Adventist Today on Abortion as a religious freedom

 Now that Adventist Today has blocked me from seeing their comments section on Facebook, I have decided to start writing more articles on the garbage that this organization posts on their website. It is now almost totally political progressivism and precious little Christianity let alone Adventism.

 The recent article Should Women Have Religious Freedom? By John B. Hoehn, MD is a prime example.

It begins with a seriously unintelligent premise that cells live and die. It has nothing to do with anything other than pretending the guy is talking science. That plant and animal cells grow and divide and die throughout the life of the organism is general knowledge and has nothing to do with his subject.

So beginning  where he gets to the meat of his argument Hoehn writes:

Religious Freedom?

If a woman does not agree with the religious doctrine forbidding “any abortion for any reason at any time,” where is her religious freedom? Why should a woman who lives in Washington State have the right to decide which religious teachings on abortion she will accept, but not if she lives in a state such as Alabama, Arkansas, or Oklahoma, where this dogma is enforced by state laws making her and her doctors criminals?

First of all Religious Freedom has a definition.  Religious Freedom is a synonym for Freedom of Religion:

Legal Definition of freedom of religion

: the right especially as guaranteed under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to practice one's religion or exercise one's beliefs without intervention by the government and to be free of the exercise of authority by a church through the government

— see also FREE EXERCISE CLAUSE

NOTE: The freedom of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment can be overcome by a showing by the government of a compelling state interest. On this basis, practices used in some religions, such as bigamy, are prohibited despite the First Amendment guarantee.

To be a free exercise of religion tenant it must be a core belief in your religion. I am pretty sure there is no religion that has a core belief in Abortion as a part of their religion. Even the church of Satan does not list Abortion as a part of their religion though they do say this:

Our position is to be self-centered, with ourselves being the most important person (the “God”) of our subjective universe, so we are sometimes said to worship ourselves. Our current High Priest Gilmore calls this the step moving from being an atheist to being an “I-Theist.” https://www.churchofsatan.com/faq-fundamental-beliefs/

 

It is also noteworthy that there are in fact no laws in any states that put forth the law as “any abortion for any reason at any time,” So if someone disagrees with something that no one is saying is that really in any way restricting their religious freedom?

The American people are not where the left is. Americans do not support any abortion for any reason at any time during any pregnancy.

A January 2015 poll found that only 9% of Americans want abortion available to a woman at any time during a pregnancy, and only another 8% want it any time during the first six months. Over 80% of Americans support some kind of restrictions on abortion (25). https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-stake-abortion-debate-connie-marshner

The idea that abortion laws are simply religious doctrines is not at all true and as you can see from Hoehn’s article he does not even try to support his gratuitous assertion.

He writes:

The evangelical churches, then, have formed “an image-to-the-beast” when they use state governments to make laws enforcing their religious teaching that all abortion at any time (one day, one gram, three months) is not merely a sorrow or tragedy, but a murder.

As we see it is far from just evangelical churches that believe in restrictions on abortions. That is again simply an assertion from Hoehn without any backing.

He continues:

But why must dissenters be punished by civil penalties by the state? Why are Seventh-day Adventists not all voting to demand freedom from religious persecution in any state by any civil government? Can we be so fixated on some future “Sunday-law” that we are ignoring the ramification of allowing any state government to punish women and their doctors for a religious opinion?

This is where a little knowledge would help Hoehn. States get their power to make laws through the electoral process where they elect representatives to organize the state with laws and regulations.  It is not necessary for you to agree with all laws and regulations. For example, one may feel that they should not pay taxes for whatever reason. You can claim that you are not paying taxes because you disagree with how the money is spent but by our laws and constitutions (Federal and State) you still have to observe those laws. Just saying you have religious freedom does not change the situation. Nor does it mean that there is an unholy alliance. Very clearly those state laws are not religious persecution because there is no religion that says we must practice abortions, no women saying I must have an abortion as part of my religion, and no doctors saying I must perform abortions to fulfill my religious beliefs

There were a few good comments on the Facebook thread aside from the lick spittle’s with their “this is such a great article”. In his reply to one comment Hoehn writes:

Robert Broyles A moral issue proper for the state would be, thou shalt not murder. But is birth control by any method, or stopping gestation from proceeding at early non-viable stages "murder" is not a moral issue, it is a religious question.

