Pie & Prostitution
I heard two people talking about poverty, sin and personal responsibility in two very different ways lately. What each of them said was very thought provoking. I wrote in an earlier post about how the narratives we use to understand reality actually shape how we interpret that reality. In other words we have cognitive structures that influence and bias our perspective. None of us is objective. In my earlier post I talked about the “conservative” narrative of personal responsibility and the “liberal” narrative of unjust social structures. I wanted to present these two perspectives to our readers with an assignment. I want you to critique the two perspectives and post in the comments what you think about them. Tomorrow I’ll post my thoughts on the two perspectives.
Story 1
This story comes from a radio host I heard. He said the following in response to a remark Barak Obama’s wife made. She said something along the lines of “For some people in our country to escape poverty, other people in our country are going to need to give up some of their slice of the pie.” The radio host did not like this analogy. He continued her analogy of “the pie” saying something like this:
America isn’t one big pie we divide up and give to everyone. America’s the pie factory. Come here to bake pie with your own ingredients, don’t come here for my pie. If I want to voluntarily give you some of my hard earned pie I’ll share it but don’t vote for the government to tax it from me. Make your own pie. In our country every body gets the chance to live up to their own greatest potential and get as much pie as they’re capable of making.
Story 2
The second thing I encountered was more theological. The writer was ranting about how poor spiritual leadership was leading to moral degeneration in the men of a particular community. When spiritual leaders don’t follow God, regular men turn to all other kinds of sin, especially sexual sin and substance abuse. Because the spiritual leaders were corrupt the men were corrupt. Because the men were corrupt the women were corrupt as well. He said all this to make the case that if women, living in such an environment, turned to prostitution to pay their bills they shouldn’t be held morally responsible. He said it wasn’t right to judge them when the environment they lived in was so unjust.
Meade
amybaker
yngfrnkstn
v02468
April 17, 2008 at 8:00 am
I think all of these people are right to an extent but in attempting to crystallize their positions have missed a lot of the truth.
Pie guy: This is obviously true. Not only insofar as dealing with poverty but also other issues like the environment and whatnot. We can’t, in the short-term, maximize our utility or whatever you want to call it, and take care of our responsibilities to the less fortunate at the same time.
Not-a-pie guy: This kind of thing is just annoying. Obviously no one is NOT advocating personal responsibility and making your own way. To an extent there is pie for you in the U.S. if you can work hard, etc. But let’s be real.
Prostitute guy: While still out of balance, this shows the other side of not-a-pie, in that, let’s face it, some people never have a chance. Whether or not “never having a chance” alleviates them from moral culpability, um, is that exactly our place to make the call?
April 17, 2008 at 8:55 am
there definitely is responsibility for the prostitute. while i can sympathize well for her, it doesn’t remove her own responsibility. Scripture is very clear on that whole responsibility thing. Man is damned from birth because he was born in Adam - yet we’re responsible for our sin.
April 17, 2008 at 9:42 am
The other thing that’s worthy of an Entire Discussion is the meaning of the word “judge.” Too often people use the phrase “don’t judge me” to indicate their unwillingness for us to weigh in on their life choices. The whole discussion is a bastardization of what Jesus was saying when He said, Judge not lest Ye be judged. What that means, I believe, is that we are wholly unequipped and therefore completely out of line when we discuss someone else’s relationship with G in terms of their final destination. That is, when we speculate about it.
What I do NOT take that passage to mean is that we can’t discuss someone’s choices in terms of their morality or effects. Mostly With them. Not at them. Or even with others. And yet, if our actions are truly guided by our affinity for, and attempts to spread grace and the Love of Christ, our discernments of the correctness of people’s behaviors won’t be shared as often as you’d otherwise think. So while the passage itself doesn’t limit our behavior, an overall regimen of Christlike living will.
April 17, 2008 at 10:16 am
excellent point Joel and exactly the point that text is making (in my opinion). and actually we are not only given the freedom to “judge” one another, but we are commanded to hold each other accountable for our actions. i find it interesting how afraid in the USoA we are of critiques. as Christians we should be encouraging critique!
