大象传媒

HALLELUJAH

Amen, I say, Amen!

What is the Irish Presbyterian Church going to say about this decision? Are they going to break off fellowship with their American brethren?

Looks like everybody'd doing it. Why the Catholic Church has been doing it for a very long time. In fact sometimes it seems...that's the only kind they can recruit.

Jovial, the irish presbyterian church is so far behind the rest of the presbyterian world that it probably won't notice that the US church has followed the Australian presbyterians in ordaining gay ministers.

When the entire Presbyterian world from scotland to new zealand has voted to ordain gay ministers (and this will happen within the next ten years), we can expect the presbyterian church in ireland to still be wondering what's going on.

Augustine:

You are right. When entering NI one must turn one's watch back 400 years.

In his new column in the Newsletter Ian paisley sums up his aims in the column as an acrostic of the word 'porridge'. The 'r' stands for 'reactionary'. He is reactionary and proud of it. That sums up much of the stultifying influence of religion on Ulster society. He writes of 'reactionary':

"It enquires of the old way, what is the good way, and determines to walk therein. It is the way of conserving what is right and condemning what is wrong. There is a conservation that is right, truly right. Years have tested and proved it. It must be defended, retained and maintained. We must react against that which we know beforehand has proved to be evil".

Did you ever read such unmitigated drivel in all your life?

American mainline protestant churches - going, going, and hopefully very soon gone.

"Did you ever read such unmitigated drivel in all your life?"

Come on Brian, what did you expect, it was Paisley after all.

Trite comment, tired cliche, quaint words like 'therein' (yes I know, they lend authority!), repeated alliteration, and the reduction of supposed important issues to a quote and a soundbite.

It was neither porridge nor drivel which sprang to my mind.

Smasher

Don't worry, there's always PCA.

For the look on their faces bears witness against them; they proclaim their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves.

These American apostates, wolves dressed as sheep, rulers of Sodom who have been struck with blindness and have opened the door that Lot closed to stop the sodomites from entering the house so that the household of God the righteous ones would be protected from the unrighteous sodomites, have removed the God ordained barriers which are written in His Word to prevent those that openly and deliberately practise sin from holding office in the Body of Christ.

If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard).

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

Yeah whatever Billy.

Purtain, have you something to tell us? It's just you sound very like Ted Haggard just before he "came out". But don't fret; I know this very lovely psychiatrist...

Dylan dog and Heliopolitan you sound like sodomites under conviction of 鈥淪IN鈥�

The Puritan...I hate to tell you this...but...I think....you are going to hell. I don't know how you could get out of it before it's too late. Why not spend the next forty years in prayer. Maybe "HE" will send you a message.

(To Billy post 13)

OOhhhh! Would you listen to her!

Puritan,

Was wondering...do you like watching films...about gladiators?

Uhhmm, DD, please don't reveal too much more about The Puritan. It might ruin the growing affection pb was developing for The Puritan. Our man from Derry might be disappointed if he knew more. You know what pb likes, right? Don't spoil his dreams too much.

Indeed Peter,

Puritan and PB seem to Titans in their relevant fields. PB has not been about lately-perhaps he has been pastorised?

Incidentally Peter...

Btw, if you'd like to get an idea of The Puritans tatses and ideas, I suspect they might be well represented by the picture in the following link:

DD:

You mean PB has been put out to grass?

Fear not the sneering laugh of sinful men. They are laughing far more sneeringly at themselves, and at each other. Satan always laughs the loudest when he wants to hide defeat.

MARANATHA

Brian,

I am indeed hinting at that.

Asides from that a little bird told me the we have an astute reader of the Sunday Times amongst us!

M21

Ohh! get her!

This comment has been referred for further consideration. Explain.

The comments directed at Puritan are going too far. Your not satirising his views - as an onlooker it just seems as if you are trying to hurt him.

I find his comments over the top. But what can you do, we said we wanted free expression on the blog.

Graham Veale

If only the Rev Dr Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterianism had spread further in America.

