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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Srexley who wrote (589564)	7/10/2004 8:00:43 PM
From: Steve Dietrich	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

<<But I do think you would be better off not personalizing what other's beleifs mean about their charactrer>> No that's what you've been doing, trying to find little angles for character attacks on me. Go ahead, have a ball. I've been talking philosophy, religion, and morality as best i can. Compare that to what Pilch has to say to a fellow Christian who doesn't share all his beliefs: Message 19592762 Well, this is clearly just more leftist dishonesty. You are not accountable to any God worth anything that he would countenance your literal support of the plain murder of an innocent human being. This religion you claim is just empty atheism– and you know it. Steve Dietrich

To: Srexley who wrote (589564)	7/12/2004 3:35:47 PM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

These are NOT comparable acts. They can be potrayed that way (which you are doing), but it is a dishonest comparison. You are comparing following orders from a human (a deranged on at that) to following a command from God. Ha! It is just wonderful to see a non-believer thinking clearly on this section of the Scripture. An isolated reading of the sacrifice of Isaac might lead one to think God is terribly unloving. You yourself may think this. But the point you have made here is quite correct nevertheless. We cannot compare Hitler’s murders to God’s command to perform a sacrifice. We can do this only if we reduce God to human status, which is what Steven here does. Essentially, Steven refuses to analyze the Scriptures on its own terms. He approaches it with the assumption that God does not exist. So then when he reads the text, he encounters a God that he thinks he can judge as immoral, rather than encountering a God that can judge him. This intentional dishonesty is what condemns humans. If one does not believe in the God of Scriptures then fine. But in analyzing the Scriptures, one ought at least approach them with enough integrity to see them as they see themselves. In that way one might speak honestly about what they claim, rather than employ so many lies about them in order to slander those who believe them. Not having confronted God directly myself can't say how I would react for sure [if He told me to sacrifice my son], but I'd need to be pretty dang sure it was God giving the orders. hehe. Absolutely. In reading the text, we assume Abraham knew with certainty that it was God giving the command. If then we know it is God Almighty telling us to sacrifice our sons to Him, it is not more moral to then rise up and tell Him He is commanding something that is wrong. It is in fact a very stupid thing to do. The most moral thing you can do at that point is sacrifice your son. This was especially true in Abraham’s case. Abraham and his wife could not have children. But when Abraham was about 99 and his wife about 90, God came to them to inform them they would have a son. Abraham’s wife laughed, because such a thing was just ridiculous. But sure enough, the son was conceived and born. So they named him “laughter” (Isaac). Abraham was promised that through this boy he would get many descendants and that even the Blessing of the World would come through him. But much later, God came to Abraham to command that he kill the boy, saying “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, and sacrifice him as a burnt offering.” God knew the pain He was causing Abraham when He gave this command. We can sense it in the command itself as God refers to the father’s love for his son. Nevertheless, it would have been just plain stupid to resist the command, especially since this son was given by God Himself in a direct miracle. So Abraham got up early and with two servants and his son began the long journey to Mount Moriah to make the sacrifice. When they arrived, Abraham told his servants to wait behind, that he and Isaac would go up to worship and then both come back down (Gen. 22:5). He didn’t know how Isaac would survive, but he knew he would. And sure enough, God then commanded Abraham not to kill the boy. The story is for us. The scriptures tell us that the story of this sacrifice is not one of evil, but of undying faith and love. It also humanizes for us what transpired when another Father sacrificed His Son for the sins of the world. Abraham knew Isaac would survive, just as God knew Jesus would survive. He knew Isaac would survive because he had received a promise from God that Isaac would produce many children and become a great nation. Jesus had the same promise, that He would be the head of a great Race, True Israel. Abraham did not know how Isaac would survive, but he had faith in the integrity of God, come what may. He had obeyed God’s ridiculous commands several times in the past and with wondrous results. As the Scriptures tell us, he assumed he would go, kill his son as commanded, and that God would raise the son from the dead just as He would later raise Jesus from the dead, and that both he and his son would come back down to join the two waiting servants (Heb. 11:17-19). In worshipping God, we are not to hold anything back from Him. It is the most moral thing any human can do and what marks us as members of True Israel. When God sent Christ to die, it would have been ridiculous for Christ to claim, “Nope. This is wrong.” Christ instead said “Not my will, but Yours.” Christ held nothing back - not even His own life. Perhaps to others this is too great a price to worship God. I say in response that we are talking God here. Either a person who rejects God simply does not believe in Him or are confirmed in rebellion against Him. Whatever the cause of their faithlessness, it marks them as people who are outside of Israel and who therefore are destined for destruction. Genocide only takes place when humans, of their own will, determine to exterminate other groups of humans. If God decides to exterminate them because of their faithlessness, no genocide takes place. It is called Divine Judgment and no one is in position to declare it wrong – unless they are greater than the God Who commands it.