April 17, 2008 at 11:04 am
story one: this is just irritating to me, (I guess that’s my “narrative”
seriously? they sound like an incredibly self-centered person who is climbing the ladder. I can’t help but hear the tones of the great American materialistic arms race, of “it’s mine, I earned it, i am not sharing, etc. etc.” I am all for adam smith and the invisible hand blah blah blah, but you have to recognize that there is not perfect economic system there will always be winners and losers, and to the extent that you build your social safety net and policy with that understanding is the extent to which you will engage endemic poverty. THeir pie factory analogy breaks down the second you push it… ie. what if you can’t make it to the pie factor? what if you only have half of the ingredients? etc. etc.
story two: hmmm….again, like the others said only God can judge the motives of a m heart, but I do wonder about this b/c I have seen instances like this played out so many many times. Not just in poverty, but with other issues as well. If someone is set up to fail, then fails, how can you claim it’s their fault? It makes me think of Les Miserables, when he is starving and steals bread to eat, but then is put in jail for it. Or, modern example… some (not all) looters during Hurrican Katrina. That’d be like prosecuting people for stealing items when all they have has been washed away in a flood they were not evacuated from and they are stuck in the superdome. It’s such a gray area. Yet, I distinctly remember watching footage of looting with someone who kept remarking how horrid it was that this woman was stealing food after the flood. WHAT? so, which command should she violate.. don’t steal? or make sure you provide for your family?
For instance, I have seen both internationally and in our own country how when the men don’t step up to the plate and lead well, women tend to do so. Then women are leadership, and 10 years later the men cry foul! and whip out verses about headship. There’s right and wrong to both sides of that, but i so often want to say to men complaining about women in leadership or complaining about their wives… “they got that way under YOUR leadership.”
oh boy, my comments may be well off the topic of what meade’s getting at, but they are just my process of thinking/thinking out loud.
April 17, 2008 at 11:07 am
fyi.. as a qualifier to that last statement, I do recognize that you cannot lead someone who refues to be lead.
April 17, 2008 at 11:13 am
spoken like a true social worker
April 17, 2008 at 11:38 am
If you want to stay with the pie analogy, the problem with dividing the “pie” of America is that the people who provide the biggest chunk of the pie have the greatest ability to hide their pie. The top 5% of wage earners provide more than half the pie. The top 50% provide 96+%. The top 50% starts with people who reported less than $30,000 in income. I don’t know about you all, but what incentive to people have to make more “pie” if they are only making a Tasty Kake and the government wants to take a bigger chunk. I don’t want to sound like I don’t think that there should not be some sort of safety net, and I know that peoples situations are not solely caused by their choices, but the more you take from one and give to another the harder it is for people to rationalize giving and not getting. You might say, “well, just take from the people who have the bigger ‘pie’”. Not so easy, the people with the big pies have ways of making them look smaller, or like they have no pie at all. I don’t know what the answer is, but I know it can’t be solved by moving pie around.
April 17, 2008 at 11:49 am
Amy:
I really cannot stand the “is it okay to steal to feed your family” questions of which I got a taste in school and I’m sure you got a banquet. I hate everything about them.
Similarly I object to the Katrina example on the grounds that it’s so clearly an exception to the “normal course of events.” Similar to, if you’ll forgive me bringing this up, arguing about the R and I exceptions for abortion. And I have a hard time discussing ethics when the absolute extreme is injected into the conversation IMMEDIATELY. Much like everyone’s favorite antisemitic dictator from the last century. (Seriously, as useful as he is to debate, I would call A.H. “one of the most accidentally beloved figures of the 20th century).
The roots of this discussion go back at least 800 years, to our dear friend Robin Hood. I would say that Robin, and his “robbing the rich to give to the poor” mantra, is universally beloved. And you’d have a hard time finding a person who wouldn’t say that what he did was okay. But WAS it? I mean, there IS a commandment. And there’s no asterisk by it. So instead of starting at “my kid is starving, you inhuman b@$tard,” can’t we start at Exodus 20 and go from there?
(This is not pointed directly to you, Amy, more to the debate you’re introducing.)
April 17, 2008 at 11:52 am
(P.S. Womyn rock. I completely concede that point.)
April 17, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Joel, you are correct it is an extreme example, but I chose an extreme example very purposely given the example meade was using in the original post. I can think of few scenarios more extreme than resorting to prostitution to pay your bills. It was my assumption that we were dealing with the outlier.
