Late-term abortionist George Tiller was killed at his church Sunday morning in Wichita, Kansas. Tiller was a controversial figure in the abortion debate. He was one of the few doctors to perform late-term abortions, and had previously been the victim of attempts on his life.
No doubt the murderer feels justified in killing Tiller because of Tiller’s actions in killing unborn babies. But he’s not justified. I agree with President Obama’s reaction to the killing:
Today Obama said he was “shocked and outraged” by the killing. “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion,” he said in a statement, “they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.
My mother always taught me that two wrongs don’t make a right. Killing an abortionist is not a justified response to the scourge of abortion on demand in this country. I still have hope that abortion will be abolished through peaceful, legal means over time through persuasion, the way slavery was abolished in England.
“There’s a long list of people waiting to adopt the rest.”
That simply is not true.
There are plenty of children unwanted and up for adoption RIGHT NOW in this country… they will never be adopted. They will grow in foster homes, or institutions and never know what you call a family. They will become lost in society…
from The Center for Disease Control:
1) Women currently seeking to adopt would prefer to adopt a child younger than 2 years old, without a disability, and a single child rather than two or more siblings. The data suggest that women would prefer to adopt a girl rather than a boy (Table 15).
2) Women would accept children with most nonpreferred characteristics (Table 15). Two-thirds of women, however, would not accept a child 13 years of age or older or a child with a severe disability.
MOST people want to adopt “WANTABLE” babies.
“I just feel strongly about protecting the babies who can’t defend themselves.”
Do you think that maybe, just maybe, if you used the correct term, “fetus” instead of the incorrect term, “baby”, it might be easier for you to understand.
When an egg and sperm come together it is a zygote, then an embryo, then a fetus and when it is born it is a baby. There really are good reasons why they are not called a baby BEFORE the fertilized egg first splits, or before they are born (or before they develop a central nervous system, or develop blinking, sucking and grasping reflexes).
Direct your feeling strongly to the thousands of sentient and sapient human beings being intentionally killed, or through apathy left to die each and every day because of greed and selfishness. (~25,000 die of starvation EACH DAY, over a million people die of malaria every year, 200,000 from war)
Here’s a fact you can sink your teeth into.
“More than 40% of all women will end a pregnancy by abortion at some time in their reproductive lives.”
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/abortion/article_em.htm
kcdad: You’re right that there are a lot of children (older kids and ones with disabilities) who will never get adopted, but we are talking about abortions here. There IS a long list of people waiting to adopt babies, so if the mothers would give birth instead of having an abortion, their babies would have a chance at life.
Whether you use the term fetus or baby or zygote, it is a living being that deserves the opportunity to reach its full potential. This thread is about late-term abortions, and by then the little PERSON has a central nervous system, blinking, sucking, and grasping reflexes, and a beating heart.
The fact that I feel strongly about abortion doesn’t make me any less sensitive to the other suffering people you mentioned. They’re not mutually exclusive.
Even for the people who died in wars or died from starvation, there was more to their life than physics. They were still human beings with souls, feelings, and thoughts. They were not just a collection of physical materials.
I asked you a couple times to clarify your religious beliefs. Are you not addressing that because it’s off the topic at hand?
CJ – I think your statement is more “conformist” than logical.
Re: My mother always taught me that two wrongs don’t make a right.
1. The act of causing the death of another human being may or may not be “wrong”. You would agree that if I killed someone who had a gun pointed at your child’s head, that it was not wrong and in fact very right to cause that person’s death. No?
2. Would your mother argue: “…two wrongs don’t make a right, so don’t use lethal force to protect my grandchild from a murderer…” ?
Re: Killing an abortionist is not a justified response to the scourge of abortion on demand in this country.
1. Words matter. You are referring to the person killed as an “abortionist”. Why are you not referring to him as an unrepentant murderer, serial killer of unborn children, or as a person who made a lot of money killing innocent children ? Was he not all of these?
Re: …….I still have hope…..
1. You still have hope the person with the gun pointed to your child’s head will not pull the trigger.
2. Many had “hope” that Hitler would not invade all of Europe. I have such “hope” that I can run and let others risk their lives in the trench on the front lines.
3. The biblical context of the word “…hope…” is a hope in the return of Christ not a hope in a particular outcome or event on earth.
Re: …that abortion will be abolished through peaceful, legal means over time, through persuasion, the way slavery was abolished in England.
