"Abortion Doctor" Murdered

[rwguinn]

http://www.kwch.com/Global/story.asp?S=10451609

I guess only "life in the womb" is good.
I will never understand these ******** who do this. I wnat to see "Christians" condemn this ****, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Drudgewire]

I wnat to see "Christians" condemn this ****, but I'm not holding my breath.


Well, I'd imagine the rest of the congregation of the church he was shot in would condemn it pretty heavily.

[sugarb]

http://www.kwch.com/Global/story.asp?S=10451609

I guess only "life in the womb" is good.
I will never understand these ******** who do this. I wnat to see "Christians" condemn this ****, but I'm not holding my breath.

Your implication that "Christians" condone murdering abortionists is just as pathetic as "Christians" implying that those supporting the right to abortion condone killing babies.

Some people are nutjobs. That's all there is to it. Nutjobs can claim to be anything...but they're just nutjobs.

[King of the Americas]

http://www.kwch.com/Global/story.asp?S=10451609

I guess only "life in the womb" is good.
I will never understand these ******** who do this. I wnat to see "Christians" condemn this ****, but I'm not holding my breath.

They see it as protecting the Herd...kill one if it saves hundreds...

We could eliminate half of all abortions if the Catholic Church said that from this point on, to practice birth control, until all of the world's orphanages were empty...

[thaiboxerken]

Christianity...a religion of peace.....

[Safe-Keeper]

They see it as protecting the Herd...kill one if it saves hundreds...Yup. If you consider abortion murder, then you're looking at a genocide of millions of innocents. More than enough of a reason in their eyes to commit murder.

We could eliminate half of all abortions if the Catholic Church said that from this point on, to practice birth control, until all of the world's orphanages were empty...Which won't happen as long as they view sex as an evil, nasty sin.

ETA: Funny you mention orphanages... you'd think that a religious institution which abhors sex so much would go with an all-out abstinence stance? "Don't have sex at all, there are children out there awaiting adoption" or something.

[Skeptic]

I am against abortion of convenience. I am against abortion as birth control. I am not against abortion in all circumstances (e.g., rape, incest, to save the mother, etc.)

I think the Jewish sages got it right: the fetus is a person who has rights, but it does not have equal rights to the mother. I also agree with them that a fertilized egg or a zygote, for instance, is not yet a fetus and does not yet have rights -- they didn't know about eggs or zygotes, of course, but they realized the fetus develops gradually and does not have rights from the moment of conception.

The ancient sages declared the fetus, even the fully developed fetus, to be a rodef -- one who pursues with intent to kill -- that is, someone who it is permissible to kill if necessary, although not if there are other ways to stop him from hurting the other person. Unlike the catholic church, the rabbis allowed the killing of a fetus to save the mother's life or to save her from serious harm.

However, I am also for birth control and sex education. One of its advantages, quite apart from the issue of making women more equal to men in sex, is that it makes unwanted pregmancies unnecessary, therefore reducing the need for abortion.

I think many of those who oppose both birth control and abortion care little for the fetus, and a lot about making sure a woman who has "sinful" sex outside marriage is appropriately "punished" with a baby.

[thaiboxerken]

I am against abortion of convenience.[

Why?

I am not against abortion in all circumstances (e.g., rape, incest, to save the mother, etc.) I think the Jewish sages got it right: the fetus is a person who has rights, but it does not have equal rights to the mother.


Why?

[BPSCG]

Which won't happen as long as they view sex as an evil, nasty sin.

ETA: Funny you mention orphanages... you'd think that a religious institution which abhors sex so much would go with an all-out abstinence stance? "Don't have sex at all, there are children out there awaiting adoption" or something.From Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians: (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/1corinthians-kjv.html)

[1] Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
[2] Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
[3] Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
[4] The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
[5] Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
[6] But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment.
[7] For I would that all men were even as I myself*. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.
[8] I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.*
[9] But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.* I.E., celibate.

Boldings mine. Not sure if by "burn," Paul means burn in hell or burn with unsatisfied sexual desire.

[Drudgewire]

Again, this was a CHRISTIAN doctor in church with other CHRISTIANS.

Suggesting christianity is to blame rather than a nutcase requires ignoring these little facts.

[thaiboxerken]

Nope, christianity is to blame. Christianity taught this man that abortion is murder and that the doctor is a murderer. Christianity dwarfed the shooter's ability to reason.

[Drudgewire]

Nope, christianity is to blame. Christianity taught this man that abortion is murder and that the doctor is a murderer. Christianity dwarfed the shooter's ability to reason.


And here I was thinking "thou shalt not kill" and "judge not, lest ye be judged" didn't mean "kill those who oppose you."

Silly me. :rolleyes:

[dudalb]

Again, this was a CHRISTIAN doctor in church with other CHRISTIANS.

Suggesting christianity is to blame rather than a nutcase requires ignoring these little facts.

This whole thread shows what I dislike about the "New Atheism": At times some of it's followers seem just a bigoted and close minded as the Religious Fundies they hate.

[dudalb]

Nope, christianity is to blame. Christianity taught this man that abortion is murder and that the doctor is a murderer. Christianity dwarfed the shooter's ability to reason.

Thanks for proving my point about how an atheiest/seclurists can be just as close minded and bigoted as a religious fundy.

[sugarb]

Nope, christianity is to blame. Christianity taught this man that abortion is murder and that the doctor is a murderer. Christianity dwarfed the shooter's ability to reason.

So...may I ask what dwarfed your ability to reason? Certainly what you assert can be proven false, since all/most Christians don't roam around looking for people to murder. All Christians aren't even opposed to abortion. All Christians don't believe abortion is murder.

Or are the ones who don't murder doctors not really Christians? It would seem you've painted a lot of barns in your life. Why not try something requiring a smaller brush.

[Skeptic]

Why?



Why?

Because I'm dad, and I say so.

(If you're going to use a five-year-old's debating technique, I'm going to use the parent's counterargument.)

[Steelmage]

Thanks for proving my point about how an atheiest/seclurists can be just as close minded and bigoted as a religious fundy.

But the question is, would he have killed that doctor without religion. The killer got the logic of killing the doctor to save lives from religion as far as I know this is where the idea seems to come from. Or put it a better way, is it religion that puts out the idea that a fetus has rights, or did it come from a non-religious source?

[Skeptic]

I don't think anybody here approves of this man's actions. I am sure the vast majority of Christians and Americans strongly condemn him. But did you notice how, suddenly, generalizing about all members of the religion, implying the religion's dogma makes all its adherents wannabe murderers because that man is a religious murderer, is just fine... simply because it's Christianity and not Islam that is being discussed?

If you try to understand all religions without generalizing about all the believers because of the action of some, that's one thing. If you are bigoted about other people's religion and paint them with a broad brush, but demand people make distinctions about members of your own religion (or country), that is wrong, but it is at least understandable -- it is human nature. But it is beyond comprehension why someone would paint his own country with a broad brush of dislike and contempt, while being deeply concerned to never to the same to strangers and foreigners... and the more those foreigners hate one's own country, the more sympathetic and undestanding to their motives one feels one must be.

On second thought, it's not beyond comprehension. Quite easily undestandable, in fact: it is "virtue on the installment plan", making one feel 'broad minded' and a 'non-conformists' and a a 'fighter againt injustice' for the cheap, cheap price of merely directing one's boos and hoorays in the "appropriate" direction. The problem is, these folks' utter predictability makes a mockery of their self-important belief about their own "original views" which do not "surrender to government propaganda". Original thinkers are usually harder to predict.

Glibert and Sullivan had these guys' number, over a century ago: Ko-Ko's famous "little list" of "society offenders who may well be underground / and none of them be missed" already included "the idiot who praises / in enthusiastic tones / all centuries but this / and every country but his own".

[BPSCG]

Nope, christianity is to blame. Christianity taught this man that abortion is murder and that the doctor is a murderer. Christianity dwarfed the shooter's ability to reason.It's true! It says right in the Bible, "...and Jesus spake unto the multitude, 'If an abortionist offend thee, slay him as thou would a poisonous viper, for I say unto thee, the only good abortionist is a dead abortionist.'"

It's right there in Onan 3:10 (http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/08/12/funny-pictures-fun-i-promise/).

Okay, seriously, can you point to a chapter and verse where Jesus says you should kill anyone at all?

I'll be here, waiting, just me and the crickets.

[LostAngeles]

Until we find that it was some religious whackjob and not a disgruntled employee/business partner or someone who was doing his wife or someone whose wife he was doing or simply random, I'm going to hold off on grumbling about fundies above my normal level of grumbling about fundies.

At this point, it's up there with the guy who blamed the, "towelheads," for the OK City Bombing right after it happened.

[dudalb]

But the question is, would he have killed that doctor without religion. The killer got the logic of killing the doctor to save lives from religion as far as I know this is where the idea seems to come from. Or put it a better way, is it religion that puts out the idea that a fetus has rights, or did it come from a non-religious source?

Bad argument. It possible to think a Fetus has rights and oppose Abotion through political.peaceful means. And heaven knows that secular political movements have their share of violent wackjobs.

[rwguinn]

Again, this was a CHRISTIAN doctor in church with other CHRISTIANS.

Suggesting christianity is to blame rather than a nutcase requires ignoring these little facts.
Normally, I would agree with you--my OP was intentionally overstated.
I also noticed that the anti-abortionists were quick to "Condemn" (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-tiller1-2009jun01,0,7068875.story), but their main thoughts were (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iQ-RieM8_WCfKztrGV-42pWXLgBwD98HENGO1) "One of my main concerns here is that the Obama administration and Democratic leaders don't make the same mistake that the Clinton administration made, and don't use this isolated episode to demonize an entire movement and try to take this tragedy for political gain," said Mahoney. "If they overreach, then they put pressure on peaceful people who are trying to peacefully change the climate on abortion in a way that President Obama talked about at Notre Dame."

Who is using what for political gain?

[Allen773]

This is a good reminder of the very real danger of far right-wing fanatics in America.

[Undesired Walrus]

Thanks for proving my point about how an atheiest/seclurists can be just as close minded and bigoted as a religious fundy.

Can't say I've seen many Atheists throwing acid into the faces of schoolgirls or murdering abortion doctors in the name of Atheism.

[KodeBlue]

Until we find that it was some religious whackjob and not a disgruntled employee/business partner or someone who was doing his wife or someone whose wife he was doing or simply random, I'm going to hold off on grumbling about fundies above my normal level of grumbling about fundies.

At this point, it's up there with the guy who blamed the, "towelheads," for the OK City Bombing right after it happened.


Or a guy who found out his girlfriend had had an abortion at Tiller's clinic. Not saying that would be a justifiable motive, but it could be a motive.

[pizzadeliveryninja]

That's christians for you. Utter *********** hypocrites who will murder in their god's name.

[Skeptic]

This is a good reminder of the very real danger of far right-wing fanatics in America.

It's certainly real. But it is hardly common. It is not only rare compared to other dangers -- terrorism generally kills far fewer people than, say, drunk driving -- but, certainly in the last decade or so, also rare compared to other terrorist threats from other quarters.

[Skeptic]

That's Christians Muslims for you. Utter *********** hypocrites who will murder in their god's name.

I am not claiming either Christians or Muslims are like that, of course, but I keep wondering: why is the first expression "brave criticism" and the second "bigoed Islamophobia"? Both are equally idiotic and bigoted, if you ask me.

[ThunderChunky]

I am not claiming either Christians or Muslims are like that, of course, but I keep wondering: why is the first expression "brave criticism" and the second "bigoed Islamophobia"? Both are equally idiotic and bigoted, if you ask me.

Who claimed that it was? Plenty of Muslims murder because of their religion.

[linusrichard]

If you sincerely believe abortion is murder, why wouldn't you do something like this? Unless you were a coward or something. I have to think that any pro-lifer who condemns this either doesn't really believe abortion is murder, or is more concerned about political posturing than about human life. The latter possibility is pretty despicable, and the former one is fine, but it kind of puts the pro-life position on weak footing, a little bit.

[sugarb]

If you sincerely believe abortion is murder, why wouldn't you do something like this? Unless you were a coward or something. I have to think that any pro-lifer who condemns this either doesn't really believe abortion is murder, or is more concerned about political posturing than about human life. The latter possibility is pretty despicable, and the former one is fine, but it kind of puts the pro-life position on weak footing, a little bit.

Well, that just doesn't make any sense to me. If I am opposed to abortion based on considering it murder, then...to murder someone, anyone, would make me a hypocrite, and put my anti-murder position on weak footing, wouldn't it?

[BPSCG]

That's christians for you. Utter *********** hypocrites who will murder in their god's name.That's funny, I know lots of Christians, and I can't think of a single one of them who'd murder anyone for any reason. I guess I'm incredibly lucky.

One whacko kills an abortionist because he thinks it's God's will (pace, LostAngeles), and you project that onto all Christians.

I suppose when you read in the papers that a guy in the projects killed a pizza delivery guy, you conclude, "That's the coloreds for you. Utter *********** sociopaths who will murder for a couple of bucks."

[KingMerv00]

(If you're going to use a five-year-old's debating technique, I'm going to use the parent's counterargument.)

Asking "Why?" isn't OK?

[Skeptic]

If you sincerely believe abortion is murder, why wouldn't you do something like this?

Well, for the same reason many people sincerely believe those who disagree with them theologically will go to hell for all eternity, but still don't go on a crusade or jihad or whatever to convert them all by force, even if -- in theory -- saving one soul from eternal punishment is worth any amount of suffering caused on earth in the process.

[Skeptic]

Asking "Why?" isn't OK?

Why do you ask?

[linusrichard]

Well, that just doesn't make any sense to me. If I am opposed to abortion based on considering it murder, then...to murder someone, anyone, would make me a hypocrite, and put my anti-murder position on weak footing, wouldn't it?
Let's say you knew a fellow in your neighborhood who would go to the mall or a school or something every weekday with a gun, and take out two or three people. Shoppers, kids, teachers, whatever. Just shoot and kill them. Just a couple a day. And let's say the local police knew about him but, for some reason, they weren't allowed to interfere with what he was doing. It was perfectly legal, for some reason. I don't know why, just make something up.

Now, I believe murder is wrong. But do you think I wouldn't take this malefactor out at the earliest opportunity? Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you be willing to go to prison for the privilege, if that's what it meant? Or would you content yourself to carry signs and vote for politicians who also disapproved (ineffectually) of this guy's little killing sprees?
"Oh but that's different, that person is actually murdering people!"
Well that's what I'm saying - if you think this doctor was actually murdering people, why wouldn't you act to stop that?

[linusrichard]

Well, for the same reason many people sincerely believe those who disagree with them theologically will go to hell for all eternity, but still don't go on a crusade or jihad or whatever to convert them all by force, even if -- in theory -- saving one soul from eternal punishment is worth any amount of suffering caused on earth in the process.

That doesn't answer my question, since I don't believe that those people sincerely believe what they claim to believe either. In other words, telling me that the reason for one thing is the same as the reason for another thing doesn't help me, because I don't know the reason for the other thing either.

[KingMerv00]

Why do you ask?

Because this is a discussion forum. In order to have productive discussions, it is useful to understand one another.

[skepticalbeliever]

http://www.kwch.com/Global/story.asp?S=10451609

I guess only "life in the womb" is good.
I will never understand these ******** who do this. I wnat to see "Christians" condemn this ****, but I'm not holding my breath.

If you want to see "Christians" condemn this, go to Operationrescue.org. When it returns, you will see that even the most conservative Christians abhor the abomination of shooting a person in church. You can see the same thing on the nrlc.org. Go to lifenews.com and see that all pro life groups condemn this murder.

I have posted about George Tiller extensively on this board. I saw this news go across the ticker on fox news and was stunned. That is the only word I can use to describe my reaction.

What happened in Ks. today was a tragedy. We live in a world where people don't respect life, we see late term abortionists abort viable babies, and we see hypocritical vigilantes kill in the name of protecting life. This shows that we need to build a culture that respects life in order to prevent this from happening in the future.

[Peephole]

Here's what one disgusting anti-abortion group leader had to say:
Randall Terry, the founder of anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who led protests against George Tiller's clinic in Wichita, Kansas in 1991, issued a statement (http://www.earnedmedia.org/sftj0531.htm) about today's killing of the abortion doctor.

"George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder."

[skepticalbeliever]

http://www.lifenews.com/state4188.html

It seems like the pro abortion group is acting like mean spirited demagogues. They're going to try to paint everybody who stood up to Tiller as a hater. They seem to forget that Tiller probably broke every law in the book in his years as a Dr.

And I did hate what Tiller did. There shouldn't be any shame in hating Tillers actions. He ignored the law and performed abortions that were not legal. He should have been put in jail. If his jury had convicted him he would be alive today.

[MattusMaximus]

Your implication that "Christians" condone murdering abortionists is just as pathetic as "Christians" implying that those supporting the right to abortion condone killing babies.

Some people are nutjobs. That's all there is to it. Nutjobs can claim to be anything...but they're just nutjobs.

I'm going only on fuzzy memory here, but when there was a spate of abortion doctor murders in the 90s, wasn't it discovered that some more radical elements in the "pro-life" movement were involved in actually aiding & abedding (sp?) those killers?

I seem to recall that Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Terry) got into some hot water for such actions.

[MattusMaximus]

http://www.lifenews.com/state4188.html

It seems like the pro abortion group is acting like mean spirited demagogues. They're going to try to paint everybody who stood up to Tiller as a hater. They seem to forget that Tiller probably broke every law in the book in his years as a Dr.

And I did hate what Tiller did. There shouldn't be any shame in hating Tillers actions. He ignored the law and performed abortions that were not legal. He should have been put in jail. If his jury had convicted him he would be alive today.

You do realize those two statements are a contradiction, don't you?

[MattusMaximus]

Can't say I've seen many Atheists throwing acid into the faces of schoolgirls or murdering abortion doctors in the name of Atheism.

For that matter, when was the last time a "pro-choicer" killed someone who was against abortion because the "pro-lifers" didn't want it legalized?

Btw, I hate the "pro-choice" and "pro-life" labels, but we're stuck with them.

[rwguinn]

http://www.lifenews.com/state4188.html

It seems like the pro abortion group is acting like mean spirited demagogues. They're going to try to paint everybody who stood up to Tiller as a hater. They seem to forget that Tiller probably broke every law in the book in his years as a Dr.

And I did hate what Tiller did. There shouldn't be any shame in hating Tillers actions. He ignored the law and performed abortions that were not legal. He should have been put in jail. If his jury had convicted him he would be alive today.
If his jury had convicted him, it would have indicated that he actually broke the law.
As it was, they deliberated less than an hour and returned "Not guilty".
That means that the State couldn't convince a jury that he broke the law.

[Robster, FCD]

I am against abortion of convenience. I am against abortion as birth control. I am not against abortion in all circumstances (e.g., rape, incest, to save the mother, etc.)

Problem is, convenience is in the eye of the beholder. A pregnant teenage daughter will make the most anti reproductive rights person very quick to say that their situation is special.

And what makes it OK to kill a fetus that is the product of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother? That is not an internally consistent belief.

If you make abortion available on demand, women don't drink poison to induce a miscarriage, and doctors aren't afraid that if they treat a woman who has miscarried that they will be arrested, as is the current case in Nicaragua. Anti abortion laws put the health of women at risk, except for those wealthy or well connected enough to travel to where it is legal.

