₦airaland Forum

@All

How does being a pastor automatically make one a thief? The story does not specifically tell us his line of business, although circumstantial evidence says he is also a trader, so can anyone tell us where the conclusion that N450,000 is too much money for him to own legitimately come from?

Deep Sight:
Oya, since you are superhuman, can you conduct a walking on water ceremony for us to see?

You don't seem to get it. The man says this is way too small. Give him something more challenging before he even begins to take you seriously.

Nimshi:
Interesting points.

Checking on this many many moons ago, one came away surprised at how misinformation - or one's preconceptions - could thororuhgly mislead. The two fellows I recall who'd been steeped in this are substantially well above average intelligence, and frankly, better behaved than most religious people.

That's not easy to miss, going by Mr. Gilmore's words.
.

I am surprised you read the few things they want you to see on their website and conclude you know so much about them. In any case if you read between the lines of the above you may see a tad further.

[quote author=Tudór link=topic=411702.msg5684020#msg5684020 date=1268468041]^^
He was getting money from the mouth of fishes!

Since pastor chris is superhuman and "one with christ", why bother the masses for money all the time? Does he not know the way to bar beach or have fishes finished in lagos lagoon?[/quote]

@Krayola
Haven't been active online myself. 

Krayola:
haha aight (there are several problems with this but they'll just distract us too much so I won't dwell on it now)
SO, what exactly is the "right to life" and what does it imply? When u say something has a right to life, what exactly do u mean?

Yes, "rights" are subjective. It would be fruitless talking about the rights of someone waiting for a heart transplant if there was no heart. That is why it is not a word I personally bandy around. In the abortion debate, I would only make reference to the rights of the matter when you supporters of abortion rights go on and on about the rights of the woman. "It's her body." But the clarification I have made above does nothing for your argument. The foetus does have a right to life.

Krayola: DO all humans have a right to life, or are there degrees of a right to life?

According to the Constitution, the state has a duty to protect the lives of its citizens. From both the religious and legal perspectives, all men are equal. Or that is what the books say.

Krayola: Is the right to life of a foetus different from your right to life? Please explain how and why? What obligation does a being's right to life impose on others? I think u will notice that to make your argument, u have to give special status to a fetus on several levels . . so when you claim rights for a fetus on grounds related to it's potential humanity, and then proceed to give it rights that seem to exceed and differ from those of human persons, it throws all kinds of doubts on the validity of your argument.

We are talking here about obligations. To put it crudely, the foetus is tied to its mother. The world has been structured to work this way. People come into the world through pregnancy. When you make a request for a child and it happens, you are landed with the obligation of protecting it. I have already stated the obligation the foetus' right to life places on its mother. My argument does give special status to a foetus. There is no chance of survival for a foetus if it is not accorded some special status. What you seem to be missing, I think ignoring, is the fact that applies only in relation to its mother, who is its guardian and protector. She is the one that owes it the obligation to nurture it and birth it. I do not see how you can use that position to argue that I am giving the foetus rights that exceed those of human persons. If you mean exceed those of its mother, I have already cleared that up by approving therapeutic abortions. If you mean it in terms of the foetus constituting a little thorn in the flesh of its mother, I do not buy it. We all live with one form of discomfort or another. I have lived with some health issues since adolescence that have often frustrated efforts to do many things people take for granted, but I don't think about it. When you do it for yourself, it is a necessity, I know. When you do it for someone else, it takes some spirit of sacrifice to realise the necessity. If you mean "problem mothers", let's examine that below.

Krayola: It's interesting to read you call the relationship between a fetus and a mother who does not want the pregnancy, "special". IMO, most parents that have special bonds with their kids happen to want their kids. . . Some mothers abuse and maltreat their kids, see them as a burden and their (kid's) lives are horrible. I'm sure u've heard of kids being taken away from their biological mothers because their lives were just hell. I find all these "arguments" based on sentiment and emotional appeals lacking in so many ways. This "special' bond is neither universal, nor automatic. that a woman has a child does not mean she will love or care for the child in an  "acceptable" way.

