Why Does Tom Hanks Single Out Mormons?
by Michael van der GalienTom Hanks may be one of the best actors in history, but the real Tom Hanks is an entirely different man altogether. He made headlines today calling Mormons “un-American” because they actively supported Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
Although this statement may make perfect sense to Hanks, the reality of the matter is that amending a constitution is perfectly American. What’s un-American is legislating from the bench – liberal judges forcing their personal views on the rest of us, as those did who overruled a law banning gay marriage also supported by a majority of Californians.
It is “un-American” to refuse to debate an issue and, instead, to vilify and demonize the other side. Furthermore, it is also distinctly “un-American” for Hanks to call those who dare disagree “un-American.” Lastly, it is even more “un-American” to single out a specific group solely because of their religious views.
Why isn’t Hanks calling African Americans, who voted in large numbers for Prop. 8, “un-American?” Why isn’t Hanks taking aim at Hispanics who also voted against legalizing gay marriage? Is it, perhaps, because liberals like Mr. Hanks only dare attack easy victims like white men, white Christians and white Mormons?
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331 Comments
Not that I ever sought out poli-sci (or any other for that matter) advice from Tom Hanks, but upon learning he contributed money to Al Franken’s Senatorial campaign, he’s pretty much made the “I’m sorry, did he say something?” list for me. So much for avoiding Hanks’ “un-American” list, eh?
Great points, too, about Hanks not-so-suspiciously failing to mention the overwhelming black and Hispanic support of Prop 8. The day I see church protests in Compton or East LA, again, “Did Hollywood say something?”
and the truth is a lot of Mormons gave a lot of money to the church to make Prop 8 happen. There are a lot of people who feel that is un-American and I am one of them. I do not like to see any discrimination codified on any piece of paper, any of the 50 states in America
Again, before everyone goes sideways, can we please look at the actual words Hanks used? The word that, clearly shows he meant the act of Prop 8 (or possibly the support of it, but there’s no way to be sure) was un-American. I disagree with either interpretation, but it’s not the same thing as calling Mormons un-American.
The issue about Liberals refusing to address the fact that Prop 8 passed only because of the Obama turnout among minorities (who voted in far higher numbers than whites) in favor of Prop 8. It’s a sad fact of life that Liberals don’t feel that they can tell the truth (or even see it), if it takes away from their bigger argument (that minorities are all victims of the evil corporations and Republicans). Unfortunately, I don’t know how anyone is going to get that to change.
Came across a great description of people like Hanks: “situational patriots”.
By his logic, we can hold him accountable for the views and actions of other actors. That’s the problem with collectivist thinking.
Judge by individual actions.
Couple things. First, it’s nice to see a conservative complain about people calling people they disagree with un-American. It would also be nice if this policy was applied across the board. Second the African-American vote myth has been proven to be just that, a myth. Prop 8 votes were far more likely to be influenced by religiosity and party I.D. The black vote legend was based on an outlier exit poll. Keep up!
As for Democracy, the Founding Fathers would have been appalled, and I mean appalled, by the whole nutty Proposition process. They believed in both representative and constitutional democracy for many reasons, among them a keen diligence to moderate the tyranny of the majority.
Uh, yeah. “Legislating from the bench”, or as we folk like to call it “interpreting the Constitution” is 100% American. Better go back and re-take those courses on the separation of powers.
Steve, does Schoolhouse Rock count?
The legislature makes the law, judges determine the Constitutionality of the law.
It doesn’t make it less Constitutional just because you disagree with such rulings. In fact, it makes it more.
The spirit of the Constitution is to guarantee as many rights to as many people as possible. Interpreting as such is upholding the spirit of the Constitution, the spirit of America.
First, I voted in favor of Prop 8. Second, there is no use arguing this point with “liberals.” They simply do not frame the issue as we do, and they will refuse to change their frame of reference.
What is their frame? “Civil rights.” As far as they are concerned, opposing same sex marriage is PRECISELY the same as opposing interracial marriage – PRECISELY the same – morally, ethically, factually, and legally. And you or I will never convince them otherwise.
They believe that opposition to same sex marriage is the moral, ethical and legal equivalent of supporting “slaveholders rights to their property.” They will gleefully point out that the US Constitution supported slavery (technically, it didn’t – prior to the Civil War, it didn’t prohibit it). Therefore, in their view, Republicans and conservatives would have used the exact same logic to support slavery, de jure segregation, and interracial marriage bans – all perfectly legal in the past.
These “arguments” are bankrupt, of course, but since they refuse to change their frame of reference, they will never see that.
The legally, factually, and ethically correct frame of reference is this: ALL LAWS, without exception, must apply equally to all adults, regardless of race, creed, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
Gay men say they are being discriminated against because they cannot marry another man. This is incorrect. As a straight man, I cannot marry another man either. The truth is, the law does not care if an applicant for a marriage license is straight or gay. A man cannot marry another man, regardless of their sexual orrientaions. A gay man is legally permitted to marry a woman – the SAME RULE that applies to straight men like me. Likewise, gay women are covered under the exact same laws as straight women – they are permitted to marry a man.
American is one of the most tolerant societies that has ever existed. The purpose of same sex marriage initiatives is not to end “discrimination” – no one is being discriminated against – it is to create special laws that give “special rights” to “special groups.” That is exatly the sort of tyranny that America has been fighting against for over 200 years.
“What’s un-American is legislating from the bench – liberal judges forcing their personal views on the rest of us”
OH – you mean like when the super liberal Supreme Court stopped the Florida presidential recount and named their guy to the White House??? THOSE liberal activist judges??
Steve said-
“The spirit of the Constitution is to guarantee AS MANY RIGHTS to as many people as possible.”
Thanks for the laugh Steve. I declare that I-pods are a universal right. Now give me one!
What, pray tell, do you see the role of the Judicial branch as, then? Figureheads who get to wear robes and decide Presidential elections?
If the legislative branch passed a law stating that only white males can vote, it is the court’s responsibility to rule that unConstitutional.
The same applies to any other law, whether that law is made by the legislature or through popular vote.
Fortunately, we don’t have a system of democratic majority rule. If we did, we’d still own slaves, and women wouldn’t be allowed to vote.
Jason:
Ahh, yes. “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’ is just like iPods. Totally.
GEEEENIUS!
By the way, if anyone was wondering what the “activist judges” are up to lately, just this week they weakened the 4th amendment:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/washington/15scotus.html?_r=3&hp
and affirmed warrantless wiretapping:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/washington/16fisa.html?hp
I realize those aren’t liberal rulings, though, and therefore, a-ok per this blog.
I always thought Tom Hanks had the common sense to keep most of his political statements to himself but lately he has been changing his tune. The liberals can judge us all they want and call conservatives like us un-American, but when they basically call our troops baby killers, we can’t call them Un-American. Now I know Tom hasn’t been one that said that but his buddies have. I have no use for most of Hollywood. Rarely do I see a movie or watch TV anymore because their liberal stupidity ruin my ability to enjoy the show. In the back of my mind I’m remembering what ignorant thing they said on a red carpet.
I will just have to add Tom to my boycott list. Overall, I’m sure he’s a nice guy but ignorant remarks like that ruin the movie experience for me. I consider most of Hollywood as “followers” not leaders. I guess Tom just became more of a follower. Hollywood- Just one big high school crowd.
Steve and REPS4BRKFST missed the news: Al Gore never won ANY count in Florida. Even the media recounts. He lost every count but 1: if you counted only Democratic counties and threw out ALL the military votes. Not even he had the stones to ask for that one. He lost pure an simple.
The US supreme court did not “stop the counting” or “decide the winner” either. The decision in Bush v Gore simply said the counting could continue until Florida’s statuatory end date. The Democrats were trying to move that date thru the courts – after the fact.
Liberals will always wail about the US Supreme court. The fact is it was evenly divided at the time. As a resident of Florida I was more interested in the Florida supreme court and it’s shennanigans. That court was 7 democrats, but libs NEVER whine about any bias there.
It was with much satisfaction that in the following years myself and my fellow Floridians voted them out – except the Chief Justice, who said all along that the FLSC decisions were – quote – nonsense – unquote.
No worries, guys…we Mormons are getting used to the insults.
Des,
That argument isn’t going to fly. He singled out Mormons: “And the truth is a lot of Mormons gave a lot of money to the church to make Prop 8 happen. There are a lot of people who feel THAT is un-American and I am one of them.”
The sentence describes GIVING MONEY TO MAKE PROP-8 HAPPEN. –> THAT is un-American.
I remember during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal when Tom Hanks came out and said he was VERY disappointed with Clinton and his conduct. And that it besmirched the United States.
Less than a day, his buddies, namely Speilberg, gave him a talking too and later Tom came out and said that this was all just a Republican witch hunt and we should just move on.
I don’t think Mr. Hanks really has any core convictions. He has to check with his other liberal Hollywood friends and Speilberg, who is the keeper of his manhood.
Steve said-
“Ahh, yes. “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’ is just like iPods. Totally”
You originally said: “The spirit of the Constitution is to guarantee AS MANY RIGHTS to as many people as possible.”
I assume free ipods, free housing, free gas, free food, all fall under “as many rights as possible.” I mean if i declare them a right…they must be then.
you said: “Interpreting as such is upholding the spirit of the Constitution, the spirit of America.”
There sure are alot of spirits floating around.
And we care about what Tom Hanks says, because? Just another hollyweird liberal running his suck.
He’s a transplant from Canada isn’t he?
What a waste…..
You are annoying.
Jean Valjean – January 16th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
You are annoying.
By far MY favorite comment of the night.
Random, undirected, and adds nothing to the discussion.
Jean, you win “comment of the week” for that effort.
To get your prize, meet me at 3am tomorrow morning in the alley behind the “manhole” bar (near Bryant Park). I’ll be the one in the giant bunny suit.
Imposting a tyranny of the majority has always been un-American.
Of course the others, regardless of race or religion, who voted to deny other American citizens their rights are un-American as well. Don’t imagine any true patriot would think otherwise.
Imposing a tyranny of the majority has always been un-American.
Of course the others, regardless of race or religion, who voted to deny other American citizens their rights are un-American as well. Don’t imagine any true patriot would think otherwise.
The rulings from so called “activist” judges actually serve the purpose of protecting us from laws that are unconstitutional.
For example the good people of CA can vote to disallow woman from voting but that law would be deemed by the courts as unconstitutional.
A question that I have is why a government should concern itself with any aspect of marriage. Government should keep out of our personal lives altogether. If people want to engage in a financial contract then the government should support those and let people get married by the church, witch doctor, etc.
Steve, so you are saying that you won’t mind if GWB gets to appoint 9 judges of his choice to the supreme court?
Well Mormon’s are called non-Christian, why not un-American too.
See in the eyes of liberals, Mormons are the perfect scape goat. Mormons are a small percentage of the populace and although they have people of all cultural backgrounds, most are white. Dems would never say that it was un-American for Latinos and Black Americans to support marriage between a man and woman. Why? Because unlike saying Hanks saying that about Mormons and people ignoring him, folks would call Hanks a racist for saying it about the other cultural groups.
To most Dems lip service and appearances are very important, intentions more important than results.
Wilson,
Just because Hanks went to church with his step-mother doesn’t mean he had accepted LDS theology and was baptized. That would in fact mean he was not a former LDS member.
Saying that a person attended church with their mother as a young child wouldn’t necessarily make them a member in any congregation that required baptism for membership.
It is merely stretching the truth to say that.
Uh, that’s Laffing at Lefties and ‘his suck’ is his mouth just thought I’d clear it up.
Mr. Hanks’ self-congratulatory “tolerance” of the CA Supreme Court’s “codified discrimination” against traditional marriage (and its creation of special “rights” for same-sex couples/groups) belies his intolerance for the “discrimination” of which he judges “un-American”. How convenient!
The Modern Liberal double-standard of repressive “Liberating Tolerance” is, one trusts, something regular Americans have gotten used to enough to simply ridicule it as what it in fact is: childish/insecure ‘Liberal Fascism’.
**
Two useful references for same-sex “marriage” arguments:
1.) The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage
Adam Kolasinski
2/17/04
“what state interest [do same-sex] marriages serve.”?
http://tech.mit.edu/V124/N5/kolasinski.5c.html
**
2.) Excerpt from the August 1, 2003 telecast of HBO’s “REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER”:
[BILL] MAHER: Okay, let me ask you this Congressman, if gay people were allowed all the rights and privileges that anybody else could have, in other words, they could get the insurance and they could get everything else, but you couldn’t get the name “marriage,” would you go for that?
[REP. BARNEY] FRANK: Oh, I would, yeah. If there were all the legal rights – remember, gay and lesbian people pay taxes and what we’re saying is, we should be eligible for all the benefits that are supported by the taxes we pay. If people want to create a situation which there is the full legal rights that go with being married, and the price of that was to call it something else, I’m not big on what you call things. And so that would not concern me at all.
What I’m looking for is the right, as I said, two people in love who want to join to their emotional commitment a legal and moral financial responsibility for each other, and if you wanted to call it something else, we can even have a contest.” [...]
http://www.safesearching.com/billmaher/print/t_hbo_realtime_080103.htm (link expired)
**
Rep. Frank sings a different tune:
Barney Frank, On Gay Marriage [2008]:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y-YXkesp_o
**
Remember:
“American people don’t care about statements that people make that may not be totally accurate.” — Sen. Harry Ried (D-NV), 6/9/05
Des,
That argument isn’t going to fly. He singled out Mormons:
I agree, his statement was still pretty ignorant. I just wanted to try to head off some of the, “He’s calling Mormon’s un-American” stuff, because he didn’t. The next thing you’ll hear is him clarifying his statement, then all of this will be dismissed as a misunderstanding by a lot of people. I’d really like to see Big Hollywood remain a place where the truth is sought out first, and we can all express our opinions about it.
I understand his rhetoric (as I’m sure many here do). I’ve had gay friends and a lot of Liberal friends. They are convinced that being gay is the same thing as being a minority. It doesn’t matter how you argue it, that’s where they’re coming from and you aren’t going to see it change. Because they believe that, it would be against what we believe here (you could even say, un-American) for someone to be denied the same rights as the next person. The fact that getting married isn’t a right, that being gay is different than being born black, hispanic, white, asian, or any other ethnicity….these are the places that fundamentally solid arguments need to be formed from.
It’s not just the Liberals who need to be convinced. As a Christian, I know what the Bible says about homosexuality. I also know what it says about adultery, divorce, and sodomy. It’s disappointing when people ignore all but one of those categories, then becomes fixated on the other as if our entire society depended on it.
1) Activist judges weave new law out of the language of existing state or federal constitutional law. Strict constructionism means interpretting the law as literally as possible from how it is written. There is a genuine philoshophical difference.
2) All those who are so enamored of courts interpreting constitutionality should be aware that they are shooting themselves in the foot for purposes of the Prop 8 discussion. The courts ruled the original CA traditional marriage legislation was unconstitutional and struck it down. The voters of CA responded with Proposition 8 – which amends the state constitution to include the traditional definition of marriage. Once the constitution is changed the courts can no longer “interpret” it as unconstitutional. That is the whole point of Prop 8.
The federal govt works the same way. Ultimately the people, thru the legislative branch, trump the other branches. The legislature alone has the power to amend the constitution. The judicial branch can only interpret law in the context of the constitution, and the legislature can change the terms of that if it has the votes.
Tom hanks can just kiss my ass.
is hollywood full of rock hudsons………sad but looks like it.
Yeah, back off Tom Hanks! Do you make fun of retarded kids also? I bet you make funny faces at blind people and spin cats around in swivel chairs until they puke! Screw you, you’re history’s greatest monster!
Did you know that a majority of Americans supported segregation when those laws were ruled unconstitutional? No, I bet you didn’t
Why did he single out Mormons? Because Mr. Hanks is only brave when it’s in the script.
As a soon to be attorney (and already Mormon), I am sick of the liberal argument parroted by Don:
“The rulings from so called “activist” judges actually serve the purpose of protecting us from laws that are unconstitutional.
For example the good people of CA can vote to disallow woman from voting but that law would be deemed by the courts as unconstitutional.”
This argument-by-analogy fails for a number of reasons and I will only state one. In the “marriage cases” last summer, the CA Supreme Court ruled that the CA Constitution’s equal protection clause mandated the legality of same-sex marriage (query whether it would also mandate the legalization of group marriage/polyandry etc). In doing so, they were interpreted a broad clause in the Constitution. The passing of Prop 8 inserted a specific clause in the CA Constitution. As a matter of statutory construction, the specific always trumps the broad. Thus, the people effectively said, “no, you read that broad clause incorrectly.”
This is in no way analogous to the 19th Amendment which is a specific (not broad) statement concerning the right of suffrage.
Liberals: please stop using faulty reasoning in your arguments for the legalization of same-sex marriage.
This is the very reason I rarely go to the movies anymore-because of uninformed, liberal actors running off at the mouth instead of just acting, which is what they make a very good living at. No matter, they just won’t get any of my money. I’m no longer a Tom Hanks fan, among many others I used to go see.
Tom Hanks mainlines the kool-aid just like the rest of them. He never was nasty, now he has crossed the line like the rest of the mad dogs. You can’t be fooled by these smiling facis with the pretty wives. They hate anyone and anything that doesn’t agree with them…. Sieg Heil Tom… you tell me the difference.
[...] Mr. Hanks only dare attack easy victims like white men, white Christians and white Mormons? FROM: Big Hollywood Blog Archive Why Does Tom Hanks Single Out Mormons? __________________ Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll [...]
Hanks said the polygamist are a bizarre off shoot of the Mormons. If they are bizarre because they are polygamist then would Hanks also say that Muslim polygamist in the Arab world or Africa are bizarre. Don’t hold your breath on that one and we know why.
Why did Hanks single out Mormons? Two words. Mitt Romney.
“…and the truth is a lot of Mormons gave a lot of money to the church to make Prop-8 happen,” he told Tarts. “There are a lot of people who feel that is un-American, and I am one of them.”
Des – January 16th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
“I agree, his statement was still pretty ignorant. I just wanted to try to head off some of the, “He’s calling Mormon’s un-American” stuff, because he didn’t.”
The way I read it, it’s un-American to give money to support the cause you believe in, as long as someone disapproves of it, or feels discriminated against because of it. Since Mormons gave the money, they are un-American. No misunderstanding there.
I really want to be a conservative and still be open to social and personal liberty for all. It is a slippery slope. Even if I don’t care one way or another if gays can marry, I must. The reason is this: wherever the laws have changed to include gay marriage, lawsuits have abounded and the rights of people, religious groups, businesses and parents and been usurped to appease the gay community. These are religious groups, businesses and people who have always managed to have differing views but have respected each other and never felt the need to impose their beliefs on each other. Rather, in many ways they helped each other flourish. But now, for example, a local Catholic Charity has shut its doors and the many children who used to be adopted through this noble institution are no longer here. Why? Because they were sued and they in all good conscious could not change their rules based on their religion to acquiesce to the demands of gays who wanted the right, not necessarily to adopt, but to have the right to adopt regardless of the hundreds of years of tradition of Catholic Charities. As if there are no other alternatives.
If you have noticed, the founder of e-Harmony, a Mormon, whose labor of love was the uniting of couples in the traditional marriage, no longer does the commercials of his company now that he has been ordered, after a suit brought by gays who apparently could not find a single other matching group in the world, to offer non traditional couples the same e-Harmony program. And in Massachusetts, parents who objected to the new manuals in their children’s school showing the nudes bodies of gay men couples , gay female couples and man/woman couples, are in deep trouble. The list goes on. Therapists who don’t feel they have the expertise to counsel gays – sued. A photographer who didn’t want to do a gay wedding – sued. On and on.
So I must ask myself, is it really that gays want to have traditional marriage or are they looking for a deeper, moral acceptance. Moral acceptance is an inside job. It can’t be forced by taking away the rights of others. It may seem like it is working but if it was, there wouldn’t be such dogged ranting and suing. It would be a gentle, peaceful acceptance of each others differences, such as that between these groups prior to all the suits.
Tom Hanks is one of the greatest actors in history?
I stopped reading there.
Can someone help be out here? Was Hanks Turner or Hooch?
Can someone help me out here? Did Hanks play Turner or Hooch?
If you have noticed, the founder of e-Harmony, a Mormon, whose labor of love was the uniting of couples in the traditional marriage, no longer does the commercials of his company now that he has been ordered, after a suit brought by gays who apparently could not find a single other matching group in the world, to offer non traditional couples the same e-Harmony program.
Well, you have a point with the rest of your comments, but I can promise you as a member of eHarmony, the founder’s “labor of love” is anything but uniting couples. After 30 days when I realized I was being ripped off, I tried everything humanly possible (including paying them for 6 months I wouldn’t use) to get out of it. Columbia House has nothing on the leeches of eHarmony (and I just love the way the play it as some higher purpose with their advertising).
He’s an actor people. He pretends for a living. Why does it matter what his political views are? He has his opinions, respect them and move on. People get too caught up in what the “stars” think.
I am LDS.
And when the opportunity came for me to vote for the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman here in Texas, I did so gladly.
My church did not tell me how to vote. As I recall, the subject never even came up. Similar laws have been passed in 30 states and the LDS Church had nothing to do with it.
According to an ongoing Pew Research study, Mormons make up 2% of the population of the United States. There is no way Mormons are responsible for the passage of similar laws in 30 states. In many of these states the laws passed with a solid majority.
It seems there are a lot of un-American Americans living in America, voting to preserve traditional marriage. I bet a lot of them even donated to the cause. Someone ought to tell them Tom Hanks thinks they’re all Mormon. I’m sure they’ll be surprised…
Texas Mormon here again…eHarmony is not an LDS site. It’s evangelical Christian.
Mr Hanks makes a useful point. The Mormons, chiefly from out of state, chose to meddle in a California Proposition. They did so with a great deal of money, a good deal of fear-mongering, and no small amount of hypocrisy.
They have become a target because they made themselves so, in a disciplined, organized and — frankly — rather vicious way. They did so by appealing to low and backward values, and that is what is so un-American about the political position they took.
I have always thought that Mormons were just about the last group to be taken seriously when talking about ‘family values’ and the ’sanctity of marriage’. The latter was not the view of their founder, nor is it to be located in the Book of Mormon. Everyone knows the price they agreed to pay in order that Utah be admitted to statehood.
It is un-American to discriminate, to exclude, to hold as less worthy any of our citizens. We have known — or should — these truths for generations. The Mormons led the fight and tried to turn back the clock. They may be relatively few in numbers, but the patriarchal nature of their internal discipline, their practices of excommunication and shunning, and the clannish nature of their business practices in combination amplify a small voice into a noisy one.
The Mormons chose to act like a political party. Now they have their wish. Mr Hanks simply told the truth.
I’m pretty sure that Tom Hanks has hurt Mormons far worse than anything he perceives they have done to ‘civil rights’. Big Love has spawned more anti-Mormon bigotry and the gay dude who writes it knows that very well and said so when he claimed to have come up with the idea. He wanted to take a shot at somebody back during the whole Massachusetts gay marriage-by-judicial-fiat days. So he decided to target the Mormons.
While people who are familiar with Mormons (or LDS as they call themselves) know that the whole polygamy thing is heresy to Mormons even though it was promoted 100 years ago, the gay community in California wouldn’t admit that the ‘gay pride’ parades and all of their perversity are actually far, far more of the current mainstream within the gay community and not some kind of embarrassing minority who would be hidden if suddenly gay marriage were adopted with 90% of the vote and a Presidential proclamation.
Hanks and his friends write a cute story in Big Love but let’s be honest – the Mormons didn’t start this. And I’ll take Major Tom a lot more seriously when he takes a walk down to the First AME in Los Angeles about 11am on Sunday morning (the crowd should just be getting out around then) and hold up a sign calling them all bigots for denying Rosie ODonnell her ‘civil rights’.
And while Tom is at it, he can publicly denounce the McCarthyism (libtards think it’s a bad thing) involved in putting maps of all the people who gave money to the Prop 8 initiative. Tom can’t be dumb enough to not know what GLAAD would do it an anonymous website showed up with all of the households, names and addresses with maps of every gay person in Hollywood. Tom would claim it was a precusory to a modern Kristalnacht and he’d be close to being correct.
But because it is happening against his enemies, he is willing to wait until the violence ensues. Hanging Sarah Palin for Halloween wasn’t enough of a warning apparently. I guess Major Tom is going to wait for the first Mormon kid to get shot or a Mormon church to get firebombed.
The 70% African American vote for Prop 8 has been revised to 57% in some studies/analyses, but the affect of the African American vote on the passing of Prop 8 is still significant.
Our Founding Fathers would have had little to say about how the State’s determined to implement their legislation. They were Federalists, after all. They would not, I repeat, they would not have been appalled by California’s referendum/proposition component. That is just a liberal’s not so dry dream.
Does the fake anthrax sent to two LDS temples count? How about the LDS church that was vandalized? How about the LDS people in California pressured to resign from their jobs over their Prop 8 contributions?
Any perceived intolerance will not be tolerated.
Trent1280:
Your comments are reminiscent of 19th Century bigotry against Mormons. Are you a progressive or an inclusive or a diversity-tolerant?? Or a hopeychangey?
Trent,
“They have become a target because they made themselves so, in a disciplined, organized and — frankly — rather vicious way. They did so by appealing to low and backward values, and that is what is so un-American about the political position they took.”
What values would you say are backwards? That we wanted to preserve family values? That we believe that the destruction of the traditional family is a detriment to society? How is that low and backward? What was the viciousness of which you speak? I saw no cars parked in front of gay homes proclaiming them gay or degenerates. I saw no protests of screaming Mormons stalking gay church buildings and trying to disrupt the proceedings there.
“I have always thought that Mormons were just about the last group to be taken seriously when talking about ‘family values’ and the ’sanctity of marriage’. The latter was not the view of their founder, nor is it to be located in the Book of Mormon. Everyone knows the price they agreed to pay in order that Utah be admitted to statehood.”
Mormon is the equivalent to family values. One of the main church teachings in the last 25 years was “The Proclamation to the World”, which was nothing if not completely about the importance of family, and protecting it. Yes, Mormons paid a price to be admitted into the union. They were forced to give up some First Amendment rights in order to be in compliance with the bigotry and hatred coming from Washington and the states. But, they did it. And they have been in compliance with that law ever since. (No. There are no polygamous members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. If they practice polygamy, they are excommunicated)
“It is un-American to discriminate, to exclude, to hold as less worthy any of our citizens.”
There is no one being held as less worthy. Gays are not being discriminated against. The ones that are under attack are those that profess a Christian religious belief.
“We have known — or should — these truths for generations.”
What truths? That democracy is the will of the majority? That law should be made by the Legislature and the people and not the judges?
“The Mormons led the fight and tried to turn back the clock. They may be relatively few in numbers, but the patriarchal nature of their internal discipline, their practices of excommunication and shunning, and the clannish nature of their business practices in combination amplify a small voice into a noisy one.”
What clock? “Patriarchal nature” has to do with what in this fight? Do you think that Mormon women are so brainless and spineless that their husbands have to do all their thinking for them, and that’s why Prop 8 was voted in?
“The Mormons chose to act like a political party. Now they have their wish. Mr Hanks simply told the truth.”
Wrong. The Mormons chose to act like a religion, and defend their religious beliefs. The gay marriage movement is choosing to act like spoiled brats when they didn’t get their way. It’s not the Mormons alone who did this. Such a small minority of people, but such a big victory for Prop 8. How does that work again? The battle was actually on three fronts, by the way. Or did you forget about Florida and Arizona? Bringing the total of states to oppose gay marriage or to define marriage as between one man and one woman to 30. Sounds like a majority to me. Mr. Hanks has no concept of being an American if he thinks that you are not allowed to voice your own opinion, even if it’s in conflict with someone else’s.
