Religious Hostility in America

 

...against Christians. It's happening, folks, not just in New Hampshire and Connecticut, but right here in Texas! This is a new website put up a couple weeks ago, but the Liberty Institute, who represents Christians whose rights are being stifled in the work place, in public schools, in colleges, and even in their own private homes! Some of these cases read like they're taken straight out of the former Soviet Union or North Korea. (Apparently, some folks get really offended if you compare what we endure to what others have endured in countries like those. I am NOT saying that our situation is as terrible as theirs, but if we don't see the connection and where this could lead, we will not stand up when we still can, and we will find ourselves there sooner or later.) 

This is not a game. I believe the first step is becoming aware of what's going on. My generation is FULL of people who have no idea what's going on and, what's worse, think it's inevitable because "separation of church and state is, in the end, a good thing, right?" (holding myself back from that one for now, lol.) 

Here is the link. PLEASE take just a few minutes to read through some of these cases...

Copy and paste if the above link doesn't work for you: http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PG12H03

"I'd be a Liberal"

I was listening to the Joe Paggs radio program the other day. He was talking about how you cannot be a good Christian without believing that your way is correct and other religions are wrong; or a good Jew, or a good Buddhist, or a good Muslim, for that matter. 

A caller called in saying, "Joe, you say you hate people from other religions. Why do you hate people?" It always amazes me how standing on principle automatically translates into standing against people, in many people's minds. Joe went on to explain that he never said he hated anyone, and if he didn't believe his religion were true, he shouldn't believe in it at all. 

The next caller was a Muslim. Right off the bat, Joe asked the Muslim if he believed Islam was right. "Of course I do," he replied (duh!) "And you believe Christianity is wrong?" "Of course!" "If you didn't believe that, you wouldn't be a good Muslim." "No, I'd be a liberal!" 

ROFLOL!!!

What would the world look like without rich people?

Have you ever wondered this? With Obama talking of letting the "Bush tax cuts" expire for those making over $250,000, it has me thinking. Who really needs more than $250,000 a year anyway, right? What are they going to do with all that money? That's more than enough to live off, support a family, and in the words of Obama, "buy a flat screen TV." I have even been guilty of judging those I thought made too much or lived a little too luxuriously.

I think that we are forgetting what the rich do. I can't find the exact statistics, but I remember hearing that the vast majority of the income of churches is given by a very small percent of the congregation. Rich people fund our churches. They help fund our hospitals, universities, and charities. The next time you stroll through a park and think your tax dollars supported the entire building of it, take a look at the name plate on the bench you're sitting on. This is the same reason the dorms on your college campus were named after people, not as much for recognition as for the fact that they gave boo-coos of money to help pay for your education! Why do you think you keep receiving alumni donation letters from your Alma Mater? Because, believe it or not, some actually send those back in with money, and it's not the middle class giving the most. Have you ever been on a missions trip? Who did you make sure to send support letters to? Probably those making over 250 grand a year, huh? They were also probably the ones who sent the most back to you. How many countless missionaries would be doing something different were it not for the rich? Think of the YMCA, the Red Cross, Boy Scouts, homeless shelters, pregnancy centers. These are not kept on their feet by the middle class.

So before you think about stealing money from these people to give it to an organization who can't even deliver mail without going into the red, think about all they do for our society. Really picture our society without that. Do they need a new BMW, 3 vacation houses, or even a flat screen TV? Maybe not, but do you need a college education, a church to attend, or someone to bring you a bottle of water & a blanket after a hurricane rips your home down? Do you need a job that that BMW, 3 vacation homes, and big screen TV helped create? I think so. We need more rich people in this world, not fewer. If we tax them like they have plenty of money to lose, these things that are the fabric of our society will be greatly affected.

"A government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have." - Thomas Jefferson

Abortion- the core issue is not choice at all

I am a member of some pregnancy/parenting message boards. I wondered into the "off topic" forum, and they were debated abortion! I made this post...

"I am getting physically ill reading this & almost had to stop. I am shaking. I think I am TOO sheltered. lol. I will TRY to be calm, but this is something I feel strongly about.

Abortion is the ending of a life. Just bc a baby is inside of the mother's body does not mean that it is a part of the mother's body. It is its own body. As for when it becomes a human, every line anyone could ever draw on that would be subjective, & they wouldn't be able to explain why. Is having a heart beat more important than being able to breathe air? Why? Is being able to survive w/o mom more important than being able to feel pain? Why? The ONLY objective line you can draw is conception. BC at that point, if left alone, it WILL develop into an adult eventually. And while we're drawing objective lines, if you draw it at birth, why not draw it at age 2, or age 22? Just bc it would die w/o the mother does not make it any less human. So yes, women have the right to choose what happens to their own body, but not to someone else's (the baby's).

