... against Wettstein on Abortion and Sodomy, Chanaaneans and Old Age Pensions

[Did not have time to respond to each point while debate went on, and am now adding some responses as redactional comment to debate in this kind of square brackets.]

Paul Wettstein
[There are 11 profiles with that name on FB, btw.]

+Hans-Georg Lundahl so you decided to include me in your latest exchange. When it comes to morality, do you trust your judgement in regards to it. The bible contains a lot of commands that I find purely evil. It does advocate for slavery. It does command the deaths of countless people, including children under 10, It has no problem with punishing girls for not being virgins on their wedding night; a verdict that results in their deaths. Do you find any of this morally good? If you say yes because your god commands it, we are in complete disagreement. If your god gave you a command that you disagreed with because you knew it was wrong, would you still do it? Please be honest. Don't come back and say there is no command that your god would give you that could be immoral. If you are considering doing so, remember that your god commanded his followers to kill infants. Your god is not the ultimate moral authority. I reject that entire idea as a human being who actually cares about other human beings.

If you don't trust your moral judgement, how can you determine whether or not your god is at all moral?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"so you decided to include me in your latest exchange."

Since Mr. Stu Vinyl started it by commenting adversely on my polite farewell to you, how could I not?

He could just push the button "show all comments" and see the debate between us anyway.

"When it comes to morality, do you trust your judgement in regards to it."

Yes.

"The bible contains a lot of commands that I find purely evil."

If true, that is if you were right, what about this STILL not giving an Evolution a chance of being origin of our morality?

Or if it were, why would you trust your moral intuitions to be valid for someone whose evolutionary path diverges slightly from yours?

Now, when we go to examples, it seems you have been a somewhat sloppy reader.

"It does advocate for slavery."

No, not in the sense of slave hunt on up to now innocent and free people.

It does advocate for a slave owner to keep or free his slaves at his discretion and gives him incentives to free them. This includes situations of buying slaves hunted down by others - or of dealing with slaves born in your household. It also includes indentured servitude which on some conditions can change from 7 years to lifelong.

Or could during OT.

"It does command the deaths of countless people, including children under 10,"

The Bible does NOT command us to repeat what God ordered to be done to Amalechites (and some other nations in the time of Joshua, including one population probably of giants rather than normally built humans). That was OT, a very Barbaric age in which God's people had to survive locally. In Holy Land. From Matthew 28, as indeed from Babylonian captivity, this is no longer the case, totally. Hence a very great change of orders : "make disciples of all nations" = kill off no nation, since a killed off nation can't be Christ's disciple.

"It has no problem with punishing girls for not being virgins on their wedding night; a verdict that results in their deaths."

In case they were pretended to be, yes. ALSO for OT use only, not applicable during last 2000 or so years.

The reason was that the genealogy of Christ should not be contaminated, and Israelite women were in the time of Moses potentially ancestresses of Him.

No longer so now. So, it is not just a matter of personal purity, but of fornication being in those old cases a form of sacrilege.

"Do you find any of this morally good?"

If seen in the right context, yes.

"If you say yes because your god commands it, we are in complete disagreement. If your god gave you a command that you disagreed with because you knew it was wrong, would you still do it?"

God could not give an immoral command.

"Please be honest."

I am.

"Don't come back and say there is no command that your god would give you that could be immoral. If you are considering doing so, remember that your god commanded his followers to kill infants."

Nowhere for their own sins. Some places together with their criminal parents. You hang ONE bad guy, you send his boys to foster homes. You kill THOUSANDS of bad guys, all of same people, foster care is no good if applied on that scale.

Sooner or later thousands of foster children would have had to hear "we killed your real parents because they were bad people". Think of SOME traumas now, when foster children whose real parents were executed have to hear that, on that scale of foster care, certainly very MANY would have been traumatised beyond any respect for the Israelites religion, and they would have had internal war. As said, the named situation cannot occur now, God is no longer ordering the slaughter of ANY nation.

"Your god is not the ultimate moral authority."

That was actually not the issue on this thread. But as you bring it up, yes He is.

"I reject that entire idea as a human being who actually cares about other human beings."

And I accept it as a man who cares for mankind.

"If you don't trust your moral judgement, how can you determine whether or not your god is at all moral?"

A fine dilemma, if that had been the case.

And a fine diversion from the problem whether morality can have arisen with universal validity (as you obviously claim for your moral judgements) without there being a God behind its ontology.

Of course, the God behind its ontology would also be the ultimate authority.

And if, as I have, one has a reason to identify that God with the God of the Bible, one has also an excellent reason not to be hasty when dismissing the morality of this God.

Obviously, some of the solutions are ONLY applicable because I accept that the New Testament, including Matthew 28 and Letter to Philemon, are canonic.

I don't know what Jewry, rejecting these books, would answer, and that is not my task to provide either.

Stu Vinyl

+Hans-Georg Lundahl LMAO

Paul Wettstein

+Hans-Georg Lundahl

Since Mr. Stu Vinyl started it by commenting adversely on my polite farewell to you, how could I not? Hans

You chose to defend it using me. You didn’t have to. I would have preferred you didn’t. TAO

He could just push the button "show all comments" and see the debate between us anyway. Hans

Yes, he could have done that. TAO

Yes. Hans

OK, if you say so…… :/ TAO

If true, that is if you were right, what about this STILL not giving an Evolution a chance of being origin of our morality? Hans

Evolution is multi-faceted. it isn’t just about physical changes. It encompasses far more than just that. Evolution is not about the inception of life. It describes the diversity of life. The cause of life is still being explored. Not yet having an answer does not equivocate to “god did it.” TAO

Or if it were, why would you trust your moral intuitions to be valid for someone whose evolutionary path diverges slightly from yours? Hans

I have to trust my own moral intuitions, otherwise it’s meaningless. It isn’t up to me to force others to follow what I think is morally good, although a number of members of the Christian and Muslim religions seem to think so. As individuals and as cultures, we do not always agree on what is moral. I don’t see having sex before marriage as a problem between consenting partners, but others do. If I don’t like how a culture practices certain codes, I avoid the nations where that culture has authority. That doesn’t mean I discriminate against its people as I know not all of them necessarily agree with their cultures codes and values. Even if they did, I would still do what I can to treat them with basic human decency, at the very least. TAO