What do elite Hollywood people believe?
From what I have seen, they pray at the alter of Oprah, Enviromentalism, GLAAD, PETA, Self Importance. Let them bow down at those alters.
I am glad that people like Tom Hanks are opening thier mouths and telling us what they think. It takes the shine off their stars.
I will continue to bow down to my Lord and Savior…Jesus Christ.
Wow what’s with all the black suits and just all the black these libs wear? I went to a website that McPherson was kibitzing about the Nielson ratings dumping on ABC and BAMM, he’s wearin black! Nolte,Tom,Penn,and ect. What gives? I mean I like black but do ya’ll notice it?
Just a ps on my behalf, I BOYCOTT all Hollyweird and Tom Hanks is not the greatest actor in history, ughhhh, rewrite this drivel!
JUST A THING THAT NEEDS TO BE SAID ABOUT THE AMERICAN THAT THE FOUNDING FATHERS SAW…. THEY WERE VERY CAREFUL TO AND CLEAR TO SET-UP A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC NOT A DEMOROCY OR WHAT EVER YOU WANT TO CALL WHAT WE HAVE NOW A OUR OPERATIONG GOVERNMENT…..
THAT IS CORRECT A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC!!!! ALL OF THEM ORE ROLLING OVER IN THE GROUND AT WHAT HAS BE COME OF THE BLODD OF THEM AND ALL OF OUR FOREFATHERS WHO LAID OUT THE IMPERFECT PLAN OF THE REPUBLIC….
WHAT IS EVEN MORE OF A WONDERING POINT FOR ME IS MR. HANKS AND HIS INVOLVEMENT WITH THE SERIES ABOUT J.Q. ADAMS ON HBO LAST YEAR. DID HE NOT LEARN ANYTHING FROM THAT HISTORY LESSON WHICH APPEARED TO BE MOSTLY HISTORY CORRECT???
Let’s see if I understand this — saying gays cannot marry is discriminatory, but polygamy is bizarre? Seems like I’m being discriminated against if I’m in love with two women and can’t marry both of them. And Hanks’ refusal to see my point of view must, by his own admission, make him un-American.
The liberal elite say that the recognition of only “traditional marriage” of a man to a woman is oppressive and must be overturned. With that logic, it should stand that “traditonal marriage” is oppressive to the rights of polygamists. For that matter, shouldn’t marriage to animals by a man or a woman (bestiality) be accepted?
The 70% African American vote for Prop 8 has been revised to 57% in some studies/analyses, but the affect of the African American vote on the passing of Prop 8 is still significant.
Our Founding Fathers would have had little to say about how the States determined to implement their legislation. They were Federalists, after all. They would not, I repeat, they would not have been appalled by California’s referendum/proposition component. That is just a liberal’s fantasy.
first DES:
giving money to a cause is not un-American.the anti-8 crowd raised more money than the pro-8 people did.you’re just pissed off because your side lost.so if those who gave on the pro-8 side are un-American,than so are those who gave on the other side.so you are un-American yourself.was it not Hillary Clinton that said “dissent is the greatest form of patriotism”.people like you bitch and whine because you can’t win legislatively,you rely upon activist judges to force your will on the people. you are nothing but an angry gay liberal that hates Christians.eharmony was and is based on finding matches for hetero-sexual couples period.he did not discriminate against you in any shape,way,matter,or form.his service was made for a man and woman.why in the world would you expect to find the eharmony program any other place than eharmony.that’s like byingba pc and getting pissed that it’s not a mac.this just proves the point that you don’t and never did want equality and acceptance.you want submission from everyone that doesn’t believe your beliefs.you are the real HATER.
hey Steve,you need to go back to writing for the daily kos and huffpo if you expect to get we applauded for your comments.isn’t it ironic that the same courts,same activist’s,and same liberals like yourself demonized and villified George w. bush for his wiretapping program.saying it was in constitutional are now saying hey it’s okay.what,it’s only okay when a democrat does it.what convenient timing don’t you think.right before Obama takes office.what about gitmo,for years we’ve heard nothing about how bad these people are that are there.only poor them,innocent victims of an evil republican government.they didn’t have their rights read to them,no chance for a trial,etc.that place should have been. loses a long time ago,he’ll it never should have opened in the first place.George bush has been lying to us all this time about who these people really are.here comes Obama,well…I won’t shut down gitmo right away,you know…uh…there are some dangerous people being held there.we just can’t send them back home or someplace else.it’s not that easy.so yes it is the same activist judges,now making things easy for their guy.
This is just the start. After they get Prop 8 overturned, the anti-prop 8 people will try and push it to every state in the union. Once that is done they will walk into a church and demand to be married and if the church says no, they sue. It is a round about way of getting rid of religion. But they will try. I know to think this way must be un-american, but I can not help it. It is the future that I fear is coming.
Those trying to assert that Mormons do not want to turn back the clock fail to acknowledge how hard they try to stop it altogether.
In 1978 (yes, 1978), the Mormons finally agreed to admit blacks to their ‘priesthood’. Why did it take them so long? Well, here’s what leading Mormons said about African-Americans. These are the ‘family values’ they have long attempted to uphold. Ready?
“The Negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concerned, …but this inequality is not of man’s origin. It is the Lord’s doing, is based on his eternal laws of justice, and grows out of the lack of spiritual valiance of those concerned in their First Estate [the pre-existence].” Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 527 – 528, 1966 edition
Or, consider Mormon Apostle Mark E. Petersen in an address at Brigham Young University on “Race Problems as They Affect The Church” (August 27, 1954, as quoted in Jerald and Sandra Tanner’s book The Changing World of Mormonism, p. 307):
“Now, we are generous with the Negro. We are willing that the Negro have the highest kind of education. I would be willing to let every Negro drive a Cadillac if they could afford it. I would be willing that they have all the advantages they can get out of life in the world. But let them enjoy these things among themselves.”
What do these documents suggest? Simply this. The Mormons have a long history of backward and un-American views which, like polygamy, they grudgingly abandoned ONLY when social pressures — and political advantage — proved too massive to withstand.
That said, it is no longer fashionable to practice polygamy (regardless of their Founder’s views) and overt racism (at least, after 1978). That said, no one in her/his right mind would ever consider the Mormons a progressive force in the American nation.
In California, they spent millions to defeat a finding of our state Supreme Court. They did so in the guise of ‘family values’. They did so by appealing to fear and base hatreds. “Some of my best friends are black/gay/Jewish” has become a sick joke, and Mormons have been rightly criticized for their hypocrisy in this.
I happen not to be gay, but as an American I value the first principles of our great democracy. “We hold these values to be self-evident…” has never, evidently, been self-evident to Mormons.
One final contradiction. For years, the Mormons have protested the ways their minority status has been devalued. Fair enough. But when they get a chance to defend another minority? They go running back to bias, fear and politics.
They are acting as a political party, advocating political interests. Pretending their views have anything to do with ‘family values’ is an absurd joke. Their own history (1978!!) has made it so.
Why does he single them out? Because he’s been drinking KoolAid out of Spielberg’s refrigerator. Thank God no one hates the Jews for their faith, right Steve?
Hanks…yawn…every bit of acting he does is the same…same same same same…from philadalphia to you’ve got mail…to his search for private ryan to forrest gump to sleepless in seatle…to unamerican mormons… just a lot of sappy drivel coming from a whiney actor, whose politial views are no more informed or valid than those paying to see and hear such cliches…..
>Prop 8 votes were far more likely to be influenced by religiosity and party I.D.
Prop 8 passed in CA, which went overwhelmingly Democratic on Nov 5.
California DEMOCRATS, the same people who gave all those electoral votes to Obama, also passed Prop 8. Are THEY un-American?
JIM R – January 16th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
No worries, guys…we Mormons are getting used to the insults.
Jim, come down here in steerage with us irish Catholics, after a 17 centuries of insults, persecution, slavery and murder, one grows thick skin when an idiot insults a christian religion. Hanks is a coward, the catholics, the jews, the blacks, protestants, the catholic hispanic and more supported prop 8. Hanks is an atheist, he is against all religion but his religion which is liberalism.
The Bill of rights were written to keep government in check, there is no ’spirit’ to the constitution, it isn’t a ‘living’ document, this is all leftist re-barb. The constitution, bill of rights and dec of indie are all legal documents.
The insane leftist SC judges ruled in favor of Al Gore who was trying to steal the election, just as the Dems have with that freak show Al Franken. If you remember, which you refuse too, Gore wanted only to count democratic votes in Dem area and not count republicans in those same area. The FL insane freak show court ruled in favor of AL Gore and the US SC said you can’t do that and all votes must be counted according to FL law. The liberals lost what was left of their minds and the Bush Derangement syndrome kicked in.
The only way Dems can win elections is to steal them and blame the republicans as the crooks. Its all a phony shell game with wannabee fascist nazis lite
The judges were not ‘liberal’ judges. The court is actually majority conservative Republican. They were just ruling on the idea that people deserve equal rights. Makes plenty of sense. If you believe in equal rights.
Anyone who would deny another the same rights is UN-American.
For those who might question the facts:
“Seven in 10 African Americans who went to the polls voted yes on Proposition 8.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110603880.html
Celebrity status means you get media attention. It says nothing about your brains or intelligence.
The judges were not ‘liberal’ judges. The court is actually majority conservative Republican. They were just ruling on the idea that people deserve equal rights. Makes plenty of sense. If you believe in equal rights.
Anyone who would deny another the same rights is UN-American.
Unfortunately, pretty much none of that is true (I’m sensing a pattern here). The judges are not “Conservative Republican.” Just because someone is appointed by a Republican, does not mean they themselves are Republican or Conservative (does the name Sutter ring a bell?).
Second, “they” weren’t ruling on equal rights, 4 of the 7 voted to expand marriage (based amazingly enough on the people of California trying to make sure homosexuals had the same rights for domestic partnerships….so no good deed goes unpunished). The 3 that voted against it had a brilliant dissenting opinion that everyone should read (because if judges can impose their will, that means it will go against you sometimes too).
As for your sweet tag line about equal rights, gays already had equal rights. Marriage isn’t a right (if someone wants to make it one, then I claim Emmy Rossum). Neither is health care, housing, or any of the other nonsense that Liberals try to pretend it is. Our economy crashed because people like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd insisted that poor people with bad credit had a “right” to get a home loan, regardless of their ability to pay it back. How’s that working out so far?
What is unAmerican is browbeating, chastising, and persecuting a minority that is exercising its civil rights because of religious conviction. Tom Hanks needs to quit pontificating.
Ouote “Why isn’t Hanks calling African Americans, who voted in large numbers for Prop. 8, “un-American?” Why isn’t Hanks taking aim at Hispanics who also voted against legalizing gay marriage? Is it, perhaps, because liberals like Mr. Hanks only dare attack easy victims like white men, white Christians and white Mormons?”
BINGO!!
So you’re saying gay white men can’t be victims? Wow dude, that’s harsh.
Tom Hanks like all the other “crafters” in Hollyweird suprises no one with his comments. The Left leaning entertainment egoists (remember these people make a living by WANTING to be looked at all the time) feel that Democracy and freedom means we can do what we want as long as it’s o.k. with them.
Leave the Mormons alone. It’s their right to stand behind what they believe in and VOTE the their choice.
But don’t worry folks the entertainment industry – especially in CA – is starting to IMPLODE. Those big buck movies will be a thing of the past as DOUGH DRIES UP. It’s a Good Thing!
BECAUSE HE ONLY WANTS TO ALIENATE THE MORMONS.
Tom Hanks, I used to like you. No longer. You phony Hollyweird libs make me want to hurl. Hollyweirdos are always standing up for the those they perceive are being persecuted – gays (who have the rights all Americans do – just aren’t able to use the term marriage), Palestinians who wish for all Jews to be dead (hey Tom, don’t you do business with a lot of Jews?), etc.
AMERICANS ARE SICK OF HOLLYWEIRDOS GIVING THEIR POLITICAL OPINIONS/SPEECHES IN PUBLIC. WE DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK!!!
I have a friend who flies a G-4 jet. He once took Tom Hanks and Stephen Speilberg from L.A. to Las Vegas. They ORDERED over $2500 worth of food for the one hour flight. It included cracked crab, lobster and other assorted entrees for a BREAKFAST flight.
These prima donnas ate little, if any, of the food and left it for the crew to either eat or dispose of. You see, when you are that rich and pampered, it makes it easy to criticize anyone who stands in your way, or disagrees with what they consider to be, the popular point of view.
Stick to playing acting Tom, you’re better suited to be someone else, and leave the real Hanks mouth in the privacy of your home…where it belongs.
Hollywood does not live in the real world, no matter how much they try to play that they do.
If you want to get informed about what Mormons really believe, go to http://www.mormon.org – an official LDS source of information.
Tom Hank’s comment is about “free speech” – “Stupid is – Stupid does” comes to mind from one of his previous movies…my opinion…my observation…
Hollywood is simply “make believe” and its actors seem to forget there is a real world beyond the boundaries of Hollywood…
Have a nice day folks and please be friendly to one another – even if they think differently…
Tom Hanks is an idoit. He thinks that someone who disagrees with two men prancing around and pretending they are Ozzie and Harriet is akin to hate speech. Hollywood can sanction it but no nation in human history has survived the plague of permissive sexual mores. The problem is that the average citizen is so dumbed down that they are incapable of seeing past emotional arguments that Hollywood so succesfully sells: Ironically, we pay to be decieved.
America is finished: Illegitimacy has created an army of future criminals who till rein terror on destruction on the middle class. Greed has made us addicted to money like a crack head needing another rock and the government no longer has any tricks to keep the economy going except to print more money. Get your guns while you can.
I see that Mormons on this board have not even attempted to defend their group’s past views on the alleged inferiority of blacks. They have not even tried to explain why it took until 1978 to admit blacks to their version of heaven and the priesthood.
But they continue to pretend that they have always believed, because God told them so, that marriage is a sacred bond between one man and one woman, conceived to procreate and to last all eternity. Gay people need not apply.
This ludicrous proposition completely ignores the Mormon history of polygamy, one still practiced in distant reaches of Utah. Their views conveniently overlook a logical fallacy: was Joseph Smith right about polygamy, but later became wrong? Or did God change his mind? Or did some mischievous force rewrite Moroni’s plates of gold?
Mormonism, like most political institutions, has evolved over the years. Where once they were a small sect talking about Lamanites (the nautical Hebrews who settled in North America), today they control Utah, Bonneville media, Marriot, and numerous other enterprises. (Mitochrondrial DNA has completely undermined their Founder’s absurd claims about the Lamanites, and most smart Mormons will no longer discuss it.)
Mr Hanks pointed out their un-American ways, and correctly so.
That others share their homophobia is beyond dispute. But the prime subject of this posting is that of Mr Hanks and his claim that these Mormon views are un-American.
Any group that practices discrimination against blacks, gays or whomever is — by definition — un-American. Mormon views have evolved, to be sure, although where that leaves the ‘eternal’ ideation of their God is not clear.
Polygamous Mormons were wrong about the family in the 19th C. They were wrong about blacks in the 20th C. They are wrong about gays in the 21st C. Luckily for real Americans, our country is greater than their backwardness. If it were not so, we would still be huddled in shacks on the shores of News England, singing ‘Rule Britannia’.
Is there, even today, a black woman serving on the Quorum of Twelve?
When there is, most Americans would be pleased to hear it. Until then? Mormonism remains the backward force that Mr Hanks, and millions of others, have seen it to be.
Marriage is NOT “a right”. Marriage licenses are not “a right.” Drivers licenses are not “a right”. Each of these things must be qualified for and how they’re qualified for differs per the licensing and procedure involved (granting that marriage, however, exists in a more profound realm than the others, one referencing both societal protections but also religious dedications for most).
And civil rights are not (at all) the same thing/s as “human rights”.
Issues the “‘gay’ marriage” people blur and seem to intentionally confuse and obfuscate inorder to create an emotional confusion they then exploit.
I’m curious if Tom Hanks has donated any money to any political cause or individual (or both)…I’m SURE he has.
Thus, it’s as American as Apple Pie to support within the limits of the law the politics you chose to support, as a citizen.
What I find dubious and decidedly “un-American” is the Obama campaign accepting donations from people in other nations. Which is also illegal but who is Obama to play by the legal rules.
It’s ok to single out a group and disparage them…as long as it is white Christians.
Facts: Disagreement is not hate speech. I simply do not believe that homosexuality is genetic and by the time the biological arguments for it are falsified it wont matter; the LGBT community will have won the culture wars and it will be a moot point. For the sake of argument, let’s assume homosexuality is genetic. Let’s also assume bi-sexual behavior is also genetic as well as attraction to children under the age of 10. DNA DOES NOT HAVE SOCIAL MORES ATTACHED TO ITS HELIX!! So if one type of sexual behavior is genetic then why not allow all sexual expression since the genes make it so? One last thing: If the genetic argument is true why arent pre-puberty children clamouring to date 40 and 50 year old men and women? Their genes should give them that desire…
JIM P:
A person wrote a letter to the editor of the local Palo Alto rag and suggested that homosexuals call their civil unions “pairrage.”
Love and pairrage, love and pairrage,
Go together like a horse and carriage,
Dad was told by
motherfatherYou can’t have one without the other.
Well it’s pretty easy: Mormons are considered “acceptable targets”, which means that it is okay for you be an open hater of them.
The truth is that Tom Hanks is a vile miscreant who is in the service of the devil to defame Jesus Christ. His movies, regardless of subject, will never be viewed by anyone in this household of faith. It is no surprise that he is also a COWARD. Just as the liberals rant against the “oppressive” Christianity everywhere, while studiously ignoring the ISLAMIC RADICALS who would BE-HEAD them just for BEING liberals, he is true to form. Remember when all the rappers were making anti-gay statements and the libs were too afraid to call them on it? Or remember when Mike Tyson was calling everyone he could a “Faggot”? Nary a peep outta GLAD or ACT-UP! These people NEVER confront anyone who would call them what they are and tell them to go suck eggs! They only bother the poor MIS-GUIDED Christians who suffer their nonsense out of some misplaced idea of “tolerance”. The reality is that the first guy who proposed homosexuals getting married should have been stoned and his bloody corpse should have been dragged through the street as an example to all those who would live such ungodly lives.
2Pe 2
4For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
5And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
Now of course, WE are no longer in the former testament, Christ will judge the homosexuals and everyone else that offends him and will destroy them with the brightness of His coming. Don’t think I’m advocating the stoning of anyone. I’m just saying that their ungodly proposals should have been met with much less “tolerance” and a whole lot more, “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FRIGGIN’ MIND GET OUT OF HERE YOU IDIOT!!!”
******DAN THE MAN – January 17th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
If Jesus were on Earth right now, he would be friends with gay people and he would have no problem at all with allowing them to marry. Actually, he would most likely perform or at least attend the ceremony, and he would also drink wine and get down and have a good time celebrating the love shown by two people.
According to the Gospels, Jesus never said anything about homosexuality.
Let’s hear it for hate-filled bigotry in the name of God, Christianity, and right-winged politics.
Go America!”*****
Perhaps no other post on this thread can be used to show the stunning ignorance as it relates to Jesus Christ! Notice how Dan the Man says that “According to the Gospels, Jesus never said anything about homosexuality” This is a typical liberal LIE spouted by people that want you to THINK they actually read the bible but in reality they just copy these quotes from some liberal nutbag website. Here is your bible study Dan, be thankful, people pay lots of money for this….
EVERY word of the old and new testament that says “THE LORD SAYS” or that “God said to Moses” or whatever was referring to JESUS CHRIST. He is God not some third leg on a stool.
1 Peter 1:10-12 (King James Version)
10Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:
11Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.
12Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.
As you can see Dan the Prophets WHICH WOULD INCLUDE MOSES “prophesied” by the SPIRIT OF CHRIST who would not make his earthly appearance for another thousand or so years! That doesn’t really square with the false doctrine of most so called churches but it’s truth anyhow. Not enough for ya? Well, when the Lord spoke he used WORDS didn’t he? And guess who IS the WORD OF GOD? Hint: His name is Jesus.
JOhn 1:1
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And, are you paying attention Dan? The WORD which was with God which in fact WAS God, did something special, know what it is? HE became FLESH. The incarnation of Jesus CHrist. See DAn the only “Spirit” in the Flesh of Jesus Christ is the HOLY SPIRIT! I realize this will trip up some of my trinitarian friends but that’s what they get for believing in phrases that don’t come from the bible like, “trinity”. The bible doesn’t support that. THe bible declares Christ to be the WOrd of God which spoke life into existence (John 1:3, Colossians1:15 etc)
COLOSSIANS 1:12-19
12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
See, Dan, contrary to the opinions of many false churches, the bible is not confused as to who Jesus is! He is the IMAGE of the invisible God. Which is what you would expect if God clothed himself in flesh, right? Which means that JEsus is the ONE who DESTROYED SODOM AND GOMORRAH, Danny boy! And your statement that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality? Why would he “mention” something he utterly despises? Why mention something that he destroyed two cities for practicing? While he didn’t “mention” particular sins, it doesn’t mean that they AREN’T SINS. Christ’s earthly visitation was to save that which is lost, (Jewish people) to be rejected according to prophecy (Isaiah 53) and to open a fount of salvation to all who would forsake their lives and follow Him, ( acts 1:4,8, Acts 2:4, acts 2:38)! But that doesn’t mean that He is not judging and condemning! All in due time for instance, those who go to false churches that teach that “all you have to do is call on the name of the Lord and you’ll be saved” will certainly be surprised to find that quote was WOEFULLY taken out of context because Jesus who did NOT come to bring peace on earth (Matt 10:34-36) will have none of it, read ( Matt 7:21-23)! Oh and about Jesus hanging with the gays, probably, but only to tell them to REPENT. Because Jesus most certainly DID tell you the order of things and what he will or WON’T be “tolerant” of! And by the by dan, Jesus did offer His opinion on marriage! Want to hear it?
Matthew 19:3-5 (New International Version)
3. Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4. “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?
Notice how it’s MALE and FEMALE, ADAM and EVE not ADAM and STEVE? He didn’t think he had to warn you against the sin he reduced cities to ashes for! Gave you more credit than you deserved methinks. So in the end, you and all who seek to slander and defame Christ as some “acceptor” of homosexuality are SADLY MISTAKEN.
As a Mormon and a Filmmaker, I’m actually more offended at the “un-American” comment in the context of Mr. Hanks lack of understanding of our country, rights, laws, Constitution and founding. It is clearly stupid, the comment that singles out Mormons, but it tells much more about Mr. Hanks. It is personally a shame. I love his acting and have respected him for years. Unfortunately he has been blinded my the bubble he lives in. I wish actors would not use their celebrity as a platform to share their bizarre views. Just act please. I don’t think Tom Hanks is un-American for opposing Prop 8. But I do think he is un-American for his comments.
What’s un-American is calling someone or a group of people un-American simply because you don’t agree with them.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions and entitled to support whatever cause they wish to support without being publicly branded as something by some Hollywood actor. Tom Hanks is now near the top of the Hollywood idiot list and it’s too bad since I like his acting.
Why do actors keep thinking they know more than the rest of us? They are just actors, not a bunch of Einsteins.
It’s difficult for me to understand what thought process goes through an actors mind making these sorts of political pronouncements. Actors venturing onto this ledge use up the very currency they spent their careers trying to amass, their likeability of “Q” factor. It is perhaps noteworthy the only actors “brave” enough to insult 50% of their viewing public are the ones who now have enough actual currency that they can afford to alienate people.
Alas, add Hanks to a growing list of entertainers who felt insulting me was not important to their bank accounts and on whom I will no longer feel any obligation to further enrich.
[...] Why isn’t Hanks calling African Americans, who voted in large numbers for Prop. 8, “un-American?… [...]
Dan the Man,
Before you post something so inane as what you wrote could you please start with ‘I think’? Then I could ignore it as the ramblings of a fringe lunatic. You actually took it upon yourself to tell us exactly how Jesus would behave if he were here today.
I won’t repeat your idiocy. I will quote ‘the man’ you misrepresented:
” ‘Haven’t you read’ he replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate’ “.
Regardless of your political squabbles, Jesus saw marriage as the uniting as a man and a woman ‘Male and female he created them’. Man’s laws are just that. You say he would have had ‘no problem at all’ with allowing gays to marry. Why did he not take that opportunity to expand the definition of marriage? If we’re going to quote scripture then we need to deal with the writings of Jesus’ hand-picked apostle, Paul. Those really aren’t very supportive of your speculation.
You have every right to govern yourself the way you choose. Don’t drag Jesus in to support an argument that he clearly wouldn’t.
Hey, the guy’s an actor. Consider the source. Although I have lost some enthusiasm about seeing his next movie that he has once again mis-cast himself in.
Mormons are a target because they made themselves so.
They did this by spending millions of dollars to purchase the outcome of Prop 8. Now that they have been identified and called on it, they are whining and moaning and claiming ‘discrimination’.
Those of us (we call ourselves ‘Americans’) who believe in the founding values of our country find in Mormon homophobia a moral disgrace. And an appalling hypocrisy. No wonder they are feeling wounded. They have been.
Their views on polygamy are well-known, and were magically altered — presumably by God — in order to secure the admission of Utah to statehood. Their views on blacks coincided with passage of the Civil Rights Act, and were such a disgrace as to require amendment — again, presumably by God.
Today, having lost the other battles, Mormons are trying to defend the sanctity of marriage as reserved for one man and one woman.. or more, when you look below the surface.
Mormons simply have no credibility whatsoever when it comes to defining traditional marriage and family values. Zero. The descendants of Planet Xenu are about as serious.
Hey Seany: speaking of idiots, please learn how to spell. It’s really not that difficult to do. You wrote,
“SEANY RIVER – January 17th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
WHY DO WE SPEND MORE THAN 20 WORDS ON THESE OBAMA IDIOT SEVANTS?”
The word you might have been looking for is ’savants’. Or perhaps ’servants’. Or, perhaps even ’seven’. Hard to tell with you well-educated right-wingers.
We’ve just spent 8 years being led by a President who can barely speak English. You and Mr Bush seem to share a common affliction. So, a simple request: learn to spell. Learn grammar and syntax. And stop coming across as the nitwit you appear to be.
The English language, properly deployed, is a powerful tool for world communication. In your hands, it comes out as gibberish.
It seems the author forgot the all important 9th and 10th Amendments.
By the way, Tom Hanks is a typical Hollywood hypocrite – he acts as if he is such a great supporter of The Greatest Generation, yet the freedoms our veterans fought so bravely for apparently only apply to Tom Hanks’ left-wing agenda preferences.
Hey Pat: you miss the point. You are few in numbers, but rich in resources. The clannish business practices of Mormons, the hiring and investing and tithing, enables you to amplify your voice far beyond the numbers you actually represent.
Mormons alone? Except in Utah and a few other places, you are a minority. This appears to be God’s Will, whether you like it or not.
Mormon money? That’s a good deal. When the Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco contacted members of your Quorum, he knew what he was doing. His own church, bankrupted by legions of pedophile priests, could not afford to bankroll Prop 8. The Mormons could, and did.
As the story was exposed in the SF Chronicle on 10 November 2008, “Months before the first ads would run on Proposition 8, San Francisco Catholic Archbishop George Niederauer reached out to a group he knew well, Mormons. Niederauer had made critical inroads into improving Catholic-Mormon relations while he was Bishop of Salt Lake City for 11 years. And now he asked them for help on Prop. 8, the ballot measure that sought to ban same-sex marriages in California.
