Whew! They don't call Chris Matthews' MSNBC program "Hardball" for nothing. When Matthews interviewed Rhode Island's Catholic Bishop Tobin on the air, he went after him relentlessly about the consequences of mixing religious views with the implied force of government. Bishop Tobin has been in the news recently for barring Congressman Patrick Kennedy from receiving communion in church because of his pro-abortion views. This has set off a firestorm of controversy over the idea of a religion lobbying government in order to promote sectarian agendas that affect not only members of that sect, but all Americans.But what Chris Matthews kept pressing Bishop Tobin on, was the consequences of such action. If the bishop thought he had the right to change secular law, Matthews asked, how would he rewrite it? Who would he penalize for breaking it and how would they be punished? Bishop Tobin, who may not have thought about the question this way before, hesitated over answering it and... well, check out the video and see for yourself.
Photo credit:
1) Chris Matthews
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Comments
If someone comes to take communion they are coming to receive forgiveness available through faith in Christ. The prerequisite for this is repentance on the part of the person receiving communion. If one is unapologetically in favor of it being legal to take the life of a person in the womb, then he or she is not repentant and therefore not eligible to receive communion. This would be the same if the person was in favor of any other sin and unrepentant of it. Communion isn't a "right"; it's a religious sacrament. If someone's political actions conflict with their religion's views then they must choose which they will ultimately follow...and be willing to live with the consequences of their decision.
Ugh..watched it again and Matthews' intentional obtuseness gives me a headache. I would LOVE to have been in the Bishop's shoes in this case to correct Matthews' non-sequiturs.
So what you're saying is the only way we can truly have separation of church and state is by electing atheists into office. Well, I'll second that.
Mathews ought to be ashamed of himself. He was rude and unfair to his guest. Talking louder, talking more and talking over his guest will never make his position on abortion correct.
His logic of "if you can't choose a punishment you should not assert a position." is idiotic and illogical.
Slavery was outlawed over a hundred years ago. Conscripting all fertile women to reproductive dhimmitude and childbirth chattel slavery is NOT being "pro-life" — it disrespects the health and lives of the pregnant woman. Newsflash: my body is NOT someone else's property.
Hey Hugh,
Both Tobin and Kennedy are wrong. I won't go into it in length here (not possible). I will say, Democratic Catholics lack character. To be a Catholic and a Democrat makes one a liar, as well. I'll post on this issue tomorrow.
Richmond Evangelical Examiner: I believe the Bible says, "judge not, lest ye be judged," but you seem to be okay with judging those who identify as both Catholic and Democrat. Seems a bit hypocritical....
I think if the Catholic church, or any other church for that matter, should pay some taxes if they want a say in the Congress, Senate, etc.
Read,
1 Corinthians 11:26-34,
I'm certain that John Allegro was correct. Its just seems so much like the good trip/bad trip thing I hear about.
Randy,
if you don't know how to read Koinean Greek, you can't properly understand the differences in the terms 'krino' and 'diakrino'. So, here is where I cruze through the Bible while others take it at face value.
However, even if one takes it at face value, there is enough scripture refering to judging, that you will begin to think the Bible is inconsistent in terms of 'judging' or maybe there is something you need to understand. You seem to be pleased to think you understand, so I won't begin trying to help you make sense of it. However, I have given you two words in Koinean Greek to look up. That is as far as I will go in this discussion.
Matthews demonstrated his biases very well. He totally misses the point that with awareness, comes responsibility.
For a culture that regularly shirks responsibility, Matthews' "position" in this "interview" (was it really an interview, or an attack?) is quite consistent and representative. We see his position, repeatedly.
The bishop conducted himself quite well, considering he barely had time to respond.
If anyone is really listening, he's saying a Catholic should not promote something that contradicts his faith, particularly on such an important issue. Catholicism is NOT a democracy.
The Bishop told Kennedy what the consequences of his actions were, not how to vote.
Dan,
I almost was in agreement with you. The entire U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is doing just that. Attempting to manipulate the vote.
Richmond Examiner: if you don't know how to read "Mother Goose" in Koinean Greek, you can't properly understand the differences in the terms 'reality' and 'fantasy'. So, here is where I cruze through the Bible (as a collection of myths) while others take it at face value.
LOL Peter. I like Richmond's "argument from superior knowledge" too. Here's a few more flaws in it: Is Richmond saying that none of the bible translations I could read (such as the New American Standard, the Contemporary English, etc.,) gets it right? That it CAN'T be properly translated into English and that a koinon-speaker is, like the Pope claims the Church to be, a neccessary intermediary between God's Word and the lay person?
Hugh. Excellent point and Richmond Examiner and his Koinean Greek. But really I think that God/Jesus wants desperately to get his message to all mankind, just that God/Jesus somehow can only communicate in Koinean Greek.
Either that, or this god is just toying with us. What a practical jokester He is!