Good sex ed means that there will be fewer abortions, so a combination of both makes for an optimal situation.

I think the Jewish sages got it right: the fetus is a person who has rights, but it does not have equal rights to the mother. I also agree with them that a fertilized egg or a zygote, for instance, is not yet a fetus and does not yet have rights -- they didn't know about eggs or zygotes, of course, but they realized the fetus develops gradually and does not have rights from the moment of conception.

The ancient sages declared the fetus, even the fully developed fetus, to be a rodef -- one who pursues with intent to kill -- that is, someone who it is permissible to kill if necessary, although not if there are other ways to stop him from hurting the other person. Unlike the catholic church, the rabbis allowed the killing of a fetus to save the mother's life or to save her from serious harm.

I'm pretty sure that the detail that made a fetus a person is the quickening. Once the woman feels the fetus moving, its a person, according to the old Hebrew laws. Before that, if a woman was assaulted, if she miscarried, it was just assault. That puts Hebrew law in agreement with second trimester as a limit on most abortions.

[Robster, FCD]

Asking "Why?" isn't OK?
Yeah. Your refusal to explain your views suggests that you aren't comfortable or sure of your reasons.

[sugarb]

Let's say you knew a fellow in your neighborhood who would go to the mall or a school or something every weekday with a gun, and take out two or three people. Shoppers, kids, teachers, whatever. Just shoot and kill them. Just a couple a day. And let's say the local police knew about him but, for some reason, they weren't allowed to interfere with what he was doing. It was perfectly legal, for some reason. I don't know why, just make something up.

Now, I believe murder is wrong. But do you think I wouldn't take this malefactor out at the earliest opportunity? Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you be willing to go to prison for the privilege, if that's what it meant? Or would you content yourself to carry signs and vote for politicians who also disapproved (ineffectually) of this guy's little killing sprees?
"Oh but that's different, that person is actually murdering people!"
Well that's what I'm saying - if you think this doctor was actually murdering people, why wouldn't you act to stop that?


:) I'm sorry, I couldn't make up a reason that some guy would be allowed to shoot people at the mall...but I see what you are saying. Question is, would you take the guy out because you thought murder is wrong, even though the law said this guy could kill people and it wasn't murder? Or would you take the guy out because you felt above the law (since we're assuming this is legal, and everyone knows it is legal and still, apparently, decides to go to the mall)?

That's really what it boils down to. If morality is the issue, then exercising hypocrisy doesn't seem to be the best way of upholding some moral value.

If everyone got to choose their own definition of murder, the world would be a much scarier place. Don't you think?

[sugarb]

I'm going only on fuzzy memory here, but when there was a spate of abortion doctor murders in the 90s, wasn't it discovered that some more radical elements in the "pro-life" movement were involved in actually aiding & abedding (sp?) those killers?

I seem to recall that Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Terry) got into some hot water for such actions.

It seems to me that's right. Fuzzy recall myself, but yeah...I wonder why these things aren't called domestic terrorism. Isn't that really what it is?

[Robster, FCD]

It very much is domestic terrorism, but Obama bowed to the far right and withdrew the report (drawn up by the Bush administration) that said that far right extremists may use abortion as an excuse for violence.

[tsig]

If you want to see "Christians" condemn this, go to Operationrescue.org. When it returns, you will see that even the most conservative Christians abhor the abomination of shooting a person in church. You can see the same thing on the nrlc.org. Go to lifenews.com and see that all pro life groups condemn this murder.

I have posted about George Tiller extensively on this board. I saw this news go across the ticker on fox news and was stunned. That is the only word I can use to describe my reaction.

What happened in Ks. today was a tragedy. We live in a world where people don't respect life, we see late term abortionists abort viable babies, and we see hypocritical vigilantes kill in the name of protecting life. This shows that we need to build a culture that respects life in order to prevent this from happening in the future.

So he was responsible for his own death because he was helping build a society that didn't respect life?

[skepticalbeliever]

If his jury had convicted him, it would have indicated that he actually broke the law.
As it was, they deliberated less than an hour and returned "Not guilty".
That means that the State couldn't convince a jury that he broke the law.

You have more faith in the american justice system than I do. Tiller is was just as "no guilty" of his crimes as OJ was. I think the jury just did a very bad job. Tiller was still under investigation by the medical boards for misconduct.

[skepticalbeliever]

It very much is domestic terrorism, but Obama bowed to the far right and withdrew the report (drawn up by the Bush administration) that said that far right extremists may use abortion as an excuse for violence.

I don't think this is terrorism. It would have been terrorism if a bomb was used and more people were hurt. People have been killing eachother over things like this for ages. Assasinating a person doesn't qualify as real terrorism in my view.

I hope the prolife movement will continue to expose the crimes of the abortion industry. This is not an excuse to stop doing that at all.

[linusrichard]

:) I'm sorry, I couldn't make up a reason that some guy would be allowed to shoot people at the mall...but I see what you are saying. Question is, would you take the guy out because you thought murder is wrong, even though the law said this guy could kill people and it wasn't murder? Or would you take the guy out because you felt above the law (since we're assuming this is legal, and everyone knows it is legal and still, apparently, decides to go to the mall)?

That's really what it boils down to. If morality is the issue, then exercising hypocrisy doesn't seem to be the best way of upholding some moral value.

If everyone got to choose their own definition of murder, the world would be a much scarier place. Don't you think?

I guess there's two ways to take that. On the one hand, yes, it would. Make no mistake, I am foursquare against what this guy did, killing the abortion doctor. I am not trying to defend it.

But if the situation I described were happening, I would commit what the law would consider "murder" (to me, justifiable homicide) in order to prevent what the law considered "not murder" (to me, murder). Which I guess brings me to the second way to take your question, which is to say that, in reality everyone does get to choose their own definition of murder, which is one reason the world is such a scary place. Except that most people have pretty much agreed on the same definition, and most of those who haven't agreed will at least behave as if they do.

I just can't wrap my mind around someone truly believing a fetus is a person and not doing everything within their power to avert their mass slaughter. The fact that most pro-lifers don't go to extremes tells me that they don't believe their own baloney - that they don't actually believe a fetus is a person.

[Robster, FCD]

I don't think this is terrorism. It would have been terrorism if a bomb was used and more people were hurt. People have been killing eachother over things like this for ages. Assasinating a person doesn't qualify as real terrorism in my view.

I hope the prolife movement will continue to expose the crimes of the abortion industry. This is not an excuse to stop doing that at all.

So its only terrorism if its a bomb? Well, thats convenient. For you.

It was meant to terrorize a profession and the community that he belonged to. Thats terrorism.

[Donal]

Not primarily. Tiller himself was the target to prevent his actions. An assassination is not necessarily terrorism.

Terrorism more or less targets random people to intimidate a government.

That said, I oppose abortion on moral grounds and I also think this was wrong. The shooter should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and leaders of the anti-abortion movement should come out and condemn the act.

[sugarb]

I guess there's two ways to take that. On the one hand, yes, it would. Make no mistake, I am foursquare against what this guy did, killing the abortion doctor. I am not trying to defend it.

But if the situation I described were happening, I would commit what the law would consider "murder" (to me, justifiable homicide) in order to prevent what the law considered "not murder" (to me, murder). Which I guess brings me to the second way to take your question, which is to say that, in reality everyone does get to choose their own definition of murder, which is one reason the world is such a scary place. Except that most people have pretty much agreed on the same definition, and most of those who haven't agreed will at least behave as if they do.

I just can't wrap my mind around someone truly believing a fetus is a person and not doing everything within their power to avert their mass slaughter. The fact that most pro-lifers don't go to extremes tells me that they don't believe their own baloney - that they don't actually believe a fetus is a person.


Well, now hang on a second. Do people who oppose the death penalty spring convicts from death row? And if they don't, are their beliefs "baloney"? Are the only people who really believe in freedom the people who throw themselves in front of tanks? In other words, if you think human rights are worth dying for, but you haven't done anything to risk your own life, are you full of "baloney"? Do people who support assisted suicide only really believe their "baloney" if they find a few people to help die? I mean, think that through for a minute.

[Robster, FCD]

Not primarily. Tiller himself was the target to prevent his actions. An assassination is not necessarily terrorism.

Terrorism more or less targets random people to intimidate a government.

That said, I oppose abortion on moral grounds and I also think this was wrong. The shooter should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and leaders of the anti-abortion movement should come out and condemn the act.

I'd still say this fits. It is meant to show other docs what will happen to them if they continue to "sin." Other doctors have stopped providing abortions because of similar attacks in the past.

Its terrorism, and that was a bad thing, just a year ago.

[LostAngeles]

OK now that we know he is a religious whackjob (which is to be read as, "religious and a whackjob," not "if religious then a whackjob," Beeps. One would think after all this time, you'd know me better than that.), I'm ready to commence with the, "You and your God are ********."

[sugarb]

I'd still say this fits. It is meant to show other docs what will happen to them if they continue to "sin." Other doctors have stopped providing abortions because of similar attacks in the past.

Its terrorism, and that was a bad thing, just a year ago.

I have to agree. It is intimidation through violence...and if the guy shot him because he was a doctor who performed abortions, rather than just some crazy guy with a gun walking in and shooting someone randomly (which has happened--it is possible, I suppose, that this could be unrelated to abortion), it seems quite obvious to me that it is intended to send a bigger message.

[SezMe]

It seems like the pro abortion group is acting like mean spirited demagogues.
That's kinda rich. Your accusing them of "acting like mean spirited demagogues" while labeling them as "pro abortion". Got a mirror?

[SezMe]

I have to agree. It is intimidation through violence.
I agree as well. It will be very interesting to see if some recent terrorism legislation is brought to bear on this case. Or how about some aspects of the RICO statues?

I predict this is going to get much bigger than simply murder.

[linusrichard]

Well, now hang on a second. Do people who oppose the death penalty spring convicts from death row? And if they don't, are their beliefs "baloney"? Are the only people who really believe in freedom the people who throw themselves in front of tanks? In other words, if you think human rights are worth dying for, but you haven't done anything to risk your own life, are you full of "baloney"? Do people who support assisted suicide only really believe their "baloney" if they find a few people to help die? I mean, think that through for a minute.

I oppose the death penalty, but I don't consider it murder. It's lawful killing after a trial and a conviction. There's also the fact that there are as many executions in an average year as there are abortions in an average... what? Half-day? Hour? I'm not sure the numbers.

The assisted suicide one doesn't work for obvious reasons.

I mean, ask yourself what you would do if you found yourself an ordinary German in Nazi Germany. Just be cool, act like nothing's wrong? Maybe have some signs made up?

ETA: Or if you don't like that, go back to post #36 and answer that question.

[Arus808]

beyond the argument of in favor of abortion or not, the situation at hand is that a doctor was murdered, shot dead for his business even if his religion disagrees with what he does.

For whatever reason, the person responsible is the PERSON responsible, regardless of his beliefs on abortion. HE took a life, and that is murder.


PLEASE leave the abortion quibbles out of it, unless it has to do with the doctor and the person who killed him (ex the shooter's wife got a late term abortion without his permission and he went apecrazy)


as it stand, no one knows who was responsible, and the anti-choice and pro-choice side will have their fights in the public as always, forgetting that a doctor was just killed.

[Galileo]

This appears to be the first staged event of the Obama administration:

1) how do the cops know it was a lone nut, if the gunman was not captured?

2) how did the gunman get away?

3) why was another "suspect" arrested 170 miles away, if the gunaman acted alone?

This event has huge political overtones. Most likely, it was staged to smear anti-abortion people.

Full Disclosure - I favor legal abortions, as long as tax dollars are not used to perform them.

[Kevin_Lowe]

Thanks for proving my point about how an atheiest/seclurists can be just as close minded and bigoted as a religious fundy.

To be equally close-minded and bigoted wouldn't atheists have to go around shooting people who disagreed with them?

[LostAngeles]

This appears to be the first staged event of the Obama administration:

1) how do the cops know it was a lone nut, if the gunman was not captured?

2) how did the gunman get away?

3) why was another "suspect" arrested 170 miles away, if the gunaman acted alone?

This event has huge political overtones. Most likely, it was staged to smear anti-abortion people.

Full Disclosure - I favor legal abortions, as long as tax dollars are not used to perform them.

:boggled:

Poe?

[JoeyDonuts]

:boggled:

Poe?

Ohhhhhh no. Not with this one.

[LostAngeles]

Ohhhhhh no. Not with this one.

:( If you need me, my head will be in the wall.

[KingMerv00]

This appears to be the first staged event of the Obama administration:

1) how do the cops know it was a lone nut, if the gunman was not captured?

2) how did the gunman get away?

3) why was another "suspect" arrested 170 miles away, if the gunaman acted alone?

This event has huge political overtones. Most likely, it was staged to smear anti-abortion people.

Full Disclosure - I favor legal abortions, as long as tax dollars are not used to perform them.

Can you give me an example of something the government did that ISN'T an evil conspiracy?

That question is not rhetorical.

[thaiboxerken]

The religious belief that abortion is murder is responsible for this. Without this belief, the guy would not have shot the doctor. Religion is to blame here. Sure, there are plenty of religious people that don't go around shooting doctors, even though they think abortion is wrong, but those religious people just aren't as faithful as this shooter. People talk about religious fanaticism and extremism as being dangerous, but these people are merely more religious than the rest. It's the religions that contains such poor ideas and values. I am happy to live in a modern society where most people just don't take their religions quite as serious as they used to.

In short, Christianity is to blame here.

[sugarb]

I oppose the death penalty, but I don't consider it murder. It's lawful killing after a trial and a conviction. There's also the fact that there are as many executions in an average year as there are abortions in an average... what? Half-day? Hour? I'm not sure the numbers.

The assisted suicide one doesn't work for obvious reasons.

I mean, ask yourself what you would do if you found yourself an ordinary German in Nazi Germany. Just be cool, act like nothing's wrong? Maybe have some signs made up?

ETA: Or if you don't like that, go back to post #36 and answer that question.


But I already did answer it. One doesn't uphold a moral position by being a hypocrite. Let me try again.

Let me go back to those who oppose the death penalty, to compare them with those who oppose abortion. BOTH are legalized killing (the abortion debate boils down to WHAT is being killed--a fetus or a person, but at any rate, after judicial consideration, it was made legal). Those who oppose abortion call it murder. Those who oppose the death penalty apparently also consider it murder if they're saying it is wrongful killing. (Ironically, not many people oppose both--yet each debate brings the value of life into question. I guess it depends on if a person is "good enough" or "real enough" to live, but whatever...)

According to you, for a person to "really believe" abortion is murder, the obvious path for them to take would be killing doctors who perform abortions, right? To prevent more murders.

Well, then also you must believe that for anyone to really believe capital punishment is murder, they must do one of two things: kill executioners or spring inmates on death row.

Because people who simply protest OBVIOUSLY don't REALLY believe what they're saying. According to you.

You sincerely don't see how bizarre it is to say that anyone who really believes abortion is murder should murder doctors who perform abortions in order to prevent more murders?

The amount of "murders" doesn't matter--so there are more abortions than executions, so what? There are probably more abortions than there would be people killed by that guy in the mall you talked about being allowed to shoot random people, too. The point isn't the numbers, the point is the belief that something LEGAL should be ILLEGAL, and what you say a person SHOULD be willing to do to prove they really think it's wrong.

It is a messed up notion. Or else I am totally misunderstanding your point, which is entirely possible. I've been known to do that :) At any rate, I think I've confused myself now. (Been known to do that, too)

[Skeptic Ginger]

Your implication that "Christians" condone murdering abortionists is just as pathetic as "Christians" implying that those supporting the right to abortion condone killing babies.

...This is like Muslims claiming they don't support the terrorists. Yeah, sure, I sort of believe it. But when you start looking for the details, the objections really don't seem that widespread or that loud.

OK, I am disgusted and emotional. And I am sorry for painting anyone with the broad brush they don't fall under. But how friggin loud have those Christian protests against these A-holes who believe they are doing God's work really been?

Clearly NOT LOUD ENOUGH! You are all responsible for not being loud enough. Fine, you can excuse your sorry asses, gee you don't condone this sort of thing. How Christian of you.

[Galileo]

Can you give me an example of something the government did that ISN'T an evil conspiracy?

That question is not rhetorical.

The D-Day invasion.

[sugarb]

This is like Muslims claiming they don't support the terrorists. Yeah, sure, I sort of believe it. But when you start looking for the details, the objections really don't seem that widespread or that loud.

OK, I am disgusted and emotional. And I am sorry for painting anyone with the broad brush they don't fall under. But how friggin loud have those Christian protests against these A-holes who believe they are doing God's work really been?

Clearly NOT LOUD ENOUGH! You are all responsible for not being loud enough. Fine, you can excuse your sorry asses, gee you don't condone this sort of thing. How Christian of you.

Honestly, I do not understand this. What is this need to blame an ENTIRE group of people for the actions of a few? One American man shot another American man. You're an American, therefore it's YOUR fault for not being loud enough. How American of you.

A human kills another human. You're a human, therefore YOU are responsible for not being loud enough. How human of you.

See how ridiculous? Or no?

[thaiboxerken]

What is this need to blame an ENTIRE group of people for the actions of a few?

I don't think the group is being blamed, just the religion and beliefs of the group.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Your implication that "Christians" condone murdering abortionists is just as pathetic as "Christians" implying that those supporting the right to abortion condone killing babies.

Some people are nutjobs. That's all there is to it. Nutjobs can claim to be anything...but they're just nutjobs.Right. Operation Rescue is so clear these 'nutjobs' have no doubt their colleagues condemn their actions. The Christians are so clear they don't agree.

Maybe some of those Christians ought to look at just why it is these 'nutjobs' misunderstand the 'Christian' message.

[JoeyDonuts]

In short, Christianity is to blame here.

Erm...I see it as one person taking it upon himself to level a firearm at another and pull the trigger.

IMHO, what led him to that point isn't nearly as important as the choice he made when he fired.

I'm not defending the beliefs of Christianity, I think they're outdated, backward-looking and more than just a little bit silly. But saying Christianity is to blame doesn't quite tack with me. Influencing factor? Most definitely. About as much as DOOM and bullying was to Klebold and Harris. Still doesn't clear them of the responsibility for their own actions.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Again, this was a CHRISTIAN doctor in church with other CHRISTIANS.

Suggesting christianity is to blame rather than a nutcase requires ignoring these little facts.Any chance these 'Christians' would bother looking in to why their antiabortion messages are so misunderstood by the 'nutcases'? Of course not. All the 'Christians' need do to ease their consciences is to proclaim, they don't agree. How noble of them.

[Skeptic Ginger]

And here I was thinking "thou shalt not kill" and "judge not, lest ye be judged" didn't mean "kill those who oppose you."

Silly me. :rolleyes:No, there you were missing the point. There you were absolving yourself and your peers of guilt. You don't agree with the perp's actions. How noble of you.

[Skeptic Ginger]

This whole thread shows what I dislike about the "New Atheism": At times some of it's followers seem just a bigoted and close minded as the Religious Fundies they hate.Then make your case for why 'Christians' who don't agree with murdering abortion doctors also have no responsibility for people who misconstrue the anti-abortion message.

[Skeptic Ginger]

So...may I ask what dwarfed your ability to reason? Certainly what you assert can be proven false, since all/most Christians don't roam around looking for people to murder. All Christians aren't even opposed to abortion. All Christians don't believe abortion is murder.

Or are the ones who don't murder doctors not really Christians? It would seem you've painted a lot of barns in your life. Why not try something requiring a smaller brush.According to this view, only those who pull the trigger are guilty. Those that encourage such murders are absolved. And those which don't agree are even more absolved.

Can you provide us some evidence of Christians taking any actions whatsoever to prevent the 'nutjobs' other than to say they, the Christians, don't agree? What have any of these people who don't agree done to prevent the 'nutjobs' from misinterpreting the Christian message?

[JoeyDonuts]

According to this view, only those who pull the trigger are guilty. Those that encourage such murders are absolved. And those which don't agree are even more absolved.

Just to be clear, are you referring to Christianity as a whole or this Operation Rescue group as "those that encourage such murders?"

[Skeptic Ginger]

Until we find that it was some religious whackjob and not a disgruntled employee/business partner or someone who was doing his wife or someone whose wife he was doing or simply random, I'm going to hold off on grumbling about fundies above my normal level of grumbling about fundies.

At this point, it's up there with the guy who blamed the, "towelheads," for the OK City Bombing right after it happened.


Tiller Murder Suspect Is Scott Roeder. Connected With Operation Rescue. (http://donklephant.com/2009/05/31/tiller-murder-suspect-is-scott-roeder-connected-with-operation-rescue/)

[Skeptic Ginger]

Bad argument. It possible to think a Fetus has rights and oppose Abotion through political.peaceful means. And heaven knows that secular political movements have their share of violent wackjobs.Care to post any examples? I can't address a nebulous charge.

[Skeptic Ginger]

That's funny, I know lots of Christians, and I can't think of a single one of them who'd murder anyone for any reason. I guess I'm incredibly lucky.

One whacko kills an abortionist because he thinks it's God's will (pace, LostAngeles), and you project that onto all Christians.

I suppose when you read in the papers that a guy in the projects killed a pizza delivery guy, you conclude, "That's the coloreds for you. Utter *********** sociopaths who will murder for a couple of bucks."False analogy.

Anti-abortion fanatics convince these 'nutjobs' that murdering doctors prevents the murder of 'babies'. The 'innocent' Christians say, "I don't agree with murdering doctors who perform abortions, therefore I am innocent." No action need be taken to prevent the message from being misconstrued. Not their problem. Not responsible, nope.

[sugarb]

According to this view, only those who pull the trigger are guilty. Those that encourage such murders are absolved. And those which don't agree are even more absolved.

Can you provide us some evidence of Christians taking any actions whatsoever to prevent the 'nutjobs' other than to say they, the Christians, don't agree? What have any of these people who don't agree done to prevent the 'nutjobs' from misinterpreting the Christian message?

No, actually...I plainly called it domestic terrorism, because that is what it is. However, you seem to have a problem with people who identify themselves as Christians, which is strange considering you support a Christian politician (I guess it's his fault, too...he's guilty of murder by virtue of being a Christian).

This isn't a matter of "misinterpretation" and you're smart enough to know that, if you know anything about Christianity at all. Hello? The abortion doctor was in CHURCH, with CHRISTIANS, who obviously had no problem having fellowship with him. Are THEY guilty? In fact, is the DOCTOR guilty of suicide? Since HE was a Christian? I mean, come ON.

[Skeptic Ginger]

If you want to see "Christians" condemn this, go to Operationrescue.org. When it returns, you will see that even the most conservative Christians abhor the abomination of shooting a person in church. You can see the same thing on the nrlc.org. Go to lifenews.com and see that all pro life groups condemn this murder.

I have posted about George Tiller extensively on this board. I saw this news go across the ticker on fox news and was stunned. That is the only word I can use to describe my reaction.

What happened in Ks. today was a tragedy. We live in a world where people don't respect life, we see late term abortionists abort viable babies, and we see hypocritical vigilantes kill in the name of protecting life. This shows that we need to build a culture that respects life in order to prevent this from happening in the future.Well then, you've done your 'duty'. Op Res. has made the official condemnation. You are all absolved. Good for you.

What a tragedy. No need to even think about what you might have done to prevent the 'nutjobs'. Not your problem. Nope. Not your problem. You condemned the act. You are absolved.

[JoeyDonuts]

Anti-abortion fanatics convince these 'nutjobs' that murdering doctors prevents the murder of 'babies'. The 'innocent' Christians say, "I don't agree with murdering doctors who perform abortions, therefore I am innocent." No action need be taken to prevent the message from being misconstrued. Not their problem. Not responsible, nope.

I still don't see the causal link between so-called 'innocent' Christians and the pulling of the trigger. If any group needs to be held accountable it's this Operation Rescue organization, but I'm not even sure how you'd go about doing that unless you could prove that taking violent action and using deadly force against abortion doctors are part of its credo.

Out of curiosity, are you looking for the Christian community to condemn and completely disassociate from any anti-abortion groups? I'm pretty sure that will never happen.

[Skeptic Ginger]

http://www.lifenews.com/state4188.html

It seems like the pro abortion group is acting like mean spirited demagogues. They're going to try to paint everybody who stood up to Tiller as a hater. They seem to forget that Tiller probably broke every law in the book in his years as a Dr.

And I did hate what Tiller did. There shouldn't be any shame in hating Tillers actions. He ignored the law and performed abortions that were not legal. He should have been put in jail. If his jury had convicted him he would be alive today.:rule10 You!

You prove my point. You don't give a :rule10 about life. You only care about the people you decide deserve to live. You read your Bible. But you forgot about all the admonitions that the decisions weren't up to you. No one convicted Tiller? Well you don't care because you think you have the right to decide.

:rule10 You!

You just proved my point. You think it is OK to egg the 'nutjobs' on. All you need do is retreat to your position, you didn't agree. You are absolved of all guilt.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I still don't see the causal link between so-called 'innocent' Christians and the pulling of the trigger. If any group needs to be held accountable it's this Operation Rescue organization, but I'm not even sure how you'd go about doing that unless you could prove that taking violent action and using deadly force against abortion doctors are part of its credo.

Out of curiosity, are you looking for the Christian community to condemn and completely disassociate from any anti-abortion groups? I'm pretty sure that will never happen.I'm simply asking for evidence the Christian community has taken any action to prevent the antiabortion 'nutjobs' other than Christians absolving themselves of guilt by saying they don't agree?

[Skeptic Ginger]

It very much is domestic terrorism, but Obama bowed to the far right and withdrew the report (drawn up by the Bush administration) that said that far right extremists may use abortion as an excuse for violence.I'd like to see what you are talking about. How about a link?

[Skeptic Ginger]

You have more faith in the american justice system than I do. Tiller is was just as "no guilty" of his crimes as OJ was. I think the jury just did a very bad job. Tiller was still under investigation by the medical boards for misconduct.God I hope you get banned from this board. You are disgusting.

[sugarb]

:rule10 You!

You prove my point. You don't give a :rule10 about life. You only care about the people you decide deserve to live. You read your Bible. But you forgot about all the admonitions that the decisions weren't up to you. No one convicted Tiller? Well you don't care because you think you have the right to decide.

:rule10 You!

You just proved my point. You think it is OK to egg the 'nutjobs' on. All you need do is retreat to your position, you didn't agree. You are absolved of all guilt.


Um...I personally think you need to calm down, because while you may not realize this (and I understand this is an emotional issue), those kinds of attacks "egg on" the anti-abortion radicals, too. Screaming profanities and hurling insults only makes people hold tighter to positions. You won't change any minds that way.

In fact, things like that could probably encourage a nutjob to pick up a gun and do something stupid.

[JoeyDonuts]

I'm simply asking for evidence the Christian community has taken any action to prevent the antiabortion 'nutjobs' other than Christians absolving themselves of guilt by saying they don't agree?

The "Christian community" is many separate denominations. Even if the Southern Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Roman Catholics, Disciples of Christ and every other denomination held a huge press conference and publicly condemned murdering people in the name of God, people like the shooter here and Eric Rudolph will still find homes and places to nuture their extremism, like a breakaway LDS sect that doesn't recognize anything but their own interpretations of what they think the Bible is telling them to do.

I agree with you in that more proactive action on the part of the Christian mainstream to try to avoid these things in the future would be a fantastic start. But Christendom in the U.S. doesn't have a central face or spokesperson per se, does it? How would these even be accomplished? You couldn't mandate the churches to do it at the organizational level - that would be unconstitutional.

The sad reality, as I'm sure were both aware, is that many Christians are most likely cheering the doctor's death silently.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not primarily. Tiller himself was the target to prevent his actions. An assassination is not necessarily terrorism.

Terrorism more or less targets random people to intimidate a government.

That said, I oppose abortion on moral grounds and I also think this was wrong. The shooter should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and leaders of the anti-abortion movement should come out and condemn the act.Terrorism is the use of terror to get other people to comply with your sick desires. This was clearly an act of terrorism. The goal is to make other doctors afraid to perform abortions.

[sugarb]

Terrorism is the use of terror to get other people to comply with your sick desires. This was clearly an act of terrorism. The goal is to make other doctors afraid to perform abortions.

Definitely. I'd like to see this be treated as such, especially where organizations are involved. Perhaps, we can soon hope, it will be.

[Skeptic Ginger]

The "Christian community" is many separate denominations. Even if the Southern Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Roman Catholics, Disciples of Christ and every other denomination held a huge press conference and publicly condemned murdering people in the name of God, people like the shooter here and Eric Rudolph will still find homes and places to nuture their extremism, like a breakaway LDS sect that doesn't recognize anything but their own interpretations of what they think the Bible is telling them to do.

I agree with you in that more proactive action on the part of the Christian mainstream to try to avoid these things in the future would be a fantastic start. But Christendom in the U.S. doesn't have a central face or spokesperson per se, does it? How would these even be accomplished? You couldn't mandate the churches to do it at the organizational level - that would be unconstitutional.

The sad reality, as I'm sure were both aware, is that many Christians are most likely cheering the doctor's death silently.I merely asked for some examples of Christians' actions to prevent these 'nutjobs' from misconstruing the anti-abortion message.

I have the same concern about the Muslim community. Clearly there are many Christians and Muslims that don't agree with the actions of the extremists among them. But other than voicing disagreement, what are they actually doing to prevent the 'nutjobs' from acting on misconstrued religious messages?

[LostAngeles]

Tiller Murder Suspect Is Scott Roeder. Connected With Operation Rescue. (http://donklephant.com/2009/05/31/tiller-murder-suspect-is-scott-roeder-connected-with-operation-rescue/)

OK now that we know he is a religious whackjob (which is to be read as, "religious and a whackjob," not "if religious then a whackjob," Beeps. One would think after all this time, you'd know me better than that.), I'm ready to commence with the, "You and your God are ********."

Reading the entire thread before responding...

[Skeptic Ginger]

beyond the argument of in favor of abortion or not, the situation at hand is that a doctor was murdered, shot dead for his business even if his religion disagrees with what he does.

For whatever reason, the person responsible is the PERSON responsible, regardless of his beliefs on abortion. HE took a life, and that is murder.


PLEASE leave the abortion quibbles out of it, unless it has to do with the doctor and the person who killed him (ex the shooter's wife got a late term abortion without his permission and he went apecrazy)


as it stand, no one knows who was responsible, and the anti-choice and pro-choice side will have their fights in the public as always, forgetting that a doctor was just killed.The courts have convicted more than one person for inciting another to act. Are you absolving everyone who promotes the anti-abortion message from responsibility for anyone else who acts on that message and murders a doctor or bombs a gyn clinic?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Honestly, I do not understand this. What is this need to blame an ENTIRE group of people for the actions of a few? One American man shot another American man. You're an American, therefore it's YOUR fault for not being loud enough. How American of you.

A human kills another human. You're a human, therefore YOU are responsible for not being loud enough. How human of you.

See how ridiculous? Or no?Show me an example of actions any Christians have taken to examine their message, with the goal of addressing the problem of 'nutjobs' who misconstrue and act on Christian messages like this one, and I will reconsider my condemnation of the whole group.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Just to be clear, are you referring to Christianity as a whole or this Operation Rescue group as "those that encourage such murders?"I'm referring to any believer of any religion who takes no action to prevent the 'nutjobs' or extremists from misconstruing the religious message. I'm referring to any believer who absolves themselves of guilt for the actions taken by any individual who misconstrues the religious tenets by simply saying, "I don't agree, therefore I am absolved".

[LostAngeles]

skeptigirl, you're painting a diverse group with a very large brush. Not every Christian is anti-abortion and there's a ridiculous number of sects. How can you blame such a large group for the actions of a few? By this logic, you're going to have to blame the doctor for his own death as he too was a Christian.

Do you blame all Christians for the actions of the IRA or all Muslims for the actions of al-Qaeda?

[JoeyDonuts]

I have the same concern about the Muslim community. Clearly there are many Christians and Muslims that don't agree with the actions of the extremists among them. But other than voicing disagreement, what are they actually doing to prevent the 'nutjobs' from acting on misconstrued religious messages?

What can they do other than report any suspicious or criminal activity when they become aware of it?

[Skeptic Ginger]

No, actually...I plainly called it domestic terrorism, because that is what it is. However, you seem to have a problem with people who identify themselves as Christians, which is strange considering you support a Christian politician (I guess it's his fault, too...he's guilty of murder by virtue of being a Christian).

This isn't a matter of "misinterpretation" and you're smart enough to know that, if you know anything about Christianity at all. Hello? The abortion doctor was in CHURCH, with CHRISTIANS, who obviously had no problem having fellowship with him. Are THEY guilty? In fact, is the DOCTOR guilty of suicide? Since HE was a Christian? I mean, come ON.I'm asking for an example of Christians taking action to prevent their religious message from being misconstrued by the 'nutjobs'.

It is pretty easy to just say a Christian isn't responsible for people who misconstrue their religious message. But Christians should recognize they are responsible if they have done nothing to prevent such 'nutjobs' from acting other than to say, "not my problem, I don't agree. That's all I am responsible for, saying I don't agree."


Christians are indeed responsible for at least making an effort to stop the nutjobs from misinterpreting the religious tenets. I don't hold Christians responsible for succeeding, but I do hold them all responsible for more than just saying they don't agree. Sorry, but that is my view.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I still don't see the causal link between so-called 'innocent' Christians and the pulling of the trigger. If any group needs to be held accountable it's this Operation Rescue organization, but I'm not even sure how you'd go about doing that unless you could prove that taking violent action and using deadly force against abortion doctors are part of its credo.

Out of curiosity, are you looking for the Christian community to condemn and completely disassociate from any anti-abortion groups? I'm pretty sure that will never happen.I am asking for any evidence whatsoever that any Christian groups whatsoever have made an attempt to do more about the 'nutjobs' than just verbalizing disagreement.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Um...I personally think you need to calm down, because while you may not realize this (and I understand this is an emotional issue), those kinds of attacks "egg on" the anti-abortion radicals, too. Screaming profanities and hurling insults only makes people hold tighter to positions. You won't change any minds that way.

In fact, things like that could probably encourage a nutjob to pick up a gun and do something stupid.I don't expect to change the mind of someone like skepticalbeliever. I admit I am not calm. I expect my posts to end up in AAH. But I am really angry and just don't feel like calming down at this moment. Sorry.

[JoeyDonuts]

I am asking for any evidence whatsoever that any Christian groups whatsoever have made an attempt to do more about the 'nutjobs' than just verbalizing disagreement.

I don't think you're going to find much evidence there. Christianity is way too decentralized for any such action to have any real meaning. Most of your typical "Christians" don't really belong to a "Christian group," whatever that is. James Dobson, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and any other somewhat respected high-profile Christian personality could make a statement to that effect and it's highly likely that 80 percent of Christians in the U.S. wouldn't ever hear it, or care if they did.

You want to see more action on the part of Christians? Maybe they don't feel responsible since they didn't actually kill the doctor. The only thing they're guilty of is sharing the self-identity of "Christian." That means many different things to many different people.

And how exactly is any group supposed to take action to make sure that somebody doesn't misinterpret something? What do you think a pastor's sermon is? It's a lesson taken from his interpretation of scripture. Do you honestly expect him to make it absolutely clear to his parishoners that they are not to commit murder no matter what the justification may be? Having a correct moral compass is not the exclusive purview of any belief system, atheist or religious. It is the rule of law that dictates our moral compasses, and IMHO holding churches responsible to make sure their followers don't take anything out of context is ridiculous, unnecessary, and most likely illegal.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Reading the entire thread before responding...I did edit my original reply to your post, even before I read the rest of the thread. I meant no offense at your correctly skeptical position. I did, however, feel the skeptical position was one of, this was an anti-abortion nut until proven otherwise, rather than the other way around.

[Skeptic Ginger]

skeptigirl, you're painting a diverse group with a very large brush. Not every Christian is anti-abortion and there's a ridiculous number of sects. How can you blame such a large group for the actions of a few? By this logic, you're going to have to blame the doctor for his own death as he too was a Christian.

Do you blame all Christians for the actions of the IRA or all Muslims for the actions of al-Qaeda?The IRA matter is not a Protestant/Catholic religious conflict. It is an ethnic conflict.

As for the Muslims and Christians, my gut reaction is yes, I blame them all for the extremists among them. The reason is not because I paint them all with the same brush. The reason is, just saying you don't agree is not enough, from my perspective, to absolve them all from responsibility for the extremists among them.

If I created a club, and that club had a particular philosophy, and a small number of people who joined the club misconstrued that philosophy and acted on their misconstrued beliefs about the club's philosophy, I could just say, "it's not my problem, I don't agree with how they misconstrued the club's philosophy."

If there was only a single 'nutjob' or even 2 or 3 'nutjobs' who misconstrued the club's philosophy, that would not be my problem. There are mentally ill people who incorporate all sorts of beliefs into their delusional systems. Christians and Muslims are not responsible for schizophrenics that incorporate gods themes into their delusions.

But, OTOH, if groups of people consistently misconstrued the club's philosophy and acted on those misconceptions, then I would have at least the responsibility to examine what role the club's philosophical beliefs was playing in the misconceptions that were recurring in some club members. I might or might not be able to impact those consistently reoccurring misconceptions, but I would be responsible to do more than simply say, it wasn't my problem.

It is the responsibility of both Christians and Muslims to address the extremists within their organizations. They owe the world more than simply saying, it's not their problem because they are not the extremists.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I don't think you're going to find much evidence there. Christianity is way too decentralized for any such action to have any real meaning. Most of your typical "Christians" don't really belong to a "Christian group," whatever that is. James Dobson, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and any other somewhat respected high-profile Christian personality could make a statement to that effect and it's highly likely that 80 percent of Christians in the U.S. wouldn't ever hear it, or care if they did.

You want to see more action on the part of Christians? Maybe they don't feel responsible since they didn't actually kill the doctor. The only thing they're guilty of is sharing the self-identity of "Christian." That means many different things to many different people.