“The June letter from Niederauer drew in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and proved to be a critical move in building a multi-religious coalition – the backbone of the fundraising, organizing and voting support for the successful ballot measure. By bringing together Mormons and Catholics, Niederauer would align the two most…”
And there you have it. There are far, far more Catholics than Mormons, but Mormon money made a tremendous difference. Having purchased Prop 8, the Mormons are now being held to account.
The same religious organization founded by a polygamist, which until 1978 forbade blacks to enter the Mormon ‘priesthood’, now fights to turn the tide of human freedom — yet again — in the arena of gay marriage.
As we have said before, the Mormons are the last people to whom any rational person would turn for advice about ‘family values’. How many wives did Joseph Smith have? FIVE.
How many wives did Brigham Young have? TWENTY-SEVEN.
Their names were Miriam Works, Mary Ann Angell, Lucy Ann Decker, Harriet Elizabeth Cook Campbell, Augusta Adams, Clarissa Decker, Clarissa Ross, Emily Dow Partridge, Susan Snively, Olive Grey Frost, Emmeline Free, Margaret Pierce, Maria Lawrence, Ellen Rockwood, Martha Bowker, Naamah Kendel Jenkins, Zina Diantha Huntington, Louisa Beaman, Margaret Maria Alley, Lucy Bigelow, Mary Jane Bigelow, Eliza R. Snow, Eliza Burgess, Harriet Barney, Harriet Amelia Folsom, Mary Van Cott and Ann Eliza Webb.
Perhaps you don’t find his appetites grotesque, and his attitudes misogynist. The rest of us do.
Why would you want to belong to a cult founded by such creeps?
Mr Hanks has merely pointed out the obvious.
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Trent1280:
When were you excommunicated?
Hey Tex: not me. Not ever. The very idea of joining such a bizarre cult is, to me, akin to joining Scientology, EST, or the Raelians. It just makes no sense. I prefer facts, evidence, logic; ie, truth.
How about yourself? Still believe in nautical Hebrews, your friends the Lamanites? That was one of the very weirdest of Mormon beliefs, now utterly discredited by science and mitochondrial DNA. Perhaps you’ve heard of DNA?
No, I suppose not.
Mormons, it would appear, are not encouraged to think independently, critically, or scientifically. Any cult that believes in the Angel Moroni, the mysterious disappearing Golden Plates, “spirit prison”, three heavens (Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial), and baptizing the dead is just a little too peculiar for normal Americans. To say nothing of the grotesque venal appetites of your polygamous Founders and Prophets.
Good luck finding your way into the 21st Century!
Hey Madelyn: I don’t recall ever saying I favored affirmative action, or anything like it. A liberal? Hardly. Favoring discrimination? Where did you get that from?
You guys just make things up, don’t you? Acting on zero evidence, you leap to irrational conclusions founded on nothing.
Self-righteous? If I wanted to know about that, I would go to someone silly. Like you.
Perhaps you will, one day, be able to accept the rational world. If not, I expect you will continue in your odd beliefs, along with your fellow make-up artists.
Hey Carolyn: What a sweet thought. Clearly the views of a true Christian! And, in a far-fetched way, childishly witty.
Thank you very much — especially for your skill in refuting the history of the Mormons, and their… well, peculiar beliefs. Lamanites, anyone? The status of blacks pre-1978? Baptizing the dead? And the little matter of Mountain Meadows?
You confirm everything people already know about you, Carolyn. Keep up the good work! We expect no less. I look forward to your tales of visiting angels and golden plates. You know the one… but be sure to get your husband’s permission first! Or your son’s.
“At age twelve, boys become members of the Aaronic, or lesser priesthood, and at nineteen become eligible for the Melchezedek, or higher priesthood. Members of either priesthood are higher authorities on everything than are non-members. Women are, of course, excluded from the priesthood. This practice in effect says that a woman’s prepubescent son is more qualified to advise her than she is to advise him.”
Strange cult, don’t you think?
Perhaps you don’t think. Mormons generally don’t expect it of their women. Night, doll.
==Jesus was NOT the son of God.==
Now, I gotta choice, trust you, or trust the Word of God. Hmmm. I take the Word of God.
== Could he build up enough surface tension to walk on water?==
Irrelevant.
== And the only way to turn water into wine is to add grapes and fermentation to it, put it in a bottle, and let it sit for a year.==
Irrelevant.
==And if you check your beloved Bible you will find tons of polygamous marriages with the full approval of the Big Cheese.==
Like where?
==Do you know why Tom Hanks doesn’t attack Jews or blacks? Because Jews and blacks didn’t raise money for a calculated effort to take rights away from a group, and then demonize them.==
There is no effort, calculated, or otherwise, to take Rights from those who have them. Regarding those who say they are homosexual, the Prop 8 vote took no Rights that were there before the vote.
== If you consider me a sinner, then you do not love me).==
If God considers you a sinner, God doesn’t love you???
==People get too caught up in what the “stars” think.==
Hollywood stars think??? Well, I’ll be.
==If Jesus were on Earth right now, he would be friends with gay people and he would have no problem at all with allowing them to marry. ==
Except that He would have a problem with it.
==Actually, he would most likely perform or at least attend the ceremony, and he would also drink wine and get down and have a good time celebrating the love shown by two people.==
Make the scriptural case. But tremember Romans 1:18.
==According to the Gospels, Jesus never said anything about homosexuality.==
The Gospels, for one thing, don’t say that.
Jesus was God on Earth. So where God says He detests what we now call “homosexuality,” Jesus says He detests it.
==If Jesus were on Earth right now, he would be friends with gay people and he would have no problem at all with allowing them to marry. ==
How do YOU know?
Well, He would not support what God says He detests.
==Actually, he would most likely perform or at least attend the ceremony, and he would also drink wine and get down and have a good time celebrating the love shown by two people.==
Nothing in His life suggest that. Nothing He said suggests that.
==According to the Gospels, Jesus never said anything about homosexuality.==
‘Cept that the Gospels never say that.
Jesus was God on Earth. Where God says he detests what we now call “homosexuality,” Jesus says He detests it.
==Jesus was NOT the son of God.==
I gotta choice: Believe you, or believe the Word of Truth. I choose the Word of Truth.
== Could he build up enough surface tension to walk on water?==
Irrelevant.
== And the only way to turn water into wine is to add grapes and fermentation to it, put it in a bottle, and let it sit for a year.==
Irrelevant.
==And if you check your beloved Bible you will find tons of polygamous marriages with the full approval of the Big Cheese.==
Make the scriptural case, remembering Romans 1:18.
==If you consider me a sinner, then you do not love me).==
If God judges you to be a sinner, then God doesn’t love you???
Hey Madelyn:
You are clearly struggling, but please don’t worry. I think you are doing the best you can, regardless of intellectual disability. God loves you, no matter what.
Even so, you might want to lay off watching the old episodes of ‘The A Team’. Your efforts to imitate Mr T make you sound, well, foolish.
Otherwise, keep up the good work! With every post, you surpass our expectations.
Trent,
With all due respect,
Please answer this one simple question:
What state interest, specifically, do you believe homosexual “marriage” would serve?
Once gay “marriage” advocates can persuasively answer that fundamental secular question, their chances of attaining their political objectives will improve.
Good luck!
El Gordo,
Exactly!
Hanks et ilk’s intolerant “un-American” displacement against, in this case, Mormons is risk-free.
It is no more complicated than frightened defense mechanisms redirecting anger at the democratic process that subverted their cause and, more threateningly, the homo-thugs (’Liberal Fascists’) that would mercilessly threaten the “security” of their social standing in Hollywood (livelihoods).
“The legally, factually, and ethically correct frame of reference is this: ALL LAWS, without exception, must apply equally to all adults, regardless of race, creed, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.”
————
You’ll notice that this equality through Law is not extended to anyone when they come for your money though. Taxing labor should be un-American.
I would just like to point out that no member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave money to their CHURCH for the Pro-Campaign of Proposition 8. Each person who decided to donate money for the pro-8 campaign went to “Protect Marriage,” a cooalition run by a group of people from several different religions. It is NOT a Mormon-run group.
That aside, I, too, find it disturbing when public figures make statements which allude to the fact that they don’t have their facts straight. It is unfortunate so many Hollywood figures have decided to come out against a group of people who were exercising their right to vote and have their voice heard. I, too, will have Tom’s comment in the back of my mind as I watch his films, which will just make it so annoying I’ll probably refrain from being one of his consumers. Sorry, Tom. This is goodbye.
==Would you even worship Jesus if he were gay?==
That inquiry comes under the Word of God heading of a “foolish question.”
Well, Hanks just opened mouth, and he is now another actor I will not be paying for a ticket to watch.
The people voted, and now they want to overthrow the people’s voice?
I fear, we are heading the ways of the UK and their really ridiculous PC ways.
I don’t have a problem with homosexuals, but I do have a problem with those like in San Fran…public displays of nudity and sex have no place in a society that wants to maintain some sort of dignity.
RE: Trent, keep preaching the truth about the Un-American Mormon Cult. Anyone who questions the church elders in any way gets excommunicated. How long before this happens to the minority of non-unAmerican Mormons who opposed Prop H8?
O.k., usually I just ignore stupidity, but I’m calling BS on this one. For the record I do belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and I did vote for prop 8. But (and this is a big but) many of the members of my congregation didn’t. It was their choice. One of my good friends even wrote an anti 8 letter to the editor that was printed in our local newspaper. Has she been excommunicated? Why, no. Shunned? No again. Called into the bishop’s office and given a stern talking to? No no no. And she still has her Church calling.
I am so sick of people who DON’T belong to my Church telling me what “really” happens in it. (Or what I believe, but that’s another topic.)
The truth is, we were asked to volunteer–volunteer! And many people did NOT volunteer and NO action has been or will be taken against them.
Attmay, being a 52 year old male male, I have male friends of 40 years that I love, am commitment to, and trust, but we aren’t married. What you think “love, commitment, and trust” is strictly a marriage thing? Its a human thing and friend thing as well.
Christianity looks at the Old Testament as metaphorical, you don’t believe in the New Testament. Fine. I’ll use the Old. When God went to Noah and told him to get two of every kind of animal, he also told him a male and a female. Why?
And lets be clear here, I believe that gays should have every right that married couples enjoy. Lets call it civil unions. 90% of my gay friends really don’t want the marriage part, but they do want the “goodies” that are given to married couples. They should have that.
Marriage is a millennium old tradition, a sacrament in religion. This country was founded on the principle of freedom of religion, though the latest push is a freedom from religion. We have people claiming that the government can’t touch anything concerning morality, fine. The government should be out of the marriage business.
==I believe that gays should have every right that married couples enjoy.==
They already do.
==…they do want the “goodies” that are given to married couples. They should have that. ==
See? It’s all about money.
==The government should be out of the marriage business.==
Then quit appealing to government to solve the problem.
It’s difficult enough to get my wife to watch a HANKS movie in the first place. Now he goes and says something that he may just as well have been said about fellow Catholic and Protestant Christians, or about Muslims and religious Jews. Of course Mormonism, Catholics and most Protestants speaking strictly from a doctrinal sense laid out in the Old and New Testimants note that homosexual behavior is considered sinful. We also note that God loves the sinner and it is for HIS judgment to entreat each of us a sinners as God pleases, but for us, Mormons and other Christians we are to love, respect and forgive all people their trespasses. This tolerance does NOT mean we are compelled to accept an abhorred practice. We can still demonstrate our compassion, tolerance and love for those who wish to practice life choices and ways for which we personally and/or institutionally disagree. We MORMONS, CATHOLICS, PROTESTANTS and I believe or at least hope JEWS and most MUSLIMS would still do as GOD bids and love our fellowman and exhibit forgiving kindness regardless. Most of us do and I FAIL to see Mr. HANKS clammor that we are sumehow UN-AMERICAN for protecting what we deem sacred. We shouldn’t be forced to accept as right that which we deem wrong. But we ALL as a majority would find any lack or tolerance, love or compassion even LESS accepting to our religious nature. We don’t need “gay” marriage for marriage is a holy covenant between man and woman as in the beginning and retained as tradition. Had we LOST the issue along side the MANY other CHRISTIAN and NON-CHRISTIAN people that supported Proposition 8, we would have all lived with the result and survived. Fighting for what we believe in does NOT make us UN-AMERICAN. That does not make us hateful, evil or narrow minded. It just meant our opinion placed us at political odds on the need to grant some special privelege to people electing a gay lifestyle which was heretofore reserved throughout the world to be deemed an act of contrite and hopeful covenent between people of the opposite sex. Hanks has apparently reduced the marriage act to anyone conjoining with anything desiring cohabitation and calling it a sacred union. The demands of this particular body elite rises the demands of the majority sane an acceptance of a level of narcissism to which I am not going to give in any further. Folks, be gay, be at peace, be of good cheer, but enough already. I with the overwhelming majority of other CHRISTIANS and even most MUSLIMS and JEWS hope to be powerful enough within to love you and care for you in Godly ways with honest compassion while being yet allowed to entirely disagree with your choices. Please do not think yo have some right to ask for more. Thank you!
==God loves the sinner…==
God loves all, but He says that He will not save all. He calls all to repentance, but not all will repent.
==…we are to love, respect and forgive all people their trespasses.==
My Example is God, through Jesus Christ.
God does not fo’give without repentance.
Biblical “love” is “unselfish concern for the Salvation of others, as much concern for THEIR Salvation as we have for our own.”
== We can still demonstrate our compassion, tolerance and love for those who wish to practice life choices and ways for which we personally and/or institutionally disagree.==
Biblical “compassion” is demonstrated in Matthew 9:36, where Jesus has “compassion” on those who are as sheep without a shepherd.
There is no biblical “tolerance” for the workers of evil.
God sent His Love. His Love is His Word. We send His Love — that is, His Word. THAT is biblical “love.” We do what God did, then what Jesus did — that is, send the Message of God’s Offer of Reconciliation with Man.
==…do as GOD bids and love our fellowman and exhibit forgiving kindness regardless.==
We have to be careful not to graft our meanings to God’s Message. His Love is not worldly love. His fo’giveness is not what WE think fo’giveness is.
==We shouldn’t be forced to accept as right that which we deem wrong.==
Even more clear, we shouldn’t be forced to accept as right and correct that which GOD deems wrong.
==We don’t need “gay” marriage for marriage is a holy covenant between man and woman…==
So-called “same-sex ‘marriage’” has no use in the society that God envisioned.
==Fighting for what we believe in does NOT make us UN-AMERICAN. That does not make us hateful, evil or narrow minded.==
Those who claim to be homosexual have to make up stuff to fight against. So, they say any opposition to what they want to force on the rest of us is “hateful, evil” and “narrowminded.”
Attmay,
Full disclosure: I am what you would call a lapsed Christian. I still hold the beliefs, but I haven’t been to church in a while.
You claim “love the sinner, hate the sin” as being BS line of thought, and that if you hate the sin you therefore hate the sinner. I was under the impression, from all my Christian friends and the church services I attended that we are ALL sinners, thus Christ’s comment “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…” and why we are supposed to ask God for forgiveness for our trespasses when we pray. This does not preclude me from loving my family, my friends, and my ex-girlfriend. Some people annoy me, but that’s life. I can’t even really say I hate anyone anymore (Honestly I used to, but that was two particular individuals whose malfeasance nearly destroyed my family; and is an entire novel unto itself).
I am sick and tired of all actors who think anything they have to say is important to anyone. Let them make good movies and be done with it.
Hey Mr Smithereens: Your asked, “With all due respect, Please answer this one simple question:
What state interest, specifically, do you believe homosexual “marriage” would serve?”
A fair and necessary question, and its answer is fair and direct.
Equality.
Equality under the law, for all citizens, at all times. It is the very ideal and hope of America. I myself am not black, nor gay, nor anything other than a standard-issue white citizen who has no problem being, or working, or living anywhere. Alas, the same cannot be said of all our citizens.
In specific regard to gay marriage, it is in our Constitutional and American interest to ensure that no adult citizen is denied the right to civil marriage. I do NOT believe that any church must be forced to participate in such marriages. This would be quite wrong. Typically, Catholics do not marry in synagogues, nor Muslims at the Sally Ann, nor atheists anywhere but in the Church of St Hitchens.
Come the rise of gay marriage, we will join the ranks of over a dozen advanced, industrial democracies. In Canada three years ago, two RCMP officers were married by their commanding officer, and honored by the traditional raised sword salute granted by members of their regiment. You’ve already guessed the rest.
Has Canada collapsed because they have had gay marriage for years? Hardly. The Canadian military (wherein gays serve openly) fights with extraordinary courage in Afghanistan — today. And the RCMP? I wouldn’t go messing with them — for any reason.
I hope this answers your very fair question. OUR interest lies in sheer equality for all our people. No decent American could be opposed to this. Crackpots might be.
Mr Incredible: As you appear to have direct access to God, and unimpeachable understanding of His word, I wonder if you could explain the exegesis of the following Bible passage:
“When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property.” Exodus 21:20-21 NAB
This clearly rationalizes and justifies slavery.
If you no longer hold this belief, how do you justify sinning against God’s explicit word?
If you do honor God’s word, how do you justify sinning against the US Constitution?
Life is hard for people who cannot think for themselves, but I’m sure you will figure out a way. Eventually. After you do, then perhaps you could explain this one:
“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.” (Dt 14:21b) I’ve always been troubled by that one. I’m sure you have, too.
Hey Liz and WestCoastGirl: I appreciate your efforts to rationalize and otherwise make disappear the Mormon history of institutional racism. Democrats do the same in regard to their party’s actual conduct in the South from the time of Lincoln well into the 1950s, and beyond. It is admirably loyal of you.
Unfortunately, your fury is betrayed by the facts.
The Mormons, through their Quorum of Twelve, the all-male priesthood which governs their group, have a long belief in the truth of revelation, and the power of prophecy. From the rise of the modern civil rights movement, through to passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, they began to suffer losses — financial, social and political — because of their belief that blacks could not serve in positions of authority. Indeed, blacks were also to be denied entry to the 3 heavens in which Mormons believe.
Conveniently, in 1978, there was a Revelation. Here’s how it is recorded in your own Mormon sources:
“On June 9, 1978, then-church president Spencer Kimball, who is considered to be a prophet, announced the revelation.
“Current church president Gordon Hinckley, who as a high church official in 1978 was present during the priesthood revelation, described the event in a 1988 magazine article: “No voice audible to our physical ears was heard. But the voice of the Spirit whispered with certainty into our minds and our very souls. & All of us knew that the time had come for a change and that the decision had come from the heavens.”
NOTE: “THE TIME HAD COME FOR A CHANGE”.
A change from what?
A change from the reality you deny. Sorry folks, but you are contradicted by LDS President Hinckley. Now, unless he was lying, he was describing a change from institutional Mormon racism toward a more inclusive policy. (Women, of course, continue to be denied access to the priesthood, and the Quorum. Very sad. Very backward.)
This would not be the first time that Mormon policies have been superseded by practical realities. First you practiced polygamy. Now, for the most, you condemn it. The intervening event? Utah’s admission to statehood. It was, after years of debate and condemnation, the religious price you agreed to pay for the political reward you sought to obtain.
The latest Mormon revelation about “gay marriage” should be due in another 20 years or so. No one says that your group has ever led the way in anything… You may not be able to turn the clock back, but we know you will struggle to stop it for as long as you can. What a waste.
Dear Madalyn: I hope your program goes well for you, that the staff are treating you nicely, and that you are now being permitted visitors.
Congratulations on laying off the ‘A Team’ terminology. Unless you really are a black guy with too much bling, your use of “fool” has gotten pretty tedious, and about as silly as the rest of what you have to say.
More likely you are a white woman who has never been encourage to think critically, independently, or for herself. It is usually like that in a cult. That’s how they work. That’s what they do.
Too bad they got you so young.
I want a personal right of discrimination, and I want my church to be able to discriminate too — a church which has been severely damaged by the sins of gay pedophiles, part of an entire society damaged by a disease given to us by gays.
I would prefer that our government would be neutral, but the slippery slope is apparent, and our opposition to it must be codified into law. It’s the same slippery slope as abortion, where nurses and pharmacists no longer had a right of conscientious objection — no right to opt out of providing. In this case, a legal right to marry, and then denial of rights to the churches and their parishioners who denounce homosexuality and the marriages as sinful. We saw it with county clerks and JPs who, due to their conscience, refused to marry gays.
I’ll support the rights of a county clerk to have someone else issue a marriage license or a justice of the peace to not participate in such marriages without losing his or her job before I’ll support the marriage.
It’s obvious how this Californian voted on this matter. Hanks is welcome to call me names, and I will wear those names as a badge of honor. As harsh as his words are, his gay friends demonstrating on the streets and boycotting businesses have hardened my resolve even further.
Hey Uncles: Your Catholic church has been mortally wounded by pedophile priests, and by a church hierarchy which covered it up for years. Now, your moral bankruptcy is being matched by your financial bankruptcy, as you sell church lands and properties to meet your losses in court.
You may choose to blame your Church’s problems on gay priests. Do you not think it strange that the Catholic church attracts so many of them? Ever wondered why?
Here’s one explanation: your church is run by elderly celibate men. No women allowed. No normal human lives permitted. Frankly, most of us find a celibacy a sick contract. It is an unnatural state. It leads to unnatural acts. You really need to think about WHY your church is such a magnet for emotionally disordered men.
No law can force a church to alter doctrine or its practices. When the next version of gay marriage finds approval in California, you will discover that you have been lied to by its opponents. San Francisco will not slide into the sea, the sun will rise in the morning, and your gay friends (you have them, but apparently don’t know it) will be able to marry — a privilege that you and I take for granted.
As a good American, you will welcome into our ranks the full equality of all our citizens. As a good Catholic? That’s another problem, and one of your own making.
Jar, you wrote: “I see continual protests agains only one of the groups that supports morals in this life.”
With every respect, you simply don’t get it. Blinded by arrogance, smugness, or self-righteousness, or self-satisfaction, you simply don’t see what’s going on.
“that supports morals” you claim. Really? WHOSE morals? Yours? The Mormon cult? The Raelians or Scientologists? Taoists? All of you characters claim to have a monopoly on revealed truth. None of you have the modesty or humility to acknowledge that — just perhaps — you are not the King of Morals.
I consider it immoral to deny full freedoms to all adult citizens. This must include the right of gay marriage. You consider it otherwise. Fair enough — except that you never stop there. You insist that you, and only you, hold the key to morality. How ridiculous.
The reason that Mormons are being blacklisted because of Prop 8 is because you bankrolled it. Simple as that. In addition, your quaint views of ‘morality’ are just plain silly.
You got involved in politics. Now, you reap the whirlwind. That’s what you wanted. That’s what you got.
Hey Westcoastie: Then I take it you believe LDS President Hinkley was lying about the revelation in 1978. That’s very disloyal of you. Remarkable.
That said, you continue in the standard rut of righteousness and rectitude. You claim to have a direct line to God. According to you, all other views are defective.
The sheer arrogance of your religiosity is breathtaking! The phrase “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind” is clearly unknown to you. Only you are right. Everyone else is wrong.
Sounds like you’d do real well in North Korea.
Because Mormons live such clannish and insulated lives, born into a faith and forbidden to question it, they simply have no idea how the outside world sees them. Thus, they are often hurt and mystified when normal Americans decline to take them seriously.
Mormons hold some VERY bizarre beliefs. According to Mormon doctrine, Jesus visited North America! Simply go to their own book — 3 Nephi 11- 7-12, and you may read about it for yourself.
Mormons also believe that a tribe of nautical Hebrews settled North America. Alas, that view has been utterly discredited by science. We now know that North America was settled by two massive waves of people, across the frozen Bering Sea and from Polynesia. Mitrochondrial DNA proves beyond contest that Mormon founder Joseph Smith was simply lying.
QUESTION: do native Americans look like Asians, or like they are a Lost Tribe of Israel? If you recognize that they look of Asian descent, you CANNOT believe in Mormon theory. Trust your eyes.
Mormons hold another VERY strange belief.
They hold that men and women once lived on the moon! How do we know this? Again, from the Mormons’ own history.
One of my favorites is from 1837. Most current LDS members will deny it. From the ‘Young Women’s Journal’, Vol.3, p.263, Joseph Smith is quoted as stating that there were men and women living on the moon that typically dressed in attire that resembled Quakers and lived to be 1,000 years old. [Apparently living without access to oxygen!]
“As far back as 1837, I know that he [Joseph SmithJ said the moon was inhabited by men and women the same as this earth, and that they lived to a greater age than we did — that they live generally to near the age of a 1,000 years. He described the men as averaging nearly six feet in height, and dressing quite uniformly in something near the Quaker style.”
This laughable and ridiculous view was held by the founder of Mormonism, allegedly getting it straight from God Himself, via the Angel Moroni.
And Mormons wonder why no one takes them seriously? Their cult was founded by men with voracious appetites for women. Joseph Smith had FIVE wives. Joseph Smith had TWENTY-SEVEN.
Who would want to belong to a sect founded by creeps like that?
==Mr Incredible: As you appear to have direct access to God…==
As he promised, through His son, yes, I do.
==… and unimpeachable understanding of His word…==
And I thank Him for it, too.
==… I wonder if you could explain the exegesis [sic] of the following Bible passage:
“When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property.” Exodus 21:20-21 NAB==
“Explain the exegesis”? You want me to explain the explanation. What explanation?
==This clearly rationalizes and justifies slavery.==
No, it doesn’t. It is one of the “rules” of men that God insisted men follow so as to show men that they could not follow all the “rules” to the letter, as they thought they could do to save themselves.
The Word of God addresses Jews, priests and Man. To which one is that passage addressed?
==If you no longer hold this belief, how do you justify sinning against God’s explicit word?==
You don’t know the difference between the Old Testament and the New, do you.
God is talking to different people in the Old Testament at different times and places and for different reasons. To understand Him, you must understand whom He addresses.
In that passage, He is not addressing Man.
==If you do honor God’s word, how do you justify sinning against the US Constitution?==
The Constitution doesn’t define “sin.”
==Life is hard for people who cannot think for themselves, but I’m sure you will figure out a way.==
Translation: “If you thought for yourself, you’d think like me.”
== …perhaps you could explain this one:
“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.” (Dt 14:21b)==
Albert Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible: “Mr.
Calmet thinks that this precept refers to the paschal lamb only, which was not to be offered to God till it was weaned from its mother…”
== I’ve always been troubled by that one.==
No doubt.
== I’m sure you have, too.==
You guess wrongly…again.
Hey Mr Incredible: Wow! You are enough to give egomania a bad name. You claim to have direct access to God.
You claim to have unimpeachable understanding of His Word. You rationalize slavery, and seem incompetent to name it for what normal people know it to be: a moral abomination. You simply make excuses.
Then, you claim to be able to distinguish between the Old Testament and the New. When you do this, you toss out the Ten Commandments. Are you sure you want to go there?
Your plagiarized comment on the ‘paschal lamb’ is simply ludicrous.
You have a ready-made excuse for every laughable and immoral tale in your Bible. Only ‘you’ are spiritual enough to fully comprehend it. The rest of us are, according to you, unable to hear what you hear.
In psychiatry, we refer to such beliefs as delusional. Hallucinations. Borderline madness.
In your Bible, we find this charming passage, advocating the murder of those who recognize other than Middle Eastern gods. This requires you to kill the world’s Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims, and anyone else you just don’t like:
“If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or your intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him.
“Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst.” (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)”
If you really believe such wickedness, you are unfit for a human heart.
==…you Super Libs really chap my hide!!==
Don’t give them any ideas.
The only people that are keeping minorities “victims” are people like you [überLibs].==
The way they do this is to keep the stale, old charges and accusations on the front burner, manufacturing contests. Like “racism.”
We’re bendin’ over backwards for them, and they keep talkin’ about it as though we’re doin’ nothin’.
They must manufacture enemies, like Oceania in “1984,” so they got somethin’ to do.
