Some Questions For So-Called "Pro-Life" People

Today, the Facebook page Bigot Vanquisher has posed a few questions^[1] on the issue of abortion that I think are worth sharing.

For those who are 'against' pregnancy termination, would you answer the following questions please?

1) If a woman accidentally gets pregnant (because she is a stupid whore, obviously) do you think she should be forced to carry the pregnancy? How far would you be willing to go to make sure she carried the pregnancy to term?

2) If abortion was illegal and a woman got an alley-abortion and managed not to die, but got caught, what should her punishment be?

3) Would you rather a young woman had access to an early pregnancy termination, or put her newborn baby in a dumpster or toilet?

I have some of my own to add.

1. How much of a tax increase would you be willing to accept to provide the universal healthcare for pregnant women to keep them healthy enough to prevent the complications that are the reason for most late-term abortions?


2. How much of a tax increase would you be willing to accept to provide for the care of the children who would have otherwise been aborted?


3. Have you lobbied your legislative representation to make those changes happen?


4. If against your taxes going up for programs that would reduce abortions, how do you justify calling yourself "Pro-Life".


5. Have you ever lobbied to have our military budget cut?


6. If you support our military spending, how do you reconcile that with calling yourself "Pro-Life"?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  http://www.facebook.com/BigotVanquisher/posts/593778917316295

Open Letter To People Who Make Prayer Requests

If your standard response to tragedy is to request people pray, this is intended for you.

My intention here is not antagonistic or any attempt to insult, belittle, or mock.  These are genuine questions I have regarding a concept I have never understood.

Prayer has always perplexed me.  George Carlin's famous bit about prayer & "God's plan" described my thoughts on prayer best until I found Tim Minchin's "Thank You God" (the inspiration for this blog's title).

I don't understand why people think praying for someone experiencing a tragedy is actually accomplishing anything tangible.  I'm trying to understand what goes through your mind when you request prayer instead of actual action.

When you make prayer requests, what are you expecting?

Do you think the outcome is dependent on how many people pray?

If God has a plan, how could prayer alter that plan?

How often do you also request direct action other than prayer?  Given the less than stellar success rate of prayer, do you ever wonder if direct action would be more effective?

Do you ever think people who experience tragedy just didn't have enough people praying for them?

What about when people do pray & bad things still happen?  Did God say no?  Were not enough people praying?

Do you think direct action that occurs after a prayer is because of the prayer?  What about when disaster is averted without anyone praying?  Did God help that person anyway?  If so, is prayer even required or useful?  If not, is prayer even required or useful?

As far as I as I can tell, prayer is only useful for making the person praying feel better emotionally & is entirely useless in terms of otherwise helping people.

I'm not trying to tell you to stop praying.  It's not my place to make such a request if praying does make you feel better.  But please never let it be your only effort.

When you see someone in need that you want to help, please think for a minute about what tangible actions you could take to directly help.  That way, the person in trouble receives help and you get to feel better.  Instead of just you feeling better.

An Open Letter to Brad Strait - Miracles

The following is my response to a blog post by Brad Strait about the aftermath of the our most recent mass shooting, in Aurora, Colorado.

Yesterday, you posted your story of a young woman you know, Petra

Petra was hit four times with a shot-gun blast, three shots into her arm and one bullet which entered her brain. This a bit of Petra’s miracle story.

You think this situation was a miracle.  Please allow me to share another perspective.

I am unable to see a young woman getting shot 4 times as a miracle, no matter the details of her survival.  I find it incredibly arrogant when someone thinks their god saved the person they knew when 12 others in the same incident died.

What was it about those 12 that kept them from being worthy of the miracle you say saved Petra?  Were they not Christian enough?  Did their family not pray enough or in the correct manner?

You detail all the effort the doctors put into saving Petra's life, but then you follow it with this.

Thank you, Lord, for every little thing. We sit. We pray.

Instead of thanking a god, who I presume you believe had the power to prevent the entire tragedy, my choice would have been to give appropriate credit to the doctors who worked tirelessly to save Petra.  You clearly understand the human effort that went into saving her life.  

