speckles

I disagree with that. Let me make a comparison. A sand dollar is a sea creature whose shell has been used to preach the Gospel. See here for the poem that explains how. So, if we can see the Gospel in a sea creture, why can we not see the Gospel in the position of the stars? Likewise, astrology is about foretelling the future, finding meaning and direction for your life, and things like that. Looking for God's plan of redemption in what He has made does not fit into this category. That's ok if you disagree. I don't see why anyone needs to look to the stars, sand dollars or any "THING" for the Gospel, when it has already come in the person of Jesus Christ and God has handed us the "Good News" in his Word. No need to look elsewhere. Just about anything can be directed toward speaking the gospel if you are adept enough at it and are creative enough to notice something few others notice. I used Jelly Beans once in Sunday School. One woman in our church used a watermelon. Nobody has to use these things but hey, why not if they are memorable...particularly with children and with those who are not saved. They might not be open to scripture but open to the watermelon...

Here in my state, we have people who are living together, and we have some who were married in common law. The state does recognise a difference and I believe God does too. One is not a covenant and one is a covenant. The state decided that we don't need common law marriage any more and so it was moving to do away with them, if it hasn't already. (I'm not up on it, I have no need to be). I see nothing in scripture that says that two people who are scripturally able to marry cannot be married this way if they do not have to sin first. The thing is, not all people who are shacking up are married in common law. Not all claim to be married, act married other than sexually, or what have you. Some do. Some have even had ceremonies where vows are taken and such. I do think there is a difference between that and moving some of your stuff in with your boyfriend and messing around.

The Bible is very clear about astrology. But this isn't astrology. There is no divination, no prognostication, no nothing, just a theory about whether Sagittarius actually was Jesus and not something else. It is an interesting theory, but not provable because GOD himself, over and above the verse which says that the heavens declare the glory of God, has remained silent on whether he actually placed the stars in constellations which tell the gospel story. The most it can be, therefore, is a theory. I have also seen and heard this theory without any reference to shady texts such as jasher. It has been used by people who are generally considered within the realm of Christianity as a witnessing tool. Like D James Kennedy has a series on 'the gospel in the stars.' It is not astrology in the traditional sense of the word and so long as it doesn't branch off into astrology or other such things I don't see anything wrong with using it. As long as everyone knows that it is a theory and not a doctrine from scripture that is taught as fact.

Me too. The thief is lucky. He could have been shot. But then again the man is lucky too, he could have been shot.

Predestination, as a doctrine, does not negate Free Will. To teach that is wrong. Even if you are a full fledged flaming TULIP, it is still known that man makes his own choices. The discussion is over how these two truths interact with each other. What your husband believes is fatalism and is more consistent to certain factions of Islam than to Christianity. You might want to look up that word LR used "Hypercalvinism" and "heresy" in the same search. You will see soon how it is wrong. And submission does not mean submitting to heretical doctrine, it means having the right attitude toward your husband.

Kris, waiting to have sex is not bad you are avoiding sin and waiting for marriage which will avoid plenty of worldly cares as much as it avoids sin. The song you referred to I am not familiar with, however, the standard for anything in this life which is not specifically condemned in scripture by command, example or reasonable principle is whether or not it causes you to sin, even in your mind. If it does, then love it or not, it needs to go. If it does not, please remember that as you live your teenage years (I have two sons, I speak with some experience) you will face this over and over and what is bad one day will be fine the next and vice versa. So you must maintain the attitude that if this EVER interfered with your purity, you would get rid of it from your life. Which, for one of my children, meant not going to the beach this year. The other one, so far, has not been bothered by the beach. There is also something that no one has brought up here and I want to. I dont want to come off as preachy, but...i'm taking up my soapbox anyway because I believe it is important. Sexual purity is more than just not having sex or avoiding sexual temptation. And, before you get tempted to go out on the prowl, errr, I mean, on dates...you need to consider how an unmarried believer treats other unmarried believers, particularly those of the opposite sex. It is more than just having a hands off policy. I'm a bit confused about the whole courtship vs dating culture, so I'm not gonna dive there with any authority, but I do know that you need to work out your philosophy about how you find a future wife and then stick to it. That way when you are in a situation, you will know what to do and how to act.

I don't believe that LR believes in kissing believers before marriage either. Not everyone at the secular sites are unbelievers. I've met believers on the site. They weren't for me, but they were there.

Other than no physical intimacy that you would not expect from a brother or sister before marriage. - Lady Raven Speckles: ?????????????????????????????? No moonlit strolls on the beach holding hands??