The Robin Hood example makes sense, but definitely thrusts the conversation directly into the thing that we all seem to have been hinting around.. spirit of the law? or letter of the law? In all honesty, most of the time, what God says regarding clear cut commands need to be followed, but the problem is that there is so frequently an exception. However, when the pursuit of Jesus & his holiness is the aim in the situation, many times those gray areas become more obvious. I wish I could give more ministry examples that meade & i have encountered pastorally, but obviously cannot b/c of privacy.
For instance…. (true story with identifying details changed) say your church holds a very specific by law stating divorce is only permissible in cases of adultery, but you have a parishioner whose husband never once cheats, but is a drug addict and is consistently destroying their finances and the only way out legally and financially is divorce? what do you do? I know introducing divorce just complicates things, but the extreme is so much more common than many people would think. This is why understanding narratives is so key… b/c if you are not self-aware enough to see it in yourself, you will struggle and fail horribly in wisdom decisions such as these.
April 17, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Tom D… you have tapped into the age old complicating nature of economics… it is so annoying b/c there is no easy answer. on one hand, we have obligations to those with less, on the other hand… people have a right under the founding principles of our nation, to keep what they earn. It’s muddy water for sure, and I know i have no answer.
Bringing up the hiding the pie scenario is interesting, that is often left out in the national discussion. I feel like some of the uber rich dudes are standing there with their hands behind their backs, like ‘guess how many fingers am I holding up.”/ don’t look in my cayman account. but, that’s just a knee jerk reaction on my part, although it’s a funny mental picture
April 17, 2008 at 1:06 pm
You are absolutely right Amy. There are a lot of rich people out there who are hiding their wealth. The thing is when the government doesn’t seem to be dipping their hands into their pockets, they don’t hide so much. Every time the capital gains tax gets reduced, the Treasury Department takes more money in. That’s because the cost of investing is lowered. This also lowers the barrier for those who have less, causing people to save and invest more. When people have extra, they are more likely to give. There are countless examples out there that show what rich people do when they think the government is going to take more.
April 17, 2008 at 1:40 pm
There does seem to be levels of priority in commands. Consider David who ate the temple bread because his peeps were starving. He was commended for that even though he was breaking the law. The positive side of the law seems to be the higher priority. Instead of ‘thou shalt not kill’ the idea is to seek life and to encourage others to seek life.
Do not steal is definitely wrong, but it probably would be a greater priority to ’seek life’ in this case by stealing some food.
April 17, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I’m still not really into it. I mean I get it, you’re saying that there are times where what will apparently be stealing is otherwise admissible or even apparently admirable. Obviously our application of the law is to be liberally seasoned by grace and I TOTALLY get that.
(By the way David didn’t steal that bread. He used it out of its prescribed ceremonial context.)
I will continue to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment about the Ten Commandments. What I’m concerned about is that there’s this specific one, Thou Shall Not Steal, which is so unpopular, so uncool that we’re immediately trying to hang all of our exceptions on it, to show what, that there are times when looting is socially acceptable? But why is this commandment so uncool? I think it’s because theft is perhaps more ambiguous than it ever has been. Those corporations, those Walgreens in NOLA? They could totally afford to lose a few store’s worth of water and food (since, nobly, that’s all that was taken), cause, hey, an even MORE faceless corporation, whoever Insured them, were the only people taking the hit.
I mean I suspect that Theft is so (apparently) bloodless today that has consigned Stealing into this role of “Marginally Acceptable under Any Number of Circumstances.” Adultery–obviously shreds your marriage and life. Coveting–clearly pollutes your soul. Lying–wrecks your ability to be trustworthy. In treating with these Commandments pretty much solely on the basis of which ones are not in effect under which circumstances, I don’t know–I guess I’m just uncomfortable with being so cavalier with them.
April 17, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Not to mention that, at least on my part, we’re dealing with this Katrina issue in part through the lens of the media, which is totally a fools’ errand.
April 17, 2008 at 2:23 pm
You may have a point on the stealing thing Joel. I would argue however that I am pretty vocal against illegal distribution of media (mp3s) and only came to argue for an acceptance in stealing after coming across the David passage. The ceremonial context was also binding just as ‘thou shalt not steal’. For this discussion I think they would be comparable in ‘God’s law’.