The fact that you are now appealing to sentiments appears to be lost on you, even as this subject can hardly be devoid of them. A newspaper reporter who covers the crime beat told me how some guy came to the police station to complain after his wife pounded him real good!  Husbands act irresponsibly towards their wives. Wives maltreat their mothers-in-law. Employers mistreat their staff. All you have stated above are facts of life. There are kids whose parents prayed and fasted for their coming whose lives are horrible. I empathise with this situation but it contributes nothing to the pro-choice argument. There is no correlation between the availability or otherwise of abortion and the suffering of children across the world. Kids will always be taken away from their mothers even if we have universal abortion - normal people quite spontaneously go mad, a divorce has terrible effects on some people, people join real wacko cults, and other bad things happen. The special bond between mother and child is as universal and automatic among homo sapiens as it is among goats. Where it is not evident is a deviation from the norm, an aberration.

Krayola: By all possible consequences I don't even mean anything that extreme. I just mean other, IMO, legitimate reasons why a woman may not want to keep a pregnancy. Like I said the only thing at stake in a pregnancy is not the life of the fetus, and I don't think it has to be because of a despoil or a threat to her life that a woman may seek an abortion.

Even before we go into the specifics, I will take this as our point of disagreement on which neither of us will change our position in the short term.

Krayola: A newly pregnant woman may question the wisdom of having a child. .  she may reevaluate her life and realize that she may be unable to adequately provide for the child. She may realize that her drug habits may harm the child. She may have other kids that she takes great care of and just realize that she can't afford another one, maybe because her husband or boyfriend decided to skip town. Now, will there be people who just sleep around and have abortions just because they can? yes. But should we sentence the others to have to tend to a fetus, and then raise a child that they do not want to, or can not, adequately? It is, IMO, unhealthy, both for the woman, and the fetus/baby.

I just can't care for another child. What do I do? I have to abort it. In the case of poverty, I examined this earlier. I do not believe one more child will ruin her. This should also apply in the case of a skipping husband or boyfriend, that is, what is colloquially called "the ups and downs of life". I do not see how the sudden absence  - through abandonment or death - of the man who is meant to be the father in the child's life, should be construed as a sudden death sentence for it. What happens when she goes into the clinic and the doctor says an abortion will endanger her life? Will you have her smother the child at birth? No. You will find creative solutions. If for some reasons she really cannot bring up the child you will find capable relatives or consider adoption. Now, you will find countless cases of all the above where the children are doing well. Of course there are cases where they are doing badly, as is the normal course of things. You see, Krayola, the greatest miracle of our lives is the ability of man to thrive in the midst of chaos. There are days you wake up in the morning and water isn't running. You find a solution to it. As you are leaving your compound, someone runs his car into yours and you sort it out. You realise you are running late and increases speed, which earns you a speed ticket. You go through all these and still make it to your various destinations and you achieve all you set out to achieve when you woke up that morning! That is the miracle of life: the ability of man to. . . No, I would not have an abortion because chaos just got a tad more chaotic. The seemingly easy way out is not always worth it.

Krayola: I think I have already shown that carelessness, what you call an "invitation", is not an adequate reason to give another being rights to your property, against your will, regardless of how vulnerable or helpless the  individual is. It does not follow from the fact that a woman is responsible for a pregnancy, that a fetus has a right to her body for nine months. It is not self evident, and you will have to argue that to make it valid as far as this debate goes, IMO.  That a being has a right to life does not mean that it has a right to everything that is required to keep it alive. My right to life does not include your kidneys, even if your refusal will kill me. My right to life does not mean i can live in your home for a winter, even if you kicking me out will kill me, and even though you invited me in. I'm not sure, but I think even parents who do not want their own kids anymore are allowed to drop them with the state.  So you will have to argue for why a zygote/ young fetus has a right to a woman's body, against her will, for nine months.

I believe I have dealt with this sufficiently. You showed that carelessness is not an adequate reason to give another individual rights to our property in the case of an individual to whom you owe no obligation. A gate-crashing stranger is just "another individual". Or is one "another individual" the same as another "another individual"? I demonstrated this by giving the analogy of your folks, your education and those of your less fortunate neighbours. I will take the "invitation" thing as our other major point of disagreement. Your analogy fails for the reason that the vagrant is not your vagrant, whereas the foetus is your foetus. The bed-ridden fellow requiring a kidney is not my bed-ridden fellow, whereas the pregnancy is my pregnancy. On will, I believe she exercised her will when she willingly underwent the procedure that sets off the natural process of pregnancy and childbirth. Letting your will swing back and forth like a pendulum just doesn't work in matters of this nature.

