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From: aeq@pucc-h (The Blackguard of the West)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: fornication and Christianity
Message-ID: <1777@pucc-h>
Date: Fri, 1-Feb-85 04:29:17 EST
Article-I.D.: pucc-h.1777
Posted: Fri Feb  1 04:29:17 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Feb-85 11:54:08 EST
References: <428@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: Cordes Junction
Lines: 57

From Pesmard Flurrmn (pyuxd!rlr) [what's he doing in this group, anyway?  This
is where we all went to avoid him]:

>> On the other hand, we are, indeed, perfectly free to fornicate.  However,
>> Paul also commented (in passages on a different topic, but it applies here)
>> "Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a
>> stumbling block to the weak", and "'Everything is permissible' -- but not
>> everything is beneficial.  'Everything is permissible' -- but not
>> everything is constructive." [SARGENT]

> Why MUST everything we do be be "beneficial"?  "Constructive?"  Isn't life
> full of things that are neither (though not antipodal to either)?  Don't many
> of those things heighten the overall experience of life?

Can you name any examples of non-beneficial, non-constructive things that
enhance life?  The opposite of constructive is DESTRUCTIVE, and I am trying
to get away from that.  I do not think that Paul was setting out a MUST, but
rather saying "If you are wise, if you *really* know what is best for you,
you won't do certain things, because they are not good for you; and if you
are a really caring person, you won't do certain things because they could
mess up other people."  He was saying these things, not to lay down a rigid
law, but rather as part of the whole program of God, which is to lead to an
optimal life for people.

This idea of the good life is even seen in the Old Testament.  In a passage
in Jeremiah, where it is prophesied that the people will return from the
Babylonian captivity, God says:  "They will be my people, and I will be
their God.  I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they
will always fear [in the sense meaning "respect"] me for their own good and
the good of their children after them.  I will make an everlasting covenant
with them:  I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to
fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.  I will rejoice in doing
them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and
soul."  (Jeremiah 32:38-41)

In other words, God's real idea all along has been, not to clamp people into
a restrictive, unnatural lifestyle, but to give them a good life.

> Just a question.  (Or four.)  It does seem that many people see their
> religions as a way of ordering their lives to distinguish what they "SHOULD"
> do from what they "SHOULDN'T", so that they can adhere to a list of such
> things and order their lives around it.

True; as is well known, I have done this myself and still tend to, though
I am moving away from it.  It is much safer and easier to just have a list
of do's and don'ts rather than the freedom that God wishes us to experience.

> BRIAN:  "You're all different!"
> CROWD:  "YES, WE'RE ALL DIFFERENT!"
> MAN:    "I'm not ... "

I like this .signature; it's clever and not obnoxious.

-- 
-- Jeff Sargent
{decvax|harpo|ihnp4|inuxc|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq
"Head him off at the pass!"  (advice by a mother to her daughter)