Plus, any American must revere Jefferson if only for the Corps of Discovery. He was first and foremost an aristocrat which, I suspect, is the underlying attraction for most liberals. They yearn for the days of old where the hearty peasant class must bow and scrape for any consideration.

It goes without saying that the Jezebel platform on the Sex Workers Art Show is um, pro, namely bc sex workers almost always have this rare combination of intimate experience with a wide spectrum of humanity/sufficient leisure time to honestly process…

Um, that’s basically the very gist of the First Amendment. No endorsement of religion….having a cross in a government run secular place shouldn’t be acceptable.

Rusty, let me make is simple for you. The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America.

This LAW does NOT state that having a cross in a government funded place is not acceptable.

This LAW is very clear. CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF…

Administrators that do not disallow a cross on a school chapel are NOT violating this LAW. Disagree? Then read it again.

A school administrator allowing a cross to remain is not the same (or even the gist) as Congress making a law to establish a religion, nor is it the same as Congress making a law to prohibit the free exercise of a religion.

The contrary opinion of a few judges does not change this fact.

Do not continue to misrepresent the “gist” of the Constitution.

JESUS was explicit about how the law (of man – Leviticus) encumbered man unnecessarily.

Getting Rusty to understand the Bible and it teachings would be like trying to get me to understand the liberal mind.

I hope one day Rick will get tired of Rusty ding the same thing SouthernBoy used to do.

It’s clear that some parts of the Bible have no relevance today. Leviticus talks about the proper treatment of slaves, for example. Reasons for prohibitions against eating pork or shellfish, such as danger of contracting diseases like trachina worm, may no longer apply —- but that doesn’t mean some will not continue to follow the prohibition.

But when church leaders make cases for following, dropping or amending prohibitions or tenets (such as the old rule of Meatless Fridays), it is up to those who disagree to make a case for their position.

and, of course, there’s a hierarchy here: people can still be Christians and not believe in The Great Flood and Noah’s Ark, treating those stories as parables and not statements of historical fact.

But if people remain in the minority on important MORAL issues they can either leave their church, found another, or pretend they are still full members while picking one from column a , two from column B, etc.

Rusty seems to be one such Cafeteria Christian — he just airily blows off doctrines he find uncongenial. No case made, no argument, no reason. No textual exegesis, nada.

THAT’s flakiness.

“Birth control is in no way anti-Christian. I double dare you to find where in the Bible birth control became sinful.”

BZZZZTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt67.html

“After roundly condemning as intrinsically contrary to the natural moral law all practices which intend to deprive the conjugal act of its procreative power, the Pontiff gave an authoritative interpretation of this biblical text which not only confirms the tradition, but is itself confirmed by impartial and historically well-informed exegesis:

“Wherefore it is not surprising that the Sacred Scriptures themselves also bear witness to the fact that the divine Majesty attends this unspeakable depravity with the utmost detestation, sometimes having punished it with death, as St. Augustine recalls: “For it is illicit and shameful for a man to lie with even his lawful wife in such a way as to prevent the conception of offspring. This is what Onan, son of Judah, used to do; and for that God slew him” (cf. Gen. 38: 8-10).

That’s in Genesis, Rusty. You could look it up!

(But hey…that was the Pope pontificating …..what does HE know!)

Oh and btw: in the same post Rusty opines learnedly about other Biblical matters:

“As for homosexual rights, I don’t believe homosexuality to be any more sinful than eating shrimp, wearing clothes made of more than one cloth, or any of the other wacky antiquated laws in Leviticus.”

Errr…ummmm…not everything in the Old Testament is followed by Christians. That’s something that separates Christians from Jews. It’s what Christians have adopted from the Old Testament, plus their belief in Jesus as the Messiah and adhering to the teachings of the New Testament, that distinguish them from Jews and Muslims.

More rusty:

“Romans mentions homosexual promiscuity as sinful, but the exact same standard should be applied to heterosexual relationships.”

Huh? ALL homosexual acts, being outside heterosexual marriage, are condemned. And ALL heterosexually promiscuous acts, also being outside marriage, are condemned.

But heterosexual acts between husband and wife within marriage are not condemned, unless they involve the sin of Onanism aka birth control.

Since ALL homosexual acts necessarily take place outside the ages-old definition of marriage, which the Bible (and virtually every human being on the planet have always assumed) such acts are NEVER permissible and are ALWAYS sinful.

Crikey, the fact that we have to live with Rusty’s flakiness every day here is really depressing.

If someone gets offended in a cemetery, Rusty and his ilk would demand their removal espousing at the same time their “Christian beliefs”.

No, he would ask that we cover the horrible, evil, offensive crosses as long as Muslims, Jews, atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, etc. are onsite.

He did say he did not believe in the entire Bible so, he is off the hook.

/sarc