Re: The greatest challenge facing mankind

This may be my last contribution to this exchange because (1) it's tending to get away from topics appropriate for the asa list & (2) it doesn't seem that much real communication is taking place. We'll see. Comments below in red.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: janice matchett
  To: George Murphy ; asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, October 03, 2005 2:53 PM
  Subject: Re: The greatest challenge facing mankind

  .................................................
  You gave me the impression that you have an inordinate interest in, and are highly focused on, dubious environmental concerns. I thought you were a supporter of Kyoto and other "follow-the-money" junk science. The extremist environmentalist movement is merely a front for the Marxist/Communist agenda. David Horowitz <http://www.frontpagemag.com/> was raised by Communists and used to be an activist, himself. Quite interesting - the names of other activists he knows from back in his "Black Panther" days - who are still active - some very low-key for obvious reasons: <http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=227>

  If you're not one of the above-mentioned "environmentalist whacko" types, that's good. :)

  I probably don't fit without remainder in either of your good guy/bad box boxes. Most people don't.
   
>>Do you ever pass up a chance for a political harangue?
  #3#3# If I had been espousing the politicized scientific/religious position you embrace would you view it as a "harangue"?

  If your posts were loaded with pejorative jargon only marginally germane to the subject at hand, yes.

  ...............................
  #3#3# My God is the God of providence and he says he knows the end from the beginning. Whatever happens - good or evil - is within his permissive will. His plan is in motion and in spite of what the arrogant religious left believes, he is not in the process of "learning" anything from his creation, nor does anything that man would do, "surprise" him.

  You have consistently missed the point I made: God has given us no guarantee that we will have all the resources we want or that we will be protected from the results of our irresponsible behavior. Nothing of what you say addresses that. Let me put it simply: Do you think God is obliged to give us what we want regardless of what we do?

  #3#3# So, like the Haines lady, unless you say it's conservative, it ain't conservative? - is that it? LOL
  Words have meanings, and conservatives especially should pay attention to what words have meant in the past. Just one example that sticks to our original topic: It's rasonable to expect that a conservatives would be for conservation - a point that James Buckley, US Senator from New York (on the Conservative Party ticket) & a conservationist, made in an article in National Review in the early 70s. Many people calling themselves conservatives today - including Limbaugh - aren't.

>> & you should make up your own sarcasm. Just repeating back what someone else has said isn't very witty.
  #3#3# I "should"??? And something ain't witty unless you say it's witty? LOL

  It doesn't take an expert on humor to know that someone who lards her posts with LOL could use some help in that department.
      Among other things snipped, Janice had written:
      #2#2# A socialist's idea of the meaning of the word "dominion" in Gen.1:28, etc., is different from a capitalist's point of view. Never the twain shall meet. Capitalism is the only moral form of economic activity. To wit:
      In Defense of Capitalism (Debunking The Religious Left)
      http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1352736/posts

>>Trying to read modern economic systems back into Genesis is as mistaken as trying to find general relativity there. This doesn't mean that >>scripture is of no importance for economic issues today but you can't start by reading your preconceptions back into the text - whether you're a >>capitalist or a socialist.
  #3#3# Wrong again. You couldn't have read my link above or you wouldn't have made such a boo-boo.

  The laziest form of argument is "If you'd read X you'd see that I'm right." I'm under no obligation to read your link. If you can't formulate the argument yourself then be still.

  Any economic system that advocates stealing from one in order to give it to another is morally relativistic. The religious left likes to ask meaningless questions of people such as, "Is God is a Republican or a Democrat?" Of course they know the only logical answer must be, "neither".

  You'll NEVER see the religious left asking anyone this question: "Is God a moral relativist?", for obvious reasons. Unlike them, they know that Jesus is never in favor of stealing - even if it's from "the eeeeeeevil rich". LOL

  The issue is neither moral relativism nor stealing. Neither capitalism nor socialism in anything like their modern forms had been invented 3000 years ago. That doesn't mean that the Bible says nothing about economic morality but what it says isn't put in those terms.
>> BTW, I'm curious what you think of the requirements that land lie fallow, land that's been sold be returned to its original owner, and forgiveness of debts at fixed
>> intervals. Are those good ideas or was Leviticus 25 a mistake?
      Shalom -George
  #3#3# You seem to have a thing for legalisms, ie: people "should" be "required" to conform to [fill in the blank]. Of course, America's Framers specifically set our government up in such a way so as to prevent people from obtaining enough power and control so as to be in a position to impose their own personal conscience on the rest of us.

  If I am a farmer and want to have fertile, productive land (so that I can prosper and feed myself and others), I will not be stupid enough to wear out the land by not rotating my crops or letting it rest. If I am stupid enough not to follow the "principles" that make for good land management, I will be allowed to find a few things out the hard way.

  Now if your religious conscience "requires" you to do certain things in order for you to please you to be happy, you are free to do them. If you want to forgive debts and give property you've bought back to the origional owner after a specific period of time, no one is stopping you.

  No one will care if you choose to do those things unless you try to impose your religious conscience on those whose God doesn't demand that of them. Each one of us is FREE to pursue happiness in his own way as long as he doesn't harm his neighbor - ("harm" only as defined by God under the "New Covenant").

  Again you have missed the point. Nothing I have said suggests that torah regulations must be made the law of the land. But if your earlier claims about believing in the inerrancy of scripture are correct then you believe that the laws of Leviticus 25 were required of the people of Israel. This means, among other things, that property rights were not to be considered absolute by Israel. This in itself blows up the claim that the Bible endorses any economic system that absolutizes private property.

  Another example is the requirement that part of one's harvest be left for the poor (Dt.24:19-22). This practice of allowing the poor to take the last of the wheat, olives or grapes of a well-to-do farmer sounds kind of like "stealing from one in order to give it to another." Is God therefore a moral relativist? Or is it possible that there is indeed an absolute morality and that the morality of Janice Matchett is out of synch with it?

  Again, let me emphasize that I am NOT saying that these regulations of torah must be made the law of the land: Christians are free in that regard. But if we take scripture seriously I think the principles behind those rules are clear and should (yes, should) be taken seriously - at least by Christians.

  "... Blackstone speaks on the subject of pursuing happiness.

  "For he (God) has so intimately connected, so inseparably inter-woven the laws of eternal justice with the happiness of each individual that the latter cannot be attained but by observing the former; and, if the former be punctually obeyed, it cannnot but induce the latter."

  Rights of Conscience is the foundation of American Politics. Many Christians in America were worried at the time when the U.S. Constitution was passed and feared that their right to let God govern their conscience might be replaced by the authority given to Congress as the U.S. Constitution was ratified. Thomas Jefferson was aware of their concerns and wrote the following:

  "No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the power of its public functionaries..."

  (Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Methodist Episcopal Church at New London, Connecticut, Feb. 4, 1809).

  In America, one man's liberty is not dependent upon another man's conscience!

  INTRODUCTION TO THE LIBERTY PRINCIPLES IN AMERICAN POLITICS
  by Stephen L. Corrigan - http://w3.one.net/~stephenc/fun.html

  I have a great deal of respect for the US Constitution but that's not the basis of my theology.
Received on Tue Oct 4 20:35:41 2005