Nah Nah,, Ney,, ney ney hey,, hey goodbye... He got some early time off. Santorum is just one of many that are long gone.. Frist is retiring.. what tired pathetic pile of crap will be the leader of the GOP now ?

A particularly meaty show today! Kuo is the final nail in the Repug coffin!

Where are all the whining Repukes on OlbermannStalk today?

Drinking antifreeze over all the recent Repug bad news?

BWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Hey Bill,

Maybe they'll make Foley the new leader!

He symbolizes Repuke values.

A lying hypocritical predator.

What is amusing is that you supposed "olby fans" are on this site instead of watching his show. Want to know where everyone is? Actually watching what is said instead of jumping on here talking non sense like yourselves.

They're just scared to death someone will say something negative about Keith and they feel strangely compelled to defend him at all times. Witness today's DUmmying of the poll results for proof.

To those out there who swear that we have to "win" in Iraq, and that such a victory, however undefined, is essential for our nation: Tough Luck.

Nothing's going to be finished in Iraq - just like nothing's been finished in Afghanistan. The pack of restless pirates in the White House is going to move on to Iran to loot that country and whatever may be left of America's treaury...oh excuse me, the treasury is a shell; whatever's left of America's CREDIT. They'll make up some bullshit story about a stable democratic Iraq that you bumblefucks will just lap up like you've lapped up the long string of lies and contradictions that's gotten them this far.

We have Tivo.

See us on the leftside of the aisle can watch TV and type at the same time, and we can do that while holding a bong in our lefthand. We know you righties are using your righthand for something else.

What is amusing is that you supposed "olby fans" are on this site instead of watching his show. Want to know where everyone is? Actually watching what is said instead of jumping on here talking non sense like yourselves.

Posted by: Anonymous at October 13, 2006 08:34 PM

Good! maybe some people will take the blinders off and learn.

Bush does not want the Iraq war to be over.... well he may want it over, but the people and corporations that put him in office are not through milking the American teat yet. Call Halliburton. ask for KBR,, ask them when they want the war to be over.

My father-in-law, a retired corporate executive and life-long Republican booster with impeccable Reagan White House connections just told me he can no longer be a Republican, and asked me how he should vote.

How's the election going to go, folks?

Mr. Holier-Than-Thou Olby is pontificating about what a rotten person Greta Van Susteren is. He has so much credibility when it comes to women's issues.

I sure would like to encounter James Dobson. A knife and a rope would do the job.

If James Dodson doesn't make you wonder what happened to Christianity in this country I don't know what will.

Does it seem that Olby is under the weather or not in good spirits tonight?

"My father-in-law, a retired corporate executive and life-long Republican booster with impeccable Reagan White House connections just told me he can no longer be a Republican, and asked me how he should vote."

Right. Every election you guys on the left trot out this same line.

I thought your father-in-law left the Republicans back in the 2004 elections?

Your father in-law retired. So the un-employed/welfare types vote Democrap. Thats a no brainer. And with Democrap policies they breed un-employment so there are more Democraps. Example: New York City. St. Louis. Detroit. All those "killer" places to live. To pop in-law or your imagination bbbye.

Amazing! I've finally found some common philosophical ground with the Bush White House:

- Conservative Christians are "Goofy"; "Nuts"; "Crazy"; and just generally gullible doormats.

Welfare is Slavery,

Was that written in English?

Why Bill O'leilly your as ugly on the inside as you are the outside. (Think MASH theme). bbbb-bye

Johnny Dollar,
David Kuo wrote the book in time for the elections. The title makes the content of the book obvious. What's the problem with people quoting it? You're acting like, not only in this thread but previous ones, Keith is manipulating and changing Kuo's words. I know what your problem is. Rush hasn't given you any talking points for attacking David Kuo, who seems unimpeachable at this point. Thus, you attack Keith for publicizing the book.

Why Bill O'leilly your as ugly on the inside as you are the outside. (Think MASH theme). bbbb-bye

Sir Loin the poster child for abortion on demand.
Yes, hillbilly speak. No seriously thats your response? Weak.

Sooooo... what did Keith Olbermann do wrong, today?

My father-in-law, a retired corporate executive and life-long Republican booster with impeccable Reagan White House connections just told me he can no longer be a Republican, and asked me how he should vote.

How's the election going to go, folks?

Posted by: Sir Loin of Beef at October 13, 2006 08:50 PM

Like the early exit polling in 2004. HEHEHE.

Santorum is ahead in the polls you moron O'lielly. I watched the Santorum debate and he just wiped up the floor with his opponent.
Hey o'lielly you meathead your hero olbermann actually stuck his tounge out like a little five year old girl tonight. he may give awards for worst person but he is the world's most juvenile and you are the worlds biggest a--hole for worshipping at his feet.
You leftards are once again counting your little liberal chickens before they hatch just like you have done since 1994. I believe that a possibly corrupt republican is still better than any socialist liberal democrat.
The thing that I remember best about the '04 elections was how all your little leftard hearts were broken. I put a great smile on my face. Hey even if you leftards do pick up some seats this November it won't last for you. All it will take is two years of nutjob commie democrats to bring America around to the realization that they still hate liberals.
I still cannot believe what i saw the olberchimp do tonight on national TV- stick his toungue out.
hey keeth you little twit what are you five or something. grow up idiot!
and O'lielly you really ought to talk to someone (other than us) about your little masturbation fixation.

WelfareCollector,
The unemployment rate dropped from 7.3% to 3.9% under Clinton and 23 million net jobs were created.

"Does it seem that Olby is under the weather or not in good spirits tonight?"

You know, the righties on this site are truly pathetic, puckered little lemons.

"How's the election going to go, folks?

Posted by: Sir Loin of Beef at October 13, 2006 08:50 PM

Like the early exit polling in 2004. HEHEHE."

...so you're saying the Democrats are going to win big, Welfare Queen?

> you attack Keith for publicizing the book.

No, I don't attack Keith for publicizing this book, or John Dean's book, or all the other leftist, anti-administration books he hawks and plugs and promotes. I attack him for publicizing books that agree with him, and deliberately NOT publicizing books on the other side of the aisle. Did he do interviews with Bill Sammon? Did he read night after night quotes from Tommy Franks?

He just pushes the leftist line. That's his right, but it's not journalism, and it's not news. It's propaganda for the gullible, and no more respectable or fair than what you can get from Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken or Michael Savage.

anon,
What poll did you find to show Man-on-Dog Santorum is leading? His family maybe?

the only reason that clinton had good job numbers was due to the tech boom the good employment numbers did not come from ANYTHING clinton did. He was too busy ducking his bitch wife and getting his helmet polished by subordinates.
Puckered little lemons queen of ground round? olbermann always seems under the weather mentally like most leftards and you are the one coming here and defending your little twerp hero who sticks his tounge out like a five year old little girl.
you just have lemonade envy is all ground round.
what kind of pathetic fifteen year old do you have to be to come to a site like this and defend olbermann?

What is wrong with being biased on an entertainmen-based media outlet?

Anon,
I don't come here to defend Olbermann - I've never seen any attacks levied worth wasting font on. I've said it before, I come here to vent my spleen on you stupid fascist bumblefucks who are voting your country into ruin. Its very cathartic.

J$,
How is David Kuo a leftist? I can show you a long list of undoubted conservatives who have bashed Bush. In fact, Pat Campbell claimed Bush "has lost his conservative credentials if he ever had any" and he spends "like a drunken sailor." Is Pat Campbell a leftist too? Hasn't it ever occured to you Bush might not be a good President? Just like many liberals admit Carter wasn't a good President. It doesn't make those liberals "righties."

anon,
It's amazing that the "tech boom" began as soon as Clinton took office and ended the second he left office. I guess God really loves President Clinton to give him the exclusive use of the "tech boom."

The site for Keith's daily bitch-slap
Is the number one site on the map
It's called Olbywatch
A kick to Keith's crotch
For a penis he must use a strap

Colbert,

I recently heard Richard Vigery - the founder of the conservative movement's success of the past several decades - say that "Bush spends like a drunken sailor - except that drunken sailors generally are spending their own money".

The people left in Bush's camp aren't conservatives - they're psychotic leader-worshippers. Bush could tell them to slaughter their own children, like Jehovah reportedly told Abraham, and these fools would probably do it.

I blame the Republicans for the jobs. Maybe it was gingrich.

Yeah CNN the clinton news network saw to that. Clinton had no control over the tech boom other than algore of course inventing the internet.

Colbert why do you hate Santorum so much?? could it possibly be his stand against the gays getting married? Does he hit too close to home for you?
The clinton woman says it takes a village according to her socialist beliefs but Santorum knows it takes a family. And you nate him for that don't you?

Sir Loin you got me. Thats what i'm saying.....Dems win mid-terms in landslide. Yep everybody wants partial birth abortion, no parental notification, high crime rate, high tax rates, muslim attacks, un-fettered illegal immigration, no death penalty, 100% death tax unless your a Rockefeller, Heinz-Kerry, Kennedy. The KKK started back up with grand kleagle Robert Byrd in charge. Women drowned in Chappaquidick. Rapes. Subordinates giving head. Nukes for every terrorist regime that says boo, oil outlawed, Walmart closed down, trial lawyers closing down any business that hasnt fled already, pharmaceutical companies crushed so they cant do anymore "harm" like finding cures. Unions for everybody so a big mac costs 10 bucks a piece. Yeah thats the ticket.

Welfare Queen,

... I was only referring to the fact that you said the elections were foing to go like the early exit-polling in 2004 - that had Kerry winning.

Dogs that did not bark, Harry Reid and shady land deal.

.Dems win mid-terms in landslide. Yep everybody wants partial birth abortion, no parental notification, high crime rate, high tax rates, muslim attacks, un-fettered illegal immigration, no death penalty, 100% death tax unless your a Rockefeller, Heinz-Kerry, Kennedy. The KKK started back up with grand kleagle Robert Byrd in charge. Women drowned in Chappaquidick. Rapes. Subordinates giving head. Nukes for every terrorist regime that says boo, oil outlawed, Walmart closed down, trial lawyers closing down any business that hasnt fled already, pharmaceutical companies crushed so they cant do anymore "harm" like finding cures. Unions for everybody so a big mac costs 10 bucks a piece.

==================

I think you missed the point: The democrats win in a landslide.

The conservatives do get dissapointed. Ypu get dissapointed. You desserve it.

J$,
You should hope David Kuo's book becomes the big news. Bob Ney, Iraq, Baker's report, Foley, Foley coverup, North Korea are all worse for you. Mentioning confirmation that North Korea has become a member of the nuclear club on Bush's watch isn't good news for him. You should want that ignored.

The NY Sun, not a liberal paper, reported the Baker findings. He quoted their report. The British General backed off clear statements he had made. You'd have to be extremely delusional to believe his position changed that quickly.

The stock market is separate from the economy. There has been plenty of negative economic news Keith has failed to report, including the middle class squeeze. Keith never had a stock market report, to my knowledge, even when it was down.

James Dobson lied about his own quote. He claimed Keith was wrong in quoting him but Keith was correct. Maybe you should mention the reason Keith gives for naming people WPITW.

"Santorum is ahead in the polls you moron O'lielly. "

BWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

welfare is slavery you forgot to mention gay marriage and of course the subsequent affirmitive action for all the suppression of homosexuals, total gun confiscation and repeal of the second ammendment, taxes on birth, death and everything inbetween, the Bible will be considered hate speech under the new politcally correct doctrines imposed and we all be forced to drive ecologically sound hamster cages that get 60 mpg and fold in the wind, special priveleges for all who wear Birkenstocks.
yeah i just can't wait for more liberal democrat kookiness.

Sir loin of beef,
Viguerie was attacked on Fox News and by other Bush defenders. They claimed he's not a real conservative because he supposedly attacked Reagan. I think if God himself appeared before these people and claimed he disliked Bush, these people would attack God.

Anonymous: Yeah... the flip-side is sup[posed to be better?

I think this last anonymous dipshit is being serious. They really can't deal with real issues; they have to live between the pages of of aReaganman comic book - usually with the pages stuck together.

I thought that people like you colbert and sir loin of queef did'nt even believ in God but you sure seem to like invoking His name to further your left wing talking points don't you?
and santorum IS ahead in the polls- too bad if you can't stand it. I would be willing to put $$ on Santorum winning considering his opponent is a real moron.

"the Bible will be considered hate speech "

YEAH! We're going to give you crazy fundy nutters sanity tests.

If you're so gullible and brainwashed that you claim the earth is 6000 years old, you don't get to live with us SANE people.

We're gonna lock you up in those 'concentration camps' Chimpy is building for us.

BWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Thanks for the spelling correction of Vig's name - you frenchies.

I think I'd support AWOLbUSH as President Kucinich's Secretary of the Interior for that proposal!

