It amazes me that people can argue about something like this [the pope's remarkably stupid remarks on Islam] while there are still homosexuals.

Strange that we can't legislate morality yet we have millions in prisons at the ccost of billions for breaking the legislated laws. -Largely because they were never taught the laws made by the legislators who say we can't legislate moral laws. All moral laws except for private morality are legislated anyway because they have to do with harm to others and or their property.
"Bind love and mercy around your neck and write them on the tablets of your heart." -Solomin
"Don't do unto others that which you would not have done unto you." -Moses
Jeez! We wouldn't want to teach that awfull stuff. If this is not an example of throwing the baby out with the bath water then I don't know what is.

Frankly, there is not one great passage of "scripture" that is not illustrative of practical living.

[Really, AL? What about those passages forbidding people to wear mixed fabrics? Or telling you to stone your son to death if he disrespects you? Or forcing a rapist to marry his victim?!? Not exactly what I'd call "practical"!]

Far more dangerous, and damning are the teachings -allowed in school- (legislated by social geniuses like you) that suggest that human life has no value or intrinsic meaning, and that moral absolutes like "thou shall not kill" are just silly stories made up by dogmatic fools who really don't understand the new and improved God of cold reason.

Paul, Thank goodness for your mother and dad.....Their absolute foundations apparently rubbed off on you.
We will see if the idea of empathy alone will bring into harmony over the genreations the violent classrooms and murderous gangs roaming the streets of LA and a thousand other citiies as kids less fortunate than -you- flock to anything because they have nothing solid to stand on, other than a bushel of nebulous conflicting ethical blab, 5% of which is retained.
Less moral absolutes!! Wheeee! + situational ethics! -for countless arbitrary decisions among confused feel good kids that have no substancial base of discipline and no place to go equals a much larger park full of heroin and meth addicts discussing the possibilities of beasteality....... and a machiavellian President with an intern under his desk while talking long distance to terrorist leader Arafat.

When society has no absolutes by which to make daily arbitrary decisions, a most dangerous thing happens....society itself becomes-- absolute.....

Posted by: AL | September 12, 2006 05:21 PM

I did not write, anywhere, that you cannot make a rational case for Christianity--of course you can. Many have done so with great skill. So I do not think people like Strobel or McDowell are foolish--not in the least. What I actually wrote, to paraphrase, is that no atheist will be persuaded by their rational arguments. Apart from being reborn, he will reject any such argument, and attribute that rejection, incorrectly, to his own intellect.

If, say you, are reborn, then you will begin to see the rationality of Christianity. Perhaps a book such as Stobel's will be the means by which the gospel taks hold of you--but without being reborn, you'll always consider it foolishness.

And there is no contradiction--moral inability to choose God in our natural, fallen state is not an excuse--we are commanded to choose God The unhappy fact that, apart from God's first choosing us, we cannot is our dilemma, not our excuse.

I was taking calculus. I was a mathematics major and I was at a Christian college that was called Christian, but was not Christian....

I asked a question to my calculus professor: "What makes this course distinctly Christian?" He stopped. He said no one has ever asked that question before...

He said, "Okay, I'm a Christian; you're a Christian."

I said, "That's not what I asked! What makes this calculus course distinctly Christian? What makes this different from the local secular university? Are we using the same text? Yes. Are you teaching it the same way? Yes. Then why is this called a Christian college and that one a non-Christian college?"

[Referring to the prevalence of autism]

The prevalence in NH and a couple of other places is infinity. We had no autism in 1993. They must not have counted those oddball adults who diagnosed themselves when it became in vogue as an excuse for their eccentricities.

I am saying that ethics is a subset of theology. Politics also is a subset of theology. All truth is God's truth. We have been created in the image of God. That is why murder is wrong. You might know "instinctively" that murder is wrong without thinking about the fact that you have been created in God's image, but the reason you think so still comes down to the fact that you have been created in God's image - whether you think about that or not.

What if God (truly) commanded American Forces to annihilate Canada, and to kill every man, woman, and child, would it then be moral for us to obey that command? Yes, in fact it would be immoral not to.