I do believe (and this may be along with what you said) that some things such as lying are never acceptable. Satan is clearly the father of lies and truth is not only a moral command but it is an attribute of G through and through.
I don’t seem to be advancing this discussion with this comment. I suppose I would suggest some correspondence on what David did. While he clearly broke the ceremonial law, he also somehow didn’t sin. (Or do you think he did?)
April 17, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I think that if there’s a clear stratification of laws, the ceremonial law is a layer that, as it was broken by David and then cited and broken again by J, is certainly the first to “go.” The 10 C’s though. . .
April 17, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I don’t believe J broke the ceremonial law. What J broke was the oral law that was wrapped around the ceremonial law. It’s from a section of the ceremonial law that the book of James is built on as well. We’ll get to the ceremonial law eventually in our small group discussions, but as of right now I’ll say that I don’t believe we can discount it. My position is not a popular one in dispensationalism, but there it is.
April 17, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Okay not stratification, but let’s say “classes” of laws. The Ceremonial Class of laws specifically are singled out as being iron-clad originally but then as taking a beating in the cases of David and then J. The lesson there, that religious ceremony is not to take precedence over human decency and survival, is well-taken.
April 17, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I think you are mistaken in how you understand the ceremonial laws. It was those laws that allowed the nation of Israel to have peace in the presence of God. It was those that allowed them to even survive in God’s presence! They definitely were considered important considered that if you messed them up (or offer strange fire) you might be smoked and destroyed by divine means.
April 17, 2008 at 2:33 pm
If someone would have the human decency to bring me a reasonable cup of coffee at my workplace I could get back to joking around.
April 17, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I completely understand how absolutely ironclad the ceremonial laws were for the Israelites. Rope on the high priest’s get-up for a drag-out all the way down. And yet these laws specifically were targeted first by David and then extensively by Jesus. Unless you’re drawing the comparison that “as important as these laws were, if they can come down, so can the 10 C’s,” I place them, in the end, below the 10 C’s which I see, for the sake of this argument, as “The basis for human Morality.” i.e., as important.
April 17, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I agree with that. I would prioritize them below the 10C’s, but the question is what gives you the moral right to break a ceremonial law?
And again, J didn’t target those ceremonial laws. Even later when the church of Jerusalem put together laws for the Gentiles they said “no meat with blood in it!”. They carried a ceremonial law item even farther into the NT
April 17, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I’m just glad the early Jewish church leaders aren’t around to see my No Rules Burgers I get at Outback. They are, if I can out myself, often stupidly rare. I occasionally pay consequences that, when they have come due, are almost comically immediate.
April 17, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I love how we use analogies that are easily broken down (from both angles). No, America is not a pie factory, nor is it a pie itself (which is a great analogy for communism). Men were created equal and to be free. When they are not, there is unequal access to “the pie” (whatever that means). Government is responsible for much of the inequities in our country because it tries to solve problems that don’t exist or would naturally take care of themselves. People on minimum wage now work fewer hours because businesses can’t afford to pay them more; so they aren’t earning more than they did before because they are working fewer hours. Many competent white people aren’t getting into the University of Delaware because Delaware gives a full ride to hispanics and other minorities.
I’m learning as I “grow up” that attempting to solve what appear to be problems that need to be fixed immediately often have more side effects (minimum wage example above––not that I was against that legislation). It’s the law of unintended consequences.
I believe WE THE PEOPLE is written in big letters in the Constitution for a reason. It is the PEOPLE who are to be generous to our neighbor, charitable beyond reason, and in general the ones to enact change. It’s our responsibility to help our neighbor. Americans are generous, and have proven to be so. Imagine how much 10% fewer taxes would free up the American people to give responsibly. Imagine a president who could inspire us to be generous people, rather than invite their votes so that he/she could do for the country what the country should do for itself.
I remember hearing a Tim Keller sermon about a poor man “deserving” my goods if I am rich. And to some extent, from a spiritual perspective, I agree. It’s simply not the government’s job to enforce certain morals on people when its job is to keep us free from harm. I’d love to have 10% more of my money so I can give more to charity, save for the future (instead of the negative investment called social security [which is neither, btw]). Be nice to have a huge sum of money at retirement which is more than I needed so I can help out those who do need it.