^^^ I think David just found himself a sparring partner. Expect fresh life in this section. No Abuzola or Olabowale, this. Knows his onions and Quran and Hadith and Bible and a lot else. You need a Muslim of high intellectual capabilities to match David's around here. Let's hope this guy doesn't disappoint. 

^^^I am about to leave the office, else I would have sought out the relevant posts and inserted them in quotes.

In my one but last post, I think, I maintained I have no problem with the argument that a foetus is not, legally and morally speaking, at the same level as a human being who is already a member of the community, hence my complete acceptance of therapeutic abortions. When I referred to a foetus as a human being, I used the word "virtual" to qualify it.

A foetus has a right to life, and the mother is duty bound to ensure this. This is black and white in most cases, but in a small minority of cases, this is not so, hence all the long write-ups.

If you read my last two posts again,  I am sure you will get all clarifications. But if there is anything you consider a contradiction in my posts, please point it out and I will look at it dispassionately.

davidylan:
This thread is a good example of the sign of the times we live in . . . 1st Thessalonians 5:3: For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

JeSoul:
Please this topic is mostly for christians, but thoughts and opinions from other really cool people like MyJoe are welcome.

Now, I feel really cool.    . No mind Deep Sight - he won't hijack nothing.

But Revelation is one hard nut to crack because there are usually many possible interpretations. What can be stated without doubt is that most parts of the Bible contain applications for everyone. For example, there are many practical lessons to be learnt from the letters the angel carried to the seven churches in Asia Minor - the dangers of covetousness, disloyalty, sectarianism and various acts of immorality are spelt out.

I will like your thoughts on what Deep Sight wrote above.

Great write-up, op!

From Essays on Man, by Alexander Pope:

IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy Opinion against Providence;
Call Imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much;
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,(9)
Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If Man alone ingross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance(10) and the rod,
Re-judge his justice, be the GOD of GOD!
In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Aspiring to be Angels, Men rebel;
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of ORDER, sins against th' Eternal Cause.

V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, "Tis for mine:
For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;
Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies."
But errs not Nature from this gracious end,
From burning suns when livid deaths descend,
When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
"No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;
Th' exceptions few; some change since all began,
And what created perfect?" -- Why then Man?
If the great end be human Happiness,
Then Nature deviates; and can Man do less?
As much that end a constant course requires
Of show'rs and sun-shine, as of Man's desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As Men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design,
Why then a Borgia,(11) or a Catiline?(12)
Who knows but he, whose hand the light'ning forms,
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms,
Pours fierce Ambition in a Caesar's(13) mind,
Or turns young Ammon(14) loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs;
Account for moral as for nat'ral things:
Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right is to submit.
Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discompos'd the mind:
But ALL subsists by elemental strife;
and Passions are the elements of Life.
The gen'ral ORDER, since the whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

Krayola:
That analogy was not about invitations. It was about the limits of someone's right to life. I was trying to point out that one being's right to life does not automatically override another being's right to his/her body. That a being is vulnerable and helpless does not automatically mean another is morally OBLIGATED to keep it alive. Like i told Wirinet, that analogy serves it's purpose, and stands.

Ok, let's drop "invitation" for now. The analogy still crumples for two reasons. (1) My ill neighbour are I are equal beings in a competitive world. I help him as a favour, not because he is entitled to it. The above does not apply to the foetus. (2) There is a special bond between a mother and child that can never be compared to any other relationship, such as neighbour and neighbour. I am sure there are very very poor kids in your home town who could not afford even Nigerian federal universities, which are among the least expensive in the world. Would your folks have given you a less expensive education to afford these kids some money? Your folks could decide to assist but they are under no obligation to. To you they have an obligation, a moral and legal duty. "Na me take im kidney?" You can never say that towards your child. Now, this is an appeal to. . .  erm. . . LOVE. 

Krayola: Now, this whole idea of the woman having "invited" the pregnancy almost seems to make sense, but when one looks at it closely, it makes little to no sense, in my opinion. Is being aware of the risk of an action, and then taking the action (what u seem to be calling an "invitation", a mandatory sentence to all the possible consequences? That is why I used tha analogy of a homeless person walking into your unlocked home.

