Authorities said they had a suspect in custody Sunday afternoon in the shooting death of George Tiller, a Wichita doctor who was one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions.
Dr. Tiller, who had long been a lightning rod for controversy over the issue of abortion and had survived a shooting more than a decade ago, was shot inside his church here on Sunday morning, the authorities said. Dr. Tiller, 67, was shot with a handgun inside the lobby of his longtime church, Reformation Lutheran Church on the city’s East Side, just after 10 a.m. (Central Time). The service had started minutes earlier.
Dr. Tiller, who had performed abortions since the 1970s, had long been a lightning rod for controversy over the issue of abortion, particularly in Kansas, where abortion opponents regularly protested outside his clinic and sometimes his home and church.
[…]
“Dr. Tiller was a fearless, passionate defender of women’s reproductive health and rights,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, based in New York, which had worked on a legal case related to Dr. Tiller. “It’s time that this nation stop demonizing these doctors, and start honoring them.”
The killer has been caught.
O1, it’s a sickness on Alfred’s part, he can’t help it. He thinks his world is factually correct and there is a real person named god living somewhere and he has to spew his rhetoric as much as possible and hope that some of this crap sticks.
Where is god? 100 miles up? 1,000 miles up…down? In the ether?
Where Alfred1? If I have to ask I won’t be told? So you know? Please enlighten us.
When asked for facts Alfred conveniently hides in his basement closet with his piece of fiction.
Wow, you are still here Alfred? You really freaked everybody out!
Even though you called me a liar and a Christian fraud, I forgive you.
I know it may go against everything you’ve been taught, but we liberal Christians can also follow the bible and love Jesus Christ.
I would argue that we libs do a better job of following the whole bible and the fundamentals of what Jesus taught. And, of course, our Gospel is actually good news and not some narrow death cult.
>> right said, on June 1st, 2009 at 7:54 am
>> Where is god? 100 miles up? 1,000 miles up…down? In the ether?
The atheist-supremacists are as “Fred Phelps-bad” as the Christian fundamentalists…. just on the other side.
Both groups have absolute faux certitude about the unprovable. Is that you?
… But what if the original purpose of the coccyx has been rendered useless by today’s culture? If you examine the coccyx closely you will see that this boney growth is very similar, when you think about it, to a horn, which is the structure used by many animals for fighting. I submit then, that the coccyx is not a vestige of an ancestral tail but rather an effective, albeit strangely placed, defense and fighting mechanism.
I imagine that two opponents, fighting over women or choice cave real estate, would have run backwards at each other – their asses outstretched, much like the way elk fight with their horns. I have termed this ass-fighting. This makes sense, if you think about it, as it would leave their hands free to carry whatever they needed – most likely food or rocks.
The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, P-24
Real things exist in a real world and when Alfred1 and all the others say that god exists (is real), I ask “where is this god?”
That’s about as reasonable as one can get. Science has so far not found any existence of a god living anywhere so I ask the believers to direct us to god’s location.
Another question Alfred1 will, and cannot, answer.
#119
> God does not cause evil
I thought your deity created everything. If your deity created everything but evil, whence comes evil? How is it possible by your own doctrine that there exists something that was not created by your deity?
> He does grant opportunity for
> one’s desires to be fulfilled…
However, if your deity is omniscient, it already knows how that opportunity will turn out.
> God allowed Satan duplicate His miracles
Then your deity is malevolent if it both created evil and allowed it to continue and did nothing to stop it.
#124
> That’s why hell exists, its
> the intermediate state, the place
> where both the righteous and unrighteous
> wait for judgment day, the resurrection.
Firstly, that is a guess. You do not really know for sure this is the case since the Bible does not explicitly state the “purpose” of hell. Secondly, your deity created hell did it not? It created everything, right? So, your deity created a place of eternal pain. Thirdly, if your deity is omniscient, then it already knows who would end up in hell and who would not.
Again, your deity is malevolent or at least sadistic. According to your mythology, it created beings that it knew would act in a certain way and then punishes them for acting in the way it designed!
#126
> I misstated…God does direct some
> to do good…others to execute
> justice…but scripture rules the
> latter out for us
In one “sentence” (if we can call it that), you stated both that your deity uses man as its instrument and that he does not. Which is it? If he does, how can anyone know whether said person is not doing “God’s will”? This is the paradox of your religion. Any harm to others can be justified as said person or persons being “instruments of God” and indeed the Church has done this very thing in the past.
