Christians are always asking themselves, “What would Jesus do?” though there is no real evidence they ever answer the question; perhaps because they don’t want to know. It would likely oppose what they’re so eager to do.

How often do I ask myself, in a similar vein, “What would my ancestors do?” It’s a question that is bound to come up among those who adhere more strongly to historical standards in the reconstruction and revival of ancient religions. We tend to be very ancestor oriented and traditional minded, even as those traditions are being reconstructed and reinterpreted in light of the passing of a thousand years or more.

Of course, I’m not a reconstructionist but a revivalist, if I must take a label. Heathen reconstructionists are no more able to reconstruct the past than Christian reconstructionists. The main reason is that it’s gone and past. Many centuries have passed and the world has changed.

That’s just my opinion and you’re welcome to challenge it. I know there are some pretty strict reconstructionists out there. But look at the context of the past for starters. The climate has changed – twice in some cases, perhaps more if you go back far enough. We’ve had a Little Ice Age and a global warming periods and now an upward trend in temperatures that make a solid case for anthropogenic global warming.

In that respect alone the world is different. Some ways of living will be more or less difficult as a result. Whales are on the decline and protected and my Norse ancestors loved to hunt whale.

The world has also gotten smaller. Communications and technology have changed everything. The three-tiered universe has been discounted. There may still be people who believe the gods are up and the dead below and we humans are in the middle. I suppose a case can be made in a metaphysical sense that there are other ways to look at this point, or maybe multi-dimensional physics could take care of it.

We mostly live in larger communities. We’re not isolated by geography and climate. There is no place we can’t go, no influence we can entirely avoid. Things just aren’t the same.

We can’t even raid monasteries anymore. But then, on the flip side, those Christian reconstructionists, though they might want to, can’t burn us at the stake or pour molten metal down our throats to make us convert either, so there are some trade-offs I can live with.

But my point in all this is to say that I can say, “What would my ancestors do?” in a given situation except that the situation in question would probably never have arisen in my ancestor’s world and he would be ill-equipped to deal with it now, were he here.

We have no idea how our ancestors would have coped with some of the changes of the past ten to twenty centuries. We can try to imagine but there is simply no telling, not with any degree of certainty.

That’s not to say we should just throw up our hands and surrender to a world culture. We have our gods and we have our beliefs and we treasure the wisdom passed down to us by our ancestors. Across the centuries, they have something to tell us, some important things.

Like honor and ancestry, like family and clan, like courage and moderation.  Some of these things are timeless and will serve us as well as they served them. Our ancestors were a pragmatic lot, not given to violent swings of ideological or religious fervor. You might get outlawed like Hjalti Skeggjason, a proponent of Iceland’s conversion, for calling Freyja a bitch, but you wouldn’t get hounded into death and long-term persecution because you refused to abandon Christianity. The Norse ruled in Ireland and Norway and other places without forcing everyone to become Heathens like them.

Historical lessons like this tell us something about what our attitudes towards other religions should be. Respect and honor our gods and defend that honor, but do not impose your beliefs on others. There are other lessons we can learn, which give us some clue as to how our ancestors might respond today. For example, our Heathen ancestors practiced exposure of infants. It might be suggested from this that they would be pro-choice. It seems a reasonable assumption, since they themselves practiced what might be termed abortions after the fact.

But our ancestors also engaged in violent feuds and held entire families accountable for the actions of a single member. These are things most of us would likely not do today. In a small, isolated community such a practice might make sense. It kept social order by forcing clans to police its own. But in today’s world it makes no sense, and most governments discourage feuds. We have laws and courts for such things. So that would be an entirely wrong lesson to learn. My ancestor might draw his sword and kill the man who insulted him. I would not want to do that.

Sometimes you have to ignore the little ancestor on your shoulder. Sometimes you would do well to listen.

But that is largely why I am a revivalist. Our customs and traditions are important, but they must make sense in the context of the 21^st century, not the first or the seventh or the ninth. Even the Amish, isolated as they make themselves, have to abide by the law, and those who oppose being bound by the Ten Commandments or Sharia Law would do well to avoid proposing the enforcement of old Pagan law codes.

