About Life

I almost feel silly having to point this out, but after the Republican who claimed that a raped woman's pregnancy was a "gift from God," it just seems like a good time to point out that which is obvious to me: Neither life nor death is inherently good or evil (or inherently good or bad, if you prefer.) If you buy the argument that God is only concerned with creating life, and not in causing death as well, then death is Satan's job. Those with the mind of a three-year-old believe this, and point to the story of Adam and Eve where they were going to live happily in the Garden of Eden forever till the serpent messed things up for them (and, by extension, all the rest of us.) The reality of the matter is plain to see: Everything, including or perhaps especially life, has a beginning and an end. If you believe in an all-powerful God, you must believe that this is His will.

To believe otherwise, you'd have to believe that God wants the world overpopulated, with all the misery this would cause, or perhaps wants a perfect number of each species on the Earth after which He would take away our ability to reproduce (thus robbing us of the joy of having children). Anyone with an ounce of sense can see that this is not likely to be the case - a loving God would not want to deprive us of joy.

Furthermore, if you believe in an afterlife, the absence of death would prevent one from going to Heaven. Well perhaps we'd all have Heaven on Earth. But if each person's idea of Heaven is different, how could that be? I wouldn't much like a Heaven without babies or children, where I was forever separated from those I love who had already passed away.

The point I'm making here is that life may be God's will but so is death. Whether it's a gift or not depends on your perspective - I, for one, cannot understand how some of those starving children bloated with hunger could perceive their miserable existence as a gift but maybe that's just me.

We've been given free will. That means there's God's will and there's human will on this earth. Sometimes they coincide, and sometimes they don't. A man raping a woman sounds like human will to me, not God's will. If a baby is conceived as a result - a result of human will, not God's will - that baby was therefore created from the will of the man who raped the woman. And thanks to medical advances (the result of God-given intelligence as well as God-given human free will), the woman who was raped now has the free will to choose whether to have the baby or not, and live with the consequences of her decision in this life and perhaps the next - at least in this country she does, at the present time, thanks to those who have paved the way for her to have such a choice.

Nobody who thinks she should have a choice in that matter also thinks that murder is acceptable in society. Nobody who thinks she should NOT have a choice in the matter has to be in her shoes and live with the results of the rapist's actions. And nobody who is making her business THEIR business is truly affected by her decision, or her ability to make her own decision. It's not like society is going to legalize infanticide and make it possible for a woman to come into their home and kill THEIR baby (born or unborn). This is simply not a situation where society has a clear interest in legislating away a certain action by one of its members.

And this post won't convince a single person on the other side of the issue. But I had to write it anyway.