Obama’s Twisted Faith
On Wednesday, the president’s schedule included calls with two different clergy groups, intended to enlist them to sell ObamaCare to their “flocks.” The first call was with 1,000 rabbis from across the country:
In a morning conference call with about 1000 rabbis from across the nation, Obama asked for aid: “I am going to need your help in accomplishing necessary reform,” the president told the group, according to Rabbi Jack Moline, who tweeted his way through the phoner.
“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” Obama went on to say, according to Moline’s real-time stream. The president concluded by wishing the rabbis a “Shanah Tovah (Happy Jewish New Year).”
The 15-minute morning briefing was sponsored by the Religion Action Center of Reform Judaism, and included rabbis of all persuasions. Although the RAC hosts the call each year, participants had never before heard from a sitting president.
Rabbi Moline must have caught heat from his Twitter comments because later in the day Moline deleted the feed, saying that it was a “huge mistake.”
The second call was to 140,000 clergy of all faiths:
“I know there’s been a lot of misinformation in this debate and there are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness,” he said.
Obama called the notion that his proposed changes to the health care system would lead to so-called death panels “just an extraordinary lie,” said the idea that they would require federal funding for abortions or provide insurance for illegal aliens was not true and told callers the plan would not amount to a government takeover of health care or to cutting Medicare benefits for the elderly.
The president framed the debate as a battle between hope and fear, a not-so-subtle attempt to convince the clergy that he was leading the forces of good against his evil opponents.
“These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation and that is that we look out for one another,” he said. “That I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper and in the wealthiest nation on Earth right now, we are neglecting to live up to that call.”
The president called on religious leaders to “knock on doors” and “speak the truth” to help him spread the good word about health care reform.
At the end, Obama did not take any questions, and, with a simple “bye bye,” ended the call.
Gary Bauer, chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, was not happy about the president’s use of God to sell his program:
But now, as his scheme to take over health care unravels by the day, President Obama is attempting to exploit Jesus to justify more big government. As I recall, government was not very kind to Jesus. And Jesus never suggested that government should be a substitute for individual Christian charity. Helping our neighbors and the disadvantaged is an individual charge — not a call for more bureaucracy.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), disputed the president’s claim that the bill did not fund abortions. Johnson charged that Obama:
“brazenly misrepresented the abortion-related component of the health care legislation that his congressional allies and staff have crafted.”
The NRLC explained that “as amended by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on July 30 (the Capps-Waxman Amendment), the bill backed by the White House (H.R. 3200) explicitly authorizes the government plan to cover all elective abortions.”
“Obama apparently seeks to hide behind a technical distinction between tax funds and government-collected premiums. But these are merely two types of public funds, collected and spent by government agencies,” Johnson explained.
“The Obama-backed legislation makes it explicitly clear that no citizen would be allowed to enroll in the government plan unless he or she is willing to give the federal agency an extra amount calculated to cover the cost of all elective abortions — this would not be optional. The abortionists would bill the federal government and would be paid by the federal government.
These are public funds, and this is government funding of abortion,” Johnson said.
The president’s basic religious arguments were a bit disingenuous. He was correct that revising the health care system in America is a moral issue, but the argument is not, as he claims, a disagreement over whether we should reform health care, but how. His opponents simply don’t like Obama’s plan — they certainly are not “evil,” as he implies.
Sarah Palin’s comments about “death panels” were hyperbolic, but they were not “bearing false witness.” While there is nothing in the ObamaCare bills about “death panels,” make no mistake about it, this plan will lead to rationing — it is simple economics.
The president is correct when he says the government would not force a change, but of course economics will encourage your company to force a change. If the government plan doesn’t have to make a profit, and if all other costs are the same, it can charge less. Which way do you think companies will go? If you have a group of competitors, but one has virtually unlimited resources and does not have to make a profit, how long before the competition has no customers?
Eventually you will end up with one insurance company — its name is Uncle Sam. And when your good Uncle Sam wants to save some money, he will start making bureaucratic decisions, rather than medical decisions, about your health. Mom won’t get that treatment to save her life because it is expensive and she has already lived 90 good years. Uncle Sam will tell the pharmaceutical company that they won’t cover their better heart pill — the one in use now is good enough, and heck, it already cures 70 percent of the cases.
How am I so sure? Because there has never been a government-run health plan, anywhere in the world, that did not ration care.
If the president wanted to talk about “bearing false witness,” maybe he should have talked about the false attacks he has made during this the health care debate regarding Fox News, the Republican Party, and of course — the villain du jour – the insurance industry.
Leviticus 19:14 talks about a commandment the Jews call Lifnei iver (before the blind). The verse says:
You shall not curse the deaf nor place a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God — I am your Lord.
The Torah is not really talking about blind and deaf people — the verse has been interpreted by the rabbis as a prohibition against misleading people. The recipient of bad advice would be blind in regards to its accuracy, and they would stumble if the advice was damaging or otherwise bad.
The half-truths President Obama told clergy about his health care plan and its opponents are a perfect example of Lifnei iver, putting a stumbling block before the blind.
(If you would like to listen to the entire faith conference call, including the president’s remarks which start at the 30-minute mark, click here.)
This pro-abortion clown, Obama, isn’t fooling anyone.
What Obama fails to understand is that these moral issues that he senses so strongly are in fact largely why the populace is digging in its heels. The moral issues apply to abortion, fundamental human rights to life (the elderly as well as the unborn), and fundamental issues regarding human freedom. This “moral imperative” for action is exactly why the American people are fighting his bill: they are called to resist because fundamental human rights are at stake.
This person is not only pro-murder, he is a strong supporter of late term abortion, that is nearly universally condemned even by the pro-murder satans.
And the health-care bill provides for babies- murder too.
And with all that, he says “God”and all the frigging communist propaganda machine (media and the rest)supports him in this deception operation.
Let us pray.
May God help us.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Rationing translates to what exactly?
Granny stands in front of the government committee propped up by her walker, needing a hip replacement and they say “The investment isn’t worth it. This money is better spent rehabbing a 21 year old junkie who has a full and productive life in front of him.”
Death panel is the short and ugly way to get the point across. Your life will be in the government’s hands. They will be making your life and death decisions for you.
I don’t understand why there is an attempt to ameliorate this reality. If all life isn’t precious, if we should not continue to do everything medically feasible to save lives as we do now, then we will become a country of amoral monsters.
http://www.google.com/news/barackobama
Ahhh, the self-proclaimed diety must now call upon the the servants of the REAL diety to help him. The irony is is delicious.
If it wasn’t something that would ruin our future and nation I would love to see this absurdity play out in full.
I wonder what is next? Perhaps he will go hat-in-hand to those “bitter clingers” to make his pitch there. Mayhaps he will invoke Heston there?
This shallow, venal man is too lazy to guide the reform through Congress and has left the heavy-lifting to the likes of Pelosi and Reid. I doubt that he has any real clue as to what is in (or not in) the document. But he more than ready to mis-represent what is not yet finalized to gain a point politically.
Bearing false witness? Perhaps he should reveiw the videos of his saying that he would never run for POTUS before he finished at least one term in the Senate? He has done little but lie since he arrived in D.C.
I refuse to be lectured on religion by one of Jeremiah Wright’s cultists.
“In a morning conference call with about 1000 rabbis from across the nation, Obama asked for aid: “I am going to need your help in accomplishing necessary reform,” the president told the group, according to Rabbi Jack Moline, who tweeted his way through the phoner.”
Jeremiah Wright is not going to be amused.
Perhaps if the president would use his own Reverend, Jeremiah Wright, to lead the Christian charge for fairness in healthcare …
I was for Judaism before I was against it.
But I do think my bloody buddy Mo is kinda cool.
Saw that Bad Religion logo and just had to point out, that they are (or maybe were as I haven’t heard much of their newer stuff) a good punk rock band.
And although, I believe they claim to be humanists, I haven’t seen much out of them recently that points toward anything other than a typical leftist, I could be wrong though as again, I haven’t heard much out of their newer stuff.
Ironically, they wrote a song and released it on the album of the same name in ’98 entitled “No Substance”. Hope & Change anyone?
Does the surname of Neocomrade Sammy rhyme with _moi foi_? With the first syllable of ‘loiter’ and ‘goitre’? Or even, conceivably, with ‘hoist’ (as in petardwaise)?
Arguments based on Christojudæan mythology are not, nowdays, to be answered in prose before a general audience. [1] And it is far too hot this morning for the present keyboard to aspire to blank verse. So it looks like it’s either rime or shut up.
___
Former Governess S. Heath-Paling of East Russia seems a thoroughly secular sort, however, a servant of none but herself and Lord Mammon, which affords sufficient excuse, maybe, to wonder about the criteria of Benoi[s]tian hermeneutic a little. Sammy say
“Sarah Palin’s comments about ‘death panels’ were hyperbolic, but they were not ‘bearing false witness.’ While there is nothing in the ObamaCare bills about ‘death panels,’ make no mistake about it, this plan will lead to rationing — it is simple economics.”
Like his patient or victim, the neocomrade glossator is, for the nonce, all mammonology and no pie in the sky. But Sammy is not very good at mammonology, it appears, for of course we cannot be *lead* to evil rationin’ when we are here already here — and have never been anywhere else.
Less incompetent analysts will have noticed that the question is not whether rationing happens. This side of Beulah Land, it is bound to happen. _Inter fæces et urinam nascimur_ … doncha know? An old song, that one!
What the GOP geniuses and their dupes in the Big Management Party base ’n’ vile are countin’ on for agitprop purposes is rather different: when it is Mlle. de la Main Invisible [2] who rations, thoughtless folks out in Televisionland and the electorate take rationing as a (rather invidiously) so-called “act of God” and thus no issue to be taken up with, say, Big Insurance.
But Father Zeus knows best.
Healthy days.
___
[1] To be sure, Neocomrade the Reverend Doctor of Divinity G. Bauer is awfully temptin’ with that swell bologna of his about “As I recall, government was not very kind to Jesus. And Jesus never suggested that government should be a substitute for individual Christian charity.” Must have took a whole lot of ignorance of Church History for Master Gary to come up with that one!
