As I said, the only one who could blame the behavior on the left. You’re the one with the outrageous assumption.
64% of Americans claim to be Christian per recent polling.
- Thread starter 82hoosier
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No, I think you are viewing the conservative viewpoint from the worst possible angle. I don't think that conservatives want someone to feel inferior, they want to know that their charity is being put towards a positive outcome. I don't think the difference is in motivation necessarily so much as it is on outcomes.
I think the "liberal" approach would be that there is a need and that need can be met with dollars. Yes, some of those dollars are going to be used to arrive at outcomes that are not necessarily beneficial, but getting some positive outcomes makes the giving worthwhile. Conversely, I think the conservative position is that there are resources available and we have to be judicious in how we distribute the resources to maximize outcomes.
In practical terms it maybe looks like the liberal giving $100 with limited restrictions to make sure that the kids get a meal and the conservative giving $50 with more restrictions...or one gives $20 and the other buys a few days of groceries. I think the heart is in the right place in both sides but we just disagree as to which approach has the best outcomes.
Answer you wouldn't be happy with, it is complicated. Answer that I can maybe use to delineate, it is about intention. Think of it like a diet. There is that piece of cake sitting there and you have been abstaining from cake for so long. It isn't right for your diet but temptation gets the best of you. You make a mistake and you hit the gym for an extra 30 minutes that week and you look at other strategies to see if you can avoid that temptation in the future. That is go forth and sin no more.
On the other hand, you tell people you are on a diet and are cutting back on sweets but you have a piece of cake after every meal. You say your mea culpa and then go on having your piece of cake. You aren't really on a diet and you really aren't making an effort. You are just mouthing the words.
Thats in Pauls Gospel in Romans Bowl, new testament. The same gospel I've been telling you to read, Romans 1,2,3 Why?
Romans 2 15-16
Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another 16In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.
Your conscience records and will bear witness against you, and mine me. When God will judge, according to Pauls Gospel, Bowl.
If you think I want to lead you astray you're wrong. If I do then I will suffer greatly as the scripture says below. So much so that Paul repeats the scripture twice.
Galatians 1:8-9
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
That angel in heaven is the next Gospel dispensation in Revelations that comes in the future.
Pauls gospel is in Romans 1, 2, 3
Read Romans 1, 2, 3. Once you get it I will show you the doctrine which is according to Godliness which is a commandment in order to get established in the faith.
Peace
My original post was intended as a question - not as a statement. What piqued my curiosity in part is from listening to the senior night speeches and recruiting statements made by college and high school athletes.
The vast majority start out their statements with a preamble thanking God because without God nothing else would be possible .... And yes I realize a reference to God is not necessarily a reference to Christianity.
Just asking as a current nondominational ex-alter boy.
Wow. If premarital sex is a sin (particularly with the age at first marriage going up), most of us are in deep shit. If a single person is responsible and respectful of their partner, I don't understand what the problem is. Celibacy is simply not realistic for most young adults, and it never has been.
With respect to your other comments, it sounds like you're a proponent of natural law theory. That's really the underpinning of the argument against gay sex - - - that it's unnatural. The natural purpose of sex is reproduction, and those two queers sure aren't making a baby. But what about a sexually active married hetero couple that uses contraception? They're doing their best to avoid having a kid. How about a post-menopausal woman doing the deed with her husband? How about a married couple with a wife who occasionally likes it up the bum hole? Or the same married couple who frequently engage in oral sex? Those last two activities are examples of sodomy, and in none of these cases is reproduction even a remote possibility. Aren't they all sinners then?
Of course not. That's why it's stupid to go down this road in declaring what sexual activity is sinful and what isn't. My understanding of scripture tells me that adultery and promiscuity should be avoided. A committed relationship - - straight or gay - - means the two people should remain faithful to one another. If they stray, that's a problem.
Finally, with respect to your comment about Stripper Story Hour, I'm not familiar with that concept. I have heard of Drag Queen Story Hour, though. I would never take my kids to one of those - - - not because I think there's any sin involved, but because I think it's effing bizarro.
I like that she’s swearing in with a non-fiction book.
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
That quote with the earth image suspended in a sunbeam always puts me back into my place. I have the poster on the opposite wall of my kid's shitter.....hopefully one day they will read it.
No, you were called a crank when you lied about other posters making that claim.
