Search Results for 'lI'

[cheyenne]

PS Ken I’m no longer undecided!

[cheyenne]

My main concern with Edwards is fear that what happened to Bill Clinton might happen to him. Clinton ran on a progressive platform but once elected fell prey to advisers who pulled him aside and said “this is how it’s going to be”. B.C. was a corporatist who gave us NAFTA, and flushed the dollar down the toilet. Sure, the Iraq war is sucking the juices out of us, but Wal-Mart used to sell Made in America and NAFTA gave them and others the green light to basically take our manufacturing jobs and hand them to Asia.

Hillary is more of the same, and will compromise too much. We can’t afford her. She is lying when she says she will bring change.

Obama has his heart in a good place but Kucinich is the man who knows exactly the right answer to every question you can possibly think to ask. He alone exhibits the intelligence and temerity I look for in a leader.

I dare anyone to challenge Kucinich on any question, and compare him to any candidate! Issue after issue, Dennis Kucinich amazes me with his intricate knowledge of not just the problems, but well-thought-out solutions!

I’m sorry Edwards is considered more electable, and I like the guy a lot but regrettably the only person I can vote for is Kucinich. Until the end. I will write him in, unless he is chosen as the V.P.

[cheyenne]

Wow, I like this thread!

The religious right (as created by the aforementioned Schaeffer et al) is _absolutely_ un-American. Although the colonies were initially established by Puritans, the States rose above the divisive aspect of religion by keeping it at arm’s length. The Founding Fathers could see how unfettered mixing of church and state restricted the freedom of the people to choose how they worship, not to mention how they live in general.

PS I love Dave B. and G.K.

[Julie]

My biggest concern with Obama is his relatively weak environmental agenda; I suppose it’s his midwest ties, but he leans far too heavily on biofuels. We need them in the mix, but as a bridge technology.

Edwards appears the strongest in both environment and healthcare of the candidates the press has decided remain to us. (lowmanbeach, I wish your second-to-last boss were in charge now…)

I’m disappointed in Clinton’s very conservative thinking…but she’s certainly better than the status quo.

[Kayleigh]

Wes,I wish it were my real name. I rarely post under my real name (had death threats on another board–probably bogus but still upsetting.)

The last number I remember hearing about the earth is 4.6 billion. I think it has been increased since, but don’t remember exactly. It’s sure a far cry from 6,000 years.

It’s reasonable to hold science and faith separately and they really can co-exist. You can respect the process of science (hypothesis testing, weight of evidence, etc) and still have faith that resonates with you and helps you. My fear is that Huckabee and people like him don’t maintain this distinction.

I have had such a cruddy week that I probably will go to church on Sunday (UU or unity, most likely.) Never thought I’d say it, but sometimes it helps.

[Ken]

You think I despise charlatans and hypocrites because I have never been exposed to the “gospel”? I am from North Carolina. I have seen it close up and know a few of the children of major fundies. I have been a cast member in a traveling evangelical show. I have lived in Christian fundamentalist communes and compounds.

I have no problem with the gospel, my issue is with those who read it, and ignore the words of Jesus to concentrate on those parts of the old testament which reinforce their own prejudices, and justify their hatred and averice.

Throuout history there have been those who use religion for personal gain, political power or as a cover for their mental health issues. There have also been good and decent people who derive great comfort and strength from their belief.

It is when the former use the latter for personal gain that I get upset.

I see above a sweetened up standarization of Calvinism with the parts that scare people glossed over or removed. Lets look at the thing in a bit brighter light.

---

“The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man. But compare with these the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin.

1. That there are three Gods.

2. That good works, or the love of our neighbor, is nothing.

3. That faith is every thing, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more merit the faith.

4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use.

5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals to be saved, and certain others to be damned; and that no crimes of the former can damn them; no virtues of the latter save.”

— Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, Jun. 26, 1822

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And in response to Dave Barry, lets try Garrison Keillor

You might not have always liked Republicans, but you could count on them to manage the bank. They might be lousy tippers, act snooty, talk through their noses, wear spats and splash mud on you as they race their Pierce-Arrows through the village, but you knew they could do the math. To see them produce a ninny and then follow him loyally into the swamp for five years is disconcerting, like seeing the Rolling Stones take up lite jazz. […]

It is painful to look at your father and realize the old man should not be allowed to manage his own money anymore. This is the discovery the country has made about the party in power. They are inept. The checkbook needs to be taken away. They will rant, they will screech, they will wave their canes at you and call you all sorts of names, but you have to do what you have to do.

