But I like Pagan Child Sacrifice! Where are my religious rights?

1. The atomisation of pluralism… keep on pouring them in… entropy awaits 😉

2. Slight detour, but on the subject of Christians believing in a devil, demons, arch angels etc – this makes them polytheists who believe in many deities, not monotheists who believe in a singular God. Basically, it’s a continuation of pagan poly-god beliefs. Logicall, you can’t have one all powerful god and also lesser gods. You either have one or you have a many. Otherwise you end up with conundrums like, if the devil is part of god, doesn’t that make god at least partly evil? So it is no wonder that so many “heresies” emerged in Christianity as they tried to sort this “hot mess” out. Some heresies believed that the Yahweh god was the evil twin god of the good god for instance.

3. Treat Tamati and other sick cult leaders for what they are.

   Entering into debate with them is pointless. There is no rational discourse to be had

   The pentecostal machine grinds on capturing confused people often at a time of stress or crisis in their lives.
   The machine rakes in billions world wide. Its about money.

   Sick! Sick! Sick!

4. The question I ask over and over again, is why does anti-abortionist’s so-called concern about the unborn child stop – kaput – once they are born ? None of them ever show any interest in the fate of an unwanted or unwelcome child.

   Forcing a child to be born with zero concern about what happens next is the face of naked hypocrisy. Is Bish Brian concerned about the post-natal existence of unwanted children? If not, then I suggest that Brian is a face of naked hypocrisy.

   We know what happens to far too many unwanted children – and have to put up with sanctimonious ignorami like Andrew proclaiming here that Maori women should not have babies out of wedlock, and that children need fathers.

   Fathers and step-fathers are the biggest danger to NZ babies, and the time is overdue to start laying blame
   on males responsible for unwanted pregnancies – and just stop bullying women.

   Motor-bike man is echoing the Donald Trump war against the poor and against women, and were there a devil, then it is creatures like Brian and Donald trying to force unwanted babies out into a harsh world, who I think appear like the advocates of human sacrifice; I could call them Satan’s spawn, but I have trouble seeing any devil lowering himself to grubby bully-boy level.

5. Snow White:
   As an “anti-abortionist” myself, I challenge your claim that “None of them (anti-abortionists) ever show any interest in the fate of an unwanted or unwelcome child.”
   As believers in the sanctity of human life, we do not recognise the secular concept of “an unwanted or unwelcome child”. (There are of course those who do not want or do not welcome a particular child, or children in general, but that is quite a different matter).
   Generalisations of the kind that you and Martyn are making here do not help to progress a constructive discussion. Rather they increase what Chris Trotter has called “the quantum of hate” within our society. Let’s be blunt. There are those who are happy for us to kill our unborn tamariki, and those who would allow our rangatahi to lose their sense of purpose in a cannabis induced daze. For some reason you believe that puts you in a morally superior position to those of us who want our children to grow up strong, happy, drug-free and healthy members of our community. In that I disagree.

   • Geoff – I’m anti-abortion too, I don’t like it , but I am also pro-choice, and if you think that is impossible it is not, because that is what I am. I also recognise and accept that others have the right to hold different views from me.

     The women I know who have talked to me of their own abortions have made those decisions in circumstances with which I totally sympathise.

     I don’t consider that belief in the sanctity of human life is justification for forcing women to give birth in circumstances where the outcome for mother, child or for others involved, is not going to be a good outcome. It is, I suggest, both singularly cruel, and theologically questionable.

     Possibly the greatest theologian ever, Saint Augustine, taught that children are conceived in sin, and that mortal sin is passed to the embryo during intercourse – which he also considered sinful. Hence he also justified prostitution, as it saved virtuous women from having to commit sin with their husbands.

     Christianity has always regarded children being born in a state of sin – the sin of Adam and Eve – hence baptism being necessary to rid them of that sin. So I am uncertain how to reconcile human life having any sanctity per se, if, without baptism, children are in a state of sin.