[2] See (if that’s the right word) http://tinyurl.com/lvx8pc
Well, the president is right. Fearmongering about “death panels” is clearly bearing false witness.
Just because you hate the president doesn’t make him wrong.
4. Kate Rafferty: “If all life isn’t precious, if we should not continue to do everything medically feasible to save lives as we do now, then we will become a country of amoral monsters.”
Seriously? The current system is so profit-driven that there are entire business units dedicated to finding ways to deny you coverage for services. That means that there is a person working at your health care company whose sole job is to find a way to deny your claim. And if he does deny your claim, you have little to no recourse. We’ve turned the health and well being of our citizens into a corrupt racket.
We already have become a country of amoral monsters. Apparently you’re just not paying attention.
nobody is buying it …(well maybe the trolls, but even they must see that they are trying to polish a turd)
if it wasn’t so serious an issue it would be comical….if it was a movie script I would think it toooooo over the top to be plausable.
I WANT TO SEE CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS SQUARE THE CIRCLE WITH THIS ONE …he did vote for the f’n clown.
Please everyone …WRITE WHERE IS CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS ??
And just what is wrong with profit-drive? Profit means getting more out than what you put in. Isn’t that a good thing? I like my job but I’ll let you in on a little secret–if they stopped paying me, I’d stop showing up.
I like the fact that I know exactly what my insurer is trying to do (make money). I much prefer it to to the government telling me that it’s just looking out for my best interest when in fact the leaders at the top are just looking to maintain power and the workers at the bottom are just looking to do as little as it takes to not get fired from a government job.
You see, the profit motive never disappears, it just goes by new names.
It’s the prophet motive.
Think of it as a spiritual franchise. I supply all the marketing crap, and you be the community organizer, and we split the booty…er…righteousness.
#14 George S.
Let me see…
the marxist Hussein talking to the rabbis
and
telling them that we must help God (with abortions)
while
denouncing the “lies” of the dissidents who dare think that the nationalization of 1/6 of the American economy wouldn’t be good for America.
yes, it is WAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY over the top
But the most important point of this movie is who the DIRECTOR is.
(Script by Karl Marx AND Benito Mussolini)
Directed by George Soros
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
#13 Anonymoses, you sly trickster, don’t you be castigating others about morality and calling us monsters. Haven’t you ever heard this one?
“Get away from that wheelbarrow, Willy-Clyde, you know you don’t know nothin”bout machinery.” Well, you know as much about morality as Willy knows about machinery, so you best stay off the subject.
But how will we know the proposed “reform” will work well? I got it. Let’s see how an essentially matching reform has worked out in the jolly state of Maine:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574322401816501182.html
Don’t get sick after June
Obama became a religious zelot?
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2009/08/obama-becomes-religious-zelot.html
#13
I ain’t done with you yet, Anonymoses. You have a hell of a nerve claiming those against Obamacare are immoral. Is it immoral to steal from responsible Peter to pay for the care of irresponsible Paul? Yes. Is it immoral to lie to Americans by claiming they can keep their present insurance when the public option and/or a coop will ensure over time that private insurance will go bye bye? Yes. Ask Barny Frank. He will frankly tell you, as he told everyone else, that that will be the case and that the long term objective of the Dems is single payer. Is it immoral for Dems in Congress to insulate themselves againt the possibility of having to join the same plan as their constituents? Yes.
Immorality…mendacity. The sharp and foul odor of mendacity. How dare you and your master inject morality into a discussion full of political trickery carried on by political tricksters.
First “the Smoker” wants to lecture me on healthcare and now he’s found religion. I guess he missed the part about “taking the log out of thine own eye before taking the splinter out of someone else’s.”
The nation’s biggest prick, a thousand rabbis. What’s not to like? Shmuck for everyone!
15. Duke of Sharon,
Good post. I was right with you up till your last sentence: the profit motive can disappear — think of what drives a welfare recipient. Profit/value pursuit and pain avoidance have some similarities but, as a doctor can tell you, they’re are not equivalent motivations. One leads to growth while the other leads to stagnation and decline. It’s the difference between thriving and subsisting. I want a profit-driven, vibrant, thriving health care industry.
Soooo….campaigning from the pulpit is a huge nono….but pushing this agenda isn’t? Is there a reason that this is ok?
Obama also said in that conference call that, “we are partners with God…”. Really? I don’t recall God ever saying he needed a partner, or wanted one. The greatest narcissist since Narcissus.
Perhaps if he had found a church to attend in Washington he might have more credibility, religion is just a tool for him to try to pander to those that are religious other than that he has no use for it.
I think he’s confusing God with Soros.
As a true believer of Karl Marx and consort, the man is deeply convinced that religion is a poison, (except for the throroughly purified version or Jeremiah Wright), so he would not see what’s wrong with trying to enlist the help of the clergy in spreading his own poisoned pill.
If you don’t see the sublime win-win of this messianic strategy, you must be a racist, right?
Wouldn’t Obama first have to have faith to have it twisted as the title of the article states?
‘If the president wanted to talk about “bearing false witness,” maybe he should have talked about the false attacks he has made during this the health care debate regarding Fox News, the Republican Party, and of course — the villain du jour – the insurance industry.’
Ah, the Holy Trinity of the Loony Right: Fox News, the Republican Party and the Insurance Industry.
The Holy Trinity of the Liberal Democrats: Obama, Anybody with the last name Kennedy and a copy of the Constitution written entirely in pencil.
Well, patriotism is supposedly the last refuge for scoundrels. Apparently for Democrats it’s religion …
What a fabulous country!We are all free to follow the God/religion of our choice. Personally, my favorite nexus of state and church was in World War II. Once Sicily was taken from the Nazis, allied bombers were within range of Rome. Many Catholics were concerned about bombing near the Vatican. The crews were carefully briefed as to the location of Holy places. As the bombers took off, priests blessed their mission with Holy water. There is a ‘standard of decency’ and God that I can follow.
Obama’s statements about religion reveal the thoughts of a man who attended a political church for political reasons.
It’s funny watching a son of the devil (he is a liar) trying to enlist clergy to help him in his cause of enslaving American citizens in the false morality that government should be involved in charity. Charity happens when one individual is moved to help his fellow man and God the Father can and will bless this activity. But no person will benefit with a blessing from the Father in Heaven when he is forced to give and forced to be be chariable by a statist government. The government shall also receive no blessing because it is standing in a place The Heavenly Father has reserved for Himself.
This is the picture; while the president and his cronies are trying to grow government and strangle freedom of choice, God the Father is grinding the governments of man to powder as promised, for He was patient for a while but patience for this kind government has run out, a new and righteous government is on the way, where truth and justice are the rule of the day everyday.
Given that those who are streaming to the barricades to defeat Agent Zero and his zombies, that they are being driven by principle, Agent Zero sees that it is a losing battle ceding ground to the enemy.
For those who have something else in mind, as compared to Agent Zero and his zombies, are the enemy according to Agent Zero and his zombies, because they don’t see the situation like he does.
It boils down to that, and frankly anything that
can be used by Agent Zero and his zombies is fair
game in their sight.
“The current system is so profit-driven that there are entire business units dedicated to finding ways to deny you coverage for services. That means that there is a person working at your health care company whose sole job is to find a way to deny your claim. And if he does deny your claim, you have little to no recourse.”
Nonsense. When insurers deny claims, there is always an internal appeal procedure. My experience with my own insurers (actually, former insurers — it’s been a while since any insurer has denied any claim for anybody in my family) has been that merely threatening to use that procedure has always — so far — suddenly gotten my claim approved. If it doesn’t work, the insured employer will often lean on the insurer to facilitate approval of a claim, with the implied threat of going elsewhere for next year’s policy. Failing that, the court system is the obvious recourse, and many, many people have used litigation and publicity in the media to good effect in getting insurers to budge. Should they have to do this? No, of course not. But do you really think the government is going to approve every treatment that your doctor might think you need, once we have a public option? And when it doesn’t, just how far do you think we’re going to get with internal appeals, litigation, or media pressure against some faceless government bureaucrat who’s paid to deny claims? Ever heard of sovereign immunity? Ever tried to deal with Medicare on a payment disagreement? I have, and it’s like trying to communicate with an octopus with no head. In point of fact, we have MORE leverage against a private company trying to deny a claim, little though it might be, than we would have against a public one. In suggesting that rationing under a government plan would somehow be better, or no worse, than what we have now, you are unintentionally making exactly the opposite point of the one you think you’re making.
Obama called the notion that his proposed changes to the health care system would lead to so-called death panels “just an extraordinary lie,” said the idea that they would require federal funding for abortions or provide insurance for illegal aliens was not true and told callers the plan would not amount to a government takeover of health care or to cutting Medicare benefits for the elderly.
How can Obama say this, when he admitted he had never read the thing, and Congress admitted there isn’t even a final draft to read? How stupid do they think we are?
(Answer: A lot stupider than we turned out to be. Keep resisting, people, America is at stake!)
“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,”
I’m baffled as to why so many of Obama’s critics are dancing around the above phrase. Whether out of context or not, it is a stunning and very revealing statement. Here’s what he means:
“We, the government, get to decide whether very sick or elderly people live or die, period.” That is exactly the meaning of his phrase, especially when put in the context of the writings of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Prof. John Holdren, and Obama himself with his thinly-veiled, numerous, tortured-language statements about end-of-life choices, some of them involving his poor Grandmother, whom he trots out periodically to use as a metaphorical punching bag. Also toss in his “tough luck, baby” stance on “fetuses” that survive late-term abortions, and you’ll see what I mean by context.
I’ve read article after article about the conference call that Obama had with the rabbis, and, as critical as they all are of the President’s use of religion, not one of them have zeroed in on the above statement and called it out for what it actually was: a code phrase to justify government-sanctioned euthansia and to get religious leaders on board with the idea. Even Mr. Beloit missed the point. Most of us don’t give a frakkin’ hoot about the nuances or misuse of phraseology from the Bible, but we sure as Hell got smacked right between the eyes by: “We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,”.
Does everyone get it now? And does everyone understand what a powerful weapon that is that can now be to used against Obama again and again? You want me to repeat Obama’s phrase, in case you still don’t understand? You do? OK:
“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,”
Just keep reminding your Senators and Congressmen that a YES vote for Obamacare is a career-ending choice.
