Sanctity Of Life | OrthodoxNet.com Blog

God: The Central Question of Worldview

May 6, 2011

God Trinity - Father, Son, Holy Spirit by Tom Gilson

Of all the issues affecting every person’s picture of reality, nothing is more fundamental than questions about God. Is there one God, Creator and Sovereign of all? Could there be more than one god? Or no God at all? If there is a God (or gods), then what is that God (or gods) like? Nothing determines your worldview—and the course of your life—more than how you answer those questions.

And yet some atheists like to make light of the God question. Richard Dawkins brushed it aside this way in The God Delusion:

I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon-Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further.

I like to call that the arithmetical atheism argument. Its force (such as it is) depends on the idea that in counting gods, as in counting inches on a ruler, the distance between one and zero is no different than the distance between two and one. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Apologetics, Christianity, Defense of Innocence, Moral issues, Sanctity of Life

We Must Embrace Conflict

December 23, 2010

12/23/2010 – Steve Jalsevac -
Christ lived and taught and was Love, but that love and teaching were never politically correct. They often involved the saying of hard truths that many did not want to hear.

Christ’s birth was the ultimate sign of God’s love for the human race. And yet He was hated and there were those who wanted to kill Him, even as an infant and later as He healed thousands of diseases and even raised some from the dead. In the end, He was cruelly murdered.

One of the lessons of His life was that true love does not avoid conflict, and true love is often obliged to say things that are not welcomed or that disturb people, although the intent is never to disturb or to hurt. True love involves sticking one’s neck out where others refuse to do so for fear of personal discomfort, loss of worldly respect, or other less-than-admirable reasons. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Christian Persecution, Christianity, Culture war, Defense of Innocence, Moral issues, Sanctity of Life

Abortion Greater Threat to Europe than Islamic Terrorism

December 20, 2010

12/20/2010 – Hilary White -
Legal abortion is “the single most grievous moral deficit in contemporary life” and its proliferation will exact an as-yet unknown social price for the countries that have adopted it, said Lord Nicholas Windsor, the son of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, this month.

“The granting to ourselves of the right wantonly to kill, each year, millions of our offspring at the beginning of their lives: This is the question of questions for Europe,” he said.

“The practice of abortion is a mortal wound in Europe’s heart, in the center of Hellenic and Judeo-Christian culture.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Anti-Abortion, Family, Leftism, Moral issues, Sanctity of Life

Death Dignified by Christ

November 19, 2010

11/19/2010 – David Mills -
He was a dignified man suffering all the embarrassing ways cheerful young women the age of his granddaughter deal with the body’s failure as cancer begins shutting down the organs. Dying in a hospice, you lose all rights to modesty as you lose control of your body.

Few men could have found the indignities of those last few weeks more excruciating than did my father. But this was what dying of cancer is like, and my father, being the man he was, took it like a man. It was the hand he’d been dealt, and he was going to play it, as bad as it was. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Christianity, Philosophy, Sanctity of Life

A ‘Duty to Die’?

May 11, 2010

5/11/2010 – Thomas Sowell -
One of the many fashionable notions that have caught on among some of the intelligentsia is that old people have “a duty to die” rather than become a burden to others.

This is more than just an idea discussed around a seminar table. Already the government-run medical system in Britain is restricting what medications or treatments it will authorize for the elderly. Moreover, it seems almost certain that similar attempts to contain runaway costs will lead to similar policies when American medical care is taken over by the government. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Defense of Innocence, Euthanasia/Asst. Suicide, Totalitarian Democrats

Earth Day 2010 – Celebrate Human Life

April 22, 2010

LifeSiteNews.com – The pro-life group CatholicVote.org says it’s time to use Earth Day to celebrate nature’s greatest gift – human life.
Earth Day 2010 Celebrate Human Life [Read more...]

Filed Under: Christianity, Defense of Innocence, Roman Catholic, Sanctity of Life

Creation and Man

April 22, 2010

Chuck Colson

Christian Post | by Chuck Colson | 4/22/2010

… Christians are rightly concerned that extremists have turned Earth Day into “Worship-Earth Day.”

Just listen to a few of these suggestions for Earth Day 2010 that some of the more radical groups are proposing: taking down “global eco-criminals” like Exxon-Mobil; having school kids meditate about the Spirit of Life (that’s “Spirit of Life” with capital letters); seeking international cooperation on reducing the human population; or working for, and I quote, the “ultimate, inevitable, and necessary dismantling of industrial civilization.”

We Christians certainly do not want to be yoked with new agers, neo-pagans, or folks who just downright hate humanity. But there’s no reason for us to surrender creation care to them, either. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Christianity, Environment, Environmentalist Radicals, Moral issues, Sanctity of Life

Shouldn’t We be Nice to Puppies?

April 9, 2010

Orthodoxy Today | by Wesley J. Smith | 4/9/2010

What is the proper Christian view toward “animal rights?” That depends on how one defines the term. Christians—like all people—certainly have the duty to treat animals humanely and with proper standards of care. But that is properly called animal welfare, not animal rights.

So what’s the difference between animal welfare and animal rights? Animal welfare acknowledges that humans have unique dignity and value. In direct contrast, animal rights denigrates human exceptionalism as “speciesist,” that is, discrimination against animals. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Defense of Innocence, Leftist Lunatic Fringe, Moral issues, Sanctity of Life

Leadership: Is the Microphone On?

