Woman to Woman

By candide

September 23, 2007 8:42 AM | Link to this

Religion at best is a delusion, at worst a fraud. I want nothing said about religion by presidential candidates. A president’s faith in the Blue Fairy is not something I would like to hear about.

By Billy

September 23, 2007 10:04 AM | Link to this

I’d like to say that the President’s religion wouldn’t matter as long as he didn’t make policy based on those beliefs. Truthfully, however, that just rarely happens.

The fact of the matter is that religion is little more than mythology with a large following. People who are truly religious will not question their beliefs, though they will claim otherwise. I want a skeptic. I don’t want someone who believes the world is 6000 years old and that dinosaurs and humans coexisted.

By Billy

September 23, 2007 10:46 AM | Link to this

I don’t know why the blog is letting me post on the weekend, but I’m going to avail myself of it since I won’t be able to during the week…

Look, our nation was intended to be a secular one. You can be religious, but the nation itself won’t be. The founding fathers were largely deists. This is exemplified by the phrase, “nature and nature’s god” in the Declaration of Independence. Sure, they may have believed in a god, but they were wise enough to know that they couldn’t know the god they believed in was THE God. Article 11 in the Treaty of Tripoli stated that the U.S. was NOT founded as a Christian nation. That is still the case, despite what the religious reich wants to believe.

By Billy

September 23, 2007 11:15 AM | Link to this

And since I’m sure this will come up soon enough, let me go ahead and say it…Religious people are responsible for most of the atrocities throughout human history. And I know the response that will follow…”But what about Stalin, Mao, and Hitler? They were atheists!” The societies they controlled were atheistic in name only. When a leader demands his followers blindly follow his every whim, when he foments a cult of personality that glorifies him to no end, it results in a dogmatic worship of him by his followers, essentially deifying him. It becomes a secular religion, completely different from our founders’ goal of the state having no religion.

In regards to Hitler, the rise of Nazism (and subsequent extermination of six million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and others considered deviants or whatnot) cannot be dissociated from religion. Although some Nazi vitriol may have been couched in secular language, it appealed to the biases of the German people — biases fostered by centuries of religion. German Catholicism provided the antisemitism (and homophobia and other fears/hatred) necessary for such atrocities to take place. Hitler and his officers sometimes attended Christian services in the Nazified church. Add to that the fact the in his final days he expected to be saved by reinforcements that did not exist (hoping for a miracle) and it is clear that he and his regime were not atheist in nature.

By Monica

September 23, 2007 1:53 PM | Link to this

I don’t want a president who is “religious;” anyone can be religious. It is safe to assume that bin Laden is religious.

What I don’t want is someone who plays “church” for political gain, someone who attends mass at Easter aand Christmas because it’s expected of them, someone who frequents the Baptist Convention because it wins him or her votes. If we have a president who attends church on a regular basis, I hope it’s because he or she has a relationship with God. If one does have that relationship, it will be evident.

One has to be careful in answering this question. While I might want someone who is religious, I only want them religious in the same manner as I am, and I’m sure that I don’t have to point out the dangers in that way of thinking. :)

By Lyrazel

September 24, 2007 9:56 AM | Link to this

Actually I don’t feel Americans actually care what religion their politicians are but for TV the politicians MUST show they got one for PR photos. If one looks at the life of a politician it runs on glitz and panhandling money with reflection and faith happening when caught at some no no—then its back to family. Its the politicians wife who keeps the pew warm in temple, who shuttles her kids for their sunday display so that when asked about faith they have a place, and have been seen, know the audience and warble in choir maybe—even believe. I have seen male candidates have to prove their commitment to faith and they do so with peacock display and with enforced TV modesty the women politicos bob their heads like a doll on the dashboard as they speak of strong beliefs and being tested. Its good PR to be churchy and politicians pay millions to have the best public relations companies available to make photo ops of leaving and going and going and waving as they leave service. What was the sermon? Who cares? Its the fact they were there being churchy that matters in PR.

If being churchy ever meant anything to Americans and their politicians there would be no war, no axis of evil, no pursuit of economic wealth without care for the needy…

By NetBanker

September 24, 2007 10:28 AM | Link to this

I don’t think that this should matter, but unfortunately in this day and age religion does affect social politics. And I have a bit of an issue with this. Lyrazel touches on this quite nicely If being churchy ever meant anything to Americans and their politicians there would be no war, no axis of evil, no pursuit of economic wealth without care for the needy… My issue is that the application of religious belief to social policy is extremely inconsistent. For many Christians homosexuality is a sin so we must pass laws to ensure they can’t marry, but what about policy that supports religious direction to be good stewards of the earth or to ‘feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, feed the poor’ for example?

If a President takes comfort in the faith and it helps them do their job that’s great. I just don’t want to hear things like “I prayed about this and God told me….”

Slightly off topic, but a thought just occured to me (and you know I just have to share these things when they pop into my head). In school we all learned about Greek and Roman mythology. In those days it wasn’t mythology, but the religion they practiced and for quite a long time. In say, another 2,000 years will children in school learn about “Christian and Muslim” mythology?

By GOB

September 24, 2007 10:49 AM | Link to this

In school we all learned about Greek and Roman mythology. In those days it wasn’t mythology, but the religion they practiced and for quite a long time. In say, another 2,000 years will children in school learn about “Christian and Muslim” mythology?

Net - that kind of thinking is what played a huge part in my becoming agnostic. I was listening to a lecture series on ancient Eygpt, and after hearing some of the things they believed, I realized that it really wasnt much crazier than what modern christians or muslims believe.

By JokesOn

September 24, 2007 10:57 AM | Link to this

NetB,

In say, another 2,000 years will children in school learn about “Christian and Muslim” mythology?

I sure hope so. If the past is any indicator, we are about to pass into another “age” and at that time will be another period of enlightenment. For example, the past processions moses/commandments marked the the passing of age of the bull into the ram, and then jesus marking the passage of ram to the fish.

2012ish will be the next one after jesus. Hopefully there will be a movement that progresses spirituality and takes yet another step away from dogma type beliefs.

By Anthony

September 24, 2007 11:36 AM | Link to this

I highly doubt Jefferson wrote that quote no matter what the Christian website you got it off says. He was a deist not a Christian and he was the one who wrote in the treaty with tripoli that we are not a Christian nation. I love how they are trying to rewrite history it really turns my stomach.

By Anonymous

September 24, 2007 11:53 AM | Link to this

A large number of Americans—millions and millions of them—also thought that Saddam was behind 9/11. Don’t we want a president to be a bit smarter than that?

Maybe that’s a poll worth conducting: How many Americans want a “regular joe” to lead the country, as compared to someone who’s actually smarter and better informed than the average American? (Hint: We got a disturbing preview of that answer in 2000.)

Government by the lowest common denominator is not a good choice, people.

By Archie

September 24, 2007 12:10 PM | Link to this

The phrasing on the topic question makes a little hard to answer. If I say a little religious,well, what does that mean? I don’t want the candidate to be agnostic because I am not but I don’t want the candidate to be hardcore fundamentalist either. What I want is a candidate that leans left on their religiosity, in other words, a candidate that would allow gays to be married or at least involved in a civil union so that they can allocate their property in a way they see fit and yet I want a candidate that doesn’t mind praying in public.

By comp133xi7y

September 24, 2007 12:11 PM | Link to this

Jefferson DID write those quotes, but typically they are taken out of context.

It’s somewhat amusing that Shaunti chose them - in particular the “disciple of Christ” line. The edited part of the quote, the one abridged by the eliding, is “I am a real Christian”. He used those words to differentiate between himself and those Christians who embraced the supernatural rather than the ethical tenets of the religion.

See, Jefferson wholeheartedly believed in the ethics taught by Christ. He rejected the supernatural aspects of the religion. He even re-wrote the gospels, removing all supernatural aspects from them. No miracles. No virgin birth. No born-of-the-holy-spirit. It was the ETHICAL, humanist aspects of Christianity that appealed to Jefferson.

He would consider Shaunti and all the other fundamentalists who are so concerned with biblical literalism to be among the false Christians that he held in contempt.

By Anonymous

September 24, 2007 12:41 PM | Link to this

I know the Constitution forbids any religious test for holding public office, but I’d be very reluctant to vote for an openly fundamentalist or evangelical candidate.

They fail the intelligence test.

By Chilao

September 24, 2007 1:06 PM | Link to this

I think it is important that we see our Presidents on the Sunday Evening news, entering the National Cathedral earlier in the day, waving at the cameras “See America, Iza going to church, Yessiree”.

My main if only dislike of Clinton was that action of his every Sunday morning.

dripping sarcasm in that post.

The 61 percent who would not vote for an atheist, well that can only be considered Progress as I am sure that percentage would have been much higher in earlier decades. Perhaps people are learning having some sort of religious beliefs does not make that person the superior person so many Insinuate that it would mean. But rather is just means that they have some religious beliefs, nothing more.

By NetBanker

September 24, 2007 1:38 PM | Link to this

Perhaps people are learning having some sort of religious beliefs does not make that person the superior person so many Insinuate that it would mean. Good point, Chilao! It does seem that people immediately assume that because one attends church one is superior to those who don’t. Just think about how often we hear comments on the news to the tune of “I just can’t believe [insert appropriate phrase here] because he/she is a good Christian.”

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September 24, 2007 2:05 PM | Link to this

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By comp133xi7y

September 24, 2007 2:34 PM | Link to this

In a recent Fresh Air interview, former Fed chief Alan Greenspan spent some time talking about his tenure vis-a-vis his own personal philosophies. Greenspan is a laissez-faire economist, yet his job required that he work to help regulate the very market he believed should be free of regulation. In the interview, he said that when he first took the position of Fed Chairman, he had to decide if he would do his job within the framework that was required, or if he should attempt to insert his personal philosophies into policy. He chose the former.

The fear that I and many others have is that someone who lives up to the phrase of “Person of Faith” as it is defined by Shaunti and other far-right evangelicals will neither choose nor be able to make the same intellectual break between his duties and his personal beliefs.

Given the percentage of people in this country who express some degree of religious faith or another, I would hardly expect to find a mainstream candidate who is not a member of one or another mainstream religion. Neither would I demand that a candidate have no personal religion. No - my concerns come from a fear of seeing this nation slowly turned into a Theocracy that espouses and codifies into law a specific, narrow set of beliefs that cater only to the “chosen few” and leave everyone else as second- or third-class citizens.

