National Day of Pointing Out Biblical Contradictions

Zev,

Scroll up to where I posted that the Bible does not consider abortion murder and then check your initial response to that–to wit: “That’s not really the case.”

You then prevaricate with comments about differing aspects of life-taking; i.e., intentional (murder) and accidental.

The point remains that the Bible, way back in Genesis, if you remember, has the life beginning with breath. The aborted fetus in the assault was not murdered, the mother was injured to the extent she miscarried. For that injury, the punishment is meted (theoretically).

I repeat: to maintain that the Bible considers abortion to be murder is to bear false witness against said tome.

OK. I went back up and re-read. Apparently, I read into your statement more than you actually said. I thought you were using it as an argument to permit abortion. It turns out, however, that you were merely refuting someone else’s argument. That being the case, I offer my apologies.

Monty,

I agree with you that abortion is not murder. But all that means is that we aren’t to punish an abortionist as a murderer. That said, however, does not make it (abortion) permitted. There are plenty of things that are not murder, but are not permitted.

**

prevaricate?? I deviated from the truth? (M-W’s definition) Where did I lie? Please show me…

Zev Steinhardt

Zev,

I admit I was a bit miffed at your reading more into what I wrote, so I went a tad over the top with the prevaricating comment. I was alluding to still considering abortion as murder, when it, quite clearly, is not and IMHO your supporting assertions had nothing to do with my statement. As I said, I went a tad over the top.

Next, I maintain that there’s nowhere in the Bible that says “Thou Shalt Not Perform Abortion on Demand (TSNPAoD).” And I still maintain that the punishment for the injured woman who miscarries is due to the fact that the assault caused harm to her to such an extent that she miscarried and thus does not meet the “TSNPAoD” criterion above.

Let’s hope the rest of the postings in this thread make a semblance of getting back to the OP.

OK, I don’t want to be the one to start this up (long day, no energy right now), but I thought I’d quote the relevant post for those who are scrolling down and may have missed it.

I will, however, say this: go read the part about fighting ignorance on the home page, Der, before you start getting defensive about why everybody’s jumping all over your shit (which should be happening any time now).
Oh, and please try to refrain from the desire to eat billy goats while you’re here.
Have fun, dumbass.

I believe that after almost a week and no response, it is fair to say that Der Kommisar has been scared away.

'Tis a shame, as I was looking foward to watching him go down in flames. I guess he looked at a bunch of people discussing issues with open & honest mind/hearts, and got scared and had to run back to his mommy.

Adios Der Commie we hardly knew ye. No wait, we could tell you from ten miles off as a adle-pated bible-thumper. So I guess we knew ye pretty well.

The reason I raised the abortion issue was to demonstrate the following point:

The Supreme Court’s “interpretation” of the Constitution does not necessarily equal the founders’ original intent.

This point is hard to seriously dispute - I assume this is why you feel the need to push down straw men.
“The greatest glory of the American Revolution was this: It connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

Yeah, 'cos over in the UK we made sure that Christianity had no connection with the State.:rolleyes: Where’s that quote from anyway?

John Quincy Adams, but I strongly suspect it is taken out of context.

John Quincy Adams, supposedly. I don’t recall if this is a real quote, or one of the quotes that the theocrats have made up out of whole cloth; it hardly matters, anyway. John Q. was all of nine years old when Independence was declared.

Of somewhat greater relevance are these:

“Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.” – John Adams, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America”, 1787-88.

“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Gov[sup]t[/sup] will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.” – James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822

“I contemplate with sovereign reverance that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separtion between church and state.” – Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802

Of even greater relevance are the actual words of the Constitution of the United States. You might want to meditade for a bit on the difference in political philosophy reflected by “We the People…do ordain and establish this Constitution” (as well as “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” from the Declaration of Independence) and Romans 13:1-2: “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”

If you want to argue about the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution versus the original intent of its authors with regard to this or that issue, go start your own thread in the appropriate forum. Claiming that the writers of the Constitution intended to make this a “Christian nation” is a Big Lie. We don’t have a forum for Big Lies on this board; perhaps you can find yourself a nice Christian Theocrat board somewhere which does.

Oh, so now you concede that the Supreme Court’s “pronouncements” don’t necessarily mean anything about “original intent”

Oh, and I don’t really care how old John Quincy Adams was at the time of the revolution - the question is whether what he said was true or not.

For what it’s worth, John Quincy Adams was a law student at the time the Constitution was drafted. So much for your “big lie” about him being 9 years old.

“The greatest glory of the American Revolution was this: It connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

He didn’t say it. Behold, the lie that is your quote.

Bolding mine. Dude, this is just to easy. Could you at least try to be a moving target next time?

Hey, Max: let’s not overlook that Der K. holds, apparently, to the completely asinine and inane view that the Constitution was written at the same time that Independence was declared.

