Where is the compassion, here?
"Self control of one's thinking and self control over one's body is a necessity so as not to commit fornication in all it's ugly forms." What I am reading in th is thread is that imperfection is a sin. Fornication? Really? Fornication has been around since BEFORE man scrawled animal images on cave walls. We are just about the only species where sex is more than simply reproducing offspring - it can enhance and cement a loving bond, OR it can reduce a victim to a shell of a human being. Should we go about having sex with everyone and everyTHING? Well..........think about it: there are consequences for everything, including promiscuity. But, learning the difference between sex and love requires understanding and a mind willing to learn, rather than outright judgment.
Fornication becomes UGLY when it's used as a weapon or tool of physical/emotional pain. Is the suggestion, here, that a victim of sexual assault should carry a foetus to term to avoid being "bad?" What did the victim do to deserve the assault, in the first place, and then be humiliated into carrying the offspring of a RAPIST to term? What about the offspring, then? They will carry the genetic information of the criminal and this is a "good" thing to introduce into society?
Who among any of us has never made a mistake? My personal feelings about abortion have nothing to do with the next person who feels that it's their only option. Unless we have walked that path, ourselves, we have no right or invitation to judge another person for making such a dire decision. Certainly, there are those who have used abortion as a form of birth control, and they are pitiable, indeed, because they must live with their choices. But, so must any of us. We all make mistakes and errors in judgment. The women that I have known who made the decision to abort did not gleefully skip out of the clinics and immediately begin having sex like rabbits. For pity's sake, these women die, every day, for making this decision, and they carry guilt for their decisions sometimes for the rest of their lives. A few have even attempted (and, one succeeded) in committing suicide over their decisions.
I have the utmost pity, empathy, and compassion for anyone who has opted for an abortion as a last resort. And.......what my personal beliefs are that pertain to me, ONLY, have no factor in my pity, empathy, and compassion. I have come to a point in my life where making mistakes is NOT sinful. We are human and prone to errors. The "sin" only lies in the refusal to learn the lessons OF the mistakes, not in the mistakes themselves. Jesus, himself, would comfort these women and give them absolution, and yet we flawed and mortal human beings have the cheek to stand in judgment with such cold calculation?
I read no compassion. I read no pity. I read no empathy. I only read the spinning dogma that gives Christianity a perception of intolerance and a complete absence of love and compassion.