In Case You Don't Like Romney... A Challenge To Every FReeper

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[SoConPubbie]

This thread and others like it belong on an episode of Mystery Science Theater. Honestly, it’s not worth debating people that do not see the obvious contradiction in their stated positions.

Norm, they do see the obvious contradiction.

For political expediency, and out of fear of Obama, they are walking back on the light of the truth that has been shed on their pathway concerning Romney and violating their own consciences.

These are not political newbees, these are seasoned Freepers who are knowledgeable about the issues and the history of Romney.

There is no ignorance here.

[SoConPubbie]

This thread and others like it belong on an episode of Mystery Science Theater. Honestly, it’s not worth debating people that do not see the obvious contradiction in their stated positions.

Norm, they do see the obvious contradiction.

For political expediency, and out of fear of Obama, they are walking back on the light of the truth that has been shed on their pathway concerning Romney and violating their own consciences.

These are not political newbees, these are seasoned Freepers who are knowledgeable about the issues and the history of Romney.

There is no ignorance here.

[Politicalmom]

Here for a month and calling Jim Robinson JimRob? What was your former FReeper name before you got zotted?

[Norm Lenhart]

You are of course, right. I should have phrased that better.

I notice that again, several hundred posts since I asked some very basic questions on this intentional blindness, not a single one of the ABOs has addressed them honestly. Likewise for those same questions posted on a number of prior 1000- post threads.

Not one person in the ABO crowd. Not one.

That tells me their position is so unsupportable that athe go full lib and pretend they don’t exist. Anyone calling themselves conservative should be ashamed of themselves. Hiding behind fear and false premises is not what conservatism stands for. Nor is adopting the language of the left.

But they do. And they look all the more foolish for it. If they want to vote for a liberal to save the country, you’d think they’d have the integrity to just say “Conservatism failed and I’m giving up on it” because of course, that’s what their support of a liberal proves.

But then I never did encounter a liberal honest with themselves or anyone else, so I really should not be surprised. Nor should I have wasted as much time as I have trying to debate fact, logic and reason with someone to frightened of the truth.

We are indeed in deep poop. And it isn’t because of we who are unwilling to join the opposition.

[COBOL2Java]

There is no ignorance here.

Indeed. Just abject, raw, irrational fear.

[COBOL2Java]

We have clearly been blessed as a nation to have the likes of George Washington (who clearly had some personal faults) and Ronald Wilson Reagan, but by and large we have survived as a nation with some pretty base men at the top of the political food chain.

When blessed, we are given statesmen. At other times, we get mere politicians.

[Politicalmom]

My name better be on there! I don’t want to miss the potluck!!

[xzins]

the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men."

In setting up Obama, God has definitely given us one of the basest of men.

Obama would've beaten some of the Roman emperors to the filth.

[King Moonracer]

How about SC Eric Holder???? They don’t want another Tom, don’t cha know.

[greyfoxx39]

LOL...you won’t miss the potluck, we’ll see to that!

[SoConPubbie]

When blessed, we are given statesmen. At other times, we get mere politicians.

And given that Romney is much worse than a mere politician, but a lying, left-wing, Progressive Liberal, God must be very angry with America.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for taking my concerns to heart, dear brother in Christ! And yes, I would like to pursue the issues through the Scriptures.

My apology for taking so long to reply. My niece's husband died in a motorcycle accident Friday. He was buried yesterday. So now I have time to spend on this project.

The issues as you worded them:

1. A Christian must support the modern political state of Israel regardless of any act they might take due to God's "blessing versus cursing" promise in the Bible.

2. The sin of killing infants is greater than the sin of disloyalty to the modern state of Israel.

The issues modified to my perspective:

1. People will be blessed or cursed by God for their treatment of the offspring (physical or spiritual) of Abraham. Therefore, the well being of Americans is tied to our treatment of the present nation of Israel.

2. The sin of murder (whether the victim is born or not yet born) is not greater than any other sin in the Law.

[Alamo-Girl]

I'm going for "the big picture" here, which — as has already been eloquently suggested by Alamo-Girl and thouworm — essentially boils down to a great spiritual crisis confronting the American people, to my way of thinking, the greatest since the Civil War.

Precisely so, dearest sister in Christ!

As far as I can see and thanks to the "me" generation, this is an apt description of the United States in 2012:

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. - 2 Timothy 3:1-5

I pray earnestly for Spiritual renewal throughout America.

[xzins]

The issue on my heart, Sister, is whether or not it is necessary to support Israel even if it requires supporting sin to do so.

So far as I’m concerned, Romney promotes terrible sin with his anti-life and pro-gay agenda stands.

Even though it adds danger to Israel not to support Romney, should I ignore the sin because support for Israel is decreed by God even if it requires one to engage in terrible sin to do so?

That is my dilemma.

So, whether I should support Israel in normal circumstances is a given. I should. I have no need to explore that question.