Now, when we go to examples, it seems you have been a somewhat sloppy reader. Hans

That is your opinion, nothing more. I disagree with your assessment. All you have done is provided baseless apologetics. TAO

No, not in the sense of slave hunt on up to now innocent and free people. It does advocate for a slave owner to keep or free his slaves at his discretion and gives him incentives to free them. This includes situations of buying slaves hunted down by others - or of dealing with slaves born in your household. It also includes indentured servitude which on some conditions can change from 7 years to lifelong. Hans

The 7 year contract is for Hebrews ONLY. That didn’t extend to slaves purchased from the heathens, as the bible puts it. How those slaves were acquired by the heathens is not relevant. Exodus 21:16 was a law for the Hebrews and only the Hebrews. You can’t go into other countries and enforce your laws on them. Oh wait. that’s exactly what Christians did for 1400+ years. TAO

[Not by endorsing slavery that way, no.]

Or could during OT. Hans

Matthew 5:18 Not one jot nor tittle of the law has changed until all has come to pass.

[For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled.]

No, this is not simply referring to ceremonial laws. It refers to them all. TAO

[He is getting the Catholic distinctions between what is still there and what is gone backwards. Ceremonial laws were among the bygone things.

Haydock comment to previous verse: Ver. 17. Not to destroy the law, &c. It is true, by Christ's coming, a multitude of ceremonies and sacrifices, and circumcision, were to cease; but the moral precepts were to continue, and to be complied with, even with greater perfection. (Witham) --- To fulfil. By accomplishing all the figures and prophecies, and perfecting all that was imperfect. (Challoner) --- Our Saviour speaks in this manner, to prepare the minds of the Jews for his new instructions. For although they were not very solicitous about fulfilling the law, still they were extremely jealous of any change being made in the letter of the law; more particularly, if the proposed change exacted a more perfect morality. Our Lord fulfilled the law three several ways: 1. By his obedience to the prescribed rites; therefore he says, it behoveth us to fulfil all justice: and who shall accuse me of sin? 2. He observes the law, not only by his own observance of it, but likewise by enabling us to fulfil it. It was the wish of the law to make man just, but found itself too weak; Christ therefore came justifying man, and accomplished the will of the law. 3. He fulfilled the law, by reducing all the precepts of the old law to a more strict and powerful morality. (St. Chrysostom, hom. xvi.)

If you check context, some judicial laws are also no longer valid. Those which do not induce to justice per se, but rather accomodate to our weakness, some of them are gone.]

The Bible does NOT command us to repeat what God ordered to be done to Amalechites (and some other nations in the time of Joshua, including one population probably of giants rather than normally built humans). That was OT, a very Barbaric age in which God's people had to survive locally. In Holy Land. From Matthew 28, as indeed from Babylonian captivity, this is no longer the case, totally. Hence a very great change of orders : "make disciples of all nations" = kill off no nation, since a killed off nation can't be Christ's disciple. Hans

you are evading the point. In the bible, your god DID order the deaths of small children. You cannot deny this The bible, in my opinion, is a terrible moral guide. TAO

In case they were pretended to be, yes. Hans

When the punishment for a girl not being a virgin before marriage is so severe, it is no wonder they would be hesitant to confess that. I find it immoral that not being a virgin is cause for such a brutal death. In my opinion, I find you and your god profoundly lacking morally. There was no test of virginity for males, only females. To suggest that women had equal rights in the bible is demonstrably untrue. TAO

ALSO for OT use only, not applicable during last 2000 or so years. Hans

and again, Matthew 5:18. TAO

The reason was that the genealogy of Christ should not be contaminated, and Israelite women were in the time of Moses potentially ancestresses of Him. Hans

So....? Why should I care about that? TAO

[But he sure seems to care about the consequence of that!]

No longer so now. So, it is not just a matter of personal purity, but of fornication being in those old cases a form of sacrilege. Hans

Purity is of the mind. I don't accept that sex diminishes that. What consenting parties do is not your business, and it especially should not not be the concern of any religion/god. TAO

[A mind occupied by perversion has not same purity as one occupied by real sex, which has not same purity as one not occupied by sex OR perversions.]

If seen in the right context, yes. Hans

What context justifies mass killings? do you mean that your god's law is absolutely moral and should simply be accepted without question? Nonsense. If you think that you cannot possibly be certain of your own moral judgments. TAO

God could not give an immoral command. Hans

so anything your god commands is moral? The elimination of millions of people is morally good simply on the basis of disbelief in your god? I don’t find that to be moral at all. In the story of Job, your god and the devil conspire to test Job’s faith. They do this by causing all sorts of death and suffering. I don’t care what the point was supposed to be. The methods were atrocious and yes, in my opinion, profoundly immoral. TAO

[Who says any of the Chanaanite nations were millions? They practised contraceptions and could have been rather small.]

Nowhere for their own sins. Some places together with their criminal parents. You hang ONE bad guy, you send his boys to foster homes. You kill THOUSANDS of bad guys, all of same people, foster care is no good if applied on that scale. Sooner or later thousands of foster children would have had to hear "we killed your real parents because they were bad people". Hans

Again, you evade the point and what do you define as bad? I would see an abusive person as being bad. Where’s your barometer? Yes, I am sure you will quote, “spare the rod, spoil the child” The problem with that is some people, some of them being god fearing Christians, don’t see a problem with beating the hell out their kids for spilling some milk. Some would consider a person having sex outside of marriage as a bad person. Should they be killed for it? The bible says “YES!” I say that’s stupid. TAO

[Totally different point. As if answering thousand of other conversations, not looking at mine.]

Think of SOME traumas now, when foster children whose real parents were executed have to hear that, on that scale of foster care, certainly very MANY would have been traumatised beyond any respect for the Israelites religion, and they would have had internal war. As said, the named situation cannot occur now, God is no longer ordering the slaughter of ANY nation. Hans

You are losing your focus. Taking a comparatively small number of people and equivocating that to an entire nation’s poulation is just not reasonable. It would be like saying all Italians are connected with the Mafia or all Russian people are communists or all Japanese people are predisposed to being Kamikaze pilots.

