A few people have asked about a few verses in Numbers collectively called The Ordeal of the Bitter Water as a pro-choice argument. It's a "trial" to determine if a woman has been faithful. Basically, if she takes the potion and is innocent of adultery, she will be OK. If she takes the potion and is guilty of adultery, something will allegedly happen to her reproductive organs. It's unclear exactly what because the translation could refer to a fetus but could also mean her uterus altogether. The hypothetical woman may not even be pregnant if it is the latter. It's more complicated than that, but in short, this is not permission for abortion and may not actually be about an abortion at all. The circumstances are so bizarre and the "trial" so supernatural that it's a bit of a stretch, even if this is a close to referencing abortion as the Bible gets. (I probably should have mentioned it in the video, but it's...really out there, hard to pin down exactly what is meant by this, and likely not what we're looking for.)
There's also the verse in - I think? - Jeremiah: "Before you were formed in the womb, I knew you". But this specific verse is a) poetry, and b) meant to justify Jeremiah's calling as a prophet of God - not an attack on abortion. As you said, none of the verses in the Bible mention abortion at all, because abortion is not a sin. Great video, Renegade. Thank you!
One of the biggest problems with the Bible is that we don't - and can't - know every intended meaning of every verse. The Bible has been translated and copied so many times that everyone has their own interpretation of what each verse means. Most translations I've seen reference a forced miscarriage. Is it possible that these translations are inaccurate? Sure. But to be honest, so could many other commonly understood translations of other verses. Then again, pointing out a specific verse or set of verses almost never really has any effect anyway, because if a Christian doesn't like what a specific verse says, they can simply say that it's been mistranslated or misinterpreted. I think even if we found a verse that very clearly came out and said, "Abortion is cool, yo," it wouldn't matter. Anti-abortion advocates are going to believe the Bible says whatever they want it to say. The Bible very explicitly endorses many things that most Christians claim to be opposed to - slavery, mass murder, infanticide, child rape, etc. Pointing these things out does not seem to matter to the Christian. All of it gets dismissed as a simple misunderstanding or an intentional twisting of the Bible's words. Anyway, it's a great video, and I understand your decision not to include these verses.
As a Hebrew speaker with over 11 years of mandatory Old Testament studies, I didn't remember this. So I had to check it out now. Holy crap this is cuckoo bananas!! Bible verse meanings can even further be scrambled if you consider the fact that the original text does not have punctuation, nor *spaces between letters/words* (chapters and verses are a much later, artificial addition), nor even Nikkud - the Hebrew way to instruct pronunciation, much like vowels in Latin languages. Different nikkud can result in VASTLY different words and meanings. And a lot of the accepted nikkud in the Bible is highly unusual. Sure, it was debated and added by hard core scholars, but we can't ever know if they got it, or even the word separation, "right". So, imagine you're reading an ancient text that is a continuous string of letters with most of the vowels removed. And many of the words you *can* make out have long forgotten meanings. And you want to base your world view on that? The fact that believers dismiss some verses but not others (most Christians are fine eating shrimp, right?) only goes to show that morality does not come from the Bible. It might be an important early text for lawyers, but people everywhere have an intuitive+learned sense of what does or doesn't _feel_ right to them, and treat religion like a buffet. But that is a much larger subject, I'm just glad you discuss relevant examples here. BTW, all students in Israel (even in so-called secular, state schools) are taught the Old Testament as we have it today, but I have heard of renegade teachers way back in the Kibbutzim, encouraging students to read the text as it was, without spaces at all, and see if they can prase out sentences differently than what's accepted. I wish we had more of that kind of instruction.
I still think Numbers 5:11-31 is a clear Biblical command to perform an abortion. The explicit purpose was to produce a miscarriage if pregnant and/or sterilization if not pregnant. I do not think there is any way around this other than to see it as a primitive attempt at abortion to maintain the integrity of the tribe.
There's the Christians that read and try to understand the bible and use it to help guide their morals. Then there's the religious conservatives that just parrot whatever they're told to say by their megachurch pastor, and only understand that "the bible says" is supposed to be an irrefutable argument
Every atheist I know is more familiar with Bible verses than any/every Christian I've ever met. (Full disclosure: I am a well read raised Christian person turned vehemently Atheist for the last 25+ years.)
I'm Jewish (orthodox adjacent) & when I was well into my 2nd trimester, I had to decide if I would terminate my son due to brain abnormalities, but it was left in my hands. Worst choice I've ever had to be faced with, so I sought spiritual advice. I had some very high up, respected Orthodox rabbis visit me & I was told that according to Jewish law I could have an abortion if I chose to. So it's definitely okay, even in the extreme case. I chose to have my special needs son, but I now am so pro-choice. That decision should be a woman's to work through, not the governments!
@@valeriarossini543 His name means miracle in Hebrew, because he is one! He's so much better off than I was told & though he's delayed by a year & has epilepsy, he's a lively, happy, & currently bouncing off the walls 3 y/o!
@@ArtisticlyAlexis not my place to give advice but from someone with friends who have children with epilepsy, CBD is your best friend. Take care and I wish you and your child the best.
Great video. As a Christian myself, I've tended to lean more on the pro-life side for most of my life. But moving to West Texas, my views have radically changed in part by my relationships with more leftist and non-Christians. The recent abortion policies in Texas certainly didn't help. What made me change the most was seeing the glaring hypocrisy from a lot of Christian positions. They will fight to the death to prevent an abortion but literally do jack shit to help them once they are born. What annoyed me the most was how pro-life advocates never teach their kids about sex or sex-education. If nothing else, the pro-Choice position allows for the protection of women's reproductive rights from being abused while also mitigating long-term social consequences.
100% this. I always found it weird that highly conservative groups were also against contraception and sex-education, even though these practices would also prevent abortion.
@@CrowsofAcheron To me, this is what indicates their glaring hypocrisy. If conservatives and Evangelicals cared about reducing the number of abortions, they'd be handing out birth control, demanding comprehensive sex ed in public schools, and desperately enacting social and financial supports to people who want children but can't afford them. Yet they generally do _none_ of these.
I appreciate your comments. I had a similar experience after moving to Texas (San Antonio.) Which is contradictory to what the media would have you believe about Texas.
@@CrowsofAcheron they don't support sex education or access to birth control because the heart of the so-called "pro life" movement is about controlling and punishing women. "Pro life" is a euphemism, what the movement is actually supports is the human rights violation that is forced pregnancy and birth.
lol Someone didn't watch the video, made a comment, then when everyone dunked on him, tried to edit his comment to be about something else, not realizing that this is a moderated comments section and that edited comments are like all the others -- subject to approval in the UA-cam dashboard. He thought he would pull a fast one. His attempt at a new comment was about another verse -- this time from the Gospels -- that also does not condemn abortion, but because it says "womb" he thinks it does. It's literally what I said in the video. Searching for verses that are almost about the subject but are not. Nice try, doofus. For those who saw it before he dirty edited, it was the eagle avatar guy. (He's still trying to cover it up, but I am done with him.)
That person wants bible verses? I'll give them bible verses... Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives raped. (Isaiah 13:16) They shall fall by the sword; their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open. (Hosea 13:16) And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters (Deuteronomy 28:53)
@@Recondite101 Haha I always say that. Metal was LITERALLY inspired by Biblical mythology. Even Black Sabbath was a pro-Christian group (few non-Metalheads can even imagine this). Singing about “demons, witches, devils, apocalyptic war, and violence” is basically just rebooting all those “wonderful & inspiring” Bible myths. LOL!! I say, “RW fundie nutjobs essentially live in a Metal song.”
Thank you for actually researching the Jewish understanding of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). You have consistently done this in your videos, unfortunately a rarity for a gentile creator.
@@WS-dd8ow I think that that kind of christianity is starting to feel the reckoning. They've totally outed themselves as hypocrites and loons with their slave- like love of trump. Their numbers are shrinking, but it remains to be seen whether their influence will shrink in proportion to their numbers.
I guess I’m just lucky. Most atheists channels I watch get their information from the Old Testament. And they make hour long videos on average. Look up vice rhino. Another gentile.
The Catholic Church before the 1800s, PROVIDED ergot for abortions. It's not just they didn't condemn, they facilitated and supported as part of their duty to pastoral care. The turn against it was 100% political, as anti-abortion movements were popular in secular politics at the time and they changed to matched a secular trend that has now long since passed. The claim 'pro-life' is a traditional issue is a lie, it is a modern position driven by modern politics not religious tradition.
That's fascinating; I really had no idea this was a thing. Can you recommend a book or other scholarly source that goes into this? I'd like to learn more.
It gets better. The famous Catholic ban on contraception? John XXIII commissioned a big study on it in the 1960s. The committee grew large, and spent six years in consideration and debate, before finally issuing their ultimate conclusion: They could find no valid theological ground on which to support restriction on the use of contraception. The strongest argument they could offer was that for the church to change their stance would call their infallibility into question. But during those six years the pope died, and Pope Paul VI took over. The new pope read the committee finding, and promptly ignored them entirely - instead issuing his own proclamation that contraception is now banned by church law, even within marriage, no exceptions*. The Humanae Vitae opens with an introductory that very politely thanks the committee for their assistance, before even more politely explaining that they are being disregarded because, as the vatican's English translation puts it, "The conclusions arrived at by the commission could not be considered by Us as definitive and absolutely certain." *Ok, one exception: For theological reasons, NFP is allowed because the church didn't see it as 'real' contraception. But it doesn't work very well anyway.
