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[Phys-L] Re: [SPAM-4.611] Re: THE WEDGE STRATEGY of The ID Movement



Hugh:

I don't agree that the Bible is all over the place. As I read it, it
is internally consistent. Yes, there are difficult passages. But the
things you mention, when properly understood, aren't really there.
For example, slavery was allowed (not prescribed) but it was only to
last for seven years. Unfortunately, the Jews didn't do as they were
told; when slavery was justified in our country, people forgot about
the seven years thing, too. I don't recall the beating of wives being
permitted, and the beating of children was supposed to be for their
correction. (I have spanked my own children to help them understand
the severity of their misbehavior). Peter tells us discipline is for
correction. I don't recall rape victims having to marry their
attacker - I do remember the punishment for rape being death. That's
a lot different from getting married.

Yes, many people are confused and try to twist the Bible to say what
they want it to say. That doesn't make the Scriptures any less
valuable or worth following. It simply means that it is important to
be sure your interpretation IS internally consistent - one verse
doesn't make something right. My own view is that the Bible MUST be
consistent, so if I run into something that is difficult, I let
Scripture interpret scripture. Jesus said the law could be summed up
in two rules - Love the Lord with all your might and love your
neighbor as yourself. Everything else falls into line with those
principles.

There will always be folks who don't get that point. We just pray for
them.

Steve Clark, Ph.D.

On Oct 15, 2005, at 12:33 AM, Hugh Haskell wrote:

At 00:05 -0400 10/15/05, Steve Clark wrote:


On Oct 13, 2005, at 3:50 PM, Hugh Haskell wrote:


At 09:30 -0500 10/13/05, James E Mackey wrote:



Or one might say that the decline in moral basis in our society
allows
governments to do things that would have prompted massive
opposition in
earlier generations, when the US was still a "Christian?" nation
and at
least paid official "lip-service" to christian principles.



And during earlier generations, when the US was still a "Christian
nation," blacks and women were routinely denied equal rights, were
openly discriminated against in employment and wages, blacks were
routinely "red-lined" by mortgage and loan companies, denied access
to adequate housing, Jews were openly excluded from certain
communities, contraception was illegal, gays were openly
harrassed by
police, and denied employment, even fired if their sexual
orientation
became known, women were given the right to vote only reluctantly,
and only after a prolonged struggle, blacks were routinely
denied the
right to vote, intermarriage among races was at best frowned
upon and
at worst illegal. In many parts of the country taking a stand for
equal rights for racial minorities, or even women was a
life-threatening action. Rape was considered mostly the fault of
the
woman, unless the woman was white and the rapist black, in which
case
it became a capital crime whether the accused rapist was ever tried
or not. Violence against women was widely condoned, even encouraged
in some societies.


The problem here is that you are ascribing Christian principles to
people professing to be Christian. That doesn't make their behavior
an accurate reflection of what the Bible requires. In fact, the Bible
is full of condemnation of just the kind of injustices Hugh
describes. A quick reading of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Proverbs, to name a
few, shows all the things that God hates. And the Jews were
constantly rebuked and punished for their inattention to the
injustices perpetrated on the poor.


But the Bible is all over the place on many of these things, and it
authorizes some behaviors that today we consider pretty awful, like
slavery, beating wives and children, forcing rape victims to marry
their rapists, the wholesale slaughter of the losing side following a
battle and the enslavement of their women and children, and the list
goes on. the Bible is simply not internally consistent, so it is
quite possible for someone to find justification for completely
contradictory modes of behavior.

Some modern Christians are quite humanistic in their beliefs, while
others are downright medieval in theirs, and, alas, that branch seems
to be the fastest growing a the moment. One of the finest men I know
is a retired minister of the Southern Baptist Church, but he is so
out of synch with the current leadership of that sect that he has
essentially been thrown out, and the church he formerly led has been
formally ousted from the SB convention.

Yet both sides in this battle use the same Bible as their guide to
proper behavior toward their fellow humans.

Hugh

--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

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