Question about Life

[there buster]

Obama said that if his daughters should become pregnant out of wedlock, he wouldn't want them "punished with a baby."

Obama claims to be a Christian, a believer in the Bible.

Where in the Bible is a baby ever considered or designated as a "punishment?"

I'd like to see the biblical argument that supports the view that a baby can ever be a "punishment."

[carolaa]

When did he say that?

[there buster]

about 50 seconds in

March 29, 2008

[carolaa]

Obama said that if his daughters should become pregnant out of wedlock, he wouldn't want them "punished with a baby."

Thankfully, that's not what he said. He was talking about contraception and said if his daughters should make a mistake and have sex, he didn't want them to be punished with a baby or an STD. He was promoting the teaching of abstinence along with sex education.

Why are you trying to twist his words?

[Stan]

I can't picture have a baby, dropping out of school, not going to college etc, or an abortion as a reward for out-of-marriage sex. Sometimes we have to go with what is going-to-happen, not something we would wish would happen.

The church struggles with a similar item in parts of Africa, should they teach the youth, who do not abstain from sex, to use a condom, or just let them get aids. There is no easy answer.

Do they teach them that sex with a virgin girl WILL NOT cure their AIDS as folklore taught? Those were tough calls, aids in some areas was around 80% for 16-30 year old females.

I do not believe your representation of Obama is correct, that is my opinion..

[carolaa]

Are you responding to me? Because I'm not getting what you're talking about.

[Stan]

sorry, it was to ichabod.

I may have overstated the topic.

The real questions is, do we teach birth control or not to the teens..

[there buster]

Quote:

Originally Posted By: ichabod

Obama said that if his daughters should become pregnant out of wedlock, he wouldn't want them "punished with a baby."

Thankfully, that's not what he said. He was talking about contraception and said if his daughters should make a mistake and have sex, he didn't want them to be punished with a baby or an STD. He was promoting the teaching of abstinence along with sex education.

Why are you trying to twist his words

Now I see it. I twisted "punished with a baby" into "punished with a baby." Yeah. Twisted.

[there buster]

Quote:

do not believe your representation of Obama is correct, that is my opinion..

So when he said he didn't want his daughters "punished with a baby" he didn't mean "punished with a baby?"

That's tough for me to see. If your argument is that the preposition "with" has a compound object, "a baby" or "an STD," that doesn't change the meaning of the sentence. "A baby " is still the object of "punished with." There's no way to parse that sentence for it to separate "baby" from "punished."

Quote:

The real questions is, do we teach birth control or not to the teens..

No. That was not the question. Obama said he didn't want his daughters "punished with a baby." That's a specific expression. Obama makes much of his faith. I'm wondering what biblical worldview can come up with a baby as a punishment?

Quote:

Where in the Bible is a baby ever considered or designated as a "punishment?"

I'd like to see the biblical argument that supports the view that a baby can ever be a "punishment."

I cannot imagine any reading of the Bible that makes "a baby" a punishment. Which is why I'm asking for examples.

[olger]

"I cannot imagine any reading of the Bible that makes "a baby" a punishment."

I must agree with this statement.

`oG

[melvin mccarty]

Maybe if you were a sixteen year old girl who has become pregnant you would get the point!

mel

[Neil D]

Quote:

do not believe your representation of Obama is correct, that is my opinion..

So when he said he didn't want his daughters "punished with a baby" he didn't mean "punished with a baby?"

That's tough for me to see. If your argument is that the preposition "with" has a compound object, "a baby" or "an STD," that doesn't change the meaning of the sentence. "A baby " is still the object of "punished with." There's no way to parse that sentence for it to separate "baby" from "punished."

Context! Context! Context!

Your phrasing, Ichy, shows a predisposition for twisting the words of Obama and place him in a bad light deliberately. This is YOUR doing....

Most posting on any thread on this BBS shows more about the poster than the subject that he is writing about. You are showing your bias, even to the point of boarding on bigotry. [and not in the racial sense, either].

So, Ichy, why are you doing this? Why is it that you will take words out of context and twist them around?

[there buster]

Quote:

Context! Context! Context!

Your phrasing, Ichy, shows a predisposition for twisting the words of Obama and place him in a bad light deliberately.

Do not address my motivation, Neil. You are not God, and cannot read minds. To do so is presumptuous.

As to the issue, I listened again to the clip, and these are the exact words. Here they are:

"If my girls make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby-- I don't want them punished with an STD at sixteen years of age."

