So what is "wrong" anyway?

“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal rather than religion-specific values… it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason.

Now, I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.” –Barak Obama

I know I have already written a lengthy post about abortion, but I recently stumbled on this Obama quote on Facebook, and it really bothered me. I agree completely with the principle of what the president said, but I hate that he used abortion as the example. The way I see it, there are definitely different categories of “wrong” actions. Allow me to expound.

Category 1: Bible says it’s “wrong”, society says it’s “okay”, law says it’s “okay”.

I completely agree with Obama that I can’t expect everyone from every faith (or lack thereof) to adhere to Biblical standards. That would be ridiculous. Some things that fit in this category might be drunkenness, extramarital sex, and homosexuality. While the Bible does not condone these actions, society as a whole accepts them as the norm and there are no laws against them. Therefore, I cannot judge or condemn anyone who does not claim to be a Christian who practices these things, as they don’t even pretend to want to follow the Bible. Christians who condone these things are another issue entirely, but not the point of this post.

As a side note, I really wish Christians would stop judging non-Christians for wrongs in this category. It really makes us sound like stuck-up Pharisees. It’s not our place to tell them they have to follow the Bible when they have no inclination to do so. However, there are other categories of “wrong”, I think…

Category 2: Bible says it’s “wrong”, society says it’s “wrong”, law says it’s “okay”.

Some things in this category might be lying and adultery. While there aren’t any specific laws against them, even non-Christians feel offended when someone lies to them or if their spouse cheats on them. They feel like something wrong has happened to them, and they are justifiably hurt. Even so, the wrongdoer usually does not face any legal repercussions, just maybe a broken friendship or a divorce.

Category 3: Bible says it’s “wrong”, society says it’s “wrong”, law says it’s “wrong”.

This is where you might find things like stealing and killing. It is absolutely against the law to break into a house/store/car/bank/etc. and take things that don’t belong to you, and if you do so there are consequences. Same with murder, it’s a given that we do not have the “right” to kill people, and that we will be severely punished if we do. When these things happen against us or our loved ones, most of us, regardless of religious beliefs, feel something wrong or bad has happened.

Category 4: Most people agree that it is absolutely “appalling”, and most laws say it’s “wrong”.

Some things are so extreme that I feel they warrant another category. Appalling. Things like genocide and cannibalism. Most reasonable people look back on the millions of innocent lives brutally killed in the Holocaust with disgust. Most reasonable people would look at the selling of human flesh in a market alongside pork and beef as being a whole different level of “wrong”. (This happens in the world today, by the way. In the DR Congo they hunt, kill, and eat the pygmy people mercilessly, simply because they are a different race).

President Obama, who claims to be a Christian, places abortion in Category 1, so even though he says he thinks it’s wrong he refuses to pass any laws against it because other people don’t think it’s wrong. I wish we could place abortion in Category 4, or at least Category 3. It is, after all, genocide that is going on every day all over the world. Countless millions of innocent lives have been killed for the sake of convenience and in the name of “freedom of choice”. In my previous post I ranted about no one having “freedom of choice” to murder anyone after birth, so the fact that we can legally kill people before birth with no social stigma or legal consequence really confuses me. 

We. Kill. Our. Own. Children. 

How is that not appalling? How is that not considered “wrong” by society and the law? I think that is “subject to argument and amenable to reason”, how does everyone else not? This isn’t about religion. It’s about life and death.