Coming back to you far too late, but for what its worth:

1. rejecting the existence of moral absolutes does not make one incapable of detecting immorality against a standard – such as one’s personal values (“I believe murder is wrong”) and against social norms or the law.

2. Christians frequently make value judgments of God’s character. God is love. God is merciful. And so on. It is hard to see the principle that allows them to praise God’s values but which prevents me objecting to those values when he orders the murder of infants. I make that judgment only by reference to my own values, the fact that if it were my children he was ordering killed I’d be deeply unhappy about it, and also by reference to those claims that God is loving and merciful, which on its face the murder of infants is inconsistent with.

I fact the word “kill” that ben is referring to is in Hebrew “murder”.

The Bible defines murder as the deliberate and unjust taking of a human life by another human being. So the Bible forbids murder, but also teaches that sometimes taking a life (or lives) may be just in certain circumstances.

Is taking the life of other human beings always wrong? If so, we have just discovered a moral absolute.

Do you consider the bombing to Hiroshima to be a necessary act? I and a lot of other people thought it was, in order to end the war. God tells us not to kill, yet directly orders Moses to kill. Were the U.S. soldiers murderers? If men can take lives and not be considered immoral, then why can’t God do the same and not be considered immoral?

As far as the 10 Commandments, they are laws that God gave TO US. Are you saying that no authority is above the law that it establishes? Are you saying that there are no reasons that would exclude an authority from adhering to its own laws?

Let us examine parental authority, which divine authority closely resembles. A parent establishes the rule that a child must never cross the street unless that child is holding the hand of another adult. In your thinking, any time the parent needs to go across the street, they, too, must be holding the hand of another adult.

There is a difference between parent and child that gives the parent the right to be an authority over the child, just as there is a difference between God and man that gives God the right to be an authority over man.

If God chooses to wipe out his own creation, he must have his own reasons and who is in a position to tell a creator that he can’t destroy his own work?

Un-fcking-believable.

If only women would stay at home or stick to “female professions” like nursing then there would be no domestic violence. Yeah, right.

In short, god does not say killing is bad.

God repeatedly says people should not kill.

In Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17 God specifically commands, “Thou shalt not kill.”

In Mark 10:19 and Luke 18:20, Jesus says “Do not kill.”

In Matt 19:18 Jesus says, “Thou shalt do no murder.”

In each case these commands come without conditions.

Of course, God also specifically orders massacres, such as in Exodus 32:27, Numbers 15:35 and 1 Samuel 15:2-3 with words like “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side … and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.” “Thus saith the Lord of hosts … go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare him not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. ” “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side … and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.”

Now tell me with a straight face yours is the god of love.

“In short, god does not say killing is bad.”

And that, in a nutshell, is one of the problems in believing in god. God kills a heck of a lot of people in the Old Testament, and Christians will go out of their way to excuse such mindless acts of violence.

I think it’s more a case of the problem of believing a modern, or conveniently revised, interpretation of christianity. It shouldn’t be so hard to accept a god that kills. Why so difficult to understand? Even if you exclude the concept of christianity, you’d be naieve to suggest that killing is not useful and does not solve some issues. Human nature? Historical accounts? Is that not enough? To accept killing as real does not promote killing. Imagine a world that had to accept that god did allow war, disease and death. No more blame game.

The liberals and their arch-rivals the modern christian have more in common than they think – one argues killing is bad because it’s not nice, they wouldn’t want to be killed and they believe if they can dream utopia, it can be created. The other says killing is bad because their interpretation of god’s word say’s he’s all love and no darkness, and if you pray for it the prayer will be answered. Acceptance of a god that kills changes a modern christian’s approach to god from gimme gimme to a healthy “fear of god”. A “fear of god” instills a sense of responsibility and respect in the follower.

Both groups suffer from an emotional distortion of reality and the more metaphorical and analogical they become in defence of their argument the further from the truth that they seek they get. The liberals sprang from the socailism that was attached to the modern interpretation of god, with emphasis on the new testament. Both groups would like to enforce their view on everyone else.

Much the same case could be made (if you gave a damn about people’s religious views) for the execution of criminals, police killing criminals in the course of their duties and people killing others threatening their families.

The same case can be made for abortion (assuming you think fetuses are alive) as a legal abortion is just that – lawful.

And that, in a nutshell, is one of the problems in believing in god. God kills a heck of a lot of people in the Old Testament, and Christians will go out of their way to excuse such mindless acts of violence.

“We have brought it on ourselves. We have bowed to the blandishments of liberalism, immorality, materialism and hedonism and have set aside most of the moral and legal strictures which for centuries formed the mortar which held societies together and kept them from self-destruction.

For nearly 50 years, we have presided over the gradual unravelling of the fabric of our nation through the breakdown of the traditional family unit upon which community cohesion has always depended”.

If we take the bible as god’s word, and if we accept that god says his word does not change, then god gives specific instruction as to when killing is acceptable and specific rules around who he uses to do it, the atonement for both the killer and the family of the deceased and the role of the priest/elder. It may surprise some that not all killing/murder was punishable by death.

In short, god does not say killing is bad.

I’m disappointed. I really wanted someone to tell Ryan that death occurs when brain activity stops. He could then ask when life begins, and draw a parallel with death – i.e. that life begins when brain activity starts. Unfortunately nobody was keen to give the answer. Ah well.

