Frank Apisa wrote:Intrepid wrote:Does it matter how a law came into being as long as it is the law?
Of course it is. And your point is?????
Frankie, are you asking a question with a question? There is a trivia section for that game. ;-)
I am glad that you do. You have observed how often I have asked various parties how a woman can be supposed to have a "right" to abortion, whether it is legally recognized or not where she lives; yet an unborn child is said NOT to have a "right" to live simply because the law does not recognize it.
It is a glaring contradiction...
...and none of the pro-abortion folks have seriously addressed it. They simply want to refer back to the "legality" of abortion as justification for it.
Yet when it was illegal, or where it is still illegal today, they will not grant that a woman has no "right" to an abortion.
They pick and choose what they want to answer and how they want to answer it.
real life wrote:
I am glad that you do. You have observed how often I have asked various parties how a woman can be supposed to have a "right" to abortion, whether it is legally recognized or not where she lives; yet an unborn child is said NOT to have a "right" to live simply because the law does not recognize it.
It is a glaring contradiction...
It is not a "glaring contradiction" except to people with their eyes closed.
It is my opinion that a woman....a fully alive living human being...has a right to end a pregnancy if she chooses...because like all of us, she has a right to decide issues concerning her own body. It is my opinion that any "rights" you suppose an egg, or a zygote, or a fetus has...DO NOT supercede any of her rights.
Quote:...and none of the pro-abortion folks have seriously addressed it. They simply want to refer back to the "legality" of abortion as justification for it.
Well...if you see that as justification for it...go for it. It certainly is worthwhile to point out that it is legal. But I suggest that a woman has that right whether it is legal or not...just as a human has a right to free speech and thought...whether it is legal or not.
I'm not sure why you have so much trouble understanding that...but that is a defect in you...not the argument.
Quote:Yet when it was illegal, or where it is still illegal today, they will not grant that a woman has no "right" to an abortion.
See above.
Are you advocating that women break the law?
Murder is illegal...are you advocating that it is ok to break the law if you don't like the law?
Where have I advocated women breaking any laws?
Quote:Fraud is illegal...are you advocating that it is ok to break the law if you don't like the law?
Where have I advocated women breaking any laws?
Quote:Is this your stance?
No. Why are you suggesting that it is? Where have I advocated women breaking any laws?
Frank I understand that you don't buy into what it says in the bible and that's an honest feeling. The following is just another viewpoint.
Your original question suggested something about how an abortion was like a free pass to heaven.
Why not ask why God just doesn't give a free pass to heaven for everybody? Well,
.....Maybe he has.
Frank said......If your god is offended by so many things humans do...why doesn't it go to some other galaxy and make some perfect humans instead of making imperfect ones and then going ape because they are imperfect?
I said .....Perhaps people are imperfect because we have free will and/or perhaps it has something to do with Adam eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Seems like everything changed after that.
Frank said.....Well...if your god hadn't put Adam into a garden with forbidden fruit...and with absolutely no knowledge of what is right and wrong...good and evil....
...maybe that famous fall would never have happened.
Your god is a despicable god for doing what it did in the myth.
My reply......What good does it do to tell people what is right or wrong if they don't believe it? That takes faith. People have free will. God doesn't make people do his will. Do you think if he loved them they shouldn't have free will? Could we really be who we are, separate individuals, if someone else was pulling our strings? Some people believe there exists a God who created everything and he created what those things are supposed to do for their safety and perpetuation. He didn't create the commandments because he hated people and wanted to hurt them. These are the laws that make it so that we can exist together in peace and harmony. Sin is when someone does something to upset these laws. Unfortunately we are not God. We don't know all things. We are not perfect. We sin.
Do you know that there were two trees in that garden with Adam? One was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which meant death if you ate of it and the other tree was the tree of life (Gen.3:22) which meant life everlasting in paradise if you ate of it. Adam had free will, he could have chosen to eat the fruit from the tree of life, so why didn't Adam choose to eat from the tree of life? After all it was his free pass to paradise? Why didn't Adam eat it?
Frank said.....If you want to say that your god cannot change the way it feels...then you are not only limiting your god...you are insisting that the ancient laws DO STILL HOLD.
But up above...you seem to be saying that they don't.
WHICH IS IT?
My reply.......Exactly right. God can do anything he chooses. He chooses to be just. Justice calls for an eye for an eye.
If you were to go before a traffic judge and he fined you fifty dollars for parking in a no parking zone and then the judge's cousin Vinny also had to go before the same judge for parking in the same no parking zone but the judge didn't fine him anything, would you consider that judge just? He has to be consistent if he is to be just.
A price must be paid. But what if someone is standing there ready to pay that price for you.
Frank said......Well the Bible may imply that as you suggest...but Jesus did not imply anything about the laws. He said something very, very specific about them:
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have come, not abolish them, but to fulfill them. Of this much I assure you: UNTIL HEAVEN AND EARTH PASS AWAY, NOT THE SMALLEST LETTER OF THE LAW, NOT THE SMALLEST PART OF A LETTER, SHALL BE DONE AWAY WITH UNTIL IT ALL COME TRUE." Matthew 5: 17ff
So...Jesus is quite adamant that he is not here to change any of the law...not one word, not one letter, not even one stroke of one letter.
You seem to be arguing that he was lying, or kidding, or just plain mistaken. But since the mythology says this...I will go with what Jesus says on this issue, rather than with what you say.
