usual suspect wrote:

>>> I know that your church hates doctrines like election and
>>> predestination, but they're in the Bible

Glorfindel wrote:

>> They're in Calvin's interpretation. You can claim almost
>> anything's "in the Bible" if you tweak the texts to your
>> taste.

> "Tweaking" is how *you* find AR and veganism in the Bible.

No, because I don't depend on "proof texting" for my position.
I appeal to the spirit of God and Christ as demonstrated
in the Bible, not a string of texts.

I am more a book person than a computer person, and I think
"dueling websites" are nearly as useless of dueling texts.
But a recent book expresses a view of my denomination which
I like very much. It is _Always Open: Being an Anglican Today_
by Richard Giles. About the Bible, he says:

"So the revelation of God in Scripture is process as well
as event.

The story of how the Bible ended up the size and shape it
is now is one very good reason why Anglicans come to value
common sense as one of the highest virtues of the spiritual
life. We have learnt over the centuries to apply bucketfuls
of salt to many of the things we've been told by religious
fanatics, with the result that while it's fair to say we
Anglicans honor Scripture, reverence it and delight in it,
we fall short of worshiping it. ...(We) are people *with* a
book, not *of* a book. ...God always evades our best efforts
to contain him, and the thought that we could ever box God
in between the covers of a book is to be resisted. Our
God is bigger than that. ...Every human agent who through the
centuries has played a part in setting down what we now
call Holy Scriptures has had an angle, an agenda, a
prejudice, or simply a failing of some kind, which has to
some extent muddied the clear waters of the original
revelation. ...History shows that Scripture can be used to
support just about anything at all."

Quoting is
> how I find doctrines you find so objectionable.

Proof-texting, about which Giles says, "proof texts rarely
prove anything, and to use the Scriptures so is to
abuse them."

> You snipped out the verses I listed -- just a few of the many I could've
> offered. Tell me how St Paul "tweaked" the OT when he wrote to the
> church in Rome:

> As it is written, *There is none righteous, no, not one*: There
> is *none that understandeth*, *there is none that seeketh after
> God*. They are *all* gone out of the way,

The catholic church understands this and similar passages to mean
that we are all sinners, not that humanity is totally depraved.

Just by that common sense mentioned above -- if we really were
*totally* depraved, totally unable to do good, why would God
entrust His Creation to *our* care?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> The Bible speaks to certain issues of animal *welfare*, but
> the only restrictions against eating meat or using animals for our
> benefit pertain to meat offered to idols and specific animals deemed to
> be "unclean."

True -- and the Bible does not speak against many other practices
which we today consider immoral, such as human slavery. It is
culture-bound, and so not the complete guide to our modern
ethical issues. We have built on the Bible, but we have gone
beyond it.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>> What about your views on homosexual marriage is in keeping with
>>> catholic doctrine?

>> They are in keeping with the U.S. tradition

> I didn't ask you about US tradition, which has nothing to do with
> catholic doctrine or practice. Marriage is both a civil and religious
> institution.

Exactly, and the two versions should be kept separate.

> As a religious institution, marriage is between a man and a
> woman --

No, not really. We find polygamous marriage in the Bible, in
Muslim and Mormon belief, and so on.

There's also been considerable speculation in recent years
that, while *** marriage is not specifically mentioned,
*** relationships were, especially in the case of David
and Jonathan and the probable *** relationship between
the Centurion and his servant whom Jesus healed.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>> The catholic church has traditionally held that the fetus
>> is not ensouled until it quickens ( about the fourth
>> month).

> Ipse dixit and false.

Ipse dixit -- not from what I have read.

The question of when a fetus becomes human, and thus has a
soul, has been answered in many ways.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>> What nonsense. These last few administrations, especially George
>> Bush's, are removing protections for the environment,

> As they relate to cost:benefit.

Yes, indeed. As long as the rich businessmen benefit, the Bush
administration doesn't count any cost to the rest of us as too
high.

Some of your "protections" have proven
> to be worse than what existed before. Consider the organic pesticide
> DDT, the ban of which has been a worldwide crusade. People like you
> "won" the battle to ban it, but millions of people in other parts of the
> world have died as a result of misguided policy in banning it globally:

DDT weakens the shells of birds' eggs and reduces the number
which hatch, among other things. It is a major environmental hazard.

This Bush administration has *no* real concern for the environment,
as demonstrated by its efforts to allow drilling in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge -- trying to sneak it in this last time as
an amendment on a defense bill, for heaven's sake.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>> gutting the Endangered Species Act,

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>> removing controls on pollution,

> Not *removing* controls, reassessing issues on the basis of
> technological innovations and cost-benefit analysis over the past 30
> years since the Clean Air Act was signed.

Anything, as long as Bush's oil baron buddies benefit.

>> refusing to sign the Kyoto agreement,

> First, like other leftist solutions, the Kyoto Protocol would have done
> nothing to solve the problem it was supposed to address.

It will help. It is only a small first step -- but it is *something*.

> Worse, it
> would've punished nations in the West who are already doing things to
> clean up the environment while giving developing nations like India and
> China -- which lack environmental protections -- a free pass on green
> house emissions.

If our water and air go, if global warming floods our coastal areas
and brings more of the tropical storms we've seen this year,
changes weather patterns, expands desert areas through major drought,
melts the arctic ice -- it will hardly matter who is being
"punished". It will be mass death for all humanity, American and
non-American. It may already be too late. In fact, it probably is.

> Second, the Bush administration is doing something the preceding
> administration didn't: the US, Australia, China, India, Japan, and South
> Korea are meeting to hammer out a results-based emissions agreement.
> This point is important because the US Senate never ratified the Kyoto
> agreement because the CLINTON ADMINISTRATION NEVER SENT IT TO CAPITOL HILL:

You can only lean on the lame "Everything's Clinton's fault" for so
long, Usual. It's getting less and less believable with every year
of Bush's and the Republicans' control. In the newspaper just today,
there was an article stating that the annual 189-nation UN climate
conference once again failed to win U.S. commitments to reduce
greenhouse emissions -- as almost all other industrialized nations
are committed to do by the Kyoto Protocol. The United States is the
*biggest* greenhouse emitter. We should set an example. But
the Climate Stewardship Act to cap and reduce pollution was defeated
just last year. You can't blame that on Clinton -- although I'm
sure you would if you could.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>> or even recognize the threat
>> of global warming and our major contributions to it.

> The latter part of your statement: ipse dixit. The earth has undergone
> warm and cold periods regularly, and long preceding the Bush
> administration.

You're whistling in the dark, Usual. Global warming is
recognized as a fact by virtually every responsible
scientific expert today.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>> There is not a single mainstream environmental organization

> There aren't any "mainstream" environmental organizations. Greenpeace,
> Sierra Club, et al, are leftist organizations.

LOL! That certainly shows where you are on the political
continuum. You, and the other environment-rapers like you,
see any concern for God's creation as "leftist." If you
could make a profit on it, you'd turn the whole world into a
polluted desert. What you don't see is that it might bring
you a *temporary* profit, but eventually you, too, will
suffer the consequences of ignoring your responsibility of
stewardship of the earth. It's just a shame that you will
bring everybody else down with you.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>