March 23, 2010

The Orthodox Leader | by Fr Basil Biberdorf | 3/23/2010

The recent turmoil surrounding the recent passage of healthcare legislation by the United States Congress is providing ample opportunity to look at the absence of Orthodox leadership. As a reminder, this blog’s purpose is not political. To the extent this legislation reflects Caesar’s affairs, it is generally best for the Church to remain silent.

Sadly, though, this legislation is not purely about political matters, for it has provisions for using taxes gathered from individuals, including Christians, to pay for elective abortions in all or part (c.f., here and here). Despite the scandalously equivocal language used by the Ecumenical Patriarch in discussing abortion (c.f., here, here, here, and here), the Church’s teaching cannot be misunderstood. As a best example, consider St. Basil the Great (AD 330-379), who says absolutely nothing new: “Women also who administer drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children, are murderesses” (Letter 188).

Children in the womb are human beings, and their willful destruction is murder. So what about all those who will now find themselves accessories to the crime through the new legal requirement to fund abortion? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Anti-Abortion, Defense of Innocence, Orthodox Church, Sanctity of Life

A Petition of Christian Conscience

January 25, 2010

BreakPoint | by Chuck Colson | Jan. 22, 2010

One of my all-time favorite movies reminds me that it often takes a bold act to awaken the conscience of a nation. It’s one of the most dramatic scenes in a really great movie. The movie is Amazing Grace. The scene is the House of Commons in the latter years of the eighteenth century. William Wilberforce stuns his parliamentary colleagues by unrolling an enormous scroll down the aisle. On the scroll were the signatures of 390,000 Englishmen, demanding that Parliament abolish the slave trade—the greatest moral issue of the day. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Christianity, Defense of Innocence, Sanctity of Life

Pulling the Plug on the Conscience Clause

December 3, 2009

First Things | by Wesley J. Smith | December 2009

Over the past fifty years, the purposes and practices of medicine have changed radically. Where medical ethics was once life-affirming, today’s treatments and medical procedures increasingly involve the legal taking of human life. The litany is familiar: More than one million pregnancies are extinguished each year in the United States, thousands late-term. Physician-assisted suicide is legal in Oregon, Washington, and, as this is written, Montana via a court ruling (currently on appeal to the state supreme court). One day, doctors may be authorized to kill patients with active euthanasia, as they do already in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Anti-Abortion, Defense of Innocence, Sanctity of Life

Suicide Culture: The Netherlands Shows That It’s’ Never Enough

November 14, 2009

First Things | by Wesley J. Smith | Nov. 13, 2009

The Netherlands has the world’s most liberal euthanasia law, which is even more radical in practice. Its doctors assist the suicides of the depressed and the grieving, a practice long since approved by the country’s Supreme Court. Some “terminate” patients “without request or consent.” Babies born with serious disabilities are subjected to eugenic infanticide. Doctors whose patients may not qualify for euthanasia refer patients to an on line “auto euthanasia” how-to-commit suicide” site. Doctors who decide it is too difficult to kill patients directly, put them into terminal sedation so they don’t do the deed directly and in person. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture war, Euthanasia/Asst. Suicide

Warning: Obamacare May Be Hazardous to the Unborn

September 23, 2009

Center for a Just Society | Ken Connor | Sep. 18, 2009

President Obama attempted to allay the concerns of pro-life advocates last week by assuring Americans that federal funding for abortion will not be included in “his” health care reform plan. [...]

What’s going on here? Either President Obama has experienced an epiphany regarding the sanctity of human life at every stage of development, or once again his Administration is attempting to pull the wool over the American people’s eyes with a rhetorical bait and switch. A review of the facts may provide insight as to which is the case. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Moral issues, Pro-Abortion Democrats, Sanctity of Life

Taking on Goliath

March 30, 2009

InsideCatholic.com | Deal W. Hudson | March 25, 2009

If you think the pro-life movement has run out of energy and new ideas, you should meet Lila Rose. You may not know her name, but you very likely have seen the media coverage of her various sting operations at Planned Parenthood clinics around the country.

Rose is 20 years old, but she is already entering her fourth year of covert operation, as it were, exposing the underhanded — and, in some cases, potentially illegal — practices at abortion clinics run by Planned Parenthood. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Anti-Abortion, Christianity, Sanctity of Life

“Right to Die” Can Become a “Duty to Die”

March 2, 2009

OrthodoxyToday.org | Wesley J. Smith | Mar. 1, 2009

Imagine that you have lung cancer. It has been in remission, but tests show the cancer has returned and is likely to be terminal. Still, there is some hope. Chemotherapy could extend your life, if not save it. You ask to begin treatment. But you soon receive more devastating news. A letter from the government informs you that the cost of chemotherapy is deemed an unjustified expense for the limited extra time it would provide. However, the government is not without compassion. You are informed that whenever you are ready, it will gladly pay for your assisted suicide.

Think that’s an alarmist scenario to scare you away from supporting “death with dignity”? Wrong. That is exactly what happened last year to two cancer patients in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Defense of Innocence, Euthanasia/Asst. Suicide