Posted on 05/01/2002 9:09:03 PM PDT by Pokey78
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:04:26 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
I am again impressed ... you speak the truth of history and of wisdom. These fools can not see or do not wish to see the damage they have and continue to do to our country. Our freedom, our liberty, our country will not survive much longer with these fools in power.
"People have God-given free will, and it is holy and righteous to allow people to exercise it!" We sometimes hear that refrain, as if laws against bank robbery somehow thwart the free will of would-be bank robbers, making zombies of them somehow.
"God tolerates evil, and so should we!" Another ludicrous statement they sometimes try to make. God hates evil. He hates the sin which destroys the people whom He loves. Natures herself works to punish the evil-doer. Nature herself is obedient to God her Creator, who is immanent in His creation. No one gets away with anything in this life. It is a kindness to offer sanctions to behaviors which will end up hurting them terribly. To tolerate evil makes one just as guilty as the doer of evil.
Eventually, it all filters down to their perceived worthlessness of life itself, which of course runs totally counter to the Preamble of the Constitution as well as the very foundation of our democracy and way of self-governance. If people have no intrinsic worth and value, then why give them the vote? Why recognize that they are endowed with unalienable rights? If we choose to callously ignore the drunk driver dying by the side of the road in order to supposedly teach him and others a lesson or to save one's dime from the confiscation of the rescuers, we do so only at the peril of the Constitution.
Who is 'Cain' here? "O physician, heal thyself."
Ran out of arguments, we see. Do take a break and come back when you regain your composure and reclaim your maturity.
[From the Libertarian Bible on Property Boundaries, Volume MMMCMXCIX]
If the sparrow lands squarely upon the boundary line between two sovereign's lands, then any currently licensed Sheriff of Rights from the People's Office for the Preservation of Rights and The Destruction of Tyranny must be called immediately upon discovery of the carcass, whose fees shall consist of whatever he happens to ask for at the time. A surgical microscope must be hired, and the carcass must be carefully cut in half, completely separating the molecules so as to not rob either party of their rightful parts. In the case of bones, the diamond surgical saw must be applied, and any splatter must be contained so that no piece ricochets unfairly across to the other's side. A notary public must be hired to attest that no rights were violated in the separation of the sparrow, and triplicates must be registered in the Great Hall of Fallen Birds, which is wholely subsidized by the voluntary contributions of the Guild of Whores. The party who consents to allow the Sheriff of Rights, the surgeon, and the notary public to enter their property will be compensated by an extra ten (10) percent of the booty. Any contestation of the results of the division must be registered with the Council on Duels, which will verify that all parties have the required insurance and prepaid funeral arrangements, or a Letter of Flagrant Disregard shall be filed by the next of kin, attesting that they consent to allowing their relation to be thrown to the jackels. The Council on Duels' required fees in gold shall be paid up front before the duel, which in turn will hire the True Assayer to verify the purity and content of the gold so voluntarily surrendered. The True Assayer's fee shall consist of fifteen (15) percent of the actual gold content. In the case of a deer which wanders across the boundary line when the sparrow carcass is being rightfully divided ....
I am most pleased ot at last see someone take up the discussion on a religeous ground. It's rude of you to cast me as Satan, Kevin, but I genuinely appreciate someone actually willing to _attempt_ to consider the issue from a Christian perspective.
You do not understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ beyond the most shallow, self-serving level. If you do, then your offense is infinitely compounded by your cynical willfullness.
Because you say it, it is so? Back it up with evidence from the Bible. I think that your stance on the matter comes not from the Bible itself, but what you are told to believe by organized religion. I am, for the most part, suspicious of organized religion. There is so much opportunity for men to become corrupted by the power of such hierarchies.
There are in the words of Jesus Christ not the slightest suggestion that he came to set man free to roll and revel in the vices and gross destructive behaviors common to man--like a dog rolling in a corpse to fill its nose and fur with the stench. On the contrary, he saved some of his most strict rebukes for those who attempted to champion him as such--people such as you.
Such as, "Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone?" If you have specific rebukes in mind, then surely you can provide them, yes? If you are to take this discussion seriously, rather than simply parrot what this man or that man has told you to believe, then exemplify your position from the Bible, please.
His words to prostitutes and Pharisees alike concerned the threat to their eternal souls by willful behavior that, if unrepented of, would justify second death. The place and role of the temporal state was none of his concern except when he strictly warned his followers to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.
And to render unto God what is God's, so obviously, if Ceasar demands what is God's, Ceasar must be denied. Christ did not _once_ suggest that force was an option to preserve their souls. He did not cut himself off from sinners, nor did he accept the old punishments for those who erred morally. He was not contemptuous of common sinners; that, he reserved for those who claimed piety, yet abused others in the name of serving God. Would he not have allowed the adulteress to be stoned in accordance to the law if he believed as you do?
