DCJ

Yes, the benefits being future taxpayers. Seriously. The state's interest in marriage is having future productive members of society who also care for the aging population. What else could it be? Certainly not the "pursuit of happiness." We don't involve the state every time happiness is our goal. The obvious retort would be, "How would a piece of paper establish happiness?" And costly things to the state like tax breaks require an overriding state interest. Further, the distinctive features of marriage (two person, permanent, exclusive, ...) that the state enforces make no sense if only "happiness" is the reason.

Agreed. I would say the "demonstrable good" is the preservation of life, the first right recognized in the Declaration. And I'm not only talking about making law, but also building consensus, because the two go together. You think we should drop laws trying to impose same-sex marriage? There's certainly no consensus on that. In the process of making law, issues are discussed, and arguments pro and con are presented. As I've said, children are only protected when they move a few inches down the birth canal. Does this make sense? Not to me, because prematurely-born babies are protected, but a baby the same age still in the womb is not. Nothing is different about their humanity, only their location. Why should one be protected and one not because of an accident of geography? Any of the usual arguments ("it would be a burden," "it's unwanted," "it would be in a bad situation," ...) could equally apply to a newborn or infant, but no one seriously considers those questions at that stage. That's all I'm saying. These issues need to be thought through carefully.

All law is the imposition of a moral viewpoint. The current status quo is that children do not deserve protection until they move a few inches down the birth canal -- that's a moral point of view. And you're assuming that there's "no objective means of establishing when protected life begins," using your definition of "protected life." I've given fairly uncontroversial premeses: human life is worthy of protection, and pre-born human life is human. What follows is that pre-born human life is worthy of protection. It's no more a "glob of cells" than you or I are -- all are globs of cells with our own DNA. You mentioned the newborn's heart and brain as distinguishing characteristics. The heart is beating and the brain is developing by 7 weeks, before many women know they're pregnant. Is that life worthy of protection? It seems to me counter-intuitive to go with the logic that since we don't know when "protected life" begins, it's O.K. to kill it. Wouldn't it make more sense to err on the side of caution? If I'm out driving, and I don't know whether that pile in the road is some clothes or a child, am I going to just run over it because I'm not sure? Of course not, and we should use the same logic in the abortion case. But here we're even more culpable, because we know exactly what we're terminating: a human life in the early stages of development.

Not at all. Whether homosexuality is natural or not has no bearing on whether same-sex unions can be marriages. You've offered a dictionary definition of marriage, and pointed out some changing reasons people have had for getting married, but you haven't described what sets marriage apart from other relationships. Any discussion must address these issues: 1) In arguing for same-sex marriage, it seems obvious that marriage must include sexual attraction. But why? Why can't two close friends or siblings be married? If their emotional bond is just as deep as the sexually active couple, why should they be disenfranchised because their union isn't sexual? 2) If marriage is primarily about the legal benefits, why can't the friends or siblings above share in those benefits and have their relationship recognized as a marriage? 3) On what basis should a marriage be limited to two people? If three or more people find emotional fulfillment in polyamorous unions, shouldn't they have the legal recognition of a marriage? 4) Finally, if marriage is mainly about legal benefits or a deep connection, why should the state be involved at all in trying to preserve the union? The state doesn't do that with other close relationships. What interest does the state have in regulating emotions? Why should the state encourage fidelity, permanence, and make divorce so difficult?

I see. So using the criterion of "biological functionality of its species," what's the difference between the fertilized egg and a newborn? The newborn just lays there and cries. It's not "fully and independently functional" like the roach. It only has the "potential for life," no?

Please explain to me what the property of "personhood" is, and why the nascent human life would not already qualify. Why is personhood a property someone must acquire rather than something inherent in being human.

By God referring to "us" ("you" in the original verse), no distinction is being made between the pre-born "us" (including as a fetus) and the post-born "us", indicating a continuity of person throughout all stages of development. This verse speaks volumes about the value of the fetus. The Bible doesn't speak about a lot of scientific or philosophical concepts directly, but principles can be gleaned from its pages. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=abortion+bible A couple that jump out at me: http://www.catholicn...ainst-abortion/ http://www.godandsci...ne/prolife.html These expand on what I said under the first quote above. Sure there is. Any biology textbook will tell you that the conceptus is a distinct life form with its own DNA. From that point onward, all that changes is his size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency, none of which has any bearing on his value as a human being.

Try this one: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155

Crony capitalism is what we get when we allow the government to be generous with other peoples' money.

