From: chrisl@stpaul.gov (Chris A Lyman)
Subject: Re: Why AntiAbortionists are RADICALS and NOT Conservatives
Organization: City of Saint Paul Public Works
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 14:38:21 GMT

frank@D012S436.sniap.mchp.sni.de (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
> chrisl@stpaul.gov (Chris A Lyman) writes:
>> frank@D012S436.sniap.mchp.sni.de (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
>>> chrisl@stpaul.gov (Chris A Lyman) writes:

>>>> Gutting the Bible:            Read Numbers 5:12-31, which shows God
>>>>                               to be pro-abortion.

>>> And here's the bible exhorting us all to commit suicide:
>>>        "Judas went and hanged himself in a field"
>>>        "..And Jesus said, go thou and do likewise"

>> Ho, ho!  Not even in the same chapter!  You VileHereticalDebaserOfGod's
>> HolyWrit, you!

> If that's how you think Christians feel about it, why are you attempting
> to debase their Bible, then?    Are you getting paid, or something?

No, but it appears that you need to hang around drieux for a while. :-)
How does my citation of a specific (and long, and continuous) passage from
the Bible constitute a debasement of that book?

[--deletions--]

>> The Numbers citation isn't out of context, not by a long shot.

> Yes it is.  I'm neither a theologian nor a Christian, but if I
> were I would be saying that your quote is way out of context.
> It's proper context is the Bible.  The whole Bible.

Most Christian churches teach a doctrine of biblical inerrancy or divine
inspiration or whatever.  It worries me a lot that a Church whose ethos
revolves around "Love your neighbor as yourself," and "Do unto others as
you would have them do unto you" would unconditionally embrace a document
that is at times pro-genocide, pro-forced-abortion and even pro-child-abuse.
It helps to remember that it was written by committee over several millenia
and edited by committee some 500 years after Christ's death.

Believe me, it's a very uneasy feeling to be both advocate and critic
of the Good Book! :-)

[--deletions--]

> See what I mean?  A jesuit priest, if I had one handy, would tear your
> Biblical argument to shreds.  Trust me on this.  That's what jesuit
> priests are employed for, to slap down arrogant kids who think they know
> a flaw in the Bible that nobody in 2000 years of Christianity has spotted
> yet.

I'd like you to prove that jessies are handy things to have around. :-)
And I certainly don't take credit for finding any new flaws.

> Drop it, unless you believe the stuff, is my advice.  You are gloating and
> sneering over this quote from a book which you do not even appear to believe.
> You are saying at one and the same time that the book ought and ought not to
> be believed.  And although I am not a Christian I neither advocate nor
> appreciate juvenile sneering at the basis of this or any other religion.

My gracious, such truckloads of meaning you divine from a simple suggestion!
Were I to start writing haiku, you'd probably be my most avid reader! :-)

>>>> Trashing American History:   Steve Chaney continually asserts that
>>>>                               the fetus was a legal person before
>>>>                               Roe vs. Wade.
>>>> There's more.  There's lots, lots more.

>>> ...pro-life people in the world than Steve Chaney.

>> And some of them can even write coherently...

> Thanks.  Steve and I do write rather well, don't we? :-)

Ahem. If it weren't for that smiley, your championing Steve as a coherent
writer would get you booted off _my_ list of coherent writers! :-)

>>> Plus, an outsiders view: American History consists in large measure
>>> of American People trashing American History.  It's the American Way,
>>> godammit!!!!!!   :-)

>> Smiley noted.  Of course, there aren't any attempts at revisionism in your
>> corner of the world, either. :-)

> Your smiley noted too.  You didn't need it tho'.  I like your remark very
> much, smiley or no.  But do you think I am German, Irish, Danish or some
> other nationality?  

> [Irish.  And Dublin is no "corner of the world", but rather
> the center of the universe!!! (Haven't you folks read any James Joyce?? :-))]

I've read a lot of Yeats.  I had a feeling that you were some flavor of Celt,
but I was thinking more of your present location.  Funny thing: the Indian
chief in _Little Big Man_ called the Great Plains of North America the center
of the universe...

-- 
Chris Lyman  /  email: chrisl@pwcs.stpaul.gov  /  #include <std.disclaimers.h>
           "Remember! Arguments should be FUN!" -- Jessica McGeary