All possible consequences - like a foetus developing ectopically? No. That is not what I am saying. And what we have here is not akin to flying in an aeroplane in one of those countries where planes are often falling off the skies like Iran and DR Congo and hoping the skies are safe that day. Engaging in s[i]e[/i]x without precaution at that time is like pilling your cassava and putting it inside water and expecting it not to ferment. The procedure you just undertook is what ensures the natural process of fermentation in the case of cassava. I do not then see how you can argue that consensual s[i]e[/i]x undertaken by a sane human being without any precautions is not an invitation to a foetus. It is the natural consequence. Abi the person do juju?

Krayola: If you know u live in a high crime neighborhood, with lot's of homeless drug users, you are aware of the high risk of your home getting broken into. If you are in a rush and go out without locking your doors, you know the risk of someone breaking into your home. If you make an irresponsible decision, leave your doors unlocked, and someone walks into your home in the dead of winter, does the person's right to life, and your "invitation" (since it seems u are arguing that being aware of the risk of getting pregnant is an "invitation" by leaving your door open, give this vulnerable homeless individual the right to your home and your care till the end of the winter?

This analogy still doesn't cut it, in my opinion. Rush to go out? Nah. intimacy, pregnancy and the likes, are serious matters. Try drinking 7-UP the way you drink water then let me know if you still think this analogy cuts.

Krayola: I think the highlighted is an appeal to pity, and not a valid argument. If you can not demonstrate that a zygote or young foetus has an automatic right to a woman's body for the entire length of the pregnancy, regardless of what else is going on in the woman's life, then your claim that terminating the pregnancy is unjust is unfounded.

Facts. An appeal to facts, in my opinion. They have no power to fight back - this must be asserted, even at the risk of appealing to compassion. Nobody ever consulted them before proceeding to rip them out. (Even the adherents of Shintoism who, it seems, are bothered about it, erect a statue to the foetus and venerate it, after blissfully carrying out the abortion.) The way I see it is you made a request which was granted. Ok, you have changed your mind - don't' want "the thing" anymore. Oh, sorry, this is a serious matter - you can do that with your groceries, but not this. Next time ask yourself if you want one of these beauties before posting an order. Thanks.

Krayola: Those are your personal feelings and not an argument for the zygote's right to a woman's body.  I respect your opinion, but I disagree. I think having a child goes far beyond a nine month pregnancy. What I find unconscionable is forcing someone who may be unfit to be a mother to have a child. Then what? Are we going to force her to b.r.east feed every day, and be a responsible mother, and not drink, or smoke, and make sure the baby is in a hygienic environment, or to give it up for adoption and hope for the best etc. You honestly think someone dumb enough to have unprotected intimacy with, possibly, a stranger should be forced to have a child? But those are just my personal feelings and mean nothing in this debate.

I am not a Calvinistic right-winger (in fact, I am rabidly anti-that-sort-of-mindset) so this bothers me very much, too. How do we encourage this barely literate woman who can hardly tell her right hand from her left or feed herself to birth it? I listen to radio, watch television and do a bit of travelling, so I know the ravages of poverty and general suffering in the world. But if you pause a bit to think about it, you may realise that liberalising abortion solves nothing. The people so eloquently captured in your description will continue to bring forth children because they don't know better. (Some of those kids survive and do well, some don't.) Without education, their case is tough. It is the cultured people who know all about condoms and other forms of contraceptives that also know about abortion. They are the ones I described earlier as skipping these procedures to get maximum enjoyment and then go flush it out.

Deep Sight:
Inesqor  - (that i address you as "Inesqor" does not in any way mean that i am fooled into thinking you are not mavenbox - i know you are mavenbox).

Field Marshall Deep Sight, I think this will only detract from the topic. I would treat mavenbox as mavenbox and InesQor as InesQor. Even if true, it would appear you and Tudor are accusing someone of being anonymous in an anonymous forum.

^^^ While is I have strong views on abortion, I have never felt strongly about its legalisation or otherwise. It is illegal in Nigeria but that law has hardly any corresponding effect on the society. I do not consider myself a part of "Pro-Life Incorporated" since I disagree with many of their methods, like laying siege to clinics and, in extreme cases, shooting doctors. I would rather cast my vote for education on better s[i]e[/i]x practices.

