Posted on 10/15/2001 6:54:40 AM PDT by malakhi
Sort of like when congress uses the Interstate Commerce Clause to justify anything it may want to do?
-ksen
Anybody?
SD
Isn't it ironic that the Interstate clause has been made into a loophole big enough to drive a Mack truck through?
SD
On the contrary, Scripture quite often requires something of us. The scripture is the word of God, it is not an ellective to follow it's commanments and proclaimations, it is required. I'm not certain of the point you are trying to make; but, this is on it's face blatently wrong. Either you've mistated yourself, or you have a really unique view of the Bible.
Not me. But I don't know why Dave wanted to bring up all that binding and loosing stuff.
Its because he is lock step with the others and has his jack boots all shined up too! Don't you remember a while back he tried the same crap himself. And when the heat got too hot he went screaming out the door. Binding and loosing is just another way of saying the catholic church can do anything it dam well pleases, including defending the MASS killings by the catholic church.
As if it's not bad enough that I am misunderstood, the other rabid NC's here grab their misunderstanding and run with it. I notice no one tried to answer me yesterday, so I'll ask again.
What is the point of trying to have a conversation, let alone a friendship, with people who firmly believe you desire to kill them and all of their type?
SD
I've seen interesting theories from Creationists on dinosaurs, most of which are a lot more substantial and scientific than "God put them there to test us." I see that as a cop-out by someone who most likely doesn't have an explanation at hand and feels they need something to say (as though the person asking by their very words could speak God out of existence if they didn't have an answer ready). Nearly all evolutionists point to a catastrophic event which led to the massive disappearance of dinosaurs. I can think of one pretty catastrophic, world-wide event in Genesis. Something about a flood. I'll leave it at that because this is not my prime area of study.
angelo, thanks for pointing this chapter of Ezekiel out to me, I had never noticed it before, especially in this light. JH
Correction: This behavior was commanded by God at one time. God never left it to his people to decide for themselves to wontonly exterminate anyone. Save God give a command, they were to otherwise observe his laws. Such commands were no longer useful with the advent of the new covenant. And it cannot be argued that you can do what you want because the Jews did it. You don't seem to want to face the blatent commands and examples to the contrary of your position in the NT. The New covenant does not give you any leave to kill anyone because you disagree with them. It may say reject or turn away from heretics (false teachers/believers) but nowhere does it give you or anyone else leave to murder someone you judge to be in heresy. It quite plainly says the opposite - 'we wrestle not against flesh and blood.' And it gives us an example of Jesus dealing with much the same thing in action prior to the passion when he rebuked one of his own for taking to sword. If Jesus tells us our battle is not of the flesh and stops others, chastising them for making it a battle of the flesh, where is your authority for doing what Jesus himself commanded against and corrected others for? Right, there is no excuse - unless you're pursuing an agenda, then any semblance of an excuse will do for those that seek evil.
Yep. If it were possible, I would bet that more than a few of the Founding Fathers are kicking themselves now wishing that they had been a bit more explicit in their restriction of the powers of the Federal Leviathan.....er, I mean Government.
-ksen
Uumm, to convince them otherwise?
-ksen
Let me reiterate the verse you cite.
I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him. – Ecclesiastes 3:14
Now, if you wish to take this passage completely literally, you are going to run into some problems. A few that come to mind are:
1. God cursed the line of Jeconiah, and said that none of his descendants would sit on David's throne. Now, Christians want to claim that this curse was lifted with Zerubabbel. I've argued against this on other grounds, but you've given me a new tack to take. I can now say based on this verse that God cursed him, and that it will be forever; the curse of Jeconiah is irrevocable. Therefore Jesus could not be the messiah.
2. "When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them; and he did not do it." (Jonah 3:10) According to Ecclesiastes, if God decided to punish Nineveh, then He could not have changed His mind.
3. How about this one? "And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel." (1 Samuel 15:35) What did God do? He pulled the kingship from Saul's line and gave it to David. He couldn't do that, according to your interpretation of Ecclesiastes.
4. Here is another good example:
Thus the Lord GOD showed me: behold, the Lord GOD was calling for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land.
Then I said, "O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech thee!
How can Jacob stand?
He is so small!"
The LORD repented concerning this;
"This also shall not be," said the Lord GOD. (Amos 7:4-6)
This one is particularly good, because it shows God changing His mind about an intended judgment.
5. God gave Israel the Law, and commanded them to follow it no matter what. Therefore, any Jew who abandons the Law to follow Jesus is condemned. According to Ecclesiastes, God could not revoke these commandments.
There are other reasons that the verse from Ecclesiastes is not a good place to talk about God planning eternal punishment for those who do not obey Him. Let's consider some other verses from the same chapter:
That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away. (Ecclesiastes 3:15)
This puts the verse you cite into context. The meaning is not about God's decisions being irrevocable. Rather, it is an understanding of God's will as being predetermined. You could cite this passage in favor of Augustinian or Calvinist ideas of predestination, but it does not support the notion of eternal punishment. Furthermore, look at the end of verse 15: "...and God seeks what has been driven away". I can interpret this to mean that even when God punishes us, He will then seek us out and return us to Him. Thus it could favor a finite rather than an eternal punishment.
All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. (Ecclesiastes 3:20)
According to this passage, all go to one place! There is no separating of the sheep and the goats.
Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down to the earth? (Ecclesiastes 3:21)
Here the author frankly admits that he doesn't know what happens to men after death. If anything, the prevailing sentiment of the book is that there is no afterlife, that all go to the same place, returning to the dust.
All in all, Ecclesiastes is a peculiar book, voicing many sentiments that are not found elsewhere in scripture. I think it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions about the afterlife from one verse from this book.
However, when we sin against God then it is of an infinite magnitude, because God Himself is infinite.
No, the sin is not of infinite magnitude, just because it is committed against an infinite God. For a man's sin to be infinite, you would have to posit that a finite man could perform an infinite act. Beyond that, in any just system of jurisprudence, the magnitude of the crime is determined by the act itself, not the identity of the victim. It is just as serious a crime to murder a homeless man as it is to murder a wealthy man.
You mean the "And we really mean it!" clause?
SD
I personally do not believe that you want to kill anyone. I personally believe that no one here believes it either.
Here comes that nasty word... But (sorry) you are defending an organization who did kill people for religious beliefs, defense lawyers and their clients usually aren't liked very well, unless your the client needing a defense lawyer:)
Hey, that's the other thing I forgot to tell you, HDN. We need to know your favorite NFL team. ;o)
Oh thank you very much. And I always thought it was the sacrifice of Jesus that made this possible. Silly me.
Probably gone by the time you read this. And it's probably a mistake (boy owner wants to run the show - but, hey... it's his dough).
angelo, if we could talk you into digesting these post and numbering them every day, as you did on post #16765, all we freepers would have to do would be to check in every week or two, and vote by putting "yes" or "no" by each number, an maybe we could then start leading normal lives again. hahahaha
Pleas think about it. lol (^g^) JH
Let's see ah "Thou shall not kill". When does scripture ever have a bearing over what the catholic church decides anyway?
That's the one!
Upon further reflection though maybe they did, I think it is known as the Second Amendment.
-ksen
And this bull was issued after how many hundreds of years of the inquisition? The councils (ie other Bishops, Cardinals, etc. were fully supporting these things). It's not an issue of a 4 year presedential term that can be sluffed off on one man or a few men - it was the entire church... It was so well accepted as belief of the church it is showing up in places other than the inquisition documents.
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