I think it somewhat interesting that this discussion begins on a day when the political leader of one of the world’s most reviled theocracies is creating a tremendous furor for doing nothing more than what Shaunti seems to expect any candidate acceptable to her should do - speaking out vocally and governing by his personal religious beliefs.

How much longer will we refuse to acknowledge that injecting religious belief into our legal and political systems makes us no better than the Islamic Fundamentalist governments we claim to abhor?

By Anonymous

September 24, 2007 2:44 PM | Link to this

The Islamic theocrats actually have a great deal in common with our own home-grown theocrats. They despise our “decadent, corrupt” secular society. They’re appalled at the licentious, immoral behavior and crass commercialism. And they long for a return to traditional, righteous, religion-based values, where morality is enforced by law if people don’t have the common sense to already belong to the Right Church.

The difference between our evangelicals and the Taliban is really a very small one. In their goals and mentality, they’re the same. Ours just endorse a different flavor of religious oppression than their Islamic counterparts do.

And, of course, both are enormously grateful for the presidency of George W. Bush to further their cause.

By Gary Gibbs

September 24, 2007 3:00 PM | Link to this

God says in the Old Testament “Blessed is the nation whose god is the Lord”

Charles Darwin had this to say about his book:I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religeon of them.

Charles Robert Darwin had this to say about Jesus: Christ Jesus and His salvation. Is not that the best theme?

Thomas Jefferson declared that religeon is: Deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.

James Madison the father of our constitution had this to say about God and our government: We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the 10 commandments of God.

By lozen

September 24, 2007 3:08 PM | Link to this

Applauding for Anonymous post at 2:44pm. It’s all the same: control, force everyone to do what you have decided is RIGHT, MORAL, RELIGIOUS. Who is that idiot televangelist who spends all his time ranting against a hate crime bill? (I refuse to remember his name.) I know the first time I saw/heard him on tv, I wondered why he wasn’t in an institution. Seriously, his actions and words were insane.

By Billy

September 24, 2007 3:40 PM | Link to this

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By Gary Gibbs

September 24, 2007 4:04 PM | Link to this

In 1788 James Madison the Father of our Constitution stated: The belief in God all powerful wise and good is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude(care/protectiveness) to the different characters and capacities impresed with it. Charles Darwin the current god of the godless stated: Christ Jesus and His salvation. Is not that the best theme.

There are many unbelievers that responded to the Shaunti column the ignorance and hatred displayed is very troubling. As a nation we are far removed from where we were in George Washingtons time in the spiritual sense. He and our other founding fathers would be terribly dissapointed with what we’ve done with what they gave us . Many of us Christians are becoming acutely aware of whats being done to desroy our Christian heritage. Many of us Christians believe the Church has a ministry of grace and civil govwernment has a ministry of justice. If God is restricted either in the Church or in civil government both miniistries will result in quackery and injustice.

By comp133xi7y

September 24, 2007 4:17 PM | Link to this

Gary Gibbs could not have stated the case against religion in government had he tried.

Many of us Christians believe the Church has a ministry of grace and civil govwernment has a ministry of justice. If God is restricted either in the Church or in civil government both miniistries will result in quackery and injustice

His accusations of “ignorance and hatred” aside (apparently failing to agree with someone now represents hatred), this statement is exactly what we supporters of secular government fear. This idea that God lays demands on civil government and that only one set of his followers should determine what those demands are and how they are executed is nothing less than what The Taliban demanded of Afghanistan.

Christians are welcome to live their lives as they choose. No one is destroying their so-called Christian Heritage. Are Christians not free to attend church? Are Christians not free to pray? Are Christians not free to gather in numbers, openly and without barrier? Are Christians not free to marry, worship and live as they choose, in accord with their beliefs and traditions? Absolutely.

No, by claiming that his “heritage” is being destroyed, Gary invokes the great new myth of the Religious Right - that not only were our Founding Fathers fundamentalists and evangelicals of modern stripe, but that they always intended for this to be a nation of Christians , by Christians, and for Christians. No one who reads the works of those great men in fullness, with full understanding of history, context, the meaning of The Enlightenment, and the philosophies of their day could ever make this most basic and egregious of mistakes.

By comp133xi7y

September 24, 2007 4:25 PM | Link to this

By the way, in reference to the supposed Madison quote.

http://web.archive.org/web/20030620063744/http://www.au.org/press/pr4401.htm

This was debunked - the above article is just one source of actual information. Not surprisingly, this false quote was created by a revisionist Fundamentalist, who later admitted that the quote was false.

As anyone who has studied actual history knows, Madison was a STAUNCH supporter of the separation of Church and State.

By Just One Question

September 24, 2007 4:49 PM | Link to this

Here we have somewhat conflicting arguments:

First comp133xi7y states: It was the ETHICAL, humanist aspects of Christianity that appealed to Jefferson.

Then he states: No - my concerns come from a fear of seeing this nation slowly turned into a Theocracy that espouses and codifies into law a specific, narrow set of beliefs that cater only to the “chosen few” and leave everyone else as second- or third-class citizens.

If Jefferson were truly a deist who believed in the ethical aspects of Christianity, wouldn’t it make sense that he and the other like-minded Founding Fathers would try to codify these Christian ethics into law?

My friend, MOST Christians are not trying to establish a theocracy - that goes against the New Testament teaching of “render unto Caesar”. MOST Christians simply believe that codifying SOME of the moral ethical aspects of Christ’s teachings will make this country better. Whether or not the Founding Fathers were evangelical Christians, they believed in this practice to a certain extent.

By comp133xi7y

September 24, 2007 5:03 PM | Link to this

Those arguments do not conflict at all…the first statement referred to the beliefs of one man, Jefferson. The second referrs to a current, modern-day issue. It is fallacious of you to conflate them in the way you have done.

However, to answer your questions, Jefferson most certainly included the ETHICAL teachings of Christ into his beliefs - treating each other with respect and dignity, turning the other cheek, etc. These are the basic tenets that all great religions share - he simply felt that Christ summed them up better than anyone else.

However, in no way should it be assumed because Jefferson personally appreciated the ethical system espoused by Christ that he would approve of any and all Christian beliefs being enforced on the populace.

Unfortunately, “my friend”, we know what MOST Christians want. A return to the days when private sexual behavior was punishable by law, the days when only the wealthy could afford to safely end unwanted pregnancies, the removal of science from our classrooms in favor of superstition…through such “little” things does liberty die.

No, “friend”, keep your personal morality just that - personal. We’ve no need for our own version of the Saudi Morality Police stormtroopering their way down our streets, beating up the gays and the harlots and the scientists and the non-Christians, and hauling them into prison.

By Gary Gibbs

September 24, 2007 5:17 PM | Link to this

Writing on June 20,1785 James Madison stated that religeon is the basis and foundation of government.`

In 1892 the Supreme Court chronicles Christianity’s role in shaping Ameica’s political institutions and traditions: Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphaphatically Christian. In support of this I point out that Harvard University was founded using the property and funds of Rev. John Harvard for the purpose of training a literate clergy.

By Billy

September 25, 2007 7:58 AM | Link to this

Yeah, Gary…There’s no evidence to indicate Lady Hope’s “Darwin deathbed confession” story is anything other than just that — a story. His children denied it and his posthumous autobiography clearly shows his agnosticism. There’s just no evidence to support your claim. But then, you have no problem believing things that are unsupported by evidence, do you?

By Anonymous

September 25, 2007 8:49 AM | Link to this

Oh, goody. Another day of carefully-mined and context-free quote swapping. That’s bound to resolve the debate.

By Peter

September 25, 2007 9:07 AM | Link to this

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By lovelyliz

September 25, 2007 9:49 AM | Link to this

We the voters confuse public profession of religion with the actually practice of religion; the public profession of morality with actual behavior both in public and private; the public profession of religion and actual goodness.

The idea behind the theory of strong moral values and religion is that one actually embraces such values in the public and private lives. Unfortunately since religion became a political issue, those running for public office have a tendency to publicly issue edicts that the voting public wants to hear. It works because we the voter don’t bother to do basic research and find out if such public proclamations have any basis in reality.

I am a rather religious person myself, but give me a presidential candidate who is a good person, a truly good person, and let the reasons, religious or otherwise, behind such behavior speak for themselves.

By lovelyliz

September 25, 2007 9:54 AM | Link to this

I like my politicians to be like my doctor and plumber. Proficient at their job and available when needed. As to why, I really don’t care?

By lozen

September 25, 2007 9:57 AM | Link to this

What our founding fathers were smart enough to know was that government and religion should always be separate and that everyone in this country should be free to practice their religion with nobody forcing a particular brand of religion on others. They had studied the past. They had seen what happens when church and state are one! They didn’t want that here. I don’t want that here. Anybody in their right mind does not want that here.

By lozen

September 25, 2007 10:09 AM | Link to this

Just One Question states: MOST Christians simply believe that codifying SOME of the moral ethical aspects of Christ’s teachings will make this country better. And I guess all christians agree as to what ‘SOME’ is! Are you talking about “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? And “if someone asks for your cloak give him your coat also.” How about “forgive your enemies, pray for those who hate you.” You think we should be praying for the Taliban instead of fighting them? You believe by bombing Iraq we are treating them as we would like to be treated? Oh, I doubt you mean those particular moral ethical aspects!

By Chilao

September 25, 2007 10:18 AM | Link to this

Oh, I doubt you mean those particular moral ethical aspects!

Stonings for adultery would probably suffice. LOL Not to mention Blue Laws.

By lozen

September 25, 2007 10:38 AM | Link to this

Yep Chilao you got it. Stoning adulterers, homos, atheists, witches, and loose women! You read “Handmaids Tale” right? There ya go!

By Jack

September 25, 2007 10:48 AM | Link to this

Horizonal Day is much more fun.

