If you had been reading more closely, you might have noticed that I never said the OT was irrelevant; I said that the moral and ceremonial laws given to Israel were done away with. It is still the word of God and much of it concerns prophecy which confirms Jesus as the Messiah and prophecy about the last days.

What you consider to be progress is to discard Gods laws and believe that you can enlighten yourself up to His level. This is exactly what caused humanity to fall in the first place; it's the same lie that human beings have been chasing since the beginning of time. What spiritual progressives/relativists cannot understand is that you can't build a ladder up to Heaven. You can't get anywhere near a holy God on your own. That holy God, in the person of Jesus Christ, had to bring a ladder down to Earth for us. And to get on that ladder you have to pay a very heavy price; you have to die. When you get on that ladder you don't get to do whatever you want anymore. You have to be holy as He is holy, and that's exactly what all of these seekers of the esoteric and "secret knowledge" don't want to do. That's all this relativity amounts to; justifying rebellion against God so you can do whatever you want. Or as aleister crowley summed it up "do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law". That is from Satans lips to your ears.

Brutality has skyrocketed since those fucking little things were given to cops. They don't even need to hide their abuse anymore, they can just torture people in broad daylight, claim it's non-lethal, and say they're within their rights.

I know Illinois is supposed to have all sorts of racial issues, but this is fucking ridiculous. Though I fear the manhunt that will follow it, it's got to be only a matter of time before some act of rebellion against law enforcement. At some point someone has to just have enough of this shit, and defend themselves with force.

Well, you mention the unborn, yet on the main the thinking in environmental circles is that we have too many humans and that the Earth is unable to support them. Therefore, abortion (over 70 million unborn children murdered in the US since the 70s) is to be embraced, and even more extreme methods of population control are not only openly pondered, but have resulted in mass sterilization programs which have been mercilessly implemented in third world countries. Here are some of the greater atrocities committed in the name of preserving "mother earth":

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-population-control-holocaust

Among the intellectual elite, human lives are reduced to being paid the same consideration as one might the lowly cockroach. Contrary to your assertion, it is the Christian who affirms the sanctity of life and the inherent value of every person, whereas it is the opponents of Christianity that affirm infanticide:

Dawkins approves of infanticide

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFWt9cj3uj4

If you would reread my prior comment, you will see that I am in agreement with @RFlagg that we should be good stewards of the Earth. However, the mania of the environmentalists is to devalue human life and subordinate it to their misguided notions of preservation. The sickness of this world is sin, and the only one who can cure it is God. This world will continue to degenerate until the Lord returns because it is in rebellion against its Creator:

2 Chronicles 7:14

if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Thanks for you response. Maybe I should read his books. However, to reiterate, the sparse solutions he has proposed that I have seen are, as I said, not tangible. You, yourself, appear to quote an example when you say; "We should stop doing that, if we don't want that to happen." The "we" in that sentence are, according to Chomsky, in no position to change anything by peaceful means. His rhetoric appeals to the radical elements of society to "take back" control, which implies anarchy and rebellion. His corporate conspiracy theories are myriad and he strikes me as a highly intelligent, educated version of the loon David Icke.

Great, now I just need an excuse to tie it in front of somebody to impress them.

I've always kinda wanted to rock the granny knot just to give the impression of a guy that really gives zero fucks...but unfortunately I do actually give fucks about whether or not people think I can tie it properly, and I fear these doubts already betray the lack of confidence that would be required to carry it. I figure you'd have to go with the tradtional getup to begin with and then transition to the granny knot later, but yah, I think its going to remain one of those fantasies of rebellion.

Oh, and the problem with not untying it is that it sort of has an expiry date. Every cycle of loosen and tighten it gets always seems to lose some of its plump until it may as well be a granny knot. I figure you're good for 3 uses, maybe 4 if you're really careful before you're going have to cook up a new fresh one.

