Is The Conservative Movment Flirting with FAscism?

I wasn't evolving sin's definition. I was talking about the judging of sin, by other men, and man's limited understanding of it.

 

Nobody has suggested that Christ did. That is exactly why I can't imagine Christ would not support a war started by a man claiming to be doing God's work(Bush), against a nation that was not a threat.

As you said yourself he doesn't equivicate.

 

Why can't Hezbollah supporters realize Islamic facism is a global threat? Is it because they blindly support Islamic facism even though diabolical terror is what Islamic facism is all about?

 

he also spent a lot of time pointing out hypocrisy.

 

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O RLY?​

 

That being said, I don't think that as a society, we should accomadate sin.

BTW, I feel like the resident hate-monger in this debate. My opinion on gay people is nothing like this. I believe it is a naturally occurring sexual disfunciton that should be treated. I have gay friends. They know how I feel. They are my friends because I always treat them with respect. I believe the best way to get people to repent is to show them Christ's love.

 

Didn't He order men into war in the Old Testament? I don't claim to know God's will in regards to the war on terror: however, the 1991 war was ended because Saddaam agreed to certain terms. Most experts agree that he broke that agreement. We removed him to put pressure on the Iranians. It was just convenient that his misbehavior gave us the moral authority to do so.

I supported the idea then, but if I had known that we would fight the war so inneffectively, I would not have supported it. War is Hell. If you are not willing to do the unpleasant things neccessary to win, then you shouldn't put our soldiers in harm's way.

 

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Funny - why might that be?

I bet Alan Turing disagrees. Hey, if this is such an unfortunate "dysfunction", does god hate other "dysfunctions" too? Why not condem people with mental disabilites?

Ah yes. The "I have gay friends excuse"...

I respect that, and I hope what you're saying is true.

 

Dude, your "argument" is an unfounded assertion that Jesus would have been against gay marriage. Then, you throw in that Jesus' positions "would have to be traced back to the Old Testament if New Testament quotes are unavailable" again, without providing the quotes of which you speak.

What a pile of horse manure!

 

i don't think it's unfounded to suggest that Jesus wouldn't be cool with gay marriage. i just think he'd point out the hyprocrisy in those who demonize homosexuals, as if they're any worse sinners than the rest of us. as if they're more in need of God's grace than I am.

 

I never said he wouldn't take a position on an issue because it is political, I specifically said that Jesus may very well have seen abortion as wrong. However, I do NOT believe that Jesus would have joined a political group (the pro-lifers) as a result of this belief.

Confession and repentance are only "necessary for salvation" under certain religions.

First off, show me where "The Law" is defined as "everything in the Old Testament" and then show me the passages in the Old Testament where homosexuality is described as "detestable and an abomination."

Unsupported assertions do not win debates.

Personally, I believe that we have misunderstood what he was saying on the subject. I believe that everyone already has "everlasting life" and that Jesus does not take away or grant it at all, much less make decisions on who gets it and who doesn't.

"Make disciples of all nations" certainly sounds like he was saying to spread the word to people of all nationalities. Nowhere in there does it say anything about making public policy based on religious beliefs.

First off, which programs do you see as "socialist?" Let's get a common definition of "Socialism" so that we are debating the same thing.

Under that definition, there is so little "Socialism" in either American culture or the "liberal" movement that your protestations of hate for "socialist programs" is laughable at best. None of these programs engage in state ownership of the means of production or the social control of property. I guess you could make an argument for SS being a form of "wealth distribution," but the truly wealthy are exempted from SS taxes at high levels, so isn't really wealth distribution at all. Everyone (except the truly rich) gives the same percentage and everyone (again, except the truly rich) gets the benefits based on their contributions.

No problem. We all get snappy sometimes.

Here you go, here is the "definition" of secular humanism from Vonnegut, the honorary head of the AHA and from the AHA website.

Those seem to be noble aspirations, don't you? Being ethical and behaving decently even if it doesn't have anything to do with religious beliefs.

In addition, I would dispute that "liberalism" and "humanism" are the same even with those definitions.

Really? The GOP has opposed every single piece of legislation designed to help the poor, but it is not because they couldn't care less about the poor?

Let me have some of what you are smoking.

I'm not the one who threw out the Dixiecrats, you did when mentioned that without liberals, Jim Crow would be the policy in force today.

Those damned liberals.

If you believe that most major newspapers and broadcast news channels are vitriolic mouthpieces of liberalism as Air America is for the left and Fox News is for the right, then you sight is way, WAY impaired.

I don't count the "blogosphere" as there are as many right wing bloggers as left wingers, but none of them have a national stage the way that Fox and Air America do.

As far as Hollywood goes, I don't see that many movies with political messages coming out lately, other than from tools like Moore.

That would push our annual payments to debt interest to over $250 billion per year, or about 12% of our annual budget. If someone came up to me with an investment opportunity and I saw on their Income Statement that their Interest Expense was 12% of their annual budget, I would RUN.

For comparison, Coca-Cola's interest expense was about 3.6% in 2005.

Mostly, it has to do with changing the culture of the country from that of a consumer culture to a culture that promotes savings. A consumption tax would be one way that I would encourage such savings, though there are probably some other government sponsored encouragements that could be effective (interest rate bonuses for people who put funds into retirement accounts, etc.).

I will start a thread about it.

 

I am not certain that it is founded as I have never had anyone point out to me anything that Jesus himself said about homosexuality, much less homosexuals getting married.

However, I agree with you aboud the "rocks in glass houses" aspect.

 

Paul was a contemporary of Christ...who, after persecuting Christians to death, ultimately became a Christ-follower himself. He was pretty clear on the issue.

Christ constantly affirmed OT scripture.

But you are correct..I'm unaware of any scripture where Christ directly addressed the issue.

 

What if Paul knew about the human biology we know now? Like you said, he changed his mind before.

 

Good post andy - but you're in trouble here. Even I could dig up passages to suppor this. A better question might be, if fulfilling the law is one of jesus' duties, and therefore something we should support - why are christians not all upset about the hundreds of other old testament rules?

I like this version of the question personally:

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/joke/laura.htm

 

OK, so Paul was not a fan of homosexuals. I will buy that without a single quote.

Which leads directly to the Dr. Laura post by rhadamanthus.

This is really my point. So many people I hear go directly to "Jesus was against gay marriage" on the word of a preacher, politician, or Fox News and never actually wonder how the two are connected. I have done some fairly extensive reading of the Bible and also some Googling of Jesus' words WRT homosexuality and have not come up with much at all.

 

that's extremely clever and very funny!

when jesus said he came to fulfill the OT...to be a fulfillment of the law...he meant something very different than this, from what i understand of what it meant to "fulfill" in the context of the Hebrew culture. i'll post more on it later, if you'd like.

 

Thanks for the great post, rhad.

 

I would love to see it, personally.