Condemn gay marriage, or just gay rape?

Complete nonsense. The entire Bible would have been an excellent place to mention it as ok, a given example, an illustration or even a hint at it. Its not there. Now, which position makes more sens e yours or mine. DuhUntil you can show where you possess the authority to circumvent the pattern and God that joins what he set out, you are involving yourself in the worst form of assumptionhere is an illustration
Paul made clarification and addition to Christs commands concering marraige, by stating that if a spouses marraige partner dies, he or she should marry IN THE LORD.Do you possess the same authority as him to speak for God? Why should I believe you speech from your termite ridden platform, parading in the form of an assumption, with no authority It does in both Old Testament and in Romans chapter one Have you been on the planet for the last week.As I have repeadly ask you, could you provide a verse that commands commitment as the marker for an official marraigeIf its adultry, how do you commit adultry without being married to begin withIf its commitment, where is the verse that mentions that aside from adultry, which is inside the marraige contract?You in a mess in this situationHow long does it take for commitment to turn into a marraige. if there is no outside source that decides it is officially a marrige?Edited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given.

We've been over this many times. The Bible doesn't talk much about what's okay. It talks mostly about what's not okay and it doesn't say that a committed relationship between two people is not okay. Are you ever going to answer why it isn't against any commandment?Of course there are hints: David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi. Authority doesn't enter into it. We all have the responsibility to be faithful to the contracts we make. God doesn't make the contracts. He only expects us to abide by them. This is Bible Study. Be specific. Quote your examples. And remember that we're talking about committed relationships here. Show us exactly where the Old Testament and/or New Testament call any committed relationship a "fault". Sure:

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Exo 20:14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.

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Now you answer my question: Which commandment specifies gender? Huh? Your tongue seems to be tangled in your shoelaces again. English translation, please? There's no magic moment.

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"It appears that many of you turn to Hebrew to escape the English...." -- Joseppi

since you have already demonstrated your contempt for an inspired Apostles, by calling him an ass and have picked a choosen out of God words word, what you like and disregard what you dont like, it would follow that you dont even know the difference between good and evilNow watch your nonsense in action. Was the passage you quoted from that author reliable, how do we know he wasnt an insane individual, according to your approach to the bibleHow do you decide import from this passage you quote is reliable both in content and authorship.Im sorry who is marketing evil. I would add illogical nonsense to yours Your authority makes no logical or scriptural sense, sense you cannot provide a valid reason of how you pick and choose out of Gods word is valid or invalid. Complete nonsense, not to even mention interpreatationPlease by al means tell us again why an inspired Apostle was an ass, when he was speaking on Gods behalf by inspiration and confirmation by miraclesDawn Bertot

I decide using reason, logic and reality.I see Christianity as a charge to try to do what is good and not do what is evil.I have presented passages from throughout the Bible that support that position.YOUR position is that homosexuality is a sin and that same sex marriages are not possible.I see your position as evil and contrary to the message and charge that Jesus gave us.BUT, sin is a personal matter, and your sins are none of my concern. YOU will answer to GOD for them.So I have consistently said that if YOU believe homosexuality is a sin, don't participate in homosexual practices. If YOUR chapter of Club Christian does not approve of same sex marriages, don't perform same sex marriages.It really is that simple.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Your comment has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote about the male cult prostitutes.And I suspect this is just another example of argument by revulsion. You want to make short shrift of the debate by making an inflammatory and personal insult.

If you think there's a difference, go ahead and point out what it is. We're talking about committed relationships and you bring up temple prostitution. I'm asking: If somebody else's committed relationship is the equivalent of prostitution, why isn't yours? Not at all. It's just another in a long line of points that you can't or won't address. You're the one who seems to want to handwave away every rebuttal of your position.

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"It appears that many of you turn to Hebrew to escape the English...." -- Joseppi

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Obviously he wasn't "perfect" or he would have never have fallen.

