I’ve never met an IDer or creationist who could explain this, and it should give pause to theistic evolutionists as well.
An article in Aeon:
A ferocious biological struggle between mother and baby belies any sentimental ideas we might have about pregnancy
Suzanne Sadedin is an evolutionary biologist who has worked at Monash University, University of Tennessee, Harvard University, and KU Leuven.
OMagain,
Planned Parenthood is not a good funding choice:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/speaker-of-the-house-paul-ryan-explains-why-planned-parenthood-shouldnt-get
Excerpt:
See also this article: 7 Reasons Why Planned Parenthood Should Not Get Government Money by Abby Attia.
Ironically, the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, hated abortion:
What Did Margaret Sanger Think About Abortion?
Suppose that there were none of the genetic conflicts between the mother’s genes and father’s genes? Wouldn’t that be one of your “it’s too good not to be designed” confirmation-bias ID talking points?
But since it does happen, well, how do we know? Apparently we don’t know if “design” looks very doubtful (even to you), while we do know if it’s exquisitely optimized (at least locally). You don’t see a problem with that? It’s ID’s bias through and through, and it’s all that ID really has, a kind of theological view that only sees clearly when “God’s design” seems oh-so-right, and throws everything else into the “how can we know?” pile.
How might we improve things? Well, how about cutting out the evolved conflicts? Is that really so hard to figure out? Do you really suppose that God can’t do anything but make things having the tell-tale complexities and problems of evolution? The liger is a massive cat, because lion fathers have genes that push babies to be huge, while tiger fathers don’t–nor do tiger mothers have genes to keep babies smaller as a counter. God couldn’t make lions more like tigers in that way?
Glen Davidson
Roughly correct. It’s a legal medical procedure that is clearly in demand.
That does not appear to be the case. From a CNN article:
Abortion
Planned Parenthood says 3% of the services it provides are abortions.
323,999 abortions were performed in 2014, according to the organization.
Sexual education
Planned Parenthood says it provides sex education to 1.5 million young people and adults each year.
Pregnancy prevention and birth control
Planned Parenthood says it prevents an estimated 579,000 unintended pregnancies per year.
Contraception accounted for 34% of the services it provided, according to the 2015 GAO report.
In 2014, Planned Parenthood saw:
2 milion reversible contraception patients
941,589 emergency contraception kits
3,445 vasectomies
718 female sterilization procedures
Pregnancy tests: 1.1 million tests done in 2014
Prenatal care: provided to 17,419 people in 2014
Sexually transmitted disease screening and treatment
Planned Parenthood says this accounts for 42% of the services provided. (The GAO calculates 41% in 2012 by affiliates.)
4.2 million tests and treatments provided in 2014
This represents the largest proportion of medical services provided.
Pap smears (cervical cancer screening): 270,000 per year
Breast exams: 360,000 per year
Research: Planned Parenthood said in its 2013-14 annual report that it participated in more than 70 research projects.
That video was egregiously edited to be misleading, according to Snopes.
Got a cite to a credible, unbiased source?
That’s unconvincing. I support women’s reproductive rights, including making charitable donations. You don’t. The case for not funding Planned Parenthood can be made on the basis that it is immoral to initiate force (which is all that government is) against someone who is not threatening the life or property of another, particularly when the goal is to take money to fund an activity that the coerced person considers deeply immoral.
The percentage is based on only two other services PP provides, for instance pregnancy testing is not included.
As for covering sex abuse and aiding child sex trafficking the same could be said of the Catholic Church
You have any support for that (silly and fantastical) claim?
Why would I think that? Just because I communicate with my son does not mean he is not free to do whatever he chooses.
How should I know?
And will you also meet my commitments to my wife, son, daughter, grandkids, friends and employer?
Tell me who do you think had the most genuine freedom, Nelson Mandela when he was locked up on Robben Island or Robert Maxwell on board his luxury yacht just before his death? Robert Maxwell was enslaved by his greed. Nelson Mandela was a free spirit.
Poor guy.
If he hadn’t been enjoying his shell of a life, he’d have been depressed by it all.
Dreadful to get what you want, if you’re not informed by Steiner. How can you be free doing what you want, if what you want hasn’t been approved by the right people?
Glen Davidson
Human language is not the only means of communication
I’m just curious as to how good you are at explaining your beliefs… Can you defend any of them and back them up with real scientific evidence? I’ ll tell you what..that would be the day That day would never happen…never…I can guarantee you because the premise is f…ed… It has always been that way but some ‘important” people made it more than important…
That really sounds like a chickenshit non-answer to a serious question, but let’s go with it for a moment…
Has any deity ever “communicated” anything to you that could not possibly have simply been a thought that originated in your subconscious mind? And how would you tell the difference?
