This begs the question- Was/Is your faith in the Church of God OR the God of the Church? God's people are flawed, imperfect, perverse, wicked, hurtful people. BUT the greatest news of all time is that GOD LOVES EACH AND EVERYONE OF US FLAWED, IMPERFECT, PERVERSE, WICKED, HURTFUL PEOPLE. He has offered us FORGIVENESS! If He forgives, who are we not to?! Be angry, be hurt, be brokenhearted, for by so being-you are just the person He gave His life for. Open your tightly clenched fists and give all the pain and anger to Him. Don't hang your hopes on any people-Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus love and His Righteousness. All other ground is sinking sand, djplong! ...as you well know. Only the Love of God in Christ will never let you down. Cast your cares on Him, for He cares for you!

I feel you take every opportunity to trash anyone that differs from you on ANY issue. I am shakin my head Richie, I am shakin my head.

I don't have respect for robber, I mean to say that I would give them the edge over a priest that uses his position the rape young boys. I hope you have the same Disrespect for priests that do that to little boys.

Richie, to be honest, I'm a little surprised at you. Have you missed or deliberately ignored every occasion where I have been VERY deliberate in stating what I find *good* in the Church (specifically the people I had personal interactions with)?

Yeah, I have a major beef with people like Ratzinger and Law. Have you wondered maybe WHY I'm so mad at them? Because they are a *cancer* in an institution that shouldn't be dragged down by their kind. Any other issues I have with the Church are rather minor in comparison - some are amusing if you look at them in the right light (like how not too many Catholics know what the Immaculate Conception really was - hint: it wasn't the angel visiting Mary).

I point out the double standards. Go ahead and read Exodus 21 and tell me how "enlightened" that is. Especially verses 20-21 where you can beat your slave so long as they don't die within a couple of days!

Yeah, you can find all kinds of violence in the Koran, but don't pretend the Bible doesn't contain the same kinds of passages that can be used to justify abhorrent behavior.

I wonder how many people who want to display the Ten Commandments in public buildings and use tax money for the displays even KNOW where they are in the Bible. Hint: It's the chapter right before the instructions on how to handle your slaves, Exodus 20.

How about the Bible-endorsed racism? If you have *Hebrew* slaves, you have to set them free in the Year of Jubilee - gentile slaves are to be passed on like an inheritance.

Again, it's the *double standard* that I object to. I support that crazy Constitutional idea of "Equal Protection Under the Law".

Some folks have the need to twist everything you say for their personal benefit. I also believe with all my heart that without religion and church leaders, this world would be much worse off; however, to condone through silence the vicious things done in the name of God behind the walls of Church's and in the pulpit needs to be addressed with stronger measures and stop overlooking it because it is the Church.

When you compare the teachings of the Church of a 1000 years ago to the Islam of today, it's a ludicrous if not ignorant comparison. I'm sorry, but that's the way I see it, notwithstanding your righteous indignation at being called on it.

Your words above have no meaning when compared to the vile invective you spewed in your earlier posts when you spoke of the Church.

Only in the minds of the slow. People that think and understand deep, get it and agree with me.

Richie, you just made my point.

Can you name a single Christian in favor of slavery as outlined in Exodus 21? Of course not. Neither can I. But it's in the book.

In the same way, not every Muslim is going to take the violence in the Koran to heart. I'll be the first one to grant you that, percentage wise, certain more Muslims *DO* pay attention to those verses.

There's one guy who's a close friend of mine who has some rather negative views about Jews. Another degree or two and I'd say he was racist - largely because of his experiences in the country he grew up (on the other side of the planet). Guess what - he's white and Christian.

You just can't lump people into a group and paint them all with a bad brush. I don't believe all Catholic priests are rapists, that all women are golddiggers, that all men are abusers-in-waiting (heard that from some radical feminist groups), etc.

Well that groveling is now paying off!

After out wonderful president went out to apologize for a MISTAKE and then the Afgans took the apology by killing/murdering many of our soldiers, and now the UN and Afghanistan's leaders are calling for an investigation and punishment for the soldiers that burned the books.

Well, I think they have already got their revenge by murdering our Americans and they can go to hell!

What a great return for the groveling!

I am sure some of you will say it could have been worse. So how many lives would be acceptable to you for this mistake.
Should we start killing them here in the USA for things as minor as this? No I don't think we should!! But I think it is time to put our foot down and say, stop this murder in your country NOW or tomorrow the aide stops and the troops leave and you can all rot in the hell you live in!

What kahunas!!!

We should have done that after the first two Americans were killed.

How does a human life equal in value to a Koran?

There is absolutely NO comparison...

Not to us Ceejay, but to these fanatics over there it does. These Muslims are more crazy than all of our Christian fanatics added together. We have our Tim McVeys but they have thousands of them.