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To be perfect means to be flawless. Satan has flaws. You stated that God created Satan in perfection. He fell, so therefore couldn't be perfect. Not the imperfection of God, just the imperfection of Satan. No one, because it's not required. You believe in objective truths, morals, and meaning, but most of the world lives without them. The problem is that we use all kinds of justifications by claiming it is a decree from God. And then when someone tries to rationalize it, they usually respond in kind with, "God's ways are higher than our ways."These are the same justifications you hear from Al Qaeda and it's the same justifications you hear when people defend God ordering the murder of children. That's wishful thinking. You want to believe that, and so you will believe that. I don't think you understand the purpose. The purpose of the exercise isn't to rationalize God, the purpose is to get you to think outside of the box -- that perhaps the God you think is there is a contradiction, revealing that no one was ever there to begin with, or that God is vastly different than you thought. That's just what you claim. Satan is a bogeyman used to dissuade people from critically analyzing things. Besides, if Satan does do this, then it's still God's fault for allowing it to happen.When you have an omnipotent God, the fact that Satan exists can only logically be God's fault. The bible doesn't say anything like that. That's an interpretation that has expanded over time, thanks to the Roman Catholic Church that butchered. Does that make any sense to you, honestly? If the "eternal" is the ultimate goal, then why have not forgo this temporal existence? The bible never answers such questions. It just tells you how to live while here, and weakly attempts to answer why we suffer. But at the end of the day, if God is ever bit what you say he is, it doesn't have to be that way. Yes, it does. It's even laid out in the first chapter. The point was a pissing contest between God and Satan, so that God can prove to Satan that even under extreme duress, people still loved God. God had no compunction with sacrificing Job's family to Satan for the sake of making a point to the Devil (which, honestly, Satan would have already known).Disgusting, detestable, and loathesome behavior. Yes, because God made us with our weaknesses, he chose not to reveal himself, and chooses to allow Satan free reign to torment us. That makes God the ultimate tormentor. Of course not, because you are too conditioned to believe specific things about God that you don't dare actually utilize the intelligence he supposedly bestowed upon you.Your job is to protect God's image at all costs. The question is what your real motivation is. Do you do this to protect God, or do you do this to protect yourself? IOW, are you defending God or are you defending your belief in God? I'm questioning the feasibility of God's existence by showing that per God's own supposed attributes, the buck logically has to stop with him. God is an absent father who thinks if he shows his face once a millennium we're all supposed to drop to our faces. Yes, please throw me in to a lake of fire because you made me weak and couldn't answer prayers you promised. You said yourself that only placing you life in the hand of Jesus is the only way to escape the wiles of the devil. So that means that heathens are not responsible for their own actions because Satan has a grip on them.This is what Christians do. They go from blaming Satan to blaming the sinner. So which is it? Saying I make evil choices is your assumption because you have to defend God, without ever even knowing me or the choices I make. You defend God regardless because philosophically he has to be perfect and I have to be imperfect. It was A&E's Creator who is to blame, absolutely. I'm guilty of whatever I'm guilty of. I take my consequences gladly and don't blame God or Satan because I strongly suspect they just aren't there and never have been. Or at least God is nothing how he is portrayed in the bible. I don't have a built-in fall guy like the Abrahamic religions do. My faults are mine alone.However, if God is real as you portray him, then absolutely this is all his fault. Threats don't lastingly compel people to Christ. Well, maybe you'll get your wish for us to burn for all eternity. If challenging the validity of something supposedly so important makes me bound for hell, then to hell I go. When a dog takes food from the table and you scold him, does he know he's wrong because God placed it in his heart or because the dog is conditioned to believe that taking food from the table is wrong? That's because you're conditioned to believe that.

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Are both you and I rebelling against Allah, or do we simply have no good reason to assume Allah's existence?

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Dodge.It's a simple question. I'm not asking you an elaborate question about Islam, I'm asking you a simple question which will reveal that just surrendering to Jesus without reason is about as effectual as you surrendering to Allah.So, are you Allah's rebellious little child or not? If not, why not?

