Question to ask yourselves

Sometimes when one gets bogged down in thinking about a very complex problem or situation, it helps to back completely out of it and do this mental exercise. Imagine the opposite of what you are arguing about, and then assess how likely it is to be true. It has a remarkable effect on clarity. Here is how to use it about the Catholic position regarding its pro life view that human life with soul is present from the moment of conception in a living embryo in the womb and that abortion is always morally wrong (even under very sympathetic conditions, such as incest and rape). Catholics hold to this view because they are convinced from the very beginning of faith history (both Jewish and Christian) that abortion is wrong and forbidden by God. OK, this is a subject that makes many people's heads hurt, so let's apply the exercise I am teaching you and try it out, to see if there is more clarity.

Who out there really believes that this would ever take place? Several people die and go to heaven, some of them have had or enabled abortions and some did not have abortions. Who here can visualize God taking the abortion experienced persons, patting them on the head, putting halos on them, and saying, "I'm so glad you really figured out that I am really pro abortion!" and then sends them directly to heaven. Then, God turns to those who did not have abortions and says, "I must chide you for making people who had abortions feel bad because you didn't have abortions yourself and you didn't support abortions in general, and you failed to correct the stupid Catholic Church, so I'm going to send you to purgatory for a while so you can repent for not realizing that I'm really pro abortion!"

OK. Who out there would honestly say that you think the above might ever actually really happen? *sound of crickets*

If you cannot even have a small percentage of certainty that the above could conceivably (no pun intended) take place, how can you dare to both believe in God and risk the highly likely opposite scenario? I mean, what kind of logic leads you to argue for a position that if you really wrote down its implications in hard letters as I have here, you have to admit that the likelihood of that scenario is less than nill?

Who here really thinks that God will praise them for "correcting" the "bad" Catholic Church, and going out there and with gusto having some abortions? And that God will chastise as "unsympathetic" those who did not have abortions, who had children instead, or who paid for orphans to be adopted into families? Who really thinks the above exercise scenario would ever take place? Face it, even an atheist would not believe the above scenario, because the atheist has to retreat into the "belief" that there is no God to question humans' actions and decisions at all.

You'll find this is a very useful exercise.