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Post by Justin Thyme on Apr 22, 2007 14:06:45 GMT -5
I think I'll just let the questions stand by themselves.
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Post by bernardjenkins on Apr 22, 2007 18:35:08 GMT -5
Absolutes, real, actual, certain, infallible.
Death meets each of these. We all die!
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Jay
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Post by Jay on Apr 22, 2007 19:24:59 GMT -5
Death and taxes...
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Post by bernardjenkins on Apr 22, 2007 19:34:31 GMT -5
Jay, but the homeless, who will work for food, God bless, do not pay taxes.
I take that back the beer they buy is taxed so, I guess you are right.
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TNBear
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Post by TNBear on Apr 22, 2007 19:36:39 GMT -5
They do pay taxes on any "food", or anything else that they are able to purchase.
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Post by tncoaster37 on Apr 22, 2007 20:51:22 GMT -5
Actually they do pay taxes on anything they buy, bernard.
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Jay
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Post by Jay on Apr 23, 2007 0:23:52 GMT -5
and if you bring in religion, I believe in absolutes there as well..
As in....Path to salvation: Jesus Christ. <- (Period)
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Felix
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Post by Felix on Apr 23, 2007 8:33:30 GMT -5
Given the usual flow of posts and opinions on this forum, I am surprised to see that four folks as of now have posted that there are no absolutes.
Almost every post I see asserts without qualification some basic belief, whether religious, moral, ideological or other. Persons who disagree usually have equal convictions in another direction.
Overall, I think not only are positions here mostly absolute, they change not at all, however long the threads become.
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Post by gridbug on Apr 23, 2007 8:39:39 GMT -5
There is one absolute - 0 Kelvin
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Post by Gary on Apr 23, 2007 10:58:24 GMT -5
> There are no absolutes
That statement is an absolute by itself.
Just saying...
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Post by Justin Thyme on Apr 23, 2007 12:04:26 GMT -5
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Felix
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Post by Felix on Apr 23, 2007 12:12:58 GMT -5
Ah. Pardoxical statements, I can play also. The following statement is false. The preceding statement is true.
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RuneDeer
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Post by RuneDeer on Apr 23, 2007 17:22:44 GMT -5
Merely asserting an "absolute" today doesn't mean that one will hold to it forever. Some of us just think we will...for awhile...
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Post by Justin Thyme on Apr 23, 2007 17:38:21 GMT -5
Runedeer do you hold to the absolute today that human sacrifice is wrong? If so, can you think of any way it could ever be right? How about female circumcision?
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Post by bernardjenkins on Apr 23, 2007 18:40:50 GMT -5
ouch!!!
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RuneDeer
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Post by RuneDeer on Apr 23, 2007 19:38:54 GMT -5
Runedeer do you hold to the absolute today that human sacrifice is wrong? If so, can you think of any way it could ever be right? How about female circumcision? For me? They are wrong (and always will be -- for ME) because of the social system I grew up in. If your question is a way of drawing me into a debate, check your question again. Notice that innocent-looking word in the middle of it: today.Take the whole bunch of us back 1000 years or so to the Yucatan Peninsula, or plunk us down in the middle of Africa, and anyone who ventured that those two practices were wrong would do well to get out of Dodge before the sun went down. I read Alice Walker's book Possessing the Secret of Joy, and although it's clearly a polemic against the practice of FGM, even she has to at least entertain the opposing side -- women who have been through it and have hung onto their dignity and their sanity. Some will go on to endorse, allow or perpetrate the mutilation of young girls in the future, but others have moved into a different societal realm where their "absolutes" have done a 180. They wouldn't be fighting it as hard if they'd stayed put. Of course the word "judgment" has to come in at some point. Do I judge people who perpetrate FGM or human sacrifice? It depends -- yes it does! In both cases, you're talking about people who don't know any different. They are products of a belief system that for millennia has held that the entire structure of society will collapse into chaos and catastrophe if these practices are not followed. "Human sacrifice" is not the same as the type of genocide practiced in Darfur or by Saddam Hussein's sons. In those cases, the people doing it know fully well that in their society, and the victims', it's considered wrong, but it's done to horrify, terrify, intimidate, assert power, etc. Not the same thing. /r
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Post by el Gusano on Apr 23, 2007 21:21:59 GMT -5
"Human sacrifice" is not the same as the type of genocide practiced in Darfur or by Saddam Hussein's sons. In those cases, the people doing it know fully well that in their society, and the victims', it's considered wrong, but it's done to horrify, terrify, intimidate, assert power, etc. Not the same thing. /r And, is this absolutely wrong?
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RuneDeer
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Post by RuneDeer on Apr 23, 2007 22:09:07 GMT -5
I would have to say it depends on the level of the perpetrator. Someone at the head of a government, such as the Islamist regime in Sudan, is acting out of deliberate, evil intent (I'll get more specific on the definition of "evil" in a second...). The 12-year-old conscripted terrorist who has been taken from his home and marched 50 miles with little to eat is told that Allah expects him to kill and maim strangers, either because the strangers supposedly killed his family, or that his family will be killed if he does not cooperate. The people running this show may have killed a dozen people before assuming their positions of leadership, while this kid might be responsible for killing over 100 people. I would certainly wish that this young person would never have been subjected to such circumstances, and never to have such blood on his hands. But there is more evil in those who put him in a position to do it before his moral foundations are established, especially if those people (as I said in the earlier post) were at one time part of a society that rejected such actions as morally wrong. They are acting out of purely selfish intent -- not even self-defense or self-protection, but an effort to raise themselves above other people or groups. They know perfectly well that a tribe of illiterate nomads is no threat to them, so there's no good reason to kill and terrorize. Again, that's what makes them very different from individual civilizations that practiced human sacrifice ages ago. Those people actually thought they were upholding society by appeasing their gods.
