A World Wide Firestorm of Hypocrisy Has Erupted!
By Clayton D. Harriger
Troy Davis was executed this evening (September 21, 2011) for the murder of an off-duty policeman after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a last-minute stay of execution….—Lead from ABC news release on Davis’ execution in Georgia
It went on for quite an extended time after the execution date of Troy Davis had been set in Georgia and the appeals which eventually went all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court were exhausted.
The media people helped immensely in this drama as they exploited it to the hilt and then some. But that is understandable since a number of these people are rabid anti-capital punishment when it comes to the death penalty issue.
The protests were organized and after the execution a plethora of comments were made not only within the United States but from foreign nations as well since this happening captured world-wide attention.
Where is the hypocrisy you ask? Very simple—on the day Davis was executed an incalculable number of innocent unborn children were brutally mutilated and murdered in their mothers’ (term used very loosely) wombs!
Now then, show me the outrage and numerous protests related to these heinous crimes of the first magnitude. The voices of citizens, their leaders in government and church are totally silent. And those who were screaming in protest over the execution of one man don’t seem to be at all bothered about the mass slaughter of the innocents which goes on every day throughout the world in many nations, the United States included!
Davis vehemently claimed to be innocent to the very end. If he was, this is a grave miscarriage of justice and a tragedy of major proportions. But is it any more so than the grisly “execution” of even one innocent unborn child? And in this case the “executioner” (mistakenly identified as an M.D.) is paid big bucks for the killing of that unborn child. It is even more shocking when a person is honest enough to consider the fact that the mighty Creator of the heavens and the earth—the One Who gives life and breath to all—has explicitly revealed that He has a special plan and purpose for every conceived human being!
We in the U. S. as well as those in other nations are subscribing to the deadly doctrine of the Nazis of WW II era, though we would never admit to such. The Nazis came to the point where they believed they had the “authority” and the “knowledge” to determine who was qualified to live and who was not. And so they set up a system by which those who fell into the category of “not qualified to live” were quickly and efficiently dispatched from their earthly existence.
The main differences between us (U.S. and other nations participating in the shedding of innocent blood) and the Nazis are the ages of the victims and the tools and methods used in these most despicable acts! However, this flawed reasoning, whether it be the Nazi style or our more modern approach, as to why some are not qualified to live has the same outcome every time—sure and certain judgment at the hands of a holy God!
So the next time someone is slated to be executed here in the United States and the protests begin, stop and think for a moment about the huge number of innocents who have never committed a crime of any kind being mercilessly mutilated and murdered in the womb even as the thoughts run through your mind. And if you dare, think another thought in the form of a question—what is going to be Almighty God’s response to this?
Thanks again for the reply, Mr. Harriger; however, it seems like we’re spiraling around to the crux of the disagreement I had mentioned prior: you believe that a God exists and interacts with the world and its inhabitants on a daily basis, while I am as of yet unconvinced that a supreme being exists in the manner that you’ve been asserting because of – in my opinion – a complete lack of evidence.
I’ve kept my criticisms of religious establishments and beliefs to myself, because I’m very much under the impression that this forum is political in nature. However, I do not believe that you’ve provided an acceptable basis for comparing abortion to Nazi persecution.
First and foremost, I came into being because my parents fell in love and had the ability to procreate; there is no indication of any outside manipulation or supernatural demand for this to occur. By Mr. Harriger’s definition, his supreme being – not Zeus or Brahman, but the Christian God – determines the outcome of each human life before it ever begins; there is no evidence, past or present, to support this short of the religious text that Mr. Harriger ascribes to.
Also, Mr. Harriger is wrong when he says that I’ve made the “wrong choices”, and that the fault is mine for not sharing his belief. I understand why he places the blame on me rather than his God; to admit that a supreme being is incapable of convincing someone who has searched for its existence doesn’t make it a very powerful being, does it?
I ask for evidence. Something outside of the realm of personal experience or a revised ancient text over a thousand years old. I am not a judge because I ask for this, but a man who remains unconvinced of an argument that has yet to carry its weight in this disagreement. I’ve asserted that living cells do not think or feel until a particular development in the womb, because we can detect brain patterns and nervous formation in human development and demonstrate this knowledge; Mr. Harriger has asserted that human beings are planned, because his God says its true. I’ve asserted that our ability to feel pain and to detect our surroundings is what separates us from vegetables because beyond the mutual ability to grow and develop, it’s true – you can make these visual distinctions; Mr. Harriger has said that every potential human life is as important as a developed human life, because his God says its true. To the best of my ability, I have backed up my opinions with observations that can be observed, or can be repeated; thus far, I have seen nothing reinforcing Mr. Harriger’s statements but a faith that he assumes I must have done something wrong to not have.