Well Awolbush we saw how well clinton and reno separated church and state - with tanks and murder so it is not a real stretch to see how any liberal democrat would go after religion in the name of political correctness.
Actually Rick Santorum will run for President in '08 and win despite the objections from the homosexuals.

People: Please! Be carefull! These commented threads turn into a Socialism gang-up every time!!!

Rick Santorum??? The guy that could not even hold his role of homeland security director??? is going to run for President of the United States of America?

Awolbush you believe in evolution? Could you name one creature that is currently evolving? Like maybe 1. You know feet turning webbed or gills forming. Something must be coming on land in transition. So maybe like one example of a humonkey or some such? Besides dogcat. Or is there no current evolution?

WelfareCollector,
The Supreme Court has seven Republican-nominated Justices and two Democratic-nominated Justices. I believe ten of the eleven U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals have Republican-nominated majorities. The courts interpret the laws dealing with aboertion. If you want more abortion restrictions, why didn't the Republican Congress pass those laws so the Republican President could sign them and the Republican Courts could uphold them if challenged?

Crime rates dropped precipitously under Clinton, according to the leftist F.B.I. They are now rising under Bush. The economy boomed despite those "high tax rates" under Clinton. The 9/11 terrorist attacks happened on Bush's watch. The Republicans had controlled Congress for seven years when they occured. Unfettered illegal immigration? You mean like what we have now, under Bush and a Republican Congress? What happened to that wall the Republicans promised? Liberal states and states run by Democratic governors have the death penalty. What is a 100% death tax rate? I assume you're referring to the estate tax. But where did the 100% come from? Was Rush high on pills again? The estate tax affects less than 2% of the population.

The rest of your incoherent babbling is incomprehensible.

Welfare is Slavery: You obviously do not understand evolution...

> How is David Kuo a leftist?

He isn't, at least not that I know of. But his is an anti-administration book. This is no different from when Olby interrupts a months-long stream of Democrats to invite on one lonely Republican. Why? Because he's calling for Rummy to resign. And that's the ONLY topic Olby will let him talk about!

Just about the only way a Republican can get interviewed on Countdown is to speak out against conservatives or the Bush administration. Then Olby rolls out the red carpet.

anon,
Santorum is down 50%-37% in the last poll I saw, taken on October 11th. Go see Rasmussen Reports. What polls do you see that have Santorum ahead? You can't produce one.

My fellow Olby fans,

I was hoping to jump in tonight and beat down some wingnuts with common sense, but damn, I'll save my ammo. You guys/gals are playing "human pinata" with them.

I wasn't going to go out tonight, but what the hell, why not.

Rick Santorum could not even hold his seat on the Homeland Security position... how is he going to pull off being the president of the U.S. of A.??? Oh yeah: Liberal bashing. LOL! Not this time! Ha ha ha!!!

Sir Loin of Beef,

"The pack of restless pirates in the White House is going to move on to Iran to loot that country"

So you support Hizballah and President Mahmoud Ademinijad?
In other words you support Islamo-Fascism and a 2nd holocaust against Jews.
Your a NAZI like Keith Olbermann!

WelfareCollector,
How stupid can you be? Have you ever taken high school biology? I knew you people were retarded but you're a new low.

Red Wolf: Sir Loin of Beef was just stating a fact... come on!

I typically root for the underdog, so I was going to vote straight dem this time, but since everyone is saying the republicans are the underdog, I think I am going to vote straight republican. And I'm bringing my wife too. And my dog.

He's registered as a dem, because the republicans wouldn't let him. He had no problem getting registered with the dems. But he is voting with his family.

Proof that Krazy Keith is a misogynist -- look at how savagely he attacked this woman:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=410319&in_page_id=1770

Dan Patrick said on his Radio show today - "I have never met anyone like Keith Olbermann, the guy has to bring every story back to himself" - "the guy is the boomerang anchor" Funny Stuff.

Sir Loin,

Stop talking about stuff you know nothing about....especially The Torah...You display an intolerant, anti-religious, bigototed spirit with every entry. Views you espouse are 100 times more dangerous to our society than any philosophy you fear.

I find your comments insulting but I feel sorry for you...Being close minded, self absorbed and full of hatred is a dead end in life. Posting on a website to, (your words) "vent my spleen on you stupid fascist bumble****s who are voting your country into ruin. Its very cathartic," is a sad and selfish activity.

Perhaps you could learn something and expand your horizons?......maybe you could stop using people for your own ends and actually have a nice, dignified conversation?....maybe you could try to understand someone else's point of view instead of arrogantly dismissing them as unintelligent and inferior?

Take a look in the mirror.

What is your response Sir Loin?

I just learned the word fascist. I heard my fellow lefties describing all republicans that way so it must mean they are stupid. You are all stupid stupid heads. I have no facts but you are stupid. What is facism?

pugs go down
them look like a clown
Look like a monkey in a tree
they speak no good
them ding dong peckerwoods
kill everyone to make them free
They don't like queers
they down a lot of beers
then instant message sweet young boys
they put me in tears
they overcome their fears
by playing with torture like their toys
They spend too much
and then they like to touch
hot young boy pages after work
they measure in size
and look into their eyes
after the bar they go and lurk
and they pass them laws
and send them down the halls
they bitch about taxes all the time
they dont want gay married
and after they're buried
we'll find the emails left behind
talking with lovers
and then they run for covers
into a rehab they will hide
over and over
once and once again
talking real tough with cowboy pride
well come this november
please lets all remember
not to elect them so they get
what they got coming
you know they'll go home running
to their boy lovers on the net

part two will come later. im tired.

Colbert,

"Crime rates dropped precipitously under Clinton"

If the crimes you are talking about are violent crimes like homocide and rape, how exactly does the President cause crime rates to drop when the law enforcement is done at the local level? From what I've read the end of the crack epidemic and the application of new policing techniques like compstat had a lot to do this. So, while it may be true that the crime rate under Clinton dropped he did not CAUSE it to drop. This is like giving Clinton credit for the weather.

"The economy boomed despite those "high tax rates" under Clinton"

I guess you missed the 1986 Tax Reform Act which dramatically reduced taxes across the board. Tax rates went UP under Bush 41 and Clinton but did not go back up to the pre-1986 levels. Clinton deserves credit for doing some very good things with the economy such as his/Rubin's handling of the Mexican financial crisis and ultimately holding the line on further tax increases (of course, it was a little more difficult to raise taxes with a GOP majority in the house). Signing Welfare reform, B-credit housing initiative to help more poor/minority families purchase homes, etc. These and other things were good. But let's not get carried away here. Presidents don't CAUSE economies to be good. They can, at times, cause them to turn sour.

"The 9/11 terrorist attacks happened on Bush's watch."

Are you saying that Bush is responsible for 9/11? Does this mean that Clinton was responsible for the embassy bombings, the Cole, Khobar Towers, etc? How about this idea. As Americans we have an enemy that wants to kill all of us. It does not matter who is President or who runs Congress because they have attacked us regardless who is running the different branches of government.

Here is a thought. The people who carried out the attacks are responsible. This is the problem you liberals have. Your position ultimately falls back on some notion that the criminal is the victim. We, as Americans, were the victims in these attacks and our enemy does not care which party is in power.

"The Republicans had controlled Congress for seven years when they occured."

See above.

"Unfettered illegal immigration? You mean like what we have now, under Bush and a Republican Congress? What happened to that wall the Republicans promised?"

Neither party is doing what the American people want - control of the borders and enforcment of the immigration laws already on the books. Both parties are hostage to interest groups who want to turn a blind eye for their own beneefit while battling over the future of the Hispanic vote. While these elites game the system for their own selfish interests the rest of us have to deal with the every day reality of overcrowded emergency rooms (when my son was injured a few weeks ago and taken to the ER, we had to wait SIX HOURS to be seen; the ER waiting room looked like a free clinic with families bringing their kids in for "emergencies" like colds, flus, fevers. In others words it WAS a free clinic for them.), overcrowded/underfunded schools (in my district about 10% of the children in the school are estimated to have no legal right to be in the school but Federal policies effectively prohobit the District from asking questions to determine status), crime (I am going today to visit a friends who has hit headon by a gardners truck driven by an illegal immigrant from Mexico who then fled the scene of the accident; she has been in bed for two months, was only able to sit up in bed this week and has now been told that she will walk with a limp for the rest of her life; police caught the guy two weeks later and charged him with leaving the scene of an accident; obviously no licence, no insurance, etc.; my former housekeeper was from Central America, she has here legally but her husband was not; turns out he had a girlfriend on the side, for some reason he murdered her and fled the county leaving behind his wife and two kids)

"Liberal states and states run by Democratic governors have the death penalty."

No idea what this means.

"What is a 100% death tax rate? I assume you're referring to the estate tax. But where did the 100% come from? Was Rush high on pills again? The estate tax affects less than 2% of the population."

This doesn't make any sense at all. The estate tax effects EVERYONE because everyone is subject to it. I am sure you mean something like only 2% of people who die are "charged" an estate tax. I have no idea how you arrive at this figure but if this is the case, this also does not make sense. If a person dies they often have heirs. If a guy with a family dies his wife and kids and any other heirs are effected becuase money that they would get goes to the government. Anyone who dies without a will or an estate that ends up in probate is also subject to the estate tax. Further, the nature of the economy has changed. There is a large amount of wealth tied up in housing right now. Many, many people have become millionaires or close to it because their houses have dramatically increased in value. As those people move into smaller places or various retirement living situations they will cash out those homes - or will die still owning them. Whatever percentage have historically been impacted by the estate tax is going to change dramatically.

This is going to be the same kind of thing that happened with the Alternative Minimum Tax - a tax policy intended to prevent the "rich" from using clever accounting to avoid paying income tax is now hitting teachers, policemen and plumbers. Worse, the AMT has the effective of limiting deductions for dependents - at an annual income over about $75,000 and up, you can only get credit for about 2.5 worth of depependent deductions. So the AMT becomes a new special tax on middle class families with three or more children.

You can make the case that the Republicans want to lower taxes for the wealthiest 2% and that has the effect of shifting more of the tax burden on the middle class. But the Democrats accomplish the same thing by different means - raising the top tax bracket raises ALL of the tax brackets because they are all linked AND the actual dollar amount of taxes paid by the top 2% is high enough that it is cost effective for them to pay a lot of money to accountants and lawyers to minimize their tax burden. If your actual tax bill is $50,000 a year it is worth paying someone $5,000 to get that bill down to $30,000 and pocket the remaining $15,000. If your actual tax bill is $3,000 it is obviously not worth spending that same $5,000 to reduce your tax bill because even if they got it to zero you are out $2,000. And guess that, there are a lot more people paying $3,000 a year than $50,000 a year. The only REAL solution is to come up with a tax policy that does not creative incentives for the rich to game the system and that means a one page, super-simple, tax form for everyone and, if not a single tax rate (a flat tax) at least a reduced number of tax brackets (2-3?).

I am for the estate tax because class warfare arguments work on people like me. Nevermind that the IRS reported that it costs them more money in the collecting of estate taxes than the actual revenue garnered from these taxes. Nevermind that double taxation on sheer principle is unfair and illogical. I believe what I am told, and I am told that rich people are evil and I don't want to be evil, so this gives me an excuse not to work hard so that I won't be rich and thus not evil and remain part of a controlled ignorant voting block of the Democrat party. Hooray for reasons not to work!

This site is so partisan. Does any here ever deviate from the party line? On either side?

186k, funny quote from Dan. I don't think Dan is too happy with Olby's antics and bad press lately. It shows.

"This site is so partisan. Does any here ever deviate from the party line? On either side?"

I am an atheist, libertarian/conservative, individualist. I want my guns, lower taxes, smaller gov't, strong foreign policy, could care less about religion here in the US, and to be left alone.

People like me realize that the threat from Islamic fundamentalism and those who deny and appease its existence are much more of a problem than threat of an American Theocracy. It reminds me of those who thought "peace through strength" and Ronald Reagan were a bigger threat than the Soviets.
Olbermann is the biggest douchebag I have ever seen on TV. He actually thinks his liberties are being taken away, yet he can not name one. I guess his ability to transfer money from Yemen to Switzerland has been curbed and those calls from his phone to Hizzbollah are now monitored. Poor Olby. Yeah yeah I know it's a "slippery slope". Whatever.

Basically, Christopher Hitchens and Ayn Rand are right and Noam Chomski and Paul Krugman are enormous idiots who mistake skepticism for intellegence.

See above for a perfect example of "holier-than-thou."

Crash'Red Wolf et.al.

I've been arguing with people like you for years, and you're incapable of facing facts - if a point of yours is destroyed, you find some syntactic error in the argument that just destroyed you and that becomes the issue in your minds.

