Dear runner,

Doesn't your religion teach you about not making
judgements and the fact that one of the most
important lessons in life is the power to forgive.
It being the greatest power there is.

Except of course of Right-Wing Blowhards who are
"R-Sols" and beyond hope. (joking). ;-) (hee hee).

'Doesn't your religion teach you about not making
judgements and the fact that one of the most
important lessons in life is the power to forgive'

Foxy

How can one ask for forgiveness when you are not capable of making a judgement as to what is right and wrong? You obviously can't see how contradictory your statement is.

Dear O Sung Wu,

Your first set of questions can be split into a material aspect and a spiritual aspect.

From a material point of view, a policeman is employed to defend the goodies from the baddies. As a copper, your duty is to do whatever is necessary so that innocent citizens are and feel safe.

What is beyond your duty is to educate the baddies, to save their souls and turn them into goodies - only saints are equipped for that, not warriors as yourself. At most, you could (and should) scare the baddies into behaving outwardly like goodies, but that doesn't generate morality, only fear and cowardice. Go ahead and do so, but be clear about your one and only purpose: to defend the goodies.

From a spiritual point of view, what will then happen to morality itself?

The answer is given in the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4, verses 7-8, where Krishna, an incarnation of God declares:

"Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion - at that time I descend Myself. In order to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I incarnate Myself age after age."

I believe that Jesus for example was one of those incarnations of God, which needed to take a human form at that time in history when morality declined to such a despicable low among the Jews. I trust Krishna's promise to come again to fix and uplift society once it deteriorated low enough.

To summarise: as a policeman you should perform your limited job as best you can, then trust God to do the rest.

(continued...)

(...continued)

Regarding your last question about about homosexuality and marriage - it's a topic I try to avoid because I consider it a private matter and its morality or otherwise depend on a number of individual circumstances.

One thing I can say on this topic is that marriage is REAL and it occurs (or doesn't) in heaven, rather than in church or the marriage-registration office: neither priests nor officials have the tools to tell whether a couple is truly married or not, so it should be left to God, not for us or for society to decide and register.

A good test, however, is provided by Rabbi Eli Mallon: http://rabbielimallon.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/5-17-14-love-and-loving

Regarding your claim that sodomy is against the laws of nature, I'm not sure that's indeed the case - however, following the dictates of nature is not a virtue, nor as Rabbi Mallon explains, a basis for marriage.

Hi there FOXY...

I can't tell you the origins of marriage ? A religious institution, or something else altogether ? I just don't know ?

I 'think' somewhere along the line, human procreation and marriage are inextricably linked ? To assist in reproducing our own species. In order for that reproduction process to occur a male and female union is prescribed, otherwise procreation is unachievable.

I suppose, down through the ages 'mankind' has found, procreation alone, is not the end of that union, in fact that 'tiny being' needs to be raised in a way to prepare them to safely embrace this sometimes dangerous and unknown world ? I guess this duty could be better discharged if it became a co-operative measure between the male and female, each contributing to the child's growth and survival in differing measure.

I suppose down through the millennia's, these unions (marriages) originally formed for the express purpose of procreation, have varied somewhat and have even been experimented with, in the privacy of one's own bedrooms, as you had initially pointed out.

That said, procreating was the genesis of those original unions in the first instance, thereafter many saw it as being nothing more then a 'pleasurable, plaything' !

However this approach by the Gay community, to have their homosexual unions officially recognised by a 'traditional marriage', has no legitimate basis in fact. Vide. The natural procreation process. I accept many Gay's have loving and very caring relationships, most just as strong and sustained as heterosexual couples, but that's not the issue really.

Homosexuals now wish to have the unnatural sexual act, of sodomy - consummated by the solemnising of a traditional marriage ? I just can't understand why ?

Dear runner,

Don't be so hard on yourself. If you don't know the
difference between what is right or wrong all you
have to do is ask the higher power that you believe
in for guidance. Or let your conscience be your guide.
Or ask your pastor. Either way, you'll find the answers.
All you have to do is seek them with an open mind and heart.

Dear O Sung Wu,

The family is the most basic and ancient of all institutions,
and it remains the fundamental social unit in every society.
Yet there are many people today who fear the end of the
family system as we know it if we recognise same-sex
marriage. They contend that the family
system is breaking down, the victim of moral decay, sexual
permissiveness, changing gender roles, or irresistible
social forces.

Let's look at the facts. The great majority of both men and
women today - begin sexual activity before marriage. The statistics
on births to unmarried mothers, usually teenagers, - are quite
high. Many pregnancies end in abortion. The
number of unmarried couples living together has more than
tripled in less than two decades. People are staying single
longer than ever, and more than one adult in five, now
lives alone. More than half of our marriages are expected to end
in divorce. New alternatives to traditional marriage, such as
the single-parent household, are becoming steadily more
common. And to complicate matters further, children can now
be conceived through artificial means, sometimes in a
laboratory dish.

What does this all mean? It means that whether we like it or not
there already exists an immense range in marriage, family,
and kinship patterns and that marriage like all social
institutions has inevitably changed over time.

Therefore a more accurate conception of the family today -
must take account
of the many different family forms that have existed or still
exist both in our country and in other cultures.