When someone supports abortion on the basis that “nobody knows when life begins,” my immediate reaction is to immediately correct their misinformation with the facts of biology. Doing so, however, does not always end up with them becoming pro-life. People will often move the goalpost, offering another justification for abortion.
To prevent this, you could ask: “Does this mean that if we knew when life began – and we found that it began at conception – that you join me in opposing abortions?” If they say yes, then they commit themselves to becoming pro-life once you have provided them with the biological evidence. Of course, they could always say no, in which case you might ask them, “If it’s not our ignorance of when life begins that justifies abortion, then what does?” While this may prevent you from being able to provide them with the biological evidence to demonstrate their error, at least it will refocus the conversation to the reason(s) they think justifies abortion – which allows you to be more pointed in your apologetic, and provides a better chance of them changing their mind.
Thinking to Believe 
June 7, 2017 at 4:36 pm
I do not agree with abortion even though -at times- the body itself aborts a fetus. I knew a female who had several abortions done as a birth control measure!
A real topic also is what about in the case of rape,life of the mother or incest?
If the victim of the crimes of rape and incest I ‘favor’ abortion. Still it’s the female’s choice in these serious criminal cases.
If it’s either the mother or the child’s death l favor the mother. Consider the husband.Consider the finances if she works.Consider most of all her life and all that an adult does and is responsible for.Start adding up the mother’s full responsibilities life and all who love and are connected to her.Horrible choice I know.
Hidden influences are infants need to be baptized some believe in order to go to heaven.I do not see any Biblical evidence for that teaching.No infants baptized in the NT! Only ones who understand the good news message are to repent and accept Christ. As Jesus said referring to children ‘for OF such IS the kingdom of heaven.’Their angels do ALWAYS behold the face of the Father.’ As David the prophet said at the loss of his infant son ‘he will not go to me but I wil go to him(in the afterlife).’
The NT seems to teach infants and children are ‘safe’-not ‘saved’ until they ‘know the difference between good and evil’ as Moses said.When that happens only God knows. If so the child’s spirit goes directly to heaven at death.The mother may not be saved so take that into consideration if you affirm NT assertions,doctrines,etc.
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June 9, 2017 at 8:49 pm
Hello Dr Howard,
I found your piece to be thoughtful and well-considered.
I would like to add that there are many scriptures that seem to support a belief that Christ’s salvific power is so strong it saves all humanity. Below is an extract from John’s gospel:
John 4:42 King James Version (KJV)
42 And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.
There are many links that describe Christ’s salvation. Below is one link:
http://www.tentmaker.org/articles/savior-of-all-mankind.html
Peace and love to all,
Dinos
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June 9, 2017 at 11:03 pm
Dinos:
Two comments about your Post # 2.
“……I would like to add that there are many scriptures that seem to support a belief that Christ’s salvific power is so strong it saves all humanity……”
FIRST COMMENT:
Salvific power: “the doctrine that only a perfect male form can incarnate God fully and be salvific”
Salvific power as an attribute rendered to Jesus, I believe, is wrongly attributed.
And this is why………. salvific first known use was about 1591; virtually 15 centuries after Jesus. It was formed from the latin word Salvus (Safe) and as the Catholic Dictionary outlines: defines and presupposes God’s mind and intention for mankind and was therefore attributed to Jesus that also presupposes that Jesus was the only perfect male form capable of incarnating the spirit of God in the flesh.
I believe Jesus would have laughed at that description because of its obvious supernatural bent. Jesus was much too ordinary…Not because I am God Jesus would say, though God I am;…………that is, the reflection of Good through abundant extraordinary common sense every human has with only the need of reality to be the catalyst to change the mindset from the supernatural nonsensical to the natural common sensical.
You see, it was the supernatural nonsensical miraculous imagination of men claiming to be the Messengers; aka, the prophets of the Gods. In classical antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination.
Jesus rightly divined through his common sense that this idea was nonsense and the way religion operated and imposed this nonsense on the masses.
To save mankind from this ancient stupidity, Jesus needed to revolutionize the religious mindset of man in order to come out of the mired, tired way of discerning everything in the world as having supernatural agency.
And it was this very revolutionary campaign that Jesus embarked upon to save humanity from the egregious calamity that egomaniacs plied a forced imposition on the members in it society and this was not a small faction of humanity it was the evolution of the higher brain function coming out of the reptilian brain function that could not discern a twig blowing in the wind not only did not have life was indeed not a life threatening entity that caused a an instinctual reaction for flight or fight, life and death. And Religion just did not want to let go of the reptilian way of thinking even though the educated knew better they continued to force the reptile mind to grovel in thrall to the tyranny of the egotist strong man ruling the people.
IN Luke 11:52 Jesus sums up the transition this way: “Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and those that were entering in, ye hindered.”
