Have a look in Leviticus 18. The Canaanites indulged in all sorts of things (you probably know that Jericho was a city in Canaa), including infant sacrifice and bestiality. Leviticus 18 NIV - Unlawful Sexual Relations - The LORD - Bible Gateway
Better to be a baby killed unborn or at risk of sacrifice or worse? You will know that these were very different times.
I donât think what got into the bible is inherently more reliable that the historic material that didnât.
And that goes for the new testament as well.
Doubly so, in fact.
Well youâll know as I wrote it earlier that all over the Indian subcontinent (though less in Kerala) and in rural China it is very common to strangle smother or otherwise dispose of female infants at or shortly after birth. Abortion is infinitely preferable to infanticide in my eyes, though not perhaps in those of the pro-lifers.
Those pesky female infants, eh.
So in your moral universe Porridge the removal of a few cells from a womanâs body is wrong, but the slaughter of âevery living thingâ in a city (because some adults there did wrong) is justifiable?
The âtimes were different thenâ argument also, of course, only applies to human history - it cannot for obvious reasons be used to excuse god - but even in human terms itâs dubious. While itâs certainly true that world-views change in different historical circumstances (generally as a result of reasoning and campaigning by the left), if you read contemporary accounts of atrocities, slavery, etc, itâs generally the case that some, or indeed most people actually knew at the time that what was happening was shameful.
Just when I was beginning to think, thank goodness for a bit of thread drift at last. 
This is a bleak time. This map says a lot. Remember, it was the right wingnuts who pushed this to happen when a MAJORITY of constituents are for keeping abortion legal. Travel to another state is impossible for many, and currently the native nations have little infrastructure to provide the services required to accommodate the number of women who would seek the services. As a soon to be ex-resident of Arizona, Iâm not surprised, our governor (dictator) is not supportive of his constituents. He is supportive of lining his own pocket. American citizens really need to start to speak up!
Geof, I answered your question about my beliefs at 269. Iâm afraid itâs not a black and white answer. I am concerned by the vast numbers of abortions being performed in a time when we have (in the West) unparalleled access to birth control and sex education. It does not seem to be what Parliament envisaged, or legislated for, in the 1967 Act. In its own way, this is like the judge-made law in Roe v Wade and Dobbs v Jackson , only with doctors extending the provision by an extremely loose reading of the provisions.
I donât believe it is for anyone to judge whether someone should have an abortion: that is a matter of conscience for the individual concerned. It is entirely reasonable â in a pluralist society â to talk about the belief that a foetus has a value independent of whether the pregnancy is desired.
Youâd have to cite some examples of âatrocities, slavery, etc.â for me to know what you mean and respond to it.
Vero, âwhat happens to the poor handmaids daughters in Sodomâ. I think it was worse than that: it was Lot who offered his daughters to a mob outside which wanted to rape his guests. It shows how carefully you need to read the Bible sometimes if youâre unsympathetic to it, because that might lead you to a misinterpretation. Here, the story about Lotâs disgraceful behaviour is plainly not âThis is what you should doâ but the reverse. Itâs also about their custom of protecting the visiting stranger (you could substitute asylum-seeker, those these strangers were by no means as vulnerable as any asylum-seeker) and, especially, the exceptional wickedness of Sodom. You need to look at the whole story: Lot, negotiating to save his city, could not find even ten righteous men there.
Itâs not as if Christians donât struggle with these stories, you know? How to reconcile them with the Jesus of the New Testament, who described himself as âgentle and lowlyâ.
David, sorry, I hope you donât get RSI from feverish scrolling!
I forgot the comma and yes I meant specifically Lotâs daughters, and didnât they have a great destiny. Not to mention his wife who got off lightly being turned into a pillar of salt Ă la Eurydice.
Angel induced blindness doesnât seem like a punishment for the daughter sacrificing but the daring to lay hands and wishing to go in unto angels to lie with them. I donât think you should tart up the evident disposability of women in holy writ. Yay dump Hagar and Ishmael under a bush in the desert etc.
I have actually lived in a country where an almost identical code of hospitality, honour etc is still enforced and I thought it was very interesting, I donât know what your direct experience may be.
I think it is another bit of casuistry that you say you are worried about the numbers of abortions - surely if objecting on moral grounds then numbers donât matter. cf Learâs chat with Goneril and Regan about men at arms.
I still find it significant that you donât address the principle of what is happening in the US and cherrypick what I write and answer a carefully curated choice of things.
I also was particularly surprised and offended by the patronising suggestion I might be writing from a place of having had bad experiences with men because itâs twaddle and a subtle way of invalidating what I said by presenting it as a personal vendetta. I am mentioning it again simply because I told you and you ignored what I said.
Anyway I currently have other fish to fry so Iâll leave it at that. I was silly enough to re-engage, I shall no further.
(Edited to add that when I read the Bible as a smallish child I wasnât at all unsympathetic to it, quite the contrary, I was fascinated and loved the language of the Authorised Version as I still do, I actually enjoyed reading all the stories in the OT as a very small but competent reader* and can still recite chunks of both O&NT which came in moderately handy when I did RE for O level. I found Suetonius and the memoirs of the Duc de Saint Simon similarly marvellous.
