pattygreen

Bjean: "Oh you've done a good job of prattling on after everyone posts, but you're obviously losing the battle."

I didn't call AIDS a curse. Please reread my post. I already stated that I know full well how AIDS got started. So, your repeating the info wasn't necessary. What I said was....After it began, it became a predominantly homosexual disease at first and then spread to others through sexual content and even through needles (blood) and even through childbirth to children. With that said, MY point was to show how God doesn't want us to go with out what we might call a "fun" life, so much as he wants to protect us from these diseases and consequences of the sins we commit. He doesn't write the rules for nothing. It's for the peoples own good. Drug use, sharing needles, unmarital sex, homosexual sex, promiscuity. All wrong doings that if people obeyed God and stopped doing, would slow down, if not end, the spread of AIDS. Abortion is also a wrong doing that if stopped, would not only end the destruction of millions of human lives, which is the #1 priority, but would also stop all of the controversy in this country between those who condone it and those who don't. Think of all the 'good' that could come from living according to the one who made us. BTW, bjean, no sooner did you give me your speech about keeping this thread on topic and going to the 'religious' thread to talk about what I want, you post your views on what I said about AIDS and homosexuals. Which was OFF TOPIC! You are such a hypocrite. You don't want me to get off topic, cause when I do, I say things about God, and it's not what you want to hear, but it's okay for you to get off topic to say what you want to. Well, maybe I didn't want to hear what you had to say off topic. Not the case. I don't feel that conversations between people can't turn into other topics or conversations. It's only when one doesn't like where the conversation is going that they shout "Off topic!" So, I will not post here for now. I may return at a later date to discuss abortion. who knows.

Plain, "The Bible has some horrible events recorded in it, no doubt. But to equate a bad event with the author who wanted it recorded is a little fallacious" This is exactly what I was trying to get across, but you said it how I wished I could have. Thanks.

I meant pushing it on you, specifically. No, I'm not the type to go door to door and peddle christianity. I would like to have kept things the way they were. Yes. Up until the 1960's or so, christianity was pretty much the way it was here. Our founding Fathers were Christians. Christians set up the public schools in America and instituted prayer and moral teachings from the bible. No one was ashamed of the gospel like they seem to be today. God was not pushed out of the public realm. I believe that when the minority of unbelievers stuck their noses into a good thing, the christians kept silent and allowed the minority to overtake the majority. They said nothing and did nothing. Little by little the atheists took God out of it all. (they are still working at it) We are largely at fault for that. When those that objected to prayer in school, for example, expressed their disgrace about it, they should have been directed to start their own private schools where God is not considered or prayed to. Instead, the majority was forced to go to private schools or to either accept that God would not be allowed in schools. This is where I have the problem.

I already know the history of how AIDS began. But, After it began, it was a predominantly (mostly) homosexual disease, until it spread. Is AIDS a Curse from God?" Before we can answer that question, we need to first establish what is meant by a curse. A curse, in the biblical sense, is not something evil that is simply put upon a person without a reason, nor is it irreversible. God does not go around cursing people with disease. Rather, a curse comes as a direct consequence of man's actions. The Bible tells us that God "turns people over" to their own sin, allowing the natural consequences of their sin to take effect. In other words, if a man deliberately continues to break the law of God, God does not stop him - He allows him to go ahead and suffer the effects of that sin. God is not going around vindictively cursing people with AIDS. This deadly virus is a direct consequence of immoral behavior which is now taking its toll on the general population. This is why God warns us to stay away from sin: because it kills. God's moral law was not given to take away our happiness; it was given to protect us from our own destructive passions and sinful practices.

I hope you don't feel that I am one of those people. I mean, trying to 'push' my faith on you. I believe what I believe and I don't have any shame or problem with telling others about what I believe or why I believe that way. I understand that everyone has a right to believe any way they choose to. And of course, I am fine with that. I would love for all of mankind to believe in Jesus, because I am certain that his way is thee way, but I also know that others don't agree. I share what I believe is truth and others are free to accept it as such or reject it.