Mr. Harriger has brought up his beliefs very frequently in his posts, and I’m under the natural impression that, yes, he has the freedom to believe whatever he wants; however, believing something does not make it true. Believing in the Loch Ness Monster does not make it real, any more than believing in Santa Claus makes him real. Bear in mind, I’m not personally attacking Mr. Harriger’s choice to follow a particular religion – but he has not provided anything short of faith to substantiate his claims, and he has made it abundantly clear that he sees no problem whatsoever to compare abortion to horrifying mass-genocide, and a man who asks for physical proof to a Nazi.
If Mr. Harriger cannot understand what is wrong with these comparisons, then this discussion has met with an impasse that I have no interest in overcoming.
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Tom has made 2 erroneous assumptions in regard to my position on the abortion issue. First, that I believe human life begins at conception. Physically speaking human life begins with the uniting of the male sperm cell and the female egg cell. But in reality the identity of a human being has always existed, even before the creation of this mighty universe. God has indicated in His special revelation that this is how it is in His view of human beings. A plan existed for each human being who is fully identified in the mind of our Creator before conception ever took place!
Second, Tom seems to suggest that a faith experience is restricted to certain individuals such as myself. In his view my “faith” is the reason why I look at life in the way that I do. In part he is right, but the faith experience is available to each human being if correct choices are made. Each person has the capacity to experience a faith relationship with our Creator. Again, it is wrong choices along the way that quench faith just as you would extinguish a fire by dumping 10,000 gallons of water on it.
God has indicated that faith is necessary in order to know Him and please Him as one discovers that we are not on this earth to do our own “thing” but to fulfill the purpose God has for each human being. But having been created as individuals with power to choose what we want, the world condition provides overwhelming evidence that very wrong choices have been made by a very large number of people in this matter.
I stand by the comparison to Nazism in regard to its treatment of human life and those who feel they are merely getting rid of a “mass of cells and blood” when it comes to unborn children. It is the view of both groups that is similar. Namely, that each has set itself up as judge in determining who should live and who should die. Even Tom moves himself into the position of being “judge” — up to so many weeks the individual in stages of formation is not human and afterward it then becomes “human” — Tom is the one (and others such as he) who determines the boundary line. In his view it is when pain etc. can be experienced. Very flawed at best since it is in direct conflict with how God views a human being. Some of us are fully persuaded that God will have the last word on this, not any human being!
Not a one of us will be dead more than a few seconds and then we will clearly see God’s view of human life and whether we were in agreement with His view plus quite a few other things that may have been intentionally ignored during life’s journey in this present world.
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Mr. Harriger and smkyqtzxtl, thanks for the replies.
In all fairness – and I first address Mr. Harriger – I don’t believe that I represent the vast majority; first and foremost, I’m a Libertarian (A Right-Libertarian if you want to be painfully technical). This means that, by default, I am a part of the 10% – 20% of Americans that fall under that particular guideline. Another thing to consider is my faith, which would fall under the guidelines of agnostic atheism – or rather, I don’t believe in a higher power – God, Allah, Mithras, or Zeus – but this is due to what I feel as a lack of empirical evidence rather than an adamant conviction on my part. Because of this, it’s safe to say that I represent a considerable minority of the United States’ population, which is mostly Christian and belonging to one of the two major political parties.
Because of my position and Mr. Harriger’s position, it’s a safe assumption that we disagree on several fundamental conditions of the morality of abortion. Mr. Harriger believes that each fertilized egg is a precious life upon conception because the bible says as much, while I believe that equating a human being to an unfeeling lump of parasitic cells sets a painfully low standard for something as complex and beautiful as a being capable of experiencing the world around him/her. Mr. Harriger compares the process of abortion to murder because the faith he’s chosen condemns it, while I simply do not see the moral comparison because I set the standard for humanity at one’s empathy, and the ability to comprehend pain and suffering.
In short, he relies on his faith in regards to this matter; I rely upon empirical evidence that can be tested to determine what is human. Because of this, I expect that most of our counter-arguments towards one another may fall upon deaf ears – and because of this, I’m not about to argue the religious aspects of his argument. I have little doubt that Mr. Harriger believes what he’s saying to be true, but that doesn’t provide him with a means to prove that what he’s saying is true.
I understand Mr. Harriger’s perspective – as much as I disagree with it, as convoluted as I think his stance is – and he has every right to express it on this site; however, I think that his flippant comparison is a poor attempt to compare the horror of Nazi persecution to the destruction of a few human cells per mother. I don’t think that he’s seen the impoverished skeletons of those who were kept upon the brink of death, who watched and suffered for months upon months. Impoverished, starving, many of them watching the people they loved most become butchered in ways that they couldn’t have conceived. I don’t believe Mr. Harriger has walked along a train cart that once herded these people like cattle – people who were no physically different than I or anyone else, despite their difference in faith; nor do I believe he has seen the mountain of shoes from the Jews gassed in Majdanek, Poland.