The idea that force can be used to save men's souls has been responsible for much bloodshed throughout history. Such was Torquemada's justification for the Inquisition, after all. Where would you draw the line? At what point do you begin to intrude on the right to choice that God gave man? For me, that line is at the point when I am forced to act to defend myself, no sooner.
Jesus Christ himself disobeyed NO state law. The executor of state law--Pilate--himself declared Jesus Christ totally innocent on this charge. There wasn't the slightest bit of evidence presented--for there was none to be had--that Jesus Christ found fault with Roman law or counseled his disciples to repudiate the same. The claim that he was mounting an insurrectionist threat to the Roman state failed and failed wholly.
I should think that he probably _did_ run afoul of the law in the incident with the money changers, but certainly, he was not inclined to break the law. But there is a difference in obeying the law, and _supporting_ laws that are obviously immoral. One can both obey the law, and still work to change it, after all. They are not contradictory positions.
In short, Jesus Christ was nothing at all like you and your vice-worshipping libertarian ilk--spiritually OR temporally. You fail miserably on BOTH measures.
You have cited no Biblical reasons for your stance, nor have you even challenged the issues I raised. You simply declare me to be wrong. Is it your claim to simply 'know in your heart' I am wrong? If so, then at least say such. One cannot argue with what a man feels, he can only note that he feels otherwise and move on.
When it's all said and done, all your twisted and sick pieties are really in favor of dope and promiscuous sex. At least scrape together enough honesty to admit that. This isn't about punishing people for gleaning wheat on the Sabbath, or for not wearing the state-approved garments, or for refusing to put a picture of "Big Brother" on the wall. It is about dope and promiscuous sex, nothing more.
Surely, you know that is a viscious lie. How is such hateful, prejudiced commentary Christian?
Laws that provide for sanctions for using dope and engaging in promiscuous sex exist because such laws recognize first and foremeost the truth that such behaviors impose enormous costs on other people--INNOCENT people--in society. The lie that these things affect no one but the offender him or herself s just that--a whopper of a lie. Do you know who the father of lies is? I bet you do . . . I bet you do, libertarian.
No one with any intelligence denies that there are collateral issues with drugs. I simply believe that your solution to the problem is worse than no solution at all. You cannot, in honesty, contend that innocent people do not suffer because of our draconian drug laws. There _are_ solutions that are moral, and, I believe, would be more effective, as well.
These laws seek to make the offender accountable by visiting thses costs in some fashion back on the the offender's shoulders.
That would be well and good, if they were in proportion, but they are not. It is perfectly reasonable to defend one's self from those who chose immorality, but, again, that is not carte blanche to do anything we like to a man on the off chance that he _might_ cause us harm.
At the bottom of it, laws against dope and promiscuous and perverse sex--your holy shibboleths, dark one--may be among the most justifiably libertarian of them all, for they seek to ensure personal responsibility in the lives of people who live destructive, self-indulgent, devil-may-care lies that impose terrible costs on the rest of us.
Again, I ask, is it a Christian thing to hate the sinner? No, it is not. You are to hate the sin, not the sinner. Yet you and those who side with you are _full_ of hatred for the sinners you claim to want to save. For God's sake, read your own words! You cannot even speak of drug users without contempt. You are self righteous and proud in your superiority over them, contemptuous of them, unconcerned about the repurcussions of your 'solutions', either on the people you hate, or on the innocent bystanders. You speak of them as if they are subhuman; you seek not to guide them out of their sin, but simply to punish them. How is that Christian? When did Christ take up arms against sinners? When did he speak of them as animals, like you do? When did he plot evil agaist them, as opposed to reaching out a hand to _help_ them?
You are wrathful in your desire to punish sinners, when you know it is not your place to do so. You are proud in your superiority over others, though _all_ men are sinners. You know what those traits lead to, and yet you refuse to face it.
You sham has been found out. Your shame ought to be manifest. But you are shameless.
There is no shame in standing up to villainy. What is sad about all of this is that I suspect, in the end, your heart is in the right place. Still, as the saying goes, good intentions pave the road to hell.
Since you take the stance of a pious man, I expect more from you, in response, than I do from these others, some who have not even the conviction to stand up and name their religion. You are a Christian, I presume? Then you know full well that you are obliged, in addition to condemning sin, to _guide_ the ignorant, and to witness the word of God to those who will listen. If you are truly right in your beliefs, you are obligated to set forth the _why_ of it to me, so that I might learn and perhaps change _my_ beliefs. If I am so wrong in my understanding, then _show_ me why.
Thraka
Spare us. Barabbus was a murderer.
Thraka
I read your bio, and I am flattered that my words would impress such an experienced man as yourself.
These fools can not see or do not wish to see the damage they have and continue to do to our country. Our freedom, our liberty, our country will not survive much longer with these fools in power.
