Thought of the day: Contradiction

Often, when I think about religion, I think of it as a grand contradiction. What do I mean by that? Let's take Catholicism for example. 

This church is against abortion; it will do everything in its power to keep someone from aborting a pregnancy. It wants to defend that fetus as if it were an actual baby and will go so far as to bomb an abortion clinic, which is contradiction No. 1. Of course the people doing the bombing are nutjobs and I'm not lumping in all of Catholicism with these lunatics, but it's just an extreme example of how seriously they take their opposition to abortion.

So let's say they convince this single mother to have the baby. Once she does, this very same church condemns her because she has had a baby out of wedlock, and they label the baby illegitimate. How can anyone embrace a church that tells you to do something and then shuns you for completing that transaction? 

It reminds me of the cartoon that has Jesus knocking on someone's door. They ask who's there and he says "It's Jesus, let me in." They ask why and he says, "So I can save you from the thing I will do to you if you don't let me in." Religious thuggery and contradiction in a nutshell. 
 
But let's get back to the abortion and another contradiction. Many of the religious right are pro-capital punishment. Either a life is precious or it's not. How can you defend a zygote in one breath and then vote to kill a living human being? At least I'm consistent in my world views. Abortion and capital punishment are fine by me.

There are plenty of other contradictions in religion, both in stance and history, but the abortion theme struck a chord with me today.