You cite the mantra of "the USS Cole; the Kobar Towers; the first attack on the WTC;..." and use that as evidence of a pan-Islamic movement to destroy the west, and rationalize our aggressive wars on this basis. You ignore the fact that these events involved a mere handful of extremists; and you ignore the act that our invasions have drastically increased the numbers, intensity, and validation of such groups.

Your opinion leaders - Krauthammer, Kagan, Kristol - see war with Islamic nations as being solutions in themselves. That's why Clinton is decried your crowd for "doing nothing", despite his extensive and productive intelligence and diplomatic measures, and Bush is worshiped as a warrior God, despite the fact that neither war he's started has been resolved, and neither looks to end well or soon - He started them, and that's all that's important to you and you opinon providers.

Look at everything Krauthammer and Kagan have written in the past several weeks: no mention of Iraq (that problem's apparently been "solved" by the fact that a war's been engaged) - now its all about Iran and the killing to be done there.

No, I don't "support" Ahmadinejad or Syria - but I sure as hell don't support attacking them to satisfy the blind racial bloodlust of some cult of televised war that masquerades as religion and realism.

When did I say anything about the Torah?

All I feel like saying about Robert Cox's long reply to Colbert is that its a huge case-study of trying to have his cake and eat it too. Basically, we are to believe that Clinton is responsible for nothing positive that happened during is presidency, but is to blame for everything bad that has come to pass under Bush.

Hitchens is a mental case - or is otherwise compromised in some way I see hm as a character in a LeCarre novel - a shabby British globe-trotter who's gotten sucked into global events beyond his control. LeCarre's characters typically lose their souls and integrity for a whle, but then find redemption some sacrificial act.

In this literary vein, I suspect that there is somewhere in "Kurdistan" an almond-eyed bueaty held hostage against Hitchens' journalistic cooperation. As a result, he toes the irrational bullshit line fully, but lets his body and mind go to hell in despair and guilt. SIngle malt, single malt, single malt. Hopefully he'll find his redempton son.

Keith is pathetic because 100% of his broadcast is one-sided. Foxnews at least gives liberals some time, not much though.

"Cheney took a huge PAY CUT to be VP. He would be a much richer man if he had stayed away from politics."
Posted by: KfK at October 13, 2006 04:58 PM (on another strand)

Really? Cheney has worked all of FIVE years of his adult life in the private sector, and he's worth more than 30 million dollars.

What is the blockage in righties's brains? They scream about a supposed rinky-dink land-fraud mess that Reid is enmeshed in (which i have no problem believing, by the way)but they can't imagine OIL INDUSTRY GRAFY or WAR PROFITEERING ever occurring, at least at the hand of their Republican demi-gods. For crying out loud its obvious!

Remember that lefty communist Dwight D. Eisenhower? He laid it out pretty well in his presidential farewell address:

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

He's talking about the Bush administration and revolving door between cynical public "service" and private sector wealth-harvesting. Bloody fucking pirates.

What is the blockage in righties's brains?
Posted by: Sir Loin of Beef at October 14, 2006 04:06 PM

Their is just a lot of fluid where there was supposed to be insight into anything other than the appearance of things. Individual thoughts drown before they get a chance to form into a complete idea so they look for "Big Daddy's" to tell them what to think.

Sir Loin,
For all your piety about me not facing facts, you supplied not one example instead you bring up Krauthammer and Kristol and then completely misconstrue what they think. War is in itself the ends they seek....Huh? Where in the hell did you get that idea? Acting like Clinton's so-called diplomacy worked is just not facing facts. His precious Camp David meetings with Arafat and Barak failed because that (well known, undisputed, no doubt about it, terror supporter) Arafat walked away from the best deal he would ever get. Why? Because with nothing to fight, then there are no excuses. They along with most everyone else in the region will have to face the fact that for generations their culture has contributed nothing despite enormous potential for wealth.

I really really wanted those peace talks to work. Is it Clinton's fault they didn't? NO. Not acting after the Cole bombing (an undisputed, no doubt about it) act of war because the tension would make his peace process and thus his "legacy" a shaky proposition, is in my estimation, dereliction of duty. And don't forget, it was the clinton DOJ who established the legal wall between the FBI and CIA. Something I largely support in principle, but pragmatically answer me this. How would sharing information about foreign nationals/students in our country have been a problem?

I know all you lefties are sorely pissed that Hitchens left the lunacy of the Chomski wing of the democrat party, but he noticed what I have noticed. Namely that liberals too often find faults here with our society first to explain the irrationality of those who would do us harm. It is ludicrous for this kind of moral relativism to exist to explain away 9/11 or Khobar towers etc.... This is what Chomski does in order to perpetuate his own self loathing and weird anti-semitism. It is too bad that someone that gifted as a writer is so misguided, but in the "marketplace of ideas" people like Hitchens are there to battle such delusions.

Oddly enough, Olbermann's own "reporting" recently, shows that this administration is not driven by religion, instead they marginalize the actual influence of the religious right. Are you happy about this? Nope....Instead their motives must be "racist" and "bloodlust". Hell I wish it was then these two actions in Afghanistan and Iraq would be over. Whatever happened to the "Powell Doctrine" and overwhelming force? Instead we pussyfoot around mosques and museums. Oh I know its all about money and Haliburton.

Of all the things you said, the only thing that I really don't get is this:

"You cite the mantra of "the USS Cole; the Kobar Towers; the first attack on the WTC;..." and use that as evidence of a pan-Islamic movement to destroy the west, and rationalize our aggressive wars on this basis. You ignore the fact that these events involved a mere handful of extremists; and you ignore the act that our invasions have drastically increased the numbers, intensity, and validation of such groups."

Why do you down play this plague of Islamic Extremism? Before Iraq and Afghanistan, they were dancing in the streets in Palestine, Jordan, Damascus, Cairo etc.. when 9/11 occurred. There were kids around the world wearing bin laden t-shirts. There was no Imam condemnation of the attacks, no fatwa issued on our behalf, no real outage by muslims anywhere in the western world. This empathy for these killers is far more dangerous than Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell.

Recognize this danger. How do you not see this global movement of extremism? How do you not see its potential for harm? Why is your aversion to religion and politics only directed at Judeo/Christians? Why isn't that same ferver directed at Islam, which is obviously bigotted, misogynistic, and tyrannical?

Can someone please explain this paradox?

Guilliani in '08

Recognize this danger. How do you not see this global movement of extremism? How do you not see its potential for harm? Why is your aversion to religion and politics only directed at Judeo/Christians? Why isn't that same ferver directed at Islam, which is obviously bigotted, misogynistic, and tyrannical?

Can someone please explain this paradox?

Guilliani in '08

Posted by: Crash at October 14, 2006 04:45 PM

I do see the extremism. I see it in our own country. It's in the kill or be killed attitude that is preached by people who are not in the line of fire. I don't want a country that is obsessed with religion whether Islam Or Judeo/Christians. I want freedom to be myself and left alone as long as I am not bothering anyone. The "enemy" is made stronger when we stopp to their level. They can't win a war on our terms, so they drag us down in the gutter with them. What is so har to see about what they are doing. Tiger woods would kill me in golf. So maybe a game of poker? That's what they are doing. And they CAN win. If were stupid enough to pick up the cards.

"Arafat walked away from the best deal he would ever get. Why? Because with nothing to fight, then there are no excuses."

Kudos, Crash! I could not have phrased it better myself! With nothing to fight there are no excuses! This characterizes Arafat's later career very aptly - but it also, you must admit, applies to any disingenuous and self-interested leadership that creates straw men to terrorize and mobilize their own constituency.

Excuses like; spending money like a drunken sailor (and keeping no reciepts); grossly expanding the official secrecy of government; curtailing the civil rights of the citizenry; failing to ameliorate a very profitable chaos resulting from one's incursions in foreign lands;...

These excuses hinge on our protacted battle with "lurking evil-doers", incredibly potent "Islamofascists", and an amazingly long list of "AL Qeada Number Two's". Ever hear of Emmanuel Goldstein? He was just such an excuse as well - but who really fired those rockets that occasional took out a tenement on Airstrip One?

Recognize this danger. How do you not see this global movement of extremism? How do you not see its potential for harm?"

Of course I see it. I see it getting larger and more intense every day. I also see that the solution your opinion-leaders recommend to fix the problem is identical to the source of this engorgement - and arguably the source of the militant movements as well.

"They hate our freedom"; "they are Evil". Now, you seem fairly well-spoken; you're not an idiot. Are you telling me that you give any credence to these prevalent rationales/battle-cries for a Clash of Civilations pushed from our side? Do you actually, explicitly entertain these cartoonish captions?

Sneer condescendingly all you want; these problems stem from colonialism and neocolonialism - they're the backlash against exploitation of the weak by the strong/ the resource theft from the periphery by the core. It can be seen throughout history: the local leadership of a resource-colony is coopted, flattered, and enriched by the occupiers, while the bereaved populalace boils until it explodes.
We'd do the same thing.

One more for Crash:

"Oddly enough, Olbermann's own "reporting" recently, shows that this administration is not driven by religion, instead they marginalize the actual influence of the religious right."

Hold the phone here! I did not suggest that the Bush administration's motives were religious - far from it! However; what "Olbermann's recent reporting" actually shows - with harsh clarity - is the fact that the Bushies have most cynically manipulated the religious right "Nuts" and "fruitcakes" (their words, not mine). Of course they marginalized them; the adminsration took the proferred political power of these coalitions and then crawfished on the deal!

They do this with war too, by the way.

Again, this is where I differ with you fellas. I DON'T THINK WE ARE THE PROBLEM. Making allusions to literary characters as some kind of anecdotal evidence is simply wrong. Under your test, FDR, would have been just such a fearmonger that you purport Bush to be (as would JFK, certainly LBJ, and Reagan). The problem with this story is that our country has a transfer of power every 4 or 8 years in the executive. What's the motive? Certainly not personal power. Expanding the power of the Executive for future presidents? Maybe. This is no different than the legislative whithering powers from the executive for over 200 years. We don't have a parliamentary system.
Making the jump to a collectivist power grab in a fascist totalitarian vein is, in itself, another kind of fearmongering.

"Of course they marginalized them; the adminsration took the proferred political power of these coalitions and then crawfished on the deal!"

Hey you're exactly right, maybe the evangelicals will stay home on election day. I don't know. I know blacks and hispanics receive the same treatment from the democrats. This is not a defense. Just a statement of fact. Consituencies are largely ignored and most certainly manipulated.

The problem with this story is that our country has a transfer of power every 4 or 8 years in the executive.
Posted by: Crash at October 14, 2006 05:48 PM

Oh thank God. What a wonderful day that will be. Sweet joy in my soul. I might even weep. When the smirking decider goes back to the ranch and someone like Wesley Clark takes over we may even win one of our wars.

"Sneer condescendingly all you want; these problems stem from colonialism and neocolonialism - they're the backlash against exploitation of the weak by the strong/ the resource theft from the periphery by the core. It can be seen throughout history: the local leadership of a resource-colony is coopted, flattered, and enriched by the occupiers, while the bereaved populalace boils until it explodes.
We'd do the same thing"

This simply does not explain militant islam and it is certainly not a reason for it either. This is also the moral relativism of which I so abhor. Its the same explanation offered by so many of our political science professors in Academia today. If we could just make the playing field level, if we could just make give the poor this or that, everything would be better. I am not the one purposing a "clash of civilizations", rather it is you who see a conflict between the first world and the third world (PC term now being the Global South). No doubt this tension was exasperated by the colonialism by the 20th century French and English, but now that colonialism is gone. India has its country, and all of the middle east was given back to the muslim (exception of Israel of course). After 60 years, its time for them to look inward. We are not the problem. It's them. Fostering hatred of the West and resistance to peace with Israel for domestic political reasons can no longer be tolerated and no amount of money or gifts will change it. Arafat, at the very least, has taught us that.

Sir Lion,
Your really delusional and live in a fantasy world.
Hizzbollah killed 200+ American Marines in 1983. Iran held American Hostages for 400 Days. Also Iran is giving shelter to Saad Bin Laden. We should bomb them into the stone age if you ask me.
Especially since you Lefties will become unhinged seeing your Islamic allies bombed!

You support Hizballah and Iran. That makes you a traitor and a Nazi to boot!

Crash,
I'm a Liberatrian/Nationalist. Although I'm religious in my personal life, I don't believe my personal views should be forced on society!

Like you I'm a member of the Secular Right. The Leftists fear us more than they do Religious Conservatives.

Red Wolf said:

"You support Hizballah and Iran. That makes you a traitor and a Nazi to boot!"

Dude, dial it back a bit. You're gonna blow a synapse you keep going on like that...

>"The Leftists fear us more than they do Religious Conservatives."

Huh? Another example of the boogeyman that's been cooked up by those on the right. I don't fear you because you don't beleive in a god, if anything I applaud you for understanding that religion needs to stay out of politics.

Oops, read your post right before that. Forget my implications of your rational thought.

Crash,

"This simply does not explain militant islam and it is certainly not a reason for it either."

Well, I gave it a shot. As far as I can see, though, I've provided one perspective regarding the development of ant-western sentiments and militantism in the middle east, but I can't say that I've been able to form a very good idea of your explanation in this regard. What is your answer to my question from a previous post: Do you think they simply "hate us for our freedom"? Is being "evil" their sole rational for engaging in savage terrorism?

keith olbermann has more integrity in his belly button lint than bill oreilly has in his entire body

You need to lay off the alcohol there buddy. It's obviously clouded your jdugement to the point you apparently believe Olbermann is some kind of journalist instead of the joke he truly is.

Sir Loin of Beef,

Explain the Jihad of the 7th Century.m Islam is and always has been an Imperialistic religion. At least the West was able to fight back against them. Now, the Left will help the Muslims, Cinese/N. Koreans finish us off!

Sir Loin of Beef,

Explain the Jihad of the 7th Century.m Islam is and always has been an Imperialistic religion. At least the West was able to fight back against them. Now, the Left will help the Muslims, Cinese/N. Koreans finish us off!

"keith olbermann has more integrity in his belly button lint than bill oreilly has in his entire body"

Well, considering how fat Olby is, and considering his bathing habits, I wouldn't be surprised if Keith's belly lint is larger than O'Reilly's entire body. Perhaps that was what you meant to say?

O'Reilly takes on people with differing opinions. Olby doesn't. He's an intellectual coward!

Now, the Left will help the Muslims, Cinese/N. Koreans finish us off!
Posted by: Red Wolf at October 14, 2006 09:02 PM

I know you don't understand it yet, but our wonderful leaders have made us more vulnerable than ever. Missed oppurtunities, lack of priorities, and just a plain lack of wisdom. Yes, I do know the democrats will do a better job when they get power back. Make no mistake, they are getting it.

KfK, LOL. That was funny.

If space aliens attack... is it the Liberal's fault?

Sir Loin asked....."When did I say anything about the Torah?"

You are an uneduacated bigot, Sir Loin....at 9:30 PM, yesterday you ended your post......"The people left in Bush's camp aren't conservatives - they're psychotic leader-worshippers. Bush could tell them to slaughter their own children, like Jehovah reportedly told Abraham, and these fools would probably do it."

You claim such superiority yet you do not even now what The Torah is, what it contains. Abraham is the father of The Israel nation and his story, (as is the wonderful love story you crassly dismiss) is actually a story of grace and redemption and is ONLY found in The Torah.

I don't know what is worse, your bigotry against Christians or your flippant attacks on beliefs you obviously know nothing about. Please refrain from speaking about Jehovah if you are not familiar with the basic sources.

"When did I say anything about the Torah?"

You said quite a bit about it....

"....them to slaughter their own children, like Jehovah reportedly told Abraham..."

Bigotry.

guess who?,

"Yes, I do know the democrats will do a better job when they get power back."

Like give the North Koreans money?
Give more military technology to China?
Pay Jiyaz Dhimmi tax to Muslims?
Allow Israel to be wiped out?

Boy I can't wait!

hey

is there

any fact or substance

to the David Kuo quotes

of course there is that's why

olbermann is using them

heh...

"Under your test, FDR, would have been just such a fearmonger that you purport Bush to be (as would JFK, certainly LBJ, and Reagan)."

In regard to JFK, LBJ, and Reagan (you forgot Nixon) sure,; to varying degrees my criteria would implicate these guys - but hardly to the same degree attained by Bush, to to as great a detriment to our society.

But leave FDR out of it. WWII engaged us with two rapacious, powerfully armed and economically robust nation states with huge, experienced conventional militaries. Germany and Japan posed a very real and imminent existential threat to huge numbers of lives and our survival as a nation. Sure, their were omminous posters of giant slant-eyed octopii and brutal huns, but they weren't very far from the mark, as far as propaganda goes.

Conversely; today we face an enemy(s) that has on one occasion remarkably managed to kill several thousand innocent Americans, et.al. as the culmination of a precarious years-long plot. Beyond that, a small number of scattered attacks over the years throughout a number of more-or-less allied nations have killed large enough numbers of people to cath the world's attention. Vile, tragic, and unconscionable? Of course - existential threat; hapilly, no. -Unless of course you happen to belong to a society that seems willing to sacrifice any number of checks and balances, civil rights, and fundamental principals in the face of lone shoe-bombers and bottles of hair gel.

The worst case scenario would have one of these groups acquiring a nuclear device and setting it off in one of our cities. Although I believe our state and society could and would most certainly withstand such a horrendous attack - a confidence not shared by our administration, if one listens to their rhetoric - it should be guarded against as a top priority.

So why d we do everything possible to frame the matter as a racial/religious conflict and then destablize and foment anger throughout the Islamic world - when one of the most unstable Islamic nations has a nuclear arsenal? Just today our lowered national prestige has materialized in a Security Council resolution against North Korea that specifically precludes military action, entirely because no one trusts us after the crime of Iraq.

So now we KNOW Kim has bombs. Who do you propose we wage war on now to make sure none of them end up getting used on us?

cee,
It funny Leftists alwys bash Jews and Christians, but never Islam. They praise it and call Hamas and Hizballah freedom fighters. They drool over Mahmoud Ademinijed as if he's the new Che.
If today's Left was around during WW2 they would prise Hitler!

cee,
It funny Leftists alwys bash Jews and Christians, but never Islam. They praise it and call Hamas and Hizballah freedom fighters. They drool over Mahmoud Ademinijed as if he's the new Che.
If today's Left was around during WW2 they would prise Hitler!

Red Wolf:

I think that you should heed the words of Mark Twain - "'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."

Sir Loin of Beef,
In the 7th Century, the Mighty East Roman and Sassanian Persian Empires underestimated the Muslims as just another bunch of Desert Beduion raiders. They were both defeated.
Never underestimate your enemies or it's goals.
Hence the left is the defacto enablers of the Jihadis.
The Left always atttacks Jews and Christians. Why silence on Islam?

cee,

Sorry; I've never read the Torah. I've read the King James Bible and Ive watched George C. Scott reinact the scene in a movie. I've been deprived of the version you describe. The lofty elements of this tale have apparently always eluded me. No religious offense intended.

The funny thing is Anon is that that Leftists never explain refute what I say. They just attack personally.
Like you!

Sir Loin of Beef,

Why do Leftists like you always attack the Judeo-Christian faith, but never Islam?

Hey Johnny Dollar,

Interesting fact-check on Olbermann re: Kuo

http://www.extrememortman.com/cable-tv/correcting-olbermanns-report-on-david-kuo/

Well that's the problem, Sir Loin.....You make a specious argument about the geopolitical issues that cause evangelical Christians to support The President based on sappy movie depictions. I would suggest you read the entire story of Abraham's lineage to understand the real problem.

Sir Loin always ignores, (and I have asked why twice now), the simple fact that Israel's right to exist as a nation is absolutely denied by Islamic fundamentalists. That basic line in the sand is NONEGOTIABLE to the likes of Bin Laden, Iran and Syria.

Bill Clinton lead Israel down a path through-out the '90's of "land for peace"....all the while fundamentalist muslims attacked and plotted...and what has happened....no peace with Israel, even though withdraw has occurred.

So guess what? It all comes down to religious bigotry.....again. Abraham's children, again, the focus of ill-will and hatred.

As a Christian, I honor the nation of Israel and pray for her safety. It is ironic you use Abraham in your attacks, Sir Loin, because this is what it is all about. As long as Israel exists, fundamentalist Islam will be militant and attack her allies.

Quit talking about all the other ancillary issues, for goodness sake!

Sir Beefsteak Charlie is an anti-Semite!

Sir Beefsteak Charlie is an anti-Semite!

So once again we are presented (by cee) with the false premise that Israel and the US are one and the same. There are criminal cells within each government that operate as if they were a single state aparatus, but as far as our respective constitutions say, we are each separate sovereign nations, and as George Washington said at his fare well address:

"So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions: by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base of foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation."

That's pretty relevant stuff.

Sir Loin of Beef,
Why do you support Islamic Imperialism. R U Muslim?

Great, the modern equivalent of "Are you now, or have you ever been..."

Red Wolf, give it a rest.

Well It seems the left always defends the Islamists so want to know why?
If a Leftists would explain to me their love affair with Islam, maybe i can understand.

Well It seems the left always defends the Islamists so want to know why?
If a Leftists would explain to me their love affair with Islam, maybe i can understand.

So Sir Loin....do we.....

withdraw from NATO?

leave Japan and South Korea to fend for themselves with regard to North Korea?

ignore Taiwan and China's pending problems?

Nice slective application of the wisdom of a great founding father....advise that has been ignored by administrations of both parties since the beginning of the 20th Century.

A position of power, as a superpower, puts good ol' USA in a position to choose who we support, who we actively oppose and who we ignore. Especially apt is Washington's line you quote,

"It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions: by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld."

Are you saying the United States, by agreeing that a people should not be exterminated, is giving them preferential treatment? Their right to exist, as a democracy, is not really something the United States should support? It's ok that Islamic zealots are jealous because Israel exists?

So what do we do Sir Loin? Stop all international engagement with people of like goverments who are threatened? I thought the world was getting smaller? Do you think Washington imagined the heights of power and influence his new country would acquire in 200 years?

Try again.

"I would suggest you read the entire story of Abraham's lineage to understand the real problem."

Oh wow - I just caught this in a message of cee's back a ways. This is what frustrates us in the realitybased commuity. Perle and Frm write a book suposedly explaining the problems in the middle east that mentions no event prior to 1979 (CIA ;...overthrow of Mossadeq? not in there; Establisment of Israel and displacement of Palestinians? not in there) but then at the drop of a hat their idelogical allies will time-travel back 3000 years to explain and rationalize their position on a modern conflict.

When I mentioned the Abraham story I was attempting to metaphorically cast the drowning rat Republicans as unquestioning Leader-worshippers regarding Bush, whose demands on them are costing them their country and chldren's well-being. I was not making a religious statement, despite what your paranoia tells you.

Let's pretend I used "Yertle the Turtle" instead.

Sir Beffestaek Nazi!

Once again....I ask.....do we pay the ransom Iran, Syria, Al Queda, Iraqi extremists and others are asking so they leave us alone?

What is it?

Stop supporting The Zionists.

Answer the question, Sir Loin.....Is it something you feel will work?

cee,

Don't be a dipshit. Nobody considers Washington's speech as a promotion of cringing isolationism. He was clearly talking about the overweening fondess that people like Hamilton felt toward England, and people like Jefferson displayed toward France.

And that people like Feith and Wolfowitz show toward Israel.

No Sir Loin, I took issue about the bigoted and intolerant language you so easily throw about. "Yertle the Turtle," is a great book, my niece loved it, but is hardly relavent to your lack of understanding about why Osama, Iran and their supporters are so angry with the United States.

If you do not personally believe there should not be an Israel, why don't you just come out and say it....let me know the "reality," as you mentioned.

"So Sir Loin....do we.....

withdraw from NATO?"

There's a fucking joke! The rght wing has been sabotaging the UN and other venues of international cooperation for years now. Remember - its all about firm independent resolve and leaving the quibbling hippies at the UN and Nato in the dust. The US and Superpower Junior against the world.

We could use the UN as it was intended , as a nursery for the recognition of an approximation of the rle of law on the global scale. That means equality and equivalence - at least on the diplomatic level - and rules applying to all. That's exactly what Washington was talking about - double standards upstaging one's rhetoric of fairness makes one enemies.

With regards to your use of Washington's address...isolation would be the only practical result in todays reality.....Feith and Wolfowitz can be "passionate" about Israel and still know and pursue what is in the best interest of The United States, as can Schumer, Leiberman and Bush.

You seem to keep ignoring that it is THE OTHER SIDE - Bin Laden, Ahmadinejad and the millions of fundamentalist muslims who will not agree to peacefully coexist in a world that has Jews in palestine. How do you answer them?

Israel is. Why shouldn't it be? Now implied is the standard question "Does Israel have the right to exist as a Jewish state". Well, that;s for the people there to figure out. However, I strongly believe that that particlar position is one that the US needs to or should stake its fortunes on. In fact, that sort of denominational/ethnic paradigm applied to a multi-ethnic populaton wold seem to be somewhat contrary to fundamental American principals, and is not an issue on which we should declare firm partisanship.

oops, I meant to write above:

"However, I strongly believe that that particlar position is *not* one that the US needs to or should stake its fortunes on.

