Thursday, December 18, 2008

Wow..

So, I am just in awe of our youth group. Shirley and I were extremely blessed last night at the youth christmas party. all the leaders and teens go together and blessed us with a big ol' stocking with a bunch of cash in it... we are speechless and extremely grateful. We can actually go on a date now !!!!!! something my wife and i have not done in a while.

thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
-David

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Moral Relativism... my new focus for a while.

Moral relativism to me is such a load of phooey. It is (at least the way it appears) is the moral relativist wants to live the way they want to live with no fear of consequences. in a nut shell. well here are a few things i have to say.

1. this is taken from wikipedia (such a reliable source i know ;) )
"
Defending relativism
Another critique of moral relativism which falls into this category postulates that anyone who claims that no moral absolutes exist undermines their ability to justify their own existence. According to this argument, if a moral relativist is intellectually honest, they have no right to claim that they should remain unharmed by other individuals who adhere to a subjectively determined or culturally-bound moral theory which does not regard causing harm to others, or at least moral relativists, as wrong. In this sense, it is difficult for a moral relativist to hold that they have a right to exist (and in doing so, formulate their own set of moral values) in the first place. Just as they are unable to argue that slavery, the Holocaust, etc. are ultimately immoral, moral relativists are unable to argue that the discontinuation of their own lives at the hands of another individual (who adheres to a different set of values) would be ultimately immoral, either. Moral relativists could respond by agreeing they have no objective right to live, but the subjective moral codes of most people would prevent them from harming the moral subjectivists anyway. Such a response would be seen as a gamble of varying risk. They could claim instead that it is wrong in the sense of being against their moral code, but what is important here is the behavior of the attacker; there is no necessary reason why their attacker should be swayed by someone else's personal or cultural beliefs. In this sense, it is argued, moral relativists suffer from an inability to defend their own interests, regardless of their own moral code. While this argument may not be compelling, opponents claim it shows some of the inherent shortcomings of the relativist philosophy."

2.  the basic idea of moral relativism is as far as i can see or tell this is the way it seems.
"what I'm feeling now determines what i believe for now,  and you can't tell me i'm wrong or should change because it's what's right for me."
well here is my question.  ok that's what's right for you, but what if what's right for me is telling you that you are wrong?"   who are you to say i can't say that?

here is an analogy that i like.
say you have a house that has 3 rooms.   you live in the city somewhere and you rent out two of your rooms to people.   say the going rate is 400$ a month per room (it's a good sized room and this includes electric water, sewage all that good stuff) so there is you and person A  and person B   for the first three months  persons A and B  both pay their rent on time and the proper amount of 400$   then month 4 comes along and person A pays their rent,  but person B does not ( i know what you are asking,  why is it always person B  why can't it be person A?   well, because i like person A that's why)  so you go up to person B and say hey sucka i need the rent in 3 days or we get a late fee.  person B says,  oh, that sucks,  but i don;t feel like i should pay rent anymore.  I don;t believe i should have to pay rent anymore.   here is the dilemma.  YOU ARE a moral relativist, so  here is my question to you.   is it right or wrong to evict that person because they REFUSE to pay rent.  not because they can't  this is not about ethics, but morality and absolutes.  is that person wrong in breaking their contract with you and not paying rent, and should you throw them out?   
  • YES?  ______
  • NO?   ______   
please check only one. 

Thursday, December 4, 2008

My heart breaks...

I just watched a video that mocks us as christians due to our belief that gay marriage should not be. it's all about Prop 8 and how we spread hate. the video goes on to say that we don;t even live up to the bible our selves so we should just get over it and stop spreading hate. i have some thoughts on all of this.
1. I Love gay people. i have a good friend who is gay. i do not agree with her lifestyle, but it does not cause me to reject her in anyway. I'm there for her and will always be there for her.
2. i support the view of traditional marriage in the fact that it is and always should be between one man and one woman.
3. there is another video that takes a poke at us saying that divorce should be illegal because if gay marriage screws up kids then so does divorce. i agree. i hate divorce. i am a child of divorce. divorce at it's core is horrible and cause some serious unsteady ground for a child to stand on. before divorce seek help thats what i say.
4. i have no problem with people trying to use the bible to back up their beliefs either pro gay marriage or not. the only thing i ask is that you please know what you're talking about instead of just quoting something that you heard someone else say. research it for yourself.
5. here is my biggest thought. ok, suppose gay marriage gets to the point where it is legal in the good ol' U S of A. what's next. at what point should we say thats enough, here is what i mean. suppose gay marriage is legal as of 2010 in every state including alaska and hawaii, now let's suppose that it is the year 2015 and there is a guy who wants to marry his dog who would we be to say he couldn't do that, would equal rights be given to him to adopt a child? so the child he adopts would have a human father and a k9 mother? what if the man wanted to marry a male dog? this child would have a gay father and a gay dog as his second father. would we limit it to only being able to marry a dog? what if they wanted to marry a fish? you may be laughing right now, but we laughed years ago when we thought about same sex marriage back in the 40's and 50's and look where we are now?

i do not support gay marriage, and no it is not hate. because i don;t hate anyone. just because you don;t support something doesn't mean you hate it. i don;t support water polo, but it doesn;t mean i hate it.

where do we draw the line?
this is way to close to moral relativism for me. there are absolute truths out there. there always will be, just because we choose to ignore something does not mean it will go away.