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But you ARENT making a distinction, "flexible" and "changeable" are synonyms.Weren't you saying something in earlier posts about being detailed and how careful distinctions made a big difference? You wrote:
(Emphasis mine)
And:
In light of these remarks I should think you'd appreciate the value of the distinction I'm making above.
Im well aware of the arguments in favor of absolute truth and I find them contradictory and intellectually lazy (for lack of a better term)The whole matter of the nature of truth is expansive and would require rather a lot of writing to clarify, and define, and argue. Doing so is unnecessary, however, in light of all that has already been written on the matter. If you want to know more, read Ravi Zacharias, or Alvin Plantinga, or C.S. Lewis, or any of the other philosophers who argue in favor of absolute truth.
Soooooo . . . getting back to your original question--the answer is YES.So, why DONT I have an actual choice in the course of my own life?
That doesnt seem like a real choice. Trying to influence my decision (assuming that I get one) with threats doesnt seem very fair.Soooooo . . . getting back to your original question--the answer is YES.
God has gifted all His children with freewill--the right to choose their lives and their destinies.
This gift can be a mixed blessing however, and, unfortunately, by following your animal instincts rather than your Loving Creator's guidance and counsel, settling for lust rather than Love, you have chosen life as an animal--as the atheist religion teaches--rather than the Spiritual existence which is your God-given heritage as Abba's child--which God's Word teaches.
This is a sadly misguided and everlastingly detrimental choice, but you do indeed have the God-given absolute freedom and right to make it--and, unhappily, to reap its everlasting cataclysmic consequences.
MY DEAR BROTHER,That doesnt seem like a real choice. Trying to influence my decision (assuming that I get one) with threats doesnt seem very fair.
But that ISNT analogus to what you describe. Its more along the lines of dont run into the street because I'll punish you for doing it.MY DEAR BROTHER,
WHAT THREATS? As a parent, if i tell my child he should not run out into the street because he will be hit by a car and killed--is that a threat? NO--it is an accurate and Loving explanation of the situation.
Then he of all beings should understand why I may feel love for more than one person.GOD IS LOVE!
Well, i guess you are going to view it as you wish to view it. More's the pity! Instead of a Loving Abba with open arms all you can see is His opposite. Not a pretty sight, i am sure.But that ISNT analogus to what you describe. Its more along the lines of dont run into the street because I'll punish you for doing it.
This is indeed and--for you unfortunately--True! Your problem is that being Love, God in His infinite understanding has set protective guidelines and parameters to differentiate and protect what is truely Love from that which is merely lust. By disregarding God's guidelines and parameters you have, as mentioned before, turned your back on the possibility of giving or receiving True Love and have settled for the fleeting ersatz pleasures of lust. Again, more's the pity!Then he of all beings should understand why I may feel love for more than one person.
Translation: Love is what I say it isThis is indeed and--for you unfortunately--True! Your problem is that being Love, God in His infinite understanding has set protective guidelines and parameters to differentiate and protect what is truely Love from that which is merely lust. By disregarding God's guidelines and parameters you have, as mentioned before, turned your back on the possibility of giving or receiving True Love and have settled for the fleeting ersatz pleasures of lust. Again, more's the pity
So you would have us believe. But, in all actuality, Love is what GOD says it is.Translation: Love is what I say it is
My beliefs do not encompass that line of thought.So you would have us believe. But, in all actuality, Love is what GOD says it is.
For example: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washingwith water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church--for we are members of His body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church."(Ephesians 5:25-32)
Not much room for "poly"-ing around there!
A BOND-SLAVE/FRIEND/BROTHER OF OUR LORD/GOD/SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST,
ephraim
Well, yeah. This is necessary and obvious, otherwise you wouldn't be able to do the things you do and call them "love." Creating your own definitions for words, ideas, and concepts allows you to do anything and everything in their "name" and under their rubric but, fortunately--or unfortunately--this doesn't change the reality of the situation and the reality of what you are REALLY doing.My beliefs do not encompass that line of thought.