By Mara

September 25, 2007 11:00 AM | Link to this

Chilao - Stonings for adultery would probably suffice

brought to mind an article I read the other day about some guy trying to live by for a time by all the Biblical rules, one of which is the injunction to stone adulterers. Your post brought this to mind - :^)

I was in the park, dressed in my white garb, and this man in his 70s came over and asked what I was doing. I explained I was trying to follow every rule in the Bible as literally as possible, including growing my beard, not mixing fibers, stoning adulterers, and he said, “I’m an adulterer, are you going to stone me?” I said, “Yeah that would be great.” The Bible doesn’t say what size the stones have to be, so I had been carrying around these pebbles in my pocket for just such an occasion. I took the pebbles out of my pocket, and he instantly picked one up and threw it at me, so I decided, an eye for an eye, and I tossed one at him.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20910659/site/newsweek/

By Gary Gibbs

September 25, 2007 11:09 AM | Link to this

In the New Testament Romans chapter 1 verse 20 says: Since earliest times men have have seen the earth and and sky and all God made, and have known of His erxistance and great eternal power. So they will have no excuse[when they stand before God on judgment day].

Ben Franklin a supposed athiest wrote to the Ministry of France in March 1778 the following: Whoever shall introduce into public affairs principals of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.

I can continue this dialog for years if necessary, however I would prefer to answer specific questions about Christianity taking into consideration the Bible says the unsaved man cannot accept the things of God for they seem foolish to him and he cannot understand them because they are discerned by the Spirit.

By Jack

September 25, 2007 11:10 AM | Link to this

My speling was wrng. I meant horizontal. Sorry….

By Jack

September 25, 2007 11:14 AM | Link to this

Yea tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. Fore I am the meanest S.O.B. in the valley….

By Chilao

September 25, 2007 11:17 AM | Link to this

now that’s funny, him now being a reverent agnostic AND still coveting his neighbor’s wife(and he is married).

want to hear a good one? That book I read, The Prince of the Marshes, well, at some point the natives were restless and insurgent activity was increasing. And intel discovered there was a warehouse on the outskirts of town where men were meeting at night, and would arrive on foot or by car, but only 1-2 men at each time. The Brits sent in a special forces team, covertly, at night, night-vision googles and all, and got up close to the building, to learn what was going on. Get a heads up on the insurgency.

The warehouse ceased to be considered a threat when the Special Forces team learned it was basically a gathering of men for some man-on-man in and out.

By Gary Gibbs

September 25, 2007 11:25 AM | Link to this

Some protest against the fact that our Chritiian values and heritage are under attack. Following are some that are currently under attack are lost: -School prayer -Public display of 10 Commandments -the right to life(abortion) -many want “In God We Trust” from our money -many want to abolish the rank of Military chaplin -Many also want to end the celebration of Christmas as a national holiday

By lovelyliz

September 25, 2007 11:36 AM | Link to this

Gary Gibbs

I used to be a math teacher. Trust me there is plenty of prayer in schools. It’s just not established by the schools and government.

By JokesOn

September 25, 2007 11:37 AM | Link to this

Gary,

You need to revisit what a “right” is:

Following are some that are currently under attack are lost: -School prayer -Public display of 10 Commandments -the right to life(abortion) -many want “In God We Trust” from our money -many want to abolish the rank of Military chaplin -Many also want to end the celebration of Christmas as a national holiday

You will always have the “right” to do these things. You will no longer have the right to force them on others is the only truth you reveal.

By Vilyamyl

September 25, 2007 11:40 AM | Link to this

By Chilao

September 25, 2007 11:51 AM | Link to this

Gary Gibbs -

Unfortunately your kind of Christian has a historically POOR RECORD of respecting the rights of those who think differently than you do, so it is important that you NOT be allowed to continue with your previously established POOR RECORD.

I bet you think In God We Trust was added to coins when the USA started making coins. Try 1954, during the Cold War fears. Gosh, the Reds might nuke us, we better put something on our money.

By Gary Gibbs

September 25, 2007 12:11 PM | Link to this

I would like to clarify a few things regarding the Christian life and sin. The only person who went through life without sinning was Jesus Christ. Everyone else has sinned. God provided for sin by having Jesus die on the cross for our sins. Once we repent of our sins and accept Christ as savior our past and present sins are forgiven. If we but ask in the name of Jesus and repent when we sin in the future God instantlyforgives us. I don’t know Ben Franklins true status with God but in my opinion his public statements indicate he was a believer and for at least part of his life perhaps a immature believer.

By lozen

September 25, 2007 12:16 PM | Link to this

….the Bible says the unsaved man cannot accept the things of God for they seem foolish to him and he cannot understand them because they are discerned by the Spirit.

I’ve heard it all before Gary. I don’t really care what the bible says. I love nature, the sky and the flowers and the bees and the trees. But that doesn’t mean your Yahweh exists.

By Sandra-fb

September 25, 2007 12:19 PM | Link to this

By comp133xi7y

September 25, 2007 12:20 PM | Link to this

Gary Gibbs continues to show exactly why religion should be kept out of government.

And Gary - I suggest you do a little research on David Barton. All of the “quotes” you have mentioned were used by him in a revisionist history book. It was proved that they were false, and he himself later admitted that there was no historical evidence for them. He manufactured them.

If you knew the first thing about Madison other than what you’ve read on fundamentalist reactionary web sites, you would realize how ridiculous it is to claim he believed in a Christian government.

By lozen

September 25, 2007 12:20 PM | Link to this

Oh please. Here we have another Chuck who is going to enlighten us all. Such total arrogance and they don’t even admit it because “god says it”. Jeez. Chilao, I know that’s the truth - POOR RECord.

By Mara

September 25, 2007 12:27 PM | Link to this

JokesOn - You will always have the “right” to do these things. You will no longer have the right to force them on others

that was quite well put.

Gary - the fact that our Chritiian values and heritage are under attack

Not only should you look up the definition of “right”, as Jokes advised, but you should also check the meaning of “fact”.

The only “attack” against your Christian values and heritage is the insistance of many that ALL religions be afforded the same consideration that YOUR religion receives from the state. It isn’t an attack on your religion, it is an uprising against the preferential treatment that your religion has historically enjoyed.

And btw, they aren’t our “christian values”, they are yours and your fellow Domonionists.

Chilao - speaking of which, did you find it as hilarious as I (and the Columbia student body) when Amadagin insisted that Iran has no gays?! LOL!! That got a laugh…

By Mara

September 25, 2007 12:29 PM | Link to this

ooops. That should have been “Ahmadinejad”…

By Jack

September 25, 2007 12:31 PM | Link to this

Ditto to Lovelyliz’s 9:54.

By Sandra-dy

September 25, 2007 12:37 PM | Link to this

By Sandra-vi

September 25, 2007 12:37 PM | Link to this

By Chilao

September 25, 2007 12:42 PM | Link to this

Mara - yeah, that is why I mentioned that warehouse, real close to the Iranian border. But those kinds of activities must cease at the border. LOL

By Chilao

September 25, 2007 12:45 PM | Link to this

Maysan province in green. I guess they don’t do that kind of stuff on the other side of the dark-black line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maysan_Governorate

By Chilao

September 25, 2007 12:47 PM | Link to this

I hear it is pronounced Ima-Nut-Job.

By Mara

September 25, 2007 1:36 PM | Link to this

Chilao - LOL! I followed your link and the name of the provincial capital, Amarah, caught my eye. I wondered if it was a derivative of the goddess Amara so I “searched” wiki for ‘amara goddess’ and guess what came up for a 100% match? A page called “Homosexuality and Hinduism”! Do you suppose there’s a connection?! :^D

By JokesOn

September 25, 2007 1:51 PM | Link to this

Mara,

Thank you for the complement.

By Mara

September 25, 2007 1:57 PM | Link to this

I hear it is pronounced Ima-Nut-Job

Well, we hear a lot of things about Iran and Crazy Mahmoud, but remember that everything we hear comes through several filters. And the Let’s-Bomb-Iran wardrums are beating, beating, beating. Just…take these media reports with a grain of salt because they might not be exactly honest. For example, this from an internet poster titled “quaxon” on a DIGG site…

http://digg.com/politicalopinion/DemonizingAhmadenijadPreparingforWarAgainst_Iran?OTC-widget

Anyone know if it’s possible to find a copy of his speech at columbia or his 60 minutes interview without the translation voice over? i speak Farsi and am curious as to how good the translations were. i know that during the 60 minutes interview they left out some key things such as when he asked him for the 2nd time if they had plans to build nukes, Ahmedinejad began with “i can answer that with a definite NO” before going on to give support for his answer. The translator conveniently left this out and instead went straight to the explanation in an attempt (that apparently worked really well) to brand him as “dancing around questions.” This was done a couple of times, including when questioned about sending weapons to Iraq. I’d like to say that I in no way back Ahmedinejad as he has plenty of human rights violations under his belt, however i don’t like the US propaganda machine twisting every single thing to get hatred boiling against what is deemed bad/evil at the moment. If we actually held the media responsible for unethical reporting/journalism and forced them to hold some journalistic integrity then maybe we would not be in Iraq right now. It was them after all who sold the war to America.

now I don’t speak Farsi so I don’t know if it’s true or not, but all things considered…I wouldn’t set Ahmadenijad-is-a-dangerous nutjob in stone quite yet. He, like Hussein, may just be trying to save face and “Irani honor”, or to protect his status in the Persian Gulf.

By Just Two More Questions

September 25, 2007 1:59 PM | Link to this

The only “attack” against your Christian values and heritage is the insistance of many that ALL religions be afforded the same consideration that YOUR religion receives from the state. It isn’t an attack on your religion, it is an uprising against the preferential treatment that your religion has historically enjoyed.

Stonings for adultery would probably suffice.

Jesus saved the woman caught in adultery from stoning. Pejorative comments like this add little to the discussion.

Lozen - you are correct that Christians have a poor record. However, I hope you do not believe (as does Billy) that Stalin and Hitler’s attrocities were religous in nature.

No, “friend”, keep your personal morality just that - personal.

I have heard that argument many times before. Translation - “not only should we have seperation of church and state, but we MUST stop all influences of Christian people on public policy. They shouldn’t be allowed to vote nor run for public office”.

By Gary Gibbs

September 25, 2007 2:02 PM | Link to this

On June 28, 1787, the Constitutional convention was deadlocked and embroiled in bitter controversy. Benjamin Franklin rose and made the following statement to the delegates: I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid. In Jeremiah 27 God says, “By my great power I have made the earth and all mankind and every animal; and I give these things of mine to anyone I want to”. Before the Pilgrims arrived God owned our land and He still owns it today.