— Garrison Keillor 06/06

[Deeno]

ILOL

You all sound like Steve Martin in ‘L A Stories’ quite a few years ago. Rent it sometime and see and hear for yourselves. Raise your hand if you talk on your cellphone while ordering your drink.

Re: Howard Schultz taking over again? We are so fortunate! Guess his work with the Sonics is done huh? He really turned around the customer service there!

[JanS]

Gotta love Dave Barry…

[JanS]

Wes…I grew up surrounded by the church, which was a half block away from my home. I sang in the choir, I helped the organist, I played piano in Sunday School, I taught Sunday School. I Had Youth group on Thursday nights, choir practice on Friday nights, dance at the church on Sat. night (hey we were a bit progressive – lol). I attended 2 service on Sunday mornings. All of my friends attended the same church as I did. We attended retreats on a regular basis…church camp in the summer for 2 weeks as teenagers paid for by the church. Religion , as far as all of that was concerned, was first and foremost in my life. I developed what I believe, or don’t believe, through that. I don’t want anyone assuming that I need to be talked to about beliefs/Jesus/God etc.etc….just as I would NEVER assume to talk to you because I feel that you might need the guidance in the right direction. I could quote bible around this woman who sat in my living room, and, yes, she said it just like that. One cannot tell from one’s outward appearance what is in one’s heart…one should never assume that another needs to be “enlightened”…it may already be in their being…and be very private to them only.

I’ve never felt the need to spout what I believe to the world…they have their own beliefs…

[Wes]

It’s late and I’m tired so the fire burns lower. =)

I hope that woman did not say it that way to you. I would have told you that Jesus said He was the only way to God. So anyone who makes that kind of statement, did the miraculous things He did, and spoke about a place of eternal torement as well as a place of eternal life, I think is worth seeing if He is right or wrong. Because if He is wrong then you might not have anything to worry about so go do whatever you want, but if He is right then we should see what He has to say about how to get to God and have eternal life.

This would be fair to ask right?

I can tell you what Jesus said and the claims He made and the things He has done and what He says are the consequences of what He says, good and bad, and love you to death no matter what, but if God is drawing you to Jesus, then investigate it and see if it’s true, for yourself, not what the crazy preacher man on TBN says, or on the WSB ;p,but what the Bible says. That seems fair and it does become your free will choice.

Cheers Jan!

[grr]

funny..one of the reasons I’m dumping comcast is BECAUSE of On-Demand…I just refuse to pay MORE money to watch something on demand (mostly movies)..and I DVR’d most other shoes I wanted.

I find Comcasts HD Advertising VERY deceptive…Sure..they have a lot of HD CONTENT, because they include all their OnDemand stuff.

-HD Channel wise, there’s simply no comparaison to Satellite. The main thing I’ll miss is the local PBS in HD, but, I’m sure I’ll survive..I’ll have Food TV HD and SciFi HD..that’ll hold me over.

and I’ll just use my computer for my weather forcast. It’s SEATTLE in Winter. It’ll be 48 degrees and raining. Next.

[JanS]

Wes, I think we can definitely agree that we need to not take anything we read like this on it’s own basis. Yes, we need to research it ourselves, get what information we can, and then decide what we believe…..on either side…

[Wes]

Ken, you starting to make me think you are bit of a conspiracy theorist….

So people are not perfect and when any religion has too much power abuse begins, I agree. People have agendas? Most people do. But this swings everywhere, not just the “religious right”. Almost everyone in politics, or it seems, does things that some people do not like.

Do you like Dave Barry?

“The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and time again that they have the management skills of celery. They’re the kind of people who’d stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn’t bother to stop because they’d want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club.”

Soo good, everyone is guilty, everyone is fallen, just like Findlay said.

Findlay, email me sometime!

[JanS]

Wes…absolutely…there is always the chance that a belief/feeling will influence their decisions. This particular belief/feeling…the separation of church and state…is kind of important.

Even we will use our personal feelings/beliefs to make this momentous decision.

“It’s interesting that what I was taught about those that were coming to America to settle, were those that were being oppressed by religion in their countries. They wanted to worship freely.” Absolutely on that one, too, Wes…freedom from religious persecution….I suppose that’s why I have a difficult time with people who want to cram their religion down my throat. I even had the woman who stood up for me at my wedding tell me that if I didn’t believe as she did (her version of being “born again”) that I was going straight to hell. She sat in my living room with a straight face and told me that…I showed her the door, and never invited her back again.

So… a little insight into where I’m coming from, I suppose…

We just need to read, read, read some more…and make the best decision that’s right for us based on our beliefs….