If my 13 yr old daughter were raped, we would have the baby & give it up for adoption. It is horrible that she would have to go through that, but you don't commit a worse crime to stop some suffering in your own life. I think that would be a great lesson for my daughter- we don't murder someone just bc we have to have some discomfort (as hard as it would be.) To ask her to live with the guilt & horror of having her little one diced to pieces would be worse for her IMO. I don't understand why adoption is so often overlooked as the solution if u find yourself in an unplanned preg.

(In the case of the mother's life being in danger, that is completely diff, bc if mom dies, baby dies.)

As for the "it's wrong for me, but I can't decide for others" argument, I don't understand. If it's wrong, it's wrong. Would you say that you personally would never kill someone, but if someone else did, that's their business. I don't think you would. & I don't think any of us have a prob w/ the govt stepping in on that. We spend pages telling other moms it's wrong to let LO CIO but won't tell them that if they want to dice LO up just a few months prior. That breaks my heart.

Quote:

what is taken as pain is an instinctual movement.

This makes me want to cry my eyes out. I understand what ur saying; it just breaks my heart.

As for hormonal BC, I don't use it anymore either f/ the reasons others posted, as well as the fact that it's really bad f/ ur body.

"If you believe in a woman's right to choose, you are against the abortion of any female fetus. Bc you have to let her choose whether or not to take her 1st breath." -my pastor

"Everyone who is pro choice is only that way bc they were allowed to live." -someone

That being said, if you've had an abortion, I feel f/ u & don't think u r a horrible person. We all make mistakes. There is forgiveness & healing.

If you are reading this & thinking about having an abortion, please PM me. I will do everything I can to help you. If I can't find you help, I myself will pay your medical bills. I would even adopt ur baby if I had to.

I hope I didn't change the tone of this thread too much. I respect all of you as people, just not the action of abortion. "

People replied & kept on talking about extreme examples like rape and also about when birth control fails. "No woman should be asked to carry around a piece of her rapist for 9 months." They talked about how outlawing abortion wouldn't stop it but would take it to back road dirty clinics. The basis for all their arguments were that they wouldn't get an abortion but it should be available to those who do, bc women should have a choice of what to do with their own bodies, to which I replied...

"The last time I saw a pic of fetus, it didn't look like any woman's body I ever saw."

To get posters off all these tangents and back to the main issue, I made this post...

"We are all really missing the point, & that's why we keep arguing in circles. If we all saw an unborn baby the same way we do one that's born, we wouldn't be arguing any of this. The difference is, we don't. I think we all agree that it's wrong to kill a child (after birth). It doesn't matter if you had the child bc of rape or irresponsibility or you're too poor or it has down's syndrome. It's always wrong, right? None of you would say, "you can't expect a woman who's raped to look at that child ev. day of her life, do you?" No, it's wrong.

So see, it's not about a woman's choice. If it were, you wouldn't have a problem with a woman choosing to kill her born child. It's about when life starts. Even though some of you are saying you believe it starts at 22 weeks & some are saying you believe it starts at implantation, that doesn't really matter, bc you say if someone else wants it to start at a diff time than what you think, that's ok. So what matters is when should life officially begin for everyone? When can I start expecting everyone else not to end their child's life? The answer is "after birth". That is the definite line where we would take our convictions & start applying them to everyone else, right? Therefore, it's not about, "what's wrong for me might be right for someone else.", bc there is a point where we would say it's wrong for everyone- at birth.

So this is where my argument comes in. Say a baby is born at 32 wks. It has a good chance of surviving. But another one is aborted at 33 wks. If we're going by the above, the first one is definitely a human & it's wrong to kill it. The second one it's ok to kill (maybe not for YOU, but it might be ok for someone else, depending on their circumstances.) What I'm saying is, that makes no sense. If it's a human at 32 wks, it's automatically a human at 33, logically. So you might concede the point that at 22 wks should be the new cutoff, bc that's when they can survive outside mom. What about when we get new technology, and they can live at 21 wks? What then? Do we move the line? If we do, we are moving the definition of a human, and that doesn't make sense. What about 20 yrs ago, would the line have been drawn at 30 wks (or whenever most babies survived)? That is what I am saying when I say ANY line you can pick is subjective, even the line of birth, bc babies are born at diff times.

