Posted on 12/15/2005 9:21:38 AM PST by Pokey78
What a stunted view you have. I hardly think that pre-monotheistic civilizations only fought for "resources" nor that monotheistic wars were fought only for ideological reasons. Try a little grey in your black and white world.
The Reformation and the Hundred Years' War, to take an example, was not just about how salvation was attained. It was about who would run temporal matters and who would get tithes.
SD
The last few weeks, every article has earned "The best Steyn ever" accolade. He keeps topping himself.
And, yes, indeed, this one is the best. Ever.
So far...
A home run by Steyn.
I don't know if all the thread readers know this but they got in trouble for this because the Nazi's used it as a slogan when they were trying to pump up German Nationalizm in the 1930s.
I don't think I'm even in the same category. Doug's a genius--and prolific, too! I could never do that every day.
People don't realize that God set the Hebrews against the Canaanites for doing the very things that the secularists are promoting now -- idol worshipping, sexual immorality, and woman and child abuse. Also slavery, which I don't believe has ever been a Jewish custom, in principle if not in practice.
Source? I don't recognize this...
Can't touch this.
It does. I am not arguing that it doesn't. Certainly a Christian organization is going to act differently than a Satanic organization. Christians (true Christians) want to do right by their fellow man and follow the teachings of Jesus.
One's belief system (whether adopted whole or eclectic) also determines how one defines virtue (for want of a better term), but in what qualities are called virtues and how those virtues are to be practiced. NARAL thinks it's compassionate to kill babies in the womb. I believe I've read that some Nazis actually talked themselves into believing that it was best for the Jews themselves that they be exterminated.
On a more humdrum level, I'm old enough to remember when "Look out for Number One" was considered a despicable philosophy of life. (Well, ok, at least you didn't admit to it in public.) But Carl Rogers, Maszlow, etc. have changed all that: now it's your primary duty to look out for number one, though they don't put it in those words.
Unsurprisingly, you don't seem to understand Christ. The entire point of Christianity is that we can not live our lives in a way that is "righteous in the eyes of God," hence the substitionary sacrifice of the Infinite Christ to pay the penalty justice requires for our sins.
SD
"The entire point of Christianity is that we can not live our lives in a way that is "righteous in the eyes of God," hence the substitionary sacrifice of the Infinite Christ to pay the penalty justice requires for our sins.
"
That's true, but there's another very important point of Christianity, and that is that Christians are to emulate Jesus. They may not succeed completely, but they are to try.
Redemption through Jesus is a good thing for Christians, but Jesus also made it clear that Christians were to walk a righteous path, as well.
Sadly, there are Christians who remember the redemption but forget Jesus' instructions on how to live.
Not really true. The Jews had lots of slaves, as did Abraham and the other patriarchs. All ancient peoples practiced slavery and took it completely for granted. Even the NT accepts it, to the extent that Paul counseled a runaway slave to voluntarily return to his master.
The OT did spell out rules for how slaves were to be treated, and all Jewish slaves were to be freed every seventh year. This meant that Jewish slavery was more like indentured servitude for a specific period than the lifetime chattel slavery we think of.
Apparently this provision was not always followed, and it doesn't seem to have ever applied to non-Jewish slaves.
The concept that there should be NO slaves did, however, evolve out of the "all men are brothers" idea created by the Jews.
True. I was just refuting our athiest friend's notion.
SD
"that Christians are to emulate Jesus."
That is what I meant when I said "righteous in the eyes of God"
I think Paul, for all the bashing he takes, planted the revolutionary seed that, if a master and a slave are both Christians, then doesn't that drastically change the relationship between them?
As for the slave he sent back, I believe he begs the owner to free him because he had become so dear to Paul.
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