Dr. Tiller's Murder..thoughts?

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Dr. Tiller's Murder..thoughts?

Theist Article. Dr. Albert Mohler. Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY.

 

What do you all think of this article???

 

The cold-blooded murder of Dr. George Tiller on Sunday morning presents the pro-life movement in America with a crucial moral test -- will we condemn this murder in unqualified terms?

For many years, Dr. George Tiller has represented the horrific reality of the abortion industry in this nation.  Infamously known to the pro-life movement in America, Tiller was known as "Tiller the Killer" because of his well-known willingness to perform late-term abortions almost no other doctor in the nation would perform.  Because of Dr. George Tiller, Wichita became the destination of choice for women seeking abortions in the late third trimester.

In 1993 Tiller was shot in both arms by an assailant.  His clinic was regularly protested and was once bombed.  Tiller had many brushes with the law, and just weeks ago he was acquitted of charges that he had colluded with another physician to illegally justify late-term abortions.

George Tiller was shot to death Sunday morning as he was serving as an usher at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita.  Witnesses said that a lone assailant entered the church, shot Dr. Tiller with a single shot, threatened two others, and then fled the scene.  A suspect was arrested hours later.  Wichita police said that the unnamed suspect would likely face multiple charges as early as Monday.

Violence in response to the horror of abortion is rare, but not new.  According to some news reports, Dr. Tiller was the fifth physician to be murdered by abortion opponents.  In other cases, abortion clinics have been bombed and workers have been hurt or killed.

Proponents of abortion rights often charge that the rhetoric of the pro-life movement leads to violence.  After all, we describe abortion as murder and point to the business of abortion as the murder of the unborn.  We make clear that abortion is the taking of innocent human life and that what goes on in abortion clinics is the business of death.

We make these arguments because we know they are true.  Abortion is murder.  What goes on in those clinics is institutionalized homicide, often for financial profit.  Abortion is a moral scandal and a national tragedy and a blight upon the American conscience.

But violence in the name of protesting abortion is immoral, unjustified, and horribly harmful to the pro-life cause.  Now, the premeditated murder of Dr. George Tiller in the foyer of his church is the headline scandal -- not the abortions he performed and the cause he represented.

We have no right to take the law into our own hands in an act of criminal violence.  We are not given the right to take this power into our own hands, for God has granted this power to governing authorities.  The horror of abortion cannot be rightly confronted, much less corrected, by means of violence and acts outside the law and lawful means of remedy.  This is not merely a legal technicality -- it is a vital test of the morality of the pro-life movement.

The Christian church has been forced by historical necessity to think through these issues again and again.  The church has reached a basic moral consensus on issues of violence and governmental obedience, and this consensus requires that Christian citizens work within legal, judicial, and political means to persuade governing authorities concerning what is good, right, just, and honoring to God.  Those who operate outside of this consensus and perform acts of violence are rightly understood to abrogate authority to themselves in a way that violates not only the laws of men but the law of God.  Civil disobedience may be justified so long as the Christian is willing to suffer at the hands of the governing authorities, but is not justified if the citizen employs violence against the state or against other citizens.

In the case of Dr. George Tiller, the governing authorities failed again and again to fulfill their responsibility to protect all citizens, including those yet unborn.  The law is dishonoring to God in its disrespect for human life.  The law failed to bring George Tiller to account for what should have been seen as crimes against humanity.  But this failure does not authorize others to act in the place of the government, much less in the place of God.  The government must now act to prosecute and punish the murderer of Dr. George Tiller.

In October of 1859, John Brown led a violent attack upon the United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.  A radical abolitionist, Brown had already proved himself capable of violence for his cause.  In 1856 he had led a gang that brutally killed several pro-slavery figures in Kansas. The raid on Harpers Ferry led to more deaths before Brown and his surviving rebels were arrested, charged with treason, and executed.

When John Brown was arrested, Henry David Thoreau defended the man and his violence, asking:  "Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? Or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are not good?"

Those are the very questions some are tempted to ask now, but these weighty questions cannot justify violence in the name of an honorable cause.  Thoreau was right about the fact that the laws allowing slavery in the United States were immoral and unjustifiable.  John Brown was right when he claimed that slavery was a blight upon the nation's conscience -- a wrong that had to be ended.  Brown's logic led him to treason, and he was found guilty in a court of law and punished.  Thoreau would refer to Brown as an "angel of light," but Thoreau never had to live with the consequences of his own attempt to justify murder, nor did he ever acknowledge the true character of the man.

The pro-life movement in America must not wage war against abortion by following the example of John Brown.  Nor can we allow ourselves the luxury of the logic of defending the indefensible along the lines of Thoreau. We must confront this great evil of abortion from a higher plane, and know that the battle is ultimately in God's hands.

Murder is murder.  The law rightly affirms that the killing of Dr. George Tiller is murder.  In this we must agree.  We cannot rest until the law also recognizes the killing of the unborn as murder.  The killing of Dr. George Tiller makes that challenge all the more difficult.


Brian37
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If the pro lifers have any

If the pro lifers have any morals whatso ever they should shout from the roof tops how wrong the killer was.

I mentioned a quote from the doctors friend in the other thread, "The only difference between this guy(meaning the killer), and the Taliban, is 8,000 miles".

You will never see any sane atheist blow up a church because they find claims of sky daddies absurd.

If any person claiming to be an atheist ever commited this type of act twards a believer, I would be the first to condemn such an action.

This is merely the act of a sick narsicistic asshole.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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Brian37
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I love how the church, which

I love how the church, which is always behind on social issues and science, backpeddles and claims to be the leader of change. NO, religion has always had to be dragged kicking and screaming like a child throwing a tantrum, into the future.

