From: cprice@treehut.waffle.atl.ga.us (Clyde Price)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: THE IMPLICATIONS OF ABORTION ON OUR SOCIETY
Date: 15 Apr 92 15:19:45 GMT
Organization: Clyde's TreeHut BBS

mills@uga.edu (Kathi Mills) writes:

> > Franklin
> >> Brian Kauffman
> 
> >>BTW, are you willing to reject all books of the bible that endorse polygamy
> >>or do you pick & choose bible verses to taste?
> 
> This statement is so blatantly wrong it's funny.  More than half of
> what most people consider the bible is composed of the Old Testament.
> I defy you to come up with so much as TWO PAGES of ANY O.T. book
> that do not contain any reference to gratuitous violence, especially
> killing.  Most "christians" conveniently ignore the mind-boggling
> crimes their god committed in that part of their holy book by saying
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> "The O.T. is no longer valid," then hypocritically bringing up the
> OLD TESTAMENT commandement, "Thou shalt not commit murder."
> 
> >Polygamy,
> >mentioned in oh so obscure and third-hand perspective is not
> >what I consider important. God never preaches of polygamy, yet it
> >is mentioed in the bible because the bible's details reflect the time
> >and age of the society. 
> 
> So polygamy is *mentioned*, but it's *not important*, whereas
> abortion is *not mentioned*, but it's *overwhelmingly important*.
> Very logical.

        This is an interesting hodgepodge of juicy issues. Before
commenting, I'll identify myself:
        I'm an evangelical Reformed Christian and accept the Bible as my
rule for faith and practice, the Old Testament interpreted by the New
with the assumption of harmony between them.  I do NOT believe that the
Old Testament is "invalid", but rather fulfilled and superceded by the
New Covenant which it predicted and looked forward to.

        "Crimes their god committed": What are you referring to here?
Does this refer to God's judgment on people and entire nations because
of their sins?  The commandment "You shall not murder" does not
invalidate the execution penalty for certain crimes, or at times the
necessity for military action, or the right of self-defense.  In the
Bible God kills or orders killed individuals and nations who have
forfeited the right to live because of their crimes against Him.
        Of what crimes do you accuse the God of the Bible?

        How does polygamy enter the discussion?  Under some
circumstances, Levirate marriage, the practice of a surviving younger
brother taking his widowed sister-in-law to raise up children (heir/s)
to his deceased brother sometimes _required_ marrying more than one
woman (Old Testament).  In the New Testament, elders and deacons were
required to be monogamous, but although discouraged polygamy was not
forbidden as such.

        As I detailed in a previous post, I consider that abortion and
some other crimes were so rare as to be unaddressed in the Law and
unmentioned as such elsewhere.
        Exodus 21:22-25 comes as close to addressing abortion as
anything in the Bible, where if someone causes the death of a pre-born
child, the penalty is execution. (This would make the profession of
abortionist less attractive.)
        Other physical violence was covered pretty well under the
"life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth" proviso, a rather
strong deterrent.



Clyde Price, SysOp: Clyde's TreeHut BBS 404/767-1632/I'm a "whosoever"!
P.O.Box 667      Sec'y: Atlanta Christian Tech Society (meets 3rd Tues)
Red Oak, GA 30272-0667/ CIS#76616,3452 /cprice@treehut.waffle.atl.ga.us
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