Quote:
Originally Posted by todeen
Agree, one cannot live black and white. I'm not Buddhist, but I've appreciated their teachings about understanding gray choices. The Buddha taught not to drink alcohol; it is bad juju to drink and get drunk. But if he was told to get drunk or someone would be killed, it was a worse sin on him to refuse to drink. There are many other teachings like this. Such as suicide is bad. But suicide/sacrifice to save the life of another is okay.
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You too?
I am not living in a black and white world, There are so many different opinions and ideas as to what may or may not be acceptable in regards to accepting that people may be killed or die in certain circumstances, and yet that person can still be viewed by themselves, or others, as being Pro-Life. And since there is no one definitive, agreed upon by all people's meaning for that term, and list of allowable exceptions to still be considered a Pro-Life person, I have chosen to think in terms of the actual meaning of that phrase. Absent the inclusion of any context or background for a specific situation or set of circumstances, taking the literal meaning of the term "Pro-Life" seemed to me to be the most educated and logical place to start then. The term, "proponent of life", doesn't state there are exceptions for murderers, or for fetus' of raped women, or whatever other exceptions someone may have. And since I have absolutely no way of knowing each and every other person's exact definition of what Pro-Life means to them, I figure it best to start with exactly what someone with a reasonable intelligence would look to, the definition of the specific term - proponent of life. The one concrete meaning behind that term is that the person it applies to would be for life, in all possible situations where there is a choice to be made. If you want to have an exception for yourself, or in a specific situation like this thread, then state, I'm Pro-Life, but believe in the death penalty for convicted murderers, or something along those lines for whatever exception(s) you may have. You can't just assume everyone else is going to agree with your exact definition and understanding of what that term means.
And again, that is also why I specifically gave the vegetarian/vegan example in my earlier post, to show the context of my meaning and where I was coming from. So Tim, if someone tells you they are a vegan or vegetarian, do you automatically assume that means they eat absolutely no meat whatsoever, or that they cheat a couple times a year, or maybe they only mean red meat and poultry is okay, or possibly they don't have an issue if their food is cooked in animal fat as long as it contains no actual meat, and so on? See my point? You don't know exactly what they mean, or the complete background and context behind the statement of their being a vegan/vegetarian. Yet, I get called out by a couple people accusing me of not paying attention to the situation and not supposedly understanding the context behind the term "Pro-Life", despite the fact I am given no specific background or context for how someone was using or referring to that term in this thread. And don't go trying to tell me it was implied, unless you can point me to the specific statement in this thread, before I posted, where it says the term Pro-Life is only to be used in reference to abortions and the abortion issue. If it was and I missed it, I'll gladly apologize for my mistake in having missed that post then. But still, I found it almost laughable that I get accused of being ignorant due to my statements and not magically guessing and understanding the context of the term "Pro-Life" as used in this thread, that others have now declared what it is after the fact, even though there was no previous context offered or given to my knowledge. Meanwhile, I went out of my way to provide a specific example to show the context of my understanding and treatment of the term "Pro-Life", using a vegetarian/vegan example, yet the accusing parties seem to have totally ignored that very relevant fact, or didn't comprehend it, and yet I'm supposed to be the ignorant one. Yeah, right!