Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 (Tek) 9/28/84 based on 9/17/84; site shark.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!decvax!tektronix!orca!shark!hutch From: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) Newsgroups: net.religion.christian Subject: Re: fornication and Christianity Message-ID: <1247@shark.UUCP> Date: Sun, 10-Feb-85 19:23:43 EST Article-I.D.: shark.1247 Posted: Sun Feb 10 19:23:43 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 11-Feb-85 07:55:56 EST References: <428@pyuxd.UUCP> <1777@pucc-h> <457@pyuxd.UUCP> Reply-To: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR Lines: 74 Summary: In article <457@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Fred Mertz) writes: >> From Pesmard Flurrmn (pyuxd!rlr) [what's he doing in this group, anyway? >> This is where we all went to avoid him]: [SARGENT] > >So nice of you to admit it, Jeff. (To avoid what, one might ask...) Also so >nice to bring my name up every so often (Brown, Marchionni) in my "absence". One might indeed ask. This newsgroup was created to provide a forum in which we Christians could discuss issues relevant to Christianity without the continual carping and the same old tired, boring, and half-baked presumptions about our intellect, background, and reasoning powers which YOU, RICH ROSEN, continually spew out upon us. When net.religion.jewish was created it was created to provide a similar forum for Jews to discuss their common religious and cultural heritage. Of the approximately 20 articles which you have put out to this forum, maybe three or four (generously speaking) have been polite, not presuming that we were all a bunch of loonies for the Enlightened Rosen to administer the balm of his superior wisdom upon. Well, Rich, the three or four articles were welcome. The rest of your postings have been less than worthless. >>>Why MUST everything we do be be "beneficial"? "Constructive?" Isn't life >>>full of things that are neither (though not antipodal to either)? Don't many >>>of those things heighten the overall experience of life? [ROSEN] > >> Can you name any examples of non-beneficial, non-constructive things that >> enhance life? The opposite of constructive is DESTRUCTIVE, and I am trying >> to get away from that. [SARGENT] > >Thus, all things in the universe are either one way (A) or the exact opposite >(not-A), and of course there's nothing in between and no neutral ground and >no exceptions. Examples of things that are "neither" abound (sorry, Greg >Skinner), and in fact these very things are often the basis of discussion >(i.e., often violent argument) between the religious and the non-religious. >For example, homosexuality. Is it CON-structive? Is it DE-structive? >There are numerous other examples, among them: open sexual relationships >outside of marriage, individualism in sex/family roles (actually, this is >quite constructive!), and, last but not least, NOT devoting all of one's life >to god. To provide an honest answer to the best of my beliefs, even though you haven't phrased this as a question... We can identify things which are directly and inherently constructive. These are those things which we are instructed to do (Love the Lord, love our neighbors, help the helpless, feed the hungry, etc.) We can identify as inherently DEstructive anything which works against those aims. For example, it is hard to love our neigbors when we are engaged in gossip against them. Incidentally, a lot of the Law consists in identifying these destructive things. Anything else which is neutral becomes subject to situational ethics. Yes, I advocate situational ethics, under constraint. Is it good to feed the hungry? Yes, but if I give money to a street drunk, he will most likely spend it on more booze not on food, and food is what he needs. Is it good to participate in sports? Well, yes, if the sport doesn't cause you to hate your neighbor (or incite others to hate their neighbors) and no, if you come to place that sport in control of your entire life (the Lord is supposed to be in control of that.) One is devoting ALL of one's life to the Lord when one makes certain that all one's activities are in harmony with His intentions for that life. How can you tell? Prayer, careful study of scripture, and considered and careful thought and planning. This is not the same as that mindless drooling obedience to the dictum of some charismatic preacher which many non-Christians seem to think is the standard Christian mindset. Hutch (the opinions I give above, except for the quotes, are my own, formulated with at least as much thought and care as I could give them, and influenced by study of Christian scripture and study of the beliefs and thoughts of others, both Christian and non-Christian. They do not constitute the ONLY Christian view.)