Kevin Stilley

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May 23, 2008 by kevinstilley

Polygamy in the 21st Century

What does the Bible say about polygamy? Is there any validity to the claims of some that polygamy is a constitutional right? Is it healthy? Do recent rulings by federal judges and statutes passed by state assemblies on homosexual unions have implications for how “marriage” will be defined in the future? If a man can marry a man, can he marry his cocker spaniel. Two men? Two cocker spaniels?

These questions aren’t going away. They are in the headlines of today’s newspapers and are the leading stories for the nightly news. Individuals, churches, and private organizations concerned about the definition of marriage need to educate themselves and speak out.

In a recent article in Christianity Today entitled Can America Still Bar Polygamy?, John Witte Jr. who is the Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law and director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University writes, “The harder legal question is whether criminalizing polygamy is still constitutional. Texas and other every state still have these laws on these books. Can these criminal laws withstand a challenge that they violate an individual’s constitutional rights to private liberty, equal protection, and religious liberty? In the 19th century, none of these rights claims was available. Now they are, and they protect every adult’s rights to consensual sex, marriage, procreation, contraception, cohabitation, sodomy, and more. May a state prohibit polygamists from these same rights, particularly if they are inspired by authentic religious convictions? What rationales for criminalizing polygamy are so compelling that they can overcome these strong constitutional objections?”

The reason I bring this up is that I have not seen anyone address it as an issue in the 2008 elections. The way these issues are resolved is not going to be a matter of who has the best arguments or what is true. These are issues that are going to be decided by those with political power. That is something to think about when you cast your vote this November.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Blog, Cults, Family Life, Gay, Homosexuality, marriage, Mormonism, Polygamy, Pop Culture

May 18, 2008 by kevinstilley

Wrong Is Right Until You Disagree With Me

According to Anglican bishop Gene Robinson abandoning the law of contradiction is “the adult way of living.” I am always shocked that people are even willing to listen to such nonsense. Would he think it the “adult way of living” to accept the word of an auto mechanic that told him it is good as well as bad to put sugar in his gas tank? No. What he really means by the gobbledy-gook that he is spewing is that he wants justification to believe whatever he wants to believe. He wants to be the ultimate authority of what is right or wrong, what is true or false.

Is man the measure? No thank you, Protagoras.

For background see below the excerpt from a news article:

Anglican Acceptance of both Abortion and Sanctity of Life will Allow the Creation of a Gay Church: Gene Robinson

By Hilary White

LONDON, May 16, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Anglican Church is the perfect vehicle for creating a new “gay” Christianity by virtue of the fact that it is the only church that accepts the logical contradiction of asserting both the sanctity of human life and the existence of a right to abortion.

Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson, whose ordination to the episcopate has precipitated the ongoing schism between traditionally Christian Anglicans and its ultra-liberal, secularized branches, is in London to talk about his vision for the homosexual future of the Anglican Church. He was visiting and promoting his cause in preparation for the upcoming Lambeth Conference in July.

He told an admiring audience in Putney, in southwest London, that Anglicanism is uniquely suited to the establishment of the contradiction of homosexual Christianity. “The Anglican tradition is uniquely capable of holding two seemingly contradictory ideas together. Its position on abortion, for example is that all human life is sacred. And, that no one has the right to tell a woman what to do with her body. Both are true,” he said.

The logical principle of non-contradiction, a basic philosophical concept identified by Aristotle, is defined as the idea that two opposed things cannot both be true. Aristotle put it that, “One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time.” It is not possible, for example, for a person to both be in a room and not in a room at the same time. This principle is regarded by philosophers as one of the three first principles of rational thought, without which no assertion of any truth is possible.

Many Christian philosophers have noted that the moral chaos in western societies has stemmed from the 20th century’s abandonment of this principle as the guiding force of politics and religion.

Robinson is a long-time supporter of abortion. In 2005, he addressed Planned Parenthood’s fifth annual prayer breakfast in Washington. He said then that the only way to defend the pro-abortion mindset is to reach out religiously, saying, “Our defense against religious people has to be a religious defense. … We must use people of faith to counter the faith-based arguments against us.”

He told Planned Parenthood, “We have to take back those Scriptures.”

He spoke of “the need to teach people about nuance, about holding things in tension, that this can be true and that can be true, and somewhere between is the right answer. It’s a very adult way of living, you know.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: abortion, Anglican, Blog, Epistemology, Gay, truth

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