The Evil One

Then I suppose the next question is, do *you* think that society *ought* to be governed by God's laws? That is, when the vote is taken to decide whether or not *your* society wants to be governed by God's laws, will you vote YES or NO?

seebs

That's ridiculous. If indeed the goal is to promote people being prepared to stand before God, then obedience to the law and a dollar will get you a bag of chips. People who obey the law because they fear punishment have never considered the moral question, and are denied the opportunity to approach it with an open mind. They have less chance than they would if the question were not being decided by men with guns.

Obviously not. He violated them Himself, and directly ordered people to disregard them in a number of cases.

It may be worth considering that the Law Jesus spoke of might not be the Law that Jesus specifically condemned.

You would be wrong in this. Such a person would not mete out punishment, would do good works on the Sabbath, and would otherwise disregard the Mosaic Law whenever it was inconsistent with living in love. Such a person would absolutely not kill people, let alone kill them for being of other faiths; indeed, such an action is practically blasphemous.

The question of whether sexual immorality would include homosexual sex was, in fact, the topic of the thread. I have a standing offer of a debate on the issue, because I've never seen anyone put forwards a convincing case.

Gamera

[QUOTE=rhutchin;3859845]That's right! We must each follow the spirit and decide what actions show love. That's the burden of being a Christian. No more silly rules.

Galatians 5:18 - But if you are
led by the Spirit you are not under
the law.

Why do you choose to ignore Paul's plain langauge here?

Yep, Christianity invented situational ethics. It's God's plan. We must each decide in our walk of life what shows love and what doesn't. No more silly rules.

Galatians 5:18 - But if you are
led by the Spirit you are not under
the law.

Eh? There are plenty of exploitative sexual relationships. Rape, incest, abusive spouses, pederastry. Anytime somebody has power over somebody else and uses that to obtain sex, it's exploitative.

Sure I can judge whether a relationship looks loveless or not. God gives us all discernment.

Yep, only God judges people in the ultimate sense. Why do you find that surprising? None the less, I can certainly judge the actions of those who call themselves Christains. Indeed, Paul commands that we do.

1 Cor. 5: 12-14. But rather I wrote to you not to associate with any one who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber--not even to eat with such a one. 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13 God judges those outside. "Drive out the wicked person from among you."

Again, exactly why are you ignoring Paul's plain language again?


If the purpose of the trick is selfish, it's by definition loveless. No need to act coy about something so self evident. If the purpose is to help the person, then maybe not. What if tricking somebody out of his money will save his life? Wouldn't it be a loving thing to do so?

.

Is it? So if a person lies to save another person's life he's condemned. You got to be kidding. Exactly where in the bible does it say it's wrong to lie even if telling the truth will harm somebody?

Here's the command I see Jesus giving:

John 15:12 - "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Nothing here about avoiding lying.

Angra Mainyu

I'm not sure why you didn't, but I understood djrafikie’s post easily.
In my view, it was obvious that she didn’t mean she was having sex with a minor.

Incidentally, if you have time, could you address the questions I asked you in post 78, please?

In particular, I’m interested in the last of them:

Should I take that as a “yes”?
Would you want homosexuality and blasphemy to be punishable by death?
Would you vote in favor of such laws, if you were given the chance?

Craigart14

As for me, I don't care what the Bible says about anything. The OT laws were written by violent, ignorant people. Even devout Christians don't follow most of them because they're either too barbaric or just plain silly. To decide for yourself that we should no longer stone to death rebellious sons or non-virginal brides is, if you are a believer, a violation of God's law. Yes, Jesus decided you could eat shrimp and pork, but all the other changes in the law were made by other NT writers or (GASP!) ordinary human beings who gradually figured out that flesh and blood human beings matter. How many laws did Jesus relax? How many did Paul relax because of his "visions" of Jesus? I suspect about 600 laws were left unaltered. So, do any of your clothes mix wool and linen? Have you sacrificed any animals lately? (That's what they did about all day long at the Second Temple.) Should we stone gays to death? Oh, and don't forget, if your brother dies, you are supposed to fuck his widow. Remember what happened to Onan when he didn't comply with that one? And never tease a prophet; you could get eaten by bears. They're pretty high on God's threatdown.

The OT laws are irrelevant. Those that we do follow--the ones about murder, fraud, etc.--are common to nearly all cultures, and we follow them because we human beings have agreed that they are good for society, not because we found them in an old book. Honest believers would admit that they cherry-pick from "God's law," choosing to follow only the laws they like while ignoring the rest.

Jesus said that if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you have committed fornication with her in fact. Having tried both, I can say with some certainty that they are not the same.

Craig

Johnny Skeptic

What's this, you mentioned something that is not in the Gospels? Is this a first? Paul specifically and clearly said in great detail that there is life after death, and he mentioned heaven four times in first and second Corinthians, not to mention a number of times that Jesus mentioned heaven and an afterlife in the Gospels, and yet you have said that you are not aware of any evidence that heaven and an afterlife exist.