Profit? The reason the insurance companies are so driven by profit is because there is so little of it. In 2004, the American Hospital Association reports that health care insurance company profits were around 3.5%, and dropped to 2.5% in 2005 and 2006. Those aren’t huge profits from an overcharging industry. Some recent reports saying “400% increases in profit” are ludicrous: sure, if I made a profit of 1% one year, and 5% the next, that’s a 400% increase, but it’s not all that dramatic as a percentage of revenue.
The profit motive keeps costs down. Sure, they deny people coverage, but any plan will do that, including Obama’s. The difference is that you can always choose a different insurance plan. Under Obama’s plan, you’re stuck with whatever decision the government makes, because you’ll be restricted from choosing your own plan.
It goes beyond that. It also give the government the moral authority to “relieve the suffering” of the disabled. And if you don’t think that that’s where the intellectual vanguard in the administration is headed, just read some of Holdren’s writings (that he hasn’t really disavowed; he just said that talk of eugenics isn’t “productive”).
http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
The administration has already talked about how expensive it is to keep diabetics alive. Read Holdren’s writings, and see where that takes you. It takes you to the gates of the Third Reich.
Remember this: before racial “undesirables” were sent to death camps, the German people were morally softened up by accepting the idea that it was acceptable to eliminate the “unfit”. Once you accept that the disabled are expendable, it’s a very short step to declaring racial, or more likely cultural groups expendable. I do believe that people like Holdren have these wet dreams.
We need to bring back the term “crediblity gap”. Thats what we call a President who is a lyer.
This debate reminds me of the t-shirts “What would Jesus Do”; which is not for me to answer, however, one truism that comes to mind is this:
More harm has been done by those who mean to do good than those who mean to do harm.
I believe President Obama means well, but unfortunately he will do more harm than good.
Mephistopheles:
I thank you; for not willingly
I traffic with the dead, and still aver
That youth’s plump cheek I very much prefer.
I’m not at home to corpses; ’tis my way,
Like cats with captive mice to play.
The Lord:
Enough! ’tis granted thee! Divert
This mortal spirit from his primal source;
Him, canst thou seize, thy power exert
And lead him on thy downward course,
Then stand abash’d, when thou perforce must own,
A good man in his darkest aberration,
Of the right path is concious still.
-Old Meph is forbidden to drag Faustus, he must lead, he must tell him what he will do, and let
Faustus choose.
“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death.” This way lies darkness.
21. Fred Beloit: “I ain’t done with you yet, Anonymoses. You have a hell of a nerve claiming those against Obamacare are immoral. Is it immoral to steal from responsible Peter to pay for the care of irresponsible Paul? Yes. Is it immoral to lie to Americans by claiming they can keep their present insurance when the public option and/or a coop will ensure over time that private insurance will go bye bye? Yes. Ask Barny Frank. He will frankly tell you, as he told everyone else, that that will be the case and that the long term objective of the Dems is single payer. Is it immoral for Dems in Congress to insulate themselves againt the possibility of having to join the same plan as their constituents? Yes.”
Please. Nothing you mentioned above ranks as immoral as the existance of a business model based upon the idea of profiting from human misery and death. That’s exactly what the health insurance industry does – the more claims they deny; i.e.; the fewer services they provide to sick people, the more money they make.
And what is more twisted than that? The callous reasoning of people like you who claim to be Christians but defend the private insurance racket by cynically and selfishly asking “why should I have to help my neighbor?”
Why should you? Probably because one day you or a loved one might seriously injure themselves, lose their job, max out their health care benefits, get dropped from their plan and then spend their life savings and mortgage their house to cover the cost of care.
At that point, you or your loved one will suddenly be the “irresponsible Paul” you complain about above. Why should the rest of us have to help you? Clearly it’s your fault that you hurt yourself, lost your job and were dropped by your health plan.
Hopefully, the Responsible Peters out there looking down their noses at your situation will have a much more compassionate, Christian viewpoint than you do. Otherwise, you’re screwed.
“Obama…said the idea that they would require federal funding for abortions or provide insurance for illegal aliens was not true”
This is a textbook case of how this guy and his cronies use deceit. No, the bill does not require funding for abortions. It just doesn’t exclude it from “reproductive care”. Hence, abortions would be funded. When Repubs tried to get language into the bill to exclude them, the Dems refused. Same thing with illegals. It doesn’t specifically exclude illegals, therefore they are included. It’s that simple, but these pathological liars try to pretend that because it does not specifically spell it out that this somehow means it is excluded. Who do they think they are kidding?
The most pathetic part of the whole rabbi call was that the music piped in during the conference call while the rabbis were put on hold was “Deutschland Uber Alles”.
To borrow a phrase from the great film “Breaker Morant”-Barry, you couldn’t lie straight in bed.
Oh and Anonymous, spare us teh evil capitalst insurance company line. I’ve seen two studies from hospitals about claims being denied. The vast majority were computer generated. Missing bad/data, most of it simple things that got cleared up by resubmitting. Others simply required additional information and only a very small % were rejected on the grounds of “not medically necessary”, and most of those were cleared up by getting the doctor himself involved.
The scenario you describe is exactly what government beaurocrats will be doing. As usual, as I think Ann Coulter said, if you want to know what liberals are up to, just listen to what they accuse others of doing.
That Obama would state he is working with God when during the campaign he stigmatized the middle class as “clinging to their guns and Bibles” is amazing gall. Those apparently are things he thinks are stupid and indeed dangerous and worse yet they don’t benifit him.
#47 what in the world is that clap trap! Profit isn’t evil. The free marked isn’t evil. They are the reason that medicine is at the amazing level it has achieved.
Charity isn’t the government extorting ever greater amounts of people’s hard earned wages. Charity is individuals giving personally.
A con man, that’s all.
He sits in Wrights pew for 20 years listening to that racist b.s. and calls himself religious?? If he had religion he would have walked out of that church 19.9 years ago. .
But that was not in his best interest at the time.
He used Wright’s church and congregation just like he used everyone else in his life. Stepping on the bodies on the way to the top.
He specializes in using the useful idiots.
Obama is a fraud.
#48 Landru:
As usual, as I think Ann Coulter said, if you want to know what liberals are up to, just listen to what they accuse others of doing.
This has been true for decades…. The Clinton’s were experts at it.
Someone noted that all that was lacking were the Roman columns, but he certainly had enough Roman collars.
#47.
I have two words you should get aquainted with.
1) Customer
2) Competition
If the “business model” you imagine were actually practiced as a rule like you say, the business would soon lose all of their #1,s
The existence of #2 ensures this.
Government does not pay any attention to either concept. Now please go back to school and learn the basics of life instead of rehashing Lenin speeches on this blog.
Calling himself, and trying to instigate others to be “partners with God”, is the same as saying that He is equal with God! No one is equal to God and to claim such is blasphemy. One day Obama, and the others who make such claims, will face God and fully understand the fallacy of their thinking. It won’t be pretty.
To deny that the “health care bill”, still not in final form, will not fund abortions is a lie.
#47:
“Please. Nothing you mentioned above ranks as immoral as the existance of a business model based upon the idea of profiting from human misery and death. That’s exactly what the health insurance industry does – the more claims they deny; i.e.; the fewer services they provide to sick people, the more money they make.”
Spoken like a man who’s never run a business — or shopped around for a better deal.
Yes, the insurance business model depends on paying out less in claims than it takes in in premiums and investment returns.
But no, it doesn’t follow that a health insurance company has a compelling incentive to deny every claim it can think of a plausible reason to deny. When a company gets a reputation for doing that on a large scale, something happens that is not at all good for the CEO’s bonus: PEOPLE STOP DOING BUSINESS WITH IT. The incentive to shave a few pennies denying coverage for borderline treatments is outweighed by the incentive to avoid losing the company’s goodwill, and its paying customers.
Ironically enough, for the public-monopoly-option dimwits, this dynamic only works when there is competition. When there’s only one provider, it doesn’t matter how bad its reputation gets: It’s the only game in town. It therefore has the incentive you’ve identified to scrimp on care — but without the countervailing incentive to maintain a good reputation for paying claims.
In any event, most of this is academic. The vast majority of claims presented to insurance companies are paid, for the simple reason that most insurance policies are crystal clear about which treatments they do and do not cover. If the policy says it covers something, the company can’t deny coverage without risking a horrendous lawsuit for bad-faith denial of coverage — which it would invariably lose. It’s only for borderline cases — experimental treatments that weren’t known when the policy was drafted, or instances of bad policy drafting — where you get disputes over coverage. That’s a tiny fraction of the overall claims.
But yeah, let’s fixate on that tiny fraction as an excuse to rejigger the whole system. Never let a good crisis go to waste.
Landru, I think I ought to take brevity lessons from you. Well written, Sir.
Does anyone have a record of the number of intelligent people who hung up?
This just shows the lengths Obama is willing to got to in order to shove this socialist agenda down our throats. The man has no shame.
I don’t think we have anything to worry abut…I just read that there are some that believe the vaccine for the Swine Flu…will be tainted. That way it will be a massive kill off of much of the world, esp USA. There will be a madatory dictate that you must take the vaccine. there will be FEMA type camps to herd us into.
SOOOO…we now have 3 ways to die, the vaccine, the flu or the quasi concentration camps…toooooo many decisions and choices!! Wonder if they’ll find a way to tax us for this…
AAHHHH but have faith, Obama has spoken to the ministers of the US.
…If they heeded this man, they are not worth their weight in bible dust.
“How am I so sure? Because there has never been a government-run health plan, anywhere in the world, that did not ration care.”
Like communism, I’m sure it just has not been done right yet.
/sarcasm off
eye roll
Roland:
“What Obama fails to understand is that these moral issues that he senses so strongly are in fact largely why the populace is digging in its heels. The moral issues apply to abortion, fundamental human rights to life (the elderly as well as the unborn), and fundamental issues regarding human freedom. This “moral imperative” for action is exactly why the American people are fighting his bill: they are called to resist because fundamental human rights are at stake.”