     But. Christian teaching has also decreed that dead pre-birth children go to limbo – an inbetween place, not as good as heaven – but again perhaps of undetermined outcome as on the day of judgment, anything could happen. I also think that contemporary theologian Hans Kung, postulates a “baptism of desire”, which is conferred upon unbaptised persons e.g. pagans, who have lived good and worthy lives; it is not unreasonable to suggest that this would not also apply to unborn children – and I think that Kung does, but I would have to check it.

     So for a believer in the sanctity of human life, such as you, there should be comfort from the acceptance that if birth is avoided by the interruption of gestation before the foetus is viable, there is still a future life at a supernatural level for unborn tamariki.

     Your statement, “For some reason you believe that puts you in a morally superior position to those of us who want our children to grow up strong, happy, drug-free and healthy members of our community. In that I disagree,” is offensive, as I think it is meant to be. I am not sure why. You assume too much, and you assume wrongly. And I rather think you know more about ‘cannabis dazes’ than me – this is stuff from your mind, not mine.

     If you can reference anti-abortionists expressing concern for what becomes of the unwanted children, then it would be a good thing to see.

   • Geoff Fischer: “I challenge your claim that “None of them (anti-abortionists) ever show any interest in the fate of an unwanted or unwelcome child.””

     On this issue, I agree with Snow White – for the most part, because there are always some exceptions. But I’ve noticed in online commentary that those who pronounce themselves to be anti-abortion are frequently the same people who condemn single mothers in receipt of a benefit. It’s difficult to see how people can agitate against abortion and also against a welfare system which allows mothers to keep their babies. but somehow, they manage it.

     Despite having grown up (Irish) Catholic, I am cheerfully atheist. And a card-carrying liberal regarding abortion. I left the church in the first place because of its policy on birth control; I couldn’t see how a bunch of blokes in frocks were in any position to tell the rest of us what we should be doing in the bedroom. I still think that.

     “…we do not recognise the secular concept of “an unwanted or unwelcome child””

     You’re entitled to take this view. Yours is essentially a religious perspective, and you’re welcome to live by it. However, your view ought not to inform the laws, such that abortion is still in the Crimes Act and that obtaining abortions is complicated and expensive for women who do not share your beliefs and who wish to carry a pregnancy to term.

     I’d add that – near as I can tell – you’re a man. Your opinion on abortion can only ever be theoretical, given that you’re not in possession of a uterus (I assume). You will never be asked to gestate a fetus when you do not wish to, or you already have more children than you can cope with, or you’ve had a failure of contraception, OR, a doctor has just advised you that the fetus has an unviable genetic anomaly. Or – given that pregnancy can be dangerously unpredictable – your health won’t admit of you having another child. Put simply: you’re a fellow. It ain’t your business.

     “For some reason you believe that puts you in a morally superior position to those of us who want our children to grow up strong, happy, drug-free and healthy members of our community.”

     Snow White didn’t say that; I’m not sure where you get it from, though it does sound a shade defensive. Nobody who takes a liberal view of contraception thinks that way; nobody I know at least. I’m not even sure what it has to do with abortion, to be honest.

     • D’Esterre – You have forced me to the religion section of my library – about 9 inches. Pope Paul VI convened a special birth control commission which sat between 1964-67; unusually for its time it consulted a wide range of people apart from theologians.

       Paul V1 then chose to ignore the conclusions of the final document of the Commission, and he re-affirmed the traditional ban on birth control in his 1968 encyclical, ‘Humanae Vitae,’ also unconsciously paving the way for spineless NZ politicians to set up commissions and inquiries and kick away their conclusions when they come in.

       Rosemary Radford Ruether records representatives of the American Catholic Family Movement being told by a conservative cardinal that he didn’t see how the church could change its previous teaching, asking them what would happen to all those condemned to Hell because of their violation of past prohibitions.