And how exactly is any group supposed to take action to make sure that somebody doesn't misinterpret something? What do you think a pastor's sermon is? It's a lesson taken from his interpretation of scripture. Do you honestly expect him to make it absolutely clear to his parishoners that they are not to commit murder no matter what the justification may be? Having a correct moral compass is not the exclusive purview of any belief system, atheist or religious. It is the rule of law that dictates our moral compasses, and IMHO holding churches responsible to make sure their followers don't take anything out of context is ridiculous, unnecessary, and most likely illegal.I'm not asking for all Christians to act. I ask again, can you show me any evidence that any Christians have taken any actions to examine and/or address the problem of people who act on misconstrued beliefs about what the Christian religion is telling the nutjobs or extremists to do?

[sugarb]

I'm asking for an example of Christians taking action to prevent their religious message from being misconstrued by the 'nutjobs'.

It is pretty easy to just say a Christian isn't responsible for people who misconstrue their religious message. But Christians should recognize they are responsible if they have done nothing to prevent such 'nutjobs' from acting other than to say, "not my problem, I don't agree. That's all I am responsible for, saying I don't agree."


Christians are indeed responsible for at least making an effort to stop the nutjobs from misinterpreting the religious tenets. I don't hold Christians responsible for succeeding, but I do hold them all responsible for more than just saying they don't agree. Sorry, but that is my view.


He was IN CHURCH. With OTHER CHRISTIANS. He himself was a Christian...and quite OBVIOUSLY made a more than heroic effort to not let Christian teachings be misrepresented. As did those who shared fellowship with him, knowing that he had been more than simply threatened.

MANY churches/denominations make huge efforts to embrace things that extremist nutjobs act stupid about. Check out the churches that perform gay marriage ceremonies even when the states won't recognize them. Check out churches that welcome divorced people. Check out churches that open their arms to anyone and everyone the extremists (like the shooter, and Fred Phelps, and televangelist millionaires too numerous to name) hate.

All Christians aren't weirdos. Some...many, in fact, are quite liberal minded. (Liberal in the classic sense of the word, not the current political sense). That kind of had to happen as people became more educated, and probably more directly as women gained more equality. You won't hear too many Christians anymore condemn women for working outside of the home, for example. In fact, truth be told, most churches pretty much only survive because of women, who are now generally more active than men.

Services have even changed, and involve more music than preaching in many denominations. I'm not a churchgoer, though when asked for special things, I will go to show support for youth music programs (churches offer more opportunity for youth music programs than schools now, and I personally feel that music is important--and youth perform *gasp* MODERN music). Really, everything has changed drastically since I stopped going years and years ago.

Locally, there was even concern when churches tried to get involved in politics. One church tried, desperately...it was over a GSA club in high school. I live in the Bible Belt. The church failed, miserably. BECAUSE other churches got actively involved to support ALL students, and to condemn hatred. So here, I've seen it. I've seen Christians stand up against Christians. Maybe you aren't looking in the right places.

[SezMe]

What can they do other than report any suspicious or criminal activity when they become aware of it?
While I think skeptigirl has gone way too far, there is a good point buried in the (fully justified, understandable) anger. There are things that could be done.

For example, let's take a page out of the opponents book (well, they're not "opponents" really but you know what I mean). Operation Rescue is very good at mounting protests and getting media coverage. Did you ever see the other side doing that? As well and as often?

Dobson and his group are masters at using the media - especially TV - to get their message out. But I've never seen, for example, the Missouri Synod getting on TV and expousing an opposing point of view. Or some Methodist umbrella group (there must be one). Don't the Episcopalians have a spokesperson? And so on...you get my point.

The far right Christian movement has also been very effective politically. From Bush on down they have, obviously, been major players in the abortion debate. Fix News is their 24/7 mouthpiece. But there is not a voice - an effective one anyway - countering their view. For example, there are few (none?) Senators who wear their liberal Christianity on their sleeves and condemn Planned Parenthood violence.

Overall, the point is that making the culture more toxic for the far religious right has not been done. If it had, this tragic event MIGHT have been avoided.

[Skeptic Ginger]

....

All Christians aren't weirdos. Some...many, in fact, are quite liberal minded. ...Christians stand up against Christians. Maybe you aren't looking in the right places.I've not said all Christians are weirdos or that all Christians agree with the extremists, in case that's what you thought I was saying.

But in regards to that second sentence, did you have an example of Christians taking any action whatsoever to stop the extremists among them, other than to say they disagree with murdering doctors? Just where is the right place to look?

[sugarb]

I've not said all Christians are weirdos or that all Christians agree with the extremists, in case that's what you thought I was saying.

But in regards to that second sentence, did you have an example of Christians taking any action whatsoever to stop the extremists among them, other than to say they disagree with murdering doctors? Just where is the right place to look?

Okay, one place to look would be to see if your state has a RCRC. (Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice). Kentucky does. There are many faith-based pro-choice groups. I know it sounds weird, lol. But there really are. A google search would probably work. Protestants, Catholics, Jews...all have pro-choice, faith based groups that are active politically in their regions, states, on a national level. Which may have at least something to do with any attempts to overturn the laws being miserable failures. These groups, generally, clearly explain how the coincide their views on abortion with their faith.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Okay, one place to look would be to see if your state has a RCRC. (Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice). Kentucky does. There are many faith-based pro-choice groups. I know it sounds weird, lol. But there really are. A google search would probably work. Protestants, Catholics, Jews...all have pro-choice, faith based groups that are active politically in their regions, states, on a national level. Which may have at least something to do with any attempts to overturn the laws being miserable failures. These groups, generally, clearly explain how the coincide their views on abortion with their faith.You aren't getting the point I am making. I'm not saying anything about diversity of views among Christians. If anything Christians are as diverse as bacteria species. (FTR there are a gazillion or more bacteria species.)

What I am asking for is an example of Christians doing more to address the extremists among themselves other than to simply say they aren't extremists themselves.

[sugarb]

You aren't getting the point I am making. I'm not saying anything about diversity of views among Christians. If anything Christians are as diverse as bacteria species. (FTR there are a gazillion or more bacteria species.)

What I am asking for is an example of Christians doing more to address the extremists among themselves other than to simply say they aren't extremists themselves.

Okay, and I'm giving you at least two. The topic is a doctor who performed abortions being murdered by an anti-choice nutjob. I'm telling you that the best example of what you're asking is the people IN church, WITH the doctor. They obviously weren't teaching that kind of extremism in THAT church. Another example is the RCRC, which has many opportunities for people of faith to counter the "religious right" extremist element.

And I can think of another one quite easily off the top of my head, but it isn't necessarily about abortion. Many counter-protests have been organized and held across the country when Fred Phelps and/or his gang showed up. Counter protests by people of faith, church groups. One here locally, in fact, denouncing his kind of hate, and there have been many, many others.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Okay, and I'm giving you at least two. The topic is a doctor who performed abortions being murdered by an anti-choice nutjob. I'm telling you that the best example of what you're asking is the people IN church, WITH the doctor. They obviously weren't teaching that kind of extremism in THAT church. Another example is the RCRC, which has many opportunities for people of faith to counter the "religious right" extremist element.

And I can think of another one quite easily off the top of my head, but it isn't necessarily about abortion. Many counter-protests have been organized and held across the country when Fred Phelps and/or his gang showed up. Counter protests by people of faith, church groups. One here locally, in fact, denouncing his kind of hate, and there have been many, many others.My complaint is not about, "not teaching extremism", my complaint is about god promoters not taking responsibility for the extremism that god promotion results in.

Phelps counter protests usually involve people supporting the military families Phelps is harassing or people supporting gays that Phelps targets. Do you have any examples of church groups specifically counter protesting Phelps?

[linusrichard]

You sincerely don't see how bizarre it is to say that anyone who really believes abortion is murder should murder doctors who perform abortions in order to prevent more murders?
Was it "bizarre" when those people tried to kill Hitler?

The amount of "murders" doesn't matter--so there are more abortions than executions, so what? There are probably more abortions than there would be people killed by that guy in the mall you talked about being allowed to shoot random people, too. The point isn't the numbers, the point is the belief that something LEGAL should be ILLEGAL, and what you say a person SHOULD be willing to do to prove they really think it's wrong.
Unless you're a hardline, no-exceptions pacifist, it's horrifying to me that, in the hypothetical I provided about the guy in the mall, you would rather just let him keep killing innocents than kill him yourself, just because what he's doing is "legal." I tried to paint a picture of an extreme situation in which any reasonable person would see the necessity of breaking the law or violating morality for a greater good. It strikes me as incredibly selfish not to do something. You satisfy your conscience and stay out of prison, and tomorrow more people die, and the next day, and the next...

[Oliver]

http://www.kwch.com/Global/story.asp?S=10451609

I guess only "life in the womb" is good.
I will never understand these ******** who do this. I wnat to see "Christians" condemn this ****, but I'm not holding my breath.


"Abortion-Jihad"

[Whiplash]

removed, should have read the whole thread first.

[BPSCG]

I'm not asking for all Christians to act. I ask again, can you show me any evidence that any Christians have taken any actions to examine and/or address the problem of people who act on misconstrued beliefs about what the Christian religion is telling the nutjobs or extremists to do?Asking them to take action against people who misconstrue Christian beliefs might be a fair request if there was any reasonable way you could twist your typical Christian Sunday sermon into an exhortation to kill the infidels wherever you find them abortion doctors.

Unfortunately, there are people who could discover justification for murder in the Sermon on the Mount and every episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Madness needs no reason, just an excuse. As Voltaire said, "To the wicked, everything is pretext."

[Drudgewire]

Fuggedaboutit.

[Whiplash]

nevermind, I want no part of this afterall. sorry

[Drudgewire]

nevermind, I want no part of this afterall. sorry


Yeah... I tend to agree. Forget I said anything. Monday morning religion discussions require too much coffee. :p

[Beth]

I merely asked for some examples of Christians' actions to prevent these 'nutjobs' from misconstruing the anti-abortion message.

I have the same concern about the Muslim community. Clearly there are many Christians and Muslims that don't agree with the actions of the extremists among them. But other than voicing disagreement, what are they actually doing to prevent the 'nutjobs' from acting on misconstrued religious messages?

What are you expecting from them? What, exactly, do you think they ought to be doing to prevent this sort of thing from occurring? For example, what do you think the church Dr. Tiller was attending should have done to prevent "nutjobs from misconstruing the anti-abortion message".

[Riftmann]

Phelps counter protests usually involve people supporting the military families Phelps is harassing or people supporting gays that Phelps targets. Do you have any examples of church groups specifically counter protesting Phelps?

I live in Kansas near a College run by the Sisters of Charity. After the Matthew Shepard incident one of the nuns stated at an assembly "We must learn to live together."

Fred Phelps protested both the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity and Saint Mary College for that quote. There was a huge counter protest, including catholic students and Sisters. Since the Motherhouse in Leavenworth, KS is kind of a 'nursing home' for aging Sisters of Charity, I saw little 90 year old nuns with counter protest signs.

The Sisters of Charity are very liberal for being Catholic (they favor priests getting married, female priests, etc). And while they think gays are 'misguided' they will stand up for their rights. It was awesome to talk to a little 90 year old nun protesting Fred Phelps in favor of gays having rights. She didn't think Matthew Shepard was going to burn in hell.

Fred Phelps protested at ALL funerals of people he thinks are gay, until Kansas passed a law forbidding him to do so, long before Bush did. We had to deal with it long before the Matthew Shepard case, or the Iraq War.

[MattusMaximus]

I have to agree. It is intimidation through violence...and if the guy shot him because he was a doctor who performed abortions, rather than just some crazy guy with a gun walking in and shooting someone randomly (which has happened--it is possible, I suppose, that this could be unrelated to abortion), it seems quite obvious to me that it is intended to send a bigger message.

Yup. Couple that with the statements by nutbags like Randall Terry about how he (Tiller) was a "murderer" and whatnot, and it certainly seems like a broader message is being sent.

I also heard on the radio that at a vigil held in Wichita on behalf of Tiller and his family, that a few anti-abortion protestors showed up. A few held signs that said things like "God save the shooter." Nice :rolleyes:

[MattusMaximus]

I agree as well. It will be very interesting to see if some recent terrorism legislation is brought to bear on this case. Or how about some aspects of the RICO statues?

I predict this is going to get much bigger than simply murder.

Sadly, I have to agree. It seems that Obama's election and his influence on SCOTUS picks is going to drive the more extreme elements in the anti-abortion movement to dangerous levels. I view this sort of thing as part of the natural result of all the nasty rhetoric which has been flying around in the last 6-7 months regarding anything contrary to the views of the hard right-wingers. That and the general frustration that nutters like Randall Terry must be feeling, seeing as how they went the "change the laws" route for years and all they got was a lousy ban on late-term abortions that still has exceptions to it.

I think it could get much worse before it gets any better, because the extremists will start to think that changing the laws takes too long and doesn't get anywhere useful (i.e. it won't ban all abortions for whatever reason).

ETA: I think this could very well be classified as domestic terrorism, especially if it is revealed this guy was plugged into a network. It happened back in the 90s, folks. I wouldn't be surprised if it is happening again.

[MattusMaximus]

This appears to be the first staged event of the Obama administration:

1) how do the cops know it was a lone nut, if the gunman was not captured?

2) how did the gunman get away?

3) why was another "suspect" arrested 170 miles away, if the gunaman acted alone?

This event has huge political overtones. Most likely, it was staged to smear anti-abortion people.

Full Disclosure - I favor legal abortions, as long as tax dollars are not used to perform them.

I hope you're kidding.

Otherwise, the CT-subforum is two doors down on the right :rolleyes:

[Kil]

Sorry to come into this so late. I must respond to this post. I apologies for those parts of my reply that have already been covered…


If you want to see "Christians" condemn this, go to Operationrescue.org. When it returns, you will see that even the most conservative Christians abhor the abomination of shooting a person in church. You can see the same thing on the nrlc.org. Go to lifenews.com and see that all pro life groups condemn this murder.
Lets see. Operation Rescue moved from California to Kansas to target George Tiller. They regularly called him a mass murderer, Tiller the Killer, and so on. If you do that enough, the result should not be at all surprising. If you google Operation Rescue, what you will see in their sub category links is a thing called “Tiller Watch”. It's first on their list. While they are busy fixing up their site (to remove any ambiguity) so they can show that they promoted only non-violent lawful attacks on Tiller, and they abhor murder, his blood is still on their hands. They may not have pulled the trigger, but they helped load the gun.

I have posted about George Tiller extensively on this board. I saw this news go across the ticker on fox news and was stunned. That is the only word I can use to describe my reaction.
You shouldn’t have been. Are you admitting to being naïve?

What happened in Ks. today was a tragedy. We live in a world where people don't respect life, we see late term abortionists abort viable babies, and we see hypocritical vigilantes kill in the name of protecting life. This shows that we need to build a culture that respects life in order to prevent this from happening in the future.
So you have decided that the baby’s life is of more value than the mother’s life? In order to be consistent, (abortion is bad) you would kill off the mother. Where is the logic? One life will be saved, and you have decided which life it should be. That’s what this comes down to. Other than not having to actually face making that choice, which is very convenient for you, if you actually did, it would make you as much a killer as you say that Tiller was. And you will have come to your decision the same way Tiller did. If Tiller is a hypocrite, so are you.

A culture that respects life kills the mother, when it comes down to one or the other. I see… So how exactly did you figure out how to place a value on one life over the other? Oh yeah, abortion is bad…

And by the way, I don’t know anyone who is "pro-abortion". The term is a strawman made up by those who want to frame the debate to make the other side look like they don’t value life. The term is a lie...

[tsig]

I don't think this is terrorism. It would have been terrorism if a bomb was used and more people were hurt. People have been killing eachother over things like this for ages. Assasinating a person doesn't qualify as real terrorism in my view.

I hope the prolife movement will continue to expose the crimes of the abortion industry. This is not an excuse to stop doing that at all.
So you're pretty ok with the killing you're only worry is that it might affect your movement?

[tsig]

Not primarily. Tiller himself was the target to prevent his actions. An assassination is not necessarily terrorism.

Terrorism more or less targets random people to intimidate a government.

That said, I oppose abortion on moral grounds and I also think this was wrong. The shooter should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and leaders of the anti-abortion movement should come out and condemn the act.

So we shoot the soldier but hold guiltless those who led him to the act?

(loosely rephrased AL)

[Robster, FCD]

I'd like to see what you are talking about. How about a link?

You betcha! (http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf) This is the same DHS report that the Obama administration withdrew after being attacked by the far right for a variety of reasons, including pointing out that extremist groups often targeted veterans for recruitment (as if that was, somehow, in an alternate dimension riddled with goatees) an attack on veterans.

"Paralleling the current national climate, right wing extremists during the1990s exploited a variety of social issues and political themes to increase group visibility and recruit new members. Prominent among these themes were the militia movement’s opposition to gun control efforts, criticism of free trade agreements (particularly those with Mexico), and highlighting perceived government infringement on civil liberties as well as white supremacists’ longstanding exploitation of social issues such as abortion, inter-racial crimes, and same-sex marriage. During the 1990s, these issues contributed to the growth in the number of domestic right wing terrorist and extremist groups and an increase in violent acts targeting government facilities, law enforcement officers, banks, and infrastructure sectors."

[Brainster]

Shooter had a history of mental illness, according to his brother (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/us/02tiller.html?partner=rss&emc=rss):

In a statement issued on Monday to The Topeka Capital-Journal, Mr. Roeder’s brother, David, said the suspect had “suffered from mental illness at various times in his life,” the newspaper reported.

“We are shocked, horrified and filled with sadness at the death of Dr. Tiller and the circumstances surrounding it that may have involved Scott Roeder,” the statement read. “We know Scott as a kind and loving son, brother and father who suffered from mental illness at various times in his life.

[tsig]

The D-Day invasion.

You clearly do not understand the power of teh Jewish Cabal.

[rwguinn]

Nobody should use this for Political Gain (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/01/abortion-opponents-discouraged-doctors-murder/):

Leaders of the anti-abortion movement gathered in front of the Supreme Court Monday morning to denounce the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller, who was gunned down Sunday while attending church in Wichita, Kan.
The pro-life activists also used the platform to blast President Obama's abortion policies and strongly question the beliefs of his Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor.
Except us, of course...

[tsig]

Um...I personally think you need to calm down, because while you may not realize this (and I understand this is an emotional issue), those kinds of attacks "egg on" the anti-abortion radicals, too. Screaming profanities and hurling insults only makes people hold tighter to positions. You won't change any minds that way.

In fact, things like that could probably encourage a nutjob to pick up a gun and do something stupid.

Do you resolve all your problems with guns?

[tsig]

skeptigirl, you're painting a diverse group with a very large brush. Not every Christian is anti-abortion and there's a ridiculous number of sects. How can you blame such a large group for the actions of a few? By this logic, you're going to have to blame the doctor for his own death as he too was a Christian.

Do you blame all Christians for the actions of the IRA or all Muslims for the actions of al-Qaeda?

When the color is right the broad brush will do.

Yes I hold all people responsible for their beliefs and the actions that follow from them.

[Beth]

When the color is right the broad brush will do.

Yes I hold all people responsible for their beliefs and the actions that follow from them.

That's not unreasonable, but I do find it unreasonable to hold people responsible for the actions of others just because they hold similar beliefs on some issues. It seems to me that each person is responsible for their own actions, but it's not reasonable to hold anyone responsible for the actions of others with the exception of parents/guardians being held responsible for the actions of the individuals they are charged with overseeing.

