@JonEricson "secular society seems to view premarital sex as a right, not a sin". Are those mutually exclusive? Surely not.

@TRiG I suppose not. But I don't think there are many people would knowingly hold both of those views at the same time. I think my view that since single people shouldn't be having sex in the first place, they shouldn't need contraception will ruffle more than a few feathers.

@JonEricson So you've not heard of religious secularism?

It's perfectly possible to view an activity as wrong, but nonetheless not attempt to enact laws against it.

(There's lots of things I think are wrong, but which I'd be horrified to see made illegal.)

@TRiG Ah. Sorry, I misunderstood and was unclear. By right, of course, I mean a God-given right. It is of course perfectly legal.

@JonEricson Well, I suppose this is the blog room. Perhaps I should just leave ye to it.

@TRiG It is. But I, myself, would be interested in seeing any potential potholes before we drive the bus over them. ;-)

@JonEricson Well, I'm an atheist, and a very definite secularist, but I do find religion interesting. To be honest, I'm not very interested in the actual theology of it, though.

@TRiG Would you say, therefore, that only women are qualified to talk about contraception?

@JonEricson Short answer: Yes.

@TRiG May I ask: are you married?

@JonEricson Am single. Have always been single. And Ireland doesn't yet accept same-sex marriage.

Contraception is, for me personally, a purely academic subject. Which is why I wouldn't feel qualified to talk about it.

@TRiG I suppose not. Thank you for letting me into your personal life a little bit.

I read an article by a woman who has a condition which would make pregnancy extremely dangerous for her. To her, these issues are very important health concerns. And a bunch of men sitting around talking about contraception as an abstract ethical principle is actively hurtful to her. It erases her from the conversation. It was a good article.

I asked because it is an intensely personal and practical matter for my wife and I.

@TRiG Yes. That is exactly why I raised the issue here.

@JonEricson Perhaps it should be mentioned that the current controversy in the USA is purely manufactured outrage. It's nothing to do with theology: it's the culture war.

(I strongly disagree with conservatives, but I can cope with them. I strongly disagree with religious people, but I can be good friends with them. But the combination gets to me.)

@TRiG We may be bumping heads in the future, then. I'll apologize in advance and try not to pick any fights.

@JonEricson I'm perfectly happy to pick fights, but I try not to do it here. This isn't really the venue for it.

I'm glad to have gotten to know you a tiny bit. I gotta head home in a minute. Have a good... well it's evening here. ;-)

@JonEricson 1:34 a.m. Time for bed, methinks.

Bye. See you around.

See ya.

I think we are pretty well represented in Europe as well as the U.S. From time to time, I even seem to see some Asians. Nicke Carlo is from Argentina - I miss him...

I hope he & Audio Sancto aren't gone for good.

@waxeagle I can do/help with editing and proof-reading.

@ElendiaStarman appreciate it.

@AffableGeek did you get my three questions?

@ElendiaStarman I will add you to the list of editors on the blog. (thus I'll need your answers to the 3 questions above as well)

@JonEricson, @PeterTurner, @BruceAlderman you guys are all set up as contributors. @AffableGeek I'll get you set up when I get your answer to above.

@waxeagle No, I have not blogged for SE before, my account email is valid, and I'd like the display name of "El'endia Starman".

@ElendiaStarman (wp tells me I can only use lower case letters and numbers (no specials or spaces :())

@waxeagle "elendiastarman" then.

@ElendiaStarman that's what you got :). not sure how much control we will have over display names...

I made you an "editor" still figuring out who should be in what roles...

@waxeagle Okay, got it.

@ElendiaStarman good deal

he @Belinda! welcome to the C.SE blog room!

@TRiG I hope we are not just "talking about contraception as an abstract ethical principle." For my post, I plan to include some real-world examples. If you can give me the link to that article, I'll include that woman.

@BruceAlderman personally I want it as real world as we can make this stuff. talk about how your view affects families.

@AffableGeek k, going to scrub those from chat btw...

My password is ...

Oh, wait :)

@AffableGeek you want affablegeek as your acct name?

I wonder if there are any fundamentalist Christians who do not practice Easter who might weigh in. My brother's church does not practice Easter or Christmas, for instance (and they are not JW)

I am referring to the Easter post

@DanODay intriguing, I've heard of some folks shying away, at least from the popular symbols because they are borrowed heavily from pagan culture, not sure I've heard of anyone ignoring them completely (other than the JWs)

@waxeagle yeah they used to be pastored by this guy but now are an independent house church: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart_Freeman

@DanODay gotcha.

> was a charismatic preacher and author, who ministered in northern Indiana and actively promoted faith healing.

all I need to see :(

yeah... me too lol

I'm a ceasastionist (sp?) at heart...

ic

I'm not a cessationist, but I'm also not into WoF and many Pentecostal teachings (this is coming from a former AG minister) ;)

@DanODay gotcha. I ran into some AG folks on the mission field with my parents. Good folks. But some of the highly spirit centric groups end up doing strange things on the field...

very true

are you an MK?

@DanODay yep a fairly late in life one :) my parents moved overseas my Junior year of HS

where to?

my parents ended up going to the field during a time in life when a lot of families come home.

@DanODay Ecuador

ok cool

@DanODay they are about the head to Nicaragua later this year...

@BruceAlderman I'll look for it again, and perhaps ask whether she'd want to be included (she is, as I remember, an ex-Christian Pagan).

are they supported by a local church or a larger missions agency (or both)?

@DanODay they work for Mission to the World which is assocaited with the PCA

@waxeagle If you're okay with that, I'd like to keep my "brand". If you want truename only, you can use "Michael Hollinger" (And you don't need to scrub that from chat)

@AffableGeek nope brand is fine. Ill be posting as waxeagle

I originally had digitaloday but it seemed everyone used their full name in hermeneutics chat so I started to also

I'm out there enough on the web plus my publications so I guess I have nothing to hide lol

(not implying that you guys are hiding)

@TRiG If she would rather not be mentioned by name, I can use her situation as an example.

@waxeagle I think I need to do some more editing. It's had an impact on my own marriage and family, so I better talk about that some more.

I'm trying out the WordPress interface and I'm realizing it's been ages since I've had to deal with HTML. Does anyone know the best way to render poetry? I'm using <pre>, but that doesn't look so great.

@JonEricson it supports markdown

same as SE :)

@JonEricson WordPress has indent buttons in the visual editor

otherwise you can use   as many times as you need to in the HTML editor to have the perfect amount of spaces

Also, WP now has a paste from Word button, so if you format it in Word you can bring it over

@waxeagle Oh! How do I get that? (Using > to start a block quote just seems to give me a literal >. :-(

You must use <blockquote> in WP, or just click the quotation mark button

@JonEricson I don't know, was told by Rchern that is supports..hmm

It uses the HTML tag and your theme can tweak the appearance with CSS

@DanODay I had it as a Google doc, which transferred over fairly well. But not poetry. :-(

Yeah just use indent and/or &nbsp; html markup

be back later

@DanODay Ok. I can make it work.

rebecca claims that you can put markdown into the HTML tab.

ok, markdown in general works, not available or visible in the visual, just type it into the HTML editor. Checking now on why the > doesn't work...

@waxeagle Doesn't seem to work for me. I wonder what I'm doing wrong.

@JonEricson gotta use the preview window...

@waxeagle I'm using the "Preview" button under the "Publish" box. I must not be looking at the right thing, since it still converts > into >. For now, I'll just use   and make it work.