       The CFM lady replied, “But, Your Eminence, do you really think that God has obeyed all your orders ?”

       I have glanced v quickly at Radford Ruether writing on abortion here, and make brief note of , ‘a desperate remedy for the loss of reproductive self-determination’; and ‘an unwanted pregnancy forced upon them against their will by a combination of ignorance, sexual coercion and inadequate medical means.’

       What is happening now in the USA is worse – I have only half-followed it, but having not just religious teaching, but state power used to coerce women into carrying a life-long responsibility for the products of carelessly scattered male sperm is part of a much broader political issue, but for me, the unwanted babies and children will probably always be crux of this issue.

       The sanctity of life wasn’t that effective in helping the brain-smashed Kahui twins, or the little girl pegged to a clothesline in Rotorua and spun right out human life. If these kiddies just died, it wouldn’t be so bad, but Starship Hospital regularly reports dead infants with historic injuries, broken ribs and limbs, burns, brain bleeds and more injuries than big brave rugby players garner in one game. Torture.

       Rugby players go onto the field knowing what could hit them, but babies (a) Don’t choose to be born and (b) Haven’t a clue what lies ahead, and (c) Rugby Players are bigger than babies.

       • Snow White: “You have forced me to the religion section of my library – about 9 inches.”

         Heh! Your section is approximately 7 inches fatter than mine. I have completely abandoned all of that, though for archival reasons, I still have my missal and one or two religious texts – read in the context of political philosophy, not Christianity per se – from my uni days.

         “….his 1968 encyclical, ‘Humanae Vitae…”

         I decamped from the church fairly soon after that.

         “The CFM lady replied, “But, Your Eminence, do you really think that God has obeyed all your orders ?”

         Haha, fantastic riposte! I suppose that history doesn’t record said cardinal’s response? Though his reasons for not changing the church’s teachings tell people everything they need to know about the church.

         “What is happening now in the USA is worse…”

         So it seems. A combination of extreme Republican conservatism and ignorance. And, of course, prejudice.

         “….the unwanted babies and children will probably always be crux of this issue.”

         Exactly. I am so pleased that Geoff Fischer didn’t raise the issue of unwanted children being put up for adoption, as some anti-abortionists have done. I’m infuriated by that suggestion.

         Right now, we have Maori insisting that Maori babies ought to go to their extended families, so that they will know their lineage. In virtue of what should people suppose that knowledge of one’s lineage isn’t every bit as important for every child, Maori or not? Those of us who’ve known adopted people will be well aware of their (frequently lifelong) search for their biological parents.

         “…Starship Hospital regularly reports dead infants with historic injuries, broken ribs and limbs, burns, brain bleeds and more injuries than big brave rugby players garner in one game. Torture.”

         Indeed. The first case I remember clearly is that of Delcelia Witika. At the time of her awful death, I had a child of about the same age. For that reason, I simply couldn’t bring myself to watch footage of the trial, or to read the detail of her injuries. I remember that there was a TV documentary about her. I had to firmly shut up a work colleague who wanted to tell me how that child died. Said colleague – not being a parent – was baffled at my reaction. But at the time, I spoke to other parents of similarly-aged children: I was by no means alone in reacting like that.

         Nowadays, my view of abortion is underpinned by what I’ve learned about the biology of reproduction. Anti-abortionists can pontificate all they like about saving all the precious new life; in fact, a vast number of zygotes (I forget how many, but it’s a lot) are shed by the female body without ever implanting. That’s frequently because errors in genetic patterning render them unviable. Then there are the ones that do implant, but are also unviable and are shed in spontaneous abortions, often so early that a woman is unaware of it. And there are the ectopic pregnancies; what do the anti-abortionists propose to do about saving them? The truth is, we probably want to be glad that only a relatively few fetuses reach term; were that not the case, there’d be standing room only on the planet.

         My view now is that abortion is another tool in the armoury of contraception and therefore perfectly unexceptionable. I note that the church’s view is the same: that contraception includes abortion. However, it just forbids all contraception, abortion included.

