Posted on 08/29/2011 1:56:16 PM PDT by Da Bilge Troll
The rules of war are a bit different than the regular rules.
Rahab is listed there, for example, and her righteous act of heroism involved lying.
>The rules of war are a bit different than the regular rules.
>Rahab is listed there, for example, and her righteous act of heroism involved lying.
True enough; but I would assert that Samson’s listing therein repudiates the Roman Catholic tradition stating that those committing suicide are damned to hell... and therefore does cast [at least some] doubt over the rightness of prohibiting [via legal means] suicide altogether as morally right.
Samson was a screw up, notwithstanding his final disposition as someone of faith. God is bigger than our screw ups.
Setting public policy by him makes about as much sense as making our laws concerning protecting innocent life based on King David’s actions in murdering Bathsheba’s husband.
>Samson was a screw up, notwithstanding his final disposition as someone of faith. God is bigger than our screw ups.
I’m not doubting that; in fact praise God that He *is* bigger than our screw-ups.
>Setting public policy by him makes about as much sense as making our laws concerning protecting innocent life based on King David’s actions in murdering Bathsheba’s husband.
I’m not setting the public policy by him; I’m just saying that it may be wrong to legislate it as such. (Is not God the Judge of men’s hearts?)
Besides which, consider the ways in which a legalistic mindset might be applied to such a a prohibition against your other liberties (much the way society tries to pit free-will against a ban on abortion)... it could be then construed that any self-threatening activity is grounds for legal prosecution (like, say, fighting off an attacker on your wife/sister/mother/friend).
We already have something very much like this with respect to the 4th Amendment; it requires that WARRANTS be supported by [oath or affirmation of] probable cause... not that searches and seizures themselves are permissible by “probable cause.”
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."
>The equal protection of the God-given, unalienable right to life as the raison d’etre of all human government is the cornerstone of this free republic, our Constitution, our laws, and our claim to liberty. Quit undermining it.
I am not undermining it... I am merely pointing out what has been said before as “you can lead a horse to water but can’t make him drink.”
I am also showing you that despite the intentions of whatever law you propose, it may be used in ways unforeseen... perhaps to disastrous results. (Consider the Commerce Clause, do you *REALLY* think that the founders meant for the regulation of EVERYTHING by the Federal government? Or was it to prevent things like, say, CA imposing a trade embargo against AZ for its immigration-stance?)
I very-much think that a Constitutional-level law [amendment] regarding suicide would be RAPIDLY turned to foul use. (You could argue that it would make conscription/volunteering in the military illegal if there was any reasonable expectation for [your] loss of life.)
>”We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men...”
And, consider this argument then: you are placed into medical care against your will and you would certainly die w/o the medical devices keeping you alive. Now extend that, make it so that you (and everyone) are kept ‘alive’ to the point where there is nothing which can kill you. Then, do you think you would ‘say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’?
Or do you not realize that it was incredibly merciful for God to say: “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—”
How terrible would it be to be stuck in sin forever, always ‘alive’ and always knowing that you had once been perfect?
You and I are on another state though, being born into imperfection and sin; so if you were there in the Garden of Eden and had a chance to eat of that Tree of Life in your current sinful state, would you?
I would that I would not. I should be utterly terrified of it, unless God were the one offering it to me after telling me that my sin is [utterly] no more.
There is no moral equivalency between providing equal protection for the God-given, unalienable right to life, as all of the Constitution’s stated principles, and its explicit, imperative words, require, and the misuse of the commerce clause.
The natural law premises laid out in our national charter, the Declaration of Independence, are organic to everything else about our constitutions, our laws, and our form of government. You can no more remove them than you can make water not be wet.
I never argued that it was Constitutional. I don’t believe that it is, but,that’s a moot point, for the sake of this argument.
All 50 States have laws making cultivation, use and possession illegal. All 50 States use the FDA as their determining authority for medicines. If a State wants to legalize it for medicinal purposes, it stands to reason that it must, first, be approved as such by the only approving authority they recognize, the FDA.
>There is no moral equivalency between providing equal protection for the God-given, unalienable right to life, as all of the Constitution’s stated principles, and its explicit, imperative words, require, and the misuse of the commerce clause.
I did not say there was; what I said was that it could be used for ill purposes.
>The natural law premises laid out in our national charter, the Declaration of Independence, are organic to everything else about our constitutions, our laws, and our form of government. You can no more remove them than you can make water not be wet.
No; but consider this, what you propose would make what God did, in the person of Jesus Christ, illegal.
After all, Jesus IS God and by His own will went to the cross as a man.
Now, answer me this: what sort of person would claim that the nation’s founding character was Christian in nature and yet make illegal the very thing upon which Christianity is founded illegal?
Ah. You’re accusing Jesus Christ of committing suicide.
I’m done with this conversation.
What else would you call it? He willfully gave up His own life so that sin’s demand for blood might be met.
John 10: 17-18 — “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
1 John 3:16 — This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
See, what you don’t seem to realize is that He is God, and you aren’t.
That’s the difference.
He holds the title to your life, not you.
>See, what you don’t seem to realize is that He is God, and you aren’t.
Where did I ever claim that?
>He holds the title to your life, not you.
It is true that He holds the ultimate authority over life and death, but why would He say this if you had none authority over your own life?
John 15:13 — Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
the above certainly implies and infers that a mere-man may willfully lay his own life down (ie commit suicide).
That’s not suicide.
Yours is one of the stupidest arguments I’ve ever seen on FR. And that takes some doing.
Do you think the firemen going up the stairs when everyone else was going down on 9-11 committed suicide?
How about the passengers on Flight 93?
>That’s not suicide.
>Yours is one of the stupidest arguments I’ve ever seen on FR. And that takes some doing.
>Do you think the firemen going up the stairs when everyone else was going down on 9-11 committed suicide?
>How about the passengers on Flight 93?
For a broad enough definition of suicide it certainly is; btw, it was you who left the term relatively undefined... I have been consistently using the definition “the willful surrendering or termination of one’s own life or willfully engaging in an action wherewhich the expected outcome is death and the outcome matches the expectation.” Perhaps not the dictionary definition, but a reasonable one.
The dictionary.com site defines it as:
noun
1. — the intentional taking of one’s own life.
2. — destruction of one’s own interests or prospects: Buying that house was financial suicide.
3. — a person who intentionally takes his or her own life.
verb (used without object)
4. — to commit suicide.
By the strict definition of suicide dictionary.com presents there cannot be such a thing as “suicide by cop” as that depends wholly upon the police’s actions with no respect to expected outcome.
Specious nonsense.
>Specious nonsense.
Citing the dictionary to refute another’s claims in a debate?
How is that nonsense?
Actually, Galadriel, Elrond and even Gandalf would have been perverted by the Ring, and Galadriel knew it, so she refused to take it.
The only person unaffected seems to have been Tom Bombadil. It didn’t even make him invisible.
What else can I say to someone who can’t discern the difference between lovingly sacrificing one’s own life on behalf of others, should God require it, and selfishly playing God and murdering oneself?
There is an infinite moral difference between one and the other.
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