The Absolute Best Reason to Vote for Romney

[Oruc]

Erm, the eye for an eye quote is supposed to be against disproportional punishments not for them.

But an eye for an eye would be a proportional punishment? A disproportional punishment would be an eye for a head or something like that.

 

[WindFish]

But an eye for an eye would be a proportional punishment? A disproportional punishment would be an eye for a head or something like that.

Except when that passage was written, the punishments tended to be an eye for a head.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Head for an eye. You both have the exchange rate backwards.

 

[Oruc]

Except when that passage was written, the punishments tended to be an eye for a head.

But are you saying that an eye for an eye is disproportional? When I quoted you, you were.
I'm not saying that a *head for an eye* isn't disproportional it clearly is.

Head for an eye. You both have the exchange rate backwards.

Whoops my bad

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Well, one of the most important ones is that to be a Christian you have to believe in Jesus' divinity.

You accept Jesus as your lord and saviour and have the intention to live according to his spiritual teachings. Both of these are personal choices a person makes, and they are difficult to verify.

I am curious what fundamentals are available to verify whether someone is a Christian.

Now the question becomes, how does one verify this beyond their say-so?

 

[Leoreth]

In my opinion, the more important question is, why do other people even need to verify if others are "true" Christians?

 

[Borachio]

Even more important is how you verify you are yourself a "true" Christian.

Don't you have to keep NT commandments 1) and 2)? And isn't that about it?

Even though these two amount to the same thing. Apparently. I wouldn't know.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Dude I'm not criticising Obama or anything. Chill out. Where did I ever mention Obama?

I stated that if you want to be considered a Christian you probably have to believe in a few basic fundamentals. Whats so outrageous about that?

Nothing is outrageous about it. I am merely pointing out that at that point the conversation was about how christian Obama is. He meets all of the fundamentals, but others have gone out of their way to assert he is not.

Your comments flirted with that idea either intentionally or unitentionally and I disliked them greatly. Maybe I read you wrong, and if so, I apologize.

But from what I know about your posting style, throwing doubt on Obama's christianess was exactly your intent or at the very least you were trying to give more credibility to faulty lines of argument about him not being christian.

As I said before, I'd rather like it if he was a closet atheist, but the evidence does not bear this out. The reason why I take such offense at the arguments about him not being christian is that in my country there is currently a large group of people who go around trying to demonize the political opposition. The attacks on Obama's christianess is part of this.

This demonization I speak of, from both sides, is tearing our country apart and causes enormous disfunction in our government. Please don't involve yourself in it Quackers. It's not constructive for the forum or for my country at large.

 

[Quackers]

Nothing is outrageous about it. I am merely pointing out that at that point the conversation was about how christian Obama is. He meets all of the fundamentals, but others have gone out of their way to assert he is not.

Your comments flirted with that idea either intentionally or unitentionally and I disliked them greatly. Maybe I read you wrong, and if so, I apologize.

But from what I know about your posting style, throwing doubt on Obama's christianess was exactly your intent or at the very least you were trying to give more credibility to faulty lines of argument about him not being christian.

As I said before, I'd rather like it if he was a closet atheist, but the evidence does not bear this out. The reason why I take such offense at the arguments about him not being christian is that in my country there is currently a large group of people who go around trying to demonize the political opposition. The attacks on Obama's christianess is part of this.

This demonization I speak of, from both sides, is tearing our country apart and causes enormous disfunction in our government. Please don't involve yourself in it Quackers. It's not constructive for the forum or for my country at large.

You are a special poster dude I don't care if Obama is Christian, Muslamic or an athiest. I'm not casting spurrious allergations either way. Frankly, i couldn't care less. I only care about Obama as far as his foreign policy damages British interests - these domestic things are meaningless to me. This topic piqued my interest into what defines a Christian after reading several posts which basically turns the defintion of christian into something meaningless. For instance Borachio and his two conditions1) Belief in God 2) Loving thy neighbour as thyself. That would render any catergory for a christian as useless to define anything IMO.

 

[Borachio]

On the contrary, Quackers, the definition I suggested would separate the sheep from the goats very nicely.

But I'm intrigued. Why do you want to define a Christian?