I think it depends where they are in the hierarchy. The lower class they are, the more it really is about god. As they get higher class they want to control women more
@@tobiaslawrence8928 Because some interpretations think the Lord said that women should be subservient to men. You can't make one argument without the other
I took a class on Jewish Feminism in college and was really interested/surprised to learn about the history of Jewish birth control, as a culturally Christian atheist. What modern conservative Christians want us to believe about the Bible is very far from the initial text and the beliefs of many of the people who have historically viewed it as sacred!
In fact, as a religious Jew, anti abortion laws are an infringement of my religious freedom. In Judaism if a pregnant woman’s life is in danger an abortion is required, in some interpretations up until birth. Going back to Torah evidence, and Talmudic texts, abortion was considered not only not murder, but in certain cases it is commanded and is a holy act. Life must be protected against all odds, and in Jewish tradition this means the life of the mother, not the fetus. Even in the most traditional orthodox communities abortions are absolutely normalized if the woman’s life is act risk either mentally or physically.
@@jospinner1183 and not even all Christians. Any denomination I don't like aren't really Christian like those damn Unitarians, Presbyterians, and Catholics, so they don't count!!! (/s obviously)
Even without a danger to the life of the woman, when a pregnancy is conceived out of wedlock (or cheating) it’s required that it’s terminated, to prevent the birth of a bastard child (mamzer) which will essentially not have a name or a patriarch to care for them. Even my deeply orthodox grandmother supports abortion if the girl is young unmarried or r*ped. Abortions while married are a different issue which is not even considered in judaism unfortunately
This was actually an assignment I did in philosophy: my group did abortion as the subject of ethical consideration, and my portion was on religious philosophies regarding abortion. I wrote down two columns with bible verses under each, and I labeled the first one "pro life" and gave the examples of verses given as a notion that the bible is pro life, and explained why they were all actually very vague and didn't necessarily demand some hard limit on abortion, they merely stated a notion of some kind of relationship between humans and God at all stages of life, basically, just a way to show the knowledge and power of God, and usually only ever actually related back to a relationship between God and his tribe of Israel, not all people on Earth. It was only after I opined on that column that I labeled the second one: pro abortion, not pro choice, pro abortion, and listed out all of the ways in which God encouraged forced abortion in war, sometimes it's okay to kill babies (not ZEF's, actual, born, babies), and you should attempt a forced abortion within your tribe if you think your wife is cheating on you, by basically making them drink a kind of toxic sludge which might induce an abortion, but not always, and would thereby act as a determinant of whether or not the baby was of the woman's husband (if it died, it supposedly wasn't, if it survived, it supposedly was).
edit: It was in the book of Numbers. There's a wikipedia page about it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordeal_of_the_bitter_water That toxic sludge idea is really...uh, something. I'm fascinated by weird, unethical trials with dubious results or nearly guaranteed sentences of guilt because people's ideology dwarfed their understanding of what was physically happening -- like whatever the hell they thought they were doing by dunking folks in water and feeding pee cake to dogs during the witch trials. Can you link your source for that?
I think it really stems from a feeling of children as property of the father. They feel that aborting the fetus is denying the father's property rights. They love property rights. Notice how that feeling is not based in empathy, compassion, or care for any possible child outside of the fetus's value as property..
Having come from the Southern Baptist sect I will disagree with you to an extent. I've never heard anyone make the argument about the child being property... It's much more sinister. They want to use forced childbirth as punishment dealt onto the "ungodly", those who would commit the heinous act of doing the sex outside of marriage. That's it, to deter and punish non-believers or those who have "backslidden" and were disobedient.
I think it’s both. In a patriarchal society all things belong to men, even women, therefore get decide what’s what. And it is simultaneously used to mark women as irresponsible, then single motherhood makes women undesirable because clearly she’s “touched” by another man and punishment by making child-rearing primarily the woman’s responsibility because the sexual act of two people is the woman’s fault. And if the father should decide he wants to be involved with child he has the right to pop in and out as he pleases to make demands of both the mother and child.
@Starsinger • I have (to my detriment) read a lot of UA-cam comments on abortion rights videos. I cannot tell you how many time so-called “pro-life” men have crowed that now women (sluts) have to stop “spreading their legs” for men. This is such a disgusting phrase and seems to illustrate for me just how much some men degrade women in their minds, want anti-abortion laws because of some sense of punishment toward women, and place absolutely no responsibility on the men who impregnate women. It’s completely revolting.
@@antipsychotic451 Then that would give them an untold amount of political power, more than they have. I'd much rather reign them in then empower them even more.
Much like most things the Conservatives push, Jesus didn't say that. Like, it's debatable that even the Bible condems homosexuality. Not that that stops me from being as bisexual as I like.
It gets even more interesting when you start diving into the scripture and finding out which verses have been inserted into older stories at later dates to recontextualise them.
You would think by how some Christians go on that the Gospels are full of grave injunctions against homosexuality, pre marital sex and abortion. But if you read it there's far more injunctions about opposing injustice, helping the poor, opposing violence, not judging your neighbours and how love and compassion are the higher law. Stuff that seems to be often ignored.
@@Christionem I've also seen arguments that either saying you can't enslave a man by topping him (in parallel to being able to take a woman as a wife by sleeping with her), not raping male slaves, or not engaging in anal sex (which would have been a hygienic nightmare at the time). I can't say which is right but Matthew 22:37-40 would indicate that whichever interpretation helps us to love others *should* be the correct one regardless of tradition.
@@abyssimus When they did not (historically) tear themselves apart or schism, anyway. Suffice it to say the Bible is CRYSTAL clear about not mixing fabrics, gathering sticks on Sabbath or not eating shellfish, but is a lot murkier on other things - some sexual definitions, how they are 'punished' and some forms of slavery, included.
@@alejandronopasanada5302 Maybe not for you but the Christians I have argued with try to say we (pro-choice) are trying to say the unborn are not human or people.
@@alejandronopasanada5302 Even if a fetus were a person (which it isn't), that wouldn't give it the right to take up residence in another person's body without their consent, feeding off them and endagering their health. So, as That Guy correctly points out, it doesn't really matter if a fetus is a person or not, because its rights still wouldn't supercede another person's right to bodily autonomy.
Well, In a community that is terrified of their impending minority status, it’s understandable why they would embrace the pro-life political stance, no matter how incongruent it may be with their scripture. We’re talkin’ not just religious belief, but just plain ol’ POWER.
That doesn't make any sense. The pro-life position is sexist, racist and classist, because their activists know bans on abortion affect women, poor people, and people of color the most. Eugenics would involve wanting only specific people to breed, not everyone. In fact, some pro-life activists have succeeded in convincing some people that the pro-choice side is eugenicist because some of the early progressives, in the early 1900s, wanted to push abortion for racist, eugenics reasons. That's why its called pro-choice, its entirely up to the mother.
@@CrowsofAcheron On more radical parts of the conservative right (no, I don't mean _out-and-out_ fascists either), you sometimes hear people complain that American women have abortions when other countries "outbreed" them. Sometimes this is followed up with something displaying the fear-admiration conservatives have for Muslim theocracies or economic jealousy about China. I think that the subtext is perfectly clear: a diet version of the Great Replacement anxiety that sort of borders on eugenicist thought, not by its prevention of birth but through priority of who (usually white women) should be giving birth to compete against whom.
Dude even when Gabriel comes to Mary he’s like “Yo wassup I was talking to god and he says u totes gonna birth the messiah” and she’s like “wtf dude? How tf would that work?” Ya know…like asking questions about it and the process and her body then Gabriel tells her about it and she accepts it and is like “cool im down.” Ya know…she CHOSE to have a baby. Then after she accepts Gabriel says “dope. Let’s do this.” God let Mary choose if she wanted to have a baby. If god didnt think a woman had the right to make that decision for herself then he would have just put Jesus all up in there and made her deal w it. 27 He went to a woman who had never had a man. Her name was Mary. She was promised in marriage to a man named Joseph. Joseph was of the family of David. 28 The angel came to her and said, “You are honored very much. You are a favored woman. The Lord is with you. *You are chosen from among many women.” 29 When she saw the angel, she was troubled at his words. She thought about what had been said. 30 The angel said to her, “Mary, do not be afraid. You have found favor with God. 31 See! You are to become a mother and have a Son. You are to give Him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great. He will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the place where His early father David sat. 33 He will be King over the family of Jacob forever and His nation will have no end.” 34 Mary said to the angel, “How will this happen? I have never had a man.” 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come on you. The power of the Most High will cover you. The holy Child you give birth to will be called the Son of God. 36 “See, your cousin Elizabeth, as old as she is, is going to give birth to a child. She was not able to have children before, but now she is in her sixth month. 37 For God can do all things.” 38 Then Mary said, “I am willing to be used of the Lord. Let it happen to me as you have said.” Then the angel went away from her.