1. Was slavery abolished in England through persuasion? Or, was what happened to the slave owners in the Southern States a warning to the small percentage of Brits who owned slaves that it was not just in the interest of the slaves and other classes, but also in the interest of the slave owners to “…let MY people go…”
2. Why didn’t God use “…peaceful, legal means over time, through persuasion…” to influence Pharoh to “..let MY people go…” Actually he did, but there came a time when he took the lives of every first born in the land before Pharoh finally consented.
When a country is populated with so many hearts that support the the plundering of the lives of millions of babies – for money……and the vast majority of other hearts are to weak to do anything that might cause a physical or financial backlash to them personally…..EVIL PREVAILS BECAUSE GOOD MEN DO TOO LITTLE.
I saw this in the legal profession. We all see it in the business world. It has over-run politics.
The scourge of abortion is both an evil and a punishment for evil. Historically the only way that such evil can be removed from a society is by a blood-letting. I would rather the blood letting be a few dead abortion profiteers than a 2nd civil war. I personally think there will be a second Civil War and that like slavery, abortion will be the lightening rod that provides the emotional fuel for a fractured society to begin targeting each other over “resource’ issues.
Side note: I was shocked that I was not shocked that an abortion profiteer was killed while serving as an usher in a church. Was the church accepting tithes that came from the fees to kill a child? Since Monday I have had more than one conversation with people I just met……..I was in their places of business and they were listening to Rush Limbaugh….and they agreed that if they found out they had six months to live – they might not kill an abortion profiteer, but they would at least have a severe moral crisis over whether or not they should firebomb as many clinics, Planned Parenthoods, or homes of abortion profiteers as they could in the last 6th months of their lives.
They and I both agreed that when we heard an abortion profiteer was killed, we felt like the day we heard Saddam Hussein was captured…….happy, like justice had finally prevailed.
I won’t apologize for the way I or they feel. I will however, listen to arguments against my specific critique of your original comment.
Way to go Chase-whileI agree with your position on abortion, I cannot agree that murder of anyone is an answer. I can remember as a youngster, after every Catholic Mass, we prayed for the conversion of Russia, and by God, it happened. Peaceful, civil disobedience is the way to go, not killing.
Wacko, you don’t seem so wacko to me. I’d have to agree with all 3 of your positions:
1) abortion is wrong
2) killing abortion doctors is wrong
3) peaceful, civil disobedience is the way to go.
Chase — I think the big difference you’re glossing over is that abortion is legal, and this man was participating in a legal activity. The “enemy” here, so to speak, is not the individual abortionist, but the state. Thus, I believe it’s better to seek an end to abortion through legal, peaceful means.
From a theological perspective, things that a nation does that are legally allowed but morally wrong are national sins, and God will judge them in his time. We cannot take it on ourselves to mete out God’s judgment on individuals who are acting on state authority. On the contrary, we’re commanded to be subject to the governing authorities (Romans 13:1). When the Apostle Paul wrote that, the governing authority was Nero. Note that Paul didn’t advocate killing Nero or his subordinates even though they were torturing and killing Christians.
As for your feelings about Saddam Hussein, I would remind you that Hussein was captured, tried, convicted, and executed. Justice was indeed served. Justice was not so served with Dr. Tiller.
Lots of things are legal in various places, CJ, doesn’t make them right.
Mouse — No, it doesn’t make them right. It only makes them legal. However, the existence of unjust laws doesn’t give us a license to be vigilantes.
I agree with C.J. and he said it so well. In fact, I have been trying to find a way to say all that he just said, but C.J. found the words for which I was searching. I especially appreciate C.J.’s pointing out that Paul (or Jesus, I might add) did not advocate killing Nero (or fighting the Roman government in any way). The only task given to Christians was to spread the Gospel to call more people to follow Christ. Fortunately, no one in this country is forced to get an abortion–that would be the time for Christians (and others) to act and maybe even be willing to face persecution rather than to obey that law of the land. I believe we Christians are too used to trusting the legal process instead of God.
Janel sez: “There’s a long list of people waiting to adopt the rest.”
kcdad sez: “That simply is not true.”
I sez: kcdad – I think your are wrong.