1 A Pirate Would Drink Some Grog
If grog isn’t the bread of life, it’s certainly what you need to keep that bread from catching in your gullet. Grog opens the mind and frees the soul. It also frees the inhibitions, so be mindful that you don’t obtain grog goggles. Too much grog can make for questionable bunkmates, and if you’re wearing an eye patch you’re already a couple of cards behind in the game.
Once the mind has been appropriately lubricated, you may find that it wanders. This is good, for a wandering mind is a searching mind. And yet, if the mind strays too far, you may find yourself asking the wrong questions or even turning forgetful.
The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, P-67
>> right said,
>> Science has so far not found any existence of a god living anywhere so I ask the believers to direct us to god’s location.
Science is too crude of a tool to study God or beauty or love.
If you used only science, you could conclude that most of the better things in life do not actually exist.
Thomas #139. Reality is the most feared opponent of the believers.
Your arguments are based in rational thought so therefore will be dismissed.
#141
Not true. There is actually an entire science around the concept of beauty which includes identifying common traits considered to be “beautiful” as well as its role in survival. In addition, the volumes written on the analysis of love are legion (what attracts people to each other, what keeps couples together, how do other species express and show love etc.). Science is simply a technique for understanding what we can observe.
See what I mean about them being dismissive?
Thanks Greg Allen #141, you just proved my point that you are afraid of reality.
I know I shouldn’t, but this is fun.
*
Wisdom Teeth
Fallacy: Emerging in adulthood, these teeth are thought to have served as extra grinding surfaces for early man, who, before the advent of proper dental care, would most likely have lost many of his teeth by his mid – twenties.
Fact: It is common knowledge that our Pirate ancestors ate a diet much rougher and more manly than our diets today. Also, they tended to carry their knives set deep in the back of their mouths. It is logical then they’d need the extra teeth.
The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, P-23
Thomas,
You ask profound questions that Christian theologians have not shied away from and have proposed some good answers to. Yet, they continue to vex us. If I remember my philosophy class, David Hume really challenged monotheistic religion with this question.
But you are asking the wrong Christians if you ask fundamentalists like Alfred!
One of my favorite Christian authors on the subject evil is Walter Wink. He’s not exactly well-known but he really helped me think about it.
But, in our defense, we Christians aren’t the only ones who struggle with this issue. What is the atheistic answer to evil? I’ve heard many say that good, evil, morality, etc don’t ultimately exist. It’s cruel but logically consistent with atheism.
Others live as if evil exists but it’s an act of faith on their part or a vestige of religion and hardly consistent!
Where’s Alphie? Here I’m ready to go toe to toe, mano a mano, FSM v. Jehovah.
C’mon Alphie, fight like a real idiot. You know my god is bigger and better than your god. Your god is just a sniveling hypocrite next to my god.
OK, I’m a moonbat loon and proud of it. But at least I’m not a circus reject.
#147, Greg,
What is the atheistic answer to evil? I’ve heard many say that good, evil, morality, etc don’t ultimately exist. It’s cruel but logically consistent with atheism.
Atheists don’t deny “evil” exists. We just don’t blame it on some false concept as a way of rationalizing it.
Evil, to me, (note, your mileage may differ) is something that is bad or immoral with a wicked undertone to it. And, much like anyone who has ever had children can tell you, “shit happens”.
I’d hate to be Dr. Warren Hern of Colorado. He said now that Dr. Tiller is dead, he probably is the last doctor in the world who removes the brain and crushes the skulls of viable fetuses…
I know that circular logic is a hallmark of religious thinking, but circular praise? In post #73 Alfred1 said “#70 Excellent observation…thanks for that.” Alfred1’s mind is so twisted that he can’t even recognize his own words! Either that or he doesn’t quite grok the concept of a ‘sock puppet’.
>> Mr. Fusion said,
>> Atheists don’t deny “evil” exists. We just don’t blame it on some false concept as a way of rationalizing it.
Oh, I certainly have heard atheists deny that evil exists. Or goodness. Or any sort of meaning at all.
Where, out of atheism does any definition of “bad” or “immoral” come from?
Not science, which seems to be their ultimate standard for what exists or does not exist.
The most intellectually consistent explaination I’ve heard from atheists is that morality is a tool to help the human species survive. (e.g. we are a social species)
But how is our survival “good” or “evil” based on science or atheistic philosophy?
I should give some full-disclosure. My view of this issue was profoundly shaped by the murder of my relatives by atheists in an effort to rid society of religious people.
