Quantum wrote on Sep 4
th, 2013 at 8:24pm:
Now his "I'm a committed Christian" is itself coming across as nothing but a vote finder.
I have rarely ever heard him say that and I don't consider it important anyway. This is a secular country with a secular government. Religion should be kept out of politics.
"Marriage" as we know it here today is a secular institution, not a religious one, only useful to the government for taxation purposes and economic management. It's just semantics. It's like going to CentreLink or the ATO and changing your name but having the same Customer Reference or Tax File numbers. You are still the same person but with a different name. It's the same with "gay marriage." It's
just a name for something. It's not like the secular concept of "marriage" has to be kosher or halal, that somehow your body is rendered unclean if you lived in a secular society where a gay couple called their relationship a "gay marriage." It doesn't say anywhere in the Gospels that Christians should be making laws in a secular society.
If your name was Matthew, would you mind if I called you Matt or Matty? If your name was John, would you mind if I called you Johnny or Jonathan?
Look at it this way. You are not being forced into a gay marriage. You are not being forced into sinning. This is not like what happened when Antiochus Epiphanes sacrificed a pig in the Jewish temple and triggered the Maccabean revolt. Gay marriage isn't anything close to a desecration of the Holy of Holies. Someone else's gay marriage is not a desecration of your heart and mind. Someone else's sin doesn't make you unclean.
Quantum wrote on Sep 4
th, 2013 at 8:24pm:
Many Christians would rather vote for an agnostic or an atheist than someone who tries to win votes by holding a Bible in their hand when they don't believe the thing anyway.
Kevin Rudd's personal religious beliefs are irrelevant. What matters are his policies. We either vote for that or we don't.Quantum wrote on Sep 4
th, 2013 at 8:37pm:
The small details of Christianity are up for debate and always will be. Christians will always have disagreements about one thing or the other and there will never be total conformity on all matters. But removing Christ from Christianity is like saying you are an atheist that believes in god. There are some things that simply define what something is and once you change that core foundation it is no longer the same. It is a bit rich when non-Christians tell Christians that Christianity can be anything you want it to be. Without Christ, it is no longer Christianity.
As the rabbis would say, the Torah is not in heaven. God isn't here to tell us what a tradition says, so we have to decide. Some groups have dedicated people for that, while for others it's a free-for-all and a layperson is good enough. Someone has to sit in Moses' seat.
the point being made by Quantum and others is that if Rudd is so laissexz-faire with his faith and so willing to thru it overboard for votes then how can you trust hime with ANYTHING. It is a deeply disturbing character flaw.