Christianity did not free slaves, people who held religious beliefs, decided to buck the old ways, DESPITE the norms of the times. Our social issues have always been hindered by the albitross of religion. It is in spite of Christianity, not because of it, that humanity has crawled out of the dark ages.

If anyone thinks religion is the leader of change, all one has to do, to see the past, is to look at the current state of Islam in the East. That is what Chrisitanity looked like mere centuries ago. To assume that our secular status in the west will always be, is to set us up to backslide into the very tribalistic theocracies secular minded people(of various beliefs) sought to avoid.

The age of reason was a movement to promote arbitration over dissagreements through diolouge without violence. Theism is so deep rooted against this because, especially with the god(s) of Abraham, are NOT characters who allow dissent, however, authoritarian dictators who demand absolute compliance.

This doctor WAS killed by god belief, just as the hijackers killed in the name of Allah, there is no difference. UNTIL believers accept that religion can be used as weapon, they will continue to allow environments to manifest into such horrible acts, such as the murder of this doctor.

Deity belief is not going anywhere, nor should our government use force to silence peaceful dissent. BUT, no one, believer or not, should find this kind of behavior acceptable.

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Observer
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That was kind of the vibe I

That was kind of the vibe I got as well.  The article seems to have the attitude of, "...yeah the murder was wrong, but the doctor deserved it." I still think the author feels the murderer was wrong and should be convicted of the crime. I think the author wants to take on abortion legally and not through violence. However, I also feel like he indicates that this murder is not as sad as the murder of a person not in Tiller's profession.  Maybe I am reading too much into it. That's just my observation.


Cpt_pineapple
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Observer wrote: The

Observer wrote:

 

The cold-blooded murder of Dr. George Tiller on Sunday morning presents the pro-life movement in America with a crucial moral test -- will we condemn this murder in unqualified terms?

 

 

 

We should, but some won't

 

Quote:

Proponents of abortion rights often charge that the rhetoric of the pro-life movement leads to violence. 

 

Really? No kidding eh?

 

 

Quote:

But violence in the name of protesting abortion is immoral, unjustified, and horribly harmful to the pro-life cause.  Now, the premeditated murder of Dr. George Tiller in the foyer of his church is the headline scandal -- not the abortions he performed and the cause he represented.

 

Taking a life isn't valuing life, ergo bombing/shooting is immoral and does nothing to advance and only hinders  the pro-life stance.

 

Quote:

We have no right to take the law into our own hands in an act of criminal violence.  We are not given the right to take this power into our own hands, for God has granted this power to governing authorities.  The horror of abortion cannot be rightly confronted, much less corrected, by means of violence and acts outside the law and lawful means of remedy.  This is not merely a legal technicality -- it is a vital test of the morality of the pro-life movement.

 

 

We should advance the cause by petitions, awareness campaigns etc... not going IRA on the doctors/clinics.

 

 

 

 


jcgadfly
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Cpt_pineapple wrote:Observer

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Observer wrote:

 

The cold-blooded murder of Dr. George Tiller on Sunday morning presents the pro-life movement in America with a crucial moral test -- will we condemn this murder in unqualified terms?

 

 

 

We should, but some won't

 

Quote:

Proponents of abortion rights often charge that the rhetoric of the pro-life movement leads to violence. 

 

Really? No kidding eh?

 

 

Quote:

But violence in the name of protesting abortion is immoral, unjustified, and horribly harmful to the pro-life cause.  Now, the premeditated murder of Dr. George Tiller in the foyer of his church is the headline scandal -- not the abortions he performed and the cause he represented.

 

Taking a life isn't valuing life, ergo bombing/shooting is immoral and does nothing to advance and only hinders  the pro-life stance.

 

Quote:

We have no right to take the law into our own hands in an act of criminal violence.  We are not given the right to take this power into our own hands, for God has granted this power to governing authorities.  The horror of abortion cannot be rightly confronted, much less corrected, by means of violence and acts outside the law and lawful means of remedy.  This is not merely a legal technicality -- it is a vital test of the morality of the pro-life movement.

 

 

We should advance the cause by petitions, awareness campaigns etc... not going IRA on the doctors/clinics.

 

 

 

 

Whenever this comes up I feel I have to ask - Why does it look like the pro-life people care more about the cells/fetus before it comes out than the kid who leaves the womb?

 

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin


Cpt_pineapple
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jcgadfly wrote: Whenever

jcgadfly wrote:

 

Whenever this comes up I feel I have to ask - Why does it look like the pro-life people care more about the cells/fetus before it comes out than the kid who leaves the womb?

 

 

 

I don't know.

 

I think those people should seriously think about their position.

 

For me I care whether or not it's in or out of the womb.

 

 

 


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jcgadfly wrote:Why does it look like the Pro-Life care moe about

the cells/fetus etc... That's painting with a very narrow brush.You can be a Pro-Life person that is against the Death Penalty for convicted murderers,or a person that is against the dog or cat shelter that kills these animals after a two week waiting period,and you can also be Pro-Life person who don't think an abortion is a good Idea,but they refuse to be associated with the "Right-Wing Nuts".  

Signature ? How ?


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Dr. Albert Mohler wrote:We

Dr. Albert Mohler wrote:

We cannot rest until the law also recognizes the killing of the unborn as murder.

The religious, once again, completely missing the point. The way to stop abortion is not by outlawing it, but rather by preventing unwanted pregnancies. That means abstinence-only sex ed is out the window, for a start.

Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.

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