By comp133xi7y

September 25, 2007 2:29 PM | Link to this

*I have heard that argument many times before. Translation - “not only should we have seperation of church and state, but we MUST stop all influences of Christian people on public policy. They shouldn’t be allowed to vote nor run for public office”. *

Patently false. Anyone can vote or run for public office, but as with my Greenspan example above, their personal beliefs should not intrude on the performance of their duty.

Real translation - forumlating law based strictly on religious law is inimical to freedom. Laws that limit or restrict personal behaviors that are neither injurious nor unconsenting simply because your personal religious beliefs declare those things to be unacceptable, by definition, violates the separation of church and state.

Our CIVIL laws are just that - civil. They apply to every individual in this nation, a nation that has as one of its foremost tenants the freedom of, and conversly from religion.

Laws that are based solely on religious taboo, dogma or canon are inherently theocratic and have no place in our society. The Tyranny of the Majority is not a new concept, but it is one that the fundamentalist extremists - not just in this country, but everywhere - wish to impose.

By lozen

September 25, 2007 2:35 PM | Link to this

Before the pilgrims arrived the native americans owned this land! They did not, of course, think they did. Owning land just wasn’t part of their religion. They believed the great spirit owned the land and allowed them to use it.
Then the europeans came. As a native once said, “When the missionaries came, they had the bible and we had the land. They said ‘let us close our eyes and pray.’ When we opened our eyes we had the bible and they had the land.” Same old story…. I don’t know if Hitler and Stalin were religious. I do know that the missionaries who came to the Southwest and cut off the feet of the natives to keep them from dancing their prayers were christians. I do know the men who burned witches at the stack for hundreds of years in europe were christians. I do know some of the most arrogant and holier-than-thou people I’ve ever known are christians. That’s enough for me. Religion, spirituality are one thing. The church and christian dogmatism are totally something else.

By comp133xi7y

September 25, 2007 2:38 PM | Link to this

It is also intellectually dishonest to automatically associate secularism with athiesm, as you are so obviously doing with your Dawkins barb.

I think you will find that most advocates of a purely secular government in this country are religious themselves. However, we have made the distinction between religion as a personal journey and responsibility, and religion as a State-enforced cudgel.

You have no idea about my personal religious beliefs - you merely assume that because I am adamantly opposed to religious-based laws in a supposedly free nation that I am irreligious or atheist. Neither is true, though I do believe that fundamentalism is anathema to reason, freedom and liberty.

By Monica

September 25, 2007 3:35 PM | Link to this

You have no idea about my personal religious beliefs - you merely assume that because I am adamantly opposed to religious-based laws in a supposedly free nation that I am irreligious or atheist. Neither is true, though I do believe that fundamentalism is anathema to reason, freedom and liberty.

2D, is that you in disguise? :)

lozen, I thought you might like this story: my 6 year old son is obsessed with Indians (ever since they studied them at school last year and made a tipi in the classroom). He wants to know any and everything about the different Native American tribes. This summer when we were in Daytona, we went to Tomoka State Park and walked through their museum that highlights the Indian tribes that were in Tomoka. When my son saw pictures of the invading Europeans, he stated, “I just hate the white men!” He was quite shocked when I told him that he was a “white man” as well! Ahh, the innocence of childhood.

By Gary Gibbs

September 25, 2007 3:46 PM | Link to this

The fact that you are not a beleiver does not prve God does not exist nor does it disprove the fact our country is and was founded upon Christian principles.

Patrick Henry was a well known orator and revolutionary leader and 5 time governor of Virginia. He once declared: It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religeons, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.

William Livingston was a signer of the Constitution and the first Governor of New Jersey and in 1768 he said: The land we possess is the gift of heaven to our fathers, and Divine Providence seems to have decreed it to our latest posterity.

By Sandra-ey

September 25, 2007 4:05 PM | Link to this

By Sandra-py

September 25, 2007 4:05 PM | Link to this

By lovelyliz

September 25, 2007 4:18 PM | Link to this

Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer whose manifestoes encouraged the faltering spirits of the country and aided materially in winning the War of Independence. But he was a Deist:

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

John Adams, second US President, was a Unitarian who rejected the Trinity and the deity of Jesus.

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his divinity… Benjamin Franklin.

Thomas Jefferson said that the writings of John in Revelation were the ravings of a maniac.

James Madison, fourth president and father of the Constitution, was highly critical of Christianity:

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

By comp133xi7y

September 25, 2007 4:27 PM | Link to this

Gary Gibbs, I don’t know how many times I need to say this - I suspect it won’t do any good, but Patrick Henry never said that. Like just about every “quote” you’ve posted, it is among the many debunked, historically baseless falsehoods concoted by the Religious Right to convince people of the myth of a Christian Nation.

And Gary, words like “Creator” and “Divine Providence” are words straight out of the Deist handbook. Almost excusively, you see the Founding Fathers, Men of the Elightenment all, using these words without reference to specific religion or sect.

I direct you to the wikipedia entry on Deism as a starting place for your own Enlightment, much good may it do you.

By lovelyliz

September 25, 2007 4:27 PM | Link to this

Thomas Jefferson

Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. - Notes on Virginia, 1782

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. - Notes on Virginia, 1782

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear. - Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination. - Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians. - letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. - letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789

They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion. - to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ *thus building a wall of separation between church and State. * - letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802

• History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. - to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills. - letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law. - letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? …Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God. - letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814

You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know. - letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, June 25, 1819

Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. - letter to William Short, April 13, 1820 * And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors. - letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823*

By JokesOn

September 25, 2007 4:29 PM | Link to this

Gary,

You state:

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religeons, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

But you do not adhere to the fact that jesus never mentioned gay marriage. If you had it your way you would make laws outlawing same-sex marriage based on religion, even though you state above: “not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religeons.”

To think christ is a good example to live by says nothing in terms of religious beliefs. Winnie the Pooh is a good example of how to live, but does not mean one believes he existed or that all the related writings should be law.

By Sandra-rz

September 25, 2007 4:29 PM | Link to this

By Sandra-ni

September 25, 2007 4:29 PM | Link to this

By Sandra-hb

September 25, 2007 4:29 PM | Link to this

By Chilao

September 25, 2007 4:32 PM | Link to this

Thomas Jefferson said that the writings of John in Revelation were the ravings of a maniac

Revelations was written by someone(John) drinking way too much assassi(cannibis) tea.

Mara - I have thought for several years that Bush will bomb Iran before he leaves office, simply because he can. It won’t provide more stout or length for Laura, but he will feel better. I tried to find a cartoon I had, to post, but could not. It showed a spokesman from the State Department pointing out the Iranian weapons found in Iraq, the side of the bomb was labeled Made in Iron.

By comp133xi7y

September 25, 2007 4:33 PM | Link to this

And no, Monica - I’m not 2D in disguise ;-)

By Just a few statements

September 25, 2007 4:36 PM | Link to this

You have no idea about my personal religious beliefs

And neither do you about mine - but apparently it is OK for you to make assumptions about what “most” Christians believe, while it is not OK for me to make assumptions about what most secular people believe.

You merely assume that I hate homosexuals and science. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have had many working relationships with homosexuals. I was respected by them because I treated them with respect. I am actively engaged in programs that feed, clothe, and give monetary assistance to those who are in need.

I, like Jefferson, believe that we need to challenge the very existence of God. I constantly review the tenets of my faith in light of science to insure they still make sense. I have simply come to different conclusions than you. And I can certainly believe that a squared plus b squared equals c squared without believing that humans evolved from some primordial soup.

By comp133xi7y

September 25, 2007 4:40 PM | Link to this

lovelyliz, the “Question boldly” quote has always been one of my favorites. It is indeed true.

If God created the universe and gave Mankind the truly remarkable gift of thought, along with a nearly endless capacity for inquiry and discovery, then most certainly God would want us to use that gift to its fullest, rather than only to heap upon Him/Her/It the most servile and unquestioning obedience. After all, were obsequious pandering the only homage demanded of us, surely we would have been made less than we are.

By who?

September 25, 2007 4:44 PM | Link to this

No Monica, it is 72John in disguise.

By comp133xi7y

September 25, 2007 4:50 PM | Link to this

Just a few - I have made no assumptions about you whatsoever. In your own first post, you wrote:

MOST Christians simply believe that codifying SOME of the moral ethical aspects of Christ’s teachings will make this country better.

This is the point against which I have been arguing. I have not attacked your personal beliefs, nor will I. You are free to believe what you will. Nor have I made assumptions about your sentiments towards gays or scientists (though your reference to gays as “them” does say somewhat about how you categorize people - I’m minded of the old favorite “But I have black friends!”).

Most of my general comments were not directed towards you, but referred to the various right-wing Christian political movements that have as their stated purpose things like the re-criminalization of gay relationships, the removal of science that does not fit in with the requirements of Biblical Literalism, the banning of abortion on the basis that a zygote is an ensouled being, etc. etc. I could go on and on.

Do you deny that the Political wing of the Religious Right has as its goal these items I mentioned, in addition to others? Do you deny that their stated agenda includes enshrining into the law of the land - that law which affects ALL Americans - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Bhuddist, Agnostic and Atheist alike - specific Christian tenets based on nothing other than Biblical injunction?

By Monica

September 25, 2007 4:55 PM | Link to this

No, I don’t think it’s 72John. As I remember he is an atheist. Are you lurking John? Correct me if I am wrong. And how are ya, by the way?

By Gandalf, the Gray

September 25, 2007 5:01 PM | Link to this

LET ME SEE…The religion of HATE (that’s Islam for you idiots) seems to be making decisions based on thier religious beliefs..Maybe it’s time for another crusade? Meca would look lovely covered with a mushroom cloud..Medina and Bagdad with Biological clouds hanging over them..let’s not forget about a Nerve gas cloud over Tehran! Super fun!

By xzedqoymh psgzr

September 25, 2007 10:34 PM | Link to this

tlzerdugf bcyhv ysdrxt jifdl brwd fimtaq ebzqr

By Billy

September 26, 2007 8:27 AM | Link to this

However, I hope you do not believe (as does Billy) that Stalin and Hitler’s attrocities were religous in nature.

I never said, and do not believe, that Stalin’s and Hitler’s atrocities were religious in nature. I was preemptively refuting the claim that humanity’s worst acts are committed by secular regimes, a charge that invariably comes up when the atrocities of the religious are exposed.

Neither Stalin’s nor Hitler’s atrocities would have come to pass were it not for the cult of personality that each fostered, intentionally, around himself. As followers eschewed reason for blind loyalty, each became a religious figure. Furthermore, 1500 years of Christian antisemitism in Europe laid the groundwork for the extermination of the Jewish people. The point was, I think, fairly clear, and any continued misunderstanding of it on your part will leave me no choice but to believe you are either intellectually dishonest and/or an idiot.

By Mara

September 26, 2007 9:56 AM | Link to this

the question was “how religious do we want our presidential candidates to be?” From what I’m reading here, I’d guess that for those who favor “religous candidates”, it would depend on what god they worship. For example, Gary sees nothing wrong (and a lot of good) with codifying Christian tenets into the law. Gary wants a very religious candidate because he assumes that the candidate will be some flavor of “christian”. Would he still want religion and politics to connect if the candidate was a devout Hindu, or a 5-prayers per day Muslim who wanted to legislate some of their moral teachings?

My perception of Gary is that he is Christian first and an American second. And, IMHO, anyone who advocates for intermingling politics with religion probably has the same view…sectarian affiliation first, nation second.

By War Eagle

September 26, 2007 11:09 AM | Link to this

Gandalf is correct. If we do not stop the Muslims now, like Hitler, there will be another WW. Europe, as before are collectively sticking their heads in the sand. I say blow them up, that no troops are needed unless wal mart and target argue over which street corners they want, and then we will have peace on earth because, as you can see, with the exception of Ireland, all wars have one thing in common-MUSLIMS! Just look at Kashmir-Muslims, Israel-Muslims, Philippines-Muslims, Africa-Muslims. Muslims are the problems of the world. And then, once they have been dealt with, can we start seeing oil at 1 dollar a gallon again.

By Just a statement

September 26, 2007 11:32 AM | Link to this

No Billy, the point WAS clear and no I did not misunderstand nor am I and idiot or intellectually dishonest. It IS intellectually dishonest to say that these SECULAR societies weren’t responsible for these horrors.

I am honest enough to admit that religious people have committed untold numbers of atrocities throughout the course of history. Based on your posts, I doubt I can expect the same candor from you when evaluating secular governments.

By HeeHaw

September 26, 2007 11:36 AM | Link to this

can we start seeing oil at 1 dollar a gallon again.

for nuking all the Moslems, seems we out to be able to get oil to a lot less than $55 a barrel.

By Mara

September 26, 2007 11:37 AM | Link to this

Gandalf, War Eagle - I say blow them up

shall we assume that you want to eradicate American muslims too? Even the ones who’ve been helping the government weed out the violent ones? The translators, the soldiers, the police officers, border guards and all? Our AMERICAN brethren? Just the American Muslim men or are we gonna frag the grannies and babies too? How about the disabled Muslims, the “retarded”, and the stupid? Let’s cleanse the ALL the lands of these vermin…just like Hitler did to the Jews…

isn’t that what you wrote, that we need to stop the muslims now, like Hitler lest there be another world war? Great. Just what I want my country to do, emulate Hitler.

Sheesh!

(btw, it’s Mecca and Baghdad, not Meca and Bagdad)

By Gary Gibbs

September 26, 2007 11:39 AM | Link to this

The Bible tells us to love God with all our heart, mind, soul,and strength. I also love my wife, children and country.

President James Madison appointed Joseph Story to the Supreme Court in 1811. Justice Story wrote the following concerning the real meaning of the First Amendment: The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance much less advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian denominations and to prevent any national ecclesiastical patronage of the national government. He also said sometime later that wherever religeous liberty exists,, it will, first or last, bring in and establish political liberty. Additionally he said that there never has been a period of history, in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundation.

By Gary Gibbs

September 26, 2007 12:05 PM | Link to this

There have been many comments made concerning Thomas Jefferson and his supposed animosity towards Christianity. Well, what do you say about his written comment at the occasion of the Kentucky Resolution in 1798 which says: No power over the freedom of religeon…[is] delegated to the United Stated by the Constitution. As President, Thomas Jefferson extended 3 times, a 1787 act of Congress in which special lands were designated: For the sole use of Christian Indians and the Moravian Brethren missionaries for civilizing the Indians and promoting Christianity.

By Mara

September 26, 2007 12:10 PM | Link to this

Gary, what’s yer point? The Bible also tells us that we can sell our daughters and enslave our neighbors. So?

As for Justic Story…did you actually read any of his commentaries? While I agree that he DID write what you attributed to him, he didn’t stop there…

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions69.html

It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects, thus exemplified in our domestic, as well as in foreign annals, that it was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject.

He says it was advisable to exclude the government from being able to choose religious sides, be it the side of the Baptists or in support of the Infidel, because of the the bigotry and intolerance for other beliefs by, mainly, christians.

..the Catholic and the Protestant, the Calvinist and the Arminian, the Jew and the Infidel, may sit down at the common table of the national councils, without any inquisition into their faith, or mode of worship.

By HeeHaw

September 26, 2007 12:29 PM | Link to this

For the sole use of Christian Indians and the Moravian Brethren missionaries for civilizing the Indians and promoting Christianity.

I bet those Indians way back then could have appreciated having WarEagle’s and Gandalf’s Nucleur devices available. dang Christians, causing us Indians all this trouble.

By Gary Gibbs

September 26, 2007 12:50 PM | Link to this

JokesOn believes that Jesus did not speak about Gays. I say He did. The Apostle Paul is credited with writing 80% of the New Testament. All of what Paul and the other Apostles wrote was dicttated to them by Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Jesus assigned to Paul the task of taking His(JESUS’)message to the world. Paul spoke and wrote only what he was told to write by the Holy Spirit. This is true of the other writers of the New Testament as well. John Chapter 20 says that if the events in Jesus’ life were recorded the world could not contain the books. The Bible does not contain all that Jesus said or did. Additionally, Jesus’ remarks were not directed to the Church or to the Gentile but to the largely unrepentent unbeleiving Jew. The Church did not come into existance until after Jesus ascended to Heaven. Read Acts 2.

By Gary Gibbs

September 26, 2007 1:17 PM | Link to this

Mara: The Old Testament ceremomies, religeous laws religious holidays, festivals and diatary laws were obsoleted by the New Covenant given to the Church by Jesus Christ. It is now ok to eat pork, wear modest clothing made of any material and walk or drive as far as you like on Sunday.

I’m not a Historian but history is one of my favorite subjects. Reading about our founding fathers is fun thing for me.

By Obviously...

September 26, 2007 1:23 PM | Link to this

I’m not a Historian

By JokesOn

September 26, 2007 1:47 PM | Link to this

Paul spoke and wrote…

Exactly. It does not even say “jesus said…” hence why so many sects wonder if paul took his interpretation too far.

If you read what the fabled jesus “said” it contains nothing about homosexuality what-so-ever. Granted, there are references to the OT by the hijackers that wrote the bible; but it is common knowledge that their purpose was to make sheep of the people.

To expect you to graap any of this would be to expect you to think rationally. That is not going to happen.

By AGFNPR

September 26, 2007 1:49 PM | Link to this

On a lighter note - did anyone watch the townhall meeting on ESPN about Mike Vike? The funniest part of the show was when Neil Boortz defended the gentleman from the Humane Society that blasted Vick during the debate. Neil Boortz and the humane society go together like oil and water.

The old saying “politics makes strange bedfellows” certainly comes to mind!

By HeeHaw

September 26, 2007 1:50 PM | Link to this

walk or drive as far as you like on Sunday

Well, it should be okay, since the Ten Commandments(you know, that thing you want in all the Judicial buildings) day of worship is what is still the Jewish Sabbath, our Saturday.

The Fourth Commandment, and most Christians cannot even obey it.

By NetBanker

September 26, 2007 1:53 PM | Link to this

Hey kids! I sell all is going well. I’m enjoying catching up on all the comments.

Gary…well bless your heart is about the only thing I can say. The more you argue your point the more “American Taliban” you sound and the farther reaching toward the absurd of your justifications.

All of what Paul and the other Apostles wrote was dicttated to them by Jesus through the Holy Spirit. To what christian denomination do you belong? I was taught that the Bible was the “inspired” word of God, but never that the Holy Spirit “dictated” the New Testament to it’s writers. Regardless it doesn’t make any sense and creates some very commical images in my head of the scene.

Holy Spirit: “Hello, Paul? Paul? Yeah, it’s me the Holy Spirit.”

Paul: “Hey, HS! How are things in Heaven?”

HS: “It’s paradise, of course. {slight chuckle). Listen I need you to take some dictation so go grab a scroll and quill, will ya’? This one is going to be a letter to…hmmm, who haven’t we written for a while?”

Paul: “How about the Galatians? They’re very nice and always write back right away.”

HS: “Good idea, Paul! Got that scroll ready?”

If God was perfectly capable of writing the 10 Commandments and presenting them in finished form why the sudden need to dictate it to a human and then allow it to be mistranslated, etc. Why not just send an angel down with the completed book?

I’m not a Historian but history is one of my favorite subjects. Reading about our founding fathers is fun thing for me. I think that is great, but when reading about history we tend to make some base assumptions about belief systems, values, etc. that are colored by OUR modern lives rather than putting them into the context of the socio/politcal/economic realities of the times. Based on some of your comments about the beliefs of the Founding Fathers, you seem to have done this by assuming that their version of christianity (founded in deism) is the same as your current one. This is just not true.

By HeeHaw

September 26, 2007 2:10 PM | Link to this

The Fourth Commandment, and most Christians cannot even obey it.

Now I realize MAN came along later, several hundred years in fact,(432 A.D.) and changed the day of worship to Sunday, to align well with the Resurrection and all.

Early Ethiopian Christians worshipped on the Jewish Sabbath until well into the 1700s, the Italians had to come down and let them know to change their worship day to Sunday.(or else!).

Has to make you wonder how much else was MAN or in the immediate context, PAUL, created.

By JokesOn

September 26, 2007 2:12 PM | Link to this

The Old Testament ceremomies, religeous laws religious holidays, festivals and diatary laws were obsoleted by the New Covenant given to the Church by Jesus Christ. It is now ok to eat pork, wear modest clothing made of any material and walk or drive as far as you like on Sunday.

