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Post by Rich Fisher on May 8, 2007 10:51:01 GMT -4
Hey, don't bash Santa or it's coal for you! Seriously, this one could get really ugly - Please remember that everyone is entitled to an opinion and/or belief, it's why our country was founded. Please keep it civil. Thanks!
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Post by ljp on May 8, 2007 12:57:58 GMT -4
Sorry Rich, they did warn us not to talk about religion! kentisland.proboards41.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1173813456To spare everyone’s eyes from having to retype my answers to the "world is proven to be millions of years old, not thousands" . No I am sorry it has not been 'proven'. No one said "magical being in the sky" It's 'Creator' and in 'Heaven'. re: Tomato. I didn't mention anything about at what time the brain works, I said it is living being, and the body is living and growing at the time of conception. There doesn't have to be 'proof' of souls and of God for me to believe it. I have seen enough to prove it to me. Is there proof that say, your spouse or that your parents love you? No. They tell you and you believe it, you have faith that they do. And then there are the things that they do for you that show you. There is no scientific proof that they do, but you still believe it right? Faith is believing in something that you do not know for absolute certainty to be true but you believe it anyway. If you can have faith that your brakes will work in your car when you press them, why is it so hard to understand that others have faith in other things? I agree with you on the religion aspect. Just about everyone believes they are right. Religion itself is man made. The funny thing is, Jews and Christians (each division of Christianity as there are many) follow the same book and all believe that it is the Word of God. The Jews have the OT that gives them every item on the list that showed them who the Messiah would be, yet they choose not to believe it when He appeared. Muslims start with the same book that all of us do, but a few hundred years ago a man who lived and then died told them that they were the seed of Ishmael and that they were God’s promise to Abraham fulfilled. Then based on this, what I can only call a misinterpretation, created their own book (written by that one man) after Ishmaels lineage because they choose not to believe that Isaac was God's promise to Abraham. Although God made his promises to Sarah and Abraham, Sarah took it upon herself to provide Abraham a son via another woman. This is not what God told them, so God did not bless that son. I guess they chose to leave this part of the story out? Catholics take portions of the same book and pick and choose what they believe. Baptists are the Born Agains and are the only ones who follow it to the last letter. This does not mean that they are ignorant, they just believe that they need to assist someone in gaining salvation because that is what God tells them to do in His book, you know that same book that everyone else reads. It does surprise me that so many believe that the Bible is God's word but then pick and choose what they want to follow as if it some sort of buffet. I guess I don’t understand how you can believe it is the word of God but though not all of it, just what you choose to believe is the Word of God. My position is that if you don’t believe some of it is true that why do you believe any of it to be true? God never asks anyone to kill people in His name. Why some believe that they should I do not know. These are the extremists and every religion has a sect of them. Mohammed told the Arabs that is what they should do but really it conflicts with what they understand God to be. Arabs have a sect that believes it is their responsibility to cleanse the world just like Christianity has a sect that believes sprinkling a baby with water ensures their salvation. No where in the Bible do either of this rules exist, however there just are some that believe it is right, because it is what they are 'told'. If any of them took the time to actually READ it they would see things differently. Just because He does not answer YOUR prayers doesn’t mean that He doesn’t answer mine or anyone else’s for that matter. I could sit here for the next year non-stop and list the prayers that I have seen answered. So it totally boggles my mind how anyone can look at this earth or the human body in all their complexities and believe that they just ‘happened’. The idea that we each evolved from some fish or bug and that over millions of years our DNA changed and changed again to fit what the changing environment was requiring of us sounds absurd to me. At what point did one organism decide that it needed to see? Or that it needed thumbs? There had to be one defining moment that this decision was made right? Or am I to believe that it was magic to use your term? That all of the sudden one day a monkeys brain (and I mean only one of the monkeys because apparently not all of them felt the need to ‘evolve’) decided it didn’t need hair or a tail anymore? Or did slowly each million years or so one hair fell out and thus the body’s DNA changed as it didn’t need it anymore? Well if one didn’t need it why did the others? As far as I am concerned there are no ‘scientific explanations’ for ‘how’ a creature evolved, only and understanding that they did because there were some fossils found that show a possible human direction. But you believe it? Even though the missing links from monkeys to humans are still missing? Can you understand why this sounds crazy to me?
