big brother in the sky.

Originally posted by TerrierJack
If I actually skip over the thought part and go straight to the sex with my neighbor's wife then what cosmic harm is there in that? I can understand that my neighbor might be upset (and would hope that his wife was not) but in the grand scheme of the universe it just doesn't amount to much. On the other hand if I help propagate an idea of conduct that e robes and red suits until you're blue faced but I will still expect you to be responsible.

what is it that you do not understand with regard to your thoughts influencing your actions? you are havering on about taking responsibility for your actions yet you fail to recognise that having sex with your neighbors wife is a consequential act ???, duh! what if she gets a sexually transmitted disease from you, what if it leads to the break up of a family, my goodness you need your bum felt to take you from your delusional little window to something more realistic or perhaps you are equally as guilty of hypocrisy as those you seem intent to lambaste with such vitriolic zeal!

I never said it wasn't consequential - but it also is no business of yours as your infidelities are no business of mine. When your thoughts, feelings, and/or actions affect me I will consider them your responsibility just as I take responsibility for mine. What I won't do is pronounce your behavior cosmically unacceptable - for the most part it is none of my business. Whatever congress you have with your neighbor's wife means nothing to me. I couldn't even possibly understand it - why the hell should I judge it? Why should I appeal to the wide sky for the right to judge it? Shouldn't I better control my own self than waste time telling you how to behave? Or, do you need my advice?

Originally posted by TerrierJack
I never said it wasn't consequential - but it also is no business of yours as your infidelities are no business of mine. When your thoughts, feelings, and/or actions affect me I will consider them your responsibility just as I take responsibility for mine. What I won't do is pronounce your behavior cosmically unacceptable - for the most part it is none control my own self than waste time telling you how to behave? Or, do you need my advice?

you never said it, however you have given the impression that it does not matter, 'what cosmic harm is in that', are you're own words. simply taking responsibility for ones actions, does not in any way mean that those actions should be acceptable on this premise, that, hey, i did this, im responsible for this, then what the hell, that alright then, isn't it! My goodness we are collectively responsible for the destruction of entire eco systems, does that make it right! of course not.

what are you talking about, 'the wide sky'? have you never read the Biblical principle, that 'what a man is sowing, this he will also reap'? what is this statement but a sober admonition to take responsibility for ones own actions, so therefore, let us think about, 'what cosmic harm will it do', to mess around with ones neighbors wife, unwanted pregnancy, the injustice of abortion, the taking of innocent life, the emotional baggage that accompanies it, the breakup of families, the hurt caused to the innocent party, the effect of divorce on any children, the financial burden of separation etc etc etc etc etc.

you will of course notice that I have not once told you how to behave, but coming in with this attitude, 'hey what harm can it do', 'its my business right', is either very naive or ill conceived, ill let you think about that, for the beauty of true Christianity, is that it not only considers the self, but is able to transcend the self and demonstrate consideration for others, have you thought about that?

Originally posted by TerrierJack
jaywill, you're not even making sense. I'm specifically rejecting your juvenile little mind games. I don't care how many pinheaded angels you look for guidance from or how many tail-dragging demons you imagine care about your behavior. Most of us don't care. If you feel guilty about your infidelities then I suggest you take responsibility for your ac your behavior I do not care. It does not change the fact that for me you are responsible.

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jaywill, you're not even making sense. I'm specifically rejecting your juvenile little mind games.
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Hmmm. Not making sense? Juvenile mind games?

My wife and I just celebrated our 32nd Anniversary in January.

How much marriage experience do you have ?

And rather than put your words into my mouth why don't you specifiy which sentence/s did not make sense to you?

(jay, I'm not a young squirt either and I'm not talking specifically about marriage - have you lived long enough to have it done to you?)

For instance, yesterday while driving I saw someone weaving in and out of traffic going 85 mph in a large SVU - that action was far more dangerous to the general social welfare than any single incident of adultery that I have ever known about in my &*^ years of life. Time to add an 11th? (How about forget the numbers and call for responsibility in all things?)