So ask yourself what your ancestor would do, but keep in mind when he answers that this is the 21st century America (or wherever) and not 9th century Norway, and if somebody tries to tell you what Jesus would do, remind them that this is 21st century America and not first century Judaea, the Romans are not our overlords and that neither of you are Second Temple Jews.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that made me laugh. It said, in bright readable letters: “God is Pro-Life.”

Really? I thought.

What are we supposed to go by? This assertion, so often made by the would-be moral police on the Religious Right? Or the assertions supposedly made by God himself and his followers and preserved in the pages of the Bible?

The Bible is supposed to be the inerrant word of God after all, and there is some pretty anti-life stuff in there. As religioustolerance.org summarizes, “These include religiously-motivated genocide, stoning non-virgin brides to death, burning some hookers alive, treating women as property, etc.”

I mean, nasty stuff. Not pro-life at all. Since we can’t ask God and the prophet business has dried up over the past few thousand years, let’s do the next best thing and flip through the Bible.

Things don’t begin well for the pro-life argument. Ezekiel 34:31 states:

“And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord GOD.”

Yes, only Jews are human to YHWH. The Nations (Gentiles) – in a word, everyone else – are beasts. You remember what Jesus said about them, don’t you? Swine and dogs.

Now of course, the situation is complicated by the fact of three competing monotheisms, all claiming to be descended from Abraham.  Everyone knows the Jewish “Chosen People” spiel but there seems to be a lot of that going around.

Muslims point to Genesis 15:18 as proof that they got the prized covenant from Abraham via Abraham’s firstborn child Ishmael, son of Abraham and his second wife, Hagar. The Jewish claim rests on the assertion that God passed the covenant on to Isaac (Genesis 17:19-21), the son Abraham and main wife, Sarah. And of course, Christians believe it passed on to them via Jesus.

Which would be fine, but apparently this covenant is exclusive property. They can’t all have it.

And they hate each other for it. We’re used now to Christian attacks on Mohammed but in the Talmud, both Jesus and Mohammed are “dead dogs.” America’s Talibangelicals seem to hate Islam with the same fervor they once reserved for Judaism.

The result is the followers of the “god of love” have as much hate as the god they worship. If we judge the tree by its fruit, it’s clear that the god of love is no such thing. It is also clear that his stance is anything but pro-life.

Let’s climb up and look at the tree some more.

We don’t have to look far:

Exodus (22:20): “Whoever sacrifices to any god, save to the LORD only, shall be utterly destroyed.”

Ouch. Yeah, not so much pro-life.

And it’s not like Jesus steered away from this platform. Yes, old YHWH said you should hate your enemies (after all, he did) and Jesus said to love them, but for both the end-time scenario was the same.

Everyone else has gotta go. Off the planet.

It’s no wonder Christian conservatives feel comfortable saying the US is by and for Christians. That’s actually a step down from their God’s platform. Maybe we should be grateful they’re being so moderate.

It is really difficult to find this god who is pro-life in the pages of the Bible. It’s filled with atrocity after atrocity and many of them at God’s own command. It’s no wonder it has sometimes been called one long hate speech.

Look at Numbers 31:17, concerning the Midianites:

Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

The god of human sexual trafficking.

Exodus 22:18: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

This is not very pro-life. It obviously means everyone who doesn’t follow YHWH needs to be killed.

Deuteronomy 32:9-43 is white hot in its opposition to non-believers, as is Deuteronomy 13:6-10:

If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods…you shall kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.’

Is this pro-life?:

“If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. they must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads” (Leviticus 20:13).

And then there is always the pesky issue of human sacrifice. Can a pro-life god demand babies be sacrificed to him?

Exodus 22.29 literally, YHWH demanded human sacrifice as well: that of the first-born son:

Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day.

Ezekiel (20.26) certainly takes God’s command literally:

“I let them become defiled through their gifts – the sacrifice of every firstborn – that I might fill them with horrors so they would know that I am the LORD.”

The ever-reviled Baal and Moloch have nothing on this guy.

Of course, some apologists claim that this was not literally sacrifice but only consecration. Problems arise, however, when we see for example how in 2 Kings 21.6 King Manasseh “sacrificed his own son to the fire.”