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Post by uvrays on May 8, 2007 15:32:01 GMT -4
Everyone has something to believe in. I believe that I'll have another beer.
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Post by jake on May 9, 2007 18:01:27 GMT -4
AMEN!
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Post by bchevy on May 9, 2007 19:13:13 GMT -4
Religion is not fact, not proven anything... prove to me then the alternative? You can't. There's NO proving either side. Just beliefs, Opinions, and best guesses on stuff that happened EONS ago......
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Post by shorti on May 11, 2007 15:58:57 GMT -4
Well I just could resist chiming in here... as some of you have seen in prior posts - i have a hard time believing in religion. IMHO organized religion is just what was said earlier "man-made" Do I believe in Jesus as the Son of God - not wholeheartedly, therefore, I guess my answer should really be No. Do I believe in God? I believe in a higher power... I choose not to place a name to it... But LJP is right - faith is believing in something that you cannot physically see, touch or have evidence to prove. Faith is believing in something that you cannot "prove" scientifically. I respect those who have this faith regardless of denomination. However - there is one statement that is a bit incomplete in regards to God never asks anyone to kill... what you fail to mention is that according to the Bible, he does it himself... Scary thing to me to think that the "all loving, all forgiving God" will wipe out an entire population except his "chosen" ones.
In regards to the abortion argument - which BTW I kinda started but didn't mean for all this.... just wanted opinions of Rudy... I think it takes one hell of a man who is going to run for president knowing that this is a big issue & make the stand he did. He doesn't believe in it & does not agree with it (which in itself could lose votes), but he doens't believe it should be a federal issue - it should be handled by the states. I dont' agree w/ federal funding or state funding unless there are extinuating circumstances... but NOBODY should be able ot tell ANYONE what they can and cannot do to their own bodies. That's a personal choice. Do I agree that some people use that as a form of birth control? yeah - and that's wrong... if you are going to lay down w/ every guy in town w/out protection and get pregnant over and over again - well ... 'nuff said on that... Do I believe if a woman was raped or if she was pregnant due to incest should be able to make that choice privately w/out gov't interference - hell yeah... Do I think a woman should have to obtain "permission" from a spouse to have an abortion - no. The only type of permission that should be required is when it is a minor child - then mom/dad should be aware... but not even really Permission... just knowledge and awareness...
anyway - again - my 2cents
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Post by jake on May 11, 2007 21:27:45 GMT -4
"NOBODY should be able ot tell ANYONE what they can and cannot do to their own bodies. That's a personal choice."
There are already many laws that do this; suicide, drug use, ect.. This also gets back to the main debate about abortion. Is life being created at conception and thereby having a separate life (soul), which no one has the right to take, not even the mother, or is this just a clump of cells and of no consequence. I believe its a separate life and therefore scared, just as yours or mine is. The possible exception of course for rape/incest, but these are probably less than 1/10 of one percent
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thomas
Full Member
Welcome to the Land of Pleasant Living!
Posts: 169
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Post by thomas on May 12, 2007 7:28:58 GMT -4
Just want to say that I agree completely with Shorti. I could personally never have an abortion, but I think it should be available to people who choose it. And I agree that it should not be funded by the state, federal, or local govt. It is a medical procedure, and the government shouldn't have a single thing to say about it either way. If someone wants one, they should be responsible for the cost, or work it out with their insurer.
As far as the God debate - Um, haven't people been not only debating, but fighting wars about this issue for thousands of years? I doubt we are going to resolve anything on a local messgae board. Lets all just be glad that we live in a free country where we can believe (or not) in whatever we want.
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Post by jake on May 12, 2007 10:48:21 GMT -4
Question, hypothetically, if it was proven that human life was created at conception, who here would still believe the mother has the complete right to decide decide on an abortion??
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thomas
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Welcome to the Land of Pleasant Living!
