In light of the many perversions and jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke, it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.




Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" (regarding the attacks on Sept. 11).


Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.


And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"


In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.


Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school . The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.


Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.


Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.


Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."


Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.




Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.


Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.


Are you laughing?




Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they WILL think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.




Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in!

eom

I thank you for trying to post a positive message, but due to the judgmental way it’s been presented, I must judge you back.  

It seems as though you’re suggesting that god must be in the forefront of a person’s life in order to be a good person.  As if Agnostic and Atheist people are worse off than the religious fanatics are.

Keep in mind that every person involved in planning and executing the 9-11 attacks are every bit, if not much more religious than you are.  And look at how much good their divine guidance brought to us all.

Tammy ...

A large part of the world's problems come from an area of the world where they DO have God in the homes, God in the classrooms and God in every facet of daily life.   And not some different God.   "Our" God.

Ponder that, too.

-- Modified on 8/22/2003 4:29:18 PM

The message implies that if we all had "good christian values" includeing prayer in public schools, bad things like 9/11 wouldn't happen. I think it's safe to say more people have been mudered, tortured, and otherwise oppressed in the name of religion than for any other reason. Borrowing from John Lennon, just "Imagine" no religion, no wars. You don't need religion or god to have morals. just MHO.

"He plays his games, we play ours.  To show our appreciation for so much power, we keep heaven stocked with fresh souls."
- R. Lee Ermey, "Full Metal Jacket"

There are so many debatable points in this post, it is hard to keep this brief.  In this interest of not pontificating, though, I will simply make one point.

Those who wish for things to return to the way they were in the past are forgetting that this is exactly what it is:  THE PAST.  Any human endeavor, whether one person living alone on an island or a couple in a relationship or the greatest civilization of the world, that hopes to stave off the inevitable arrival of change and progress, whether positive or negative, is fighting a losing battle against human nature itself.  Humanity will not "stay put" socially, intellectually, or spiritually, no matter how much of an ideal society is created.  Society goes where the majority or the powerful want it to go, and a righteous life can always be lead, no matter how isolated it may be, by those who believe.  That is all God asks for...there are too many instances of death coming to those who hadn't turned their back on God to think otherwise.

Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.



-- Modified on 8/22/2003 5:49:39 PM

Like spacey, I find just too much to possibly answer in a reasonable lenght post.  So just a little.

Anne Graham says, among other things,

" In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK."

She can't possibly believe this tripe.  The kinds of things she's talking about have been going on for thousands of years, which I think predates the elimination of school prayer and even Dr. Spock.  If she's ignorant of this fact, her opinions are worthless.  I she's aware of it, but hopes we forget, then her opinions are worthless.  

On the other side of things, consider this T-shirt logo, a particular favorite of Marine recruits:

"Kill 'em all.  Let God sort them out".  Peace through God.  Right!!

Don't get me wrong.  I've known many devout [you name its] who were wonderful, caring people.  Known at least as many non-religious folks that fit the discription too.  And lots of very devout bastards.  I can't see any correlation, really.

beats out religion anyday on number of people killed.

You didn't sit there and argue with me but the person who said the statement.

It's not about me and what I believe, it what people really acually think these days.

Hugs,

Tammy

"It's not about me and what I believe, it what people really acually [sic] think these days" -- N.C.Tammy


i know people who believe all God's "chosen people" should be dispatched post-haste to "meet their maker"

but i certainly wouldn't post their views on this board as the  "Thought for the Day"


:-O

---

maybe TER should erect a monument to the Ten Commandments right here on National Board, yes?

Larry Flynt and internet porn.
 But, if we had the 10 commandments on display everywhere, we would have been protected from all evil. And those "evil doers" would leave us alone.

there needs to be separation of church and state.  You have all Sunday to pray and you can do whatever you like when you get home (I like to see escorts when God has blessed me with the means).  

Just because I don't subscribe to your religion doesn't mean I'm the root of all evil.  That God is punishing the world because there are non-believers amongst us.  Some of the most grotesque crimes have been committed by so-called believers.  Worry about yourself and leave others alone (especially Gays, what the hell does it matter to you what they do - are you jealous that they have the guts to pursue what you ache for ???)

Life is easy - just be a good person.

Besides, if God was listening and granted what we asked the last provider I was with wouldn't have stopped the wonderful bbbj I was enjoying - Damn it, I said ``Oh please God, don't let her stop''.  I don't think that is a lot to ask for.

has been around many many centuries more than Communism ... its death toll rivals all forms of disease, plague and pestilence

Spanish Inquisition anyone?  [Monthy Python bit omitted]

Actually the show is on now! Great show!

I watched several episodes so far, and I love it!


Mel

And do we not count the millions that were disposed of in the "no religon" Soviet Union during the years of terror?

Over 200 years 200,000 people were killed during the crusades.
3,000 to 5,000 by the Inquisition of 350 years.
Lenin and Stalin and Hitler were responsible for over 60,000,000 deaths in the last century alone.

by some "rules" that should immediately put an end to this thread ... old-school rules ... LOL


BUT, what makes you think that Nazi Germany was a Godless society? ... was it not the Christian Aryan Knights of the Uber-Race that rolled 6,000,000+ "Christ-killing" Jews into the gas chambers?

btw, care to provide a *credible* source for that figure of 60 Million killed you just posited on the board?  ... did Lenin and Stalin rule for the last 100 years?  

you said "erect"...uh huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh!!!

Roy Moore is already in the process of getting his comeuppance.  However, it is having an interesting side effect of making William Pryor look almost moderate in comparison, and his nomination for the federal bench is still under consideration.  Coincidence?