Johnny Skeptic

But I did not mention proof. I said "there is not any credible evidence at all that the Bible writers spoke for God and not for themselves." If you have credible evidence that they did, then please present it.

A reasonable case can be made that the God does not exist. If God does not exist, it is to be expected that tangible benefits would be frequently DISTRIBUTED to those who ARE NOT in greatest need, and frequently WITHHELD from those who ARE in greatest need. That is exactly the case that we have today. If you are trying to reasonably prove to people that you exist, and that you are loving, you most certainly would not go out of your way to make it appear that tangible benefits are distributed entirely at random according to the laws of physics. If God does not exist, it is to be expected that the only kinds of benefits that anyone could expect to receive would be spiritual benefits. This is exactly the case that we have today.

Even if God does exist, you still lose. Jesus required that in order for a man to become saved, he must love God with all of his heart, soul, and mind. No rational minded and fair minded man can will himself to love God with all of his heart, soul, and mind, or even to a lesser degree than that. God is a hypocrite. The Bible says that killing people is wrong, but God frequently kills some of his most devout and faithful followers, and babies, and innocent animals. God makes people blind, deaf, and dumb, reference Exodus 4:11. God punishes people for sins that their ancestors committed, reference Exodus 20:5. In the New Testament, God killed Ananias and Saphira over money. Jesus told people to be merciful, but God endorses unmerciful eternal punishment without parole. God refuses to reveal himself to some people who would accept him if they knew that he (supposedly) exists. No man can fairly be held accountable for refusing to accept a message that he would accept if he knew that the being who delivered the message (supposedly) exists. You would not be able to love a God who told lies. Will you please tell us why you consider lying to be worse than the atrocities that God has committed against mankind, and why you believe that God does not tell lies? If God exists, his actions and allowances indicate that at best, he is bi-polar and mentally incompetent, and that at worst, he is evil.

May I ask if you have an intimate, loving relationship with God, and if so, why?

But I do not need to prove that inerrancy is a fraud. All that I need to do is to adopt a neutral position, as some undecided people have, and ask you to provide reasonable proof of your affirmative position. Following your own same line of reasoning, if I told you that I saw a pig sprout wings and fly, and you questioned my claim, it would be valid for me to say you have not disproved my claim.

I have posted some of Farrell Till's comments about Biblical inerrancy on several occasions in the thread that is titled ‘2 Peter 3:9’, but so far, you have refused to discuss them because you are not as sure of your arguments as you pretend to be. Do you now have enough confidence in your position to debate some of Farrell Till's comments about inerrancy? Following is what I posted in the other thread on at least two occasions, and which you conveniently DID NOT reply to:

In order for you to make a valid claim that the Bible is inerrant, you would have to reasonably establish which writings comprised the original Bible. You cannot do that.

It is interesting to note that you told me that I should start a new thread on inerrancy when you are well aware that there are already two threads on inerrancy at this forum, and you have not made one single post in either of them.

Consider the following:

http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

The most "authoritative" accounts of a historical Jesus come from the four canonical Gospels of the Bible. Note that these Gospels did not come into the Bible as original and authoritative from the authors themselves, but rather from the influence of early church fathers, especially the most influential of them all: Irenaeus of Lyon who lived in the middle of the second century. Many heretical gospels got written by that time, but Irenaeus considered only some of them for mystical reasons. He claimed only four in number; according to Romer, "like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man's estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures-- the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, the eagle of John (see Against the Heresies). The four gospels then became Church cannon for the orthodox faith. Most of the other claimed gospel writings were burned, destroyed, or lost." [Romer]

Johnny: Noted award winning Bible scholar Dr. Elaine Pagels has aptly said "The victors [Johnny: meaning orthodox Christians] rewrote history, 'their way.'" It was a power struggle, plain and simple.

Regarding predestination, I would like to debate that absurd issue with you in a new thread. How about it?

By the way, I do not mind at all reposting the parts of my posts that you conveniently refuse to reply to.

Gamera

This is off topic, but the obvious answer is what Paul meant, not that he said it.

Some things Paul says are in plain language. Some are obscure. His comments about heaven are utterly obscure.

So back on topic.

Johnny Skeptic

Did Paul mean that dead people will one day rise from the dead? Did Jesus mean that dead people will one day rise from the dead?

Since you want to get back on topic, do you oppose homosexuality?

rhutchin

Both homsexuality and blasphemy are currently punishable by death in that the person who does these things will be denied entry into heaven when they stand before God.

I think we should tell people that these things are sin. If we as a society accept such things then we are telling people that they do not matter which is contrary to the true situation.

If a society wants to serve God and wants people to know what will happen to them when they stand before God, then that society should follow God's laws and use the punishments God has told them to use. This would be done under the judicial system required by God.