Anyway, I could ramble on and on… but I do that at my blog (www.liveloud.net)
April 17, 2008 at 4:26 pm
You have a really pessimistic opinion of government Doug and an falsely optimistic opinion of people.
It will be a cold day in hell when an extra 10% fewer taxes will result in an increase in charity spending. The benefit to having government run charities is not the efficiency of them, but that something/anything will actually be done. That’s 10% that will automatically go to charities that wouldn’t otherwise.
It’s much easier to give away money in charity when it doesn’t come out of your pocketbook. I believe that we should monopolize on that ’strength’ of our nature since it exists.
April 17, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Was there a reason why my view of government wasn’t labeled “false” but my opinion of Americans was? It is no debate whether or not Americans are generous as a whole. We account for much of the giving around the world.
Let me ask you. Did you feel charitable on April 15?
I didn’t think so.
As a philosophy, historically a “get it done” approach to action over against an approach that takes seriously the consequences of action to be made is labeled “fascist.” I’m not throwing out names here, either. When one does some research on the history of fascism, much of it is about taking action, making sure SOMETHING gets done, even if it is inefficient or immoral.
When Person A takes money from Person B to give it to Person C, it is theft. Just because it is with good intentions, good will, and for presumably good reasons––and even if it actually WORKS––it is still theft. Even if Person B doesn’t “need” it, and Person C does. The moral thing to do would be to mobilize Person B (the one with the money) to realize the needs of Person C so that Person C could have the ability to do what Person B did to get to his place in life. It is not to simply “take” because it’s a good idea. It’s amazing that we let the government get away with this year in and year out because somehow we forget that the fundamental principle behind it is immoral.
But I guess we’re used to it, so it’s okay.
April 17, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Doug - You have to be careful when you call taxes theft. Some of our tax dollars go toward infrastructure (i.e. highways), defense, emergency services, etc. All of these things are good.
April 17, 2008 at 10:58 pm
wait a minute doug.. correct me if i am wrong, did you just equate the principle of taxes for the poor with theft?
April 17, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Call me batcrap crazy but were taxes ever mentioned in the Bible? Hmmm? Taxes to, of all people, the Roman FRIGGING Empire, who, later on, used Christians as Lion Bait? Jesus totally knew this would happen and still advocated taxes. So. Erm.
Doug you really need to know that every comment you’ve made thus far has strongly featured your particular brand of politics. I mean. Surely you’re about more than that.
Oh and April 15, when I showered in clean water and drove to work safely and comfortably in my car and didn’t fear hostile attack and was reasonably sure that if anything happened to me I’d be cared for, yeah, I wasn’t resentful of paying my taxes. Maybe you can argue that it’s too much or not spent efficiently or whathaveyou, but for us to take advantage of the best living conditions in the history of earth and then complain that they cost us is either just fatuous or something far worse. Perhaps ungrateful.
April 18, 2008 at 6:35 am
“Oh and April 15, when I showered in clean water and drove to work safely and comfortably in my car and didn’t fear hostile attack and was reasonably sure that if anything happened to me I’d be cared for, yeah, I wasn’t resentful of paying my taxes. Maybe you can argue that it’s too much or not spent efficiently or whathaveyou, but for us to take advantage of the best living conditions in the history of earth and then complain that they cost us is either just fatuous or something far worse. Perhaps ungrateful.”
Great use of taxes. Good example.
Amy, I’m not saying it IS theft, I’m raising the observation that it is generally “excused” because some good-hearted people decide to take money from some people against their will. and give it to another. That is a simple statement of what actually happens. In every other case except government, we call it theft. Why?
Whether or not it is the wrong way to approach it we’ve discussed elsewhere, and for the record I’m not for abolishing every gov’t program that helps the poor or sick.
Joel… what brand of politics have I? I also have theological assumptions about the nature of people, about the role of government, about the message of Jesus to PEOPLE (not gov’t) to care for their neighbor, the poor, the widow, et al. Besides, you’d believe I’m “more than” if you read all the comments I’ve made, or perhaps even my blog.
“Call me batcrap crazy but were taxes ever mentioned in the Bible? Hmmm? Taxes to, of all people, the Roman FRIGGING Empire, who, later on, used Christians as Lion Bait? Jesus totally knew this would happen and still advocated taxes. So. Erm.”
I’m not even sure what that all means.