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Whose fault is that, ultimately? Last I checked, Satan didn't create himself and neither did we create ourselves. It seems that you are minimizing, severely, God's own role in the whole kit and caboodle.

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Again, does that make any sense? He's either perfect and incapable of sin or not. How is that supposed to be some kind of useful confirmation? Of course, that all assumes that Jesus was who he claimed to be. Quoting scripture, unless we're having a specific debate about the bible, is useless. I question the validity of all of it. Great, but saying it doesn't necessarily make it so. Of course, because that's what you're conditioned to do.

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"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

What I stated was by way of QUOTATION. "You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, UNTIL unrighteousness was found in you." (Ezek. 28:15 my emphasis )The Scriptures says this creature was perfect in his ways ... UNTIL ... such and such a time. I don't see it that way. This "perfect in your ways" must have included the ability to make a choice to change should he desire to. "perfect in your ways UNTIL ..." a free choice to be otherwise. By saying this you imply that an atheist cannot be moral. I don't believe that. While an atheist may have no belief in an Ultimate moral agent or law giver, they do not live without morals.I don't think most of the world lives without morals. I think norms, laws, customs speak of the morality that most societies attemt to live by. I feel perfectly comfortable admitting that I do not understand all of God's ways.I feel comfortable saying some things I think I understand and others I do not.And just as in natural life, the more we mature the greater our capacity to understand, so spiritually also. The more we mature spiritually the more we are able to understand. Guilt by association is not effective here. I could say, this is the same kind of justification you hear from Evolutionists. They also claim that there are things which they, as of yet do not understand.I don't compare the Evolutionists with Al Qaeda for that reason.When you were a child your father did some things you did not understand. When you grew perhaps you understood better. Wishful thinking doesn't make it necessarily wrong. Don't the logic professors refer to that as a "genetic fallacy" ?When my child was a baby she got sick. The doctors told me that she might have menengitis. They wanted to be sure. I was asked to hold her while they injected a needle in her spin. That was a very difficult thing for me to do.I am sure at that stage of her life she could not understand why her father was holding her tight while the doctors stuck her in the spin with a needle. But she recovered from the ordeal fine.And had it been menengitis, she might have gone blind or die. So as hard as it was to do, I am not sorry that I took those medical doctors' advice and allowed her to get the shot.So now, if she says "Dad, you were wrong to hold me down, a little child, while they stuck me." I would say "I was right to do so. But you were also right to be upset about it at the time." My "box" is as large as the universe. I sense no need to be freed from this box's parameters because they are really infinite.Paul speaks of the love of Christ which passes all men's understanding. He describes this love like this: "That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be fill of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are and to know the knowledge surpassing love of Christ" (Eph. 3:17-19)He discribes the love of God as THE breadth, THE length, THE height, and THE depth. This is just the dimensions of the universe.How broad is the breadth?
How long is the length?
How high is the height?
How deep is the depth?The dimesions of this divine love are infinite. So one of the reasons that I believe the Bible and in Jesus Christ was that I feel too constricted and limited as an unbeliever. I have no doubt that in some areas God is very different from my thought. This does not mean I cannot enjoy God and experience God.But that I am in for some surprises ? I have absolutely no doubt about that. I expect that the deeper I come to know Christ, I will be in for some surprises. I don't see Satan as a child's "bogeyman" type character. I think the name of Slanderer is apt.Satan slanders God to man's mind. And as you can see in the book of Job he alternatively slanders man to God. He slanders both ways. And he has considerable knowledge upon which to make his slanders seem very plausible.Thank God, the redemption of Christ shuts up his mouth: We Christians can overcome the slanders and lies of the little snake because of the blood of Christ and the word of God. And we can overcome his lies because we can love Christ more than our own fallen soul life.So the apostle writes: We have an Advocate and a Attorney before the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. And He intercedes for us so that Satan's accusations are nullified.As for Satan's accusations against God, we can see through them. We know that that little snake has a warped and twisted way to slander our heavenly Father. I don't see it that way at all. God did not create billions of robots to which he pushes a button and they all act a certain way. An omnipotent God created beings with the ability to exercise their will to choose.A great person does not force you to go along with him. God is the greatest Person. So it makes sense that God did not FORCE all His creatures to go along with His will. And the emergence of Satan was the emergence of a SECOND will in the universe.All the misery and conflict is due to the emergence of a second will beside the will of God. This situation is temporary. Do you really think it is necessary to become well versed in Roman Catholic history to realize this?Consider this passage about the final Antichrist: You see here? The coming Antichrist comes with the operation of Satan. This "son of perdition" comes to usurp God's authority and replace God.This desire to replace God goes back to very ancient times in the universe when a great angelic being said FIVE times "I WILL ...I WILL ...I WILL ... etc" refering to things to replace God: I am not refering to religions poetry here. I am not quoting Dante' Divine Comedy or Milton's Paradise Lost.This Daystar wanted to make himself like the Most High God. And at the end of the age Satan instigates the Antichrist to declare that he is God, sitting in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.Now to make God look like the enemy, Satan has told many lies, slanders, and accusations. From the garden he attempted to make God look like the enemy of mankind: " The implication is that God was an arbitrary tyrant who, after creating Adam and Eve, was keeping them in a position lower than what they deserved. Satan inferred that God knew they had the potential and ability to become something much higher, but He was keeping them in arbitrary and unreasonable subjection. Having first discredited God's word, Satan then proceeded to discredit God's character. He wanted to give them the false picture of their loving and gracious Creator. He wanted to paint God as an arbitrary despot by discrediting the word of God and the very character of God Himself."