What your analysis is missing is any kind of cultural context. These things don't just happen in a vacuum, and nor are all ideas created equal. In many cases you are just trading one type of chain for another. Yes, mass media certainly has the ability to create and shape the prevailing social norms, and this can inspire counter cultural movements within a society. That's what happened in the 1960s with the sexual revolution, which is a root cause for the sexual immorality we see in society today. But it didn't just happen because people 'gained more knowledge', it happened because there was already a fundamental shift in the cultural ethos. An idea does not begin to grow unless its seed lands on fertile ground. The social mores of this nation were always decidedly Christian, but were steadily eroding by the beginning of the 20th century (for various reasons). The deeper truth is that people rejected traditional morality because they wanted to be free to indulge their carnal desires without restriction. Transcendent moral values were being replaced with moral relativism, fueled by the notion that man was a higher primate and had no moral responsibilities to a creator, leaving people free to invent whatever style of living pleased them. It was only the world wars that temporarily reversed this trend and brought the nation back together under the banner of an American moral imperative. But the foundation, weakened as it was by radical liberal ideology, was thoroughly rotten. America snapped back like a rubber band, bursting open the flood gates during the 60's, and changing the cultural landscape forever. Now traditional values are viewed as archaic, a throwback to a bygone era, and it is the "new" thing which is touted as "enlightenment".

Yet, this new thing is simply what is old in different packaging. The behavior of human beings today isn't noticeably different from anything that hasn't been tried in countless failed civilizations in the past. The song remains the same, despite the shiny new backdrops. Bible prophecy predicts that knowledge will increase in the last times, but it mentions nothing about wisdom. The human condition hasn't changed; men are ruled by their passions, and no matter how much knowledge they gain, the same mistakes are repeated endlessly. Look at the world today and tell me that isn't true. If humans are learning anything it is something they've always known and loved; rebellion. This is certainly the age of self-glorification, but history will tell you that is nothing new either. You're right in that "the church", ie, the catholic religion, tried to impose (a caricature of) Christian morality on the masses, with horrific results. That is a nightmare any decent person should be awoken from. However, as it pertains to describing the essential human condition, it was entirely correct. Sin is increasing in the world, not decreasing. Human nature is inherently sinful.

Everyone has a different way of describing the problem. Most look to place the blame and hand wave everything on to a particular condition. They say it's because of overpopulation. They say it's because of religion (an atheist favorite). They say it's because of ignorance. They say it's because (insert your favorite reason here). The reality is, it's because human beings are corrupt sinners, and always will be corrupt sinners until the end of time; that's why Jesus Christ came. He came to restore us to right relationship with our Creator. Don't place your faith and trust in man, because man cannot save himself, and all men are headed for a day of judgment. As scripture predicts, there will be a one world government headed by the antichrist, a seven year tribulation where all the world will become deluded and follow after the beast. Those who refuse to love the truth will believe the lie that the antichrist will be selling. At the end of the tribulation, Jesus Christ will return as the Lord and judge of all the earth. No amount of knowledge will prepare for you that day; only a saving faith in Jesus Christ.

>> ^Sagemind:

In the past era, we hit a communications Boom.

Ouch. I think my inner child was injured reading that. Non-Christians can be motivated by fear of the state. It works. They don't care if they are ultimately responsible to God. Your exegesis isn't necessary here, friend. It's pretty simple. State threatens prison, many people say, "don't want to go there." God doesn't really figure into it for lots of folks.>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^silvercord:
Dude,
Romans 13:3-4 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.
Apparently Paul thought that the fear of authority by those who would break the law should keep them from screwing up. I've met plenty of non-Christians who don't break the law precisely because the state does not bear the sword for nothing.
>> ^shinyblurry:
You're not going to stop kids from sinning by yelling at them. It's not the fear of going to prison which is going to stop them from screwing up, it's the fear of the Lord.
and Shinyblurry then wrote some other stuff . . .



Well, you have to look at the prior verses:
Romans 13:1-2
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
When you break the law, you are rebelling against the authority God has ordained. The minister of God bears the sword, but the judgment comes because of the rebellion. The non-christian wisely fears the sword, but the Christian understands that it is God bringing the judgment that is coming through it. The sword is just the device which God is using to bring that judgment. So this comes back to the fear of the Lord.
If you look at Ecclesiastes, which was a book of wisdom written by Solomon, the wisest man to ever live excepting Jesus, he summed up the entire book in two verses:
Ecc 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
Ecc 12:14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
The reason the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom is because we are ultimately responsible to Him. The non-christian may think that their transgressions are done in a corner, but God sees everything. When you realize that your sins are exposed and your very thoughts are known by God afar off, and that one day you will stand in front of Him and give account for your life, you will change your ways and you will desire to serve Him. That is the beginning of true wisdom.

