Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 3:30 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:43 pm
The Supreme Being and Creator, you mean? Sure.
He who gave life has every right to determine when it is given and taken. That is the very difference between murder and capital punishment. The one is an action of selfish passion and malevolence, and the other is a judicial ruling fitting the crime in question.
I disagree.
How?
Life in and of itself is sacred
Not according to how you believe it came about, allegedly. It came about accidentally. The universe just exploded into existence (somehow), and there you were. No use crying "sacred" after that...you're a cosmic accident, if that's true.
and if some being brings life into the world that is capable of experiencing joy and suffering, then that being becomes responsible for the life it created and is bound by certain moral or ethical considerations.
Well, where do those "moral and ethical considerations" get their grounding? Who says the uncaring universe owes you anything?
Remember, Gary: there's no use being angry at God
if He doesn't exist. And if He does, there's no frame of reference you can use to get angry at him, and zero chance of you being vindicated, if you do.
So which way would you like to loose that argument?
...in exchange for our calling you superstitious and ignorant you call us blasphemers heathens
Point to the place.
This, you will find, I have never done. It's not my style, at all. My only interest in the definition of "blasphemy" was that AJ was defining it incorrectly. I called nobody that.
I don't regard unbelievers as either heathens nor as blasphemers. I regard them merely as conversation partners who presently hold different views. Where they will end up is yet to be decided. And
they will decide it.
You don't have to call us those things.
That's good. I didn't.
The book you devoutly believe in does.
It does not. Go and look. Sorry, Gary...you're wrong again.
The term "heathen" does not occur in Scripture at all. It's from the proto-Germanic. The Bible does speak of "nations" and of "unbelieving" and of a few other such descriptors; but "heathen" is term of too late an origin to be in any Biblical manuscript. As for "blasphemer," it is from the Greek, and from the originals, and is old enough...but it always refers to somebody who has willfully chosen to speak insultingly against God. It does not speak of the unsaved or unbelieving in general...ever.
As nice as you may be (and I agree, you are a very nice person for the most part)...
Thank you: I respect you too, Gary...as a person who's had a hard life, and as an honest speaker. I have sympathy for some of the stuff you've told us about your background. But, of course, respect entails truth telling. And I'm telling you the truth here. Neither I nor the Bible describes you as a heathen or a blasphemer, unless you perform the actions required to fulfill that definition yourself.
So it's your call...are you "heathen"? Have you "blasphemed"? If you have, you can't blame anybody for the accurate label. If you've not, then what are we talking about?
Funny. I'm the only person who consistently provides the Scriptural warrant for what he says...and still, you call these "personal prejudices"? 