         • D’Esterre – a good read. The late wonderful Dr Maureen Garing – VU academic and National Radio presenter – talked with me about when she was searching for her own birth mother, and Maori are 100% correct in saying everyone needs to know their whakapapa. One side of my family is French and we grew up deprived of much family knowledge, largely because my mother disapproved of them – and numerous others.

           Five of my seven pregnancies miscarried; the Catholic Church teaches that if I die and go to heaven, my five babies will be waiting up there to meet me; that is too much to hope for, or to even think about – I cannot think about it – and my guts tell me that the Church is plain bonkers. This is the madness of men.

           But in parts of Central or South America, contemporary civil authorities talk of prosecuting mothers who miscarry, and this is part of the war against women, and against the poor, which Trump is helping to lead, and he is supported by those who he is damaging.

           Joe Bageant’s, “Deer Hunting With Jesus”, written just pre-Trump, gives a great- and raucous – analysis of red-neck America, and the parallels with Bish Brian, Folau and co are all there in what – amongst other things Bageant calls, the ‘magical thinking’ of the
           Christian right.

           But if Bish Brian is trying to get a message out that far too many N Z males are violent bullying bastards, then I salute him for that.

           Unfortunately though, Brian, with his ‘pagan practice’ waffle also shows how NZ males – even in Parliament – tend to base arguments on emotion rather than reason; I blame the education system – NZ adolescents are abysmally less articulate than their eg US counterparts.

           The other very sad side of the anti-abortion men here, is that some Pacifica women’s husbands are opposed to birth control, which is why confidential services need to be made available to them, to get implants or whatever else they can, to give them that control over their own reproductive processes. Abortion as a form of birth control, is far from ideal, including for medical reasons.

           I am not sure how a man who has never been prgnant, nor gone through the process of giving birth to a child, considers himself qualified to comment on it, more so when his own contribution has been a very small, and sometimes unwelcome one.

           • So we see religious argument featuring in the abortion debate.
             As there are about 10000 religions and all claim to be right, a difficulty arises.

             Broadly many of the main stream religions are evangelical and seek to increase their numbers. Larger families seems to be a common path to this increase of the flock and wealth / income.

             Who profits by not allowing abortion.

             Our NZ society has an increasing non religious result in census figures.
             https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_New_Zealand

             It has been noted also than church attendance has fallen dramatically and many nominate a religion but may not be practicing the belief system other than it being a family stance.

             So I suggest that abortion be judged on its humanitarian grounds and not become a religious debate. It is a secular matter for most.

           • Snow White: “Five of my seven pregnancies miscarried; the Catholic Church teaches that if I die and go to heaven, my five babies will be waiting up there to meet me…”

             I’m sad for you, if those were all wanted babies.

             The church of my childhood taught us that, unless they’d been baptised, the innocents would fetch up in limbo for all eternity. Cruel indeed: no chance of seeing them in the hereafter. An older sibling died as a pre-schooler before I was born; although my late mother was agnostic in later life, she never forgot that child, and the hope of reunion in the afterlife sustained her, I believe.

             Nowadays, I’m an atheist, with the perspective that one would expect from an atheist. However. Some years ago, a sibling, who’d also abandoned the church when I did, was terminally ill. Sibling expressed to their spouse concerns about what came next, and would they be excluded from an afterlife because they hadn’t gone to church since their teens. I said to the spouse that, in my view, if there’s a hereafter, it’s for everybody, whatever their life may have been like, and whether or not they’d been baptised. The church taught that bollocks about limbo and the rest of it solely in an attempt to square the circle, so to speak: to gloss over the contradictions in its theology.

             “….prosecuting mothers who miscarry…”

             It’s completely mad and unbelievable, that any polity could even contemplate that sort of thing. A nightmarish perversion of the sort of society which modern humans have the right to expect. It’s hard to believe that doctors, with all that science in their training, would go along with any of it. But I suppose if laws are passed that require certain things of them, most will obey the law. Only the courageous few would stand up against it; we saw something similar in Germany during the rise of Nazism.

