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Trump considering pardons for 3.5 children, Guilliani

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  • #46
    Originally posted by mossrose View Post
    You told an absolute lie about what Jesus condemned and another about what my "personal crusade".
    Just because you don't like reality, that doesn't make the thing a 'lie'.

    Jesus didn't teach against abortion. Jesus didn't teach against homosexuality. There is no "parable of why you shouldn't be gay" and no "parable about how abortion is wrong". Those are just basic bible-knowledge things. You're allowed to not like that truth. But you throwing a tantrum doesn't make it a 'lie'.

    You obviously post a fair amount on this forum about abortion. You mention homosexuality a fair amount too. They are clearly topics on which you hold strong opinions. Describing them as your 'personal crusade' was just poetic language meaning that. Again, you not liking that doesn't make it a 'lie'.
    "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
    "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
    "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

    Comment


    • #47
      Originally posted by NorrinRadd View Post
      The pardon power is excellent. It is one of the most purely unilateral and undiluted powers of the Executive.
      That seems a strange love for authoritarian unilateral action.

      Obviously, when the president is unilaterally pardoning his friends and co-conspirators in criminal actions there is a corruption issue. Strange to see you celebrate his unilateral authoritarian power to be corrupt.

      It is a power of unappealable, irrevocable mercy, totally immune from the other branches of government. POTUS has no comparable power to inflict judgment or punishment, only mercy.

      One might say that "mercy triumphs over judgment."
      Although, I note, it seems to work the opposite way when it comes to wars. The US president appears capable of starting wars on his own (I know technically he's not supposed to have that power and it's supposed to be congress's but the war on terror seems to have allowed the president to do anything, and e.g. the only reason him drone striking the Iranian leader earlier this year didn't become a war seems to have been because Iran didn't want one). Whereas peace treaties require senate authorization. So, while you might like the fact that mercy is easy for the pardon power, war and peace seems to work the opposite way - war is easy and peace is hard. Probably one reason the US is in so many forever-wars at the moment.
      "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
      "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
      "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

      Comment


      • #48
        Originally posted by Starlight View Post
        I agree on abortion, but disagree on homosexuality. There are two relevant passages on that topic.

        Matt 19:12
        "For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others--and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."
        Pop culture today tends to portray eunuchs as castrated men who served in harems, but that portrayal comes from the Muslim Ottoman empire of the 16th and 17th centuries. "Eunuchs" in the ancient world was a fairly wide term that included gay, asexual, and transgender people, as well as any physical damage to the genitals - i.e. any man who wasn't going to father offspring for whatever reason. Some sources portray eunuchs as sexually promiscuous with other men.

        Jesus's point in this passage seems to be to encourage missionaries to make the sacrifice of being childless in order to put their entire focus onto promoting the kingdom of heaven rather than family. Obviously the wider society of the time viewed children as a blessing, and having heirs to continue your name and family was viewed positively, so those who didn't have children, either through inability, lack of desire, being gay, or self-sacrifice for the kingdom of heaven, would be viewed as lacking in that respect. But Jesus' tone of the passage is clearly positive toward eunuchs. Also, the assumption that's generally made about Jesus is that he wasn't married himself and didn't have children, so he would be in the eunuch category too (no, I'm not asserting he was gay, just that the eunuch category covered asexual people as well).

        Overall I would consider this statement as implying a generally neutral or positive attitude toward eunuchs, and thus to gay and transgender and asexual people who were three among several groups covered by that category.

        The other relevant passage is the healing of the Centurion's Beloved Servant in Matthew 8 / Luke 7. We know from other sources that Romans very commonly had sexual relationships with their slaves, including same-sex relationships. The description of the servant as "beloved", most likely indicates that we are meant to infer such as relationship here and that this is why the Centurion is particularly eager to seek a healer for this particular slave. Jesus' response is 100% positive, and the Centurion gets given some of the highest praise we ever hear from Jesus. If Jesus was at all anti-gay he surely would have asked if this was really a gay relationship and if there was immorality occurring. But instead in this passage, when presented with an apparent gay relationship, Jesus responds with nothing but positivity and zero condemnation.

        Outside of the gospels there are a handful of biblical passages that might, or might not, speak to homosexuality, but within the gospels these two passages seem to me to be the only relevant ones on the topic and they both seem to portray Jesus having a neutral or positive attitude toward gay people.
        I had never heard that take on eunuch. I'll look into it a bit, but I would be surprised if Christ was positive toward such, though I would expect him to be at least as merciful as he was to the woman caught in adultery given that being fully God and fully man He would know there are inherited traits that drive people in that direction.

