"Every year education gets more expensive, but ignorance costs even more." ~ Sam Ewing
Why are we arguing about "public prayer" in school and "public prayer" in public, when the scripture says in Jesus own words:
But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father secretly. Then your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you.href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/nlt_full_copyright.html" linkindex="17" target="_blank">New Living Translation © 1996 Tyndale Charitable Trust
The only ones that will pray in school will be the desperate, the needful, or the truly faithful. And the faithful that pray, their voice will be heard, whether it is silent or aloud. So what is the diff'? We have made this and flag waving part of some kind of religious symbol, neither are Biblical.
The words public prayer don't occur together in the KJV of the Bible nor do the words school prayer occur together in the KJV either. (Search courtesy of www.blueletterbible.org/ )
The only reference to praying in public in the Bible is in a worship service with other believers; to do otherwise is to degrade it, to lessen its effectiveness.
Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.New Living Translation © 1996 Tyndale Charitable Trust
"If you're looking for the key to the universe I've got some good news and some bad news. The bad news: there is no key to the universe. The good news: it was never locked." ~ Anon
Friday, April 21, 2006
Thursday, April 20, 2006
"I'm the decider, and I decide what's best."
"It is fashionable stupidity to regard everything one cannot explain as a fraud." ~ Carl Jung, psychoanalyst
Don't we wish we all could say that? No not really. I was reading an interesting article written by a Southern Baptist Minister, yes a Southern Baptist Minister in the Anniston Star by the way of Sojourners.net, here's the link:
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=news.display_article&mode=s&NewsID=5345/
He compares today's conservative's especially the ones in the framework of Grover Norquist and the like as nothing but selfish babies (my words). Their obsession with small government, no taxes, self serving and actually an atheistic world view. He is relating an article written by Susan Pace Hamill, a University of Alabama law professor, recently in the Virginia Law Review.
This thinking makes the individual the center of the universe, which is totally contrary to the Gospel, which our "decider in chief" claims to answer to regularly. Well being a true believer, I've come to essentially doubt any sincerity from the oval orifice. Our Preznit's statements of the last few weeks may show loyalty, yet to some trained eyes they show desperation while holding onto the only things he still can control. But there are still only so many rats on a sinking ship...
I'm reminded of a game we played as children, holding up our fingers as we slowly sank below the surface of the water; each time taking one additional finger down as we sank an additional time until we pretended to drown in the pool. As for the administration the buoys are leaving the pool, the lead weights are being attached, the anchor has been tossed overboard, the S.S. Scooter has broadcast its message, the Generals have displayed there disapproval, the Frigate Fitzgerald is closing in and Cutter Cheney is already headed down; so its just a matter of time. THEN AGAIN MAYBE HE WILL DECIDE WHAT'S BEST.
"There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provisions should be made to prevent its ascendancy." ~ Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
Don't we wish we all could say that? No not really. I was reading an interesting article written by a Southern Baptist Minister, yes a Southern Baptist Minister in the Anniston Star by the way of Sojourners.net, here's the link:
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=news.display_article&mode=s&NewsID=5345/
He compares today's conservative's especially the ones in the framework of Grover Norquist and the like as nothing but selfish babies (my words). Their obsession with small government, no taxes, self serving and actually an atheistic world view. He is relating an article written by Susan Pace Hamill, a University of Alabama law professor, recently in the Virginia Law Review.
This thinking makes the individual the center of the universe, which is totally contrary to the Gospel, which our "decider in chief" claims to answer to regularly. Well being a true believer, I've come to essentially doubt any sincerity from the oval orifice. Our Preznit's statements of the last few weeks may show loyalty, yet to some trained eyes they show desperation while holding onto the only things he still can control. But there are still only so many rats on a sinking ship...
I'm reminded of a game we played as children, holding up our fingers as we slowly sank below the surface of the water; each time taking one additional finger down as we sank an additional time until we pretended to drown in the pool. As for the administration the buoys are leaving the pool, the lead weights are being attached, the anchor has been tossed overboard, the S.S. Scooter has broadcast its message, the Generals have displayed there disapproval, the Frigate Fitzgerald is closing in and Cutter Cheney is already headed down; so its just a matter of time. THEN AGAIN MAYBE HE WILL DECIDE WHAT'S BEST.
"There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provisions should be made to prevent its ascendancy." ~ Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Something I've been wondering....
"Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence." ~ Morris Kline
While listening to the talking heads this week, I again wondered "What is America's love affair with Ronald Reagan"? So being an old fart, that remembers his movies, tv show and his governship of CA (my aunt was a teacher in SoCal during his disastrous terms); I remember his anecdotes, speeches, policies, etc.: And I DON'T GET IT!
He told false stories to back up his policies, does this sound familiar? He skated on Iran-Contra and all of those involved are analysts on Faux news. I don't have anything against Ollie North, but a criminal is a criminal, whether he sells dope or guns to the contras.
Read here from a very conservative source:
Sometimes, Reagan’s retentive memory – important for an actor – gave his handlers trouble. Evidently lacking the capacity for reasoned thought, Reagan’s mind is filled with anecdotes, most of them dead wrong, that he has soaked up over the years in the course of reading Reader’s Digest or at idle conversation. Once an anecdote enters Reagan’s noodle, it is set in concrete and impossible to correct or dislodge. (Consider, for example, the famous story about the "Chicago welfare queen": all wrong, but Reagan carried on regardless.)
And then:
In the early years of Reagan rule, the press busily checked out Reagan’s beloved anecdotes, and found that almost every one of them was full of holes. But Reagan never veered from his course. Why? God knows there are plenty of correct stories about welfare cheats that he could have clasped to his bosom; why stick to false ones? Evidently, the reason is that Reagan cares little about reality; he lives in his own Hollywood fantasy world, a world of myth, a world in which it is always Morning in America, a world where The Flag is always flying, but where Welfare Cheats mar the contentment of the Land of Oz. So who cares if the actual story is wrong? Let it stand, like a Hollywood story, as a surrogate for the welfare cheats whom everyone knows do exist.
And even more:
The degree to which Reagan is out of touch with reality was best demonstrated in his concentration camp story. This was not simply a slip of the tongue, a Bushian confusion of December with September. When the Premier of Israel visited Reagan at the White House, the President went on and on for three quarters of an hour explaining why he was pro-Jewish: it was because, being in the Signal Corps in World War II, he visited Buchenwald shortly after the Nazi defeat and helped to take films of that camp. Reagan repeated this story the following day to an Israeli ambassador. But the truth was 180-degrees different; Reagan was not in Europe; he never saw a concentration camp; he spent the entire war in the safety of Hollywood, making films for the armed forces.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard60.html/
Does this all sound familiar of someone making up facts?
The GADFLY says:
What made this loyalty so remarkable was the willingness to ignore Reagan's history and record. Moderate Republicans didn't mind his hard-right ideology. Libertarian Republicans forgave the fact that the government grew bigger on his watch than under any other president since World War II. Religious Republicans had no problem with the fact that he almost never attended church. Family-values conservatives averted their eyes from the fact that he was divorced and estranged from his own children. Anti-tax Republicans forgot that he raised taxes.
But it is apparent that conservatives are simply more prone to hero-worship, finding leaders whom they can hail as near-saints.
http://gadflyer.com/articles/?ArticleID=128/
Reagan was a member of the screen actors guild (SAG) in 1947, but to continue working and front for McCarthyism he switched from being a democrat to a republican. This sounds like he was covering his..... He refused to support the actors McCarthy questioned, since he was afraid of being branded a COMMIE himself!
Well you know what I mean. This info comes from below.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAreagan.htm/
"Republicans were indifferent to the poor". ~ David Kuo, White House deputy director for faith-based initiatives
While listening to the talking heads this week, I again wondered "What is America's love affair with Ronald Reagan"? So being an old fart, that remembers his movies, tv show and his governship of CA (my aunt was a teacher in SoCal during his disastrous terms); I remember his anecdotes, speeches, policies, etc.: And I DON'T GET IT!
He told false stories to back up his policies, does this sound familiar? He skated on Iran-Contra and all of those involved are analysts on Faux news. I don't have anything against Ollie North, but a criminal is a criminal, whether he sells dope or guns to the contras.
Read here from a very conservative source:
Sometimes, Reagan’s retentive memory – important for an actor – gave his handlers trouble. Evidently lacking the capacity for reasoned thought, Reagan’s mind is filled with anecdotes, most of them dead wrong, that he has soaked up over the years in the course of reading Reader’s Digest or at idle conversation. Once an anecdote enters Reagan’s noodle, it is set in concrete and impossible to correct or dislodge. (Consider, for example, the famous story about the "Chicago welfare queen": all wrong, but Reagan carried on regardless.)