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[ Lucifer Exposed, Derek Prince, Whitaker House, pg. 29) ] I will end this post here unless I lose it on a technicality.The bottom line up to here is that Satan wishes to deceive us into regarding Satan as God and God as the evil enemy despot and tyrant over man.Further comments may be below.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Concerning Job, and the reason for his sufferings. You're right that something is revealed. Can you show us where God ever explained to Job what was going on ? However, it seemed that what Job really loved was his integrity. He knew he had done nothing wrong.You may say he loved God. But really, his utter frustration with God was do to his love of his own perceived integrity. God allowed Satan to destroy his family. That God had no compunction about it is your assumption, along with your comment of a "pissing contest". So on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most righteous and one being the least - where would you put yourself as compared to God ?Better yet, on a scale of one to ten, where would you put Jesus Christ and where would you put yourself ?If you are on a higher level, how come your impact on history has been far less then those three and one half years that Jesus lived?When are you going to get started demonstrating to the world your supperior rightness to Jesus and His Father ?I think the Slanderer has gotten to you. I don't agree that God did not reveal Himself. Far from letting Satan torment us, as we are joined to Christ we become Satan's tormentors.If you wish to deal with that enemy of God you should immerse yourself in the living Person of Christ and co-share His victory over the Devil.Then you can join us in crushing Satan under the feet of the builded church: "Now the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you." (Rom. 16:20) When the believers are built up together in love and in Christ, they can crush Satan under their collective feet. We need one another in Christ. We cannot deal with this enemy alone.But it is a great adventure to see the corporate Body of Christ emerge and crush this Devil underneath our feet. "You are of God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world." (1 John 4:4) You should be joined to Christ and learn the principles of spiritual warfare in the collective Body of Christ, the victorious church.We are learning. Rather then waste my life guzzling down Satan's accusations to get man to blame God, we would rather be joined to Christ in Satan's defeat and execution. This is not true. I do not think your slanders that you have taken hook, line, and sinker, display such intellegence.I don't mean you are not smart. I mean to disbelieve God's word in favor of these lies you have taken in to make out God as the evil tyrant are a bad form of intelligence.Concerning this attitude Paul said "Prefessing themselves to be wise, they became fools." I think your rationals and advertized "thinking outside the box" leave you unrestful, bothered, bitter, sarcastic, joyless and without peace within.The wisdom of the Holy Spirit leaves one with great peace of heart and love for the Father.The more you think this way, trying hard to make God out to be your enemy, the more irritated and annoyed you will remain. I think it is better to be reconciled to God's love in Jesus and have peace in your heart, not to mention truth.You know He said that the truth will make you free. I think the resurrection of Jesus did a far better job of vindicating God then my little arguments.His resurrection spoke to the world of His righteousness. I do have my own questions. You should not think that I do not have questions.One thing is clear to me. Upon God incarnate the judgment of God fell on His cross, as if He really were guilty. The Son of God was condemned that we may be justified.I think the only difference between us is that you might feel that judgment of Christ was what He deserved. I on the other hand believe that He was innocent and received into Himself what you and I deserve.God was in Christ bearing the divine judgment for the sins of the world. Whereas you say "He deserved it" I say " We deserved it. And He took our place that we could be saved." You would not be weak if you let the grace of Christ empower you.You have been given a blank check in which you may fill in whatever amount of riches you need. If you spit on it and rip it up and throw it away, that is your decision.The power is there in the living and available Person of the resurrected Son of God. I have found that many people are eager to point to "those people over there, How about them?"Whatever the situation of "the heathen" that is not your situation.I have graduated from trying to argue an air tight case about many hypotherical cases of "the other guy, over there. You know, the heathen, the child who died, the retarded, the guy who never heard about Jesus."In earlier days I tried to argue all these hypotherical cases. I now say with Abraham that the Judge of all the earth will do Right.The main point is not what they other hypothetical case will do with Christ in his situation. That is not your situation. And you have to decide what YOU will do with Jesus Christ.God can take care of the "Heathen, over there". Jesus said to us "You follow Me." I don't care who you blame. Knowng who to blame is not going to save you. Jesus is going to save you if you believe to receive Him.The word is "Whoever believes into Him may not perish but have eternal life". The Gospel is not "Whoever figures out who is the blame may have eternal life."You probably will not heed this advice. But I think, I know, that it is better to RECEIVE Jesus to me born of God, and get your theological paradoxes dealt with afterwards.He is a living Person. You are trying to make God not a living Person but a SYSTEM in which all the logic gates are approved by you.A system cannot love you. The living Savior, as a living Person, can fill you with the love of God.And now, I am finished responding to this post.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

