Pax's citing Townhall now.    Talk about the blind leading the blind...

Of course.  Chuck Colson, another tireless warrior in the drive to install a religious police state in the United States.

What a racket.  Chuck Colson is head of an organization called "Prison Fellowship."  It stands to reason, then, that prisons chock full of "victimless criminals" as defined by his religion would be a (pardon the pun) Godsend.

Big Religious Government sweeps the streets with its moral patrols, then ships them off in bulk to the well-funded prison system -- where Chuck gets to indoctrinate a literally captive audience.

[Disclaimer:  I know that was a little over the top... but not much.]

Geez, you are getting as mean as .......

Well, H4F, at least the prisoners would be sustained for all eternity by the bread of life that is Christ as this article shows: http://www.speroforum.com/s...

So, from the preceding example, we see yet another example of an ungrateful society toward those who try to do the right thing. Poor Elijah. Driven into exile by those who got all constipated about him ending a two-year famine by giving the idolatrous prophets of his days the smackdown.

Fast forward to WWII when a Polish saint who is a hero to John Paul the Great and whose feast day is today, a priest named Maximilian Kolbe, gave up his life by taking the place of a condemned family man in a Nazi camp. Hear what a fellow priest has to say about Kolbe: "Will today's men learn from this man about manhood? Woe to us if we do not! In a world where feminist dogmas and intimidations shame men from living the heroism to which all of us are called, Kolbe beckons men to stand up, throw off this present totalitarianism (I'm assuming he's referring to the militant secularists of today) and step out of line for those who need men most." More at: http://www.catholicexchange...

First we have Randomfactor equating Christ's followers with the blind when their savior so happened to literally and figuratively cure the blind, and H4F doing a Chicken Little about religious police takeover. Now we have a snotty university student putting fetuses on the same level as tapeworms to be eradicated in a recent editorial he wrote. Now if that isn't a militant secularist sucked into the cesspool spawned by the culture of death, I don't even want to know what is. Here is the drivel he wrote: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn...

I will allow a blogger to save me the time and trouble to dissect that column like a truly enlightened college student would do:

"During the first trimester of the pregnancy, the fetus is merely a wad of cells. A mere wad of cells doesn't equate to a fully functioning, living human being. ...So why would anyone provide a wad of cells with the outrageous status of a living human being?"

He goes on to state that this "wad" cannot think, eat, or breathe on it's own. I would like to point out that on the genetic level the DNA is human. The cells are taking in nutrients and passing waste, two basic functions of life. Many single cell organisms are considered alive simply on the basis of these two functions. Sheltered in the womb, the cells are allowed to develop from the blueprints of life into the intended shape. At this point the fetus has no real need for advanced cognitive thought, so whether a fetus has cognitive function at this point isn't too important. As a matter of fact, a child's cognitive thought processes are believed to start developing in the toddler years.


"And because mom houses the fetus ...the fetus should be considered property of its mother. ...So why not allow the mother her innate right to decide whether or not this wad of cells will grow into a human?"

Declaring a unborn child property would be a dangerous decision for a court to make. A child is dependent on parents after birth and for similar reasons could be claimed as property and thus treated as such later in life too.


"If anything, a fetus is merely a parasitical creature that uses the mother as its host. Tapeworms are parasites that house themselves in the intestinal tracts of humans, feeding off the food the host consumes. Comparatively, a fetus is little more than a tapeworm. It is quite common for humans to annihilate parasites with medications or toxins, so why not allow for fetuses to suffer the same fate?"

Oddly enough, a tapeworm is considered a living being. By fulfilling it's role as a parasite in nature, it is living to its fullest potential. However, many fetuses are not granted the opportunity to fulfill their fullest potential.


"...according to the National Institutes of Health, 25 percent of conceived embryos perish within the first six weeks due to complications such as failure to implant to the uterus wall? It would appear that the "loving" God of these fundamentalists is many more times guilty of murder than all the human race's abortionists combined."

Christian Theology places the "blame" squarely on original sin, not on God. Besides, what happens in nature is different than what a human does purposely. Many kids do not live past an early age, but this does not mean their lives are useless or unremarkable, or that they were somehow not alive.


Life begins when the baby is passed through the birth canal and exits the womb. At this point, the baby is no longer physically connected to the mother and no longer freeloading its nutrients and oxygen from mommy.

Actually a newborn, while not still connected to the mother via the umbilical cord, cannot walk, talk, or feed him or herself after birth. This child in essence will be freeloading nutrients from mommy and daddy, from breast-feeding until he or she moves out of the house, an event that generally occurs during or after the college years. Even though most parents would say the freeloading never ends! For someone who started out as a "wad of cells," Krouse sure isn't appreciative of all his parents have done for him. 

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And here's what another commentator had to say about that editorial: "Unfortunately there is a trend in the study of ethics that equates animal life with human life. They say that a cow has a more highly developed brain than a fetus in its earliest stages of development. One professor of Christian ethics I had said, "If you eat beef, you can also have an abortion." When I challenged him on this, his response to my Catholic belief in human dignity was to call me a "speciesist." He then presented the class with a scenario where the student was trapped on an island with a mentally retarded child and Koko, a gorilla that knew sign-language. There was only enough food for two, so someone had to starve. I was shocked when student after student, most of whom were studying to become ministers in various Protestant communities, said that the ethical thing to do would be to let the mentally retarded child starve to death. Knowing that I was in the minority, I prayed for courage and raised my hand. I believed that I had the perfect solution to the dilemma. When the professor called on me, I asked him, "What kind of wine goes with gorilla?"

