Comments by "June VanDerMark" (@junevandermark952) on "Real Stories"
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Many years ago, a man and his wife of the Jehovah's Witness denomination came to my door to proselytize their beliefs. I invited them in, treated them with dignity, and we discussed our own ways of believing. I was still under my own spell of religion at that time.
When the subject turned to the issue of abortion, the woman made it plain that she looked down on women for what she perceived was their heartless acts of aborting “babies.”
When I asked her if there was a woman in her presence that suffered from a botched abortion if she would help her, she answered in a haughty manner, "I don't know!!! She chose to do that, so, I just don't know!"
I then asked the question, "From your perception, what do you believe Jesus would do in that circumstance?"
She stared at me, speechless. Her husband, whose head was hung as he stared at the floor finally broke the silence. With a voice that was barely audible, he said, "I believe Jesus would help the woman."
It might not be a good idea to be too hasty about what your supposed savior “believes.”
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@saucyjk6453 Although this United States Supreme Court judge is now deceased, words from her book live on.
From the book … My Own Words … author … RUTH BADER GINSBURG. Whether you are a Christian, or an Atheist … you better think hard and long, as you close one clinic after another … in the pretense that it protects “babies.” The lives of women are at stake here, and they are the lives of your mothers, daughters, aunts, friends … and even grandmothers.
Then she made a point, nowhere addressed in the Breyer opinion, but embedded in the memories of women old enough to remember the days when abortion was illegal: “When a State severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstances may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners, faute de mieux, at great risk to their health and safety.”
(Later speaking with a reporter, she was blunt about the law’s purpose: “It seemed to me it was a sham to pretend this was about a woman’s health” rather than about making it harder to obtain an abortion.)
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@saucyjk6453 No soul … no afterlife.
Just imagine the burden this poor man was under, by being certain that a god exists that was judging his “soul.” I read a story in a book that was written by a neurologist, who told of a Protestant minister, that in turn tried to end his life by gunshot, but failed ... and how when he regained consciousness, he said he was so ashamed. His words were “I couldn’t even do THAT right.”
Now from the book Suicidal: Why We Kill Ourselves … author Jesse Bering. “Unless you’ve been there yourself, you’ve no idea the balm such a thing can offer to a secretly suicidal soul who, his whole life long had been laboring under the unlikely premise that he had a soul to begin with. What a burden! Without a soul, there’s no afterlife, there’s only the theater of the now.”
And now from the book … Apostle to Apostate: The Story of the Clergy Project … authors … Catherine Dunphy, Richard Dawkins … Leaving a job in ministry is unlike any other career change. Not only are there feelings of isolation, but there are also fears about how to communicate one’s skills in ministry to another Job. Most members who had already left church work detailed a long arduous journey to find employment outside of religion. Many, if not most, of them returned to school, seeking degrees in psychology, social work, business administration, and computer science.
As they struggle through this process, I am thankful that they can look to the Clergy Project as an example of community and humanism as an example of good. As former clergy who have left churches of every denomination, synagogues, mosques, convents, monasteries, and theological institutions, we stand as examples of the reasonableness of doubt and its thoughtful conclusions. I cannot help but think that we offer a compelling voice for why science and secularism do a better job than religion and superstition of answering the so-called ultimate questions.
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@saucyjk6453 Would you label these members of clergy as being moral ... or immoral?
From the book ... Life's Work: A Moral Argument for Choice ... author ... Dr. Willie Parker
Ethical Abortion Care
An estimated 450,000 women called on the Clergy Consultation Service for help in the six years before Roe--and the coalition, which started with twenty-one members, grew to two thousand. Activism by Moody's group helped propel New York's legislature to legalize abortion in 1970, the first state in the nation to do so.
Emboldened by its success, the Clergy Consultation Service then began to help women from other states travel to New York to obtain safe and legal abortions, and then, breaking with medical establishment, these same clerics proposed the model for the first abortion clinic. Believing that women's privacy and autonomy would be better served if they could get their abortion care in a freestanding clinic instead of in a hospital. Moody's group worked with a doctor committed to providing "low cost, quality care, humane treatment and a willingness to serve the poor" in a freestanding place. Women's Services, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, was the first abortion clinic in the country.