I think he (and the left) does understand. They just want to overturn the current fundamental understanding of human rights… and having the state take control of healthcare will be a major jump towards that on several levels. It not only gives the state de facto power… in other ways it legitimizes having that power by redefining the citizen’s relationship with the state.
Roland:
“What Obama fails to understand is that these moral issues that he senses so strongly are in fact largely why the populace is digging in its heels. The moral issues apply to abortion, fundamental human rights to life (the elderly as well as the unborn), and fundamental issues regarding human freedom. This “moral imperative” for action is exactly why the American people are fighting his bill: they are called to resist because fundamental human rights are at stake.”
I think he (and the left) does understand. They just want to overturn the current fundamental understanding of human rights… and having the state take control of healthcare will be a major jump towards that on several levels. It not only gives the state de facto power… in other ways it legitimizes having that power by redefining the citizen’s relationship with the state.
memo: to the great unwashed masses.(clingy bible thumpers)
from: the big O.
get on the winning side people, god is calling you to do as i say.
memo: to big O
from. one of the clingy.
quit trying to make stuff up, that phone line has been cut for awhile now, and i doubt you been talking to the man. barry pleez
Anonymous:
“That means that there is a person working at your health care company whose sole job is to find a way to deny your claim. And if he does deny your claim, you have little to no recourse. We’ve turned the health and well being of our citizens into a corrupt racket.”
I’ve read of a few examples of bad behavior, but no, not all insurance companies are looking for loopholes to deny your benefits.
Also, you do have recourse. The states regulate the insurance companies. At no cost you can complain to your state insurance regulator and they can compel the insurance company to pay claims or approve payment (they have the authority). If that doesn’t work, you can also sue… but its rare it gets to that for things that are uncontroversial (yes, if you want an experimental treatment that costs 250k but only seems to up your odds of living 5%… you might have to go to court… and maybe you shouldn’t even win… the government will sure as heck never pay such claims either btw… Medicaid routinely arbitrarily denies proven treatments that are not even that expensive… just because they can… in many ways they are how you describe private insurance….).
In just a bat of history’s eye, the Obama administration has gone to hell in a hand basket.
Now, in an act of desperation, your messiah is begging christian churches to carry his message of madness to its congregations.
What a somnolent, sickening, sordid, remorseless act.
If Obama’s game was craps, he’d have just rolled snake eyes. If it were poker, aces and eights would be staring Obama in the face.
Like lemmings to the cliff, I fear some will continue to do his dirty bidding, but I pray that most Americans he reaches out to give him the kind of cold shoulder and accompanying stiff arm that sent Walter Payton would-be tacklers flat onto their backs.
Senior citizens have deserted the nation’s mad man in droves because his spend-a-thon of monies not yet printed are destined to leave everyone on a fixed income in quite a fix, especially considering that hyper-inflation is just around the corner.
As President, no matter what color you are, you can’t agree with a new attorney general who calls Americans cowards and, as a result, could never in good conscience look another war-returning GI in the eye.
What a palpable mistake we made electing such an egregiously bad faith President.
Moreover, if Barack Obama had an ounce of fairness, he couldn’t have stuck his mit into the bottom of the racist barrel and pulled out a supreme court judge as pitiably racist as Sonia Sotomayor.
The warped woman states categorically that any Hispanic woman is head and shoulders more competent than any white male. Imagine if a perspective white male supreme court judge said the opposite. The humanity.
With zero facts to back you up, a President of all the people can’t call one of America’s best and brightest police officers a “stupidly acting racist rube” and get away with it. All because the police officer arrested a cantankerous foolish friend of the President’s.
Also, as President, you can’t apologize to two-bit tyrannical heads of countries for actions of the United States that saved the world from fascism and communism within the span of a single century. And think it won’t get back to the voters.
You can’t concoct a way (stimulus one) to reward political allies with billions of dollars and pour good money down black holes of reparations using as a pretext the need to drop a cool trillion into a down economy.
Making believe Stimulus One was needed to get the economy going just makes the next President have to figure out a way to deal with hyper-inflation.
Meanwhile, you can’t neuter the U.S. military by taking a meat cleaver to technological advance appropriations that would help keep us safe from terrorist and terrorist sympathizers throughout the world.
Remember, Obama, the words you choked on that inauguration day? Preserve, protect and defend. Maybe they don’t mean diddly to you, but we, the people of the United States, cherish them.
And, Obama, you’re not living up to them, especially when every move you make takes us farther and farther down the road to socialism.
Which brings me to ObamaCare.
Fact is, there are many reasons why it’s an unhinged idea.
One of the biggest: People don’t want a newly minted bureaucrat to have veto power over doctor/patient treatment decisions, especially when the veto is mainly based on the patient’s age and “ability to contribute to society.”
A more general question.
How can someone seemingly so displeased and and embarrassed by the United States of American actually have been born and raised here?
It just doesn’t make sense.
It’s like an alien with no appreciation for the ideals upon which this nation was founded, by some quirk of fate, was, in 2008, elected President of the United States.
American Ideals like:
Majority rules.
No one is above the law.
We are a nation of laws.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
Everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve the American Dream.
Separation of church and state.
The constitution is the highest law in the land.
It is the job of the judiciary to interpret, not make laws.
Governmental power comes from the people.
It is the job of the President to preserve, protect and defend this country and its way of life from all enemies foreign and domestic.
Friends and neighbors, in my opinion, we have a rogue administration in Washington doing everything it can to destroy the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The time for polite push/pull discussion is quickly coming to an end. Nancy Palosi and Barney Franks have fired shots across the bow of polite discourse. Calling us Nazis, ignorant sinks and hooligans in town meetings for disagreeing with them is unacceptable. Directing their thug union friends to beat up and almost kill an American citizen is wholly unacceptable.
Does no one remember Hillary saying during the summer primary that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
Fellow Americans, we’ve got socialist leaning hypocrites on our hands. We’ve got a rogue administration in the White House.
Ask yourself what the patriots of 1775 would do if faced with these set of circumstances. That this administration has overstayed its welcome is, quite frankly, without question.
It’s getting precariously close to that time when we rise up and show them the door.
“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” Obama went on to say… Which God would that be? Rev. Wright’s GOD DAMN AMERICA god?
Anonymoses, why would you want a system where patients wait longer for treatment than what medical science says ought to be the case? This is what Agent Zero and his zombies will be delivering in regards to health care in the United States.
This isn’t about opinion, but about objectivity.
Far be it from me to disavow that Obama might very well mean something other than what he said; and given that we have only a few words taken out of their context; however, I don’t see anything in the quoted remarks themselves that is incompatible with Catholic doctrine.
On Providence and Secondary Causes
“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” Obama went on to say, according to Moline’s real-time stream. The president concluded by wishing the rabbis a “Shanah Tovah (Happy Jewish New Year).”
The 15-minute morning briefing was sponsored by the Religion Action Center of Reform Judaism, and included rabbis of all persuasions. Although the RAC hosts the call each year, participants had never before heard from a sitting president.
Rabbi Moline must have caught heat from his Twitter comments because later in the day Moline deleted the feed, saying that it was a “huge mistake.”
Well, I hope you got a screen shot of that twittering, because there’s absolutely no record of this bs having been said. As for Moline, this is what he said:
My lack of tech literacy results in a huge mistake — apologies to all for my tweets this afternoon. They have been deleted.
Way to take a holy man’s words out of context. And did it ever occur to you that a twitter of a conversation is not a verbatim text of the conversation. Idiots. Is there nothing you people won’t stoop to?
http://twitter.com/jlm548
Let the man talk; He is setting himself up
for the longest lame duck presidency ever.
Spend your time productively: Making sure
your CongressCritters know that _they_ will
be private citizens, too, if ObamaCare passes.
Nobody else is saying it so I will. This whole health care thing is not really about health care. It is about an increase in welfare entitlements, an increase in welfare roles and basically buying votes for democrats. The people who benefit most from this will be the generational welfare recipients who also happen to be generational democrats. The losers will be the people who work hard trying to get ahead in life only to have their discretionary income stolen from them in order to pay for health care for illegal immigrants.
Giving one’s body over to the State is idolatry. Giving the power of life and death to the State is a sin, pure and simple.
Ok Obama now your creeping me out.You had a pastor who hates himself,America and jews,so you turn to the jewish community for help?Not only that, a large chunk of Hollywood who backed you, hate christianity?Lets not forget all those supporters who rant and rave about those evil Republican gun toting bible thumpers?Your plea reeks of utter hypocrisy.Parts of America might be dumb but i pretty sure they are not that dumb and learning rather fast too.
The ironic thing is, if there were a God, he’d just strike Obama down for his constant lies.
The reason health care is expensive is because of government regulation. The Democrats are the ones who set this up, and they are the ones who receive the most donations from the insurance & health care companies benefiting from the government-backed monopoly.
So what do they do? They pretend that the problem is ‘the free market’, so they can give their buddies an even bigger monopoly, and get even more kickbacks.
It’s obvious to anyone who bothers to look at it. The free market is the only solution; anything less than total deregulation is a scam.
Parts of America might be dumb but i pretty sure they are not that dumb and learning rather fast too.
I suggest you put this on a t-shirt verbatim and get as many people to wear it as possible.
Two points:
First, where are all of our liberal friends demanding a separation of church and state. Could you imagine if Bush had made such a call and urged the clergy to lobby their congregations for the Iraq War? I guess now we can have policy discussions from the pulpit and the government will not be concerned. After all, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, have bee doing it for years.
Second, insurance companies and other health care industries do not currently operate in a free market. Take a look at all the regulations involved and you will see that the market is anything but free. In fact, many of the governmental regulations are causing the very problems denounced by the left. Let us have an honest debate and let us begin by looking at the laws already in existence. Then let us take a look at tort reform and other measures that will bring down the operating costs. After we set that straight, then we can look at enacting further legislation.
…73….your comment is true and precisely why Obama has to deliver…sorta like “paybacks”…
The other zingers have been discussed. Though this one stood out for me as well..
‘the wealthiest nation on Earth right now’
Wealthiest? Is Obama aware our most ‘productive’ state in the Union, California only recently stopped its month long campaign of writing IOU’s?
