From here:
It doesn’t get any more polarizing than God and the Devil.
As tensions over the abortion debate intensified at the Texas state legislature Tuesday, a religious-themed face-off took place in the form of a handful of hell-raising pro-choicers shouting “hail Satan” as pro-lifers swayed and sang “Amazing Grace.”
Here is the video:
For the Episcopal view, here is Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, a seminary of the Episcopal Church. She is a lesbian and in 2011 married another woman. In 2009 she declared that abortion is a blessing and abortionists are saints.
It might be less disingenuous if she just chanted “hail Satan”:
I have never been comfortable with abortion and particularly abortion on demand. Our third child was unplanned [our doctor kept demanding endless pregnancy tests and raising barriers to contraception and the over-the-counter-stuff has a 1% failure rate] but we never for one moment considered abortion…
However, I am not comfortable either with the mentality of welfare which says, ‘Crank-em out and get more beer money.’
Let’s face it, in this day and age family planning is a reality, and 99 women in 100 do not have to get pregnant if they do not wish to.
Rape causes my biggest dilemma: I cannot ask a woman to carry a child for someone who violated her; however, today the morning after pill takes care of that I am told.
Doctors who crush a babies skull in utero to terminate a 24 weeks [or more given on the estimated time of conception] pregnancy are a long way from sainthood in my book.
So, Malachy, you feel it is alright to kill a child for his father’s sins? The rapist commits the crime, but the child he fathered pays with its life? That’s O.K.? Would you allow, say, a 3 yr. old to be killed for his father’s sins?
When do we get back to having both mothers and fathers thinking of the newly-conceived life, instead of themselves and their conveniences?
There is always adoption. In fact, so many married couples in North America are clamouring to adopt, they have to buy babies from China these days. And we abort the home-grown varieties.
I always say that if a woman cannot give a child 9 months of safe harbour in her womb — a child who had no choice in its own conception — whether she intends to keep and raise that child or not, she is less than human.
Ah, Anonymous me auld darlin’. If only you could read, instead of leaping to some bigoted conclusion or another. I did not say that it is “alright to kill a child…”
You are a woman, I am a man; therefore childbirth and the mysteries attached to it are something that I will never experience. Let me turn it around perhaps and maybe you can understand: if my wife was violently raped [heaven forbid] and was subsequently pregnant with a child I would support her 100% in any decision that she made regarding that child. OK?
Nobody, would allow a three year old to be killed for the father’s sins; at least, nobody who was 1] playing with a full deck, and 2] and had the intestinal fortitude to strike down the maniac who wanted to do it [biblical, or otherwise] before he or she could act.
Humanity never even arrived at a situation where the great majority of mothers and fathers thought of the newly-conceived life, instead of themselves and their conveniences.
Adoption is an option, but one fraught with problems. The China baby boom is of the past; and unfortunately, folk want to adopt a ‘perfect baby for them’ nobody wants the kids in care; the kids with problems; Down’s syndrome; HIV positive; AIDS positive; any mutations; Latino; coloured; mixed race. [Unless they are cute of course] These are often the home-grown varieties.
Many would agree with your sentiments about safe harbour in the womb, but given the current selfish norm better she pops a pill or insists on the sperm donor using a condom; because the option of abortion is quite horrible. What’s wrong with the morning after pill? Too bloody lazy to get out of bed I expect.
As for Katherine Ragsdale, she would make an ideal surrogate mother for Dean Peter Elliot and his partner. These so-called christian priests are there for the excellent salary and the benefits, plus a healthy dose of egotism and self aggrandizement! Nothing else…
Ah, Malachy. If only you could leap ahead to the argument without all the clevah, embittered lead-in. All we needed to read was the last three paragraphs.
Also, due to overuse, the word “bigot” no longer has magical powers.
Lisa:
Forgive me I am somewhat advanced in years.
What is ‘clevah’?
Embittered? That I am not; although I will own up to ‘a bit grumpy’ or so my kids have said…
Bigot, never had any magical powers! However, [to go British] one knows them when one meets them.
PS I hope you read the last three paragraphs.
Your children mean to be kind.
Here’s what someone who says she had a chaotic childhood says about her time in an orphanage. “I have lovely memories of the orphanage. Every smell, every site [sic], every loving and godly nun and priest that looked after us brings only joy. I missed the place after we had to pack up and move – again – in the middle of the night.”