Can I make a plea for a little more civility in debating one another on this blog? I am a strong defender of free speech in this forum; I also believe we should debate one another respectfully. Personal attacks do nothing to advance rational discussion. This is especially true when a subject is particularly senstive. Arguments are won by logic, not body blows.

Puritan - do you think the term Maranatha is entirely appropriate - given the current context?

Graham:My parents would probably have very similar views to puritin's. However, I often remind them "how would they feel if one of us (i.e. myself and my four younger brothers) had, through no fault of our own, turned out like that (i.e. were homosexual) ?

I also make the point that many of the child abuse cases in the Protestant community have been committed by hetrosexual males who call themselves born again Christians. The Presbyterian church in Ireland has not been immune from this. Pedophilia is surely a far more serious condition than being attracted to a person of the same sex ?(I've yet to hear a leading evangelical refer to pedophilia as an abomination by the way)

On a slightly different note, am I correct in thinking that some theologians think the apostle Paul's "thorn in the flesh" was homosexuality ? I'm sure I've read this in a comentary somewhere. I think another interpretation was that he suffered from epilepsy.

John Wright: I presume you are being facetious ?

(Peter- Facetious.)

Re comment 26 ? You can't be serious John ??? Judging by what I see from the US on the Christian channels on Sky it's already pretty bad (and getting worse) over there.



蹿补路肠别路迟颈辞耻蝉:

鈥揳诲箩别肠迟颈惫别

1. not meant to be taken seriously or literally: a facetious remark.
2. amusing; humorous.
3. lacking serious intent; concerned with something nonessential, amusing, or frivolous: a facetious person.

Peter I dont know anyone seriously saying paul was gay. Perhaps his thorn in the flesh was loss of eyesight. That's been suggested for sure.

Puritan, you are a card! LOL. I agree with Will - we need to get a bit of civility back in the debate, which is one reason why the ridiculously antiquated term "sodomite" is best binned. It is entirely clear from the book of Genesis that the "sin of Sodom" was NOT homosexuality but gang rape - an evil thing that is just as evil whether it's homosexual or heterosexual. As such, linking this with homosexuality is just stupid. Of course that depends on whether the "event" in question ever happened. Genesis, as has been demonstrated many times, is highly questionable as "history". It is likely Lot never existed, but is a legendary fictional character.

Although I'm an atheist, I think we can welcome the moves of some churches (however tentative) to recognise their error and correct some historic evils that have been perpetrated in the name of their supposed god.

Graham,

It is impossible to have rational discourse with Puritan, as such she is up to be satirised. Methinks you should maybe pass this info onto your theist. As such calling me a "sodomite living in sin" is fair game? Will is right we need some civility.

DD

Incidentally, just wondering - is Puritan implying that DD and I are "an item"??

Heliopolitan,

Yes but who is the "husband" and who is the "wife"?

Peter I dont know anyone seriously saying paul was gay. Perhaps his thorn in the flesh was loss of eyesight. That's been suggested for sure.

Indeed it has been suggested before Augustine. I was sure I'd heard this theory from some Christian friends away back in the 1980's:



From the above link:

Some have suggested that that Paul was plagued by homosexual fears. This is not a new idea, and yet until recent years, when homosexuality began to shed some of its negative connotations, it was an idea so repulsive to Christian people that it could not be breathed in official circles.

Paul felt tremendous guilt and shame, which produced in him self-loathing. The presence of homosexuality would have created this response among Jewish people in that period of history. Nothing else, in my opinion, could account for Paul's self-judging rhetoric, his negative feeling toward his own body, and his sense of being controlled by something he had no power to change. The war that went on between what he desired with his mind and what he desired with his body, his drivenness to a legalistic religion of control, his fear when that system was threatened, his attitude toward women, his refusal to seek marriage .as an outlet for his passion-nothing else accounts for this data as well as the possibility that Paul was a gay male.

I think the idea is that Paul had homosexual feelings and that he had great difficulty in controlling these.

Smasher-lagru,

Possibly mainline, definitely not protestant. At least you got the American bit correct.

David.

William_Crawley

Arguments are not won by logic but by truth.

An argument may be logically sound and not have a true conclusion as the initial premises may be false.

Not surprising then that you so easily accept the liberal theology that you seem to like.

