The death penalty should stay. I think it should definitely apply to murder. I'm on the fence about rape. In Genesis, the death penalty was prescribed by God to all mankind for murder. Murder of any kind should automatically carry the death penalty.
The reason nobody answers your question is because you make demands of others that you don't demand of yourself. You have to connect some tenuous dots to try and argue that abortion is wrong. You, however, aren't willing to connect less tenuous dots to accept that Jesus's teachings back a society that supports those in need. You twist the scripture to justify your politics. By the way, abortion and homosexual relationships both happened in Ancient Rome. Why didn't Jesus issue any commands to Caesar regarding those two topics? What did Jesus explicitly say about abortion and homosexual relationships?
I completely disagree that Luke 1 makes a "tenuous case" on the status of a fetus being an image bearer of God. That is wishful thinking. It doesn't even use the word "fetus" where you would use that word. There was no distinction between fetus and baby in the biblical languages. That is a modern invention to create a pretext for discrimination just like negro or other similar words that start with the same letter. The word for baby was used to describe persons in the womb and persons out of the womb. They were one and the same. And FWIW, my demand has always been this: my standard for morality is found in God's revelation to mankind. That can be summed up in the library of books we have come to know as the Bible. I am willing to weigh the evidence found there. As I said earlier, my standard of morality is God's revelation as found in the library of books we have come to know as the Bible. Jesus, often times when asked questions about morality would point to the Old Testament. Since Jesus had such a consistent habit of pointing back to the Old Testament when asked moral questions about things like divorce, the greatest commandment, etc, we can apply the same philosophy to moral questions that Jesus was never directly asked by his Jewish audiences in the gospels. You see the Jews were not pagans, so they didn't ask the kind of questions that someone from a pagan nation would ask. My guess is Jesus would have gone straight to Leviticus 18 if he had been asked your question about homosexuality and abortion. I think if you look at Leviticus 18 the point is the Jews were to live differently than the pagan nations around them, and then we see descriptions of the types of behaviors those pagan nations participated in. And there is a progression to Leviticus 18. It starts with looking at naked people who are not your wife (the modernized version of this is porn). It then progresses to adultery. It then progresses to child sacrifice (the modern version of this is abortion). It then progresses to homosexuality. It finally progresses to bestiality after homosexuality. If you think about it you can walk through Leviticus 18 and sketch the cultural history of the United States in the past 100 years. And the order that progression happened in Leviticus 18 is the order it has happened in the United States. I'd use Leviticus 18 to argue that the US has gradually paganized over the past 100 years. Not pagan necessarily in theology, but in practice. The United States is doing the deeds of Egypt, Sodom, and Canaan. And it was the deeds of those nations that brought about their judgment. What is playing out in the culture wars is a revival of the old paganism of Egypt, Sodom, and Canaan that rejects and wars against with the vestiges of Christianity that can be found in our culture. The moral law of paganism is at war with the moral law of Christianity. One is light. One is darkness. And the two are definitely at war with one another. There can be no fellowship between the two because light does not have fellowship with darkness. And people have so little discernment that they do not know the thing they call Christianity is really paganism with a Christian veneer.
The fact that you have to guess says it all, man. You say that people are wrong to extrapolate Jesus's teachings to the government because Jesus himself didn't explicitly apply them to a government. But you have zero issue guessing on these points. It's clear as day why. When it suits your politics, you extrapolate and connect the dots. When it doesn't, you don't. Frankly, that's your business. You have the right to your beliefs. But when you want to impose your beliefs on the rest of us, that lack of consistency becomes quite significant to me. You want a government that punishes like you believe your religion requires. But you don't want a government that provides for its people and shows mercy in the sort of ways that your religion requires. In other words, you want the retribution without the grace and generosity. That inconsistency is impossible for me to ignore.