Jesus tried to save humanity from the reptile age mindset religion kept them in but it was a mighty big ship to turn around and today we still see the consequences of the Reptile mind operating through out approx 80 of the world’s 7 billion people in religious and superstitious circles across the planet.
Jesus was not a failure but his efforts are still mimicked in the the very supernaturalism and superstition the world was steeped in during his time…..thank goodness that at least 20% of the population has transitioned to secularistic common sense.
SECOND COMMENT:
I have no problem understanding when life begins and it is not at conception lest any one be deceived in their abortion arguments. You see life must necessarily exist before conception for conception to occur in the first place. Life and the life forces have always existed and this is the message of Jesus that you believe on him whom he has sent not because he was God, though God he was but because he was man…
THE NICODEMUS MEETING:
You’re right Nicodemus. I’m quite exceptional. Matter of fact I am the exception. And you’re absolutely right Nicodemus, there’s only one possible explanation for my life, the things I do and what I say and the quality of life I live, God. Don’t misunderstand me Nicodemus; not because I am God though God I am, by the Good (God) I reflect. But because Nicodemus, though God, I’m man. Man as I as God created him to be. The kind of man Nicodemus who’ll let God be God and that’s why since the first time Adam fell into sin when God looks at me he sees on earth Nicodemus, a real man. Because in the totality of my being, my body, my soul, my spirit, my mind, my emotion and my will, I place myself unreservedly at his disposal so that he in me can be the author of everything I do and everything I say and everything I am.
Everyone who makes a practice of speaking evil, of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone speaking, working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen by others as a manifestation of the Good within, for the God-work it is. John 3:20-21
You see Nicodemus, it’s the divine logic.
That you with all mankind were so created that the presence of the creator in the creature is indispensable to your humanity. It’s that proposition, Nicodemus, the divine logic of which is indispensable to your humanity. That every demand that God makes upon a man is from God’s point of view completely logical. It’s only from man’s point of view, Nicodemus, in his fallen condition that it’s utterly unreasonable because in the divine logic, Nicodemus, there’s a hidden factor that’s absent in human reason and that hidden factor represents the margin of difference between what is divinely possible and otherwise cannot but be humanly unreasonable. And that hidden factor, God, himself. As indispensable, Nicodemus, to man as my Father is now to me.
Remember the verse in the 22nd of Matthew? Many are called but few are chosen. Why do you imagine of the many who are called so few are chosen? Because faithful is he that calleth you who will also do it and of the many who are called, so few will let him, do it! And he’s the only one who can. You see God isn’t looking around for anyone to be man sized for God, this is sort of the sentimental nonsense we hear again and again from the platform, “Be man sized for God”. As though he were waiting breathlessly for you. Poor God. He’s not looking for someone to be man sized for God, he’s just looking for any boy, girl, man or woman, anywhere who’ll let God be God sized in a man. He’s the only one who’s big enough.
Do you know that beautiful verse, 2 Chronicles, Chapter 16 verse 9: “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth looking for a man whose heart is perfect toward him”? Not a perfect man because there was none save God’s incarnate son, a perfect heart. Not because Jesus was born that way, though he was but we all are; but Jesus “recognized” that he was born that way and that’s a mighty big gulf of difference between Jesus as he lived and the Jesus people venerate today) The heart that says I can’t, God never said I could, he can, always said he would. And if you can’t and he can what’s the smartest thing to do? Let him.
This is the whole Christian life in a nutshell. And God says, as he looks throughout the whole earth, his eyes moving to and fro that he might find a man whose heart being perfect toward him, continues that verse, so that he in response in faithfulness to that man’s faith may show himself as God Strong on that man’s behalf. He’s simply saying, “Give me please, any boy, any girl, any man, any woman, any where, who’ll let me be God, in the man. And the Lord Jesus you see though never ever less than God coming into this world to behave as though he were never ever more than man, let God do it.
As opposed of course to man, who being never ever more than man, struts across this planet and behaves as though he were never ever less than God. That’s the essential difference. Jesus Christ never ever less than God behaved as though he were never ever more than man; man never ever more than man behaves as though he was never ever less than God.
The truth about God and the truth about man; in other words, the Lord Jesus, as our creator and the one who assumed the office of the man he made knew exactly what that relationship would be that would govern his humanity on forgiven
earth and his father, as God in heaven and deliberately submitted himself to those criteria of our humanity to the limitations that make man, man.
Your right Nicodemus, only one possible explanation for my life, my Father without whom I can do nothing because you see the Father who lives in me, he does the work. I let him.
Life is God and God is life….I believe in that God but I am an atheist when it comes to the theist god of the world of religion, supernaturalism and superstition.
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June 13, 2017 at 1:12 pm
Hello LeoTheGreater,
I appreciate your efforts to let me in on the truth as you see it.
