Quarto said:
...Just to play the devil's advocate, I ...ask you this - how do you know that the appointment of a gay bishop isn't a sign from God regarding another policy shift?
No prob. Basically, with the completion of the canon of NT scripture (sequentially, if not chronologically, the book of Revelation), God's general revelations to mankind have completed. The Book is closed, so to speak, on any further such revelations from God. The entirety of Scripture as it has existed for the last x hundreds of years/millenia are viewed as being complete. Indeed, Paul specifically sez this:
"But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!"
(Galatians 1:8-9)
By these criteria (?sp), the gay bishop thing is refuted as being any sort of "policy shift" on God's part. As an added bonus - no extra charge - both Mormonism and the Jehovah's Witnesses fail and are proved to not be "false gospels": The Mormons have a completley different second book they use (the "Book of Mormon", natch), and they view it as being superior to the Bible. The JWs, well, their own (corrupted) version of the Scriptures even contains the above passage. Ironic how they can overlook that passage, since
their version of the Bible is rife with a host of corruptions.
Anyway, that ain't to say that God can't make specific PERSONAL revelations to *individuals* from time to time ("I felt God was telling me to not get on that plane, and I later found out that it crashed, with no survivors!"...), but the Bible isn't personal revelation, its *general* revelation - applicable to all mankind. The test of whether such an individuals "revelation" is truly from God is this:
(1) Does it line up with Scriptural teaching?...
(2) Is it something which contradicts Scripture in any way?...
The answer to the first
can be "no" (as in the example I gave), but if the answer to the second is "yes", then any personal revelations you may get AIN'T from God...
Bob McDobb said:
...Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
...what I was trying to get across; the idea that ALL people are 100% gay or ALL people are 100% straight. That's simply not true.
...LEGAL abortions, LEGAL alchohol sales...
...I HAVE looked it up, and I've pointed out how your logic is not only flawed in that respect, but also exhibits a twisted (though sadly common) view of history.
-- You've yet to prove that the French are a "race"
-- Well, so long as yer not trying to say that there aren't SOME (heck, prolly MOST) folks that are "100%" one way or the other, as I know I am...
-- So?... your original statement was "...I don't believe that legalizing an institution is necessarily a step to promoting it". Them examples I gave said otherwise: Once the thing was legalized, the instance of people using/utilizing it increased. Hence, legalization DID serve to "promote" the thing in question.
-- On that point, you ain't
successfully pointed out or exhibited squat. I'd be interested in seeing you try, though. The fact is, if you do a survey of all the great world Empires of the past (those from which we have sufficient information extant, that is), you'll see that more often than not, their downfall came as a result of corruption from within, rather than a superior enemy from without. And said corruption could be traced back, in large part, to the breakdown of the family unit and the resulting breakdown of morality of that culture.