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Oh well, that settles THAT!
YOU have been in EVERY church EVERY Sunday for the last 100 years! I didn't know that!
My mother was handed a leaflet by her priest as she was leaving her Catholic church during a campaign season telling her to vote Republican.
Now, my mother, unlike you , hasn't been in EVERY church EVERY Sunday for the last 100 years but it did happen to her. THAT does NOT prove it happens in all churches all the time.....likewise YOUR story doesn't prove it doesn't happen.
That is true. Churches need to get out of politics. If they want to promote a certain agenda for profit, then they should be taxed as a business, and be denied non-profit tax status.
Yes, but God never says that the slavery itself is wrong, only breaking the regulations that govern the terms of it. Also, remember that not all slaves were debt slaves. God made no regulations insisting that people born into slavery or taken as prisoners of war must be freed after seven years. They were slaves for their entire lives.
It's like how drinking alcohol is legal, but drinking and driving is not. You can't use laws against drinking and driving to say the government thinks drinking alcohol at all is bad or is condemning it. You'll get in trouble if you break the laws, but you can still drink as long as you abide by then. God doesn't have an issue with slavery...provided it's done God's way.
And btw...God's response to the breaking of the 7 year law was to raze the city to the ground and hand over the people to their enemies...thus punishing innocent children as well.
This is why you can't cherry pick single passages from the Bible. It's a story and context is important
That in bold you keep saying that and I'm not so convinced that it is true. However, say that it is right.
(I don't think you have read this The Bible and Slavery yet so I am posting it once again.
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we often now tend to confuse morality with political values.
I quoted a passage out of the book of Jeremiah and the same passage is also mention in the book of Exodus, before the prophet Jemimah wrote anything. The Bible is repetitive with subtle changes from one book to the next. A person won't get to the whole story until they have read every entry on the topic mentioned in the Bible.)
If the U.S. was founded on Christian principles and one of those principles is God condones slavery---then that could explain why we work and a % of our earnings still goes to the government in essence still a slave, not so much free as we'd like to think we are. It is God's will, that we are not to ever be freemen on this earth. We work so that the government can have money. We are owned by the government in more ways than one, but that is one example of how they have us still under their thumb. (actually I think China now owns the U.S. citizens, but that is a topic for another discussion)
My original intent on this was to show how Christians abide by man's law, but still in keeping with that which God would have them to as well.
In the voting booth a person would have to turn off their conscience, before placing their vote whether that votes sides with the principles of man or God. Our conscience is our guiding force and without that we are nothing. Well there is a label, for such a person.
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And btw...God's response to the breaking of the 7 year law was to raze the city to the ground and hand over the people to their enemies...thus punishing innocent children as well.
"If you believe the biblical chronology, this is roughly [the time of] Sodom and Gomorrah," he said. During this period, according to the Book of Genesis, God "rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed all."
You definitely do not want to be alive when all the good is gone from this earth.
You would think something like that would prompt a person to live a more humanitarian life, but it doesn't.
Last edited by Ellis Bell; 06-01-2012 at 01:00 AM..
Reason: added a quoted passage
That in bold you keep saying that and I'm not so convinced that it is true. However, say that it is right.
You have yet to offer any proof that it isn't true. Your own link agrees that no where in the Bible does God state that slavery is wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by actonbell
If the U.S. was founded on Christian principles and one of those principles is God condones slavery---then that could explain why we work and a % of our earnings still goes to the government in essence still a slave, not so much free as we'd like to think we are.
That's called being a citizen, not a slave. We have the freedom, for example, to vote and overturn our government. A slave cannot overturn his master. While we must give a portion of our wages in the form of taxes, the rest are our own. We are free to breed with whom we wish, marry whom we wish, our children are not sold.... We have the freedom to leave this country if we wished.
Being a citizen comes with duties and protections. All cities and empires have always taken taxes...again, this is the duty of a citizen. But there's a reason why slave and citizen are different words.
Quote:
Originally Posted by actonbell
My original intent on this was to show how Christians abide by man's law, but still in keeping with that which God would have them to as well.
Except you got your God's words wrong and misinterpreted them. How do you know you're not misinterpreting other things?
Quote:
Originally Posted by actonbell
In the voting booth a person would have to turn off their conscience, before placing their vote whether that votes sides with the principles of man or God. Our conscience is our guiding force and without that we are nothing. Well there is a label, for such a person.
My conscience tells me that I should not force others to follow my spiritual beliefs.
You have yet to offer any proof that it isn't true. Your own link agrees that no where in the Bible does God state that slavery is wrong.
That's called being a citizen, not a slave. We have the freedom, for example, to vote and overturn our government. A slave cannot overturn his master. While we must give a portion of our wages in the form of taxes, the rest are our own. We are free to breed with whom we wish, marry whom we wish, our children are not sold.... We have the freedom to leave this country if we wished.
Being a citizen comes with duties and protections. All cities and empires have always taken taxes...again, this is the duty of a citizen. But there's a reason why slave and citizen are different words.
Except you got your God's words wrong and misinterpreted them. How do you know you're not misinterpreting other things?
My conscience tells me that I should not force others to follow my spiritual beliefs.
Something like that sure doesn't make me have any respect or love for the Christian God. I don't worship bullies or murderers.
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That's called being a citizen, not a slave.
And that's what you tell yourself.
You and I have a different take on the definition of freedom. Also, if all your read from the link is 'no where in the Bible', and that is what you take away from that, we also have a different take on God's word. Man is flawed; he makes mistakes and that is all I have to say about that.
So many different translations (the author of the page reference mentions several) of a Book handed down over 3000 years worth of, this word means that and that word means this, ya da ya da...the only way to know God, is to have a personal relationship with Him. I didn't come to know God and to learn of Him, through reading about Him in a book or from sitting inside a church building.
As far as voting, someone is always going to be forcing some one to do something, they do not feel is right to do, always. There is no freedom on this earth for man; that is what I took away from the author, something I already knew.
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