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.
BTW–anyone that thinks abortion is murder should applaud this result. Stopping future murders is morally justified–even mandatory.
If such as idea makes you pause, maybe its your common sense pulling at you that abortion isn’t murder.
Silly Hoomans.
Spouting man made text again Alfred? I wish you’d add some facts that we can corroborate but that’s not your schtick is it?
You prefer to live in a fantasy world devoid of facts and reality and what’s sad is that your views are so harmful to the world. You’re not a very nice person.
Oh yeah, where does your god live again?
# 168 bobbo said, “BTW–anyone that thinks abortion is murder should applaud this result.”
Only if one believes in the death penalty. Otherwise, no.
In the bible, we are given CHOICE..
If my choice leads me to HELL..is it any concern of yours?
I still have redemption, and to learn from my OWN FAULTS.
YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS, to shoot me/Stab me or in ANYWAY ABUSE me..
YOU HAVE NO RIGHT, to say I should give my child to adoption, AS LONG AS there are Thousands of children waiting TO BE ADOPTED..
I will have the RIGHT to have an abortion by a LICENCED PERSON and NOT in the back alley or with a coat hanger in SOME ASSHOLES room at a Motor Inn.. And NOT DIE, because the IDIOT didnt know my medical history, or have the PROPER medical equipment to SAVE MY LIFE.. OR GOD FORBID, the IDIOT macerates my internal ORAGANS to the point I can NEVER have a child again.
#171–Patrick==so aggressively deficient. The legally imposed death penalty issue is IRRELEVANT to a discussion of the morality/legitimacy of killing someone before they kill again.
Now prove to everyone here you can understand what IRRELEVANT means. (and limit yourself to the moral imperative of protecting innocent lives by taking the life of a MURDERER– a heinous inhuman murderer of the innoncent!!!!)
“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”
this would depend on the interpretation of ones religion. is it not possible for ones religion to have the “law of man” and dogma coexist?
Am I evil? That would probably depend on who you ask and at what point in time. And who gets to define what evil is.
# 174 bobbo said, “The legally imposed death penalty issue is IRRELEVANT to a discussion of the morality/legitimacy of killing someone before they kill again.”
moral practices or teachings : modes of conduct
Has a lot to do with following laws… Finish High School then give a call…
#175–MrMigu==”is it not possible for ones religion to have the “law of man” and dogma coexist?” /// Of course it is “possible” but none of them do it. Rather goes against the whole purpose of religion if its sum total is “be a good citizen.”
So, yes, by your equivocating and not coming to grips with the false equality you proposed, you are evil.
Still time to save your soul though.
177
Sorry, but if by saving my soul you mean having to worship a petty, insecure, hate filled, racist, multi-personalitied bigot like that I would much rather spend an eternity burning than spending any time with that asshole.
Alfred1:
Pick a translation of the Bible and stick with it. Picking your quotes from different versions makes you look like you are picking and choosing the version that suits your own agenda (shocking, I know!).
“#170 Incorrect, I am one of the nicest persons around.”
Then why is that I would not, in any way, shape or form, want you as a neighbour, colleague or employee?
If you are so nice, as you claim, you’ll then kindly give us proof of god’s existence.
Step into the real world for just a minute, the weather’s fine.
#178–MrMiGu==”I would much rather spend an eternity burning than spending any time with that asshole.” //// Really? Gee. You do know what an eternity is right? and “Eternity” versus “any time” with an asshole?
Once again, you equate very different things making you look foolish. I’d rather spend some time burning than an eternity burning, and would much rather spend some time with any human being than some time burning, much more than an “ETERNITY” burning.
Maybe you aren’t evil. Is english your second language by chance?
Hard to shed a tear for a guy who slaughtered tens of thousands of 24+ week (i.e. generally viable) fetuses, performing procedures that virtually no other women’s clinic would do for obvious moral reasons.
OK, Alfred and all you who cheer the killing of the doctor.