No amount of circumlocution or denial or rationalization can change the basic structure of that sentence.

"I don't want them punished with a baby." Unless the English language is to be reduced to gibberish, that sentence equates "punished" and "baby."

Actually, the longer quote is worse, because it equates "baby" with "STD."

The words are in the clip. He said them. The context confirms the equation of "punishment" with "baby" and with "STD." They are not the question. The question is, how can one find a biblical justification for equating "baby" with "punishment?"

And I cannot believe anyone here would be foolish enough to try and justify equating "baby" with "STD."

[Neil D]

Quote:

Context! Context! Context!

Your phrasing, Ichy, shows a predisposition for twisting the words of Obama and place him in a bad light deliberately.

Do not address my motivation, Neil. You are not God, and cannot read minds. To do so is presumptuous.

You are correct...I am not God....But as for motivation, I have your past posts to go by, and you are twisting this one as well. Do not post to me that you are a indicipherable...If past posts are any indication, then you are nailed.

And for your information, there is a non-Adventist reading this....She told me to tell you " Little minds have no where to turn." You loose, Ichy.

[there buster]

As to the issue, I listened again to the clip, and these are the exact words. Here they are:

"If my girls make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby-- I don't want them punished with an STD at sixteen years of age."

No amount of circumlocution or denial or rationalization can change the basic structure of that sentence.

"I don't want them punished with a baby." Unless the English language is to be reduced to gibberish, that sentence equates "punished" and "baby."

Actually, the longer quote is worse, because it equates "baby" with "STD."

The words are in the clip. He said them. The context confirms the equation of "punishment" with "baby" and with "STD." They are not the question. The question is, how can one find a biblical justification for equating "baby" with "punishment?"

And I cannot believe anyone here would be foolish enough to try and justify equating "baby" with "STD."

[Neil D]

Ichy, what you are saying is this-

'Obama is saying that "if my daughter got pregnant I would not want her to be punished with a baby".'

Another interpetation that has been offered by others is this-

Obama said **if** his daughter made a mistake or bad choice and had premarital sex he would not want her to be punished with a baby or an STD. That's something different.

You also said - "punished with a baby" in this sentence is shorthand for "punished by having a baby as a teen". Is your point that teenagers having babies do *not* have extra problems?

Because that's an odd position for a right-wing Christian to take. So it's not babies in general that could be considered 'punishing', it's babies born to teens, and the point is not (as you are trying to make it be) about abortion at all, but about contraception.

Obama is saying very clearly that he will counsel his daughters not to have sex before marriage, but that if they do anyway he wants them to understand contraception. That is to say, his point is to *avoid* abortion, But you are trying to suggest that his point is to *condone* abortion. It's plain dishonesty.

Context! Context!Context! Ichy...you need to listen to the whole context and understand the whole concept. Something that us writers USUALLY do....if we are open minded.

** Special thanks to others who helped with the writing of this post. You know who you are and I am grateful. **

[there buster]

Neil, do not tell me what I'm saying--that's my prerogative.

Here are his exact words: "If my girls make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby-- I don't want them punished with an STD at sixteen years of age."

You wrote:

Quote:

**if** his daughter made a mistake or bad choice and had premarital sex he would not want her to be punished with a baby or an STD. That's something different.

Thanks, I can clearly see it now. "Punished with a baby" is altogether different than "Punished with a baby."

Whereas I thought he said "punished with a baby," he really said -- and this is your rendering-- "punished with a baby."

As far as the rest of your post, it's irrelevant and beside the point. Whether the child is born to a teen or not has nothing to do with my question.

Quote:

That is to say, his point is to *avoid* abortion, But you are trying to suggest that his point is to *condone* abortion. It's plain dishonesty.

The dishonesty is in the bolded portion of your statement. In this thread, I'm not in the least interested in abortion, nor have I mentioned it or alluded to it. Abortion is irrelevant to the question of whether a baby is ever viewed as punishment in the Bible.

So I'll use your wording, and ask my question again. Where in the Bible can you find any justification for calling a baby a punishment?

Either that basic position is consistent with a biblical worldview, or it is not. I await evidence on that point.

[Tom Wetmore]

"Ichabod",

OK. You and I have been on the other side of this sort of debate about taking things out of context. And we joined together to challenge those twisting out of its full context some passage of Scripture, EGW's writings, or our own words.

But here you are just boxing yourself into a corner for no other apparent purpose than to serve your partisan political bias. You are now the one on a grand adventure in missing the point. You know very well what he was talking about and what his point was, notwithstanding perhaps a poor choice of words. (I suspect you have chosen your words badly a time or two, and if you had a do over would say it differently.)

