jaybird18c

Ok. Understood. You're talking about a person currently obligated to serve (serving out a contractual enlistment). And they have to participate in a war which might be morally questionable. And that they have no choice but to fight alongside others. And assuming we're not talking about following unlawful orders. Yes. I agree. That person must follow orders, must go to war, and fight. And that person would be justified.

I don't doubt for one minutes that there have been in history and are currently certain churches and church leadership which are very corrupt. I would argue that the Roman Catholic Church has been fairly consistent in its corruption. I can't speak to the Russian Orthodox Church. I don't know enough about it. Besides, I'm talking about the christian's personal justification (conscience).

You're wrong. I've sat in mandatory briefings with lawyers prior to deployment to discuss rules of engagement. They specifically talked about situations where an order might be unlawful or ethically wrong. The solder would have a duty to disobey. Have you ever served in a combat unit?

The scriptures were originally in Hebrew, some Aramaic, and Greek. What are you arguing against, an English translation of a word from that language? That sounds dumb.

We live in a Republic, not a democracy. It is democratic, but representative. I don't know any American Christian who would EVER want a theocracy. And a Christian might kill to defend his country. However, he/she would NEVER kill to get what he/she wanted politically. What kind of nonsense are you talking about? I starting to think you're not smart enough to distinguish between a Christian and a radical muslim terrorist. Again, that's nonsense. It clearly shows that you don't really know much about what you're arguing against.

"Turn the other cheek" refers to being insulted. I do not believe this implies pacifism regarding warfare. All wars are evil. However, not all participants in war are necessarily evil. God is sovereign over nations and rulers. There can be an example of war where both sides are engaged in unjust conflict. There can also be an example where one nation acts as an aggressor against another. The governing authority of the nation being attacked in this case has both the right and responsibility to defend itself. This is just. No war can ever end evil in the world. However, there are many examples where war has stopped an aggressor and prevented destruction, and saved innocent peoples. In this fallen world, the solder is both necessary and justified as long as he/she is engaged in "just war." I agree that this can be complicated and I do not think America has always been engaged in "just war." The last war I was engaged in was in Afghanistan 2002. I believe that was a just war.

Well...I appreciate your support.

Easy sweetheart. It'll be ok.

I wasn't proving the Bible. I was stating what it says.

I started this thread?

So cute.

Jesus Christ is the foundation of the Church. “For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11).

You're saying Christianity rises or falls based on how some people market it? It's been around for over 2000 years. People have represented it in all sorts of ways, good and bad, sometimes very bad. Christianity has never been sustained by people.

God does not require marketing.

You're such a clever Canadian cupcake...

Jesus is the head of his church. Why would what other people do embarrass me? Now that's silly.

"Christianity" has a marketing department? So some people's misrepresentation of what Jesus looks like for selfish reasons is one of your big hangups? What has that got to do with anything real?

That's not true at all. There's nothing wrong with being rich. Joseph went from being a slave to being rich and powerful. He used it for good. What's bad is loving your wealth more than God. That's the point of the scripture you referenced. But I think you knew that.

No. No one knows what he looked like. However, Jesus was a 1st century Jew. So he would have looked like a 1st century Jew.

Well…the good news is for all tribes.

Yeah…yeah… And we all know that bad people do bad things to other people and always have, religious or not. And it’s also true that the bad things people do in the name of Christianity in no way takes away from the truth of the biblical message, which is peace to mankind through Jesus Christ.

But we just KNOW that most wars and deaths were because of religious zealots though, right!

“some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history categorize only 123 as being religious in nature. This is only 6.98% of all wars. The percentage is less than half that, at 3.23%, if you subtract those waged in the name of Islam (66). The relationship between religion and war, which skeptics have depicted, is in stark contrast to the facts. Despite this reality, people like Richard Dawkins, who in his book The God Delusion, claim that without religion there would be no labels by which to decide whom to oppress and whom to avenge. Critics of religion continue to make such claims which allude to religion as the ultimate factor responsible for world oppression and violence, and in doing so seem to insinuate that it in some way has anything to do with the coherence of the religious view. Still, it is clear that religion has not played a significant role in most of the world’s wars, though even if it had, that fact would be irrelevant in trying to prove a religious viewpoint false.” “secular reasoning and naturalistic philosophies have actually been involved in the most bloodshed. The number of people who perished in religious conflicts pales in comparison to the slaughter and butchery which has taken place under non-religious leaders. Ideas have consequences, and in the 20th century they contributed to the democide of an unprecedented number of people. Russia’s communist USSR gave rise to both Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Illich Lenin whom murdered 42,672,000 and 4,017,000, China’s communist Mao Tse-tung and militarist/fascist Chiang Kai-sheck whom murdered 37,828,000 and 10,214,000, communist Cambodia’s Pol Pot whom murdered 2,397,000, Germany’s fascist Adolf Hitler whom murdered 20,946,000, and Imperial Japan’s militarist/fascist Tojo Hideki whom murdered 3,990,000. From 1917 to 1987, in a span of under 70 years, roughly 121,332,000 human beings were murdered by these government regimes.” https://blogs.uoregon.edu/dylanjtjohnson/2016/04/21/has-religion-been-a-chief-cause-of-wars-throughout-history/

An awful amount of people were killed in the name of secularism.

Well…that’s accomplishing something then!