Editorial From a Christian: A question to conservative Christians on gay marriage: Why draw the line here?

[PUB78 1,354]

13 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

You follow the teachings of Christ. Follow and act like he acted. Dont get emotional about it. Look, I dont even know how to think about some of these things. Cutting off a body part is as foreign to me as it gets. But that is on the doer, not me. I am supposed to be there to help them pickup the pieces and set them an attractive example for moving toward God. I dont recall Jesus screaming His fool head off at anyone. He calmly and coolly pointed out what they were doing. 

Is Sampson a good man? Read about Samson, long hair, chasing women, drunk often, and yet still God's man.

 

God uses faulty and sinful people to do great things.

God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called.

[DKW 86 7,413]

Just now, PUB78 said:

God uses faulty and sinful people to do great things.

God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called.

Read my last couple of posts. Saul-Paul is the greatest writer of the NT. He was the biggest scoundrel too, when we meet him Acts.

[homersapien 11,354]

On 2/13/2023 at 7:52 PM, icanthearyou said:

I sincerely doubt Jesus wants you to "fight" the secular world.  Jesus never imposes his will.  Why should you?

I believe our calling is to rise above the secular world.  That is to say, not be holier than thou or self righteous but rather, to live as Jesus commanded, rising above pettiness, not participating.

Then again, "christians" may want to fight.  Followers of Jesus will reflect the love of Jesus.

What a "tell" that was.  "Christians" fighting against non-believers.

Edited February 17, 2023 by homersapien

[PUB78 1,354]

https://byfaithonline.com/understanding-providence/

[AuCivilEng1 10,995]

On 12/13/2022 at 9:03 AM, PUB78 said:

God ordained marriage between a man and a woman, not two people of the same sex.

Homosexuality is not normal or part of God’s plan for humanity. It exists because of sin. That is why God made a way for us to escape his judgement for our sins by sending his son to died on the cross so we can be “ born again” or become a new person with the Holy Spirit living in us to guide our thoughts, words and actions.

 

Do you advocate for God’s will in these verses?

"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse." (1 Peter 2:18)

"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again." 
Exodus 21: 7-8

[jj3jordan 2,040]

1 hour ago, AuCivilEng1 said:

Do you advocate for God’s will in these verses?

"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse." (1 Peter 2:18)

"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again." 
Exodus 21: 7-8

Yes.  Obviously it doesn't apply specifically to the current time. Back in Exodus days the Laws of Moses were used to ensure law and order for the Children of Israel. There are a lot of these laws and if you had continued to read past the cherry you would see that it also specified protections for the female preventing her from being potentially treated poorly.

Peter reiterates Jesus "render unto Caesar" philosophy and applied it to government, law, and servitude. It expresses the outcome of suffering with patience even when you do the right thing and how this finds favor with God.

 

[AuCivilEng1 10,995]

12 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

Yes.  Obviously it doesn't apply specifically to the current time. Back in Exodus days the Laws of Moses were used to ensure law and order for the Children of Israel. There are a lot of these laws and if you had continued to read past the cherry you would see that it also specified protections for the female preventing her from being potentially treated poorly.

Peter reiterates Jesus "render unto Caesar" philosophy and applied it to government, law, and servitude. It expresses the outcome of suffering with patience even when you do the right thing and how this finds favor with God.

 

The point I’m trying to make is that the Bible was written by human beings and then passed down generations by human beings. Some with motives. At some point it becomes necessary for a society/humankind to determine what is acceptable and what’s not. You can’t govern a society using laws written 3 thousand years ago. And even if you aren’t making laws or rules, using texts that are that old to sway whether you’re open to an idea currently, is counterproductive. It discourages personal growth and adaptation. 

[jj3jordan 2,040]

28 minutes ago, AuCivilEng1 said:

The point I’m trying to make is that the Bible was written by human beings and then passed down generations by human beings. Some with motives. At some point it becomes necessary for a society/humankind to determine what is acceptable and what’s not. You can’t govern a society using laws written 3 thousand years ago. And even if you aren’t making laws or rules, using texts that are that old to sway whether you’re open to an idea currently, is counterproductive. It discourages personal growth and adaptation. 

Why didn’t you just say that instead of cherry picking verses out of context to show the outrageousness of God and His followers?

