I really admire your tenacity. It obviously takes great faith on your part to believe in evolution…a theory with the least supporting documentation throughout time (remember it’s a new idea in the scheme of history) Even the idea that you developed lungs and a brain and common sense out of rock and swirling gases that somehow came from a big bang could be straight out of a Hubbard novel, but that’s exactly what I used to think. Have you checked out how many scientists are Christians or even the amount of written historic evidence of the events explained in the Bible? No doubt there’s very little evidence to support that you came from your mother’s womb, but I totally beIieve that you did. Am I a fool for this? Come to think of it I don’t know anyone who ever met Captain Cook and I think you’d call me a fool if I said he never existed…so if you’re like me and want evidence that God does exist, there’s plenty if you look for it. How many personal testimonies would it take for you? Would there ever be enough? and yet you’re willing to base your belief system on a handful of speculation from a small minority rather than the two billion people worldwide who have a personal relationship with the living God of the universe.
Like the old T.V. ad with Darryl Somers , ” you’ll never know if you never go.” Anyway, what I’m getting to is that I totally get your comments in light of your experience, and I don’t expect you to see things from an angle you’ve never experienced. I reckon that you’ll discount pretty much everything a Christian will say in regard to matters of morality and justice. If you think that we mysteriously crawled out from the mud, how can you possibly hold life in the same high regard as someone who believes that we have been designed for a purpose by a caring being and are accountable to an authority greater that the law of the land. Having said this, I still don’t think Preston chose the wisest way to state his case and I’d expect to be jailed in the same situation.
Regarding your understanding of childbirth, did you consider that while pushing that big head through that small hole that an amazing sequence of events occur at the time…the body is contracting in a way that helps the baby to prepare for it’s first breaths, drugs release in the brain to calm the mother and tissues in the body become supple to allow for that little bundle of joy to pass through the canal. Endorphins kick in to relieve the pain of the expectant mother and her body prepares for that vital colostrum to be administerd after birth. To top it off, mum’s memory of the experience fades so she’ll consider going back for more. Evolution you say? I’m betting my life that it’s design. If we use your logic that people just know what’s best for them, you wouldn’t have been fed as a baby, schooled as a child or hugged by your parents and you wouldn’t work because that was someone’s plan and hope for you and their intervention contributes to the wellbeing you enjoy now. (every day by your words)
As for the issue of abortion how is a third party scraping a living being from it’s final stages of development in the womb more palatable to you than a comment on a website? Millions of Jewish people were slaughtered by the self proclaimed “superior race” while other countries “kept their noses out.” At what point do you become involved to prevent the termination of life? 3 months? 8? after birth?
If your brother is depressed and holds a loaded gun to his head and I break his window to discourage him, would the law prosecute me here? Will you tell me to keep my nose out?
I’m sure that Preston will break that window every day of the week. That’s the essence of Christianity as taught by Jesus himself.
Duane

You’ve put so much in comments. Let me see if I can pick up a few bits for you.

Hi Bruce,
Hope you’re having a good day and I thank you for taking the time to respond.

My days are always good- I hope yours are too.

I think the thing you don’t appreciate here is that Christians don’t claim to make the rules.

Oh yes, I appreciate that. However, claiming that god did it is just wrong as there is no god.

Did you know that most of Australia’s law is derived for the very rules you seem to detest.

Laws in Australia are set by the people through our representatives in Parliament, I don’t detest Australian Law.

What do you see wrong with respecting parents, being faithful to a wife, being content with what you have, not stealing etc?

There’s no law about respecting parents, and if you’re parents are unworthy of respect, why would you respect them?
Feel free to be faithful to your wife, whatever that arrangement is, it’s between you two.
I am content with what I have.
I don’t need any sort of supernatural being to tell me not to steal, that’s just common sense. I don’t steal because I know how I would feel if somebody stole from me.

Isn’t this the same foundation that allows us to speak about subjects like this without fear of being jailed or persecuted as is other countries using the “keep your nose out” approach.

Nobody is being jailed for free speech. But you have to do it within the laws of the land.

It’s freedom of speech that is on the line here. How will you react if the law shuts your blog down because it interferes with or offends net surfers looking for a Graham Preston website. I hope you’ll stand on Parliament house and protest and I’ll happily join you with my placard. As I said, I don’t think Preston has taken the wisest approach here, but admire that he has done something to support his belief and also that you put your thoughts out there to be challenged. Are Christians perfect? No way! Are they accountable for their actions? More than you’ll ever know.

