Political interpretation of the Bible, greatest threat to Christianity

[Leonard Abbott]

Political interpretation of the Bible, greatest threat to Christianity.

World wide there are different factions on the political left,
struggling for world domination.

New Political interpretation of the Bible, has become one of their main
tools for propaganda and indoctrination.


Because the ''world's poor'' are powerless and the least threatening,
all leftest factions make the ''helping the poor'' their main propaganda
message.

Open immigration, Hate crime legislation, affirmative action, empowering
homosexuals, diversity and empowering minorities are just some of the
ways the left is silencing the voice of true Christians.

The filth rich are not threatened by the poor of this world, America is
a violent ''melting pot'' because the world's filthy rich want to keep
it that way..and there will be no change until Christians recognize just
who is behind the ''melting pot'' doctrine..

LENNY

[Steve Hayes]

Post by Leonard Abbott
Political interpretation of the Bible, greatest threat to Christianity.
World wide there are different factions on the political left,
struggling for world domination.
New Political interpretation of the Bible, has become one of their main
tools for propaganda and indoctrination.
Because the ''world's poor'' are powerless and the least threatening,
all leftest factions make the ''helping the poor'' their main propaganda
message.
Open immigration, Hate crime legislation, affirmative action, empowering
homosexuals, diversity and empowering minorities are just some of the
ways the left is silencing the voice of true Christians.

Perhaps they are just trying to correct the evil, perverted and heretical
misinterpretation of the Bible by the false Christians of the right, seeking
world domination.

I was born pitch black
in a Sharpeville shack
of an urbanised African mother
and they say the sin
of my pitch-black skin
has made me a slave to my purer white brother

When I'm walking down the street
I must be careful not to greet
people of a different pigmentation
lest the government suspect
or the Special Branch detect
a dark affiliation to a communist organisation.

Then came the news
We'd be able to by booze
Brandy, whisky, beer and gin
Instead of skokiaan and Barberton
Oh me! O my!
to think that I
just like you
can be an alcoholic too.

(To be sung to the tune of "The wayward wind" -- if anyone remembers it.)

[G***@aol.com]

Post by Leonard Abbott
Political interpretation of the Bible, greatest threat to Christianity.
World wide there are different factions on the political left,
struggling for world domination.
New Political interpretation of the Bible, has become one of their main
tools for propaganda and indoctrination.
Because the ''world's poor'' are powerless and the =A0least threatening,
all leftest factions make the ''helping the poor'' their main propaganda
message.
Open immigration, Hate crime legislation, affirmative action, empowering
homosexuals, diversity and empowering minorities are just some of the
ways the left is silencing the voice of true Christians.
The filth rich are not threatened by the poor of this world, America is
a violent ''melting pot'' because the world's filthy rich want to keep
it that way..and there will be no change until Christians recognize just
who is behind the ''melting pot'' doctrine..
LENNY

Maybe the true Christians are on the left and those who approve of
hate crimes are confused.

[d***@aol.com]

Post by G***@aol.com
Maybe the true Christians are on the left and those who approve of
hate crimes are confused.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -

Is it not possible to abhor all crimes, and yet oppose "hate crime
legislation?" Unlike the refrain from "Standing on the Corner"
evidently these days you CAN go to jail for what you're thinking. What
is the next thought crime you would like to prosecute? I guess you
would like to put people in jail for thinking that traditional
marriage ought to be preserved, or that there is some rationale for
having national borders. I think the left is far more intolerant and
bigoted than they would have people believe.

Daryl

---

[In the US, at least in principle, an act must be a crime to be a hate
crime. The Supreme Court has rejected laws that criminalize speech.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._A._V._v._City_of_St._Paul
These statements are not, of course, necessarily true of other
countries. --clh]

[DKleinecke]

Post by d***@aol.com

Post by G***@aol.com
Maybe the true Christians are on the left and those who approve of
hate crimes are confused.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -

Is it not possible to abhor all crimes, and yet oppose "hate crime
legislation?" =A0

The remainder has been adequately replied to by the moderator.