Trent,
Lay off the Mormons. So you think they are bad. Fine, but let them believe what they will. It’s called “Freedom of Religion”
Hi WaterStreet: You make a fine point. In other circles, it would be called “Live and let live”, a fine old American maxim. In many ways, the Mormons are no sillier than any other cult, with their talk of Lamanites and magic underpants and Founder Joseph Smith’s 27 wives. It’s all simply laughable.
It is, I think, when the American Taliban attempts to export its narrow religious agenda to civil society that conflict arises.
The ignorant deny the facts of evolution. The foolish believe that Jesus spoke English. (I heard this at an evangelical rally. As you know, his native tongue was almost certainly Aramaic.) And the proselytizers?
They INSIST that only they are fit to speak for God, to do His Will — and demand that all others bend to theirs.
Such arrogance, and such ignorance, must be contested by any and all who believe in a future for American liberty. I hope you will join us in that contest. The alternative? A nation run by the superstitious, the fanatics, glossalalialists, crooked faith healers and televangelists, and our learned friends the snake-handlers.
They are entitled to their faith, of course. They are not entitled to seize America. We are much, much too great a country for that.
==The ignorant deny the facts of evolution.==
Evolution is not fact, rather speculation, theory.
==They INSIST that only they are fit to speak for God…==
HE insists.
==…to do His Will…==
HE insists.
==…and demand that all others bend to theirs.==
Bend to HIS.
==Such arrogance, and such ignorance, must be contested by any and all who believe in a future for American liberty.==
Translation: “I wanna do it MY way cuz I know better than God.”
== I hope you will join us in that contest.==
The Devil is already signed up.
== The alternative? A nation run by the superstitious, the fanatics, glossalalialists, crooked faith healers and televangelists, and our learned friends the snake-handlers.==
Scoffers are so blind that they cannot see the difference.
==They are entitled to their faith, of course.==
Gee, thanks.
== They are not entitled to seize America.==
We vote, too.
People like Mr Discreditable are living proof of what has gone wrong in America. The Christian Taliban takes the view that only THEY know God, God’s will, and God’s purposes. Their arrogance is barely masked by their smugness.
The Christian Taliban acts and sounds exactly like the Muslim Taliban. They wish to govern the world on their precepts, and all others must go to the back of the bus, or to some other, lower place.
They are content to overlook such Christian crooks and phonies as ‘Rev’ Jimmy Swaggart, ‘Rev’ Jim Bakker, ‘Rev’ Paul Crouch, ‘Rev’ Ted Haggard, ‘Rev’ Jerry Falwell, ‘Rev’ Peter Popoff, ‘Rev’ Pat Robertson, ‘Rev’ Billy James Hargis, ‘Rev’ Warren Jeffs, ‘Rev’ Robert Tilton, ‘Rev’ Creflo Dollar, ‘Rev’ Earl Paulk, ‘Rev’ Benny Hinn, legions of pedophile priests, and… should I go on?
None of these fanatics allows any room for doubt, for reason, for a second look at anything. So blindly certain are they of their personal virtue that there is no room for anyone else, nor any other thought, nor any other faith. They believe that Revelation is reserved for them — alone. They are the very definition of fanaticism and craziness.
As all will read from Mr ‘Incredible’ (what an admission is his nick) is that he believes himself, and his fellow fanatics, to be the sole possessors of Truth.
It is appalling to imagine that such characters think they have the moral authority to lead anyone, anywhere. I, for one, prefer those who have second thoughts, take a second look, look at the whole horizon of human thought, and never imagine that they already know it all.
What an appalling, disgusting and dangerously un-American point of view they have.
Even snake-handlers make more sense.
Trent dont you have an amyl Nitrate sale to go too?
==People like Mr Discreditable are living proof of what has gone wrong in America.==
For Libs, that is.
== The Christian Taliban…==
No such thing.
==… takes the view that only THEY know God…==
And God says we do.
==… God’s will [sic]…==
God says we have Him.
==… and God’s purposes.==
God gave us that, too.
== Their arrogance is barely masked by their smugness.==
Scoffers call it that, not know anything about it.
==The Christian Taliban…==
No such thing.
==… acts and sounds exactly like the Muslim Taliban.==
Scoffers, pretending to be intelligent, see it that way.
== They wish to govern the world on their precepts, and all others must go to the back of the bus, or to some other, lower place.==
Scoffers have to make up arguments like that.
==They are content to overlook such Christian crooks and phonies as ‘Rev’ Jimmy Swaggart, ‘Rev’ Jim Bakker, ‘Rev’ Paul Crouch, ‘Rev’ Ted Haggard, ‘Rev’ Jerry Falwell, ‘Rev’ Peter Popoff, ‘Rev’ Pat Robertson, ‘Rev’ Billy James Hargis, ‘Rev’ Warren Jeffs, ‘Rev’ Robert Tilton, ‘Rev’ Creflo Dollar, ‘Rev’ Earl Paulk, ‘Rev’ Benny Hinn, legions of pedophile priests, and… should I go on?==
Scoffers don’t have a clue.
==None of these fanatics allows any room for doubt, for reason, for a second look at anything.==
The Devil does, but we don’t care what the Devil thinks.
== So blindly certain are they of their personal virtue…==
The virtue tghat God gave us.
==… that there is no room for anyone else, nor any other thought, nor any other faith.==
Jesus said that He is the ONLY Way to the Father. Unfortunate that you call Him a “liar.”
== They believe that Revelation is reserved for them — alone.==
God promised that that is so.
== They are the very definition of fanaticism and craziness.==
Scoffers have to demonize us so they can feel better about persecuting us. Persecuted for Jesus! What a deal!
==As all will read from Mr ‘Incredible’ (what an admission is his nick) is that he believes himself, and his fellow fanatics, to be the sole possessors of Truth.==
I believe God and that He gave me the Truth through Christ.
==It is appalling to imagine that such characters think they have the moral authority to lead anyone, anywhere.==
Scoffers try to act moral while rejecting Morality. Interesting.
== I, for one, prefer those who have second thoughts, take a second look, look at the whole horizon of human thought, and never imagine that they already know it all.==
So, you’re on the side of Adam and Eve who came to believe that they know more and better than God does. We see.
==What an appalling, disgusting and dangerously un-American point of view they have.==
Call a cop.
==Even snake-handlers make more sense.==
Not surprised that you listen to snakes and their handlers.
Hey ‘Incredible’: You may not know the meaning of ’smug arrogance’, but you will soon know the meaning of ‘hubris’.
You wrote: “Not surprised that you listen to snakes and their handlers.”
I should think you would be the last person to reference talking snakes. It’s in your own Bible, doofus.
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,
3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.
5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
— Genesis Chapter 3:1-6
Apparently even YOU don’t believe this silliness. Now, on to reality! Try it. You might even understand it!
Hey ‘Ruppert’: Why are right-wingers such semi-literates? Assuming you haven’t mis-spelled your own name (perhaps you meant ‘Rupert’), you also said, “Trent dont you have an amyl Nitrate sale to go too?”
In better English you would have written, “Trent, don’t you have an Amyl Nitrate sale to go to?”
It’s laughable that reactionaries who insist on preserving what they call ‘traditional values’ apparently don’t understand the traditional values of good spelling, good grammar, and good syntax. Were all of you home-schooled by donkeys? Your English is, frankly, childish.
Unless you are a recent arrival from Albania, you really have no excuse for mangling a beautiful and powerful language.
==You wrote: “Not surprised that you listen to snakes and their handlers.”
I should think you would be the last person to reference talking snakes. It’s in your own Bible, doofus.==
Ahhh, namecalling. The refuge of one who has lost the argument.
==…— Genesis Chapter 3:1-6
Apparently even YOU don’t believe this silliness.==
To YOU, it’s silly. Not to us.
And, yet, YOU’re the one who said that snake-handlers make more sense to you. And I wrote that I don’t listen to the Devil.
== Now, on to reality!==
Whose? YOURS??? YOU are the one who says that snake-handlers make more sense to you.
==Hey ‘Ruppert’…It’s laughable that reactionaries who insist on preserving what they call ‘traditional values’ apparently don’t understand the traditional values of good spelling, good grammar, and good syntax. Were all of you home-schooled by donkeys? Your English is, frankly, childish.
Unless you are a recent arrival from Albania, you really have no excuse for mangling a beautiful and powerful language.==
You understood what he wrote, and that’s all that counts in an informal setting.
Apparently, Trent, you are having a leeeetle bit-a trouble distinguishing formal writing from informal writing. You believe the same standards apply to both. They don’t.
If you wanna write like a robot, be my guest. However, this informal context doesn’t require it. So, get off your high horse.
Hey Incred: You make my point by mis-stating your own. I wrote that “Even snake-handlers make more sense,” by which most people would understand, “more sense THAN YOU”. Sorry to have to explain the obvious.
You would be surprised to learn, I imagine, how conservative and traditional I am when it comes to our world. I read Milton, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Atwood, listen to Banchieri, Messiaen, Mozart and Mussorgsky, and deplore how far our cultural standards have fallen. ‘Gangstah rap’ is a moral horror, at least to me. There is, however, a vast difference between conservatism and reaction. I favor the former.
I will never relent in trying to encourage people to use our remarkable language properly, at all times, in every context. I don’t expect ‘Ruppert’ to write like Rimbaud, but he might try a little harder.
I don’t expect you to honor Reason, but you could try a little harder, too. Although gravity is nowhere mentioned in your Bible, you might want to avoid falling down stairs. You will not fall back up. Such is the power of scientific observation, analysis, and reason.
You could try it sometime. You might discover how much wider and more wondrous a world exists beyond the small pages of the only book you claim as your own.
‘Doofus’, by the way, is a compliment!
I refer to the position of Arch-Pope Doofus in the well-known Church of the Holy Doof. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Perhaps you belong to it. They meet at 11am on Sundays, in Anaheim I believe.
Hey Chance: good advice, but utterly misplaced.
Have you never noticed that fanatics (Christian, Muslim, it really makes no difference) are intellectually lazy? They only read ONE book, they only believe one truth, only listen to one source, and then have the gall to imagine that they know everything there is to know. It’s ridiculous.
‘Troll’ is a bit much, but I thank you for doing the best you can to engage with people who don’t follow your particular party line. By the way, given that Christ’s message is perfect and all-encompassing, exactly which of his sects might you belong to? Catholic? Protestant? Mormon? Methodist? Baptist? Southern Baptist? Snakehandler? It’s so hard to keep track of all you guys with a perfect and complete monopoly on truth.
If your really prefer faith to fact, and superstition to science, I hope you will be honorable about it. For you, no X-rays, no penicillin, no chemotherapy, no heart transplants, no antisepsis, no hormone treatments, no medicine of any kind. Why?
None of these advances may be found in your Bible. All are the discoveries of men and women who follow reason where it leads, science where it summons, and make discoveries that have saved millions of lives.
You will, if you are even half-bright, now claim that our scientists were “inspired” by God. I trust you have proof for that one. Others might credit Semmelweiss, or Harvey, or Ostler, or Salk, or Pauling. At least our guys actually exist.
Yours? Just a bit harder to locate. Ask the Six Million. Your God seems to have overlooked Auschwitz. Hardly worth worshipping, I should think.
==Hey Incredible, give it up, Trent has no point, he’s only here to argue.==
I know, but we also cannot let the sin nature go without answer.
== He’s got you on a line…==
He thinks.
==… and has used escalating inflammatory remarks and gross exaggerations (mixed with his personal opinion that he is proclaiming as truth) to reel you in hoping to bring you down to his sad, lowly station.==
He hasn’t, though, Chance.
My point is that I can’t be the only one challenging him. You and I cannot be the only ones. EVERYBODY on the right and correct side has to challenge him. He’ll shut up then.
==Have you never noticed that fanatics (Christian, Muslim, it really makes no difference) are intellectually lazy? ==
Translation: “They don’t agree with me, and, so, they are intellectually lazy.”
==They only read ONE book…==
Not true.
==… they only believe one truth…==
Not true again. We believe in only One Truth. I’ll bet you can’t spot the difference.
==… only listen to one source…==
Again, not true.
==… and then have the gall to imagine that they know everything there is to know.==
We don’t imagine it.
== It’s ridiculous.==
The Devil thinks so, too.
==…given that Christ’s message is perfect and all-encompassing, exactly which of his sects might you belong to? Catholic? Protestant? Mormon? Methodist? Baptist? Southern Baptist? Snakehandler? It’s so hard to keep track of all you guys with a perfect and complete monopoly on truth.==
A scoffer would think so.
==If your really prefer faith to fact, and superstition to science…==
(1Co 2:12) Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
(1Co 2:13) Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
(1Co 2:14) But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
(1Co 2:15) But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
(Heb 11:1) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Yes, faith is substance and evidence. However, as noted, the natural man, like Trent, is completely outta the loop on it.
==None of these advances may be found in your Bible.==
They are irrelevant to the spiritual journey.
== All are the discoveries of men and women who follow reason where it leads, science where it summons, and make discoveries that have saved millions of lives. ==
Thanks be to God for them! They glorify Him, not men.
==You will, if you are even half-bright, now claim that our scientists were “inspired” by God.==
God is the First Cause, yes.
== I trust you have proof for that one.==
The Word of God chronicles it.
== Others might credit Semmelweiss, or Harvey, or Ostler, or Salk, or Pauling. At least our guys actually exist.==
Soooo, they said it and they are proof of what they said. We get it. Science is its own proof.
==Yours? Just a bit harder to locate.==
Scoffers surely cannot do it.
== Ask the Six Million. Your God seems to have overlooked Auschwitz.==
He didn’t cause Auschwitz. He told us how to avoid those horrors. We didn’t listen. Whose fault is THAT?
== Hardly worth worshipping, I should think.==Y
You can choose not to worship Him. Just be prepared to be big enough to handle the ocnsequences of your choice on Judgment Day.
==You make my point by mis-stating your own.==
You try to defend yourself by misrepresenting what I wrote in repsonse to what you wrote.
== I wrote that “Even snake-handlers make more sense,” by which most people would understand, “more sense THAN YOU”.==
Easy to try to wiggle out of your predicament now.
However, the statement says that YOU believe snake handlers make more sense. Sorry to have to explain the obvious.
==I read Milton, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Atwood, listen to Banchieri, Messiaen, Mozart and Mussorgsky…==
Maybe THEY will save you for eternity, huh.
==I will never relent in trying to encourage people to use our remarkable language properly…==
As YOU see it.
==I don’t expect you to honor Reason…==
Translation: “I don’t expect you to agree with me.”
==Although gravity is nowhere mentioned in your Bible…==
That’s cuz it isn’t relevant to the spiritual journey. Scoffers can’t see what is and what isn’t relevant to the spiritual journey.
And, yet, Herbert Spencer says that the Word of God talks “Science”:
Time
Space
Matter
Force
Motion
Time: “In the beginning…”
Space: “Heaven”
Matter: “Earth”
Force: “Spirit of God”
Motion: “moved upon the face of the waters.”
==Such is the power of scientific observation, analysis, and reason.==
Scientific observation, analysis and reason didn’t create gravity. All they can do is merely report what He created.
==You might discover how much wider and more wondrous a world exists beyond the small pages of the only book you claim as your own.==
How much of all the knowledge in the universe do YOU have. A trace of a trace of a trace of a trace of a trace of a trace of a trace, and so on?
Of the knowledge that you don’t have, could you be missing that God exists there and that you refuse to go beyond your arrogance to find Him? What kind of Science, empiricism, reason, logic, thinking is THAT???
==‘Doofus’, by the way, is a compliment!==
I don’t care. It didn’t land anyway.
==Trent has no point, he’s only here to argue.==
And, yet, Chance, m’man, there are those out there who pick up all his trash and think it nourishing.
So, if we can help even one of them realize that what he writes is intellectual garbage, perfumed to smell like filet mignon, we’ll be successful. No tellin’ how many we reach who don’t post but merely read.
Just lookit his writing style. It’s as though a machine wrote it. It’s stiff and unimaginative. He’s trying to impress, but not with substance. He intends to cover up his lack of substance with high-sounding language.
So, the answer is not to ignore his kind of waste, rather to challenge it cuz this is a battleground of ideas, and we cannot let his ideas win.
Hi Guys: You are, if nothing, obstinate in your views. This is the case with fanatics of all stripes. Like the Muslim Taliban, you persist in your delusion that ALL questions can be answered by the mindless parrotry of “God tells me so. It’s in His book. There are no other books that matter. All other books are false. Only mine is true.”
From this irrational, fact-free premise, you then go on to concoct whole cosmologies of nonsense. It’s like dealing with schizophrenia: if you accept the premise, all that follows makes a certain kind of sense.
If, however, the premise has no proof, then everything derives from faith. At this point, you descend into breath-taking arrogance, declaring as you do, “My faith is better than yours. I better kill you for calling me into question.” This is, today precisely, what the Muslim Taliban is doing.
It is what the Christian Taliban has been doing for centuries. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Crusades? The Inquisition? Giordano? The 100 years war? BOTH sides in WWI claiming (literally) that “God is on our side”?
And in Northern Ireland, for generations, your fellow fanatics have been blowing one another up. “Lots of Protestants. Lots of Catholics. Damn few Christians.”
Now, of course, you have to answer for your fellow Christians, all of whom believe what you believe, and live in the same fact-free zone: the legions of pedophile priests, the polygamous Mormons of ‘Rev’ Warren Jeffs, the radio messages sent by his wife to the faith-healing ‘Rev’ Peter Popoff, the homosexual ‘Rev’ Ted Haggard, the phonies ‘Rev’ Jimmy Swaggart, ‘Rev’ Jim Bakker, ‘Rev’ Benny Hinn, the Oral Roberts and family debacle, the money-obsessed prosperity doctrine, and hundreds of other Elmer Gantrys out there. Great Christians all.
I think that if, like the Quakers or the Mennonites, the Amish and more, you simply kept your beliefs where they belong, their oddity would be less noticed. So too would pass unremarked your staggering arrogance.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,” Carl Sagan used to say.
So far, the best you can do is claim to have God’s ear, to call anyone who challenges you a “scoffer”, and to congratulate one another on your piety.
Pitiful.
==You are, if nothing, obstinate in your views.==
The conjugation goes something like this:
I am firm.
You are obstinate.
He is pig-headed.
==This is the case with fanatics of all stripes.==
You exclude yourself. Of course.
== Like the Muslim Taliban, you persist in your delusion that ALL questions can be answered by the mindless parrotry of “God tells me so. It’s in His book. There are no other books that matter. All other books are false. Only mine is true.”==
You gotta beef with God. Argue with Him. Maybe you can change His Mind.
==From this irrational, fact-free premise…==
Translation: “You dn’t agree with me, and, so, you are irrational and fact-free.”
==…you then go on to concoct whole cosmologies of nonsense.==
(1Co 2:12) Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
(1Co 2:13) Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
(1Co 2:14) But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
== It’s like dealing with schizophrenia: if you accept the premise, all that follows makes a certain kind of sense.==
Like your listening to and believing snake handlers.
==If, however, the premise has no proof, then everything derives from faith.==
(Heb 11:1) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
== At this point, you descend into breath-taking arrogance, declaring as you do, “My faith is better than yours. I better kill you for calling me into question.” This is, today precisely, what the Muslim Taliban is doing. ==
We agree that the Muslim radicals do this. Christianity does not. Except that God separates the goats from the sheep. His sheep hear His voice. He knocks, and if they do well, they are accepted and, hearing His voice, they open the door.
However, if they do not do well, sin lies at the door. Too many open the door to the voice of sin.
==Perhaps you’ve heard of the Crusades?==
They weren’t operating on orders from God, rather the Pope.
== The Inquisition? Giordano?==
Ignorant men. Not Christianity.
==BOTH sides in WWI claiming (literally) that “God is on our side”?==
He was. Otherwise, evil would have won. You don’t want that evil should have won, do you? Would you also rather that Hitler have been allowed to run loose?
==And in Northern Ireland, for generations, your fellow fanatics have been blowing one another up. “Lots of Protestants. Lots of Catholics. Damn few Christians.”==
You just can’t get outta the past, can you?
==Now, of course, you have to answer for your fellow Christians, all of whom believe what you believe, and live in the same fact-free zone…==
We are IN His zone of facts.
==…-: the legions of pedophile priests…==
Wayward men, not God.
==… the polygamous Mormons of ‘Rev’ Warren Jeffs, the radio messages sent by his wife to the faith-healing ‘Rev’ Peter Popoff, the homosexual ‘Rev’ Ted Haggard, the phonies ‘Rev’ Jimmy Swaggart, ‘Rev’ Jim Bakker, ‘Rev’ Benny Hinn, the Oral Roberts and family debacle, the money-obsessed prosperity doctrine, and hundreds of other Elmer Gantrys out there. Great Christians all.==
What does a scoffer know about it? Nothing.
They are all men and fallible. Christianity is infallible.
==I think that if, like the Quakers or the Mennonites, the Amish and more, you simply kept your beliefs where they belong…==
Jesus tells us to spread the Word of God. That, we do.
(Eph 6:19) And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel,
(Eph 6:20) For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
The LORD is our Shepherd, not you.
==… their oddity would be less noticed.==
Yet, their villations don’t impact the infallibility of the Word of God.
== So too would pass unremarked your staggering arrogance.==
You see it as arrogance. God sees it as confidence:
(Heb 4:16) Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
(Heb 13:5) Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
(Heb 13:6) So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
(1Jn 2:28) And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.
(Eph 3:12) In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.
(Php 3:3) For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
(Heb 3:6) But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
(Heb 3:14) For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end…
(Heb 10:35) Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.
==“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,” Carl Sagan used to say.==
That is, human reasoning which is beneath that of God.
==So far, the best you can do is claim to have God’s ear…==
He has mine, too.
==…to call anyone who challenges you a “scoffer”…==
The Word of God does. I merely report it.
==… and to congratulate one another on your piety.==
The Word of God says nothing about our “piety.” We are not pious cuz that doesn’t align with the Word of God.
Scoffers miss all of this entirely. What a pity.
==You are, if nothing, obstinate in your views. ==
And you, of course, are not.
You people need to treat Trent1280 with respect.His brain is still not working right from the hemorrhage that almost took his life.He alss is having a very hard time coping with the truth about him being related to “Ted Kazynski” David Koresh and Tim Mcveigh.Also what makes it even worse is he lost his virginity from Warren Jeffs.None of you have walked in his shoes.His uncle Ted was brilliant to and very good in spelling unlike many of you.Bad spelling is Satan’s tool.
Hey Incred: You are now getting desperate. You did not read what I wrote, nor do you even understand what YOU wrote. In fact, you grossly misrepresent Scripture. This is typical of the Christian Taliban.
You claim, in order to justify your pious propaganda, that “Jesus tells us to spread the Word of God. That, we do. (Eph 6:19) And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, (Eph 6:20) For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”
But here’s what three different Bible translations say about sidewalk preachers like yourself:
“And whenever you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to stand in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they will be seen by people. I tell you with certainty, they have their full reward!”
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
“When you pray, don’t be like hypocrites. They like to stand in synagogues and on street corners to pray so that everyone can see them. I can guarantee this truth: That will be their only reward.”
GOD’S WORD® Translation (©1995)
“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”
King James Bible
*** And then you have this… uhhh, little problem. Here is what your Peacemaker Jesus said:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man ‘against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household’”. (Matthew 10:34-36 NAB)
You fanatics can’t get it quite right, can you? You are forever stumbling over your own contradictions, absurdities, and falsehoods.
The historical facts are these: Christians like you butchered the Albigensians, ran the Crusades, managed the Inquisition, burned Giordano at the stake, invented anti-Semitism, fought endless wars on obscure points of doctrine, covered up for your pedophile priests and phony faith healers — and, when called on it, would have us believe that none of these characters is a ‘true Christian’. Only YOU are. What a joke is your defense — arrogant and self-serving, and utterly without humility.
Your ego is simply astonishing, leaving no room for any other human being across the face of the earth. Only YOU are right. All others are wrong. Sheesh… There are clinical words to describe your condition, by the way.
And why are you fanatics (Christian, Muslim, there is no difference) so anxious to murder those who would challenge you? Your motivation may also be found in the Bible, in a particularly wicked passage of which you must be especially proud:
“If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst.” (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)
You worship a wicked God.
At best he turns his back, indifferently allowing the Six Million, malaria, smallpox, starvation, polio, childhood leukemias, abortion and war.
At his worst? Your God summons bears to murder children who tease a bald man.
What a picture. No wonder the world turns against you.
Fanatics like you are without conscience, compassion, or heart. All you have is one book, and blind ego.
Again, pitiful.
==You people need to treat Trent1280 with respect.==
Ok. He can go first.
==His brain is still not working right from the hemorrhage that almost took his life.==
Hemmorrhage, or hemroids?
==He alss is having a very hard time coping with the truth about him being related to “Ted Kazynski” David Koresh and Tim Mcveigh.==
Ohhhhh, THAAAT’s it.
==Also what makes it even worse is he lost his virginity from Warren Jeffs.==
That HAS to be weighin’ powerful hard on him.
==None of you have walked in his shoes.==
Awww, must we have??
==I think that if, like the Quakers or the Mennonites, the Amish and more, you simply kept your beliefs where they belong…==
Who, pray tell, gets to decide where they “belong”?
Fact is, if I don’t speak up on the side of God and His Son, God considers me negligent. So, guess what.
Incred: you wrote, “Yet, their villations don’t impact the infallibility of the Word of God.” Serious request: I do not know the word ‘villations’, or could I locate it in the OED. Could you explain please? For many years I have tried to learn one new word a day. This may be it! Thx.
Incred: you wrote, “Yet, their villations don’t impact the infallibility of the Word of God.”
Serious request: I do not know the word ‘villations’, nor could I locate it in the OED. Could you explain please? For many years I have tried to learn one new word a day. This may be it! Thx.
Yet, their villations don’t impact the infallibility of the Word of God.
>>>>
violations
Allo Incred:
Very good. Thx.
T
Trent is a Troll
I mean a Moby
==You fanatics can’t get it quite right, can you?==
We can’t, of our own strength, get it right. God got US right!
==You worship a wicked God. ==
The Devil says that, too.
==No wonder the world turns against you.==
The world turns against God, and THAT’s why it’s in such trouble.
==Fanatics like you are without conscience, compassion, or heart.==
Translation, from ‘39, goosesteppin’ Berlin: “C’mon, join us! Go along!”
The LORD is my Shepherd, not you and not the world.
==three different Bible translations say about sidewalk preachers like yourself…==
Except that those verses are about those who want only to be seen as “holy,” not those who, like me, want truly to do as Jesus did: bring the Message of God’s offer of Reconciliaton.
You can’t be this easy.
==Trent is a Troll==
What an opportunity, though, to spread the Word of God!!!
Trent posts against his own interests by giving us this opportunity!
Hey Guys: As you live out your lives in Fantasyland, smugly congratulating one another on your righteousness, without an ounce of humility in either of you, the real world continues to rotate around the sun, science continues its steady progress, and the dead hand of superstition continues to recede into history.
As those of us in the sciences continue to eradicate malaria, end polio, transplant hearts and lungs and kidneys, find a vaccine for AIDS — and have already erased smallpox as a human disease — you continue to quote obsolete scripture, look for devils, ravish yourselves in the suffering of the End Times and, frankly, contribute NOTHING to the real world.
Ibid: science has now ERADICATED smallpox from the face of the earth. Did you even know this? There hasn’t been an outbreak in over a decade. It would appear that science, medicine, global vaccination, and the utter determination to end this scourge has erased smallpox. IT DOESN’T EXIST. It’s gone. Forever.
What did your God have to do with this astonishing achievement?
Nothing.
LOGIC: Either God created smallpox, or He did not.
