if god came to earth,

Originally posted by amannion
I've got a book I read to my kids that says Santa Claus is coming again and again.
It's in plain English too.
But only an idiot would actually believe it.
I'm not calling you an idiot, but I am saying that sometimes things we read aren't meant to be literally interpreted.

do your kids believe it?

Originally posted by kirksey957
He never insults me. Well, I'll take that back. He really humiliated me in a game.

Now that's were I get humiliated too. I really hate losing. That is, I hate it in a good way.

Originally posted by josephw
I wish some in this forum would have a better attitude, and try having some fun just bandying ideas around instead of thinking that just because someone has a faith that somehow they deserve to be considered as less than subhuman.

It's the new internet sport - baiting people in online forums.😉

I guess this is why people are always being told to never discuss politics and religion amongst polite company. There's way too much emotion that comes into things. People get their backs up as their beliefs and ideas are challenged and so on it goes ...
It's good to recognise that there are many people out there with many different views, and that in the end, even the raving Christian Fundamentalist or arch Atheist is just a person who sleeps and eats and craps and laughs and crys and plays and drives and watches movies and ....

Originally posted by EcstremeVenom
do your kids believe it?

Of course, but they're only 3 and 6 and I have yet to dispel them of the idea.

Originally posted by josephw
I wish some in this forum would have a better attitude, and try having some fun just bandying ideas around instead of thinking that just because someone has a faith that somehow they deserve to be considered as less than subhuman.

Right, now imagine how gay folk feel when you claim that their intimate expressions of love are abominable, and that they don't deserve the full rights of citizens.

Originally posted by bbarr
Autonomous doesn't mean "self-created", it means "self-governed". In other words, it is no threat to autonomy that the reasons I act on are reasons that others have acted on. What matters is that I do not take my reasons to have normative force simply because others have claimed that they do. This is why Christian ethics is childish; you determine what your ...[text shortened]... ing the very basis of Christian ethics: namely that God determines what is right and wrong.

God says it's wrong to murder. So, do I have to go out and kill someone to learn that? Or can I, by faith, trust that God knows what is best, and try to do my best walk by faith, and subsequently recieve the blessings that come with it?

Self governance is really just being a responsible, reliable, trustworthy, and dependable person.

What you really mean is that you are self-willed. And consequently, that makes think you are above others you feel are inferior because of how they think about God.

Originally posted by bbarr
Right, now imagine how gay folk feel when you claim that their intimate expressions of love are abominable, and that they don't deserve the full rights of citizens.

Interestingly enough, the term 'abominable' connotes a different meaning today than it would have
in Hebraic terminology. In terms of Levitical code, it simply meant ritually unclean, like a woman's
menstrual cycle.

So, to use the term to refer to homoeroticism is at best disingenuous.

Nemesio

Originally posted by josephw
God says it's wrong to murder. So, do I have to go out and kill someone to learn that? Or can I, by faith, trust that God knows what is best, and try to do my best walk by faith, and subsequently recieve the blessings that come with it?

Self governance is really just being a responsible, reliable, trustworthy, and dependable person.

What you really m ...[text shortened]... hat makes think you are above others you feel are inferior because of how they think about God.

Can a homo be a responsible, reliable, trustworthy and dependable person?

Originally posted by josephw
God says it's wrong to murder. So, do I have to go out and kill someone to learn that? Or can I, by faith, trust that God knows what is best, and try to do my best walk by faith, and subsequently recieve the blessings that come with it?

Self governance is really just being a responsible, reliable, trustworthy, and dependable person.

What you really m ...[text shortened]... hat makes think you are above others you feel are inferior because of how they think about God.

Did you really need God to tell you that murder was wrong?

Originally posted by josephw
God says it's wrong to murder. So, do I have to go out and kill someone to learn that? Or can I, by faith, trust that God knows what is best, and try to do my best walk by faith, and subsequently recieve the blessings that come with it?

Self governance is really just being a responsible, reliable, trustworthy, and dependable person.

What you really m ...[text shortened]... hat makes think you are above others you feel are inferior because of how they think about God.

Yikes! Let's try this again:

Your God says it is wrong to murder. Now, when I talk about coming to understand why it is wrong to murder, I mean coming to understand things like the following: When you murder, the victim is prevented from pursuing his ends and projects, that you are extinguishing a sphere of consciousness just as real as yours, that you are preventing that victim from informing his life with meaning via the pursuit of his ends, that you are failing to accord the same respect to the ends of the victim that you accord your own ends, that you are causing untold misery to those close to victim, etc., etc., etc. Considerations such as these explain why murder is wrong, but on your view the ultimate explanation for why murder is wrong is simply that God says so. This is why your view is childish. You could adopt a more mature view, according to which the explanation for why God forbids murder is that he knows that murder is wrong for the sorts of reasons presented above. But you won't do this, since this would mean that God's commands are constrained by morality, and not that God determines morality by his will. So, one tenet of your faith prevents you from being ethically mature. This is really tragic.

Originally posted by bbarr
Right, now imagine how gay folk feel when you claim that their intimate expressions of love are abominable, and that they don't deserve the full rights of citizens.

It's not intimate expressions of love I think are abominable.

I'll say it plainly so all will have no doubt as to what I mean.

Two individuals, of the same gender, engaging in sex, is abominable, disguisting, gross, vile, hideous, repulsive, detestable, offensive, and just plain unatural.

Homosexuals already have full rights as citizens. What they want is special rights to practice they're perversion in everyones faces.

And don't call me a homophobe. That's just homosexual propaganda. Besides, there's no such thing. If anything the homosexuals are heterophobes.

Originally posted by josephw
It's not intimate expressions of love I think are abominable.

I'll say it plainly so all will have no doubt as to what I mean.

Two individuals, of the same gender, engaging in sex, is abominable, disguisting, gross, vile, hideous, repulsive, detestable, offensive, and just plain unatural.

Homosexuals already have full rights as citizens. What they ...[text shortened]... propaganda. Besides, there's no such thing. If anything the homosexuals are heterophobes.

This is the part where all your talk about love falls away, and you reveal yourself for who you really are.

Originally posted by bbarr
Yikes! Let's try this again:

Your God says it is wrong to murder. Now, when I talk about coming to understand why it is wrong to murder, I mean coming to understand things like the following: When you murder, the victim is prevented from pursuing his ends and projects, that you are extinguishing a sphere of consciousness just as real as yours, that you ...[text shortened]... So, one tenet of your faith prevents you from being ethically mature. This is really tragic.

Don't assume christians don't understand why murder is wrong. That is very shallow of you.

What you don't understand is that before the law was given it wasn't a crime.

That outta throw you off balance for awhile.

Originally posted by kirksey957
Can a homo be a responsible, reliable, trustworthy and dependable person?

yep, i disagree with God on that one

Originally posted by josephw
It's not intimate expressions of love I think are abominable.

I'll say it plainly so all will have no doubt as to what I mean.

Two individuals, of the same gender, engaging in sex, is abominable, disguisting, gross, vile, hideous, repulsive, detestable, offensive, and just plain unatural.

Homosexuals already have full rights as citizens. What they ...[text shortened]... propaganda. Besides, there's no such thing. If anything the homosexuals are heterophobes.

Why do you find their behviour so disgusting?
Why does it matter to you at all?