A lot of people perpetrate evil and then hide behind religious doctrine. Well, you can fool some of the people some of the time, etc. etc. What it comes to (again, IMO) is that beyond a certain point, you CAN'T hide behind it. That's why Christians, Jews and the unaffiliated give no respect to Islamic terrorists. I think at a very deep level, if we have a notion of a deity, we see that deity as working for good. That includes health, safety and happiness for large numbers of people. When the means and the end begin to blot out all of the above on a regular basis, we eventually come to the conclusion that regardless of what religious sentiment is invoked, the underlying motivation is evil, and therefore, not of God. That's why very few people over the last 400 years or more have looked back with nostalgia at the Inquisition -- even the most devout Christians in the world. The people doing it claimed up and down that they were torturing Jews and "heretics" in the name of Jesus, but it made no one happy, healthy or safe except for the corrupt, power-hungry individuals who kept it going.
That's the best answer I can offer to that question.
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Post by Justin Thyme on Apr 23, 2007 22:22:01 GMT -5
Wrong only because of the social system you grew up in? What makes it wrong in that setting? Why would it not be wrong in another social system?
Of course it is a way of drawing you into a debate and the wording was intentional.
Or go back to the kingdoms of Judah and Israel where even King Solomon offered up sacrifices to Molech. Molech demanded human sacrifice, particularly the sacrifice of one's child in a fire. Regardless of the society it was wrong then and it is wrong now.
Yeah, I'll agree that some things are relative. I'll even go as far as saying I can see a situation where slavery would be compassionate and not evil but there are absolutes.
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Post by el Gusano on Apr 23, 2007 22:33:41 GMT -5
How about a section from a recent sermon that I gave. It explains a little more about the worship of Moloch. The question I want to ask, is this action absolutely evil, or is it A-OK, depending upon the circumstances?
In Matthew 5:29, in the Sermon on the Mount, which was given to saved people, Jesus tells us, “And if thy right eye offend [snaring; skandalizO; causes you to stumble] thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” I think that Jesus wants us to take it very seriously how we look at other people. [How are you going to look at people this week?]
In this verse, “hell” is not “hades”, but “Gehenna”. Up in Matthew 5:22, it’s “hell fire”. The original of this is “the gehennah of fire.” The word “gehennah”, commonly translated “hell”, is made up of two Hebrew words, and signifies the valley of Hinnom. This was at one point in the past a pleasant valley near Jerusalem, on the south side. A small brook ran through it and partly encompassed the city. The idolatrous Israelites, before their captivity, devoted this valley to the horrid worship of Moloch. [2 Kings 16:3: “But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel. 2 Chronicles 28:3: “Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel.]
In that worship, the ancient Jewish writers inform us, the idol of Moloch was of brass, and was adorned with a royal crown; it had the head of a calf, and his arms extended as if to embrace anyone. When they offered children to him they heated the statue from within by a huge fire, and when it was burning hot they put the child into his arms, where it was soon consumed by the heat. In order that the cries of the child might not be heard, they made a lot of noise with drums and other instruments about the idol. These drums were called “toph”, and therefore a common name of the place was Tophet. [Jeremiah 7:31-32: And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.]
After the return of the Jews from captivity, this place was held in such abhorrence that, by the example of Josiah in 2 Kings 23:10, it was made the place where to throw all the dead carcasses and filth of the city, and was quite often the place of public executions. It became extremely offensive; the sight was terrific [expound upon the meaning of “terrific”]; the air was polluted and full of pestilence; and to preserve it in any manner pure, it was necessary to keep fires continually burning there. The extreme loathsomeness of the place; the filth and putrefaction; the corruption of the atmosphere, and the fires blazing by day and night, made it one of the most appalling things with which a Jew was acquainted. It was called the “gehenna of fire”, and was the image that our Savior often employed to denote the future punishment of the wicked.
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RuneDeer
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Post by RuneDeer on Apr 24, 2007 4:34:14 GMT -5
A little more steam left...just a little and then I'm done. First, note Luke 23:34 "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." Like Darfur -- you had young conscripts who were raised in this lifestyle where your life was worth less than the clothes they took off your body. Jesus knew that. He wasn't saying it about Judas. Second, yes, the Old Testament is loaded with examples of where God instructed the Hebrews to wipe out people who practiced human sacrifice and the places where it was done in the area we know as Israel/Lebanon/Syria/Jordan/Egypt. He wanted them to establish a society there and knew that the people they were displacing stood a good chance of rising up and slaughtering the Hebrews unless drastic action were taken. The Hebrews were not sent to Africa, South America, the Far East or the land of the Vikings to wipe out the practice. Later, when the Israelites themselves did it, it shows again that they knew better, and because they knew better, the penalty was banishment and a long time suffering in exile. They returned to the Valley of Hinnom, took a look and said "Boy did we ever mess up, and we knew better! What were we thinking?" and proceeded to fix it so that no one ever forgot. Justin & Gus...I know this is your thing but it really isn't mine. If I ever run for President I'll call on your help to sharpen up for the debate. Absolutely /r (now following this from the sidelines)
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Post by Justin Thyme on Apr 24, 2007 4:59:30 GMT -5
Actually, Runedeer, you seemed to be doing quite well. I disagree with your argument but you lay your thoughts out well.
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RuneDeer
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Post by RuneDeer on Apr 24, 2007 5:14:45 GMT -5
Thanks, J...but piano-playing cats are much more my speed!
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Post by el Gusano on Apr 24, 2007 12:45:47 GMT -5
The issue isn't about forgiveness. It's about absolutes.
Is that (the Moloch worship) an absolutely evil act in your opinion?
Piano playing cats are just wrong. Absolutely wrong.
They should play bagpipes.
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