If he did, why? If he did not, how did it come into being?
If he “inspired” science to eradicate it in the 1990s, why not in the 1890s? Is your God lazy? Or just callous?
As I said before, you worship a wicked God, one who allows abortion, and send bears to kill children who mock a bald man.
Your Bible also contains another very, very odd invocation: “No one whose testicles have been crushed or whose penis has been cut off may be admitted into the community of the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 23:2 NAB)
Wow! What a Holy Book you praise. What weird beliefs you hold. Do you actually believe this rubbish? Crushed testicles… This is an entrance exam for Christians??
I look forward with the usual bemusement to your attempts to rationalize THAT one. Perhaps you imagine that calling millions of people “scoffers” is an adequately intelligent, rational reply.
Unfortunately for you, it isn’t. We are distinguished from the other animals by our capacity for reason. It would appear that you are not.
Your silly apologia reminds me of a line I once heard about someone being “as nervous as a faith healer with a severed artery”.
==…you live out your lives in Fantasyland, smugly congratulating one another on your righteousness…==
Not our righteousness, rather Christ’s Righteousness.
==… without an ounce of humility in either of you…==
We are humble before God and His Son, not before the world.
==… the real world continues to rotate around the sun, science continues its steady progress, and the dead hand of superstition continues to recede into history.==
Except God and His Son are strong as ever.
==As those of us in the sciences continue to eradicate malaria, end polio, transplant hearts and lungs and kidneys, find a vaccine for AIDS — and have already erased smallpox as a human disease — you continue to quote obsolete scripture…==
Except He is not obsolete. Scoffers like to think so, agreeing with the Devil.
==… look for devils…==
We don’t look for him. He prowls around like a lion, looking for people like you to devour.
==… ravish yourselves in the suffering of the End Times…==
Believe me, we’re not gonna suffer.
==… and, frankly, contribute NOTHING to the real world.==
Nothing you wanna accept, anyway.
==science has now ERADICATED smallpox from the face of the earth.==
God worked through Science to eradicate it.
== Did you even know this?==
That God works wonders through Science? Yes.
== There hasn’t been an outbreak in over a decade. It would appear that science, medicine, global vaccination, and the utter determination to end this scourge has erased smallpox. IT DOESN’T EXIST. It’s gone. Forever.==
Thanks to God, not to men.
==What did your God have to do with this astonishing achievement? ==
He created the environment and the tools.
==Nothing. ==
How do YOU know?
==LOGIC: Either God created smallpox, or He did not. ==
LOGIC: Evil is of the darkness. God did not create darkness. God did not create evil. God spoke light into the void, into the wilderness, and the darkness did not comprehend the light, just as you do not comprehend the Light.
==If he did, why? If he did not, how did it come into being?==
Foolish questions.
==If he “inspired” science to eradicate it in the 1990s, why not in the 1890s? Is your God lazy? Or just callous?==
It took time for men to learn.
==As I said before, you worship a wicked God, one who allows abortion, and send bears to kill children who mock a bald man.==
As I said before, the Devil says the same thing.
==Your Bible also contains another very, very odd invocation: “No one whose testicles have been crushed or whose penis has been cut off may be admitted into the community of the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 23:2 NAB)==
The correct verse is:
(Deu 23:2) A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.
Quite a bit different from your mangled version.
==Wow! What a Holy Book you praise.==
We don’t praise a book. That would be idolatry. We praise the Christ Who casts the shadow which is the physical book.
== What weird beliefs you hold.==
Scofffers find them weird. No surprise there.
== Do you actually believe this rubbish?==
We don’t believe in rubbish cuz He is not rubbish.
== Crushed testicles… This is an entrance exam for Christians??==
Nothing in there about “crushed testicles.”
==I look forward with the usual bemusement to your attempts to rationalize THAT one.==
You mean, the way YOU have rationaized it, huh.
== Perhaps you imagine that calling millions of people “scoffers” is an adequately intelligent, rational reply.==
It applies. However, if you believe it doesn’t apply, then you got no beef with it.
==Unfortunately for you, it isn’t.==
Scoffers shut themselves off from evidence. What kinda Science is THAT?
== We are distinguished from the other animals by our capacity for reason. It would appear that you are not.==
Romans 8:1. I’m happy with that.
==Your silly apologia reminds me of a line I once heard about someone being “as nervous as a faith healer with a severed artery”.==
I don’t care what those who are of the world think.
==Your Bible also contains another very, very odd invocation: “No one whose testicles have been crushed or whose penis has been cut off may be admitted into the community of the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 23:2 NAB)==
He that is wounded – A phrase denoting an eunuch. Shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord – Shall not be admitted to honours and offices either in the church or commonwealth of Israel; and so the congregation of the Lord doth not here signify, the body of the people, but the society of the elders or rulers of the people. Add to this, that the Hebrew word, Kahal, generally signifies a congregation or company of men met together; and therefore this cannot so conveniently be meant of all the body of the people, which could never meet in one place, but of the chief rulers, which frequently did so. Nor is it strange that eunuchs are excluded from government, both because such persons are commonly observed to want that courage which is necessary for a governor, because as such persons ordinarily were despicable, so the authority in their hands was likely to be exposed to the same contempt.
– John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes
Compare Lev_21:17-24. Such persons, exhibiting a mutilation of that human nature which was made in God’s image, were rejected from the covenant entirely. However, they could be proselytes (compare Act_8:27). The Old Testament itself foretells Isa_56:3-5 the removal of this ban when under the kingdom of Messiah the outward and emblematic perfection and sanctity of Israel should be fulfilled in their inner meaning by the covenanted presence and work of the Holy Spirit in the Church.
– Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Shall not enter into the congregation, etc. – If by entering the congregation be meant the bearing a civil office among the people, such as magistrate, judge, etc., then the reason of the law is very plain; no man with any such personal defect as might render him contemptible in the sight of others should bear rule among the people, lest the contempt felt for his personal defects might be transferred to his important office, and thus his authority be disregarded. The general meaning of these words is, simply, that the persons here designated should not be so incorporated with the Jews as to partake of their civil privileges.
–Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible
We ought to value the privileges of God’s people, both for ourselves and for our children, above all other advantages. No personal blemishes, no crimes of our forefathers, no difference of nation, shuts us out under the Christian dispensation. But an unsound heart will deprive us of blessings; and a bad example, or an unsuitable marriage, may shut our children from them.
– Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
Deu 23:1 He that is wounded in the stones,…. In any of them, not accidentally, but purposely; which are crushed and bruised by the hands of men, with a design to make him unfit for generation, or to make an eunuch of him:
or that hath his privy member cut by himself or another, and is a thorough eunuch by the hands of men; for of such eunuchs that are made by men, and not born so, the law speaks; so Maimonides interprets it (f); See Gill on Mat_19:12.
shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; which is to be understood not of the sanctuary of the Lord, or of being refused admittance into the church of God, and to join in religious rites, and partake of sacred ordinances, which all Israelites, and strangers that were proselytes, had a right unto; such might bring their offerings, keep the passover, &c. Exo_12:48 nor of the commonwealth of Israel, as if unfit to be members of civil society; it cannot be thought that such defects should abridge them of their civil rights and privileges: but by the congregation is to be understood the elders, judges, and representatives of the people, that met together in some one place to execute judgment; see Num_35:12, into which such persons were not to be admitted; either because disgraceful and dishonourable, or because of the influence such defects have on their minds, they thereby becoming effeminate, irresolute, and wanting courage, as well as in opposition to the customs and usages of the Heathens, with whom it was common to admit such persons to civil offices; hence the word eunuch is sometimes used for an officer, Gen_37:36 and elsewhere; the Jews (g) restrain this law to marriage, but unnecessarily.
(f) Hilchot lssure Biah, c. 16. sect. 8. (g) Targum Jon. in loc. Misn. Yebamot, c. 8. sect. 2, 4, 5, 6. Maimon. Moreh Nevochim, par. 3. c. 49.
– John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
So, Trent, it’ll do you and your Secular Taliban no good to try to defeat the works of God through Christ cuz Christ already defeated the works of the Devil. Cuz I am born again, I reap the benefits of His work, and no Secular Taliban can form a weapon that is effective against me.
==You are now getting desperate.==
Hardly.
== You did not read what I wrote…==
But I did. I reject it.
==… nor do you even understand what YOU wrote.==
Quit projecting on me your own failure.
== In fact, you grossly misrepresent Scripture.==
In fact, I don’t.
Scoffers don’t instruct us.
==This is typical of the Christian Taliban.==
No such thing.
==You claim, in order to justify your pious propaganda, that “Jesus tells us to spread the Word of God.==
I report that Jesus told those who are born again to spread the Word of God.
==But here’s what three different Bible translations say about sidewalk preachers like yourself:
“And whenever you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to stand in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they will be seen by people. I tell you with certainty, they have their full reward!”
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
“When you pray, don’t be like hypocrites. They like to stand in synagogues and on street corners to pray so that everyone can see them. I can guarantee this truth: That will be their only reward.”
GOD’S WORD® Translation (©1995)
“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”
King James Bible==
Just another of your misinterpretations and misapplications.
Those verses are aimed at those who don’t believe what — the Word — they preach. The verse criticize those who want to be seen preaching, hoping more for applause and popularity. They are men-pleasers. I am not.
==*** And then you have this… uhhh, little problem. Here is what your Peacemaker Jesus said:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man ‘against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household’”. (Matthew 10:34-36 NAB)==
That’s not a problem, except for the scoffer who is more interested in trying to use intellect to defeat the Word of God. The Devil suggested this intellectual investigation to Eve, in the Garden, and, the foolish woman, she took it to heart and condemned Man. Jesus came to give us what Adam and Eve gave to the Devil. If you reject the Offer of Reconciliation, you’re still in the condition of Adam and Eve.
What Jesus demonstrated there is that eternal Salvation is most important and that the temporal is not important at all in the grand scheme of things that are of God.
==You fanatics can’t get it quite right, can you?==
Sure we can, and we do. Scoffers are the ones who can’t get it right, nor correct.
== You are forever stumbling over your own contradictions, absurdities, and falsehoods.==
The ” contradictions, absurdities and falsehoods” are all in your head.
==The historical facts are these: Christians like you butchered the Albigensians…==
Not like me.
==… ran the Crusades…==
Not like me.
Incidentally, the Crusades were not on orders from God, rather from the Pope.
==… managed the Inquisition…==
Not like me.
==… burned Giordano at the stake, invented anti-Semitism, fought endless wars on obscure points of doctrine…==
All that is pure crap.
==… covered up for your pedophile priests…==
Men who were not fully on board with Christ. I don’t identify with them. They were not strong in faith. I am.
==…and phony faith healers…==
There are some. I’m not phony.
==… — and, when called on it, would have us believe that none of these characters is a ‘true Christian’.==
You don’t have to believe it.
==Only YOU are.==
There are many others.
== What a joke is your defense — arrogant and self-serving, and utterly without humility.
I say what my Father in Heave says and told me to say.
I do what I saw and see my Father in Heaven do.
==Your ego is simply astonishing, leaving no room for any other human being across the face of the earth.==
There’s plenty of room for those who don’t turn their backs on God. There is a place with God, through Christ, for all. ==
Only YOU are right.==
There are others.
== All others are wrong.==
Some others are right and correct. They are the ones who don’t reject Jesus and, thus, God. Only few will find the gate.
== Sheesh… ==
We understand that it must be though to be confronted by one who won’t stand down and bow to the world order. After all, no weapon formed against me will prosper; I am more than a conquerer; He that is in me is greater than he who is in the world.
==There are clinical words to describe your condition, by the way.==
Yes, SAVED BY GRACE!
==And why are you fanatics (Christian, Muslim, there is no difference)…==
There is, but scoffers cannot tell the difference.
==… so anxious to murder those who would challenge you?==
Of course, that’s not true; but that’s not stopping you.
== Your motivation may also be found in the Bible, in a particularly wicked passage of which you must be especially proud:
“If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst.” (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)==
Those who are born again are not under Law, rather under Grace.
==You worship a wicked God. ==
The Devil says that, too.
==At best he turns his back, indifferently allowing the Six Million, malaria, smallpox, starvation, polio, childhood leukemias, abortion and war. ==
He told you how to avoid all that. You turn you back on Him.
==Your God summons bears to murder children who tease a bald man.==
He summons you to repentance.
==No wonder the world turns against you.==
I don’t bow to the world. So, I don’t care.
==Fanatics like you are without conscience, compassion, or heart.==
I’m without worldly conscience, compassion and heart, yes. The world thinks it can save itself by its own power. I’m not into that. I know that there will be no Salvation without Christ, and through Him, God, the Father.
However, the world is not my measure.
The cruelty of your God, the callousness of your religion, and the coldness of your heart may be measured in this.
Your Bible refuses admission to the Christian kingdom to those men who are eunuchs, who are without testicles, and otherwise not ‘manly’ enough for you. You yourself have agreed that Deuteronomy makes this extremely clear, and you have sought (as usual) to justify such viciousness.
Apart from being merely bizarre, your Bible is offensive to men who, through no fault of their own, suffer from this condition.
Ever heard of prostate cancer?
For many years standard treatment involved, in advanced cases, surgical removal of the testes. Why? Because prostate cancer is vectored (spread) by testosterone. When the testicles are removed, a medical advance called orchidectomy, so too is much of a man’s testosterone. This procedure has given men more years than otherwise this disease would grant. (Today, we use hormone treatments, like Zolodex.)
According to your cruel beliefs, such men — victims of a cancer unique to men — are not allowed to be Christians, and thus not to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Why do you worship such a disgusting, amoral ‘god’ as this? When you put theology ahead of humans, something is simply sick about your views.
==The cruelty of your God…==
The One who sent His Son to die for us? THAT cruelty???
==… the callousness of your religion…==
The way the scoffer sees it.
==… and the coldness of your heart…==
Translation: “You don’t bow to the world’s measure of things.”
==Your Bible refuses admission to the Christian kingdom to those men who are eunuchs, who are without testicles, and otherwise not ‘manly’ enough for you.==
No, it doesn’t.
== You yourself have agreed that Deuteronomy makes this extremely clear…==
No, I haven’t. The commentaries I posted make it clear that you got it wrong.
==… and you have sought (as usual) to justify such viciousness.==
No viciousness to justify.
==Apart from being merely bizarre, your Bible is offensive to men who, through no fault of their own, suffer from this condition.==
The Devil got to them.
==Ever heard of prostate cancer? For many years standard treatment involved, in advanced cases, surgical removal of the testes. Why? Because prostate cancer is vectored (spread) by testosterone. When the testicles are removed, a medical advance called orchidectomy, so too is much of a man’s testosterone. This procedure has given men more years than otherwise this disease would grant. (Today, we use hormone treatments, like Zolodex.)
According to your cruel beliefs, such men — victims of a cancer unique to men — are not allowed to be Christians, and thus not to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.==
According to the Word of God, that is not true.
==Why do you worship such a disgusting, amoral ‘god’ as this?==
I don’t worship a “god.”
== When you put theology ahead of humans, something is simply sick about your views.==
We don’t put “theology” ahead of humans. Islam does, for example.
God is above all that is temporal.
Trent, how is life in the flask lane?
Hey Credulous: Well, you better hope you never get prostate cancer. In order to survive it, according to Deuteronomy, you will never enter ‘heaven’.
You really have no clue how cruel are your beliefs, do you?
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” That’s one of yours. Unless you actually believe in witches (you probably do), this particular bit of Bible nonsense put numerous innocent women to the torch, burned alive.
You God sent bears to murder children who teased a bald man. According to your cold faith, that was to teach us “repentance”. Unfortunately, your divine instruction cost the lives of FORTY-TWO small children. [2 Kings 2]
Forty two children who made fun of Elisha are killed? By bears? Sent by God? You really have no clue how vicious is your theology, and the Bible which prescribes it.
Do you keep kosher? Avoid shellfish? Avoid mixing different cloths? That’s all in your Bible, too.
The ONLY truth you have told in this dialogue is this: “I’m without worldly conscience, compassion and heart, yes.” Your own admission. Your own words. Your own moral centre, collapsed like a black hole.
You have yet to explain why your God created smallpox, polio, childhood leukemias, brain cancer, tuberculosis, the Ebola virus, and on and on.
Either your God created everything — or he did not. That includes your so-called ‘Devil’. Why would a worthy God create a Satan, anyway? Just for fun? For John Milton?
What a weird, cold world you inhabit.
Luckily, normal people prefer love to your sub-arctic view of our lives. Maybe, with luck, you will re-discover what it means to be human.
==…you better hope you never get prostate cancer.==
I hope I never get prostate cancer.
== In order to survive it, according to Deuteronomy, you will never enter ‘heaven’. ==
[The period ALWAYS goes inside the quotation mark, by the way.]
As I proved, Deuteronomy does’t say that.
==You really have no clue how cruel are your beliefs, do you?==
The Devil has scoffers believing that.
==“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” That’s one of yours. Unless you actually believe in witches (you probably do), this particular bit of Bible nonsense put numerous innocent women to the torch, burned alive.==
That’s under the Old Testament. I’m a New Testament creature.
==You God sent bears to murder children who teased a bald man.==
On this occasion only do we find Elisha a minister of vengeance. Perhaps it was necessary to show, at the outset of his career as a prophet, that he too, so mild and peaceful could, like Elijah, wield the terrors of God’s judgments (1Ki_19:19 note). The persons really punished were, not so much the children, as the wicked parents 2Ki_2:23, whose mouth-pieces the children were, and who justly lost the gift of offspring of which they had shown themselves unworthy. — Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
such a number of them they tore to pieces and destroyed; which was very extraordinary, and was an awful punishment for their wickedness, which they knowingly and willingly committed, and of their parents in them, who had trained them up in such impiety, and put them upon it, and sent them out to do it. — John Gill’ Exposition of the Entire Bible
there came forth little children out of the city — that is, the idolatrous, or infidel young men of the place, who affecting to disbelieve the report of his master’s translation, sarcastically urged him to follow in the glorious career.
bald head — an epithet of contempt in the East, applied to a person even with a bushy head of hair. The appalling judgment that befell them was God’s interference to uphold his newly invested prophet. — Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary
Here is a curse on the youths of Bethel, enough to destroy them; it was not a curse causeless, for it was Elisha’s character, as God’s prophet, that they abused. They bade him “go up,” reflecting on the taking up of Elijah into heaven. The prophet acted by Divine impulse. If the Holy Spirit had not directed Elisha’s solemn curse, the providence of God would not have followed it with judgment. The Lord must be glorified as a righteous God who hates sin, and will reckon for it. Let young persons be afraid of speaking wicked words, for God notices what they say. Let them not mock at any for defects in mind or body; especially it is at their peril, if they scoff at any for well doing. Let parents that would have comfort in their children, train them up well, and do their utmost betimes to drive out the foolishness that is bound up in their hearts. And what will be the anguish of those parents, at the day of judgment, who witness the everlasting condemnation of their offspring, occasioned by their own bad example, carelessness, or wicked teaching! — Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
Cursed them – Nor was this punishment too great for the offence, if it be considered, that their mocking proceeded from a great malignity of mind against God; that they mocked not only a man, and an ancient man, whose very age commanded reverence; and a prophet; but even God himself, and that glorious work of God, the assumption of Elijah into heaven; that they might be guilty of many other heinous crimes, which God and the prophet knew; and were guilty of idolatry, which by God’s law deserved death; that the idolatrous parents were punished in their children; and that, if any of these children were more innocent, God might have mercy upon their souls, and then this death was not a misery, but a real blessing to them, that they were taken away from that education which was most likely to expose them not only to temporal, but eternal destruction. In the name – Not from any revengeful passion, but by the motion of God’s Spirit, and by God’s command and commission. God did this, partly, for the terror and caution of all other idolaters and prophane persons who abounded in that place; partly, to vindicate the honour, and maintain the authority of his prophets; and particularly, of Elisha, now especially, in the beginning of his sacred ministry. Children – This Hebrew word signifies not only young children, but also those who are grown up to maturity, as Gen_32:22, Gen_34:4, Gen_37:30; Rth_1:5. — John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes
That oughta clear it up for you.
== According to your cold faith…==
My faith is hot for Christ! Real zeal!
==… that was to teach us “repentance”. Unfortunately, your divine instruction cost the lives of FORTY-TWO small children. [2 Kings 2]==
It wasn’t Divine instruction that killed them, rather disobedience.
==Forty two children who made fun of Elisha are killed?==
They deserved it as punishment to their parents who failed to teach them.
== By bears?==
Yes, by bears.
== Sent by God?==
It doesn’t say “sent by God.”
== You really have no clue how vicious is your theology, and the Bible which prescribes it.==
The Lord is my Shepherd, not you.
==Do you keep kosher?==
No. I’m not a Jew. I’m not beholden to Jewish laws.
== Avoid shellfish?==
No. I love shellfish. I eat it often. I’m not a Jew. I’m not beholden to Jewish laws.
== Avoid mixing different cloths?==
I’m not a Jew. I’m not beholden to Jewish laws.
== That’s all in your Bible, too.==
Except I’m not a Jew. So, I’m not beholden to Jewish laws.
I’m also not an Old Testament creature, rather a New Testament creature.
==The ONLY truth you have told in this dialogue is this: “I’m without worldly conscience, compassion and heart, yes.” Your own admission. Your own words. Your own moral centre, collapsed like a black hole.==
I’m not of this corrupt world. This world won’t save me, and, so, I am not beholden to it.
==You have yet to explain why your God created smallpox, polio, childhood leukemias, brain cancer, tuberculosis, the Ebola virus, and on and on. ==
I explained. You musta missed my explanation.
He didn’t create them. Sin, not God, brought them into the world.
==Either your God created everything — or he did not.==
He didn’t create darkness, from which evil comes.
== That includes your so-called ‘Devil’.==
Since God did not create darkness, He dould not have created evil.
== Why would a worthy God create a Satan, anyway?==
He didn’t create Satan cuz He didn’t create darkness.
== What a weird, cold world you inhabit. ==
I live in the world, but I am not of it.
==Luckily, normal people prefer love to your sub-arctic view of our lives.==
Yes, they prefer worldly love, not biblical love.
== Maybe, with luck, you will re-discover what it means to be human.==
Translation: “Mr. Incredible, come to the dark side!”
Uhhh, Trent, you “rollin’”?
==Do you keep kosher? Avoid shellfish? Avoid mixing different cloths? That’s all in your Bible, to
So is this:
Those who are born again are under Grace, not under Law:
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galations%203:10-14;&version=9;
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%203:21-26;&version=9;
For:
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2014:6;&version=9;
Hey Credulous: WOW!! You really are without compassion of ANY kind, aren’t you?
TRENT: “Apart from being merely bizarre, your Bible is offensive to men who, through no fault of their own, suffer from [prostate cancer]“.
YOUR REPLY: “The Devil got to them.”
First, there is NO KNOWN CAUSE of prostate cancer. We are working on a number of theories, including an absence of Vitamin D, genetic links, too much saturated fat, an so on. But the causative effects are entirely unknown at this stage. Science does not consider ‘devils’ a likely cause.
However, you ride to the rescue with the ridiculous assertion that men get prostate cancer, by the thousands in our country, because “The Devil got to them.” Do you practice voodoo too? Do you cure pneumonia by yelling? I’m glad you are in perfect health, and will never need any advances of modern medicine. (Your mental health is quite another matter…)
Your apologia for God sending bears to murder 42 children is equally laughable. [2 Kings 2] The mere fact that you carry on and on in your defense, unable to deal with the plain truth of your Bible, makes it clear how wicked was this event. You rationalize like a UN diplomat. All words. No simple truths.
Elisha was bald. Children, behaving like children everywhere, teased him. God promptly sent two she-bears to kill FORTY TWO of them. According to you, killing ONE child wasn’t enough to set a good example. You had to kill FORTY TWO children.
Are you opposed to abortion? (I am.) If so, how can you favor the murder of FORTY TWO small children? You are as bad as any abortionist.
As I said before, your moral centre has collapsed, like a Black Hole. You don’t care a damn about human life. You only care about the fastidious fixations of your bizarre theology.
Finally, according to you, God “didn’t create darkness, from which evil comes.” Really? Who did? Hitler? The Pope? The serpent? How was darkness created in the first place, if, according to you, God created Everything?
Here’s a simple fact: Every culture has a Creation Myth.
Here’s yours, from Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
“God created the heaven and the earth.” That’s just about it, isn’t it? Not much left out.
You fanatics are always goofy about this problem. Your God is universal, all-powerful, all-knowing, and the Creator of All. And then, when something goes wrong, you blame it (prostate cancer, malaria, polio) on something you are pleased to say God did NOT invent: ‘darkness’, supposed home of Satan, whom he also did not invent.
Either your God is all-powerful — or he isn’t.
Make up your mind, and your ‘theology’ will provoke a good deal less laughter.
Not that you have a sense of humor, either.
You said: “…liberal judges forcing their personal views on the rest of us…”
Six of the seven judges were appointed by Republicans. That doesn’t seem very liberal to me. Perhaps they are just doing their job, and not forcing anything on anyone.
By the way, you’ve got another problem.
You wrote, “I’m also not an Old Testament creature, rather a New Testament creature.”
Very good. By this you mean you are not bound by any of the laws and proscriptions of Volume One of your Bible.
Alas, this means you have just tossed out the Ten Commandments.
Happy with that one?
==you’ve got another problem.==
Romans 8:1 [KJV]
==You wrote, “I’m also not an Old Testament creature, rather a New Testament creature.”
Very good. By this you mean you are not bound by any of the laws and proscriptions of Volume One of your Bible.==
There is no “Volume One” of the Word of God.
==Alas, this means you have just tossed out the Ten Commandments.==
No, it doesn’t.
==You really are without compassion of ANY kind, aren’t you?==
worldly compassion, yes. Biblical compassion, no.
==TRENT: “Apart from being merely bizarre, your Bible is offensive to men who, through no fault of their own, suffer from [prostate cancer]“.
YOUR REPLY: “The Devil got to them.”
First, there is NO KNOWN CAUSE of prostate cancer.==
None that YOU’ll accept, anyway.
== …the causative effects are entirely unknown at this stage. Science does not consider ‘devils’ a likely cause.==
Funny that there was no disease before Adam and Eve jumped.
==However, you ride to the rescue with the ridiculous assertion that men get prostate cancer, by the thousands in our country, because “The Devil got to them.”==
Again, there was no disease before “the jump.”
== Do you practice voodoo too?==
Of course not. Howver, YOU do. You’re trying to vex me with you incantations right now.
== Do you cure pneumonia by yelling?==
You purpose is to tribialize what I write and argue with your own trivializations.
== I’m glad you are in perfect health, and will never need any advances of modern medicine.==
Medicine is a gift from God, not from men.
== (Your mental health is quite another matter…)==
I dunno whence you bitterness, but you need to get over the fact that your mother gave your infant self up to the gypsies.
==Your apologia for God sending bears to murder 42 children is equally laughable. ==
I gave you reputable commentaries, not my own interpretation.
==The mere fact that you carry on and on in your defense, unable to deal with the plain truth of your Bible, makes it clear how wicked was this event.==
Scoffers think it is wicked. So what?
== You rationalize like a UN diplomat.==
I don’t need to rationaize. That would be a worldly thing to do.
== All words. No simple truths.==
The Wod of God Is simple, but not to scoffers.
==Elisha was bald. Children, behaving like children everywhere, teased him. God promptly sent two she-bears to kill FORTY TWO of them.==
The Word of God says nothing about God sending the bears. I posted reputable commentaries to explain this. Since you keep on posting the same things, it appears you are not interested in explanations, only perpetrating secular taliban propaganda.
==According to you, killing ONE child wasn’t enough to set a good example. You had to kill FORTY TWO children.==
A lotta parent’s had to pay the price.
