Existential Argument for God

In my last blog, I discussed the convergence of faith and reason. If you think the two are mutually exclusive, you will want to read it before proceeding.

The reasons for my Christian faith fall into two categories; existential and propositional.

The existential arguments for God appeal to our longings, our human nature, our needs. These arguments views these things as "signposts" pointing to the existence of God. C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton before him provide excellent existential arguments for God.

C.S. Lewis wrote:
"Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism." --The Abolition of Man

Check your motives. If you are an emotionally unhealthy person, you are a likely candidate for NOT getting the truth right. Our emotions filter (bias) how we see the world.

Lewis also stated:
"For me, reason is the natural organ of truth, and imagination is the organ of understanding."

The existential arguments for God are broad. They do more to tell us of His existence than who He might be.
The propositional arguments for God are more specific and go farther in that they attempt to tell us WHICH God and WHO he may be. It is at this propositional level that I come to believe in the Christian God.

Today, I will attempt to present some existential arguments for God. In my next blog, I will present the propositional arguments for a Christian God.

There is a song by the band "Extreme" called "Hole Hearted". In it, they speak of the universal longing that we all have when they say, "There's a hole in my heart and it only can be filled by you." The song is likely talking about a romantic relationship. It is interesting that the landscape of music, as well as the rest of the modern arts, is dominated by romantic and sensual longings. Is there anything in this life that really satisfies these desires?

Feminist writer Anias Nin (NOTE: not a traditional religious type) once wrote:
"Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous." Winter, 1931-1932 from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume One 1931-1934

She also wrote:
"I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls." July 7, 1934 from incest, from a journal of love

Nin expresses what I believe to be a human truth. We all long for something or someone to fill a God shaped hole. Everyone tries to fill it in different ways including romantic relationships, sensuality, drugs and alcohol, hobbies, friendships, family and children, materialism and more...

One of the best illustrations that I remember C.S. Lewis used to illustrate the truths of these "signposts" was regarding the stomach. He observed that just as the stomach's need to be filled with food was evidence that food exists, so the heart's need to be filled is proof that there is something that exists which can fill it.

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." - C.S. Lewis
--Mere Christianity

Elvis Presley had it all. He had fame, wealth, talent. He once stated that he had lived every dream that he had ever had a thousand times. Yet he died a premature death, addicted to pain killers. What pain was he trying to kill? If HE couldn't fill this hole in his heart, then how can anyone who has less?

Belief in God gives life purpose. The ultimate expression of this purpose is to enjoy God's presence. This is what Christianity calls worship. Worship is the ecstasy that Anias Nin sought. It is the culmination of every romantic desire. It is the thirst that drives us to seek the thrill, once obtained, is gone just as quickly.

"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation." -- C.S. Lewis in "Reflections on the Psalms"

Lewis calls it Joy. Lewis was a confirmed bachelor (or so he thought). One of the books that he wrote was entitled "Surprised By Joy". Later in his life, he was pleasantly surprised to find that he had fallen in love. He married this woman who just so happened to be named Joy.

" it is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy... Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic... in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again." [Surprised By Joy 17-18]

But Lewis' first encounter with what he calls "Joy" was when he was a little boy. His brother had built a toy garden. When he saw the garden, he wrote: "It made me aware of nature--not, indeed, as a storehouse of forms and colors but as something cool, dewy, fresh, exuberant. . . . As long as I live my imagination of Paradise will retain something of my brother's toy garden."

He went on to say later in his life: "It is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; Milton's 'enormous bliss' of Eden . . . comes somewhere near it,"

Do you find yourself trying to feed a hole in your heart? What do you try to feed "the monster" with? Do you try to feed it with the things the band Extreme wrote about in another song entitled, "Its a Monster"?

"It's on my mind most of the time
That's when you find we all go blind
Then it will start to get in our hearts
It's gone too far, that's who we are
It's a monster
We all have within us
It's a monster
It's a monster
Turns us into sinners
It's a monster"

Augustine called this longing "The God Shaped Hole". If it is God shaped, then only He can fill it. But who is this God that we long for? We'll explore that question in the next posting.

