Amen!

quote:

Originally posted by patrask:
I am sorry, but if Rev. Warren wants to be exclusionary that is his right.

So, Jesus was a bigot?

You guys just don't get it.

There is absolutely no other way to put it. You think that this life is all there is? There is no other explanation.

You think the scripture are full of misinterpretations. Written by men uninspired by any God. Heaven is a fairy tale.

Put all this together, and anything is okay.

There is no Jesus. Why make a fuss? And if there was, all that stuff they wrote about Him was nonsense.

And I am supposed to go along with YOU? Who are you kidding? I'm never going to agree with you.

Scripture demands I have a heart for the lost. You guys make it tough. Because it is certainly...certainly not in my power or ability to convince you of something that you have not been given the means to understand.

Dear Nard,
You do not have to go along with me. You are secure in your beliefs. That is good, for you. My objection is when you start to feel that you are so right that you have to impose your beliefs on others, forcibly, by law. That is not ok.

I love you and all who have found The Way but I reserve the right to my own beliefs and will not tolerate the imposition of the Religious views of others onto my life through the legal system. Stay in your Church environment and be as happy as you can. Leave the rest of us, those who want to intermarry in a Civil ceremony, Jew to Catholic, Jew to non-believer, African-American to White-American, Gay to Gay, Chinese to non-Chinese, etc., to have the same Civil rights that you have, chosing to marry a Man to a Woman in the Church under God. Why must you enforce your beliefs onto those who do not share them? Why are you threateneed by the fact that there are Good People who simply do not believe as you do? There are some Christians who are being excluded from certain Churches because of the circumstances of their biology, not their choice. That is a form of bigotry in my mind, yes. I say let them all be followers of Christ, and change the rules to recongnize all people as good in this world and you will have done a marvelous thing to promote Human kindness and understanding, while remaining a true follower of Jesus. When The Church folks start to preach that some are just different and therefore not acceptable, that is hate, not love. They have got to be opposed and I am very angry about the actions taken in the name of a loving God to put other people in a second class status through ignorance and fear.

The real war here is over the definition of marriage. Marriage is defined as between a man and a woman, and has been for a few centuries. But if it's really causing such a hassle, is it worth protecting a word?

It seems a simpler solution to re-name all legal marriages (nomatter the matchup) as "Civil Unions", instead of defining all forms of civil union as marriage.

Of course, that makes too much sense to be implemented.

quote:

Originally posted by patrask:
I say let them all be followers of Christ, and change the rules to recognize all people as good in this world and you will have done a marvelous thing to promote Human kindness and understanding, while remaining a true follower of Jesus.

It seems to me that is the primary teaching of Yeshua.

It's fascinating to think that there is no evil or conflict between good and evil, but it's simply not scriptural. At some point, we have to decide whether scripture is, or is not, the source of truth.

Once we decide that, then we have to determine what kind of exegetical process we will apply to it.

We can certainly decide to pick and choose what to accept, but that denigrates trying to understand scripture as a whole.

Of course, many will choose not to base their lives and ethics on scripture at all.

One of the joys of living in a free nation is that we all choose our own paths.

I think if we focus on God's love and sharing that, we can leave most of the judgement to God.

quote:

Originally posted by patrask:
Dear Nard,
You do not have to go along with me. You are secure in your beliefs. That is good, for you. My objection is when you start to feel that you are so right that you have to impose your beliefs on others, forcibly, by law. That is not ok.

But I suppose, it's okay for YOU to impose your beliefs on me?

When I made a point in my last post that scripture demand I have heart for the lost...and you have not been given the means to understand. Well, I was there, too! Big time! I was a fixture in total Dumbsville.

But now I'm surrounded by Village Atheists.

quote:

Originally posted by Braling II:
Good for you.
No matter how the mother gets pregnant, it's never the child's fault.

And I don't think we really want to go down the path toward deciding who should live (almost born, newly-born or very old) based on 'quality of life' or 'burden on society' determined on some scale by a supercilious elite.

Another "amen" for Brother Braling!

And what about the true story about the baby who was born "not quite right", and they went to court seeking the right to let the baby starve to death.

Disgusting.

Not to bore you with all 7, here are just 3!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4cMB8ktCT8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHlelAui5fs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEYeDGOW83I&feature=related

___

Then there is this one Roman Catholic video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqjXC_fa4mA

"I don't care what he all means, I just love to listen to him talk.
~ Obama supporter, September, 2008

quote:

Originally posted by patrask:
My objection is when you start to feel that you are so right that you have to impose your beliefs on others, forcibly, by law. That is not ok.

No it isn't.

quote:

Originally posted by embroiderer:
"I don't care what he all means, I just love to listen to him talk.
~ Obama supporter, September, 2008

Yeah - the world is full of idiots, right?

"I'm afraid if he (Obama) wins, the black will take over."
- McCain supporter

"When you've got a nigger runnin' fer president, he ain't a first-stringer. He's definitely a second-stringer."
- McCain supporter

(*sigh*)

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:

quote:

Originally posted by patrask:
My objection is when you start to feel that you are so right that you have to impose your beliefs on others, forcibly, by law. That is not ok.

No it isn't.

You are right on Doug. I have posted the following on my front window:

STOP_HATE__SIGN.jpg (49 Kb, 4 downloads)

Tell me, some of you guys, why you hate God so much?

If He tells you fornication, murder, adultery, homosexuality, lying, desiring your neighbor's wife, having strange gods before you are wrong, why do you deliberately go against that in search of some sort of personal freedom? If one is weak, and continually falls into the weakness of fleshy sins, that's one thing. God is willing to pull you out.

But if you say that what God calls wrong, you call Hate, explain yourself. Why is that?

quote:

Originally posted by Phil Knox:
Tell me, some of you guys, why you hate God so much?

If He tells you fornication, murder, adultery, homosexuality, lying, desiring your neighbor's wife, having strange gods before you are wrong, why do you deliberately go against that in search of some sort of personal freedom? If one is weak, and continually falls into the weakness of fleshy sins, that's one thing. God is willing to pull you out.

But if you say that what God calls wrong, you call Hate, explain yourself. Why is that?

Homosexuality will exist whether or not prop 8 passes. Prop 8 does nothing more than modify the conditions of a type of state-recognized contract.

"Why do you hate America?"
"Why do you hate God?"
"Why do you hate working families?"
"Why do you hate the troops?"

All accusations of this caliber are the same: intentionally vague; negative, and fallacious. The fact that this is one of the biggest "problems" we choose to recognize and debate proves that we, all of us, "hate" a lot of things.