==Are you opposed to abortion? (I am.) If so, how can you favor the murder of FORTY TWO small children? You are as bad as any abortionist.==
Not quite.
As I said before, your moral centre has collapsed, like a Black Hole.==
A black hole doesn’t collapse. It IS the collapse.
Anyway, scoffers know nothing about “moral centers.”
Anyway, Romans 8:1 {KJV].
== You don’t care a damn about human life. ==
Yes, I do, but not in your worldly way.
==You only care about the fastidious fixations of your bizarre theology.==
We know that you are more interested in drawing attention to yourself by trying to appear scholarly. You’re just self-sanctimonious.
==Finally, according to you, God “didn’t create darkness, from which evil comes.” Really? Who did? Hitler? The Pope? The serpent? How was darkness created in the first place, if, according to you, God created Everything?==
Irrelevant. God spoke Light into the darkness who was already there. Adam and Eve gave darkness permission to enter Man. Darkness began with Lucifer jumped from Heaven.
==Here’s a simple fact: Every culture has a Creation Myth. ==
Just like the one you’re trying to impose here.
==Here’s yours, from Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
“God created the heaven and the earth.” That’s just about it, isn’t it? Not much left out. ==
He didn’t create darkness, though. However, the darkness doesn’t comprehend the Light He spoke into the void that was in Man.
==You fanatics are always goofy about this problem.==
Scoffes think so. So what?
== Your God is universal, all-powerful, all-knowing, and the Creator of All. And then, when something goes wrong, you blame it (prostate cancer, malaria, polio) on something you are pleased to say God did NOT invent: ‘darkness’, supposed home of Satan, whom he also did not invent.==
God didn’t create evil cuz He didn’t create darkness whence evil emanates.
==Either your God is all-powerful — or he isn’t. ==
He is.
==Make up your mind, and your ‘theology’ will provoke a good deal less laughter.==
You laugh at your own peril, not mine.
==Not that you have a sense of humor, either.==
What’s goin’on inside those two heads of yours? Are there wires touching that shouldn’t be?
Sorry, Cred, but you have inadvertently missed my point. In our culture, there is an Old Testament and a New; colloquially speaking, Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the Bible.
In the Old, we find the Ten Commandments [Exodus 20, I believe], which you have evidently tossed out the window in order to avoid association with absurd rules about food, cloth, the murder of children and generally the whole of Leviticus. In the New, there are no Ten Commandments. Zero.
Why can’t you fanatics make up your minds?
It may be that your theology is fundamentally absurd, wicked, cold, and indefensible.
In Matthew 10:34, we find this rubbish. Jesus says, “I have come not to bring peace, but a sword.” Disgusting. This you consider the language of a Prince of Peace?
It appears absurd to normal Americans.
It is why we reject your pals Benny Hinn, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Richard Roberts, Ted Haggard, Peter Popoff, Billy James Hargis, Jim Bakker, Paul Crouch, Robert Tilton, Doug Goodrich Jr, John Hagee, Howard Blattel, Warren Jeffs, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Earl Paulk, Coy Privette, Leonard Frazier, and dozens more of your fellow travellers — to say nothing of numerous pedophile priests now languishing in federal prison. Perhaps you know some of them.
Why does your religion attract such creeps and money-grubbers? It is like the Mormons, following a sect founded by two men with venal and grotesque appetites: one had FIVE wives. The other had TWENTY-SEVEN.
You remain silent in reply to questions about how a God who created Everything would also have decided to create Darkness, Devils, and Demons. You worship a very peculiar god, in very peculiar ways.
Like an addict returning to his supplier, you answer such logical questions by calling people ’scoffers’, and thus avoid all responsibility to answer logical questions in a logical way.
Yours are the replies of children. “It is so, because I say it is so.” This is what we call a tautology, utterly without evidence.
“God exists because I read a book in which God says he exists” is no answer to anything.
It may satisfy the feeble-minded. It satisfies no one else.
==You people need to treat Trent1280 with respect.==
You mean, like, the respect we need to show a mentally-disabled person?
==His brain is still not working right from the hemorrhage that almost took his life.==
Is it a hemorrhage, or hemorrhoids?
What happened? Did he walk past a construction site without looking, and a wrecking ball bounced off one of his two heads?
== He also is having a very hard time coping with the truth about him being related to “Ted Kazynski” David Koresh and Tim Mcveigh.==
Well, a bug doesn’t know he’s a bug.
Hey Credulous: I am beginning, perhaps wrongly, to gain the impression that I have read your Bible much more closely than you have.
Its many contradictions and absurdities seem unknown to you.
Here’s yet another: “The Lord has made everything for his own ends, even the wicked for the evil day.” (Proverbs 16:4 NAB)
This clearly and completely contradicts your claim that God is somehow NOT responsible for the existence of Satan, darkness, and disease. Or, perhaps you think the authors of Proverbs are tools of Satan. Who knows? The Christian Taliban is abundantly confused.
When you fanatics seize on a book with so many authors, separated by such aeons of time, you have to have a near-perfect memory in order to avoid slipping up.
You’ve slipped again. Sorry to give you the good news.
One more problem for the fanatics and literalists. If you even bothered to read and trace the Four Gospels, you would notice several striking differences in their accounts of Jesus’ miraculous birth. They are NOT THE SAME.
To paraphrase, when we speak of the Nativity story, we usually read the account in St Matthew’s Gospel. The virgin birth, Joseph’s dream, the star, the Wise Men and their gifts, the flight to Egypt, and Herod’s slaughter of the innocents: all these elements are drawn from Chapters 1 and 2 of the first Gospel.
Only the adoration of the shepherds and the birth in the manger are missing – these staples of the tale being supplied by St Luke.
St Matthew’s account of the Christmas story consists of an admixture of the charming and the frightening. The sweet image of the baby cared for by the Virgin Mary, greeted by angels, and visited by the Magi – magicians in pursuit of a miraculous star – is followed by menace. The bloodthirsty Herod enters the fray, informed of Jesus’s birth by the Magi, and advised by the “the chief priests and scribes”, sages who identify the place where the new king of Israel is to be found.
To rid himself of a potential rival, Herod lets loose his cruel soldiers on the infants of Bethlehem. They all perish – except the child whom Herod actually fears. Joseph, warned by a dream, carries Jesus to safety in Egypt – where, centuries before, the very existence of the Jewish people had nearly been brought to an end by Pharaoh. Yet another dream, and Joseph is told by “an angel of the Lord” that he can take Mary and Jesus back to the Holy Land.
NOTE: This account of Jesus’s birth is missing ENTIRELY from the Gospels of Mark and John, and appears in a radically different form in Luke, where there is no mention of a star, wise men or Herod, nor of the murder of the innocents and Jesus’s escape to Egypt.
If ALL of these Gospels are true, and ALL inspired by God, why do they contradict one another? Why are there so many inconsistencies? Did your god deliberately mis-lead the writer of the gospels?
They cannot all be true, because each contradicts the other.
Don’t take my word for it. Just read these tales. If you are clear-headed, you will instantly spot the differences. If you are clear-headed, you will wonder, “Why didn’t they get their stories straight?”
This may prove the beginning of your intellectual liberation from the spiteful nonsense spouted by Incredulous and his fellow fanatics. Good luck!
==… you have inadvertently missed my point.==
No, I’m perfectly on target.
== In our culture, there is an Old Testament and a New; colloquially speaking, Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the Bible.==
There is no accurate description of the Word of God as being, “Volume 1,” and, “Volume 2.”
==In the Old, we find the Ten Commandments [Exodus 20, I believe], which you have evidently tossed out the window…==
No, I haven’t.
==… in order to avoid association with absurd rules about food, cloth, the murder of children and generally the whole of Leviticus.==
Grace is about the rejection of rules. Loving God, through Christ, is about, well, love, not rules. Man cannot follow rules well enough to be saved. You’re, gonna find that out.
==In the New, there are no Ten Commandments. Zero.==
They are there, but in different form. Scoffers are blind.
==Why can’t you fanatics make up your minds?==
We have. It’s just that you are so confused. That’s because you’re blind. Whose fault is that?
==It may be that your theology is fundamentally absurd…==
It would be, to the scoffer.
==… wicked…==
The Devil believes that, too.
==… cold…==
It is hot. Not cold. Not lukewarm.
==… and indefensible. ==
To you, there is nothing but what YOU think.
==In Matthew 10:34, we find this rubbish.==
Gee, the Devil says that, too! Amazing!
== Jesus says, “I have come not to bring peace, but a sword.” Disgusting.==
Both the Devil and the scoffer think so.
==This you consider the language of a Prince of Peace? ==
You just quoted Him as saying that He did not bring peace. So, which is it?
==It appears absurd to normal Americans. ==
“Normal,” as YOU define it. It’s a changing standard. Nobody can depend on it. We rely on the Word of God. God is the same yesterday, today and for ever.
==It is why we reject your pals Benny Hinn, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Richard Roberts, Ted Haggard, Peter Popoff, Billy James Hargis, Jim Bakker, Paul Crouch, Robert Tilton, Doug Goodrich Jr, John Hagee, Howard Blattel, Warren Jeffs, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Earl Paulk, Coy Privette, Leonard Frazier, and dozens more of your fellow travellers — to say nothing of numerous pedophile priests now languishing in federal prison.==
No man as a substitute for the Holy Spirit. The First Authority is the Holy Spirit, not men.
==Why does your religion…==
Christianity is not a religion. It is a relationship to which God has called us, through Christ. It is eternal and internal. It is not performance-based.
Islam is an example of religion. It is temporal and external. It is performance-based.
Scoffers don’t understand the difference. They can’t.
==… Attract such creeps and money-grubbers?==
It takes money to pay staff and to pay for television and radio time and equipment. How do they spread the Word of God, then, without money?
==It is like the Mormons, following a sect founded by two men with venal and grotesque appetites: one had FIVE wives. The other had TWENTY-SEVEN.==
If it doesn’t apply to you, what’s your beef?
==You remain silent in reply to questions about how a God who created Everything would also have decided to create Darkness, Devils, and Demons.==
I explained it to you in detail. It went over your head.
== You worship a very peculiar god, in very peculiar ways.==
The Devil keeps telling me that, too. We are wise to his devices. We don’t listen to him. It’s all noise.
==Like an addict returning to his supplier, you answer such logical questions by calling people ’scoffers’…==
The Word of God calls them “scoffers.” I merely report it.
==… and thus avoid all responsibility to answer logical questions in a logical way.==
I answered all the questions. You don’t agree with the answers. I can’t help that.
==Yours are the replies of children.==
Having been born again, we are the children of God.
== “It is so, because I say it is so.”==
God knows more than we do. We trust Him. That’s cuz He has performed what He promised.
== This is what we call a tautology, utterly without evidence.==
(Heb 11:1) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
(1Co 2:14) But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
==“God exists because I read a book in which God says he exists” is no answer to anything. ==
Not to the scoffer, anyway.
==It may satisfy the feeble-minded. It satisfies no one else.==
Only God can satisfy. We’re not responsible to you to satisfy you. We can only give you what we know. You may reject it. So what? Your rejection doesn’t impact our Salvation. Just be big enough, on Judgment Day, to accept responsibility and the consequence for your choice.
==I am beginning, perhaps wrongly, to gain the impression that I have read your Bible much more closely than you have.==
You have read it as you do a newspaper. You believe that the Word of God may be discerned intellectually. It cannot. That’s cuz it is not intended to be intellectually discerned.
==Its many contradictions and absurdities seem unknown to you.==
That’s cuz what you call “contradictions and absurdities” are all in your head. Maybe that’s all there is.
==Here’s yet another: “The Lord has made everything for his own ends, even the wicked for the evil day.” (Proverbs 16:4 NAB)
This clearly and completely contradicts your claim that God is somehow NOT responsible for the existence of Satan, darkness, and disease.
Or, perhaps you think the authors of Proverbs are tools of Satan. Who knows? The Christian Taliban is abundantly confused.==
Better, The Lord has done everything for its own end; and this includes the appointment of an “evil day” for “the wicked” who deserve it. — Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
The Lord hath made all things for himself – He has so framed and executed every part of his creation, that it manifests his wisdom, power, goodness, and truth.
Even the wicked for the day of evil – וגם רשע ליום רעה vegam rasha leyom raah. The whole verse is translated by the Chaldee thus: “All the works of the Lord are for those who obey him; and the wicked is reserved for the evil day.” As רעה raah literally signifies to feed, it has been conjectured that the clause might be read, yea, even the wicked he feeds by the day, or daily.
If we take the words as they stand in our present version, they mean no more than what is expressed by the Chaldee and Spriac: and as far as we can learn from their present confused state, by the Septuagint and Arabic, that “the wicked are reserved for the day of punishment.” Coverdale has given, as he generally does, a good sense: “The Lorde dotll all thinges for his owne sake; yea, and when he kepeth the ungodly for the daye of wrath.” He does not make the wicked or ungodly man; but when man has made himself such, even then God bears with him. But if he repent not, when the measure of his iniquity is filled up, he shall fall under the wrath of God his Maker. — Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible
“for its answer,” or “purpose,” that is, according to God’s plan; the wicked are for the day of evil (Psa_49:5; Jer_17:18); sinning and suffering answer to each other, are indissolubly united. — Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary
Doth work – He orders or disposes. For – For his own glory; for the discovery of his wisdom, power, goodness, truth, justice. The wicked – Wilful and impenitent sinners. Men make themselves wicked, and God therefore makes them miserable. — John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes
== When you fanatics seize on a book with so many authors, separated by such aeons of time, you have to have a near-perfect memory in order to avoid slipping up.==
God tells us, in His Word, that we don’t have to remember anything, that the Holy Spirit gives us remembrance.
It’s good that you understand that there are so many authors separated by a great amount of time. Even YOU can see that the entire Word of God has the same line, or thread, of thought spanning over 1500 years.
==You’ve slipped again.==
Romans 8:1 [KJV]
== Sorry to give you the good news.==
God gave me the Good News — Christ.
==…you have to have a near-perfect memory in order to avoid slipping up.==
And, yet, I’m not slipping up. Heh.
==… and thus avoid all responsibility to answer logical questions in a logical way.==
I answered the question. We can’t help it that they’re not the answers you want.
You want us to give YOUR answers to questions, not answer the questions. We give the answer the question requires, not what YOU require, thank you.
Also, you are not allowed to limit us to evidence YOU want. We get to use whatever evidence we can bring to bear on the issues discussed. You are not required to accept it. You may choose to limit your intake of information which, of course, warps your conclusions and renders them useless to anybody but you cuz you want your conclusions to determine the evidence, not the other way around.
Hey Cred: your omission constitutes an admission.
I wrote, “It is why we reject your pals Benny Hinn, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Richard Roberts, Ted Haggard, Peter Popoff, Billy James Hargis, Jim Bakker, Paul Crouch, Robert Tilton, Doug Goodrich Jr, John Hagee, Howard Blattel, Warren Jeffs, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Earl Paulk, Coy Privette, Leonard Frazier, and dozens more of your fellow travellers — to say nothing of numerous pedophile priests now languishing in federal prison. Perhaps you know some of them.”
When you replied, as is your quaint fashion, you quote me in order to repudiate me. You almost always do so in a scholarly and complete way. Fair enough: except this time, in yours of 12:33am.
Strangely, you cut out my final sentence, referring to pedophile priests: “Perhaps you know some of them.”
Is this oversight? Or, an admission of embarrassment? Are you Catholic, burdened by guilt and bankruptcy?
Your faith is strangely appealing to mentally disordered men. No wonder.
==… your omission constitutes an admission.==
I omitted nothing.
I answered the questions. We can’t help it that they’re not the answers you want.
You want us to give YOUR answers to questions, not answer the questions. We give the answer the question requires, not what YOU require, thank you.
Also, you are not allowed to limit us to evidence YOU want. We get to use whatever evidence we can bring to bear on the issues discussed. You are not required to accept it. You may choose to limit your intake of information which, of course, warps your conclusions and renders them useless to anybody but you cuz you want your conclusions to determine the evidence, not the other way around.
==I wrote, “It is why we reject your pals Benny Hinn, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Richard Roberts, Ted Haggard, Peter Popoff, Billy James Hargis, Jim Bakker, Paul Crouch, Robert Tilton, Doug Goodrich Jr, John Hagee, Howard Blattel, Warren Jeffs, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Earl Paulk, Coy Privette, Leonard Frazier, and dozens more of your fellow travellers — to say nothing of numerous pedophile priests now languishing in federal prison. Perhaps you know some of them.”
When you replied, as is your quaint fashion, you quote me in order to repudiate me.==
I did so in fine fashion.
== You almost always do so in a scholarly and complete way. Fair enough: except this time, in yours of 12:33am.
Strangely, you cut out my final sentence, referring to pedophile priests: “Perhaps you know some of them.”==
So what?
==Is this oversight?==
No. The irrelevant statement required no answer.
== Or, an admission of embarrassment?==
Not at all.
== Are you Catholic…==
Maybe, and maybe not.
==… burdened by guilt…==
Romans 8:1 [KJV]
==… and bankruptcy?==
I’m not burdened by bankruptcy. Far from it.
==Your faith is strangely appealing to mentally disordered men.==
That’s the way a scoffer would see it. Strange alliance, in that the Devil sees it that way, too.
==Strangely, you cut out my final sentence…==
And, strangely, you didn’t answer me where I asked, “What’s goin’on inside those two heads of yours? Are there wires touching that shouldn’t be?”
Anyway, what’s the relevance of your self-sanctimonious statement, “Perhaps you know some of them”?
==In the Old, we find the Ten Commandments [Exodus 20, I believe], which you have evidently tossed out the window …==
“Evidently”? What’s the evidence?
==I wrote, “It is why we reject your pals Benny Hinn, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Richard Roberts, Ted Haggard, Peter Popoff, Billy James Hargis, Jim Bakker, Paul Crouch, Robert Tilton, Doug Goodrich Jr, John Hagee, Howard Blattel, Warren Jeffs, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Earl Paulk, Coy Privette, Leonard Frazier, and dozens more of your fellow travellers — to say nothing of numerous pedophile priests now languishing in federal prison. Perhaps you know some of them.”==
It’s pretty clear that YOU think you know them.
==Your faith is strangely appealing to mentally disordered men. ==
God can save anybody through Christ. By His stripes, anybody is healed, if they receive Him.
Some think, though, that God will save them even if they continue to do what satsifies them; they think that God won’t find out, or somethin’, or that God will save them anyway. They are deluded…by the Devil who gets scoffers to deliver the deceptive message.
==In the Old, we find the Ten Commandments [Exodus 20, I believe], which you have evidently tossed out the window …==
Did Jesus, the Christ, “toss them out the window”??
==…little problem. Here is what your Peacemaker Jesus said:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.==
That is, the sword of the Spirit:
(Eph 6:17) And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God…
(Heb 4:12) For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
==…little problem. Here is what your Peacemaker Jesus said:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.==
Jesus came to sift:
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2010:34-35;&version=9;
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2012:51;&version=50;
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%207:43;&version=50;
He came to separate the goats from the sheep:
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2025:32-33;&version=9;
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%2010:4;&version=9;
Jesus was not a multiculturalist, preaching diversity:
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2014:6;&version=9;
So, He is the ONLY Way to the Father; His sheep know His Voice. The goats wander, aimlessly.
Therefore, those who are truly born again are called to distinguish, discern, separate:
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%205:14;&version=9;
Jesus came to sift:
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2010:34-35;&version=9;
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2012:51;&version=50;
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%207:43;&version=50;
He came to separate the goats from the sheep:
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2025:32-33;&version=9;
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%2010:4;&version=9;
Jesus was not a multiculturalist, preaching diversity:
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2014:6;&version=9;
So, He is the ONLY Way to the Father; His sheep know His Voice. The goats wander, aimlessly.
Therefore, those who are truly born again are called to distinguish, discern, separate:
DATA POINT: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%205:14;&version=9;
Wow! A strenuous effort. Congratulations.
What you make clear, by increasing reliance on the apologia, commentaries, explications and extrapolations of other authors (although you write well yourself) is that your core doctrine simply doesn’t make sense.
Because your Bible is as elaborate as James Joyce, as dis-ordered as Lydon LaRouche or L Ron Hubbard, and perverse as early Mormonism, you have to take refuge in complicated ‘commentaries’ from 18th C obsessives in order to explain it.
You are faced with a simple Biblical quotation, attributed to Jesus: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.”
This utterly contradicts the carefully-combed image you have created of Jesus as the Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace, and so on.
Because you cannot reconcile these opposites; because the language of the Bible is so simple; because (most) people prefer to think logically and honestly, you have a dilemma. Either you must agree that words mean what they mean (”but the sword”) or you have to make up new meanings for them. Yours is a hopeless cause, more reminiscent of James Joyce than of clear thinkers.
You believe you are a Christian, uniquely equipped to hear the Word of God because a book told you it is the Word of God. No outside demand for proof will ever be provided by you. Why? Because you have none.
I believe you are not really a Christian. Had you been born in Mumbai, you would be a Hindu. What’s happening, my friend, is that you have converted your fanaticism to the nearest-available cause. If you were born in Dubai, you would be an equally fanatical Muslim. If in Kenya, a fanatical animist.
The most faithful people I know are Quaker, the Amish, and the Mennonites. Leading simple lives, they see the Bible as the revealed Word of God. To them, it requires no exegesis. They freely admit its shortcomings and contradictions.
“Sometimes man, in his arrogance, hears God wrongly,” I once heard at a Quaker meeting. Seems right to me.
You, in your arrogance, think that your obsessive exegesis, your weird obsession with the word ’scoffers’, and general hatred of humanity is somehow ‘Christlike’. Sorry. It’s not. Never was. Never will be.
Your Bible contains much bad science, much beautiful poetry, the rationale for some especially sick people of anti-Semitism, and merrily recommends killing children — via two bears — whose only ‘crime’ was teasing a bald man.
Your idea of worship is very, very unhealthy — to you, and to the world. Try attending a Quaker meeting sometime, and see how beautiful — and humble — TRUE Christians can be.
It may even change your life.
==What you make clear, by increasing reliance on the apologia, commentaries, explications and extrapolations of other authors (although you write well yourself) is that your core doctrine simply doesn’t make sense.==
YOU make it clear that you don’t understand the info I provided and/or you’re more interested in propagating deception, regardless of the info.
==Because your Bible is as elaborate as James Joyce, as dis-ordered as Lydon LaRouche or L Ron Hubbard, and perverse as early Mormonism, you have to take refuge in complicated ‘commentaries’ from 18th C obsessives in order to explain it.==
Nevertheless, they explain it. They cannot be improved upon. So, if THAT’s all you gotta say about them, then you’ve lost the debate, cuz you cannot even dispute them.
==You are faced with a simple Biblical quotation, attributed to Jesus: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.”
This utterly contradicts the carefully-combed image you have created of Jesus as the Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace, and so on.==
Again, already explained to you that the “sword” is the Word of God. You have a reading comprehension problem. Or, as I also say, you deliberately ignore explanations so you can continue to impose you propaganda.
==Because you cannot reconcile these opposites; because the language of the Bible is so simple; because (most) people prefer to think logically and honestly, you have a dilemma.==
I’ve provided the explanations that show I’m not the one with the dilemma.
==Either you must agree that words mean what they mean (”but the sword”) or you have to make up new meanings for them.==
Not new meanings, rather original meanings, supported by Scripture upon Scripture interpretation.
== Yours is a hopeless cause…==
My Hope is in Christ, not you, for the LORD is my Shepherd, not you.
==You believe you are a Christian…==
Scoffers have no idea. I know WHOSE I am.
==… uniquely equipped to hear the Word of God because a book told you it is the Word of God.==
I don’t worship a “book.” That would be idolatry.
== No outside demand for proof will ever be provided by you.==
None that you’ll accept, anyway.
== Why? Because you have none.==
I have plenty, and I have provided plenty. You ignore all of it so that you can continue your propaganda parade.
==I believe you are not really a Christian.==
God knows, and that’s all that matters. Scoffers wouldn’t know.
== Had you been born in Mumbai, you would be a Hindu.==
You don’t know that.
== What’s happening, my friend, is that you have converted your fanaticism to the nearest-available cause.==
Now, you’re resorting to guesses.
== If you were born in Dubai, you would be an equally fanatical Muslim. ==
You dpn’t know that. Another guess.
==If in Kenya, a fanatical animist.==
You don’t know that. Another wild guess that’s WWWAAAYYY off the mark.
==The most faithful people I know are Quaker, the Amish, and the Mennonites. Leading simple lives, they see the Bible as the revealed Word of God. To them, it requires no exegesis. They freely admit its shortcomings and contradictions.
==
They’re wrong and you are. The so-called “shortcomings and contradictions” are in your heads. Both of them.
==”Sometimes man, in his arrogance, hears God wrongly,” I once heard at a Quaker meeting. Seems right to me.==
Of course it seems right to you! It agrees with your propaganda.
==You, in your arrogance…==
It has nothing to do with me, except that God saves me through Christ.
==… think that your obsessive exegesis, your weird obsession with the word ’scoffers’…==
I merely report what the Word of God calls people like you.
==… and general hatred of humanity…==
I love others — that is, love them in the biblical manner; “unselfish concern for the Salvation of others.”
==… is somehow ‘Christlike’.==
My love for others, following the biblical example, IS Christlike.
== Sorry. It’s not. Never was. Never will be.==
The Devil says that, too. Coincidence?
==Your Bible contains much bad science…==
Like:
Time: “In the beginning…”
Space: “Heaven”
Matter: “Earth”
Force: “Spirit of God”
Motion: “moved upon the face of the waters.”
==…the rationale for some especially sick people of anti-Semitism…==
THAT’s what YOU get outta Him.
==… and merrily recommends killing children — via two bears — whose only ‘crime’ was teasing a bald man.==
Again, you ignore the explanation for that, that it is intended for the paren’ts of the children to be punished for teaching ungodly things to them, or not teaching them Godly things.
==Your idea of worship is very, very unhealthy — to you, and to the world.==
Not according to God and His Son, and I believe them.
== Try attending a Quaker meeting sometime…==
No.
==… and see how beautiful — and humble — TRUE Christians can be.==
Translation: “Go and help me make my case to you through THEIR incantations and vexations.”
==It may even change your life.==
That’s what the Devil says, too.
==Wow! A strenuous effort==
You don’t know how easy it is.
==You are faced with a simple Biblical quotation, attributed to Jesus: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.”
That is, the sword of the Spirit:
(Eph 6:17) And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God…
(Heb 4:12) For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
==You are faced with a simple Biblical quotation, attributed to Jesus: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.”
Think not that I am come … – This is taken from Mic_7:6. Christ did not here mean to say that the object of his coming was to produce discord and contention, for he was the Prince of Peace, Isa_9:6; Isa_11:6; Luk_2:14; but he means to say that such would be one of the effects of his coming. One part of a family that was opposed to Him would set themselves against those who believed in him. The wickedness of men, and not the religion of the gospel, is the cause of this hostility. It is unnecessary to say that no prophecy has been more strikingly fulfilled; and it will continue to be fulfilled until all unite in obeying his commandments. Then his religion will produce universal peace. Compare the notes at Mat_10:21. — Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
think not that universal peace will be the immediate consequence of my coming. Just the contrary. Both public and private divisions will follow, wheresoever my Gospel comes with power. Ye – this is not the design, though it be the event of his coming, through the opposition of devils and men. Luk_12:51. — John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes
That clears it up. NEXT!
==… and merrily recommends killing children…==
He does not, as already explained and you ignore. What kinda scientific method/empiricism is THAT?
==Wow! A strenuous effort==
Well, it’s overwhelmed you to the point that you’re ignoring info for which you asked.
