“The Bible is silent on the issue of abortion.”
Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Texas James Talarico, in response to a questioner (a Catholic theology professor) during CNN’s “town hall” featuring the Texas House member and divinity school student (he has yet to graduate despite starting at the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 2018.
The answer was appropriately contradicted by the questioner, Jody Hunt, who shot back, “I just want to add that the Bible is not silent on abortion. There is the 10 Commandments: ‘Thou shall not kill.” She added, “And as Catholics, we take great insult, I guess sometimes, when [the Bible is] described that way.”
It didn’t take a theology professor to come up with that response: a relatively astute 12-year-old who has seen “The Ten Commandments” should be able to do it. Talarico’s answer is not only a lie, it’s offensive. This is the “invisible baby” dodge again. No one, nothing, is being killed! Abortion just involves the woman. It’s a choice, not a killing!
Talarico lied and flip-flopped throughout the session, with no push-back from the moderators. (“This is CNN!”) He denied saying that he wanted to abolish ICE, but Talarico is on video saying “It is time to tear down this secret police force.” Asked about the SAVE America Act, he said that he didn’t know enough about the bill to have a firm opinion about it. In August, he said, again on video, “With the SAVE Act, they are trying to rob our neighbors, strictly our black neighbors, of those God given rights.”
That’s a lie too. Just as Bernie Sanders assured radical progressives that Kamala Harris was just pretending to be moderate to get elected and then would show her true colors (you know, like “moderate” Abigail Spanberger in Virginia), Talarico’s woke pastor has said of her devout flock-member, “I can guarantee you that once he gets elected, he’ll change his tune back to where he was.” Have I mentioned that Democrats cheat?
Talarico isn’t even good at lying. I bet Bill Clinton is embarrassed for him.
The Bible is silent on running people over with your car.
The Bible is silent on vandalizing someone’s home with a can of spray paint.
The Bible is silent on stealing $20,000,000 from the bank.
The Bible is silent on kicking dogs.
The Bible is silent on wearing a clown suit while pushing old ladies down the stairs.
The Bible is silent on using a fully automatic machine gun to shoot up your neighbor’s house.
Only the Bible isn’t silent on any of those things.
Just like it isn’t silent on “don’t kill your children”
Like I read someone else write.
Talarico is what you get if a bunch of drunk interns at RNC headquarters decided to design a stereotypical Dem candidate.
Just a counterpoint here. Evangelical Christians overly rely on appeals to the Bible for moral argumentation against abortion, and Catholics tend to rely on church doctrine on this matter. In other words, there is a tendency to preach to the choir, and this is a problem when you want to convince non-Christians of the wrongs of abortion. Evangelicals and Catholics also open themselves up to the counterargument that all opposition to abortion is based on church doctrine and Biblical interpretation; these arguments therefore can be dismissed as irrelevant to nonbelievers. Talerico is now pulling a Voltaire by claiming that Christians are reading their Bibles wrong.
On the topic of the legalization of prostitution, to name an example, Christians have adopted a completely different argumentation strategy. In stead of appeals to the Bible, modern arguments derived from feminist are applied (against sex trafficking, abuse etc.). This is way more effective, plus you have allies to work with. As somebody who is on record in favor of legalization of prostitution I have questions about the truthfulness of these arguments, however in politics truthfulness and effectiveness are not the same thing.
Political debates are not decided based on truth, facts, and logic. A politician can win a debate with falsehoods and fallacies, as long as he is able to connect with the voters; the voters tend to decide on what they prefer to hear. That is why calling out a politician on using unethical arguments has little relevance; all that matters is whether his arguments help him win the election. The only criteria on which political arguments should be evaluated is effectiveness; based on how the political game is played. Politics is ethics bizarro world.