Not to mention he went on television only days after signing the porkulus bill and said ‘The U.S. is broke’. Perhaps Obama was using ‘wealthiest’ as a euphemism.. uhh.. yeahhh.
Lastly, what’s with ‘right now’? Right now? That’s been the case for sometime.
Alright, through with the conspiracy theories.
The ineptitude of the administration is really striking and goes far beyond PR. You begin with a very lazy President who, in addition to being constitutionally (small “c”) unable to manage the formulation of policy, seems to believe that he has only to say something and it becomes true. His lack of general knowledge and unstudied presentations are appalling. He started out with his “talk to the bad guys” push in foreign policy and thought that apologizing for America would endear him to the thugs of the world. When not a single one responded favorably to his lip flapping, the subject was dropped. What have we heard about this vaunted reform of American foreign policy lately? Well, he sends Hillary to the most irrelevant corners of the globe to dance with the locals and pout over her husbands salvation of the gals arrested in No. Korea. He tries to bully Israel but has lost interest in that as well as the Israelis just didn’t buy his program. The Russians sense his weakness and are cozying up to Cuba again where they are setting up high tech spying facilities even as Cuba enters into offshore drilling contracts with foreign oil companies. There is simply a complete absence of either interest or leadership in the foreign realm as he flops from one issue to another only to abandon each when the going requires finesse.
Here at home, he delegates the formulation of policy to Congress and it produces incomprehensible sausage. Why haven’t the Washington folks read the bill? Well, I have read several, and they read like provisions of the Internal Revenue Code with references and cross-references that are impossible to sort out. Instead of explaining what is intended (if he really knows), he makes it up on the fly and often misrepresents what the bills actually say. Further, he demonizes anyone who dares to disagree, acting like a kid on the playground that is losing in some sport. Name calling seems to be the hallmark of left wing politics.
And, worse of all, he has absolutely no concept of the dignity of the office. He doesn’t comprehend that some extraordinary people have occupied that office and maintaining its respect is part of the task of being President. Accusing his opposition of wetting their beds, resorting to argot and two bit metaphors to advocate his plans and to denigrate his opponents is just plain cheap. He is unable to explain anything, but speaks in conclusory sentences that presume his righteousness. This country made a terrible mistake and one can only hope that it comes to its senses and prevents the damage which could result from Obama’s incompetence and the incompetence of the ideologues around him. The good news is that Americans are waking up, leaving the sycophantic media behind, and good folks who, in the past, wouldn’t think of protesting and speaking up are doing just that.
Obama has lost the trust of many who gambled on him, and I suspect that many more will be joining that parade.
The Mohammedan BOGUS POTUS has just released a video reaching out to and PRAISING Islam , why not HE is a Mohammedan after all. But in doing so he conveniently avoids talking about all the other religions that this Hate and Death CULT persecutes wherever they gain power. What a surprise. He also forgets to mention this Koranic verse which shows exactly what Mohammedans have in store should they ever gain power. Three APPROVED translators versions are quoted so we cant be accused of MISUNDERSTANDING.
Koran Verse 009.029
YUSUFALI: Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
PICKTHAL: Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.
SHAKIR: Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
*** “We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” Obama went on to say.. ***
Obama is the biggest zero. He doesn’t have a sprititual bone in his body unless Satan is propping him up. I am appalled by the fact Obama has the gall to even suggest God would be “his” partner in matters of “life and death.”
God doesn’t need a partner..
Can you just picture God partnering with Satan?
Moho –
“Idiots. Is there nothing you people won’t stoop to?”
Your calling “idiots” those with whom you disagree speaks for itself. It proves you’ve attained oneness with true feelings of our president towards the majority of the people in this country.
Christians strive to become Christ like. The JC our presidents’ life and actions reflect is not Jesus Christ, but Jimmy Carter. They both have a messiah complex, both consider the average American to be an idiot, both thinks the US should be starved of energy, both badly wants to transform this nation into a feeble shadow of itself, and both think the US is more evil than even the most murderous Communist regimes have been. It’s safe to say that our president is not now and never has been a Christian.
The current president is asking churches for help after mocking the Bible during his campaign and after sending out a rather lengthy Ramadamadingdang message to the Islamic world when he totally ignored the National Day of Prayer. Maybe he thinks Christians are all of the “Name It and Claim It” or “Blab It and Grab It” school of theology as are so many of those his friend Oprah interviews. He does believe that all Jews are evil but also believes that they can be swayed to support him by appealing to their traditional liberal bias. Given that he doesn’t even celebrate either Christmas or Easter, and given that he spent twenty plus years regularly enjoying sermons demonizing Jews, he wins the stooping contest hands down. You know this yourself which is why chose to use that phrase. The leftist liberal poker face can’t hide several well known ticks. One of them is their choice of phrases, several of which give away their current hand. Whenever “stoop” appears in more than one or two places where leftist kiddies post, it shows that even they know they’ve reached a new low.
Enjoy your role playing as a supporter of the extortionist democrat party. The prize for becoming good at it is that you, too, can end up permanently attached to the northbound end of a southbound lost cause as will so many of those now prominent in leftist politics. Try and wake up before it’s too late and you’ve made your lack thought a habit.
Have a blind being led by the blind kind of day
This is one of those arguments that’s gone from silly to unbelievably silly in a few heartbeats. There are those who defend Obama’s plan, and its rationing, by saying that private insurance rations also. This is true, but there’s a significant difference, which the Obama defenders ignore. If a health insurance company, HMO, or other private provider denies you coverage, you can argue with them. You can sue. If you have the money, you can either transfer your coverage somewhere else, or just pay for your care out of pocket. Those options may not be open to everyone, but they’re open to some people. If the current plan that’s being walked through Congress becomes law, it’s my understanding that you *might* be able to sue (we don’t want to impoverish lawyers, of course, with tort reform) but there probably won’t be another company to go to, and you won’t be able to pay for your care out of pocket. So the rationing will be *enforced* much more stringently than it is currently.
No one on the left, yet, has responded to my recounting of the Belinda Stronach story. Stronach was a Canadian MP, a big supporter of Canada’s single payer system. She’s also independently wealthy. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago, rather than wait the several months that the Canadian health care system thought appropriate, she immediately flew to California and paid for the surgery out of pocket. She then withdrew from Canadian politics, because of course it would be impossible for her to continue to advocate for the single payer system, and awkward for her to now oppose it. On a larger note, breast cancer survival rates in the United States are about 77%. The comparable number, in Great Britain, is 51%. Why would we want to replace the first with the second?
I’ll say this for him: he’s never dull. Every day it’s a brand new episode of WTF???
Anyone with an ounce of common reasoning can see this man for what he is about and tell ME he isn’t dangerous !!!!
Is there nothing we people won’t stoop asks Moho? Yes. Moho’s level.
Any other questions?
Now back to why Obama is now trying to use religion to sell his snake oil legislation…
This is pretty funny. 34. Gallifet: Makes the case that another Dem president tried to reunite church and state in WWII, FDR. I guess it is just what they do, when it suits them.
“What a fabulous country!We are all free to follow the God/religion of our choice. Personally, my favorite nexus of state and church was in World War II.”
I can’t believe Obama is calling on Rabbis at the same time he is doing everything he can to give Israel to the Arabs shuussh
Anyone should know this from Obamunizm 101!
#47 Anonymoses: “The callous reasoning of people like you who claim to be Christians but defend the private insurance racket by cynically and selfishly asking “why should I have to help my neighbor?””
(1) I don’t claim to be a Christian. In fact I’m not religious.
(2) I shouldn’t have to help my neighbor. Any “help” I give my neighbor that I am forced to give I shouldn’t receive any credit for. Help is only admirable and moral when it is freely given. The idea that you (or Obama, Pelosi, Reid or anyone else) should decide whom I should help and when is totally repugnant to me. I am a free man, get it?
(3) Reasoning isn’t callous, empathetic, sympathetic or anythign like that. Reasoning is logical , sort of logical, or illogical. Feeling instead of thinking is what leads people like you to conclude you have the right to control others.
Me: Hi, Ms. Jones, nice to meet you. What is your line of work?
She: I’m in health insurance. We deny claims in hopes to kill our customers so they will no longer be able to pay for their insurance…or nobody else will either, because the dead don’t need insurance, now do they.
Abortions-Not funded; Obortions- paid in full.
Absolutely disgusting! Cynical, immoral, to try to exploit religion for his own self-serving political gain. How much lower can a human sink? And he sets himself up as an example to us? What nerve!
President Obama is desperate & playing with fire with his obvious disingenuous stroke at the religious audience in a vain attempt to gain more power through his iron & sickle hand of big government health care; Obama is literally falling to pieces as his utter incompetence, lack leadership ability, & his own verbal ticks just look like nothing more than a vainglorious salesman trying to sell stool on a stick. The man is a shameless Marxist narcissist. He is truly the emperor with no clothes. The mask has been shattered & the real Obama has been revealed. The truth will out. And Obama’s truth is now. He’s toast.
86. Emma:
“I’ll say this for him: he’s never dull. Every day it’s a brand new episode of WTF???”
*spews coffee on monitor*
Funny and terrifylingly true all at once.
What DOESN’T this guy distort and abuse?
He’s a shameless professional politician. Nearly all of this class distort, abuse, manipulate, lie, cheat, and steal. Obama’s a particularly good “bad example” but our national problem is larger than Obama alone.
Hard to remember that when Obama’s onstage and in full cry though, isn’t it?
Giving the State the power of life and death is not always idolatry. After all, God created government for the expressed purpose of executing evildoers, murderers in particular. However, what is idolatry is giving government the power to decide whether innocent people live and die.
Fred Beloit:
There was no irony or intended humour in my statement. I am happy to see church and state joined to fight evil regardless of party. The church is and was inexorably opposed to fascism.
Mr Obama is suborning religion to support his fascism.
This truly is a fabulous country.
The Marquis
I’ll say this for him: he’s never dull. Every day it’s a brand new episode of WTF???
Thanks, Emma, for making me laugh! Yeah, you nailed it.
Excellent article, thank you. All we have to do is look at how well the government has handled medicare. Everyone I know is mad as hell at the president and the congress. And to have them preaching morality is pathetic! Blech!
dck – (97)
“Hard to remember that when Obama’s onstage and in full cry though, isn’t it?”
