🚀 go-pugleaf

Peter Merel <pete@zip.com.au> wrote:

>pspat@opera.iinet.net.au (Patrick Canion) writes:

>>As I've indicated previously in this thread, I respect (and hence
>>tolerate) people's right to partake in any legal activity.  But
>>this tolerance does not imply an embracing of the relativism that
>>denies the existence of any Absolute.

>I guess you're saying that you'll tolerate peoples' beliefs right up to
>the point where their beliefs lead them to activities that you feel to
>be Absolutely immoral? 

No, I'm not saying that at all.  I'm saying that while I tolerate a
person's freedom of choice to participate in any legal activity,  that
tolerance will not translate into an abdication of a value judgement
(based on God's word)  on that particular activity.  So, I believe
that VE is wrong, but I accept that under RTI it is legal.  So I
tolerate people's right to participate, but that doesn't for me change
the fact that it is wrong.  But I also understand that the way to
change people's mind is not to condemn them, but to show them a better
way.


>This is a name for the point where a person sees a particular activity
>become "monstrous".  It varies from person to person, and often varies
>in an single individual depending on context. I, for example, am quite
>content to consider various bodily functions and medical procedures in
>graphic detail - except when I am eating, when such discussions make me
>squeamish.

>There's nothing wrong with having a low "Frankenstein point" - many
>friends of mine do. But I wonder whether you'd admit that such visceral
>criteria influence your attitudes here? 

They no doubt do.  But the comfort for Christians is that this
subjectivity is voluntarily abdicated to the Absolute word and love of
God.  We become, as it were, slaves to righteousness.

>Do you, for example, maintain
>the same reservations about killing in wartime that you do about VE?

Yes.  The ultimate tragedy is for someone to die without having
accepted the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

>>Let me be polemical:  How much of tolerance boils down to "if it feels
>>good, do it" ?

>Let me be polemical too: none.

Peter, you are a deep enough thinker to realise the inadequacy of that
answer!  :-)




God Bless,

Patrick Canion
Pastor, Manning Assembly of God, Western Australia
pspat@iinet.net.au