@@renegadecut9875 Thanks man. I’m full of biblical hot takes. I’ve had a UA-cam account from prob 13 years now and this is the first time I have felt inclined to comment on a video. I’ve been watching your channel for a lil while now and while I don’t agree with some of your assertions, I have always felt like your reasoning was clear, well thought out and reasonable
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.” ~Barry Goldwater
Note on the Catholic position that (all) abortion is murder. One 16th century pope (Sixtus V) did issue a bull declaring all abortions murder in 1588 but this was rescinded by the next pope (Gregory XIV) in about 1591, however technically that still meant abortions after ensoulment were still homicides, but ensoulment was determined in that pronouncement to be 166 days into pregnancy which is late in the 2nd trimester, it was that opinion that Pius IX reversed in 1869 to declare all abortions murder (again). I assume this is aside from the question of whether procuring abortions etc. was a sin or oopsie etc. other than being murder, I am guessing it may have continued to be a lesser sin even when not murder. However since the rhetoric of pro-life is often something simplistic like "abortion is murder" this is not important. The context of the 1588 bull and the walk back from it illustrate that abortion was not unknown and was clearly somewhat tolerated. The back and forth illustrate that Catholic theology is hardly univocal and full throated in its principled condemnation of abortion which is the key point. Fun fact some Catholic saints listed miracles include making pregnant woman's fetuses disappear, not the most accessible or reliable abortion provider, but at least a little ironic given later positions. Most of this I just learned from an article entitled: "The history of Catholic teaching on abortion is not as clear cut as you think." by Molly Monk I knew about the 16th century "abortion is homicide" declaration from: "What a 16th century abortion ban revealed." by Livia Girshon This was based on work by my friend John Christopoulos who has written academic journal articles on medical history such as "Abortion and the Confessional in Counter-Reformation Italy" and has a book Abortion in Early Modern Italy if you want a to read an academic history of abortion in that time period (I have never read either of these things but I am thinking about it).
Leon-this is one of the most important videos I think I have seen in a while. I am not religious myself but have had some wonderful experiences studying theology when I attended a catholic university and feel this attitude towards the actual text and more importantly the meaning of it is often lost on modern readers, unfortunately. There is tremendous value in the context in which the bible came about, and it seems way too many people completely ignore that. Your point of abortion being known and existing at the time of the bible being written is one of great importance, as there is very little that did NOT make it in if there was not some social importance of the issue. It is a real shame those who commit their life to a text cannot even be bothered to understand it. Hopefully a few will stumble across your video with an open mind
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church is in a way, “naturally” pro-choice because its theology states that human beings ARE souls, they don’t HAVE souls. There is no component of a person like a soul that is immortal. A body only becomes a soul when they have the breath of life in them, as is described in Genesis at Adam’s creation. At death, a person’s breath returns to God and their body “sleeps” until Christ returns. It is our brains+ life that makes us living beings in Adventist theology, and nothing about a person that is eternal or is currently living on in either heaven or hell or anywhere on earth. The idea that the body is simply a vessel for the soul ( any body, even one that isn’t developed enough to have a brain, and by extension, a Woman’s body being a vessel for THAT), is a carryover from Catholicism. The sexism of it is staggering.
I know that your temperament is very stoic (thats how you are, im not judging) but is always a delight to see you have fun with stuff like a rule about not eating owls
As somebody who has converted to Judaism. Most verses of the Hebrew bible that Christians site are mistranslations of another translation, of another translation, of an Aramaic translation of Hebrew scripts. It’s like a game of telephone that happened over time.
Great video! I highly recommend Michael Parenti's book "God And His Demons" which talks about how politicians cherry pick the narrative from the Bible. Here's a great snippet from the book: "Today's Bible-thumping reactionaries, however, betray glaring inconsistencies when money comes into play. In 2005, Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, opposed abortion and same-sex marriage because the Bible supposedly mandated such prohibitions. (In fact, the Bible does not mention abortion or same-sex marriage.) Yet the senator believed that the Bible's unequivocal and repeated condemnation of usury was of no great moment-even though passages from Deuteronomy, Exodus, Leviticus, and Nehemiah explicitly prohibit the charging of interest on loans. No matter. Grassley was a key sponsor of a bill that allowed credit card companies and banks-which already were posting soaring profits-to charge the kind of usurious lending fees and interest rates that would keep borrowers in debt servitude for most of their lives."
"Reproductive rights are about to face its greatest challenge this century in the United States" - Renegade Cut Yikes, didn't know it would be this soon...
Love these videos of yours. It displays how religion evolves, adapts and changes over centuries and millennia. The fact is many capitalistic conservatives in America would even disagree with a lot of Christ’s economic views back then. A lot of his ideas were socialist in nature. The early Church was very different from modern Christianity, in fact, I’d say the early Church is still very different than when Catholicism was founded a few centuries later. Christianity also saw huge changes in the mid 19th century after the Civil War. At least in America, this is evident in how so many politicians before 1850 were Deists/Deistic Christians, or in how the rapture/end times interpretations play out (Scofield comes to mind). I believe it was after reconstruction that there was a huge religious conservative revival to appease states into forming a stronger union.
well almost all christians disagree with "sell your possessions and give the money to the poor". and of course there is no reason to think that the Jesus character would not be completely ignorant on economics or any other social science.
@@BazzBrother, this happens in Poland, for example. There is separation of church and state, but there is a cross in Sejm (lower house of polish parliament, spelled "seym"), religion in schools, and the president spends more time in church or with various bishops than visiting heads of other states or talking with diplomats..
Thank you for this. The pro-life position is overwhelmingly held by the religious, so weve always needed to approach from a theological perspective rather than get bogged down over the semantics of wether or not a fetus counts as 'alive'. Whenever I had this discussion, I've always pointed out that if we grant that humans have souls, and that innocent souls go to the (Christian) heaven, then the abortion of a fetus would be simply return-to-sender and would have no actual moral or ethical conciquences. That soul is back in heaven where it is just fine and presumably might get another shot at being born (depending on your view on heaven and how souls work). Meanwhile the mother can always pray for forgiveness. While I don't advocate getting abortions at reckless abandon its also not that critical and not worth a moral panic over. The ancient Hebrews understood this which is why there is a verse in the Old Testament that details what appears to be an abortion ritual
Imagine this weird concept: a high court where justices actually follow the law and constitution, and not their political prejudices and interests of those who secured them their posts. SCOTUS is a disgrace to the legal profession.
Excellent video. As a young scholar and pro-choice Catholic, I spent my free hours in college researching all the ways to use the Bible and other church letters and doctrine to shore up my defense of pro-choice and birth control. (Nerdy, I know.) Yet my arguments were brushed away as I didn't understand what I had read or the spirit didn't move me or whatever. It was then I realized historical context is an important tool to understanding literature.
In the early days after Roe vs Wade, the Evangelicals were silent on the issue. In fact, some prominent Evangelicals did not contest abortion back then. They (rightly) saw that as a private matter.
I feel like Republican attempts to overturn Roe are like a dog chasing a car. It's exciting for the dog right until it actually catches the car. And I think any full bans on abortion in Republican states will cause a backlash that the Republican party will have a hard time with. Stripping away rights never looks good.
Don't forget that it also will cause them to lose the talking point their base likes to rally around the most. Its a "Okay, we got the thing we want. So...now why should we keep caring?" But if they keep letting the abortion issue stay around, then they can keep campaigning on it. Expect them to intentionally drop the ball on the Roe vs Wade repeal and come up with some excuse why it didn't happen so they can continue to crow about it.
I hope that this means that there's going to be a long and very detailed video about horrible pro life movies like Voiceless, Unplanned, The Life Zone and it's sequel Cries of the Unborn and last but not least Roe v. Wade
This is one of the reasons why I believe in secularism; by submitting things like Holy Scripture and personal religious conviction into law, you are essentially legitimizing gut feelings and phantom evidence as valid in our very real political systems and forcing people who don't believe it into following your religion, and that is a form of tyranny. I have mixed feelings on abortion, but at the end of the day, the pro-choice crowd believes in a woman's right to personal autonomy, and the anti-abortion crowd do not. Republicans and Conservatives can go on and on about how much they love "freedom", yet all I ever see is them doing everything they can to restrict people's options. The right to marry whoever you want (or even just have sex), the right to do recreational drugs and so on. They claim that Leftists are anti-freedom for wanting gun control and better wages and paid-leave, but they are defending the right of the few (who were already wealthy and powerful) at the expense of the impoverished many, as well as defending your right to kill innocent people at the expense of everyone else's rights no to die.
They believe in hierarchy; that it is good, or at least that it is inevitable. They render their definition of freedom self-defeating by including in it the freedom to make others unfree, because they believe in the "freedom" of those at the top of the hierarchy to use their power in whatever way they see fit. I would argue that for freedom to mean anything at all, it must be paired with equality, or else it becomes simply the platitude that those on the right often use it as.
Thank you. This is well-researched and 100% truth. Its sad that the personal convictions of a few have precedence over my rights as a human being to control my own body.
In middle school my teacher did a special lesson on the witch hunt. One of the reason behind the witch hunt in northern Europe was to substitute village herbalists (usually women) with pharmacists. And herborists used to practice abortion.
In addition to your comment about the trial, I wish you had also mentioned the “I knew you in the womb” verse, which is what I hear most. I think it’s supposed to be specific to an individual but 🤷♀️ I haven’t read the Bible. I really hope that people leave off this terrible conviction that abortion is condemned by god but doubt that will ever happen 💙
Excellent video, as always. Kind of surprised you didn't mention Numbers 5:11 - 31. This "Test for an Unfaithful Wife" is a pretty clear Biblical endorsement of abortion. Edit: I see you've addressed this elsewhere and said that these verses do not endorse or condemn abortion. But they do say that if the wife has been unfaithful, her "womb will miscarry." This is about a priest performing an abortion, sanctioned by God, which sounds like an endorsement to me.
The phrase "womb will miscarry" only appears in one modern biblical translation and doesn't appear in any of the top sanctioned versions of biblical text. There is no hebrew or greek text that translates to miscarriage. More than likely this was a ritual to create a barren women vs abortion of a child.