The Convergence of Faith and Reason

I am finding that a lot of people, religious as well as non-religious, seem to believe that faith and reason do not intersect. But if we just use reason alone, we will find that this assumption breaks down.

Mankind is finite. We are limited in what we know. We are limited in what we CAN know. For instance, there are things so far out in space, that no telescope or device will be able to observe, measure or detect. So reason alone says that there are things that exist outside of the reaches of empiricism.

I do understand that there are some people who have a rare philosophy that says that only that which we can observe and experience is real. Such a philosophy goes so far as to say that when a refrigerator door is shut, its contents cease to exist. There are many arguments against such a philosophy. I shall not expound on them, but only say that I think this philosophy says more about the limits of empiricism, than the limits of reality/truth.

So if we acknowledge that there are things that exist outside of our ability to observe and measure, than we have already seen a glimpse into the validity of faith.

But I can take faith even further. EVERYONE has faith. When you get in a car to go somewhere, can you absolutely 100% KNOW that you will arrive safely at your destination? Of course not. But do you BELIEVE you will arrive safely? If not, I don't think you'd get in the car in the first place. THAT is faith.

What if you were to get into the passenger seat of that car and let a drunk person drive you? That would be crazy wouldn't it? But do you absolutely KNOW that the drunk will have an accident? No, but the odds are against them driving safely. It is reasonable to conclude that you would be unsafe to ride with the drunk. But because you can't KNOW this for sure, you have faith. More specifically, you have a reasoned faith. You have a faith informed by rational thought. Your faith is informed by probability.

I could give many many more analogies that demonstrate this convergence of faith and reason. Every time we plan for the future, we "roll the dice" based on the probability that we will live for that future event. We have no proof so we have faith instead. That faith is backed up by reason. Interviewing for a job requires faith. But you wouldn't do it if you didn't have reason to believe you could get the position.

These examples are different than blind faith. Many religions do seem to advocate a blind faith. For instance, Hinduism and Buddhism claim reincarnation, but outside of some people's deja vu experiences, and subjective interpretations of nature, they don't offer any rational argument to support these claims. Most other religions have the same problem.

This is why I am a Christian. Christianity is different in this regard. Its cornerstone is the claim that Jesus Christ died and rose again. It could just make these claims (blind faith) and offer nothing more. Instead, it presents to us multiple witnesses to these claims who wrote the Gospels. These writers were so convinced of Christ's resurrection that they died for this belief.

Yes, it is true that many religious people die for their beliefs, but if you are thinking this, you have missed the point. These writers weren't just ANY group of religious people. They had the unique ability to validate their claims. All they had to do was go to the grave and see if Christ was there. All the Roman government had to do to stifle Christianity's threat to its empire was to produce Christ's body.

Why didn't this occur?

Yes, I have faith, but it is NOT a blind faith. It is a faith that is supported by reason. While I can't absolutely prove 100% these things, if I could it would NOT be faith. But because my faith is supported by a reasonable argument, it is not a blind faith.

What is your faith? Why do you believe it? If you merely believe in it because it makes you feel good, or out of fear, or because it serves you, you believe for the wrong reasons. And please don't think that I'm pointing a finger at you. These are questions that I ask myself.

There are other reasons that I believe as well. I will discuss those in my next two blogs.

If you've read this far and still do not see the convergence of faith and reason, I point you to Google on the subject of Christian Apologetics. Christian apologetics is an attempt by Christians to defend their faith using reason. If this convergence that I speak of does NOT exist, then neither would the apologist.

In every instance that I have EVER encountered someone who didn't understand this convergence, I have found that the dissenter was not aware of apologetics, or had not listened/read such arguments.

I close with this thought. If I were opposed to Christianity, wouldn't the most effective way for me to prevent its spread be for me to cast it as a faith that throws out the brain?

Socrates once said that the unexamined life is not worth living.