PS Sheep and goats are equally stupid. But goats smell nasty too. In fact, sheep don't smell all that nice either.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

You are a special poster dude I don't care if Obama is Christian, Muslamic or an athiest. I'm not casting spurrious allergations either way. Frankly, i couldn't care less. I only care about Obama as far as his foreign policy damages British interests - these domestic things are meaningless to me. This topic piqued my interest into what defines a Christian after reading several posts which basically turns the defintion of christian into something meaningless. For instance Borachio and his two conditions1) Belief in God 2) Loving thy neighbour as thyself. That would render any catergory for a christian as useless to define anything IMO.

Argh. I posted the last post and then left to do an errand and thought about the last line or two the whole time. I quickly realized they were unwarranted and hoped to edit them out before you or anyone else noticed them. Since it's too late for that, please accept my apology:

It is wrong of me to demand that someone not post on a subject first and foremost. It's especially wrong of me as I have done my fair share of demonizing on this forum. I went max hypocritical with the last post and I'm sorry. I'm also sorry for being highly aggressive.

I'm just a bit burnt out from the style of demonizing that goes on here in this forum and IRL where everyone across the aisle is evil. I haven't helped much in this regard, so I should just shut up about it.

I also better understand where you were coming from Quackers and I apologize profusely for misrepresenting you.

 

[Quackers]

You could believe in all those things and be a mere thiest, or a Muslim or a Jew. What an absolute joke of a definition.

EDIT: I appreciate how honest you are mr hobbs, we're good.

 

[Borachio]

Only one is a matter of belief (kind of). The other a matter of action. Yes, you could be a Muslim or a Jew or an atheist or a nothing at all. Why not? Isn't that part and parcel of Christianity?

 

[Formaldehyde]

I get a real kick out of the incessant "real Christian" claims by many whom I would characterize as not even trying to be "real Christians" themselves. These individuals expect to be forgiven for all their own sins, so they don't seem to phase them one bit.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

This topic piqued my interest into what defines a Christian after reading several posts which basically turns the definition of Christian into something meaningless.

Not meaningless. Unverifiable.

 

[Borachio]

What? Can't you tell if you're a Christian or not? Is it a double blind situation?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

What? Can't you tell if you're a Christian or not? Is it a double blind situation?

It's rather hard to verify with any certainty whether someone else is, since both defining characteristics are rather personal.

(In all this I'm not saying whether I think it's anyone's business or that it should be verifiable.)

 

[Borachio]

Yes, I get that you can't tell if someone else is.

I was meaning, how do I tell if I'm one or not? If I had any interest in knowing, that is. Purely academic interest, really.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Yes, I get that you can't tell if someone else is.

Ah. Sorry about that.

I was meaning, how do I tell if I'm one or not? If I had any interest in knowing, that is. Purely academic interest, really.

Well, I guess the believing that Jesus is your lord and saviour is the easy part.

The trying to live according to his spiritual teachings seems to be the more elusive. Since there are many people claiming to do just that, and they have all kinds of different opinions on what those teachings mean.

Take the eye of the needle thing for instance. People go as far as to invent some sort of gate to Jerusalem for which there is zero evidence to be able to cling to greed as a main motivator of going through life. Now for me personally that is something that is directly against Jesus' teachings. But I wouldn't go as far as to tell these people they're not Christians who try to live according to their interpretation of Christ's teachings. If they really have convinced themselves this cop-out is the true meaning, they do live according to the teachings as they interpret it.

So the question may become: can you be honest enough to yourself to accurately judge whether you're a Christian.

Short answer: I don't know

 

[Ailedhoo]

You are a special poster dude I don't care if Obama is Christian, Muslamic or an athiest. I'm not casting spurrious allergations either way. Frankly, i couldn't care less. I only care about Obama as far as his foreign policy damages British interests - these domestic things are meaningless to me. This topic piqued my interest into what defines a Christian after reading several posts which basically turns the defintion of christian into something meaningless. For instance Borachio and his two conditions1) Belief in God 2) Loving thy neighbour as thyself. That would render any catergory for a christian as useless to define anything IMO.

...and how is Obama causing damage to the interests of Britian my fellow Brit? I am aware of how the Churchill bust story is so central to you but what of the foundational matters as oppose to a mear occurence? What of policy as oppose to a blind love of symbolism?