{"id":23972,"date":"2015-01-23T07:00:44","date_gmt":"2015-01-23T14:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=23972"},"modified":"2016-10-24T07:25:49","modified_gmt":"2016-10-24T14:25:49","slug":"pushing-our-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2015\/01\/23\/pushing-our-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Pushing our pro-life religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever been speaking about abortion and heard someone who’s pro-choice exasperatingly exclaim\u00a0“Stop imposing your religion on me!”<\/em>?\u00a0<\/em><\/span>Well,\u00a0today’s entry in this abortion series<\/a> addresses that very issue…<\/p>\n

Why are you pro-life?<\/h2>\n

Last year, I posted on Facebook that I was at the March For Life<\/a>\u00a0in Washington DC. This raised the interest of some of my pro-choice friends, so I explained to them why\u00a0I’m against abortion and why I’m pro-life.<\/p>\n

In response to my explanation,\u00a0I was told again and again that Christians should stop imposing their\u00a0religion on others.\u00a0I found the objection rather odd. Why? Well, I found it strange because I hadn’t mentioned religion once in any of my arguments. Neither had any of my friends when they contributed to the thread. All the arguments against abortion which were presented did not rely at all on a theistic worldview.<\/p>\n

\"FeaturedPushingReligion\"<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the people who first brought religion into our discussion were those who were\u00a0pro-choice. Again and again they returned to the\u00a0idea that we were arguing against abortion on religious grounds. However, we never mentioned God, nor did we cite any religious text or authority. Funnily enough,\u00a0something very similar happened<\/a>\u00a0on Brandon Vogt’s blog around the same time…<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, rather than\u00a0responding to our\u00a0(non-theistic) arguments, some retorted with cheap shots against the Christian faith. Not only that, we were repeatedly treated to my own personal pet peeve, the armchair interpretation of Bible\u00a0by non-Christians, which naturally included the classic misinterpretation<\/a> of “Judge not lest you be judged”<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

I’ve said many times bore that, even if I were not\u00a0a Christian, I’d still be pro-life<\/strong>. The arguments against abortion don’t require a belief in God. The pro-life arguments are scientifically, philosophically and psychologically robust. If I were\u00a0an atheist I might perhaps have some difficulty explaining why<\/strong> human life has intrinsic value, but it’s an instinct that I don’t think I could deny, even if I wanted to.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It’s not just a Christian thing…<\/h2>\n

Towards the end of the Facebook discussion, one of my friends wrote the following on the Facebook thread:<\/p>\n

“I just hate it when religious groups try to impost[sic] their will on people who are not from their own religious group” <\/em><\/p>\n

In response to this, I pointed out that\u00a0religious folk aren’t the only people<\/strong> who are against abortion. There are those\u00a0who belong to\u00a0no religious group but who are against abortion:<\/p>\n