There are a whole bunch of things outside premarital sex that are considered sins in Christianity and the fact that we are in deep doo-doo because of that is kind of the point.
Sex outside of marriage has all sorts of negative impacts on relationships and society in general. You can trace a whole host of societal issues in this country back to it.
We are talking from a religious perspective. From that one, the underpinning against gay sex is God telling us not to do it. Just like we are told not to lie, murder, etc. You are starting froma viewpoint of how you think things should be and logic-ing your way into an answer. I know this is going to drive you nuts but the way Evangelicals see the world isn't one where they use human logic to lead them to an answer. (And frankly that is because you can logic your way into any position.)
To answer your last question, we are all sinners. You can whatabout this and whatabout that to your heart's content but there is support in the Bible against homosexual relationships.
Ok, but respectfully I feel you are ordering off of the Bible menu a la carte and the items you are ordering are side dishes while you are tossing away quite a bit of the main course. To be fair, I think several conservative "Christians" do the same.
Then what do you care if they also don't want it pushed in areas their kid's frequent? I agree, it is bizarre. The whole trans thing in general is bizarre and that is why I am wholeheartedly against mainstreaming it.
I'm not speaking for Bowl, or defending any of his arguments, but I think some of what people are bringing up can best be illustrated by this: adultery is a sin, homosexuality is a sin. But GOP leaders seem to be tripping all over themselves to do whatever they can to pass laws that protect people from homosexuality (or other sex-related deviancies), but no one is sponsoring stricter adultery legislation.
In other words, the idea that conservative Christians seem to care a lot more about a certain subset of sins than they do other sins is by no means unsupportable.
You put up #31 for a reason. I don’t think you intended that as a compliment.
I agree. I avoid using the word “Christian” in certain contexts also. My reluctance stems from notions of bigotry and intolerance that the left imputes to almost all Christians.
I think welfare programs come out of experience as to what happens when charitable giving doesn't meet the need. The thirties is a good example. Folks were hungry, but nobody had any money, at least nothing to share . . . and it fit the business community to a tee; wages were low and then lower . . . until unionization came to the fore.
You accused me, specifically, of alleging that the Nashville shooter is clearly some sort of "victim" who was driven to do evil by a lifetime of neverending Christian hate.
YOU LIE. Admit it. Truth telling is good for you. Not lawyer-like, but try it...
So I got to thinking about this post while I was moving sand from a sand bar to islands we've built to cross a creek that the sand bar is in. I have questions (yes, I'm picking on you. You can handle it.):
So what sort of sin is having sex?
I take it that taking birth control outside the context of marriage is a sin too? What kind of sin is it?
If you adhere to the Catholic encyclicals, having sex for pleasure even in the context of marriage is a sin too. What kind of sin is it?
Who decides all this stuff? Who enforces it?
In your view, should any of this stuff be illegal?
Yes, because you are a crank. An old crank. Thanks for proving my point.
I stand by my statement about conservatives TENDING to want to feel superior to the person they've provided charity to, and the statement that liberals TEND to value dignity and my statement that both have value.
And I'll add the paragraph you left off, to provide context to those who are reading through all this, but not necessarily carefully:
Each has its benefits. I think back to Russell Crowe in Cinderella Man and he got humiliated into accepting public assistance by his having to ask for private charity . . . and ended up waiting in line to give all of the public assistance back. He lost and then regained his dignity . . . that's a story we love.
So are you saying that conservatives want to control an outcome that they inherently have no control over? What is the role of faith?
I think there's an argument to be made that white American Protestantism is still largely informed by the concept of predestination. Faith is a signifier that they are among the elect, but it's not really a path to it. I think that's something the black church has move away from. They are more like the Catholics and Anglicans in that respect.
Sure there is. There's also support for genocide, beating your children and taking a rebellious son to the town leaders and having him stoned to death.
The Ten Commandments proscribe adultery. They don't address homosexuality. To my knowledge, neither did Jesus.
Paul's letter to the Corinthians includes language that "fornicators, idolators, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites (watch out hetero couples who engage in oral and anal sex), thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers - - none of these will inherit the kingdom of God." The word "prostitute" speaks to sex for hire and promiscuity, not to loving and committed relationships. Some biblical scholars believe Paul was condemning pederasty when he referred to male prostitutes.