Great PSA style video. I have been binging your stuff lately and I noticed the regular outro was missing which fits with the PSA use case and the more compact length. (When this came up in my sub feed I was hoping for a long one) Now who should I forward this to? ... and where is that patreon link? 😉
Well researched and reasoned. The Hebrew tribes, being shepherds, understood biology of course. I concur that the absence of any specific prohibition, or of any mention of deliberately induced miscarriages, torpedoes any Biblical basis against abortion. If such a verse existed, they would shout it in our faces until every person knew the line verbatum. I will offer three additions. Firstly, given what little I know of ancient Semitic culture, I'd conjecture their lawmakers considered this an exclusively feminine matter. They may even have felt themselves, being men, unqualified to opine on the topic. This seems to me a reasonable explanation. Second, based on my understanding of the American Evangelical sect, they evolved from the Prohibition movement of the early 20th century. When prohibition passed into law, only to be defied and revoked, they found themselves without a "wedge issue" to define themselves from other branches of Christianity. Men such as Robertson and Falwell no doubt felt the need of some divisive cause to rally parishioners around. I predict that a prohibition of abortion will run the same course as the prohibition of alcohol. Then their successors will find some new issue.... Finally, I feel that men dictating to women on this matter is inherently unjust, sexist, and presumes that men's judgment exceeds women's in all cases -- in sum, exactly the sort of chauvinistic stance endemic to Christianity. While the Bible may not prohibit abortion, it does explicitly condemn women to servility. That Christians today do not consider the inherit folly of men, not one of whom understands pregnancy as intimately as any woman, dictating to women what they may or may not do with the most intimate parts of their bodies... seems all too much in character.
Hey Leon, any chance you can post the script you used for this? I think it's important as ever to make these points clear to people who will absolutely not watch this.
I’m pretty sure that Amy Coney Barrett wrote that, because of her faith, she would recuse herself from any decision-making wrt the death penalty. So, if she would do that for the death penalty, she should also do it for any other RC faith-based issue, like contraception & abortion. I hope she didn’t lie about that.
I wish, as a concerned person, that we could please stop calling those who are against abortion "pro-life." I believe the proper term is "forced birth," ie allowing the government to force people to give birth at will. This movement is not concerned with any kind of 'life,' even that of the unborn. Otherwise compelling video.
I'm surprised you didnt talk about the actual forced abortion in Numbers. If a man feel jealous or suspects his wife was unfaithful he can take her to the temple where she will be forced to drink bitter waters from the priest. If she retains the fetus its declared her husbands child/gods will if she miscarried then she was unfaithful and punished.
Already answered this elsewhere. These verses in Numbers -- known collectively as "the ordeal of the bitter water" -- do not endorse or condemn abortion. It's a "trial" to determine if a woman has been faithful. Basically, if she takes the potion and is fine, she's innocent. It's not permission for an abortion.
@@renegadecut9875 its russian roulette with a fetus and the woman's health.. they know a possible outcome is miscarriage. I see your pinned post from a few minutes ago. I think perhaps finding someone who can read the original passages would help clarify this for me.. I mean, I dont read ancient Hebrew.. I always interpreted it as a pregnant woman with the translations I've seen.
I have two paid subscriptions to stock footage archives. An inexpensive one called Videoblocks that you see populating a lot of UA-cam, and a terribly expensive one called Artgrid that only recently emerged and has more highly quality stuff. Most of the footage in this video is from the latter. I generally don't appear in my videos, which means the camera can't simply turn back to me when explaining something. That means every piece of my videos need to be news footage, stock footage, diagrams, animation, quotes, pictures, etc. I try to mix it up to keep things interesting, and that means paying having access to multiple archives.
Ok so I know this has nothing to do with the topic but the one guy at 7:40 on the right with the hood on was on a show called 60 days in. I had to point that out. Carry On.....
Interesting take. Would like to see you converse with a well read religious person to discuss your points more. Specifically regarding Catholicism as doctrines come and go and you kinda glossed over that part. Always interesting seeing others perspective thanks
It’s like convincing someone who wants to be in a hate mob to not be in a hate mob; they’re in a hate mob - exactly what they want- and have no incentive to ever agree otherwise.
unfortunately this dosen't work well on catholics bc they don't believe man can fully comprehend the Bible and God's word needs the church as interpretators or conduits
@@No-nj3oq i know that's what a lot of the church says now but the Epistemology of the word, who can know the word, who should know the etc. has changed wildly throughout the years. At, the spoken out loud reasons, the underlying reason being the churches authority deciding for various reasons from era to era what philosophy underlies the theology. Just look at how the ethical theory has evolved, Aquinas saw that Divine Command theory didn't properly justify ethics so he created Natural Law theory. the church conveniently got to decide what Is natural (which is the underlying reason why things are good in NLT, natural=good). Consistently the natural world has defied that doctrine (animals being homosxual, masturbating, having multiple partners etc.) so now the church relies a lot on the tradition arguments. but as I've just shown, the tradition has changed drastically. History provides more examples, I don't see priests doing endowments or cosigning on our political leaders divine right to rule these days
"They had strong opinions about ✨🌟 OOOWWLS 🌟✨!!!" XD Yeah, sure curious how strong their opinion on owls in one's diet outweights the literary presence of some other supposed laws. 🤔
This feels like one of those things like the law in Tennessee about where you are and are not allowed to tie up your pet alligator. Someone, somewhere, did something *once*, and was told to stop that. Then they did it again, slightly differently, and the local judge sighed and started drafting an exhaustive list of everything you are not allowed to attach a live reptile to.
A lot of the rules in Leviticus and just in the Bible in general are about ways to live for practical reasons. The oft-quoted piece of "do not mix wool and linen" was actually more of a practical concern than an arbitrary one: the two fabrics mixed poorly, had different purposes, and would have been a bad idea to use together. This was then codified as a guideline for people in general through the Tanak and similar texts. Eating owls is probably meant to be a protection against foodborne diseases; some other birds in that list are carrion birds and so eating them would've also been a concern.
Basically in 2020 the conservative government in Poland has banned abortion. 2:20 it's Warsaw, Kościół Św. Krzyża (Saint Cross Church). That was a part of biggest protest in Poland since 1989.
A few people have asked about a few verses in Numbers collectively called The Ordeal of the Bitter Water as a pro-choice argument. It's a "trial" to determine if a woman has been faithful. Basically, if she takes the potion and is innocent of adultery, she will be OK. If she takes the potion and is guilty of adultery, something will allegedly happen to her reproductive organs. It's unclear exactly what because the translation could refer to a fetus but could also mean her uterus altogether. The hypothetical woman may not even be pregnant if it is the latter.
It's more complicated than that, but in short, this is not permission for abortion and may not actually be about an abortion at all. The circumstances are so bizarre and the "trial" so supernatural that it's a bit of a stretch, even if this is a close to referencing abortion as the Bible gets.
(I probably should have mentioned it in the video, but it's...really out there, hard to pin down exactly what is meant by this, and likely not what we're looking for.)
There's also the verse in - I think? - Jeremiah: "Before you were formed in the womb, I knew you". But this specific verse is a) poetry, and b) meant to justify Jeremiah's calling as a prophet of God - not an attack on abortion. As you said, none of the verses in the Bible mention abortion at all, because abortion is not a sin.
Great video, Renegade. Thank you!
One of the biggest problems with the Bible is that we don't - and can't - know every intended meaning of every verse. The Bible has been translated and copied so many times that everyone has their own interpretation of what each verse means. Most translations I've seen reference a forced miscarriage. Is it possible that these translations are inaccurate? Sure. But to be honest, so could many other commonly understood translations of other verses.
Then again, pointing out a specific verse or set of verses almost never really has any effect anyway, because if a Christian doesn't like what a specific verse says, they can simply say that it's been mistranslated or misinterpreted. I think even if we found a verse that very clearly came out and said, "Abortion is cool, yo," it wouldn't matter. Anti-abortion advocates are going to believe the Bible says whatever they want it to say.
The Bible very explicitly endorses many things that most Christians claim to be opposed to - slavery, mass murder, infanticide, child rape, etc. Pointing these things out does not seem to matter to the Christian. All of it gets dismissed as a simple misunderstanding or an intentional twisting of the Bible's words.
Anyway, it's a great video, and I understand your decision not to include these verses.
I was looking for you to cover that verse, but your explanation as to why you didn't is entirely reasonable.
As a Hebrew speaker with over 11 years of mandatory Old Testament studies, I didn't remember this. So I had to check it out now. Holy crap this is cuckoo bananas!!
Bible verse meanings can even further be scrambled if you consider the fact that the original text does not have punctuation, nor *spaces between letters/words* (chapters and verses are a much later, artificial addition), nor even Nikkud - the Hebrew way to instruct pronunciation, much like vowels in Latin languages.
Different nikkud can result in VASTLY different words and meanings.
And a lot of the accepted nikkud in the Bible is highly unusual. Sure, it was debated and added by hard core scholars, but we can't ever know if they got it, or even the word separation, "right".
So, imagine you're reading an ancient text that is a continuous string of letters with most of the vowels removed. And many of the words you *can* make out have long forgotten meanings. And you want to base your world view on that?
The fact that believers dismiss some verses but not others (most Christians are fine eating shrimp, right?) only goes to show that morality does not come from the Bible. It might be an important early text for lawyers, but people everywhere have an intuitive+learned sense of what does or doesn't _feel_ right to them, and treat religion like a buffet.
But that is a much larger subject, I'm just glad you discuss relevant examples here.