I don’t see why it was or is no matter whether he’s speaking or not. When he tries to speak without his teleprompter he’s obviously lost. Anyone can work for a few days with a teleprompter and become a pretty good speaker; studies have even shown that for a majority of people using one overcomes most of their fear of speaking to groups.
I have yet to hear anything he’s delivered that rises above the level of technically acceptable to something like well delivered or extremely well delivered. People really must think public speaking is tough and scary if they think this guy is a good public speaker. At best, he’s an interesting public speaker to watch given the disparity between his gestures or facial expressions and the words coming out of his mouth. Unless you get a tingle up your leg when you see a decent looking black guy in an expensive suit, I don’t see how you could forget he’s lying when he is making a speech or even talking conversationally in an interview.
In fact, in an interview his eye movements betray him as a liar just as they betray most crooks. It takes deliberate, structured, well monitored, training to learn to control the eye movements in a way that doesn’t betray you when you lie. That’s one of the major reasons sleep deprivation is critical to obtaining information from terrorists. Even after mastering the right type of training, a person deprived of sleep will still betray themselves with their eye movements. Obama hasn’t even had the training and it shows whenever the camera does a close-up or when it stays up close in an interview.
I understand your point about people being taken in by this guy, but come on; he isn’t a good public speaker except in the eyes of the Happy Meal Toys that pass as media pundits these days.
Regards
It will be interesting to hear what’s said from the pulpit this weekend.
The President’s attempt to win public support founders when he acts extemporaneously. His speech falters; there are long pauses when he is seeking for the right word. His assurances lack conviction. He is a man suppoting a position which he wishes us to support trusting on his assurances. His assurances lack conviction and cannot be meaningful since the “health care bill” is not in final form.
The President’s attempt to win public support founders when he acts extemporaneously. His speech falters; there are long pauses when he is seeking for the right word. His assurances lack conviction. He is a man suppoting a position which he wishes us to support trusting in his assurances. His assurances lack conviction and cannot be meaningful since the “health care bill” is not in final form. And what is more, the members of Congress will be voting blind. They will not have read the bill before voting an even if they were to have done so, its contents will be sufficiently ambiguous that its administration will be dictated by White House “czars”, Rahm Emanual et al.
Are you people really serious right now?
Surely this is an act and you aren’t really stupid enough to believe that tripe about Obama being a secret Muslim-communist-socialist out to kill your babies and grandparents.
Where was the outrage when your beloved Bush touted religion to get us into Iraq on false pretense…actually killing thousands of Americans?
Or when Palin asked schoolchildren to pray to God for the creation of the Gas Pipeline? Or when she lies about sections of the bill that didn’t even exist?
Maybe you should go back and read your Bible. Jesus was awesome, but SO many supposed ‘Christians’ need to take his message to heart. React with love and understanding, not hate and lies.
You all should be ashamed of yourselves.
Hey, I just had a talk with God. He says you should all STFU. Surprising, eh? Yeah, he’s got that streak in Him. Seems he doesn’t much care for us humanites speaking for Him. Says we’re not capable of seeing the Big Picture. He suggests we all just keep looking and listening and asking instead of judging and whining and killing. Just thought you should know that.
Quick!
Name any of the Washington DC churches that St. Ronald of Reagan attended in the 8 years he was president! Pics or it didn’t happen.
Bonus round!
Name the DC congregation that George W. Bush was a member of.
45. Dynomitejim: “I believe President Obama means well, but unfortunately he will do more harm than good.”
================
You are naieve. Obambi wants the government to control our lives. He intends the harm he is doing.
Paul -Indiana:
Do yourself a favor and go to a REAL socialist or communist country. You’ll stop spouting this crap that “OMG Obama wants to run our lives” real quick. Or are you so ignorant that you believe everything Sarah Palin says?
But of course spying on Real Americans™ with the Patriot Act is perfectly okay because it came from beloved George W. Bush to protect us against the Satanic Muslims sent to destroy your country.
To Walker:
I do not remember Bush touting religion to get us into Iraq. What I do remember is Bush praising Islam as a religion of peace and doing everything he could to minimize the role of religion. If you remember otherwise, please back it up with a speech or reference.
The anger over Mr. Obama’s use of religion to further his agenda is the fact that the left has continually attacked conservatives for doing the same thing. There is a double standard here. Doubt it, then tell me the last church that the government threatened because Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton used their pulpit for political speech.
According to you vast knowledge, what exactly was the message of Jesus. Please be specific and provide chapter and verse.
To Now and Then:
Does your coarsely worded advice apply to Mr. Obama as well? After all, he is the one who claimed to be God’s partner in matters of life and death. Does Mr. Obama have the whole picture or do you consider him above us mere mortals?
On another note, I happen to have a personal relationship with God so I’ll let him speak for himself.
Sure, here’s a reference:
1. I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did. (Sharm el-Sheikh August 2003)
This act will not stand. We will find who did it. We will smoke them out of their holes; we will get them running; and we will bring them to justice. We will not only deal with those who dare attack America, we will deal with those who harbor them, and feed them, and house them. Make no mistake about it. Underneath our tears is the strong determination of America to win this war. And we will win it.
September 15, 2001, after terrorist attack on America
Though what *most* of what GWB did to get us in Iraq was fearmongering and outright relaying falsehoods (WMDs). Or the stuff coming out now about how Bush mandated the terror level go up on the eve of his re-election.
As for the actual message of Jesus/Yeshua, it depends on which of the gospels you follow. For instance:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
Yet in the Gnostic teachings of Silvanius – Nag Hammadi texts (unchanged by men for political purpose like the “main” gospels at the Council of Nicea, 305AD):
“Knock on yourself as upon a door and walk upon yourself as upon a straight road. For if you walk on the road, it is impossible for you to go astray… Open the door for yourself that you may know what is… Whatever you will open for yourself, you will open. (Teachings of Silvanus, 106. 30 – 117).
But what I was originally referring to would be more of the warm fuzzy stuff:
“Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Leviticus 19:18
“Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind.” Leviticus 19:14 (And that stumbling block is exactly what Palin is doing with her outright lies…even when her fellow GOPers call her out on it)
“You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
(Mark 10.42-45 ESV)
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”
(Matthew 5.43-45 ESV)
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?
You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye”
(Matthew 7.1-5 ESV)
The only time JC even got angry was against the money changers, sheesh!
Need me to go on, or are you getting the point?
To Walker @112:
Your one Bush quote is from after the start of the Iraq War and is a reflection of his personal beliefs and motivation at best. He did not use the quote to rally people to the Iraq War or to enlist others in its support. Unlike Mr. Obama, he did not use a conference call with clergy to urge them to use their pulpits to rally support for his agenda. Nor did he launch a speaking campaign in several pulpits – Jackson and Sharpton – to push his political agenda. The quote does not even come close to making your point.
The gnostic gospels are fraudulent at best. None date from the early church and there is no historical evidence that the Council of Nicea changed the four gospels of Scripture for political reasons.
Christ did command His followers to love their neighbors but no where did he speak of taxation to support our neighbors. Charity was to flow from the institution of the church and from individual believers not the government. The Apostle Paul also said that those who did not work did not eat. In Scripture the primary purpose of government is to constrain evil men not to take over the role of the church and of the family.
Since you quote Leviticus 19:18, are you also in favor of the religious theocracy the Levitical codes created in ancient Israel?
I would say that Mark 10:42-45 applies to the Democrats in this case. They are the ones lording over the people and forcing programs upon them that a majority of the people do not want. Then, when the people complain, they slander them and send in their union thugs to crack some heads. If Congress was truly the servant of the people then they would be more responsive to the people rather than trying to amass their own power and glory. Let the governmental servants lead by example and be the first to signup for the health care they prescribe for the rest of us.
Matthew 7:1-5 is not a prohibition against judging but rather a caution against hypocritical judgments. Hence the last part of those verses. I can give you at least a dozen other verses from Scripture which speak of judging and even the need to be judgmental and discerning.
Jesus did get angry with the money changers but he also got angry at the spiritual /governmental authorities who taxed the people and placed undo burdens upon them. Even the money changers and merchants in the temple were there at the behest of the authorities to make money off the people by taxing them and their sacrifices. Sounds like the Democrats to me.
I would like you to go on. There are so many areas that we could delve into: proper role of government, the origin of the New Testament and why the gnostic gospels are frauds, Christian discernment and judging. I’ll let you choose and then we can continue. I look forward to a spirited debate.
Walker – (112)
“Yet in the Gnostic teachings of Silvanius – Nag Hammadi texts (unchanged by men for political purpose like the “main” gospels at the Council of Nicea, 305AD):”
ROTFL, man who are you kidding? There have been myriad copies of the gospels unearthed in the 20th century that were written prior to Nicaea and differ not at all from what Nicaea affirmed as cannon after chaff and fraud were thrown out. Note I did not say, declared, there were only two or three dissenting votes out of, how many? Do you even know or do you simply regurgitate everything? In addition, there are creeds, hymns, and poems that have been found in the 20th century proving that the early Christians, even prior to the gospels, all agreed on the fully human and fully God nature of Jesus Christ. That makes the Dan Brown fiction and the “scholars” who agree with it nothing other than hucksters who don’t like the idea of unwashed masses knowing the same truth as they do, and therefore declare themselves to be gods. Gee, I wonder why that would appeal to the same elitist snobs who hang on every leftist word of “The One”.
Come on, there are so many different flavors of the Gnostic crap that it was the Baskin-Robbins of mystery cults. A warmed over Babylonian mystery cult that tossed in some Christian names or phrases in order to entrap the foolish is still nothing but a warmed over mystery cult. Gnostics added or copied some parts of the actual gospels because they were barely surviving at a time when people were abandoning cults in droves to accept Christianity, in spite of Christians being cruelly persecuted.