Double standards? The UN is full of double standards....hold Israel to account for every attack in Lebenon but never enforce the resolutions to prevent terrorists, in Lebenon, from launching missles into Israeli civlian areas. The UN has never been a neutral and fair broker in the arab/israeli conflict.

OK...thank you Sir Loin. I now fully understand your position. Good night, and good luck.

I guess I dispute your premise that there is no peaceful solution to the matter. Anti-Israel rhetoric from the governments of Iran and Syria reflects the leadership's attempts to satisfy the compound outrage boiling in their populations - the states themselves have no suicidal desire to open conflict with Israel and their powerful ally. Accommodations can be reached if both sides are willing to deal.

Quit pretending there is no middle ground between carrying Israel's school-books at every turn and selling them out to maniacal hordes of spinning darwishes.

- and as for Al Qeada: It's a law-enforcement issue - or at least it started out that way five years ago. Making it a war brought the populations of the target countries into it.

"Sir Loin always ignores, (and I have asked why twice now), the simple fact that Israel's right to exist as a nation is absolutely denied by Islamic fundamentalists. That basic line in the sand is NONEGOTIABLE to the likes of Bin Laden, Iran and Syria."

Well sure, if you write it in real big caps and then emphatically refute the possibility of negotiations.

If you're right, and Islamic fundamentalists truly live for nothing but the destruction of Israel, perhaps we should take measures to ameliorate the Islamic Fundamenalist factories we've set up in Iraq and Afghanistan. That might work.

Sir loin,
You're an Islamic supporting Dhimmi!
Go move to Iran!

I still don't understand the Left's love of Islam.

"Feith and Wolfowitz can be "passionate" about Israel and still know and pursue what is in the best interest of The United States"

"Can be" but don't and haven't.

Sir Beefstaek, how's your SS tatoo doing?

Why do Leftists like you always attack the Judeo-Christian faith, but never Islam?

Posted by: Red Wolf at October 14, 2006 09:40 PM

I attack what some people claim as Judeo-Christian faith. I think of Christianity as the teachings of Jesus. I am no more a Jew that I am muslim. How do YOU reconcile Jesus teachings with preemptive war? How do YOU reconcile Jesus teachings with regards to loving your enemies and forgivness? It's hard to do isn't it. It probably makes you more comfortable to think of yourself as a person of faith and everyone else is atheistic and want to destroy religion. I wish there were more of it, but not the kind that is okay with a few preemptive murders for safety sake. If you believe in God, why don't you have faith in his ability to save you? Why do you put your trust in leaders and the military? Is it possible that when it comes right down to it you really don't believe as much as you would like others to believe? I am not an old testemant Jew. I do not follow warrior God who slays every living thing in battle.

codas,
My personal religious beliefs ahve nothing to do with my political view. I just don't understand why the Left defends Islam but criticize jews and Christians?
the Judeo-Christian faith is the foundation of Western Civilization. Islam wants to conquer the world. Why is it that everywhere Islam is at war with other? whether it's the US, Israel, Russia, India, Phillipines, Thailand and Ethipia?
Explain that. No where in the Bible does it say you can't defend yourself. Jesus was talking about love thy enemy at a persoanl level not a political-state. level.
The mistake Leftists like you make is that you think everyone on the right is a member of the Religious Right. There's also the Libertarian Right. My dislike of Islam has nothing to do with the kind of God they worship. TRather that they belive they must inmpose it through military means on the whole world.
That's my gripe.

Honestly, I belive in attacking your enemies before they attack you and I think we should bomb Iran back into the stone age and kill 2/3 of there population.
Like I said my Religios views have nothing to do with my political views.

We should wipe out the population of the Middle East by 2/3.

No where in the Bible does it say you can't defend yourself. Jesus was talking about love thy enemy at a persoanl level not a political-state. level
How do you know that?
Honestly, I belive in attacking your enemies before they attack you and I think we should bomb Iran back into the stone age and kill 2/3 of there population.
Like I said my Religios views have nothing to do with my political views.

Posted by: Red Wolf at October 15, 2006 12:19 AM

You are of the same mind set as them. You are right to seperate your religion from your politics. There is nothing that could justifie what you said to a creator that you would answer to. You are a terrorist and proud of it. Then you wonder why people like me question our country. You advocate killing millions of women and children. You are good with that. You can cut your lawn in peace. I am not an atheist, and I know that you and I will answer for what we say. Wouldn't trade places with you.

The Muslims want to do it to us, so I say do it to them.

Red Wolf

I should add that your thinking is what I believe the so called Christian right really believs also. That is why I think them dangerous to my country. And I am sure Jesus would tell all those victoms of your arab holocost to not take it personaly. Like you shouldn't if someone murders your family. Right?

The Muslims want to do it to us, so I say do it to them.

Posted by: Red Wolf at October 15, 2006 12:38 AM

No! there are Muslims that think they speak for all of them and they don't. It is not okay to murder inocent people. You can try to justify it all you want. You can even do it, but then you are a murderer. I choose to live my life another way. If I become a murder victom, than I will die with my interity and my soul intact.

I keep misstyping VICTIM.

Red Wolf said:

"The Muslims want to do it to us, so I say do it to them."

"Honestly, I belive in attacking your enemies before they attack you and I think we should bomb Iran back into the stone age and kill 2/3 of there population."

So, you want to kill 40 million people (most of whom have NEVER raised a hand against you) to prove a point?

And what point would that be? That we can be just as indiscriminate with our killing as the terrorists?

Nietzsche was right - "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster."

"So, you want to kill 40 million people (most of whom have NEVER raised a hand against you) to prove a point? "

they want to do it to us so why not do it to them!

"And what point would that be? That we can be just as indiscriminate with our killing as the terrorists?"

You defeat terror with ruthlessness like the Mongols did!

Codas,
"I believe the so called Christian right really believs also. That is why I think them dangerous to my country."

So Religious people who misguidedly use their personal beliefs to dictate their politics are a threat but not Ilsmic Imperialists?
What crack are you on. The Christian Right is a joke a bunch of idiotic morons. They participate in the electoral process and are AMERICANS!
The Islamists want to convert nion-believers through war!

I guess you don't see the difference. That's why I've given up hope for this country. With the Left about to seize power, they submitt and do whatever the Muslims tell them, like the good Dhimmis they are.
I'm leaving this country in a few years when it's conquered by Muslims and the Chinese. With help from the Left.

Codas,
"I believe the so called Christian right really believs also. That is why I think them dangerous to my country."

So Religious people who misguidedly use their personal beliefs to dictate their politics are a threat but not Ilsmic Imperialists?
What crack are you on. The Christian Right is a joke a bunch of idiotic morons. They participate in the electoral process and are AMERICANS!
The Islamists want to convert nion-believers through war!

I guess you don't see the difference. That's why I've given up hope for this country. With the Left about to seize power, they submitt and do whatever the Muslims tell them, like the good Dhimmis they are.
I'm leaving this country in a few years when it's conquered by Muslims and the Chinese. With help from the Left.

I'm leaving this country in a few years when it's conquered by Muslims and the Chinese. With help from the Left.
Posted by: Red Wolf at October 15, 2006 01:07 AM

With an attitude like yours i say...Bye Bye now. Don't hurt yourself playing with the fire thats going to come back around on you and bite you in the ass if you don't stop thinking like the Mongols. This is the 21 century by the way.

The comments from codas and Sir Loin are points of view that are impossible to reconcile with history and facts of human nature. This is why I said thank you and went to bed.

Just as stubborn as the "Christian religious right," is in their worldview, so is the secular postmodernist left, as demonstrated by Sir loin and codas. Fine, I just wanted clarfication of this point.

The fundamentalist muslims' worldview is also in play, and if Sir Loin wants to believe their deeply held convictions are a matter of negotiation, fine...however even he must admit that is only his opinion and not a point of fact.

When and if Sir Loin's worldview dominates American foreign policy, the results will be seen. Appeasement with an entity, whether a single person or group, must be carefully applied. The freedoms Americans hold are subject to the realities of the world and defended only when willing people agree to defend them. If one appeases the wrong group or person, for the sake of calm and "non-violence," then the long term consequences can be dire.

So, we'll see. I hold no faith in an ideology that believes people will do what is right only becasue there are economic and other comfort "incentive" that will entice them to do so. People, without redemption, are only for their own self preservation and will subjugate and persecute others based on their own worldview, applying the differences they deem justified whether they be differences in religion, race, intelligence or other superficial criteria. This is where I believe the postmodernist philosophy will fail miserably and why I do not support individuals who hold passionately to such a worldview.

Codas,

Red Wolf is a classic, isn't he/she/it?

Your discussion with this monster was masterful, and the label "terrorist" that you applied to this amoral pack animal was absolutely appropriate. His bizzare twist on the seperation of church and state was chilling. I'd like to ask cee how he views these earnest statements from his de fact ideological ally.

This has been my conclusion from having discussions like these (although my recent discussions have been with Wolfie's relatively more circumspect and polished associates Crash and cee): the dregs of the Republican base - those that still remain loyal to the Dear Leader - at heart crave a redemptive race-war. They mix ancient history, cardboard cut-out "realism", and bronze-age mythology in their cluttered rationales advocating the conventional or nuclear annihilation of entire populations of innocent - albeit increasingly angry and uneasy -muslims. They willfully ignore clear evidence that they are wrong, or that there are more ameliorative options available that all-out war - because they literally desire this war (not for themselves, of course - this is the age of vicarious televised carnage - still certified 100% redemptive!).

I have a personal question: you've stated that you are Jewish. Do you find the things that I have written to be anti-semetic, as stated ad nauseum by our freind, the glorified coyote?

cee,

You've got a lot of balls to call me a "postmodernist":

"'Attacks on human Dignity'? What does that mean? It's very vague." George W. Bush

"The weapons are in the Bagdhad/Tikrit area, and to the North, South, East, and West, somewhat" Donald Rumsfeld

"No one could have imagined..." used by Condi, W. Cheney, Rummy in application to a variety of situations which had been fully known and understood sometimes for years on individual to institutional levels.

Cee,

please look up the word "postmodernist" and then explain how it is my side, and the wholly unnaccountable, entirely unfixed-in-reality right wing that are not the champion existentialists. Are you telling me that people who can read the admonitions of Christ on the one hand, and then on the other wage a precariously rationalized mechanized war in which our forces kill 30 innocent civilians for every one enemy fighter killed (2004 Christian Science Monitor study)are not moral relativists?

Be honest with yourself.

corrected version of post above:

Cee,

please look up the word "postmodernist" and then explain how it is my side, and not the wholly unnaccountable, entirely unfixed-in-reality right wing that are not the champion existentialists. Are you telling me that people who can read the admonitions of Christ on the one hand, and then on the other wage a precariously rationalized mechanized war in which our forces kill 30 innocent civilians for every one enemy fighter killed (2004 Christian Science Monitor study)are not moral relativists?

Be honest with yourself.

"The freedoms Americans hold are subject to the realities of the world and defended only when willing people agree to defend them. If one appeases the wrong group or person, for the sake of calm and "non-violence," then the long term consequences can be dire."

Irony , irony , irony. That's right cee, people who sneak around murdering with box-cutters and hair gel are poised to destroy the Bill of Rights and render the monuments of the National Mall to rubble. Of what sad, soiled tissue paper is our national fabric woven?

Meanwhile, we are being told that these threats posed by disaffected third world teenagers wired with explosives require us to extend to our government's executive branch plenary powers to keep us safe - to relegate the judicial and legislative branches to insignificance and impotence whenever he sees fit; to wage war where he and his corporate boardroom cabinet percieve a problem. Separation of Powers? Checks and Balances? These are fine little fancies for quiet spring afternoons, but if it looks like an American might get hurt - they've gotta go! Right?

Who's appeasing who for a little chimerical "safety"?

so is the secular postmodernist left, as demonstrated by Sir loin and codas. Fine, I just wanted clarfication of this point.