Should I support them if it requires me to engage in terrible sin to do so.

Sadly, Israel also practices abortion. I haven’t checked, but I suppose, their being liberal in so many things, that they are also advocates of the gay agenda. I don’t know.

So, the real issue for me is not whether the Bible teaches support for Israel. That’s a given. There’s no point in studying that.

What I want to know is if there are EXCEPTIONS to supporting Israel, and, in particular, if one means of supporting Israel includes terrible evil as part of that means, then does the bible require support for Israel by that evil means.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!

Even though it adds danger to Israel not to support Romney, should I ignore the sin because support for Israel is decreed by God even if it requires one to engage in terrible sin to do so?

That is my dilemma.

There is merit to that old adage that "misery loves company." Thank you for your understanding.

When I survey the history of mankind, I see nations that cursed Israel being cursed themselves just as God warned would happen, e.g. Canaan, Egypt, Philistine, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Rome, Germany.

I do not want that fate for America.

Yet I also see that God has used nations such as these to accomplish His will albeit at great cost to them. For instance, Egypt sheltered Israel and then exploited them - and God hardened the Pharaoh's heart to show His power. Egypt will never be the same.

Likewise, Babylon served God's purpose. Even Nebuchadnezzar was permitted to praise God. (Daniel 4). Babylon was destroyed when God called Cyrus to do so.

I also truly believe Alexander the Great's conquest of the civilized world was according to God's plan. After the dust settled, the Greek language was normalized and word-concepts were in currency which would later accelerate the spreading of the Gospel. And yet He preserved the original Hebrew Scriptures by the Essenes sect and today we have the Dead Sea Scrolls confirming the antiquity and authenticity of Scripture.

That, even though Greece legalized infanticide for political gain:

Yet another type of government killing whose victims may total millions is infanticide. In many cultures government permitted, if not encouraged, the killing of handicapped or female infants, or otherwise unwanted children. In the Greece of 200 B.C., for example, the murder of female infants was so common that among 6,000 families living in Delphi no more than 1 percent had two daughters.¹¹⁶ Among 79 families near as many had one child as two. Among all there were only 28 daughters to 118 sons.¹¹⁷ Unwanted children

were thrown into rivers, dung heaps, and cesspools. Wild animals were everywhere. Feeding upon children was part of their sustenance, as Euripides noted in his play Ion, "A prey for birds, food for wild beasts, too. . ." . . . .

Cities became deserted and the land became barren. Family life was disappearing.¹¹⁸

Indeed, the law demanded that imperfect children must be killed; and someone thus even wrote a text on How to Recognize a Newborn That Is Worth Rearing.¹¹⁹

But classical Greece was not unusual. In eighty-four societies spanning the Renaissance to our time, "defective" children have been killed in one-third of them.¹²⁰ And in India, because of Hindu beliefs and the rigid caste system, young girls would be murdered as a matter of course. With the collection of demographic statistics in the 19th century, it was discovered that in "some villages, no girl babies were found at all; in a total of thirty others, there were 343 boys to 54 girls. . . in Bombay, the number of girls alive in 1834 was 603. . . ."¹²¹ Such infanticide is usually a singular event. It does not happen en masse. But the accumulation of such officially sanctioned or demanded murders comprise, in effect, serial massacre. Since such practices were so pervasive in some cultures, I suspect that the death toll must exceed that from mass sacrifice and perhaps even outright mass murder.¹²²

Pre-20^th Century Democide

It is truly a dilemma for me.

The only no-brainer is that casting a vote "for" Obama would entail me not only in abortion and infanticide but also in cursing Israel.

A vote "for" Romney would entail me in blessing Israel. But his newly professed pro-life position is untested.

Likewise, a vote "for" a third party like Goode would be largely based on untested positions.

Concerning the treatment of Israel, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and the homosexual - it seems to me that many in the worldwide community of people who call themselves Christian are at risk of falling away. Way too many of them no longer take God seriously. They don't believe what He has said - how else can we explain complicit behavior among the clergy?

And if the clergy no longer loves God or believes Him or trusts Him - how quickly many in the laity will follow!

Let no man deceive you by any means: for [that day shall not come], except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; - 2 Th 2:3

Maranatha, Jesus!!!

[betty boop]

Dear brother xzins wrote: Even though it adds danger to Israel not to support Romney, should I ignore the sin because support for Israel is decreed by God even if it requires one to engage in terrible sin to do so? That is my dilemma.

To which my dearest sister in Christ replied: There is merit to that old adage that "misery loves company." Thank you for your understanding.

Then she added:

When I survey the history of mankind, I see nations that cursed Israel being cursed themselves just as God warned would happen, e.g. Canaan, Egypt, Philistine, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Rome, Germany.

I do not want that fate for America.