We are not as doomed as that, I think; nor is it worthless to contend against those who advocate tyranny. There are many here who do not speak, but who read the discussions. They are the true audience, IMO. I believe with all my heart that, for the most part, Americans are still good men who love freedom; it is just that they have been ill served by our educational system, and are busy with their duties; many have not had the time to research such issues, or give them much thought; those of us who _have_ had the opportunity can serve them in good stead, by providing a sort of digest, one they can easily verify if they have doubts; the internet is a wonderful tool for such things, but one needs a place to start, a thesis to confirm, at times. Why else do you imagine that tyrants the world over _hate_ the internet, and seek to block its use by common men? Our words are not wasted, and we are not overwhelmed.
There are vocal tyrants here, to be sure, but many of them are agent provakateurs who would like nothing more than to sow dissent amongst generally like minded people, and convince us that our cause is lost. Don't play their game: confront them, and make them take off their masks of maturity and civility; they cannot stand against reasonable argument. Their only recourse is to retreat into jingoism, threats, and irrationality. In doing so, they become obvious for what they are; we cannot change their pose, but we can force them to reveal themselves to those who might otherwise find their positions compelling. They are no different from the Communists, in their vulnerability to a reasoned approach; in truth, several of them _are_ Communist agitators, and if you pay attention, you can pick them out.
Hope to hear more from you.
Thraka
Like George Sibley and Lynda Lyon.
Before I get to the citation I've given, let me say that you argue your points with more patience than I can muster. You have my respect for that, if nothing else.
Let's look at how God came to us as Jesus. Did he come as a warrior to conquor and destroy the unbelievers? No. Did he come as a great statesman and politician to woo the powerful and create laws to enforce his beliefs? No. Did he come as some sort of super-Pope, pontifying from on high? No.
He came as a humble man: a carpenter and a teacher. He spoke to those who chose to listen. He spoke to the sick and the downtrodden. To the wretched and the unwashed. He spoke to sinners, and told them how they could be free.
Nowadays, of course, many Christians feel that they have to enforce their own views on people, believers or not, whether they want it or not, for their own good. The idea that God has gone to such great lengths to avoid even the slightest encroachment on our free wills seems to be something they discount, for our own good. In short, they happily trample on the free will of their fellow man when God carefully, and with great humility (not to mention mercy) on his part upheld it.
What was the message of Jesus? Repent, and believe. But first, repent. To repent is a *voluntary* action, done by exercising one's free will. It *cannot* be forced, or it is not true repentance at all: you instill fear instead of joy; while it is a good idea to fear God, it is even more important that you love Him.
I am always saddened to see the high-handed, holier-than-thou attitude among my fellow Christians. They mean well, but they have had the idea that force -- through the laws, the sword, societal opinion -- is the means to help others 'see the light'. Instead, it causes people to fear what they wrongly believe to be the light. Instead of encouraging good actions, it represses bad ones, sweeps them under the carpet where they fester and grow out of sight.
This is not to say that there shouldn't be punishment for bad actions -- for sin. But, in my opinion, there are two general types of sin: sin that hurts the individual and sin that hurts other individuals as well as those committing the sin. If a sin is committed which affects only the individual, then that is between that person and God; we have nothing to do with it, except to be as supportive as possible. (Supportive does not mean permissive, BTW)
If, however, the sin is one that affects others, then it may become a matter that society needs to rectify: but only on the level of how the sin affects the society. Thus, if a man commits murder, then there are two parts to it. One, society needs to punish this disruption to the society: the breaking of the bonds of civic behavior that allows communities to function properly. The other part, however, is the sin apart from the social aspect: the disobeyance of the will of God: this matter, like a sin that affects only the sinner, is between the sinner and God and, again, the community has no right to punish the man on that level, as that is God's right and privilage.
So, I do support punishement for those who break those laws of society that prevent the society from functioning properly -- that are an offense to the community. These were formerly known collectively as Natural Law. This, in turn, gives rise to Jesus' comment on giving what is Caesar to Caesar (secular law/Natural Law), and what is God to God (God's will and commandments). Society can enforce the one, but should never presume to enforce the other.
That's my honest opinion as a Christian. I will stand by my words before God and hope that I have understood correctly and not misled anyone with my words. In the end, we are each responsible to God for our own words and deeds.
Tuor
Very well said, and I commend you for it, especially your comments about God having chosen a simple carpenter for his message. Bravo, very well said.
It is unfortunate that some are so single minded in their desire to punish immorality that they cannot even consider whether their solution does more harm than good.
Thraka
John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
Ephesians 1:4-5 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Romans 9:11-24
11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
12 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
1 John 4:19 We love Him because He first loved us.
John 17:9-10 "I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.
Romans 11:5-6 Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.
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