[Robster, FCD]

At the risk of further inflaming Skeptigirl ;), and I apologize if it has already been posted, but Randall Terry had this to say (http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/6161410547.html).

Mr. Terry states: "We must not fear, we must not flinch, we must not retreat a single inch. George Tiller was a mass murderer, and we must continue to say so in his death just as we did in his life.

"The pro-life movement must not be browbeaten by Obama or the child-killers into surrendering our best rhetoric, actions, and images. We hold absolutely NO responsibility for his death.

"We must continue to call abortionists 'murderers' according to the teachings of the Church; we must continue to peacefully expose and protest them; and we must continue to show the bloody remains of children that died at the hands of Tiller and his kind."

That isn't disowning the act. Including the word "peacefully" doesn't make this any less of a call to arms.

Twitters from the faithful anti women's-health-and-reproductive-rights groups were collected by Pam Spaulding (http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/11233/abortion-doctor-george-tiller-murdered-outside-kansas-church).

Heres a few-

* Crap, I always forgot hashtags. I'm happy Tiller's dead. - Jennifer Waite, Selah, Washington
* UPDATE... Doctor George Tiller was aborted today in his 204th trimester - aren't paybacks a bitch - Punch
* oh HAPPY DAY! Tiller the baby killer is DEAD! - Samantha Pelch
* George Tiller the baby killer was shot dead this morning. God bless the gunmen who hopefully won't be caught. - readnwatchchris, Creedmor. NC

I don't agree with those who use this to paint all of Christianity as being at fault, but do think that the anti reproductive rights groups do have a lot to answer for dehumanizing and demonizing their opponents, which directly leads to the death of those being attacked.

The real problem is that this was a professional who performed a needed and vital service, the abortion of severely deformed fetuses, for whom life would be a horrific experience for both the child and parent.

[tsig]

I don't think you're going to find much evidence there. Christianity is way too decentralized for any such action to have any real meaning. Most of your typical "Christians" don't really belong to a "Christian group," whatever that is. James Dobson, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and any other somewhat respected high-profile Christian personality could make a statement to that effect and it's highly likely that 80 percent of Christians in the U.S. wouldn't ever hear it, or care if they did.

You want to see more action on the part of Christians? Maybe they don't feel responsible since they didn't actually kill the doctor. The only thing they're guilty of is sharing the self-identity of "Christian." That means many different things to many different people.

And how exactly is any group supposed to take action to make sure that somebody doesn't misinterpret something? What do you think a pastor's sermon is? It's a lesson taken from his interpretation of scripture. Do you honestly expect him to make it absolutely clear to his parishoners that they are not to commit murder no matter what the justification may be? Having a correct moral compass is not the exclusive purview of any belief system, atheist or religious. It is the rule of law that dictates our moral compasses, and IMHO holding churches responsible to make sure their followers don't take anything out of context is ridiculous, unnecessary, and most likely illegal.

So any preacher can say "Kill the *******" in his sermon every day in his church and not be responsible if someone acts upon it.

[linusrichard]

The real problem is that this was a professional who performed a needed and vital service, the abortion of severely deformed fetuses, for whom life would be a horrific experience for both the child and parent.

One additional detail that I haven't seen in this thread (sorry if I've missed it) is that, according to one source (http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2009/05/jesuss-jihadis.html), he was one of three doctors in the nation who performed this work (late term abortions). If true, this murderer didn't just murder an abortionist, which would be horrible enough. He murdered one third of the late term abortionists in America.

[sugarb]

Do you resolve all your problems with guns?

I don't HAVE guns. I don't think violence solves anything--it just promotes more violence. Are you denying that constantly cursing and insulting your opponent encourages the potential for violence? That it increases tensions?

[tsig]

Okay, and I'm giving you at least two. The topic is a doctor who performed abortions being murdered by an anti-choice nutjob. I'm telling you that the best example of what you're asking is the people IN church, WITH the doctor. They obviously weren't teaching that kind of extremism in THAT church. Another example is the RCRC, which has many opportunities for people of faith to counter the "religious right" extremist element.

And I can think of another one quite easily off the top of my head, but it isn't necessarily about abortion. Many counter-protests have been organized and held across the country when Fred Phelps and/or his gang showed up. Counter protests by people of faith, church groups. One here locally, in fact, denouncing his kind of hate, and there have been many, many others.

So you only denounce his kind of hate. All others are OK. Why does religion produce such divisions? If god loved us he would have spared us from himself.

[BPSCG]

So any preacher can say "Kill the *******" in his sermon every day in his church and not be responsible if someone acts upon it.Well, that's just the trouble, isn't it? Do you have some evidence that Christian ministers preach murder from the pulpit?

[Robster, FCD]

One additional detail that I haven't seen in this thread (sorry if I've missed it) is that, according to one source (http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2009/05/jesuss-jihadis.html), he was one of three doctors in the nation who performed this work (late term abortions). If true, this murderer didn't just murder an abortionist, which would be horrible enough. He murdered one third of the late term abortionists in America.

Thats right. Pro life in this case means pro suffering.

[Cleon]

Interesting. The same people who loudly condemn Islam and Muslims for every act of terrorism are now whining about people painting Christians with a broad brush, that not all Christians are murderers, etc.

On the other side, you have people saying that messages of hate and veiled threats are coming from the pulpit, and given a wide hearing. Religious leaders that spread the rhetoric are presented as evidence, and the religious leaders that stand against it are ignored. Sounds very familiar.

Of course, in both cases, terrorists and murderous fanatics make up a tiny percentage, and it is bigotry to attribute the actions of a small group of zealots to the larger group.

What's really sad, to me, is that people don't see the hypocrisy. Within a week, you will see many who today stand here defending Christians against unreasonable smears making similar statements about Muslims.

Here's the reality:

Few Christians are murderous anti-abortion nutjobs.
Few Muslims are terrorists.
Few Jews are Kahanist zealots.

If you feel the need to attribute blame of an individual's actions to the (much) larger group as a whole, IMO you have left the realm of critical thinking.

[sugarb]

So you only denounce his kind of hate. All others are OK. Why does religion produce such divisions? If god loved us he would have spared us from himself.

Whatever. I've never said that any kind of hate is okay, and made note of the many churches and denominations that feel the same way and promote way more than some cheesy notion of "tolerance". Obviously it is not only religion that produces hate...but your kind of hate is okay, right? Of course.

Everything, no matter what it is that involves PEOPLE, produces divisions. Religion, politics, education, science--issues such as animal rights, abortion, civil rights, gun rights, censorship/decency laws...all of it. They all also produce extremists at either end. Either extreme starts sounding ridiculous after a while, dont you think? Well, I mean EXCEPT for YOUR extreme, of course.

[sugarb]

Interesting. The same people who loudly condemn Islam and Muslims for every act of terrorism are now whining about people painting Christians with a broad brush, that not all Christians are murderers, etc.

On the other side, you have people saying that messages of hate and veiled threats are coming from the pulpit, and given a wide hearing. Religious leaders that spread the rhetoric are presented as evidence, and the religious leaders that stand against it are ignored. Sounds very familiar.

Of course, in both cases, terrorists and murderous fanatics make up a tiny percentage, and it is bigotry to attribute the actions of a small group of zealots to the larger group.

What's really sad, to me, is that people don't see the hypocrisy. Within a week, you will see many who today stand here defending Christians against unreasonable smears making similar statements about Muslims.

Here's the reality:

Few Christians are murderous anti-abortion nutjobs.
Few Muslims are terrorists.
Few Jews are Kahanist zealots.

If you feel the need to attribute blame of an individual's actions to the (much) larger group as a whole, IMO you have left the realm of critical thinking.


Thank you for saying that so well.

[garcia<3]

The real problem is that this was a professional who performed a needed and vital service, the abortion of severely deformed fetuses, for whom life would be a horrific experience for both the child and parent.

That's always been one of my biggest fears! Not having that option is very frighting. I am very upset that this happened. :(

[tsig]

I don't HAVE guns. I don't think violence solves anything--it just promotes more violence. Are you denying that constantly cursing and insulting your opponent encourages the potential for violence? That it increases tensions?

The only ones I have seen "cursing and insulting" is Christians before the killing and now after.

Are your really that comfortable defending a murderer?

[SezMe]

What are you expecting from them? What, exactly, do you think they ought to be doing to prevent this sort of thing from occurring?
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=4768320#post4768320

[sugarb]

The only ones I have seen "cursing and insulting" is Christians before the killing and now after.

Are your really that comfortable defending a murderer?

If you think I'm defending a murderer, you have some serious comprehension problems.

[Brainster]

I look forward to all the people saying President Bush was a murderer acknowledging that they were inciting people to violence against him.

[tsig]

Well, that's just the trouble, isn't it? Do you have some evidence that Christian ministers preach murder from the pulpit?

Well that's a real low bar that i didn't set but you apparently forgot that some of the biggest Christian ministers called hurricane Katrina a judgment of god.

[tsig]

Whatever. I've never said that any kind of hate is okay, and made note of the many churches and denominations that feel the same way and promote way more than some cheesy notion of "tolerance". Obviously it is not only religion that produces hate...but your kind of hate is okay, right? Of course.

Everything, no matter what it is that involves PEOPLE, produces divisions. Religion, politics, education, science--issues such as animal rights, abortion, civil rights, gun rights, censorship/decency laws...all of it. They all also produce extremists at either end. Either extreme starts sounding ridiculous after a while, dont you think? Well, I mean EXCEPT for YOUR extreme, of course.

You seem to be reading a lot more than I posted.

[MattusMaximus]

Interesting. The same people who loudly condemn Islam and Muslims for every act of terrorism are now whining about people painting Christians with a broad brush, that not all Christians are murderers, etc.

On the other side, you have people saying that messages of hate and veiled threats are coming from the pulpit, and given a wide hearing. Religious leaders that spread the rhetoric are presented as evidence, and the religious leaders that stand against it are ignored. Sounds very familiar.

Of course, in both cases, terrorists and murderous fanatics make up a tiny percentage, and it is bigotry to attribute the actions of a small group of zealots to the larger group.

What's really sad, to me, is that people don't see the hypocrisy. Within a week, you will see many who today stand here defending Christians against unreasonable smears making similar statements about Muslims.

Here's the reality:

Few Christians are murderous anti-abortion nutjobs.
Few Muslims are terrorists.
Few Jews are Kahanist zealots.

If you feel the need to attribute blame of an individual's actions to the (much) larger group as a whole, IMO you have left the realm of critical thinking.

Well said, Cleon.

[tsig]

If you think I'm defending a murderer, you have some serious comprehension problems.

Well then what are you doing here?

[Darat]

Jerry Falwell on 9/11:

... The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen....

[sugarb]

Well then what are you doing here?

Presumably the same thing you're doing here...discussing the murder of a doctor that was apparently an act of what should be called domestic terrorism. Then the discussion turned into blaming all Christians everywhere for the acts of a few, which you seem to be agreeing with. If that's your position--that this was a simple murder by Christians as a whole, then I'm disagreeing with you, it would appear.

[BPSCG]

Do you have some evidence that Christian ministers preach murder from the pulpit?

Well that's a real low bar that i didn't set but you apparently forgot that some of the biggest Christian ministers called hurricane Katrina a judgment of god.

Well, actually, you did set it - you certainly asked it rhetorically:

So any preacher can say "Kill the *******" in his sermon every day in his church and not be responsible if someone acts upon it.

And I don't see how you get from "Katrina was God's judgment" to "Go out and kill an abortionist (or a non-Christian, or whatever)."

I'm still waiting to see these alleged incitements to murder from the Christian pulpit. Let me know when you (or anyone) find any outside of Fred Phelps's merry band of lunatics.

[tsig]

Presumably the same thing you're doing here...discussing the murder of a doctor that was apparently an act of what should be called domestic terrorism. Then the discussion turned into blaming all Christians everywhere for the acts of a few, which you seem to be agreeing with. If that's your position--that this was a simple murder by Christians as a whole, then I'm disagreeing with you, it would appear.
You want to ignore everything that led to the shooting and just focus on the event.

You cannot in stand in the public square and shout "Kill the abortionist" and then walk away with clean hands when it happens,

[tsig]

Well, actually, you did set it - you certainly asked it rhetorically:



And I don't see how you get from "Katrina was God's judgment" to "Go out and kill an abortionist (or a non-Christian, or whatever)."

I'm still waiting to see these alleged incitements to murder from the Christian pulpit. Let me know when you (or anyone) find any outside of Fred Phelps's merry band of lunatics.

So Fred Phelps is not a True Christian by your definition?

Funny that you provided my example for me.

[sugarb]

You want to ignore everything that led to the shooting and just focus on the event.

You cannot in stand in the public square and shout "Kill the abortionist" and then walk away with clean hands when it happens,

And you want to ignore the faith groups that have worked for decades to keep abortion safe and legal. You want to ignore the faith groups that have counter-protested the extremists calling for violence.

I'm not just focusing on the event at all. That would be those who ONLY see the killer (and nuts like him) as the Christian. The doctor himself was. The congregation that witnessed his murder was...and I seriously DOUBT they stood up and applauded. Would you tell THEM it was their fault?

[sugarb]

So Fred Phelps is not a True Christian by your definition?

Funny that you provided my example for me.

Isn't it obvious that he isn't?

[Whiplash]

I look forward to all the people saying President Bush was a murderer acknowledging that they were inciting people to violence against him.

Interesting, but not surprising that this little gem has gone unnoticed or unreplied to. It's a valid point. Nothing infuriated me more in the last 8 years than constant claims of Bush being a murder, and "Bush lied, people died!". It was all rhetoric, and they knew it, and they knew damn well what they were trying to do by saying it. Stir up discontent against the administration (at the very least).

Neither side, nor any relgion, has a monopoly on polarizing, angry rhetoric designed to make people take action.

[sugarb]

Interesting, but not surprising that this little gem has gone unnoticed or unreplied to. It's a valid point. Nothing infuriated me more in the last 8 years than constant claims of Bush being a murder, and "Bush lied, people died!". It was all rhetoric, and they knew it, and they knew damn well what they were trying to do by saying it. Stir up discontent against the administration (at the very least).

Neither side, nor any relgion, has a monopoly on polarizing, angry rhetoric designed to make people take action.

Exactly. The scary part, to me, is how many people can see it in the people they disagree with, but cannot see it in themselves. There was a time, many years ago, when I was blinded to my own stupidity...and it took something terrible happening, to someone I loved, to make me see it. I am sure that I fail, at times. But I make a concerted effort to NOT fail, even if it means admitting things about myself that I may not like to admit, and learning and changing when I know I am wrong.

[Whiplash]

Exactly. The scary part, to me, is how many people can see it in the people they disagree with, but cannot see it in themselves. There was a time, many years ago, when I was blinded to my own stupidity...and it took something terrible happening, to someone I loved, to make me see it. I am sure that I fail, at times. But I make a concerted effort to NOT fail, even if it means admitting things about myself that I may not like to admit, and learning and changing when I know I am wrong.


A good and noble attitude I endorse and try to subscribe to myself. I'm sure I have been guilty of doing it as well. And I wish I hadn't. And I wish I could always catch myself when I am doing it. But you make a good point, it's something we should all strive to watch for in ourselves.

[SezMe]

Isn't it obvious that he isn't?
No. Please tell me how to differentiate the real Christians from the imposters.

[SezMe]

And I don't see how you get from "Katrina was God's judgment" to "Go out and kill an abortionist (or a non-Christian, or whatever)."
I'll give it a shot but first let me say that it is a biiig stretch so don't expect me to expend any energy defending it.

People died from Katrina. Some Christian preachers have cited that as god's judgement on New Orleans. Therefore, god killed those people. God is all powerful and perfect. We should obey god's law, as evidenced by his examples. So we can, nay should, kill evil people. Tiller was evil. Therefore, go kill him.

[JoeyDonuts]

No. Please tell me how to differentiate the real Christians from the imposters.

Exactly my point. Christianity isn't even close to organized. There are hundreds of denominations, thousands of small churches who don't even claim a denomination, and people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson do not speak for the majority of practicing Christians. They go to church on Sunday to enjoy the fellowship of their fellow believers, and to receive a lesson on the "word of God." (If it seems like I know a lot about this, I grew up being a Christian thanks to my parents. I also grew out of it.) Most of them don't watch the 700 Club, think Robert Tilton is a crook, are absolutely disgusted by Phred Phelps, and are everyday people just like you and me whose experiences and insights have led them to the path of believing in a higher power as viewed through the focus of the Bible and Christian ideology. How does that makes them culpable for the actions of a mentally ill trigger-happy bigot in another part of the country again? And why are they obligated to do anything at all?

People died from Katrina. Some Christian preachers have cited that as god's judgement on New Orleans. Therefore, god killed those people. God is all powerful and perfect. We should obey god's law, as evidenced by his examples. So we can, nay should, kill evil people. Tiller was evil. Therefore, go kill him.

The kinds of preachers spewing that firebrand rhetoric represent an infantesimal minority of Christians in the U.S. If you were to walk into any church on any street corner the Sunday after Katrina, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't find a preacher spitting venom about how we brought this on ourselves. You'd be more likely to find them taking up a collection for the relief effort.

[sugarb]

No. Please tell me how to differentiate the real Christians from the imposters.

Well, it's really quite simple when we're discussing Christianity. The teachings of Christ don't include murder or violence. Anyone who claims to believe in Jesus as "Lord and Savior" must, by default, believe what Scriptures say Jesus taught, right? Wouldn't that be fairly logical? Jesus didn't say murder or hurl insults at and act like idiots toward our enemies...just the opposite, actually, which was a pretty radical concept at the time.

So to me it is really rather simple, particularly in Protestant faiths, to tell who the imposters are. Oddly enough, it seems many times that those with no faith have a better understanding of what Christianity teaches than these extremist nutjobs...so it shouldn't be difficult to recognize that they clearly, CLEARLY aren't what they claim to be.

[BTMO]

"No true Christian..."

[BPSCG]

I'll give it a shot but first let me say that it is a biiig stretch so don't expect me to expend any energy defending it.:) I won't...

People died from Katrina. Some Christian preachers have cited that as god's judgement on New Orleans. Therefore, god killed those people. God is all powerful and perfect. We should obey god's law, as evidenced by his examples. So we can, nay should, kill evil people. Tiller was evil. Therefore, go kill him.... because that kind of reasoning (I know you aren't subscribing to it, just speculating) is the same kind that I once saw that proved that good = evil. Here's how it went:


Good = fine
Fine = delicate
Delicate = frail
Frail = ill
Ill = evil

Therefore good = evil. Q.E.D.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Asking them to take action against people who misconstrue Christian beliefs might be a fair request if there was any reasonable way you could twist your typical Christian Sunday sermon into an exhortation to kill the infidels wherever you find them abortion doctors.

Unfortunately, there are people who could discover justification for murder in the Sermon on the Mount and every episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Madness needs no reason, just an excuse. As Voltaire said, "To the wicked, everything is pretext."Are you just discounting the rhetoric of many a pastor's preaching on this subject?

Where are the preachers preaching against the rhetoric that pushes the 'nutjobs' to act? Lot's of Christians are condemning the act. How many of them are condemning the preaching? I would hope someone in this thread finds us some examples of churches condemning using terms like murder for abortion doctors.

