The ulitmate sin: blasphemy against the Holy Ghost

Looking at these two verses, the focus is not on blasphemy against the man (Son of man referring to Jesus as man), but to speak against the power through which Jesus does miracles (the Holy Spirit). Jesus loves to make the distinction between him and the One who sent him. Now on to the unforgivable nature of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. In a way, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is forgivable, because if you withdraw your reproach, you really aren't blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. All sins are forgivable, the only question is whether or not one chooses to repent and be forgiven (which is why the Dalai Lama goes to hell and the thief on the cross goes to heaven). By blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, you are rejecting the Holy Spirit's power to forgive your sins. The only way to heaven is through Jesus (who was the only perfect man, so this refers to Jesus as God), so blaspheming against the Holy Spirit basically means saying that the Holy Spirit hasn't given Jesus the power to be perfect and forgive sins. That would refer both to the men who said Jesus was casting out demons in the name of Beelezebub, not the Holy Spirit, and to the Pharisees who questioned Jesus's authority (and anyone else who does the same). The blasphemers can be anyone.And one question: How is the Defense of Marriage Act blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?Also, I would like to warn you, jar. edit: I accidentally left "be" out of "will be measured". Fixed that.This message has been edited by commike37, 12-30-2004 15:01 AM

That most certainly appears to be another form of blasphemy. Whether it's saying Jesus doesn't have the power to forgive sins or saying that one has no sins which the Holy Spirit can forgive, it all comes back to the same thing: denying the power of the Holy Spirit.

We know you think the DOMA is bigotry, but that it counters what Jesus taught, but you can give a more in-depth explanation of what's wrong here (preferably with Biblical support)? I'm just picking up vague problems, and don't truly understand what you're getting at.

Actually, that's not what DOMA is about. When gay marriage was first legalized in Hawaii, people worried that the other 49 states would have to accept this definition under the "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution. DOMA established marriage on a federal level as heterosexual and says that no state has to recognize gay marriage from another state. States can still legalize gay marriage (ie: Massachusetts), but no state has to recognize another state's gay marriage. Even without DOMA, no state would probably have to do this anyway because of something called the "public policy exception" in the courts.Also, the point of DOMA is not to discriminate, but defend marriage. Should the same privileges to married couples be also granted to unmarried couples living together? Marriage privileges are granted only to married couples, so the true question is whether or not homosexual marriage should be accepted. edit: counted as a genuine form of marriageThis message has been edited by commike37, 12-30-2004 23:40 AM

Yes, but unmarried couples could use a lot of these privileges, too. So, you'd have to extend marriage privileges to this group, too. These privileges are put in place to protect and legally accomodate marriage. Extending these privileges to other groups effectively redefines marriage. And I don't think you're willing to argue that homosexual marriage is Biblically acceptable.

Well, this one seems like it's going to boil down to our different views on what level of separation of church and state should exist, which is likely off-topic.

Whoa...let's turn down the fire and brimstone a notch. For all those claims you made of me being exclusionary in that other topic, you seem to imply that anyone who supports DOMA (and thus doesn't agree with you) is an oppressive bigot.The healthy family is one where a married couple gives birth to children. When single moms or unmarried couples form a family, the family is not as healthy. Marriage exists as a fundamental institution to the family. The rights afforded to married people exist in order to help promote the healthiest form of a family. There are some rights afforded to any family (child tax credit and child support (I think) are two), but some privileges must exclusively remain in the domain of marriage. A family with married and unmarried parents are not entirely equal, for the married family will have a tendency to be healthier. So while some rights are afforded to all families, some must also exist for the promotion of healthy families. From here on out, it starts getting into separation of church and state because questions of unmarried couples and homosexual couples (which certainly aren't Biblical) come up, and a decision must be made as to what level of separation must exist (none, loose, strict, exclusive?). Jesus would love homosexuals, but Jesus wouldn't love laws where our tax dollars end up going to pay for homosexual marriage. Jesus will still love homosexuals (as he will any "sinner"), but Jesus will still be against the promotion of their practices.

Thank for for calling me discriminatory and oppressive.
Thank you for calling me a bigot twice (the first in capital letters).
Thank you for calling me the anti-Christ.And thank you for totally not addressing my argument and instead refering to name-calling.Let's try again. Here's my argument. Now you have two choices:
1. Address this argument.
2. Go back to name-calling again.

Yes, yes, I know all of that. Just simply say, "Evidence, please," next time.
Anyway, the following evidence comes from the Heritage Foundation. You can follow the link for more detailed info, as they go into a lot more detail than this abstract.
The Heritage Foundation | The Heritage Foundation So yes, marriage does promote a healthy family.

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Well, how does the government pay for the privileges granted to married couples? That's what taxes are for.

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Not all of the taxes go to marriage, so they shouldn't be absolved from all payment. As for the taxes that do go to marriage, that gets into another issue: civil disobedience.

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I'll rephrase: Hate the sin, love the sinner. So before I go on, is your question on whether or not we should hate sin or whether or not homosexuality is a sin?

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A couple of other notes:
1. Not that this has to do with anything, but can I guess from your quote that you're both liberal and a card-carrying member of the ACLU?
2. Could you provide some evidence yourself? You spent your entire post on destroying my argument and none on building your own argument on this issue.I'll be going to sleep now, so I won't be replying until tomorrow.