In addition to love, Christians have historically ascribed another attribute to God, namely justice. Just as it would be unjust for a judge to let a criminal go free without paying for his crime, so God would not be just if He let moral crimes go unpunished (and we all commit moral crimes, hate=murder as Jesus says). So how is this dilemma between God's perfect love for us and His justice resolved? The Gospel (good news) tells us that God took the punishment upon Himself in our place, thereby reconciling his love and justice.

Agreed.. so as you say, why not adopt that attitude, since you don't need the government to tell you how to act in moral situtations? No one is stopping anyone from sharing everything they have. Indeed, people can be very generous with their time, money, and material donations. However, people typically use "socialism" to mean using government muscle to take something owned by one group to give it to a different politically favored group. This, of course, is not "sharing" in any sense of the word, and certainly not what the early Christians did (they didn't need government to tell them either).

Yes, when one cheek is slapped. He didn't say if someone breaks into your house to rape your spouse, give them your child also. NOT having a weapon in such a case would permit violence to occur, whereas merely brandishing the weapon would likely prevent violence. Which do you think Jesus prefers?

I was a little skeptical about this, so I figured I'd look into it myself. The bill actually says nothing about when life begins; it presumably proposes to use "gestational age" when making the determination regarding the 20 week limit. The government site linked to by Wikipedia states, "Gestational age is the common term used during pregnancy to describe how far along the pregnancy is. It is measured in weeks, from the first day of the woman's last menstrual cycle to the current date." No nefarious plot to overturn Roe -- just a common way of measuring the length of a pregnancy that any pregnant woman who has visited her OB/GYN is already familiar with.

You'd think these were the rantings of some bigoted, arrogant, intolerant evangelical. But no, they're from a supposedly "tolerant" progressive. Fundamentalists come in all shapes and sizes, I suppose.

Other progressives here have claimed that Paul was indeed talking about homosexuality (though they said he was wrong). On what do you base your alternative interpretation? The topic of homosexuality in the Bible seems pretty clear to me, whether it's God instructing the young nation of Israel in the Old Testament, or Paul discussing general revelation in the New. With Sodom and Gomorrah, does the text say that God destroyed those two cities because of rape? Or attempted rape? Keep in mind that God had already decided to destroy them well before the attempted sexual assault of Lot's male visitors, because they practiced "abominations", going after "strange flesh". While rape is condemned in Leviticus, it is homosexuality that is described as an "abomination". And this one, from the lips of Jesus: "Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'?" The Bible does have something to say about marriage.

I'm afraid that you're comparing apples and oranges here... He vetoed embryonic stem cell research because he doesn't believe in taxpayer dollars funding the destruction of human life for the harvesting of their parts. He no doubt is saddened by the innocent life lost in Lebanon, but as James has pointed out (and which you still have yet to address), it's the terrorists who are hiding behind civilians as they launch rockets indiscriminately at Israel. It's the terrorists whose hands are bloody. We can argue about whether Israel is going too far, but saying Bush is "happy" with civilian death is just specious.

What if I did ask God, and He seemed to confirm that He did superintend the Bible? That's the problem with only relying on private revelation, isn't it... It's very difficult to really discern what God may be trying to tell us if all we have is our subjective experience to guide us. One person's encounter can't carry any more authority than someone else's because there's nothing objective to which they can appeal. Personal revelation doesn't seem like an adequate vehicle to communicate propositional truth about God around which believers can form communities. Now, the Bible may be difficult in places to interpret, but in God's providence, he's given us a source of knowledge that is accessible by anyone. Jesus believed the Scriptures to be God's word, and that's a powerful motivator for me to as well.

Woah, woah, woah... You might want to familiarize yourself with Point 6: "By calling ourselves progressive,we mean that we are Christians who find more grace in the search for meaning than in absolute certainty, in the questions than in the answers." Of course it's meant to be taken literally -- in the sense that the author intended. In this case, he's using physical circumcision as a figure of speech to convey total dedication to God. Like being a seemingly-paradoxical "living sacrifice".