What if you are wrong about your god not ordering the slaughter of entire peoples. Hitler was clearly delusional, but he believed his god, that being the Christian god, was on his side. I don’t think it was but for the reason that I don’t believe it exists, not because it wouldn’t side with Hitler. Since the Jews were supposedly your god’s “chosen”, this mindset makes no sense. Other Christians are seeing themselves as soldiers for god. If your god is as loving and peaceful as some Christians like to claim, what would he need soldiers for yet some Christians think that a holy war is necessary. Your religion’s endgame isn’t salvation, it’s death and the bible makes that quite clear TAO

That was actually not the issue on this thread. But as you bring it up, yes He is. Hans

Once again, that is your opinion. TAO

And I accept it as a man who cares for mankind. Hans

I am not sure how you can say that given you think that there is context for the mass killing of countless people on the accusation of crimes they, as individuals may not have even committed. The idea of innocent until proven guilty is a modern secular one. It certainly doesn’t come from Christianity. TAO

And a fine diversion from the problem whether morality can have arisen with universal validity (as you obviously claim for your moral judgements) without there being a God behind its ontology.

Of course, the God behind its ontology would also be the ultimate authority. Hans

Since you can’t demonstrate your god in any truly meaningful way, I have no good reason to accept it. I don’t see morality having a universal validity. You do in the guise of your god.

[My God or other god, I have truly meaningfully demonstrated or rather let him do so, that he, Paul Wettstein, can neither motivate a universally valid morality as pure result of evolution, nor leave off invoking one as precisely universally valid when condemning mine.]

In the most general terms, morality is subjective as the laws we make and ultimately change as our morals change, for better or for worse. TAO

[Better or worse is meaningful as applied to changes of morality. Better or worse according to which one of the moralities?]

And if, as I have, one has a reason to identify that God with the God of the Bible, one has also an excellent reason not to be hasty when dismissing the morality of this God. Hans

I dismiss any god that advocates for cruelty. In the bible, such cruelty is brutally apparent. I don’t believe in your god and I don’t accept its pathetic excuse for a moral code. TAO

[Sometimes exceptionally using cruelty to cruel people and advocating for cruelty is distinct.]

Obviously, some of the solutions are ONLY applicable because I accept that the New Testament, including Matthew 28 and Letter to Philemon, are canonic. Hans

and again, Matthew 5:18. TAO

I don't know what Jewry, rejecting these books, would answer, and that is not my task to provide either. Hans

No, it’s not and it should’nt ever be.

Now I am done. I know you don’t agree. I am sure you are going to claim that I am taking the bible out of context. Truth is that it is again only your opinion. Debate over. .TAO

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"I have to trust my own moral intuitions, otherwise it’s meaningless."

I am not objecting to your doing so for your own life, as long as it doesn't involve crimes, including those illegal currently most jurisdictions and including those alas legalised, like sodomy, abortion etc.

I was ASKING, if evolution were the cause of YOUR morality and of MINE, if evolutionary paths have diverged, why would YOUR morality be valid for ME? Or anyone except yourself, that is.

"Taking a comparatively small number of people and equivocating that to an entire nation’s poulation is just not reasonable. It would be like saying all Italians are connected with the Mafia or all Russian people are communists or all Japanese people are predisposed to being Kamikaze pilots."

I am not EQUIVOCATING, I am DISTINGUISHING situations. Would be nice if you had had the patience to see where my argument went before answering, that's why I'm short now.

"I don’t see morality having a universal validity."

You don't seem to lessen the validity lower than universal, since you presume (rightly) that I would be horrified about killing ALL of a people because just SOME were horrid criminals.

The point about Canaaneans is ALL were involved in certain crimes, including killing children under ten while finding no fault with their parents, just as sacrifice to their gods. Or demons.

"What if you are wrong about your god not ordering the slaughter of entire peoples. Hitler was clearly delusional, but he believed his god, that being the Christian god, was on his side. I don’t think it was but for the reason that I don’t believe it exists, not because it wouldn’t side with Hitler."

Supposing Hitler really tried to kill off all Jews (but there are two opinions on that), such an attempt would have been DOUBLY against the Christian God of a Catholic Bible which included and includes Matthew 28 and Apocalypse 11.

• 1) He would have been flouting the commission given the Apostles by withdrawing one nation (if succeeding) from their missionary efforts;
• 2) He would have tried to kill off Jews before the mass conversion prophecied for I recall 7000 men with women and children that day when the two witnesses are raised from dead and raised up to heaven before many witnesses.

Your analysis of Hitler is totally irrelevant for how to judge Christians.

Paul Wettstein

+Hans-Georg Lundahl

I am not objecting to your doing so for your own life, as long as it doesn't involve crimes, including those illegal currently most jurisdictions and including those alas legalised, like sodomy, abortion etc.

What you consider illegal* or not is nothing more than opinion so I will break this down into the two subjects you brought up:

• 1. any sex act that is performed among CONSENTING partners is none of your fucking business. If your god did not want humans to do that, he could have made us in a way that this attraction did not even exist. The FACT is that it does as it does among most, if not all animals, and we ARE animals
  
  
• 2. Abortion is NOT a black and white issue. Christians are WRONG in this. What makes the hypocrisy complete is that in the United States, and especially in republican controlled regions, most abortions are had by CHRISTIANS. Again, why a woman wants, or often enough requires, an abortion, is not your business. A ten year old impregnated because of a gang rape gets to have an abortion. I don’t really give a flying fuck if you disagree. To suggest, as some have, that the pregnancy is a gift from god is, from my perspective, atrociously immoral!!!!
  
  Spare me the free will argument. Our free will is limited to our specific circumstances. If you actually stop and take a look at the people around you, you might see what I mean. TAO

I was ASKING, if evolution were the cause of YOUR morality and of MINE, if evolutionary paths have diverged, why would YOUR morality be valid for ME? Or anyone except yourself, that is. Hans

I tried to explain that. Evolution involves more than physical changes. Different circumstances cause different reactions. I never said my morality would have to valid for you. You have to decide that for yourself. Yes, evolution, or more precisely, the social aspect of evolution is the cause of our morality TAO

[Perhaps, on his view, a subjective one - but why should his subjective morality apply to me?]

