Jay

4,355 reputation

bio	website	johansens.us
	location	Michigan
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visits	member for	1 year, 7 months
	seen	Feb 17 at 21:51
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	4,355 reputation	bio	website	johansens.us	visits	member for	1 year, 7 months
59 badges		location	Michigan		seen	Feb 17 at 21:51

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Aug 7	comment	if homosexuality is a sin, why isn't abstinence? @allycatgirl Well, it's not very much of a scientific debate. Homosexual men make up 1-2% of the population, but 61% of AIDS cases. 74% of the women who have AIDS have had sex with men who were bisexual or were IV drug users. To the extent that anything can be proven in medicene, I think it's pretty well established that AIDS is spread primarily by homosexual sex and IV drug use. And if you're going to debate the health effects of homosexuality activity as an argument against moral criticism, then it is very pertinent.
Aug 5	comment	if homosexuality is a sin, why isn't abstinence? @allycatgirl My best friend in college was a homosexual, and I saw the negative effects quite clearly. He never knew love with a woman as God intended it. It destroyed his relationships with other men. And in the end, it literally killed him -- he died from AIDS. I'm sure you can write a fiction story about a happy and fulfilling homosexual relationship. You can write a fiction story about wizards with magic powers, too. But how many of either exist in real life?
Aug 5	comment	if homosexuality is a sin, why isn't abstinence? @Marc As a divorced person myself, I can say from experience that broken homes are a very bad thing. I don't doubt that there are cases where they are the lesser of two evils. Personally I think many families would be much better off if the couple could force themselves to stay together for the sake of the kids, assuming they took this to mean "pretend we still love each other", as a good pretense could lead to action and action could reignite the feelings. But sure, if the alternative is a couple who are literally beating each other up daily, etc.
Aug 5	comment	if homosexuality is a sin, why isn't abstinence? @Marc I agree with the first part of your comment. It wasn't my intent to say that "pushing back the question" is bad. Yes, trying to see general principles behind the details and understand the reasons behind rules is good. What I was trying to say is that it doesn't solve the problem. Perhaps I could study all the, what, hundreds? of rules and advice in the Bible and come up with one grand unified field theory that explains it all. But I think you would still at some point come back to, X is wrong because it just is.
Aug 5	comment	Does God hate unborn children? @Eric Well, all I can say is that the Bible plainly says on several occasions that God hates this or that person. We can explain away the verses about hate, but I'm very reluctant to say that God didn't say what he meant. Especially when the only reason for saying that is that the plain meaning is something other than what I would like to believe. I don't see the problem with the idea of "wishing you could love someone". I would think humans have that experience all the time, like a marriage goes downhill and you wish that you could love your spouse but you just can't.
Aug 5	comment	Reason for creating unnecessary creatures Gen 1:29-30 say God gave people and animals herbs and fruit for food -- no mention of meat. As @quant notes, in Gen 9:1-3, God says that before he gave men plants to eat, but now they may eat meat. (I don't think that's just "sometimes interpreted", it's the plain reading.) (This is right after the Flood, so some theorize that changes in the environment made a vegetarian diet no longer practical.) So it's not just that meat wasn't mentioned in Gen 1. It was deliberately excluded. Of course people and animals might have eaten meat despite anything God said, but that was apparently his plan.
Aug 5	comment	How can Christians reconcile the request to prohibit same-sex marriage and the lawfulness of homosexuality itself? @SiqueSiqueBen What I was trying to say at the end was that I agree that not everything that is immoral or anti-Christian should be illegal, but I'm not sure exactly how that principle applies in this case. Some people make the argument I outlined. I think this argument is interesting, but I'm not prepared to endorse it.Nevertheless, I mention it because others on this forum might find it interesting or useful to their own thoughts.
Aug 3	answered	Reason for creating unnecessary creatures
Aug 3	answered	if homosexuality is a sin, why isn't abstinence?
Aug 3	comment	How can Christians reconcile the request to prohibit same-sex marriage and the lawfulness of homosexuality itself? @Marc So you believe morality to be subjective and relative. I believe morality to be objective and absolute. Why should your ideas about morality be imposed by law rather than mine?
Aug 3	comment	How can Christians reconcile the request to prohibit same-sex marriage and the lawfulness of homosexuality itself? @SigueSigueBen I think the last paragraph of my answer replied to that point: One could make a case that one thing is immoral and should be illegal but another thing is immoral and should not be illegal. I don't think there's anything startling about the idea: Almost everyone agrees that murder is immoral and should be illegal, while almost everyone could name things that they believe are immoral but that they don't think should be illegal.
Aug 3	comment	How can Christians reconcile the request to prohibit same-sex marriage and the lawfulness of homosexuality itself? @Gustavo Racial discrimination in education and racial discrimination in hiring are two aspects of the same issue: racial discrimination. Legally recognized gay marriage and gay sex in general are two aspects of homosexuality. So, (a) you can deal with one specific issue while deferring another to another time; and (b) you may conclude that one specific issue is a proper area for government and law and another is not, regardless of the morality.
Aug 3	comment	Does God hate unborn children? ... anything about love. 1 John 4 says that God loves "us", without explicitly saying who "us" is. In context he appears to be talking about the church, he is saying that members of the church should show love to each other. Nothing there says God loves everyone in the world. I'm not saying this is an easy or pleasant thing to accept, but the Bible explicitly says that there are people whom God does not love, so I don't see how you can escape the conclusion that God does not love literally everyone.
Aug 3	comment	Does God hate unborn children? @Eric 1 Tim 2:3-6 says God "desires all men to be saved". But all men are not saved. Those verses don't say anything aobout love. It doesn't necessarily follow that wishing that everyone loved him means that he loves everyone. Perhaps he wishes that he could love these people. Similarly 2 Peter 3:9. Matt 5 says that God gives good things to both good and evil people. Again, it doesn't say anything about who he does or doesn't love. 1 John says he gave his life for "the world". See my answer above: "the world" doesn't necessarily mean "everyone in the world". And again it doesn't say ...
Aug 2	comment	Do Calvinists believe that it is possible to be saved without believing the doctrine of predestination? @user1311390 Well, I think by definition a "belief" is not "works". But I agree with the essence of what you're saying.
Aug 2	answered	How can Christians reconcile the request to prohibit same-sex marriage and the lawfulness of homosexuality itself?
Aug 2	answered	Does God hate unborn children?
Jul 31	answered	Why are Christian books not Public Domain?
Jul 26	answered	How did Peter recognize Elijah and Moses?
Jul 26	comment	What is the significance of the Bible to Christianity? The Nicene Creed -- and the various other creeds that have been written -- are summaries of what the authors believed to be the most important teachings of the Bible. The Bible does not "expound upon" the Nicene Creed; the Nicene Creed summarizes the Bible. Just for starters, the Bible was written before the creed, so there's no way the Bible writers could have seen themselves as expounding on the creed.