I would ask you to be mindful of the fact that I am caring for my mother who has dementia and severe heart failure so it is hard for me to find the time to read your lengthy posts fully – your last one to me was 1608 words long.
We appear to have different views of Jesus Christ and I would have to ask how you quote from the scriptures as though you are quoting from Christ? Who knows what Christ actually said and what He actually meant?
Below is a link for you to consider:
http://www.humanreligions.info/gospels.html
And an extract from it:
Mark is the earliest gospel, composed between 60 and 80CE, by a Roman convert who was unfamiliar with Jewish customs and who had not met Jesus. The oldest versions of Mark all ended at Mark 16:8 with the words “according to Mark”, and an unknown author at some point added Mark 16:9-20.
Matthew and Luke both used Mark as their source material (92% and 54% copied, respectively), except they corrected many of his blunders about Jewish life and added additional material from a second source document that historians call “Q”4.
And three more links for you to consider:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124572693
https://ehrmanblog.org/why-are-the-gospels-anonymous/
https://celsus.blog/2013/12/17/why-scholars-doubt-the-traditional-authors-of-the-gospels/
If you are truly a free agent you are free to consider if your knowledge truly is knowledge and how any human can really know that?
Peace and love to all,
Dinos
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June 16, 2017 at 12:01 pm
I understand your predicament and I am sorry to hear about your mother and that my lengthy commentary grieved you so much that you were compelled to do a word count lol.
How do you think Jesus knew what he was all about and why?
My biblical knowledge is predicated upon the same source from whence Jesus knew who he was, what he had to campaign for, how he would proceed. His plan was initiated after he retreated to the desert to formulate his campaign after being baptized by his cousin and possibly half brother, John the Baptist.
One needs to read between the lines (aka, common sense) to understand Jesus more fully and which most Christians are unable to do because they have been trained by rote in “literal text without deviation” because of the hangups about parsing and interpretation and fail to grasp understanding of basic scripture such as the Curse of Ham for example…most Christians have no idea what Ham did that infuriated Noah so much as to be cursed for the act.
You said:
“Who knows what Christ actually said and what He actually meant?” well you said claim to be a Christian so if that question is a true question from within then I must say that you are a Christian, not following Jesus, but following the Catholic Church Tradition; in other words, dogma.
I have read enough academics to know that none of them, for all their scholarly acumen, have any intuitive knowledge about Jesus. Those same or similar scholars were around spitting out their 5000 year old traditional nonsense when Jesus read Isaiah in the synagogue. At that time they people were enraged by him and railed against Jesus from the start. They were horrified that Jesus or anybody would dare buck the dogma tradition and from the outset of his campaign they tried to corner him so they could throw him headlong over the cliff. What special knowledge did Jesus have? Or did he have any?
Like I said, your question actually denies Jesus so maybe you’re just a follower of scholars.
On the other hand even if Jesus is a storybook character, that doesn’t mean he’s not a good character, doesn’t mean he hasn’t got wisdom to impart. Didn’t He say the Kingdom of Heaven is within? Luke 17; 21, I think it was. And what a useful piece of information that is when you think about it.
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June 16, 2017 at 12:57 pm
It does not matter how ‘powerful’ God is relative to mankind accepting his offer of salvation. as it says in the OT ‘You have limited the Holy One.’ It is man’s will that blocks salvation as Jesus Himself says “…but you would NOT.”
Paul called the Jews who “resisted” the salvation message “stiffnecked” i.e. ‘willful rejection’ from their will.
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June 16, 2017 at 1:07 pm
Dino’s:
Your last post brought a smile to my face as you lamented the length of my commentary.
So I wondered if you thought much about the Reply post you prepared?
Your Post # 4 was relatively short at 253 words which at 200 words reading average per minute just over a minute to read. Mine on the other hand was 1608 would have required at least 8 minutes and then I thought about the 4 links you provided in your Post which actually contained a total by word count of 42,195 which would have required just about 3 and a half hours to read…Does this qualify as a very lengthy Post in your estimation? lol 🙂 🙂
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June 16, 2017 at 3:33 pm
Dear Dr Howard,
As I understand it we cannot block Christ’s salvation with our Nomic will. Perhaps the link below which references several scriptures may help:
http://frimmin.com/faith/godislove.php
Peace and love to all,
Dinos
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June 16, 2017 at 4:31 pm
Hello LeoTheGreater,
As there are no sources that are claimed to be Jesus’ writings I find it hard to believe that we can know what He said. If we are to rely on the Gospels, we should consider their accuracy since none of the writers took notes of what Jesus said. Also, the first account is likely to be Mark’s who wrote about thirty to fifty years after Jesus’ death and Matthew and Luke largely used Mark’s account to write theirs.
Are you reading between the lines of mostly Mark’s account of what Jesus may have said?