When AIDS first came out, it was a predominately homosexual disease. It then spread to women from men who were infected who in turn spread it to children as they gave birth. It was then able to be spread from infected people using needles and sharing them, or medical facilities that didn't clean thier needles. All in all, if the homosexuals didn't commit such an atrocious sin as having sex men with men, that disease would not be around. Aside from 9/11 and the Pearl Harbor one day events, those other wars you mentioned were not fought on American soil. I was talking about war in this country. Where's the peace? You receive it when you become a believer in Christ.

I believe that you are looking for any reason to keep from believing in God. It doesn't even say in any of those references that God told them to 'rape' the women. This is your own assumption. If you were at war, and killed the men in that city and then left the women there to die, (because that is what happened to women in biblical times that had no husband),or have them turn to prostitution, (which is another form of rape), that would be better in your eyes than taking them into your home and making them your wife? Where you would care for them and support them? Don't you understand that the men they were married to before the war weren't even the men they chose to marry either? Women didn't choose their husbands. So in a sense, their first husbands were 'raping' them too. In other countries today, women are considered no more than a dog is. It's just the way it is. It's not right, but it's how men have viewed women for centuries. Now... God does not condone it, but he did allow it, and just because men do wrong, doesn't make God any less real. And it doesn't make the stories of the bible any less true. That's what happened, and that's what was written down to be told throughout the generations. Whenever we read in history all of the deeds that sinful mankind has done, we can understand our need for a Savior better.

You don't live in that era of time. That is why you don't understand. Women were not equal to men, they didn't choose their husbands, they couldn't support themselves.

If you feel that I am polluting 'every' thread when I post, why don't you put me on ignore. Then you won't even 'see' my posts and get the urge to respond to them. In fact, I only post regularly on '3' threads on the rants and raves area. Not 'every' thread. How would you feel if someone told you that you were polluting 'every' thread you posted on? You may not agree with me on what I have to say, but I have every right to say it as you do to say what you like. If you feel the way you do, then I will leave this thread, and you and rodriguezequal can discuss among yourselves how wonderful it is for a woman to 'choose' to allow her baby to live or not, and how you have that right simply because every person decides for themselves what is right and wrong in their own eyes and doesn't need a God to set the standard for them. I'll await your decision.

God allows life to go on as it would. People get ill, people die, they get the flu. They also sometimes suffer the consequences for their actions. For instance the economic colapse is due to the greed of others, AIDS is due to homosexual sinful acts, STDs come from sexual immorality, I got burnt cause I stuck my hand in a fire, whatever, etc. And, life happens. God will intervene if people pray for a situation and he will answer the prayers of those who ask of him according to his will. But if a group or a Nation of people agree to shut God out through their actions, laws, etc., He will remove his blessings. He does this so that people will once again see their need for him. When my children disrespect me and tell me they don't want me around, I give them what they want. I discipline their disrespect to me by taking away my help and allowances and privileges I once gave them. I show them their need for me. I am wiser and more able to figure things out than they are. Children don't understand their parents love for them. Especially teenagers. They look at it as if parents just want to 'rule' them. When in fact, they just have their kids best interest in mind. This is how God views us. Teenagers who don't see the whole picture because they haven't matured. Teenagers who think they are smarter than their parents and have all the answers. We are not smarter than God. He knows what's best for us.

AIDS? Are you serious? AIDS , IMO, is something that mankind has brought upon himself. AIDS is a consequence or result of mans sinful acts of homosexuality. If people would live as God deemed right, we wouldn't even have that disease. Men and women who don't have sex until they are married and then keep to only their spouse has no fear of contracting AIDS, and if they do get it, it was brought to them by someone elses wrong doing accidentally. (The sins of others also effect everyone around them) Because of the sin of some, even poor babies are born because their moms had the Virus, and people were innocently infected with the disease thru needles. God's blessings include: an abundance of food, a great military, his protections, peace, You don't see any war on our land, do ya? (If you say yes with 9/11, that's because of his starting to remove his blessings). Americas blessings are too numerous to count compared to other nations or lands. Is all you can see misery?