The God in Job?Almost anyone alive would score way higher than the God in Job. Fortunately, the God in the Job fable is just a bit player and not intended as much more than a plot device.BUT...you keeping on trying to create these attractive rabbit holes so you don't have to address the issue is pretty transparent to everyone.And you never bothered to address the real issue. The Gish Gallop won't help you. Throw out as many irrelevant Biblical misrepresentations as you want and continue to pull quotes out of context, but the real issue remains.Just as patterns and standards change throughout the Bible, today we need to address the needs of another group, the least of these my brothers.How do we provide equal protection under the law for same sex marriages?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Job is neither the only book in the Bible nor the last word of the Bible. Some of us regard it as a step in the progressive revelation of God.None of the speakers in the book of Job regard God as poorly as you do. Job had his complaints. And his three friends had their opinions. And Elihu the fifth speaker had his opinion. even Job's wife venter her frustration.None one of the speakers shows the bad attitude that you show. And they were much closer to the events.Job, after he finally sees God, REPENTS in dust and in ashes: "I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye has seen You; Therefore I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:6) The Job is certainly a book of "Equal Time For The Desolusioned With God". And Job gets a lot of arguments in which are far more elequent then any I have seen from modern day skeptics.God let's Job vent for millions of people through the ages who were perplexed why "bad things happen to good people".Its conclusion is nothing like the sour self righteous rejection of the Almighy you continue to gloat in. I've addressed plenty of your complaints. This is false charge.However, I know that the enemy of God still works in man's mind and injects many undesireable thoughts such as suspicion, fear, disbelief, discouragement, or unfounded and distorted ideas into man's mind.Through these fire darts Satan deceives and fools man.I do not say everything I write is 100% helpful to everyone. But I know that much prayer is needed for you. And I do pray because men can get caught in a labyrinth of suspicious and accusatory reasonings about thier Savior. Sounds clever but I don't know what you mean. If you are refering to Wayne Gish, I am not an avid reader of Wayne Gish's Old Earth Creationism. "These, the least of my brothers" comes from Matthew 25.The phrase refers to Jews and Christians who are persecuted on the earth under Antichrist. This judgment of Matthew 25 of the nations is His dealing with the living nations who remain at the time of His descent to the earth.It is not explicitly refering to homosexuals. That's your rabbit trick. I have no opinion other than the fact that there should not be hate crimes against homosexuals.My contribution to the thread was to discuss mostly Mark 10's excposition of Genesis 3 with a focus on One Man + One Woman = the union of marriage which God has yoked together.My only comment about civil laws is that there should not be hate crimes against homosexuals. If you begin to experiement with same sex marriages which are more than civil unions, that is such unchartered territory I don't know what to think.But emphatically, I taught my children not to hate people in the grip of arrested psychological development or who express deviance in sexuality.I do not hate homosexuals. I am going to share with them the love and salvation of Christ just as I would with any other sinner. For we are all sinners. And we can be saved by the Lord and Savior.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