        The passages outside the gospels that deal with homosexuality almost uniformly condemn it in very strong terms. Which is the difficult conflict then between those condemnations and the fact a tendency towards homosexual attraction is not something one typically has control over - its part of the inherited physical and psychological being of such persons.


        I agree with you that Jesus, in the gospels, says nothing on that topic. And in my statement to Mossrose, which she ludicrously labelled a lie, my point was simply that there are no words in the gospels from Jesus that show him to be against homosexuality or abortion.

        But I would point to two passages in the bible that seem to speak to the topic of abortion.

        Exodus 21 appears to speak about the topic of a man hitting a pregnant woman. There is a bit of ambiguity, but the gist of it seems to be that if she loses the baby as a result, there is a monetary fine as if it is equivalent to damage to her husband's property. Whereas if the woman herself dies, then it is considered murder and the death penalty applies. If the fetus is being considered the husband's property under the law, the implication is that the husband himself can destroy it if he wants just as he can dispose of any of his own property.
        Very familiar with this passage and especially the light the septuagint sheds on it.. And although I do not believe it opens the door morally to abortion on demand, it sets clearly that killing an unformed fetus falls short of actual murder.

        Numbers 5 describes what is called the Ordeal of the Bitter Water. There is a bit of ambiguity, but what seems to be described is a supernatural testing of women who are accused of adultery, where they are fed an abortifacient (the bitter water) and a prayer for God's judgement is spoken, and if the fetus miscarries they were guilty of adultery, and if not then not. This essentially appears to be biblically commanded abortion, and without the woman's approval at that.
        Again consistent with the ancient and present view in judaism that until the first breath is taken, the unborn baby is not yet a human soul.

        The critical distinction then, for me, being that the inherent difference in value does not allow for the callous treatment of the unborn as fodder for the whims of the mother. It rather allows for a proper aportioning of value when the mothers life or well being is critically endangered. I think it also allows for a more scientific approach to the recognition of when we need to walk away from the idea this is only about the mother's control of her body or her own destiny - that being the point we know this being has begun to in fact become aware. From that point on there are two beings, not one. And we can no longer allow decisions about the fate of one of those people to be considered without consideration of the other.
        Last edited by oxmixmudd; 12-03-2020, 12:39 AM.
        My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

        If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

        This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

        Comment


        • #49
          Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
          The passages outside the gospels that deal with homosexuality almost uniformly condemn it in very strong terms.
          That is certainly the traditional view. I am less than convinced that those passages are actually speaking about homosexuality. Going into that would derail this thread further though.

          And it seems reasonably obvious to me from comparing it with other depictions of homosexual relationships in ancient cultures that the biblical author of the David and Jonathan account is intending to portray a homosexual relationship between the two of them, and not expecting that to be judged negatively. A lot of Christians grew up being told "David and Jonathan Were Just Friends" and so get quite angry when I point out that if you actually read the biblical accounts in an unprejudiced way it's fairly jarring: The bible uses some of its strongest language about love and how their souls were knit and says David loved Jonathan more than women. (It's worth bearing in mind with regard to this story that if the Levitical law about men not lying in a woman's bed is intended to be a law against homosexuality, that the book of Leviticus as we have it now is typically dated to around 500BC, while David lived ~1000BC and the accounts of him as we have them now are typically dated to ~700-500BC. So there's every possibility that at the time both of David and historian writing the account we have of it that there was no widely-known prohibition on homosexuality in Israel and that practice was assumed to be non-problematic by both.)
          "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
          "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
          "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

          Comment


          • #50
            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
            That is certainly the traditional view. I am less than convinced that those passages are actually speaking about homosexuality. Going into that would derail this thread further though.

