Picture this: you wake up one day to find yourself in a bazarro world, where people can get a license to kill children.
It's all prefectly legal, but a good number of people object to the idea, while a majority supports it, but no one really does anything to stop the murders other than holding protests every now and again, and during elections.
Would you, from a moral standpoint, be able to stand by and watch your neighbor kill a child every day? Would you feel morally obligated to stop him, even if it meant killling him?
Personally, I think I might be compelled to act. I might have to stop this guy from killing children. I don't know if I could live with myself if I didn't.
This must be the twisted logic that Scott Roeder applied when he decided to kill George Tiller.
Roeder must have been crazy right? He must have been totally insane to do what he did, yes?
To go from my hypothetical example to Roeder, you need to make a giant leap in logic: a fetus (or even a blastocyst) = a child, and another leap of faith: there is never reason to terminate a pregnancy.
But that's crazy right? Sure it is. It's completely insane to think that a blastocyst is equal to a child, and yet that is the religious position of (pulling this figure out of my ass) a majority of the christian's in America. I'm not saying it's the majority opinion of christians, but of their religion. I don't think 100% of Catholics follow the Popes orders on abortion or birth control or whatever... even though they call claim to be Catholics, but I know what their religion says on the topic, and many others agree.
Why do they agree on this? Because of some vague phrase that was written 1600 years ago, and then translated umpteen times into what we read today as the bible.
That's crazy right? Sure it is. Forming an opinion based on a bronze age text that was written about a story that happened 400 years before it was written, and was translated god knows how many times (pun intended). Of course it's crazy.
But they have been taught their whole life to believe in god, and the bible: logic and reason be damned. In fact, they learned that having faith w/o evidence... is the whole point! It's brilliant. There's no reason to believe it, and that is exactly why it's so important that you do believe it. Got it?
Roeder got it. He believes it, just like he was raised. He felt a calling, and he couldn't deny it, because someone has to do God's work.
Crazy? Yes, totally. And yet every preacher/pastor/revrend I have ever known has been "called" in the same way. They just knew God wanted them to do something, and they did it, because they really had to follow what God asked them to do. Lucky for us, they didn't think he was asking them to kill a bunch of people. Are they crazy too, just like Roeder?
Was Roeder a "true Christian"? Lots of self proclaimed "true Christians" say he wasn't a "true Christian", but that's crazy. Of course he was/is. He was just more committed (in a bad way) than most, and probably took a few lines in the bible more literally than your average christian.
Going back to my bazarro world: if you accept your religion w/o question then there is a good chance you accept the notion that a fetus = a child. Therefore you accept that Tiller was a murderer, even though that idea probably feels wrong, there is no way out of it. You have already accepted that a fetus=a child because you have to accept it.
The religious moderates make the world safe for people like Roeder. Even if you condem him, even if religious leaders condem his actions, these are hollow condemnations because you are either condeming him for:
a) acting to stop a "murder"
b) interpreting the bible differently from how you do
Some people will take (a) and say "Of course abortion is murder, but one of the 10 commandments was "Thou shalt not kill" and so even though he is a murderer it would be wrong for me to cause him harm." This is BS. If a crazy person was about to kill your family and you could stop them by killing them, would you find it morally wrong to do so? Of course not.
Most people take (b). This is also BS. Like a rorschach test, there is no "right" answer when it comes to interpreting the bible. The fact is you all agree its a holy book, you only differ in your interpretations. It's filled with contradictions: should you love your neighbor, or stone him for working on the sabbath? Should you "do unto others" or it is it totally fine to beat your slaves to the brink of death with a stick so long as they are not dead a few days later (if they die after a week, it's ok). For all we know, Roeder was actually reading the bible with the correct interpretation of the authors, and it's the moderates who are wrong. But the point is moot, there is no way to know.
To call Roeder crazy would be to admit that religious beliefs are crazy (which I think they are), but most won't face this fact and admit it to themselves.
Mainstream Christians agree with Roeder that the bible, written 1600 years ago, with books called stuff like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, (which weren't written by those people) about events that happened 400 years eariler, is the world of god.
They agree that god is all knowing, all powerful, hears your thoughts, answers your prayers, created the universe, lives "outside of time" and looks like a human.
They agree that if they do what god wants, when they die, their spirit will go to heaven where they will enjoy eternity of bliss, or they will burn in the fires of hell if they disobey god, who by the way is amazingly loving and forgiving, but will send you to burn forever if you don't do things the way he wants them done.
They agree with him that God impregnated a virgin with himself, and he (the son) was born having himself as the father.
They agree that if God calls you to a task, you must do it. The bible tells you that you should murder your own children if god asks you to.
They agree that a fetus is equal to a child, based on a quote from the bible (never mind the other quotes that contradict that one).
They agree that performing an abortion is tantamount to murder.
The only thing they disagree on, is if someone to stop the "murderer" once and for all.
So, no, you can't claim that all the stuff above is normal and sane, but because of the 1 difference in opinion, it makes Roeder crazy. It doesn't.
I think it's all crazy.
So long as we promote the kind of thinking that can lead millions of people down the list "points of agreement" w/o stopping and saying.... geez wait, that sounds totally crazy, you will always end up with people who get to the bottom of the list and say "therefore, I need to kill that guy" or "so I shouldn't take my kid to the hospital. I'll just pray for him to get better" or "condoms are evil, so I'm going to do all I can to prevent the people in Africa from getting them to prevent the spread of AIDS" or "flying this plane into a building will guarantee me entry to heaven."
If Roeder was crazy, we have a hundred million crazy people in the US.
And with that I open the floor to accept your flames, pointless agruments about how Roeder wasn't a true christian, and comments about the proper way to interpret the bible.