You seem to be confused about a couple of things; unemployment benefits are a form of insurance, not welfare. Disability is not welfare; it is paid for those who CAN'T work not those who won't. Social Security is a program you pay into during your working life and receive payments from when you are no longer working; again it's not welfare. Medicaid IS welfare, true, but it's very hard to get and pays for very little from what I'm told. And, yes, adults receiving it should be drug tested. These tests are not THAT expensive and can be done at any clinic. Unemployment benefits are paid by the employer, not the government. Disability is paid for through your taxes when you can work, and when you can't it is based on what you paid in. If I became disabled tomorrow and managed to get on in a reasonable amount of time (which is next to impossible without several limbs missing) I would get about 800$ per month. In a few years I'd make more because of what I've paid in. It is social security, same place old people benefits come from. Medicaid, you have to pretty much either have a kid to get on or you have to have a chronic disability or they will keep denying you. And you still have to be pretty poor. I make less than a thousand per month and myself and my children can't get it. Medicaid does pay for a good bit but they are very fussy about who does the treatments and such. But there is a company here in town that does drug tests for companies before you get hired, they cost 8$. I'm sure they'd be happy to get medicaid money (and you are a shoe in for medicaid if you get tanf)

Yes...it is unfortunate for the kids, but by allowing these people to partake in these social programs we are basically keeping the kids in a negative environment. If someone fails a drug test 3 times they should lose more than the welfare benefits...they should lose parental benefits. We should send the message loud and clear that if you use illegal drugs you are going to lose out BIG TIME! Here's an idea...if a person does fail the drug test 3 times...take their kids away and put ALL the welfare money the parent would have gotten towards raising the kids. That sounds reasonable to me.

But if you could, would you not help in the construction of that house? You don't have to date someone to witness to them. In fact, witnessing while dating confuses issues. Did you know you can witness to someone without actually talking about God? And just how long would one plan on not speaking about God so that his/her sig other could find the truth? Well, I dare say that if you are in a relationship with someone who is not a believer and you dont mention it...you're not doing your duty to them as someone you supposedly care about. I have plenty of friends who are not believers. Some of them are male. We talk on occasion and they watch me and ask questions. They know where I stand and none of us are even on a relational level where I would have considered marriage before I got saved, much less afterwards. Why would you withhold that from someone you cared about enough to date? Honestly, even as a brother in the lord I would never date someone who would not share what God was doing in their lives.

No. If you want to take your seat at the table of free thought, you have to p ut up with the others who are already there. If you don't sit there, your thoughts will be unrepresented. It's not like this is one of those interreligious prayer things we had after 9-11 where you actually had to pray with muslims and buddhists. I think these things are fun and take my children so they can see things they would never see otherwise. They listen respectfully and then ask questions of every one. Then they can talk about it when we go home. (And with my oldest child, some of the questions are the type that plant seeds, but they are phrased very well so as not to make the person automatically hostile).

But if you could, would you not help in the construction of that house? You don't have to date someone to witness to them. In fact, witnessing while dating confuses issues.

That about covers it I guess.

I know Keith Green had a way of being raw and rough , but he has a point with this. Anyway, I found it on-line, so if you would like to read the whole message, here it is. This really blessed me. I used to listen to him whenever I could, he was such a talented songwriter. My favorite song was "I pledge my head to heaven." Unfortunately I never actually bought anything of his, I was broke most of the time or too small to by my own stuff. I do have the album that other artists did as a tribute to him and I have played it over and over, it was one of my first CDs. The pamphlet had a very good point. I need to pray over this.

As far as I know they are on the up and up.

From the way I understand this... The philosophy behind the democratic party is that the US is a democracy, and the rule of the majority should prevail. Thus as society changes, the laws should change to reflect these changes. So the constitution is a changable document. The philsophy behind the republican party is that the US is a republic, and that the rule of law should prevail. Thus the constitution stays the same and people have the same rights regardless of how much society changes. Also, normally democrats have been philsophically liberal and fiscally liberal. This means that society can be improved through the use of public policy and as such programs should be funded to the extent that the society will tolerate them. They like to use the military and foriegn policy to align the world into a "kinder gentler place" much as they try to fix society within our borders this way. Republicans used to be philsophically conservative and fiscally conservative. This meant that society should be regulated as little as possible and therefore there should be as little funding for the government as possible. The military and foreign policy is used to keep threats to our sovereignty at bay and possibly defeat communism. Of course the republicans have blown off course so badly that it's not even funny. In the name of protecting liberty and law and order, the government grows under the republicans now just as it did under the dems. The difference is that the republicans finance the military, police and measures such as the wire taps and things used to control the thoughts and actions of citizens and to protect them from each other. The democrats tend to fund entitlement programs such as welfare and defund the military, though they do like the police too. Usually they would have no problem with bending the constitution to include the wire tapping (it was here under Clinton), and they hve no problem solving the world's problems either, however for some reason they're against it now, and the republicans should be the ones saying "We don't need to fix the world and lets not listen to citizens calls" however you see how that has changed too. Thats the way I understand it. Never trust anyone with a loaded government.

