Searching for GOD...

[wigginhall]

Or punishing them.

I think the Bible explicitly say this, doesn't it?  (Goes and looks for quote). 

'To the woman he said, "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."'

Gee, thanks, that's a pretty decent all-round package for women, eh?

[Rhiannon]

But who am I to challenge the likes of Darwin, Dawkins and Hitchens?

I am just an 11 plus failure from Thorntree who still believes in God, and who is about to enter his second childood by playing with his beloved meccano and train sets.

I will bow out now and allow someine else to take this thread up to a mangificent 10000 posts.

It's not about who you are to challenge anyone. It's about what you have to challenge them with that matters.

[Rhiannon]

I think the Bible explicitly say this, doesn't it?  (Goes and looks for quote). 

'To the woman he said, "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."'

Gee, thanks, that's a pretty decent all-round package for women, eh?

God designed it though, so it's fine.

[Shaker]

Dear Shaker,

Child birth smarts abit

Gonnagle.

Well, I don't know but apparently so, from all wailing they do about it.

They want to try catching your winky in your zip, or getting a papercut in that stretchy bit of skin between your thumb and your first finger. Now that's pain, man. Pain, I tell you 

[wigginhall]

God designed it though, so it's fine.

I wonder how many Anglicans think that child-birth is a punishment from God?  I guess some of the evangelicals?  Does this mean that using drugs to alleviate the pain is sinful?

[Shaker]

But who am I to challenge the likes of Darwin, Dawkins

On evolutionary biology, nobody I'm afraid, Alan. Sorry to be blunt but there we go. As Rhi has said it's not so much who you are but exactly what you're challenging with, and at the moment the fruit bowl is empty.

I am just an 11 plus failure from Thorntree who still believes in God, and who is about to enter his second childood by playing with his beloved meccano and train sets.

I will bow out now and allow someone else to take this thread up to a mangificent 10000 posts.

That does look as though we've started to get into areas that you actively and positively don't want to learn about.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Alan,

But who am I to challenge the likes of Darwin, Dawkins and Hitchens?

They are there to be challenged.

I am just an 11 plus failure from Thorntree who still believes in God, and who is about to enter his second childood by playing with his beloved meccano and train sets.

What!! your human just like the rest of us.

I will bow out now and allow someine else to take this thread up to a mangificent 10000 posts.

I knew it!! you were just here to plug your book

Gonnagle.

[wigginhall]

Yes, there's ignorance, and there's wilful ignorance. 

[Shaker]

Yes, there's ignorance, and there's wilful ignorance.

Yeah but I don't want to know about that.

[Rhiannon]

I wonder how many Anglicans think that child-birth is a punishment from God?  I guess some of the evangelicals?  Does this mean that using drugs to alleviate the pain is sinful?

I think the core belief over childbirth as punishment is dying out but the attitude to women as somehow secondary as a result of it hasn't.

I'd almost be tempted to try labour one more time if it meant getting my hands on some entonox again.

[Shaker]

I wonder how many Anglicans think that child-birth is a punishment from God?  I guess some of the evangelicals?  Does this mean that using drugs to alleviate the pain is sinful?

It used to be held to be - it may be an urban myth but I remember reading that Queen Victoria did a lot to change matters by having ether for the birth of one of her small village's worth of children.

[Shaker]

I think the core belief over childbirth as punishment is dying out but the attitude to women as somehow secondary as a result of it hasn't.

I'd almost be tempted to try labour one more time if it meant getting my hands on some entonox again.

Had to look up the name but I've had that too when I had a bout of biliary colic a few years ago (worst pain I've ever known).

Mind you, that was a prelude to a hefty dose of morphine and that was even better

[Rhiannon]

It used to be held to be - it may be an urban myth but I remember reading that Queen Victoria did a lot to change matters by having chloroform for the birth of one of her small village's worth of children.

I believe this to be the case. It was in fact a feminist issue - male doctors tried to decline giving drugs to women precisely because of the quote from Genesis and it was a battle for women to get the right to pain-free birth. And of course at first it was only available to the wealthy anyway.