BTW, all students in Israel (even in so-called secular, state schools) are taught the Old Testament as we have it today, but I have heard of renegade teachers way back in the Kibbutzim, encouraging students to read the text as it was, without spaces at all, and see if they can prase out sentences differently than what's accepted. I wish we had more of that kind of instruction.
I still think Numbers 5:11-31 is a clear Biblical command to perform an abortion. The explicit purpose was to produce a miscarriage if pregnant and/or sterilization if not pregnant. I do not think there is any way around this other than to see it as a primitive attempt at abortion to maintain the integrity of the tribe.
Of course it doesn’t. Ronald Reagan was pro-choice until he discovered that abortion was a power grift in the 1970s
Oh shit. The "Chocolate Rain" guy.
Good point, sir.
(Completely unrelated, but I'm a big fan of "Mama Economy")
Republicans holding positions that are beneficial to them gaining power more traditional to them now than any actual principles.
Same with Trump, each and everyone of his mistresses has had at least one abortion
@@Kevo6492
Indeed.
"they might want to consider reading [the Holy Bible] again."
Again? The majority of them haven't read it the first time.
EULA Christians: they skipped to the end and clicked "I agree"...
TheMightyMcB
That was my exact thought when he. said to read the bible again. I had to laugh.
There's the Christians that read and try to understand the bible and use it to help guide their morals.
Then there's the religious conservatives that just parrot whatever they're told to say by their megachurch pastor, and only understand that "the bible says" is supposed to be an irrefutable argument
Every atheist I know is more familiar with Bible verses than any/every Christian I've ever met. (Full disclosure: I am a well read raised Christian person turned vehemently Atheist for the last 25+ years.)
Yeah, most atheists I know who are ex Christians (including myself) got that way by reading the Bible. That's the short answer, anyway
I'm Jewish (orthodox adjacent) & when I was well into my 2nd trimester, I had to decide if I would terminate my son due to brain abnormalities, but it was left in my hands. Worst choice I've ever had to be faced with, so I sought spiritual advice. I had some very high up, respected Orthodox rabbis visit me & I was told that according to Jewish law I could have an abortion if I chose to. So it's definitely okay, even in the extreme case.
I chose to have my special needs son, but I now am so pro-choice. That decision should be a woman's to work through, not the governments!
I'm sorry you had to go through such a difficut choice, life can be so unfair at times...
Much love to you and your son, I hope you're both doing well
@@valeriarossini543 His name means miracle in Hebrew, because he is one! He's so much better off than I was told & though he's delayed by a year & has epilepsy, he's a lively, happy, & currently bouncing off the walls 3 y/o!
I understand that Jewish law specifically says that an abortion must take place if the safety of the mother is in question.
@@ArtisticlyAlexis not my place to give advice but from someone with friends who have children with epilepsy, CBD is your best friend. Take care and I wish you and your child the best.
Great video. As a Christian myself, I've tended to lean more on the pro-life side for most of my life. But moving to West Texas, my views have radically changed in part by my relationships with more leftist and non-Christians. The recent abortion policies in Texas certainly didn't help. What made me change the most was seeing the glaring hypocrisy from a lot of Christian positions. They will fight to the death to prevent an abortion but literally do jack shit to help them once they are born. What annoyed me the most was how pro-life advocates never teach their kids about sex or sex-education. If nothing else, the pro-Choice position allows for the protection of women's reproductive rights from being abused while also mitigating long-term social consequences.
100% this. I always found it weird that highly conservative groups were also against contraception and sex-education, even though these practices would also prevent abortion.
@@CrowsofAcheron To me, this is what indicates their glaring hypocrisy. If conservatives and Evangelicals cared about reducing the number of abortions, they'd be handing out birth control, demanding comprehensive sex ed in public schools, and desperately enacting social and financial supports to people who want children but can't afford them. Yet they generally do _none_ of these.
I appreciate your comments. I had a similar experience after moving to Texas (San Antonio.) Which is contradictory to what the media would have you believe about Texas.
They are not pro life.
More like pro control.
@@CrowsofAcheron they don't support sex education or access to birth control because the heart of the so-called "pro life" movement is about controlling and punishing women. "Pro life" is a euphemism, what the movement is actually supports is the human rights violation that is forced pregnancy and birth.
lol Someone didn't watch the video, made a comment, then when everyone dunked on him, tried to edit his comment to be about something else, not realizing that this is a moderated comments section and that edited comments are like all the others -- subject to approval in the UA-cam dashboard. He thought he would pull a fast one. His attempt at a new comment was about another verse -- this time from the Gospels -- that also does not condemn abortion, but because it says "womb" he thinks it does. It's literally what I said in the video. Searching for verses that are almost about the subject but are not. Nice try, doofus.
For those who saw it before he dirty edited, it was the eagle avatar guy. (He's still trying to cover it up, but I am done with him.)
That person wants bible verses? I'll give them bible verses...
Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives raped. (Isaiah 13:16)
They shall fall by the sword; their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open. (Hosea 13:16)
And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters (Deuteronomy 28:53)
@@septillion2501 the bible is metal af holy shit
@@Recondite101 Haha I always say that. Metal was LITERALLY inspired by Biblical mythology. Even Black Sabbath was a pro-Christian group (few non-Metalheads can even imagine this).
Singing about “demons, witches, devils, apocalyptic war, and violence” is basically just rebooting all those “wonderful & inspiring” Bible myths. LOL!!
I say, “RW fundie nutjobs essentially live in a Metal song.”
Thank you for actually researching the Jewish understanding of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). You have consistently done this in your videos, unfortunately a rarity for a gentile creator.
I was genuinely impressed he did as well. I wish more would take it into account when going through the overlapping text between the religions.
@@WS-dd8ow I think that that kind of christianity is starting to feel the reckoning. They've totally outed themselves as hypocrites and loons with their slave- like love of trump. Their numbers are shrinking, but it remains to be seen whether their influence will shrink in proportion to their numbers.
I guess I’m just lucky. Most atheists channels I watch get their information from the Old Testament. And they make hour long videos on average. Look up vice rhino. Another gentile.
@@WS-dd8ow I honestly wouldn't be surprised by a power grab
@@WS-dd8ow I agree with every word!
The Catholic Church before the 1800s, PROVIDED ergot for abortions. It's not just they didn't condemn, they facilitated and supported as part of their duty to pastoral care. The turn against it was 100% political, as anti-abortion movements were popular in secular politics at the time and they changed to matched a secular trend that has now long since passed.
The claim 'pro-life' is a traditional issue is a lie, it is a modern position driven by modern politics not religious tradition.
A good reminder.
That's fascinating; I really had no idea this was a thing. Can you recommend a book or other scholarly source that goes into this? I'd like to learn more.
It gets better. The famous Catholic ban on contraception? John XXIII commissioned a big study on it in the 1960s. The committee grew large, and spent six years in consideration and debate, before finally issuing their ultimate conclusion: They could find no valid theological ground on which to support restriction on the use of contraception. The strongest argument they could offer was that for the church to change their stance would call their infallibility into question. But during those six years the pope died, and Pope Paul VI took over. The new pope read the committee finding, and promptly ignored them entirely - instead issuing his own proclamation that contraception is now banned by church law, even within marriage, no exceptions*.
The Humanae Vitae opens with an introductory that very politely thanks the committee for their assistance, before even more politely explaining that they are being disregarded because, as the vatican's English translation puts it, "The conclusions arrived at by the commission could not be considered by Us as definitive and absolutely certain."
*Ok, one exception: For theological reasons, NFP is allowed because the church didn't see it as 'real' contraception. But it doesn't work very well anyway.
This broke my brain. I'm embarrassed I didn't know that
*[Sources needed]*
"what's important to them: their relationship with God."
Bold of you to assume it's this and not controlling women that's important to them.
It's both. Controlling women is a way for them to show devotion to God.
I think it depends where they are in the hierarchy. The lower class they are, the more it really is about god. As they get higher class they want to control women more
It’s 100%about control over women
I'm still never going to understand why, being a man, women put up with this BS.
@@tobiaslawrence8928 Because some interpretations think the Lord said that women should be subservient to men. You can't make one argument without the other
I took a class on Jewish Feminism in college and was really interested/surprised to learn about the history of Jewish birth control, as a culturally Christian atheist. What modern conservative Christians want us to believe about the Bible is very far from the initial text and the beliefs of many of the people who have historically viewed it as sacred!
In fact, as a religious Jew, anti abortion laws are an infringement of my religious freedom. In Judaism if a pregnant woman’s life is in danger an abortion is required, in some interpretations up until birth. Going back to Torah evidence, and Talmudic texts, abortion was considered not only not murder, but in certain cases it is commanded and is a holy act. Life must be protected against all odds, and in Jewish tradition this means the life of the mother, not the fetus. Even in the most traditional orthodox communities abortions are absolutely normalized if the woman’s life is act risk either mentally or physically.
Don't you know that religious liberty only counts when it's Christian? < /s > 🙄
@@jospinner1183 it do be that way. Good old Amerikkka.
Ben Shapiro needs to be taught his own proclaimed religion.