In my opinion all of this has drifted far far away from Christianity.
It seems to me that a confusion has arisen between "crime" and "sin".
A proper Christian should abhor all sin - but not all sins are crimes
and not all crimes are sins.

If I understand correctly Thomas of Aquino argued that in a true
Christian state a true Christian must obey all orders because a true
Christian ruler will never give an order that goes against God. Thomas
was lucky not to have to discuss the morality of a democracy (however
limited the franchise).

Not only is the United States not a Christian state by its own
Constitutional declaration, but there is no agreement upon what a
Christian state would do, were one to exist. On the whole most of the
laws here seem to be approximately what a Christian might wish for.
But there have been and still are exceptions.

The biggest example was slavery. If one abhorred all crime one would,
for nearly a century, abhorred helping escaped slaves get away or
agitating against slavery as an institution. An honourable minority of
the Christians understood this and willingly broke the laws.

Keep this in mind - illegal is not a synonym for sinful and legal is
not a synonym for blessed. God's morality, in so far as it can be
determined, trumps the law of mankind in the big picture, but we live
under the laws of mankind. There is almost a complete lack of
correlation. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God
that which is God's.

[d***@aol.com]

Post by DKleinecke

Post by d***@aol.com

Post by G***@aol.com
Maybe the true Christians are on the left and those who approve of
hate crimes are confused.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -

Is it not possible to abhor all crimes, and yet oppose "hate crime
legislation?" =3DA0

The remainder has been adequately replied to by the moderator.
In my opinion all of this has drifted far far away from Christianity.
It seems to me that a confusion has arisen between "crime" and "sin".
A proper Christian should abhor all sin - but not all sins are crimes
and not all crimes are sins.
If I understand correctly Thomas of Aquino argued that in a true
Christian state a true Christian must obey all orders because a true
Christian ruler will never give an order that goes against God. Thomas
was lucky not to have to discuss the morality of a democracy (however
limited the franchise).
Not only is the United States not a Christian state by its own
Constitutional declaration, but there is no agreement upon what a
Christian state would do, were one to exist. =A0On the whole most of the
laws here seem to be approximately what a Christian might wish for.
But there have been and still are exceptions.
The biggest example was slavery. =A0If one abhorred all crime one would,
for nearly a century, abhorred helping escaped slaves get away or
agitating against slavery as an institution. An honourable minority of
the Christians understood this and willingly broke the laws.
Keep this in mind - illegal is not a synonym for sinful and legal is
not a synonym for blessed. =A0God's morality, in so far as it can be
determined, trumps the law of mankind in the big picture, but we live
under the laws of mankind. =A0There is almost a complete lack of
correlation. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God
that which is God's.

Well, OK, but I really don't see how this relates to what I said, and
I don't think it is entirely accurate. The Founding Fathers did not
want a "Christian state" but they did try to integrate what they felt
were commonly held Christian principles into the law. Even Thomas
Paine, no friend of organized religion, wrote 'Common Sense'
essentially a religious tract denying the divine right of kings. Laws
reflect the lawmakers moral principles, morality is especially
addressed and molded by religion (or whatever metaphysic one
substitutes for it.) To divorce one's religion from one's actions and
feelings regarding the political realm does not serve one's duties as
a citizen nor as a Christian. I personally feel that far too many,
taken by the anti-religious hostility of the press, will have to
explain why they attacked their brothers (with whom they may not
always agree) and neglected the harvest.

Daryl

[DKleinecke]

Post by d***@aol.com
Laws
reflect the lawmakers moral principles, morality is especially
addressed and molded by religion (or whatever metaphysic one
substitutes for it.)

A lot of this depends on the vocabulary one uses. I am moved to state
that one never substitutes a metaphysic for religion because by making
that substitution you have made the metaphysic into a religion. But
perhaps you use the word "metaphysic" differently than I do. From
where I sit, Communism functioned as a religion in Soviet Russia.