My point is God inspired human scribes to record His words so that sinful humans would know how to follow Him. I believe, as do billions, that God is omnipotent and absolutely able to ensure the correct recording, interpretation, and meaning of His Words, and that He ensured the Bible included all the books and letters that He desired. You are applying sinful human limitations (the agenda driven people) to God who has no limitations on His power and knowledge. Just because you can’t understand how all these books came together with truth and perfection doesn’t mean that God is not capable of doing just that. In effect you are placing yourself on the same level as God (capable of making us takes). As are all of your cohorts intent upon debasing the truth and perfection of the Bible (ICHY) despite professing knowledge of Jesus (from the Bible). Some laws in the Bible were written to apply to society 1000s of years ago but others contain truths and law that apply to all of us currently, and our justice system is based largely on those laws. The problem with people like you is that you deny the deity of God and His power, righteousness, and justice. If you can do that then you can use petty word games to try and debase His message and His relationship with His believers.

[icanthearyou 4,462]

Sadly, for much of "christianity",,, the bible > Jesus.  They are refusing the love of Jesus.

[CoffeeTiger 5,084]

On 2/13/2023 at 8:11 PM, PUB78 said:

I wish I was as optimistic as you about Christianity. There may be another “Great Awakening “ coming, but how long will it last and what will be its eternal impact?

As Christians we have many battles to fight with evil and the enemies of righteousness and we will lose the majority of them due to an unbelieving world.

However, we win the war and we know how it all ends. The unbelievers don’t have that hope or assurance.

Why would an unbeliever 'need' this hope or assurance though? Unbelievers don't believe in this eternal struggle between God and Satan, angels vs demons, Christians vs the world. There is no 'War' to 'win' for unbelievers.  

Christians NEED to have hope and faith because they are taught to believe everyone else hates them and that they are constantly being persecuted (even in cases where they are in power and full control of society, like in much of America), and that it's only in death that they will be given their reward from God and the unbelievers who supposedly 'hate' them will be given their punishment. 

 

It's okay to believe the Bible, but it's also okay to believe that the Bible is just a man made story with no truth behind it. That doesn't mean someone is at "war" with you or your beliefs.

Edited March 16, 2023 by CoffeeTiger

[AuCivilEng1 10,995]

1 hour ago, jj3jordan said:

Why didn’t you just say that instead of cherry picking verses out of context to show the outrageousness of God and His followers?

My point is God inspired human scribes to record His words so that sinful humans would know how to follow Him. I believe, as do billions, that God is omnipotent and absolutely able to ensure the correct recording, interpretation, and meaning of His Words, and that He ensured the Bible included all the books and letters that He desired. You are applying sinful human limitations (the agenda driven people) to God who has no limitations on His power and knowledge. Just because you can’t understand how all these books came together with truth and perfection doesn’t mean that God is not capable of doing just that. In effect you are placing yourself on the same level as God (capable of making us takes). As are all of your cohorts intent upon debasing the truth and perfection of the Bible (ICHY) despite professing knowledge of Jesus (from the Bible). Some laws in the Bible were written to apply to society 1000s of years ago but others contain truths and law that apply to all of us currently, and our justice system is based largely on those laws. The problem with people like you is that you deny the deity of God and His power, righteousness, and justice. If you can do that then you can use petty word games to try and debase His message and His relationship with His believers.

Whose responsibility is it to go through the Bible and determine what laws we still follow and what laws and rules just apply to the time period? From an agnostic perspective, it appears that a lot of Christians cherry pick bits and pieces of the Bible in order to justify what they accept and don’t accept. People were using the Bible to justify slavery, not all that long ago. No books or scriptures have been written since slavery was legal. So that begs the question, how did slavery just all of a sudden become intolerable in Christian moral standards?

[PUB78 1,354]

6 hours ago, CoffeeTiger said:

Why would an unbeliever 'need' this hope or assurance though? Unbelievers don't believe in this eternal struggle between God and Satan, angels vs demons, Christians vs the world. There is no 'War' to 'win' for unbelievers.  

Christians NEED to have hope and faith because they are taught to believe everyone else hates them and that they are constantly being persecuted (even in cases where they are in power and full control of society, like in much of America), and that it's only in death that they will be given their reward from God and the unbelievers who supposedly 'hate' them will be given their punishment. 

 

It's okay to believe the Bible, but it's also okay to believe that the Bible is just a man made story with no truth behind it. That doesn't mean someone is at "war" with you or your beliefs.

No, the world is at war with God and Christians. They hate the truth and despise the one who died for them.

For those who don’t believe the Bible is true, there are eternal consequences.