@@jospinner1183 and not even all Christians. Any denomination I don't like aren't really Christian like those damn Unitarians, Presbyterians, and Catholics, so they don't count!!! (/s obviously)
Even without a danger to the life of the woman, when a pregnancy is conceived out of wedlock (or cheating) it’s required that it’s terminated, to prevent the birth of a bastard child (mamzer) which will essentially not have a name or a patriarch to care for them. Even my deeply orthodox grandmother supports abortion if the girl is young unmarried or r*ped. Abortions while married are a different issue which is not even considered in judaism unfortunately
This was actually an assignment I did in philosophy: my group did abortion as the subject of ethical consideration, and my portion was on religious philosophies regarding abortion. I wrote down two columns with bible verses under each, and I labeled the first one "pro life" and gave the examples of verses given as a notion that the bible is pro life, and explained why they were all actually very vague and didn't necessarily demand some hard limit on abortion, they merely stated a notion of some kind of relationship between humans and God at all stages of life, basically, just a way to show the knowledge and power of God, and usually only ever actually related back to a relationship between God and his tribe of Israel, not all people on Earth. It was only after I opined on that column that I labeled the second one: pro abortion, not pro choice, pro abortion, and listed out all of the ways in which God encouraged forced abortion in war, sometimes it's okay to kill babies (not ZEF's, actual, born, babies), and you should attempt a forced abortion within your tribe if you think your wife is cheating on you, by basically making them drink a kind of toxic sludge which might induce an abortion, but not always, and would thereby act as a determinant of whether or not the baby was of the woman's husband (if it died, it supposedly wasn't, if it survived, it supposedly was).
Wow, look at that, conservatives. You can be pro-abortion AND punish women! Best of both worlds.
What were the verses? And what were the portions of your other classmates?
edit: It was in the book of Numbers. There's a wikipedia page about it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordeal_of_the_bitter_water
That toxic sludge idea is really...uh, something. I'm fascinated by weird, unethical trials with dubious results or nearly guaranteed sentences of guilt because people's ideology dwarfed their understanding of what was physically happening -- like whatever the hell they thought they were doing by dunking folks in water and feeding pee cake to dogs during the witch trials. Can you link your source for that?
The bible is neither pro-life nor pro-choice. There are God-sanctioned abortions all over the bible, but they are never HER choice.
How was your grade on the assignment? I wager pretty good.
I think it really stems from a feeling of children as property of the father. They feel that aborting the fetus is denying the father's property rights. They love property rights. Notice how that feeling is not based in empathy, compassion, or care for any possible child outside of the fetus's value as property..
Having come from the Southern Baptist sect I will disagree with you to an extent. I've never heard anyone make the argument about the child being property... It's much more sinister. They want to use forced childbirth as punishment dealt onto the "ungodly", those who would commit the heinous act of doing the sex outside of marriage. That's it, to deter and punish non-believers or those who have "backslidden" and were disobedient.
I think it’s both. In a patriarchal society all things belong to men, even women, therefore get decide what’s what. And it is simultaneously used to mark women as irresponsible, then single motherhood makes women undesirable because clearly she’s “touched” by another man and punishment by making child-rearing primarily the woman’s responsibility because the sexual act of two people is the woman’s fault. And if the father should decide he wants to be involved with child he has the right to pop in and out as he pleases to make demands of both the mother and child.
@Starsinger • I have (to my detriment) read a lot of UA-cam comments on abortion rights videos. I cannot tell you how many time so-called “pro-life” men have crowed that now women (sluts) have to stop “spreading their legs” for men. This is such a disgusting phrase and seems to illustrate for me just how much some men degrade women in their minds, want anti-abortion laws because of some sense of punishment toward women, and place absolutely no responsibility on the men who impregnate women. It’s completely revolting.
@@thebaldfox711 Wait, doesn’t that go against the Bible verse about a child being a *blessing* from God?
@@number8productiondepartmen517 If in the right nation, of course, or culture - ahem?
Church and State should ALWAYS be separate.
@@whysocurious7366 You tax them the second they begin making political statements.
@@antipsychotic451 Then that would give them an untold amount of political power, more than they have. I'd much rather reign them in then empower them even more.
@@whysocurious7366 Can't have church and state mingling if the state doesn't exist
*Me, eating a bucket of Kentucky Fried Owl, looks up suddenly*
“What was that last one?”
Much like most things the Conservatives push, Jesus didn't say that.
Like, it's debatable that even the Bible condems homosexuality.
Not that that stops me from being as bisexual as I like.
It gets even more interesting when you start diving into the scripture and finding out which verses have been inserted into older stories at later dates to recontextualise them.
You would think by how some Christians go on that the Gospels are full of grave injunctions against homosexuality, pre marital sex and abortion. But if you read it there's far more injunctions about opposing injustice, helping the poor, opposing violence, not judging your neighbours and how love and compassion are the higher law. Stuff that seems to be often ignored.
@@mphylo2296 Or they translate differently.
For example, "You shall not lay with a man as you would a woman" originally said child instead of man.
@@Christionem I've also seen arguments that either saying you can't enslave a man by topping him (in parallel to being able to take a woman as a wife by sleeping with her), not raping male slaves, or not engaging in anal sex (which would have been a hygienic nightmare at the time). I can't say which is right but Matthew 22:37-40 would indicate that whichever interpretation helps us to love others *should* be the correct one regardless of tradition.
@@abyssimus When they did not (historically) tear themselves apart or schism, anyway.
Suffice it to say the Bible is CRYSTAL clear about not mixing fabrics, gathering sticks on Sabbath or not eating shellfish, but is a lot murkier on other things - some sexual definitions, how they are 'punished' and some forms of slavery, included.
I think it boils down to one thing.
Does a person (of any age) have the right to use another persons body without their permission?
No = pro choice
@@alejandronopasanada5302
Maybe not for you but the Christians I have argued with try to say we (pro-choice) are trying to say the unborn are not human or people.
@@alejandronopasanada5302 Even if a fetus were a person (which it isn't), that wouldn't give it the right to take up residence in another person's body without their consent, feeding off them and endagering their health. So, as That Guy correctly points out, it doesn't really matter if a fetus is a person or not, because its rights still wouldn't supercede another person's right to bodily autonomy.
@@raem7846
Well said
Well, In a community that is terrified of their impending minority status, it’s understandable why they would embrace the pro-life political stance, no matter how incongruent it may be with their scripture. We’re talkin’ not just religious belief, but just plain ol’ POWER.
I just rewatched a few of your videos to get my renegade fix. And here's a new one. Bless you.
pro life isn't even about religion, it's about eugenics.
That doesn't make any sense. The pro-life position is sexist, racist and classist, because their activists know bans on abortion affect women, poor people, and people of color the most.
Eugenics would involve wanting only specific people to breed, not everyone. In fact, some pro-life activists have succeeded in convincing some people that the pro-choice side is eugenicist because some of the early progressives, in the early 1900s, wanted to push abortion for racist, eugenics reasons.
That's why its called pro-choice, its entirely up to the mother.
@@CrowsofAcheron On more radical parts of the conservative right (no, I don't mean _out-and-out_ fascists either), you sometimes hear people complain that American women have abortions when other countries "outbreed" them. Sometimes this is followed up with something displaying the fear-admiration conservatives have for Muslim theocracies or economic jealousy about China. I think that the subtext is perfectly clear: a diet version of the Great Replacement anxiety that sort of borders on eugenicist thought, not by its prevention of birth but through priority of who (usually white women) should be giving birth to compete against whom.
Eugenics doesn't mean what you think it means.
Dude even when Gabriel comes to Mary he’s like “Yo wassup I was talking to god and he says u totes gonna birth the messiah” and she’s like “wtf dude? How tf would that work?” Ya know…like asking questions about it and the process and her body then Gabriel tells her about it and she accepts it and is like “cool im down.” Ya know…she CHOSE to have a baby. Then after she accepts Gabriel says “dope. Let’s do this.” God let Mary choose if she wanted to have a baby. If god didnt think a woman had the right to make that decision for herself then he would have just put Jesus all up in there and made her deal w it.
27 He went to a woman who had never had a man. Her name was Mary. She was promised in marriage to a man named Joseph. Joseph was of the family of David. 28 The angel came to her and said, “You are honored very much. You are a favored woman. The Lord is with you. *You are chosen from among many women.”
29 When she saw the angel, she was troubled at his words. She thought about what had been said. 30 The angel said to her, “Mary, do not be afraid. You have found favor with God. 31 See! You are to become a mother and have a Son. You are to give Him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great. He will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the place where His early father David sat. 33 He will be King over the family of Jacob forever and His nation will have no end.”
34 Mary said to the angel, “How will this happen? I have never had a man.” 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come on you. The power of the Most High will cover you. The holy Child you give birth to will be called the Son of God.
36 “See, your cousin Elizabeth, as old as she is, is going to give birth to a child. She was not able to have children before, but now she is in her sixth month. 37 For God can do all things.” 38 Then Mary said, “I am willing to be used of the Lord. Let it happen to me as you have said.” Then the angel went away from her.
That is a really good point, and I wish I had brought it up in this (admittedly abbreviated) video on the subject.
@@renegadecut9875 Thanks man. I’m full of biblical hot takes. I’ve had a UA-cam account from prob 13 years now and this is the first time I have felt inclined to comment on a video. I’ve been watching your channel for a lil while now and while I don’t agree with some of your assertions, I have always felt like your reasoning was clear, well thought out and reasonable
Wow, this is a really good point!
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”
~Barry Goldwater
Note on the Catholic position that (all) abortion is murder. One 16th century pope (Sixtus V) did issue a bull declaring all abortions murder in 1588 but this was rescinded by the next pope (Gregory XIV) in about 1591, however technically that still meant abortions after ensoulment were still homicides, but ensoulment was determined in that pronouncement to be 166 days into pregnancy which is late in the 2nd trimester, it was that opinion that Pius IX reversed in 1869 to declare all abortions murder (again).