You quote the Gnostic text and imply it is superior, and then quote both the Old Testament and New Testament, a deliberate misdirection. A basic tenant of Gnostic beliefs is that Old Testament was written by a different and evil God. The very few parts of the New Testament that Gnostics accept they say were not inspired but only that they hide some truth that only the in crowd can discern. If that’s not enough, I see you’re also posting quotes from New Testament books not accepted by Gnostics. So, what are you trying to prove by quoting Scripture you do not believe in? That you can pretend some sort of superior moral or “Christian” basis for your opinions by lying about what you believe? First Obama botches his attempt to wrap a eugenics program in Christian terms, now you make a post so full of obvious contradictions that it’s funny. Did someone send out a memo for everyone who supports Obama to look as stupid as he did?
Oh, and yes, Islam is a satanic moon goddess cult which like the Gnostics picked up Jewish and Christian names and stories (all badly mauled in Islam) in order to keep from fading into oblivion. When the cities making money off of the moon cult realized that this new cult could keep the pilgrims coming in and paying, they loved it. When the barbaric tribes in the area found a faith that would let them continue to rape, murder, enslave, steal, and whatever else they wanted to do, they signed on and helped spread Islam by the sword. They weren’t the least bit concerned about anything spiritual, they wanted more booty and found out that claiming allugh was on their side helped fill the ranks with usefully gullible cannon fodder. Islam has always spread by the sword, and their moon god commands them to spread Islam by the sword. It is and has been the most murderous single ideology in history, bar none. To this day, it thrives on the money from pilgrims visiting the same city and same rock that the moon god worshipers visited. Say what you like about Bush and the Patriot Act, but I haven’t heard that “The One” made a single significant change. The only thing Obama has done to fight terror is to bow down and kiss some below the waist part of the Saudi King or the King’s robes.
Either stick to your favorite rap singer as an authority or go learn something about Christianity before you try to pass off bastardized mystery cults as somehow the “true” Christianity. You don’t believe in a thing that’s Christian so why wrap your BS in it?
Keep on heading toward that wide gate, you’ll figure it out about a split second too late.
Kipling –
I must say, at least you’re able to have some sort of cognitive discourse on the topic and seem open to conversation. Kudos to you. Also, if Jesus were alive today…he’d be a Libertarian at the least, if not a full peace-loving hippie.
That being said. The first quote about Bush, I’ll give you that. The second one…his handlers kept him from making more public comments reminiscent of that as to not brand it as a ‘Holy War’. I mis-copied and pasted the one about him saying we’re on a crusade. And don’t even get me started on the idiocy of Palin and all the prayer-stuffs she’s so indoctrinated on.
As for Obama speaking to the clergy: It’s not a religion/state issue. He’s appealing to the higher morals of many religions, understanding that all major religions have the same underlying themes of goodness to mankind regardless of the doctrine.
As for the Council of Nicea – they changed Jesus’ birthday to co-incide with the Winter Solstice so the Pagans would accept it, created the Holy Trinity to give some aspect of Polytheism, edited the Bible from at least dozens of gospels to the ones “we” give credence to today…and you seriously believe that as much as they changed things, they didn’t do so for their own power? We know man is fallible and when you take into account the political and sociological impacts…things start to make a lot of sense.
Not to even go into all the mistranslations over the past 2,000 years…most of the current Bible was taken from Paul’s account – who admittedly never MET Jesus during his time on earth. Which only has an inkling of credence if you believe that the resurrection of Christ was a literal one and not a spiritual one, which I’m sure you’re on the side of. That’s cool. But it’s an interesting dichotomy how many things in the Bible are pointed at as parable (true) rather than literal, typically when it serves the need of whoever is doing the talking.
I’m ALL FOR ‘those who do not work do not eat’. It’s the basic law of man – you eat what you kill, or work for. But I’m also about taking care of my fellow man, just not the ones that expect me to do all the work while they sit around and reap the benefits. F them. Communism and Socialism work great on paper, but it can never work because it’s against human nature. There will always be someone who wants to take advantage of the system and do the minimal amount of work for the maximum result.
Why, oh why, are we all on the Democrat/Republican thing? I mean..I *know* why, but the entire system is stupid. We’ve got extremists on both ends watering down the substance for all. There’s idiocy from both sides but we’re all left with the choice of the lesser evil – which is why I voted against Bush both times. Did I really think that either candidate was qualified, or would do a good job? Absolutely not. But it’s the choice that we’re left with.
As far as the Democrats ‘forcing programs’ upon people…that’s patently untrue. They’re trying to push something through that would be better than our current system, even though it’s sure to be flawed by the mere fact that Government is involved. But I’d rather have that choice and that our voices be heard rather than the Patriot Act of spying on American citizens, which we HAD no choice in. All the spending in the world is okay as long as we’re afraid of the Big Bad Osama and the terrorists…but when it’s spending to actually improve our OWN country, it’s evil and wrong. If people actually had the chance to look at all the facts and decide for themselves the best course of action without being bombarded by lying partisan hacks (from both sides, but mostly from Palin and her ilk), we would likely have a different outcome.
As far as the moneychangers and the making money off of people…how in the world aren’t you outraged at all the people that got us into this war and made BILLIONS of dollars off it? Cheney and Halliburton?! C’mon. Seriously. That’s blatant and you know it.
Rashputin –
I almost didn’t reply to your post because I know that no matter what I say, you’re stuck in your ways. But here’s for hope, though I won’t give you as much thought as Kipling, because you haven’t demonstrated a cerebral reaction as much as ignorance and ad homimem attacks. You’re awfully angry for a ‘True Christian’, you know that?
Dan Brown is a fiction writer. Like Tim LaHaye. Nuff said. And who are you talking about with “The One”?
You condemn these gospels as “Come on, there are so many different flavors of the Gnostic crap that it was the Baskin-Robbins of mystery cults.”
“According to the World Christian Encyclopedia (year 2000 version), global Christianity had 33,820 denominations with 3,445,000 congregations/churches composed of 1,888 million affiliated Christians.”
And the GNOSTICS are the flavor of the month club? You people fight so much within your own damn religion it’s comedy.
If you take 2,000 year old text as literal truth without using the gift God gave you (your brain, and the doubt within it) then there’s little hope for you. I have a feeling you’ve eaten up every spoonfull you’ve been fed your entire life.
For the record:
I was raised without religion. My parents gave me the opportunity to use my head to my own ends and make up my mind on my own without being crippled or blinded to one particular aspect of faith to the damnation of all others. Really, I feel sad for those (of whatever relgion) that are handicapped from such a young age to see other thought processes or reasoning as inferior or evil.
I’ve read 3 different versions of the Bible, the Qu’ran, Torah, Book of Mormon, and many Sutras. There is value to be gleaned from all such texts.
The common theme in all of them? There’s *something* up there (call it what you will), be good to yourself and the rest of mankind, and there’s something after you die. If you’re good, it’ll be good. If you’re bad, it won’t be so good. That’s it.
We get so hung up on the nuiances that we forget the message. Which is to live our lives and love eachother.
Since we’re all on religion and whatnot, let me finish with something I came up with 20 years ago:
6 people sit around a table looking at an apple on the center of the table.
One person sees it as red.
Another sees it as green. (Looking at the unripe part)
Another sees is at yellow-green. (Yet another part)
Another sees it as grey. (Color blind)
Another sees it as purple. (Who knows why)
Another can’t even see it. (They’re blind)
Is it still an apple? Can not each of them take from it sustenance? Can not each of them taste the sweet juice, and enjoy that apple for all it has to offer? Should they condemn another for regarding that apple differently, based on what they can see or what they were taught to observe?
Of course they can. They just have different ways of looking at the same truth and different paths to the same end.
We spend so much time bickering over what the apple looks like or what the apple thinks that we forget to enjoy the apple for all it can offer.
And that apple is God/Yeshua/YHWH/Krishna/The Source/Whatever
“And that apple is God/Yeshua/YHWH/Krishna/The Source/Whatever”
Thanks for admitting you aren’t Christian and only quote Christian scriptures in hopes of confusing people who are with your tortured, out of context, gross misapplications of Scripture. Your moral pronouncements rest on nothing that stands the test of time, but only on your personal need to feel as though you can justify the trendy drivel you balance on your nose the way trained seals balance beach balls. All moral teachings or writings are just “Whatever” to you anyway, so you play the game of convenient misapplication of those teachings you think others will see as authoritative in any given context.
Moral judgments require enough understanding and honesty to admit that all paths do not lead to the same destination, and therefore all viewpoints and moral codes are not equal. Only the arrogance characteristic of left explains your pontificating in support government demeaned morality being forced on everyone else while you swap moral definitions and standards to match the T-shirt slogan of the day.
It’s predictable that you’d classify as “anger” any statement of fact that you want to ignore or that you find inconvenient for the moment. Those who rely on urban legends and elitist community viewpoint revisions of history almost always feign a sufficient understanding of both human nature and the written word to determine what represents anger and other emotions in others. Fortunately, people have learned to recognize the little lefty stash bag full of words like, anger, racist, and bias, for the attempts at mischaracterization and subtle defamation that they really are. You consistently using that technique along with other obvious attempts to manipulate the reader is a perfect example of the way liberals bristle with sneering condescension whenever their attempts to portray themselves as thinking nonpartisans are challenged. It’s also additional proof that you’re unfit to even tie the shoelaces of people who struggle to live by the high moral standards of Christianity.
The journey from Pantheism, to Polytheism, to self-worship you describe isn’t the result of you using your own head. It’s the standard leftist fairytale trek to self-worship and is recited as their personal history by most of the faithful leftist elitists who can only barely accept the fact that the world and reality both existed well before they came along. Unwilling as lefties are to acknowledge reality, they adopt as real not only the aforementioned fairytale but many others, like the one about the Wolf not eating Red’s Grandma if the wolf is a federal employee. Thank you for not responding, too. Your display of transient micro morality and macro ego has been a fine demonstration of the corrupting results rote teaching of failed theories has on weak minds, but it wears thin the second or third time you assure everyone that only our current tin god know best.
Have a nice day
Obama, having been connected to Radical Muslims and Anti-Semitic Racist Christians who conflate religion and politics, probably thought it was the normal thing to do.
Thank you for not responding? I’m on the west coast and went to sleep. Now I’m at work and have to actually work all day.
I’ll get back to you later, you silly silly man.