You are being unreasonable here. Jesus was never directly asked about homosexuality. I acknowledged that, and I explained why he wasn't asked about it. His audience was Jewish, and they did not do the evil deeds of the pagan nations that surrounded them because they had the Torah which clearly explained these things. It is an argument from silence to say ipso facto he would approve it because he was never asked it by a Jewish audience. The answer if Jesus was never asked about it is to defer to the same authority that Jesus always deferred to. Jesus considered all of the Old Testament to be authoritative. So, the Old Testament is fair game when considering what Jesus would say on a topic. Jesus believed every bit of it. We don't have a written record of an exact answer, but we know Jesus said, "The scripture cannot be broken." And He also frequently cited the authority of Moses. So, Jesus deferred to Moses, and said Moses can't be wrong. So, whatever Moses wrote Jesus considered it to be absolute gospel. I think you understand this point, but your pride and lawyer tactics prevent you from acknowledging it. I said I'm willing to weigh the Biblical evidence. Not all Biblical evidence is something Jesus directly said. Jesus even appealed to things that Jesus himself did not say, and this proves the stupidity of your objection. Would you scold Jesus for quoting Moses? It is a standard Jesus himself did not even agree with. You have yet to even put forward any Biblical evidence for the welfare state. Show me the Biblical evidence for the welfare state. Where is it? Where does Jesus scold people as hypocrites because they did not vote for the welfare state? Where does Moses or David prescribe a welfare state in the scriptures? You haven't presented a shred of evidence for any of this. I have presented Biblical evidence for the life in the womb being celebrated by someone Jesus called a prophet. I have presented evidence that Moses condemned homosexuality, and Jesus considered Moses' writings to be unbreakable truth. I am willing to weigh the evidence of scripture if you present it. Until you come forward with the Biblical evidence that says God commands a welfare state we are done with this conversation. There is nothing else to talk about.
The least educated, poorest, most sick and obese, and most apt to believe in the make believe, populace, feel they are entitled to run this country.
Why would anyone answer your questions.? You hijacked another thread with your religious views. If I were inclined to discuss your views from the Christian Bible with you, I would not anyway because I am Jewish. You did post an utterly offensive comment about Jews upthread which I left alone because I am not interested in getting into a disputation with you. And don’t claim that you did not. You know exactly the post I am talking about.
As a tree hugger and environmental scientist I have a question for the group. Please note it is a little sarcastic but here it goes. Why is human life more valuable than any other lifeform? Although I would qualify this to the life forms such as great apes and cetaceans which form strong family bonds and have developed the ability of vocalization. Is it all about the opposable thumb? And with respect to cetaceans and great apes both species have very strong parental ties, appear to understand the concept of death, and pass on knowledge to their offspring. If life is sacred why is some life more sacred than others. I am pretty cynical with respect to humans respecting life. History tells a different tale. We have an extremely long history of treating "other humans" as "subhuman" based on which tribe has the biggest stick. The racisms and promotion of untermenschen fostered over the past 5000 years is the result of technological weapon innovation, with the latest occurring in Europe (divine providence or just coincidence?) And Christians forget that God is a vengeful and wrathful entity (frequently requiring genocide of "others"). Christ said that the laws of Moses did not get cancelled by His coming. Some new Christian like to ignore the uncomfortable parts of the bible, the "pick & choose Christians".
My understanding is that women were not allowed to vote. Do you know what Jesus thought about that and whether he commanded that the government allow women to do so? This is not a flame but a serious question.
Christ said give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is Gods'. Jesus meant separation of Church and State. A concept that many in this Country would like to forget.
The Old Testament book(s) addressing of the formation of the "Kingdom" of Israel is actually fascinating. "God" was against it. He also did not want to be "named" because he was too awesome to be given a name.
Yep. Things I learned watching Shtisel. And even Jesus refer to the Kingdom of God as not of this world, although it's a bit mysterious too precisely describe. Either way, it's not about earthly power and dominion, far from what they describe.
Sorry to keep beating the bible discussion to death. I am not a currently a church going Christian, but I have read the bible numerous times. I try to follow His teachings, and therefore usually pray in my closet away from the sight of man. But because the anti-abortionists are using His teachings to promote their views, the hypocrisy in their views concerning the sanctity of life must be addressed.
Irony - life begins at "God's breath"....paraphrasing but thinking it's Genesis 2 where God breathed life into Adam. Just saying.
I will end it with what I have said before: I am against abortion (all life is sacred to me). However, in a free society (such as what I believe the USA to be, or would hope it to be) my beliefs shall not impinge on your rights to live your life as you desire. And of course there are laws that on the books that which disallow individuals from committing crimes to humanity which makes abortion tough to defend. I also know that with humans and other lifeforms, during periods of trial and tribulation, the body will induce an abortion to protect the mother. So there's that...