And Levicitus (27.28-29) makes clear this is sacrifice, not consecration:

But nothing that a man owns and devotes to the LORD – whether man or animal or family land – may be sold or redeemed; everything so devoted is most holy to the LORD. No person devoted to destruction may be ransomed; he must be put to death.

Then there is story of Jephthah, one of the Judges of Israel who lived in the time before the first king, who in fulfillment of a vow sacrificed his own daughter to God (Judges 11:29-39).

Did Jesus really change anything? No, not really.

(Luke 19:27):

“But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them before me.”

Luke 14:26:

If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

The Bible has been used to support and justify all kinds of hate and intolerance and violence. Yes, the Bible gets misused and abused and misquoted and taken out of context but the ideas of hate are there; they are not invented. The hate is there and those who follow the Bible get as riled up by God’s speeches as people once did by Hitler’s.

But making statements like the one found on that bumper sticker is not based on any biblical evidence that I can find.  Saying it doesn’t make it so, however convenient the wish might be for the so-called pro-life movement (otherwise known as the anti-mother movement) and taking it upon oneself to speak for “God” seems a risky undertaking.

The arguments used to advance this pro-life point of view are weak and general: Nehemiah 9:6 that God gives life to everything; Job 12:10 that God’s hand is in the life of every creature; Deuteronomy 30:19-20 where God tells the Jews to choose life over death. The argument that because God creates life he is pro-life is a weak one. He obviously also created death and later, we are to believe, sent his own son to be killed. And while Deuteronomy is used to promote the pro-life cause, as we have seen above just a couple passages later God is expounding a very pro-death point of view (Deuteronomy 32:9-43). The most mis-used passage relates to a very special person, and not to all people. That is Jeremiah 1:4-5: The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” A very special case, said nowhere to apply to humankind generally. In fact, it is a unique statement in the Bible.

You want abortion examples from the Bible? Hosea 9:11-16; Hosea 13:16; Numbers 5:11-21; Numbers 31:17; 2 Kings 15:16. You want the murder of infants? 1 Samuel 15:3; Psalms 135:8, 136:10; Psalms 137:9.

It would be more accurate for the bumper sticker to read: “God is anti-life” because if there is one thing God seems to love in the Old Testament, it’s murdering babies, inside and outside the womb.

I received a comment the other day from a Catholic who dropped by through an accident and found my post on the 5 non-negotiables. I decided, given abortion is being made such an issue of in this campaign, that I would post my response here rather than burying it in an old post. This is a contentious issue and I think one that is not well understood, given how the so-called Pro-Life movement misrepresents the facts. I was shocked by McCain’s stance that worrying about the health of the mother was an “extreme” position, or by how they attempt to characterize Obama as being an extremist because he supports Woe vs. Wade. The so-called Religious Right (and the Catholic Church too) speak in absolutes. This is no surprise to anyone familiar with Christian doctrine, which is built up around absolutes. But the rest of us know that the world is not made up of absolutes. It’s frustrating, but here is Proud to be a Catholic’s comments and my attempt at a response to this issue (and I’m not going to get into the issue of Federal law imposing itself on the States, etc):

I ended up on this website sort of by accident, searching for the 5 non-negotiobles. I am a serious Catholic, know and have studied my faith. Believe me, there is a very good reason for all of them. If you’re a heathen, then non of them matter to you. But let me give you one example: ABORTION: Definition: someone has to die so that you can live the way you want to. We all started out as an embryo. This is where life begins, and it is not a religious belief but a scientific fact. Also, women always give birth to babies, never anything else. So if a women is pregnant, it’s a baby. Fetus is a Latin term, meaning little one. Most people do not know this. Anyone– how would you have liked it if your mother decided that you came along at ann inconvenient time in her life? Would you have been glad that there were some pro-life people fighting for your life, when the government says it’s okay for your mother to give you the death sentence — not a good time for her. Most people have never seen and never will see an abortion. Body parts are pulled out; the baby is torn apart while alive. How would you like it if this one done to you? We don’t treat the worst criminals like that, and yet it’s perfectly legal to do it to the most innocent among us. Anyone here heard of partial-birth abortion? Well, you may not believe this, but the baby gets born just with the head out, then the “doctor” makes an incision into the babies scull with scissors, and then proceeds to suck the baby’s brains out. After that, the lifeless body gets delivered. True!!! Don’t believe it, research it. Don’t you think that the Catholic Church has a good reason to have this as a non-negotionable? I could go on about the rest of them; there are very serious moral reasons for these. If you’re interested, you can easily find out for yourselves…

Proud to be a Catholic, thanks for commenting.