Of course, it is a moral question and it certainly has enough science to support that it is human life; That Hoehn even asserts abortion as “birth control” is a horrible statement. To make it seem like the state has no say in birth control by any method is absurd. Should the state allow gut punch clinics for birth control, should a man be able to take a drugged pregnant woman to the birth control center of any method. “Get ‘em in the door and we will stop that gestation pronto” clinics! It is rather humorous that Hoehn quotes the Bible as the proper moral issue being thou shalt not murder but the question of murder of a fetus is a religious question.

His comment continues with:

Moral people who agree the state should stop murder are disagreeing that abortion at any stage before viability is murder. If I were to come to your home, attack you with a knife cutting off your arm, I would be guilty of assault and the state must deal with me. But if you come to my hospital and to improve or prolong your life, I remove your arm with a cancer, that is not assault, that is a medically necessary destruction, not a crime. The question of is preventing a life (abortion) murder is a religious opinion, not a loss of morality.

Really a rather silly statement as coming to a hospital means that the hospital and the doctors and nurses and lab techs are all operating on hundreds if not thousands of laws and state regulations both State and Federal. Again look at the previously mentioned polls the disagreement about it being murder is very small when the actual viability of the baby is considered. One also has to wonder why he continues to make statements like: “that abortion at any stage before viability” when he seems to be very accepting of even partial birth third-trimester abortions.

All in all, this is a completely fallacious article that makes assertions that are pretty ridiculous, you can tell easily how absurd the arguments are by the fact that the assertions are simply made and not supported with anything. Then the final nail in this coffin is that Hoehn wants in his concluding paragraph:

...I hope that pastor will now, before November 6 elections, remind his congregation of their duty before God to vote against any forms of enforcement of a religious opinion by civil governments in any state.

This is all about getting the political progressive agenda to take over the United States, all this is because everything the leftist wants is good and everything else is bad. Abortion is good and moral, pro-life is bad (not murdering babies) and religious bigotry. The only real religion is political progressive leftism, conservatism and traditional religious ideas are bad because they force; they have moral insights that can impact the decisions of a representative government's legislation.  I have not even gone into the hypocrisy of quoting Ellen White when he most certainly does not believe in her prophecies anyway and certainly not the way they are laid out in the Great Controversy book. You don’t need to believe in Ellen White's prophecies I sure don’t but to use her to make a case even though you don’t believe in her is just pure hypocrisy. But remember hypocrisy is fine, telling untruth is fine as long as it works toward the goals of leftism which is the new religion of Adventist Today.

 

 

When truth is the last thing you want to report

 It seems every time I read an article from Adventist Today I read false information. It seems as if they have no filter at all by which they can test the truth of their articles. It seems to me it is really now all about pushing a political leftist view upon the readers of AToday.

 

Take this recent article. Abortion Is Terrible, but Abortion Laws Are Worse by Lindsey Abston Painter  14 September 2021 

“Only if you have been living under a rock would you not have heard that at the beginning of September the state legislators in Texas passed a draconian law criminalizing abortions past six weeks of pregnancy. Not only the woman who has an abortion will be treated as a criminal, but anyone involved in any way, including any doctor or medical personnel involved—and even a person who drove her to the clinic or offered her shelter. Women who leave the state to have an abortion are to be immediately prosecuted when they return.” 

Is that paragraph true? Does the Texas law criminalize abortions past 6 weeks? Are the women treated as a criminal, is everyone peripherally involved treated as criminals? Are women who leave the state for an abortion immediately prosecuted when they return?