I think the best point that can be made by asking those questions is that drawing a line is no simple matter.

It seems to me that some on this thread (e.g. Madeline) need some defining moment when life begins. Conception is easy, but I’m not sure it is really when life begins other than if you believe in a soul. To me, it seems that a single celled embryo is no more alive than my fingernail clippings (arguably less, since it has fewer cells, arguably more since it has the potential to one day become a new living being).

If we sorted out cloning, such that my fingernail clippings could be turned into a human being, would throwing them away be abortion? Would it be equivalent to murdering a potential human being?

The usual argument there would that while something would have to be actively done to turn that clipping into a person, something would have to be actively done to prevent the foetus developing into an adult. Don’t ask me why this makes a difference.

I still see the progression to life as a continuum – starting at the point you choose to have sex (arguably the point you choose not to have sex is killing a potential human being), and progressing through conception, and the growth of the embryo. At some point along the way an embryo becomes a human, and at that point it would be murder to terminate it. Question is where along that continuum it happens. I have some sympathy with the view that it kind of happens incrementally – a foetus at third trimester is more human than a foetus at second trimester. And a foetus at second trimester more than one at first trimester.

Can you be, then, morally, a partial murderer for ending a partial life?

AH. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Secularism and moral relativism, to be consistent, would have nothing to say to the predominant culture in the land in which their adherents find themselves.

A common misconception.

But while insisting that the Taleban, or a Central African Slave culture, is “just as much right” as any other culture, our so called secular, morally relativist leadership insists on negating our own traditional Christian culture, and calling THAT “secularism”. Insists on an assault, by means of State power, on that traditional culture, on the grounds of “right” or “superiority”.

Well, the only thing that secularism could do is not give Christianity (or any other religion) special favourable treatment. If anyone was trying to give Christianity special unfavourable treatment, attempting to lower its status below other religions, that wouldn’t be secularism. You can’t blame secularism for people claiming to be secularists promoting unsecular things, any more than you can blame Christianity for people claiming to be Christians promoting unchristian things.

We are now finding out the hard way, the underlying reasons why the culture we are in the process of trashing, gave us the world’s happiest, most prosperous, and most caring people. The most “blessed” people. And you cannot deny me the right of making this judgement on your relativist grounds, seeing you and your type are so willing to make a contrary judgement, to be “judgemental”, if you will.

Can you provide some evidence of how quick I am, and perhaps explain what you mean by “my type”? You’re quite right that I can’t deny you the right of making a judgement on relativistic grounds. You’re weird and mildly manic for suggesting I was going to.

You SAID too, “…..You don’t think it’s worth looking for some factor that is common to families that raise healthy moral children, regardless of number or sex or parents?….”

Well, our cultural Left political “establishment” has been trying pretty hard for a few decades now, and they are not looking too good, are they? Oh, of course, as well as being forced into a position of “no stigma” for non “traditional 2 parent” families, we are to be told that increasing amounts of the money earned by responsible acting people is to be taken off them and given to the other sort, so that their type of family can be “made to work”, too (assuming that even this would at all make it work)………Roger Douglas pointed out years ago that around 100 grand of taxpayers money provides around a thirty grand lifestyle for a solo mum and 3 kids. So I don’t know what YOU think is an acceptable or even sustainable burden in this respect, not even considering the perverse incentives that will be increased from their current level in the event of even more “wealth redistribution”.

Oh, I was just asking a question. Lee and I were talking about his belief that two-parent-different-sex families are healthier and more loving. I asked if examples to the contrary (both of healthy loving non-traditional families and of abusive traditional families) were the exceptions that proved the rule. He said he thought they were. I asked if it would be worth trying to find elements that make those exceptions more explicable.

In answer to your question, I don’t think that the state, welfare, involuntary redistribution or capitalism should occur.

What was it Charles Murray said about this? The solo mother and bastard children since earliest times, have always been a severe drain on the resources of society as well as a disruptive force; hence, these things have been stigmatised.

Well, that’s academics for you. Reducing people to numbers and “resources” instead of seeing them as human beings deserving compassion.

Here is US evidence: http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf

Here is further US evidence: http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittReply2004.pdf

And here is a correction to the first paper: http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/ResponseToFooteGoetz2006.pdf

This paper shows the effect of Romania’s ban: http://chw.princeton.edu/chw/lectures-conferences/lectures/past-lectures/spring2005/04-18-06.pdf

In Romania, the incidence of still births and low birth weight children increased substantially.

In short, the evidence is that women who choose to have an abortion have good reason for doing so.

Life has to begin at conception when the egg and the sperm join.

You have to ask the question – if this new life is not interrupted in any way, will it be born a human being? If the answer is yes – it will become a child – and you perform an abortion, then you’re ending a life – simple as that. If you kill a tadpole, you’re killing the frog it becomes.

I do agree with Garth – if we can murder children in the womb who have no defense whatsoever, then it’s a dropping of the standards for which children are held in regard as a whole, and a dropping of the regard for the sanctity of life in general.
I think future humans are going to look back at this era in history and regard the practice of abortion with horror – much as we look back and wonder at smoking now.