So you have to take it all the way back & say, "ok, when does it go from being nothing to being something?" Sperm are not human. Billions die everyday, and it would be impossible to save them all even if you believed you should & wanted to. Same with eggs. Left alone, they won't become human. U have to DO something w/ those . I think we all agree that sperm & eggs are not humans. As a pp said, they don't contain the complete genetic makeup of a human. A zygote does though. If left to itself & it doesn't naturally die, it will become an adult. It has this in common with a 2-yr-old. That is why life starts at conception." 

The debate goes on, and they are already off topics again. No one could respond to my last post. But hopefully I made some ppl think, probably those who weren't posting. 

Out of curiosity, I started a poll; 82 people answered. Here are the results:

Abortion is always wrong except in extreme circumstances (like a high chance both mom & baby will die)		20%
Abortion is wrong w/ exceptions (rape, danger to mom's health, baby will prob die anyway)		21%
Abortion should be left completely up to each woman (but i don't like the idea of it f/ BC)		34%
People should be able to do whatever they want in terms of abortion.		23%
Abortion is good bc it helps cut down on unwanted kids & overpopulation of the earth.		0%

 It's a scary place we're headed to, folks!

Christians had better be involved in politics!!

Even though it seems that way lately, please tell me I am not the only one who thinks Christians should actually be involved in politics. I am really sick of hearing that this is not our place. This would have been a foreign concept to Christians of even 50 years ago. I frankly don't know where it's coming from, perhaps from the whole concept of "separation of church and state." That is a whole 'nother topic I won't get into; just know it is a made up phrase and was not intended to be implemented the way it has been. David Barton, founder and president of Wall Builders, blames the departure of America from its Christian principles not on pagan secularism but on Christians who pulled out of the public sector in many areas. In response to criticism and opposition, they simply retreated into their churches, and, worse, compartmentalized their lives and their religion. We pulled out of the public schools, and prayer followed soon after. We pulled out of little leagues and Boy Scouts and made our own churchy versions of such. Worst of all, we pulled out of politics.

How many times have you heard...
"Christians should worry about winning souls, not picketing a political cause."
"Abortion is the only political issue Christians should worry about."
"The Bible doesn't talk about which form of government is best." (It most certainly does!)
"Pastors should not endorse candidates or preach politics from the pulpit." (Historically, they used to all the time. They were the political advisers of their day. It was part of their job.)

We are really in trouble here if we succumb to the statements above. Be careful; this mindset is exactly where Satan wants the followers of Christ to settle into. It is, at best, laziness disguised as spirituality or "unwordliness" and, at worse, debilitating to our cause and our country.

Check out Wall Builders for more on this!

Ron Paul caught in lie

I am finding myself really torn as to what to do if John McCain secures the Republican nomination for president. I don't know if I can vote for him. From the very beginning on this campaign, I have been a Huckabee supporter. When I first started to research the candidates, I liked him, and this was well before he became popular. I never thought he would make it as far as he has. I don't agree with him on every single thing, but I think he was definitely the best of the last 4 Rep. candidates.

However, not thinking he will receive the nomination, I began looking at Ron Paul. I have heard such differing things about him and decided to find out for myself. I know he says he doesn't plan to, but I really think he will run as an independent if he doesn't get the Rep nomination. I do agree with him in many areas, but in researching him, I found this lie. He says, on his campaign website, "[After we pulled out of Vietnam], instead of Vietnam becoming Communist, they became westernized." Here is the link: (it's toward the end of the video) http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/war-and-foreign-policy

Vietnam is in fact a communist nation. Here are some links to that proof & there are many more:

http://www.indexmundi.com/vietnam/government_type.html

http://www.photius.com/wfb2000/countries/vietnam/vietnam_government.html

What a crazy thing to say. And it's so obviously wrong and easy to disproove, I was quite shocked.

I'll let you know what else I find out.

Immigration: Which side really is racist?

Most people agree, illegal immigration is increasing at top speeds, and things are not working the way they are. The Left accuses those who are against amnesty plans as being racist. Perhaps some are, but I would offer that allowing illegal immigration to continue unchecked is racist. If I were from overseas, I would be offended that Latin Americans are given special treatment by being allowed to come in so freely, and that the laws are enforced for me and not for them. People in favor of amnesty are basically spitting in the face of any other race that would wish to come to the US. They are giving special treatment to some, based solely on their location and race. We should think about the message we are sending to those who wish to come here from countries other than those in Latin America. If we give them special treatment through amnesty, either by law or simply by ignoring that they are here, we are committing a clear act of racism.