April 18, 2008 at 6:44 am
Let me state for the record that government taxing a person is not illegit. Obviously, taxes are how we pay for things. Perhaps I should make a more specific observation.
When the gov’t taxes somebody who makes over $200,000/year 35% of their income, and somebody who makes $50,000/year 15% or 20% of their income, it is an inequity because the line of reasoning goes, “the more they make, the more we can take, because they really don’t need it.” THAT type of taxation would be closer to theft than taxation as a general principle. It’s unfair, inequitable, and immoral.
April 23, 2008 at 5:48 pm
So do you want to tax the poor at a higher rate, or the rich at a lower rate? When you lose your $200,000 a year job and have to survive on $50,000 will you have the same perspective?
I think the whole concept of taxation is not simple, it’s quite complex, especially when you look a little deeper than what comes out of your wallet. What about sales tax, import duties, export tax, good and services taxes etc etc. It’s all interrelated. I was going to say taxation isn’t a fair analogy to what was originally discussed, but perhaps in it’s complexity - and it’s ability to be simplified to an opinion - it is.
Getting back to the original issue. Personal responsibility. We have a personal responsibility to function in some form or other in a society. If society fails us (which I think summarizes a lot of what has been discussed) are we responsible for our actions and choices?
This is a fabulous subject for discussion. How far does our view of our own needs, desires, and our morals, differ from those around us? Should we impose what we view is right over others beliefs, needs etc. And if our needs are not met, should we meet them ourselves even though it fails someone else’s belief system?
I guess this is why we are lucky to live in countries that have political systems that allow such discussion. Even though democracy favours the majority over what may be the best option (in someone’s opinion!), it allows for people to discuss it. And that’s the most important thing.
Enjoying these blogs very much thanks!
April 23, 2008 at 10:50 pm
interesting point on taxes, it is so huge and complicated that a few trite statements cannot begin to shed adequate light on it.
The issue of personal responsibility vs. the environment is so intertwined that it is difficult to legislate around. It is so rare that an instance is solely one or the other, it is nearly always a very complicated intertwining of the two. The question I guess is, where is the line? When do you no longer hold blame? this why the concept of broken shalom is so fascinating to me.
May 7, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Ok. This is utterly ridiculous. First of all, whether you’re a prostitute or “pie maker”, EVERYONE who has a functional brain (ie someone who is living, moving, non-comatose with all genes present) has a free will and the opportunity to make decisions regardless if they are poverty-stricken or wealthy. You cannot pin your personal responsibility on the circumstances in which you were raised. If that were the case, I would be addicted to drugs and in prison, like my brother, or a teenage parent, like my sister. There are some who would say that I “didn’t stand a chance”, but that didn’t stop me from leaving it all behind to forage a better life for myself. And I did it all without “God” or “Jesus” in my life. It’s called human potential and everybody has it, it’s just that some CHOOSE not to use it and instead make up bullshit excuses for their lack of self discipline. Every self-sustaining human being is born with 46 chromosomes, a heart, a brain, bones, skin, veins, etc, so essentially you can say that every human being is the same aside from aesthetic qualities, which only differ because of the geographic location in which one lives (either that or plastic surgery). If people were not made the same, they would simply not be human. It would be safe to say that every human, being made the same way out of the same things, would also have the same potential in life. In fact, our free will is the ONLY thing that makes us different. And the whole “stealing bread to feed your starving family” or the “taking of someone else’s pie” because you don’t have all of your ingredients is just another excuse to justify your short-comings. A tree owned by nobody would not suffer an injustice if one was to pick an apple, or even ten apples, to feed one’s starving family, but in STEALING bread, an injustice IS suffered by the baker. I would have to agree with the radio host on this one. Don’t come to the pie factory without all of your ingredients and expect a hand out. That’s what the shelter is for. It is human nature to act out of one’s own self-interest, but there are still people out there who believe that what’s good for the whole is good for the self and have enough self-control and discipline to still do what’s morally right with no regard for religious nonsense. It’s the free will to make your own decisions based on the kind of life in which you CHOOSE to live and that can only be taken from you in death.
May 8, 2008 at 10:10 am
The compassion and empathy meter just dropped below 0.
May 8, 2008 at 10:45 am
I really cannot get my Logical Fallacy post up fast enough.