However what really concerns me is that I feel religion has very
little to do with the lawmaker's moral principals and I cannot guess
what you meant by "molded". Equally there is a difficulty with the
words "moral" and "morality".

In my thought the largest part of what makes laws and general human
behavior is what the anthropologists call "culture". The same
anthropologists will describe what you apparently mean by "religion"
as a relatively minor facet of culture. An inadequate description of
what is meant by culture is the mores and ways of doing things that
are dominant in a society. For example, our society punishes murderers
not because there is a religious imperative to do so but because that
is way we do things. If that example fails to make its point consider
eating dogs. Our society does not eat dogs because we don't eat dogs.
There is no religious prohibition and, so far as I know, no law
involved. It just isn't done.

The question serious students of religion (I call them all, regardless
of academic credentials, theologians) are concerned with is: How much
of what we want to think of as god-given guidance is really just our
culture speaking? One answer, probably not acceptable, would be that
God created our society and our society does what Gods wills it to do
and therefore it does not matter whether the guidance is direct from
God or indirect via society.

The Founding Fathers of the United States expected day-to-day law to
be the same British Common Law they were familiar with. There is, for
example, no Constitutional right not to be murdered. The only thing
they forbade was a federal established church (and they did this,
perhaps, because at that time, several states had established
churches). The legal foundation of the United States is a completely
secular matter - that is, it expresses the culture rather than any
religion.

The culture is an abstract idea, but sometimes it seems as though it
is a creative entity. For example, smoking has, within my lifetime,
soared into an almost universal habit and then, by a change in culture
(no religion involved), turned into the degenerate practice of a few
pariahs. The notion of same sex marriage has changed, very recently,
from a fantasy into a nearly done deal.

We look at the same elephant and we see different things. I see a
society dominated by culture but filled with self-proclaimed religion
leaders who, rather easily, can be shown to be creatures of the
culture rather than the church. However by our lonely selves we can
still (and we have lost nothing - we never had any thing more) reach
out to God for ourselves. Our society is no more than a remote
consequence of God's will. But it has power that must be resisted or
we will lose our connection with God.

[d***@aol.com]

Post by d***@aol.com
[In the US, at least in principle, an act must be a crime to be a hate
crime.

That is true, so far.


The Supreme Court has rejected laws that criminalize speech.http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._A._V._v._City_of_St._Paul

Post by d***@aol.com
These statements are not, of course, necessarily true of other
countries. --clh]

This is not exactly true. If I were to assault someone I would get one
sentence, yet if I were to assault them while thinking bad thoughts
about their ethnicity, and (God forbid) saying so, I could get a much
longer sentence. The difference in sentence is for what I was
thinking, so I might get five years for the thought crime.

Daryl

---

[The point I was making is that the assault has to be there. Just
thinking bad thoughts isn't (supposedly) a hate crime. The original
posting suggested that hate crimes laws criminalized thoughts alone.
That doesn't mean that hate crime laws are fair or a good idea, just
that some concerns aren't justified (at least in the US, at least in
theory). --clh]

[news]

Post by d***@aol.com

Post by d***@aol.com
[In the US, at least in principle, an act must be a crime to be a hate
crime.

That is true, so far.
The Supreme Court has rejected laws that criminalize speech.http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._A._V._v._City_of_St._Paul

Post by d***@aol.com
These statements are not, of course, necessarily true of other
countries. --clh]

This is not exactly true. If I were to assault someone I would get one
sentence, yet if I were to assault them while thinking bad thoughts
about their ethnicity, and (God forbid) saying so, I could get a much
longer sentence. The difference in sentence is for what I was
thinking, so I might get five years for the thought crime.
Daryl
---
[The point I was making is that the assault has to be there. Just
thinking bad thoughts isn't (supposedly) a hate crime. The original
posting suggested that hate crimes laws criminalized thoughts alone.
That doesn't mean that hate crime laws are fair or a good idea, just
that some concerns aren't justified (at least in the US, at least in
theory). --clh]

B - yet supposedly in the Bible it is said that looking at someone in lust
means you are doing it in reality...one is no better than the other. I
personally think that sending energy whether it be in mind or action..is
"close" to being the same.