What does that say about the 10 commandments then? They ONLY show up in OT and jesus never even mentioned them….hmmm

By HeeHaws

September 26, 2007 2:14 PM | Link to this

Actually at least some of the Ten Commandments are direct ripoffs of earlier cultures.

The Ancient Egyptians I have not sold short the bushel(misrepresented its weight) (of The 40 Negative Confessions, required to enter the spirit world) translated to the Jewish Thou shalt not bear false witness.

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September 26, 2007 2:18 PM | Link to this

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By BWARE

September 26, 2007 3:09 PM | Link to this

Yes we’ll thank Jefferson for his statement and the continual sexual molestation of his 14 year old female slave with whom he had several children without the benefit of marriage or him acknowledging them as his. Bet he never paid child support either.

A person’s religion is between him and God. Most people (myself included) just want a president who cares about this country and it’s people not just himself, his family and their friends getting richer.

By TinaTeach

September 26, 2007 3:14 PM | Link to this

The problem is not that Americans want a religious leader, the problem is that most Americans want a Christian religious leader who will espouse his administration to his faith and hold all earthly laws in comparison to that faith. That is something with which I cannot abide. I would rather have a secular leader that can lead all people than a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, etc leader that may cater to only a portion of the population.

By Gary Gibbs

September 26, 2007 3:21 PM | Link to this

When a Christian accepe Jesus as Savior God places His Holy Spirit in the Christian. 1 Corinthians 6:18 says the Christians body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is given to us by God.

In Matthew 10:20 Jesus tells the Disciples that the words they speak will not be their own but will come from the Spirit of God speaking through them. If interested please look up 2 Peter 1:20,21 and 2 Timothy 3:16,17.

God designed us in His image. He is a triune God; Father, Son, and Spirit. God created us with 3 parts; body, soul and spirit. In summary Gods Spirit communicates with us through our human spirit. This how the Old and New Testaments were written.

By Over your silly noise

September 26, 2007 3:37 PM | Link to this

Gods Spirit communicates with us through our human spirit.

Either He’s on vacation, or He’s divorcing me, and I haven’t got the papers yet. Believed in Him all my life, and there’s only silence now, except for the noise of the parrots who squawk and spout hate, intolerance, war, and fascism in His Holy Name. Please put a sock in it, parrots, so I can at least enjoy the silence. Your words mean nothing to me.

By AGFNPR

September 26, 2007 3:38 PM | Link to this

What does that say about the 10 commandments then? They ONLY show up in OT and jesus never even mentioned them….hmmm

Not quite:

Luke 18:18-20 18 Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ ” 21 And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” 22 So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” 23 But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. 24 And when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, He said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 And those who heard it said, “Who then can be saved?” 27 But He said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”

The New King James Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1982, Luke 18:18-27

Jesus mentions 5 of the 10 commandments. He then deals with the issue of selfish living and our responsibility to take care of those in need.

By JokesOn

September 26, 2007 3:56 PM | Link to this

AGFNPR,

Yet jesus does not tell the man to do these things (follow the 10) but to sell his things…

Plus, what jesus says is:

20 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.

21 And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.

I would bet, since jesus was a jew, that he followed ALL the OT rules. What does that mean then? That you should or shouldn’t follow the OT…not quite clear, and leaves interpretation for either case.

I still stand by the fact that jesus never presribed the 10 commandments. Your reference is only jesus stating that “he” followed them which means nothing besides his declaring himself god.

By Gary Gibbs

September 26, 2007 4:06 PM | Link to this

Romans Chapter 8 tells us that we don’t keep the 10 commandments because we can’t. It goes on to say God’s solution to our sin problem is beleiving in Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit so that He can help us live out a life of obedience. Romans 8 should be required reading for every Christian at least twice a year.

In summary if the Christian walks after the Spirit he will find that he is maturing as a Christian and is becoming less prone to breaking God’s commandments.

By AGFNPR

September 26, 2007 4:24 PM | Link to this

I still stand by the fact that jesus never presribed the 10 commandments.

Agreed. I believe the point Jesus is making is that we CANNOT get to heaven by following the 10 commandments. Our best efforts still fall short of God’s expectations.

Jesus wanted the man not to recognize Him as a good teacher, but as God. I believe that Jesus was telling him “if you are going to call me good, you must recognize me as God. If you do not recognize me as God, then you cannot call me good”.

If the man were to recognize Jesus as God, then Jesus would deal with his inward sin problem (his lack of obedience to love his neighbor as himself), not his outward appearance (his “supposed” obedience to the Law).

However, I must say I have mixed feelings about the public display of the 10 commandments. I simply believe that for both sides, fighting over the issue is non-productive. I believe a compromise can be reached. Any existing displays need to stay - no future displays should be allowed. Just a thought.

By comp133xi7y

September 26, 2007 4:53 PM | Link to this

I disagree that compromises need to be reached, particularly in regards to displays of the 10 Commandments in courthouses or other public buildings. Did the end of segregation mean that no future restauraunts could be “Whites only” but that existing ones could?

Having the 10 Commandments in a Courthouse sends the message to non-Christians that THEIR beliefs are secondary to the Judeo-Christian philosophies. And frankly, it’s a bit silly, considering that only two or three of them corellate to actual laws in this country, and some of them are actually in direct disagreement with the 1st Ammendment.

I don’t have a problem with historical displays, or displays showing the 10 C’s among other religious and historical codes of laws, but I do have a problem with framed copies hanging on the walls of county courthouses.

By Gandalf, the Gray

September 26, 2007 4:58 PM | Link to this

HEE HAW the Indians didn’t have any technology, they were barbarians! duh!! everyone knows that. And MARA, I know how them stupid ragheads spell their cities names, I just choose to ignore it! Who said anything about killing the american muslims? I didn’t…is that what you want to do?

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September 26, 2007 7:22 PM | Link to this

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By Mara

September 27, 2007 8:17 AM | Link to this

Gandalf - From your post: ”The religion of HATE (that’s Islam for you idiots) seems to be making decisions based on thier religious beliefs…Maybe it’s time for another crusade”

from War Eagle: Gandalf is correct…I say blow them up…Muslims are the problems of the world.”

To give you credit, you did specify the places you want to drop nukes and bio-weapons. War Eagle took that idea, broadened it to ALL muslims, and ran with it. The post was more for War Eagle than you, but the point was that BOTH of you appear to condone the indiscriminate killing of folks for no other reason than their religion. Grannies, babies, schoolgirls, farmers, merchants, goat herder, or gardener…it’s all the same. You, at least, indicated a desire to contain the holocaust within the Middle East countries…as if that would make it more palatable.

By Mara

September 27, 2007 8:26 AM | Link to this

I wonder which words will make it through the filter…no offense meant to anyone, I’m just curious on what words the AJC sees fit to filter…

b***

n****

slut

raghead

chink

wop

c**

hymie

wetback

By Gandalf, the Gray

September 27, 2007 8:52 AM | Link to this

Jingus Kahn and his boys had it correct. You have to destroy an enemy and their families and thier little dogs too! Look at what happened in Germany after WWI. If we would have wiped them out, WWII would have never happened.

We didn’t declare a JIHAD on the west, they did. We shouldn’t be looking for a fight, but we should damn sure end it. Do you think 9/11 was a game? It’s war brother Mara, and we need to win like we used to, as in WWII. We spent all that money on Nukes, we need to use them to eliminate the enemies of our way of life. NUKES FOR PEACE!

By Gandalf, the Gray

September 27, 2007 8:58 AM | Link to this

Mara, I don’t think either Slut or Wetback are offensive words, just descriptive. One refers to a woman that likes lots of sex with whoever will give it to her; the latter refers to the condition of ones shirt when they cross the Rio Grande ILLEGALLY!

By WatchaThink?

September 27, 2007 9:23 AM | Link to this

Gandalf=Bruno

By Gil

September 27, 2007 9:27 AM | Link to this

Why can’t we just be blunt about it? The real question is do you want a president that was raised in muslim schools? If Barak is elected will the secret service be replaced by nation of islam bodyguards? Will the white house be painted black? Is there deep inside Barak’s psyche a manchurian candidate waiting to be born?

By Billy

September 27, 2007 9:58 AM | Link to this

Just a Statement (from an idiot) — Again, those “secular societies” were secular IN NAME ONLY. Stalin, Mao, et al deified themselves in the eyes of their followers. The state became the religion and the man the savior.

As to Nazi Germany, “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” — “Children, Kitchen, Church” — was Kaiser Wilhelm’s little alliteration about the place of women in German society. The Constitution of the Weimar Republic, enacted in 1919, gave Germans freedom of religion. Do you really believe that the German populace went from completely Christian (withe the exception of Jews) to atheist in the span of 15-20 years? No, the German people were still highly religious people, and this was compunded with the near deification of their leader, Hitler.

Speaking of Hitler, what does he have to say about it?

I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so. — Adolf Hitler, to General Gerhard Engel, 1941

And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests. But at that time Christ was nailed to the Cross for his attitude towards the Jews; whereas our modern Christians enter into party politics and when elections are being held they debase themselves to beg for Jewish votes. They even enter into political intrigues with the atheistic Jewish parties against the interests of their own Christian nation.

• Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 11

Hitler spoke plenty about his faith, his Christianity, his Catholicism. Statement, I will stand by my previous assertion — you are intellectually dishonest and an idiot.

By Billy

September 27, 2007 10:10 AM | Link to this

…compOunded…

By Anonymous

September 27, 2007 10:33 AM | Link to this

Gil: Okay, let’s be blunt. I’d be fine with a Muslim president, just as I would with a Hindu, Buddhist, or Jewish president.

What I wouldn’t be fine with is a religious fanatic in the Oval Office, of ANY religious persuasion.

By Gary Gibbs

September 27, 2007 11:09 AM | Link to this

A few of you have raised questions concerning what Jesus said or did not say. In matthew 7:11 He did say:”Heaven can be entered only through the narrow gate! The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide enough for all the multitudes who choose its easy way. But the Gateway to life is small, and the road is narrow, and only a few ever find it”. Jesus is telling us the vast majority of the worlds citizens are evil. What He wants are more true beleivers. This can be proven by what He says in Matthew 7:21:”Not all people who sound religeous are really Godly”. They may refer to me as “Lord”’ but they still won”t enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is wheather they obey my Father in Heaven. Hitler, Stalin and all the other dictators and tyrants may have claimed to be Christians and gone to Church but in reality they are not what they claim to be. They are pretenders. So long as they exist there will always be wars and strife and turmoil because of who they really belong to.