I am an adoptive parent. I adopted kids who were ‘hard to place’ because of the color of their skin, physical disability, or psychological trauma. At the time we were getting licenses (1998), the State of Illinois printed a large ‘catalog’ of children free to be adopted or ‘at risk’ (parental rights had not been terminated, but the cases had progressed far enough that they were unlikely to be returned to their biological parents) placements. The list often ran over 200 names (IIRC they were over 300 at one point)
Programs established by the Edgar administration changed some of laws and permanent placement of special needs children was made a priority. I recall the ‘catalog’ shrinking until it was no longer mailed out any more. There are still ‘placement ads’ in the back of some DCFS (or whatever they call it now) publications, but the incredible backlog of children needing home has shrunk, significantly.
Janel: “I asked you a couple times to clarify your religious beliefs. Are you not addressing that because it’s off the topic at hand?”
It is irrelevant. Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Atheist… it really matters not one bit. Your beliefs are yours and mine are mine. If they were anything other than “beliefs” they would be facts or knowledge.
anon: “The list often ran over 200 names ” I would say there is long list WAITING TO BE ADOPTED, not a long line waiting to adopt. Wouldn’t you?
Chase: “Why are you not referring to him as an unrepentant murderer, serial killer of unborn children, or as a person who made a lot of money killing innocent children ? Was he not all of these?”
Why not refer to him as human being, a church usher, a physician, a person with friends and family…he had a wife, children perhaps, parents, brothers and sisters… he was all of those, too.
“abortion profiteer” ??? So much for objective opinions coming from you. Why not cancer profiteers or diabetes profiteers, tooth decay profiteers?
“3. The biblical context of the word “…hope…” is a hope in the return of Christ not a hope in a particular outcome or event on earth.”
That is definitely NOT the Biblical context of “hope”. THAT is the fundamentalist- evangelical version of The Bible. (By the way… The Christ, The Anointing, returns everyday. Jesus, the man spoken of in The Gospels, is not returning. You can wait another 2000 years if you want… I have more important things to do.)
kcdad–yes, your beliefs are yours and mine are mine. I just asked because you fascinate me and I want to know more about you. And when you make comments such as “Jesus, the man spoken of in The Gospels, is not returning”, you open yourself up to inquiring minds like mine (that is, nosy). Of course, it’s your right to ignore me.
You make an astute observation about anon’s post, but the fact remains that there is a list of people waiting to adopt. If babies were allowed to be born instead of aborted, they would be adopted. As someone who has struggled with infertility my entire adult life, it pains me to see people get pregnant so easily and just throw aside that gift. Perhaps you’ll pounce on that last sentence as emotional and not logical. I’m not trying to win any arguments with that, just telling you something about myself.
“Tooth decay profiteers” made me laugh (although I’m quite certain that humor was not your intent), because I just paid a huge dental bill for my son.
Janel: “If babies were allowed to be born instead of aborted, they would be adopted.”
The figures disagree with you. There are plenty already born that aren’t being adopted… for what ever reason.
I am a leader in my church (Methodist), and teach adult Sunday School. I believe in God. I believe there is one God and He alone should we worship. I follow the teachings of Jesus and live, like Jesus, to make the Kingdom of God a reality.
kcdad–Which figures?
kcdad–Well, we’re in agreement on this: “I believe in God. I believe there is one God and He alone should we worship. I follow the teachings of Jesus and live, like Jesus, to make the Kingdom of God a reality.”
If you don’t believe that God is sovereign, why do you worship Him?
kcdad wrote: Do you think that maybe, just maybe, if you used the correct term, “fetus” instead of the incorrect term, “baby”, it might be easier for you to understand.
When an egg and sperm come together it is a zygote, then an embryo, then a fetus and when it is born it is a baby. There really are good reasons why they are not called a baby BEFORE the fertilized egg first splits, or before they are born (or before they develop a central nervous system, or develop blinking, sucking and grasping reflexes).
That’s why it’s called “abortion,” kcdad. The baby is not given a chance to develop a central nervous system, or blinking, sucking and grasping reflexes, and be BORN. When the mother finds out she’s pregnant, she know she’s going to have a baby, not a banana! That is why abortion is a form of murder, or unnatural termination of life.
Gosh, David, every death is an abortion, isn’t it?
Janel: The figures that show hundreds of babies waiting in vain to be adopted and the numbers of parents who will not adopt.
“If you don’t believe that God is sovereign, why do you worship Him?”
I didn’t say that God was not sovereign… what I wrote was: “If God were sovereign, there would be no need for concepts like sin and evil, would there? All things would work for the good of God… but they don’t, do they? Or do they?”
(sorry, C.J., I went back to that Socratic thingy)
David:”That is why abortion is a form of murder, or unnatural termination of life.”
I should have included this quote in the previous post… every death is murder? Or is cancer natural? Is starvation natural?