Well, the Supreme Court could certainly be wrong about the original intent of the authors of the Constitution. For example, if the Supreme Court ever claimed that the authors of the Constitution intended to establish a Christian nation thereby, the Supreme Court would be wrong.

Fair enough. If John Quincy Adams ever said “The greatest glory of the American Revolution was this: It connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity” (there is evidently considerable doubt as to whether or not he said it), then he was wrong.

The (apparently bogus) JQA quote talks about the “greatest glory of the American Revolution” (not “the greatest glory of the American Constitution”). The document most associated with the Revolution was the Declaration of Independence–adopted when JQA was nine–the Constitution wasn’t written until years after the Revolution (but I’m sure you knew that, right?). And, while John Q. Adams was older when the Constitution was drafted, he still wasn’t actually present at the deliberations. Madison would be the most relevant person to quote here, since he was not only present at the deliberations for the Constitution, he was the leading force in drafting and adopting the document. And, as we have seen, Madison believed in separating “religion and government”, which if anything goes further than separating “church and state”.

Repetition is essential to the Big Lie technique.

DK, you’ve accused someone of lying- but they didn’t lie, and you completely misrepresented what they said. The question is, are you going to apologize for the false accusation?

This is the part where we find out whether Der Kommissar is a real Christian or not.

-Ben

Sieg Heil, Der Kommisar!

Did you know that Benny Franklin was a deist, not a Christian? Wow! Imagine that one of the fathers of democracy and founders of our country could be a heathen!

And yes, I have looked at the bible with an open mind and honest heart. The bible doesn’t look at me that way though. Therein lies the problem.

Der Kommisar is never going to answer me. i must be invisible. [sub]of course I’m a woman and I’m not supposed to speak.[/sub] Oh, well.

I’m perfectly willing to concede that the quote was not said by John Quincy Adams.

You will notice that I never attributed it to him, and didn’t even discuss John Quincy Adams until after another poster attributed the quote to him.

Too bad your “moving target” was yet another straw man.

As far as “original intent” as an approach to Constitutional interpretation goes, it is clear that the courts have rejected this approach on numerous occasions.

Thus, the Supreme Court’s decision on an issue does not necessarily equal the Court’s opinion as to anyone’s original intent.

“forgive them for they do not know what they do.”

“Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.” –Sir Francis Bacon

DK: Seems a little disingenuous to be complaining about people using the Straw Man argument when rebuting YOUR Straw Man argument. Unless you can provide some additional insight into what abortion or the supposed qoutes of John Quincy Adams has to do with contradictory passages in the Bible. 'Cause from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re bending over backwards trying to avoid a direct answer. But what do I know. Since I don’t agree with your beliefs, I must be evil (don’t have an open heart) and stupid (don’t have an open mind).

Oh, by the way, what exactly is your position on “original intent?” Your early posts seem to support it, but now that it has been made abundantly clear that the Framers were not Christians, you seem to be against it. Can you make up your mind, please?

“Forgive him, O Lord, for he knows not what the fuck he is talking about.”

All right, then. Fine. As you say, it’s more important whether or not it’s true than who said it. If George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, Socrates, and Einstein all said the Moon was made of green cheese, that doesn’t make it so.

“The greatest glory of the American Revolution was this: It connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.” – Der Kommissar

So, let’s discuss the validity of this quote. Leave the Supreme Court out of it. Is the above a true statement?

The Declaration of Independence presents a theory of government:

Now, this is not an atheistic theory of government. It explicitly refers to a “Creator.” But, “not atheistic” does not equal “Christian” or “Biblical.”

Here is the Bible’s theory of government:

See also 1 Samuel: Samuel chooses the king (Saul), then deposes him and anoints another (David), all at (according to the Bible) the explicit command of God. The Biblical theory of government is that rulers are chosen by God to enforce God’s laws; the Revolutionary theory of government is that rulers are chosen by the people to uphold the people’s rights. The Constitution confirms the Declaration’s political theory (“We the People…do ordain and establish this Constitution…”) and doesn’t even bother to ground this in a deistic theory of rights: the Constitution doesn’t mention God at all. The Constitution proclaims that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States” (Article VI, Paragraph 3), whereas a Christian state would surely have required a profession of Christianity as a qualification for holding office or public trust–earlier Christian states did. The Bill of Rights goes on to deny Congress the power to make an establishment of religion or interfere with the free excercise thereof; and it does not say anything about not “establishing any particular denomination of Christianity over and against the others” or “prohibiting the free exercise of the Christian religion”–again, in colonial times, there had been “toleration acts” which explicitly granted religious toleration to all persons believing in the Holy Trinity or in Jesus Christ, while explicitly denying religious toleration to non-Christians.

“The greatest glory of the American Revolution was this: It permanently dissolved any connection between the civil government and the Christian (or any other) religion.” – MEBuckner