I am not EQUIVOCATING, I am DISTINGUISHING situations. Would be nice if you had had the patience to see where my argument went before answering, that's why I'm short now. Hans

And yet you don’t seem to understand why different cultures evolve differently in a social sense, TAO

[He was not quizzing me on historic understanding of it, he was just making points and I was answering them.]

You don't seem to lessen the validity lower than universal, since you presume (rightly) that I would be horrified about killing ALL of a people because just SOME were horrid criminals. Hans

And yet that is EXACTLY what your god’s followers tried to do to several nations of people. You should be horrified but you clearly are not.

[If I had believed that only some were guilty, as opposed to all and everyone above a certain age, I would not condone the mass killings. But the one reason I have to believe these happened is the same Bible in which God also says that these NATIONS - not just some in them, but the nations as such - were guilty.]

There is no absolute moral code so there is nothing there to lessen. I know you claim that your god is the epitome of such a code but so what? It’s only a claim based on what you believe. TAO

[Shifting the point. + Misunderstanding rhetoric. When he says "there is no universal moral code" he is of course lessening the validity of all moralities including his own below universal, but in the next breath he adds an innuendo attacking and in the previous paragraph he directly attacked my belief that God is epitome of universal morality, and, he did so on MORAL grounds, that is he was, as I said, REFUSING to lessen the validity of morality - at least the one he believes in - below universal.]

The point about Canaaneans is ALL were involved in certain crimes, including killing children under ten while finding no fault with their parents, just as sacrifice to their gods. Or demons. Hans

You are making an accusation without foundation. How do you know ALL Canaanites agreed with the practices of their culture? You don’t. As for sacrificing children to different gods or demons, I don’t like that at all but your god’s solution was to kill the children too. It seems to me that the children were effectively doomed to lose their lives either way. Sorry but that is a pathetic attempt at a justification. TAO

[With Israelites, no children were doomed to grow up knowing they could have been sacrificed by their own parents.]

Your analysis of Hitler is totally irrelevant for how to judge Christians. Hans

I wasn’t trying to use Hitler to judge all Christians but you certainly have been doing that concerning people you absolutely nothing about save what that stupid bible has to say about it. I also acknowledged that Hitler doing that would go against what the bible says about the Jews being your god`s chosen, You need not repeat a point back at me that I already made.

You need to keep in mind that most of the German army and the Nazis were CHRISTIANS and the several major factions of Christianity, and not just in Germany and Italy, are guilty of duplicity where the persecution of the Jews is concerned. To enforce the point above concerning the Canaanites, do you blame ALL Christians for this duplicity? Of course not!

Do you realize that there are a number of Christians who deny the Jewish Holocaust altogether? You should look up Pastor Stephen Anderson. He likes the media attention. He has been banned entry from at least two countries, those being England and South Africa. Like you, he sees sodomy as a crime too. He sees it as a capital one.

I don’t believe in your Jesus story. I don’t believe it happened that way at all. I am not about to take the words of people who have the comparative education of 18th century 6 year old and accept that as truth. Many witnesses? Spare me. Where is your list of witnesses so I can cross examine them? You don’t have that? NO, of course not because it DOES NOT EXIST. 7000 men? Are you sure? Where did you get that number from? The bible? Whatever! I have no good reason to believe that ever happened but some time along the way in your life, someone, a HUMAN, has convinced you that it did. TAO

* [Note his choice of words, for future reference, illegal he said.]

[He does not understand that:

• The conversion of the 7000 is sth which has not happened yet;
• but will happen, according to the prophecy in Apocalypse 11;
• and that therefore if Hitler was really trying to kill off all Jews, he was flouting what God had in store for them and still has in store for them, and can therefore not be considered a Bible believing Christian. Which is also true on other accounts.

Also, he considers beating the Jew on the nose because he is a usurer (individually and taking that Jew or at worst a neighbour of his) or executing him because of an attack on Christianity is "persecution of Jews." And no, Jews as they are while rejecting Christ are not God's chosen people, the Catholic Church is.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"What you consider illegal or not is nothing more than opinion"

Not at all.

I am aware sodomy and some abortion are legalised, that is, in most current jurisdictions not punished as crime.

Calling them crimes does not at all mean they are "illegal" in the wordly view, you have NOTHING to break down for me.

I might or might not go and answer the rest later.

[I had no time before now after debate redacting.]

Paul Wettstein

+Hans-Georg Lundahl yes, it is opinion but any opinion can become law based on the attitudes of the governing body in question.

For a long time it was the opinion of many white American Christians that marrying outside the white race was intolerable. The opinion was popular enough to incite a vote to make it illegal. That has changed because the attitudes and opinions of people changed. The same can be said for same sex marriage and the resulting consummation by consenting partners.

The bible is wrong in this and yes that is my opinion. It is pretty clear what your opinion is.

[If he meant it was "his opinion" it would be meaningless to say anything or anyone other were wrong for having an oppposed opinion. Opinion is like taste. If you like hazelnut ice cream more than strawberry ice cream, you can't argue anyone is "wrong" for liking strawberry ice cream more than hazelnut ice cream.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"yes, it is opinion"

If that is what you meant, you were obviously not saying it was my opinion about what was legal, but about what is right. Unless you were very confused about what I had said.

"but any opinion can become law based on the attitudes of the governing body in question"

Well, duh, in that case you are undercutting your opposition to the deeds of Moses (Numbers 31) and Joshua. They were the governing body of Israel back then!

"For a long time it was the opinion of many white American Christians that marrying outside the white race was intolerable."

You mean, perhaps, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants? I happen to be Catholic and to consider those legislations immoral. But as I think there is a God behind morality, as such, and not just a government or a personal hunch of me or you, I can say God has condemned that legislation as far as both contrahents are baptised (or neither is) and that this legislation was an evil, morally non-obliging one, fulfilling 1 Tim 4:3. Here is the passage:

[1] Now the Spirit manifestly saith, that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils, [2] Speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared, [3] Forbidding to marry, to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful, and by them that have known the truth. [4] For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving: [5] For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

In other words, there is such a thing as Orthodoxy, and those WASPs were as little Orthodox as Hitler was about Matthew 28 or Apocalypse 11!