Malachy loves to call me a bigot. It’s his standard lead-in, that wonderful tolerant Christian. He still thinks it gets him attention. We can all giggle a bit. He made a mistake not too long ago, I righted it, and now I am his favourite target.
Funny….he must be omniscient, like God. He knows me through and through it seems, though we have never met. He judges and damns me because I follow traditional 2000 year old Christianity.
Great guy, is Malachy.
Nothing amiss with your religion: that is always a matter of personal choice.
And as for Katherine Ragsdale, she is not the first evil I have found in the Anglican/Episcopal Churches of present. But she is certainly one of the leading Devils. And she brings home an excellent salary for it.
“These are the two things I want you, please, to remember – abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.” (Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, Birmingham Al, 2009)
How came the Church to assume so little authority to resist the way of the world or so little obligation to protect the least among us?
I suspect that what you should hear is “Keep stuffing the envelopes; keep stuffing the envelopes…”
Frankly, Lisa, and to answer your question: the church does not give a flying foxtrot about anything but money! Never has; never will!
I hear you, Lisa.
They wanted to be popular.
Abortion is certainly not a blessing. 🙁
It is not good that many abortions are being performed legally or illegally daily. It is not good that many humans are being killed or murdered daily. It is not good that many have not yet responded positively to the Gospel of Jesus Christ who has come to show us how to live and how to die.
Thank you Micheal.
After listening to the chanters, and the devil with a collar on, I can only feel the sorrow of the shortest verse in the Bible.
———————-“Jesus wept.”————————
Are you Irish, Terry or was ‘Micheal’ a typo?
As with most of your enigmatic posts I am left wondering if you actually have an opinion? But, if you are Irish then I believe I know from whence you come.
There is no reason any poster here has to have any opinion as part of his or her comments.
I am left with the conclusion that you have some sort of compulsion to insult people. I find your comments are repeatedly disrespectful. They are not any form of acceptable sarcasm, Irish or otherwise.
There is a saying that people should be careful about what they do and say, because they may be the only Bible some other people ever read.
Please stop needlessly insulting people. Now. Forever. Period.
Anonymuse:
Why do you not revisit your posts here https://www.anglicansamizdat.net/wordpress/pope/i-think-i-like-the-new-pope/?
I believe that you consider yourself an educated man, no? So you understand projection. Your ‘opinions’ [and they are just that unless you provide sources and follow an academic format] are not without considerable merit but your criticism is bitingly superior; particularly in this case where your opponent in the debate sees the world through the cracked lens of whichever bigoted source has been driving her for years and has a limited understanding of the need to research or redact information accurately.
In the end, you are SHOUTING at her in total frustration. [That’s the German side of the British coin BTW: he/she who shouts loudest wins the debate.]
Terry usually quotes directly from the Bible; however, he frequently does not clarify his point. Now if he is Irish, I can guess what he might be getting at because I understand the Celtic thought process as well as take an educated guess at which version he is quoting from; that’s it; nothing more. If that is insulting then:-
Terry, I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, and was in no way fair comment, and was motivated purely by malice. And I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you, or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.
Like Bishop Bird, you are a bit thin skinned old chap, you may be sensitive inside, but what I see on the outside is an overbearing Englishman. [Apologies to Lauren Graham]. So you either have to practice that which you preach, or we could sign a mutual non-aggression pact like Molotov and Ribbentrop, but then we’d need proxies to continue debating…
Whoa, A Fish Called Wanda reference. Ha. 🙂
“Wanda” is iconic! So many “G-g-g-g-g-g-g” !KISS! “Good actors.”
Hello Michael,
As usual you present a voice of Faith and reason. May you continue to keep the Faith and serve as an example to the rest of us.
God Bless.
I to not see that I was shouting but yes, in a post under that topic, I overstepped the boundary and my comment became somewhat personal rather than focused on the issues. I try not to do that. I suggest you try not to as well. This board will be a better place for our efforts.
And I am not English. Please get off that particular train of thought. Thank you.
You entirely missed my point regarding ‘projection’.
You may consider yourself to be Canadian, which is in your case equals English one generation removed. Your syntax [the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language] is unmistakeable, “I’m afraid”.
