HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: norris@athena.mit.edu (Richard A Chonak)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Non-procreative sex
Date: 24 Dec 92 06:47:59 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

[This responds to a discussion with 3 levels of widgets.  The critical
part is Stan Armstrong (I think) saying 
> If the procreative aspect of marital relations is frustrated by
> external intervention, then the meaning of this act is inherently
> damaged.
to which Julian Shillcock objected
> I find it hard to appreciate the
> view represented in the above reply: viz, that only sexual intercourse with
> the intent of producing a new life is valid in God's Law for ourlives.
--clh]

Hi, Julian--

"Only"?  Who said "only"?  Who said "intent"?  

Stan said (if I may summarize) that sexual union has to be *open* to
new life (if God should give it), not necessarily *intending* to
procreate a new life.

The point is that the *two* aspects of marriage: 
	-- expression/fulfillment of love
	-- procreation of children
must not be separated.  A sexual action performed when love is
excluded is as wrong as a sexual action performed with the possible
fertility excluded.

Why are love and new life so inextricably linked?  

Because the Holy Spirit proceeds from the love between the Father and
the Son; thus the family (man, woman, child) becomes a symbol of the
central revealed mystery of our faith, the Holy Trinity.

What can couples do if for some serious reason they need to postpone
having a child?

They can take advantage of the naturally occurring infertility in the
monthly cycle, learn how to identify the infertile time and avoid the
fertile time.  Two good books are Nona Aguilar's "No Pill, No Risk
Birth Control" and John Kippley's "The Art of Natural Family
Planning".  NFP methods avoid conception without *suppressing*
fertility, so no immoral action is involved.

Does Natural Family Planning work?

It works in India, where Mother Teresa's sisters teach the simple
Billings ovulation method to poor and illiterate people, who find it
liberating to have their conception decisions in their own hands,
without pills or devices; it works in China, where factory workers
taking part in NFP studies prefer the natural methods over the
heavily-promoted IUDs.  The "method effectiveness" rates demonstrated
in US studies put NFP on a par with the better artificial methods.

So-- good news; we can live on the planet without having too many
children for the family or degrading our bodies and souls with
mechanical contraception!

Happy Christmas.

---
Richard Aquinas Chonak, norris@athena.mit.edu
I loved rain for making home seem home in a deeper way. --F. Buechner
From: billmc@microsoft.com (Bill McJohn)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: solmization and St. John the Baptist
Date: 24 Dec 92 07:20:24 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <Dec.16.03.20.00.1992.8847@farside.rutgers.edu> 
jhpb@sarto.budd-lake.nj.us (Joseph H. Buehler) writes:
>
>Regarding St. John the Baptist, here is an interesting bit of trivia
>you can amaze your friends with.
>
>Do you know where the familiar names of the notes in the scale (do,
>re, mi, fa, etc.) came from?  They came from a hymn in the Catholic
>liturgy for the feast of St. John the Baptist.  Each succeeding stanza
>of this hymn begins one note higher on the scale.  The names of the
>notes are the first syllables of the stanzas.

Spiraling even further off into trivia...

Each stanza (it being a hymn, after all) is sung to the same
tune; each line (except for the seventh) starts one degree
higher, and the solmization syllables are taken from the first
verse:

    Ut queant laxis
    Resonare fibris
    Mira gestorum
    Famuli tuorum
    Solve polluti
    Labii reatum
    Sancte Johannes

Ut-re-me-fa-sol-la form the hexachord, one of the cornerstones of
medieval music theory.  Plus, it's a beautiful melody, and it all
takes place in the compass of a sixth.  Modern solfege substitutes
doh for ut, and adds ti to cover the octave.