Nurses, like quiet soldiers posted on guard, come in, march attentively through the machines, and go out.  These men and women really care. Finally, one of the surgeons comes in to check on Petra. He has had some sleep, and looks more like a movie star this time. As Petra sleeps, he retells the story of the surgery, and we ask questions.  The doctor reads the perfect script, as if he is on Hallmark Hall of Fame. He fills us in on the miracle. Honestly, he doesn’t call it that, he just uses words like “happily” and “wonderfully” and “in a very fortunate way” and “luckily” and “we were really surprised by that.”  Kim and I know a miracle when we see it.

But then, when you ultimately wrote something about the incident, you gave all the credit to your god.  I am unable to see this as anything but a slap in the face of the doctors who did the real work.  If not for those doctors, she'd be dead.

You say your god gave Petra a brain defect in order to save her life later when he let her get shot.  I say your god could have prevented her (and the dozens of others) from getting shot in the first place.  Then he could have given her a defect-free brain.

It’s just like the God I follow to plan the route of a bullet through a brain long before Batman ever rises.

There is much ahead. More surgerys. Facial reconstruction, perhaps.

If this nightmare is your idea of a miracle, I pity you for worshiping such a pathetically useless god.  Show me a god who prevents massacres like this & doesn't give nice young girl's mothers cancer.  Then we can talk about miracles.  Until then, your talk of miracles disgusts me.

You spit on the probably-not-even-dug-yet graves of the 12 who died.  You disregard the real work real people did to save her life in favor of crediting your god, who appears, from my perspective, to have had absolutely nothing to do with how these events have played out.

I'm all for you keeping your faith in your god, but please use your brain after the next tragedy before speaking of miracles.  Unless, of course, you're so selfish that you only care of the well being of yourself and the people you know personally and are fine with 12 people dying so your friend can be the recipient of a miracle.  I suspect you're better than that, but that's ultimately up to you.

An Open Letter To Leah Libresco

The following is an open letter in response to the recent conversion from atheism to Catholicism by atheist blogger Leah Libresco.

I had never heard of you until your recent conversion went viral within the religion vs atheist community online.  I do not mean that as an attack.  I haven't heard of a lot of people and a lot more have not heard of me.  I only say so to be more clear about where I'm coming from.

Your conversion has left me with some questions.  You owe me nothing, obviously, but I need to ask these things anyway.  I'm aware that I'm only one of many currently asking you questions, and you'll likely never even see this, let alone respond, but I would feel negligent in my devotion to truth if I left this unwritten.  I've been able to do some reading on this, including some of what you've written in response to other inquiries, but I have been unable to find satisfactory answers to some issues.

While I do not personally experience confusion about morality such as you described, I do get that many do.  The confusion I have is how that can lead one to believe a deity exists.  Did you witness some sort of evidence for this deity?  Or was this revelation entirely internal within your own mind?

More specifically, how did your experience lead you to believe the Catholic god is the right one?  Other than your issues with the source of morality, what did you consider when choosing Catholicism over all the other religions?  Was the Vatican's tacit approval of child rape a factor?  How about their misinformation campaign in Africa regarding the effectiveness of condoms in preventing the spread of HIV?

You mentioned uneasiness regarding their stance on homosexuality.  Was this a factor in your decision or was it not considered until afterward?  Are you okay with supporting a Church with such discriminatory stances?

Do you believe the Christian Bible is the word of God?  Do you have issues with any other parts of that book?  Are you okay with getting your morality from a god that supports/commits genocide, rape, child abuse, & slavery?  Are you okay with saying your morality comes from an institution that protects pedophiles & lies to millions about the effectiveness of condoms?  Did you have any morality issues with the Vatican while you were still atheist?  If so, how have those issues changed with the conversion?

Do you pray now?  If so, have any of prayers been answered?

Is the Pope infallible?

And finally, when the priest blesses the wafer & wine, do they become literal flesh & blood of Jesus Christ?

These questions of mine are related to things I wonder about Christians & Catholics in general.  Seeing someone, confident enough in their atheism to write a blog about it, become a Catholic makes me wonder even more about you.  I look forward to reading more about your rationalization for your new-found faith, because for me, it is incredibly mind boggling.