"Slavery was outlawed over a hundred years ago. Conscripting all fertile women to reproductive dhimmitude and childbirth chattel slavery is NOT being "pro-life" — it disrespects the health and lives of the pregnant woman. Newsflash: my body is NOT someone else's property."
The irony here is amazing...as both slavery and abortion-on-demand rely on their proponents getting the majority of the population to deny (or simply ignore) the full personhood of those being oppressed/destroyed. Only in bizarro land does being denied the right to kill a human being in one's womb make one a 'chattel slave'.
As for the "judge not..." discussion, it's important to read the REST of the passage. It ends by Jesus saying what one must do first in order to then be able to make a correct judgment. (No knowledge of Koine needed!) The Bible doesn't condemn judging...it condemns judging hypocritically.
And in case anyone thinks abortion-on-demand is a religious issue...
www.godlessprolifers.org
What makes a human being, JMS? Is a nervous system that can feel pain? A conciousness that can interpret that feeling? Is it a soul (whatever that is, 'cause it needs a definitition too)?
Does a zygote have full personhood? How does that happen? Does each gamete confer half a soul to the zygote? Maybe a soul enters at the blastocyst stage? Or when the first cells of the nervous system differentiate from the rest? Is it injected with an ectoplasmic syringe? Where does it reside? How do you prove that what makes a person is something separate from the flesh and organs?
Methodist examiner says "The Bible doesn't condemn judging...it condemns judging hypocritically."
Dude, the most hypocritical judge is your own god. He says "thou shall not kill", but He is the greatest mass murderer of all time. He drowned men, women, children, babies, pregnant women, etc., in Noah's flood (if your Bible is true), also killed Egyptian babies (was that really the best plan he could come up to get Jews out of slavery in Egypt?), etc.
Other mass murderers like Charles Manson, Timothy McVeigh, the September 11th plane hijackers, etc., are amateurs compared to the God of The Bible.
Yet this is the God who is to judge mankind? If that is not "judging hypocritically" then I don't know what is.
Hugh and Peter, let your ignorance shine. Go ahead. Do you have any bullets in that gun?
Koinean Greek is what the origional language of the text the 'judge not lest you be judged' came from. LOL! You guys rock! I told you before, when you pretend to have knowledge you are your worst enemy. Don't study. You might get some of it.
In English, we have one word that conveys more than one meaning. The ancient Greek were much more specific. Where are word 'judge' appears in the Bible, the ancient Greek have two words for 'judge'. Where we see the word 'love' in the Bible, the ancient Greek have four words for it.
Go on with your delusion. You will come to the end of life having lost everything. If I am wrong, I lose nothing. I just disappear.
Richmond Evangelist: You should spend your entire life on earth (which is the only one you have that we can all be sure of) worshiping the Flying Spaghetti Monster god, giving your money to his church, etc.
Otherwise, "You will come to the end of life having lost everything. If I am wrong, I lose nothing. I just disappear."
Conclusion: Even if Pascal's wager (which you allude to) made sense, it would provide no guidance as to which of the thousands (millions?) of gods you should spend your life worshiping.
Actually, you should worship all of them, just to cover your bases (after all, if none of them turn out to be true, then you have lost nothing and you just disappear, right?). You better get busy. And good luck with that.
Hugh,
A human life is an organism with fully human DNA (as opposed to sperm or egg, which only contain copies of the parent's DNA) that is in the process of developing through the normal stages of human life (be it in the womb, the crib or the nursing home).
As numerous atheist/agnostic anti-abortion groups have pointed out, abortion is not a religious issue at its core. It is a human rights issue. Abortion-on-demand proponents have long clouded the issue using religious rhetoric in order to mask the issue as one of separation of church and state. Unfortunately, many abortion opponents have let their religious committments dominate their rhetoric as well. The result is a country where people feel abortion is a 'religious issue' and therefore should not be interfered with by the Government...which is precisely the argument that many used to support past atrocities such as slavery, women's oppression and antisemitism.
I'm glad there are atheists who see through the lie th
Peter,
It's only hypocritical if God doesn't inherently have the right to give and take life. God never anywhere in Scripture says "Thou shalt not kill." This is an urban legend that never seems to die (pun intended!). Rather, God says "Do not murder." Murder is the taking of innocent life by one who does not have the right to do so. God, being the creator and sustainer of all life, has that right. This is a basic theological point that often gets overlooked in passionate debates or rants against God's "cruelty"; but it follows logically regardless of whether or not one likes it or accepts it.
(BTW, Richmond Evangelical Examiner, don't you think your tone is overly-combative and generates more heat than light??)
I agree that the issue is about human rights and that the crux of it revolves around what constitutes human life and personhood. The concept of personhood is different from the concept of human life. Human life occurs at conception, but fertilized eggs used for in vitro fertilization are also human lives and those not implanted are routinely thrown away. Is this murder, and if not, then how is abortion murder?