>> ^silvercord:

Dude,
Romans 13:3-4 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.
Apparently Paul thought that the fear of authority by those who would break the law should keep them from screwing up. I've met plenty of non-Christians who don't break the law precisely because the state does not bear the sword for nothing.

>> ^shinyblurry:
You're not going to stop kids from sinning by yelling at them. It's not the fear of going to prison which is going to stop them from screwing up, it's the fear of the Lord.
and Shinyblurry then wrote some other stuff . . .




Well, you have to look at the prior verses:

Romans 13:1-2

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.

Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

When you break the law, you are rebelling against the authority God has ordained. The minister of God bears the sword, but the judgment comes because of the rebellion. The non-christian wisely fears the sword, but the Christian understands that it is God bringing the judgment that is coming through it. The sword is just the device which God is using to bring that judgment. So this comes back to the fear of the Lord.

If you look at Ecclesiastes, which was a book of wisdom written by Solomon, the wisest man to ever live excepting Jesus, he summed up the entire book in two verses:

Ecc 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
Ecc 12:14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

The reason the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom is because we are ultimately responsible to Him. The non-christian may think that their transgressions are done in a corner, but God sees everything. When you realize that your sins are exposed and your very thoughts are known by God afar off, and that one day you will stand in front of Him and give account for your life, you will change your ways and you will desire to serve Him. That is the beginning of true wisdom.

Fear is fear, whether it's of Hell or of prison, it's still fear. You need to teach with positive reinforcement, empathy, to instill in the kids a proper sense or right and wrong. The Bible has some good lessons, the Golden Rule is one of the best, Do unto others as you would have done unto you. I think just that act of projecting yourself unto others can give you the perspective to not be a dick all the time. At no point does God need to be involved, just an understanding and appreciation of your fellow man. Good and responsible behavior doesn't start and stop with religion, and I can't stand it when religions try and claim a monopoly on morality, because it just isn't true.

>> ^shinyblurry:

You're not going to stop kids from sinning by yelling at them. It's not the fear of going to prison which is going to stop them from screwing up, it's the fear of the Lord. If you raise your kids correctly, to honor and reverence Almighty God, using corporal punishment when appropriate, you will end up with a child of honor, who will respect other people, and want to contribute something good to society. Of course this also requires ample doses of unconditional love, and sensitivity to the needs of your child. It requires a total commitment to preparing a child for life in this world and giving him all the tools he needs to succeed. Discipline is a necessary component of this, one that is often missing in many homes. The scripture says if you don't discipline your child you hate him. Godly discipline, to note, is not to tear a child down in anger, but build a child up with love, and teach him how to take responsibility for his actions and own his mistakes instead of passing blame on to others.
If a bad product is coming out of a factory, then you need to check the assembly line. It's bad parenting which is creating these children. Parents who constantly coddle their children, try to be their friends and buy them off instead of discipline them. Parents who raise them on television and r rated movies and violent video games and all of this raw sewage of a corrupt and depraved culture being pumped into their fragile young minds. Parenting, just like everything else in life, is a garbage in garbage out principle. I just read a story about 4 eight year old kids performing sex acts on one another because they had figured out how to access internet porn on their ipads. This wouldn't happen if their parents actually knew or cared what was going on in their kids lives.
There used to be a moral standard in this country founded on the bible, but America has rebelled against God and rejected His laws, and now we are reaping the harvest of our rebellion. Our children are growing up without a moral compass or godly role models and you even cannot begin to count this cost. The only way this situation will change is if we fall on our faces and repent of our wickedness:
2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

You're not going to stop kids from sinning by yelling at them. It's not the fear of going to prison which is going to stop them from screwing up, it's the fear of the Lord. If you raise your kids correctly, to honor and reverence Almighty God, using corporal punishment when appropriate, you will end up with a child of honor, who will respect other people, and want to contribute something good to society. Of course this also requires ample doses of unconditional love, and sensitivity to the needs of your child. It requires a total commitment to preparing a child for life in this world and giving him all the tools he needs to succeed. Discipline is a necessary component of this, one that is often missing in many homes. The scripture says if you don't discipline your child you hate him. Godly discipline, to note, is not to tear a child down in anger, but build a child up with love, and teach him how to take responsibility for his actions and own his mistakes instead of passing blame on to others.