David.

David:

You are wrong and William is right: an argument is won by logic, though it may not necessarily be true. Indeed, you prove the point yourself for, as you say, an argument can be untrue but logically sound because its premises are false.

David:

I should have added in my last post that orthodox and conservative Christianity has as much relationship to the truth as Holocaust denial or Tony Blair's 45 minute Iraqi WMD warning.

Brain,

Post 40.Take me through it please. Exactly how is a argument won if it is untrue?! Are you saying
that an argument is won simply when if follows the correct logical form.

Post 41.Exactly how do politics, economics, Buddha, and humanism have better relationship to truth?!

David.

David:

You ask very big questions (to which of course, you yourself probably have facile answers).

Winning an argument is not the same as discovering the truth. For the truth is not based on logic alone or even our perception of the logic.

For example, we can say that in the Commons recently the pro-abortionists 'won the argument' because they presented a better case (in itself a subjective judgment), but that doesn't imply that they are right. The anti-abortionists might present a better argument in another forum, or even maintain that they lost the vote but won the argument.

There are debates like this every day, including on blogs like this, and there are lots of different arguments, but whether any of them represents or discovers the truth is highly problematic.

In Julius Caesar Brutus makes a rational speech after Caesar's death, justifying his assassination on the grounds that he loves Rome and its freedom more than he loved Caesar, but Mark Antony wants to get the Romans on his side and take revenge on the conspirators. So he cunningly preys on the public's emotions. His speech is full of passion, rhetoric and cunning. Despite his protests that he is no orator and that he hasn't 'the power of speech to stir men's blood', he succeeds in whipping the mob up to a frenzy in which they vow to burn the house of Brutus.

So, who wins the argument and what is the truth? From the mob's point of view and Antony's, it is Mark Antony, but in rational terms it would seem to be Brutus, given his premises. Yet different premises might lead to a different conclusion. Was the assassination of Caesar justified or not? And on what criteria? Was Mark Antony justified in stirring the mob to seek revenge?

The truth itself is multi-faceted. There are many theories of truth. If we adopt the correspondence theory, a positive truth of fact is based on a mixture of logic, observation, experience and experiment.

A normative truth of value is even more complicated. It may be based partly on factual truths and partly on coherence with our basic assumptions (or premises) - a coherence theory. But these premises differ from one person to another and the reasoning itself, especially in matters of subjective value, is open to interpretation.

There are also constructivist, pragmatic and consensus theories of truth. So truth may be subjective, relative, objective or absolute. Winning an argument won't necessarily take us to it.

Your other question is too vague and general and requires claification on your part.

Brian,

There was an assumption here that "winning the argument" related to this particular debate within this blog. You have chosen to step outside this arena. Now the options are limitless.

Consequently you choose the weapons for further conflict and I will win the battle.

David.

David #38 - what do you mean "not protestant"? Presbyterians not protestant?

Brian - still trying to drag people into debating your crazy notions of relativistic truth.

I think this is a truly wonderful step. Finally, the PC(USA), the largest Presbyterian denomination in America, is willing to take a stand and declare what they believe to be a faithful witness to God in this world. The only sad thing is though, our beloved PCI is nowhere near this level, for debate let alone anything else.

Dylan Dog...

"Indeed Peter,

Puritan and PB seem to Titans in their relevant fields. PB has not been about lately-perhaps he has been pastorised?

Incidentally Peter..."

Just now managed to find the time to find this blog - signup and post a comment>

Thank you for your comments DD and Peter (klaver?) left on my church blog over the past week or two. Unfortunately due to work constraints I have not been able to reply.

I am more than slightly surprised - still - at the venom in DDs comments - lies in creationism etc and am still waiting for a reply - either here or in our other blog.

PS just because there is/are? more than one person that disagrees with you on the subject of the physical, mental, spiritual and social wrongs of homosexuality does not mean that it IS one person working with multiple online identities?

Talk about paranoia!

People are still allowed to voice their opinions - albeit respectfully(please remember that DD) and there are a lot of souls out there who actually do believe what the Bible and nature tell us about the GLBT movement - it's wrong!

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