If I wanted to bury my head in the sand when it comes to questions regarding the meaning of life, the existence of God, how I should live my life, etc., would I find any better way to do this than to simply dismiss all religious people as holding to a blind faith?

Which takes MORE blind faith; to examine the reasons for believing or to simply dismiss them all as having blind faith?

Often our rejections of dogma, are dogmatic, our objections to zealotry are zealous, and our abstinence of intolerance is intolerant....

Faith to the Rescue

If a tree falls in the forest and no wife is around, is the husband still wrong?

But seriously...

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it still make a sound? This is a classic philosophical question. The question deals with epistemology (how we come to know anything) and ontology (what the world is).

But is this the right question? I suggest the following question:

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, have we come to the end of logic's reach?

I believe in logic. But I believe it has limits. I have noticed that when most people observe that a position can't be proven logically, they assume the position to be false. But there is a second option. The position is true, but is beyond reason's reach.

I believe that the tree does make a sound if sound is defined simply as creating air waves that have the POTENTIAL to vibrate an ear drum or be picked up by a listening device if it WERE around. But I can't prove this. I can only suggest that such a world is a simpler world than one where we imagine that events revolve around us. This claim is beyond reason's reach.

A world where sound only occurs when an ear drum (or now a recording device as well) is present, is WAY too complex of a world and thus violates Occam's razor, otherwise known as "Keep It Simple Stupid".

This question shows the limitations of reason.

Faith marches in to the rescue. But I don't let it march in blindly. This is why Occam's razor is my guide when I'm presented with the "fork in the road" choices for my answer, both of which take faith to believe.

G.K. Chesterton, in his book Orthodoxy, says the above differently. Here is an excerpt from his classic book:

THE real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. I give one coarse instance of what I mean. Suppose some mathematical creature from the moon were to reckon up the human body; he would at once see that the essential thing about it was that it was duplicate. A man is two men, he on the right exactly resembling him on the left. Having noted that there was an arm on the right and one on the left, a leg on the right and one on the left, he might go further and still find on each side the same number of fingers, the same number of toes, twin eyes, twin ears, twin nostrils, and even twin lobes of the brain. At last he would take it as a law; and then, where he found a heart on one side, would deduce that there was another heart on the other. And just then, where he most felt he was right, he would be wrong. - Orthodoxy, pg 46

Chesterton goes on to say:

Now, this is exactly the claim which I have since come to propound for Christianity. Not merely that it deduces logical truths, but that when it suddenly becomes illogical, it has found, so to speak, an illogical truth. It not only goes right about things, but it goes wrong (if one may say so) exactly where the things go wrong. Its plan suits the secret irregularities, and expects the unexpected. - Orthodoxy, pg 46

I often hear skeptics accuse religious folks of being irrational. Such a skeptic gives too much power to reason. Reason has its place. It can reveal falsehood by revealing inconsistency. But it can NOT guarantee truth. One can be logical and be wrong. One can win the debate and lose truth. I'm not proposing we throw the baby out with the bath water. Just because a car can't drive me to the moon doesn't mean that it's not a useful mode of transportation.

But perhaps, when it comes to the deepest questions of life, we are satisfied too easily with a rational worldview. Truth is stranger than fiction. Shouldn't our worldview be a reflection of this?

You Can't Judge the Truth by its Cover

The truth is like a great book with a bad cover. It is easy to see, but not easy to understand.

It’s like a great leader who is a bad communicator.

It’s like a great product with bad marketing.

It’s like a great weatherman with bad hair, a great movie with bad actors, a great joke heard out of context, gold in a pig’s snout, a Stradivarius in the hands of a novice, a treasured vase in the hands of a toddler, profound prose in the ears of kindergarteners…

Sorry, but I was on a roll.

I’m always telling my readers to ask “what” until you get to “why” and to ask “why” until you get to “who”. The problem with truth is it is so easily misunderstood because so many people have this proclivity to not dig deep enough for it.
This is especially problematic living in a media culture that thrives on the three-second sound bite.

