RJS

in response to my

God has commanded me not to kill innocent people (or guilty, for that matter), so I can't see (i.e don't expect, would be surprised by, etc) Him commanding me to kill people - regardless of the events you highlight in the OT. I further state that if I did feel I was being commanded in such a way, I would seek counseling. There are no contradictions in this response.

christ-on-a-stick

Family Man said:
Actually, I feel that RJS is still making an incorrect inference. I am comparing her THINKING with their THINKING, not her THINKING with their ACTIONS. Unfortunately, their thinking led them to their actions, but I am not claiming that hers has or will. However, the fact remains that both sides believe that non-believers are deserving of death. THAT is what sickens me. Obviously the hijacker's willingness to take it into their own hands sickens me even MORE, but I did NOT equate the belief with the action.

Trust me, I'd trade a world where everyone just *believed* everybody else deserved to die, but nobody actually did the killing themselves, to the world we have now.... but damn me for wishing that people didn't hold those hateful, divisive and yes, dangerous, beliefs to begin with.

christ-on-a-stick

RJS -

Hold on a sec - and I am not being facetious here - are you saying that God has communicated this to you directly or are you referring to something in the Bible? If it's the latter, I'd appreciate YOUR reference - this is a bit to vague for me.

RJS

I thought I would play to everyones sense of compassion first - but seem to have failed (wonder why ). I thought leading with the statement that the death she speaks of is eternal death wouldn't be well received by a bunch of people that only think we decompose upon death.

RJS

Directly from the Bible.

Exodus 20:13; Leviticus 24:21; Deuteronomy 5:17; 19:11­-13; Matthew 5:21­-22; 26:52; 1 John 3:15

christ-on-a-stick

OMG you're killin' me here... I have to leave in a couple minutes here so let me just start with the first one.

"Thou Shalt Not Kill". One of the Ten Commandments.

What part of God directly contradicting HIMSELF later on in the Bible (telling the Israelites that they not only "shalt" but MUST kill) is lost on you???? Which one do you pick that he "really meant"?

Obviously I was already familiar with the "Thou Shalt Not Kill" commandment. However, by making *directly contradictory* "commandment" at various times in the Bible, it becomes impossible to claim that "God has commanded (X) without exception" (and you seem to think that he wouldn't make an exception now, in the present, when he did so many times before).

Gotta run more later (tomorrow)...

The Naked Mage

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

You retard, RJS! When Jahweh said "Thou shalt not kill", he REALLY meant "Thou shalt not kill OTHER HEBREWS". People of OTHER races/beliefs/whatever the hell Hebrews call themselves were fair game - as well as the occasional Hebrew Jahweh got tired of for whatever reason.

So say again...WHY wouldn't you ram a tower full of non-Christians/Hebrews?

RJS

Lets try this:

Hijacker thinking - Allah wants me to kill infidels...If I die doing it, I will go directly to Heaven (...72 virgins, etc...)....So I do it.

Beamer's thinking - All humans, including myself, have committed sins, and therefore do not deserve to spent eternity with a Holy God (death)....God will forgive our sins if we repent and will offer us eternal life....She repents......

Arrowman

Non sequitur. The fact (accepted for the sake of argument) that the early crash of Flight 93 probably may not have saved any lives does not imply that the passengers* were solely motivated by a desire to save themselves. They could not have known, or would not have been able to consider in the time available to them, how unlikely it was that their plane would kill any (many) other people.

Do you seriously suggest that the passengers were conscious of the fact that the White House and Capitol had been evacuated, or that they would possibly be shot down before hitting a target, or that.... Come on.

Mark, your contrary views on 9/11 issues are welcome and I often share them. But to pick away at the Flight 93 passengers' motivation by suggesting that they knew the only lives they might save were their own, is just plane (pun intended) silly!

*(I refuse to keep referring to them as "Beamer & Co" - it disgusts me that I don't know any of the other names )

HelenM

Arrowman, I agree - I was going to post something similar earlier.

I'm not aware that we have information to know what the passengers' motives were. I think they knew their plane was being hijacked and that other hijacked planes had been flown into the World Trade Center towers.

So they probably figured they had nothing to lose by trying to overpower the hijackers.

But they may well have thought their chances of survival were slight. And I'd say they may well have been hoping to avert their plane being flown into a building full of people.

I think that mostly, they did what they felt they had to do.

It seems a little unfair to me, to assume the passengers were only trying to save their own lives when we know that many other people that day - like the firefighters at the World Trade Center - were trying to help others and they surely knew the great risk they were putting their own lives in.

Why would we suppose that the passengers had only thoughts of saving themselves, in view of what we know others did on that day?

Helen