I don't get you. You could have just written "Do you believe it's ok for women on this site to post pictures of themselves in bikinis?" and everyone would have been free to give their opinion as they saw fit. But instead you started sharing emails, taking the focus off of the question and on to yourself. Of course, that act made this whole thread personal. And now, you take every person's response personally as well, because the thread is personal.
And this is the part that really just boggles my mind: you praise the people posting that agree with you, while belittling those that don't agree with you. You call those that think the girl should not have displayed that picture "wise" while insinuating that any post that disagrees with your approach is not "worth reading". As someone who was once so passionate about avoiding rudeness and treating people how we would treat Christ, you certainly have portrayed yourself as quite the hypocrite in this forum.
I wonder, if Jesus Christ Himself had written a post here saying he disagreed with how you handled this situation, would you publicly insult Him and tell others his post was not worth reading?
We cannot tackle the monsters of this world until we tackle the monster in the mirror.
I respectully disagree. I cannot, and will not, take my understanding of God from anything other than scripture and God's revelation of it in my heart. I do not subscribe to the idea that a group of people has more authority over scripture than God's revelation of it in me. Sorry.
If the �Church� holds all the truth, why does God rebuke 5 out of 7 churches in the second and third chapters of Revelations? People mess up. People misinterpret scripture and teach others to do the same. The church (body of Christ) has misled others before and will continue to do so until the end of time. We CANNOT rely on others to teach us the truth about scripture because the �Church� does NOT hold authority over God�s truth.
Shawn:
The truth is this: God is the only one who can unravel the mysteries of the Bible and of Himself to us. The scriptures are here for us to search and struggle with, but ultimately understanding God takes more than a lifetime. Two people can come up with two different beliefs because they are in two different places in their life. Think about this: Nobody leads other people while believing they are in the wrong. Even Hitler believed his cause was just in God�s eyes.
Likewise, a person can believe that the Holy Spirit has led them to a great revelation about God, and they may be right, or they may be wrong. But either way, they will believe they are right and try to convince others to follow their beliefs. This is why debating about doctrine causes so much dissension among Christians, as is very clear from all the heated remarks on these forums.
The problem is not that the Holy Spirit leads two people in complete opposite directions. The problem is that we have too much pride to acknowledge that we could be wrong.
My father once told me that I could say anything I want to people as long as I say it with respect. Sarcasm is tricky, because when used properly it can be a tool to help people see truth or find humor in difficult situations; however, when used improperly it spurns negative feelings, including dislike and even hatred.
It's all about the heart, people. If we use sarcasm to call people out and attempt to make them look like fools in front of others, we need to examine our hearts and ask God to work the hatred out of our veins.
And for the record, if you're going to debate someone in a forum, you need to understand the concept of logical fallacies. Here are seven that some tend to use the most as I have noticed on these forums:
1. Argument from repetition (argumentum ad nauseam): signifies that it has been discussed extensively (possibly by different people) until nobody cares to discuss it anymore
2. Appeal to ridicule: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made by presenting the opponent's argument in a way that makes it appear ridiculous
3. Ad hominem: attacking the person instead of the argument
4. Appeal to motive: where a premise is dismissed, by calling into question the motives of its proposer
5. Chronological snobbery: where a thesis is deemed incorrect because it was commonly held when something else, clearly false, was also commonly held
6. Straw man argument: based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position
7. Poisoning the well: where adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything that the target person is about to say
I have noticed these fallacies from many different people on these forums. We need to avoid using these, because they are some of the most insulting fallacies out there. I think if we all examine this list, we will find that we have all been guilty of using one or more of them at some point in the past few months on here. The use of sarcasm on this site so far that I have seen falls under the category of "appeal to ridicule." Meaning the sarcasm used here is mostly rude and insulting, and it just makes the user appear to be pig-headed and arrogant.
With all drugs there is a certain balance pharmacists try to acheive - they want to provide the most effective treatment with the least dire side effects. The aim of narcotics is not to effect a person's mental status; however, those side effects do occur if the dosage is too high. When everyone's body reacts differently to a certain drug, it is especially difficult to find that balance. This is why drug labels warn about the possibility of impaired mental effects.
I'm not knocking people who use marijuana medically; I'm sure it works great for relieving pain. The problem is that with smoking pot the difference between "therapy" and "stoned" can be as little as half a hit off a joint. I just think its hard to regulate how much is an acceptable use for therapy when you can buy bags of it with a card.