The delight you took in the murder of FORTY-TWO CHILDREN (punishing their parents, according to you — why not just murder the parents?) makes it clear you are not a gentle soul.
In reply to my sincere suggestion, “== Try attending a Quaker meeting sometime…== you wrote,
No.
==… and see how beautiful — and humble — TRUE Christians can be.==
Translation: “Go and help me make my case to you through THEIR incantations and vexations.”
Incantations? Vexations? What?!? You’ve obviously never been to a Quaker meeting in your life.
Once again, you confess that you care as little about human feelings as you know about the Quakers. In a word, zero about either.
The truest thing you have ever said, on 27 January, remains the coldest thing anyone could say: “I’m without worldly conscience, compassion and heart, yes.”
If ever we meet in person, please forgive me not shaking your hand. I wouldn’t want to risk frostbite.
==The delight you took in the murder of FORTY-TWO CHILDREN…==
They weren’t murdered. I provided the explanations from authorities in the “business.” You want not to accept explanations, rather maintain your propagandistic fantasies.
==…(punishing their parents, according to you — why not just murder the parents?) makes it clear you are not a gentle soul.==
Gee, the Devil says the same thing. Amazing.
==In reply to my sincere suggestion, “== Try attending a Quaker meeting sometime…== you wrote,
No.
==… and see how beautiful — and humble — TRUE Christians can be.==
Translation: “Go and help me make my case to you through THEIR incantations and vexations.”
Incantations? Vexations? What?!? You’ve obviously never been to a Quaker meeting in your life.==
So what?
==Once again, you confess that you care as little about human feelings…==
I confessed nothing of the sort, you liar.
==… as you know about the Quakers.==
Not important that I know anything about the Quakers.
== In a word, zero about either.==
Translation: “You don’t agree with me, and, therefore, you know zero.”
==The truest thing you have ever said, on 27 January, remains the coldest thing anyone could say: “I’m without worldly conscience, compassion and heart, yes.”==
That’s cuz I am not of this world, rather of God’s. My conscience, compassion and heart are of God’s type, not the type of the world. [Mat 9:36]
==If ever we meet in person, please forgive me not shaking your hand. I wouldn’t want to risk frostbite.==
If I ever meet you in person, the first thing I’ll say is, “Gimme five bucks on pump eight and a bag of Corn Nuts.”
==Incantations? Vexations? What?!?==
Translation: “Ich bin nicht schuldig!”
I think Tom Hanks is the biggest Douche in the Universe.
Tare: English, obsolete: to tear, rend, eviscerate
Your Bible says in plain, uncomplicated Engish, what you continue to obfuscate, misrepresent, conceal and deny:
2 Kings 2
2:23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
2:24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
Your God murdered FORTY-TWO children for the alleged ‘crime’ of being children, and making fun of a bald man.
Because you dare not justify such a crime in its own terms, you would have us believe that it was your loving God’s way of punishing — the PARENTS — of the murdered children!
Yours is a sick and wicked philosophy. Saying that ‘The Devil’ agrees means nothing, or are you now on intimate terms with Satan too?
Your silly and dated ‘commentaries’ do not and cannot excuse the fact, plain as day in your Bible, that the Lord was summoned and called out two bears to butcher innocent children.
Most of us love children, and human beings generally, and when we mistakes (I do) we generally ask forgiveness. Calling on bears to murder our children is actually quite unusual — except, apparently, in your neighborhood.
Not that you realized what you admitted when you wrote, “That’s cuz I am not of this world, rather of God’s. My conscience, compassion and heart are of God’s type, not the type of the world. [Mat 9:36]“, but the rest of us get the picture all too well.
==Your Bible says in plain, uncomplicated Engish, what you continue to obfuscate, misrepresent, conceal and deny…==
Except that I provided you with scholarly, authoritative explanations that you ignore in favor of propaganda.
==…:
2 Kings 2
2:23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
2:24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
Your God murdered FORTY-TWO children for the alleged ‘crime’ of being children, and making fun of a bald man.==
He did not, and here are the references…again…to prove it:
On this occasion only do we find Elisha a minister of vengeance. Perhaps it was necessary to show, at the outset of his career as a prophet, that he too, so mild and peaceful could, like Elijah, wield the terrors of God’s judgments (1Ki_19:19 note). The persons really punished were, not so much the children, as the wicked parents 2Ki_2:23, whose mouth-pieces the children were, and who justly lost the gift of offspring of which they had shown themselves unworthy. — Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
such a number of them they tore to pieces and destroyed; which was very extraordinary, and was an awful punishment for their wickedness, which they knowingly and willingly committed, and of their parents in them, who had trained them up in such impiety, and put them upon it, and sent them out to do it. — John Gill’ Exposition of the Entire Bible
there came forth little children out of the city — that is, the idolatrous, or infidel young men of the place, who affecting to disbelieve the report of his master’s translation, sarcastically urged him to follow in the glorious career.
bald head — an epithet of contempt in the East, applied to a person even with a bushy head of hair. The appalling judgment that befell them was God’s interference to uphold his newly invested prophet. — Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary
Here is a curse on the youths of Bethel, enough to destroy them; it was not a curse causeless, for it was Elisha’s character, as God’s prophet, that they abused. They bade him “go up,” reflecting on the taking up of Elijah into heaven. The prophet acted by Divine impulse. If the Holy Spirit had not directed Elisha’s solemn curse, the providence of God would not have followed it with judgment. The Lord must be glorified as a righteous God who hates sin, and will reckon for it. Let young persons be afraid of speaking wicked words, for God notices what they say. Let them not mock at any for defects in mind or body; especially it is at their peril, if they scoff at any for well doing. Let parents that would have comfort in their children, train them up well, and do their utmost betimes to drive out the foolishness that is bound up in their hearts. And what will be the anguish of those parents, at the day of judgment, who witness the everlasting condemnation of their offspring, occasioned by their own bad example, carelessness, or wicked teaching! — Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
Cursed them – Nor was this punishment too great for the offence, if it be considered, that their mocking proceeded from a great malignity of mind against God; that they mocked not only a man, and an ancient man, whose very age commanded reverence; and a prophet; but even God himself, and that glorious work of God, the assumption of Elijah into heaven; that they might be guilty of many other heinous crimes, which God and the prophet knew; and were guilty of idolatry, which by God’s law deserved death; that the idolatrous parents were punished in their children; and that, if any of these children were more innocent, God might have mercy upon their souls, and then this death was not a misery, but a real blessing to them, that they were taken away from that education which was most likely to expose them not only to temporal, but eternal destruction. In the name – Not from any revengeful passion, but by the motion of God’s Spirit, and by God’s command and commission. God did this, partly, for the terror and caution of all other idolaters and prophane persons who abounded in that place; partly, to vindicate the honour, and maintain the authority of his prophets; and particularly, of Elisha, now especially, in the beginning of his sacred ministry. Children – This Hebrew word signifies not only young children, but also those who are grown up to maturity, as Gen_32:22, Gen_34:4, Gen_37:30; Rth_1:5. — John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes
That oughta clear it up for you. We know it won’t.
==Because you dare not justify such a crime in its own terms, you would have us believe that it was your loving God’s way of punishing — the PARENTS — of the murdered children!==
The scholars agree that the event is not as YOU portray. That’s cuz what you portray is propaganda.
==Yours is a sick and wicked philosophy.==
“Philosophy” is of men, not God, and I prefer the the Way of God, not the world.
== Saying that ‘The Devil’ agrees means nothing…==
That’s what you want everybody to believe.
==… or are you now on intimate terms with Satan too? ==
Now, how can I preach God through Christ and be on intimate terms with Satan??? You preach ignorance and foolishness.
==Your silly and dated ‘commentaries’ do not and cannot excuse the fact…==
They are authoritative, even today, cuz Scripture is not outdated, and, so, understanding of Scripture cannot be outdated.
==… plain as day in your Bible, that the Lord was summoned and called out two bears to butcher innocent children.==
Already explain through scholarly, authoritative commentaries that show your view of it to be deceptive, to say the least.
==Most of us love children, and human beings generally, and when we mistakes (I do) we generally ask forgiveness.==
Then you should right now, before it’s too late!
== Calling on bears to murder our children is actually quite unusual — except, apparently, in your neighborhood.==
Already explained by scholarly, authoritative commentaries that you ignore. Some empiricism.
==Not that you realized what you admitted when you wrote, “That’s cuz I am not of this world, rather of God’s. My conscience, compassion and heart are of God’s type, not the type of the world. [Mat 9:36]“, but the rest of us get the picture all too well.==
Yes, that I, like Jesus, am not of this world, and I, like Jesus, don’t give authority to this world over me. Jesus took back the authority Adam and Eve gave to the Devil, and Jesus gave it back to those who are born again.
==Your Bible says in plain, uncomplicated Engish, what you continue to obfuscate, misrepresent, conceal and deny:
2 Kings 2…==
And the commentaries I provided say in plain, uncomplicated English, what you continue to obfuscate, misrepresent, conceal and deny.
==Yours is a sick and wicked philosophy.==
The Devil says that, too. He doesn’t have my attention since he lies, too.
==Your Bible says in plain, uncomplicated Engish, what you continue to obfuscate, misrepresent, conceal and deny:
2 Kings 2
2:23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
2:24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
Your God murdered FORTY-TWO children for the alleged ‘crime’ of being children, and making fun of a bald man.==
A scoffer is in no position to interpret the Word of God since he rejects God and His Son. Therefore, God rejects the scoffer, denying the scoffer insights to God’s Mysteries.
So, the scoffer tries intellectually to discern what is intended to be other than intellectually discernable, and the scoffer comes up with foolish interpretations such as Trent’s.
The reason for this is what the Word says, that He is of no private interpretation, rather of the interpretation of the Holy Spirit, available only to those who are born again cuz they have accepted Christ into their hearts.
Notice, also, that Trent doesn’t answer my posts, rather reposts the same ol’ propaganda over and over, as though I posted no explanation. That’s cuz he’s not interested in explanations, only propagation of propaganda.
He also cannot answer my posts cuz he doesn’t know the Word of God, as He is intended, to answer, and he’s afraid that I will put him in his place more directly if he does answer. So, he avoids what I post so he doesn’t put himself in that position. However, I put him in that position anyway. That’s cuz I know the Word of God and I have the resources to deflect his filthy deceptions quickly and most efficiently.
==Yours is a sick and wicked philosophy.==
Another spell, vexation and incantation from the secular taliban. Of course it doesn’t land.
Giving money to aid passing of Proposition 8
is every bit as American
as giving record billons to aid passing of Barack O’Bama as President.
NoVl
I will never watch another Tom Hanks movie again. Why do these celebs think their opinion is more important than everyone else’s?
Apparently you prefer these ‘commentaries’ to the Word of God itself, as if the commentators you so obsessively cite are a higher authority on the Word of God than the plain Word of God.
Cred, it is as if you were saying that Tolstoy, or Atwood, or Tagore were incompetent to speak for themselves, and therefore must be subject to the ‘higher’ authority of your self-appointed ‘commentators’. Don’t you see how silly that is?
You wrote, “Except that I provided you with scholarly, authoritative explanations that you ignore in favor of propaganda.” Your ‘explanations’ are ONLY scholarly and authoritative in YOUR eyes. Many other commentators (R Kent Redpath, William Barclay, John McArthur Jr, and of course John Calvin) offer profoundly different interpretations from the ones you favor. You choose the few who favor your narrow and cold views, and ignore all the rest.
Fair enough. We all make choices — but at least be honest about it.
In any case, they are only commentaries. They are no substitute for plain English, and plain thinking. The Kabuki Dance you prefer may (you imagine) get you off one dilemma, but it lands you on another.
For example: why do prefer your ‘commentators’ to the explicit Word of God? Hint: because in your Bible, the Word of God is all over the map. I have already shown you how the birth and flight to Egypt stories in the first four Gospels are also, literally, all over the map. Matthew is the most elaborate, and includes numerous details which (chiefly Luke) doesn’t appear to know anything about. They simply didn’t get their stories straight.
Question: assuming you, like most fanatic literalists, believe in the Noah story (let’s hope I’m wrong), you are stuck with another problem. The Bible story doesn’t add up.
How did Noah get polar bears on the Ark? Were they living in the Middle East at the time? Penguins too? And how about the dinosaurs? Did they come along nicely and sit in the corner, or did they try to eat all the other animals?
You will, ad nauseum, refer to such practical questions as those of ’scoffers’. Ho hum.
But your fantasies, murderous and otherwise, prompt doubt precisely because they are so ludicrous and insensible.
By the way, do you have some form of OCD? Your compulsive use of the word ’scoffer’ would suggest so. It actually appears very rarely in the King James Version (’scorn’ is the preferred term), and a bit more often in later translations as ’scoff’. In either case, it is only YOUR opinion and, I take it, your version of a schoolyard insult. If you tried harder you could be a bit more original. Perhaps English isn’t your first language, in which case you are doing quite nicely.
Regardless of what you say, in all of your epistles you have offered ‘proof’ of nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. You offer ‘commentaries’, ‘interpretations’, and ‘alternatives’. None of them is a fact. Not one.
In science, we call this a tautology. Circular reasoning. No facts, just a washing machine in a permanent spin cycle. In your world, you burned Giordano at the stake for asserting that the Earth is NOT the centre of the universe. In your world, your tautology consisted of the mindlessly repeated assertion that “it’s obvious! the Sun rotates around the Earth!”, and used this apparent observation to justify burning him alive.
Giordano (and others, including Galileo) had long since figured out a more rational explanation, based on the seasonal ‘movement’ of the stars. But fanatics like you, quoting the Bible as selectively as you, were offended and killed him.
This was the enlightened handiwork of the Venetian (and later Roman) Inquisition, ultimately headed by Pope Clement VIII. 400 years later, they admitted they were wrong, Giordano was right, and they offered their belated apologies. Their ‘commentaries’, just like yours, got it wrong. They had no facts, no science, and no evidence. Just like you.
I offer opinion displayed as such. You offer opinion, disguised as revelation inspired by God and commentators.
Assuming anyone other than you and I is actually reading this, a now-doubtful proposition, they will have long ago drawn the same conclusion.
Like any scientist, I employ doubt and challenge and reason, and in my profession we get to cure polio, leukemia, malaria and erase smallpox from the face of the earth. Forever.
In your world? An obsessive disdain for the views of anyone but you, your self-justifying ‘commentators’, and your astonishingly primitive belief that prostate cancer is caused by “devils”. Remarkably similar to the views of witch-doctors, in fact. Sheesh.
==Apparently you prefer these ‘commentaries’ to the Word of God itself…==
Apparently, you prefer to misrepresent what I write, creating arguments out of whole cloth, assigning them to me, then arguing against them.
==… as if the commentators you so obsessively cite are a higher authority on the Word of God than the plain Word of God. ==
Then, we have to assume you want no proof to expose your deception.
==Cred, it is as if you were saying that Tolstoy, or Atwood, or Tagore were incompetent to speak for themselves…==
However, you’re a scoffer, trying to use intellectualism to figure out the Word of God. So, even though intellectualism cannot decode the Word of God, we have to use the tools of intellectualism — expert witness testimony — to expose your deception. Of course, then, as we see, you accuse us of cheating when we use your tools. Unbelievable, but scoffers try to use every trick in the book, and we expect it.
==… and therefore must be subject to the ‘higher’ authority of your self-appointed ‘commentators’.==
They are recognized authorities in the field. It’s the same kind of appeal to authority YOU use. It is the same kind of appeal to authority YOU understand. Yet, your only response is to criticize my use of the tools that help me prove you to be so deceptive.
== Don’t you see how silly that is?==
Thank you for recognizing that my use of the tools of intellectualism — that is, expert testimony — has you backed into a corner.
==You wrote, “Except that I provided you with scholarly, authoritative explanations that you ignore in favor of propaganda.” Your ‘explanations’ are ONLY scholarly and authoritative in YOUR eyes.==
Translation: “Nothing you say can persuade me because I am mired in my own perceptions.”
== Many other commentators (R Kent Redpath, William Barclay, John McArthur Jr, and of course John Calvin) offer profoundly different interpretations from the ones you favor.==
And, yet, you don’t offer them here so that we can see for ourselves.
== You choose the few who favor your narrow and cold views, and ignore all the rest.==
I chose all that had something to say on the subject. I didn’t choose them according to my own views.
==Fair enough. We all make choices — but at least be honest about it. ==
You oughta.
==In any case, they are only commentaries.==
They are proof that you reject. Scoffers reject any proof that they are wrong. That’s because they elevate and worship themselves. They think that their trace of a trace of a trace of a trace of a trace of a trace of a trace of a trace of a trace of a trace — and on and on — of all the knowledge in the universe IS all the knowledge of the universe, that they need no more. They believe that what they don’t know is irrelevant, they feel so good about what they know, or THINK they know.
== They are no substitute for plain English, and plain thinking.==
And I gave it to you.
== The Kabuki Dance you prefer may (you imagine) get you off one dilemma, but it lands you on another.==
Sorry, I’m in no dilemma.
==For example: why do prefer your ‘commentators’ to the explicit Word of God?==
Nice misrepresentation there. Nice try.
What YOU prefer is to use what you say is your own intellectualism, not the “explicit” Word of God. But YOU do is try to direct us to the intellectualist commentary in your own head as the substitute for the Word of God.
The commentaries I offer our authoritative, objective scholars. [You're into objectivity, aren't you?] Recognized over scores and scores and scores.
==Hint: because in your Bible, the Word of God is all over the map.==
That statement is a scoffer’s intellectualism at work.
==I have already shown you how the birth and flight to Egypt stories in the first four Gospels are also, literally, all over the map.==
You don’t know the difference between “literally” and “virtually,” do you?
Anyway, you’ve shown us nothing of the kind.
== Matthew is the most elaborate, and includes numerous details which (chiefly Luke) doesn’t appear to know anything about. They simply didn’t get their stories straight.==
The to come from different perspectives and different purposes. A scoffer wouldn’t know that because a scoffer is concerned, chiefly, with intellectualism. He sees differences in words and says ‘AHA! They’re all over the map.”
==Question: assuming you, like most fanatic literalists, believe in the Noah story (let’s hope I’m wrong), you are stuck with another problem. The Bible story doesn’t add up.==
It all adds up. Again, your fanatical, secular Taliban intellectualism is getting in the way.
==How did Noah get polar bears on the Ark?==
Don’t know. Don’t care. It’s not important to the spiritual journey. Scoffers, trying to rely on intellectualism cannot grasp that.
== Were they living in the Middle East at the time?==
Don’t know. Don’t care. It’s not important to the spiritual journey. Scoffers, trying to rely on intellectualism cannot grasp that.
== Penguins too?==
Don’t know. Don’t care. It’s not important to the spiritual journey. Scoffers, trying to rely on intellectualism cannot grasp that.
== And how about the dinosaurs?==
Don’t know. Don’t care. It’s not important to the spiritual journey. Scoffers, trying to rely on intellectualism cannot grasp that.
== Did they come along nicely and sit in the corner, or did they try to eat all the other animals? ==
Don’t know. Don’t care. It’s not important to the spiritual journey. Scoffers, trying to rely on intellectualism cannot grasp that.
==You will, ad nauseum, refer to such practical questions as those of ’scoffers’. Ho hum.==
Well, they are.
==But your fantasies, murderous and otherwise, prompt doubt precisely because they are so ludicrous and insensible.==
Again, that statement is your intellectualism at work. You can’t see anything else because, even though you claim empiricism, you preclude yourself from inputs that will change your inaccurate results.
==By the way, do you have some form of OCD? Your compulsive use of the word ’scoffer’ would suggest so.==
It’s not compulsive. I merely report what the Word of God says about people like you. It burns your eyes, doesn’t it?
== It actually appears very rarely in the King James Version (’scorn’ is the preferred term)…==
Irrelevant.
==… and a bit more often in later translations as ’scoff’.==
Irrelevant.
== In either case, it is only YOUR opinion…==
I use it as the Word of God uses it. Anyway, I merely report what the Word of God says about people like you.
==… and, I take it, your version of a schoolyard insult.==
Of course, you’re free to take anything anyway you want. You been deceptive so far, why not go on being deceptive, eh?
== If you tried harder you could be a bit more original.==
Irrelevant.
== Perhaps English isn’t your first language, in which case you are doing quite nicely.==
It IS my first language, and I’m still doing quite nicely.
==Regardless of what you say, in all of your epistles you have offered ‘proof’ of nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.==
Nothing YOU’LL accept, anyway. Some Science.
== You offer ‘commentaries’, ‘interpretations’, and ‘alternatives’. None of them is a fact. Not one.==
I have more effect on my side than you do on yours. And I use your method, too. And you still don’t understand. Or, perhaps, refuse to understand. Unbelievable.
==In science, we call this a tautology.==
To you, Science proves Science. THAT’S circular reasoning.
== Circular reasoning. No facts, just a washing machine in a permanent spin cycle.==
A scoffer WOULD see it that way. After all, he has nothing else.
== In your world, you burned Giordano at the stake for asserting that the Earth is NOT the centre of the universe. ==
I did nothing of the kind. I wasn’t there.
Unbelievable! Now you’re accusing me of having been on the scene! The beer factor of your posts is becoming more and more plain to see.
== In your world, your tautology consisted of the mindlessly repeated assertion that “it’s obvious! the Sun rotates around the Earth!”, and used this apparent observation to justify burning him alive.==
I wasn’t there. One would think that’s obvious. To you, trying to use intellectualism to defeat the Word of God, it isn’t, I guess.
==Giordano (and others, including Galileo) had long since figured out a more rational explanation, based on the seasonal ‘movement’ of the stars. But fanatics like you, quoting the Bible as selectively as you, were offended and killed him.==
They aren’t like me. People like you are fear mongers, dancing up demons.
==This was the enlightened handiwork of the Venetian (and later Roman) Inquisition, ultimately headed by Pope Clement VIII. 400 years later, they admitted they were wrong, Giordano was right, and they offered their belated apologies. Their ‘commentaries’, just like yours, got it wrong. They had no facts, no science, and no evidence. Just like you.==
The commentaries I offer are right and correct. Too bad, through your intellectualism, you can’t see it.
==I offer opinion displayed as such.==
You can’t offer anything else.
== You offer opinion, disguised as revelation inspired by God and commentators.==
I offer authorities as references for what I post. The method is preferred by people like you, those of intellectualism who are trying to defeat the Word of God with what they say is their minds.
==Assuming anyone other than you and I is actually reading this, a now-doubtful proposition, they will have long ago drawn the same conclusion.==
It’s true that scoffers will.
==Like any scientist, I employ doubt and challenge and reason, and in my profession we get to cure polio, leukemia, malaria and erase smallpox from the face of the earth. Forever.==
God used you to do it. You didn’t do it of your own might. God DOES use the scoffer — unbeknownst to him — to benefit the Believer. The scoffer, completely in a cloud, believes that HE, the scoffer, has done it. He, the scoffer, has not.
==In your world? An obsessive disdain for the views of anyone but you…==
But God.
==… your self-justifying ‘commentators’…==
They prove God’s intention not yours. That’s what burns arise.
==… and your astonishingly primitive belief that prostate cancer is caused by “devils”.==
I didn’t say it is caused by “devils.” I said, in summary, it is caused by unbelief which allows it to happen.
== Remarkably similar to the views of witch-doctors, in fact.==
Well, it looks as though you’ve run out of substance.
That’s what burns arise. >>> burns your eyes
==…you, like most fanatic literalists…==
And, yet, it is YOU who want me to go ONLY by what YOU say is the clear language of 2 Kings 2. And, still, you reject the clear language of scholars who say that you are wrong about it, too.
See, everybody, the tangles scoffers get themselves in. They can’t keep track of their own arguments.
Hey Increasingly Incredible:
Except in Cheerleading Classes, I suppose, I don’t know that there could be found a more scientifically illiterate person than you. You simply have no idea what constitutes “proof” or “evidence” or “fact”. The Scientific Method is a closed book to you. The idea of an experiment being infinitely and perfectly reproducible in every lab in the world means nothing to you. You simply don’t know what science is, or does, or tries to do. You live in a world of self-referential fable: “A washing machine in a permanent spin cycle”.
I can only presume that you, disdaining science, are spiritually consistent and have no electricity, no car, drink raw milk, and have never vaccinated your children. None of these advances appear in your Bible. You appear to believe that they were promulgated and achieved by ‘devils’, or ’scoffers’. Ridiculous.
You continue to assert that ‘God exists because I read a book that says he exists’. This is not proof of anything. In fact, it is proof of nothing. You call upon your stable of ‘commentators’ to back you up and — poof! they do. Wow. You and Trofim Lysenko would have gotten on extremely well. (I know you know who Lysenko was, and what he did. You two are in the same business.)
You claim that God sent two bears to murder FORTY-TWO children, on behalf of a bald man, in order to (disgustingly) punish their parents. You offer no evidence of this. Only commentators, trying to rationalize away this immoral deed. It is NOT EVIDENCE. It is NOT fact. It’s just a point of view, like mine or Matt Schneider’s. Thank Heavens (if I may use that expression) you’re not a trial judge. Your every decision would be over-turned. Every one of them.
When I ask you how Noah got the polar bears on the Ark, you loftily dismiss a perfectly practical question as being “unimportant to the spiritual journey”. Well, you may imagine you are on such a “journey’, but you have no idea where you are going. I trust you will not end up like Thomas Merton.
And here’s what you actually wrote about a terrible, intractably painful disease, prostate cancer:
ME: Apart from being merely bizarre, your Bible is offensive to men who, through no fault of their own, suffer from this condition.
YOU: “The Devil got to them.”
Are you nuts? The Devil?
Unless you are a Christian Scientist (a group that suffers, generally, one of the highest mortality rates in the country and refuses to consult physicians on principle), your view is just crazy. Primitive. Utterly unsound.
If your child ever contracted brain cancer, would you blame THAT on ‘The Devil’ too? If so, I hope the state would intervene, in favor of your child. No child deserves to be victimized by a dread disease, and by a morally incompetent parent.
If your wife ever contracted breast or ovarian cancer, would you say, “Ahh, too bad, The Devil got to her.”?
And when you yourself contract prostate cancer, an almost certain outcome should you live long enough, would you blame it on your affiliation with Satan?
C’mon, Cred. You’ve GOT to be a better human being than that.
PS: If you’ve not already done so, for some bizarre theological reason, go get a PSA test. Today. It may cost you $60.00. It may save your life. Although I think you’re a religious cuckoo, I would never, ever want you to suffer the agony of that terrible cancer. You may be goofy and live in the fact-free zone, but much more importantly you are a human being.
You do not deserve agonizing pain just because you believe in ‘devils’. No one does.
==Except in Cheerleading Classes, I suppose, I don’t know that there could be found a more scientifically illiterate person than you.==
What was that you said about “insults”? You’re adding to the list YOU started.
== You simply have no idea what constitutes “proof” or “evidence” or “fact”.==
Translation: “Anything you say must measure up to MY standards, otherwise it’s meaningless.”
== The Scientific Method is a closed book to you.==
Translation: “My idea of ‘Science” is a closed book to you.”
== The idea of an experiment being infinitely and perfectly reproducible in every lab in the world means nothing to you.==
Except that you refuse to input evidence that will change the outcome. Some Science.
== You simply don’t know what science is or does, or tries to do.==
Translation: “It’s MY ‘Science,’ or else!”
==… You live in a world of self-referential fable…==
Like the Science YOU say refers to itself. We see.
==I can only presume that you, disdaining science, are spiritually consistent and have no electricity, no car, drink raw milk, and have never vaccinated your children.==
Not at all. We believe that God gave the tools for these things. Man didn’t find them without His putting them there to find.
== None of these advances appear in your Bible.==
Irrelevant.