Posted by: cee at October 15, 2006 08:04 AM

Cee. How many times do I have to say it. I am not an atheist. I also am not Jewish Sir loin but thank you for apreciating my pain in trying to speak here sometimes. I am a Byzantine Catholic. For those that don't know we are a sort of an off shoot of eastern orthodox christians who went under the pope of Rome. Why I say this is because I am not a secularist cee. I know it is tough to think that someone who doesn't agree with your brand of christian and your brand of politics could believe in God. Well I do. It is for that very reason that I could never accept the war we are fighting which my pope among others including Bush's own church stated was not justified. I will not concede that because bush or some evengelicals believe that Christ is talking to them and telling them to attack innocent human beings that I am Godless. How anyone can claim to love God and think he is doing him a favor by killing women and children is beyond me. It is a fact of war that the ones who get hurt the most are the ones that get in the way. Don't tell me how horible the Muslims are and they deserve it because they support terrorists. I live in America and I have rights but I cant change who controls this country any more than they can their country. So i shouls want to see us kill hundreds of thousands of humans because it is what Jesus would want. Not my Jesus. You answer for your own bloodlust. Revenge is mine sayeth the Lord. Oh but we don't want to hear that, do we. The Bible and Gods word forbids the very things that are supposed to make you Christian in this country. The Bible states that we are not to put our trust in armys and military might but in him. Did you not read that part? I don't like talking about my faith to others who don't share it because I don't impose it on others. I know that Christ will judge on our actions not in what we "think" we believe. If you think it is okay to kill little girls and old ladies because the terrorist want to do that to us, you are the one who needs to do some soul searching. How many verses, how many times does God say it. "With their lips they honor me, but their heart is far from me." "You can't say you love God and hate your brother." Yes, I am an American. However, it is because I am not a secularist atheist that I know I am a creature of love created for that purpose. If it gets me killed than I have an example already set for me in Christ. Why don't you know that?

I am an athiest, and I believe that Christ arrived at his message of peace and earthly forgiveness through the same exercise of empathy, logic, and informal sociology that convinces secular humanists of essentially the same truths today.

The "postmodernism" that cee hypocritcally labels us with is what allows these "conservative Christians" with whom we've been arguing to turn the Bible into "Pulp Fiction" when it suits them.

Don't make me get involved and smack you lefties down with irrefutable logic and facts. Pragmatism is the only ideology one needs to use. References to one's religion in the mission of pointing out hypocrisy is so...well...easy, and can be used right back at you. And no liberals, your inconsistancies don't make you "nuanced", they make you, at the very least, intellectually dishonest, but probably more appropriately characterized as self-disillusionment and indoctrinated.

So go ahead. Say something stupid. Hell say anything, it will most certainly be ridiculous and at the very least, amuse me. I am that guy that slows down to look at the wreck, the guy who loves to watch people making an ass of themselves. That is why I contribute to the ratings of Countdown. I can't keep my eyes off of such ingrained stupidity. I hope he never gets cancelled. Hell I am going to start tivo'ing each episode and then burn them to DVD for my own little time capsule. This way my children will be able to witness what it was like in "Olbyland" because in the future, the name, Olbermann, will be synonymous with canard and will be listed in Webster's. I will have the true origin of this word and be able to teach my children the importance of honesty, the danger of ignorance, and the value of restaint in the face of such ignorance.

Olby thank you, in advance, for your glorious downfall. I can feel you approaching the climax of this story and the way down will be "Must See TV".

Godspeed you inglorious douchebag. Godspeed.

Pragmatism?

"staying the course" when your own intelligence agencies risk their livelihoods by telling you in one voice that your strategy has unequivocally been strengthening your enemies?

A huge prerequisite of "pragmatism" would seem to be forming an honest and complete-as-possible perception of the problems you are facing. How else is one to formulate a "pragmatic" response?

I asked twice last night, when you seemed actually interested in earnest debate and less concerned with the fortunes and foibles of media personalities, what your perceptions are of the motives and sources of the antipathy drected at us from our fundamentalist Islamic enemies.

"Crash... I can't say that I've been able to form a very good idea of your explanation in this regard. What is your answer to my question from a previous post: Do you think they simply "hate us for our freedom"? Is being "evil" their sole rational for engaging in savage terrorism?"

I'm getting the impression that the prospect of answering this question makes you a little queazy.

"Do you think they simply "hate us for our freedom"? Is being "evil" their sole rational for engaging in savage terrorism?"

I didn't answer the question because I wasn't around. I have already addressed this question anyway. The masses have been indoctrinated through the guise of religion to blame the West for all their troubles. And yes, those doing the indoctinating for their own stability and personal gain are evil. This job of disillusionment is made all that much easier by framing it in the context of believer vs. infidel. The fact that someone actually gives creedance to such a context makes that person hate "Freedom". The freedom to be a non-believer or a believer in some other faith. The fact that they don't recognize their aversion to freedom is irrelevant to me. They have shown an incredible antipathy towards progress, which is backed up by centuries upon centuries of obstinance. The hope of these indoctrinated people accepting new mores en mass is so remote that the law of diminishing returns would correctly suggest starting over.

Sometimes you have to put a horse down.

Next

On another note. Who would you start? Rex Grossman or Carson Palmer.

References to one's religion in the mission of pointing out hypocrisy is so...well...easy, and can be used right back at you.
Posted by: Crash at October 15, 2006 11:28 AM

I agree, thats why i said I dont want to impose my religion. It's not really a fair argument to get "The Big Guy" involved and on your side is exactly what I fear doing to someone else. It's just the constant harping on "secular" which lets face, in some eyes means no damn good, "Socialist" here comes Lenin, " Postmodernist, well I guess I don't read as much as i should and don't really know what that means. I'd rather leave God out of it altogether when it come to politics because it's a dirty business and nobody has got holiness as one of their traits.

On another note, If we started identifying our football base I think we could really get a good fight going because if someone here is worried about if Carson Palmer starts they must be a fan of the "hated" Bengals" is what we call yuns from these parts.

Crash,

Your definition of the propagandization of the Islamic masses by their leaders applies very neatly to the modus operandii of your own leaders. What are "They hate our freedom" and "they are Evil" but the scratching of manichaean lines in the sand. You pretend to disavow these simplistic chariatures by saying it is merely their leaders who are evil - but what's the diference?

You continue to avoid my most salient point, offered again, and again, and again: that the "pragmatic" methodlogy being used by our administration to suposedly combat the fundamentalist threat has been declared by authority after authority to be worse than useless - it is actually making our enemies stronger and gaining them support throughout the world.

You appear to be recommending, along with the rabid Red Wolf, a drastic escallation of these failed, aggressive strategies - is that the case?

Grossamn, Palmer? That's hockey, right?

"You appear to be recommending, along with the rabid Red Wolf, a drastic escallation of these failed, aggressive strategies - is that the case?"

Yahtzee!!!!

We should have applied the "Powell Doctrine" more appropriately. A complete and overwhelming use of force and zero tolerance for insurgancy with said force. No warnings to towns harboring insurgants and absolutely no sanctuary for these people. Basically, the same tactics used in the de-nazification of post WWII Germany. If these tactics are deemed to harsh by those making the relevant decisions, then we should have never used force in the first place. Unfortunately we are there. This fighting with "kid gloves" may indeed prove more disasterous than doing nothing, but doing nothing is so unappealing and its advocates so thoroughly misguided in their ferver, that I cannot, in good conscience, condone their policy. I therefore, regard this action as much more prudent a course, than sitting by and continuing to let a wound fester. In a choice between action with an outcome unknown and inaction with an outcome so readily apparent, I choose action. But then again, I always double down on 11 and hit 16 against a dealer showing 7 or higher.

You know, Crash, I agree almost entirely with your last post as written. When using the military; intentional protraction of the conflict is an unforgivable crime against both the enemy and our own forces, as well as other entities in the general region struggling to remain stable.

Of course, we should never have invaded Iraq in the first place, seeing as how they never attacked us in any way, and clearly did not have the capacity or intent to do so in the forseeable future. In that light, your advocacy of nuclear or conventional genocide in order to acheive closure is reprehensible. Our leadership, Rep and Dem, needs to be severely winnowed out through war-crimes prosecutions as part the pay-back we owe that part of the world.

However, "fighting with kid gloves" is clearly not what's not going on there - we're in an undirected, misconcieved occupation, and 300,000 to 600,000 dead is a very high death rate for such a conflict. As I cited before, a Christian Science Monitor study found that our forces have been killing 30 innocent civilians for each individual enemy fighter killed.

No, the conflict isn't dragging on because of indecisiveness or equivocation - its being prolonged because its a goldmine of a profit center for our leadership and their associates - the same reason it was started.

Codas,
If you're a Byzantine Catholic how can yoyu defend Muslims? They defeated your ancestors at Manzikert and turned Anatolia from a Christian Greek nation to a Turkish Islamic land. You have no pride in your heritage. John Tzimisces and Basil 2 would spit on you.

Sir Filet Mignon,
We are fighting with kid gloves cause Bush is a sucker and a chump. If we had FDR or Truman we would've mobilized the full resources of America and Iran,Iraq, Syria and Afghanistran would,ve been bombed backed into the stone age. Leftists triors like Kieth Olbermann would be locked uped and executed. That's why America is finished.

"If we had FDR or Truman we would've mobilized the full resources of America and Iran,Iraq, Syria and Afghanistran would,ve been bombed backed into the stone age."

Come on, Red Wolf, its not like a sharp student of history like you to make this kind of mistake! Truman and FDR wouldn't have given this trumped up piracy the time of day - for one thing both of them would have slapped Dick Cheney in jail for life for war-profiteering. No, I think you must have meant; "if we had Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl, the 10th century Toltec emperor and conqueror ...etc, etc." That would be a far more appropriate dream-time analogy from centuries past.

Sir Loin and codas,

Sir Loin summed up postmodernism in the following statement:

"I am an athiest, and I believe that Christ arrived at his message of peace and earthly forgiveness through the same exercise of empathy, logic, and informal sociology that convinces secular humanists of essentially the same truths today."

So, Sir Loin must now ask, "If there is no universal knower, no God to be accountable to, then I am the center of everything. I must, however, decide on what grounds I can claim to know things. How do I decide what is true or false?" To do that, as philosopher Jurgen Habermit claimed , Sir Loin would have to appeal to further knowledge, which also needs to be verified by further knowledge, ad infinitum.

Put simply, Habermit claim is that knowledge has collapsed under its own weight. It is no longer possible to know things with any certainty. It is not possible to talk about facts or truth because, even if they exist, it is not possible to know them. When Nietzsche said 'God is dead' at least part of what he was saying was that we cannot base knowledge of God on any ground that we can know, which renders God (and everything else) ultimately unknowable.

The only logical deduction for the athiest is that he or she can never be absolutely certain. From that incertainy comes all of the other aspects of postmodernism that has grown like a pernicious cancer in our society. One is philosophical pluralism, by which I mean not the multicultural nature of society, but the idea that all ideas and truth claims must be treated with equal respect, because there is no way to evaluate their respective merits. In the area of religion this leads to claims that all religions and none must have roughly equal access to truth and salvation because the world would be unfair otherwise. Do you agree with this conclusion codas?

Second is relativism, the idea that no claim to truth can appeal to anything objective to determine its validity. There is no God who says true or false. Therefore all truth claims are only relative to other truth claims. The biggest implication of this is that there is no such thing as authority in life.

Lastly, people are now suspicious of metanarratives. This leads to the rather bizarre situation in which a claim that something is true can be dismissed simply because it claims to be true. We have reached a situation in Western culture where truth itself is viewed with such suspicion that people may automatically assume that truth claims are nothing more than power plays.

This blog is constantly participating in the above techniques, and I have been guilty of it myself. Sir Loin only sees the fuzzy morality in others who claim certitude, mocks it, then offers only selected facts regarding "pragmatic" solutions to war and peace. Good luck with that, Sir Loin, because it will never reach a conclusion using the postmodern paradigm you have to use as an athiest.

No, what I said was Secular Humanism; all the jibber-jabber you provided afterward was pristine Straussian postmodernism, which masquerades as "the wisdom of the ancients". In other words, the belief that soceties need big lies (e.g. religion; nationaism; etc) with which everyone is to be inculcated in order for healthy civic conditions to prevail. This is a very popular perspective among well-connected liars.

cee recoils from "the idea that all ideas and truth claims must be treated with equal respect, because there is no way to evaluate their respective merits."

Good news! I hear they've come up with a couple of tricks to deal with this little hitch; they're called Socratic Dialogue and the Scientific Method. They say you don't even need to get your initial premises out of a big black book any more!

cee, you're a piece of work. First you identify the Islamic populations rallying against us as having been misled by fundamentalist religious leaders - basically forcing a cataclysmic "clash of civilizations", with which you propose nuclear or conventional genocide as a solution, because, as you say, these leaders are "evil" and the people are too completely inculcated in their belief system to ever change their disposition toward us.

Now you bitch about the fact that the time is past when a "claim to truth can appeal to anything objective to determine its validity" and that "There is no God who says true or false."

Buddy, the war you described above is apparently driven by people who feel just the way you do!

Sir Loin,

First, you overlook something very basic to our differences.

I think I spoke with another athiest in this forum about two weeks ago regarding the application of human higher brain functioning through philosophy and scientific method to the natural world. I emphatically stated that I personally have no problem with using my frontal lobe...I am a scientist by training, a physician. I employ the scientific method to make my living. Surely my patients appreciate that I do not dance around a camp fire in order to help them recover from their influenza.