            And it seems reasonably obvious to me from comparing it with other depictions of homosexual relationships in ancient cultures that the biblical author of the David and Jonathan account is intending to portray a homosexual relationship between the two of them, and not expecting that to be judged negatively. A lot of Christians grew up being told "David and Jonathan Were Just Friends" and so get quite angry when I point out that if you actually read the biblical accounts in an unprejudiced way it's fairly jarring: The bible uses some of its strongest language about love and how their souls were knit and says David loved Jonathan more than women. (It's worth bearing in mind with regard to this story that if the Levitical law about men not lying in a woman's bed is intended to be a law against homosexuality, that the book of Leviticus as we have it now is typically dated to around 500BC, while David lived ~1000BC and the accounts of him as we have them now are typically dated to ~700-500BC. So there's every possibility that at the time both of David and historian writing the account we have of it that there was no widely-known prohibition on homosexuality in Israel and that practice was assumed to be non-problematic by both.)
            I dont know enough to be able to judge if the account reads like similar accounts of homosexusl relationships from that time. However, I also tend to think it's very possible your assessment of that relationship is colored by our culture and our time. We tend to sexualize nearly every relationship now and have a hard time conceiving of a truly close relationship that goes to the depths of the soul without sex somehow showing up in the mix somewhere. Yet outside our sexualized culture, there is in reality no necessary correlation between very strong and close relationships between people of the same sex and sexual expression if those people have no such conception imposed upon them by their culture and no intrinsic pre-existing same sex desire in the individuals themselves. In such a culture and pair of individuals, sex is between a man and a women. That is the only thought pattern that exists, and no matter how close the physical contact, they simply don't perceive it as sexual. There is no sexual desire involved, and that contact never exceeds that boundary so that it can become sexual.

            I know this because that IS the culture I grew up in. And I had no same sex desire intrinsic in me. And in no male friendship no matter how close did a sexualized thought about that relationship ever cross my mind. It simply didn't exist nor could it.
            Last edited by oxmixmudd; 12-03-2020, 05:28 AM.
            My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

            If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

            This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

            Comment


            • #51
              Originally posted by Starlight View Post
              There is a governmental process by which the justice department can investigate individual cases, and officially recommend they be pardoned. This generally occurs only when something is found to have gone wrong with the original case (e.g. in the case you mentioned, it was discovered police had fabricated evidence, and a governmental inquiry recommended a pardon which the government decided to enact). Technically the governor general does the final sign-off on all such things, but he is not actually the one that makes the decision in the first place.

              Were he to start making decisions in the first place, that would be a problem, and that has never happened. He certainly does not write pardons to benefit his own personal friends the way US presidents such as Clinton and Trump have done.
              That's a longwinded way of saying "my bad, I didnt get my facts straight", bud.

              Comment


              • #52
                Originally posted by Gondwanaland View Post

                That's a longwinded way of saying "my bad, I didnt get my facts straight", bud.
                No, its simply an explanation of the fact your perception of what pardon power means wrt us presidents is so distorted towards abuse that the two kinds of pardon are reasonably two different categories. There is a huge difference between a leader granting a pardon to overturn mistakes made in the judicial process and the abuse of the pardon power to protect those wilfully breaking the law on your behalf as president.

                The pardon power exists to prevent political revenge, not to make it possible for a president to grant immunity to people acting illegally on his behalf, not to make it possible for a president to break the law through others while granting them impunity.
                Last edited by oxmixmudd; 12-03-2020, 11:20 AM.
                My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

                If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

                This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

                Comment


                • #53
                  Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                  We tend to sexualize nearly every relationship now and have a hard time conceiving of a truly close relationship that goes to the depths of the soul without sex somehow showing up in the mix somewhere.
                  Really? I would tend to guess that the vast vast majority of people in the West have probably not had sex with any of their close friends (I sure haven't), never mind anything close to a majority of them. So we certainly can and do conceive of close friendships without sex.

                  From my own readings about anthropology I would say that the modern West is generally vastly less sexualized than most historical human cultures. In ancient Greek and Roman art, pornography is everywhere and explicit, to an extent unthinkable for any sort of public display by today's standards. In my own country, the first Europeans were shocked at the causal attitude of the natives toward sex and by the graphic sexual carvings that the natives displayed publicly.

                  In the early 20th century, the popularization of anthropological discoveries about the sexual freedom in primitive cultures pushed the thesis that these cultures were living in a more natural state and that it was the West who was unnatural and neurotic with all its sexual taboos and hang-ups. One culture that hit the headlines in this way was the Trobriand Islanders (off the coast of New Guinea) who had some books published about them by an anthropologist studying them. As wikipedia describes them:
                  At seven or eight years of age, Trobriand children begin to play erotic games with each other and imitate adult seductive attitudes. About four or five years later, they begin to pursue sexual partners. They change partners often. Women are just as assertive and dominant as men in pursuing or refusing a lover. This is not only allowed, but encouraged.