Also, you might want to ask yourself how long that time was even among Protestants! I suspect it started after Evolution started promoting Eugenics and therefore also Racialism.

"The opinion was popular enough to incite a vote to make it illegal. That has changed because the attitudes and opinions of people changed."

In this case recovering from a recent, immoral and antichristian fad.

"The same can be said for same sex marriage and the resulting consummation by consenting partners."

Not comparable. A black and a white person of opposite sex will (usually and fortunately) if married to each other produce children. Sodomy, even if promoted into "marriage" won't. Ever.

No babies = no adults of same family when "couple" gets old. Same is true of infertile couples, but not the fault of their choice (unless a man chooses a wife never having had children and of thirty or above, in that case it is his fault if she's sterile). No adults of same family when couple gets old = no care for the oldies by their own.

Extend this to the population of a nation, and you see the disaster that is looming!

Btw, I'll revisit some of your arguments from pervious now:

"any sex act that is performed among CONSENTING partners is none of your fucking business."

Will you back that up next time sn speaks of statutory rape, especially if there was also a marriage ceremony? As with the case in Texas with FLDS being raided by child protective services over that?

As for your applying this to sodomy, I go with MISTER Clinton on his famous excuse against perjury "that is not sex" - he was totally right on that one!

"If your god did not want humans to do that, he could have made us in a way that this attraction did not even exist"

Well, for the sex act, I agree. But since a sex act is apt to produce children, one should marry first. And since marriage is for this usually fertile act, sodomy can't be elevated to marital status.

"The FACT is that it does as it does among most, if not all animals, and we ARE animals"

Are you considering bacteria as animals? They don't do the sex act. They reproduce in another way.

"Abortion is NOT a black and white issue."

No, it's a blood red one.

"Christians are WRONG in this."

No.

"What makes the hypocrisy complete is that in the United States, and especially in republican controlled regions, most abortions are had by CHRISTIANS."

You mean Protestant families, where married families would be ashamed if their daughter married same age as Eleanor of Aquitaine or St Bridget (13 for both)?

Again, such Protestants (like those refusing racially mixed marriages) are fulfilling the prophecy of St Paul of end time Gnosticism.

"Again, why a woman wants, or often enough requires, an abortion, is not your business."

It actually is my business to ask why she is desperate, unless she's 30, has her 10th abortion because of a carreer. A girl of 13 does NOT chose abortion, she is pressured into it by parents, peers, teachers, if not outright medical personnel. I read a story of one who resisted 5 weeks before giving in.

"A ten year old impregnated because of a gang rape gets to have an abortion. I don’t really give a flying fuck if you disagree. To suggest, as some have, that the pregnancy is a gift from god is, from my perspective, atrociously immoral!!!!"

The pregnancy, as such, is. Her child is NOT guilty if its father's crime. And her being ten is no indication she should abort, girls as young as nine have born children without either Caesarian or complications.

The culprit 1 is the rape gang. The culprit 2 is her parents not wanting her to have the baby (as in Brasil, when the culprit 1 was an incestuous uncle).

"Spare me the free will argument. Our free will is limited to our specific circumstances. If you actually stop and take a look at the people around you, you might see what I mean."

Oh, I was not saying SHE could have avoided pregnancy. But she still could have avoided abortion, except she was surrounded by a modern and barbaric society. Of which it is hypocritical to even criticise killings in OT 1500 years before Jesus was born.

"I tried to explain that. Evolution involves more than physical changes. Different circumstances cause different reactions. I never said my morality would have to valid for you. You have to decide that for yourself. Yes, evolution, or more precisely, the social aspect of evolution is the cause of our morality"

That makes your every criticism of my morality totally worthless - since you deny the universal validity of the only morality from which you criticise it.

I'm not sure I'll return to the rest of your rigmarole!

Paul Wettstein

+Hans-Georg Lundahl

If that is what you meant, you were obviously not saying it was my opinion about what was legal, but about what is right. Unless you were very confused about what I had said. Hans

What you define as right is nothing more than OPINION! TAO

Well, duh, in that case you are undercutting your opposition to the deeds of Moses (Numbers 31) and Joshua. They were the governing body of Israel back then! Hans

Duh yourself I expressed that because I had no good reason to believe you understood that. That the characters you mentioned may have been part of one government of many that existed around the world is hardly relevant. You are arrogant indeed to assume that the one you prefer has precedence over the others. It didn`t. Most other nations back then weren`t even aware that the Hebrews even existed any more than the Hebrews knew of them. TAO

You mean, perhaps, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants? I happen to be Catholic and to consider those legislations immoral. But as I think there is a God behind morality, as such, and not just a government or a personal hunch of me or you, I can say God has condemned that legislation as far as both contrahents are baptised (or neither is) and that this legislation was an evil, morally non-obliging one, fulfilling 1 Tim 4:3. Here is the passage:

[1] Now the Spirit manifestly saith, that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils, [2] Speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared, [3] Forbidding to marry, to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful, and by them that have known the truth. [4] For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving: [5] For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

In other words, there is such a thing as Orthodoxy, and those WASPs were as little Orthodox as Hitler was about Matthew 28 or Apocalypse 11!

Also, you might want to ask yourself how long that time was even among Protestants! I suspect it started after Evolution started promoting Eugenics and therefore also Racialism. Hans

Racialism? Are you fucking kidding me? You really think the Catholics were innocent of racism? You are blind, guy. Just blind! There are plenty of Catholics who are racist or have you forgotten the Second World War? Racism existed LONG before Eugenics, by the way TAO

In this case recovering from a recent, immoral and antichristian fad. Hans

That is ONLY your opinion. You thin it’s a fad? Wow delusional much? TAO

Not comparable. A black and a white person of opposite sex will (usually and fortunately) if married to each other produce children. Sodomy, even if promoted into "marriage" won't. Ever.

Yes they are comparable. Not all partnerships require reproduction. There are numerous heterosexual couples who don’t have children, or can’t because one or both are infertile. Are you suggesting that people can’t be married if they can’t produce progeny? Ridiculous!! Also, to suggest that same sex couples can’t properly raise children is pure ignorance on your part. TAO

No babies = no adults of same family when "couple" gets old. Same is true of infertile couples, but not the fault of their choice (unless a man chooses a wife never having had children and of thirty or above, in that case it is his fault if she's sterile). No adults of same family when couple gets old = no care for the oldies by their own.

