"Daniel Joseph Min". "Charles Hohenstein", "bam" and similar
Gunny
in the context of their role in the church. That is where your posts start.
They are legitimate issues that can and should be rationally debated. I
certainly take a different view than you do, but "I can deal with that."
But, after reading further, I am forced to conclude that you are opposed to
change in any form. You have set your heels in the rodeo ring so to speak
with a rope around the neck of humanity. At your best you have made it
explicitly clear that you cannot accept any progress from what existed as
majority view in 1950 or 1960. At your worst you all appear to want to
turn the clock back and insist that 1920 was the year when all forward
progress, all knowledge, all growth ought to have been stopped. The date
may be far earlier for all I know. But your "beef" appears to be with
history, scientific and psychological knowledge -- all those things that
have changed dramatically over time. Your dispute is NOT with church order,
women's rights per se, or gay rights per se.
You are declaring that everyone should be living in a time warp where
history, science and psychology stopped in its tracks at minimum half a
century ago, possibly far back in the time line than that. You oppose
"Change" -- whether you accept it as "progress or not" -- in any time and in
any place.
Consider what a profound absurdity that is. You purport to be Christians --
the followers of "the Christ". Your "man" "the Man" sent the folk of 30
A.D. who like you thought they knew what was right into oblivion. Although
Christ said that He came not to abbrogate the Covenant or the Law, He did
precisely that. In effect He said the old covenant was not destroyed by
supplanted by a preferable one. He said -- or a least those who followed
him believed -- and I think rightly -- that he said that "the Law" was bunch
of BS!! The Christ put His weight behind -- and ultimately bet his Life --
on a "kinder gentler" society. HE is the one who created this world you
hate where there is no distinction made between slave and master, Jew and
Gentile. HE is the one who ate with "sinners" --- ah, and there is another
problem for you folk. Among his "sinners" were the "tax collectors" whose
only moral failing was submisson to the will of Rome.
I make a simple statement. Fidelity to Christ -- and therefore to God --
not only suggests that you might accept change and progress, but that you
have an obligation to accept it, cherish it and foster it. The evolution
the Creator set in progress is far from finished; we remain primative
examples of where it is headed. To put road blocks in the way of humankinds
self-perception of the wonder of Creation, digging in your heels to haul
"us" to bay, is a patent affront to the Creator.
Christianity, Judaism, and the faith the "The Prophet" expounded IS the same
faith. It is the faith that the Creator has had our best interests at heart
from day one. What name we give him, Jahweh, "God" or "Allah" does not
effect him one way or the other. All three religions, for lack of a better
charaterization, conceive of Him as "our Father". One of Tim McGraw's
(country singer for the unitiated) more recent songs is about the fact that
a true "Father" love his child at all times and at all places. His love
doesn't waiver even if we stray from the "right path".
There is NO PLACE in that common ground for either you or the fundamentalist
so-called Moslems. Or, for the Jews who would sacrifice the possibility of
peace and a secure homeland for some bizarre concept that God granted them
control over all of what is today Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. You have
joined forces with what you characterize as your "classic enemies". All of
you are insane.
When human kind offers alternatives to discord and ultimately warfare you
appear disconcerted and unhappy. You appear to revel in Catholic-Protestant
disputes of old. You would it appears resurrect Christian vs. Jewish
hatreds. You obviously think that we should resurrect the Crusades. Even
with what is called the "Christian West/North" you would prefer that blacks
hate whites, that immigrants from the southern hemisphere be excluded, that
women and "girlie men" (your term) ought to have no voice.
I will state my position one more time. I am a full century or more ahead
of you. Maybe others are not. But time is on my side. The vast majority
of folk do not want to live in your obsessive fantasy world. If not all,
most-more will grow with me. Human beings (again I refer you to the
medicine man in "Dances with Wolves" for a definition of that term) want to
live and grow and avoid conflict. To pretend that your "religion" demands
opposition to all progress is a pretty sad state of affairs. They may not
be willing to come with me as fast as I'd think they'd want to, but I
profess without a doubt, that my view is more human than your nonsense!!
Please go away. (though I know you will not. Mental illness requires heavy
interaction with a therapist!)
C
