Dear Banjo and Paul,

Thanks once again for your posts.

Our society has many issues that need our attention.

Here's a few thoughts that I raised on another discussion
that might be appropriate here as well:

" It isn't always easy to try to fit in
When even your name you just want to bin
When you're not a Smith or even a Jones
And saying your name makes some people groan

It's even worse if you're Chinese
You do get blamed for each disease
Heaven help you and that's a fact
If you happen to be Black

If if you have a different God
You're considered quite weird and rather odd
Or if your love doesn't fit the norm
You may regret you were ever born

We've all heard of females and the glass ceiling
Trying to break it will leave many reeling
There's also the disabled and the aged
The homeless, the drug addicts, and disengaged

Where are the leaders who should simply dare
To show all of us that they do really care
Policies and programs put in place
Is something we could all embrace

Then of course there's our native people
Who some describe as being feeble
Who's to blame for this dilemma?
The White Man's Law and his Systema?

Frankly though it's not too late
We can make changes and navigate
Righting the past in our Constitution
Would correct the history of total exclusion

Future generations Yellow, Black, Brown, and White
Will then grow up with dignity and pride
Able to take things in their stride
That's the way surrounded by sea
This beautiful big brown land is meant to be."

Paul,

I don’t think that it was early Christians but it was Old Testament law.
That was Oman’s sin that he refused to get his dead brother’s wife pregnant in his brother’s name thus keeping any inheritance for his own offspring.

On an famously ‘spilled his seed upon the ground’ which has been the erroneous foundation for the Church’s ban on contraception.

Dear Josephus,

And here lies the rub doesn't it.

You have gone from: “I am happy to be called a bigot, when My view denies a person with multible wives to become a member of my Church, or has among them a child bride.”

To:

“I personally believe a child becomes an adult on maturity. Maturity may mean 16 for girls and 18 for boys, it depends on the individual.”

Or perhaps it means 15? Or 14? Or even younger if pregnant?

Most of us see 18 as the appropriate minimum. Why don't you?

Moves to stop child marriages in the States most afflicted by this scourge are constantly being blocked by Christian groups. Why do you think that is?

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/current/nation/christian-family-groups-trying-block-child-marriage-law/

So get off your high horse mate, you certainly don't get to preach to anyone on this topic.

Hi Issy,

Some "laws" would be reasonable for the times, taking in a dead brothers family, what could they do without you, hop on down to 'Centrelink'. Not eating pork, well to do so could easily result in death, yours.

Christ was not a Christian, it appears he had no issues with scripture itself, but had disagreements with the religious hierarchy of the time. The brother of Christ, James remained a leader within Judaism, like Christ still disagreeing until his assignation by Temple rivals around 62AD.

What we have to understand, other peoples don't/didn't adhere to modern Judeo-Christian concepts of family, marriage etc, and its wrong to be critical of them for that. Often practices have developed not from religion but from necessity, and then been incorporated into religion.

SR, how many 14 - 15 year olds do you know that are capable of establishing a home and raising a family? That is the criterion of maturity.

Are you against capital punishment?
Yes!
Do you condone bombing of abortion clinics?
NO!
I support clinics for education and support of pregnant women.

Do you participate standing outside abortion clinics with placards?
No!

Did you condone the attacks on the Capital building in Washington?
No!

Nor do I condone the extended violence looting and burning in USA or SA.