By Just a Question

September 27, 2007 11:27 AM | Link to this

Do you really believe that the German populace went from completely Christian (withe the exception of Jews) to atheist in the span of 15-20 years? No, the German people were still highly religious people, and this was compunded with the near deification of their leader, Hitler.

And do you really believe these societies were Christian when (by your own admission, not mine) they almost deified Hitler - thereby breaking the Great Commandment listed in both the OT and by Jesus Himself in the NT? If anything, YOUR post points to the conclusion that they were a secular society that was Christian in name only.

And you can call me ignorant or idiotic - those descriptors may well fit, but you cannot call me intellectually dishonest. Intellectual dishonesty is cherry picking Nazi Germany to try and prove your point without a serious attempt to defend your position in China and the USSR (other than the laughable assertion that those societies were religious in nature because they deified Stalin and Mao).

By Billy

September 27, 2007 11:35 AM | Link to this

Hitler, Stalin and all the other dictators and tyrants may have claimed to be Christians and gone to Church but in reality they are not what they claim to be.

Or maybe they truly thought they were Christians. The point is immaterial. From my point of view, anyone who calls himself a Christian IS a Christian, be it Hitler, the Pope, or George W. Bush. The fact that so many self-professed “Christians” cannot agree on what constitutes a true “Christian” only further exemplifies the foresight the founding fathers had. They knew the dangers posed to society by the highly religious in positions of power.

By another thought

September 27, 2007 11:59 AM | Link to this

And do you really believe these societies were Christian when (by your own admission, not mine) they almost deified Hitler - thereby breaking the Great Commandment listed in both the OT and by Jesus Himself in the NT?

kinda like the way the Religious Reich, i mean, the Religious Right has almost deified Dubya? Unquestioning support and obedience isn’t just a nazi trait.

By Gary Gibbs

September 27, 2007 12:17 PM | Link to this

This is for the anti-semites among us. God chosen people are the Jews. They were chozen for 3 purposes: -to teach the world that there is only one God -to write,preserve,protect and transmit the scriptures -to take from them a savior -to save the world from moral putrefaction The Jews are blessed in many more ways than races: -more doctors -more lawyers -more scientist -more Nobel prize winners -more educators God says in the Old Testament he who harms the Jew sticks his finger in Jehovahs’ eye. Among other things: -He says when I made the Jew I made the very best. -God also says He will never reject His people. -In Romans 11 God says all Israel will be saved. Many Jews have not used wisely all that God has given them. As an aside I am not Jewish but in general I am a admirer of the Jews and support Israel.

By Billy

September 27, 2007 12:33 PM | Link to this

And do you really believe these societies were Christian when (by your own admission, not mine) they almost deified Hitler - thereby breaking the Great Commandment listed in both the OT and by Jesus Himself in the NT? If anything, YOUR post points to the conclusion that they were a secular society that was Christian in name only.

So Christianity + deified leader = secularism? That’s a stretch.

I am not saying that those societies (China/USSR )were religious in nature. I am saying that the deification of their leaders was religious in nature, and with that deification reason went out the window, exactly the way it does with almost all religious people.

By AThought

September 27, 2007 12:35 PM | Link to this

Jews went to Europe for over a thousand years, had that exact WeAreSuperior mindset. And then wonder why they ended up so hated.

By Anonymous

September 27, 2007 1:35 PM | Link to this

Actually, the fact that Stalin and Hitler both took advantage of an opportunity to ‘deify themselves’ indicates the threat of overtly religious society again… not the nonexistent “threat” of secularism.

The unhealthy and irrational religious fervor was still there in the populace—Stalin & Hitler just turned it toward themselves. The crimes of their regimes were certainly not done “in the name of secularism” or atheism or any similar philosophy. They were, once more, an outgrowth of misdirected religious mania.

By FMITA

September 27, 2007 2:51 PM | Link to this

Just a question—The answer is in the silence. Keep listening.

By FMITA

September 27, 2007 3:05 PM | Link to this

FYI, Gandalf isn’t Bruno.

By FMITA

September 27, 2007 3:11 PM | Link to this

In case anyone missed me, I gave up the internet last month at the recommendation of a “friend”. Happy blogging, everyone!

By Mara

September 27, 2007 3:33 PM | Link to this

and yet…here you are.

By HerpesDoctor

September 27, 2007 3:52 PM | Link to this

Thanks for the visit, FMITA.

By Gandalf, the Gray

September 27, 2007 4:46 PM | Link to this

So, Hitler was a Cathlic? That’s funny! Was Stalin a member of the Russian Orthodox faith? HEHE And old Mouth Teeth Tougue? What about him? Buddist? I think the were all 3 muslim!

By Gary Gibbs

September 27, 2007 4:56 PM | Link to this

For ByBilly: If your family doctor tells you he is a surgeon do you let him operate or if the supermarket bag boy tells you he is a mechanic do you let him have your car?

By Gary Gibbs

September 27, 2007 5:05 PM | Link to this

For By Anonymous: I wonder how many of the 40 million or so aborted babies that have occured since 1970 feel that a secularist society is harmless.

By Billy

September 27, 2007 5:05 PM | Link to this

Anonymous, your 1:35 post is exactly what I’ve been trying to say…

By Mr. Wildly Inappropriate

September 28, 2007 9:20 AM | Link to this

Well, Gar…they don’t feel one way or the other about it because, you know…they were never born. Duh.

By Gary Gibbs

September 28, 2007 10:09 AM | Link to this

To Mr. Duh: The Bible teaches that life begins in the womd and that the soul and spirit never die, even the soul and spirit of the unbeleiver. Conversely, I beleive aborted babies are well aware of what happened to them.

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September 28, 2007 10:13 AM | Link to this

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By NetBanker

September 28, 2007 10:36 AM | Link to this

Gary…one can’t abort them if they are a baby…they were potential babies, but we all know that wording doesn’t help your religious cause so you’ll never use it…just like all the Biblical quotes in the world can’t support your argument.

You see, Gary, many of us on here recognize that it’s impossible to argue with religion because the whole basis of ‘proof’ or ‘documentation’ are the purely religious texts that capture the stories and beliefs of the religion and which require ‘faith’ to accept.

By Question for Gary

September 28, 2007 10:45 AM | Link to this

So, in your mind, all those “souls” whose vehicles never implanted in the uterine lining, and all those zygotes that came unattached at eight or twelve weeks, and all those fetuses that died in utero at six or seven months, and all those near and full term fetuses who strangled on their cords and were stillborn, leaving weeping parents a lifetime of grief…. Are ALL THOSE “SOULS” drifting in a dark nothingness with no hope of entering in the world, seething in their anger and hatred toward GOD because they never got to come out and play little league ball or take dance lessons? Gee…. If you go through the entire history of man, that’s an awful lot of lifeless souls that must be hatin’ on God, doncha think, Gar?

Or maybe they do get re-planted in another body afterall… Hmmmm…

By lozen

September 28, 2007 10:51 AM | Link to this

I’ve been studying religion and religious people all my life. It seems to me that once you convince yourself there’s a Big Invisible Daddy in the sky watching over you, judging you, threatening you if you disobey, it isn’t hard to believe there are 40 million invisible, nonexistent babies crying because they were never born. It makes it easy to believe you must obey, revere, kneel down to and please your big daddy (Hitler, Bush, etc.)in your government. Rulers have always known it makes it easier for them to have power over their people by identifying themselves with a god. Religion makes true believers crazy and dangerous. You have to twist yourself in all kinds of ways to make yourself believe something that is unbelievable. You have to deny and hate parts of yourself that don’t “please god,” you have to be a subservient child all your life, begging for forgiveness, and never taking responsibility for yourself but expecting Daddy to take care of you. It’s hard for me to see anything good that results from the dogma of any religion.

By Chilao

September 28, 2007 11:05 AM | Link to this

Why do College Democrats have more and better sex than College Republicans?

Who ever heard of a good piece of elephant?

By Billy

September 28, 2007 11:08 AM | Link to this

If your family doctor tells you he is a surgeon do you let him operate or if the supermarket bag boy tells you he is a mechanic do you let him have your car?

No, Gary, and that’s exactly my point. I’ll let him call himself whatever he wants, but I won’t let him control my life. You and Bush and Hitler and the Pope and so many other people all call yourselves “Christians”, yet you cannot agree on what that means. So the invariable solution on each “Christian’s” part is to claim that the other “Christians” aren’t true Christians. Convenient. So I just say, “You know what? You’re all Christians, and I don’t want any of you foisting your ridiculous beliefs on me.”

By Jack

September 28, 2007 11:13 AM | Link to this

Religion is the answers to the ultimate questions man is unable to answer.

By Jack

September 28, 2007 11:19 AM | Link to this

Good one Chi.

By Billy

September 28, 2007 11:23 AM | Link to this

Religion is the answers to the ultimate questions man is unable to answer.

No, religion claims to have those answers. Death actually provides the answers to those questions. Anyone who believes otherwise has lost his ability for reason.

By JokesOn

September 28, 2007 11:51 AM | Link to this

Religion is the answers to the ultimate questions man is unable to answer.

I agree with that. Not necessarily the correct answers, but it has answers;)

By Jack

September 28, 2007 12:01 PM | Link to this

No Billie. Religion was formed to answer the questions man is unable to answer. They had to tell the masses something for Chrissakes.

By comp133xi7y

September 28, 2007 12:46 PM | Link to this

I had the privilege to see Maya Angelou last night. At one point in her discussion, she was talking about religion and faith, and how she doesn’t believe that anyone can ever BE a Christian, or Jew or Bhuddist or Muslim, they can only work towards being one.

She followed up by saying “Whenever someone comes up to me and says ‘Hello, I’m a Christian’, I want to say ‘Already?’”.

I think that’s just about the best answer I’ve ever heard.

By lozen

September 28, 2007 1:28 PM | Link to this

Why is it so hard for humans to say, “I don’t know”? Is it better to have fantastic, fairytale answers? Is that really helpful? I don’t think so. I know at the times I’ve really been happy and peaceful and contented I didn’t feel the need for answers about what happens to me when I die. Toni Morrison says the reason we cling to religion is because our joy and happiness and peace have been taken from us by the teachings of the church! I think about the Hawaiians before contact with christian missionaries for example. They had never heard of hell or sin. They danced and sang and enjoyed life. Sex wasn’t a sin. They were happy people. Look at them now. They have the bible, guilt, sin, hell. The missionaries got their land and now the tourists have it!