And then:
In the early years of Reagan rule, the press busily checked out Reagan’s beloved anecdotes, and found that almost every one of them was full of holes. But Reagan never veered from his course. Why? God knows there are plenty of correct stories about welfare cheats that he could have clasped to his bosom; why stick to false ones? Evidently, the reason is that Reagan cares little about reality; he lives in his own Hollywood fantasy world, a world of myth, a world in which it is always Morning in America, a world where The Flag is always flying, but where Welfare Cheats mar the contentment of the Land of Oz. So who cares if the actual story is wrong? Let it stand, like a Hollywood story, as a surrogate for the welfare cheats whom everyone knows do exist.
And even more:
The degree to which Reagan is out of touch with reality was best demonstrated in his concentration camp story. This was not simply a slip of the tongue, a Bushian confusion of December with September. When the Premier of Israel visited Reagan at the White House, the President went on and on for three quarters of an hour explaining why he was pro-Jewish: it was because, being in the Signal Corps in World War II, he visited Buchenwald shortly after the Nazi defeat and helped to take films of that camp. Reagan repeated this story the following day to an Israeli ambassador. But the truth was 180-degrees different; Reagan was not in Europe; he never saw a concentration camp; he spent the entire war in the safety of Hollywood, making films for the armed forces.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard60.html/
Does this all sound familiar of someone making up facts?
The GADFLY says:
What made this loyalty so remarkable was the willingness to ignore Reagan's history and record. Moderate Republicans didn't mind his hard-right ideology. Libertarian Republicans forgave the fact that the government grew bigger on his watch than under any other president since World War II. Religious Republicans had no problem with the fact that he almost never attended church. Family-values conservatives averted their eyes from the fact that he was divorced and estranged from his own children. Anti-tax Republicans forgot that he raised taxes.
But it is apparent that conservatives are simply more prone to hero-worship, finding leaders whom they can hail as near-saints.
http://gadflyer.com/articles/?ArticleID=128/
Reagan was a member of the screen actors guild (SAG) in 1947, but to continue working and front for McCarthyism he switched from being a democrat to a republican. This sounds like he was covering his..... He refused to support the actors McCarthy questioned, since he was afraid of being branded a COMMIE himself!
Well you know what I mean. This info comes from below.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAreagan.htm/
"Republicans were indifferent to the poor". ~ David Kuo, White House deputy director for faith-based initiatives
Monday, April 17, 2006
Another day in America..
We get late broadcasts of the Charlie Rose PBS shows from the Memphis (TN) affiliate, so today I saw the Good Friday broadcast with Guest Host: JON MEACHAM, Managing Editor, Newsweek; GARRY WILLS, Author, "What Jesus Meant"and KEVIN PHILLIPS, Author, "American Theocracy". Meacham is a Chattanooga, TN native now living with the infidels his latest book is American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. So needless to say I was very interested in this particular conversation.
Wills and Phillips both have in their past both been extreme right wing politically and Meacham, while trying to appear aloof, tended to lean that way also, yet each has seemed to have been on their own independent spiritual journey of enlightenment.
Wills has discovered that the right has missed the point of the gospel of Jesus, while focusing on the destruction and punishment of the Old Testament Scripture and ignoring the love, acceptance and assistance of the New Testament.
Phillips so too discovered that his brand of "main street" (Nixonion) Republicanism of conservative spending and separation of Church and State had been bastardized by the New-right into a sort of theocracy, that is doomed to fail, since their are far too many citizens to control with near sighted ideas and false science.
Meacham disturbed many of the new conservative right, when he paused to state that American Politics has used religion, but not held with it. That moral principles and values are not necessarily bound to a religious government, maybe in spite of it.
All three came to the conclusion that even though there is a movement to push creationism on the educational system of our nation, the present form is bunk. The Genesis story is allegorical in that the world is round, it never was flat. So when God created the first day, it was longer than the days as we now know them. Twenty four hours then, is twenty four hours now. Through God anything is possible, yet He does'nt expect us to believe in nonsense, either.
"There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can’t tell the truth without lying." ~ Henry Wheeler Shaw (sound like this quote could have been said this week)
"It is by acts and not by ideas that people live." ~ Anatole France
NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency may have read this blog without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse or protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President.
Wills and Phillips both have in their past both been extreme right wing politically and Meacham, while trying to appear aloof, tended to lean that way also, yet each has seemed to have been on their own independent spiritual journey of enlightenment.
