separation of church and state - a christian perspective please.

Although I would support removing the ten commandments from public buildings, particularly those involved with Justice, that particular passage should not cause anyone discomfort. After all, it only requires parity, not sumpremacy or even uniqness. It's one of the passages from the OT that seems to acknowledge multiple Gods and in fact that other Gods than the Judaic God could be equals in stature, power and merit.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Yes, there are some Jews and Christians that interpret it that way but it's not what the Bible actually says. The early parts of the of the OT are actually very polytheistic in nature. There doesn't seem to be any indication that the authors had any idea that there was only one God or that the Hebrew God was the most powerful, unchallenged and unlimited.If you look at what is said in the early parts of the OT you find many such indication. You find statements such as "I am the Lord, thy God. Note the use of Thy. That implies that other people might have other Gods.There are also many indications that the authors and people of the time saw God as connected to a geographic area. A person residing in a foriegn country wanted to worship the God of the Hebrews, so he asks for a cartload of soil to be sent to him. Without the soil from the land of Jehovah, Jehovah would have no power base in the foriegn land.This message has been edited by jar, 07-06-2005 12:59 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

What would be an example of Law as an absolute?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

But both of those are relative, the second one specifically so?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You mentioned the Two Great Commandments earlier but if you look at them they are both relative laws."Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with ...""Love others as ..."These are both qualified laws, they point to internal states and conditions.Where or what is the absolute truth many folk seem to want?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

That's all well and good. But the issue relates to defining "Absolutes". Where, in what you've posted, is the absolute that all can see?I'm not trying to give you a hard time but I am asking you to examine what you've said.This message has been edited by jar, 07-16-2005 03:56 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well, let's look at them.Love God with all you heart.Does that not imply that there are individual limits? Will everyone react the same? Is it relative to individual capabilities?And the second, "Love others as you love yourself." How much more relative could you get?This message has been edited by jar, 07-16-2005 05:31 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Love others as you love yourself.Here Jesus is saying that your love for others, all others, should be in relation to your love of self.PB, both of these are completely relative and the real beauty of GOD's love for us is that it IS based on relativity. That was Jesus' message, that salvation is based one relativity and not absolutes. God does not say you must run a three minute mile or jump 25 feet or lift 2000 pounds.God just says "try to do your best".But we stray far afield. Trying to move back towards the topic, the difference between things like the two Great Commandments and laws can be shown by an example.If we applied the standards found in the Great Commandments to traffic laws we'd see laws that said "Drive no faster than you safely can" and "Drive as you wish others drove".As you can see neither of these would be enforceable. In each case the issue reduces to individual capabilities.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion