General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJust wondering: Is there anything in the bible that discourages abortions?
Is the Christian right's fanatical commitment to eliminating abortions based on anything in the bible or is it just something they decided on their own?
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)There is something in there if I recall correctly about compensation for a pregnant women who is injured and loses her baby. But that is about it.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)The God of the Old Testament not only killed untold numbers of women and babies but demanded that others do so...
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/abortion.html
http://www.evilbible.com/Murder.htm
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)that "God" routinely slaughtered babies and ordered his followers to do the same.
Also, one assumes that many of his divine temper tantrums also killed pregnant women and their fetuses.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)He once murdered 42 children for making fun of Elisha's bald head.
New International Version (NIV)
Elisha Is Jeered
23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. Get out of here, baldy! they said. Get out of here, baldy! 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)tigervalentine
(137 posts)Lets the father of the lost fetus set the financial penalty of loss of the fetus. Something like that. My interpretation is that it is an economic matter.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)immoderate
(20,885 posts)--imm
okaawhatever
(9,462 posts)Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)A man should not spill his seed on the ground.
Genesis 38:8-10
King James Version (KJV)
8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.
9 And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.
10 And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also.
(My five-year old granddaughter said once that "God has a bad attitude."
Brigid
(17,621 posts)Weird story. Genesis 38.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)But every two bit church will interpret that according to their own prejudices.
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)It's like the Second Amendment...isn't it? Oh... that language thing again.
jmowreader
(50,559 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)bklyncowgirl
(7,960 posts)I do agree that Onan was punished for disobedience--still it may also have also been considered an abomination to waste seed. The same prohibition could explain prohibitions against homosexuality. Wasting seed, preventing life from forming could bring bad fortune.
Many ancient people--even some pretty sophisticated ones like the Egyptians--did not have a complete understanding of the mechanics of conception. When they talked about 'seed' they meant that literally there was a tiny, complete human in a man's semen. The mother was just a vessel, essential to nourish the growing child but contributing nothing of its essence. This belief continued well into the Middle Ages and beyond.
If a woman did not become pregnant, the Egyptians tended to put the blame on the father--a guy whose wife did not have kids was something less than a man--though they realized that sometimes it was the woman's fault. Other cultures, like the ancient Hebrews, put the blame squarely on the woman. If a woman did not become pregnant, it meant to the ancient Hebrews that she was barren, like earth in which seeds would not sprout.
We can see the lasting effects of this superstition to this day in Roman Catholic prohibitions against any form of birth control, even barrier methods which clearly do not destroy an actual fetus.
Bohunk68
(1,364 posts)their kinfolk. Did an in-depth study on this just recently and much of what happens is that this part is taken out of context of the overall story. It's like reading a couple of sentences from a chapter to deduce the meaning. This story is far more complicated than what is presented.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Deep13
(39,154 posts)Hosea 9:11-16 Hosea prays for Gods intervention. Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. Give them, 0 Lord: what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. . .Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. Clearly Hosea desires that the people of Ephraim can no longer have children. God of course obeys by making all their unborn children miscarry. Is not terminating a pregnancy unnaturally abortion?
Numbers 5:11-21 The description of a bizarre, brutal and abusive ritual to be performed on a wife SUSPECTED of adultery. This is considered to be an induced abortion to rid a woman of another mans child.
Numbers 31:17 (Moses) Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every women that hath known man by lying with him. In other words: women that might be pregnant, which clearly is abortion for the fetus.
Hosea 13:16 God promises to dash to pieces the infants of Samaria and the their women with child shall be ripped up. Once again this god kills the unborn, including their pregnant mothers.
2 Kings 15:16 God allows the pregnant women of Tappuah (aka Tiphsah) to be ripped open. And the Christians have the audacity to say god is pro-life. How and the hell is it that Christians can read passages where God allows pregnant women to be murdered, yet still claim abortion is wrong?
Thanks to
http://www.evilbible.com/god%27s%20not%20pro-life.htm
for this information.
pkdu
(3,977 posts)Should he be indicted?
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
Psalm 39:13-16
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mothers womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
Psalm 22: 9-10
9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe on my mothers breast.
10 On you I was cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
LuvNewcastle
(16,846 posts)the life of a fetus is sacred to God, and it's all they really have. I think people need to get past trying to use the Bible to justify their actions, one way or another. It really isn't germane to a serious discussion about today's issues. Does anybody care these days what Plato said about outer space? If not, why are they so interested in what the Bible said about procedures not even imagined in those days? There's a time and place for the Bible, and decisions on abortion aren't the proper time or place.
rug
(82,333 posts)Crunchy Frog
(26,587 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)to miscarry (read abort)...then your punishment should be a fine paid to the husband of the pregnant woman.
However, it also says you should be stoned to death for adultery....
So fornication is an executable crime...abortion is not
turns out it is Exodus
22"If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide.
JHB
(37,160 posts)Last edited Mon Jan 27, 2014, 08:43 AM - Edit history (1)
...to get too exercised over it. Didn't want to seem too "papist".
But when the Movement Conservatives were courting them in the late 70s, it was a way to take the moral high ground against unauthorized (excuse me, "illicit" sex and the womens' movement.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)expediency.
They avoid telling the Catholics the "truth" about it.
JHB
(37,160 posts)The Christian Coalition's Catholic outreach back in the 90s never quite grew out of its little niche because the evangelicals just couldn't bring themselves to treat the Catholics as equals.
Not related to what you said, but I should add:
By "moral high ground" I mean the "protecting the innocent" angle. It's not as if they never had a reputation as holier-than-thou moralizers, after all. And they combined so nicely, complete with "liberals want criminals to go free" in the mix:
"You just want an abortion to avoid the consequences of your illicit sex. You want your baby to pay the price for your selfishness!"
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)The Catholics feel guilt ... the Evangelicals feel entitled.
So both groups moralize, but the Catholics (rank and file) tend to be more forgiving.
I also find that the evangelicals are willing to lie, cheat, steal, because God wants them to. After all, he "chose" them. And they can rationalize it easily because its part of God's plan.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)paraphrased by Doyle in the movie Sling Blade:
Doyle: Believe in the Bible, do ya Karl?
Karl: I don't understand all of it, but I reckon I understand a good deal of it.
Doyle: Well I can't understand none of it. This one begat that one and that one begat this one, and lo and behold someone says some shit to someone else - just how ret****d are you?
Amen.
sweetloukillbot
(11,029 posts)He implied it was Biblical, but I don't know where it is in the Bible. I have seen some Talmudic references to it though.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)dirt and whatnot, a full grown body that is not 'Adam' until God breaths into him 'the breath of life'. According to the creation myth in the Bible, the breath is when a body becomes a human person. Genesis 2 "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
rustydog
(9,186 posts)Just sayin'
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)... you know, those stories in numerous mythologies and religions about Gods who begat children by human women. Those of us who aren't demigods have to live in the real world.
kydo
(2,679 posts)There is noting in the bible regarding abortion other then a reference to miscarriage; Which by the way was pretty much left up to woman to say the baby kicked or something. No movement meant not living being.
The right wing nutters stayed silent on the issue until the AMA was founded. The medical peeps listed abortion and why one is done. So it became illegal then. Then later as science got better and started showing how human live begins and started giving times on when human life begins in the womb that's when it became the rights reason for being. The irony is that without science they never would have known yet they despise science.