When Christ comes back to earth the second time, many will say to the rocks and mountains “Fall on us to hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne.” With the hatred being directed against anything holy in todays world, I can understand this happening.

[DKW 86 7,413]

On 3/15/2023 at 5:29 PM, AuCivilEng1 said:

Do you advocate for God’s will in these verses?

"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse." (1 Peter 2:18)

"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again." 
Exodus 21: 7-8

That is such a poorly asked question it shows a lack of understanding. 

Man has grown throughout the ages. You are conflating two extremely different times in the Bible. And two completely different dispensations. 

But I can see how to the layman that they would be controversial. 

[DKW 86 7,413]

I will state here as I always have, if there is no God, then, the best we have is the opinion of man. If that's it, we need to apologize to Hitler. Because ultimately his opinion is just yet another opinion. Because then we have no evil, we simply have opinions and with opinions, we next have obvious rationalizations that follow. Rationalizations are far more important than sex in our world.

 

[AuCivilEng1 10,995]

1 hour ago, DKW 86 said:

I will state here as I always have, if there is no God, then, the best we have is the opinion of man. If that's it, we need to apologize to Hitler. Because ultimately his opinion is just yet another opinion. Because then we have no evil, we simply have opinions and with opinions, we next have obvious rationalizations that follow. Rationalizations are far more important than sex in our world.

 

Burning human beings alive in ovens is evil whether there is a god or not. For those that believe in God and that he created man in his image, why is it unreasonable to believe that humanity has the ability to evolve and grow, deciding what is write and wrong as spend our time on earth as a species? 

Jesus also speaks a lot about giving away your possessions and treating everyone with kindness and respect. Why do  so many of his followers choose just not to acknowledge that?

The truth is, if you are a believer of Jesus and his teachings, you’re a believer of the most “woke” person who ever existed. 

Edited March 17, 2023 by AuCivilEng1

[CoffeeTiger 5,084]

3 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

I will state here as I always have, if there is no God, then, the best we have is the opinion of man. If that's it, we need to apologize to Hitler. Because ultimately his opinion is just yet another opinion. Because then we have no evil, we simply have opinions and with opinions, we next have obvious rationalizations that follow. Rationalizations are far more important than sex in our world.

 

So how did societies before Jesus and the Bible, and before the concept of our Christian God was ever introduced or even thought about to them  have the concepts of good and evil and structure that they had? 

 

 

 

 

[Mims44 1,864]

21 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

So how did societies before Jesus and the Bible, and before the concept of our Christian God was ever introduced or even thought about to them  have the concepts of good and evil and structure that they had? 

 

 

 

 

Not tryna act like I'm an expert or anything....

 

But I believe most Christians believe their God existed before humans, before the earth, before the universe.

So he would have existed to form the concepts of good and evil before the invention of the written word, the bible, Jesus being born, etc.

[CoffeeTiger 5,084]

27 minutes ago, Mims44 said:

Not tryna act like I'm an expert or anything....

 

But I believe most Christians believe their God existed before humans, before the earth, before the universe.

So he would have existed to form the concepts of good and evil before the invention of the written word, the bible, Jesus being born, etc.

But like DKW said, those other societies...without the knowledge and direction of God...would have only been relying on their own flawed, human opinions on what was really good and really evil... even if God implanted the concepts of morality from the beginning. Yet they seemed to figure it out. I think there is evidence that people don't need the bible or Christianity to not become murderous lunatics who can't form some sort of code of laws or morality on what is good or  acceptable or not. 

 

[Leftfield 2,585]

I think this thread hits on the disconnect that is driving so much division across the country. There are those who are so entrenched in their religious beliefs that they can't fathom how a person can be moral without them, despite lip service to the opposite. Consequently, they treat opinions from those who share different or no religious beliefs with extreme skepticism or outright dismissal (in the extreme they want a theocracy, like Lauren Boebert, though she's one of the few that will actually say it out loud). It's maddening to me that people will dismiss the moral codes and ethics of civilizations that were around millennia before Christianity, despite the fact they shared many of the same values. Or they'll claim it was God that actually inspired those ancient Asian, Greek, etc. cultures. "Sure was nice that Hammurabi had the whole ethics thing figured out, just too bad he couldn't figure out whom was truly inspiring him, amiright?"

On the other hand, there are certainly plenty of athiests who look down their noses at anyone that expresses a religious belief, and refuse to consider as valid any opinion expressed (also despite lip service to the opposite). I could point to the old joke about "if you don't know if a person's a vegan, just wait, they'll tell you," and apply it to some athiests I've met.

