Educating Christians. Lesson #1: Abortion; your god LOVES it!

There’s an unmistakable truism in Sam Harris’s assertion that atheism is just a way of clearing the space for “better conversations.” By this he meant rational dialogue free of the unreasonable noise so often encountered when religious zealots attempt to imposes their predictably preposterous beliefs on civil secular societies… and of all the conversations perverted by (tax free) religious nonsense none is noisier than that concerning abortion. It is a subject Christian’s dive into headfirst; confident they hold some moral high ground rooted in the inerrant word of their infallible Middle Eastern god. This position, unfortunately, precludes many theists from having what Harris calls a better conversation; a dialogue that when approached sensibly should ideally begin with an acknowledgement that no one in their right mind wants an abortion. Such a positive and truthful affirmation would then naturally refocus the discussion onto matters of prevention, not access, as the central subject of any adult discourse. That, however, is not a conversation Christians are open to. They believe their pro-forced-birth position is the beginning and the end of any exchange, although it’s not at all clear how they arrive at this elevated notion. Indeed, if one actually reads scripture (something the vast majority of Christians never actually do) it’s perfectly clear that the particular Middle Eastern god they idolise is not only a prejudiced, insecure and jealous mass-murderer but also a definitive advocate FOR abortion; personally and passionately performing many terminations and ordering countless more.

In Hosea 9:11-16, the son of Beeri prays for his god to intervene in earthly affairs and wreak havoc on the unborn of an entire population.  “Give them, 0 Lord: what wilt thou give?  Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts… Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.”  To paraphrase, Hosea pleads that the people of Ephraim can no longer have children, to which the Christian god dutifully obeys and makes all their unborn children miscarry.  Now, terminating a pregnancy unnaturally is unmistakably what we today call an abortion.

In Hosea 13:16 the Christian god is utterly diabolical as he dashes to “pieces” the infants of Samaria and orders “their pregnant women [to be] ripped open by swords.” This, self-evidently, describes mass abortions of such barbarity that it’s hard to even fathom.

In Numbers 5:11-21 a bizarre and abusive ritual is described which is to be performed by a priest on any woman suspected of adultery; a ritual which results in an abortion. In the text a potion is mixed and the accused woman is brought before the priest who says, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband may the Lord cause you to become a curseamong your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell.” As clear as day this is a definitive description of an induced abortion; an act where poison is forcibly given to ruin the foetus and rid a woman of another man’s child.

In Numbers 31:17 Moses commands “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every women that hath known man by lying with him.”  In other words, kill all women that are or could be pregnant, which is plainly abortion for the foetus.

In 2 Kings 15:16 the Christian god again orders pregnant women to be “ripped open,” which is both abortion and homicide on a mass scale. “At that time Menahem destroyed the town of Tappuah and all the surrounding countryside as far as Tirzah, because its citizens refused to surrender. He killed the entire population and ripped open the pregnant women.”

In total there are twenty-six separate instances where the Middle Eastern god Christians worship performs abortions on demand, conducts infanticide (the intentional killing of new-borns), and murders toddlers en masse; acts recounted from 1 Samuel 15:3 to Isaiah 13:15-18 where this god not only smashes babies to death but also rapes their mothers. In a word the Christian god is a heinous baby-killing, foetus-destroying monster, and as it turns out his son is also no friend of the unborn. In the Gospel of the Egyptians Jesus not only demands total abstinence but preaches for the outright separation of the sexes, stating that “sorrow” and what he repeatedly calls “error” will remain with man for just “As long as women bear children.” The statement is quite explicit: don’t ever get pregnant, and if you do then abortion is better than birth.

Now back to reality.

No rational person is of course going to use this mountain of scriptural evidence to align the Jewish-Christian-Islamic god with the pro-choice movement and use it to defend a woman’s right to make decisions concerning her own body.  To do so would be absurd, and so bellowing Christians (who’re so quick to label those who are pro-choice as somehow ‘pro-abortion,’ which is the equivalent of labelling someone ‘pro-amputation’) would be well advised to stop trying to do just that… particularly considering they’re contradicting the baby-killing, pregnancy termination actions of their own god and saviour. Simply put, using an Iron Age fairytale to support or defend a 21^st Century subject is ludicrous beyond measure, and for this reason its passed time theists jettisoned the madness and joined the adult world; a world where we hope to have “better conversations” about the things that are important to the wellbeing of our planet and our species.