However Sir Loin, you deny a supernatural. The professors I studied under at university, as a biology major, were only concerned with the natural world as well. That is a fine, a valuable and greatly useful discipline. I know of a supernatural world and it is as real to me as this material crudeness around me. Revelation to the spiritual has been just as important to me as a healer as has been my medical training.

With your foundation of only the provable/the natural, that is all there "is." Philosophy and science are the tools you use to search for truth. Science has null, infinity or undefined while philosophy has limits of language and comprehension. They are useful for so much in the unpredictable world that surrounds us, but I believe, (and yes, that little black book which includes The Torah you know so little about, has lead me to this conclusion), a greater kingdom falls outside this physical one. BTW, Christ spoke more about the kingdom of God (in all of its metaphors) than the poor, money, hell or any other issues some Christians or non-Christians say He concentrated on. Read the gospels for this information (although I am concerned in your mentioning, "bronze age myths," you actually meant that Jesus Christ was a myth). Codas should ask you about that one since he expressed a belief in God and Christ.

So, if you cannot understand where I have my basis of truth, at least do not degenerate into ridicule and snobbish dismissal (your last post at 9:11 PM) . After all, secular humanists are supposed to be compassionate after arriving at such perfection through reflection upon the sunset and/or socratic dialogue with their intellectual equals.

Oh and about the next post Sir Loin at 9:23 PM....

I do not believe that muslims know the truth. They do not see Christ as the Son of God and do not hold to Him as their salvation. They believe in a lie that not only misleads on how mankind is redeemed but also have a false teaching about God...who they call Allah.

God, through His Son Jesus Christ is the only source of truth....oh....and Christ said that as well....But I know you think Christ may be based on a bronze age myth, so scratch that.

Robert,
I think you missed the point of my post. I was responding to WelfareisSlavery's post at 9:38 pm, October 13. He claimed a bunch of horrible things would happen if the Democrats were in power. I pointed out that none of those horrible things happened when President Clinton was in power. He claimed there would be no death penalty if Democrats were in power. I pointed out the death penalty exists in Democratic-run states. It also existed under President Clinton. In fact, he made sixty additional crimes death-penalty eligible on his watch. I wasn't claiming Clinton did everything on his own. I only meant to point out that we have had Democrats in power before without all those terrible things Welfare mentioned happening.

However, you seem to be going way too far in discrediting Clinton. To read your post one would think the U.S. President has no more power than a janitor in your child's school.

CompStat was begun in the NYPD. I'm not sure how quickly or how wide it has spread, even now. I think crediting a nationwide crime drop for a system used in one city is a bit simplistic. President Clinton's 1994 Crime Prevention Bill, Brady Bill, COPS program, community policing, etc. were national policies which helped crime prevention.

I didn't miss Reagan's 1986 Tax Reform Act. I don't see what that has to do with anything I said. Again, I was responding to WelfareisSlavery. (S)he said "Dems win mid-terms in landslide. Yep everybody wants ... high tax rates." Hearing conservatives complain about the "high tax rates" under Clinton, I assumed (s)he was referring to that. Thus I pointed out the economy boomed despite those "high tax rates." However, the top tax rates have been much higher than under Clinton and the economy still boomed. From 1917-1922 and from 1932-1986 the top tax rate was at or above 50%. I think you'll agree the economy boomed at periods during those times.

I wasn't blaming Bush for the terrorist attacks. I was responding to WelfareisSlavery. (S)he said "Dems win mid-terms in landslide. Yep everybody wants ... muslim attacks." Maybe if you would look at both sides as you claim to, you'd see that.

I agree with you on illegal immigration. However, I'd point out that many of the people using the ER as a free clinic probably are American citizens without health insurance. It's too bad no one has ever come up with a way to deal with that. You'd think some country or some politician would have some idea to cover all our citizens.

You seem confused by the estate tax. I got the 2% figure from the I.R.S.
Reminder: Most relatively simple estates (cash, publicly-traded securities, small amounts of other easily-valued assets, and no special deductions or elections, or jointly-held property) with a total value under $1,000,000 do not require the filing of an estate tax return. The amount was $1,500,000 in 2004 and 2005. For 2006 through 2008, the amount is raised to $2,000,000.

Q: What is the Estate Tax?

The Estate Tax is a tax on your right to transfer property at your death. It consists of an accounting of everything you own or have certain interests in at the date of death (Refer to Form 706). The fair market value of these items is used, not necessarily what you paid for them or what their values were when you acquired them. The total of all of these items is your "Gross Estate." The includible property may consist of Cash and Securities, Real Estate, Insurance, Trusts, Annuities, Business interests and other assets.

Once you have accounted for the Gross Estate, certain deductions (and in special circumstances, reductions to value) are allowed in arriving at your "Taxable Estate." These deductions may include Mortgages and other Debts, Estate Administration expenses, property that passes to Surviving Spouses and Qualified Charities. The value of some operating business interests or farms may be reduced for estates that qualify.

After the net amount is computed, the value of lifetime taxable gifts (beginning with gifts made in 1977) is added to this number and the tax is computed. The tax is then reduced by the available unified credit. Presently, the amount of this credit reduces the computed tax so that only total taxable estates and lifetime gifts that exceed $1,000,000 will actually have to pay tax. In its current form, the estate tax only affects the wealthiest 2% of all Americans.

Q: What deductions are available to reduce the Estate Tax?

1. Marital Deduction: One of the primary deductions for married decedents is the Marital Deduction. All property that is included in the gross estate and passes to the surviving spouse is eligible for the marital deduction. The property must pass "outright." In some cases, certain life estates also qualify for the marital deduction.
2. Charitable Deduction: If the decedent leaves property to a qualifying charity, it is deductible from the gross estate.
3. Mortgages and Debt.
4. Administration expenses of the estate.
5. Losses during estate administration.

Mr Filet,
"Truman and FDR wouldn't have given this trumped up piracy the time of day"

They would mobilzed the full resources of this nation and wiped those countries off the map.
You Underestimate the Jihadis the same way the Romans and Persians dismissed them as bandits!

Mr Filet,
"Truman and FDR wouldn't have given this trumped up piracy the time of day"

They would mobilzed the full resources of this nation and wiped those countries off the map.
You Underestimate the Jihadis the same way the Romans and Persians dismissed them as bandits!

In the area of religion this leads to claims that all religions and none must have roughly equal access to truth and salvation because the world would be unfair otherwise. Do you agree with this conclusion codas?
Posted by: cee at October 15, 2006 07:38 PM

I have to come back to scripture on that. When Christ said, "I am the truth and the life. No man come to the father but by me" I know some take that as meaning you must be a christian and accept him as your savior. If you look at what it really says though is that he is the one who makes the choice who, when and how someone comes to God. It doesn't say you must be a christian. If I trust him then I know that he will judge and he will decide based on the measure of truth that he himself has revealed to an individual. I am trusting that he is not throwing bad little boys and girls who are not christian in hell. He knows the weights and the balances of a persons soul. Muslim, Hindu, whatever. Yes. Even atheist.
Did he come only for jews? Why do we think being a christian would be the only way to him then. That is spirtual arrogance.

Cplbert,
Why do you care about people passing on money when they die?
It's thier money not the governments. You're obviously a Communist that belives in reditribution of wealth. I don't. People's money is their own and it's none of my business.

Cplbert,
Why do you care about people passing on money when they die?
It's thier money not the governments. You're obviously a Communist that belives in reditribution of wealth. I don't. People's money is their own and it's none of my business.

codas,
As an Eastern Christian, I don't understand why you defend Muslims. A people that committed genocide against your ancestors?
Islam advocates submission to Allah(the Moon God)
and those who don't submitt must be ahnihalated!

Keith Olbermann should be charged with treason like Adam Ghadane! He should be publicly executed on national tv!

"Attacks on civilians (Muslims or non Muslims) at any time, peace time or war time, is forbidden in Islam. Any Muslim who attacks the children, women, sick and ordinary civilians of a community, regardless of their religious orientation, commits a serious sin and crime. Killing or hurting civilians because the American army kills indiscriminately at times cannot be justified. Muslims never react to an evil act by committing evil themselves."

"Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) has given very clear guidelines to Muslims regarding wars. A Muslim must not do the following at any time including war time (Jihad);

1. Do not kill or hurt women and children even if they are from the enemy

2. Do not kill the sick and elderly people even if they are from the enemy

3. Do not destroy hospitals

4. Do not cut down green tress

5. Do not contaminate water sources

6. Do not destroy the places of worship of other religions" - Syed B. Soharwardy, Founder of Muslims Against Terrorism (MAT)

In fact, if you read the Qu'ran, it recognizes both Christianity and Judaism as religions and calls them "people of the book". The Qu'ran advocates that Muslims, Christians and Jews should meet on common ground - the montheistic belief.

Anon Jihadi,
Why did the Muslims launch a Jihad aginst the Roman Empire, Persia and Spanish Visigoths in the 7th Century?

Red Wolf,
The people who own the money are dead. The people who inherit the money didn't earn the money. If they had earned the money, it would have been their's in the first place. Why should certain people collect huge sums of money taxfree simply because someone they know died? People who pay the estate tax still collect a lot of money. Ask the Kennedy's, Rockefeller's, Vanderbilt's etc. if they are hurting for money.
You could make the argument a spouse "earned" the money through being a spouse. But the spouse already has a marriage deduction so they aren't affected anyway.

I wanted to quote Jefferson on inheritance. According to you, he was a commie too.
"The earth belongs in usufruct to the living." "The dead have neither powers nor rights over it."
"The portion occupied by an individual ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society."

Colbert,
It's not your or the government's money. Who cares. Mind your business and stop hating!

Hey anonymous,
May Mohamad(shit be upon him) the genocidal pedophile burn him hell! Allah the moon god can eat my shit!

Hey Colbert go to Cuba since you like redistibution so much!

Hey Colbert go to Cuba since you like redistibution so much!

Red Wolf,
Jefferson said it belongs to the society after the owner of property dies. By your logic, no money belongs to the government. There should be no taxes at all. Which means no government at all.
I forgot to adress the idiot who mentioned the estate tax is evil because it's "double taxation."
Most taxes are forms of double (at least) taxation. Assuming you pay income tax, any sales tax or additional tax you ever pay is a double taxation.

Colber,

It's not the government's money. If I becam rich and died and wanted to pass on the money to my offsprings, I have a right too. I belive in taxation. We should have high tariffs on imports. Let foreigners pay for us!

Red Wolf,
Aren't you embarrassed by your idiocy? Cee and Sir Loin of Beef were having an actual discussion before, involving entire paragraphs of thought. You continually interjected the same one-line question. It reminded me of two adults having a conversation and the little kid keeps tugging on his mommy's shirt, "Mommy, can I watch Sesame Street?"

Red Wolf,
You can pass on your wealth to your offspring. If it is above a certain level, it is taxed. They still collect the majority of the wealth.
When we place high tariffs on imports, we American consumers end up paying more for imported products. The foreigners don't pay for us when we have high imports.

Colbert,
So you support this globalization Free trade crap. If we had high Tariffs, people would buy home grown products.

Actually cee, Christ was an Iron-age social reformer. He used his influence, charisma, and unique message to convey that abject slavery to the privileged was not the ultimate fate of humanity; and the bankers, preachers, cops and soldiers killed him for it. After his death, scrofluous cyphers and religious bureaucrats noted the continued resonnance of his message - still threatening their bullshit-based power, so they wrote ghost-stories and concocted pointless but intriguing hallucenogenic narratives around him to fuck with the heads of the masses.

Through the medium of the 2nd century "Fasces News" they swamped his message of mutual humanity ("give all you own to the poor and follow me")with one promulgating continued earthly subjugation ("you need to follow these rules as presented by my preisthood if you want to follow me - and don't give them any lip while you're at it or you'll be one sorry peon").

Basically, they made him - their most dangerous foe - into a central component of the "big lie" that gave them power and kept the people tractible, and that you feel is so important to society's survival. That nasty trick is the same "ancient wisdom" that Irving Kristol, Newt Gingrich, Bill Bennett and others of our seedy philosopher royalty learned from that twisted worshipper of manipulation, Leo Strauss.

I'm fascinated in that you philosophical schpeil a number of posts above indicates that you actually understand this, yet subsequent posts show that you uncritically embrace your own inculcated supernatural cosmology as being the only "real" example of such. How do you do that?

Red Wolf,
I don't believe in it as we don't have free trade. I was explaining facts. NAFTA was Bush's baby. The Republicans support free trade agreements even though calling them free trade is a joke.

Sir Loin,
So Islam was a great religion right? As always the left attacks Christianity and defends Islam!

Sir Loin,
So Islam was a great religion right? As always the left attacks Christianity and defends Islam!

Go back to licking your own hairy nutsack, wolfie.

Colbert,
Clinton and the Dems supported free trade too. That's why I detest both parties!