I assume this is aside from the question of whether procuring abortions etc. was a sin or oopsie etc. other than being murder, I am guessing it may have continued to be a lesser sin even when not murder. However since the rhetoric of pro-life is often something simplistic like "abortion is murder" this is not important. The context of the 1588 bull and the walk back from it illustrate that abortion was not unknown and was clearly somewhat tolerated. The back and forth illustrate that Catholic theology is hardly univocal and full throated in its principled condemnation of abortion which is the key point.
Fun fact some Catholic saints listed miracles include making pregnant woman's fetuses disappear, not the most accessible or reliable abortion provider, but at least a little ironic given later positions.
Most of this I just learned from an article entitled:
"The history of Catholic teaching on abortion is not as clear cut as you think." by Molly Monk
I knew about the 16th century "abortion is homicide" declaration from:
"What a 16th century abortion ban revealed." by Livia Girshon
This was based on work by my friend John Christopoulos who has written academic journal articles on medical history such as "Abortion and the Confessional in Counter-Reformation Italy" and has a book Abortion in Early Modern Italy if you want a to read an academic history of abortion in that time period (I have never read either of these things but I am thinking about it).
Leon-this is one of the most important videos I think I have seen in a while. I am not religious myself but have had some wonderful experiences studying theology when I attended a catholic university and feel this attitude towards the actual text and more importantly the meaning of it is often lost on modern readers, unfortunately. There is tremendous value in the context in which the bible came about, and it seems way too many people completely ignore that. Your point of abortion being known and existing at the time of the bible being written is one of great importance, as there is very little that did NOT make it in if there was not some social importance of the issue. It is a real shame those who commit their life to a text cannot even be bothered to understand it. Hopefully a few will stumble across your video with an open mind
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church is in a way, “naturally” pro-choice because its theology states that human beings ARE souls, they don’t HAVE souls. There is no component of a person like a soul that is immortal. A body only becomes a soul when they have the breath of life in them, as is described in Genesis at Adam’s creation. At death, a person’s breath returns to God and their body “sleeps” until Christ returns. It is our brains+ life that makes us living beings in Adventist theology, and nothing about a person that is eternal or is currently living on in either heaven or hell or anywhere on earth.
The idea that the body is simply a vessel for the soul ( any body, even one that isn’t developed enough to have a brain, and by extension, a Woman’s body being a vessel for THAT), is a carryover from Catholicism. The sexism of it is staggering.
I know that your temperament is very stoic (thats how you are, im not judging) but is always a delight to see you have fun with stuff like a rule about not eating owls
As somebody who has converted to Judaism. Most verses of the Hebrew bible that Christians site are mistranslations of another translation, of another translation, of an Aramaic translation of Hebrew scripts. It’s like a game of telephone that happened over time.
If a fetus is aborted, wouldn't God reassign that individual soul to another fetus?
Thou shalt have no backsies.
Maybe
Great video!
I highly recommend Michael Parenti's book "God And His Demons" which talks about how politicians cherry pick the narrative from the Bible.
Here's a great snippet from the book:
"Today's Bible-thumping reactionaries, however, betray glaring inconsistencies when money comes into play. In 2005, Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, opposed abortion and same-sex marriage because the Bible supposedly mandated such prohibitions. (In fact, the Bible does not mention abortion or same-sex marriage.) Yet the senator believed that the Bible's unequivocal and repeated condemnation of usury was of no great moment-even though passages from Deuteronomy, Exodus, Leviticus, and Nehemiah explicitly prohibit the charging of interest on loans. No matter. Grassley was a key sponsor of a bill that allowed credit card companies and banks-which already were posting soaring profits-to charge the kind of usurious lending fees and interest rates that would keep borrowers in debt servitude for most of their lives."
Pro-life is religion. I believe in the separation of church and state.
"Reproductive rights are about to face its greatest challenge this century in the United States" - Renegade Cut
Yikes, didn't know it would be this soon...
“They had strong opinions about *o w l s* “
⬆️This had me CRACKING UP.
I love how ridiculous that list of birds you can't eat is. But hey, at least they're being specific with their rules instead of overly vague!
Love these videos of yours. It displays how religion evolves, adapts and changes over centuries and millennia. The fact is many capitalistic conservatives in America would even disagree with a lot of Christ’s economic views back then. A lot of his ideas were socialist in nature.
The early Church was very different from modern Christianity, in fact, I’d say the early Church is still very different than when Catholicism was founded a few centuries later.
Christianity also saw huge changes in the mid 19th century after the Civil War. At least in America, this is evident in how so many politicians before 1850 were Deists/Deistic Christians, or in how the rapture/end times interpretations play out (Scofield comes to mind). I believe it was after reconstruction that there was a huge religious conservative revival to appease states into forming a stronger union.
well almost all christians disagree with "sell your possessions and give the money to the poor". and of course there is no reason to think that the Jesus character would not be completely ignorant on economics or any other social science.
Even if it did, we have this magical thing called "separation of church and state".
its a thing that can easily be thrown out the window by people who do not adhere to the paper it is written on.
@@BazzBrother, this happens in Poland, for example. There is separation of church and state, but there is a cross in Sejm (lower house of polish parliament, spelled "seym"), religion in schools, and the president spends more time in church or with various bishops than visiting heads of other states or talking with diplomats..
Thank you for this. The pro-life position is overwhelmingly held by the religious, so weve always needed to approach from a theological perspective rather than get bogged down over the semantics of wether or not a fetus counts as 'alive'. Whenever I had this discussion, I've always pointed out that if we grant that humans have souls, and that innocent souls go to the (Christian) heaven, then the abortion of a fetus would be simply return-to-sender and would have no actual moral or ethical conciquences. That soul is back in heaven where it is just fine and presumably might get another shot at being born (depending on your view on heaven and how souls work). Meanwhile the mother can always pray for forgiveness. While I don't advocate getting abortions at reckless abandon its also not that critical and not worth a moral panic over. The ancient Hebrews understood this which is why there is a verse in the Old Testament that details what appears to be an abortion ritual
Imagine this weird concept: a high court where justices actually follow the law and constitution, and not their political prejudices and interests of those who secured them their posts. SCOTUS is a disgrace to the legal profession.
*laughs in swedish*
Excellent video. As a young scholar and pro-choice Catholic, I spent my free hours in college researching all the ways to use the Bible and other church letters and doctrine to shore up my defense of pro-choice and birth control. (Nerdy, I know.) Yet my arguments were brushed away as I didn't understand what I had read or the spirit didn't move me or whatever. It was then I realized historical context is an important tool to understanding literature.
In the early days after Roe vs Wade, the Evangelicals were silent on the issue. In fact, some prominent Evangelicals did not contest abortion back then. They (rightly) saw that as a private matter.
I feel like Republican attempts to overturn Roe are like a dog chasing a car. It's exciting for the dog right until it actually catches the car. And I think any full bans on abortion in Republican states will cause a backlash that the Republican party will have a hard time with. Stripping away rights never looks good.
Don't forget that it also will cause them to lose the talking point their base likes to rally around the most. Its a "Okay, we got the thing we want. So...now why should we keep caring?" But if they keep letting the abortion issue stay around, then they can keep campaigning on it. Expect them to intentionally drop the ball on the Roe vs Wade repeal and come up with some excuse why it didn't happen so they can continue to crow about it.
I hope that this means that there's going to be a long and very detailed video about horrible pro life movies like Voiceless, Unplanned, The Life Zone and it's sequel Cries of the Unborn and last but not least Roe v. Wade
A great presentation, I really hope it gets to the people who most need to see it
A new video, what a great Halloween present. Thank you RC!
Great video! As a Hebrew speaker, your pronunciation isn't far off.
Another Renegade banger. Thank you for this.
This is one of the reasons why I believe in secularism; by submitting things like Holy Scripture and personal religious conviction into law, you are essentially legitimizing gut feelings and phantom evidence as valid in our very real political systems and forcing people who don't believe it into following your religion, and that is a form of tyranny.
I have mixed feelings on abortion, but at the end of the day, the pro-choice crowd believes in a woman's right to personal autonomy, and the anti-abortion crowd do not.
Republicans and Conservatives can go on and on about how much they love "freedom", yet all I ever see is them doing everything they can to restrict people's options. The right to marry whoever you want (or even just have sex), the right to do recreational drugs and so on. They claim that Leftists are anti-freedom for wanting gun control and better wages and paid-leave, but they are defending the right of the few (who were already wealthy and powerful) at the expense of the impoverished many, as well as defending your right to kill innocent people at the expense of everyone else's rights no to die.
They believe in hierarchy; that it is good, or at least that it is inevitable. They render their definition of freedom self-defeating by including in it the freedom to make others unfree, because they believe in the "freedom" of those at the top of the hierarchy to use their power in whatever way they see fit. I would argue that for freedom to mean anything at all, it must be paired with equality, or else it becomes simply the platitude that those on the right often use it as.
Man, a bunch of really top notch points I've never heard! Love your channel and your videos.
this channel has quality content
Thank you. This is well-researched and 100% truth. Its sad that the personal convictions of a few have precedence over my rights as a human being to control my own body.
In middle school my teacher did a special lesson on the witch hunt. One of the reason behind the witch hunt in northern Europe was to substitute village herbalists (usually women) with pharmacists. And herborists used to practice abortion.
Thank god for this video. This was very needed as of recently
All told, that pronunciation of רצח is pretty good. Descending into the particulars is part and parcel of Talmudic studies.