Mel summed it up quite well, if you were a pregnant teenage girl, feeling guilty for having premarital sex, you would very likely see the pregnancy as a punishment for your sin. And if that child is forced into a "shotgun" wedding would probably view the whole marriage and motherhood as lifelong punishment, especially if things don't turn out to be a bed of roses, as they so often do under such circumstances.

Here it is in simple terms. Actions have consequences. The consequences of a positive and virtuous action are easily seen, whether true or not, as a reward. Consequences of a negative and sinful action are viewed the opposite, also true or not, whether you call it punishment, a hardship, a burden, a cross to bear, or whatever. We teach our children that bad behavior has consequences in hopes that the thought of punishment will deter them somehow. And the Biblical idea of reaping what you sow certainly gives this a moral overtone of punishment even if God can breathe life back into it in the form of a bouncing baby. (That is a blessing in the thorn - God's ability to redeem, to turn bad things into good things. You know, the "all things work together for the good" sort of thing.)

And let's not be so naive and narrow in our political rhetoric and biases that we ignore the reality that in many fundamentalist, and not so fundamentalist, religious communities, teen pregnancy is routinely viewed as God's way of showing that "what you sow, you reap" or some such Biblical phrasing of judgment against the sin of premarital sex, i.e., punishment. STD's are viewed the same way by the same set of people, especially if the victim is homosexual. So let's get off the high horse of political "pseudo-moral" indignation, and understand his point in the true context Obama was in fact responding to.

I know you really are not as blind and narrow-minded as you are coming across in this topic.

Tom

[there buster]

Unfortunately, Tom, you completely misread me.

I have no great 'moral indignation' on this particular question.

I understand how various people might "view" pregnancy.

Nor was I trying to make a large, or even partisan, point. Others are concerned about that. If I wanted to make a partisan point, I would have titled the thread "Obama: baby as punishment," or some such. IF I had wanted to make a partisan point, I would have contrasted the Palin's loving acceptance of Trig (who has Down syndrome, which they might easily deem a 'punishment') with Obama's description of a baby as punishment. I did none of those things.

Instead, I'm asking about what the Bible says.

I can imagine someone feeling 'punished' by the consequences of their own actions. None of that is relevant.

If it is important to you to stipulate that Obama 'misspoke,' fine. I don't buy it, especially as he then equated having a baby with an STD, but it doesn't matter. So far as I am aware, that is not a claim he made, but I really don't care about that, one way or the other.

When I heard the remark, it got me to asking questions. Are there any instances in the Bible in which a baby is regarded as punishment. Now, there are all kinds of diseases and natural disasters which are credited as being punishments of God. Nebuchadnezzar and his army were described as being chastening from God.

When I asked my wife about this, she suggested the child that resulted from David and Bathsheba's adultery. But the record indicates otherwise.

So, I wanted to know, from persons such as yourself, if you know of biblical evidence for seeing a baby as a punishment. There may be some of which I am unaware. That's really what this thread was about, and why I titled it as I did.

[Tom Wetmore]

One might start at the beginning for such an inquiry - Genesis 3:16.

[carolaa]

Quote:

Originally Posted By: ichabod

Obama said that if his daughters should become pregnant out of wedlock, he wouldn't want them "punished with a baby."

Thankfully, that's not what he said. He was talking about contraception and said if his daughters should make a mistake and have sex, he didn't want them to be punished with a baby or an STD. He was promoting the teaching of abstinence along with sex education.

Why are you trying to twist his words

Now I see it. I twisted "punished with a baby" into "punished with a baby." Yeah. Twisted.

First of all, I can't imagine why you are going to such lengths to say that Obama was talking about pregnancy, when he was not. He was talking about contraception. Whether you like it or not, most people who take contraception would consider a baby OR an STD to be a punishment.

But as to your specific point of "baby as punishment," to use your rationale - that every baby is a blessing - then I guess God is blessing all of the boys and girls who have babies out of wedlock. Therefore, it must not be wrong if God is blessing them. Please use a little common sense here.

[there buster]

Quote:

I can't imagine why you are going to such lengths to say that Obama was talking about pregnancy, when he was not.

Not going to any lengths. I can't find anouther way that a "mistake" would result in being "punished by a baby" without pregnancy. Is it your position he was talking about "forced babysitting?" "forced adoption?"

The only way I can think of to make sense of that statement is that "pregnancy" or "having a baby" is the means of being "punished with a baby."