If you feel the killer was right in what he did, then by extension, you should have no problem pulling the trigger yourself on other abortion doctors. Why haven’t you?
If you truly consider what abortion doctors are doing is murder on a daily basis and applaud someone who kills one of them, what is keeping you from doing the same?
Why aren’t you putting your bullets where your big mouth is?
# 183 Uncle Dave said, “Why aren’t you putting your bullets where your big mouth is?”
I think they are waiting for the psycho green types, who say overpopulation is killing the planet to off themselves…
Greg Allen,
To me, and remember, I am not a spokesperson nor an apologist for atheists, see morality as something quite different than do religious people. To me, morality is doing what is right BECAUSE it is right for society (or the group).
As a society, when you steal from one, because we support each other, you in essence are stealing from all of us. That weakens the whole group when one member is weakened.
As a group, we fare better and are stronger when all in the group are happy. If we derive pleasure and happiness from food, drink, sex, or whatever, then to deny us that joy also denies us some of our strength.
At the time, the atheists claimed this was a “good” because they were ridding their society of “evil” religion!
I can only assume your your relatives were murdered by one of the genocidal groups in the 20th century. The Armenians, the Jews, the Ukrainians, the Jews again, the Rwandians, the Cambodians, the Catholics, etc.
#185, Alphie,
. . . its you left loons who bomb etc.
I’m hard pressed to think of any left wing idiot who planted a bamb since Ted the “Unibomber” Kazinski. Since then we have had the anti-abortion types bomb a couple of abortion clinics, a happy, joyful crowd celebrating at the Olympics, some wackos outside of Waco who planted booby traps around their compound, and the Fredrick J Murrow Building in Oklahoma City. I do believe they all professed to being Christians.
Let’s see if we can get up to speed given that some of us actually work:
#146
> He created our Matrix
> in which free will actors
> do what they choose to do.
First, the word or concept of a “matrix” is not used anywhere in the Bible unless it is the Keanu Reaves version. Thus, you are making this up.
Second, you are essentially saying your deity built a framework and then let it run. If that is what you believe, then you must also believe your deity to be imperfect. After all, if evil is borne out of the design of your deity, then evil was either by design or a mistake or an accident. Which is it? It either means your deity is malevolent or imperfect and not omniscient.
> God never inspires evil:
Since we cannot come to mutual understanding of what “god” is, how can we agree on what you think “evil” is since one supposedly inspires the other? You simply cannot get past the problem of even defining what “god” is in order to establish that such a thing/phenomena exists. Such a proof must start with a falsifiable hypothesis; how do we quantitatively and objectively determine what is not your deity?
> Good and evil have incompatible properties
> …its possible to distinguish between
> them as we can distinguish between
> day and night. Scripture is clear
> as to what Christians are to do
> …anyone not consistent with that
> is doing evil.
Nonsense. Good and evil are subjectively determined and change with time. For example, at the time of the Inquisition, it was believed that they were doing “God’s will.” In modern times, such acts are considered barbaric. It is specifically because the Bible is vague in many cases and interpretation is driven by ulterior motives that there is no way to determine what is good and evil at the time it needs to be determined. For every evil deed you can think up, someone has twisted their religion’s scriptures to fit their actions including, most likely, the fanatic that shot Tiller.
I don’t think it is fair to characterize an entire religion, or religion in general, with the criminal insanity of individual actors.
No, to be fair, characterization must be more widespread over numbers of believers and time. Take the Catholicks for instance. We can think of many examples of long term hatred/evil espoused by the Catholicks==sex is for reproduction only, abortion is always wrong, women are the cause of all sin, being gay is unnatural, etc.
Protestants more of the same but more variable.
And so on. No interest in keeping up with all the different foolishnesses sect by sect.
#152
RE: How do atheists define “evil”?