                  ...there is no traditional marriage ceremony... The married couple eat together for about a year, and then go back to eating separately....Once the man and woman eat together... word goes out that the boy and girl are married... A married couple may get divorced after one year if the woman in the relationship is unhappy with her husband. A married couple may also get divorced if the husband chooses another woman.
                  It is a tribe that has been relatively resistant to any Western influence to this day.

                  Similarly, it was mentioned on this forum a while back that a missionary trying to reach and uncontacted tribe on the North Sentinel Island in the Indian ocean was killed by them. I was amused that several articles noted that one of the few things that is known about the tribe is that outsiders have observed groups of them having sexual orgies on the beach.

                  So, yeah, absolutely none of the anthropological literature I've read leads me to think the modern West is oversexualized compared to other cultures or historical ones. Precisely the opposite.

                  Yet outside our sexualized culture, there is in reality no necessary correlation between very strong and close relationships between people of the same sex and sexual expression if those people have no such conception imposed upon them by their culture and no intrinsic pre-existing same sex desire in the individuals themselves. In such a culture and pair of individuals, sex is between a man and a women. That is the only thought pattern that exists, and no matter how close the physical contact, they simply don't perceive it as sexual. There is no sexual desire involved, and that contact never exceeds that boundary so that it can become sexual.
                  I have no problem believing that to have been your personal experience.

                  But it's clearly not the experience of everyone, and it's clearly not the experience in all cultures. I have heard plenty of accounts of men who viewed themselves as heterosexual in adulthood, but in high-school or university had some form of same-sex experience. There's a poster on this forum who told me that he went to an all boys school and had an enjoyable sexual relationship there but views himself as heterosexual in adulthood. C.S. Lewis recounts seeing that happening among the students at his elite English boys boarding school in 1913, he comments that having one's coat unbuttoned was considered the worse offense, and notes that he has no particular reason to think those boys didn't grow up to be happily heterosexually married men.

                  I'm not at all saying that it was impossible for the David and Jonathan in the bible to have been friends without being lovers. Of course that was possible for people in their culture. Because that was so possible and so common, literally all the bible would need to say if it wanted to depict that was "they were good friends" and spend little to no further time on the subject. If that's what their relationship was, that's how you describe that. The fact that it instead waxes lyrical about how their souls were bound together in love for each other, using pretty much the strongest language the bible ever uses about love, and talks about how they found each other more attractive than they found woman, is not very subtle. Unless we start out with the assumption that they absolutely cannot possibly be lovers, it seems reasonably obvious what it's describing.
                  "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                  "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                  "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    I heard a rumor that Biden is going to pardon Hunter and Jim immediately upon taking office. I'm curious what what the BDS crowd things of that.

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Originally posted by LiconaFan97 View Post
                      I heard a rumor that Biden is going to pardon Hunter and Jim immediately upon taking office. I'm curious what what the BDS crowd things of that.
                      I'm betting you didn't hear such a rumour at all.
                      America - too good to let the conservatives drag it back to 1950.

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Originally posted by LiconaFan97 View Post
                        I heard a rumor that Biden is going to pardon Hunter and Jim immediately upon taking office. I'm curious what what the BDS crowd things of that.
                        "Only a dictator would pardon his own family! Therefore China Joe must be going to do it!" -Mountain Man probably.
                        "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                        "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                        "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          Originally posted by Electric Skeptic View Post
                          I'm betting you didn't hear such a rumour at all.
                          I didn't hear any such rumor but that's not the point.

                          Comment


                          • #58
                            I would not like it, but It would be within his power, and he would be wise to do so.
                            Geislerminian Antinomian Kenotic Charispneumaticostal Gender Mutualist-Egalitarian.

                            Beige Federalist.

                            Nationalist Christian.

                            "Everybody is somebody's heretic."

                            Social Justice is usually the opposite of actual justice.

                            Proud member of the this space left blank community.

                            Would-be Grand Vizier of the Padishah Maxi-Super-Ultra-Hyper-Mega-MAGA King Trumpius Rex.

                            Justice for Ashli Babbitt!

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                            Arrest Ray Epps and his Fed bosses!

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                            • #59
                              Originally posted by LiconaFan97 View Post

                              I didn't hear any such rumor but that's not the point.
                              Of course it's the point. You made up something that's not true and your point failed dismally.
                              America - too good to let the conservatives drag it back to 1950.

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                Originally posted by Electric Skeptic View Post
                                Of course it's the point. You made up something that's not true and your point failed dismally.
                                You don't think the hypocrisy of those on the right towards Hunter Biden is relevant?

                                Comment

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