Nearly all abortions take place in the first trimester, when a fetus cannot exist independent of the mother. As it is attached by the placenta and umbilical cord, its health is dependent on her health, and cannot be regarded as a separate entity as it cannot exist outside her womb. Some legal standard has to be adopted to define what a person is and this is the one the courts have settled on. It has, as the first paragraph indicates, legal applications other than those concerning abortions.
Yes Hugh, fertilized embryos would be considered human lives (though not "persons" in the sentimental sense of the word)...which is why the stem-cell debate has generated so much controversy.
However, to your point about 1st trimester fetuses depending on the mother to survive, that is an arbitrary standard. ALL fetuses depend on another to survive. Even a newborn depends on others to survive. A baby attached via umbilical cord is no more dependent than a baby attached via mouth-to-breast (or bottle). If dependency determines personhood, then those on dialysis machines or iron lungs are no longer persons. The fetus in the first trimester is a human life at its most vulnerable stage of development, but it is a human life nonetheless.
At one point in our country's history the courts ruled that humans who were owned by another weren't fully "persons" (they were 3/5ths of a person, to be exact). The courts were wrong then. They are wrong now.
If you agree with the Catholic catechism, than celebrate being a Catholic. If you disagree, then declare that you no longer can be a Catholic in good conscience. Proclaim your real spirituality as Protestant, Buddhist, Moslem, or Atheist. But be honest, and don’t profess publicly a belief in something you disdain privately. Even if you are an Irish-American politician who knows leaving Catholicism would cost too many votes for re-election.
Exactly, Croce. Why this is hard for people to understand, I cannot fathom.
JMS (Methodist Examiner): OK, so you think it is moral that God killed babies (e.g. in Egypt to help free Jewish slaves, or in Noah's flood, etc.) since God gave them life in the first place. Doesn't seem moral to me. Even if there were a god and he/she had the 'right' to kill his 'creations', often in painful ways, would that make it moral?
Meanwhile, though, by your logic any scientist who creates life (e.g. embryos in labs, or even test tube babies) should be able to later kill those beings (even after they are born) since they created those particular lives and killing them later would just be modeling your glorious god.
Also, since a woman is clearly creating life in her womb, then it is her right to end that life(since she is the giver of that life in the first place), again just modeling the morality of your god. Your god should praise her for following his example.
Peter, you're using moral reasoning to critique the origin of morality itself (if God exists, then by definition He/She/It is the ultimate source and standard by which all other morality is judged).
As for a woman "creating life" in her womb or a scientist "creating life" in the lab, that is also not correct. They are facilitating life's development and providing conditions for it to come into being, but they do not do the actual creating. But something tells me you are trolling here and don't actually use this as a serious line of argumentation (at least I hope that is the case).
JMS (Methodist): when someone fails to blindly agree with your religious dogma/ideology, instead of mislabeling it as trolling please recognize it as someone using their noggin.
You say "if God exists, then by definition He/She/It is the ultimate source and standard by which all OTHER morality is judged". Yet why can't this God's OWN morality be judged by his so-called standards? Further, we should be free to question the 'standards' themselves, to see if they make any sense. The god of the bible is immoral by any modern standards and even by his own standards.
On the other issue: If a scientist or woman create life in a test-tube or womb, respectively, then I can at least see that the scientist or woman actually exist & has an active role in the process. With your god, it's theoretical or speculative as to whether such a god exists or is playing any active roll. Thus, if we give rights to parties based on involvement, rights should go to the woman/scientist, not to myths/gods.
Peter, while I fathered two children, I did not create life. Neither did my wife. A sexual act does not create life. Life is independent of its biological organism – flesh is the Biblical term. Flesh can be made uninhabitable for Life by disease or trauma. But we cannot force Life into flesh. Otherwise I’d have my gall bladder do my taxes. And this is not a religious argument. For atheists, Life may be something totally different from what many religionists feel (maybe the “Force” in Star Wars). Once you understand Life and Flesh are simply symbiotic, then you can better argue you positions on choice, chariots of the gods, whatever.
Croce, do you have any evidence for your assertion that "Life is independent of its biological organism"? I would love to see if you can really explain it in any sort of sensible way and keeping with your assertion that you can do so without your basis being "a religious argument".
As far as I know, scientists/philosophers/etc. have never found life that is "independent of its biological organism" (unless you believe in wacky ghost movies and the boogeyman).
Peter, so you believe conscious, rationale thought and creative emotions are only a function of our body, like farting or hiccups? Does the idea that our body is merely a vessel to house our Self within this reality sound ludicrous? That love, compassion, or creativity is merely expected output from the meat computer between our ears? If so, then the more mentally advanced (thanks to superior brains) should be better lovers, be more compassionate and creative. If excellence is solely measurable by the physical then those who are inadequate cannot excel due to faulty hardware in the brainpan. Maybe if we got rid of all these physically inferior dim-wits whose thoughts aren’t up to snuff, then humanity, now unshackled, could realize its full potential . . .
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