Mung:
Antibiotic resistance evolves, and it’s of benefit to the microbes that possess it. Therefore antibiotic resistance is for the good, by Mung’s dimwitted reasoning.
swamidass:
Really? How about this example of waste, from Sadedin’s article? Note the sentence in bold:
Does that example of waste “declare God’s transcendent glory” to you, particularly when things go awry and someone dies?
It makes perfect sense, and there’s nothing dim-witted about it. It’s not my fault that you are too dim-witted to see it.
Anti-biotics are deadly. Duh. Without them there would be no life. So yeah, resistance to those things that would wipe out life is good. Without it, nothing would evolve. Dimwit.
swamidass:
That’s terrible reasoning. Death is not a logical prerequisite for life.
If God values life so much, why doesn’t he make every creature immortal? And why not skip earthly life altogether and go straight to eternal life in heaven?
Mung.
You are one confused dude.
swamidass,
As with death, suffering is not a logical prerequisite of life.
Tell that to this poor man. Do you suppose he was grateful for the “gift” of injustice?
Praise be to your generous and loving God for bestowing such wonderful gifts on his creatures.
You’re the one who wrote that evolution causes death. I doubt it’s possible to be any more confused than that.
Vincent,
Of course not. I was disappointed when you left the thread so early.
As I commented in the thread, giving up the “omnis” is a positive step, but it isn’t enough to solve the problem of evil. The defense you presented there — what I’ve dubbed the “promise defense” — requires more than merely jettisoning the omnis.
keiths:
Vincent:
As Glen noted, the question isn’t very difficult:
Vincent:
What’s wrong with miracles? Are you saying that Jesus screwed up by resurrecting Lazarus?
So? Who needs reproduction? If God wants more creatures, he can create them.
Please define “genuine freedom”.
Your son is not the deity that created you and does not know everything that you will do in advance of you doing it.
It’s pointless to talk to you.
As that’s what happens when slaves are stolen, the slavers pick up the slaves responsibilities. Right?
Would it impact your “real freedom” to know your family are suffering due to your lack?
You and FMM are just apologists for slavery.
swamidass:
If so, then you certainly can’t trust your human understanding enough to conclude he does exist. Are you renouncing your Christianity, then?
swamidass:
Your God appears to love suffering. He has built a world full of it, including of the most grotesque and gratuitous kinds. And instead of simply granting forgiveness and a blissful eternal life to everyone, the way a gracious God would, he demands pain and suffering as the price. There must be blood, and if he can’t find someone else whose suffering is delicious enough, he’ll torture himself to death in order to achieve it.
He needs therapy, not worship.
Call it a cop out if you wish, but I’m sorry I’m not going to answer that except to say that I believe we all receive communications from the spiritual realm regardless of our awareness of said communications.
What does it mean to die for those who believe in the spiritual world?
More from the wisdom of Heraclitus:
“Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others’ death and dying the others’ life”
And you are looking at the idea of waste from the point of view of a human economist who has to balance the books. In nature nothing is wasted.
Do you realise how many cells have to die in order for your bodily health to be maintained? Without death your body cannot live.
How do you know that in essence every creature is not immortal?
IMO because earthly life provides something which cannot be experienced in the spiritual realm. Experiencing isolation and separation is a necessity for a being to attain freedom.
For a being to be free there must be no inner or outer compulsion to act. The action must be carried out for the love of the deed with no thought of reward or self gain.
Freedom is a state we evolve towards. By following dictates such as the Ten Commandments we are obeying external rules and thus do not act in freedom. This is a necessary stage that has to be gone through. When we act out of love as Christ advises us to do then this is a step closer to freedom. A person cannot be commanded to love, it must come from their inner being.
Yet it is you who has suggested that you would be willing to become a slave owner.
I’m willing to believe you when you say you’d retain the most important freedom of all, that’s all.
Acting out of love of deed sounds like a compulsion to act of of love of the deed
swamidass:
keiths:
swamidass:
If he exists and if he is sufficiently powerful. Those aren’t givens, though you are treating them that way.
Why assume that he exists in the first place? The evidence makes much more sense if he doesn’t.
And if it wasn’t a failure of power, then it appears to be a failure of benevolence.
keiths, to swamidass:
CharlieM:
Therefore, no problem when women (and their gestating infants) die in pregnancy, leaving behind a bunch of orphans.
Charlie, please remove your head from Rudolf Steiner’s ass and look around. At least occasionally.
