I am back as promised. Upfront, I misread something you stated on a quick first read that I was going to respond to and I now see that it is you making the claim (not relatives), so I'd like to get that out of the way to begin with. I'll bold what I intended to respond to.
canpakes wrote: ↑Wed Aug 03, 2022 1:47 pm
Jersey Girl wrote: ↑
cp I went back and viewed your original post. You really said crap.
Yes, I ‘said crap’.
I’ve seen at least two dear relatives decide to take the train to Crazy Town and go full in on the most crazy nutty election crap. And although they were on the evangelical side of things prior to 2020 (‘dinosaur bones’ are tools of Satan!), they’ve just let themselves be led further into that madness by folks who operate under the guise of being a mouthpiece for God, like the Enlows. There’s no longer any tether to reality along those lines for them.
I’ve only had a chance to skim your reply so far; I’ll read it more carefully in a moment. I will mention, though - with regard to your suggestion to engage these faithful folks with their own weapon -
I once asked a relative to shed some light on their abortion rationale given that abortion isn’t mentioned as forbidden within the Bible, and that Numbers 5:11-31 actually contains an ‘abortion recipe’ and application (‘unfaithful wife = abort the kid’). Their response was a full page of the most tortured interpretive reading of scripture that I’ve ever seen, basically giving the message that what is literally written within the Bible is substantially less important for some believers than how they want to spin it to fit their position.
In other words, the source material for their faith is just as easily tossed aside in an argument if that makes it more convenient for some to maintain that they’re ‘right’. End result: God is on their side, even if God said something different or nothing at all ... and you can’t argue with God. So everyone better do as God (i.e.
the believer) wants, and God (i.e.
the believer) will make you do it via legislation, if necessary.
It’s a great way to just push off the discussion onto the invisible entity, then sit back and stop thinking about it, while advancing an agenda.
canpakes I do not agree that what you referenced is a recipe for abortion. Even if it were, you will not get far with Christians in referencing Old Testament law that involved strict obedience to the laws, penalties, offerings and sacrifices thereof, for the simple fact that Christ himself served as sacrifice for our sins and said himself that he was the fulfillment of the law.
That is to say, he was IT. The final pure sacrifice for the sin of humankind, then, now, and in the future. Period end of story OR beginning of story depending on your perspective.
Christians do not believe they are held to Old Testament law. They do not believe that offerings and sacrifices are needed. They do not believe there is that separation between God and man as there was in the Temple Era. Christians believe that when Christ died on the cross the Temple veil was literally and figuratively torn in two thus allowing humankind direct access to God.
We believe that on account of Christ, we are under Grace, not the Old Testament Law. Watch this...
If you were to present that to me personally as a support for abortion rights, I would scoot my fanny right back into Levitical Law and dredge up everything I could find there as per legislative issues we see on the table today and those coming after it. Are you in favor of same sex marriage as a protected right? I can drag out an Old Testament law along with penalties to condemn your interest in protecting same sex marriage. I mean I can find all kinds of things and take you down a slippery slope with it. Whew! The impurity and cleansing of menstruating women and that sort of thing!
If you reach back into the Old Testament with a Christian to prove let's say a progressive political point, any Christian worth their salt can use that Old Testament argument against you. In other words, if you are going to cherry pick from the Old Testament Law, I'm going to try to make you eat ALL the cherries in the bowl.
So your premise falls flat on it's face in that regard. You don't want to go there. It doesn't work! The primary foundation text for Christians, is the New Testament. You want to go directly to the New Testament.
So...if you have a specific position of theirs you can present to me, something they've taken a stand on, put it right in front of me and I'll give it a go.
Give me something where they've made a political claim besides their belief claim that God is on their side.
ETA: If anyone chooses to criticize me for not capitalizing He and all that, please just stop it. Okay?