You’re putting words into David’s mouth, or at least trying to make him agree to, things he didn’t see or even come close to implying. He said abortion is a form of murder he did not say, nor is it even remotely related, every death is murder. Cancer is generally natural although human activity can affect that and starvation is natural. Starvation can happen at any level throughout the world be it to humans or any type of animal the difference is when starvation is forced upon someone. None of that however is related to the abortion discussion.
It would be great if you could cite some statistics or some personal experience like some of the other commenters on here have that actually assist in proving your point instead of hypothetical questions and guesses.
Speaking of personal experience…I spent several years on the list waiting for my babies, so I know for a fact that it’s a long list. If there is such an abundance of babies waiting to be adopted, why did I have to wait years to get mine? By the way, mine were not the picture of perfect health. If you want a perfectly healthy baby, you have to wait even longer. Every day I see ads in the newspaper from prospective adoptive parents begging for a baby.
Thank you Janel, that was exactly my point. I think most people would find an argument based on factual evidence superior to one based on an individual’s own warped perspective of the world, void of any facts or experience.
I suppose every individual has his own perspective of the world. Although I disagree with kcdad on the adoption facts, I wouldn’t say that his perspective is warped.
That is why abortion is a form of murder, or unnatural termination of life.
I see kcdad misunderstood my point, so I’ll try to be clearer: Abortion is the unnatural termination of life. In contrast to a miscarriage, abortion is the intentional termination of the unborn, all for self-centered reasons not morally justified.
Most, especially such an intelligent fellow as kcdad, should have grasped this 🙂
David,
You make an excellent point. I am just playing Devil’s advocate here…..
Abortion may or may not be “morally justified.” ‘Morals’ are social constructs. Is the “intentional termination of the unborn [newly born]” universally viewed as immoral, unethical, etc?
New Voice wrote: Abortion may or may not be “morally justified.” ‘Morals’ are social constructs. Is the “intentional termination of the unborn [newly born]” universally viewed as immoral, unethical, etc?
No and that’s the problem. For society to avoid descending into chaotic relativism, morality cannot be “whatever one does is right in his own eyes.” But that’s exactly what has happened in our country.
Secularists always assume morality is relative and that no one has the right to impose their morality on another. But ask yourself whether legal abortion has helped or harmed our society since January 1973?
“abortion is the intentional termination of the unborn, all for self-centered reasons not morally justified.”
I know exactly what you meant, and I clarified that by going to the absurd conclusion. God “intentionally” ends life all the time… Is God an abortionist?
Leaders “intentionally” send soldiers off to kill and die for self centered reasons. Are they murderers? What would be a “natural termination of life”?
Why is that when someone you don’t particularly like kills, you call them murderers?
Janel: I think you are being naive. The reason it takes forever to adopt is because of the bureaucracy involved, not the number of children or parents. We saw in the earlier figures that there are 200-300 children right now waiting for adoption and thousands more that will never be adopted because of their age or other issues (race, gender, health, etc).
11Bravo: Does an animal murder another when it kills? Is that “natural”? (Did you know that several species EAT THEIR YOUNG after they are born?)
kcdad wrote: God “intentionally” ends life all the time… Is God an abortionist
Are you saying God does not have the right to do what He pleases? And if He does not, who would judge Him?
kcdad wrote: Leaders “intentionally” send soldiers off to kill and die for self centered reasons. Are they murderers? What would be a “natural termination of life”?
I think this one has been answered previously, but I think you’re intelligent enough to know the answer (hint: first let go of the moral equivalence).
“Are you saying God does not have the right to do what He pleases? And if He does not, who would judge Him? ”
Not unless he is human… could you describe a more anthropomorphic God? God is spirit, not human. In fact, if it helps for you to understand this Biblical concept you might think of common usage of the word spirit… he has a spirit of understanding, it was done in the spirit of love, Lindbergh flew in The Spirit of St Louis… Spirit doesn’t mean a ghost or disembodied person. Truth, Love, Peace, Hope, Compassion… these are spirits. If you want to get a good idea of what God is… consider His name: “I AM”. It means existence. ALL of existence. Everything that is is God. (I just wrote “is is”) God does not have a personality. God does not have emotions or thoughts. (If you think that, then you are getting God confused with humans)
“first let go of the moral equivalence”
Yeah I got the previous answer… cancer is natural. So is abortion. It is performed by products of nature, right? Mankind is natural.
kcdad — If I might be Socratic for a moment myself: If God has no personality, emotions, or thoughts (i.e., God is impersonal), and if God is simply existence (“everything there is”), then what differentiates your belief from atheism, besides semantics?
