opposing frameworks

Jesus said that he came to bring life. To seek and to save those who were lost. to protect His sheep. The way of Jesus doesn’t allow partiality based on what the proposed recipient of grace brings to the table. Romans 5:6-8 says that Jesus died for us at the right time while we were completely powerless and sinful. Once we are saved, we have no right to show partiality based on the characteristics of another person.

The invitation of Jesus is to everyone. Everyone matters equally. Each soul is important and valued regardless of position, station, wealth, strength etc.

There is an opposing framework. It is a framework inhabited by real live vandals like the Joker. This framework says that people get to live who are useful. This framework says that I will only make time for people who can be of assistance to me. This framework questions whether or not it is a good thing for any person to ever be born. This framework understands that it is in direct opposition to the framework of Jesus described in brief above.

Some quotes.

“After ruling our thoughts and our decisions about life and death for nearly two thousand years, the traditional Western ethic has collapsed.”
On this triumphant note, Professor Peter Singer begins his milestone book, Rethinking Life and Death. It conveys an attitude of revolutionary confidence that brings to mind another atheistic iconoclast, Derek Humphry, who has said, “We are trying to overturn 2,000 years of Christian tradition.”

and this

Singer states that arguments for or against abortion should be based on utilitarian calculation which weighs the preferences of a mother against the preferences of the fetus. A preference is anything sought to be obtained or avoided; all forms of benefit or harm caused to a being correspond directly with the satisfaction or frustration of one or more of its preferences. Since a capacity to experience suffering or satisfaction is a prerequisite to having any preferences at all, and a fetus (up to around 18 weeks) has no capacity to suffer or feel satisfaction, it is not possible for fetuses to hold any preferences at all. In a utilitarian calculation, there is nothing to weigh against a mother’s preferences to have an abortion, therefore abortion is morally permissible.
Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that infants similarly lack essential characteristics of personhood – “rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness” [23]- and therefore “[s]imply killing an infant is never equivalent to killing a person.”[24].

or this (I obtained this quote off of a description of the book when it was released that I saved to a word file. I don’t know better than that from whence it came.):

Most people believe that they were either benefited or at least not harmed by being brought into existence. Thus, if they ever do reflect on whether they should bring others into existence—-rather than having children without even thinking about whether they should—-they presume that they do them no harm. Better Never to Have Been challenges these assumptions. David Benatar argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm… The author shows that there are a number of well-documented features of human psychology that explain why people systematically overestimate the quality of their lives and why they are thus resistant to the suggestion that they were seriously harmed by being brought into existence. The author then argues for the ‘anti-natal’ view—-that it is always wrong to have children—-and he shows that combining the anti-natal view with common pro-choice views about foetal moral status yield a ‘pro-death’ view about abortion (at the earlier stages of gestation). Anti-natalism also implies that it would be better if humanity became extinct.

My point in bringing this up is to emphasize that Ephesians 6:10-18 is true. We are engaged in a struggle and we must put on the full armor of God.

Jesus told his disciples when he sent them out that they needed to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

We have an obligation to know we are in a fight and to prepare to fight it with love, joy, peace, gentleness, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control.

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