Your Yar'Adua analogy collapses on a cursory examination. (Yeah, I do think very very little of Nigerian politicians, but that's not the reason for my argument.) I think wirinet covered this point earlier when he talked going out to ask someone in. And here we are not talking about one human being trying to sponge off another, but a helpless and vulnerable one who is entirely dependent on another, in this case, the person that invited it! My neighbour's life is another life - I did not take his kidney or something. The foetus's life is tied to that of the mother who invited it by her action of commission or omission.

I do agree with the argument that in terms of moral and legal rights, a foetus is not the same thing as someone who is already a member of the human community. That is why I would have no problem whatsoever with therapeutic abortion. But allowing people to abort at convenience is manifestly unjust to the other party - the foetus. Children do not fall down from heaven. They come through pregnancy. At that stage of a human's life, he or she (or it, if you prefer) is helpless and vulnerable. Ripping it out is just an extension of what obtains in the world: the strong oppressing the weak.

A zygote or foetus conceived by a mentally stable woman through consensual intercourse has an automatic right to her body. Let's look at this again. S[i]e[/i]x is for procreation. S[i]e[/i]x is also for physical satisfaction. In anticipation of both needs, nature has made things in such a away that there are "safe" periods, when intercourse will not result in pregnancy. But she may still want to enjoy s[i]e[/i]x in "unsafe" periods without desiring to have kids - here, science has rescued us by providing the condom. Ignoring these precautions, most likely for maximum enjoyment, getting pregnant and then opting to get rid of it on some excuse like "I am not ready" is unconscionable.

Like I have stated repeatedly on this thread, the vast majority of abortions are committed because the woman wants to be rid of the little nuisance of pushing a tommy for nine months - with the attendant "problems" of being looked upon as "used", or she is "still in school", or the husband who went on extended leave abroad coming back to meet a baby, or losing shape, or ,   -  not because the foetus is a really pressing problem. I always argued against abortion because not do so will encourage this situation. It is not always a black and white issue, I know, that is why I recognise issues like r[i]a[/i]pe, cases of badly deformed foetuses, etc.

Discussants may like to read this.

The Trinity
Trinity (theology), in Christian theology, doctrine that God exists as three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who are united in one substance or being. The doctrine is not taught explicitly in the New Testament, where the word God almost invariably refers to the Father; but already Jesus Christ, the Son, is seen as standing in a unique relation to the Father, while the Holy Spirit is also emerging as a distinct divine person.

The term trinitas was first used in the 2nd century, by the Latin theologian Tertullian, but the concept was developed in the course of the debates on the nature of Christ (see Christology). In the 4th century, the doctrine was finally formulated; using terminology still employed by Christian theologians, the doctrine taught the coequality of the persons of the Godhead. In the West, the 4th-century theologian St. Augustine's influential work De Trinitate (On the Trinity, 400-16) compared the three-in-oneness of God with analogous structures in the human mind and suggested that the Holy Spirit may be understood as the mutual love between Father and Son (although this second point seems difficult to reconcile with the belief that the Spirit is a distinct, coequal member of the Trinity). The stress on equality, however, was never understood as detracting from a certain primacy of the Father—from whom the other two persons derive, even if they do so eternally. For an adequate understanding of the trinitarian conception of God, the distinctions among the persons of the Trinity must not become so sharp that there seems to be a plurality of gods, nor may these distinctions be swallowed up in an undifferentiated monism.

The doctrine of the Trinity may be understood on different levels. On one level, it is a means of construing the word God in Christian discourse. God is not a uniquely Christian word, and it needs specific definition in Christian theology. This need for a specifically Christian definition is already apparent in the New Testament, where Paul says, “there are many 'gods' and many 'lords'—yet for us there is one God, the Father , , and one Lord, Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 8:5-6). These words constitute the beginning of a process of clarification and definition, of which the end product is the doctrine of the Trinity. At another level, the doctrine may be seen as a transcript of Christian experience: The God of the Hebrew tradition had become known in a new way, first in the person of Christ, and then in the Spirit that moved in the church. On a third, speculative level of understanding, the doctrine reveals the dynamism of the Christian conception of God—involving notions of a source, a coming forth, and a return (primordial, expressive, and unitive Being). In this sense, the Christian doctrine has parallels both in philosophy (the 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Absolute) and in other religions (the Trimurti of Hinduism).

