Cock-punch (and it's hard to take you seriously with that name - sorry), I didn't call you ignorant for bringing up abortion; I said that comparing abortion to the horrors of war showed your ignorance.

Don't take this as confrontational, though I confess my original reply to you was indeed so. I'm often attacked for my beliefs (or lack thereof), so perhaps I misjudged your comment as being yet another of those.

I just think the comparison between abortion and war is specious, especially considering that the vast majority of pregnancy terminations are performed on an embryo with no cerebral function and thus no awareness whatsoever. Compare this to walking, talking, thinking human beings whose last moments are spent staring at their own entrails or that of their comrades or families and I hope my point is made without further illustration.

I do agree that to call one's political party "God's Own Party", as they do, then hypocritically do all the things proscribed by the god they profess to worship is truly wrong. If there's evil in the world, that's certainly one of the most pervasive.

As for abortion, guess what? In a secular society, it's not going away. And even in a Christian theocracy akin to Iran's Muslim-led theocracy, it's not going away. Abortions have always happened... WILL always happen... and criminalization of the act just drives them underground, creating an unregulated, unsafe and predatory industry to serve the demand.

And there will always be a demand. Women get pregnant. They're expressly intended to by their very biology. And unless and until effective, easy, universally-employed contraception comes about, they will continue to get pregnant, like it or not. And a percentage of those women will decide that a child is not for them and avail themselves, as women have since we gained self-awareness as humans.

So mote it be. I have no uterus. Thus, I have no standing. Nor do you. You can intellectualize and abstract the "innocent" life inside a pregnant human female, as can I, but we cannot KNOW what it's like. We cannot FEEL it. And we cannot comprehend the flipside of the joy of a wanted pregnancy - the unwanted creature, offspring perhaps of rape or incest or even a broken condom or chance indiscretion - the horror of knowing that from that point on, the woman's life is secondary to that of her offspring.

I cannot force that on women. I will not. Let the women decide for themselves. And since some believe that God's will is that the embryos should grow to term, regardless of any human wishes, let God intervene without the meddling of humans and their protests or intimidation or political intrigues. This should be small potatoes for an omnipotent being, no? And to vainly profess, absent specific and verifiable proof, that any human is an "instrument" of God's will in stopping abortions, is the very zenith (nadir?) of hubris. And we all know what happens after hubris, right?

I agree fully with your last two sentences. I don't believe in God - any god - but I cannot disprove the existence of such. However, it's a pretty safe bet that an eternal being isn't going to deign to "bless" any human nation, regardless of what practically every society says to justify their existence or actions in a supernatural context.

Let's leave religion out of politics and vice versa. It's what the Founders wanted, after all.