[BTMO]

Hmmm.. God also took out his wrath on Victoria (Australia) recently.

It seems that local abortion laws (http://catchthefire.com.au/blog/2009/02/10/media-release-abortion-laws-to-blame-for-bush-fires/)were to blame for the fires that killed nearly 200 people in Victoria...

[Whiplash]

Exactly my point. Christianity isn't even close to organized. There are hundreds of denominations, thousands of small churches who don't even claim a denomination, and people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson do not speak for the majority of practicing Christians. They go to church on Sunday to enjoy the fellowship of their fellow believers, and to receive a lesson on the "word of God." (If it seems like I know a lot about this, I grew up being a Christian thanks to my parents. I also grew out of it.) Most of them don't watch the 700 Club, think Robert Tilton is a crook, are absolutely disgusted by Phred Phelps, and are everyday people just like you and me whose experiences and insights have led them to the path of believing in a higher power as viewed through the focus of the Bible and Christian ideology. How does that makes them culpable for the actions of a mentally ill trigger-happy bigot in another part of the country again? And why are they obligated to do anything at all?



The kinds of preachers spewing that firebrand rhetoric represent an infantesimal minority of Christians in the U.S. If you were to walk into any church on any street corner the Sunday after Katrina, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't find a preacher spitting venom about how we brought this on ourselves. You'd be more likely to find them taking up a collection for the relief effort.

(nominated)

This was a wonderful post, Joey. I share your experience having grown up in a Lutheran family, and forced to attend parochial school till grade 8. And we were active church goers, and involved in church functions. This put me in contact with many other Lutheran families.

Over the years I quickly lost all my faith (it wasn't strong to begin with). By my late teens I had given up completely, much to my mother's dismay. I have never gone back.

I mention this because I realize that, to some, having come from that environment may make a person more likely to support them when they are wrong, or turn a blind eye, etc.

Disclaimer aside, my experience has been the same as yours. The vast, vast majority of people I met and got to know were good, honest, hard working family type people. They weren't out preaching in people's faces. They weren't judgemental. The overwhelming theme was love and helping each other. I never once heard anything regarding abortion other than the belief that it was a sin. Nothing about the people who do it. At least nothing more than "they will have to answer to God one day". Never a suggestion that it was anyone else's business but God's to deal with it.

Same with homosexuality. These subjects rarely even came up at all, and if they did, it was in a way that was to feel sorry for these people and hope that God would help them. Not once did I ever hear anyone proclaim anything remotely resembling violence. EVER.

I think that this part of my life is what lead me to have such a strong sense of empathy. Heck I think part of what drew me away from church was that it was so dreadfully dull and boring. All nicey nice and love love love. No fun. Everything I enjoy is "wrong".

Sadly, it's all too common for people to demonize entire groups based on the actions of a few. It's all too easy to rationalize it to one's self when it's regarding an issue on which you feel you have strong moral superiority. But all the same, it's still a fallacy. It's the same thinking that leads to the idea that all blacks are untrustworthy. Or that all Italians are evil, wife beating mobsters. Or that all environmentalists are nutjobs and potential uni-bombers. Or that all militia members are Timothy McVeigh in waiting.

As I said earlier, no one has a monopoly on spewing hatred and lies to stir people up and create problems. No one. I think Cleon said it great as well, which is why I have nominated him also.

[Skeptic Ginger]

What are you expecting from them? What, exactly, do you think they ought to be doing to prevent this sort of thing from occurring? For example, what do you think the church Dr. Tiller was attending should have done to prevent "nutjobs from misconstruing the anti-abortion message".I would like to see Christians first and foremost recognize the contribution the religion itself plays in the development of religious extremism.

Lots of things have inherent danger associated with them. Gun makers, for example, don't do enough to address the dangers of their products either. The gun manufacturer absolves themselves of guilt by blaming the user. Some people agree. Some of us feel the product maker is responsible for more than just saying they don't condone misuse of their product. A drug manufacturer, OTOH, is likely to be considered responsible to act to lessen the hazard their products pose along with the benefit.

Religion is another matter in that there are no clear cut 'manufacturers'. So I don't expect all Christians to act to lessen the inherent hazard their religion poses. But I expect at least some of them to recognize their religion poses a hazard to users prone to extremism. If you are involved in a religion such as the Christian and Muslim religions currently, and you are aware there are people who are damaged by those religious messages and beliefs (in this case the damage is to people who are prone to extremism related to those religions), then at least some of those believers should recognize and act to prevent the religious message from resulting in extremist interpretations.

The believers value extremism. They may not value all forms of extremism. But they value the extremist who gives their life to God, yadda yadda. This creates an inherent risk that valued extremism will be negative. If you preach extremism (give your life to the Lord) as many Christians do, you should be taking some action to prevent bad extremism, not simply saying, "gee, not my fault that guy misused my religion."

[BPSCG]

Are you just discounting the rhetoric of many a pastor's preaching on this subject?Lots of preachers give hell and brimstone sermons on all kinds of sin. If a guy shoots his cheating wife and her boyfriend, are you going to blame the preacher for that, too?

Where are the preachers preaching against the rhetoric that pushes the 'nutjobs' to act? Claim not in evidence. Show me one instance of someone killing an abortionist "because my preacher's sermons pushed me to do it."

Lot's of Christians are condemning the act. How many of them are condemning the preaching? I would hope someone in this thread finds us some examples of churches condemning using terms like murder for abortion doctors.So a preacher who honestly believes that abortion is the moral equivalent of murder should rail against it in a Sunday sermon, but add, "But don't get the wrong idea; Jesus doesn't want you to go out and kill anyone"?

Got a news flash for you. The sane people in his congregation knew that already. The insane ones won't care. Again, to the wicked (and the crazy), everything is pretext.

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
ETA: I think this could very well be classified as domestic terrorism, especially if it is revealed this guy was plugged into a network. It happened back in the 90s, folks. I wouldn't be surprised if it is happening again.I do hope they charge this guy with terrorism. We should be writing our federal representatives to bring the issue up with federal prosecutors.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Well, that's just the trouble, isn't it? Do you have some evidence that Christian ministers preach murder from the pulpit?You are joking, right?

PROLIFE: Sanctity of Life: Sermon (http://www.christianaction.org.za/articles/sanctittyoflife.htm)Abortion is a modern equivalent of child sacrifice. The births of both Moses and Jesus were accompanied by a massive slaughter of the innocent. Both the Old and New Testaments record widespread infanticide being unleashed in attempts to eradicate the people of God.

Just as God’s people opposed Pharaoh’s decree to murder new-born boys in Egypt (Exodus 1:15-22), so we need to protect pre-born babies from abortion today. Just as King Herod sought to kill the babies in Bethlehem (Matt. 2:16), so abortionists are attempting to butcher babies today.

The most dangerous place in the world is not Bosnia, Somalia, Sudan or the Congo. The most dangerous place in the world is the womb. Pre-born babies are being killed in their mothers’ wombs at a greater rate than any other section of society. The mortality rate for pre-born babies varies from one in four to one in three.

A growing number of Christians worldwide are coming to recognise the abortion holocaust as the greatest crime being committed in the world today. It is an urgent priority for the Church to expose, oppose and end this war against children made in the image of God.

To argue this kind of language doesn't encourage murder of doctors who perform abortion, is just arguing semantics.

[dudalb]

I would like to see Christians first and foremost recognize the contribution the religion itself plays in the development of religious extremism.

Lots of things have inherent danger associated with them. Gun makers, for example, don't do enough to address the dangers of their products either. The gun manufacturer absolves themselves of guilt by blaming the user. Some people agree. Some of us feel the product maker is responsible for more than just saying they don't condone misuse of their product. A drug manufacturer, OTOH, is likely to be considered responsible to act to lessen the hazard their products pose along with the benefit.

Religion is another matter in that there are no clear cut 'manufacturers'. So I don't expect all Christians to act to lessen the inherent hazard their religion poses. But I expect at least some of them to recognize their religion poses a hazard to users prone to extremism. If you are involved in a religion such as the Christian and Muslim religions currently, and you are aware there are people who are damaged by those religious messages and beliefs (in this case the damage is to people who are prone to extremism related to those religions), then at least some of those believers should recognize and act to prevent the religious message from resulting in extremist interpretations.

The believers value extremism. They may not value all forms of extremism. But they value the extremist who gives their life to God, yadda yadda. This creates an inherent risk that valued extremism will be negative. If you preach extremism (give your life to the Lord) as many Christians do, you should be taking some action to prevent bad extremism, not simply saying, "gee, not my fault that guy misused my religion."


OK, so the only way for Christians to show they are sincere about opposing actions like the Murder of the Doctor is to give up religious beliefs and stop being Christians. Got it.
Like people have never been driven to extreme actions by political motivations.

[sugarb]

I do hope they charge this guy with terrorism. We should be writing our federal representatives to bring the issue up with federal prosecutors.

It seems the call is going out for just that! I've seen a lot of headlines and editorial/opinion pieces today about it.

[Brainster]

I do hope they charge this guy with terrorism. We should be writing our federal representatives to bring the issue up with federal prosecutors.

I think we're going to find out that the guy had all sorts of mental problems as his brother indicated.

But if he turns out to be sane then I would probably support the idea of terrorism charges. Violence to achieve political ends you cannot achieve at the ballot box or through the courts sounds pretty much like terrorism to me.

[Whiplash]

It seems the call is going out for just that! I've seen a lot of headlines and editorial/opinion pieces today about it.


Part of me wants to say that's going too far. But I'm also feeling some recognition that it's my own lifelong biases. I have to admit, this is terrorism. To kill an abortion doctor, for being an abortion doctor, can only be construed as a threat to other abortion doctors by means of terror.

If they do charge him with terrorism, I'm pretty sure many on the right will have a fit. And that will sadden me, and make me a bit sick. I hope I'm wrong.

[BPSCG]

You are joking, right?

PROLIFE: Sanctity of Life: Sermon (http://www.christianaction.org.za/articles/sanctittyoflife.htm)

To argue this kind of language doesn't encourage murder of doctors who perform abortion, is just arguing semantics.Um, skeptigirl, maybe you should read to the end of your link. If you had, you would have seen what the author of your link tells people they should do.
What Should You Do?


Be Informed
“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” Hosea 4:6

Obtain and read: “Fight for Life - a pro-life handbook for Southern Africa (http://www.christianlibertybooks.co.za/detail.asp?ID=1122)” and “Making a Difference a Christian Action Handbook for Southern Africa (http://www.christianlibertybooks.co.za/detail.asp?ID=1120).” Write to Africa Christian Action and request free copies of “Scripture and the Sanctity of Life (http://www.christianaction.org.za/articles/scripture_sanctity_biblestudy.htm)”; “It’s My Body (http://www.christianaction.org.za/articles/itsmybody.htm)” and “Abortion - The Facts (http://www.christianaction.org.za/articles/abortion.htm)”. You can also request a Resource List (http://www.christianaction.org.za/prolife-resources.htm)of available pro-life videos and books.

Be Interceding
“If My people who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14
Abortion is a tragic national disgrace and we should pray for God to have mercy upon us and to revive His Church to oppose this evil. Pray for the mothers in crisis pregnancies, pray for the counsellors at crisis pregnancy centres, pray for the medical personnel who are faced with life and death choices, pray for those who make the laws, pray for the voters and for the judges. Pray that God’s will may be done, and that lives will be saved.

Be Involved
“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it for Me.”
Matthew 25:40
Our first priority is to see that our congregation is informed, interceding and involved. Each of us must be involved in prayer and persuasion to save lives. Pray for mothers going through crisis pregnancies, for pre-born babies who are in danger of abortion and for pro-life ministries.

Try to organise for a pro-life speaker to address your school or work place and for pro-life videos such as “Eclipse of Reason”, “The Hard Truth” and “City of Refuge” to be shown to your youth group, women’s group or home fellowship. Join ACA and order a copy of the Christian Action Starter Pack. Then encourage some other concerned friends to join with you in starting a Christian Action Group or Pro-life ministry in your home, workplace or church. Distribute pro-life literature.

Volunteers to help at a Crisis pregnancy centre are always needed. Go through your cupboards and see if there are baby clothes and accessories, in good condition, that you no longer need and can donate to a crisis pregnancy centre.Consider adopting a child.

Start now to educate and enlist others in the campaign to end abortion. Mark your calendar and encourage others to plan now to take part in the next Life Chain, 1st Sunday in October (and if possible join ACA outside Parliament on the closest Sunday to 1st February (the anniversary of the legislation of abortion in South Africa) – for a prayer vigil and placard protest. We can all do something. We must all do something positive – to love our neighbours and to save lives.

Children are a gift from God for blessing the family, the church and the world. Life is precious. We are called to love our neighbours and this includes our unseen pre-born neighbours.

“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.” Proverbs 24:11
Get informed, pray, educate, organize, volunteer, donate, even adopt a child.

If there's anything in there that even suggests anyone should kill anyone, could you point it out to me? Thanks.

[BTMO]

I disagree with charging people like this with terrorism. It simply raises their profile, provides some degree of legitimacy (amongst the true believers) for their actions, and makes them a matyr to their cause, rather than what they are - murdering scum.

Charge them with murder, try them for murder and punish them for murder.

Drive the fact home to them and their ilk that what they are is common criminals, nothing more.

[Dr H]

If you want to see "Christians" condemn this, go to Operationrescue.org. When it returns, you will see that even the most conservative Christians abhor the abomination of shooting a person in church. You can see the same thing on the nrlc.org. Go to lifenews.com and see that all pro life groups condemn this murder.

I have posted about George Tiller extensively on this board. I saw this news go across the ticker on fox news and was stunned. That is the only word I can use to describe my reaction.

What happened in Ks. today was a tragedy. We live in a world where people don't respect life, we see late term abortionists abort viable babies, and we see hypocritical vigilantes kill in the name of protecting life. This shows that we need to build a culture that respects life in order to prevent this from happening in the future.

Nah, we just need fewer people, all around.

http://www.vhemt.org/

[Skeptic Ginger]

....
Here's the reality:

Few Christians are murderous anti-abortion nutjobs.
Few Muslims are terrorists.
Few Jews are Kahanist zealots.

If you feel the need to attribute blame of an individual's actions to the (much) larger group as a whole, IMO you have left the realm of critical thinking.The other side of the coin: Even fewer of the particular 'extremists' you are referring to are atheists. Many things influence extremism from nationalism and bigotry to god beliefs, but there is almost always a religious component tied into the extremism.

I understand why people in this thread are reluctant to blame those that merely promote religion from having any responsibility for the side effect of inadvertently promoting extremism. Like I said, a lot of people don't think gun manufacturers are responsible when their product is misused.

Maybe the drug side effect was not the best example since it was an example of a hazard that did not involve misuse. Tamper resistant caps, OTOH, is an effort to address the hazard of misuse of a product. In the medical field we at least try to attenuate misuse in other ways. There are people working, for example, on needles that cannot be reused. The purpose is to prevent the reuse of disposable needles in third world countries. Just labeling something, "Do not reuse" is not enough.


Upon reconsideration, I agree to let all the apathetic church goers and other believers who don't do much else about their god beliefs off the hook here. I should be more specific and only apply my comments to those people who actively promote their god beliefs. As my thoughts gain clarity by explaining them to others, I find it is the promoters of Christian beliefs that I think should consider the unintended consequences of promoting their religion. It's not enough to just say they are not responsible for misuse of the thing they are taking part in creating.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Presumably the same thing you're doing here...discussing the murder of a doctor that was apparently an act of what should be called domestic terrorism. Then the discussion turned into blaming all Christians everywhere for the acts of a few, which you seem to be agreeing with. If that's your position--that this was a simple murder by Christians as a whole, then I'm disagreeing with you, it would appear.Again I ask, show us some examples of Christian religion promoters taking some responsibility for the misuse of the religion they promote. (I'm not done looking into the nuns against Phelps incident.)

[BPSCG]

Again I ask, show us some examples of Christian religion promoters taking some responsibility for the misuse of the religion they promote. Just read a repellent story about a guy who murdered his father by smashing his head in with a hammer (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052201289.html), and who's lived a comfortable, luxurious life ever since. I'm trying to find out if Stanley Tools is taking some responsibility for the misuse of the hammers they sell.

[Skeptic Ginger]

And you want to ignore the faith groups that have worked for decades to keep abortion safe and legal. You want to ignore the faith groups that have counter-protested the extremists calling for violence. An example of countering Phelps was mentioned. Clearly Phelps' group is easy to despise. How many Christians have protested outside of churches preaching abortion is murder? Which Christian groups are protesting the use of such inflammatory rhetoric as not appropriate because it is dangerous?

...The congregation that witnessed his murder was...and I seriously DOUBT they stood up and applauded. Would you tell THEM it was their fault?I would tell them they need to take a serious look at what the role of promoting their religion plays in creating this kind of murderer. I would tell them to look further than simply saying they don't agree therefore they are not responsible for the misuse of the religion they promote. That they don't promote misuse doesn't mean what they do promote does not contribute.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Interesting, but not surprising that this little gem has gone unnoticed or unreplied to. It's a valid point. Nothing infuriated me more in the last 8 years than constant claims of Bush being a murder, and "Bush lied, people died!". It was all rhetoric, and they knew it, and they knew damn well what they were trying to do by saying it. Stir up discontent against the administration (at the very least).

Neither side, nor any relgion, has a monopoly on polarizing, angry rhetoric designed to make people take action.I have Brainster on ignore, so I didn't see it.

I agree to some extent and was especially concerned when the right wing started to use language that electing Obama was dangerous. I think the McCain camp recognized that hazard when it occurred and made an effort to back off on the rhetoric.

Both in the case of Dr Tiller and in the case of the Obama rhetoric, the language was, kill this person who poses a continuing or future threat. If calling Bush a murderer was going to incite an extremist, it would have been more of a revenge killing. Not that either is OK. I think we need to be careful in either case. But it is much more dangerous to incite someone into believing killing a person eliminates a future threat.

[Skeptic Ginger]

....
The kinds of preachers spewing that firebrand rhetoric represent an infantesimal minority of Christians in the U.S. ....I think you would be surprised to find out just how common this was in the very large and still growing Evangelical movement.

[sugarb]

Again I ask, show us some examples of Christian religion promoters taking some responsibility for the misuse of the religion they promote. (I'm not done looking into the nuns against Phelps incident.)

The problem you're not seeing, Skeptigirl, is that you cannot define Christianity as a product like a gun. You don't get a receipt when you buy it, you don't have to buy a license or ammunition, there aren't any tests you have to take or certifications you have to acquire. Anyone can claim to be a Christian, and there's nothing to be done about it. Anyone can claim to be a licensed driver...but the state can check the validity of that claim. You can't put a safety on faith like you can on a firearm.

It isn't a product. It's a belief system. So who promotes what? On the OTHER hand, organized groups pro or anti something or other, are different: and today, I have seen many pro life faith groups denounce murder. Yes, I've also seen a few nutjobs cheer...but what's new? We saw a few nutjobs cheer when the towers fell, too...but certainly not everyone with whom you could form an association with those jumping for joy.