By Book 'em Danno

September 28, 2007 1:55 PM | Link to this

The Kapu System is what cemented the ancient social structure. The word, known in English as “taboo” meant sacred or prohibited. Violators were swiftly punished by being strangled or clubbed to death. A commoner had to be careful lest his shadow fall across the person of a high chief, and he had to be quick to kneel or lie down in the presence of such sacred persons. Birth, death, faulty behavior, the building of a canoe, and many other activities were regulated by the kapu system, which permeated all aspects of ancient Hawaiian life.

from http://www.hawaiian-roots.com/earlyhawaii.htm

Yep, sounds happy-go-lucky to me! Sing, dance, bludgeon and repeat. It appears that if you were a commoner you were just as miserable before and after the missionaries came - you just had someone else beating you with a club.

By Gary Gibbs

September 28, 2007 2:03 PM | Link to this

To: All those who disagree with my belief in God and when life begins.

In the Book of Jeremiah God says,”I knew you before you were formed within your mother’ womb: before you were born I sanctified you and appointed you as my spokesman to the world”.

Psalms 139 tells us: you made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit them together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your workmanship is marvelous-and how well I know it. You were there while I was being formed in utter seclusion! You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book.

There is a plan and place for every soul and spirit no matter when and how they died or how long they live. God’s Kingdom is ever expanding and never ending therfore, there is no shortage of space.

On a personal note I am not easily deceived or misled. I have worked for 3 Fortune 500 companies, founded 3 companies, was employed in the Nuclear, Space, Defense and Telecommunications industries. I have attended 4 major universities and am an electronics systems engineer and operated at the level of Vice President when promoted into management prior to retiring. Believing in God is not just for the uneducated and stupid.Between 45 & 50 % of American scientist believe in God and the numbers are growing. To insist that only atheist and diest have brains is both arrogant,stupid and is also a lie as well as a sure sign of ignorance. I have worked among many beleiving scientist and currently attend church with beleiving doctors and scientists.

By Gandalf, the Gray

September 28, 2007 2:11 PM | Link to this

Really I don’t care about the religion of hates beliefs, except for the one about killing, converting or controlling all that aren’t muslim. That put a big old hairball in my craw! See, if they want to destroy the west….the west should destroy them first. All you fools can think what you want, it’s war, and we need to destroy them. And I mean DESTROY, not defeat, not get to come to some peace table. I would have shot RINGANDANG ADINGDON, the president of IRAN SO FAR AWAY, when he came to Columbia U. And then held a press conference to let everyone know we are taking everyone in the UN building prisoner and trying them for Crimes Against Humanity. My favorite line from RINGANDAN ADINGDONs speach was the part about how they handle homosexuals in IRAN, you do know they kill them don’t you? And no one made a stink about that! Now I may be against gays getting married, but they have the same rights as all other citizens of our great country! DOWN WITH MUSLIM CRAZIES!

By Gary Gibbs

September 28, 2007 2:15 PM | Link to this

To all who do not appreciate my view of the human body, soul & spirit I understand for I was an athiest until I was 48 years old. God said to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1: “I knew you before you were formed within your mothers womb; before you were born I sanctified you and appointed you as my spokesman to the world”. God has a plan & place for each for each human soul. No matter how they died.There are no time or space limitations in Gods’s kingdom.

Psalm 139 says: You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit them together in my mothers womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your workmenship is marvelous-and how well I know it-and how well I know it. You were there while I was being formed in utter seclusion! You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. On a personal I’m not all that easily led. I’ve founded 3 companies, worked for 3 fortune 500 companies, and spent my career in the Nuclear, Space, Telecommunications and defense industries. I’ve raced sports cars, played football

By JokesOn

September 28, 2007 2:21 PM | Link to this

To insist that only atheist and diest have brains is both arrogant,stupid and is also a lie as well as a sure sign of ignorance.

This statement is a wonderful show of intelligence. It cannot be both a lie and ignorance.

Believing in god, and more over that your god is the right one is stupid. Being religious does not mean all aspects of the person are mentally challenged, just the part of the mind that wrestles with unknowns.

And the odds of a person being religious does go up the more uneducated they are.

By Huh?

September 28, 2007 2:22 PM | Link to this

Dang, Gandalf, where’s your Patriotism? You could have gone to New York/Columbia and did not? What’s up with that?

By JokesOn

September 28, 2007 2:25 PM | Link to this

Poor Gandalf, the Gray never got past the first book.

Probably calls aragorn strider as well.

By comp133xi7y

September 28, 2007 2:29 PM | Link to this

Gary, yet again you highlight the problem. You attempt to prove that you are right by quoting a Bible verse. Well…suppose you’re talking to a Hindu…how much weight in an argument do you suppose that quote would carry? Zero.

A Bible verse is a perfect justification for your belief system, and no one is suggesting that you change your personal beliefs. However, quoting the Bible to someone who doesn’t accept it as the inerrant word of God as proof that what you’re saying is true would have as much chance of convincing them as chasing around after them waving a copy of The Hobbit would make them believe in Trolls, Dragons and magic rings.

And Gary, while we’re on the subject of ignorance - Deists DO believe in God, Gary. Similarly, a belief in God does not automatically imply a belief in the Fundamentalist Christian version of God. Again - this is the problem with religion in Government. You seem to have real difficulty wrapping your mind around the idea that people all over this world believe different things about God, or even Gods.

So when you talk about percentages of people who believe in God, remember that beliving in God does not mean believing exactly as you do. And then go a step farther and imagine how you would feel if someone with a religion very different from your own were in a position to make laws that forced you to conform to that religion.

By Gandalf, the Gray

September 28, 2007 2:46 PM | Link to this

Jokes on, go F@ck youself! You are such a piece of SH#T! But I will defend to the death your right to say what you want, as this is America, and I am a Patriot.

PS you S#ck Donkey D*cks!

By Huh?

September 28, 2007 2:55 PM | Link to this

Gary -

How many companies founded again? What kinds of industries again? If you repeat it enough times…….

paraphrase: just because someone does not think like you, does not make them memory impaired

By JokesOn

September 28, 2007 2:57 PM | Link to this

Someone just flipped out;)

Gandalf the not-so-wise?

By Anonymous

September 28, 2007 3:14 PM | Link to this

quote: Really I don’t care about the religion of hates beliefs, except for the one about killing, converting or controlling all that aren’t muslim. That put a big old hairball in my craw! See, if they want to destroy the west….the west should destroy them first.

Why? Is that what the West believes in, too?

By Mara

September 28, 2007 3:24 PM | Link to this

Probably calls aragorn strider as well

ROTFLMFAO!!!!!

By so...

September 28, 2007 3:26 PM | Link to this

…did that Vice-President’s job require you to form a coherent sentence or thought, use proper punctuation, spell words correctly, make adequate use of your logical facilities, form consistent arguments or in any other way demonstrate that you were both natively intelligent and properly educated?

By Mara

September 28, 2007 3:38 PM | Link to this

…You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book.

There is a plan and place for every soul and spirit no matter when and how they died or how long they live.

so basically you are saying that “God” has pre-planned everything. (free will, anyone?) And since “every day was recorded in your book”, it’s obvious that “God” has a “plan and place for every soul and spirit”. Even those who’re yet unborn. Whom “He” already knows “He” will condemn to the fiery pits of Hell for the amusement of his creature, “Satan.

Nice god ya got there.

By lozen

September 28, 2007 5:00 PM | Link to this

Gary, can you tell us the square footage of the Ark? How could Yahweh and Moses get all those animals on one boat? And what did they do with the woodpeckers? Did they have to catch fish and keep them in the boat or did they just leave them in the water? Why did yahweh murder all those innocent babies with the flood? And in Sodom & Gomorrah?

By lozen

September 28, 2007 5:08 PM | Link to this

God has a plan & place for each … human soul. No matter how they died.There are no time or space limitations in Gods’s kingdom. So why worry? If your god had a plan and a place then he knew they would never be born. No matter how they were not born - spontaneous abortion, abortion, disease, whatever. Why do you not trust in his plan if they aren’t born due to abortion? Maybe your god just had a different plan for that fetus. Why not have faith in him and his plan instead of worrying about 40 million fetuses?

By Gary Gibbs

September 28, 2007 5:42 PM | Link to this

To: BySo Obviously not. Had I had those talents and skills I would have been president. I did not major in English composition because I wanted to be able to do something other than critique and criticize the memos and e-mail of my co-workers.

On a more serious note I believe God has plans for you that were formulated before you were born. You can refuse to go along with Him if you choose to; His plans are going to be fulfilled with or without you. He will use someone else if necessary.

By Gary Gibbs

October 1, 2007 11:54 AM | Link to this

Lozen: The ark was 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, 30 cubits high. The square footage was more than 100,000 sq. ft. while the cubit footage was more than 1,500,000.

There were only two woodpeckers,consequently they posed no threat to a boat this size. The only life in the ark was life that could drown.

God rounded up the animals and presented them to Noah. He regulates and controls the whole universe supernaturally. In fact the Bible says he speaks and things happen.

As for His killing the babies in the flood- He allowed them to die because their parents were ungodly. They were not at the age of accountability, therefore I believe they are now in heaven.

By Gary Gibbs

October 1, 2007 12:12 PM | Link to this

Mara: Whom He already knows He will condemn to the fiery pits of hell for the amusement of His creature Satan is not to be found in the King James version of the Bible nor is the word “amusement” in there. Help me out here.

By Gary Gibbs

October 1, 2007 12:47 PM | Link to this

To: comp133xi7y

You probably know more about how to communicate with Hindus than I do but if the opportunity to tell them of my belief in Christ presents itself I can assure you I’ll quote scripture. The reason being is the Apostle Paul says:”Christ did not send me to Baptise, He sent me to tell the Good News(The Bible) , & tell it without using the language of human wisdom, in order to make sure that Christ’s death on the cross is not robbed of its power; in Philippians 1 he says that we should hold out to unbelievers the Word of Life(the Bible). The logic and wisdom of man will not save man. Salvation comes from hearing Gods word spoken and then responding to the urging of the Holy Spirit.