Quote:

"baby as punishment," to use your rationale - that every baby is a blessing

But I have not put that rationale forward. That is a classic logical fallacy. There are alternatives between "punishment" and "blessing." So your following statement, based on a false premise, cannot be correct.

Unfortunately, even if the premise were correct, the reasoning itself is faulty. God continually blesses individuals who are not following His will. So your final sentence is proven false.

So I return to the question: Is there any biblical evidence for a baby ever being a punishment?

[Tom Wetmore]

...Nor was I trying to make a large, or even partisan, point.

So that is why you posted it on the Politics forum...

Quote:

...If I wanted to make a partisan point, I would have titled the thread "Obama: baby as punishment," or some such. IF I had wanted to make a partisan point, I would have contrasted the Palin's loving acceptance of Trig (who has Down syndrome, which they might easily deem a 'punishment') with Obama's description of a baby as punishment. I did none of those things.

Well, actually you just did all of those things in one short paragraph. And since this is hardly an original thought expressed by Obama, specifically referencing him, a political candidate, as having made the statement you are concerned about, it most certainly does make a partisan point, even if by supposed indirection.

Quote:

Instead, I'm asking about what the Bible says....

So, I wanted to know, from persons such as yourself, if you know of biblical evidence for seeing a baby as a punishment. There may be some of which I am unaware. That's really what this thread was about, and why I titled it as I did.

All in all a rather disingenuous effort, IMHO. Just look at your setup:

Quote:

Obama said that if his daughters should become pregnant out of wedlock, he wouldn't want them "punished with a baby."

Obama claims to be a Christian, a believer in the Bible.

Where in the Bible is a baby ever considered or designated as a "punishment?"

I'd like to see the biblical argument that supports the view that a baby can ever be a "punishment."

It seems nothing more than a rhetorical political question to ultimately raise doubt about Obama's Christianity and belief in the Bible. Nothing more, nothing less. If you are serious about this "Biblical" question, omit the reference to a political candidate, and take it over to one of the Bible or theology forums for genuine Bible study.

And by the way, your question is hardly an original thought having been flogged to death repeatedly in numerous right wing political blogs and talk shows back in the spring when Obama made the statement. And all of them feigned the same moral indignation that you deny here...

Quit before you dig your hole deeper.

Tom

[there buster]

Quote:

So that is why you posted it on the Politics forum... reyes

Because people complain about anything remotely political anywhere else.

Quote:

Well, actually you just did all of those things in one short paragraph.

You assumed I had such intent. I simply demonstrated the difference. Those points did not appear until you expressed that doubt.

Quote:

And by the way, your question is hardly an original thought having been flogged to death repeatedly in numerous right wing political blogs and talk shows back in the spring when Obama made the statement. And all of them feigned the same moral indignation that you deny here...

If I read the blogs or listened to the talk shows I would have known that.

As for 'feigned moral indignation." That was uncalled for. I have expressed no moral indignation. I could demonstrate the difference, but you wouldn't like that, either.

In a recent post, I gave several examples of things that God did declare as punishments, many of them things we would consider either actually neutral or simply natural occurrences. We would consider conception a natural occurrence.

The Bible often surprises us. If there is an example of a baby being viewed or termed as a punishment, I'd like to see it.

[jasd]

QR frame:

Good grief, y'all! the man is an Orator, doncha know't? You know, like, lexemes and morphemes, phrases and clauses, syntax and structure, and oh, yes, the pause for emphasis; the unspoken lacuna.

Either the man is history's greatest Orator, or he's a schlub. You can't have it both ways, he said it. Do we really want to talk

"context"?

Okay, "In 2003, as chairman of the next Senate committee to which BAIPA (Born Alive Infants Protection Act) was sent, Obama stopped it from even getting a hearing, shelving it to die much like babies were still being shelved to die in Illinois hospitals and abortion clinics."

"In February 2004, U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama's wife, Michelle, sent a fund-raising letter with the 'alarming news' that 'right-wing politicians' had passed a law stopping doctors from stabbing half-born babies in the neck with scissors, suctioning out their brains and crushing their skulls.

Michelle called partial-birth abortion 'a legitimate medical procedure,' and wouldn't supporters please pay $150 to attend a luncheon for her husband, who would fight against 'cynical ploy' to stop it?"

Is that why Alan Keyes said, "Jesus Christ wouldn't vote for him."

:-o

Oh well, mebbe, he was speaking to NARAL, yes?