Whatever Patton. You're straight up lying to me.

Don't dismiss the point as though I simply find it entertaining. Answer it. Or are you under the impression having faith is another way of saying you don't have to take responsibility? Why are we living in "Revelations" today and not 100 years ago or during the cold war? because you're here now and so it makes more sense?

Because you say so? Because you believe it and stamp Gods face on that so now you don't have to rationalize it because now it's not what you believe, it's what God believes?


Of course you're talking about the Republican religious right here right? They are the ones demanding their religion be taught in schools and not anyone else's.


Unless that's another Democrat president right? Or in truer words unless it's not what you think it is.



You dance around a simple point. My the gymnastics you must go through to not answer. You and the religious right you defend with your silence have and will scoff and laugh at people in history and today who claim it is Gods will that they be leader and that they are carrying out Gods will. You can see the problem easily when it's other people/nations and other Gods but all of a sudden it's completely reasonable when it's your God and you're Party. You don't want to face that so you hand me the sentence of crap above.


Again you do not match the answer with the question. In fact it's nonsense.

 I'll spell it out again: what about people who are not religious? They should just leave the country? They should not vote? Maybe they should just die? Maybe they don't matter because they're not praying to your religion?

Why not just drop this pretend act of yours like you're patriotic and just hand your country over to the people you know full well are wackos and burn your constitution at the same time.?


Yeah but that's not what we're talking about is it Patton and you know it. Why are you playing games?  We were talking about promoting the idea that you or anyone else knows what God plan is and why it is false and wrong to sit there and say vote democrat and you wont go to heaven or that Bush thinks it' Gods plan to go to Iraq and if you're against that then yuo're against God and if you're against Bush you're against God.

THAT's what we were talking about Patton not "prayer", and you tried to imply 85% of the people think that way.



There's that condisending bullshit again. ""I'm a person of faith so I know, and I don't need to be reasonable and I don't need to think and I don't have to prove or justify anything, and since you're a non-believer you'll never know..."


Whaa-whaa. I haven't mocked your faith once you crybaby. I'm speaking to you as one man to another and you just can't seem to cut it. Deal.

Whatever Patton. You're a lying condisending shit and im done with you. Go ahead and tear your country apart with your midieval bullshit. Suits me fine.



lol. You win.
Ahk

 

Pastor Kalnins has preached that critics of President Bush will all be banished to hell, questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven.


WWJD?




As I understand things, this is the core tenet of the Christian faith.

A suggestion that entrance into heaven is achieved through one's action (in this case one's vote) is contradictory to this teaching, IMO.

I'm so disappointed. I really wanted to read responses to the questions I posed immediately above. Patton? Neue?

No thoughts at all?

This would be a first for any discussion ever held here when philosophy and religion is discussed between believers and non-believers.

These usually end in one person screaming "lying condisending shit" or accusing one of intellectual  "gymnastics"  reading a respose as a "sentence of crap" and taking their toys home because they fail to convince or understand.
Does Revelation have a "start date?"

Why do not ALL the events since the crucifixion of Christ "count" as events leading up to the Apocolypse?

Especially when dealing with an eternal God?
When have you ever read where I've determined what God's plan is?
It wasn't a "sentence of crap, it was a question that required a "yes or no" answer....not a paragraph of avoidance.

Just as my answer above regarding a Democrat President demonstrates by inability to speak on behalf of Gods plan or will....it is the same with regards to other nations.

I believe the answer to these questions will be revealed in the end....and that will most certainly be long after we are all gone.
There is nothing "nonsensical" in saying that those who are not religious do what they've always done.

Have they left the country before?

Have they not voted before?

Should they die?......Oh a dramaqueen now?.....we ALL die.

They all matter....non-believers come to God everyday.

Anyone who declares with any amount of certainty that they know what Gods plan is is in error.

People can however pray with the belief that ALL that happens is Gods will, and for what they hope to be true....to lead those in belief....inspire those in belief.....and to comfort those in belief.

It's only "condescending bullshit" if you think it can be proven to you.

If the only way I can communicate with you is by speaking Mandarin, am I being "condescending?"

There is a spiritual language that those of faith speak in order to understand what God is and does in their life...a language that comes with surrender and salvation....I try to speak to you in this language....but you do not speak it.....so we have nothing but frustration and miscommunication.

I'm sorry....I don't speak this language....what are you trying to say?

If Democrats want to take this tact and adopt it as their own....politically it benefits Republicans because it is.....condescending and insulting to those of faith....and alienates those independents on the fence.

As a resident of Earth and member of mankind....it just makes me sad.


Well said Crystal.....you and I speak the same language.

Wow.....alot of passion for someone who doesn't read a well intentioned, time consuming and conciliatory response.

I hope you are able to find more constructive uses for all that negative energy.

No sense of the ironic at all, eh? Yeah, I'm sure that he/she/it was behind America's idiotic, irrational, and counter-productive response to 9/11. I'm sure it was the best the he/she/it could come up with. (Do you really believe your deity has a gender? Don't you think assigning such banal human traits as gender to it diminishes your diety?)

As for your reassurance regarding the separation of church and state, do you really think it would hold up to the right-wingnut onslaught if we let our guard down for an instant? They are forever doing their best to whittle it away. They got "In God We Trust" put on our money. They got "under God" inserted into the pledge of allegiance. They (this includes Sarah Palin, by the way) want to teach their religion in our High School science classes. They want policies enacted that are driven soley by their religious fanatisicm rather than any proof that the policies work, and despite lots of evidience that they don't. Examples: sex education in schools, distribution of condoms. Some think believe that worrying about the environment is pointless because "The End Days" are just arround the corner anyway. My wife works in an ROTC office on a college campus. The Army Lieutenant Colonel who's in charge honestly believes that the world was created 10,000 years ago. From a strictly rational point of view, do you think this informs or obscures his judgment when he votes? And yet any politician who would openly ridicule such ridiculous beliefs would be destroyed within the hour.

The separation of church and state is still in place, yes. Barely, and it is under constant assault.

While I certainly agree with the premise of your original point (confusing oneself with God when believing you have been Divinely selected to govern), I do think that on a strictly logical basis it is should be rephrased as follows....

God's will = Leader's will
Leader's will = God's will
Go against Leader = Go against God

And it is certainly not anything new. Divine selection is probably the earliest form of political tools employed to seize power and control the populace. It first emerged, widespread, under the feudal system in Europe - particularly England - with the "Divine Right of Kings". Refusing to pledge alligence to one's king was a crime punishable by death because it was an act viewed as akin to directly disobeying God since Kings ruled under the "Divine Right" of God (selected by, and operating in conjuntion with, God).

The human being is certainly an interesting creature. On one hand, it's amazing how much we have accomplished in certain areas in the last 500 years. On the other hand, it's equally amazing how little we have advanced in other areas.   

Not a whacko. Just irrational and rational, respectively.


Ah yes, the Bible. The book that demands that believers stone adulterers to death and condemn those who touch pig flesh to eternal damnation. Some of its followers have evolved beyond those demands, why not others?

The whole discussion would instantly vanish if "His" followers would keep out of politics. But (and Sarah Palin is a great example of this) they don't.

I'd say that these two sentences are in conflict. Or maybe you aren't serious about being an American. Or maybe you don't think that teaching abstinence only in High School health classes, or refusing to distribute condoms to populations at risk of AIDs infection simply because of some ancient religious belief, has no serious social cost.

I thought it went without saying that many religious people have such attenuated beliefs that they really pose no problem to public policy, and that my concern was only with the more fanatical, fundamentalist types. Like Sarah Palin. But since you posed your questions, I did my best to answer them.