I don't know what you want. I gave you a MAJOR national faith group that directly opposes the "religious rights" extremism, and you said it wasn't good enough. This isn't about everyone who has faith, it is about groups that advocate or protest social policies and laws BASED ON faith--it is THOSE groups that promote the kind of extremism we're talking about here, not people who just happen to have faith in God and live their own personal lives according to that. We're talking about specific people who attempt to influence social policy/law. Otherwise, I wouldn't call the murder of an abortion doctor terrorism, I'd just call it murder.

[sugarb]

An example of countering Phelps was mentioned. Clearly Phelps' group is easy to despise. How many Christians have protested outside of churches preaching abortion is murder? Which Christian groups are protesting the use of such inflammatory rhetoric as not appropriate because it is dangerous?

I would tell them they need to take a serious look at what the role of promoting their religion plays in creating this kind of murderer. I would tell them to look further than simply saying they don't agree therefore they are not responsible for the misuse of the religion they promote. That they don't promote misuse doesn't mean what they do promote does not contribute.

Again, the fact that they attend church does NOT make them promoters of their faith, it just means they are practicing their faith. Everyone who owns a firearm isn't a member of the NRA, just as everyone who attends church isn't a member of a group that demonstrates to change public policy.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Well, it's really quite simple when we're discussing Christianity. The teachings of Christ don't include murder or violence. Anyone who claims to believe in Jesus as "Lord and Savior" must, by default, believe what Scriptures say Jesus taught, right? Wouldn't that be fairly logical? Jesus didn't say murder or hurl insults at and act like idiots toward our enemies...just the opposite, actually, which was a pretty radical concept at the time. ...I suggest you spend a little more time reading the New Testament and reading what Jesus supposedly said.

You can start here with the Skeptic's Annotated Bible's page (King James version, feel free to search other Bible versions on the site) on Cruelty and Violence in the New Testament. (http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/nt_list.html)
For example: Matthew (5:17) "Think not that I am come to destroy the law."
Jesus strongly approves of the law and the prophets. He hasn't the slightest objection to the cruelties of the Old Testament.

[SezMe]

I disagree with charging people like this with terrorism. It simply raises their profile, provides some degree of legitimacy (amongst the true believers) for their actions, and makes them a matyr to their cause, rather than what they are - murdering scum.

Charge them with murder, try them for murder and punish them for murder.

Drive the fact home to them and their ilk that what they are is common criminals, nothing more.
If (IF) he is charged with terrorism:

1) It won't be the only charge. He'll also get a murder rap plus many others
2) The terrorism charge won't be primarily directed at him. It will be a legal means to see if others can be implicated and charged in the crime.

IOW, your focus is on the individual. A terrorism charge would be focused beyond the perp himself.

[SezMe]

I think we're going to find out that the guy had all sorts of mental problems as his brother indicated.
No doubt. But unless he is found to be legally insane, the fact that he had a few screws loose should not matter.

[BTMO]

If (IF) he is charged with terrorism:

1) It won't be the only charge. He'll also get a murder rap plus many others
2) The terrorism charge won't be primarily directed at him. It will be a legal means to see if others can be implicated and charged in the crime.

IOW, your focus is on the individual. A terrorism charge would be focused beyond the perp himself.

Charge them as accessories.

[applecorped]

Charge them as accessories.


Charge ALL Christians as accessories. That'll show 'em!!

[SezMe]

The kinds of preachers spewing that firebrand rhetoric represent an infantesimal minority of Christians in the U.S.
No doubt. But the fact that they are in the minority does not refute the chain of "reasoning" I laid out.

[I Ratant]

OK, so the only way for Christians to show they are sincere about opposing actions like the Murder of the Doctor is to give up religious beliefs and stop being Christians. Got it.
Like people have never been driven to extreme actions by political motivations.
.
The murderous pro-lifers are acting with the desire and belief that the witch murderers and heretic murderers operated with.
They can't wait for god to get the bad person, so they step into god's shoes and hasten that person off to the final reward.
If they stopped at "Boy, are you gonna get yours when you die", then there'd be not much of a problem with the condemnations, but when they put themselves as the final arbiters of life and death, then, they've overstepped any bounds that can legitimately be called christian, and are merely murderers.
A "true christian" would hate the sin, but not kill the sinner.
Let god or nature do that, but these crazies have to know that sinner got what was coming to him!
MOF, by these murders, it's the only way there is this side of death itself, to punish the evil-doers.
Can't depend on god to do the right thing, I guess.

[oldhat]

Randall Terry: "Tiller got what he deserved. Now let's go get some hot wings and beer."

37eu8MSXdP8

pT1MhKhpqjA

This man is scum.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Lots of preachers give hell and brimstone sermons on all kinds of sin. If a guy shoots his cheating wife and her boyfriend, are you going to blame the preacher for that, too?If the preacher's message was, adulterers should be stoned to death, and the shooter was acting more on a religious belief than on jealousy, then yes.

Claim not in evidence. Show me one instance of someone killing an abortionist "because my preacher's sermons pushed me to do it."Oh pluuuease!

So a preacher who honestly believes that abortion is the moral equivalent of murder should rail against it in a Sunday sermon, but add, "But don't get the wrong idea; Jesus doesn't want you to go out and kill anyone"?Actually, that would help. If the abortion is murder rhetoric was tampered with lots of emphasis on, "God will take care of it," and "It is a sin to preempt God's right to take care of it," I do think that is a step in the right direction for these religion promoters.

Got a news flash for you. The sane people in his congregation knew that already. The insane ones won't care. Again, to the wicked (and the crazy), everything is pretext.New flash! That is my point. The preachers spewing this rhetoric need to recognize there are nutjobs in the audience. And since some of those preachers probably think it's good someone murdered the Dr, then those religion promoters who really do believe 'God is love' should address the hazard of not just religion misusing nutjobs, but also the religion misusing preachers who push the nutjobs to act.

[Skeptic Ginger]

OK, so the only way for Christians to show they are sincere about opposing actions like the Murder of the Doctor is to give up religious beliefs and stop being Christians. Got it.What a ridiculous strawman.


Like people have never been driven to extreme actions by political motivations.And this is relevant, why?

[Darth Rotor]

http://www.kwch.com/Global/story.asp?S=10451609

I guess only "life in the womb" is good.
I will never understand these ******** who do this. I wnat to see "Christians" condemn this ****, but I'm not holding my breath.
Hi.

I am a Christian.

I condemn it.

There is no possible way killing this doctor is the answer to the disagreement on abortion.

Also, rg, I'll point out that in the first news report I read on this at MSNBC, the article quoted the objection of two different Christian groups, to include Operation Rescue, to this method of dealing with abortion doctors. Comment I recall was "We pray for a change of heart, not the death, for the doctor."

DR

[Darth Rotor]

They see it as protecting the Herd...kill one if it saves hundreds...

We could eliminate half of all abortions if the Catholic Church said that from this point on, to practice birth control, until all of the world's orphanages were empty...
The guy was a Lutheran.

The doctor.

What does the Pope have to do with this? The killer wasn't a Catholic, or at least, the suspect I read about wasn't.

King, you confused me on this one.

[oldhat]

Claim not in evidence. Show me one instance of someone killing an abortionist "because my preacher's sermons pushed me to do it."

I don't know if someone's ever killed an abortionist a doctor because someone's sermon but having a figure in the mass media like Bill O'Reilly rabble rousing like Father Coughlin doesn't help:

http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001803/

Watch this.

[sugarb]

I suggest you spend a little more time reading the New Testament and reading what Jesus supposedly said.

You can start here with the Skeptic's Annotated Bible's page (King James version, feel free to search other Bible versions on the site) on Cruelty and Violence in the New Testament. (http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/nt_list.html)
For example:

I've spent years reading it, and really don't need to anymore thanks, though. Seems to kind of cherry pick and remove context...kind of like the fundie extremists do. If I wanted to delve into how awful you think Jesus is, I'd be in the religion forum...? And if I felt a need to promote religion or anti-religion, I'd probably be there, too. This is about a social issue, and those who use certain tactics to attempt to force their will on society as a whole. Those who join groups aimed toward a particular cause...which the vast majority of people of faith, obviously, do not. Hell, we could just start discussing PETA if you want to, and how whacko crazy they can be, in the complete and total absence of religion. But what would be the point?

[SezMe]

The teachings of Christ don't include murder or violence.
Thanks to the annotated bible (http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/), we can test this claim. Let's take just one gospel, Matthew:

Jesus strongly approves of the law and the prophets. He hasn't the slightest objection to the cruelties of the Old Testament. 5:17

Jesus recommends that to avoid sin we cut off our hands and pluck out our eyes. This advice is given immediately after he says that anyone who looks with lust at any women commits adultery. 5:29-30

Cities that neither "receive" the disciples nor "hear" their words will be destroyed by God. It will be worse for them than for Sodom and Gomorrah. And you know what God supposedly did to those poor folks. 10:14-15

Jesus says that he has come to destroy families by making family members hate each other. He has "come not to send peace, but a sword." 10:34-36

Jesus had no problem with the idea of drowning everyone on earth in the flood. It'll be just like that when he returns. 24:37

=================
In short, sugarb, your claim is just plain wrong because this is violent, deadly stuff. Now, again, tell me how to differentiate the good guys from the bad.

[Darth Rotor]

Then make your case for why 'Christians' who don't agree with murdering abortion doctors also have no responsibility for people who misconstrue the anti-abortion message.
For the same reason that, even though you and I are both Americans, I am not responsible to Mexico if you go off to El Paso and start shooting Mexicans as they cross the border.

How hard is this to understand, SG? (And make sure to lead them by a click if they are moving left to right, or there is a high cross wind. :p )

DR

[Whiplash]

Those verses may be in there, but again I speak from direct experience that the message I was taught, strongly, was about love and respect and helping others. Never violence. We never heard of any of those verses, or anything like that. Obviously. And as I said, I lost my faith, and so I think it's all silly anyhow.

But every sermon.. every sunday school session.. every lesson.. they were always about doing good. Helping others. Being there for family. Believing in God in your heart, and accepting Jesus as your savior. Love. Honor.

Nothing negative. Nothing remotely hateful. And I strongly suspect that is the case in most churches, if not the vast majority of churches. That bad stuff is in the bible, but it's not celebrated. And yes they are being great hypocrites by picking and choosing what to follow. But change takes time. Hopefully they get off the anti-homosexual bandwagon stuff soon.

I look forward to a world without religion as much as anyone. I just don't see it happening for a long, long time. I'm not saying that it's prefered to sit back and do nothing about it. But pick your battles and be patient and expect it to take generations (perhaps millenia) before we grow out of these needs. (not at you specifically SezMe, but at people who seem to get so incredibly worked up about it)

[Skeptic Ginger]

Um, skeptigirl, maybe you should read to the end of your link. If you had, you would have seen what the author of your link tells people they should do.
Get informed, pray, educate, organize, volunteer, donate, even adopt a child.

If there's anything in there that even suggests anyone should kill anyone, could you point it out to me? Thanks.You really seem to be having a hard time connecting the dots here.

If a preacher using the language in the sermon I quoted is aware nutjobs might be in the audience, do you really not think that sermon is dangerous?

Where exactly in that sermon does it say, don't kill the murderer?
PROLIFE: Sanctity of Life: Sermon (http://www.christianaction.org.za/articles/sanctittyoflife.htm)

If we do not stand up and oppose the legalised killing of babies by abortion then the blood of those innocent children will be upon our heads (Ezekiel 33:1-6).

... Be Interceding
“If My people who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

Abortion is a tragic national disgrace and we should pray for God to have mercy upon us and to revive His Church to oppose this evil. Pray for the mothers in crisis pregnancies, pray for the counsellors at crisis pregnancy centres, pray for the medical personnel who are faced with life and death choices, pray for those who make the laws, pray for the voters and for the judges. Pray that God’s will may be done, and that lives will be saved.

...“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.” Proverbs 24:11

Will you put feet to your faith?
Lives are at stake.

Dr. Peter Hammond

[Darth Rotor]

You cannot in stand in the public square and shout "Kill the abortionist" and then walk away with clean hands when it happens,

Can you tell me who actually did this? If you can show who did, get them charged as accessory before the fact.

DR

[Skeptic Ginger]

I disagree with charging people like this with terrorism. It simply raises their profile, provides some degree of legitimacy (amongst the true believers) for their actions, and makes them a matyr to their cause, rather than what they are - murdering scum.

Charge them with murder, try them for murder and punish them for murder.

Drive the fact home to them and their ilk that what they are is common criminals, nothing more.Charge them with terrorism which sends the message these are not believers, these are misguided fanatics.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Just read a repellent story about a guy who murdered his father by smashing his head in with a hammer (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052201289.html), and who's lived a comfortable, luxurious life ever since. I'm trying to find out if Stanley Tools is taking some responsibility for the misuse of the hammers they sell.Making up straw men again suggests you are out of debate points.

[Darth Rotor]

Charge them with terrorism which sends the message these are not believers, these are misguided fanatics.
I think there is some merit in your position that this event has some elements of a terroristic act. (Note that the doc was shot in both arms in 1993 or so for the same justification by some whacko) That said, I think the FBI needs to be fairly focused on precisely who is to be fingered as an accessory.

Anyone who is against abortion isn't the answer.

My wife is against abortion. She goes to a rosary once a month, or so, with here sisters in faith, and they hold a silent vigil and pray and do rosaries in endless succession, hoping for the Blessed Virgin to change the hearts of those who perform abortions. Or Jesus to save those most in need of mercy from the fires of hell. Or something. Or all of that.

So far their prayers have not worked, but they keep on trying.

You want the FBI to charge my wife as an accessory?

I won't say I encourage it, I don't think it's a good use of her time, but I don't argue with her over it. Plus, it leaves me free to do as I please for a few hours on a weekend morning, so it's all good.

DR

[sugarb]

Thanks to the annotated bible (http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/), we can test this claim. Let's take just one gospel, Matthew:

Jesus strongly approves of the law and the prophets. He hasn't the slightest objection to the cruelties of the Old Testament. 5:17

Jesus recommends that to avoid sin we cut off our hands and pluck out our eyes. This advice is given immediately after he says that anyone who looks with lust at any women commits adultery. 5:29-30

Cities that neither "receive" the disciples nor "hear" their words will be destroyed by God. It will be worse for them than for Sodom and Gomorrah. And you know what God supposedly did to those poor folks. 10:14-15

Jesus says that he has come to destroy families by making family members hate each other. He has "come not to send peace, but a sword." 10:34-36

Jesus had no problem with the idea of drowning everyone on earth in the flood. It'll be just like that when he returns. 24:37

=================
In short, sugarb, your claim is just plain wrong because this is violent, deadly stuff. Now, again, tell me how to differentiate the good guys from the bad.


*sigh* What would be the point here of getting into discussions about the old laws and the fulfillment of the old laws leading to the new covenant. There would BE no point, as this is NOT, supposedly, about religion. It is about a SOCIAL issue. You are going to believe what YOU want to believe, I'm going to believe what I believe, EVERYONE is going to believe WHATEVER they want to believe--with regards to faith. BUT...THIS is about a doctor being murdered because of a law that some people, including those of no faith, think is barbaric.

You interpret things how you wish to interpret them. If you see violence and boogeymen around every corner, that's peachy, and I'm sorry for you. But I do not, and although I am not a practicing believer anymore, there is NOTHING in my religious upbringing that causes me to want to murder anyone. Mean old Jesus said to love our enemies. What a jerk! But fine, if you think that means go kill everyone, okay, whatever. It has NOTHING to do with this particular topic.

Is that really so hard? Let's see...a murdering atheists--Pol Pot. You uphold Pol Pot, then, I guess. Right? Do you SEE how stupid this is?

Probably not

[BPSCG]

Where exactly in that sermon does it say, don't kill the murderer?
PROLIFE: Sanctity of Life: Sermon (http://www.christianaction.org.za/articles/sanctittyoflife.htm)I'm gonna have to channel E.J. Armstrong here a little. "Thanks for proving my point."

It doesn't say anywhere in the sermon that you should kill abortionists. It also doesn't say to not kill them. In fact, it doesn't say anything about killing abortionists. But you've shown that it's possible to read anything you like into anything you want, to make it fit your predispositions. You believe that sermon says you should kill abortionists, when it in fact says nothing of the kind. The things it says you should do have nothing to do with killing abortionists. Fer chrissake, skeptigirl, read the action plan at the end of the sermon again. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi (assuming they were anti-abortion) would have found nothing objectionable in it.

Cripes, get a grip.

[sugarb]

Charge them with terrorism which sends the message these are not believers, these are misguided fanatics.

And I'll amen that :)

There is a problem with regards to extremist groups that use the guise of religion, and we see it with those who refuse medical care for their children as well. It's often used as a cover for abuse and blatantly illegal activity.

[BPSCG]

I think there is some merit in your position that this event has some elements of a terroristic act. (Note that the doc was shot in both arms in 1993 or so for the same justification by some whacko) That said, I think the FBI needs to be fairly focused on precisely who is to be fingered as an accessory.

Anyone who is against abortion isn't the answer.

My wife is against abortion. She goes to a rosary once a month, or so, with here sisters in faith, and they hold a silent vigil and pray and do rosaries in endless succession, hoping for the Blessed Virgin to change the hearts of those who perform abortions. Or Jesus to save those most in need of mercy from the fires of hell. Or something. Or all of that.

So far their prayers have not worked, but they keep on trying.

You want the FBI to charge my wife as an accessory?

I won't say I encourage it, I don't think it's a good use of her time, but I don't argue with her over it. Plus, it leaves me free to do as I please for a few hours on a weekend morning, so it's all good.

DRHeh - I was about to write something similar about Mrs. BPSCG's mom, except that she's Southern Baptist, not Catholic. So no rosary beads.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I live in Kansas near a College run by the Sisters of Charity. After the Matthew Shepard incident one of the nuns stated at an assembly "We must learn to live together."

Fred Phelps protested both the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity and Saint Mary College for that quote. There was a huge counter protest, including catholic students and Sisters. Since the Motherhouse in Leavenworth, KS is kind of a 'nursing home' for aging Sisters of Charity, I saw little 90 year old nuns with counter protest signs.

The Sisters of Charity are very liberal for being Catholic (they favor priests getting married, female priests, etc). And while they think gays are 'misguided' they will stand up for their rights. It was awesome to talk to a little 90 year old nun protesting Fred Phelps in favor of gays having rights. She didn't think Matthew Shepard was going to burn in hell.

Fred Phelps protested at ALL funerals of people he thinks are gay, until Kansas passed a law forbidding him to do so, long before Bush did. We had to deal with it long before the Matthew Shepard case, or the Iraq War.For anyone interested, the Laramie project looks like an example of at least some action by Christians that I have been asking for examples of.

'Laramie Project' protest peaceful - Dominican students, faculty stand up to honor victims of hatred (http://wednesdayjournalonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=13799).

Now if this could grow and include the less-obvious-than-Phelps fanatics such as the Evangelical Christians who are also hate promoters.

[paximperium]

Mr. Morton is a murderer.
He rapes twenty children each year.
Mr Morton is a murderer.
The government allows him to get away with it.
Mr Morton is a murderer.
Some of those Liberal elites protect his rights to rape children.
Mr Morton is a murderer.
God hates him and will torture him for eternity.
Mr Morton has gotten away with murder and rape again.
Someone tried to do something about it but failed. We don't condone such actions but it would have been better if he had died.
Mr Morton is murderer.
Mr Morton kills and rapes children.
Why won't someone do something about it?