It seems to me that this exchange truly models the communication problem that seems to divide the Body of Christ nowadays.

Maybe we should just start with a consideration of what "sin" is. This seems likely a good place to start.

Caveat: I am an unchurched Christian of orthodox persuasion and proclivities. I do not understand the innovation of such great spiritual thinkers as John Calvin, for instance, who seemingly proposed a concept of God Almighty as eternally causally "overdetermining" the Creation He made in the Beginning. Indeed, what can the doctrine of Predestination mean, other than (1) to falsify the Christian doctrine of imago Dei, which holds that each and every individual human soul is created by God, "in His Image and Likeness." That is, as possessing reason and free will. And each soul is His beloved child.

In a divinely "overly-determined" cosmos, what need is there of human free will? And if God "determines" everything, then why should we not justly conclude that God is responsible for all the Evil in human existence in this world?

Oh but I digress already, "sin" was our topic.

To sin is to transgress God's Law, which is stated: Love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.

After that, in my theological tradition, we are confronted by the "Seven Deadly Sins," which in descending order of sheer badness goes as follows:

Pride.
Envy.
Anger.
Sloth.
Greed.
Gluttony.
Lust.

Note that all of these sins are sins of personal character, not sins of active, personally-caused "commission" (e.g., murder, infanticide, larceny et al.)

And so it seems to me that we need to draw a distinction between the written word and the living word.

The Holy Bible is the Book containing and expositing the written communication from God to us, His children, in which He declares Who He Is — "truly, yet not exhaustively" — in His relation to us, the world of creation, and human societies.

He has also given us another revelation — the "Book of Nature." Which decidedly includes the "book" of human experience, otherwise known as human history....

If we have to consult the written world of the Holy Bible in order to understand how we can vote in this election without offending God, maybe we offend God by not moving the written word into the realm of the living word....

I say that knowing that the Holy Bible is a book of profound, sublime symbols that will never guide human beings wrong; but I also have to acknowledge that the "compact" symbols of our Lord's Holy Scriptures can be read at many different levels, given the particular exigencies of the human person engaging these symbols in light of his own acute personal experience....

Indeed, this is the very genius of God's eternal divine communication with mankind: Trust or reject our Lord Jesus Christ; you will judge yourself thereby.

In conclusion, this is a very "personal" election for a good many of my correspondents here of late.

So I'll just go back in time and repeat myself again: Consult your conscience; pray; meditate; then go vote November 6th.

My dearest sister in Christ, I already know that is what you will do!

Thus one more "vote" for the spiritual renewal that alone can save this country from itself, a country trashing the work of the Founders/Framers themselves, destroying the very charter that makes human liberty possible in a secular world — which is the very beacon of liberty that has inspired peoples all over the globe for the past hundred years and more....

Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for your outstanding essay/post!

[xzins]

While I would like to address this at length, and I already owe a response to Alamo, I must plead lack of access to my office computer, a problem that will be remedied early next week. I do have my (now ancient) Blackberry on which I can reply, but also on which my fingers do not so nimbly fly.

Betty, suffice it to say that God is not of divided mind and does not set aside His omnipotence to access His omniscience and vice-versa. History inexorably goes where God wills it and not where it accidentally happens to stumble.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you oh so very much for sharing your insights and testimony, dearest sister in Christ, and for your encouragements!

And thank you, dear brother in Christ, for sharing your insights and for your promise to reply next week!

Note that all of these sins are sins of personal character, not sins of active, personally-caused "commission" (e.g., murder, infanticide, larceny et al.)

Indeed.

A big one for me in the personal character arena is "worry" which I suspect falls under "pride" in the seven deadly sins list.

Nice people would call me "multi-tasked" - not so nice people would call me "scatterbrained." But the bottom line is that even while one part of me knows what I've prayed about is a "done deal" another part of me picks it back up again as if God could not trusted with it. Jeepers...

Worry is an insult to God. I know that, I don't want it, I rebuke it and yet I struggle with it continually.

For me that root problem is a lot more important than any of the "commissions" that could come of it because it goes to "who do I believe."

Likewise, I dare not fail to believe God's promise that He will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel. It would be an insult to Him to doubt Him.

Thus one more "vote" for the spiritual renewal that alone can save this country from itself, a country trashing the work of the Founders/Framers themselves, destroying the very charter that makes human liberty possible in a secular world — which is the very beacon of liberty that has inspired peoples all over the globe for the past hundred years and more....

Amen.

[Kevmo]

I’m voting Straight Party Ticket!
***So am I. But at the top of the ticket I will be writing in a Republican Conservative. Straight republican ticket.

All these Freepers who say “ABO” really intend to say, “whoever has an R in front of their name at the top of the ticket”. They should be saying WHARIFOTNATTOTT.

Free Republic is a conservative website, not necessarily a republican one.

[Kevmo]

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” John Quincy Adams
***Almost tagline worthy