Another reason that the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist
is six months before the feast of the Nativity or our Lord is that,
as the angel told Mary, Elizabeth was six months pregnant at the time 
of the Annunciation.  Similarly, the feast of the Annunciation is
nine months before Christmas.
From: jeb3@meaddata.com (Jennifer Bing)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Night Club Dancing
Date: 24 Dec 92 07:25:40 GMT
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH

In article <Dec.8.23.58.00.1992.6969@geneva.rutgers.edu>, leonard@aix3090b.uky.edu (Leonard Lauria) writes:
|> johndunk@planet10.wpi.edu (John Dunkelberg) writes:
|> 
|> >In article <Dec.2.00.23.49.1992.16516@geneva.rutgers.edu> cho@wdl1.wdl.loral.com (Il Hyung Cho) writes:
|> >>If this topic has been discussed to a point that we're blue in the face,
|> >>then I appoligize. I would like some information on how you (different 
|> >>Christians) feel about going to night clubs and "dancing" to secular 
|> >>music.  Well I believe that you know what I'm talking about. 
|> 
|> <stuff deleted>
|> 
I feel that God should get the glory out of our lives. We no longer are our own. We are bought with a price, Jesus blood. God is not glorified in secular music. Neither is he glorified when we dance to secular music. When we become born 
again believers we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, HOLY and acceptable unto God. We are new creatures in him. Old things are no more and all things 
are new in us. We no longer desire the things that glorify the flesh. Our desire should be to do the Lord's work. And there is plenty to be done. The world is 
dying and going to hell in handbaskets and we are concerning ourselves with our own pleasures. 

When I question whether I should be doing something or not, I ask myself, Will 
God get the glory. Will he remember what I chose to do with my time and say, 
"Well done my good and faithful servant enter into the joy of the Lord".

-- 
|Jennifer Bing                              | If you do good,             |
|Mead Data Central                          | people will accuse you      |
|9555 Springboro Pike      jeb3@meaddata.com| of selfish ulterior motives,|
|Miamisburg, Oh 45342...!uunet!meaddata!jeb3| Do good anyway.             |

     My opinions are not necessarily those of Mead Data Central
From: angelai@wam.umd.edu (Angela I.)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: PARENTS' RIGHTS RE: EDUCATION
Date: 24 Dec 92 07:22:08 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

In article <Dec.20.18.22.33.1992.22570@farside.rutgers.edu> xx155@yfn.ysu.edu (Family Magazine Sysops) writes:
              [Letter to ensure (Christian) students' rights]
>
>          Under the Hatch Amendment, I hereby request that my child NOT
>     be involved in any school activities or material listed below
>     unless I have first reviewed all the relevant materials and have
>     given my written consent for their use:
>                 [more content deleted]

This letter needs to include refraints from many other things which 
undermine certain students' belief systems:

Prayer, in _any_ form, including "silent time."  (As this constitutes 
manipulation of atheists and students whose religious beliefs require 
special stances, etc., for praying...)

The Pledge of Allegiance.  Some consider it a form of idol worship,
and atheists and many pagans will be undermined by "One nation, under
God."  (Many pagans would say "... under Goddess...")

Discussions of ALL holidays with religious connotations, including
Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, etc...  Oh, and Columbus Day 
certainly undermines the beliefs of Native Americans....

etc...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
And, no matter what they are exposed to in classes, it is impossible
to control what students will be exposed to by their peers.

I am not saying that it is wrong to be aware of your rights as a parent,
or that it is wrong to have control over what your child is being taught, but 
please realize that right now, many disparate groups must and do co-exist, and 
instituting a system that excludes all biases _except_ Christian is simply
hypocritical.  If you truly want your child to be exposed to exclusively
Christian views (or as nearly as possible), it would be wise to consider
private education.  Otherwise, realize that you do your best to teach
your children your own Christian values, and try to keep open lines of
communication with them so that when the big questions _do_ come up,
you will be able to discuss it with them thoroughly and openly...
Some exposure to secular views is inevitable (and in fact, necessary
to become a fully functioning member of current societies), but each of
you are living proof that knowing about other value systems does not
mean that you will inevitably come to accept them...

Blessed be,
Angela

-- 
**************************  angelai@wam.umd.edu  ****************************
From: jmoon@ugcs.caltech.edu (jong moon)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Is Christianity really the ONLY way?
Date: 22 Dec 92 07:51:00 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena

swf@elsegundoca.ncr.com (Stan Friesen) writes:

>|> There seems to be four ways out of this logical trap.

>I see several others:

>5) Those who have not had a fair chance to choose are reincarnated, given
>   another chance.

>6) Those who have not had a fair chance to chose before death are given a chance
>   in the afterlife, in what might be called Limbo. (A la "The Great Divorce"
>   by C.S. Lewis, thought he did not intend the book to seriously suggest such
>   a possibility).