I will first state that by definition it is defined by behavior and motivation not, obviously, by a deity. Secondly, I suggest reading “The Science of Good and Evil” by Michael Shermer. In short, human instinct is the source for a great deal of “evil”. A counter question you might ask yourself is how all the humans that have ever lived that did not believe in the Judeo-Christian deity were able to have moral codes very similar to that of Judeo-Christian. Modern South American tribes, ancient Sumerian tribes and so on all had codes against theft, murder and such. How is that possible when they all have such different belief systems? The logical conclusion is that morality is not based on belief in a specific deity but is borne out of human instinct for survival.
Ancient man, if he were able to see society of today, might ask Christian’s the same questions being asked by theists to atheists. How can you have morality with the rest of the Gods? How can you plant your crops without making sacrifices to the Gods? Christians and atheists both deny the existence of these other deities (although early Christians did not). The difference is that atheists accept the existence of one less deity than Christians.
#159
Perhaps you should learn what a “beg the question” argument fallacy is before you attempt to rebuke someone for using one.
#169
> When all the facts are fully known, and
> God’s righteousness “has been
> made clear”, then everyone is
> moved to praise God, sincerely,
> from their heart:
Clearly not given how much diversity there is even within the Christian faith much less this thread. In addition
#173
> #170 Incorrect, I am
> one of the nicest persons
> around.
I’m sure you are the nicest person you know.
#191
“…less this thread. In addition”
Didn’t really mean to tack on this last bit. Nothing more to add to that. ;->
#194
None of the passages you quote imply anything about some grand “matrix”. Again, this is your own imagination injecting magical meaning into writing that had nothing to do with an all encompassing “matrix”. It is the equivalent of finding your deity in a piece of toast. Seriously son, lay off the drugs.
> God dwells in eternity,
> He IS the place where
> all places are…even the
> ancient Jews understood this:
Where is the falsifiable statement there? How do I know what is NOT your deity? The counter example would be “Purple leprechauns represent everything and anything.” There is no way to support nor refute such a statement just as there is no way to support your claim about a deity. The first step in narrowing down the definition of this “god” thing is to determine, in a quantifiable, objective manner, what is it not.
#198
Again with the beg the question fallacy. “God made the matrix. The matrix is evidence of God”.
Replace “God” in all of your arguments with “ajuqljlfoiseur” and tell me how intelligible your arguments sound. If you cannot define what the term actually means in narrow, tangible, specific terminology, you cannot possibly hope to convince anyone to believe it. You might as well subscribe to Santa Claus being your deity.
Frankly with all of the fluffy “god is eternity” nonsense, I’d have thought you to be one of those crystal channeling, distant healing bozos that Penn & Teller use as the butt of their jokes.
“The first verse I cited proves we are in a matrix, that all things consist by God’s power=matrix.”
That’s the funniest one yet tonight Alfred. You couldn’t prove your way out of a wet paper bag and we all know it.
You’re publicly embarrassing yourself without even knowing it.
#198 Alfred1, great — you’ve used a verse from the Bible to “prove” we’re living in a matrix of God’s thought and power. Don’t you get a little dizzy always traveling in circles?
On a somewhat related note, it’s interesting to see your love of delving deeply into the holy scriptures, often comparing different translations, and other times going back to the original Greek of the New Testament to make sure that no shade of meaning is being stripped out. Like a number of Christians, you love to find those valuable hidden nuggets of deep, profound meaning that lesser Christians completely pass over. There’s a particular word that describes quite well what you practice…
http://tinyurl.com/lb3vtd
#197, Thomas,
It is the equivalent of finding your deity in a piece of toast. Seriously son, lay off the drugs.
Seriously, many of us think he should be taking his medication so he will stop seeing his god in the toast OR his mirror.
The God Matrix
Alphie,
I would like you to explain something, are children born innocent or are they already born full of sin and wickedness?
http://.youtube.com/watch?v=180MwFbF-a8&feature=related
This hopefully will have a happy ending…like Paul Hill who was executed for killing a doctor in Florida.