Wes, you almost sound like you’re mellowing a bit :)

[Wes]

Again, the writer of the book “Liars for Jesus” makes some claims without basis himself and tells stories without citing references. Those things that he does cite seem true enough, though looking up those documents yourself seems to be what the book is calling on us to do ourselves. So they too have an agenda and a presupposition and I suppose if we wanted to know the truth we too can search those documents as well, right?

Case in point “Not all Americans during the Revolutionary War were the virtuous, Christian citizens portrayed in the religious right version of American history.”(Liars for Jesus, Chapter 1, Congress and the Bible, pg3, 3rd para). Who has made this claim for the author to refute it and why is he not citing a source for this? Also how does he know? He must be assuming, becasue a)as far as I know there is no time machine invented and b)it’s historical and can not be repeated exactly. It may be true or not but make your case Chris Rodda, so we don’t think we are beliving in more lies about suspected lies! And we as individuals should ask and look for these things too. Would you not agree?

[Wes]

Kayleigh, (I really like that name by the way) what date does science give about the age of the Earth today anyways? I think it just got bumped up last month to almost 1 billion. It seems that both have no clue how old the earth is.

Good stuff Ken, but as always I have to take this with a grain of salt, considering daily kos does have it’s own biases about how they think things should be too. But I would agree, what does our military have to do with evangelism?

Also the other article by the kos points out particulars about this very weird house resolution, and says, “It’s a lie.” Ok, show how this is a lie. In all fairness for me to find something you have written and then write in response, “It’s a lie.” would not be just. If it’s true let’s see it. Just because they say it doesn’t make it true, and that goes the same with those pushing for the bill. It still doesn’t seem like theocracy, which I would again assert has nothing to do with the New Testament or Jesus in any way.

As far as Rushdooney’s quote, and I have no idea who he is, what was the context for that statement?

Gary North’s comments are not at all correct biblically and is quite laughable.

It’s interesting that what I was taught about those that were coming to America to settle, were those that were being oppressed by religion in their countries. They wanted to worship freely.

Jan, would it be fair to say that every canidate, despite what they say, will make decisions based of their own presuppositions and beliefs that will affect us daily?

In the end I am still undecided, just like last time.

Good times neighbors!

[Findlay]

Ken,

I would just say that you shouldn’t focus on what the “religious right” does. We are fallen people who follow are own way. Our actions are not obvious God-like as I’m sure your personal actions are sometimes not.

I would just listen to the message of the Gospel and make up your mind on where you stand.

The Gospel (”Good News”)

There is one God who created everything (Heaven and Earth). That God is all powerful and is without sin.

God created man who fell, by trying to be God (worshiping creation rather than creator). In other words, we create idols (house, car, vacation, family, job, intellect, etc.) that lead us away from God.

Man is eternally separated from God in a state of rebellion. Man will die, permanently separated from the God of the Universe without a plan for salvation.

God so loved the world that he created that he sent his own son (Jesus) into creation to take on our sin so that we may be reconciled to him.

The Holy Spirit purpose is to convict us of our sin and to point us to Christ. By turning towards Jesus, God removes the sin the separates us from him.

The Bible was divinely inspired by God to allow us to learn about Jesus and the perfect plan of redemption.

If you doubt that God could do all such things, then your God is too small!

The New Year would be a perfect time to turn from your current ways (if not a Christian), keeping your eyes on eternity, with a new life of meaning, living for the God of the Universe rather than yourself.

This has nothing to do with elections, a Christion-nation, homophobia, men/women domination, abortion, etc.

It is just figuring out that you are not the center of your universe and that there is an eternal being that you need to be justified with.

As C.S. Lewis said, was Jesus was either a lunatic or a liar or Lord. You must make a decision!

[JanS]

Wes…I don’t like the way Mr. Romney has flip-flopped on quite a few things to satisfy different constituents over time…simple enough.

Mr. Huckabee? He can tell us all he wants that his religion will have nothing to do with his being president, but, let’s face it, he is more than just a lay person out there. He’s a Baptist minister…and I think there’s a side to him that he’s not quite being honest about. I think he would have a difficult time keeping the gov’t part and the religious part separate. I have no problem with him or anyone labelling themselves Christian. I do have a problem with my country’s leaders telling me that I have to believe that way, too…having it influence what would affect me on a daily basis…..and it’s just my opinion that ultimately he would do that.

On a political level, I’m not sure that either has the experience of dealing with foreign powers to be sufficient to deal with the things that we’re involved in right now in the world.