The answer is no to all of those assertions. No one has to look too hard to see that those statements are all untrue. Pretty much a few paragraphs from an NPR article can show just how wrong the Lindsey Abston Painter’s article is.

“The law allows private citizens to sue abortion providers and anyone else who helps a woman obtain an abortion — including those who give a woman a ride to a clinic or provide financial assistance to obtain an abortion. Private citizens who bring these suits don't need to show any connection to those they are suing.”

 “Groups who oppose abortion rights have pushed for this Texas law, hoping that it will be harder for federal courts to knock it down. Instead of requiring public officials to enforce the law, this law allows individuals to bring civil lawsuits against abortion providers or anyone else found to "aid or abet" illegal abortions.”

“Anyone who successfully sues an abortion provider under this law could be awarded at least $10,000. And to prepare for that, Texas Right to Life has set up what it calls a "whistleblower" website where people can submit anonymous tips about anyone they believe to be violating the law.”

“"These lawsuits are not against the women," says John Seago with Texas Right to Life. "The lawsuits would be against the individuals making money off of the abortion, the abortion industry itself. So this is not spy on your neighbor and see if they're having an abortion."

As a fact checking website states:

“​​On May 19, Abbott signed a law stating that ‘a physician may not knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman unless the physician has determined … whether the woman's unborn child has a detectable fetal heartbeat.’ The law creates an exception if the physician determines a medical emergency makes an abortion necessary. Critics have noted that fetal heartbeats can be detected as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, limiting the window in which a woman can legally seek an abortion in Texas.”

“The law allows citizens, rather than the state, to sue anyone who performs or assists in procuring an abortion. Those found to have done so will, thus, be civilly instead of criminally liable, and will be made to pay “statutory damages in an amount of not less than $10,000 for each abortion.” Notably, SB8 does not allow for suits to be brought against women who recieve abortions after a heartbeat is detected.”

Reading the Facebook comments there are loads of people who praise this AToday article even though it begins with clearly false information. My point is not for or against the Texas law but simply pointing out the lack of factual information in the Adventist Today article. Most of the article is typical of political progressive arguments for abortions. So the article is trying to be a persuasive argument for the leftwing views on the subject. This points out again that the major focus of Adventist Today is the spreading of political progressive, democrat philosophies.

 

 

 

 

Megachurch Pastor makes things worse

This is one of those amazing things where someone says the wrong thing and then makes it worse by trying to explain why what they said wrong was the right thing to do. From The Blaze article entitled Millennial megachurch pastor says Christians criticizing him ‘might know a different Jesus’

First on the TV show The View he avoided answering the question on abortion. Then on twitter, he gave a pretty good answer. Which if he had said on The View would have not caused any problems with other Christians. Then in RELEVANT magazine he explained how he could not answer the abortion question from a non-Christian until he told them about Jesus. Which is somewhat strange as in monotheists religions  (Jews, Christians, and Islam)have no problem assigning abortion in the sinful camp. His conclusion was:

“A lot of Christians that don’t know who we are say things like ‘You’re a coward’ and ‘Truth is truth’ and ‘You need to speak out,'” he revealed. “I just say, ‘I think me and you – first of all – might know a different Jesus.’ I think I did what I would always do, which is try to get to know a person. To me, I’m going in there with the intent of pointing to Jesus and hopefully speaking a language the world can understand.”

Did the world understand? Did he really even point to Jesus? Not really, simply answering like he did on Twitter would have been far better. It would have been far better to admit under the pressure of live TV he did not answer well, instead of trying to demean fellow Christians.

View image on Twitter

Lentz initially clarified his position after the backlash, and on Twitter said, “Recently in an interview, I was asked direction if abortion is sin. I did not answer the question directly for a number of reasons and that has caused some confusion about our stance as a church on this matter.

“I do believe abortion is sinful,” Lentz wrote. “Our prayer is that we can continue to help and love those that deal with the pain of regret from personal choices, rather than cast further shame and guilt on those already carrying so much and create a church that can teach people how to form convictions based on God’s word, that will be the driving force in all their decisions.”