>Currently, based on my persepctive on the nature of the world, I tend to favor
>this last alternative (since I cannot make any real sense out of a reincarnation
>without memories intact).

What happens to a person after death seems hardly as important as what happens
while he is alive.  Personally, I'd be thankful for ANY kind of relationship
with God; and if it's one that terminates at my death, I'd still have gotten
more than I deserved or could hope for.  It seems all this concern with whether
"good" people from other religious backgrounds can be saved is silly...if you
are admitting they are "good" enough to deserve salvation then you are also
admitting that they already have what I consider the most important part of
Christianity.  And after all, you can't be "good" without God, right?
From: gslade@nowhere.uucp (Greg Slade)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Christian Singles Group?????
Date: 24 Dec 92 07:11:54 GMT
Organization: Cyberstore Online Information Systems Inc.

howard@cs.uiuc.edu wrote:
: 
:  I agree about the RACY part - I inquired about a singles dating group
: on the net - boy did I get a shocker!!! 8{  I expected to get a group
: that would be interested in the same things I was interested in. In-
: stead it was in inquiry into my physical side and just about everything
: else that I felt was very personal.  Needless to say, I didn't continue
: to respond to my mail.  
: 
: I too, would like to correspond with people with same beliefs and ideals
: as I have.

That's the key thing for me -- beliefs and ideals.  Basing a relationship
on similar taste in food/music/whatever seems pretty shaky ground to me.
From: jnorris@carson.u.washington.edu (Joel Norris)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: translation of ALMAH
Date: 22 Dec 92 08:29:02 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

>[I'm prepared to believe that alma implied that the woman was virgin.
>Presumably unmarried females were expected to be.  But there's still a
>shift in emphasis when you use virgin as the translation.  Virgin is
>not the only property that was expected to apply to alma's.  Further,
>it seems highly unlikely that the original intent of Is 7:14 was to
>describe a virgin birth.  Note that 7:14 talks about conception in the
>future.  So even if the woman was a virgin at the time Isaiah made his
>prophesy, she presumably was not after the child was conceived.  Note
>my comment a few days ago -- I'm not criticizing Mat's use of the
>passage, but looking at the meaning in the original OT context.
>--clh]

I looked at this issue using my Strong's concordance a while back, and if
I remember correctly, there is another Hebrew word specifically meaning
"virgin" that could have been used instead of "almah" but wasn't. Of
course, there is certainly the implication that unmarried women would be
virgins back then. This is why I dislike the use of the term "young woman"
to translate the passage, since virginity is generally not assumed to
characterize young women in our culture today. Why don't the translators
use the english word "maiden" for "almah"? That word seems to get
everything correct: female, young, unmarried, and the expectation yet not
exact specification of virginity.

Joel

--
Joel Norris			"The fear of the LORD
				 is the beginning of knowledge."
jnorris@u.washington.edu	 -- Proverbs 1:7
From: jfb@macsch.com (John Baskette)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Liberal vs. Fundamental
Date: 22 Dec 92 08:30:25 GMT
Organization: MacNeal-Schwendler Corp.

In article <Dec.20.19.00.11.1992.22736@farside.rutgers.edu> jtauber@tartarus.uwa
.edu.au (James Tauber) asks: 
>I'm a little confused. How can a fundamentalist be legalistic?

I used the term legalistic once in my post on this subject referring 
to fundamentalists.  I will explain what I mean when I used the term.

Legalistic fundamentalists construct a set of rules that "real" or 
"good" or "spirit-filled" or "separated" etc. Christians follow.
These rules are not codified as were the traditions of the Pharisees
of Jesus time, but they are not hard to discern.  

Some examples:  Christians should not:

  listen to rock and roll, the devil's music.  (its in the beat you know)
  wear long hair (males) or dress too "worldly".
  go to "worldly" dances like modern raves.
  play dungeons and dragons.
  drink any alcohol.
  pierce their ears (males).
  wear mini-skirts (females).
  go to R-rated moves.
  etc.

In some more extreme groups today and in fundamentalist groups of 
an earlier generation more extreme rules apply. 