*This led to misunderstandings, I thought the children of Israel were recognisable because they were a bit scalped because obv your foreskin is part of your forehead isnât it. My poor granny had to deal with the ensuing conversation)
Yes, Iâm of the same mind. I was shocked by the contrast between Porridgeâs views on abortion and apparent willingness to try to justify mass killing - but that anomaly aside I do think there has been some evolution in his thinking over the course of the discussion - and I hope this will continue, with quiet reflection, in the same humane direction.
This made me laugh almost uncontrollably 
, because, of course, weâve all made some sort of similar mistake as young children ⌠havenât we ?
At the age of 11, I wrote an essay for Religious Ed class about the Jewish religion. I carefully read out my piece in class, stating all Jewish boys were castrated after birth.
A most challenging day for the poor young nun who was our teacher left to explain the difference between castration and circumcision to the class in an all girls school.
Days of innocence 
Something to think about
Priceless
Vero, in quoting me, at 176, you said âInability to see [that the fact you canât become pregnant means your opinion will be less valid (or perhaps differently valid) than the opinion of someone with first-hand experience] is a very good example of the view-point of the dominant group. Straight white male privilege, you could say when it comes to sexism racism or homophobia. Minimising and victim blaming are the sharp end of that tendency.
âThe sort of attitude where someone might say oh I help my wife with hoovering: is it her hoovering? Is she uniquely fitted to clean cook etc by virtue of that 2nd X chromosome? Big of you to help but it is half your job like all the other tedious home admin.
âAnd of course you wonât have a clue about how biased you actually are, thatâs part of it, a sort of asonognosia if you like.â
Now I could have accused you of being patronising (âof course you wonât have a clue about how biased you actually areâ), or accused you of lumping me (of whom you know hardly anything) with men who think women should do all the housework â but instead I responded to the bad experiences of men you described (who sound dreadfully old-fashioned), especially if it coloured your view of men in general, and reminded you of your belief that members of the dominant group (here, itâs white liberal Western atheist, though there are some elements of that which perhaps donât apply to you) may be completely unaware of their bias. And I added a parenthetical comment to point out what Iâd done.
(I think you understood at the time, actually, but later someone mischievously suggested you ought to take offence! Iâm sorry if itâs rankled with you.)
What a load of twaddle! By the way, he bought her a robot vacuum to ease her burden which had the advantage of eliminating the task for him as well!
Fascinating article here - I link it hoping not to restart an adversarial discussion, but because of the important, often hidden history of womenâs reproductive health it referencesâŚ
I had a very very interesting conversation after the exam with one of the bac candidates I was examining who described dealing with everyday racism here as a black18 year-old. I have been told all sorts of things by my students (many if whom are black, from the Maghreb and/or girls). It would make your hair stand on end.
I think that it is extremely difficult to make the imaginative leap no matter how hard you try if you arenât in the particular group. It is evident that low-level sexism and racism are absolutely normal and go unnoticed by the dominant section of society but that same low-level sexism and racism are felt all the time by those who arenât part of the dominant section of society.
You might like to read âeveryday sexismâ online if you havenât already, it is probably an eye-opener for someone who, from what he writes, doesnât believe sexism is a big problem here and now.
I know what it is like to be almost in the dominant group by virtue of education and working abroad where my job bought me ersatz masculinity, but the fact remains that you as a man are highly unlikely to be told eg to smile in the street by some random man whereas itâs something that happens to girls and women all the time, and it is tedious in the extreme. And that is the least offensive tip of the iceberg.
It isnât a particularly old fashioned and dinosaurish man who assumes that children house stuff or daily food preparation are womenâs work, it is society as a whole (including many older women for whom itâs a justification of their existence) and very few people question it. There are, obviously, exceptions.
It is almost invariably working mothers who are called when a child is ill at school, for example. Working mothers still do disproportionately more housework, statistically.
My builders here always spoke about my enormous building job to my husband, who didnât speak a word of French. Not bad youngish men, just fairly stereotypical and who couldnât grasp I could be the maĂŽtre dâouvrage. They were happy to talk to me eg about what I was making for lunch.
A far cry from when I was persuading Pathan patriarchs to allow their female family members to get antenatal care or be seen by a doctor but still sexist.
I think what you havenât grasped is that what you refer to as âbad experiences with menâ are just the very very normal low-level everyday things women deal with and what a woman would call a bad experience usually involves unwanted physical contact threatening behaviour or insults.
Vero, you are working on assumptions about me, since you know next-to-nothing about me. Your assumptions are based on my gender, and your perceptions of my ethnicity and sexuality â in fact, you are doing to me precisely what you complain about when it happens to you!
Well fess up then. You appear to be an over middle-aged whitish man which puts you in the dominant group in most parts of the world, whatever your sexual persuasion which is none of anybodyâs business and I donât think I have said anything about.
Of course the photo could be a random one picked off the internet, but Iâd prefer to think people here were more upfront. You could be a transman but I think youâd be more sensitive to male privilege if you were.
One of the reasons straight men are weird about gay men is they fear they may be treated as they treat women, according to a gay (man) friend of mine.
QED then 