Originally posted by TerrierJack
For instance, yesterday while driving I saw someone weaving in and out of traffic going 85 mph in a large SVU - that action was far more dangerous to the general social welfare than any single incident of adultery that I have ever known about in my &*^ years of life. Time to add an 11th? (How about forget the numbers and call for responsibility in all things?)

You appear to be arguing in this and previous posts that infidelity is not serious because it has a specific victim.
Lets take it a bit further. Would you agree that murdering ones spouse is no business of yours because it cannot affect you personally?

Murder is a different issue because it always seriously affects more than one person - however each situation is different (that is what I am really arguing.) If you shoot your neighbor is that bad? What if he was holding a knife at your son's throat? Rules are after the fact. Responsibility must come before the fact. If you allow people to NOT feel responsible for their actions then you are paving the way for things that no one would do if they themselves felt responsible (unless they were a sociopath (brain-damaged)) - like following orders to commit mass murder in the name of...

If you use "in the name of" for what you might consider "good" then will you always agree with what the other guy considers "good?"

Originally posted by TerrierJack
Murder is a different issue because it always seriously affects more than one person - however each situation is different (that is what I am really arguing.)

No that was not what you were arguing at all. You essentially claimed that adultery in which you were not one of the partners was no business of yours and also that careless driving was a worse crime than any adultery (in your experience).
So why do you believe that murder seriously affects more than one person and adultery does not?

Every situation is different. I'll make it simple for you. If 2 people commit adultery it MAY only affect 3 people (maybe not even that.) If someone disappears completely (after they are murdered) then that affects everyone they know. Reckless driving can easily affect many people. So why have an engraved set of rules that includes one but not the other?

Get this thru your skull - I am not advocating adultery - I am not saying that it is harmless (I am saying that any judgments you might have about it are fairly useless to others.) I am saying that for the most part (in my experience) it seldom is worth society as a whole worrying about - why are there no criminal penalties? On the other hand there are criminal penalties for reckless driving.

"Some" people want to proscribe behavior for others because they believe that there is a "big brother in the sky" watching and judging everyone's actions. "Some" also justify anti-social behavior on that basis. I would prefer to emphasize personal responsibility and not useless rules that deal in generalities that never happen. Judgment is necessary, comparisons are stupid - you can't "know" someone's circumstance and if you're pretending to be "big brother" I am not interested.

Originally posted by TerrierJack
(jay, I'm not a young squirt either and I'm not talking specifically about marriage - have you lived long enough to have it done to you?)

For instance, yesterday while driving I saw someone weaving in and out of traffic going 85 mph in a large SVU - that action was far more dangerous to the general social welfare than any single incident of adultery t ...[text shortened]... ime to add an 11th? (How about forget the numbers and call for responsibility in all things?)

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For instance, yesterday while driving I saw someone weaving in and out of traffic going 85 mph in a large SVU - that action was far more dangerous to the general social welfare than any single incident of adultery that I have ever known about in my &*^ years of life. Time to add an 11th? (How about forget the numbers and call for responsibility in all things?)
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That certainly was rather reckless and not a good thing to do.

The laws of traffic in most places I know would certainly condemn such an action. But you know there is the matter of what we know as limited human beings and what God knows which is without limit.

Now maybe if that person was rushing to the hospital to save a passenger from a heart attack, that may be a detail which the Judge of all mankind would know that you and I might not.

That is not to excuse it. That is to highlight that the final judging of all of us is up to God.

Does that make sense to you? Or does that make you worry about having to debate the number of angels on the head of a pin ?

This thread was contempously entitled "big brother in the sky". While I am pretty sure that the intent was to mock believers in God, basically I believe that the ultimate Governor and Judge (as well as Savior) is God.

In fact, without God, I don't think man has much solid ground or basis for ethics and morality. I did not say without God man cannot be ethical. I mean without God, his philosophical basis for morality is rather arbitrary. Without an Ultimate Law Giver the basis for ethical behavior is pretty much reduced to each one's personal taste.