If you reads my recent posting entitled, “Partisan Convergence and Just War Theory”, you have been exposed to a position that justifies war which can be easily misunderstood on the surface, to be one that is advocated by war-mongers. After all, such a lie fits in the sound bite. Look how long of a posting it took me to explain the position at a deeper level. And notice that at a deeper level, the position’s motivations are 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

So what is to be done? Isn’t the best method of persuasion to be found in the form of a question? Which makes us think more, spoon-fed answers or questions?

Although it is tempting to help a bird hatchling out of its egg, doing so ensures its death. It actually builds the critical strength needed to survive through the struggle. I guess truth looks like a baby bird neglector as well.

Plumbing the Depths of Contemporary Churches

The web site www.ship-of-fools.com has a section called "The Mystery Worshiper". Like a mystery shopper, the mystery worshipper visits a church and secretly reviews it, posting their thoughts on this site.

One review of a contemporary church, had this line in it:

"Churches like [CHURCH NAME REMOVED] downplay the transcendence of God in favor of the immediacy of one's personal experience of God."

If you've ever visited a contemporary church, abandoning traditionalism, they use more modern styles of music and often invoke cultural references (movies, television, news events) to communicate their message.

As one who is a contemporary worship leader and church musician, I have done a lot of thinking about this subject. As is a characteristic of truth in general, a shallow face value look at these practices is misleading.

Truth is like a book who's cover says one thing, but its contents say something totally different. If you don't examine it, you will be mislead. I think this is why liberals often misunderstand conservatism, but that's another blog.

At face value, contemporary churches look like they are adopting contemporary music to make people feel good. It can appear that they are too casual in their approach to worshiping God. These churches appear to simply want to be thought of as "cool" and "hip". They can seem to be wanting to win a "popularity contest".

But examined deeper, the opposite emerges.

Jesus' harshest (and only) criticisms were targeted at the religious people of His day. They had the externals right but the internals were all wrong. He said of them:

Matthew 15:7-9
7"You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you:
8'These people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me.
9'They worship Me in vain,
teaching as the doctrines the precepts of men.'"

Its easy to judge something by looking at its externals, but it takes work to judge its internals.

Truth is easily seen, but not easily examined.

On one hand, there are a lot of contemporary churches that are all about style and have no substance. These churches should be condemned for their shallowness.

However, there are depths to be plumbed in a contemporary approach, and that is what I intend to do in this post.

Psalm 51:16-17
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.

God looks at our hearts, not on whether or not we did some religious activity.

I Samuel 16:7
7 But the LORD said to Samuel, Do not look on his face, nor on his height, because I have refused him. For He does not see as man sees. For man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.

A traditional approach to worship gets hung up on the externals. If the altar boys don't start the service by walking the aisle and lighting the candles, if we don't sing songs that hundreds of years old in an ancient style using a pipe organ, if we sing a different lyric than the one in the hymn book and if we don't partake of communion, we are not worshiping God.

But one can get all of these things right, but their heart can be totally far from God. I can tell my wife that I love her but my heart can be captured by another.

A contemporary approach is casual about the externals. In regards to music (which is probably the most controversial element of contemporary Christian worship), it says that styles are spiritually irrelevant. Therefore we have the freedom to choose style based upon practicality. This freedom begs the question as to why we should be singing music that's outdated and hundreds of years old?

A contemporary church screams this message:

"We're not hung up on styles. We're not religious (religion being defined as being hung up on "churchy" externals). We're all about getting our hearts right before the God that we worship. We worship Him by loving Him with our hearts and NOT with our deeds. If this is our focus, the good deeds will naturally flow as an inevitable result."

The use of contemporary worship music acknowledges contemporary culture as being valid medium for the church's message. When done right, it is the approach of adopting to a changing culture to communicate a timeless, unchanged message.

Jesus did this by preaching the Gospel in the language of His culture. Paul did this in Acts 17 by quoting an inscription from a statue that he had seen in the city, using it as an entry point (medium) to preach the Gospel.