I'll close with this, from the successor to Peter - - "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?"
I don’t deny Christians are victims in different ways. What is your point?
To be fair, that's probably a bad translation. The two Greek words translated here are malakoi and arsenokoitai. The first refers to people who have the sexual disposition of women, and is often translated as "effeminate," but in the language of the time probably had more to do with a lack of self-control (women weren't considered to have sexual agency back then), and a better translation might be something like "wanton." The second is a word coined by Paul, and literally means "male-bedders" or something like that, i.e., men who sleep with men. It does not mean "sodomite" in the way we mean the term today. It may have had to do with temple prostitution, rather than homosexual relations generally, but it's hard to know, because, as I said, Paul invented the word.
One thing I've noted about evangelicals is that they rely on themselves and other like minded to provide the help that some folks need. They're the first to provide funds and volunteer help when a tornado destroys a neighbor's home, for example. Others - non-evangelicals - say that they pay taxes, and that's enough . . . let government provide the help.
My personal opinion is that when government provides the help it distances the one providing the funds/help from the person receiving it. That may help shy people stay anonymous, but it doesn't help make a community.
I don't think that's what CO was talking about though . . . he's just a crank when it comes to anyone who doesn't think like he does. It's OK . . . he's really old. Probably has lots of aches and pains.
Sope, good point.
In addition to Evangelicals my experience with Mormons has shown they help each other during a family crisis in an extraordinary fashion. Help families even when an entrepreneur makes dumb business decisions.
Admittedly to stay in the good graces of the Mormon faith is demanding starting with tithing requirements.
On the subject of religious tithing, isn't this similar to a government tax which provides the funds necessary to meet the needs and good deeds of the faithful ?
It’s amazing you’ve been able to get by in this bigoted country where you’re denied access to any number of facilities and accommodations on account of your religion. Heaven knows one has to struggle to find Christian mass media to consume on radio, books, tv, movies. Literally nobody is trying to stop you from never blowing a dude. Ever. we just wish you didn’t care if someone else does.
I can only imagine that when you meet the martyrs fed to the lions in the afterlife the first question they’ll ask you is “how did you bear it all?”
Unless of course one of the other religions who are also pretty exclusive about eternal rewards end up having been right all along, at which point you’ll be figuratively, and ironically, be F’d in the A.
When I want you to answer a question I've posed to someone else, I'll ask you to weigh in. Until then . . . hush you.
That's not where I was going with that question . . . .
I suspect that tithing is a bit different. One chooses whether to join a church that requires tithing.
I don't know, but I also suspect that the funds necessary to meet the needs of the faithful is not correct. Much of church funds go to pay staff and for the building, along with programs.
Some churches I've belonged to make a big deal out of their commitment to use 50% of the funds received for domestic and foreign mission work. Otherwise the funds go to pay for personnel and programs that serve the congregants.
Besides, if government is any indication, 10% doesn't cover all of a congregation's social, spiritual and material needs. 20% is more like what government takes of GDP, and they aren't doing spiritual.
The only laws I see being passed have been discussing sex at age appropriate levels and not letting biological males compete with women.
I don't think they care more about one sin, I think they feel one partocular sinful lifestyle is being foisted on them/their children.
I am not from a denomination that has a hierarchy. Maybe Catholics? do. Sex in marriage, not a sin. Sex out of marriage, probably a sin. Cheating sex on a spouse, sin. And so on and so forth.
Not necessarily. B.C. has other medical uses outside of just blocking fertilization. Taking the pill isn't the sin, having the sex when you aren't married would be.
Not Catholic so don't ascribe to that. Would point to Song of Songs for my support of not adhering to that belief.
Well you kind of figure God.
No.
Here is God's view
16 These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
And correct me if I'm wrong up until the 50s or 60s wasn't adultery a crime here in Indiana? Maybe fornication as well.
Downplay it all you want, but they are making an effort. What effort are they making to combat adultery?
Paying the other woman not to talk about it?
Lol. From your posts in this thread it’s pretty clear that everything is about you.
I didn't downplay anything. I named the specific items that are being pushed legislatively. The other issues (like adultery) get discussed as part of sermons, weekday groups, etc.
The public nature of the sudden push on certain things by the LGBTQ community makes that disagreement a more public spat, but it isn't like that is a major focus of churches on Sundays.
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