Mr Dawkins carries on from where he left off last time, giving examples of a few of the quacks who claim to be 'Christians', its beginning to get boring now to be honest as I'm yet to find even one argument that even addresses what most Christians actually believe. Anyway despite this lets have a look at more claims made by Mr Dawkins.
While talking more about Randall Terry, Dawkins moves onto the case of Paul Hill who was part of a group known as the Army of God (AOG) who was responsible for killing the abortion doctor Dr John Britton and his bodyguard James Barrett in 1994. Now its clearly obvious that this guy was a bit odd especially since he made him self quite clear before the event that he saw no problem with murdering doctors. This is not only Un-Biblical, Un-Christlike but stupid logic, did he think killing doctors was a long term solution for solving the problem of mass abortion? I mean this is something that has gone too far to just be stopped over-night, its something socially engrained in western society and will take a much longer process to address. Following Jesus and loving our neighbour as ourselves is simply inconsistent with pre-meditated murder yet Dawkins makes it seem that this is commonplace and thinking among Pro-Life groups! This is quite the opposite in fact, 99% of Pro-Life groups are peaceful yet Mr Dawkins falls into the trap that the media often seem to do, giving a distorted view of the Pro-life movement which is not only untrue but unfair. The fact is these evil people would probably end up being killers regardless of what beliefs they held, they certainly don't represent Jesus when they take part in such evil. I can't say I've ever read the words of Jesus and wanted to kill people.
So how many people have right-wing extremist Pro-lifers been responsible for killing?
With all the rhetoric thrown out from the media and Dawkins himself..it must be in the millions right? Thousands at least, right? Well no in fact considering the size of the Pro-Life movement specifically in the USA (Around 140 Million) its ...ready for it...so far I've managed to find 7 since Roe vs Wade in 1973! Very interesting, 7 deaths in over 30 years committed by a crazy minority of people who called them selves Christian and Pro-Life yet within that same time 49 Million babies have been killed and several Pro-Lifers have been murdered this year alone. Now obviously those seven people were still valuable to God however to make it seem that this is the big problem its made out to be when compared to many other things is again unfair. It's interesting to see how many people have been influenced by the media and people like Dawkins to consider what is mostly a peaceful and loving group into some sort of evil and hateful group of people that all go around intimidating people, blowing up clinics and murdering doctors. Again evidence seems to fly in the face of more atheist rhetoric and if anything its the Pro-choice movement that has a lot to answer for.
Is Abortion just 'killing a microscopic cluster of cells' (The God Delusion, Pg 333) as Richard Dawkins likes to think or much more?
Dawkins attempts to separate the reality of what really is aborted by using language to dehumanise what exists in the womb. Although semantic arguments may be successful in affecting peoples perceptions they bare no effect on reality, a baby is a baby regardless of what names we give it, whether it be fetus, a cluster of cells, a blob of tissue etc doesn't change the fact that we were all once alive at that stage of development. It must be understood that people who believe that abortion is acceptable must avoid using the baby word at any cost because as Randy Alcorn points out 'anyone who is understood to be arguing for the right to kill babies is fighting an uphill battle.'
As I've pointed out in previous posts, before most women even know that they are pregnant the fetus (Latin - Little one) already possesses a heart that is pumping blood around it's tiny body, has a brain, limbs that are starting to take shape, and by 42 days the skeleton has been formed, yet this and more is often already there before the earliest abortions even take place. It seems unfair to label something in possession of this as just a 'cluster of cells' or maybe it's just me? Let me know your thoughts.
3 comments:
As part of our Summit study on worldviews, we watched an excellent speaker on the subject of abortion. He said that while the pro-choice people want to focus on the mother's rights, the real issue is whether what is being killed is human. His favorite retort to most rights-related arguments that are thrown at him is a technique he calls, "trot out the toddler." For example, if a pro-choicer says that the mother may not want to or be able to care for the child, you must ask, "So does this mean that the mother of a 2-year-old has the right to kill him, just because she doesn't want him anymore?"
Maybe I should do a post....
Sounds excellent, yeah its a great subject to blog on, cant be talked about enough to be honest. People need to hear a reasonable and coherent pro-life view!
Great post Dan. It's good to hear someone laying out a point by point rebuttal
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