Have we all lost our common sense? There are other places people can sleep besides in bed together, even if a perceived emergency prevented them from driving home or whatever. Anyone ever heard of a couch? Last dude I dated, I fell asleep while we were watching movies. I had been sick, taking decongestants and the like and tired all the time, so he didn't want to wake me and make me drive home. He also didn't want to wake my dad and have him get me. But at the same time, he had a roomie who could vouch that I slept on the couch, so he wasn't too worried about it. Nobody woke me, they covered me in a blanket and woke me in the morning. My bf slept in his own bed. He said he'd have taken the couch, but it would have meant waking me to get me to his bed, which would have then meant that I was awake, and with a little coffee, could have driven home. So he left me on the couch. And I was embarrassed when I woke up. Whatever happened to the idea of modesty? It's not just about not flashing your ... whatever, it's about conducting yourself in a non sexual way. i've had situations where I've had functions and the weather turned and members of the opposite sex had to stay over, but these were group things and EVERYONE (male and female) stayed not just one and nobody ever slept in my bed unless I gave it to them and I slept on the couch. At the very least someone could sleep on the floor, why do both people have to be in such an intimate position? This makes no sense and sounds to me like you're trying to justify something.

To me, crossing yourself is something silly. However, I don't think it's silly enough to get all fired up about. I mean my sister chews her hair and that's silly too, but I don't go around the bend when I see her do it. WHO CARES if catholics cross themselves. WHO are they hurting? Do they demand that you do it? NOOOOOOooo It's an expression which means something to them, but nothing to me. Nothing more, nothing less, people honestly have too much time on their hands if they worry about this stuff. As to praying to the father son and hs, hmmm I'll have to look into that, I dunno why people do it. All the denoms I've ever visited did, so I'd assume it's a fairly scriptural tradition.

And that is exactly why I believe secular morality is more meaningful than theistic morality. Let's just say, hypothetically, God was one nasty dude. He created us, but he also enjoyed hurting us. But because this nasty God would determine "fairness", we could not call him nasty. Secular morality, on the other hand, sees acts as being moral and immoral based on their intentions or their effects, not the ex cathedra pronunciations of a creator God. This, to me, is more honest than simply obeying (a book's claims about) a celestial dictator. But how can you even make quality determinations about the fairness of something based on the effect? There is the whole concept of the greater good for the community, but often this means the repression of the will and rights of a minority who do not see things the way the majority do. In a secular system, this could be good or bad, based on how the "effects" or "intentions" are interpreted. We could believe that the greater good of a community overrides the rights of individuals, or not, or to a certain abstract point which is harder to determine, but you can't say for sure whether it's right or wrong. Ergo in the end some socieites can be repressive and seen as good, others as not repressive and also seen as good. With the pronounciations of God, they are at least consistent for all peoples, so if it's right for one it's right for all. Even if we were to presume that God was not purely good ti would still be this way.

Of course, just because you don't like the premise behind the war in Iraq, this means that all war is evil according to God. Mmmm Using this logic, because some people are violent and bomb abortion clinics then all resistence to the killing of babies is evil according to God. Ok folks, check your brain at the door. Romans 13 specifically gives the state the power to wield a sword (do violence), which is aptly demonstrated by its ability to wage war. Ergo all war can't be bad (not to mentuion the fact that God commanded wars in the Bible and is coming back iin the end of things to have a huge blowout). God would not command anything evil, and he commanded war in the OT. Just because he doesn't have a current situation like ancient Israel does not mean all war is evil. I wonder if this is a troll.

To some people everything is evil. Dr Phil had some chicka on today who didn't let her kid have any holidays really and I felt so bad...and she just kept preaching...Honestly why is it that some people get their shorts in a wad about everything?

news flash....they leave messages now... ie: "Hi!!! long time no chat.... this is sandy!!! call me back at ....etc etc" Er, none of the companies I worked for did. However, if I don't know the name, I don't call back anyway.