:bigbow::bigbow::bigbow:

Not to us Katz, but to these fanatics over there it does. These Muslims are more crazy than all of our Christian fanatics added together. We have our Tim McVeys but they have thousands of them.

All the more reason for us to get the heck out of there.

We are just condoning their behavior..."oh, it's ok...your people are killing our people cause we burned your holy book...but we'll continue to aid and teach you cause what's a few human lives between friends...go ahead, keep killing us...the hell with all the families and friends who have lost their loved ones...your koran is so much more important than they are."

To me, that seems like the message we are sending.

God forbid we make any waves...let's just keep apologizing and offer up our citizens as sacrifices.

Obviously, they don't matter...

Bingo. I am a Viet Nam vet and say strongly WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN THERE. Civil wars should remain within the borders of the country. If the World says lets go then fine, but not one or a few should take the step.

I find myself in agreement.

I also find myself wondering why. The short version of the conclusion I'm coming to is that there's a lack of economic opportunity. Therefore, religion is the *only* thing these people have. There's nothing else out there for them.

There's an old joke that two countries that have McDonalds have never gone to war with each other. Not sure that's 100% true anymore (Uk/Argentina, etc) but I think the point is made.

I had an Iraqi friend in library school at Denver University. We corresponded a little after he went back to a library in Mosul in 1984. He started going on and on as time went by about our "ungodly country" and all the sins he saw the year or so he lived here in Denver around 1983-1984. I guess he saw that I subscribed to Playboy and drank from time-to-time with the other MA library students.

He had inviting me to visit him in Iraq and see the various ruins of their glory from about 2500 years before. That trip looked more and more unlikely as time went on. The last letter I got from him was around 1985.

This was during the Iran-Iraq war in which he had talked to me about the waves of teens being used as cannon fodder in what was a Holy War to him. It sounded like both sides were using kids as mine sweepers in the marshes that border Iran-Iraq. Not sure how true this was but it sounded like my friend's brother was high up in Saddam Hussein's military. My library school friend had a good source of information about that Iran-Iraq war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basij http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

Anyway, my point from one close Iraqi friend for about 9 months, is that religion was the highest priority with him. There were other Arabs that hung around with my friend and none of them seemed as fanatical about religion as the Iraqi from Mosul. Seem to remember some Saudis and a few other Arabs of different nationalities.

Cannot remember if he was a Sunni or a Shi'ite but he certainly had a lot of rather sick Kurd jokes. The Kurd jokes kind of really soiled our friendship. From the position of his brother in Hussein's army I assume he was/is a Sunni. The last time I looked he was still a librarian in Mosul. This was a couple of years ago that I checked for his name on various Mosul area library web-sites.

I never met my friend's wife either. Whenever I visited she had to stay in the other room.

Iraq will probably always be a religious state. Kind of hard for some Americans to get how important religion is for many people in the Middle East.

Obama Admits He Is A Muslim - YouTube
Great 10 minute video

Nothing in that video but short clips of statements that all lead up to:

HOWEVER, I AM A CHRISTIAN but the maker left the finished sentences out of the video. Very unethical lies. This is a flawed attempt to discredit Obama for the wrong reasons. He has made mistakes, but this silly Video is a lie and will backfire on anyone that thinks it is a true analysis of Obama's faith. If you can't find something with truth, you are damaging the GOP's chances of winning the election by using these lies as your case.

Please keep it up! And don't forget to vote Obama in 2012! :smiley:

I went to law school at the U of MN (Class of 1989) with the only Congressman who is openly a Muslim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Ellison At least, that's as far as I know.

With Keith Ellison then, you knew he was a Muslim; he never hid that. And, back in 1989, it sounded like he wanted to be on the US Supreme Court. I guess he had to settle-- so far at least-- on a Congressional seat from MN.

If Obama were a Muslim in hiding his Harvard Law classmates probably would have outed him by now. Kind of hard to hide very much in the pressure cooker of law school. With that many eyes of the shrewd and ambitious on you as just about every Harvard Law student would be, there is not much that you could really hide well. The competition to be on a law journal is also extremely intense. It was at MN and I can imagine just how much work it would take to become an Editor of a Harvard Law journal.

I did not know this man personally but had a live-in girlfriend who was also in the U of MN Class of 1990-- the same as Congressman Ellison-- who mentioned him from time-to-time.

Teaching Company's Great World Religions: Islam
 

I checked out an older CD from the Teaching Courses on the history and religion of Islam and found out just how ignorant I was about this very powerful force in much of the world. Picked up this CD from the Lady Lake PL.

This newer examination of Islam looks very interesting. We all could use more information about this religion.

Great World Religions: Islam

I did not find this course in any local library though the last time I looked.

An important part of Islam seemed to me to be just how much it seemed to intertwine the religion into the state. Which is what you find in many Arab as well as non-Arab countries. Our Constitution fortunately forbids this establishment of a state religion.