Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Strangers in a Strange World Message-ID: Date: 4 Jan 90 06:21:44 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 186 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article kilroy@mimsy.umd.edu (Nancy's Sweetie) writes: I hope that the following is not too confusing. I am responding to a number of objections that were raised with respect to some statements which I made in a previous posting (article ). Those paragraphs which are preceeded by a double right angle bracket are my original comments. I have left them in as they would have to be repeated anyway for a correct understanding of the objections that are being raised. >>The Scriptures very clearly teach that it is God who decides when any >>given conception should take place. >Lots of people make claims about what the Scriptures `clearly teach', and >(like Dave) they usually can't be bothered to provide any verses, and we >are just supposed to believe them. I usually don't. (Indeed, I usually >just ignore articles that follow this pattern.) I believe that an inspection of my passed postings will reveal that you have made an extremely unfair statement. I usually (to use your own word) include far more Scriptural backing than most others. Please accept my sincere apologies for having neglected to do so in this particular case. I am clearly guilty of occasionally responding with too much haste and when I am not in a position to provide the Scriptural support that any declaration of the will of God not only ought to be accompanied with but also deserves. Please feel free to ask for additional Scriptural support at any time. I most respectfully ask, however, that you, and anyone else who is so inclined, please refrain from accompanying such a request with additional inuendos which are merely an attempt either to stimulate aggrivation or to discredit. I am sure that there are many other posters who will agree with me that snide personal insults do not serve any productive purpose whatsoever. >So then, do you have any verses which might lend support to your assertion? Yes. Here are a few passages which speak to the issue. Although you asked that I not quote them, I shall do so for the benefit of those without easy access to a Bible. I shall, however, honour your request to refrain from adding my own personal commentary. The issue, by the way, is my statement that it is God, and not just the intimate union between a husband and wife accompanied by chance, who decides when each and every conception is to take place. From this fact I draw the conclusion that the use of contraceptive measures is no less than a deliberate act of disobedience to God, as it is a voluntary attempt to overrule His decisions with respect to our lives. Psalm 127:3 says "Lo, children {are} an heritage of the LORD: {and} the fruit of the womb {is his} reward.". Psalm 128:3-4 says "Thy wife {shall be} as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD.". Psalm 104:29-30 says "Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.". >>If we believe that God makes perfect decisions then we must assume that >>His decision to initiate another human life is for the long term best even >>if we cannot see it and even if the short term prospects do not look very >>good. >Do you similarly suggest the people born with heart defects should not >have corrective operations? Using your own argument, `if we believe that >God makes perfect decisions then we must assume that his decision to end >another human life is for the long term best.' While, on the surface, your response appears to be logical, it has not been made with the wisdom of the Scriptures as its foundation. Of course, as the last Scripture quoted above (Psalm 104:29-30) states, it is God who also decides when each and every life is to be terminated. If it is His intention that a baby born with a heart deffect is to die then no doctor will be able to prevent that baby from dying. It is incorrect, however, to interpret the life preserving efforts made by doctors as attempts to overrule God's will with respect to the lives of their patients. This is because we are commanded to not commit murder, i.e. the willful termination of any person's life. We do not know what God's will is for that baby, but we do know that we would be willfully desiring his death, i.e. committing murder, by denying the necessary treatment. We must, therefore, do all that we possibly can to preserve his life. God may, in fact, want to bring glory to His own name through the efforts of those doctors whom He is using as they labour tirelessly at their life preserving tasks. Just letting a person die would be a violation of our obligation to do all that we can to preserve life. The same cannot be said with respect to the practice of contraceptive measures. In this case we are doing all that we can to prevent life. >>Most people engage in sexual intimacy for their own short term >>pleasure and not solely for the pleasure of their spouses. >Dave, how do you know this? Can you read people's minds? How would you >feel if I started claiming that you are an atheist who only posts articles >here to make Christians look bad? > >You have no business making judgements like this (though you do it all >the time), and you are rapidly convincing me that I need a KILL file >for this newsgroup. Be it known that I would never make a judgemental statement about any specific person. Be it also known that I would never make a judgemental remark to people in general if I did not find elements of my assessment in my own life. I can assure you that I am well aware of the strong traces of my own selfishness in my intimate relations with my own wife. If anyone really wants to prove that he is selflessly interested in the sexual pleasures of his spouse then let him do his utmost to continue to stimulate her regularly and often for the next several months or years or decades or whatever without her returning the favour. I feel quite safe in claiming that we all, whether we be husbands or wives, crave to be stimulated by our mates, and that at least part of the insentive for initiating intimate contact with them is that we want to get them to do so to us. If our sole insentive were our truly selfless love for others then there would be no such thing as premarital sex. We ought to care so much for the well-being, physical and spiritual, of the other person that we would find it unthinkable to drag her into an activity which we know is in rebellion to the commandments of God and that is deserving of eternal damnation. If a person really selflessly wants his girlfriend to experience the pleasures of intimate relations then why would he not do things God's way by marrying her first and by committing the rest of his life to her for better or for worse? The extremely unpleasant fact is that most of us couldn't really care less about the eternal future of others. We find the perceived status of having won the victory in some short term conquest to be much more stimulating. You, and perhaps many other people, do not like many of my remarks. This is, however, a fact that does not particularly bother me. If I am wrong then show me a Scripture that proves this to be so. If I am right, i.e. if I am interpreting the Scriptures correctly, then you are really angry with God and not with me. 1 Samuel 8:7 says "And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.". It is not my fault that the Bible is full of statements which prick our consciences very deeply and painfully. It is, rather, God's will to prove to us that we really are nothing better than dirty, wrotten, filthy, no good sinners before Him and, in so doing, to alert us to the fact that we really do deserve a punishment as nasty as eternal damnation and that our only escape route from that horrifying destiny is the Lord Jesus Christ. We can protest God's assessment of ourselves publically as much as we want to, hiding behind the pretense of the visibly decent lives that we attempt to portray, but that does not fool God. 1 Samuel 16:7 says "But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for {the LORD seeth} not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.". Jeremiah 17:9 says "The heart {is} deceitful above all {things}, and desperately wicked: who can know it?". My duty, as a servant of God, is to faithfully proclaim His message, whether or not others enjoy it, and whether or not I feel like agreeing with it. This is, by the way, His demand of every single Christian. He has told me that this will not always be met with joy. He has, in fact, declared that strict obedience to His calling can be expected to be met with out right hatred. In John 15:18-21 Jesus says "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before {it hated} you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.". In Matthew 5:10-12 Jesus says "Blessed {are} they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when {men} shall revile you, and persecute {you}, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great {is} your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.". Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3