“what differentiates your belief from atheism, besides semantics?”
Nothing. I am by most any definition an A-theist. That doesn’t mean I am A-deistic or A-God. I have no reason or experience that leads me to believe in a “personal” God, or a “being” that is God. I reject any “Alien-God or Star Trek “Q” type of super being.
kcdad wrote: I believe there is one God and He alone should we worship.
kcdad wrote: I am by most any definition an A-theist.
Ooooooh! Oooooh! I got it! There are two kcdad’s!
David: What if I phrase it this way… there is not a God, but there is God. The emphasis is not A god. God is not a thing that can be pointed to and say there he is! God is everything and everything is God. God is not outside of nature or outside of the universe… on the other hand neither is God inside nature or the universe either.
David… tell me… where is truth? Where is love? Can you tell me where to find it? Is it in one specific place or not in another?
“Theism, in this specific sense, conceives of God as personal and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe. The use of the word theism as indicating a particular doctrine of monotheism arose in the wake of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century to contrast with the then emerging deism which contended that God — though transcendent and supreme — did not intervene in the natural world and could be known rationally but not via revelation.”
*John Orr (English Deism: Its Roots and Its Fruits, 1934) explains that before the seventeenth century theism and deism were interchangeable terms but during the course of the seventeenth century they gained separate and mutually exclusive meanings
The emphasis in the written form “A-theist” was to emphasize that I hold no theism beliefs. Like Thomas Jefferson two hundred years ago, I find truth, meaning and purpose in the teachings of Jesus and the Hebrew prophets, but find the anthropomorphism and magic used to embellish the stories distracting and irrelevant to anything we experience in our lives today.
The cultural writings of The Hebrews and later The Jews reflect their pre-scientific understanding of the world. Their enchantment of miracles and everyday life experiences must be interpreted through “enlightened”, historical and scientific minds.
Maybe it’s time to start profiling white christian males.
Mustafa X,
They have been profiling white christian males for some time now. It is called ‘Affirmative Action.’
kcdad–I’m trying to understand your beliefs, so I hope you don’t mind if I ask another question. What, if anything, do believe happens after you die?
For me, nothing. Life goes on without me. Those pieces of energy and matter that made up me are dispersed into other forms. I no longer exist. Since my self is a construction of the conscious and unconscious mind when the brain stops working, the self no longer exists. (In the same way H20 precipitates as rain, falls onto the land and drains into a river, becoming a part of the river… that drop no longer exists as a separate entity, but is now part of a larger entity, the creek, steam or river, and eventually that flows back into the sea… evaporates again and re-precipitates as a different drop of water, perhaps containing some of the same elements and molecules that made up the previous drop of water or not…
What do you believe happens after you die?
kcdad–you’re baiting me. You know what I’m going to say (just as I knew what you were going to say about death), and you have your rebuttal all ready. Go ahead. I’m listening…
kcdad–“my self is a construction of the conscious and unconscious mind”
So a sperm and egg meet, and from that develops a self, which is just a construct of its own mind. In another post, you told Sharon that you would always defend her right to be. Unless she was a fetus, right? At what point would you begin defending her right to be?
Ok, so I’ve heard your take on the end. What about the beginning? How do you believe the world and human life was created? Unlike some, I don’t believe that you’re merely playing the role of devil’s advocate. I believe that you truly believe what you’re saying and that you’re different from everyone else I know. So I’m asking these questions not to argue or put you down in any way; I really want to figure out your beliefs.
“At what point would you begin defending her right to be?”
When she has a notion of being. When she develops a sense of self vs other. (There is no “self” without “other”.)
The beginning… that’s a mystery. That’s why I believe in God. The sacred, or divine or sense of God is an admission that we can not possibly understand everything. Whatever was at the beginning still is, and will always be (although it may change form) and that is God. I have no problem with Big Bang Theory… I kinds like the metaphor of the first thing, the first event, being God’s voice… I bet that might be a good description of the Big Bang.
What came before The Big Bang… since time is a measurement of change, there wouldn’t necessarily be a “before”. However, I do realize that something had to “bang” in the beginning… can that initial spark or energy be something metaphysical like LOVE or TRUTH? Maybe. It doesn’t make sense to me to describe it as a person or being, and that is probably true for the ancients as well, which is why they came up with idea of god or gods. They are anthropomorphic representations of that which they couldn’t understand at the time. Zeus=thunder, Posiden=oceans, Athena=wisdom, Eros=love, etc.