You know it's a funny thing about words--how they can be tweaked in an Orwellian manner and sugarcoated to the point where the once unacceptable and perverse can be made to sound pretty darn mainstream and cool.I've done some reading on polyamorous relationships. I'm not poly but I came across the word and was curious. I am all about being true to yourself, and while I don't share the ability to love more than one I do understand it's completely possible.
Which is, my sister?hmmm....I don't think that answered my question.
That sounds to me like cherry picking. You can say that about a great deal of passages if you really wanted to. People and culture have evolved in many ways since the Bible was written. You pointed out that "a certificate of divorce" was once allowed but Jesus did away with that. Did he also do that with polygamy? Or, since you brought it up, slavery? What else did he change specifically? Or, as your argument states, have things simply changed because the culture and times have? Let me hit on a hot topic item...homosexuality. As time goes on it becomes more accepted within our culture. Will in 20 or 40 years (if things progress as they currently are) that passage in Leviticus simply be another time, another place, another culture, and another people?If you are referring to fact that God, in another time, another place, another culture, and another people allowed multiple marriages, these facts are irrelevant to His expectations for us--here and now.
MY SISTER,That sounds to me like cherry picking. You can say that about a great deal of passages if you really wanted to. People and culture have evolved in many ways since the Bible was written. You pointed out that "a certificate of divorce" was once allowed but Jesus did away with that. Did he also do that with polygamy? Or, since you brought it up, slavery? What else did he change specifically? Or, as your argument states, have things simply changed because the culture and times have? Let me hit on a hot topic item...homosexuality. As time goes on it becomes more accepted within our culture. Will in 20 or 40 years (if things progress as they currently are) that passage in Leviticus simply be another time, another place, another culture, and another people?
Seems a dangerous argument to make.
To briefly answer your questions: Yes, it was Christian leadership which guided and Christian "soldiers" which brought about the end of slavery in the west, just as it was Christian leadership and Christian "soldiers" which fought for Civil Rights in the recent past. (You might compare this with the result of the efforts of atheist leadership and atheist "soldiers" bringing about changes in Soviet Russia, Communist China, North Korea, Cambodia, etc. The differences between the powers of Light and darkness should be obvious!)
Links please? Unbiased sites if you can.
We are told by St. Paul that we are never to do evil that good may come.(Romans 3:8) God, of course, follows His own commandments, and He picked Jacob over Esau not because of His hatred of Esau for some quirky reason, but because of Esau's hatred of God. God's judgment in this regard was based upon His foreknowledge of their respective Hearts, Esau eventually trading off his birthright for a bowl of stew and marrying daughters of Hittites--who were ungodly pagans to the Nth degree. As the Letter to the Hebrews described him, "See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears."(Hebrews 12:16-17)Was it God's hate for Easu that justified Jacob's action, that washed the sin so to speak away from that act? Does that justification then set a precedent that allows you to lie, cheat, and steal for the greater good as long as God hates the other guy?
Wow, could you be ANY more condescending?Well, yeah. This is necessary and obvious, otherwise you wouldn't be able to do the things you do and call them "love." Creating your own definitions for words, ideas, and concepts allows you to do anything and everything in their "name" and under their rubric but, fortunately--or unfortunately--this doesn't change the reality of the situation and the reality of what you are REALLY doing.
What makes you think I dont operate with a conscience?The scary part is that eventually you can tune your conscious out completely, hardening your heart and closing your mind, until your moral compass becomes completely inoperable and you sail off into the darkness in a state of ignorant bliss and are lost.
MY DEAR BROTHER,Wow, could you be ANY more condescending?
The fact that you "operate" as you do and, in the process, even attempt to make a perverse sin appear acceptable.What makes you think I dont operate with a conscience?
Yes. However, if you choose, for whatever unfathomable reason, to post in a Christian Forum, it is logical that you might expect a Christian response.Again, do you realize just how blatantly you're coming off?
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