That's dumb jar. They spend 40 some chapters arguing about God and you think God has no important part in the book ?
Count the number of times "the Almighy" is mentioned in Job - more than in any other book of the Bible I bet.And you evaded the question by not putting yourself on the scale at a point.Scared to give yourself a grade next to God ? Go on record.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Apparently you didn't pay attention during English class.There is a very distinct difference between something being mentioned and something having an effect on the plot.If you want to "count" the Almighty's in Job, why don't you check context to see how many of those involve sentences in which the Almighty has an action.My guess is that the vast majority of them are things like: "Why has the Almighty foresaken me?"That's not a character involved in the plot except through INACTION.You could replace the vast majority of God's role in Job with a wheelbarrow and have the same exact results.Let's see:There exists a man who loves a wheelbarrow.
The devil comes to the wheelbarrow and says, "Hey, I'm going to mess with this dude and see if he still likes you."
The wheelbarrow does not stop the devil from doing this.
The Devil punishes Job, MURDERS HIS WHOLE FAMILY!!!, destroys his business, his home, his animals.
The whole time, the friends of Job say, "Job, why do you still love the wheelbarrow, it has done nothing to help you."
Job replies, "The wheelbarrow is great and powerful, it is not my place to question the wheelbarrow."In the end the wheelbarrow tells the Devil to cut it out and Job gets on with his life.With the SOLE exception of "telling the devil to cut it out", the role of God is perfectly adequately played by a standard home depot wheelbarrow in this book.Interestingly enough, the same holds true for the vast majority of the Bible.Jesus on the cross: "Oh wheelbarrow, why hast though foresaken me?"
The wheelbarrow doesn't reply.

You mean 8th grade. The plot verses the theme.Something like that ? Right. The plot verses the theme. Okay. You have a point. But I would not say that God has a. how did he put it? ... "bit part" - something like that.The climax of the book of Job contains God's speaking for 38:1 through 42:6 . That is five chapters. Since that is the climax of the book I would not agree that God has a insignificant "bit part" in Job.I doubt that in Job there is another speaker who has five contiguous chapters to himself, though they may have all told as many accumulated.But I would not debate that He may be more a part of the theme rather than the on going action described. Go check it out and find out. Can't hurt. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance would give that to you.Job is tremendous poetry. It is recognized as so by secular liturary experts.And I think it was based upon something that actually happened. And God is solidly part of the theme if not involved in all the action of the plot.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I find it often the case that when some readers want God to have an insignicant "bit part" in their own lives, they assign also God to an insignificant "bit part" in the Bible.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.