Extend this to the population of a nation, and you see the disaster that is looming! Hans

That just does not happen. You are projecting something isn’t going to happen. You clearly do NOT understand evolution. TAO

Will you back that up next time sn speaks of statutory rape, especially if there was also a marriage ceremony? As with the case in Texas with FLDS being raided by child protective services over that? Hans

Statutory rape was designed to protect minors against the sexual manipulations of adults. The law basically states that a minor cannot reasonably consent to sex. This gauge varies from place to place but come on, a 50 year old adult with a 10 year old child? What the hell is wrong with you? The church is NOT above state laws in the United States and that is FACT. Your opinion on it is entirely irrelevant. TAO

As for your applying this to sodomy, I go with MISTER Clinton on his famous excuse against perjury "that is not sex" - he was totally right on that one! Hans

He was just using that to escape having to take responsibility. If you say sodomy isn’t sex then maybe the church should stop treating it as a sex crime, which it does. TAO

[It is a crime against sex, alright. It is a perversion of sex. It is just not sex in the natural and good and correct sense of the word.]

Well, for the sex act, I agree. But since a sex act is apt to produce children, one should marry first. And since marriage is for this usually fertile act, sodomy can't be elevated to marital status. Hans

That is, again, ONLY your opinion. The fact that it has in numerous places around the world makes your opinion invalid. TAO

[Here he is saying each and any government is naming things validly. Or if not, he is at least not the least clarifying how that does not follow. If so, his condemnation of Hitler régime and of Moses are of course illogical.]

Are you considering bacteria as animals? They don't do the sex act. They reproduce in another way.Hans

Bacteria are neither plant nor animal but that does change the fact All natural reproduction is sexual in some form, and yes, in plants too. You clearly have no concept of biology past grade 2. TAO

[My point was that he had spoken of a sex act as occurring in SOME animals. His memory of what he had just said ...]

No, it's a blood red one.Hans

yeah and it is the blood of many women who have suffered and died because of religious restrictions but you don’t care what happens to them at all, do you. If you think that women are using abortion only as a birth control method you are fucking wrong!! TAO

[I was making a distinction between women enjoying an adult status and still chosing abortion, and teens since recently not enjoying it and being forced to abort. As for blood of women dying in botched abortions, that still happens, even with legal ones, and it is not the duty of a state to make a crime safe by making it legal and subsidised.]

No. Hans

Yes, they are, or at least the one that don’t think, but believe, as you do.TAO

[Believing is a species of thinking and so there are no two groups. Any group is by the way both thinking and using own reflection as well as believing authority of - in the orthodox case - God.]

You mean Protestant families, where married families would be ashamed if their daughter married same age as Eleanor of Aquitaine or St Bridget (13 for both)? Hans

No, that really isn’t why. TAO

[He shows a little later he is himself that kind of Protestant, even if no longer Christian.]

Again, such Protestants (like those refusing racially mixed marriages) are fulfilling the prophecy of St Paul of end time Gnosticism. Hans

So what? Again, you think that Catholics can’t be racist? You must live in a bubble. TAO

[Time after time, arguing with a Catholic defender of Christian morality, he is forgetting this Catholic defender of Christian morality is not defending Protestant Morality. BUT whenever this Catholic defender tries to remind him of this, he takes this as a claim Catholics are always BEHAVING better. Which was not exactly my claim.]

It actually is my business to ask why she is desperate, unless she's 30, has her 10th abortion because of a carreer. A girl of 13 does NOT chose abortion, she is pressured into it by parents, peers, teachers, if not outright medical personnel. I read a story of one who resisted 5 weeks before giving in. Hans

No, it isn’t your business and if you did that to someone you should expect them to tell you to “MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS, ASSHOLE!” Women who have had 10 abortions? I guess you are including the morning after pill as abortion? TAO

[I do that too, as with "side effects" or the more lethal effect of the other pill, but there are women in certain carreers who do abort - your sense - time after time to keep them.]

The pregnancy, as such, is. Her child is NOT guilty if its father's crime. And her being ten is no indication she should abort, girls as young as nine have born children without either Caesarian or complications. Hans

No I never said it was, but you are not showing her, or any woman for that matter, any compassion either. That you don’t think she should have an abortion is ONLY YOUR OPINION. Christians aren’t consistent on this either. You haven’t a fucking clue of what you are talking about! TAO

[In other words, only compassion counting with him is being understanding about chosing murder. Probably even when the murder wasn't the girl's choice, but her parents'. "Christians aren’t consistent on this either." - Meaning non-Catholic Protestants?]

The culprit 1 is the rape gang. The culprit 2 is her parents not wanting her to have the baby (as in Brasil, when the culprit 1 was an incestuous uncle). Hans

Culprit number 3 is you getting involved where you have not been invited. TAO

[Oh, you invited me to have an opinion about this, as you thought this case would justify abortion. It does not.]

Oh, I was not saying SHE could have avoided pregnancy. But she still could have avoided abortion, except she was surrounded by a modern and barbaric society. Of which it is hypocritical to even criticise killings in OT 1500 years before Jesus was born. Hans

Could she have avoided the abortion? Maybe, but who will support her and a baby she not ready for? Certainly not you, and no I am not going to either!, You can call me a hypocrite for that but you are just as much so if not more, but it is NOT YOUR DECISION to make nor mine, nor should it ever be. No, it isn’t hypocrisy but I can see why you believe that it is. Where free will is concerned, I wasn’t referring to abortion alone, but free will in general. TAO

[Maybe, but who will support her and a baby ...

Normally the baby's father should. If a young man who has made a woman pregnant CAN'T quit school and get a job and marry the girl he made pregnant, there is something totally wrong with society.

...she not ready for?

If she's just ten, ok, she is not ready for the full responsibility, but the gramps should take an opportunity of getting more support for their old age. AT LEAST they should not murder. If they won't keep her with her baby, they can send her away, but NOT kill the child.