It's like people who use cold medicine to get high. Sure its OTC, and there are recommended doses on the bottle, but if you knowingly take more than is required for a therapeutic effect, you're just abusing the drug. I feel its the same for people who smoke "medical" marijuana. If you can take the recommended dose and achieve the desired therapeutic effect without getting high, good for you. But if you get stoned off of your medicine, then you're just abusing the drug.
@Marcus:
"Munchies is when a stoner has been to lazy to eat for a while because they were busy getting stoned. They eat anything to hand because they are too lazy to get any real food when they realise they are hungry."
Well that's not at all judgemental. Thank you for that little gem of wisdom.
Good point. However, I�d like to point out two things: The prescription drugs that you mentioned are all used to treat cases of an already fragile mental state. Vicodin is used to treat unbearable pain, Valium is used to treat panic attacks, and anti-anxiety meds are used to treat the daily stress called by someone with an irrational thought process. In all three cases you mentioned, the drugs are therapeutically used to return a person to a normal level of mental stability (pain-killers, for the most part, work by blocking the brain�s ability to recognize pain). The purpose of the recreational use of weed is to escape a normal level of mental stability.
Also, when used correctly, these drugs should not cause altered perception (meaning chemically impaired judgment by my dictionary). There is a �correct� way to use marijuana, and it comes in a pill form, Marinol, and it�s used to treat nasea, vomiting, and loss of appetite in cancer and AIDS patients. According to my nursing drug book, an altered mental status is an indication of too strong of a dose. When used properly, Marijuana drug products should not alter perception at all.
I think what this brings us down to is that it isn�t necessarily the drug itself that is �bad�. The abuse of the drug is what causes us to attach a negative stigma to it.
Great, now we have to define �drug abuse,� right? Ugh. My head hurts. Someone else do it, ok?
I place marijuana in the same category as alcohol. Both do not serve a miraculous medical purpose, and both impair judgement (yes, I know some people will probably claim that marijuana ENHANCES judgement, but seriously, anyone who eats a big bag of Doritos, 7 corn dogs, and a whole box of fruit roll-ups in one sitting because they have "the munchies" has impaired judgement. :laugh:) Personally I don't really care if marijuana is legalized or not - either way people will still continue to use it recreationally. But to answer your question about why we consider it a "bad" drug, I think it is because it alters a person's perception.
I have been both intoxicated and high before on multiple occasions, and the biggest spiritual problem I have found with both is that they cause you to be selfish. When you are in that state of mind, all that truly matters to you is...you! How good you feel, how happy you are, how hungry you feel, or how you feel like you might need to throw up. It is really, REALLY diffucult to summon the will to care about other people. As much fun as the experience may seem, I wonder how easy it would be for us as Christians to witness or even show the love of God to others while blazed out of their mind. I'm not saying its impossible, but I imagine it would be incredibly difficult for most.
On these grounds I base my thoughts about marijuana. If it is acceptable for us to drink, it should probably also be acceptable for us to smoke, although to take part in either is non-productive and unwise. And at the risk of sounding judgemental, anyone who says they don't function any differently than normal while high probably smokes too much to be able to tell the difference anymore (No offense to all the wake-n-bakes of this world).
To clarify, LawAbidingCitizen, I was NOT telling you to look inside yourself to find truth. I was telling you to look inside yourself to discover whether your own arrogance causes you to block out the attributes of God that you do not wish to accept, such as His grace and mercy. If you only accept God for the attributes you like, you're creating a false god in your mind.
Also you did not really address my question about your authority to judge the status of others' salvation. Would you mind taking a second jab at it, please?
I wonder when Christians started trying to complicate salvation so much. God is just, but He is also a God of love, forgiveness, mercy, and grace. We are saved by grace through faith, sir. Are you too proud to recieve God's grace? Do you honestly believe that you can achieve salvation through your own means and bypass God's gift? Look inside yourself and truly ponder this question: Is it possible that you complicate God's simple gift in order to feel like you are earning it for yourself?
I am greatly disturbed by the fact that you claim to know that a majority of professed Christians are not truly saved. When did God reach down to you and grant you the authority to judge the souls of others? No one can judge man but God, because He is blameless and the only One with the right to do so. To claim to know the hearts of men is to spit in the Almighty's face, friend.
You walk a dangerous line between enlightenment and pride, brother. I already expect you to rip this post apart to shreds, but I sincerely hope that you will consider these words. Open your heart and mind to the possibility that you could be wrong. To close your mind at such a young age speaks of pride and arrogance. You are not God, so perhaps you still have something left to learn?
I honestly don't see how donating eggs is any different morally than giving a child up for adoption. As for the effect that the spirituality of the couple using the egg would have on the future child, I am one who believes that God chooses His bride. I think that God just as easily calls the children of athiests as he does the children of pastors.