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So, isn't it nice that we have a savior who is the "way, truth and life?" Unfortunately, some folks are like Pontius Pilate in being so blind to the answer to the question "what is truth?" even when he was looking at it right in the eyes.

This is not to be construed as giving Pax a milligram of credit for anything, but I have heard that pro-choice argument before and it is positively appalling.

I heard the "parasite" description on the Tom Leykis radio show long ago.

As a former anti-abortion radical myself, some of the pro-choice folk really need to change their script.
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On the bright side, the "liberal media" always, and I mean always, refer to unborn babies as "unborn baby" or "unborn child."  So, there is good reason the lame "culture of death" slogan never caught on.  It just doesn't exist (except perhaps in street gangs and religion-run governments).

Pax, you ignore the strategy which lets Koko *AND* the child live.  Why is that?  Because *YOU* have to live in order to decide whose life is more important?  Is that the same reason you have to make decisions for adult women, because deep down you see them as retarded children?  Or is it the gorilla they resemble in your eyes?
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Hardliner, you know there's no such thing as an "unborn baby" *OR* a "liberal media."  While I, too, think there's not much validity in the "tapeworm" argument, there are valid points it's hinting at.  There *IS* no child until after many, many months of development, and it's silly to pretend that there is.

Well, you're half right.  There is no "liberal media."  :-)

As for unborn babies, every grade school and high school anatomy or biology book that deals with reproduction shows a picture of a "thing" inside the womb.

This "thing" has five little fingers on each hand, five little toes on each foot, two eyes, ears, a nose, a head -- the size of which in relation to body size is proportionate to that of a newborn baby...

You gotta forgive most people for assuming that the obvious is true.

If one starts playing weasel-word games over what a "baby" is, it will likewise be obvious to people that weasel-word games are being played -- and your (our) cause will have been set back 100 yards.

Claiming that that little doll-shaped thing in the womb isn't a baby is as patently absurd as claiming there is no separation of church and state in the Constitution.  :-)

Well, you're right about that last phrase.  But when I see the picture of a fertilized egg, it doesn't say "baby" anywhere on it.  At a few weeks old the "baby" has gills and a tail.  And a very good chance not to advance beyond that stage. 

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Again, it's a legal definition, not a scientific one.

Quoting from U.S. v. Nelson, 53 M.J. 319, 323 (2002):
The term "human being" means a child that was "born alive," and that "born alive" means that child was wholly expelled from its mother's body and possessed or was capable of an existence by means of a circulation independent of her own.

Sometimes it's best to educate people on correct word usage in the given context -- as you have done with "theory" on the "Hatreds" topic.

Other times, it's best to translate your case into the language that seems plainly obvious to people.  On the unborn baby issue, you have a real uphill battle -- and I'm far from being won over, and I'm pro-choice.

It's a "finesse" thang, a communication thang.

(Of course, if there were truly any liberal media to be had, the language of the abortion debate would likely have its pivot point somewhere other than where it currently is.)

Thou hast said a mouthful, Hardliner.  "Pro-Choice" doesn't really cut it, because it seems too abstract.  I'm pro-life, but that seems to be taken.  Maybe "Pro-Human" comes closest.

I prefer to be exact, and call those who want to criminalize abortion "people who want to criminalize abortion," but that doesn't roll trippingly off the tongue. 

Drinking blood? eeeww...symbolic cannibalism...

The latest news involving the Shroud of Turin at the link below will bamboozle the naysayers who want concrete proof of Christ's existence. Now they are being put in Pontius Pilate's shoes. Rather than asking "What is truth?" as PP did when he was looking right at it in the presence of Jesus, they are asking "What is Christ?" when they are looking right at him in the presence of the truth in the shroud.

http://www.catholicweekly.c...

Oddly enough, this news comes at the same time as Pope Benedict's impromptu visit to the "other shroud," one that may have covered the face of the risen Christ. The first link tells about that visit, while the second goes into more details about the so-called "Veronica's Veil":

http://www.catholicnewsagen...
http://www.messengersaintan...

Have none of you read Matthew 26:217-35; Mark 14:12-26: Luke 22:1-38 (also known as the LAST SUPPER).  This is where Jesus instructed His disciples to eat his body  and drink his blood ; do this in rememberance of me.  This is also where along with the Jewish tradition of reading scripture.  The Christian Church began. When the bread and wine is conscrated it tranformed (transubstantion) into Jesus' body and blood. This is perhaps one of the hardest things for us to understand.  It is a belief in this that seperates early Christians ( Catholics) from others.    It is a fact that early Christians where sent into hiding to practice their faith due to religious persicution. Many died for their faith.


On another note:  How did this get from Eucharist to Abortion and then back to Eucharist? or I'm sorry just the "blood" part of it.

By the way, drinking the wine is optional.  Due to when you eat the body it is assumed you also are partaking of the blood.

Just a little lesson in Early Christian history.