As an Irishman, I am familiar with the overbearing and superior attitudes of the Anglo Irish and the Anglican Church. They cannot freely admit their own faults without giving advice to other people. It is still a daily event as this blog illustrates.
Finally, I do not appreciate your pompous and overbearing post at 6.1.1.1`above. I suggest you set your own house in order and stop projecting your ignorance upon other people.
No, I did not miss your “point”. Projection is a Freudian psychoanalytic concept that I did not consider relevant. Just because someone ignores something does not mean it was missed.
The rest of your post speaks for itself. I again suggest this board would be a better place if we focused on issues.
“You may consider yourself to be Canadian, which is in your case equals English one generation removed”
Excuse me? How on earth did you come to that conclusion?
In a convoluted Irish way I suppose…
Canada, like Ireland and quite a few other countries, was colonized by the British. They took the land, subjugated abused and murdered the native people and piously attended the Anglican church on Sunday.
After a while, some of them have the almighty gall to consider themselves ‘Irish’. The term ‘Anglo Irish’ came into common usage.
In Canada some fifty First Nation’s tribes from Algonkin to Tuchone suffered an even worse fate at the hands of the British and the Anglican church: charges of genocide have not yet been resolved, despite the words of that silver-tongued devil Hiltz.
Yes, there were other abusers in Canada, but until 1965 the union jack of England was part of our national flag; it is still to be seen in the provinces.
The British did not seriously impact Canada until approximately 200 years ago; that is a small number of generations.
My wife and I are Chinese Canadian and Irish Canadian respectively. We were not born in Canada. Our children can claim to be Canadian because they were. However, we are all totally respectful of Canada’s Aboriginal Heritage.
Canada was also colonized by the French, and the German, and the Scots, and Scandinavian, and the Dutch, and just about every European culture there is – all Canadians are most certainly not English one generation removed. You might consider taking a few Canadian history books out of the library.
Kate:
The Vikings got here over 1000 years ago I believe, but hardly lasted five minutes.
However, Canada was “colonized” by the French and English; the English prevailed.
Where pray tell did I say: “All Canadians are English one generation removed.”?
Also, be aware that “Cultures” do not colonize.
You want to give me snippy advice about borrowing history books from the library find a valid reason!
She did.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9110838/Stone-age-Europeans-were-the-first-to-set-foot-on-North-America.html
If that’s it, well I am not impressed. I think we all know the history of the world; out of Africa and all that; although there are still plenty of flat earth biblical Christians who stick to Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. The routes of migration are well documented and researched.
But, that is not what we were talking about, so if you are suggesting that cavemen colonized N.America [which of course you are not] you are simply supporting my original hypothesis about First Nations.
C’mon, at least Anonymuse has a brain and can use it!
So, frankly, she did not!
“You may consider yourself to be Canadian, which is in your case equals English one generation removed”
Kate: when all else fails in the debate as a last measure my kids resort to: “Did!” “”Did not!” “Did!” ad nauseam.
The conjugation of English verbs is relatively simple, compared say with: Latin, French and Spanish, where the use of the subject pronoun is variable e.g. for emphasis.
My reply was to Anonymuse, so the subject pronoun ‘you’ clearly refers to Anonymuse and not to a greater ‘y,all’ including Lisa and Kate. In fact, I find it hard to conjugate ‘may’ to refer to a group e.g. “all Canadians” using the subject pronoun ‘you’. If I was writing an open letter to “all Canadians” [which I clearly was not] I suppose it might work, but it would be poor grammar.
I wonder if you [Kate] are a Canadian schoolteacher? My kids assure me that these days most of them do not speak good English.
Fine – you still haven’t answered my question, though. You said what I quoted above to Anonymuse, and then when I asked how you got there produced some convoluted story about the natives and colonization., which had nothing to do with the original question.
Maybe it is just that you think calling someone English is the ultimate insult. Could it be that you are bigoted towards the English?
Hey Vincent, I suppose I should follow my own advice, eh?
I think I will do just that. Go ahead and have the last word, Mal.
Ok. Thanks, last word, Kate.
I actually like an admire the English, with certain limitations.
Leave Vincent alone, he is a nice guy; I think you are too! [Nice gal that is…}