Bren

[G***@aol.com]

Post by d***@aol.com

Post by d***@aol.com
[In the US, at least in principle, an act must be a crime to be a hate
crime.

That is true, so far.
The Supreme Court has rejected laws that criminalize speech.http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._A._V._v._City_of_St._Paul

Post by d***@aol.com
These statements are not, of course, necessarily true of other
countries. --clh]

This is not exactly true. If I were to assault someone I would get one
sentence, yet if I were to assault them while thinking bad thoughts
about their ethnicity, and (God forbid) saying so, I could get a much
longer sentence. The difference in sentence is for what I was
thinking, so I might get five years for the thought crime.
Daryl
=A0 =A0---
[The point I was making is that the assault has to be there. Just
thinking bad thoughts isn't (supposedly) a hate crime. The original
posting suggested that hate crimes laws criminalized thoughts alone.
That doesn't mean that hate crime laws are fair or a good idea, just
that some concerns aren't justified (at least in the US, at least in
theory). --clh]

Thought makes a difference between first degree murder and second
degree murder, and that has been so for a long time. If one thinks
about a murder then later does the murder he usually gets a longer
sentence than if he murders on the spur of the moment, without
thinking much about it. I would not consider first degree murder as a
thought crime.

[G***@aol.com]

Post by d***@aol.com

Post by G***@aol.com
Maybe the true Christians are on the left and those who approve of
hate crimes are confused.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -

Is it not possible to abhor all crimes, and yet oppose "hate crime
legislation?" =A0Unlike the refrain from "Standing on the Corner"
evidently these days you CAN go to jail for what you're thinking. What
is the next thought crime you would like to prosecute? I guess you
would like to put people in jail for thinking that traditional
marriage ought to be preserved, or that there is some rationale for
having national borders. I think the left is far more intolerant and
bigoted than they would have people believe.
Daryl
=A0 =A0---
[In the US, at least in principle, an act must be a crime to be a hate
crime. The Supreme Court has rejected laws that criminalize speech.http:/=

/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._A._V._v._City_of_St._Paul

Post by d***@aol.com
These statements are not, of course, necessarily true of other
countries. --clh]

No little fellow, no one has been sent to jail for what he thought,
and hate crime legislation is not going to be used in an attempt to
punish one for thinking. Only the most paranoid think that one can, in
the United States of America,
be convicted for thinking something.

Now, in my opinion: If a nut case commits a hate crime, and there is
strong evidence that someone purposely encouraged the nut case to act
in the criminal way in which he acted, I would think that the
situation should be examined to determine if the nut case had been
incited to do his criminal act. If it is determined that the nut case
had been encouraged to do his criminal act, then the one who
encouraged him should also be punished. There is no excuse for people
to manipulate nut cases and encourage them to violent acts.

[news]

So the True Christians are the ones that are against helping the poor?
against helping Homosexuals to live with dignity, against promoting
diversity? I beg to differ.

I am a Christian...maybe not in some
people's eyes but in Gods eyes I am...I believe in helping the poor,
promoting the diversity of Gods fruitfulness and mulitplying, helping
people born Gay and intersexed, etc. to live their lives with
dignity,understanding,compassion and equality.

You may wish to see God as a judgemental,harsh,intolerant,hostile father
figure but I do not. I deny that God construct...the one that Jehovah is
seemingly designed upon for the kinder and more loving and inclusive
construct of Jesus the Christ.
If you think that love is trying to dominate the world? then I welcome
that kind of blessed domination.

I embrace Christ as son and God both and in that it is love.

In my opinion of what I feel is Christ speaking to me

Bren


On Wed, 3 Jun 2009, Leonard

Post by Leonard Abbott
Political interpretation of the Bible, greatest threat to Christianity.
World wide there are different factions on the political left,
struggling for world domination.