To Walker @ 115:
The Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. dealt largely with the Arian heresy concerning the diety of Christ and did crystalize the doctrine of the Trinity. It did not however deal conclusively on matters concerning the canon of Scripture but rather accept what had already been done along those lines. Bishop Athanasius from Alexandria was the first to list the books of the New Testament as we have them today. The Council of Hippo in 393 and the Council of Carthage in 397 confirmed the list.
Acceptance of a book as part of the New Testament Canon depended on three things. First, authorship had to be traced to an Apostle or an Apostalic delegate. The early church and the disciples considered Paul an Apostle. He was not one of the original twelve disciples but he was one sent by God and he did meet the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Second, the writings could not disagree or contradict previous Scripture. And third, there had to be a general consensus in the early church that the writing was inspired by God.
The letters of Paul were considered to have met these criteria and were accepted as canon by the close of the first century. Matthew, Mark, and Luke were accepted by 150 A.D. By 200 A.D. the four gospels were already accepted by the church as canon. Much of the dispute that worked itself out between then and 397 dealt with books like Hebrews (unknown authorship) and some others. The gnostic gospels did not appear until much later and none of them were even considered by the early church. Nor would they be considered today because they do not meet the aforementioned criteria.
Contrary to Dan Brown and others, the Council of Nicea did not declare Jesus divine. The question at Nicea was not between whether Jesus was a man or a god but how to reconcile His humanity and divinity. No one at the council claimed Jesus was a mortal or just a good man. The four gospels, accepted by the church by 200 A.D., already declare the divinity of Jesus. They also contain references to the Trinity. The various councils, including Nicea, were called to fight heresy and in the process clarified doctrine. If you would like to discuss the Trinity further or for me to give the Scripture references for these, just let me know.
As to the translation problem you mentioned, let me give you some basic facts. First, there are no originals to any ancient documents. We depend on copies for everything from the Iliad to the works of Caesar to the New Testament. However, through the use of textual criticism we can take these various copies and work our way back to the original. There are more copies of the New Testament than any other ancient document. For the Iliad we have 12 copies with the earliest copy dating 1000 years from the original. For the New Testament we have 5300 Greek copies and 8000 Latin copies. The earliest copies date only 300 years from the original. Hence our copy of the New Testament is more reliable than what we have from any other ancient document. In addition, we have the writings of 2nd generation church fathers (90-150 A.D.). They quote the New Testament 36,000 times. Only 11 verses in the New Testament are not quoted in these writings. All considered we have a pretty accurate New Testament.
As to error in Scripture, let me give you some hard numbers. From the copies we have, there are 10,000 instances of word change (misspellings, punctuations, duplicates, etc.). 9600 of these can be corrected with a knowledge of Greek. In other words, simple mistakes. That leaves 400 instancs of word change. 350 of those are meaningless mistakes dealing with word positioning. For example, “Our Lord Jesus Christ” or “Jesus Christ Our Lord.” That only leaves 50 instances of discrepancy. So, we can safely say that we know 99% of what the original manuscript says. Since no major Christian doctrine depends upon only one verse, we can safely say we can know and understand original Christian belief.
What events in the Bible do you consider to be parable and not literal?
Kipling – (119)
Absolutely correct in whole and in part. Tnank you for posting the truth of the matter. I leave “Walker” in your obviously capable hands.
Regards.
Dear America,
We used to like you when you were famous for Mickey Mouse, The Fonz and soda pop. Now you’re all about religious zealots, gun crime and “Two And A Half Men”. You’ve changed America. Nobody likes you anymore (although your cool black President who settles beefs with a couple of frosty ones in the yard seems to be a step in the right direction).
In the meantime, lay off the Bible and read something a little more plausible and relevant to the world today. Do you have Enid Blyton books over there? They’re great.
Lots of love,
The Rest of The World
p.s Your health care system would be a laughing stock if dying children were funny. Stop your bleating and change it now, you’re an embarrassment to the rest of us.
Dear Theolonious Monkhorst,
Thanks for speaking for the rest of the world. When your quality of health care matches ours, then you may have something to say on the subject. As to not liking us anymore, fine, call France the next time you need your butts saved from an aggressive regime or the aftermath of a natural disaster.
If you like our ‘cool black’ President, you may have him. Nice to see you are color blind there and judge leadership qualities based on coolness. I’m sure that is why the rest of the world leads the way in so many things. Freedom is a risky business but I prefer it to your neutered masculinity.
Hi Kipling!
Thanks for writing back! You neglected to spell my name correctly though. Is this a sign of disrespect, or are you just a little slow?
Either way, i’d suggest it’s your education system that’s to blame. You guys really should get onto that next.
And guess what? We already “have” your President. Just like we “had” the last one. And didn’t he do a bang up job?
Anyhoo, I must fly… I’ve got some lush meadows to wander through in bare feet… I’d like to discuss your last sentence in more detail, but it doesn’t seem to make any discernible sense. In any case, it sounds like you’d quite like to slip into your black Ray Bans, whip off your strides and slide around the Great Plains singing Bob Seger into a cucumber or somesuch.
Right on!
To Thelonious Monkhorst:
I am reminded of the proverb: “But the correction of fools is folly.” My mistake.
When you have matured a little and would like to have a serious discussion, feel free to look me up.
Rashputin:
Thank you. Really. You proved my original point without even realizing it:
“Jesus was awesome, but SO many supposed ‘Christians’ need to take his message to heart. React with love and understanding, not hate and lies.”
I think it was probably best said by one of the greatest men to exist in the past century:
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
Go back up and read, then use the brain God gave you. I never claimed I was Christian and only quoted scripture because the very capable Kipling asked me to.
Conveniently, you ignored the substance of my post and resort to analogies concerning seals balancing beach balls and dismissing original thought as ‘leftist fairytales’ simply because you don’t agree with it.
Your words are dripping with scorn and hubris, and Jesus would be sad for you. Here you are calling yourself a TrueChristian™ yet you so obviously think yourself better than someone else because they have a different viewpoint.
“It’s also additional proof that you’re unfit to even tie the shoelaces of people who struggle to live by the high moral standards of Christianity.”
“Either stick to your favorite rap singer as an authority or go learn something about Christianity…”
Really? Really. You jump to conclusions and insults, then when presented with reality you immediately write it off as ignorant leftist BS.
I’ve read the 3 versions of the Bible, the Torah, Qu’Ran, Book of Mormon, and many Sutras from the Buddhist philosophy. When you look with an open mind and heart (isn’t that what Yeshua was all about and how people are told to get in touch with the Holy Spirit?) you’ll find that underneath all the doctrine, most major world religions have the same basic message:
There is a God. Be a good person, in your heart and actions, to yourself and the world around you. Be humble, honest, and don’t hurt anyone else. There is something after we die. If you’re bad you’ll go somewhere bad and if you’re good you’ll go somewhere good.
I think there is a great deal of value to come from reading religious scriptures and they have the ability to deliver a powerful and just moral message.
Kipling:
Again, thanks for welcoming intelligent discourse on the subject.
As for the parts of the Bible that I consider to be parable rather than literal in part or whole…
Creation story from Genesis
Adam & Eve and the Garden of Eden
The Great Flood & Noah’s Ark
Soddam and Gomorrah
Jesus’ physical ressurection
The list goes on. So..pretty much all the ‘magic’ stuff.
Lol!
I bet Rashputin goes to this guy’s church:
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/gospel-hate-arizona-pastor-steve-and
To Walker at 125:
I have enjoyed our discussion. I think we might have time for one more round before the link is lost.
As Paul said to the early church, if the ressurection of Jesus is not true then we are to be most pitied amoung men. However, like Paul, I know that Jesus rose from the dead. Historical evidence points to the fact. If he had not risen, then why would the Jewish leaders not have produced his body when the disciples started saying he had been raised? Why would the Jewish authorities not have nipped the church in the bud? What about all the witnesses who gave testimony to the resurrection and to actually have seen the resurrected Jesus? Many of them were killed because of that testimony. Would they die for a lie?
If the resurrection of Jesus is not true then how can you say that He is awesome. Without the resurrection, I am afraid we must discard the New Testament because that is the keystone of its teachings. We must also discard Jesus as a teacher because He clearly communicated to his disciples that He was God and would be resurrected. If the resurrection is not true, then Jesus was either a liar or a lunatic, and therefore not worthy of worship. C.S. Lewis goes into more detail along these lines in Mere Christianity.
If Jesus was resurrected from the dead, then the other events you list as parable have to be acual events because Jesus refered to most of them as actual events from the Jewish past. The story of creations and the fall of man (Adam and Eve) are essential elements to Christian theology. They answer the higher story questions of life and lay the foundation for all that followed. Liberal christians who banish these events as myth have really cut their theological anchor and are essentially adrift in moral relativism and untruth.
The Apostle Paul once charged Timothy with the task of proclaiming the “economy of God” or “the law of God” to the world. I take that charge very seriously. God, through Scripture, speaks to every area of our lives and it is the duty of the Christian to get that message to the world. We do so not to harass the world but rather to show them the abundance of God’s love and provision for them. We are to be like Jesus. When He saw the people harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, He felt compassion for them and taught them how to make God their shepherd and live in a more excellent way.
Like Paul, I am always eager to engage in debate because I have confidence in who and what I believe. Let me say again, I have truly enjoyed our discussion. Any time you would like to continue, I can be found at http://jhpruitt.blogtownhall.com/. I hope to see you again in these blogs.
Best,
Kipling
“Death Panel” is actually too generous a phrase. It implies that granny will stand in front of a board of actual human beings to plead her case. If this were true, maybe, once in a long while, she might appeal to their emotions persuasively enough to get that hip.
The truth is that it will be more like a death handbook. The government will lay out the guidelines in print, and doctors will be forced to follow them. There will be no appeal, no chance to try to persuade a human being. The decision on granny’s life will be made by people who never have to look her in the eye.
JMD:
LOL! There is and was NOTHING OF THE SORT in the proposed bill. No death panels, no death handbooks. You need to stop listening to Rush and Steele and read the thing yourself.
The ONLY thing that it said was that if a patient requests end-of-life counseling from their doctor (living will, etc) then the Government will pay that doctor for their time.
That’s it. What in the hell is wrong with that?!