If a bad product is coming out of a factory, then you need to check the assembly line. It's bad parenting which is creating these children. Parents who constantly coddle their children, try to be their friends and buy them off instead of discipline them. Parents who raise them on television and r rated movies and violent video games and all of this raw sewage of a corrupt and depraved culture being pumped into their fragile young minds. Parenting, just like everything else in life, is a garbage in garbage out principle. I just read a story about 4 eight year old kids performing sex acts on one another because they had figured out how to access internet porn on their ipads. This wouldn't happen if their parents actually knew or cared what was going on in their kids lives.

There used to be a moral standard in this country founded on the bible, but America has rebelled against God and rejected His laws, and now we are reaping the harvest of our rebellion. Our children are growing up without a moral compass or godly role models and you even cannot begin to count this cost. The only way this situation will change is if we fall on our faces and repent of our wickedness:

2 Chronicles 7:14

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

By your rhetorical suggestion: God created us with free will, then he created laws for us because following them is good for us and he loves us, then he said there would be consequences for not following those laws to encourage us to follow them because he loves us, then he determined that the consequences would be the worst possible thing that could happen, far worse than the real-life consequences for breaking the rules… because he loves us? It doesn’t add up. Don't give me some reductionist "let all rapists go free" argument. There's no way to explain the extreme severity of the consequences for breaking the law if the law itself was created so we would be better off. See?

In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve to be completely dependent on Him for everything. They relied upon God to make their decisions for them, and tell them what good and evil was. However, because He wanted His creatures to be free to love Him, ie just not just forced to obey Him, He gave them one command. That command was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He told them that in the day they ate of it they would surely die.

What lay in the fruit of that tree for Adam and Eve was their own autonomy. The fruit represented an independence from God to decide on their own what is good and evil. Rather than sitting at Gods feet and learning from Him, they would become a law onto themselves through their own judgment. What eating this fruit did was destroy their innocence forever. It ruined the perfect relationship and fellowship they had with God by turning them into rebels who would make choices apart from God.

So, rather than the law being given for the reasons you are saying, it was given to offer them a choice between obedience to God and personal autonomy. The consequences of breaking that law not only changed their nature but brought sin and death into the world. God draws the line at His standard for goodness, which is perfection. It is a zero tolerance policy for rebellion, not only for moral guidance, but to maintain order in His kingdom.

What’s wrong with robots? You said elsewhere it’s because god wouldn’t want robots. How can he want anything? He’s perfect. Does his own existence not satisfy him? Is he lacking something? Was he bored and lonely? Are we his pets?

God created not out of need, but out of the abundance of His love. He regards us as His offspring, not His pets.

Act 17:22-31

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.

For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;

And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;

That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

But he forgave us all our sins through the sacrifice of his son. Was that a compromise of his integrity? It seems he does choose to forgive us, at least once every 4000 years or so.

No, because He laid all of our sin on His Son, who bore the punishment we deserve. It is not a compromise of His integrity so long as the sin has been paid for.

Romans 4:25

He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification

You didn’t answer my questions. I know the stated purpose of sending Jesus. My question is why the situation required exactly that. Surely God, at some point, decided, "Well, they’re bad, and I want to get closer, and the exact thing required is for me to have a son, for that son to be a perfect human, for him to preach for three years and then get executed by the other humans, and then we can be closer." God decided something like that. It’s a direct implication of saying that God created everything and that this was necessary.

Jesus was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

Rev 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Before the world began, God knew that He would need to send His Son.

If you want to know more about what it means in the image of God, read this:

http://www.gotquestions.org/image-of-God.html

It told me almost nothing. It says that the definition of "the image of God" is everything that makes us different from other animals, and everything intangible about us, as if that’s what God looks like. It compared naming pets and enjoying music to being God. Weird.

Because being in the image of God isn't about what God looks like, it is about being imbued with His personal attributes. We resemble Him in our better nature, not our appearance.