Christ was even criticized by the religious people of His day as being, what we might say is "too worldly" for being too friendly with prostitutes and tax collectors (tax collectors were seen as traitors in that day). His response confirms my point that truth will often appear different on its cover than when it is examined:

Matthew 9:11-13
11When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, "Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?"

12But when Jesus heard this, He said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.

13"But go and learn what this means: 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE (religious externals),' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Even so, there are pitfalls and concerns.

A casual approach to the externals of religiosity, can lead to a casual approach to God. The best prevention that I can prescribe is to preserve and cultivate the reverence of God within the message being communicated. In other words, the style is casual, but the substance of the message should be reverent and deep. Where contemporary Christian music fails in this area, it should be criticized. And yes, there is plenty of contemporary Christian music that is too casual in its approach to God. Much of it is shallow.

The largest impediment that I've seen amongst traditionalists is that they hold to their traditionalism like a child holds on to a security blanket. They subscribe to traditionalism in the name of nostalgia, attempting to relive the past. After all, the past, however good or bad, is at least known. A changing future is unknown.

So if you examine traditionalism, you'll find a fear of risk taking and a lack of boldness. This is a head wound to faith because faith is nothing if it is not risk taking.

The traditionalist's attempts at faith are therefore akin to the chicken farmer's obsession with protecting his eggs, causing him to hold on to them so tightly that he ends up breaking them. If you love something, set it free!

The bottom line is that I'm not a religious person. I don't worship God by focusing on the externals. But I might appear to be otherwise if you only judge this book by its cover. And so it is with contemporary churches. Look at the substance of the message, not simply the style. Plumb those depths!

P.S. Here is a great site to read more about the pitfalls of religion:
http://www.jesuschristismygod.com/in-10religion.html

Strong Logic Can Fool Us

I have blogged extensively about our desires skewing our perceptions of truth, however I have also found that our logic can do the same if we're not careful.

Just because something is logical doesn't mean it is true. I give you two examples.

The first is based on the discovery of non-euclidean geometry. For centuries euclidean geometry was seen as a perfect system of logic that explained the known physical world. An example of euclidean goemetry would be the theorem that states that all the angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees.

Later non-euclidean forms of geometry were discovered. Non-euclidean geometry allows for the angels of triangles to NOT add up to 180 degrees.

Both euclidean and non-euclidean geometries are logical. They are simply based upon different assumptions (axioms).

This is SO important. The test of truth isn't simply whether or not something is logical. One has to then try and test the assumptions that the logic is built up on.

For instance, although I do believe in the humane treatment of animals, I don't take it as far as a PETA extremist might and object to even eating meat because it might be unethical. However, I agree that the PETA extremist is being logical based upon their evolutionary assumptions. If we all came from animals, then they are essentially equal to us in value. They are our ancestors. The logical conclusion one should draw from this assumption is to treat animals and humans the same.

One option is to experiment, cage, eat and kill humans just as we do animals in the name of this equality. Of course no one outside of a few maniac dictators throughout history subscribes to such a conclusion, so the more acceptable alternative is found in the animal rights movement.

I would therefore conclude that anyone who believes in evolution but does NOT subscribe to such an ethic is logically inconsistent. I would object to the PETA extremist's views on the grounds of an examination of their evolutionary assumptions.

Of course at this presuppositional level, I can only object so far. There is a level of depth with presuppositions, where one cannot simply rely on logical consistency to consider the possible validity of an assumption. There is a point where faith and our volition has to bridge the gaps of interpretations on both sides of an argument.

However I do not object to evolution merely on faith. I only bring faith into the picture to say that I require it (as does the evolutionist) in the sense that I reject evolution because given what I know, it is not probable to be true. In my opinion, it is possible, but not as likely given the facts. That is the faith that I talk about.

The second example that I would give of something being logical but not necessary true is taken from G.K. Chesterton's classic, "Orthodoxy". In the chapter called "The Maniac", he talks about people who have lost their minds and have been put away in mental asylums:

"The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason."

