Did you ever notice?

So is there a first morpher? Something that began the process or action of morphing and change? What about the stuff that morphs into other stuff where did that come from? Does something that morphs into another thing have to be exactly the same size to avoid breaking the conservation of matter law? Speaking of those laws how do you reconcile an eternal physical universe with the 2nd law of thermodynamics?

Quote: boymimbo

I don't like Christians preaching against certain types of people. LGBT especially. There are greater problems in the world. Christians should treat LGB (not T, no mention) as sin. We are all sinners. I would say to welcome LGB into the churches and let them reconcile their sins with God, just like I need to do the same with my own sins. I think that ultimately, in a Christian belief system, God will judge.

You may have done away with indulgences and the sale thereof, and you may have left the Pope behind, but you've yet to shake off Plato's idealism.

I really wish Aristotle had been more popular in the late periods BCE...

If he had been, you'd be less likely to embrace contradictions. See, essentially you've said "Christians shouldn't preach against certain kinds of people, but they should preach these people are sinful."

As the kids say these days "Same difference."

Love is exception making. Love means accepting people for who they are, not who you wished they were. I cannot reconcile a need to repent of something that has done no harm to anyone, and certainly has violated no one's rights. Certainly NOT because some people long dead regarded it as "sinful."

Quote:

As a church, you should never see a pastor promote LGB behavior as there really isn't a valid interpretation in the bible where this behavior is not sinful.

So you wouldn't let a gay couple get involved in church activities where a straight couple would be welcomed, for example? You wouldn't see a church provide such a couple with marriage counseling if they needed it?

What would this church, hypothetically, counsel its congregants to do regarding LGBT people in the real world? Should they refuse to hire them, to serve them at a business, to provide healthcare to them or their children, to aid them in an emergency?

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I feel that LGB behavior between two people in an intent to be loving is not sinful.

I don't see how you can possibly reconcile this statement with the previous ones.

Quote: FrGamble

So is there a first morpher? Something that began the process or action of morphing and change?

How could there be if it's always been
here. We can't see it because we're
trapped in time.

Quote: nareed

See, essentially you've said "Christians shouldn't preach against certain kinds of people, but they should preach these people are sinful.

For Christians, everyone has sin and everyone is sinful, without exception. I believe that most interpretations of the bible lists homosexual relations as sin. It also states that thinking about having sex with someone you are not married to is also sinful. So we are all sinners. However, I believe that the bible could have been preaching against unwilling acts (rape - men coming to the door to take Lot's party for sodomy in Genesis 19:5) as found in Sodom and Gomorrah and also preaching against the immoral behavior of the day. I cannot see a Christian God denying access to heaven for a believer who is gay and is attempting a monogamous and loving relationship. However, I may be in the minority of Christians who sees things differently.

But it is hard to refute 1 Corinthians 6:9 and its meaning, translated from Greek, or 1 Timothy 1:10 both of which are authored by Paul. The pro-gay interpretation of these passages is essentially that Paul is out to lunch or that the Greek translation is not crystal clear.

If you were to give me a hypothetical and make me the pastor of my local church based on my feelings above, I would counsel LGBT. The only people I would turn away from the church are people who were attempting to destroy it. I would welcome gay people and couples, of course. Now if they were to ask me to tell me what the bible says about gay people in the bible, I would read the them text and ask them to come up with an interpretation that was meaningful to them and point them to pro-gay Christian books if they wanted. If my personal beliefs were to change due to a new understanding where it dictated that I no longer welcome them by rule, then I would lovingly point them to a Christian church that would accept them with open arms and encourage them to continue their relation with Christ.

But that's just me.

Quote: FrGamble

What it seems like people don't understand is the difference between contingent beings and a non-contingent one.

It seems like a purely philosophical construct to provide a convenient explanation, like noumenal world, or bodily humors.

Beings are kinds of entities. As a rule complex entities arise from simpler ones. We see this all the time: a mammal arises from two joined cells, an atom from elementary particles, rocks from atoms, mountains from rocks, continents from rocks, soil, mountains and magma, etc.

So granting the existence of some mythical entity which "contains creation within itself," why does it have to be a being? What observation leads you state categorically that it must be a sentient being? Why can such an entity not be some kind of impersonal force? Or even a collection of disparate energies contained in an infinitesimally small space which makes a photon appear as big as the universe in comparison?

And I'm still waiting for proof that the one true god Thor is not real.

Quote: Evenbob

How could there be if it's always been
here. We can't see it because we're
trapped in time.

It's pretty clear that we don't know what happened "before" the big bang or if there was even a definition of time in the original space that created the big bang. The same kind of mysteries exist in black holes, which do exist all over the universe. You cannot tell the contents of the black hole as light cannot escape it. However, you can infer its mass quite easily. Hawking suggests that these black holes leak and that these black holes can be origins into other universes.

Quote: Nareed

why does it have to be a being? What observation leads you state categorically that it must be a sentient being? Why can such an entity not be some kind of impersonal force.

It is an impersonal force, for sure. Trying
to mold it into your own image is a
waste of time. Giving it a name and calling
it a god is a fools errand. It's like a fish
worshiping the ocean and praying to it.
Waste of time.

Quote: Evenbob

It is an impersonal force, for sure.

Wait! Hold the presses! Did you just say that God the creator exists as an impersonal force. Kudos to you.

Quote: FrGamble

Wait! Hold the presses! Did you just say that God the creator exists .

Yeah, no.

I'd like to make FrGamble's position seem unreasonable.

One hundred percent of all prior mysteries of the Earth and all space so far have resolved not to a supernatural cause. Not one.

Still waiting for the first solved mystery to have a supernatural cause.

Not one FrGamble. Nothing. Everytime we learn a little bit more about something, it's just a new element of the natural world.

The things we find are often interesting, even weird, but not supernatural.