At the time, the atheists claimed this was a “good” because they were ridding their society of “evil” religion!
You can also guess why the rise of atheist- supremacists gives me the creeps.
(BTW, I’m am absolutely NOT saying that the average atheist is evil, amoral or out to kill my relatives. Most atheists I know are fine people. I just simply don’t understand how morality can come from atheism. Atheist personal morality seems like a vestige of religion to me.)
# 152 Greg Allen said, “…I just simply don’t understand how morality can come from atheism. Atheist personal morality seems like a vestige of religion to me.”
I understand your confusion. How can a collection of cells that are, in the end, stimulus response, have a moral code?
>> Hyperkinetic said, on June 1st, 2009 at 8:50 am
>> I know that circular logic is a hallmark of religious thinking,
What arrogance! Many of the greatest minds in human history were believers.
Yet, because of a people like Alfred1, you dismiss them all.
It’s bigotry, pure and simple. And yet you consider yourself more enlightened!
Patrick,
I wouldn’t have put it that way, but that’s about how I see it.
I’ve heard atheists say, many times, “God does not exist because science can not prove it.”
Can science prove evil and good? Not that I’ve ever heard.
See what I mean?
Sorry to start an argument and bail-out!
That’s what I need to do, though. See ‘ya.
#146 Alfred1 laughably wrote, “God never inspires evil…”
Actually, it just depends on your definition of evil. If, within the definition, killing innocent people for the purpose of taking their land and possessions, then yes, your deity does inspire evil, and quite a bit of it. Of course, the truly insane will always point out that if God inspired or directed it to be done, then it is not evil, but merely the act of a good and faithful servant doing the will of the Creator.
Joshua and Gideon are two examples of God’s most faithful servants. They didn’t want to be ethnic cleansers, but they set aside their own selfish dreams of opening a small restaurant to instead become the warlords that we see depicted in the Bible. I even remember singing a song in church about how Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down. The lyrics didn’t include a body count of the children that were killed in that battle, but it was apparently God’s will that those Gentile children not grow up to be the rightful inheritors of the land that was being taken.
Christians are often very fond of claiming that a person’s true nature can be seen in his actions, despite empty words to the contrary. They never apply that same principle to the god they worship, so I try to help them out occasionally 😉
#155, Yes, your position is logical given the tenets atheism.
I believe the reason why some anti-abortion people kill abortion doctors is out of a supreme sense of frustration. They (like I) realize the value of an unborn human and want to stop its destruction. But, the law says it’s okay to kill these little things, so the doctor killers feel they have no other option. I wouldn’t want to kill an abortion doctor myself. But, I find it mind-boggling that he went to a church and his fellow parishioners knew his bloody business and continued to attend with him. I wouldn’t stay near a monster like him, and I certainly wouldn’t go to the same church. That’s one messed-up church!
Alfred, where did you say god was in this world? Must have missed it.
#159 Alfred1 wrote “You cannot prove God lies when He says all His ways are just…because every act He did in scripture is just.”
Anyone who believes that the Bible depicts true justice takes self-delusion to a whole new level. Acts of outright mass murder went relatively unpunished while trivial sins that harmed no one, with the debatable exception of the perpetrator himself, were often punished with an excruciatingly painful death by stoning. Some people like you may call this justice, but others can see it for what it really is.
We also see you for what you really are.
Good and evil exist, they just do not exist objectively. Many people may think that murdering this abortion doctor was a good thing, though I have a feeling his family will not agree.
‘Evil’ acts can be seen as acts that are wronging someone. If you wish to carry out a ‘scientific experiment’ to find out whether an action is good or evil, do something to a person, or a collection of people. If they are generally happy with the action you are performing, then to them it is good. If it angers them, it is evil. It is possible that some actions will anger some people and make others happy.
Atheits and theists both derive their morality from the same place…..philosophy. The only difference is that theists beleive that their philosophers were directly influenced by a higher power, or even that they themselves are that higher power. The downside to this is that it often seems that defending the reality of the higher power often comes before the lessons that they are passing on.
Neither atheism or religion is inherintly evil, until they start acting to harm others, even if they feel it is in their best interests.
live by the sword die by the sword. A murderer is murdered. So what
#165–MrMiGu==”Neither atheism or religion is inherintly evil” /// I disagree. Any “philosophy” based on made up shit that is internally contradictory and teaches at its roots that the law of man can/should/must be superceded by the idiocy of dogma is exactly inherently evil.
So is losing an argument and maintaining your position.
Are you evil MrMiGu?