If she's thirteen, who is saying she's not ready for it? Eleanor of Aquitaine and St Bridget were!

Are you saying teens are less fit for now than in Middle Ages? I agree, but not to THAT extent!

Certainly not you, and no I am not going to either!

If it is your grandchild, you should. If it is not my child, I have no obligation.

You can call me a hypocrite for that ...

The hypocrisy is in advocating abortion of millions of innocent babies whose parents are usually more innocent than grand parents, while condemning the killing of an entire nation of culpable people along with children.

... but you are just as much so if not more

For preferring God making an exception 3500 years ago over men making killing of children a rule now? No.

but it is NOT YOUR DECISION to make nor mine, nor should it ever be.

Right. It is not a decision anyone should be making. God has decided against. States have in better times decided against. Men or women deciding for themselves have been considered, and rightly so, as criminals.

No, it isn’t hypocrisy but I can see why you believe that it is.

If so, why did you not answer the relevant point?

Where free will is concerned, I wasn’t referring to abortion alone, but free will in general.

Oh? You are a Lutheran believing in the "enslaved will" even though no longer a Christian? How sad!

That makes your every criticism of my morality totally worthless - since you deny the universal validity of the only morality from which you criticise it. Hans

Once again, that is ONLY your opinion. From my perspective your pathetic excuse for morality, for it is full of judgment and as a result totally void of compassion, is worthless. TAO

[But on his view "pathetic", "excuse", "full of judgement" and "totally devoid of compassion" would have no universally valid meanings!]

I'm not sure I'll return to the rest of your rigmarole!Hans

I would rather you didn’t. You can fuck off now. I have lost all patience with you. I know you have contempt for me but it could not be any more than I now have for you. TAO

[Not so sure. But contempt is nothing to boast of. Especially contempt of a person.]

Paul Wettstein

+Stu Vinyl have you been reading any of this?

Stu Vinyl

+Paul Wettstein
Yea, you have more energy than I do, lol.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

First half of long tirade:

[Meant I was answering first half of his one.]

"What you define as right is nothing more than OPINION! TAO"

Two observations:

• 1) Wrong. I am not the one doing the defining. I am trusting the Catholic doctrine and my moral intuition with it. I have none against it. About the Catholic doctrine, I don't have opinion, I have knowledge.
• 2) As for the Catholic doctrine coinciding or not with natural morality, valid for all men and every man, you may consider this confidence nothing more than opinion (though that accent of shouting will not convince me, nor will anything else), but even if you had been right, it would NOT have been a misinformed opinion of what is legal in present jurisdictions, as you took it for.

You seem to have been too upset to actually read through what I was saying. Or too eager to make some humiliating observation.

"Duh yourself I expressed that because I had no good reason to believe you understood that."

That shows your arrogance.

[Self confidence is a morally neutral term. Arrogance means "unwarranted" such, and if he denies universal morality, why does he suppose his judgement of when self confidence is ... and I just find I am writing this undert my own use of word - I do think it is universally valid to call it arrogant making hasty judgements about someone else's understanding, but I am today somewhat tired having been woken up before 5!]

"That the characters you mentioned may have been part of one government of many that existed around the world is hardly relevant."

Oh, it is. It is relevant because when it comes to abortion now and sodomy now, you seem to think any government now can make any rules it likes. BUT when it comes to a government 3500 years ago, all of a sudden your moral intuition (supposing it to be untutored such, I don't believe that, I'll come back to that) becomes the voice of a universal morality valid for people 3500 years ago.

"You are arrogant indeed to assume that the one you prefer has precedence over the others."

I am observing that you are trying to shift the logical question about your shilly-shallying (is morality universal so you can condemn a government on moral grounds, as you like to do with governments 3500 years ago, or is it opinion, so any government can make any government it likes, as you like to pretend about governments now) into a "moral" question about my supposed "arrogance".

"It didn`t. Most other nations back then weren`t even aware that the Hebrews even existed any more than the Hebrews knew of them. TAO"

That would take some proving. And some refuting of other at least probable proofs.

Take the Greek legend of the Flood. That Deucalion has some obvious similarities to Noah need not imply Greeks were more aware of Hebrews than the Altai Flood legend does. But there are also obvious similarities to the stories of Abraham and Sarah (childless couple, visited by three divine persons), Lot (saved from a disaster by same, or two of them), his daughters (facing a problem of repopulating the world after disaster, though in their case a mistaken problem).

Or take Agamemnon praying to Helios. It seems he had heard of Joshua's long day, or even seen it while a child. But of course, when Helios refused HIM that prayer, they didn't want to say any god (even Helios) had done so for Hebrews. So the story got trasnferred to his father and uncle's provocations (Atreus and Thyestes).

And Greeks had a habit of NOT mentioning a nation displeasing to them. They managed to forget that Trojan War either took place within Hittite Empire or just after its fall.

And story of Dionysus is obviously a parody on story of Moses. With Pentheus as stand in for Pharao.

"Racialism? Are you fucking kidding me? You really think the Catholics were innocent of racism? You are blind, guy. Just blind! There are plenty of Catholics who are racist or have you forgotten the Second World War? Racism existed LONG before Eugenics, by the way TAO"

I have not forgotten Second World War, but neither have I built my convictions around it. Which is especially tragic if you take Hitler for a Catholic.

There may have been Catholics in Tennessee approving of legislations forbidding white/black marriages, but it was NOT the Catholic Church approving of the racialist principle behind it.

"That is ONLY your opinion. You thin it’s a fad? Wow delusional much? TAO"

So it is delusional to consider racism a fad?

Or is it ONLY my opinion that when racism died as to governmental action about marriage in the 1970's, that is a recovery?

You bandy around words you don't seem to grasp the meaning of.

By the way, it is "think", not "thin".

"Yes they are comparable. Not all partnerships require reproduction."

...as in actually succeeding, when it comes to a partnership of matrimonial type. They DO however require reproduction in intention. Or "marriage" becomes a polite word for something else.

"There are numerous heterosexual couples who don’t have children, or can’t because one or both are infertile. Are you suggesting that people can’t be married if they can’t produce progeny? Ridiculous!!"

When it comes to "can't" it would be ridiculous, since it would imply Abraham and Sarah weren't married till they got Isaak.