> maybe TER should erect a monument to the Ten Commandments
> right here on National Board, yes?

And join the Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice in defying the law of the land and the edict of the highest court in the land? Hoo boyy.  The South's gonna do it again, and this time in the name of its very own God.

And then they're all gonna move to Israel for the rapture and watch all the Jews that don't convert just, well, just die under the hand of the same God that they all worship...

What a hoot!  I'm glad I've got a front row seat for this madness!  

> On the other side of things, consider this T-shirt logo,
> a particular favorite of Marine recruits:

> "Kill 'em all.  Let God sort them out".
> Peace through God.  Right!!

The original: 1244 A.D. Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet.
Modern translation: Kill them all. The Lord knows his own.

Attributed to the Abbot of Citeaux and Papal Legate who, following the siege of Beziers by his knights wiped out the entire population of the city, including both traditionalist Catholics and Cathar reformers alike - about 15,000 souls. The abbot figured that the reformers (heretics in the Church's view) would be sorted out by The Lord and sent to Hell, while the true believers would be welcomed into God's Kingdom. Too bad they weren't given the choice on the ground.

Fundamentalists didn't like reformers any more then than they do now.

And my favorite: "In many ways, Catharism represented total opposition to the Catholic church, which they basically viewed as a large, pompous, and fraudulent organisation which had lost its integrity and "sold out" for power and money in this world."
Sounds astonishingly like the modern Church, both Catholic and Protestant alike.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
(The more things change, the more things stay the same.)

Have a wonderful god-fearing day...  

Just to be fair...Nazis saw Christianity as a religion of weakness.  Hitler was an occultist...the push was ancient Aryan paganism however.  Nazis killed Jews for political. not religious reasons, though they may have used anti-semitism in Europe to help fan the flames.

thanks ... your post is a good distinction worth noting ... GOD only knows what Hitler himself was thinking  

but let's be real pragmatists here ... is there anyone on this board that DENIES the Vatican's abstentia-bordering-on-sanctioning of the Holocaust?

i mean let's not be delusional about this folks!  



---

Moshe's point is a good one, worth further comment ... in fact  the "inner retinue" of the uber-SS officers were members of a secret society, the Knights of the Roundtable (or some such non-sensical variant thereof) and believed they were descended from King F*cking Arthur himself (or some Nordic variant thereof

BUT ... Nazi Germany as a NATION, which ultimately was accountable in the Holocaust, was most definitely NOT a godless society (my point earlier in this thread)

heck, most (not all) of the German officers presiding over the deathcamps went to (make-shift) Churches on sundays ...

Please email me so we can discuss going to church next time I'm in town.

[email protected]

I think the anti-racial attitudes of Hitler and the Third Reich were simply an expression of "religious" fervor. Eric Hoffer wrote in "The True Believer" that secular movements, such as fascism and communism, share many important commonalities with religions. The core of which is the existence of "True Believers", inculcated with central tenets which essentially tell them what to think and how to act. In effect you surrender your individuality, and are rewarded with others telling you how to run your life. As Hoffer pointed out, these tenets are also shared by proselytizing religions. A key tenet of all is that the true believer is good and will be saved, but that the non-believer is bad and will not be saved. It is this element in religions, particularly proselytizing religions, that makes them so dangerous.

I'm not sure whether even the leaders of these secular/religious movements are free from the central tenets. The smartest thing that Hitler ever did was secure a mutual nonaggression pact with Stalin in World War II, and the dumbest thing he ever did was violate it. All because at root he hated the "sub-human" Slavs so much that he couldn't help himself. By the way, it was the German attack on Russia that doomed the Third Reich, more than anything that the Brits and us were doing in North Africa, Italy or Normandy. The true end of the Third Reich occurred at the Kursk Salient, where the German army under Reichmarshal Polis surrendered to the Soviets.

-- Modified on 8/23/2003 10:49:39 AM

and the email you gave me a while back just bounced last night!

Dave, I beg to disagree. Communism has only been around approx 100 years. People have been killed for religion for thousands of years. Communism like religion in it's ideal form is a positive thing. It's the way people have implemented it that is evil.

I never knew that.  It's sometimes a "blessing" and sometimes a curse, but we humans come equipped with a brain that actually wants to learn something new every day.

"Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense."   --  Francois Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire)

Matthew 12:20, "He does not crush the weak, or quench the smallest hope..."

Isaiah 44:22 (NIV), "I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist."

Micah 7:19, " ... he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."

Psalm 103:2-3, "Bless the LORD, O my soul, ... Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases"

Romans 10:11, "For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed."

Somewhere else in there is:

"judge not least ye be judged"
"let he who i without sin cast the first stone"

and my personal new favorite...and I dedicate this to all the classy, well-known, loved, liked and honored ladies out there ... for whom without you ladies, we'd have no hobby.

From 'The Good News Translation'    

Ezekiel 16:34, "You are a special kind of prostitute. No one forced you to become one. You didn't get paid; you paid them! Yes, you are different."

Thank you ladies for being so wonderful!

Jimbomania  

There are politicians today not so different.  Pete Wilson ran his whole campaign blaiming illegal Mexican immigrants for the problems of CA (of course this is a common view shared by many now and always) - of course they are taking everyone's jobs and sucking everything out of the state without contributing anything.  

I wonder how many people have died because of lack of access to care caused by the % of the F'ing up of budgets due to all the back-washing goings on.  What is the death toll attributable to the war mongering Bush's these days.

Don't tell me our Democracy has clean hands.