beginning  and then there will be none of us ... end of the discussion, human kind and sadly most of all HB .  However.....

It is better to have loved and failed then to never have loved at all.   Interpretation -   Love involves free choice.  God chooses to love us.  His 'bet' is that we will also love. If one believes in damnation (most end up in hell), or limited damnation(only the hitler types end up in hell ), or universalism (all get saved because of Christ's sacrificial death) it doesn't negate God's desire to display his love to all - young, middle age and old.  

Therein lies the problem with the fundamental orthodoxy of that belief. If God is the one betting and the one loving and potentially failing, we're the ones that lose. God remains God, omniscient and holy, and we suffer the consequences of God's love experiment gone bad.

 

[beorach]

I'm entertaining a hyperbolic hypothetical.

If one truly believes:

• heaven and hell and the ability to decide which one you end up in

• children up to a certain age/maturity aren't held accountable

• most human beings who live on planet earth do not accept god's gift of salvation and end up in hell

What would be the reason not to abort babies, send them straight to heaven, and let them bypass the horrors of this world and even the chance that they could go to hell if they had lived in it?

You don't want the sin on you, the parents.  Even some Christians still believe that good works don't make a difference as to where you're going (after death).  Maybe some who do (believe that good works matter) also believe that heaven must be earned.  This world, while clearly not God's kingdom, isn't just full of horrors either.  Life's a miracle and it's a mistake to dwell too much on the resurrection.  That's sort of paraphrased Bob Marley, though ("Get Up, Stand Up").

 

[Landlord]

I'd gladly pass up a miracle to make sure I get to heaven, and I'd gladly sacrifice myself for the guarantee of my child making it to heaven. If I believed in such things.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

I think the abortion debate is pretty complicated.

 

[commando]

Good oh leftist well know Princeton Prof Peter Singer  (and there are others of his ilk that believe the same - he is one of the more outspoken and has a bigger platform). This is one of the paths where atheistic, leftist thinking leads.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/16/peter-singer-princeton-bioethics-professor-faces-c/

And it gets even worse with this article which is a discussion of a NYT interview of Singer

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/04/now-peter-singer-argues-that-it-might-be-okay-to-rape-disabled-people

You'd have to read the whole article to get the full story but here is the last paragraphs. And remember, Singer is not a 'one off'.  He is a highly respected  ethics prof/thinker (respected by the crazy, leftists in academia and media)

i've never heard of the idiot....but if we want to look for the most extreme s#!t on either side we could find it.  if i looked i bet there are people on the right.who advocate no government money to help save sick babies ....guess that could be considered post birth abortion also. if we classify everyone that leans 1 way or the other based on the most extreme idiot you can find on either side we are definately heading towards the civil war that russia would love to see.

 

[beorach]

I'd gladly pass up a miracle to make sure I get to heaven, and I'd gladly sacrifice myself for the guarantee of my child making it to heaven. If I believed in such things.

How are you making sure you get to heaven by passing up a miracle?  I didn't follow that part.  Sacrificing yourself is fine but it's still about faith and most people don't think they've got God's rules all figured out even if they believe in him.  As a Catholic myself, I have never felt smart enough to understand the nuances of what we're supposed to believe.  That's with a lot of Catholic school, including one theology class.  I'm not saying the finer points couldn't be summed up well but I found more education muddied the waters further personally.  I tell my kids we adults don't know anything for sure but that I believe due to my personal history.  We should all pray for boring lives because you don't want to need His help.

 

[TGHusker]

How are you making sure you get to heaven by passing up a miracle?  I didn't follow that part.  Sacrificing yourself is fine but it's still about faith and most people don't think they've got God's rules all figured out even if they believe in him.  As a Catholic myself, I have never felt smart enough to understand the nuances of what we're supposed to believe.  That's with a lot of Catholic school, including one theology class.  I'm not saying the finer points couldn't be summed up well but I found more education muddied the waters further personally.  I tell my kids we adults don't know anything for sure but that I believe due to my personal history.  We should all pray for boring lives because you don't want to need His help.

Regarding the bold. Actually we need his help and that is what faith is all about.  Recognizing our need for what Christ did on the cross and humbling ourselves to be dependent (needing his help) for salvation.   It isn't about boring lives or exciting lives it is about humility and dependence vs pride and independence (not needing his help).  "God exalts the humble and puts down the proud."  As a former Catholic myself, I understand the uncertainty of not having it all figured out.  I love my Catholic heritage however, it wasn't until I opened up the Bible myself and read it that I understood the 'assurance of salvation' that comes with believing the Gospel and placing my total faith, not in my works (when would enough good works and Hail Mary prayers be enough??) but in the finished work of what Christ did on the cross.  Once we are 'in faith', that faith will motivate us to the good works of faith (prayers, service to others, participating in the  sacraments from a right heart, etc)   A quick google of "Assurance of Salvation" brings up many links - here are a few

https://billygraham.org/story/how-to-be-sure-of-your-salvation/

https://www.openbible.info/topics/assurance_of_salvation

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-agonizing-problem-of-the-assurance-of-salvation

https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/48-20/the-christians-assurance-of-salvation