Mourdock: 2+2=5

[Grendeldef]

That is deeply sad. I don't put much stock in the dogma across different worldviews and faiths, but if I've ever found a singular goal that is truly worth structuring one's life around it is the striving for unconditional love. It's not how we actually live but it is how we should live.

No need to be sad. I'm fine with unconditional love but I find it disturbing when it's used either an excuse or justification for something that clearly isn't an action of love. I admit I'm a situational cynic but still unconditional is something that relieves one from responsibility.

G

 

[LightSpectra]

Pardon me for butting in, but do you really mean this? I mean, are you absolutely sure?

He really wasn't a very good theologian at all.

 

[Crezth]

Perhaps it's even capricious. Does that alleviate our capacity for or duty to love?

I think if God was capricious I would have no duty to love him whatsoever. But I don't believe that that alleviates a duty to my fellow persons.

The six or seven paragraphs of irrelevant strawmen of my position was highly amusing.

Perhaps you should do a better job representing your position. :/

Rape and abortion are both immoral things that God obviously tolerates, since they happen. That doesn't justify either one of them at all.

If you tolerate something, you condone it.

Tolerate: Allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference.

Condone: Accept and allow (behavior that is considered morally wrong or offensive) to continue.

Presumably if God did not condone rape, he would not allow it.

There's two ways to describe God's will: antecedent and moral. In the antecedent sense, anything that God wills will happen, since He is omnipotent; this is unavoidable. This includes evil. It is inconceivable that God did not know every single thing that would happen in the course of the universe the moment He created it. In the moral sense, God tolerates evil born from corrupted free will, but yet still desires that His subjects act rightly, both out of love for Him and love for each other.

I wouldn't describe that as moral in the least.

I believe in a God that has allowed just enough free will that evil is our own faults, yet all goods are of His doing. Call me stupid or deluded if you want.

As you just said, evil is entirely his fault, as without him granting us free will there would be no evil. There's no way he couldn't know about this, either, as you also just said. He made us with the perfect awareness that we would be cruel to each other.

 

[Borachio]

He really wasn't a very good theologian at all.

Well maybe not. But he did have many other qualities, and ways of thinking, that I found quite admirable.

And I'll take your word for it on the Catholic theology front. I simply wouldn't know.

From the little of it that you've explained here it seems such a dreadfully convoluted carry-on, that I'm quite glad I have nothing to do with it.

 

[Farm Boy]

I think if God was capricious I would have no duty to love him whatsoever. But I don't believe that that alleviates a duty to my fellow persons.

If you strive for unconditional love of your fellows then you already have the observable and harder half of Matthew 22:36-40 down. That seems pretty much to be the core of Christianity boiled down to a soundbite for convenient reading(and even self-labeled as such!). Perhaps if you love the world similarly you already love whatever notion of God a human can comprehend to the best of our abilities.

Well maybe not. But he did have many other qualities, and ways of thinking, that I found quite admirable.

And I'll take your word for it on the Catholic theology front. I simply wouldn't know.

From the little of it that you've explained here it seems such a dreadfully convoluted carry on, that I'm quite glad I have nothing to do with it.

You mentioned MLK whereas Light mentioned Martin Luther, are you certain you are talking about the same person?

 

[Grendeldef]

Unconditional love means loving others no matter their qualities, and putting their goods before your own. If it's true love, you can never stop loving somebody (else it was not genuine), but it still has a 'beginning'. A converted murderer starts loving unconditionally the moment he gives his life to God.

I accept the concept of unconditional love but I do not approve when it's used to justify things that are clearly in violation of someone's rights. A parent can love his/her child unconditionally but it doesn't justify his/her approval of child's actions if those are violating someone else's rights.

Surely unconditional love has a starting point but if unconditional love is what's the only requirement for a person for one's life being beneficial to the world means that if one is a true believer in one's deathbed one's life has been beneficial. Or should we weight one's action before & after the conversion to true believer to measure whether one's life was beneficial or not ? In this case I would assume that previous murders are worse than any good one could do on a limited time in a death row so one's life wasn't good for the world.

Even worse is if the murderer was a true believer while committing the killings. I can't accept that one's influence in the world was good regardless of what he or she may believe or love unconditionally.

G

 

[GhostWriter16]

That is what faith is. It's the only thing Martin Luther got right: it's believing that you will be saved the moment you need God the most, uttermost trust that He does unconditionally love you.