But as you said "don't have children or can't", you seem to have mentioned a group who WON'T have children. Namely such as do not deserve the name of marriage and spend tax dollars in subvention to their funny and disgusting schemes for preventing children.

Those couples most certainly do not deserve the name of married couples.

"Also, to suggest that same sex couples can’t properly raise children is pure ignorance on your part. TAO"

They certainly can't raise any child who is natural child to both of them. That is pure knowledge of biology on my part.

"That just does not happen. You are projecting something isn’t going to happen. You clearly do NOT understand evolution. TAO"

You are probably an oldie hoping it won't happen and at least hoping it won't happen in your own lifetime.

I have seen Sweden, France and Germany get embarrassed about who is going to pay old age pensions for next generation.

Sweden privatised most of it, so when any pension fund lacks ressources, it won't be the state not doing its thing, since it's no longer the business of the state. "Ah, but you chose this pension fund to pay from your wages to, we didn't chose it for you" they will be able to say.

Germany says "younger people must work harder so they can pay taxes and old people get their pensions". I heard one express the regret that German young couples can no longer afford having children, because taxation for old age pensions is driving them to chose infertility.

France is still optimistic (and has the largest amount of non-European immigrants not participating in the scheme, many of whom are Muslim or Animist) and is content with raising pension age from 60 to 65. And to allow more derogations from 35 hour work week.

As to me not understanding evolution, sorry, but in a biological sense evolution is precisely what "family planning" is NOT driving forward. You know, survival of the fittest means reproduction of the fittest.

And "evolution of morals" (or its functioning well) would not be a case even if every biological part of the evolutionary story were true.

Evolution is not going to be your Saviour - or that of your children or grandchildren when and if they get old. Or nephews and grandnephews, if you had the bad sense not to make children in marriage.

"Statutory rape was designed to protect minors against the sexual manipulations of adults. The law basically states that a minor cannot reasonably consent to sex."

Minor to what year?

"This gauge varies from place to place but come on, a 50 year old adult with a 10 year old child?"

Actually we are talking about laws with very many other stories being stopped. Like 13 year old pregnant girls not being able to marry the father - which of course drives many to abort, since that is at the same time legal.

Or a man of 28 getting stamped as "what is wrong with you" for courting a girl of 14. I was courting a girl of 14 twice at least in my life, once at 14, once at 28. The latter time I got ample occasion to study modern legislations, and to develop a distaste for them.

A person of 14 is not exceptionally but NORMALLY both already fertile and already able to have sexual desires. Saying "but not able to reasonably consent" is so fake.

"What the hell is wrong with you? The church is NOT above state laws in the United States and that is FACT."

United States at least used to have more reasonable laws about marriage age and statutory rape than Europe has now.

1995, I read about a girl of 12 who had quit school because marrying.

That said, States or Union being able to physically punish or persecute CHurch does not preclude Church being able to punish and excommunicate state, spiritually.

"Your opinion on it is entirely irrelevant. TAO"

Again, not an "opinion".

Paul Wettstein

+Hans-Georg Lundahl

I really am no longer interested in your opinions. You seem to have a comprehension problem. Please spare me the second half of your tirade. You call m,e arrogant? HAHAHAHA. I least I can think for myself . I don't rely on a religion with questionable morals and I call bullshit on your stories which are half told, if that, and likely taken out of context anyway.

So you think it's acceptable for 50 year old men to enter into marriages with 14 year old girls? What are you? a fucking pedophile? Get lost.!

I will tell you one more thing. If I caught you tying to court my 13 year old daughter I would make EVERY possible effort to get your sorry ass thrown in maximum security prison. They don't much care for your kind there. I suggest you stay out of my life from this point forward.

[He might, alas, be the kind of man who CAN arrange for provocation after provocation until some retaliation on my part lands me before a court. AND arrange so I can't speak for myself before it.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You have certain wrong opinions about morals.

But at least you showed you think there is universal validity.

As for prison I've been there - not for the courting, but simply for defending myself against shrinks.

The courting led to a "strafföreläggande" (I was sentenced a fine by public attorney and would have been admitting guilt if I had paid it, I didn't) amounting to I think 800 or 1000 SEK, which is 80 or 100 Euro.

So much for getting me into a maximum security prison for courting your thirteen year old daughter.

[I'm reminding him of laws and my behaviour in 1996/1997 as criticised by law officials, but was forgetting what kind of powers of intrigue he could be enjoying. The guys who in 1998 decided to put me before shrinks could very well ultimately have been acting on behalf of the high and mighty father of that girl. With some freemasons in between. I was an ex teacher and then ex employee of his, he was a school director and cultural personality of the villages up there.]

Notifying him

Also, it seems after my last answer, you were a bit short on specific points, so your attack on my character came at least conveniently.

http://assortedretorts.blogspot.fr/2016/09/against-wettstein-on-abortion-and.html

Paul Wettstein

+Hans-Georg Lundahl yes, I attacked your character as you deserved to have it attacked. I have already asked you to get lost. Please do so now. You really don't read people well do you.

That you believe that I have certain wrong opinions about morals is nothing but OPINION!!! As for for the rest of the nonsense you spewed, it was nothing but outdated opinions on subjects you know nothing about. Now Piss off!!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I just intended to notify you this is on my blog.

Paul Wettstein

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Wow so this must be so important to you......Now go away.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It is indeed somewhat important to me to notify whom I have discussed with if and when I put discussion onto blog. I don't like going totally behind sn's back you see. As for "going away" it so happens this is neither your video nor your blog.

Paul Wettstein

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
While it is considerate of you to notify me of what you are doing, there really isn't anything I can do to stop you so really what difference does it make? You, of course, misunderstood [sic!] but what I meant about importance.

I mean stop talking to me. Is that so hard? Conversation over.

Not to him

Did he imagine it was important for me to talk to him when no more arguments were offered? In that case I would really have been misunderstanding what he had meant. What is important is to debate, to debate well, to put the debates before you, readers, and if sued, to defend myself well in court or in mediation.

Of course, in case someone should want to print this commercially, it is important also that he can be reached so he can get his share of any royalties, for his contribution to the text mass./HGL