Wills has discovered that the right has missed the point of the gospel of Jesus, while focusing on the destruction and punishment of the Old Testament Scripture and ignoring the love, acceptance and assistance of the New Testament.
Phillips so too discovered that his brand of "main street" (Nixonion) Republicanism of conservative spending and separation of Church and State had been bastardized by the New-right into a sort of theocracy, that is doomed to fail, since their are far too many citizens to control with near sighted ideas and false science.
Meacham disturbed many of the new conservative right, when he paused to state that American Politics has used religion, but not held with it. That moral principles and values are not necessarily bound to a religious government, maybe in spite of it.
All three came to the conclusion that even though there is a movement to push creationism on the educational system of our nation, the present form is bunk. The Genesis story is allegorical in that the world is round, it never was flat. So when God created the first day, it was longer than the days as we now know them. Twenty four hours then, is twenty four hours now. Through God anything is possible, yet He does'nt expect us to believe in nonsense, either.
"There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can’t tell the truth without lying." ~ Henry Wheeler Shaw (sound like this quote could have been said this week)
"It is by acts and not by ideas that people live." ~ Anatole France
NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency may have read this blog without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse or protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
My Apology to Jimmy Buffett...
Pharisees to the right, Pharisees on the right, Pharisees say they are the right, Pharisees claim they are the only ones that are right, Pharisees were mistaken then and Jesus said it. I believe it. And they are mistaken now. They are so caught up in turning religion into a structure and rote mechanism of non-devotional experience and self-help feel good manuals by Osteam's Press.
But Salvation is a personal experience with God, not some extra-curricular activity planned to keep you busy and away from the temptation of the "world". God wants his "saints" in the world, but seperated from it, as examples.
Tom Delay is a Pharisee. Bill Frist is a Pharisee. Jerry Fallwell is a Pharisee. Pat Robertson is a Pharisee. Ralph Reed is a Pharisee. Roy Moore is a Pharisee.
I just read a review about a new book about Huey P. Long of LouisianA, it discusses his populist appeal, even though he grew up privileged. He promised lots of change to get elected, yet once elected to the Senate, his plans proved to be detail-thin, without statistics to back them up. He became obsessed with power, using the state police in LA to provide services and enforce deals or retribution. Stop me if any of this sounds vaguely familiar...
"A perfect democracy can come close to looking like a dictatorship; a democracy in which the people are so satisfied they have no complaint." ~ Huey Long
Luke 7:37 A certain immoral woman heard he was there and brought a beautiful jar* filled with expensive perfume.
Luke 7:38 Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.
Luke 7:39 When the Pharisee who was the host saw what was happening and who the woman was, he said to himself, "This proves that Jesus is no prophet. If God had really sent him, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She's a sinner!" (New Living Translation )
Jesus went on to explain that the Pharisee's motives, morals and values are all out of skew. Just like today. I am a Sinner not a Pharisee, how about you?
NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency may have read this blog without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse or protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President.
But Salvation is a personal experience with God, not some extra-curricular activity planned to keep you busy and away from the temptation of the "world". God wants his "saints" in the world, but seperated from it, as examples.
Tom Delay is a Pharisee. Bill Frist is a Pharisee. Jerry Fallwell is a Pharisee. Pat Robertson is a Pharisee. Ralph Reed is a Pharisee. Roy Moore is a Pharisee.
I just read a review about a new book about Huey P. Long of LouisianA, it discusses his populist appeal, even though he grew up privileged. He promised lots of change to get elected, yet once elected to the Senate, his plans proved to be detail-thin, without statistics to back them up. He became obsessed with power, using the state police in LA to provide services and enforce deals or retribution. Stop me if any of this sounds vaguely familiar...
"A perfect democracy can come close to looking like a dictatorship; a democracy in which the people are so satisfied they have no complaint." ~ Huey Long
Luke 7:37 A certain immoral woman heard he was there and brought a beautiful jar* filled with expensive perfume.
Luke 7:38 Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.
Luke 7:39 When the Pharisee who was the host saw what was happening and who the woman was, he said to himself, "This proves that Jesus is no prophet. If God had really sent him, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She's a sinner!" (New Living Translation )
Jesus went on to explain that the Pharisee's motives, morals and values are all out of skew. Just like today. I am a Sinner not a Pharisee, how about you?
NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency may have read this blog without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse or protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President.
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