What kind of a God refuses to punish evil? What kind of a God would simply "forgive" Hitler for all the millions he slaughtered? Sure, God would be sad, but he certainly wouldn't hold him accountable. Throw a few more babies in the ovens, it won't matter; it will just demonstrate how "forgiving" God is. Is there no ultimate justice in your worldview? A God who is unwilling to punish wickedness is not good at all, but a monster. Yes, the disciples fled when Jesus was arrested. They were dejected and demoralized when he was crucified. Do you really think that Christianity would have survived that first century if Jesus' followers saw his death as merely a demonstration of forgiving one's enemies? Would we even be having this conversation right now if that's all the early church had to cling to during the beheadings and tortures? Just look at the liberal church in American today, which preaches a similar message about the cross. Those churches are losing members left and right, and this in one of the world's most religiously tolerant nations! I'd wager that the pews would be nearly empty if believers faced half the persecution the disciples did. Far from atonement theology being "an idea whose time has come and gone", the modern liberal church would be revitalized if it embraced the gospel that has been preached from the very beginning.

I don't see how murdering someone or letting someone be murdered shows love. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Picture it this way... you're on trial, and you've been found guilty of a capital crime. Just before the judge pronounces your sentence, someone else steps forward and offers to pay the penalty in your place. That's exactly what God the Son did: paid the debt in your stead. That is how God shows love. Right, because they knew the real purpose of Jesus' mission was to establish a heavenly kingdom, not an earthly one. Which is why, as I stated, they went out to "preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins". That was their faith. I see no evidence whatsoever that Bush or conservative Christians have invoked the name of God to justify the war. Please provide some material highlighting their belief that "God's enemies should be erradicated rather than loved". (And no nutcases, either -- I want to see documentation of the Bush administration and mainstream evangelicalism making such outrageous claims.) On the contrary, one needs only to watch the news to see almost daily examples of such statements coming from militant Islam. How about the 9/11 hijackers' shouts of "God is great" as they murdered thousands? I don't know whose theology claims that God has "unsatiated desire for human sacrifice," but it's certainly not "ours". The New Testament authors belabored the point that it was a one-time thing: "But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people" ... "by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy". So you see that when we get our theology right, it doesn't at all follow that "we will continue to make war with each other," but rather, as I said above, "preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins to the nations".

That is an interesting theory, but I'm not sure it harmonizes with history and with what the disciples themselves wrote about the events. I don't see how Jesus submitting to a state-assisted suicide would inspire his followers to write about his bodily resurrection and to preach "repentance and forgiveness of sins" "to all nations" (Luke 24). It seems Jesus' plan to protect his disciples actually backfired, considering that most of them were murdered for what they believed and taught. The Crusades are indeed a blight on Christianity but thankfully have been relegated to 1000 year-old history. For a religion with a strong "god of war" motif, I point you to modern-day Islam. I agree 100%. As the apostle John, one of Jesus' "inner circle", put it, "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

I think it depends on how those verses are interpreted. Generally they are used to "prove" exclusivism. However, there are those that feel that such an interpretation, in light of other verses that point to God's love and the desire to save all men, is incorrect. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Those two positions (Jesus as the only way vs. God's love for all) do appear to be irreconcilable, but the biblical authors oftentimes eloquently describe a way to harmonize them. Consider John again, echoing his famous "John 3:16": Or Paul: They seem to be echoing the same basic message: that humanity has a "disease", but God lovingly sent the only One who could cure it.

You originally said "there is truth in all religions and there are lies in all religions." When I inquired about how we distinguish between the two, you said "We can't. Nor are we meant to." It seems that you are asking us to be agnostic when it comes to others' religious claims, but not your own. But, isn't an objective knowledge indicated in your statements above? How else could one claim to know that "there is truth in all religions and there are lies in all religions"?

Fred responded to your initial inquiry pretty much the same way I would have, so I didn't feel the need to be redundant. In regards to your follow-up: This is of course your belief, i.e. just your opinion by your standard. Nevertheless, I think you're dichotomizing "facts" and "beliefs" far too much. To say that "when it comes to religion there is no way of knowing" sounds (to me) like people take a blind leap of faith when embracing a religion. This is not so.. people have reasons for believing the way they do, but not all reasoning is created equal. On what basis do you believe your "progressive stance" to be right? I presume that you think you're progressing toward some kind of objective truth and not just emoting.

That might be accurate, but it doesn't help us determine which religious claims are true or false. For instance, Christianity claims that "man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment," whereas Eastern religions favor reincarnation. Which is true? Christianity is founded upon the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, but Islam teaches that Jesus was taken into heaven and not crucified. These are contradictory truth claims that lie at the heart of the major religions. Also, your comment "No single one corners the market on who God is or isn't" is a religious statement that must itself be subjected to your criterion of being partially false.