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The hits keep coming: Disabled kids are god's punishment

ponderingturtle said:
Well a clear possibility would be a previous miscarriage(spontaneous abortion ) that their god knows was your fault.
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Another clear possibility is that neither the question nor the answer have anything to do with what he actually said, or with the policy position he's actually taken.

Seriously, if this is what the thread is about, maybe it should be moved to the Theists Say the Darndest Things Religion and Philosophy forum, so everyone can get on with the gratuitous pointing and laughing.














Actually, never mind. That about sums up the US Politics forum as well.
 
Lisa Simpson said:
I did actually have a miscarriage a year before Jared was born, but shouldn't that be god's fault?
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Probably.

And if the science indicates that abortions may indeed increase the risk of complications in future pregnancies, shouldn't that be something to consider when making policy, regardless of whether or not you're a theist?
 
No. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, you don't get to decide what happens inside my body.
 
Lisa Simpson said:
No. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, you don't get to decide what happens inside my body.
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But surely I get to decide whether or not to give money to Planned Parenthood to help you decide what happens inside your body?

And surely when tax revenue is spent, politicians (and their constituents) get to decide whether to spend that revenue on helping you do things that they believe will cause harm, or risk of harm?
 
theprestige said:
And what, exactly, is the part you find offensive? The part where he cites science? The part where he anthropomorphizes nature with a figure of speech? The part where he puts it in the context of his religious beliefs?
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So we've gone from "this press conference never happened, the delegate never said these things, and the delegate's wife repudiated the comments" to "well, yeah, the press conference happened and the delegate said these things, but what was so bad and offensive about them, and they might even be right!"
 
theprestige said:
But surely I get to decide whether or not to give money to Planned Parenthood to help you decide what happens inside your body?

And surely when tax revenue is spent, politicians (and their constituents) get to decide whether to spend that revenue on helping you do things that they believe will cause harm, or risk of harm?
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If you pay taxes, you also support Medicare and Medicaid. Doctors do not phone you for your approval of their treatment plans for the patients covered, do they? As a society we agreed to collectively fund medical care for some people in particular situations. We do not exercise complete control over that care.

Just like our taxes fund the military and the roads and NASA, but nobody's asking for my input on invasions, lane widths, or rockets.
 
ANTPogo said:
So we've gone from "this press conference never happened, the delegate never said these things, and the delegate's wife repudiated the comments" to "well, yeah, the press conference happened and the delegate said these things, but what was so bad and offensive about them, and they might even be right!"
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Strawman noted.

Not at all. The story is weak to begin with. It's poorly sourced and short on evidence. It's hardly worth responding to.

But, okay, fine: You want to respond to it anyway. So what's the quality of your response? Weak as the story is, you apparently gleaned something you consider a fact, and came up with some kind of conclusion. So what, exactly, are the facts you think you found? And how, exactly, do you think they support your conclusion?

I think it's a bad story, and I think it's elicited some bad responses. I don't mind discussing either, or both. I don't see why discussing one means I can't discuss the other.

ETA: I think you may have misunderstood my complaint about the weakness of the story. I don't mean to imply that the press conference never took place, etc. My complaint is that the story--and the people posting it uncritically--do us a disservice by not including any kind of sourcing or evidence to go with their claims. What was the press conference really about? We don't know. What was the delegate's actual statement, and what was the reporter's embellishment? We don't know. What was the context? We don't know. When and where did it happen? We don't know. So that's the quality of the story that you're responding to and drawing conclusions from. That's the quality of the story that has Lisa all het up about God's position on miscarriages versus abortions.

About the only thing this story is good for is a jumping-off point for gratuitous theo-bashing.
 
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Lisa Simpson said:
I did actually have a miscarriage a year before Jared was born, but shouldn't that be god's fault?
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No. Nothing bad is ever god´s fault, no matter how omniscient and omnipotent he is. All he ever does is the good stuff. Oh, and the punishment, of course, but that would be your fault, too.
 
Lisa Simpson said:
I wasn't an atheist when Jared was born. I was actually attending a church, albeit a very liberal Christian church (they let gays in!). Perhaps that's the reason.
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But, being omniscient, He knew that you would eventually turn to Atheism, so He went ahead and punished you in advance. It was no bother, He was already in the neighborhood.
 
 
theprestige said:
I know, right? That must have been what he meant when he cited a study published in a peer-reviewed journal:



Because the only way you could possibly get this idea about biology is from a pulpit:
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The claim was that disabled children are caused by having abortions earlier, not just complications. That you have attempted to turn it into general complications does not change that.
The reproductive medicine article is a hug stretch as it only mentions that there is a slight increase in cerebral palsy in children that are very low birth weight babies that were born premature and that may have been caused by a previous abortion.

The Mayo link says nothing that supports the claim that having an abortion increases the risk of a disabled child later.

The KLTV story on the study from China is incredibly lacking in any figures and simply relies on the phrase; “ there was a two-fold increase in the risk of placental abruption in the group which had undergone a previous medical abortion.”
That is absolutely meaningless without numbers. Dies the two fold make it go from 2,000,000:1 down to 1,000,000:1 or does it take it from 2:1 to even odds? They aren’t saying.

After abortion is an anti abortion organization, and the miscarriage link I disregarded because having a miscarriage, or spontaneous abortion as it is often called, is not at all like having a disabled child.
 
LarianLeQuella said:
Funny thing is, wasn't I having a discussion with Avalon about just this type of mindset (in a totally different context mind you)?
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Were you? Because I can tell you up front that I do not and have not taken the position that bad things happen to us on Earth as "punishment" for what we do.

Here's the actual Christian position on the subject:
Matthew 5:43-45 said:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor[g] and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
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Bad things happen to good people.

John 9:1-3 said:
Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.”
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Disabled children are not a punishment from God.

Any Christian who says otherwise is wrong, full stop.
 
theprestige said:
What, exactly, do you understand that he admitted?

And what, exactly, is the part you find offensive? The part where he cites science? The part where he anthropomorphizes nature with a figure of speech? The part where he puts it in the context of his religious beliefs?
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The part where he says "punishment". It's insensitive, asinine and presumptuous. A rare hat trick.
 
RandFan said:
The part where he says "punishment". It's insensitive, asinine and presumptuous. A rare hat trick.
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Agreed. I feel the same way when pro-abortion advocates call restrictions on abortion a "punishment."
 
AvalonXQ said:
Here's the actual Christian position on the subject:

Bad things happen to good people.

Disabled children are not a punishment from God.

Any Christian who says otherwise is wrong, full stop.
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That something is in the Bible doesn't make it a Christian position. What Christians actually believe make it a Christian position. It should be noted that there are so many sects that the notion of an "actual" Christian position on many if not most subjects is rather absurd. The problem with the Bible is that it is contradictory. You pick scriptures that suggest that all people are as likely to be blessed. The Bible also tells another story.

That said, I think a fairly coherent Christian position based in part on common sense can be established that god doesn't punish infants.
 
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