<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META content="MSHTML 5.00.2919.6307" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY bottomMargin=0 leftMargin=3 rightMargin=3 topMargin=0>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>Jeanene, your pastor sounds good to me. Predestination is non-Biblical
gobbledegook, and I was raised Presbyterian, a church originally considered THE
Calvinist denomination in the English speaking world. (Presently I'm local
church historian at Judah Temple AME Zion, but living some distance away now, so
I divide my time between a pentecostal and a WELS Lutheran church, although I
could never join the latter -- a friend invited me and I like the people there.)
C.S. Lewis laid that predestination nonsense to rest, in <EM>The Screwtape
Letters</EM>, when he noted that God does not LOOK INTO the future to see what
is GOING to happen. To God, it is all one unbounded NOW, as God is not bound by
time. God sees the entirety of human history AS it is happening; to watch a man
choose to do a thing is not the same thing as making him do it. The sovereignty
of God is not in the least threatened by the free will of man, how could it be?
He is God, man is merely man, a created being. I think free will is best
understood by imagining a fifteen year old building a hundred robots, and
programming them to march around the house loudly chanting "Bert is Great, Bert
is Great" (or whatever the fifteen year old's name may be). Would that do
anything for the creator's self esteem? No, he would have to program the robots
with free will for their praise to mean anything.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I admire your approach to being pro-life. It is exactly what anyone who is
pro-life should do to put their beliefs into practice. If every individual who
talks pro-life and votes pro-life would simply adopt all the unwanted children
they could handle, we wouldn't have a political debate anymore. The world-wide
capacity for really nurturing all these children would be fully absorbed, and
nobody would have time to coerce anyone else. (Some of the more disappointing
experiences, such as yours, might inspire second thoughts about the wisdom of
REQUIRING every pregnant woman to bring EVERY fetus to term and into the world,
however damaged.) </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I am firmly pro-choice, but then, I've never needed an abortion, and, I
love children too. I spend as much time helping overworked parents with the ones
they already have as I can. I don't think I would take on raising a child unless
I were married -- too much for one person and not entirely fair to the child,
although millions make it somehow. On the other hand, I have a daydream that
someone leaves a newborn baby in a basket in the front hallway of the apartment
building I live in, and I find it before the manager sees it and calls the
police. I already know the legal procedure for keeping it, obtaining an
alternate birth certificate, and keeping the social workers out of the picture.
But I would have to get a bigger place -- one with a separate bedroom and I'll
sleep in the living room. Or even a house where I could plant hollyhocks and
nasturtiums.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Clinton? I think I also read that Obama got more delegates, just as, in
Iowa, Edwards came in 2nd but Clinton got more delegates than Edwards. I would
like to see Edwards and/or Obama first and/or second in every primary, and
Clinton third. But she is bound to win a few. Strangely, I can find headlines
about McCain winning South Carolina, but not about who won the Democratic
primary.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>What we really need is a new party, with a platform consisting of
everything that all members of this discussion group can reach consensus on.
Anything we all agree to is worthy of being written into law. Anything we
disagree about, the government should keep its nose out of. It doesn't have to
be this group; there are similar odd combinations of people I would make the
same statement about. Me, the young man who plays the keyboard at church, the
devoted George Bush voter he worked with for several years, and the orthodox
rabbi who also worked for the same company, could fill the same purpose.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Siarlys</DIV></BODY></HTML>