Kcdad: I recommend that you read The Language of God by Francis S. Collins, a Christian geneticist and well-known leader of the Human Genome Project. I would be interested in knowing how you feel about his Christian view of evolution, etc. Have you read any of C. S. Lewis–especially, Mere Christianity?
CS LEWIS, yes. He should stick to his fiction. He is very good at that. I am not a big fan of his philosophy attempts.
Francis Collins… I will check it out.
Actually I have read a little of Collins’ work. I will get back to you after getting a little more serious about reading him. What I recall is that he accepts evolution theory and places God at the beginning of it. That is all well and good, although I think it reveals an inner need for him to have God somewhere, and not evidence that God is there.
kcdad–In Mark 12:25, Jesus says “When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” Jesus talks about an afterlife, so why do you believe that this life is all there is?
“like the angels in heaven”… there is something to think about.
“Angel” means messenger. Heaven is not out there someplace but within us. So a messenger from heaven would be what?
“Rise from the dead” is another interesting phrase… it seems to me that for it to have any real meaning we must look at the metaphorical descriptions of being born again, being “alive in Christ” and other spiritual allusions about life on Earth. There is the idea that people are dead in their faith, or dead in their lives. Life has absolutely no meaning to me if this is some kind of kindergarten for the afterlife… it just doesn’t make any sense for God to put us in this absolute loony bin of a world for 1, 10, 40 or 80 years only to have eternity (which, by the way does not sound very interesting to me) to contemplate all of our friends and relatives roasting in hell. As far as hell goes, I can’t stand more than about a second of a burning match on my skin… what kind of God would allow His perfect good creation to endure that for 10 minutes, 10 days, 10 years or eternity?
So you think Jesus is saying, “When we become alive, we will be like messengers from someplace inside ourselves.” ?
Kcdad: Are you willing to concede that you cannot prove any of your assumptions about God, the afterlife, etc? Of course, I have to make the same concession, don’t I? Will you agree that everything that I believe about God and the afterlife (and mine is a Biblical faith) is by faith and not by scientific proof, etc? That being said, there is no point for either of us to argue our point of view. I can state my beliefs and, when I believe it is appropriate, I will; but I know that my statement of faith will not in anyway change your mind. I have a faith that believes that it is up to God to win that argument with you as He has with so many of us.
Janel: What is Wisdom that Proverbs and much of the Old Testament teachings are about? Does not Wisdom come within oneself? Know thyself. Educare… to draw out…
Turn your question around: When we find that message within ourselves we will become fully alive.
Sharon: Of course. That is why they are beliefs. I don’t have to explain why God doesn’t answer my prayers, however.
As to God convincing someone… don’t you think it is kinda weird that God wouldn’t just convince EVERYONE? What possible explanation is there that some people are just as convinced that Judaism or Islam or Christianity are the TRUE religion or that they are all just man made explanations of the “unknown”?
Don’t you think it is kinda strange that being born in America makes you much more likely to Christian than Jewish, while being born in the Middle East makes you just as likely to be Jewish or Muslim, or in India to be Hindu or in China to be Buddhist? Does God only reveal himself to Americans and those who countries were conquered by some vassal state of The Holy Roman Empire?
I studied various religions of the world when I was college and determined that I was not a Christian. I fancied myself quite the theologian as I formulated my own beliefs and couldn’t find a church where I fit (the closest was Unitarian). I would attend my home church with my family but refused to take communion because I no longer believed what it represented. I carried on in this state, which I thought was quite intellectual but now realize was just pompous, for several years. Then I met someone that you all know as CJ, but back then he was my coworker and friend.
Sharon, you said “I know that my statement of faith will not in any way change your mind”, which may be true in kcdad’s case, but CJ’s doing just that is what changed my mind. Actually, he didn’t just share his faith; he Socratized me, annoyed me, badgered me, and never gave up on me. He accused me of creating God in my own image instead of vice versa. He recommended books and discussed them with me, and he bought me a Bible that I could understand (I had read the Bible before but didn’t comprehend it).
I was raised by an extremely liberal leader in the Methodist church who taught adult Sunday School classes (no, kcdad is not my dad, but he’s very similar in a lot of ways). kcdad claims to be a follower of Christ, and so do I, and yet we have very different beliefs.