             “The other very sad side of the anti-abortion men here, is that some Pacifica women’s husbands are opposed to birth control…”

             Indeed. Pacific societies are patriarchal; as is Maori society, of course. Having Maori relatives in my extended family, I’m well aware of this: I’ve seen it in action. Patriarchalism is a persistent problem, and frequently a barrier to making and keeping women and children safe. Not just contraception: violence as well, sadly.

             “I am not sure how a man who has never been prgnant, nor gone through the process of giving birth to a child, considers himself qualified to comment on it…”

             I couldn’t agree more. Not only do I now see abortion as part of the armentarium of contraception (even if it’s a procedure that many people don’t like), I also see it as none of my business if a woman decides to terminate a pregnancy. It’s her choice, nobody else’s.

6. There is something about this paragraph: “As believers in the sanctity of human life, we do not recognise the secular concept of “an unwanted or unwelcome child”. (There are of course those who do not want or do not welcome a particular child, or children in general, but that is quite a different matter).”

   It has that ‘angels on the head of a pin’ quality.

   Mr Fischer – you are totally entitled to your beliefs. You may never recognise the secular concept. And that’s where you stop. That’s your boundary.

   Of course you may seek to influence with integrity to see if others come to your banner of beliefs.
   However, in the view of this pagan, that is all you may do. Believe, not recognise, and influence with integrity. Preventing, castigating, threatening with retribution both here on earth and from the supernatural is unspiritual.

   Should you cross that bound you become an interfering busybody in the needs and beliefs of others – outside your legitimate sphere of influence. You’ve been heard: your preferences have been noted. We’ll support you as we can. Let you do likewise.

   And as for that religious Tamaki and his ill-informed comments about pagans – oh fire, brimstone and eternal hell – we’ve suffered centuries of prejudice from your kind. Just keep your opinions to yourself and leave us undone to our fate. Thanks.

7. I love how Tamaki keeps awarding himself additional honorifics. Didn’t he start off as just a Pastor? Then he declared himself a Bishop. And now an Apostle. What next? Pope? Messiah? Cthulhu? The guy’s ego knows no bounds.

   • Wensleydale – bit of a mistake if Brian is now an apostle. The apostles don’t have a very good press in the official records of the day…

     It is the women who witness the crucifixion and death upon the cross. Mathew and Mark both record that only women, including the two Marys are present. Luke is less specific, but with John, again we see the women.

     John lists the mother of Jesus, her sister, Mary wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalen, the beloved disciple, and a woman as eye witnesses to the piercing of Jesus’s side on the cross. All the canonical gospels record the women keeping watch by the entrance stone while Jesus is buried.

     Jesus’s disciples have long since fled the scene, although Peter is sometimes shown following the proceedings at a safe distance. Even worse, during the agony in the garden, Jesus has specifically asked his friends to stay with him and not go to sleep. Peter, James and John go to sleep, waking and running off into the darkness when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus.

     With the men running off into the dark, Joseph of Arimathea, whom Luke depicts as a member of the Sanhedrin, is introduced to anoint and entomb the body of Jesus; the women wait nearby. No apostles.

     Apart from Peter following at a safe distance there is no evidence of men disciples at all on the way to
     Golgotha and during the crucifixion. Three writers mention Simon of Cyrene helping Jesus carry the cross.
     John mentions no-one. It is Luke who tells of Jesus pausing to talk to the women of Jerusalem saying,
     “Women of Jerusalem! Don’t cry for me, cry for yourselves and your children”

     Why did Jesus not speak to the men ? Here we have a significant number of people following Jesus, enough to constitute a crowd, among them the women Jesus addresses. Apart from Peter following at a safe distance, the only men recorded are those who mock and taunt. No apostles.