First, where did you get this crazy definition of abortion? Here is what medical.net says, and note the caveat which flatly contradicts your own definition:

Abortion: In medicine, an abortion is the premature exit of the products of conception (the fetus, fetal membranes, and placenta) from the uterus. It is the loss of a pregnancy and does not refer to why that pregnancy was lost.

You’re generalizing. You approach the problem as though all women who get abortions do so as a form of birth-control. You therefore take the position that anyone who is pro Roe vs. Wade is arguing from that position as well. Here, however, is where speaking in absolutes gets you in trouble and demolishes your argument.

Nobody is saying that abortion is pretty. As Obama said (and he may be right or he may be wrong) nobody is FOR abortion. That is to mislabel what this struggle is about.

What we are talking about is the rights (and sometimes safety) of the mother. Abortion should not be used as a form of birth control.

BUT, to completely outlaw abortion, to overturn Roe vs. Wade, would not only cause mothers to die, but it would force women, even young girls, who are victims of rape and incest, to have babies they should not be forced to carry to term. Listen to what you are saying: You are reducing the heinous crime of rape to an “inconvenience” and the mother’s health to an “inconvenience.” I see nothing in your comments about the mother, her rights, her health.

Having a baby changes a woman’s physiology. Once you have a baby, nothing is the same. And I don’t mean just physically but in every other way as well. You’re saying it’s perfectly acceptable to submit a 12-year-old rape victim to this? Are you? Are you saying the life of the fetus is more important than the life of the mother who will die if the baby is carried to term? How is this a laudable position to take? I fail to see how it can give you the sense of moral superiority you seem to possess. Have you really thought about what you are saying?

I submit to you that a 12-year-old should not have to go through this because she was raped. You can’t call this a pro-life position because manifestly, it is not. You worry about the fetus and talk about how ugly abortion is, but have you seen a child die? A mother? Are you personally going to support the child that should never have been conceived, and that was indeed conceived against the will of the mother? This is supposed to be some form of justice? Are you going to explain to the mother’s other children why it’s right that their mother dies so a fetus can live? Are you personally going to support that family after they lose a wife and mother? You all claim to be pro-family but I fail to see anything pro-family in this position. If this is your morality, I want no part of it.

Let’s look at these morals: you see abortions as immoral. However, as I’ve said here before, there is no evidence that the Jews saw abortion as immoral. After all, those under a month old weren’t even counted as people. It would be hard to make a claim that if an actual child wasn’t a person that an unborn fetus had a higher status in law.

Here’s another problem. Ethics are by their very nature, ethnic. Each ethnic group has its own ethics and morals. You say yours are universal. You are free to believe that, but your thinking so does not make it true. What you are trying to do is foist the ethics of one small ethnic group on the rest of the world, which already had their own ethics and morals. (By the way, you may not realize (or care) but this is a form of cultural genocide.)

My ancestors, for example, did not believe a soul entered the body until the child was named. Can you prove they’re not right about that? No, you can’t. Your doctrine can insist that’s wrong but that’s not enough evidence for me.

I really don’t think the so-called Pro-Lifers, including the Catholic Church, have a very strong position. By demonizing your opponents, by speaking in absolutes, you create rather than solve the problem, and abortion is a problem. As I said, it should not be a form of birth control. At the same time, you folks are against birth control too, which further weakens your position from where I sit. I think it’s safe to say there would be fewer abortions if there was widespread use of birth control, but you don’t even want kids to know there is such a thing as birth control.

It’s funny to me that fetuses, even mindless sperm, is sacred to you, but mothers? Not so much. But you can’t be Pro-Life if some life is more sacred than others. Even your world of absolutes does not permit that. Your argument collapses under the weight of its own internal logic.

Abortion MUST be legal. There need to be limits imposed on what is and what is not permitted, but it must be legal. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. That’s how free exercise of religion works. Nobody in the Pro-Choice camp is asking you to do something you feel is morally repugnant. I don’t know why you can’t be satisfied with that.