I say this because I have seen these things, and comparing something as trivial as scraping a blob of universal stem cells from a uterus to the suffering of the Holocaust implies either a very limited understanding of what the Holocaust was or a very skewed sense of morality.
In regards to smkyqtzxtl’s statement, I took some time to look up what he’s referring to – it’s “The Silent Scream”, a 1984 anti-abortion documentary that shows an abortive process upon a 12-week-old fetus. The video is often touted by pro-life advocates who want to show the “real horror” of when they follow through with an abortion. However, the majority of the medical community has labeled the documentary as deceptive and misleading, among others. While many teachers abhor the use of Wikipedia as a source (Sorry Mr. Kane!), I’ve often found that it’s a very useful guide to point one in the right direction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silent_Scream
To answer smkyqtzxtl’s question, human DNA does not define humanity and the right to live. An acorn is not an oak tree, just as a pile of wood is not a house. A lump of coal is not a diamond, and a lump of iron isn’t a car. Just because material has the potential to become something more complex and beautiful, doesn’t mean that we should treat it as something as complex or beautiful. This is why I’m fundamentally against aborting a fetus after it’s capable of feeling pain and experiencing the world around it – because before that time, it is a lump of cells that have much in the way of potential but with none of the very things that separate us from vegetables.
I don’t feel any more or less sorry for their loss than the million or so skin cells that die off on each of our bodies every day.
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Are not the bundle of cells human DNA or do they belong to another species?My question to Tom. I guess it depends on what the definition of human life is. Fetuses doing saline and other abortion procedures are shown recoiling and trying to move away from the “danger”. That make me wonder.
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Tom represents that vast crowd that refuses to face the reality of God’s revelation in regard to human life and its purpose. Within the content of that special revelation is the fact that God claims direct involvement in the development of a human being in the womb and the fact that He identifies that individual before conception even takes place. Furthermore, God indicates explicitly that He has a purpose for each human life — that is, in His plan each human fits in somewhere. It is somewhat like a giant jigsaw puzzle — there is a place where each piece fits and no other place will be acceptable. While this helps a bit to see that each human life is very special in God’s plan for His creation, it does not gives us a complete understanding of the mysterious workings of God, including His act of redemption in providing a way for humans to be reconciled to Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ. The problem is our limitation in attempting to see this issue as God sees it. Tom sets himself up as the judge as to when the conceived “mass of cells” becomes “human” which of course is in sharp disagreement with God’s definition of when one is regarded as human. But then that is nothing new — humans have demonstrated from the time of the tragedy which took place in the Garden of Eden that they would rather give God the traditional obscene gesture than accept His truth concerning the basic problem of the human race and the perfect solution which He has provided. Until that happens there will be the ongoing abomination of disposing of unborn human life as casually as we blow our nose into a tissue and throw it into the garbage can! You cannot make a blind man see the blue sky, the green grass, nor the beauty of a flower. Tom’s disagreement isn’t really with me — it is with the One Who knew him before he was conceived in his mother’s womb and makes His life and existence possible!
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The difference: the execution of Troy Davis was the execution of a human being who had developed enough to feel pain and pleasure, to experience the world with all of his faculties, and whose humanity was obvious in every facet of his existence. The abortion of an unborn child, however, blurs this line – because abortion in the third trimester is illegal in most states unless the mother’s life is in danger, I’m going to assume you’re referring to the first- and second- trimester abortions; because of this, I think the comparison is asinine.
A bundle of universal stem cells do NOT constitute a human being, particularly in the first trimester when the aforementioned cells lack the ability to feel pain, experience stimulus from any of our senses, The bundle of cells cannot think or feel any more than the living cells of my blood think or feel until they have grown the capacity to do so – this has been established at roughly 24 weeks, which makes the point moot considering most abortions occur before 20 weeks.
Comparing the United States to Hitler’s Third Reich is disgusting at best, and comparing the slaughter of millions of innocent men, women, and their children – developed to the point of feeling pain, fear, and suffering – and the abortions that occur in this country is like comparing the constant process of skin that dies on a human body to Stalin’s butchering of his own people. It would be a joke to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of human anatomy to make this comparison.
Where do we draw the line in regards to what is human and what is not? I draw the line at a fetus at roughly the 24th week of pregnancy, (if I haven’t made that clear already) due to a fetus’ ability to feel the aforementioned pain, suffering, and fear as mentioned above. Based upon Mr. Harriger’s commentary, his faith determines that an egg cell becomes a human upon the very moment of conception – a human being that is on par with a grown adult in regards to every right that a person has in this country. I think that Mr. Harriger has a very skewed understanding of what humanity is – if every potential for human life is equivalent to a living human, then I would be committing genocide every day – as crude as that is, this is the level of ignorance I see in this commentary.
To answer Mr. Harriger’s question, I’d imagine that God wouldn’t respond very much at all.
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