He concluded, “I will continue to point people to Jesus, above all else, every opportunity I get. The story of God’s redemptive grace, available to all, is the best news available.”

View image on Twitter

A really bad article on AToday by Monte Sahlin

Sometimes over at Atoday.com I read the most stupid arguments...and that includes the article writers. I think, how can anyone publish this stuff and not realize that one stupid paragraph actually destroys the credibility of their entire article. Because if someone is so biased why would anyone believe the rest of their analysis has any reliability. It seems it must come from a thought process that is so encased by only talking to people of their own political beliefs that they don't even see their statement as complete prejudice masquerading as fact.

Here is what Monte Sahlin writes in his article The Problem with a Fundamentalist World View:

The true believers in the pro-life movement—who I largely agree with on moral grounds, despite their widespread hypocrisy on capital punishment and feeding babies once they are born—believe that if Roe v Wade is rescinded or restrictive laws such as recently voted in Texas are adopted that it will impose moral order on a society where traditional ideas about sexuality have been discarded by most Americans. They simply don’t get the fact that it will change nothing about the sexual behavior of most people and it will create unanticipated outcomes, possibly more terrible than the present situation.   

The pro-life movement is involved in wide spread hypocrisy because it allows and accepts capital punishment of criminals. Really that is somehow connected to the right of a baby to be born? Innocent unborn life should have a right to exist therefore to not be a hypocrite guilty adults should not be executed after due process. By that reasoning the pro-choice movement must be hypocritical when anyone is sent to jail being then their choices are taken away. 

What about the second line, are pro-life people against feeding babies once they are born? Is there some kind of protests going on that I have not heard about where the pro-lifers are marching against giving babies food? Well probably to a political liberal mind welfare reform is taking food out of a babies mouth even though that is generally not what happens since the reform is found in making sure that the monies go to people who really need it and not fraud and waste. 

As for Roe v. Wade it should be rescinded and sent to the states. Surely by now we all should know that Roe was never a rape victim as the case was presented. So a case law was made based upon a trial where one of the prime principals in the case lied. see Do You Know the Fascinating and Troubling Story About the Woman Behind the Roe v. Wade Case? 

Is the Texas Law limiting abortions so that late term abortions are not allowed really that bad, as the Daily Caller writes:

Every modern poll on the issue shows the same thing: Large majorities say babies should not be aborted in the later stages of pregnancy. Looking at Gallup over the years, opposition to abortion after six months has never dropped below 80 percent. Even at three months, the numbers are still impressive: Over 60 percent of Americans consistently oppose abortions after the first trimester, and in 2011 they rose to 71 percent.

If these were election results, you’d call it a landslide.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/24/most-europeans-and-americans-agree-with-texas-abortion-law/#ixzz2aGYKmJzX

But to Monte Sahlin such widespread agreement on limiting late term abortions is a method to change people sexual behavior! Or even worse if  states like Texas limit late term abortions it may make things  "possibly more terrible than the present situation."  It is really troubling to me that people can be so thoughtless and yet pretend to be thought leaders. 

Ultimately his fictional paragraph leads to his conclusion:

 Fundamentalists believe that they can control society’s sinfulness. Jesus knows otherwise. He says, Peter put away your sword. "He who is without sin, cast the first stone." Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. Go the second mile."

Actually every religious and social organization likes to think they can limit society's sinfulness and fundamentalists at least Christian Fundamentalist are not trying to limit society's sinfulness with a sword. That might be true of Muslim Fundamentalists but it really has no application to Christian Fundamentalism. But as with the other facts Monte Sahlin conflates Fundamentalism as well pretending there is some major similarity between the Christian Fundamentalism and what is been much less accurately called as Muslim Fundamentalism ( remember the Muslim's in question don't even call themselves fundamentalist, it is quite different from the beginnings of Christiain fundamentalism where they wrote and expressed what their fundamentals were. See: Christian Fundamentalism on Wikipedia