My reply......Are you asking how can anybody love a God who would demand the kind of perfection called for in the above verse in order to be saved? That is a pretty scary verse.
When Jesus says he is the fulfillment of the law what do you think he means? The wages of sin is death. Somebody's going to pay the price (even for the smallest letter of the law). In fact somebody already has paid the price.
The bible says nobody can keep the commandments perfectly. St. Paul said he tried to. Romans7:15..."for what I would, that I do not: but what I hate, that I do. If he could not keep the commandments perfectly then what was St. Paul to do? He realized he could accept the free gift of Jesus' death for his sins. John3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans3:20-28, (Rom.3:28) Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.) Romans8:1-4, Romans10:9-10 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved....
Frank said.....You people cannot have your god giving his son...and then absolve him from "giving his son."
My reply.......I used to think that way. If God really loved his son why didn't he save him from that ordeal? I believe Jesus went willingly because he loves us. God loves his son and as for giving, God must have had a lot of love for us to watch his son die on the cross for our sakes. If it had been your son could you have been so forgiving? Jesus knows his father is just and he can trust him even through an ordeal like the one he had to go through.
When we confess our sins it does several things. It is an admission that God knows what is right and we need to follow his commandments. It does not give lawlessness free rein. There is justice for the meek. Confession is also an admission that we are weak and cannot follow his commandments, but because God forgives us we don't have to beat ourselves up because we are not perfect and we don't have to beat others up, like some religious fanatics do, because they are not perfect. We can be kind and caring and gentle to one another by following Christ's example and trusting in God's righteousness and letting go of our own righteousness. Jesus is the prince of peace.
Could Jesus be the tree of life? Could he be our free passport to heaven? John 11:25-26 I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead he shall live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believeth thou this? What is there that anyone would prefer to hang onto that is so much more important than that? Why did Adam choose the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Why didn't he just trust God who loved him? We need God.
Romans8:3-4 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Intrepid wrote:
Are you advocating that women break the law?
Where have I advocated women breaking any laws?
Quote:Murder is illegal...are you advocating that it is ok to break the law if you don't like the law?
Where have I advocated women breaking any laws?
Quote:Fraud is illegal...are you advocating that it is ok to break the law if you don't like the law?
Where have I advocated women breaking any laws?
Quote:Is this your stance?
No. Why are you suggesting that it is? Where have I advocated women breaking any laws?
Am I misreading the following quote from you? Are you not saying that the woman has the right whether it is legal or not? Would that not be breaking the law?
Frank Apisa wrote:
Quote:Well...if you see that as justification for it...go for it. It certainly is worthwhile to point out that it is legal. [code]But I suggest that a woman has that right whether it is legal or not...just as a human has a right to free speech and thought...whether it is legal or not. [/code]
Am I misreading the following quote from you? Are you not saying that the woman has the right whether it is legal or not? Would that not be breaking the law?
Frank Apisa wrote:
Quote:Well...if you see that as justification for it...go for it. It certainly is worthwhile to point out that it is legal. [code]But I suggest that a woman has that right whether it is legal or not...just as a human has a right to free speech and thought...whether it is legal or not. [/code]
A yes or no would have sufficed. You got me dizzy going around in circles on this one.
By some logic, science should be condemned because medieval scientists once believed the world was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth. Conversely some believe religion should be condemned due to the beliefs and teachings of a people in a culture predating medieval science by several thousand years.
Science has evolved and has become ever more accurate though I'm sure they have some stuff entirely wrong still. Religion also has evolved and become ever more rational though I sure believers still have stuff entirely wrong.
Prejudice comes in when all of such phenomena is not given equal weight.
Science has evolved and has become ever more accurate though I'm sure they have some stuff entirely wrong still. Religion also has evolved and become ever more rational though I sure believers still have stuff entirely wrong.
I must have missed the part where the new revised Bibles updated the creation account from 6 days to 4 billion years. Can you provide a link?
Mesquite writes
Quote:I must have missed the part where the new revised Bibles updated the creation account from 6 days to 4 billion years. Can you provide a link?
Sure, just as soon as you show me where those medieval scientists updated their own journals and corrected the information in them.
It was later scientists who amended the faulty science with better information. And there are volumes, even libraries full of writings by theologians who have done the research and explain the content, intent, culture, beliefs, and correct meanings of terms and analogies used in the ancient texts.
It is as disingenous to use those ancient texts as evidence of what modern Christians or Jews believe and teach...
Do a tiny minority of believers still believe those old texts are to be taken literally today?
Yes they do. And there is still a flat earth society too. But only the dishonest will hold out the exception as evidence to condemn the whole.
It is as disingenous to use those ancient texts as evidence of what modern Christians or Jews believe and teach as it is disingenuous to use the old scientific texts as evidence of what science teaches today. Do a tiny minority of believers still believe those old texts are to be taken literally today? Yes they do. And there is still a flat earth society too. But only the dishonest or ignorant will hold out the exception as evidence to condemn the whole.
An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science
"Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook.
Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible - the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark - convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.
We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests.
To reject this truth or to treat it as one theory among others is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God's good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our creator.
To argue that God's loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris.
We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge.
We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth."
Oh and the Bible does not discuss abortion as abortion is in modern times. Such a thing would have been unthinkable to the ancients, at least in any way they would openly admit.