John Mcquarrie, MA, PhD, DD, former Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford, author of Principles of Christian Theology, 20th Century Religious Thought, The Scope of Dymythologyzing.

Not yet. Yesterday was hectic. Just got back online and will read them tonight. Thanks.

I think Abacha would kill everyone working at the bank or wherever he stashes them.

InesQor:
How about the notes getting "missing" in transit from banks? If you know someone that has worked in a Nigerian Bank, they will tell you that money disappears and has to be accounted for at the close of every day. A lot of money, spread amongst many people
Just saying, too, like Googler.

You seem to be talking about money getting missing at the level of commercial banks - not at the level of production and all that high security. Someone who knows once told me there is better security at the Mint than Aso Rock.

If juju "disappears" money from commercial banks, there will be a whole lot of money disappearing mysteriously to warrant a CBN, even SSS, investigation. Those little notes possibly stolen by cashiers, I think, cannot qualify.

^^^ Hey Goog!
Those notes have serial numbers. NSPMC cannot deliver notes with missing numbers to CBN. Neither can CBN dispense funds without accounting for every note they receive from NSPMC.

InesQor:
Intriguing question, Krayola. Personally, I believe that no one should really have the legal or moral right to place the value of one life over another. My 2 cents. But then, I thank my stars that I'm not a physician! 

I agree, InesQor. In the world, the strong oppresses the weak. It is my opinion that abortion is an extension of this. "It's the way things are", I know. But, to put it simply, it not a good thing.

Krayola:
When we have Siamese babies born that share organs why do we choose the one that has the higher chance of survival? Isn't all life "sacred"? Where does the authority to sacrifice one for the other come from? What is the "pro- life" stance on this?

When they both have a good chance of survival, they are usually allowed to live, right? In the sort of case you have in mind, the motive of "axing" one would be to preserve the life of the one with the better of chance of survival, rather than let both die. Sounds the "pro-life" thing to do to me.

Krayola:
@ Myjoe. It's unfortunate that u dismiss arguments that make u uncomfortable as mischief or jokes.

The problem with your position, IMO, is that u pretend the only thing at stake in a pregnancy is the life of the fetus, and that overrides all other considerations. That distorts the reality of the situation, and IMO cheapens the discourse.

I guess I was sort of in a hurry to leave the office at that time as was rather brusque towards the end of our consersation - no offence was intended to you and wirinet.

Your question did not cause any discomfort. I do not get how you can say I am not "pro-life" but "pro anything that can grow to become a sentient human being" on the basis of my statement that only a fertilised egg, and not a sperm, can grow. But it is possible, of course, that I misunderstood your point. We have already talked about rape and incest and all - so I clearly do not pretend that the only thing at stake in a pregnancy is the life of the foetus. I do not believe that abortion is the way to go in the case of rape, but I believe a woman's decision in this case should be respected, given the circumstances by which the pregnancy came about. I would personally drive her to the clinic. As for "all other considerations", such things are handled on case-by-case bases. But I already stated that in my experience, most abortions do not involve such considerations. You may note that this has been the main thrust of my arguments in this thread.

IMHO (borrow me your fav quip), the point of wirinet's post is not particularly useful. What is the address of the person that has been cloned? Save for human parts for medical use are there plans to start cloning human beings? Ok, let's say for argument, cloning has become an everyday practice. Please recall that countless eggs and sperms are shed in natural processes daily. They are programmed to be shed. Zygotes, on the other hand, are not. They are programmed to become foetuses, without any intervention. An egg, on the other hand, will not grow in a billion years. You will have to get chaps from some swanky London Royal Hospital or Johns Hopkins to get cracking, unsure how many thousand times they will try to get one right.

Krayola: and a Zygote is not the same as a sentient human being. AND YOU KNOW IT!! Mischief? 

No, a zygote is not a sentient human being. It can grow to become one - that was what I said. It is a virtual human being. An egg on its own does not have such a capability. Your point here?

Again, my apologies to wirinet and you.

Image123:
MyJoe
Pls quit lying, at least for C.T Russell's sake. Or are you not aware that all liars will have their parts in the lake of fire? Even if you believe it to be annihilation, it's not worth it. I'm not exactly on this thread for word.trading with you. You've inconveniently skipped quoted passages only to dwell on what you think you can handle. I'm here for the body of Christ, not for talks about enemies and history class.

Your obsession is now on the borders of insanity. Guy, tell me, did some Witness guy hunt in your plot without permission - I mean, snatch your wife?

wirinet:
who told you that an egg in incapable of growing to become a sentient human? have you never heard of cloning, whereby a spermatozoa is not required. The genetic material of the woman is stripped up one of her cells and inserted in to the egg and it grows up to be a fetus.

I take the above as a joke. When an egg is fertilised, how many scientists do you summon to its service? I repeat, an egg is incapable of growing to become a sentient human.

^^^ And where does the spirit get the money from? CBN coffers or it prints them?

Krayola:
@ myjoe. It seems u are not pro-life but pro- "what can grow to be sentient human".

A spermatozoa is not the same thing as a zygote, Krayola, and you know it. Other than mischief, I can't figure out your question. But mischief is allowed.

@image123
I thought I was done with this thread, but I had to see this post of yours.

Image123:
MyJoe
I said there's a witness party here already. I didn't say anything was right or wrong about it. I have no problems. Good to see a non.witness enter the fray.
You've as I initially remarked, ignored Bible quotes that prove the Trinity and decided to dwell on verses nobody is hardly arguing against.

I wish you had quoted a single scripture proving Trinity rather than seeking to disparage others.

Image123: I've mentioned hierarchy on this thread, you've decided not to see that. Nobody has said Jesus is God the Father. What we've said is that Jesus is God the Son, and the Spirit is God the Spirit.

Show me "God the Son" or "God the Spirit" in the Bible.

Image123: The Bible calls them God. The watchtower translation isn't the only translation on earth. [/b]Quit acting like it is.

Show me a single place where I quoted "the watchtower translation". Even when you attempt to write sensibly you can't stop taking pot shots at your enemies, the watchtower people. Why?

Image123: God says in Isaiah that 'I will not give my glory unto another'. According to you now, Jesus is another. It's either God did not regard His Word here or you're wrong. Paul talks about the mystery of godliness but [b]you'ld rather your nut-chewing relative be right than have the inspired word of God. May God open every eye.

I will stick with my "nut-chewing relative" on this. A wayo was perpetrated in 325AD. This has made things unclear to you. To cope, you pass it off as mystery.

wirinet:
So you mean that the spermatozoa and the egg are not alive, so individually they can be wasted and are of little value, but once they meet as per fertilization, they become "alive" and very valuable.

They are of value, very high value. But they are not life, since they are individually incapable of growing to become a sentient human.

wirinet: What consequences are u proposing for wanton s.ex and abortion and consequences for who? the baby, the mother or father?

The consequences you yourself stated are always there. I propose none.

wirinet: If you want to know a world where reckless "s.ex and abortion" reign, then you need to go to Scandinavian countries - Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway. Then come back and compare our moral state of nature and theirs.
Oh before i forget Prostitutio.n is also legal in those counties.

I have nothing against the legalisation of pr[i]o[/i]stitution.

wirinet:
I do not accept the argument that  a week old foetus, being a living thing must be allowed to develop into a baby, even if the mother categorically does not want it. It should be noted that an average woman shreds an egg every month for about 30 odd years, giving us a total of 360 eggs.

An egg does not equal a fertilised one. Life begins once fertilisation has taken place.

wirinet:
So if we have improved abortion methods whereby a woman' womb is unaffected, a woman can invariably get pregnant every month. The major problem is that most back street abortion procedures damage the womb each time a woman undergoes abortion and so the womb is easily damages after a few of such abortions. Which would then become a problem in the future when the woman needs to have a baby.