I feel sorry for J-Mac, who’s being ignored by everyone as usual:
Hi, J-Mac! What’s up? Did you figure out that rage/homosexual tendencies thing you were babbling about the other day?
Why would that be no problem? Why would the reality of a spiritual world make the suffering on the physical plane less real? We should recognise suffering and do as much as we can to alleviate it in others
And indeed it is my opinion that following death we go through a transition that can involve far more suffering than we have hitherto experienced. For example if you have an addiction to drugs, sex, food or whatever, after death these cravings remain but the individual no longer has the physical organs with which to satisfy these cravings.
Also, IMO, whatever pain we inflict on others during life is reflected back and we must in turn experience that pain ourselves as part of the process of purification. Hence the Biblical saying, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”.
My awareness of Steiner came about, not from a narrow outlook, but precisely because of my scepticism of the various brands of Christianity which I had experienced. I was looking around for a world outlook that appeared to me to have less contradictions. I found it in Steiner and other like minded thinkers.
CharlieM:
The double standard here is mind-boggling.
God watches passively as a dog eats a living baby’s head, and Charlie asks, “Who are we to judge?” Next thing you know he’s pontificating confidently on the sexual frustrations of the dead.
Get a grip, dude.
swamidass:
So God sets the fire, or at the very least watches as someone or something else sets it. He sits back, doing nothing, as the fire grows and engulfs the house. Some people die as God watches. Others, who haven’t succumbed yet, say, “The value of this fire is it that it points to Jesus, who will someday rescue us from this fire that he is responsible for, because he wants to show us what a hero he is.”
And this makes sense to you? Why doesn’t God put out the fire in the first place, or prevent it from getting started? If he’s such a powerful hero, why is the fire still claiming victims?
For the sake of argument you are assuming that God exists. So for consistency you should likewise assume for the sake of argument that as well as a material existence there is a spiritual existence. Tragic as it is, the death of the baby means destuction of the material body but it does not mean the loss of the spirit. The physical loss involves pain but the suffering is temporary. The spirit on the other hand is permanent and enduring.
You state that God watches passively as a dog eats a living baby’s head. Now this cannot be meant in a physical sense as no one has reported the presence of a physical being identified as God watching any of the proceedings. So you must be assuming that, because God does not seem to be stepping in to prevent the material tragedy from happening, He is passively standing by. But as you do not have access to the spiritual realm you cannot say that He is passive here.
If you are assuming a spiritual realm which is the realm of God then you have also to assume that this is a higher reality than the physical. Because you have not accessed this realm in a conscious way then you are not in a position to judge on the activities of any spiritual beings in the spiritual realm, including the being whose existence was expressed in the baby.
You cannot assume the realm of God for the purpose of criticising God, but then disregard that realm when making your criticism.
CharlieM,
If you had been there, would you have refrained from intervening on account of your spiritual “knowledge”? Would you have done nothing as the dog chewed that poor baby’s head off?
CharlieM:
Let me get this straight. Earlier you were saying that you were in no position to judge. Now you’re saying that you are in a position to judge, and that it’s your “conscious access” to the spiritual realm — the same “access” through which you you make your confident pronouncements regarding the sexual frustrations of the dead — that entitles you to do so.
In that case, O Wise One, tell us why God allows dogs to eat the heads of living babies. And please confirm, since you are in possession of this esoteric knowledge, that you would not intervene to protect a baby from a dog, since you know that God wouldn’t allow the head-eating if it weren’t for the best.
I hope I would have done what any normal person would do. I would have done all I could to prevent the dog from doing any more damage. I do not possess any spiritual “knowledge” which would have given me any information about the destiny of the spirit of which the baby is but one expression. How my actions affect the overall destiny is not, and should not be my concern, all I can do is act out of compassion for the baby. Destiny will take care of itself. God acts out of compassion for the spirit. If that seems harsh from our limited physical perspective then so be it.
You or i are in no position to know how much suffering that baby experienced unless we were to actually experience what the baby experienced.
Saying that you are not in a position to judge is not the same as saying that I am in such a position. That does not follow. And it would take more than having a glimmer of the reality of the spiritual to be able to have a comprehensive knowledge of the spiritual being of which the baby was but a very brief snapshot.
What I said about sexual frustrations and such like I arrive at through logic. If someone no longer have a penis then they cannot play with it in order to satify any sexual urges that they may still have.
But I have said that I would intervene. That moment would not be the time to ponder whether I am actually fulfilling destiny by intervening or whether I am interfering with destiny and so it will have to be met in some other way. These things are far from simple.