Summations Only

I've been keeping out of this conversation up 'til now Faith, but I'm afraid you've tripped over your ignorance of Christianity again.Israel was punished for breaking their Covenant with God. By Christian doctrine, Christians are under the New Covenant established by Jesus. There is no reason to think that God would offer or accept any additional Covenant with any Nation.If the early European settlers did attempt to establish such a Covenant, it would apply at most to their Colony. It certainly would not apply to the government of the U.S.A, which was established as a secular state.So, the parallel with Israel simply doesn't apply. There is no Covenant with the U.S. government or the people of the U.S.A as a whole.So, I'm afraid that your terrorist threats are as unbiblical as they are empty.

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I've said nothing about God making a Covenant with America in any sense like the Covenant He made with Israel.

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But you did argue that the punishments applied to Israel for breaking their Civenant might be applied to the U.S. Which would only make sense if the U.S. Had a covenant and broke it.

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In fact I haven't mentioned a covenant at all. It isn't essential to the point I'm making, which is that God will bless ANY nation that honors Him and obeys His laws, and America did that for most of our history.

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WHICH laws ? And isn't the whole New Covenent about dealing with indiviudals rather tha nations anyway ?

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As I understand it they dedicated the entire new world to God.

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Rather arrogant of them, and hardly something anyone else should be expected to respect,

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God doesn't respect man-made institutions that exclude Him.

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Then I guess that your problems go all the way back to the founding of the U.S.

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And we are told in the NT to take admonition from the Old Testament, which among other things must mean to learn from it how God deals with nations.

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Then why look at Israel which is intentionally set up as a special case ?

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I made no "parallel" with Israel, I merely drew from the example of Israel what preachers down the centuries since Christ have always done: that God is in charge of nations and judges them according to their honoring of His Law.

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The example of Israel, is based on Israel following or violating the Covenant specifically given to Israel. So you did draw a parallel, and an invalid parallel at that. You cannot generalise from the treatment of Israel because the treatment of Israel is based on the existence of a special Covenant. Why can't you understand that ?

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The sense in which the covenant with Moses is related to the Mosaic law is complex but the Moral Law based on the Ten Commandments is always treated as universal, not specific to Israel.

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It's not complex at all. The Mosaic Covenant only applies to Israel. That's not to say that other peoples might not be held to some of the laws, but that isn't through Moses.

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I'm not talking about the New Covenant with respect to nations and I don't know why you keep bringing it up. It odes not apply to nations, or to unbelievers. It only applies to those who have put their trust in Christ who died for them.

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I'm pointing out that the New Covenant doesn't apply either. So, there's no covenant-breaking, and thus no justification of any punishment for covenant-breaking.So your comparisons with Israel are invalid.

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Two thousand years of preaching by the best preachers of Christendom says you're wrong.

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About what? And why appeal to preachers anyway?

Or why "freedom of conscience" (so-called) should not be absolute: A tragedy caused by religion

I didn't mention Christianity. Neither did the Arizona bill we're supposedly discussing. So why did you bring up Christianity specifically ? Are you suggesting that "freedom of conscience" should only be permitted to those you consider "Christian" ?

I would say that pervasive bigotry is a great harm. Wouldn't you ?In fact I'd call bigotry "social corruption and darkness".

Sure Faith, hate and lies are good. In your world.

For my point it doesn't matter if it was a formal doctrine of the SDAs or not (although Christian Science does seem to have beliefs of that sort).It's enough that it was a sincerely held religious belief.

Sincerely Held Religious BeliefBy Baptist Minister Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush Edited by PaulK, : Fixed tag