I don’t know about you but I read all of what contributor’s say in their posts and only some of the content of the links included. I suspect that some readers ignore the links altogether as there is often no sign that they considered any of the information within them. For this reason, I do not consider the number of words within a link as part of the prose. Honestly, how many of the words in the four links I provided in post #4 did you read?
Also, how do you know what you understand as your knowledge of Jesus is true knowledge and not self-delusion? Did you watch any of the YouTube videos of David Eagleman’s presentations of the human brain?
As for Christian dogma, Orthodox Christian doctrine came before Catholic Christian dogma and it’s likely that I have some of the former rather than some of the latter. For example, panentheism is a necessary condition of universal salvation in Orthodox Christian doctrine but Catholic Christianity appears to control the masses with its emphasis on the threat of Hell if you do not comply with the preaching of priests. I think that’s a significant difference, don’t you?
Peace and love to all,
Constantinos [Dinos (Dino)] Constantinou
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June 16, 2017 at 5:02 pm
Yes,but we must as we do with any document or system of teaching even law which says in one place you may kill ,but in another place it is excusable or no judgment if certain conditions are met,etc.
God writes the law He tells us not the other way around. Jesus who is Himself pure love and ‘the light of men’ said ( literal greek), “He believing into the Son has life everlasting;the one but disobeying the Son not (ouk-NEVER gk) will see life, but the wrath of God remains* on him.” John 3:36
*PRESENT indicative ACTIVE ‘always remains’ in Greek if this one continues to disobey the “wrath of God” will forever continue on that unbeliever. See Rev.20:11-15 We were made- before the fall -in his ‘image and likeness,’ but we do NOT make God in our image and conception of Him.
After all things and the final udgment Revelation 21:8 says in literal greek, “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and those having become foul and murderers ,fornicators,and sorcerers,and idolators,and all the lying ones,their part will be in the lake burning* with fire and brimstone which is** the second death.”
*Present participle – “burning” or continues on and on no let up ever gk
** “is” Present indicative ACTIVE gk
Rev.22 :11 ‘Let him be filthy forever.’ Let thrm forever be unsaved i.e.’filthy.’ aorist imperative
15 “But, OUTSIDE [the holy city] are the dogs [unbelievers] ,and the socerers,and the fornicators,and the murderers,and the idolaters,and everyone loving and making a lie.”
Jesus as well as his holy angels are near or in the ‘presence’ gk Rev.14: 9-12 at the scene of those being judged.
“Smoke of their torment”- “GOES up” present indicative active and it will be ‘into the ages of all ages.’ No let up forver and ever unless you wish to tinker with God’s holy word. I don’t!
It is very strong in greek it takes your breath away.It is permanent.Man doesn’t like that ;so he changes it and manipulates teaching on the human will,and the written word,etc. I understand ,but it’s like Jesus said about Judas, “It would have been good if he had NEVER been born.” No second chances.Sorry.
“God as to his nature is love” says the greek. It also says, “God is judge.”
Jesus- now he is judge- tells those directly who literally plead and beg- citing all of their ‘good works in his name’ to him at the judgment, “I NEVER KNEW YOU depart from me you workers of evil.” Mat.7:21-23
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June 16, 2017 at 7:07 pm
Dr Howard:
post # 10 is a classic example of religious fear mongering of infinite punishment for those who don’t obey clergy. They burning lake of fire is more of the same. Since the 10 commandments the capital offenses have been imbedded in the first 4 commandments…mere religious decrees to support the authority of the clergy to kill who disobeys them.
THIS IS THE Ancient Religious Tradition:
God’s will, so called, is revealed in the “holy” scriptures. The sacred book formulates the will of God and specifies what is to be given to the clergy. Clergy become parasites. “… All things of life are so ordered that the clergy is everywhere indispensable; at all the natural events of life, at birth, marriage, sickness, death. Natural values become utterly valueless. The Clergy sanctifies and bestows all value. Disobedience of God (the clergy) is ‘sin.’ Subjection to God (the clergy) is redemption. Clergy use ‘sin’ to gain and hold power.
I am not impressed by clerical nonsense any more than Jesus was impressed with clerical nonsense in creative attempts to dominate, terrorize, control and justify their atrocities by any means possible. We have them still walking among us so easily seen throughout the religious world in current world affairs.
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June 16, 2017 at 8:16 pm
Dear Dr Howard,
Your first post showed compassion and I was fooled into thinking that you were a thoughtful person.
I was dismayed by post #10 on so many levels: it appears that you have not explored the link I provided fully; your thinking condones an unforgiving and judgmental attitude to unbelievers and sceptics but ignores how bad priests and their followers behave; and you have ignored the simple truth that the Scriptures were written by men, not God.
Please try to be kind as you are causing more harm than good by the things you have said in your last post.
Peace and love to all,
Dinos
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