== You appear to believe that they were promulgated and achieved by ‘devils’, or ’scoffers’. Ridiculous.==
Scoffers believe that.
==You continue to assert that ‘God exists because I read a book that says he exists’.==
Translation: “I wanna misrepresent what you write cuz I got nuttin’ else.==
== This is not proof of anything.==
Translation: “If it doesn’t meet MY standard and what I think, it means nuttin’.”
== In fact, it is proof of nothing.==
Translation: “I admit that you’ll never persuade me cuz I don’t accept anything that disagrees with what I think.”
== You call upon your stable of ‘commentators’ to back you up and — poof! they do.==
Yes, they do!
== Wow.==
You SHOULD be impressed.
==You and Trofim Lysenko would have gotten on extremely well. (I know you know who Lysenko was, and what he did. You two are in the same business.)==
Translation: “I got no proof and I offer none, but I got plenty of nuttin’ I dress up t’look like sumpin’.”
==You claim that God sent two bears to murder FORTY-TWO children, on behalf of a bald man, in order to (disgustingly) punish their parents.==
It’s not a claim, rather fact, and those who have studied it out say it’s fact. I merely report it. YOU decide. Your decision has no impact on me and my Salvation.
== You offer no evidence of this.==
I offered proof that yu reject.
== Only commentators…==
Authorities in the field.
==…, trying to rationalize away this immoral deed.==
I rationalize nothing. I recognize fact which you reject. Some Science.
== It is NOT EVIDENCE.==
Translation: “I reject evidence that causes me to think other than I want.”
== It is NOT fact.==
It’s a fact that YOU reject.
== It’s just a point of view…==
It’s authoritative commentary, based on interpretation given by the Holy Spirit.
==…like mine or Matt Schneider’s.==
Not quite.
== Thank Heavens (if I may use that expression) you’re not a trial judge. Your every decision would be over-turned. Every one of them.==
Translation: “I got nuttin’ but I gotta say sumpin’ cuz it has to appear I got sumpin’ t’say.”
==When I ask you how Noah got the polar bears on the Ark, you loftily dismiss a perfectly practical question as being “unimportant to the spiritual journey”.==
That’s cuz it IS unimportant to the spiritual journey.
==Well, you may imagine you are on such a “journey’…==
It’s not an act of imagination.
==… but you have no idea where you are going.==
Oh, but I DO.
== I trust you will not end up like Thomas Merton.==
Translation: “When I run outta substance, as I have long ago here, I like-ta drop names so it looks like I’m intelligent.”
==And here’s what you actually wrote about a terrible, intractably painful disease, prostate cancer:
ME: Apart from being merely bizarre, your Bible is offensive to men who, through no fault of their own, suffer from this condition.
YOU: “The Devil got to them.”
Are you nuts?==
No.
== The Devil? ==
Unbelief creates the atmosphere for evil to have authority in life. Before Adam and Eve jumped, there was no disease.
==Unless you are a Christian Scientist (a group that suffers, generally, one of the highest mortality rates in the country and refuses to consult physicians on principle), your view is just crazy. Primitive. Utterly unsound. ==
Translation: “I don’t believe it, and, so, it must be crazy, primitive and utterly unsound.”
==If your child ever contracted brain cancer, would you blame THAT on ‘The Devil’ too? ==
How old is the child?
==If so, I hope the state would intervene, in favor of your child.==
Waht about so-called “separation of CHurch and State”? All of a sudden, there’s a floating “separation” standard, huh.
== No child deserves to be victimized by a dread disease, and by a morally incompetent parent.==
What does a scoffer know about “morality” which comes from God?
==If your wife ever contracted breast or ovarian cancer, would you say, “Ahh, too bad, The Devil got to her.”?==
I’d recognize that God gave men the tools to help her.
==And when you yourself contract prostate cancer, an almost certain outcome should you live long enough, would you blame it on your affiliation with Satan?==
Uhh, I got no affiliation with Satan.
==C’mon, Cred. You’ve GOT to be a better human being than that. ==
Translation: “I’m into judging.”
==Although I think you’re a religious cuckoo…==
I think you are a secular cuckoo.
==… I would never, ever want you to suffer the agony of that terrible cancer.==
Thank, God, not men, that I don’t.
== You may be goofy and live in the fact-free zone, but much more importantly you are a human being.==
I’m a human creature. I’m not just “being.” I was created. A Special Creation. I didn’t just appear on the scene.
==You do not deserve agonizing pain just because you believe in ‘devils’. No one does.==
No one gets pain just cuz they believe in devils. They have pain cuz they don’t have faith in and believe in God through His Son.
Science shows the goodness and glory of God, not the glory of men.
OK….
Regardless of your absurd belief that prostate case is caused by ‘devils’, and that you are immune to their ‘charms’, go get a PSA test, OK? If $ is tight, I will find a way to pay for it myself.
Don’t put it off. Please. I have had too many patients who did so and, by the time it was palpable, it had already spread to bone and brain, and there was little we could do.
Good luck!
CORRECTION:
OK….
Regardless of your absurd belief that prostate cancer is caused by ‘devils’, and that you are immune to their ‘charms’, go get a PSA test, OK? If $ is tight, I will find a way to pay for it myself.
Don’t put it off. Please. I have had too many patients who did so and, by the time it was palpable, it had already spread to bone and brain, and there was little we could do.
Good luck!
==Regardless of your absurd belief that prostate case is caused by ‘devils’…==
Didn’t say that.
==… and that you are immune to their ‘charms’…==
In Christ, I am.
==…go get a PSA test, OK? If $ is tight, I will find a way to pay for it myself.==
Yeah, uh huh.
BTW, commas and periods ALWAYS go inside the right-side quotation mark.
Hey Cred:
Sorry, but you did. To repeat, here is EXACTLY what you wrote. You may have forgotten.
ME: Apart from being merely bizarre, your Bible is offensive to men who, through no fault of their own, suffer from this condition.
YOU: “The Devil got to them.”
I presume you did not mean that the ‘Devil’ got to them with chocolates and bon-bons. [Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary, p 1077, line 489] You clearly meant he brought and induced prostate cancer. It’s not too hard to following your reasoning, unsound and unscientific as it may be.
Anyway, friend, if you can’t afford the PSA test, please send me a mailing address, untraceably separate from your home address, and I will will send you a money order for $60.00, not expect its return, and trust you will spend it for the purpose proposed. No joke.
T
BTW, your grammatical rules are only partly correct. You wrote, “BTW, commas and periods ALWAYS go inside the right-side quotation mark.” — Yes, except when the original statement contains so such punctuation. Why?
If it is an exact quotation, it is not permitted to ‘add’ punctuation that the author never actually wrote; thus, the convention of adding punctuation, as required, following the quotation, itself fully functioning as a well-drawn sentence. “I shall lift up mine eyes unto the hills…”, he illustrated, makes the point.
We do this, correctly, most often when that quoted is itself only a fragment of a sentence. If it is a fully-completed sentence, with its own punctuation, that punctuation also belongs within the quote marks. Otherwise, the author has been mis-represented by an editorial emendation which has the effect of ‘correcting’ the original text.
You will have noted that newspapers did that a thousand times for George Bush who, as we all know, could barely speak English in the first place.
Well, well, well. It turns out all of those Mormons who insisted that their Prop 8 donations were ‘personal’, and that Church itself contributed nothing were… completely wrong.
Totally wrong. $190,000 worth of wrong. What further evidence of Mormon deception will we find? From the AP, today:
—————–
AP: Mormon church officials, facing an ongoing investigation by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, Friday reported nearly $190,000 in previously unlisted assistance to the successful campaign for Prop. 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California.
The report, filed with the secretary of state’s office, listed a variety of California travel expenses for high-ranking members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and included $20,575 for use of facilities and equipment at the church’s Salt Lake City headquarters and a $96,849 charge for “compensated staff time” for church employees who worked on matters pertaining to Prop. 8.
“This is exactly what we were talking about when we filed the suit,” said Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate, which opposed the same-sex marriage ban. “They spent money on the campaign and were supposed to report it.”
Church officials were not available for comment Friday night.
Karger filed his complaint with the FPPC on Nov. 13, alleging that the Mormon church had produced commercials, set up Web sites, conducted simulcasts and sent church leaders to California to support Prop. 8 without filing any of the required reports.
Up until Friday, the Mormon church had denied any direct financial support for the campaign beyond a reported $2,078 spent for bringing church Elder L. Whitney Clayton to California.
Church officials complained that Karger’s complaint was full of errors and that the church had “fully complied” with California law.
The report filed Friday contained few details about how the money was spent. It did list $26,000 for audio-visual production and travel expenses for a number of Mormon leaders other than Clayton.
It also reported a number of expenses in the Bay Area, including $122 for a meal at Nonna Rose Restaurant in San Francisco, and $133 spent at the 3-Zero Cafe in Half Moon Bay.
It may be added that the Catholic Church would have been pleased to match the Mormons, dollar for dollar, but they have some difficulty raising money these days.
Something about multi-million dollar civil suits following in the wake of legions of pedophile priests. Indeed, several of the Church’s largest institutions have been forced to sell lands, buildings, lose insurance policies, and declare bankruptcy.
All in a day’s work for God’s representatives on earth, Mormon and Catholic.
Talk about preserving “family values” — like truth, openness, and fair play.
==ME: Apart from being merely bizarre, your Bible is offensive to men who, through no fault of their own, suffer from this condition.
YOU: “The Devil got to them.”
I presume you did not mean that the ‘Devil’ got to them with chocolates and bon-bons. [Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary, p 1077, line 489] You clearly meant he brought and induced prostate cancer.==
Don’t put the onus on me for YOUR conclusions.
I meant that they surrendered to the suggestions of unbelief from the Devil.
== It’s not too hard to following your reasoning, unsound and unscientific as it may be.==
May be, but isn’t.
==…your grammatical rules are only partly correct. You wrote, “BTW, commas and periods ALWAYS go inside the right-side quotation mark.” — Yes, except when the original statement contains so such punctuation. Why?
If it is an exact quotation, it is not permitted to ‘add’ punctuation that the author never actually wrote; thus, the convention of adding punctuation, as required, following the quotation, itself fully functioning as a well-drawn sentence. “I shall lift up mine eyes unto the hills…”, he illustrated, makes the point.===
And, yet, the ellipsis goes INSIDE the mark.
===We do this, correctly, most often when that quoted is itself only a fragment of a sentence. If it is a fully-completed sentence, with its own punctuation, that punctuation also belongs within the quote marks. Otherwise, the author has been mis-represented by an editorial emendation which has the effect of ‘correcting’ the original text.==
Except that the period and the comma ALWAYS go inside the end mark.
==You will have noted that newspapers did that a thousand times for George Bush who, as we all know, could barely speak English in the first place.==
And, yet, you understood him. Gee.
==All in a day’s work for God’s representatives on earth, Mormon and Catholic.==
Scoffers are in no position to judge.
==All in a day’s work for God’s representatives on earth, Mormon and Catholic.==
How would a scoffer know a representative of God? How could he tell? What standard does the scoffer us to determine this — a worldly standard?
After all, a scoffer turns his back on God.
scoffer us to >>> scoffer use to
Re the correct use of punctuation, I had the privilege of learning such rules in the land which owns the trademark on English.
Re your notion of the causes of prostate cancer, your views are utterly unsound and foolish. You blame disease on DEVILS? What part of Somalia are you from?
YOU: “I meant that they surrendered to the suggestions of unbelief from the Devil.”
“Suggestions of unbelief” ??? Are you nuts? The cause of prostate cancer is NOT devils. Its cause is unknown, although there is evidence of Vitamin D deficiencies, an overabundance of certain polysaturates, and of genetic links. It is a dreadful disease, and you are — frankly — a fool to blame it on “suggestions of unbelief from the Devil.” If ever YOU contract prostate cancer, do not waste time reading Ambrose Bierce. Get to a doctor. Ignore ‘devils’, Benny Hinn, Peter Popoff, Kenneth Copeland and other frauds.
You are a religious crackpot.
Are polio, lung cancer, neuropathy, obesity, diabetes, Parkinson’s, tuberculosis, lymphoma, liver disease — caused by “suggestions of unbelief”? Really, Credulous, you have made yourself wacko, primitive, and laughable.
Normal folks gave up the Devil Theory of Disease a long time ago. Perhaps you’ve heard of viruses? Sepsis? Bacilli? Bacteria? Untreated infection? Environmental hazards?
I said it before — if your own child should ever contract brain cancer, I trust you will love her enough to forget about devils, avoid your fellow witch doctors, and seek competent medical advice.
Otherwise? You will have killed a beautiful child in aid of your preposterous beliefs.
You might also note the sad case of your fellow-traveller, the ‘Rev’ Gene Scott (1929-2005). He too subscribed to your bizarre theories that ‘devils’ caused human disease. His theology killed him.
In 2000, after many months of ignoring symptoms, he was diagnosed with — guess what? — prostate cancer.
Refusing western medicine, he spent his time in prayer, begging your god to drive out the devils that were plaguing him. This strategy proved to be of little use.
Eventually, he acceded to non-devil theories but, by that time, his prostate cancer had metastasized throughout his body. This outcome was well-known to every medical doctor. He died some months later, heavily medicated against dreadful pain.
Was ‘Rev’ Scott also under the influence of Devils? Evil spirits? Scoffers? Ferrets?
I look forward to your latest rationale for the Dark Ages. A postcard from Somalia will do.
==..your bizarre theories that ‘devils’ caused human disease.==
I never said that devils “caused” disease.
Again, I explain to you — cuz I must tell you several times, just like talking to a stubborn child — that people surrendered to the Devil’s suggestion of unbelief, thereby rejecting His Offer of Reconciliation and protection, and, so, God cannot, under that spell, protect them.
==Was ‘Rev’ Scott also under the influence of Devils? Evil spirits?==
Was Job?
No:
(Job 1:22) In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
==You are a religious crackpot. ==
I’m not subject to the condemnations of the world.
==His theology killed him.==
The Devil says that, too!
==… the ‘Rev’ Gene Scott (1929-2005). He too subscribed to your bizarre theories that ‘devils’ caused human disease.==
I have no such theory. Again, you misrepresent what I wrote.
I’ll explain it again… again… hoping that, this time, it gets through one of your two heads.
There was no curse before Adam and Eve took a dive. It was all blessing.
When they jumped, the curse came into the world. They gave authority to the curse, and as much as, for instance, men of medicine try to rid the world of all disease, they can’t; as soon as they beat one down, another one jumps up. Like whack-a-mole.
== His theology killed him.==
No, it didn’t.
==In 2000, after many months of ignoring symptoms, he was diagnosed with — guess what? — prostate cancer.
Refusing western medicine, he spent his time in prayer, begging your god to drive out the devils that were plaguing him. This strategy proved to be of little use.
Eventually, he acceded to non-devil theories but, by that time, his prostate cancer had metastasized throughout his body. This outcome was well-known to every medical doctor. He died some months later, heavily medicated against dreadful pain.
Was ‘Rev’ Scott also under the influence of Devils?==
No, he recognized that Christ defeated the works of the Devil. He should have gone to doctors earlier, recognizing that God works through them in their knowledge. Even those who scoff at God may do His work without their ever knowing it. Not for THEIR good but for the good of the Godly patient.
Hey, Credulous: it’s clear that neither logic nor compassion are part of your world. The human, decent, compassion part you simply miss altogether, as you have admitted. Too bad.
Logic defeats you too. You posit an inherent contradiction.
1. God created Everything
2. Ergo, God created Satan
3. God loves his Creation
4. Ergo, God loves mankind, and Satan
5. Ergo and unfortunately, God also created sin and disease and every other curse in the word.
Here’s your problem.
Either God created everything, or he did not.
Either God is all-powerful, or he is not. Which is it?
Tall tales of talking serpents, magic apples, and ‘Free Will’ (a doctrine known to the pagan Greeks, but forgotten by Christianity until the writings of St Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 CE) simply don’t get you off the hook. They are an incompetent excuse.
“Among the early Fathers of the Church, St. Augustine stands pre-eminent in his handling of this subject. He clearly teaches the freedom of the will against the Manichæeans, but insists against the Semipelagians on the necessity of grace, as a foundation of merit.” Sheesh.
You are in the sad position of worshipping a god who either:
a) doesn’t care; or,
b) created Satan, too.
Pitiful.
Unless (!) you imagine that Satan created himself, in which case your god is not all-powerful after all, and then you’re in trouble again.
No matter how you read it, your views don’t make sense. Never have. Never will.
I hope you may one day discover that Love will suffice quite nicely, and that your cartoons of gods and devils are to be put away, like other childish things.
==it’s clear that neither logic nor compassion are part of your world.==
(1Co 2:14) But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
So, you simply cannot see.
(Mat 9:36) But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.
That’s just one verse that explains what a local “compassion” is.
== The human, decent, compassion part you simply miss altogether, as you have admitted.==
No, I didn’t. Of course, you continue to misrepresent what I say. Some Science.
==Logic defeats you too.==
YOUR faulty logic defeats YOU.
==You posit an inherent contradiction.
1. God created Everything
2. Ergo, God created Satan
3. God loves his Creation
4. Ergo, God loves mankind, and Satan
5. Ergo and unfortunately, God also created sin and disease and every other curse in the word.==
God couldn’t have created evil because He didn’t create darkness, and evil proceeds from darkness, where YOU reside.
==Here’s your problem.==
I got no problem.
==Either God created everything, or he did not.==
He didn’t create darkness.
==Either God is all-powerful, or he is not. Which is it?==
God, through Jesus, defeated the works of the Devil.
==Tall tales of talking serpents, magic apples, and ‘Free Will’ (a doctrine known to the pagan Greeks, but forgotten by Christianity until the writings of St Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 CE) simply don’t get you off the hook.==
Scoffers will make controversy just to throw up confusion, and the Devil is happy about it, too.
== They are an incompetent excuse.==
That’s the way a scoffer would see it.
==You are in the sad position of worshipping a god who either:
a) doesn’t care; or,
b) created Satan, too.==
He cared enough to send His Son to die for our sins.
God didn’t create darkness, and, so, He couldn’t have created evil, and, so, He couldn’t have created Satan.
==Unless (!) you imagine that Satan created himself, in which case your god is not all-powerful after all, and then you’re in trouble again.==
Not at all, as explained enough that a two-year-old with the brains God gave geese could understand.
==No matter how you read it, your views don’t make sense. Never have. Never will.==
Some empiricism.
(1Co 2:14) But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
==I hope you may one day discover that Love will suffice quite nicely..==
What’s “love”? It changes from minute to minute and day by day and week by week and month by month and from person to person. Define it for us so that your definition applies to all and at all times.
Biblical “love” is sufficient.
==… and that your cartoons of gods and devils are to be put away, like other childish things.==
Well, those who are born again are children of God. Those who are not born again are not. I’m very happy to be a child of God.
Take heart. Hanks has made another anti-Catholic film after The DaVinci Code called Angels and Demons. Wonder how he missed being cast in The Golden Compass. If there really WERE an “Illuminati” doesn’t he realize we’d be watching him closely at this point? I’m just sayin’ is all.
==… your views are utterly unsound and foolish.==
A scoffer would say that.
== You blame disease on DEVILS?==
No, I don’t.
==YOU: “I meant that they surrendered to the suggestions of unbelief from the Devil.”==
That’s correct.
==“Suggestions of unbelief”???==
That’s correct.
== Are you nuts?==
Are YOU nuts?
== The cause of prostate cancer is NOT devils.==
I didn’t say it is.
==… you are — frankly — a fool to blame it on “suggestions of unbelief from the Devil.”==
A scoffer would say that.
==Ignore ‘devils’==
I do.
==You are a religious crackpot. ==
You are a secular Taliban cultist crackpot.
==Are polio, lung cancer, neuropathy, obesity, diabetes, Parkinson’s, tuberculosis, lymphoma, liver disease — caused by “suggestions of unbelief”?==
There was no disease in the Garden before Adam and Eve took a dive.
==… you have made yourself wacko, primitive, and laughable.==
No one who agrees with me says that. So what?
==Normal folks…==
What’s “normal”? The standard changes from second to second, minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, and so on. Even from person to person. You people cannot even keep THAT straight.
==… Gave up the Devil Theory of Disease a long time ago.==
They were weak and, by their weakness, let themselves be persuaded by people like you. Thank God I’m not among them!
==… if your own child should ever contract brain cancer, I trust you will love her enough to forget about devils…==
I ignore devils cuz they’re not on God’s side.
==… avoid your fellow witch doctors…==
I don’t know any “witch doctors.”
==… and seek competent medical advice. ==
Whether any in the medical profession are God-fearing, or not, God uses them for the benefit of those who do not reject Him. It is a testimony of God’s greatness and mercy that He intervenes on their behalf for His glory, not the glory of men.
If, as you say, Man is so great, why hasn’t Man put ALL the “fires” out? Why, as in whack-a-mole, when they beat one down, does another one pop-up, and, when they beat that one down, the other one pops up again? Such a great creature, as YOU, for instance, oughta have made this place a Garden again. So, what happened? Your plan isn’t working out?
YOU: “God didn’t create darkness, and, so, He couldn’t have created evil, and, so, He couldn’t have created Satan.”
LOGIC: Well, then, who created darkness?
Did it create itself, spontaneously? Was there a Big Bang of Darkness? Is there some other god running around doing this stuff? If God didn’t create Satan, who did? If Satan created himself, why did your god allow it?
Quoting the bible to justify the bible is meaningless.
Asserting that anyone share your ’spiritual’ mania in order to share your ’spiritual’ fantasies is just silly.
Either your god created everything, or he did not. Your own claims are undermined by their alleged universality.
So, try to concentrate, and answer honestly:
1. Did your god create everything?
yes______
no ______
2. who created Satan?
god _____
some mysterious force which your god cannot control _____
3. if you were born in India, would you be
a fanatic Hindu? _____
a fanatic Jain? ____
a fanatic Muslim? _____
a fanatic Sikh? _____
all of the above? _____
4. When you first contracted pneumonia, was it because you
were riddled by suggestions of unbelief? _____
were corrupted by the devil? _____
were ignored by your loving god? _____
had a low-functioning immune system? _____
or, do you offer some other excuse for being afflicted by the Devil’s Doubts? _____
==YOU: “God didn’t create darkness, and, so, He couldn’t have created evil, and, so, He couldn’t have created Satan.”
LOGIC: Well, then, who created darkness?==
God spoke light into the darkness, not darkness into the darkness.
==Did it create itself, spontaneously?==
Darkness is the absence of light. Light is not the absence of darkness. Darkness is a void. There’s nothing there to have been created.
==Was there a Big Bang of Darkness?==
Darkness is a void, void of anything. It is not something in and of itself. So, there is nothing there that was created.
== Is there some other god running around doing this stuff?==
Other gods are ruining people’s lives.
== If God didn’t create Satan, who did?==
He came outta darkness which God didn’t create cuz darkness is not created. As a void, it was not created. It is a blind spot.
== If Satan created himself, why did your god allow it?==
God didn’t.
==Quoting the bible to justify the bible is meaningless.==
Saying that Science proves Science is meaningless.
==Asserting that anyone share your ’spiritual’ mania in order to share your ’spiritual’ fantasies is just silly.==
The Devil says that, too.
==Either your god created everything, or he did not.==
Darkness is a void. It is, in and of itself, nothing. It is a blind spot. It was not created. God spoke light into the darkness.
== Your own claims are undermined by their alleged universality.==
No, they aren’t. You’re merely confused. Scoffers just are.
==So, try to concentrate, and answer honestly:
1. Did your god create everything?==
Yes. Everything good that is created, He created. He did not create that which was not anything to create, like darkness, the void.
And remember: you can’t quote the bible to justify the bible.
It’s no better than a parent answering, in reply to “Why is the sky blue?”, the meaningless “Because blue is the color of the sky.”
You have to have proof. Evidence. Facts. Independent corroboration. Reproducible truth.
Anything else is no better than fantasy (however elaborately spun) or what religious fanatics prefer to call ‘faith’, because it sounds nicer than what it is: ‘foolishness’.
And, BTW, we cure diseases all the time. And most of them never come back. SCIENCE HAS ERADICATED SMALLPOX FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH. Did you even know that?
According to your mad theology, your god created smallpox in the first place. Thanks for that one…
Our next effort? World-wide eradication of polio, and we’re well on the way to that great day.
No thanks to you.
==2. who created Satan?==
God created Lucifer who took it upon himself to run up against God. It was his decision, just as it is YOUR decision to run up against God. Lucifer became Satan by his own choice, his own creation, just as YOU created, or recreated, yourself in your own image.
Since Satan originates in darkness, and God didn’t create darkness cuz darkness is a void that is not created, only created into — as He spoke light into the void — God didn’t create Satan.
==YOU: “1. Did your god create everything?==
“Yes. Everything good that is created, He created. He did not create that which was not anything to create, like darkness, the void.”
So, according to you, your god came into being AFTER the void…==
First, I don’t have “god.” So, you have that wrong right off the bat.
Second, even though you say, “according to you,” I never said that God came AFTER the void.
Void has always been. It is the absence of anything, mainly light.
God has always been. He has no beginning.
God spoke light into the void, the darkness.
==Or was he there all along…==
You was there all along.
==Now you’re getting desperate…==
Not at all.
==You give your god…==
I don’t have “god.”
==… credit for creating “good”.==
His good is not dependent upon my giving Him credit. I merely recognize His good.
==So then, who created multiple sclerosis? Polio? ALS? Cancer? Scoliois? Tuberculosis of the brain?==
There was no disease in the Garden.
Disease came with evil after Adam and Eve gave their authority on Earth to Satan.
==If your god… Q1
I don’t have “god.”
==… has the power to do good, why doesn’t he use it?==
He has. You don’t recognize it. You can’t recognize it. You’re blind. Just like the void.
==If he doesn’t have that power, why do you worship such a moral weakling?==
He has that power, and I recognize it. Scoffers are in no position to judge what is Moral.
==SCIENCE HAS ERADICATED SMALLPOX. ==
However, with all the power you say you people have, you have been utterly incapable of eradicating disease from the planet. With all that power, you oughta be able to merely to snap your fingers and do the job. What’s keeping you?
== What have YOU done?==
Plenty.
==3. if you were born in India, would you be
a fanatic Hindu? _____
a fanatic Jain? ____
a fanatic Muslim? _____
a fanatic Sikh? _____
all of the above? _____==
No way to tell.
==4. When you first contracted pneumonia, was it because you
were riddled by suggestions of unbelief? _____
were corrupted by the devil? _____
were ignored by your loving god? _____
had a low-functioning immune system? _____
or, do you offer some other excuse for being afflicted by the Devil’s Doubts? _____==
Disease came into the world through the sin of Adam and Eve. Medical Science can try, but it will never eradicate disease until all turn back to God, through Christ.
Medical Science plays Whack-a-Mole; as soon as it seems as though they beat down one, another pops up, and so forth. The “cure” for one disease creates other problems, and so on.
However, to “hear you speak,” you believe that you have power beyond God. If you do, you can simply snap your fingers and eradicate ALL disease. What are you waiting for? Why are you being selfish? Why are you being mean? Why is it taking a god so long?
Medical Science plays Whack-a-Mole; as soon as it seems as though they beat down one, another pops up, and so forth. The “cure” for one disease creates other problems, and so on. Ever watch those commercials for prescription medicines, all the side effects and other problems that come with the use of those prescriptions?
==…it may be impossible to believe in hate and superiority and really be completely American.==
Who gets t’decide?
==Self-righteous bigotry…==
Define that so that it applies to everybody all the time. Cuz the standard keeps changing from second to second, minute to minute, day to day, and so on, and from person to person.
==… isn’t Americanism…==
The Word of God says that there is a time love and a time to hate.
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