For example:  Christians should not:

  dance.
  listen to Contemporary Christian Music.
  play cards.
  go to movies.
  engage in "mixed bathing".  (This means going to the beach and
                               swimming in the company of scantly
                               clad members of the opposite sex.)
  wear "worldly" clothing like faded blue jeans.
  wear long hair (males).
  wear short hair (females). 
  wear pants (females), but females must wear a hat in church.
  wear make up.
  etc.

It is the practice of setting up these rules that I call legalistic.
The rules perform for fundamentalists the same function that the
traditions of the pharisees performed for the N.T. Jews.  These rules
are to keep people from sin.  Similar problems of hypocrisy also
occur with some fundamentalists who will strictly obey these rules 
but who will tolerate more obvious and blatant sins of another kind.

John
From: phoenix@cwis.unomaha.edu (Shannon Chris Saltzman)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Marriage?  Just do it!
Date: 22 Dec 92 08:31:32 GMT
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha


 You made a valid point in that there is no evidence to support
that living together will in any way improve the quality of a
marriage(thats not exactly what you said).
 I feel you are TRULY mistaken however if you believe that God's plan
is for you to marry the first person who shows up on your doorstep.
I feel you are even further mistaken if you believe that a Godly marriage
can be set up in one day. I do not condone pre-marital sex . I do not
believe however that a marriage need be set up in 24hrs to avoid this.
(Well for some it might(but i doubt it))
 Also generalizing that all people who live together are just "testing
each other out" is a dangerous assumption. Many people live together
for a variety of good(if unBilical) reasons.
 I do not believe God designed marriage to be a "Just do it" thing.
Paul warned that marriage was filled with downfalls and SUGGESTED we
go without it. Certainly if God had the "Just do it" attitude, Paul would
have been WAY out of line saying that.(NOTE:Paul was not condoning live in
mate or situations)
 Nobody can tell anyone what True Love is,because it is a matter of opinion,
but in my definition,True Love is not that nervous(somewhat glorious,somewhat
nauseating) feeling you get when you are around someone(I believe this goes
with it at first).True Love is one built under the shelter of our loving
God,and thus one that endures even after the sweaty  palms and stuttering
has gone. Nobody can do that in a day.
How many of us even knew ourselves in a day?

-- 
 MR Shannon Saltzman
 "Is doggie heaven kitty hell?" Stephanie phoenix(age 6)
 "How does teflon stick to a skillet when nothing sticks to teflon?"
 The words of Mike Warnke.
From: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Challenging Christmas carol
Date: 24 Dec 92 06:58:24 GMT

> Does anyone know anything about the composer or the song? 

I haven't heard that particular song, but Sydney Carter is a fairly well-
known modern songwriter.  Probably his most well-known song is "Lord of the 
Dance," set to the Shaker melody "Simple Gifts."

Peace,

Amanda Walker
From: REXLEX@linac.fnal.gov
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Help For Jehovah's Witnesses
Date: 24 Dec 92 09:46:51 GMT
Organization: FNAL

>In article <Dec.20.17.32.50.1992.22196@farside.rutgers.edu>
harling@miki.pictel.com (Dan Harling) writes:
>
>>I don't intend to get involved debating the scholarship of another's
>>book, but I find the extensive notes and attributions (over one hundred
>>in some chapters) of Walter Martin's _Kingdom of the Cults_ to be
>>indicative of anything but "shoddy scholarship and deceptive
>>reporting." 
>
I knew Walter Martin when I was at Moody.  He was at the point of retirement,
but if you ever got to know him you would of immediately noted 1) he was a most
humble, non condensending man, 2) he knew what he was talking about and had
researched his subject of the cults from within, not just from an outside
philosophical vantage.  He knew his Gk & Heb well enough that he could just
start reading out loud from any section, including the 6(?) chapters in Daniel
that where in Arabic.  My wife had his class on cults and from his notes he
constantly reminds that one is pointing out the errors of the teachings of men,
not of the men themselves.  Also, he gave numerous reference of the writings of
the cults themselves, and notations on the lives of its founders/leaders. 
You're really blowing hot air if you accuse this man of putting forth "shoddy
scholarship" or presenting a demeaning style of confrontation.  It is you who
is practicing what your preaching against!

Rex
 
[I believe the chapters of Dan. were in Aramaic.  --clh]
From: Steve.Hayes@f22.n7101.z5.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: praying for leaders
Date: 24 Dec 92 06:44:56 GMT

On <12 Dec 1992 18:11> Co Ho (5:7104/2) said to All :

 CH>And even if the president is a non-Christian, isn't that our 
 CH>job to pray
 CH>for the authorities as Paul suggested to the Romans?