In addition to your comment about the trial, I wish you had also mentioned the “I knew you in the womb” verse, which is what I hear most. I think it’s supposed to be specific to an individual but 🤷♀️ I haven’t read the Bible. I really hope that people leave off this terrible conviction that abortion is condemned by god but doubt that will ever happen 💙
Watching this after listening to the SCOTUS oral arguments about TX's SB 8. This is so informational!
Pro-lifer: Thou shalt not kill.
Me: Are you pro-military?
PL: yes
Me: pro-gun?
PL: yes
Me: Pro death penalty?
PL: yes.
Me:....k then
P
Excellent video, as always. Kind of surprised you didn't mention Numbers 5:11 - 31. This "Test for an Unfaithful Wife" is a pretty clear Biblical endorsement of abortion.
Edit: I see you've addressed this elsewhere and said that these verses do not endorse or condemn abortion. But they do say that if the wife has been unfaithful, her "womb will miscarry." This is about a priest performing an abortion, sanctioned by God, which sounds like an endorsement to me.
The phrase "womb will miscarry" only appears in one modern biblical translation and doesn't appear in any of the top sanctioned versions of biblical text. There is no hebrew or greek text that translates to miscarriage. More than likely this was a ritual to create a barren women vs abortion of a child.
Great PSA style video. I have been binging your stuff lately and I noticed the regular outro was missing which fits with the PSA use case and the more compact length. (When this came up in my sub feed I was hoping for a long one)
Now who should I forward this to? ... and where is that patreon link?
😉
Well researched and reasoned.
The Hebrew tribes, being shepherds, understood biology of course. I concur that the absence of any specific prohibition, or of any mention of deliberately induced miscarriages, torpedoes any Biblical basis against abortion. If such a verse existed, they would shout it in our faces until every person knew the line verbatum. I will offer three additions.
Firstly, given what little I know of ancient Semitic culture, I'd conjecture their lawmakers considered this an exclusively feminine matter. They may even have felt themselves, being men, unqualified to opine on the topic. This seems to me a reasonable explanation.
Second, based on my understanding of the American Evangelical sect, they evolved from the Prohibition movement of the early 20th century. When prohibition passed into law, only to be defied and revoked, they found themselves without a "wedge issue" to define themselves from other branches of Christianity. Men such as Robertson and Falwell no doubt felt the need of some divisive cause to rally parishioners around. I predict that a prohibition of abortion will run the same course as the prohibition of alcohol. Then their successors will find some new issue....
Finally, I feel that men dictating to women on this matter is inherently unjust, sexist, and presumes that men's judgment exceeds women's in all cases -- in sum, exactly the sort of chauvinistic stance endemic to Christianity. While the Bible may not prohibit abortion, it does explicitly condemn women to servility. That Christians today do not consider the inherit folly of men, not one of whom understands pregnancy as intimately as any woman, dictating to women what they may or may not do with the most intimate parts of their bodies... seems all too much in character.
Hey Leon, any chance you can post the script you used for this? I think it's important as ever to make these points clear to people who will absolutely not watch this.
Thank you for your thorough research, as always, you deserve way more attention
I saw the title and thought "I'm in. Lets do this."
I’m pretty sure that Amy Coney Barrett wrote that, because of her faith, she would recuse herself from any decision-making wrt the death penalty. So, if she would do that for the death penalty, she should also do it for any other RC faith-based issue, like contraception & abortion. I hope she didn’t lie about that.
Good fucking point, JE Hoyes
I wish, as a concerned person, that we could please stop calling those who are against abortion "pro-life." I believe the proper term is "forced birth," ie allowing the government to force people to give birth at will. This movement is not concerned with any kind of 'life,' even that of the unborn. Otherwise compelling video.
Thank you for talking about this. This contradiction between doctrine and the Bible has been vexing me for years.
I am always in the mood for some Leon-reading-Bible video
Called it! :(
As a European the Us debate over abortion makes no sence to me in Europe right wingers even are pro choice
The Bible doesn’t say anything actually...
Thank you for the incredible work you do & sharing it in an easy-to-understand easy
But eating owls is a hoot.
True
Always something interesting when you upload 😊
Fantastic video, thank you for this
You're great Leon, excellent video as always.
I'm surprised you didnt talk about the actual forced abortion in Numbers. If a man feel jealous or suspects his wife was unfaithful he can take her to the temple where she will be forced to drink bitter waters from the priest. If she retains the fetus its declared her husbands child/gods will if she miscarried then she was unfaithful and punished.
Already answered this elsewhere. These verses in Numbers -- known collectively as "the ordeal of the bitter water" -- do not endorse or condemn abortion. It's a "trial" to determine if a woman has been faithful. Basically, if she takes the potion and is fine, she's innocent. It's not permission for an abortion.
@@renegadecut9875 its russian roulette with a fetus and the woman's health.. they know a possible outcome is miscarriage.
I see your pinned post from a few minutes ago. I think perhaps finding someone who can read the original passages would help clarify this for me.. I mean, I dont read ancient Hebrew.. I always interpreted it as a pregnant woman with the translations I've seen.
The point is they have form of ritualized abortion in the bible as a trial.
Where do you get your b-roll stock footage? You have some really good stock footage in this video
I have two paid subscriptions to stock footage archives. An inexpensive one called Videoblocks that you see populating a lot of UA-cam, and a terribly expensive one called Artgrid that only recently emerged and has more highly quality stuff. Most of the footage in this video is from the latter.
I generally don't appear in my videos, which means the camera can't simply turn back to me when explaining something. That means every piece of my videos need to be news footage, stock footage, diagrams, animation, quotes, pictures, etc. I try to mix it up to keep things interesting, and that means paying having access to multiple archives.
Bro you have the channel and content I wish I had.
Brief and straight to the point. Good work.
This video must have received many complaints hence UA-cam place no advertisement clips on it.
I wanna know more about that "no owl-eating" rule...
Ok so I know this has nothing to do with the topic but the one guy at 7:40 on the right with the hood on was on a show called 60 days in. I had to point that out. Carry On.....
Commenting and sharing for the algorithm gods
Interesting take. Would like to see you converse with a well read religious person to discuss your points more. Specifically regarding Catholicism as doctrines come and go and you kinda glossed over that part.
Always interesting seeing others perspective thanks
I was raised Catholic, and I am "well-read" on the subject.
It’s like convincing someone who wants to be in a hate mob to not be in a hate mob; they’re in a hate mob - exactly what they want- and have no incentive to ever agree otherwise.
I always have fun reminding people that even the PURITANS were okay with abortion.
No owls...Well guess I'm going to hell after all.
It would have been simpler for the whole clean/unclean animal chapter to just read: Thou shalt be vegan.
Amazing video!
Dang, you got me to change my views on abortion. Congratulations.
Thank you for this
PARENTHESES WRESTLING!!!! Love your content Leon.
Excellent food for thought…thank you for sharing this theological analysis
Thank you!
Well argued and presented. 👍
unfortunately this dosen't work well on catholics bc they don't believe man can fully comprehend the Bible and God's word needs the church as interpretators or conduits
@@No-nj3oq i know that's what a lot of the church says now but the Epistemology of the word, who can know the word, who should know the etc. has changed wildly throughout the years. At, the spoken out loud reasons, the underlying reason being the churches authority deciding for various reasons from era to era what philosophy underlies the theology. Just look at how the ethical theory has evolved, Aquinas saw that Divine Command theory didn't properly justify ethics so he created Natural Law theory. the church conveniently got to decide what Is natural (which is the underlying reason why things are good in NLT, natural=good). Consistently the natural world has defied that doctrine (animals being homosxual, masturbating, having multiple partners etc.) so now the church relies a lot on the tradition arguments. but as I've just shown, the tradition has changed drastically. History provides more examples, I don't see priests doing endowments or cosigning on our political leaders divine right to rule these days
"They had strong opinions about
✨🌟 OOOWWLS 🌟✨!!!"
XD Yeah, sure curious how strong their opinion on owls in one's diet outweights the literary presence of some other supposed laws. 🤔
I believe in the middle ages, a fetus wasn't considered a baby until the *Quickening* that is until one could feel the baby move.
No no no! You got it all wrong. The quickening is when you behead an immortal and lightning starts shooting around and you yell at the sky!
I desperately need to know what the hell happened to warrant the rule about eating owls in the bible. Excellent video by the way
This feels like one of those things like the law in Tennessee about where you are and are not allowed to tie up your pet alligator. Someone, somewhere, did something *once*, and was told to stop that. Then they did it again, slightly differently, and the local judge sighed and started drafting an exhaustive list of everything you are not allowed to attach a live reptile to.
Eating a bird of prey in general is prolly a bad idea, what with being carnivores
A lot of the rules in Leviticus and just in the Bible in general are about ways to live for practical reasons. The oft-quoted piece of "do not mix wool and linen" was actually more of a practical concern than an arbitrary one: the two fabrics mixed poorly, had different purposes, and would have been a bad idea to use together. This was then codified as a guideline for people in general through the Tanak and similar texts. Eating owls is probably meant to be a protection against foodborne diseases; some other birds in that list are carrion birds and so eating them would've also been a concern.
The owls know what they did.🦉
Basically in 2020 the conservative government in Poland has banned abortion. 2:20 it's Warsaw, Kościół Św. Krzyża (Saint Cross Church). That was a part of biggest protest in Poland since 1989.
Short, concise, I like it!
Fantastic video Leon. I was hoping horror themed video for Halloween, but I suppose pro-lifers are scary enough
Thanks for the informative video.