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@jannieschluter9670 My perception is that the earliest of theologians claimed that gods were talking to them ... but that story was not as effective as the theologians expected. So they created stories that humans were SO evil ... and SO disobedient to the gods, that the gods felt impelled to send their own sons to earth ... to in turn warn the evil humans that they MUST repent of sin TO these sons of gods ... or spend eternity in the "afterlife" suffering.
The supposed savior of souls of Christians, was just the most recent savior-myth story. Example as follows, and please note how Chrishna was spelled, before the Christians came up with the word Christ, and how the Hindus then changed the spelling of their supposed savior to "Krishna."
From the book … The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors … Christianity before Christ, by Kersey Graves … first published in 1875.
and finally these twenty Jesus Christs (accepting their character for the name) laid the foundation for the salvation of the world, and ascended back to heaven.
1. Chrishna of Hindostan.
2. Budha Sakia of India.
3. Salivahana of Bermuda
4. Zulis, or Zhule, also Osiris and Orus, of Egypt.
5. Odin of the Scandinavians.
6. Crite of Chaldea.
7. Zoroaster and Mithra of Persia.
8. Baal and Taut, “the only Begotten of God,” of Phenicia.
9. Indra of Thibet.
10. Bali of Afghanistan.
11. Jao of Nepaul.
12. Wittoa of the Bilingonese.
13. Thammuz of Syria.
14. Atys of Phrygia.
15. Xamolxis of Thrace.
16. Zoar of the Bonzes.
17. Adad of Assyria.
18. Deva Tat,aud Sammonocadam of Siam.
19. Alcides of Thebes.
20. Mikado of the Sintoos.
21. Beddru of Japan.
22. Hesus or Eros, and Bremrillah, of the Druids.
23. Thor, son of Odin, of the Gauls.
24. Cadmus of Greece.
25. Hil and Feta of the Mandaites.
26. Gentaut and Quexalcote of Mexico.
27. Universal Monarch of the Sibyls.
28. Ischy of the Island of Formosa.
29. Divine teacher of Plato.
30. Holy One of xaca.
31. Fohi and Tien of China.
32. Adonis, son of the virgin Io of Greece.
33. Ision and Quirinus of Rome.
34. Prometheus of Caucasus.
35. Mohammud, or Mahomet, of Arabia.
These have all received divine honors, have nearly all been worshiped as Gods, or sons of Gods; were mostly incarnated as Christs, Saviors, Messiahs, or Mediators; not a few of them were reputedly born of virgins; some of them filling a character almost identical with that ascribed by the Christian’s bible to Jesus Christ; many of them like him, are reported crucified; and all of them, taken together, furnish a prototype and parallel for nearly every important incident and wonder-inciting miracle, doctrine and precept recorded in the New Testament, of the Christian’s Savior. Surely, with so many Saviors the world cannot, or should not, be lost.
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@jannieschluter9670 The term Kingdom Hall is simply another word for church.
Other than because of egoism ... why would you WANT to believe that a god exists that would favor those in your group special ... while he shuns those in other groups as being evil?
Thankfully … now that hundreds of members of clergy are leaving religion behind ... there is hope for everyone.
From the book ... Apostle to Apostate: The Story of the Clergy Project … authors … Catherine Dunphy, Richard Dawkins
When you are reared to think of your faith and its leaders as infallible, dissent can be an unsettling thing. This is particularly true for clergy, who have devoted their lives to the subject of faith. I therefore especially hope that this story reaches those clergy who have yet to articulate their doubts.
As they struggle through this process, I am thankful that they can look to the Clergy Project as an example of community and humanism as an example of good. As former clergy who have left churches of every denomination, synagogues, mosques, convents, monasteries, and theological institutions, we stand as examples of the reasonableness of doubt and its thoughtful conclusions. I cannot help but think that we offer a compelling voice for why science and secularism do a better job than religion and superstition of answering the so-called ultimate questions.
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