[wigginhall]

I think the core belief over childbirth as punishment is dying out but the attitude to women as somehow secondary as a result of it hasn't.

I'd almost be tempted to try labour one more time if it meant getting my hands on some entonox again.

It's interesting though, as it shows slippage over the Bible, as there it is in black and white in Genesis, a very important book for some Christians.   By slippage, I mean a reinterpretation away from the literal sense, or an adaptation to the Zeitgeist.   Materialist anti-theism has a lot to answer for.

[Shaker]

Seems my memory can sometimes still bear up

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/victoria.html

http://goo.gl/atQFAp

http://goo.gl/tayfl9

[Rhiannon]

Had to look up the name but I've had that too when I had a bout of biliary colic a few years ago (worst pain I've ever known).

Mind you, that was a prelude to a hefty dose of morphine and that was even better

Oh yes, morphine... I had a drip with a clicker thing which I think I, um, overused.

Pethidine was nice. Bit like too many brandies all at once. I think I told one of the midwives that I loved her.

[Shaker]

I'd say that to anybody who gave me pethidine as well.

[Rhiannon]

It's interesting though, as it shows slippage over the Bible, as there it is in black and white in Genesis, a very important book for some Christians.   By slippage, I mean a reinterpretation away from the literal sense, or an adaptation to the Zeitgeist.   Materialist anti-theism has a lot to answer for.

There are some Christians who regard medicalised birth as unchristian. In the USA William and Martha Sears are natural childbirth gurus who also happen to believe their way is the god-given one. Which is fine until the easily led become convinced that God doesn't want them to have a c-section or to give a bottle of formula.

[Shaker]

Just realised - yay to Rhiannon for getting post #10000

Would still love an answer to 9990 though ... I don't expect that one will be forthcoming.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Rhiannon,

What is all this what do all these drugs do to the child, I have thoughts of newborns shouting peace man and asking why the room is full of pink elephants.

Seriously, I have heard that some women go for a drug free birth, are there any studies which look at the difference it makes to the child.

Gonnagle.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Shaker,

Just realised - yay to Rhiannon for getting post #10000

Are you on that entonox stuff.

Gonnagle.

[Shaker]

Unfortunately not, no!

[Shaker]

Dear Rhiannon,

What is all this what do all these drugs do to the child, I have thoughts of newborns shouting peace man and asking why the room is full of pink elephants.

Seriously, I have heard that some women go for a drug free birth, are there any studies which look at the difference it makes to the child.

Gonnagle.

Some medically knowledgeable boffin will be along shortly I'm sure to tell us about the blood-brain barrier - personally I'm not aware that pain-relieving drugs in labour affect the baby, but I'm not well up enough on the subject to give a definitive answer.

I can tell you that being born by Caesarean makes a difference - I was, and every time I'm in a car with a sunroof I have to get out through that instead of the door.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Shaker,

Sorry, my mistake, I was looking at how many posts you had posted instead of the number of posts on this thread my excuse, men can't multi task, was on the phone at the time

Gonnagle.

[Enki]

My dictionary definition was from the Oxford English Dictionary.

On evolution theory - an interesting take:

“For example, Darwin introduced historicity into science. Evolutionary biology, in contrast with physics and chemistry, is a historical science—the evolutionist attempts to explain events and processes that have already taken place. Laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques for the explication of such events and processes. Instead one constructs a historical narrative, consisting of a tentative reconstruction of the particular scenario that led to the events one is trying to explain.”—Mayr, Ernst (renouned evolutionary biologist)

Ernst Mayr was of course an influential evolutionary biologist who built upon Darwin's ideas. Stephen Gould used his ideas extensively in promoting such ideas as punctuated evolution in his book 'The Structure of Evolutionary Theory'. My particular interest in Mayr stems from his ornithological interests, particularly in his ideas on speciation, genetic drift and the importance of isolated environments(especially islands) in speeding up the process of evolution.

It is also worth noting, perhaps, that he said the following:

I have the honesty to say I'm an Atheist. There is nothing that supports the idea of a personal God.

I find myself, on this, to be greatly in sympathy with EM.