[Brainster]

No doubt. But unless he is found to be legally insane, the fact that he had a few screws loose should not matter.

It might in terms of terrorism charges. The argument could become, did he intend to inflict terror on abortion providers, or was he just particularly upset at this one abortion provider? I could easily see a situation where the guy's just too simple to understand that his actions were not just about this one person, and therefore you can't prove intent, and yet that you could prove capital murder, because he did plainly intend to kill Tiller.

It's early days on this story. How about we talk about the hippie peacenik who killed a military recruiter (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gQACNshVFYt6M9CDykHq6DKqPhiwD98I5AM81) in Arkansas today, and how the incident indicates that hippie peaceniks need to tone down their anti-military rants? ;)

And yes, I am just kidding with that last paragraph, pointing out how easy it is to make caricatures of people you don't know the slightest bit about based on the first day's news reports.

[Beth]

I would like to see Christians first and foremost recognize the contribution the religion itself plays in the development of religious extremism.

Lots of things have inherent danger associated with them. Gun makers, for example, don't do enough to address the dangers of their products either. The gun manufacturer absolves themselves of guilt by blaming the user. Some people agree. Some of us feel the product maker is responsible for more than just saying they don't condone misuse of their product. A drug manufacturer, OTOH, is likely to be considered responsible to act to lessen the hazard their products pose along with the benefit.

Religion is another matter in that there are no clear cut 'manufacturers'.
Not only are there no clear cut 'manufacturers', there isn't even a clear cut product. Would you hold Karl Marx responsible for the atrocities of Stalin? I don't find such an example at all appropriate for that reason. Comparing them to political parties reigning in extremists would be analogous. Unfortunately, political leaders seem to be as bad or worse than religious leaders in that regard. However, I will say that Mr. Terry Randall's response to the tragedy was inexcusable and inflammatory. I hope than in twenty years, such rhetoric is as far from societal norms as Phelps's is now.

So I don't expect all Christians to act to lessen the inherent hazard their religion poses. But I expect at least some of them to recognize their religion poses a hazard to users prone to extremism.
Some do! Some write books about the dangers of extremism (would you like some titles?) and some ministers do preach against those who would warp their religion in such ways. They are a minority, but they do exist!

If you are involved in a religion such as the Christian and Muslim religions currently, and you are aware there are people who are damaged by those religious messages and beliefs (in this case the damage is to people who are prone to extremism related to those religions), then at least some of those believers should recognize and act to prevent the religious message from resulting in extremist interpretations. I'm sorry, but I'm unclear about how you think an individual should act to prevent the religious message from resulting in extremist interpretations. What is it you want them to do that isn't happening now?

The believers value extremism. They may not value all forms of extremism. But they value the extremist who gives their life to God, yadda yadda. This creates an inherent risk that valued extremism will be negative. If you preach extremism (give your life to the Lord) as many Christians do, you should be taking some action to prevent bad extremism, not simply saying, "gee, not my fault that guy misused my religion."

I just don't buy this line of argument. First of all, to say that believers value extremism is a sweeping generalization and sweeping generalizations of that magnitude are rarely true. At any rate, I don't think that religious believers value extremism anymore than any other group of people. Do you have any evidence that this is actually the case?

Second of all, I don't think that it's reasonable to have the masses shoulder the burden of the actions of mentally ill individuals. It was reported earlier today that the individual who has been charged with this crime has suffered from mental illness in the past. While I'll grant that religious beliefs can contribute to the specifics of how a mentally ill individual expresses his/her violent proclivities, I don't think that their religion is blame for the aberrant behavior anymore. Haven't you argued in the past that religious beliefs cannot be credited when their followers act for the benefit of others in the name of their religious beliefs? If I'm mistaken, I apologize, but certainly there are some posting here who feel that way. Why blame religions for inspiring acts of violence in mentally ill followers and simultaneously refuse to give religion credit for the acts of charity and compassion done by sane followers?

[SezMe]

Anyone who is against abortion isn't the answer.
Of course not. Your bride is a good example.

But those who advocate, condon or encourage violence in the campaign against abortion is part of the answer.

[rwguinn]

Hi.

I am a Christian.

I condemn it.

There is no possible way killing this doctor is the answer to the disagreement on abortion.

Also, rg, I'll point out that in the first news report I read on this at MSNBC, the article quoted the objection of two different Christian groups, to include Operation Rescue, to this method of dealing with abortion doctors. Comment I recall was "We pray for a change of heart, not the death, for the doctor."

DR
And I hope you noted the "scare quotes".
The loudest mouths, most militant, and most publicized "Christians" are the ones claiming the closest ties to their savior and his dad, to the point of being privy to His reasons for hurricanes, deaths in the Mid East, and the reasons to boycott Coca-Cola.
It is high time the ministers and other Christians stand up and tell them "Shut UP, Egomaniac!"

[Skeptic Ginger]

No doubt. But the fact that they are in the minority does not refute the chain of "reasoning" I laid out.These guys are NOT a tiny minority. They constitute a large portion of that remaining right wing base that still supports the Republican Party.

[SezMe]

It might in terms of terrorism charges. The argument could become, did he intend to inflict terror on abortion providers, or was he just particularly upset at this one abortion provider? I could easily see a situation where the guy's just too simple to understand that his actions were not just about this one person, and therefore you can't prove intent, and yet that you could prove capital murder, because he did plainly intend to kill Tiller.
Good point but, as you imply, we've got to have a lot more info about the perp and his environment before we can know what the right charges are.

I suppose my frustration is that the insanity defense - in the societal sense, not the legal sense - is such an easy card to play. Of course the idiot is a mental case; look what he did!

[Skeptic Ginger]

....Also, rg, I'll point out that in the first news report I read on this at MSNBC, the article quoted the objection of two different Christian groups, to include Operation Rescue, to this method of dealing with abortion doctors. Comment I recall was "We pray for a change of heart, not the death, for the doctor."

DRRiiight. Operation Rescue didn't really mean for someone to kill the murderous vile baby killer whom the law refused to punish. :rolleyes:

[Skeptic Ginger]

I've spent years reading it, and really don't need to anymore thanks, though. Seems to kind of cherry pick and remove context......:id:

[BenBurch]

My question is when does it cross the line from O'Reilly's opinion that Tiller would be better off dead, and become a request to his followers to do it?

When does it become King Henry saying "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" which as you know resulted in the assassination of Thomas Becket?

And what would become of you or I, do you suppose, were we to say on national TV or in my case Radio that the air would smell a lot sweeter if Loofa Boy were pushing up Daisies?

Right.

We'd have the law on us like white on rice.

[Skeptic Ginger]

For the same reason that, even though you and I are both Americans, I am not responsible to Mexico if you go off to El Paso and start shooting Mexicans as they cross the border.

How hard is this to understand, SG? (And make sure to lead them by a click if they are moving left to right, or there is a high cross wind. :p )

DRThis analogy doesn't even make any sense.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me. I said in using the example of whether or not gun manufacturers were responsible to try to prevent misuse of their products, it's a values question, not one of evidence. With guns, people have political views that color their perception of responsibility for predictable misuse.

In my field the tendency is to view predictable misuse of a product as something one should consider mitigating. Disposable syringes are the source of hepatitis B infection in 3rd world countries because people are going to reuse the syringes. It's a predictable misuse. So syringe producers have been challenged to design syringes so that they cannot be reused. There's little objection to finding the producers responsible for the safer design because there is no emotional/political baggage for the issue. No one is worried their medical care costs are going to go up a tad to address this predictable misuse of syringes.


The promotion of 'abortion is murder' message is way more widespread than some people in this thread have suggested. But even going beyond that, those who promote giving your life to God and all the trappings that go with it need to recognize there are people who will predictably misuse that message. If you can predict misuse, you should be responsible to address it. Especially if you preach the 'God is love' version of Christianity. The first step is to recognize there is predictable misuse of Christian beliefs. Promoting Christian beliefs does carry responsibility for the result of that promotion. Saying one is not responsible because it was misuse of a promoted belief is a cop out.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Those verses may be in there, but again I speak from direct experience that the message I was taught, strongly, was about love and respect and helping others. Never violence. We never heard of any of those verses, or anything like that. Obviously. And as I said, I lost my faith, and so I think it's all silly anyhow.

But every sermon.. every sunday school session.. every lesson.. they were always about doing good. Helping others. Being there for family. Believing in God in your heart, and accepting Jesus as your savior. Love. Honor.

Nothing negative. Nothing remotely hateful. And I strongly suspect that is the case in most churches, if not the vast majority of churches. That bad stuff is in the bible, but it's not celebrated. And yes they are being great hypocrites by picking and choosing what to follow. But change takes time. Hopefully they get off the anti-homosexual bandwagon stuff soon.

I look forward to a world without religion as much as anyone. I just don't see it happening for a long, long time. I'm not saying that it's prefered to sit back and do nothing about it. But pick your battles and be patient and expect it to take generations (perhaps millenia) before we grow out of these needs. (not at you specifically SezMe, but at people who seem to get so incredibly worked up about it)So with all that background, have you or your church brethren ever considered condemning the actions of Christians which promote abortion-is-murder sermons that are bound to incite acts of violence? I'm not talking about condemning the acts of violence. I'm talking about condemning the rhetoric which predictably sets these nutjobs off on their missions?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Can you tell me who actually did this? If you can show who did, get them charged as accessory before the fact.

DRSo if one cries, "The abortion doctor is a vile baby killer the law won't punish and we must take action to stop the doctor," you don't see that as the equivalent to a call to murder the doctor?

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think there is some merit in your position that this event has some elements of a terroristic act. (Note that the doc was shot in both arms in 1993 or so for the same justification by some whacko) That said, I think the FBI needs to be fairly focused on precisely who is to be fingered as an accessory.

Anyone who is against abortion isn't the answer.

My wife is against abortion. She goes to a rosary once a month, or so, with here sisters in faith, and they hold a silent vigil and pray and do rosaries in endless succession, hoping for the Blessed Virgin to change the hearts of those who perform abortions. Or Jesus to save those most in need of mercy from the fires of hell. Or something. Or all of that.

So far their prayers have not worked, but they keep on trying.

You want the FBI to charge my wife as an accessory?

I won't say I encourage it, I don't think it's a good use of her time, but I don't argue with her over it. Plus, it leaves me free to do as I please for a few hours on a weekend morning, so it's all good.

DRThe charge of terrorism is because the intent of this murder is to also frighten other medical providers. It's pretty obvious that it is intended as an act of terrorism, not just a single murder.

For a hate crime, there can be elements of terrorism. Don't go to a gay bar, don't hold hands with a person of another race.... There is a mixture of hate and terrorism involved in hate crimes.

When the intent is to stop abortion procedures using threats of violence against the medical providers and the patients seeking abortions who have also been targeted, that is way over on the terrorism side of the continuum.



As for your wife, I have not said anywhere in this thread that every Christian or anti-abortion believer is guilty of a crime. If the murderer in this case was directly incited to kill by Operation Rescue, then the people involved in inciting the murderer are guilty of crimes. Just as the Aryan Nations leader was convicted of the skin head murder of a black man (in Portland?) many years ago, this case may be similar. We won't know until an investigation is undertaken.


Having some responsibility and committing a crime are not always defined the same.


I see it was a civil law suit that resulted from the Aryan Nation's role played in the skin head murder in Portland.
Mulugeta Seraw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulugeta_Seraw)


That's it. Tiller's family should sue Operation Rescue. It had a major impact bankrupting the Aryan Nations group. It could work.

[Robster, FCD]

Bill O'Reilly wanted to "get his hands on him" and then dismissed it as just a figure of speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r93Q31H8NJg&eurl=http%3A%2F%2F

If there are any lawyers around, how far can one go towards saying that you wish to be rid of this meddlesome priest before it becomes a call to violence. The KKK was partly broken up by prosecuting leaders for pointing out certain enemies and talking about how bad they were, and when a follower took action, the leaders claimed that they had only exercised their free speech rights. It didn't play out that way in court. I think the anti reproductive rights crowd got nailed on this a few times as well, and are now a bit more careful in their attacks.

I'd be thrilled if those who consider the uterus to be property of the state would rely on prayer alone to attempt to end access to reproductive health care. Nothing works like prayer. :pilaugh: But too many resort to harassment, vandalism and terroristic threatening. Luckily, violence is rare.

[Robster, FCD]

Heh, BenBurch beat me to it. Thats what I get for starting a post, wandering off and finishing it later!

[skepticalbeliever]

I think that the pro choice movement wants to scilence all opposition to abortion. Now everybody who called George Tiller a murderer is guilty of his death. But George Tiller was engaged in a practice that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of VIABLE BABYS! There are reports that babies were born and died after suffering the consequences of botched abortions performed by him. There is evidence that he aborted VIABLE babies because of dubious mental health reasons. Thus, he would terminate a baby if a mother came in with a headache or depression.

But we are to discuss which side instigages more violence we would make a mistake in not discussing the violence that the pro choice crowd is guilty of. Look at this example, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,214328,00.html . Here we have parents forcing a child in to abortion. This goes on in every abortion clinic in america probably. But we never see any pro choice advocate propose a regulation that would prevent parents from forcing abortion on their children.

Another claim is tha Tiller and the pro abortion crowd always follow the law. That is nonsense. There are plenty of examples of planned parenthood centers refusing to report rapes to the cops in violation of the law. It seems like plannedparenthood is a rape enabler if they aren't reporting 13 year olds who show up pregnant with an older boyfriend to the cops. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,54079,00.html .

[BenBurch]

Skepticalbeliever, as there is clearly no such thing as a soul, and human beings are all living outside the womb, an unborn human fetus is still part of the mother, and its disposition is only her concern.

[MattusMaximus]

Interesting, but not surprising that this little gem has gone unnoticed or unreplied to. It's a valid point. Nothing infuriated me more in the last 8 years than constant claims of Bush being a murder, and "Bush lied, people died!". It was all rhetoric, and they knew it, and they knew damn well what they were trying to do by saying it. Stir up discontent against the administration (at the very least).

Neither side, nor any relgion, has a monopoly on polarizing, angry rhetoric designed to make people take action.

More words of wisdom. Good to see these voices in the thread :)

[MattusMaximus]

But we are to discuss which side instigages more violence we would make a mistake in not discussing the violence that the pro choice crowd is guilty of. Look at this example, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,214328,00.html . Here we have parents forcing a child in to abortion. This goes on in every abortion clinic in america probably. But we never see any pro choice advocate propose a regulation that would prevent parents from forcing abortion on their children.

Evidence? Or mere wishful thinking on your part?

And since you suddenly want to talk about violence, just to be clear, when was the last time someone on the "pro-choice" (man I hate these labels) side bombed a "pro-life" institution or shot & killed a prominent "pro-lifer" because of their opposition to legalized abortion? I'd like some hard & fast statistics on this, please.

I originally asked this question back on page 2 or 3, and I'm still waiting for an answer.

[MattusMaximus]

I do hope they charge this guy with terrorism. We should be writing our federal representatives to bring the issue up with federal prosecutors.

Well, hold your horses there, SG. I'm all for that, too - but first we need evidence. Don't check your critical thinking at the door.

At the same time, though, I do think that there needs to be a more concerted effort in the media to take scumbags like Randall Terry to task for his "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" kind of behavior when it comes to this kind of thing. I know he's never said for anyone to go out and kill abortion docs or bomb clinics, but he has helped to create an environment where calling them baby killers and whatnot can certainly drive the more extreme & imbalanced in the anti-abortion movement over the edge. For that, Terry needs to be taken to task, I say.

[MattusMaximus]

It seems the call is going out for just that! I've seen a lot of headlines and editorial/opinion pieces today about it.

Really? Can you provide some links?

Again, I agree with the charge of terrorism, if it can be shown that he was plugged into a support network. Without evidence that the shooter was actually part of a network, simply charging him with terrorism (as opposed to dealing with him like any other random murderous nut) could raise his profile to that of a martyr. Find and expose his network, then bring out the terrorism charges - it'll be more likely to stick then.

Like I said, this sort of organized domestic terrorism was exposed in the anti-abortion violence of the 90s, so I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see it coming back, especially given the current political environment & general frustration of the anti-abortion lobby with how little progress they've made by going the "change the laws" route.

[MattusMaximus]

Randall Terry: "Tiller got what he deserved. Now let's go get some hot wings and beer."

37eu8MSXdP8

pT1MhKhpqjA

This man is scum.

Yup, there's that "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" b.s. that I mentioned earlier from Terry. He's kind of like those radical Islamic mullahs who use their rhetoric to lend tacit (though not explicit) support to suicide bombings, yet when it happens they are not very convincing in condemning the violence. I also like the implication that Tiller himself was responsible for his own death :rolleyes:

ETA: Terry's message is simple here. He's saying to every abortion provider in the U.S.: "If you get killed for performing abortions, you only have yourselves to blame." This seems clearly like an attempt to scare abortion providers, to me. If the other leaders in the anti-abortion movement are smart, they'll tell Terry to shut the hell up, because I think this man is a dangerous zealot.

[SezMe]

I think that the pro choice movement wants to scilence all opposition to abortion. Now everybody who called George Tiller a murderer is guilty of his death. But George Tiller was engaged in a practice that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of VIABLE BABYS! There are reports that babies were born and died after suffering the consequences of botched abortions performed by him. There is evidence that he aborted VIABLE babies because of dubious mental health reasons. Thus, he would terminate a baby if a mother came in with a headache or depression.

But we are to discuss which side instigages more violence we would make a mistake in not discussing the violence that the pro choice crowd is guilty of. Look at this example, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,214328,00.html . Here we have parents forcing a child in to abortion. This goes on in every abortion clinic in america probably. But we never see any pro choice advocate propose a regulation that would prevent parents from forcing abortion on their children.

Another claim is tha Tiller and the pro abortion crowd always follow the law. That is nonsense. There are plenty of examples of planned parenthood centers refusing to report rapes to the cops in violation of the law. It seems like plannedparenthood is a rape enabler if they aren't reporting 13 year olds who show up pregnant with an older boyfriend to the cops. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,54079,00.html .
There are reports that you have never aborted a strawman that you conceived of.

[oldhat]

There are reports that babies were born and died after suffering the consequences of botched abortions performed by him. There is evidence that he aborted VIABLE babies because of dubious mental health reasons. Thus, he would terminate a baby if a mother came in with a headache or depression.

Excuse me but this is a flat out lie. Tiller required a second doctor's opinion before he would perform a late term abortion and he would never perform an abortion because a woman complained of a headache. Where are you getting these bizarre lies and falsehoods from?

Can pro-lifers please stop calling blastocysts, zygotes and fetuses "babies" for the love of Gray's Anatomy?

P.S. A fetus with microencephaly or worse isn't "viable" and it's not a baby going ga-ga-goo-goo so stop using this overheated, loaded and misleading language please.

[fullflavormenthol]

Randall Terry: "Tiller got what he deserved. Now let's go get some hot wings and beer."


This man is scum.

Hey! Hold on there, I think that is going a bit too far.




Scum serves a purpose, and I feel that you may have unfairly labeled scum by comparing it to Randall. It is an insult to scum, and I would ask you to issue an apology on behalf of scum.