Freedom of speech is no on the line here. Preston did more than proclaim against abortion, he trespassed, blocked the pathway, failed to move when instructed. He could have exercised his free speech on the street, but he didn’t He was jailed for failure to pay his fines. Not for exercising free speech.

If I breech a law, if I’m required to retract or desist then I’ll make a judgement call about that. It’s not in my nature to break the law of the land. Christians are as accountable for their actions as any other citizen. You may be suggesting something about heaven and hell in that line, I’m not sure. Of course, those things just don’t exist.

I am confident that if most of the people who consider abortions were in a loving, supportive environment they wouldn’t end up at the clinics. I have a friend who works in mental health picking up the pieces of people who make choices like these.

That sort of says that you think most people who have abortions aren’t in loving, supportive environments. That sounds like a generalisation to me. I’m pretty sure some people want abortions for their own needs, and that’s up to them. People need mental health care for all sorts of things.

To do nothing is to abandon these people and their babies.

Some of these people don’t want you interfering with their lives, you need to mind your own business.

If we take the time to acknowledge the complexities of the pregnancy and birth, it becomes hard to attribute it to some “random act of evolution” or to fail to see how precious life is?

If you took the time to understand what your idea of creation has caused, you’d abandon it. It is only through evolution that birth as we know it is possible. For you to suggest someone actually created women to give birth to live young by pushing the enormous head through that small opening is simply ridiculous.

This is what motivates people like Graham Preston. Of course we all have the freedom to take life for granted too.

What motivates Preston and his like is a misguided belief that they think they know what god wants. There is no god. Plain and simple. What he’s doing is a folly. It’s time he did something useful with his life.

Your welcome

There is no god, plain and simple. Whether someone believes or not matters not to me, until you use that belief to tell others how to live and how to behave.

Abortion is none of your business, get your nose out of it and mind your own business.

Billy the mule is so easy to ridicule. I was about to write a piece on this myself. I especially liked Billy’s “trump card” where he whips a fellow from out of his sleeve who used to sleep with men who now has a beard and children, sorry, “wife” and children. As if this proves anything other than this particular guy is suppressing his homosexual feelings. I wonder if his “wife” has a low sex drive? From what this man does with his private parts Bill thinks he can extrapolate from it that all gay people *choose* to have same-sex attraction, and therefore *could* change their sexuality on a whim and therefore *should* change their sexuality on a whim. Talk about overplaying one’s hand!

This bit really made me chuckle: “When another group of pro-marriage speakers appeared after us, they received nothing of the hostility that we did. Why is it that I seem to bring out the hostility and heat in so many? I always thought I was a pretty nice guy!”

Of all Billy’s delusions this is surely his crowning achievement? He runs a “ministry” for the sole purpose of spreading lies and hatred about gay people, spends all his time trying to prevent gay people from having any legal rights; and bullies and shouts down anyone who disagrees with *anything* he has to say. Yeah, Bill, you’re so cosy and warm, you big soft old bear, you…

Why is Jim Wallace so off track on this? Quoting a social historian, using old ideas and misrepresenting research that a yr 12 biology student would be expected to be able to refute. He is mapping any vague idea to his agenda which I think is dishonest and a form of lying (enough to take him to Hell if he doesn’t repent). Clearly he has a log in his eye (Matthew 7:3) and the meanness of Saul. He is using our plight to furnish himself with righteousness and it stinks to heaven.

Yes, it is true that the ancients had limited knowledge on the mechanics of conception; but why the emphasis on virgin births in myth and legend if not for the knowledge that to fall pregnant one must have sex?
Virgin births have been rampant throughout the myths and legends of humanity as miraculous phenomena – the oldest I can think of is the virgin birth of Horus, member of the ancient Egyptian pantheon. Then there is Greek/Roman, Persian, Hindu, Buddhist, Hebrew, and even Aztec mythology. Cultures extending from the Mediterranean, to the Far East, to the South Americas – all isolated from one another for thousands of years – telling stories of immaculate conceptions.
Then there is six thousand year-old Sumerian creationist poetry depicting the necessity of the creator’s “seed” to bring forth life from the virgin earth (the earth personified as feminine). So there must have been some acknowledgement that ejaculation had something to do with it.
Such accounts were made so profound within these cultures because of how unbelievable it was for a virgin to be with child. The consequences of sex had to have been apparent to them to acknowledge that virgins don’t give birth (without extraordinary intervention); otherwise, the Virgin Mary story would have been met with a casual “so what?”.