[net.religion] Answering RLRs Unanswered Questions

rjb@akgua.UUCP (06/28/84)

** The Bob Brown response attached here was originally sent to RLR
by mail.  Perhaps he didn't get it or hasn't seen it yet.
Since he publically is calling me on the carpet, here's my reply.
>>
>>An interesting point: you claim that you "realize that a lot of the 600+
>>laws of the Old Testament (what Jews refer to as "The Bible") don't have much
>>bearing on today's life" but that certain ones do.  How did you make that
>>determination?  Why are you claiming that the laws on "keeping Kosher" or
>>following Jewish law are obsolete, while other laws concerning sexual
>>practices you don't like or establishing absolute infallibility of god and
>>church and bible are OK?  [What a goyishe thing to say, Bob! *]  Sounds like an
>>arbitrary distinction to me.  If you can make such determinations yourself,
>>great.  More power to you.  Now allow the rest of us the right to make the same
>>determinations for ourselves.
>>
>>[* - INSIDE JOKE FROM NET.RELIGION.JEWISH DISCUSSION INVOLVING BOB BROWN]
>>-- 
>>"You are not SAM.  You are not ISAM!!!"
>>					Rich Rosen    pyuxn!rlr
>>
>>

Rich,

My point about the Jewish laws that are not applicable...

First, you need to understand that most Christians believe that Jesus
fulfilled the Law completely and He is the only one who did or could.

We Christians are living under Grace not the keeping of the Law.

The only Law we are required to keep is the Law of Love as expressed
in the Shema (sp ?) "Hear Oh Israel...etc"

If you keep the Law of love then the 10 commandments and all that other
law keeping becomes uneeded.

However, what I was referring to ( IT IS A CURSE THAT WE MUST BE 
REASONABLY BRIEF ON THE NET AAAARRRGH !) was the little bitty things
like:

	a) The requirement that you have tassels on the four corners
	   of your garment ( I don't even have 4 corners )

	b) The requirement that you have a fence around your roof.
	   Since most of us live in houses with gabled roofs or hip
	   roofs, the fence rule doesn't seem to apply.  Anybody
	   sleep up on your roof during the summer Rich ? :-)

	c) The requirement that your garment not have a mixture
	   of threads of different materials.

These type rules don't seem to bear on morality and that's what I was
pointing at.

Christians are freed from keeping Kosher specifically from the words
of Jesus and Paul ( I dig up New Testament refs if you want them.)  


Perhaps I have not done a good job in this short note but let me assure
you that Christian theology is systematic enough from within not to
be tripped up by the kind of inconsistency you are laying out here.




Bob Brown {...ihnp4!akgua!rjb}
AT&T Technologies, Inc.............. Norcross, Ga
(404) 447-3784 ...  Cornet 583-3784