Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cica!iuvax!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Alchohol: Good or Evil? Message-ID: Date: 22 Feb 90 08:33:05 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Services Lines: 34 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article @sun.acs.udel.edu:turtles@sun.acs.udel.edu (turtles) writes: > > [...] Is alcohol >good or evil? > No. Alcohol is neither good nor evil. Bullets are neither good nor evil. Lead pipes, printing presses, movie cameras, poppies, any other non-sentient thing you can name--it's neither good nor evil. All things are from God. They can be used according to their true purposes (that would be good), or they can be misused and perverted to other ends (that would be evil). Fermented beverages are no exception. The previous discussion on this makes this quite clear, although no one seems to have drawn the obvious conclusion. The bible speaks of God giving wine to man to make him glad, and also speaks of drunkenness as abhorrent to God. Where's the contradiction? Wine has a purpose, which is to quench thirst, relax, and please the palate of the drinker. Wine can also be abused, though, by drinking to excess. To say that wine is evil is silly; you might as well say that rope is evil because people can be hanged, or that stones are evil because people can be hit over the head with them. In Christ's time, the fashion was to take statements of the Law (e.g. "don't cook a kid in its mother's milk") and generalize them to a much broader sort of restriction (e.g. "don't mix meat and dairy products"), just to be "safe". The experts at this were the Pharisees. Let's not follow their lead and try to condemn the one who sees the balance. -- David M. Tate | "The concept of weight of evidence was central dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu | to my first book, and occurred also in at least | 32 other publications [of mine]. What I say 33 "A Man for all Seasonings" | times is true." -- I. J. Good.