Why "even"?

The authorities that St Paul was telling the Romans to pray for certainly 
weren't Christians. They were as anti-Christian as Hitler, Krushchev or
Lenin.
From: jeb3@meaddata.com (Jennifer Bing)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Does God intervene?
Date: 24 Dec 92 09:45:40 GMT
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH

In article <Dec.11.02.08.03.1992.13588@athos.rutgers.edu>, sungho@crhc.uiuc.edu (Sungho Kim) writes:
|> Hello,
|> I would like to hear from Christians on the following problem.
|> I see innocent victims suffer and die all over the world and see that 
|> God does not do anything about it.  

He does do something about it. He moves on us to respond to peoples suffering. 
It is our job as Christians to go and tell the world that a savior has been born to set them free from sin and death. Sin causes death and suffering.
Sometimes when we hear that small still voice saying go, use the resources I've  given you to help my people, we say "I can't now God", "I don't know
how".....etc. In stead of asking why God allows suffering, ask yourself why
do you allow it. We are suppose to be representatives of Christ, therefore
we should be going about doing what Christ did. Another thing we must consider 
is that God's ways are not our ways. God is always doing something, but maybe 
not what we in our finite mind thinks he should be doing. 

God is not so concerned with our natural death as he is with our spiritual
death. This physical life is temporary anyway. We know that when we are born
we have an appointed time to die. Whats more important is where we are going
to spend eternity.

|>So I conclude he does not intervene 
|> and therefore does not respond to prayers either.  

If you trust God and his word then you know that he hears the prayers of the
righteous and they do have an advantage. He doesn't always respond the way
we think he should, but we must trust that he sees the big picture and is
working his purpose in us through the things that we suffer (for chrsitians
only). 

If I haven't made it clear, the suffering of a sinner is differnt from that
of a believer. As a believer we trust that God's word doesn't lie when he
says, "All things work together for good to them that love the Lord". A
sinner suffers because he was born in sin.


|>What I am saying is
|> he is aware of everything but decided leave everything to us.
|> So, I see no point in asking God for mercy when one is sick.

Throughout Jesus ministry people were healed becaused they believed. Believe
and then wait knowing that he will in due time come and heal you and if he
doesn't ever come, trust that he is working to your good.

|> Does anybody disagree with me?
|> 
|> Thanks in advance
|> Sungho Kim

-- 
|Jennifer Bing                              | If you do good,             |
|Mead Data Central                          | people will accuse you      |
|9555 Springboro Pike      jeb3@meaddata.com| of selfish ulterior motives,|
|Miamisburg, Oh 45342...!uunet!meaddata!jeb3| Do good anyway.             |

     My opinions are not necessarily those of Mead Data Central
From: labson@borneo.corp.sgi.com
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Masturbation
Date: 22 Dec 92 08:20:58 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.

What happen if you are a single person (male) and urges attacked, There
is no other option besides.....( masturbation or 7th avenue )????What
then?????

-joel

[aargh.  While I'm willing to listen to arguments that masturbation
isn't in itself a problem, this comment bothers me.  The implication
behind it seems to be that there's no alternatives to giving into
urges in some way.  There are surely times when urges are simply
wrong, and must be dealt with with the help of prayer and other
Christian options (e.g. the help of other people).  --clh]
From: saw8712@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Steve A. Ward)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Left LDS Church - why?
Date: 22 Dec 92 08:21:52 GMT
Organization: Boeing Computer Services

J024330@lmsc5.is.lmsc.lockheed.com writes:

>I'm in the process of preparing a publication profiling folks who left
>the LDS Church and their reasons for leaving.  I left in 1981 because
>I found certain doctrinal issues that were not in line with the Book of
>Mormon, nor the Bible.

>Would you consider sharing your experiences with me via e-mail?  Would
>you allow me to use your name and city of residence, or would you rather
>remain anonymous?

>Thanks for your help,

May I ask why you feel the need to do this?

-- 
Steven A. Ward
The Boeing Company
internet: saw8712@bcstec.ca.boeing.com
phone: (206) 662-0239