The daily Oz skewering


It’s not really going to be a daily event here.

But jeez, Oz provides a target-rich environment.

Can I just say that the claim that “life begins at conception” is sufficiently absurd in all of its particulars that anyone who says it needs to be laughed off the stage? Life doesn’t “begin” at conception, and the question is not whether the focus is on life (it’s not, or these same people would be against the death penalty and eating meat or any living thing at all), it’s about when human personhood begins, which is a much fuzzier and poorly delimited thing altogether. Except we know it doesn’t happen at conception.

Comments

  1. says

    As we all know, human life begins at conception and ends at birth. Unless you become brain dead, at which point you are miraculously reborn.

  2. HidariMak says

    Another Trump picked, Trump endorsed, Republican spouting ultra-right wing talking points, likely to end up like Palin, who is likely going to get Democrats one seat closer in the Senate, to making Manchin and Sinema one step closer to irrelevant in Democratic control.

  3. birgerjohansson says

    Christoph @ 2
    When debating muslims I have stored a list of suras with embarrassing statements, and I will love to write down biblical references to counter the blathering of wing nuts.
    I assume the reference you found is in the OT.

  4. says

    If “life begins at conception” then any woman who has ever had sex is guilty of manslaughter. It’s been a while but IIRC only about 30% of fertilized eggs reach gestation and implant at in the uterus. So even a couple TRYING to get pregnant are guilty of murder.

    Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. It’s been a couple decades since I took that class. But all those precious souls are dying for absolutely no reason. Unless you don’t believe in souls. In which case they end up as a tiny blob of cells a woman’s body evacuates during her period.

  5. says

    Birger — Read Numbers 5. The New International Version is the most accurate.

    16 “‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “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. 20 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”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse[d] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”

    “‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”

    23 “‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[e] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.

  6. birgerjohansson says

    Cervantes @ 6
    That was weird.
    Is the priest trained at Hogwarts?
    Anyway, life depends on “ruach”, the breath of life breathed into stuff by El/Yahwe. I assume this would make the Jews believe life begins with the first breath.

  7. pick says

    The way I understand it, life began a long time ago and probably just once on a handful of times. It’s been passed on ever since.

  8. says

    I wonder, why do these people think murder is bad? They clearly have no empathy. They’re quite happy treating people, even small children, like utter shit. So what exactly is wrong with murder?

  9. cheerfulcharlie says

    The latest garbage is the Christian extremist claim that if life begins at conception, preventing conception is murder. There are demands being made that IUDs etc must be made illegal. Yes, it makes no sense but when has that ever stopped the Christian fanatics? The scary part is that they just might succeed in some of the darkest corners of MAGA America.