Ken…thanks for the very interesting reading…

[WSB]

thanks! good reminder. it’s been a few years since we ourselves had to do major huge in-depth school research. the tricky part here is going to be including all the private schools – we know most of them off the top of our heads but we’re sure we’ll miss somebody inadvertently … everybody check back in the morning and see what we came up with :) (3 AM ADDENDUM, that will be more like LATE morning – about 2/3 of the way there tho) 6:20 PM PPS, still working on it! I never learned the lesson about “underpromise and overdeliver” …

[Ken]

Frank Schaeffer son of theologian and Presbyterian pastor Francis Schaeffer, was pivotal in the creation of the Religious Right

Quotes below taken from a Rob Boston book review at:

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/1/8/103830/9285

(excerpt)

Consider these choice quotes from Schaeffer’s recently published book,

Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back:

“What I slowly realized was that the religious-right leaders we were helping to gain power were not `conservatives’ at all, in the old sense of the world. They were anti-American religious revolutionaries.”

—-

“Pat Robertson…would have had a hard time finding work in any job where hearing voices is not a requirement.”

---

“Dad could hardly have imagined how they would help facilitate the instantly corrupted power-crazy new generation of evangelical public figures like Ralph Reed, who took money from the casino industry while allegedly playing both sides against the middle in events related to the Abramoff Washington lobbyist scandal.”

---

“Long before Ralph Reed and his ilk came on the scene, Dad got sick of these idiots' as he often called people like Dobson in private. They wereplastic,’ Dad said, and `power-hungry.'”

---

“There were three kinds of evangelical leaders: The dumb or idealistic ones who really believed. The out-and-out charlatans. And the smart ones who still believed – sort of – but knew that the evangelical world was sh*t, but who couldn’t figure out any way to earn as good a living anywhere else.”

---

“Dad seemed lost in a depressed daze. He had recently been saying privately that the evangelical world was more or less being led by lunatics, psychopaths, and extremists, and agreeing with me that if `our side’ ever won, America would be in deep trouble.”

---

[Ken]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/30/12918/167/526/427649

Well here is a story of recent evangelizing of active duty military.

It is quite possible this is more of a convenient method of parting separating soldiers from their GI education benefits, than a takeover of the military, but the pressure at the Air Force academy is very real and has resulted in a decade of fundamentalist who believe the world is supposed to end in fire PDQ, having control of the largest nuclear arsenal ever assembled on the planet.

Note this is posted at the Great Orange Satans site DailyKos…

For more fun, read Bruce Wilson’s, How Fake American History Feeds Christian Nationalism

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/1/5/155457/0298

(excerpt)

Step 1: Change Beliefs About Origins of US Government. Step Two: Theocracy !

The easiest way to make the US into a Christian theocracy is to just re-write American history so that Americans grow up believing that the founders intended the US to be a Christian theocracy.

The problem with ignoring this fake history is that it then gets enshrined as “legitimate” and if House Resolution 888 gets passed, a whole mess of the worst history lies of the American Christian right will get entered into the Congressional Record and then people who push the “Christian nation” alternate version of American history can point to the Congressional Record and say “see ? it’s in the Congressional Record ! It must be true !” That’s how PR and propaganda work.

H. Res 888 is designed to make the history lies, cooked up by historical revisionists of the Christian right, more respectable. And, to the extent Congress members vote for it they become caught up in a web of complicity – the overwriting of American history.

---

The church today has fallen prey to the heresy of democracy.

— R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1973), p. 747.

---

The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church’s public marks of the covenant–baptism and holy communion–must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel.

Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989), p. 87.

[add]

Oh – and on the Seattle Schools page for each school you can also link directly to that specific school’s annual report, which provides all the data on the school (test scores, diversity/demographics, etc.)

[add]

You can go to the Seattle Schools website and get two lists: West Seattle North and West Seattle South. Click each school and get general contact info plus a link to their website.

http://www.seattleschools.org/area/m_schools/index.dxml

[Kayleigh]

It doesn’t bother me that Huckabee is a Christian, but I don’t like that he thinks the earth is 6,000 years old. I prefer a president who trusts science in matters like those.

What REALLY bothers me is that Huckabee’s son tortured and killed a helpless stray dog, and Huckabee used his influence to keep his son out of trouble. Corrupt and vile.

[Ken]

http://www.sbctakeover.com/TakeoverBook.pdf

direct link to the pdf of the entire book. Might take a while to load on some connections. I just tested it.

Maybe I will post some more info on the progress of the stealth takeover of the justice department and the military after dinner. :)