     Again, scripture teaches that it is a woman who first visits the tomb and finds it empty. Yet again, a woman first meets the resurrected Jesus and takes the good news to the disciples-in-hiding, that Jesus is back so that they can feel safe and come out.

     This is woman, recorded by history, as being first witness to the most significant foundation event of Christianity, the Resurrection, and taking the news to the apostles.

     The apostles emerge from hiding to become first priests of the Christian Church, from whom today’s Catholic priests – and God knows who else besides Brian – claim direct descent. And what an unedifying craven lot the apostles were when the chips were down. Not good role models for male clergy.

     I could continue – but won’t – this is from an old thesis- but Bishop Brian really needs to do much better than claiming to be an apostle. Perhaps he could arrange his own ascension into heaven – or just front up and say that he is following in the footsteps of the women of Jerusalem. On a motor bike. Crikey.

8. Lol you think you own your body you don’t even own the product of your own labour! But that’s ok right? We’re all moral relativists over here and if we claim ownership of our *own* body’s we wouldn’t be able to claim ownership over an unborn child’s! Carry on slaves!

9. I accept Snow White’s assurance that he does not feel morally superior to Brian Tamaki or other anti-abortion campaigners and apologise for having drawn that inference.
   I also accept that he, like the vast majority of us, would like to see fewer abortions carried out in this country. (The only exceptions would be a small minority of financially motivated professional abortionists).
   So it comes down to this matter of “choice” and while I cannot object in principle to “choice” – it is a fact of life that we all have to make choices – the truth is that in neo-liberal capitalism the options available to us differ wildly, and the choices we make are very differently conditioned. The affluent can make a genuine free choice to abort their children. For the poor, who are constantly being told that “If you can’t afford children, you should not have them”, and who struggle to pay the rent and put food on the table, abortion may seem like the only way out in our present social conditions.
   The neo-liberal argues that freedom to choose is all important, and that in matters such as abortion, drug and alcohol use, gambling and so on there is no “morally right” choice. However there may be “bad choices” which make the individual ineligible for the sympathy or support of the state and society. So failing to abort may be deemed a “bad choice” making the mother unworthy of social support (as has been the case in China), which means that in a society such as New Zealand the choice will not be truly free and unconditioned.
   The neo-liberal state is hell bent on liberalizing its abortion laws because it does not want to bear the cost of raising children. In New Zealand, so far as I am aware, only the ACT party has a policy which explicitly places the responsibility for raising children on the parents, but the major parties tacitly support that idea, and would rather have more abortions than an increased demand upon the social welfare vote.
   The state is saying that because it no longer wishes to extend financial support to families “from the cradle to the grave” it will repeal the law which prohibits women from aborting their children. That is entirely consistent with the neo-liberal doctrine that you can do whatever you like and have whatever you like so long as you do it with your own money and do not call upon the resources of the state.
   The converse is also true. Those who would discourage a woman from having an abortion have a moral obligation to help her as far as they are able if she decides not to terminate her pregnancy.
   Some of the commenters here seem to be sceptical about the willingness of anti-abortionists in general to render practical help to women who decide to continue their pregnancy. That does not fit with my observations and experience. I have heard Brian Tamaki, for example, insist that men need to take more responsibility for the care of their wives and children. That is what Tu Tangata is all about.
   If we care about others we will seek to influence or even restrict their choices in life. If we care about others we will do what we can to help them overcome pain, suffering or deprivation. The two necessarily go together.
   It is not physically possible for any individual or organisation or state to spend all its time and resources pulling people out of the pit into which they have stumbled. However it is possible to make out a safe route, and then rescue or heal only those few who stray off track.
   Neo-liberalism on the other hand teaches that we don’t need to care for others, and that we should just leave them free to make their own choices and suffer or enjoy the consequences. That may sound plausibly fair, but it flies in the face of aroha and manaakitanga, and in the end it defies what we all should know about the true nature of human society.

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