That's like "I like chocolate. You like vanilla."

I think rape is a crime. Another says its Okay. Morality loses a strong foundation without final accountability to an Ultimate Morality. It just becomes of whatever is good in your eyes - whatever is good in my eyes.

We'll both simply melt peacefully into dust in the end. There is no answering to God as the Ultimate Moral Authority.

What are the side effects of riding yourself from the existence of God? You may consider what you have gained. You also need to consider what you lose, what you relinquish.



Do you understand me this far?

First off, jay, I don't buy it (and I hope you aren't selling it to others.) Are you seriously telling me that without your beliefs you would kill or rape someone? That scares me because people with similar beliefs use them to justify killings and rapes. If the "big brother" stepped onto this earth and asked me directly to kill someone I wouldn't (I might kill them if had a sufficient reason (as in the example of the knife at the throat) but I would never assign responsibility for that action to the "big brother."😉 What would you do? I do or don't based on my own reason and responsibility. I make a law for myself, not out of the fear of anything but out of a sense of responsibility for my life and the lives of those around me. And, no matter what you may <hear> "big brother" tell you, I don't <hear> it and thus I'm going to hold you responsible for what you do.

Originally posted by TerrierJack
First off, jay, I don't buy it (and I hope you aren't selling it to others.) Are you seriously telling me that without your beliefs you would kill or rape someone? That scares me because people with similar beliefs use them to justify killings and rapes. If the "big brother" stepped onto this earth and asked me directly to kill someone I wouldn't (I m l you, I don't <hear> it and thus I'm going to hold you responsible for what you do.

I don't think you are understanding me too well.
Maybe it is the conciseness of my thought which needs a little more explanation.

Never mind. Carry on.

Originally posted by TerrierJack
Get this thru your skull - I am not advocating adultery - I am not saying that it is harmless (I am saying that any judgments you might have about it are fairly useless to others.) I am saying that for the most part (in my experience) it seldom is worth society as a whole worrying about - why are there no criminal penalties? On the other hand there are criminal penalties for reckless driving.

Many countries do have criminal penalties for adultery. Did the reckless driver you saw get arrested? If you had video tape evidence of him would he be arrested? I doubt it.

"Some" people want to proscribe behavior for others because they believe that there is a "big brother in the sky" watching and judging everyone's actions.
Most people who don't like adultery do not do it based on a big brother in the sky - they do it because they don't want it to happen to them. In countries where women get stoned to death for adultery it is not because they believe God told them to do it, it is because they want to scare their own wives into not doing the same.

Originally posted by jaywill
Morality loses a strong foundation without final accountability to an Ultimate Morality.

I have never been convinced that an "Ultimate Morality" makes the foundations any stronger. If anything it makes them weaker as your morality is based on the opinion of a single entity and ignores other individuals opinions. To some extent it contradicts the meaning of the word 'morality' as your "Ultimate Morality" could be immoral.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I have never been convinced that an "Ultimate Morality" makes the foundations any stronger. If anything it makes them weaker as your morality is based on the opinion of a single entity and ignores other individuals opinions. To some extent it contradicts the meaning of the word 'morality' as your "Ultimate Morality" could be immoral.

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I have never been convinced that an "Ultimate Morality" makes the foundations any stronger. If anything it makes them weaker as your morality is based on the opinion of a single entity and ignores other individuals opinions. To some extent it contradicts the meaning of the word 'morality' as your "Ultimate Morality" could be immoral.
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Two words - Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ exemplified the highest standard of morality in human history. And He spoke a lot about doing nothing outside of the will of His Father.

All in all I'm more impressed with His life than your hypothetical charge or implication that you're in a position to judge God as immoral.

I see you as pretty much exhaustless factory of hypothetical issues. You must have thousands of them. None of them impress me more than the life of Jesus or the Bible.