What you seem to be asking for is a world where there are no consequences to wanton s[i]e[/i]x and abortion, that is, a moral state of nature where reckless s[i]e[/i]x and abortion reign. I would be very circumspect about such a world since the boundary is bound to be extended.

wirinet:
Although i am not in total agreement with krayola's analogy, yours is also way off. Nobody invites an unwanted foetus, in fact it came in uninvited. You are very wrong to claim that s.ex (aka intimacy according to Seun) is an invitation for a baby. Nothing can be more absurd. People have intimacy in order to satisfy physical and psychological needs  most of the time and only do it to "invite" a baby, very few times in a life time. Unless you are telling me that anytime a couple have s.ex, they must want to have a baby. Then most people would need to have s.ex less than ten times in their life time.

The highlighted portion is non sequitur. S[i]e[/i]x satisfies physical needs, but everyone also knows that is how babies are made. So this holds:

MyJoe: A mentally healthy adult woman who goes into s[i]e[/i]x at her “unsafe” period can be safely assumed to be saying a prayer asking for a child or children. But you are allowed to say, “no, I don’t want the children.” There are certain measures to make this possible. Take them.

wirinet: What we should be looking is measures a couple (married or unmarried) can take in order to have s.ex without the fear of having an uninvited guest, and only invite the guest when they really want to. This should include better s.ex education, better prevention mechanisms and techniques,

This buttresses my point: there are preventive measures. Anyone who knowingly spurns them is by her action asking for a kid or kids. It also explains why I do not consider myself a part of the loud, sometimes violent, "pro-life" campaigners. Abortion cannot be stopped by legislation. But we can make impact through education.

Krayola:
intimacy isn't always intended to make kids. That kids could result from intimacy does not mean that is the intent of all sexual intercourse.

People are killed by gunshots. Is shooting a gun at someone necessarily an intent to commit murder?

A mentally healthy adult woman who goes into s[i]e[/i]x at her “unsafe” period can be safely assumed to be saying a prayer asking for a child or children. But you are allowed to say, “no, I don’t want the children.” There are certain measures to make this possible. Take them.

Krayola: if u lock your doors and soMeone  breaks into your house,  Are u liable because u did not get heavy duty metal doors?

Btw u are free to kick Invited guests out of your home if u wish. It may be rude, but u have every right to do so IMO.

Yeah. but it would be a different matter if you were turning him into, say, a wintry night of  -12 deg C with flimsy clothes on. You see, aluminum is not gold. These comparisons are not adequate.

All these talks of r[i]a[/i]pe, incest and breaking condoms are purely academic. If we legalized abortion in all these cases only, the vast majority of abortions will still be illegal. I repeat, most women who opt for abortion are not doing to because a condom broke. Not one of the abortion victims I know have given me this reason, yet. They do so to be free to continue whoring or to deceive the mug who will marry them.

toneyb:
I completely agree, Such myths and urban legends are bandied only in places were the people are ignorant, uneducated or unenlightened. There are so many reasons why people bandy such urban legends as you have said.

Highlighted position is tendentious and not borne out by the facts.

The vast majority of those who engage in rituals and not poor and uneducated. They are usually from the middle and upper classes. Once a reverend gentleman I knew of was accused of making money ritual with his son. He subsequently lost his position in the church. From this we can assume that (1) The leadership of that parish of the church believed it. (2) He did not deny it. There are other possibilities, of course, but on the surface of it, it does look like a confirmed case.

Krayola:
@ MyJoe. If you leave your front/back/side door/window open in the winter and a homeless person, or anybody else for that matter, walks/climbs into your home, does the fact that his survival rests on him having a place to stay mean that you are obligated to have him/her live in your house; since you knew the risk of leaving your door open, shouldn't you, going by your "condom broke" example, and general position on this issue, be obligated to house this individual?

Your analogy is way off. But to answer your question first, Nope.

“If you no fit hold body, use a condom,” goes the common advert. Now if I move into a new town and everyone tells me not to leave my windows open at night as homeless people in that town are fund sneaking in I will be well served to listen. If I don’t and they sneak in the first thing people will say is, “But you were warned.” That does not give the intruder a right to live in my house.

The intruder came uninvited – my inadvertence in leaving my window open not having served as an invitation. The foetus, on the other hand, came in wielding a gold-plated IV. Sex is an intention to have a child – yeah, that’s how babies are made. In the case of a breaking condom the onus was on the parties to ensure that did not happen. Terminating that pregnancy would be like turning out my invited guest in the middle of the night at winter on the excuse that I wasn’t really thinking when I sent out the IVs.