Friday, July 19, 2019

Does God out-abort Planned Parenthood?

From atheist philosopher and blogger Jonathan M. S. Pearce

No one is really a fan of abortion in and of itself, but it is useful a procedure for any number of reasons, and the fetus is often merely a group of cells or something that has no personhood and feels no pain. God has designed and created human beings, in some manner, and appears to love abortion, even though his denizens don’t. Anywhere up to three-quarters of fertilized eggs are naturally, spontaneously, aborted. They either fail to implant or are rejected by the body, or undergo other such problems.
This amounts to perhaps billions of individual blastocysts or embryos over time. God doesn’t appear to lift a virtual finger to stop this. 
But this does raise an interesting question. On the assumption that human personhood begins at conception, combined with the belief that God is that creator of nature, doesn't that mean that Planned Parenthood is a distant second behind the Almighty as an abortionist? 


12 comments:

bmiller said...

This amounts to perhaps billions of individual blastocysts or embryos over time. God doesn’t appear to lift a virtual finger to stop this.

Even the persons that make it to birth end up dead don't they. No matter what people die. So I guess if you base your argument for abortion on the fact that many of the unborn die anyway "so why not kill them?", "then why not kill everyone since everyone ends up dead anyway?" is the logical conclusion.

Starhopper said...

I have given much thought to this amazing fact. Right off the bat (assuming human life does begin at conception), 3/4 of humanity never takes a single breath. And then, given the stratospheric death rates for infants and small children throughout history, only a tiny percentage of humanity lives what we consider a "normal" life (that is, childhood, maturity, old age, death). Even assuming a person survives childhood, most human beings throughout history have had a lifespan of maybe 35 years at most. People like myself (I am 67 years old) are the tiniest of tiny fractions of all of humanity.

So for some reason, God wishes for at least some of us to experience the full gamut of what we think of as human existence. But in reality, for perhaps 90 percent of all human beings, "normal" experience is either wholly or almost entirely in the next world.

bmiller said...

People like myself (I am 67 years old) are the tiniest of tiny fractions of all of humanity.

But you will end up just like the other 99.9999%.

Let's treat all humans with dignity and respect.

Starhopper said...

My point was not that we all die (Duh!), but that very few of us even live. Every philosophy worth its name must come to terms with this fact.

bmiller said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bmiller said...

Yeah, I got that.

I had a brother and sister who died in infancy. Are they the lucky ones? Or am I?

Starhopper said...

I hear you. I come from a traditional Catholic family of 6 children (4 boys, 2 girls). Or was it 7? My would-have-been 6th sibling (another girl) never made it to birth.

bmiller said...

They are all in the Church Triumphant.

You and I are in the Church Militant. We should be hoping to catch up with them someday.

StardustyPsyche said...

bmiller
"then why not kill everyone since everyone ends up dead anyway?" is the logical conclusion."
Indeed, hence yet another bizarre rabbit hole of religious thinking.

If life begins at conception with the soul hooking up with the fertilized egg then all the spontaneous non-implantations and abortions are presumably souls in heaven.

Since most people grow up to not ask Jesus to forgive them most adults are going to go to hell.

Wouldn't it be far kinder to abort your baby and send him or her straight to heaven, rather than risking they will go to hell?

Makes sense...infanticide is the kindest thing we could do!

bmiller said...

Stardusty,

Indeed, hence yet another bizarre rabbit hole of religious thinking.

Please. In order to be a little interesting you need to make at least a little bit of sense. Do you think you can muster that?

If not, then most likely you will only get the "pity" responses that family members give the crazy old uncle.




StardustyPsyche said...

"you need to make at least a little bit of sense"
Wadayameen?

I'm just using that WL Craig logic here, you gotta admit, he's right that the Jews who committed mass infanticide were doing those little kids a big favor, because they where headed to hell otherwise, but when the Jews stabbed and hacked all those babies and children to death that was a real act of loving consideration because now all those little souls are blissful for an eternity in heaven instead of being tortured for an eternity by their loving father!

Makes sense, right?

I mean, you torture your kids in excruciating around the clock agony when they do not obey you, right? That's just what a loving father does, right? But if you kill your child before he can think for himself then you don't have to torture him, so that's a very good thing, I mean, no duh!!!

bmiller said...

Yes, yes Uncle Star. That's very persuasive.

Now excuse me while I get the nurse to wipe that drool off your face. :-)