sopwith21 said:
So when the USA spies on its own citizens,
Who are they spying on and why? Please give specifics. Do you honestly think they are listening to every single phone conversation and reading every single email that is typed? What kind of time and staffing do you think these people have?
sopwith21 said:
burns 80 of them alive in their own church,
Please provide the church where the government burned 80 people alive. My guess is you're referring to Waco. Please prove that Waco wasn't an isolated incident in which
some mistakes were made (even the agents involved admit that) in dealing with
an utter and complete madman who thought he was Jesus. I would bet your information on this subject was one-sided and slanted towards anti-government views and completely ignored the insane cult leader who told people he was Jesus, molested children, and stockpiled dangerous weapons. And this was all going on before the incident occurred. Say why couldn't Koresh have just surrendered instead of playing God with all of the lives that were in that building with him? He knew if they found all of the garbage he'd been up to he was going away for a really long time.
sopwith21 said:
tortures people and breaks its own laws,
Examples please. And not ones slated to a particular view by the media. Thanks.
sopwith21 said:
that's okay and the US government still retains that nebulous, mysterious delegation of authority from God.
:doh: I am no fan of the way our government is operated man. I honestly don't think you are reading the words I am typing to you. You pull out the things you want to argue about and ignore the rest. Come on my friend. I've known you too long for this. At least hear what we are saying. Our government is wicked and evil. That doesn't mean that it can't sometimes do something right. Our government is not Godly though, and it is not my claim that it is. I merely believe removing Saddam was a good thing. I don't think our government has to resort to conspiracies because if they want to do something wicked they just do it!
sopwith21 said:
But if Saddam does the same stuff, he doesn't?
Have you actually researched what kind of a ruler Saddam was? Good grief man.
Bush is a little Sunday school girl compared to that guy!
sopwith21 said:
God either authorized government or he didn't.
He did. I already answered this objection in an earlier post.
sopwith21 said:
Not if God put him there. But of course, one could also make the argument that the USA put him there... so if Saddam had invaded us, would you have supported it?
:doh:
sopwith21 said:
Reality check -
When Saddam was in power, there was no war in Iraq. Now he's not and now there is.
Reality check, the entire region is always at war! But Saddam was a greedy, power-mad warlord from the moment he took office, believing himself to be a modern-day Nebuchadnezzar. It's not as if Iraq was this peaceful place to live when Saddam was in control.
sopwith21 said:
Saddam killed right at 30,000 people per year throughout his entire reign. We've killed 1.2 million in four years.
Please cite your sources for these figures. Thanks. Especially I would like to see the source for the 1.2 million we've supposedly killed. And I hope it's better than "Air America".
sopwith21 said:
So... who's the evil country? Seems that the USA gets a free pass from God on just about everything.
All men will have to give an account on judgment day at the very least for their actions here on earth. Even your son recognizes that Satan is running the world governments right now through wicked men. :think:
sopwith21 said:
If every country invaded two more the world would be a better place?
:doh: Point missed. Again.
sopwith21 said:
It was your argument, not mine. You said that the death penalty for homosexuals would reduce the number of homosexuals. I agreed with your point entirely, and suggested that the death penalty pretty much reduces the population of any demographic against which it is employed.
It was a skilled debate tactic, but one that fell down quickly when the point was made that God never commanded blondes to be put to death.
Yes. He also said that men should not shave the sides of their beards. But to whom did he say it and why?
I am all for understanding
which instructions were given to whom, when, and why. That is at the heart of good solid dispensational Bible study. The key is determining WHICH commands of God are horizontal to all people, and which commands are verticle.
God's moral commands (which were written on the hearts of men)
are horizontal to all people for all time. It is and always will be wrong to
murder. It is and always will be wrong to commit
adultery. It is and always will be wrong to commit
homosexuality. Symbolic laws given to Israel have passed away. Sorry if you find this hard to understand, but you still haven't actually acknowledged that you have read and understand the position. You keep making the same argument over and over again when your argument has been shot down.
sopwith21 said:
1) God commanded everyone to be saved. Why not pass a law that says everyone must be saved? If we cannot trust people to make their own decisions on their personal sex lives, how on earth can we trust them with big decisions like their eternal salvation? Clearly, we need a law on this.
Your problem is still with the Word of God.
God never commanded that people who refuse to get saved should be put to death. (At least not in this life, they will for certain experience the 2nd Death in eternity which is a fact we should never forget).
sopwith21 said:
2) God said that if we've broken one law, we're guilty of the whole law. Sexual impurity - all of it - is condemned soundly in the epistles. So how is it that fornicators and prostitutes get off without dying, but homosexuals get killed? About 70% of the world's population is guilty of sexual immorality of some type, and God says that one sexual sin is no worse than another. Are you willing to kill (or have your government kill for you) a huge percentage of your church members? Kinda makes church building a real chore, one would think.
You fail to see once again the point that death penalty is a deterrent and when in place 70% of the world's population WOULD NOT be guilty of sexual immorality of some type as you say above. The DP is a deterrent to those types of behavior.
God is right.
By they way, God bless you brother! I hope you aren't taking my harshness the wrong way. It is iron sharpening iron I believe.
So is there a chance you might be wrong Stephen, and the views you once held were actually right?