What I’m getting at is the arbitrariness of the consequences and why God would have created such random consequences. Look at them with a critical eye, if you can: Adam and Eve committed one sin, and for that their nature was changed forever, and that of their descendents forever, and they lost paradise. For one sin? You believe that God created such a heavy consequence for the first offence ever committed by innocent people – and people without "knowledge" mind you, because they hadn’t eaten the fruit yet. I cannot.

I understand what you're saying. You're not going to see the picture before you connect all of the dots. I'll keep supplying you the dots as I am able. I think I explained this particular question to you in more specific detail this time around, as to why the separation occurred.

God got to enjoy his creation for about 45 minutes before it screwed itself up, and from then on we’ve been a disappointment to him. Yet, as you’ve stated elsewhere, God created us for his pleasure. He knew what would happen, so he screwed up. He couldn’t even create himself a pleasing race of pets. Dogs have free will, understand good and bad, and are extremely pleasing as companions. Why couldn’t God create as good for himself as he did for humans? The whole story doesn’t hold water.

He knew before He created that His creation would rebel at some point, and He took the necessary steps to reconcile it back to Himself at the end of time. He didn't screw up, but He did create beings capable of screwing up. To allow for the real possibility of good, He also had to allow for the real possibility of evil.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

That's a defence mechanism against whatever the opposite of apologia is. Reason, maybe.

Or it's absolutely true.

The only consistent model is that God himself created sin and evil by creating the laws, because if he hadn't created the laws, there would be no sin or evil in the world. This understanding is consistent with your statement A and in spirit with C, if you understand C to mean, "We created evil by breaking his law".

Sorry, I should have clarified this a lot more. When scripture says "the law" what it is reffering to is the Mosaic law that was given at Mt Sinai. This law was given because of sin, and sin was already in the world at that time. This really goes back to the beginning with what I described earlier. What we had in the beginning was not a law, but simply a choice. It was given not to keep us from evil but to give us freedom to choose to obey Gods will. You can't freely obey someone if you don't have a choice not to do it. You can't love someone without the choice not to love. The law came into play after all of this, and that is a whole other discussion.

>> ^messenger:

stuff

>> ^JiggaJonson:

The bottom line here is that you lack the courage for your convictions. Take the license plate off of your car, cut up your social security card, and stop paying your taxes. Otherwise, you're just contributing to a system that you believe is impinging on a majority of the populace's freedoms (a hypocrite).

Actually, the reductio ad absurdum goes a little further. If you think the government "owns" the people because it can collect taxes from them with impunity, and you claim to really believe in the idea that liberty is indistinguishable from the unfettered exercise of property rights, then really, you should be defending any government exercise of power over its property, because it owns the people, and anything it does to its subjects is a legitimate exercise of liberty.

You already see them trotting out a form of this argument anytime there's a major management/labor dispute in the press. From there, you only really need to change a few words, and you wind up with almost exactly the rationale given by royalists in favor of hereditary monarchies in middle-age Europe.

Conservatives are more or less living out the final chapters of Animal Farm now. Their supposed dedication to principles born from a rebellion against authoritarian monarchies has, over the ensuing decades, been slowly twisted until it's become a rationale for establishing a new monarchy on this side of the Atlantic.

I keep waiting for the day I see a clip of some wingnut on Fox News declaring four legs good, two legs better that monarchy is a superior form of government to democracy because then those undesirable people we're always bitching about would truly know their place...

I will be buying the special edition. I hated 2000 and 3000. But the first sim city on SNES and sim city 4 were badass. I'm pretty sure my social life died from these games... and Civiliazation... and counter strike... and Battlefield... and Ceaser III... and GTA... and Roller Coaster Tycoon... and Railroad Tycoon... Can't forget SW X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Rebellion, Jedi outcast, Jedi Academy, Battlefront...

>> ^DuoJet:

These people aren't "participating in the system" because said participation requires great wealth. Those with great wealth have no interest in such an agenda.

Exactly why the current system needs to be burned down. I don't think it's even possible to do that peacefully any more, as all peaceful methods of protest have been hamstrung by the very system being protested.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-John F. Kennedy

"Methods of thought which claim to give the lead to our world in the name of revolution have become, in reality, ideologies of consent and not of rebellion."
-Albert Camus