Now asking for evidence is one thing, but when your rebuttal substitutes accusations of positive assertions in place of counter-arguments which have real content, it generally tends to suggest a weakness in your own argument (especially when you have no evidence to support your position). I'm here to debate, not play evidence games. Well, it could help if you explain how it's not the same thing. I'm just saying that children are better off when they're born into married families. The assertion on paying taxes to support marriage was to say that if taxes pay for marriage, then we are supporting gay marriage if it exists. The whole point of this example was to say that Jesus would love the sinner, but not the sin (which is why he probably wouldn't pay taxes that supported gay marriage). And by playing evidence games and making accusations of postive assertions, you missed the point of this whole example. And this point stands regardless of whether or not taxes support marriage. That was just an example to help explain a larger concept.As for the homosexuality argument, I won't go into detail, but if you assume homosexuality is un-Biblical (which according to my viewpoint it is), then my argument starts to make sense. But we're also talking about gov't-sanctioned marriage, so that's where separation of church and state comes in. So I gather that you don't have to follow the same standards as me. If you think I made a false positive assertion, it would help if you offered evidence to disprove the assertion. Actually, I've been to gay Christian web sites, and I have become familiar with some common arguments they make.

Stop playing evidence games, and stop having double standards.You actually quoted me as saying: Yet, despite doing this, you say that my first and second assertions are different, but you do not explain how they are different. You just say they are different. So I guess I have to listen to you, but you don't have to listen to me, just like I have to provide evidence, but you don't (hint: If you ask me for evidence to support my position, I'm also going to ask that you use evidence (or logic or some sort of actual content) to disprove my position). Furthermore, I also said This means I'm trying to clarify at what my first assertion was trying to get at. This assertion is what I was really trying to say, and this assertion is backed up with evidence, so it's time you address this one.
Now just like jar, I'm going to offer you two choices
1. Keep playing games with evidence and assertions.
2. Actually try to address the arguments I'm putting forth and understand if I try to clarify an argument for you (which requires that you listen to me).

That statement contains absolutely no generalizations (sarcasm). Well, you could theoretically extend these rights to a whole lot of other groups (ie: unmarried couples). If you were to extend marriage rights to all of these other groups, then would marriage be marriage any more? The whole point of these privileges is to support the development of families through marriage. For these four privileges, there are many other privileges that the government grants to all people (ie: under HIPPA, anybody can be entrusted with your medical info if you say so on your medical privacy papers). Here's a question: why would the government provide tax breaks to companies that create American jobs? To promote companies that don't rely on outsourcing. Why would the government provide the aforementioned privileges to married peoples? To promote marriage. The problem is that the (edit: federal concept) concept of marriage borrows some from the Judeo-Christian version of marriage. I don't have the link to the website for this paraphrased info, but I can certainly dig it up if someone asks.Basically, during the fall of Rome, there were three views of marriage: late Roman, barbarian, and Judeo-Christian. The Judeo-Christian outlasted the other views and became the standard in Europe.The reason this becomes important is because the colonists originated from Europe, and many were very religious. Because of all of this, American marriage certainly has primarily Judeo-Christian roots (though not 100%). Given the Judeo-Christian heritage in marriage, the question becomes how far do Christians want to go in defending their view of marriage.This message has been edited by commike37, 01-03-2005 22:58 AM

Jar, would you stop making accusations and start debating? I'm tired of being referred to as an oppressive and discriminative bigot for trying to advocate my views, and then to have you completely ignore my argument. Remember what I said earlier: It seems that you have chosen the second option.You have accused people who support DOMA and heterosexual marriage at the federal level of committing the ultimate sin and perverting religion as a means of discrimination. My whole point is that this is not trying to discriminate against non-married people, it is simply promoting marriage because marriage is good. My analogy to tax breaks to promote American jobs, not outsourced jobs (outsourcing is good for American companies, but not the American people) demonstrates this point.

OK, I scored 17/18 in the Usage/Mechanics subsection of English on the ACT (and a 33/36 overall), so I definitely have a "rudimentary command of English words and grammar." But nobody explains what they mean perfectly every time, so the whole point was to clarify what I meant. I told you what I meant to say, and then you turned around and insulted my intelligence. Also, instead of clarifying your misconception of my statement, you did this: You still have not actually clarified how you misinterpretted my statement. I can try to clarify what I really meant as best as possible, but if you're going to keep saying the same thing over and over again and insult my intelligence, I really can't help you there.edit: corrected a typing transposition error (O,K becomes OK,). FYI, that is a typo, not a grammar error, berberry.This message has been edited by commike37, 01-04-2005 16:51 AM

Well, bigot tends to have a very negative connotation (moreso than ignorant), especially since the definition uses the words 'intolerantly' and 'prejudices'. Besides, jar should be conducting himself better than that.As for the question posed by strictly enforcing the Bible, Judeo-Christian heritage exists in the federal concept of marriage, but not at a level of 100%. So I'm not arguing that a very strict view of marriage should be enforced (as that would totally undermine separation of church and state), but given the Judeo-Christian heritage marriage does have, we should still respect that heritage and protect one of the most fundamental tenets of marriage (of course, that assumes that the Bible is against homosexual marriage, but we won't get in depth on that one since that would get a bit off-topic).edit: Also, the verse from Leviticus shouldn't be used. We don't live under the Law of the Old Testament (or God's Old Covenant with his people), we know live under the grace of Jesus Christ (or the New Covenant), which empowers us to do that which is right. You don't see any church strictly enforcing all of the codes in Leviticus today, do you? Also, read the story about the adulteress who Jesus saved from a stoning and forgave. That's a very simple explanation (almost over-simplified).This message has been edited by commike37, 01-04-2005 16:20 AM