Pardon me for butting in, but do you really mean this? I mean, are you absolutely sure that MLK got nothing else right?

Of course he doesn't. Unless LightSpectra rejects the Trinity, that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist, that baptism has a role to play in Salvation, that paedobaptism is a good idea, that works do show a relationship with Christ, and other things.

(In italics are things that I do not believe in, but that LightSpecta and Martin Luther agree on.)

The differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, as big as they are, are smaller than the differences between the Church Fathers (Who would never have passed as Orthodox Catholics today BTW, although they weren't really straight up proto-Protestants either, from my limited knowledge which is mostly confined to the earlier, Ante-Nicene ones) and the earlier heresies.

 

[warpus]

Most of the antagonistic posts in this thread have been operating under the misunderstanding (to be generous; it's probably intentional by page 4) that "God allows evil to happen" and "God can derive good from evil" thus mean "God does/condones evil".

I'm just going by the quote in the OP

"And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."

So, again, how do we know that God didn't intend an abortion to happen, for example?

 

[dirtyparrot]

I don't think that the GOP is trying to have a war against women, rather they're broadly trying to impose religious doctrine on society as a whole. It just so happen that the world was rather misogynistic when the Bible was written and it's reflected in their beliefs today. These type of comments are what happens when you abdicate rational thought and rely solely on scriptures. It allows people to argue things without bringing sound arguments to back them up. And it forces them to try to square everything with the Bible and their belief in God. So, if they believe that God has a hand in everything, then have find a way to reason why the rape and subsequent pregnancy happened. Mourdock solution in this case, is to argue that all life as good. It's interesting to note that in most states, rapists have custody and visitation rights.

 

[civver_764]

That is what faith is. It's the only thing Martin Luther got right: it's believing that you will be saved the moment you need God the most, uttermost trust that He does unconditionally love you.

I'm struggling to make sense of this. When will I need God the most?

And on what grounds am I supposed to have this faith in the first place?

I would really appreciate an answer to these questions

 

[King Kalmah]

This guy is a ...he said god wanted it to happen(even the child born from the rape would be a reminder of the rape and not the "miracle of life")...

I am so confused...I hope he doesn't speak about his child abuse beliefs...(probably thinks they are needed to help the abused find god...backfired in my case...hate the guy....)

 

[FriendlyFire]

What the hell is wrong with you people?

1. Rape is bad.
2. All people have a right to life, even if conceived by rape (which, as aforementioned in 1, is bad).

Is it such an insanity for these two beliefs to coexist?

1. You cant get pregnant from being raped
2. You cant die from child birth complications

Is it such insanity that people hold this beliefs ?

 

[Leoreth]

I believe in a God that has allowed just enough free will that evil is our own faults, yet all goods are of His doing. Call me stupid or deluded if you want.

Wow, I would have never thought to see any Christian admit to the double standard of his religion so explicitly.

 

[Borachio]

Well, I'm all in favour of religious tolerance.

But it just looks like typical bonkers Christian thinking to me. (Not that that is exclusive to Christianity, mind you.) This crazy logic started for me with that whole Garden of Eden thing. It's just such an obvious set-up.

And, of course, as you all well know, I'm as bonkers as the next man.

 

[useless]

I always wondered, wasn't Mary also raped (just hear me out)?

She gave no consent to god, she had little say in the matter, god forced himself upon her (in whatever manner) and got her pregnant, ignoring whatever potential concerns she might have had.

Oh i forgot though, it's okay when god does it, herp a derp

oh and she was 12 at the time

 

[Borachio]

12?

But isn't it a case of Stockholm syndrome, or something?

Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes "strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other."

 

[GhostWriter16]

I always wondered, wasn't Mary also raped (just hear me out)?

She gave no consent to god, she had little say in the matter, god forced himself upon her (in whatever manner) and got her pregnant, ignoring whatever potential concerns she might have had.

Oh i forgot though, it's okay when god does it, herp a derp

oh and she was 12 at the time

Mary said "Let it be as you say", nevermind that it wasn't sex.

 

[useless]

There was still a lack of consent

 

[Crezth]

No, it's a spurious argument. She said "I am the Lord's servant." She was entirely willing.

 

[Borachio]

A typical abusive relationship then? Didn't you say something along those lines somewhere? Maybe it was somebody, or something, else.