6 Reasons Why It’s OK to Judge

Apologetics, Christianity, Discernment, FreeThinkingMinistries.com, judging, Judgmentalism, Peter Rasor, The5MinuteThinker, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
“Hey, stop judging me! You can’t judge me and my beliefs!” How many times have we heard something like this? The implication of such an exclamation is clear: someone’s personal beliefs about religion or morality are off limits—they cannot be discerned to be right or wrong. Beliefs are subjective and thus true for some and not others. Such a sentiment fences off one’s beliefs from being analyzed and weighed for validity. But is it true that we should not judge others’ beliefs? Are religious and moral beliefs really just personal opinions? I suggest we all ought to judge people and their beliefs, and it’s o.k. Really. Here are six reasons why. A real world exists For one thing, a real world exists outside one’s own perceptions. If you disagree, just…
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Christianity and Abortion, Part 2: The Early Church’s View of Abortion

abortion, Apologetics, Christianity, Church History, conception, ethics, FreeThinkingMinistries.com, Gospel, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Peter Rasor, prochoice, prolife, Sanctity of Life
In Part 1 of this series on abortion, we discussed that abortion has been practiced for millennia. It is nothing new although the means of destroying a child in the womb have varied. We also briefly looked at why abortion has been a human preoccupation throughout history. For philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, they firmly believed it was to ensure that the best progeny would be born and eventually be leaders of the state. It was also because they feared possible overpopulation. For these reasons and several others, they thought abortion was justified. Contrary to these pro-abortion views was the Christian view. Throughout the history of the church, abortion has been viewed as a wicked, sinful act, specifically because it was considered murder (i.e., the unjustified taking of an innocent life).…
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Christianity and Abortion, Part 1: A Brief History of Abortion in Antiquity

abortion, Apologetics, Christianity, Church History, conception, ethics, FreeThinkingMinistries.com, Gospel, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Peter Rasor, prochoice, prolife, Sanctity of Life
It is always a temptation in an industrial and technological society such as America to fall into what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery.” This is the belief that the present ideas and practices are superior to, or could never have been imagined by, those who went before us. This is no less true concerning the practice of abortion. Many believe abortion is a relatively new idea and that those who preceded our advanced age could never have imagined having the means to abort a human person in the womb. They did not, after all, have the biological and medical knowledge we have today. Right? Nothing could be further from the truth. Abortion, or some equivalent practice, is just about as old as humanity. Those in antiquity may not have had…
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