US marines in hot water over Christian coins in Iraq

What you say sounds good on the surface of it but it really is (in my opinion) a little off base. I soldier (or marine or airman or sailor) can serve his country faithfully AND be an active (in other words, soul winning) Christian. I'm not sure where the opinion has come from that a soldier can only be a good soldier if they act like God doesn't exist.

There is NO neutral ground - you either are unsaved and need to hear about Jesus or you are saved and need to tell people about Him (no matter what your walk in life). If you are NOT telling people about Jesus and how to get to heaven you are out of God's will. To act like there is neutral ground where you don't talk about the most improtant think in the entire universe is naive to say the least. I don't mean to be so harsh but you can't sit on the fence.

Is there a right place and a wrong place to share your faith. Well, actually, no. There is a right atittude and you need to follow the urging of the Holy Spirit but never, ever, think there is some place that is just "out of bounds." That is a viscious lie of the Devil.

For the first 200 years of our country's history Chritians have served with distinction. And now, just like in a lot of other walks of life, it is wrong to be saved. I guess I just don't get it. You are NOT damaging the state's interests by leading someone to a saving knowledge of Jesus. Just a couple of quotes from some of our presidents:

George Washington: “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

John Quincy Adams: “So great is my veneration of the Bible, that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society.”
Andrew Jackson: “That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests.”
Abraham Lincoln: “I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated to us through this book.”
Herbert Hoover: “The whole of the inspiration of our civilization springs from the teachings of Christ and the lessons of the Prophets. To read the Bible for these fundamentals is a necessity of American life. ​

(taken from Encyclopedia of 7700 illustrations )

To think that witnessing and serving our country in uniform are mutually exclusive is to not understand the roots of our country.

When winning someone to Christ is considered "damaging the state's interests" it might be time to rethink the future of America.

OK, the sermon is over. Let's take an offereing.

 

Thought experiment:

Imagine you're a soldier and a Christian. In the midst of a battle, your company forms up with another company. Within that other company is a young man who's heard of your Christian reputation, and the current battle is making him extremely conscious of his eternal destination. As he asks you to share your faith, however, both companies are ordered to immediately charge into the enemy's unquestionably deadly fire. What do you do?

 

That has absolutely no bearing on this particular situation (handing out coins as tracts). The soldiers in question were not facing any battles, and were not in any time-sensitive situations.

Perhaps your thought experiment should be more along the lines of: Several co-workers have expressed their displeasure with you talking about God in the workplace, and your boss has told you that on your next "offense," you'll be fired. A co-worker has asked you to share the gospel with him/her; what do you do?

 

Sorry, your thought experiment doesn't work. I am a combat veteran with over 20 years experience in the military. I spent 3 years in the army infantry and 17 years in the Air Force. I have been involved in Bosnia, Kosovo, Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom and others. Not once did the Holy Spirit move me to witness to someone and it caused the death of (or even the injury of) another soldier.

However, there have been (thorughout history) uncountable thousands of times where a soldier is dying and the Holy Spirit has placed a Christian by their side to lead them to Christ before it was eternally too late - even in the heat of battle. Praise God!

This is harsh and I apologize but... Your experiment is implying that God is too stupid to figure out how to get a Christian to a soldier crying out to Him in the heat of battle and still keep the other soldiers alive.

 

Another great post - woo hoo!! :thumbs: :applause: :applause:

BTW, thank you for your service for your country as well as your service for Jesus Christ.

 

You guys are missing the point of thought experiments. They absolutely are NOT designed to represent a common situation -- they are completely made up for the sole purpose of refining one's position on a given issue by considering how one would act in unusual situations.

 

That splains it all! How can you base an argument on hypothetical fabrications?

 

You can't. I wasn't.

But thought experiments are very useful for considering weighty cases and refining one's principles based upon one's responses in the situations where they're forced into a conflict.

 

Thought experiments (Hypothetical) are useless to determining values.

 

You are correct. But they're very useful when prioritizing them.

 

Thought experiment: What if worms had machine guns?

Answer: Birds wouldn't mess with them.

Refinement of morals or values: None.

Thought experiments are more useless than you realize. We could sit here all day talking about what we'd do in certain situations; but then the situations actually arise, adrenaline starts pumping, other people start shouting or freaking out, and you realize that you spent a lot of time thinking about what you'd do, but not for this particular situation. Then, afterwards, you think, "if that ever happens again, I'd do this differently"--but it never happens again exactly like that particular time, meaning your "I'd do such-and-such differently" is a wasted "thought experiment."

Sorry, just my particular experience with the subject of thought experiments.

Real-life example: Thought to myself, "what if an 'incoming' alarm goes off? What would I do?" Came up with some interesting alternatives, if I do say so myself. Then I was in a location where I hadn't "planned" for such a situation, and one actually went off, and I found myself going with the tide of people running for the duck-and-covers. So much for my thought experiments....

 

Thought experiments are not the topic of this thread...another derailing. And it's on page 10, so it's closed.