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From: lab@qubix.UUCP (Q-Bick)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: The Annotated Humanist (part 4 of 4)
Message-ID: <1023@qubix.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Apr-84 00:15:55 EST
Article-I.D.: qubix.1023
Posted: Fri Apr 20 00:15:55 1984
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[Part 4 of 4, comments on Humanistic faith 550@uofm-cv]

> What matters is that we join with each other in seeking *to do justice
> and to love mercy, walking humbly with* one another ...

The *ed part is taken directly from Micah 6:8, but the conclusion reads
	"...and to walk humbly WITH THY GOD."
Text out of context => pretext. Justice is impossible without absolutes.
Mercy is possible only *after* sentence has been passed.

> ... in full respect of the preciousness and worth of every human life.

Check _Byrn vs. NYC Health and Hospital Corp._, in which the New York
Court of Appeals distinguished between "human beings" and "persons" - or
rather, gave the legislature the power to distinguish. The humanistic
philosophy has given us abortion on demand, euthanasia, and other
things. Since the underlying principle of humanism is evolution, man is
therefore just an animal to be controlled as others are. Too many
babies? Kill some. Too many people on Social Security? Kill some -
Occam's Razor at its most perverse. That's how Hitler reasoned things.

> That is the faith of humanist.

That's hardly the whole story. Looking over Humanist Manifesto I, one
realizes that it is not only opposed to the free enterprise system, but
wants to enforce communism. It wants a one-world government, removing
our ability to operate locally. It attempts to minimize death and holds
contradictory values of human life.

Christianity teaches responsibility and ultimate accountability. It
balances rights and responsibilities. It emphasizes the family and the
growth of love therein. It teaches that God sends no trial but that He
also provides the grace for us to handle it correctly. It teaches that
responsibility must accompany authority, and, accordingly, respect for
the authority, since the authority must account for itself. With the
increased personal involvement, the need for government intervention is
decreased, and government can concentrate on more necessary things.

God has not asked us to sit idly by and wait for Him. He has commanded
us to "work, for the night is coming when no man can work"; "admonish
the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with
all men"; "attend to your own business and work with your own hands";
"Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for
men." The only place that the Bible records God supplying every need
without man working was during the Exodus, but even from the beginning,
man was placed on Earth "to cultivate it and to keep it."

God has also commanded us to tell others of the good news - that we who
deserved to die for our infinite crimes can obtain mercy, that we who
are slaves to our bodies can put those bodies under control, that we who
are guilty can be freed from guilt (and NOT by searing the conscience).
But He also commands to "Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and
instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate
for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires; and will
turn away their eats from the truth, and will turn aside to myths."

THAT is the faith by which I try to live my life.
-- 
				The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford
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