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Post by thomas on May 12, 2007 12:13:34 GMT -4
I would - the government shouldn't be involved. It is a medical procedure. It is for a woman to decide, and live with her decision for the rest of her life. I'm not going to tell my neighbor what medical procedure she can or can not have. And if you really want to go down this slippery slope - what about in-vitro? They fertilize 5 or 6 eggs, then transplant the best ones. The rest are disposed of. You gonna make that illegal too?
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Post by jake on May 12, 2007 13:26:14 GMT -4
so, knowing it is a separate human life, you still believe the mother has the right to end it for whatever reason. I can't think of his name, but there is a professor at Yale who advocates a mother should be allowed to terminate the life of her infant anytime during its first year, and yes he's serious. Would anyone agree with this??
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thomas
Full Member
Welcome to the Land of Pleasant Living!
Posts: 169
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Post by thomas on May 12, 2007 14:09:51 GMT -4
Well Jake you stated "hypothetically"... Hypothetically speaking, if it were discovered that life begins at conception, I would still believe in a woman's right to choose. I just don't want my or anyone else's tax dollars paying for it.
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Post by falgar25 on May 13, 2007 7:10:29 GMT -4
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Post by ljp on May 13, 2007 12:50:11 GMT -4
To answer your questions regarding God and killing. Just because He did it doesn't mean He gave us the right to. His rules: Thou shall not kill. End of story. He does not tell us to kill in His name. It is not for me to question why He decided to obliterate an entire population. He had His reasons, His explanation was that they had become too sinful for Him. He also promised to do it again. He created it I guess He can destroy it without my involvement.
From a Christians standpoint: A while ago I wrote that we as humans don't realize the repercussions of our actions. What decisions we make today affect our future ever so slightly for example the story about how a smile becomes infectious and after a while of being passed from person to person, could prevent someone from let's say, committing suicide. If we go back to the nature of all things and were to remove sexual deviancy from world this would remove the argument for incest and rape and single teenagers needing to keep from ‘ruining’ their own futures. If we as humans had stuck to God's rules regarding adultery initially way back then we would not even be having this discussion. As far as any mention in the bible about abortion, it is all over the bible. Not that word by name but many many many verses on the value of life that God created in the womb and that He had a purpose for us even before we were born. I am sure if I did enough research I would find at least one person in history who was an illegitimate child and did something wonderful like discovered penicillin or something. Remember those signs on the road that asked God to send someone who can discover a cure for Cancer? His answer on the sign was, “I did but you aborted them”. Sounds harsh but could be true?
To answer the articles statement about the value of animals vs. humans. The Bible says that God gave man dominion over the animals. It also says that He puts greater value on us vs. the animals. No I am not saying that it is right to go around killing animals or treating them badly God also commanded us to take care of them. James also talks about the sins of killing those who cannot find back.
In vitro & cloning? Although a wonderful technological breakthrough, it is in a sense playing God. Deciding for yourselves that you will have a child on your terms. (Remember the Sarah/ Hagar story? Sarah decided for herself that she would create the blessed seed of Abraham instead of following God’s promise to bless her. She laughed at it. What were the repercussions of those actions? Muslims. Religious wars that begin with their anger because they are not recognized by Christians as the blessed seed of Abraham. Blowing up buildings today and killing thousands, when really what they are saying is “ Look at me, acknowledge me, see what bad behavior I can display to get your attention”. Sort of sounds like an attention starved teenager.
So in a sense we are already doomed because of the 'original sin'. Question is how do we get back to that as closely as we can? By making decisions that prevent it from getting any worse? In a democratic society that is nearly impossible. We will spend valuable hours that should be devoted to thoughts of a higher plain, arguing over what we each believe is the right answer. The problem with that is, that without a moral compass we don't know what the right answer is. So we go with what feels right. Again here is the need for God. He is and always has been our moral compass. It seems so simple to me that I am often astounded how anyone could see it any differently.
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Post by DOUG on May 13, 2007 15:21:04 GMT -4
i have heard the actual translation is not "thou shall not kill", but "thou shall not 'murder'", which does change the meaning and intent.
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