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We can take just one town as an example: An Historian, Roger Mcgrath, went back through court documents and newspaper reports to reconstruct the actual crime rates in the five-year period when Bodie, California was booming.(1870's) The town of Bodie had 31 murders, for an annual rate of 116 per 100,000, twenty times the national rate for the U.S. in 2007. Even our most murderous cities like Baltimore and Detroit have murder rates less than half of Bodie’s. The point is that crime ALWAYS steadily increases. It never decreases. No matter how hard people try to make laws and stall crime, it only gets worse. America's decline is due to God's removal of his blessings from us and the moral decline of it's people due to thier disbelief in Him.

It is always a good thing to set an example for the rest. Someone may have to be the 'example' , but that's far better than the rest of them falling into the same sin.

You have to admit that in the 17 and 1800's there was FAR less crime than there is today.

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It's funny how some people think that to lock a man into a cage and subject him to physical and sexual abuse on a daily basis by other men is a humane thing to do to criminals who commit murder, yet simply injecting them and ridding them from society is far more cruel. Back in the olden days, there was very little crime because if you were caught stealing, you were publicly hung for all to view. Even the children. Believe me, they grew up and didn't even want to go there. They stayed away from crime because they knew what was in store for them. Today, the death penalty takes a criminal 20 or more years with the appeals process before it ever is applied. Criminals know this. We have no more room for these murderewrs. We also have DNA today to 'prove' who did what. Which makes the argument for capital punishment even better.

What I meant was -if it makes you feel better to think that you don't have a free will, and God controls you like a puppet or a robot, then go ahead.Think that way. You will not have to blame yourself for any actions that you ever take in life. That lie you told, that thing you stole, that bad thought you had, etc. God made you do it. He controls your will, not you.

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Also, in Judges 21, God did not tell these men to do what they did. Men are sinful, and do wrong all the time. God simply tells the story of their actions in the bible. If you read the last verse in that chapter, it reads, "In those days, Israel had no king. Everyone did as he saw fit."

When in the cases where God sent men to war, these women were not like the women of today. They were much like children who depended on their parents for survival. These men took the women who were left husbandlesss by war and cared for them by marrying them. It was the righteous thing to do. You wouldn't leave a child behind on the battlefield where all the adults were killed, would you? They weren't raped, either. They were married and then cared for. They were also given a time to mourn their losses before being entered into the new married union. They were thankful for the men who took them. Some women were left behind and who knows what happened to them. Since women didn't have jobs to support themselves, many turned to prostitution, and with all the men killed in the war, who would pay them for their bodies? All I'm saying is you don't see the full picture. You read the story, yet didn't go back in time to their predicament. Also, the bible needs to be read in its full context to understand what God is doing and saying and all of his purposes.

This incomplete quote has the opposite meaning of the original which reads: "The Way to see by Faith, is to shut the Eye of Reason: The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle." He has also said: "I believe there is one Supreme most perfect being. ... I believe He is pleased and delights in the happiness of those He has created; and since without virtue man can have no happiness in this world, I firmly believe He delights to see me virtuous. "And: If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion what would they be if without it? And: I've lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing Proofs I see of this Truth — That God governs in the Affairs of Men. He also is the one who at the Constitutional convention reminded the men there of the importance to open each assembly with prayer to God for help and guidiance in governing. (which they still do to this day thankfully)

Mankind has always been full of iniquity. But, it is one thing to privately commit sin and be privately immoral. It is quite another to openly do it and then to want others to accept it and to change the laws against it and then to say altogether that there is nothing wrong with what you are doing and then to turn it completely around and say that those who are against what you do are the ones who are haters and intollerant and bigots for not just allowing you to do whatever you feel is okay. Immorality has always been there, like you say, but not as accepting as today. Today, anything goes. What once wasn't even spoken about privately is now shouted publicly. I believe God is not pleased with mankinds laxidaisy attitude about sin.