The paranoid person actually USES logic. If you tell the paranoid person that everyone is NOT out to get him, he might disagree on the grounds that your telling him this is exactly what he'd expect if YOU were also out to get him.

Such a person hasn't lost their ability to reason. Their problem is that all they have left is their reasoning capacity. The problem with their reasoning capacity is that their world is too small. The paranoid person thinks every person walking past them is focused on their small world. The paranoid person fails to consider the possibility that the person walking past them might live in a world that is too large to be consumed with the paranoid.

Chesterton says it this way:

"The lunatic’s theory
explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I mean that if you
or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid, we should be chiefly concerned not so
much to give it arguments as to give it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and
cooler outside the suffocation of a single argument."

It is interesting that with this example, the key to truth is whether or not the reasoner is applying reason to something larger than himself. I would therefore argue that the materialist, the humanist, the agnostic and the atheist, all live in a world that is too small. Like the paranoid, they live in a world where they are the center of gravity. In a nutshell, this is what Chesterton called "The suicide of thought."

The other thing I have learned from this line of thinking is that the presence or absence of logic can fool us. If we're not careful, we can be convinced of something's truthfulness because the argument for it is logical. Sometimes something is logical but untrue.

Also, sometimes we can't form logic to justify something NOT because it is false, but simply because we don't have enough information to fill in the gaps of logic.

Logic, in its most raw form, is "If x, then y".

A practical example: "What goes up must come down". Gravity is x and "coming down" is y.

Sometimes we have y (usually an observation) but haven't found x.

For instance, if an ancient were to see a helicopter hovering over their tent and then fly away, they wouldn't be able to apply logic to their observation because they wouldn't have sufficient information to understand what was happening. However, their inability to apply logic simply means that they don't have all the information necessary. It does NOT mean that the observation wasn't logical.

I believe everything has a purpose and therefore everything is logical. However I do NOT believe that any one of us can explain everything. Therefore my logic, when applied to our human limitations, leads me to also embrace mystery and therefore faith.

Partisan Convergence and Just War Theory

I have found it interesting that liberals are using the same arguments against torture, that conservatives use against abortion.

The liberal says that torture is immoral. The ends do not justify the means.

The conservative says that abortion is immoral. The ends do not justify the means.

I'd love to offer answers, but I can only float two divergent theories:

Theory 1: Both practices are immoral and both sides are inconsistent for supporting one and objecting to the other practice.

The ends never justify the means so such an argument cannot be used to support either side.

The pro-choicer often gives allowances to abortion in the name of preventing unwanted pregnancies and abused or neglected children as a result.

The torture sympathizer often gives allowances for it because it is in our country's best interests to glean the valuable intelligence gained by any means necessary in the name of national security.

But both practices are immoral. The question would then become, WHY are both practices immoral? Why is it wrong to torture and kill? And as one attempts to answer such a question, consider that it can't simply be wrong because man or a
government says it is. It can't simply be wrong because we don't like it. After
all, sometimes these entities will want to engage in these practices because it might be argued that it serves their best interests.

Theory 2. Pacificism is a moral practice meant to be applied individually, but never
nationally. This argument flows from Thomas Aquinas' "Just War" theory.

This theory is a reasonable interpretation of the Bible in the sense that it
reconciles an otherwise contradiction. The scriptures on one hand say that we
are to "turn the other cheek" (pacificism) but on the other hand say that
governing powers are free to use the "sword" to execute justice and protect the
people (Romans 13).

If you're the type that is suspicious of anything written by the Apostle Paul, then consider Jesus' words in Luke 3:14 where He tells a soldier to do no violence to any man but to be content with his pay that he received from soldiering....

Just War theory reconciles this otherwise contradiction. If you still disagree, then propose another theory that better reconciles it.

Whether or not you agree with this interpretation, it certainly demonstrates a
logical consistency among conservative Christians who might on one hand object
to abortion, but not to torture.

I don't post this blog to propose answers, but rather questions....