[PLUG] Ban me? Ban yourselves.

[Michael C. Robinson]

On Mon, 2011-10-10 at 00:04 -0700, Nye Walker wrote:
> Yep, I'm gone.
> 
> Michael, Keith, this IS a technology list. Your religious commentary
> has NO business being discussed.
> 
> Michael in particular - arguing on the internet is just annoying for
> everyone on this list. I've seen more disgusting, bigoted, and
> hate-filled things come from you, and yet you claim to be a religious
> person. Grow up. Jesus was not a Christian. His behavior was very
> different from your behavior. He accepted people as they were with few
> exceptions.
> 
> "God protect me from your followers."

Ahem, I've said nothing bigoted.  You are attacking religiosity though
which is bigoted.  To say that Christ was not and is not Christian is
ludicrous.  Christ didn't adhere to misguided Judaism or nothing for
that matter just to "please everyone."  In fact, Christ had standards
and He expected people to meet them.  The woman at the well in the heat
of the afternoon who had multiple husbands, Christ knew about this and
was critical of it.  Forgiving the woman is not the same as accepting
what her lifestyle was at that time.  Should God encourage man to do
what is good or should God be passive and look the other way when we
choose that which is harmful or even fatal to us or others?  Surely, the
parable of servants being sent to gather people for a feast resonates
with you.  The servants were beat up and killed.  So, the king razed the
dwellings of these tenants and said find someone else for the feast.
When the King saw that one of the people who came to the feast was not
dressed properly, he ordered the man bound, gagged, and thrown into the
street.  Doesn't sound like a parable of anything goes to me.  Reducing
Jesus to a weakling is wrong.  You are trying to silence political
criticism as well I might add by doing this.  

I have a right if Keith or anyone else is allowed to break the rules of
this list with impunity to denounce publicly that breaking of the rules.
If there is to be no moderating, what is the value of having rules
anyways?  In an ideal world, a moderator posts a retraction or removes
the offending post from the archive.  That isn't happening and Keith at
least is not taking responsibility for what he did.

If Jesus accepted people as they were, exactly as they were, with no
exceptions, then He had no reason to come and He would not have come.
Who needed saving if anything goes?  Who needs grace if their is: no
morality, no vice, and no sin?  Look Walker, you are entirely flawed in
your line of argument.  Jesus is not and was not a passive figure who
waved anything and everything on.  Jesus died for the sins of this world
so that by joining oneself to His death one can be with Him in heaven.
Jesus took the sin of the world upon Himself and died so that we may
live.  Only God's self sacrifice, the Son to the Father, was enough for
God to reconnect with man on the supernatural plane.  No amount of burnt
offerings can ever matched Jesus on the cross.  Jesus became the new
Adam, Mary the new Eve.  Walker, you don't understand Christ at all.
Christ, fully God and fully man, reconciled man to God in a way that man
never can.  Man breaks his connection with God, Jesus gives man a way to
reestablish that lost connection.

Criticizing a lifestyle that is objectively immoral is not bigotry.
Attacking religiosity, a gift from Almighty God, is bigotry.  I
justifiably criticize same sex couples who want to be called married
couples, married couples are not same sex.  Jesus defined marriage as
being between one man and one woman and this is abundantly clear in the
scriptures.  Unfortunately, man's notion of fairness and equality gets
in the way of understanding God's definitions of fairness and equality.

A good example of this, the parable where the workers in the vineyard
get the same pay no matter when they started working.  To most people,
this strikes them as unjust or unfair.  This is the wrong
interpretation.  Remember, these parables came from Jesus himself.

If arguing is annoying to people, they should speak up for themselves
when the rules of this list are violated.  If this is to be a tech list,
there is an expectation that religion and politics won't be thrown in
your face even as a joke.  For one person who thinks that God is
insignificant, idolatry means nothing to him.  But for the religious
man, idolatry is extremely offensive.  In one man's view, Obama is going
to bring peace and equality.  To another man, Obama is a radical liberal
who violated one man one woman by his removal of don't ask don't tell
and worse than that, Obama has thrust the nation into what is becoming
increasingly a Vietnam like war in Afghanistan.  For the religious man,
it is clear that God alone can still the heart of man.  Peace does not
come at the point of a barrel or the tip of a patriot missile.  What I
am not saying is that war can't be justified.  Where war is often the
only tool man uses to secure peace though, God has the answer when man
prays and seeks His help.