The minute we both realize we are in thoughts of fear we turn our hearts to God.

I pray for God to touch the hearts of all voters to do what is right in his eyes. I look at Obama and see evil. His position on abortion, on Israel, on taking away the fruits of ones labor for the government.

Often I just resort to thinking of different hymns about faith. I know that God will work all things (including the stupid evil of man) for good for those that love the Lord. So I have faith that what comes as long as I serve the Lord it will be fine.

I can withstand the evils of man as long as I kneel to Christ.

As for my thinking and beliefs about church and state, I think they are best summed up by the words of our LORD Himself:

Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

– John 18:36

AoS

http://www.everclearonline.com

I do not support the death penalty or abortion. In my opinion, no person has the right to take another human life. That’s how I equate them. (I do make an exception in the case of defending life, property and country.)

Which leads me to abortion. And frankly, it’s something I debate with myself quite often.

I would very much like to be pro-life. But I have to make exception for when the health of the mother is involved and in the case of rape.

I also can’t be pro-life because the government does not fully support or promote anything other than abstinence-only education. I think government supported contraception for males and females would go a long way in reducing our horrifying abortion rate in this country.

I appreciate the debate on this forum. (I appreciate being called ‘evil’ a bit less). But y’all have on more than one occasion caused me to really stop and re-evaluate my beliefs. And I sincerely appreciate that…and hope it makes be a better American.

The Khmer Rouge and Shining Path are terrorists groups in that they target innocent people. The goal does not matter all that much to me when the crosshairs are on the infant.

I don’t question Liberals’ sincerity in trying to improve this country, any more than I question the sincerity of the Khmer Rouge or Shining Path in wanting a more just and equitable future for their respective countrymen.

And I have just one question for the liberal commenters here — how can you not extend the same shadow-of-a-doubt to the humanity of an unborn child that you do to the guilt (or fitness of punishment) of a criminal on death row?

Is it because ACORN can register the latter to vote absentee?

it hits WAY too close to home

Not only of individuals, but of nations and governments.

We thank You for the privilege

Of being able to organize ourselves politically

And of knowing that political loyalty

Does not have to mean disloyalty to You.

We thank You for Your law,

Which our Founding Fathers acknowledged

And recognized as higher than any human law.

We thank You for the opportunity that this election year puts before us,

To exercise our solemn duty not only to vote,

But to influence countless others to vote,

And to vote correctly.

Lord, we pray that Your people may be awakened.

Let them realize that while politics is not their salvation,

Their response to You requires that they be politically active.

Awaken Your people to know that they are not called to be a sect fleeing the world

But rather a community of faith renewing the world.

Awaken them that the same hands lifted up to You in prayer

Are the hands that pull the lever in the voting booth;

That the same eyes that read Your Word

Are the eyes that read the names on the ballot,

And that they do not cease to be Christians

When they enter the voting booth.

Awaken Your people to a commitment to justice,

To the sanctity of marriage and the family,

To the dignity of each individual human life,

And to the truth that human rights begin when Human Lives Begin,

And not one moment later.

Lord, we rejoice today

That we are citizens of Your kingdom.

May that make us all the more committed

To being faithful citizens on earth.

We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

2006, if you don’t really know when a fetus becomes imbued with an eternal soul, then why would you not err on the side of caution?

That is a good point…I am pretty sure that a just-fertilized zygote doesn’t have one, an infant who was just born does. There is an area in between where I am not sure, and I am against abortion in the late term, except for with certain exceptions (life/health of mother, if a child has something like tay-sachs (that is a tough/depressing call), etc)

2 (daveinfla):Infantcide is killing a life, but an infant refers to someone after birth. This doesn’t answer the question, really. yes I would be appalled in the case of the Golden Retriever, and I would be even if you rippied open the stomach of a non-pregnant retriever. It is worse with the pregnant one…partially because we in our society in general accord a certain special status to pregnant people (/animals) and because there is the issue of who gets to control pregnancy (imho the mother).

3 (menlo) Yeah, this stuff is not measurable, but neither is questions like the truth of Christianity or Islam or whatever, and yet people base political opinions on that stuff all the time. When this stuff about a soul is the basic reason we consider murder to be bad, it is important when we ask whether a certain activity is murder.

4 (dolores the nurse): yeah, by definition…this raises an interesting question. if my soul existed since the beginning of time, then wouldn’t someone who had done something (inadvertently or not) to prevent my parents’ getting married also be responsible for murder by preventing me from ever gaining a body.

5 (aceintx) I was a fetus…but I was also a sperm/egg at a point. And if specifically that sperm and egg hadn’t met (one of the other sperm instead, for example) I wouldn’t be me, so you could say I wouldn’t exist. But to stop that from happening wouldn’t be murder.

6 (mikeo) I am willing to discuss, I have just been busy…first with dinner/poker (where I got a straight flush!) then with a trip last night where I didn’t have internet access, etc. So it took me awhile to get back, but here I am.

7 (aceintx) I am suspicious of such arguments. For example, think of some really unpleasant task…would you do it for $1 million (yes). for $1 (no). But at some point it switches. Same with this, if ending a pregnancy when it’s fertilized is evil, what about stopping the sperm and egg from meeting, how is it different from a moral point of view, you still stop the fetus from ever being born/having a life. Same with stopping two people form being married and having a kid.

10 (vegasrick) if yall care about ending abortion you shouldn’t call me such things…I am debating and am at least somewhat open on this, you should be trying to convince me, and saying such things will turn me off. If you want to ban people being against abortion you can, but since you don’t I will say what I think.

11 (Jaded)

if my mother had aborted me I wouldn’t be chatting with you right now

. Without going into too much detail, had the Holocaust not happened my grandparents would never have met and by extension I would not be chatting with you now. Does that mean it would be wrong to try and stop the Holocaust? Since stopping the Holocaust is good for other reasons which override my own personal interest, take the same question but what if some mundane event with no outside moral content had somehow indirectly caused my parents to meet, would stopping that event be evil?

12 (Tim) Yes I believe I have a soul. I am not sure when it entered my body.

13 (nogyro35) I do deny this “undeniable fact.” There have been crimes both ways…I have seen both on both RedState and Dkos. Their existence does not change the ideas. The fact that communists were oppressed by the Nazis doesn’t make the communists’ ideas right, or the Nazi’s racial ideas wrong (they were wrong for other reasons).

14 (mbecker908) Hitler did not…he considered using German children as human shields to engineer his own escape from advancing Allied forces. He was evil/nuts, same with the others. If I said “spit” people would accuse me of “tracking mud into this house” and ban me. I did not track in said mud.

I think I got all the stuff directed at me, so one more thing to add:

Rashi says life starts at birth (someone asked how one could be religious and think that…). The Torah has pretty stringent prohibitions on worshipping idols, but I don’t support laws against it. The Torah has pretty stringent prohibitions on murder, and I do support laws against it. A big difference is the idea of sins against God vs sins against other people. The latter should be stopped by the legal system, not the former. If fetuses are not people, like Rashi sez, (and this is me saying this not someone else), then an abortion is a sin against God and not against another human (how could it be against another human if a fetus isn’t considered a person yet?)

If I said something with no grammatical integrity or logic, it is possible because I am mad tired and was typing a lot, some of which I typed earlier and was cutting/pasting.

Finally, I want to invite c17wife to respond to all this, since it was her diary, I’d be interested in hearing her reaction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBX2ec7c81E