[Mims44 1,864]

1 hour ago, CoffeeTiger said:

But like DKW said, those other societies...without the knowledge and direction of God...would have only been relying on their own flawed, human opinions on what was really good and really evil... even if God implanted the concepts of morality from the beginning. Yet they seemed to figure it out. I think there is evidence that people don't need the bible or Christianity to not become murderous lunatics who can't form some sort of code of laws or morality on what is good or  acceptable or not. 

 

Well, that's the disconnect.

My point was just cause people didn't have the same name for a supreme being does not mean that supreme being didn't exist. Or have the ability to instill it's thoughts/values on it's creations. I guess that's treading a bit more into blanket theism than just Christianity but 🤷‍♂️

 

Much like gravity didn't not exist before Newton came along.  

[CoffeeTiger 5,084]

18 minutes ago, Mims44 said:

Well, that's the disconnect.

My point was just cause people didn't have the same name for a supreme being does not mean that supreme being didn't exist. Or have the ability to instill it's thoughts/values on it's creations. I guess that's treading a bit more into blanket theism than just Christianity but 🤷‍♂️

 

Much like gravity didn't not exist before Newton came along.  

Well, yeah, and agnosticism is kind of where I am currently. 

There's no way to prove that there isn't a God out there someway in some form and I can see the argument for why a supreme, Divine being may exist, but as the years have gone on I've become  more and more unconvinced that the Bible and Christianity is able to prove itself and it's truthfulness any more than any other religion on earth is or isn't able to.

And to me if no religion is able to prove itself any more than any other then it leads me to the conclusion that none of them are likely to be true. 

 

Edited March 17, 2023 by CoffeeTiger

[icanthearyou 4,462]

On 3/17/2023 at 6:49 AM, AuCivilEng1 said:

The truth is, if you are a believer of Jesus and his teachings, you’re a believer of the most “woke” person who ever existed.

I would suggest that Jesus has little to do with much of today's "christianity".   "Christians" follow the bible.  Few actually follow Jesus.

[DKW 86 7,413]

On 3/17/2023 at 6:49 AM, AuCivilEng1 said:

Burning human beings alive in ovens is evil whether there is a god or not.

AAANNNDDD that is just your opinion.

If there is no God, then who can judge what is evil? Evil is just your opinion. It has no objective basis, only the subjective which will have 8BN corollary opinions.

In the animal kingdom, we know that Survival of the Fittest is the rule, thanks to Darwin's Theory.

Nietzsche then proposed that Survival of the Fittest was a good thing for the overall good of the herd and of the gene pool. 

Hitler extrapolated all that to the point that Survival of the Fittest was your Duty to Mankind, your Race, etc. 

If there is no God, then you are just placing your opinion on even what evil is on the rest of us. It is totally arbitrary and subjective because who are you to set a standard for the rest of the world?  If the rest of the world objects, by agreeing with you OR disagreeing with you, then we have conflict: or Survival of the Fittest. 

Edited March 18, 2023 by DKW 86

[DKW 86 7,413]

On 3/17/2023 at 8:56 AM, CoffeeTiger said:

So how did societies before Jesus and the Bible, and before the concept of our Christian God was ever introduced or even thought about to them  have the concepts of good and evil and structure that they had? 

Dear Sir, they, every single one, invented a God or Gods to use as the backstop to their societies.

[icanthearyou 4,462]

6 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

AAANNNDDD that is just your opinion.

If there is no God, then who can judge what is evil? Evil is just your opinion. It has no objective basis, only the subjective which will have 8BN corollary opinions.

In the animal kingdom, we know that Survival of the Fittest is the rule, thanks to Darwin's Theory.

Nietzsche then proposed that Survival of the Fittest was a good thing for the overall good of the herd and of the gene pool. 

Hitler extrapolated all that to the point that Survival of the Fittest was your Duty to Mankind, your Race, etc. 

If there is no God, then you are just placing your opinion on even what evil is on the rest of us. It is totally arbitrary and subjective because who are you to set a standard for there's of the world?  If the rest of the world objects, by agreeing with you OR disagreeing with you, then we have conflict: or Survival of the Fittest. 

As human beings, we should be able to rise above mere animal instinct, behavior.  A sense of humanity is the prerequisite.

There are many who claim god but still cannot.  There are many who do not claim god and are able to rise above.