I'm not so concerned about if the church gets some things wrong, nor have I assumed you guys are getting everything wrong on abortion or any other religious issue. That's not my issue here. I am just trying to understand your statements. In particular when you said as part of your second selection criterion for a survey "no murderer has eternal life". I am really baffled, so I am going to give you the assumptions *I* have used in trying to understand your statement and why it confuses me:
Assumptions about your statement (not arguments for or against them):
1. "has eternal life" refers to the individual (the murderer) and their chance for eternal salvation (the eternal reward, the good place, being with god).
2. Abortion is murder, therefore the person having or performing an abortion is a murderer and subject to the phrase in statement 1.
3. Jesus grants forgiveness and salvation to those who repent of their sins (plus whatever other conditions apply depending on the branch of theology which are not the subject here)
4. Any sin can be forgiven (except possibly that "holy spirit blasphemy" one), difficulty of acquiring forgiveness may depend on severity of sins and theological branch.
This is why I found your criterion #2 hard to digest. If I follow through using the assumptions I derive from my basic understanding of these things I reach an inconsistency between my understanding of Christian theology and salvation and the prospect you put forward. I have at least a basic working understanding of several types of Christian theology (including salvation) generic protestant, evangelical, Catholic, and none of what is implied by your statement is familiar to me. At the broadest level it is my understanding that for a believer who repents of their sins there is a path to salvation from damnation. That may range from extra time to work off sins in purgetory to "I have been saved, Jesus will forgive me", but there is a path. Are you telling me that there are sins for which no salvation is possible, no matter the repentence, etc., where having an abortion will keep you out of heaven, period?
I said nothing about whether or not murder can be forgiven. When I refer to the principle of "no murderer has eternal life," I'm using it in the present tense in such a way to imply, and to reflect the biblical implication, that in the case that repentance hasn't been (or most often, in very many cases, won't be) sought and achieved, then there is no hope in eternity for that person.
So, of course. You're absolutely correct. Murder can be forgiven by God if a person has repented of that sin and that psychotic mindset. But how many men and women who've murdered someone have actually availed themselves deeply and sincerely of God grace, mercy and forgiveness? Historically speaking, I don't think it's very many, so my citation of the biblical principle about "no murderer has eternal life" serves as a warning to those who might heed it. And what's more is that it DOESN'T MATTER that I don't have historical or statistical numbers by which to demonstrate who has or who has not repented, because the biblical
FACT remains that any murderer who doesn't repent is going into the Lake of Fire after the Final Judgement. NO ifs, NO ands, NO buts. People need to realize this rather than acting out in accordance with the wishes of Satan.
So, my assertion in Premise #2 stands and, I know,
will continue to stand regardless of what any fellow American Tom, Rick or Sally contests otherwise. However, in the context of this thread, this is first being applied to men rather than to women, and I take the abortion issue as a subsidiary issue in the overall social discord that has been brought about by the continuous promulgation of the Playboy Philosophy (a.k.a. crass sexual hedonism and egoism), an age old philosophy in new garb that needs to continually be dismantled time and time again by Christians.
If so, what is this branch of Christian theology, that I may learn of its existence, and are you part of it?
My "branch" of Theology invokes the praxis of Philosophical Hermeneutics, combined with the field of Biblical Exegesis, by which to then better adjudicate the various histories and development of 2,000 years of Christian Theology (as well as of crass, atheistic assertions of the kind that have been promulgated ever since the time of Porphyry and Celsus, to the present day).
If you'd like to discuss these things in depth, I'm always open to doing so, if that piques your interest.
As do I.
From my perspective, a significant issue is with the things you assume I know and don't. It gets in the way of the actual arguments. I'm not going to play socratic games with you. If I say I don't know or understand something I mean it. Toodles.
I don't follow Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle, nor do I rely on the Socratic method or on an Aristotelian epistemology. No, my philosophical outlook was born through the study of Modern Philosophy and of 20th Century Analytic Philosophy at a state university. So, there's no chance of "playing Socratic games," and your phrasing of what it is that you think I'm doing just shows where your current understanding of what Philosophy even is, is.
If you truly want to know something, then ask and I'll be more than happy to offer you the sources from which I draw and explain further my lines of thought.......................................... but if you ask, you need to do so without the stonewalling and game playing of that goes with implying that you demand clarity on one hand, but then waving away whatever answers begin to trickle forth to you and then you saying that you "aren't interested" in hearing any of it. I didn't earn my degrees so that I can play games with people, nor to have them play games with me. And it's not my fault if people online underestimate me based on the experiences they've had with other Christians.