Colbert,
Clinton and the Dems supported free trade too. That's why I detest both parties!

All religion is fiction. And a lot of it - particularly that unlucky enough to be adhered to in powerful state-level societies - gets commandeered by shify bastards to enslave the wills of everybody else.

Red Wolf,

I would laugh, if the spectacle wasn't pathetic. I offer you an opportunity to actually engage in an argument rather than spout inane rhetoric. instead, you just spout the same old lines.

So when you decide to have a real discussion instead of this "Crush! Kill! Destroy!" kick you're on, let the rest of the world know, m'kay?

Sir Loin,

You asked....

" [you] uncritically embrace your own inculcated supernatural cosmology as being the only "real" example of such. How do you do that?"

Because I allow myself not to be limited to my fallen and selfish will, continually looking to myself for answers do I allow God's revelation to occur.

Codas and Sir Loin...I have included some other parts of Christ's teachings that do not fit your cramped perspective using basic postmodernism thinking (yes codas, you have slipped down the slippery slope along with Sir Loin):

1) John 2: 13-25 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"

17His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."[Psalm 69:9]

18Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"

19Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."

20The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" 21But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

23Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name. 24But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. 25He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.

2) John 3: 1-21 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."
3In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

4"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"

5Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

9"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.

10"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."

3) John 4:21-24 (end of the conversation with the Samaritan women at the well) Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

4) John 5: 41-47 "I do not accept praise from men, 42but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. 43I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God[d]?

45"But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. 46If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"

5) Matthew 10: 11-end "Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. 12As you enter the home, give it your greeting. 13If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. 14If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. 15I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. 16I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

17"Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. 18On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. 19But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

21"Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 22All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 23When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

24"A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. 25It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub,[c] how much more the members of his household!

26"So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29Are not two sparrows sold for a penny[d]? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. 30And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

32"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.

34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her motherinlaw—
36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'[e]

37"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

40"He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. 41Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. 42And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."

I can go into more of Jesus' teachings that have to do with his stating His exclusivity, His diety and His reason for coming, but Robert and J$ will e-mail me for posting too long of posts. I would be happy to continue this very interesting conversation via e-mail.

I'll end with a great observation Jehovah revealed to his very imperfect servant, King David:

Psalm of David 14:1-3

The fool [a] says in his heart,
"There is no God."
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.
2 The LORD looks down from heaven
on the sons of men
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.

3 All have turned aside,
they have together become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.

The is only one Truth. Truth can not be forced upon another person, just ask them to be open to Him. He is the Truth (remember codas....NO translation of the verse you mentioned from John 14 has "a truth," from the original Greek....it is "the")

3 All have turned aside,
they have together become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.

Cee, does that verse continue with, exept those who are born again and call themselves Christian?
Jesus himself was born onto and was part of a religious community. Whe he encountered a Samaritan buy there standards he was encountering someone who didn't share their beleif system. Yet he told the story of how the good samaritan did what was right in Gods eyes. He also stated many times in so many words that it was not the one who calls him Lord but the one who does the will of his father that is justified. I know what your saying about relativism, the current pope just wrote a big bunch of stuff about it,but what about the part where Paul says there is no more Greek, male or female on and on. Gog knows who's his is what I think. Just because they say the right words, or the wrong ones, he knows who is responding to him. As far as "a" truth, he said he was "the truth" if I mistyped it I kmow what it says. HE IS THE DECIDER not bush or the evengelicals or my pope. No one who loves mother or father more than THE TRUTH is worthy of him. You can decide what the truth is that's not for me to tell anyone but it does say that God gives a measure of truth to everyone. He knows what he made and how to reveal himself. And he does it to people and in ways that are outside our narrow perspectives. I will take my chances on how I treat my fellow man over having a spiritual awakening that the born againers lean too much on I think. We could debate what born again means I know. My mom always taught me to just pray that Gods will be done and then whatever happens ask for his help in dealing with it. I pray that God is there for all who call upon him in truth, God knows the motives.

Sorry for the bad typing and spelling in previous post. I just woke up!

cee your tautology proves my point. You're saying essentially: My cosmology is the only true one! Look - it says so itself right here!"

This is precisely the same perspective held and acted upon by the Muslim Imams that preach against the west. Is that why you want to kill them along with all of their people?

Assuming that Jesus actually existed, which I believe (although for no explicit reason) he probably did; and assuming that these are actually his teachings - which is far from certain, seeing as how the entire bible is a group effort edited massively over the centuries for political reasons - then there are still infinite ways in which such writings can be interpreted. Every look at it like a puzzle, in which everytime Jesus refers to himself he really means all of mankind? Why not?

- after all, the little neocon philosopher kings that you follow (rhetorically)in this war think that a philosopher should never say what he means right out front. Everything expressed to the masses, according to their small but self-congradulatory minds, needs to be couched in a lie. Read Strauss, their poobah.

codas,

Jesus was clear about who He is....He called Himself

The Truth
The Son of God
The Christ
The Bread of Life
The Light of the World
The Gate
The Good Shepherd
The Resurrection
The Life
The True Vine

And finally He says, "I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am!"

At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

Remember what God said His name was to Moses? "I AM" Pretty deep stuff, deeper than Sir Loin wants to admit to.

Codas, I do not claim Christ's exclusivity, He did that Himself. Sir Loin will continue to claim only a historical Jesus, based on no historical document, who was changed into something He did not claim to be by his deluded followers. Fine, we can argue about that all day, however, the head of your church, Christ, Himself in the text pronounces His exclusivity.
How do you reconcile that with what you just posted? Do you not think these words are true?

When Jesus said all that stuff he teaching by example - "If I, a mere sweaty, eating, drinking, defecating human being can be the son of God, then so can all of you. If, when you do something rotten to someone else you are magically hurting me, then why can't all of you accept and welcome this same level of empathy".

At least I've always hoped that's what he meant. otherwise its just another bullshit case of self-agrandizement that people have bought hook lne and sinker.

cee, a Muslim could point you to any number of powerful statements in the Q'ran and say "Look; its right here. How beautiful and deep; you can't deny its truth now." Eventually the two of you would kill one another. This is the result of the big lie; people in a society remain focused upward along the social hierarchy, from where their mystical brain food comes, and if the little folks on the edges bump into someone from a different system, look out!

Sir Loin,

Your denigration of The Bible ("a group effort edited massively over the centuries for political reasons") is selective since I am sure in your education, you took for granted historical fact from historical documents no different in timing/authentication/preservation than the manuscripts that each book of the scriptures is based on. Be intellectually honest with yourself....you have a bias against the hebrew and christian scriptures yet "believe" say....the ancient writings of Plato about Socrates without question. Again, postmodernist thinking.

You also question my certainy of the supernatural. I already addressed that problem in observing, rhetorically, that you are incapable of addressing that issue because you deny the existence of the supernatural. Again, your alliance with codas ideologically is strange for that basic reason.

The difference between Chritianity (and I do not include Catholicism, Protestantism, or any "relgion" is my use of the term) and fundamentalist Islam is that I will gladly and peacefully exist with anyone. However, the threat on my ability to freely practice my faith is under assault by fundamentalist Islam as well as secular humanists and the pervasive use of postmodernistic philosophy now embrased by the secular west. I will support my government in keeping these freedoms, however, I will not and believe that no true Christian should forcably "convert" anyone.

Fundamentalist muslims and secular humanists on the same side.....Hatred of truth makes strage bed-fellows.

Nice try. I don't believe anything Plato wrote -he was the archetype for the neoconservatives, literally. I have merely mentioned socratic dialogue as a valid methof of debate, and it is.

Question: Have you not said in previous posts that nuclear or conventional genocide wold be a legitmate measure in yoiur "Clash of Civilizations", or am I unfairly saddling you with the ststements of someone else?

Yes Sir Loin, if a man has not allowed his fallen, evil nature to be subject to Christ's authority, he will do evil and perhaps kill someone because they will not "convert." Read the passage from John I posted above about Christ's instructions to His disciples. That is what the true Christian should follow.

The muslim's koran was written by a man who said he was sent from Allah. Mohammed died and his body was buried. Christ is God and lives.
That is the big difference and why Christianity is true and Islam is not true.

As for my/society's use of history; you are being obtuse.

Yes we have scraps of writings and hieroglyphs that give us details about what occurred centuries ago, and that's great - take them and run with them in pieceing together certain events. But when a contradictory scrap appears that begs more credence (say a scribe's note to a friend that contradicts the emperor's memorial obelisk), then historians (except maybe for the poor old hidebound bastard who pubished on the first scrap or obelisk) are happy to adjust their thinking, and often their interpretations of entre societies and regmes. It hapens continually - and when it doesn't its beause someone powerful is manipulating the process of interpretaton/dissemination.

No so with the fiction that gets enthroned as religion. People kill to keep that stuff immutable.

So your reference to Socratic Dialogue is based on what ancient writing? Did Socrates exist? Why do you believe there is such a thing as socratic dialogue?

No, I never used the words, "nuclear or conventional genocide wold be a legitmate measure." However, in the fallen world of men that is subject to the evil fallen nature, I know of war, just as I know of disease, pain, murder, greed, sexual immorality and cheating....This goes back to the moral equivalence argument we started out with, Sir Loin. The end results of all of the behavior that kills/diasables/hurts humankind is all from humankind's sinful, evil nature. And the struggle to minimize the effects of this nature is a reality as well.....the most horrible is war.

"Yes Sir Loin, if a man has not allowed his fallen, evil nature to be subject to Christ's authority, he will do evil and perhaps kill someone because they will not "convert." "

WHat about killng 30 innocent civilians in the efort to kill one enemy fighter? What about the genocide I asked about? Are you evading the question?

"No, I never used the words, "nuclear or conventional genocide wold be a legitmate measure." "

Nice dodge; sounds familiar "...we never said Saddam was an'imminent" danger"

I can answer your question even more clearly than I did at 7:26 AM.....

I live in The United States. We have a system that protects me from all kinds of sin that results from the fallen evit nature. Police protect me from crime, laws are enacted to keep me from the effects of cheating, lying and stealing from others, economic rules are in place as well.

The most important entity the community provides is security...and yes military security is a fact of life that the world has as a result of evil and the fallen nature of man. Currently, a threat to the way of life has its source in fundamentalist Islam and there has been an engagement to stop that threat. You see it as immoral, I see it as a result of man's attempt to maintain as comfortable a state of being in a fallen/evil world. I hate war, just like I hate seeing my 82 year old patient in pain from her metastatic lung cancer. I know that only Christ is the solution to both problems. One I can deal with, the other is much bigger than I am.

You are the mirror image of those you fear. I referred to your circular logic earlier (i.e. your scripture being its own proof of being more than it is), but I failed to mention the many gaps and holes in the circles perimeter through which you can squeeze your ass when matters get a little uncomfortable.

"A threat to te way of life"? where? Are you sure? Apparently sure enough to lend your poitical franchise to a program of mechanized slaughter of innocents in a distant land.

I thought we were a strong, stable society that could weather any number threats from little cells of poor people weilding box-cutters - maybe even occasionally turning the other cheek -but maybe I'm wrong.

Jesus could have admonished Simon "Yeah - go kill them! They threaten our way of life. Kill even their children so they are afraid to threaten us any more" but he didn't. Was he a "cut and run" coward and liberal commie (oops, bad example - he was a liberal commie!)...but he didn't cut and run - he stood by his beliefs that there is a better way than promoting a cycle of violence, and he gladly died for it. At least that's what the storybooks say.

"The most important entity the community provides is security"

Where is the scripture that supports this statement? It would seem to me to be completely contrary to just about everything your God's son was reported to have said. How can you be a "Christian" fundamentalist one minute then a Henry Kissinger "realist" the next?

Sir Loin, if every entire human being on this planet was not under the curse of an evil and fallen nature as outlined in the scriptures, there would be no war, murder, rape, stealing, cheating, lying, sexual immorality, etc. This is not the case. You confuse the actions of a secular government formed by the exact philosophies I mentioned in previous posts....man-made structures based on many things, to the heart of man. I do not know George Bush's heart, however, his claim to be a born again believer is used by many to frame his actions as the leader of a secular government as anti-God. Bill Clinton....I don't know his heart either, but he also claims a personal relationship with Christ and I never heard the secular left critique his use of warfare for security purposes as anti-God. The argument is misapplied and I have faith that God abhors all sin, whether it be murder or lying.

Sir Loin, in response to your 8:17 AM post....

Matthew 22 15-22

Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"

18But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, 20and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

21"Caesar's," they replied.

Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

22When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

Sir Loin, you do not even acknowledge there is a God. So to even try to understand the relationship between Him and this natural world, you have to come to a realization (or revelation) of His existence. I have. You, so far as I can read from your posts, have not.

You, Sir Loin are like the Pharisees in the above passage, your question is solely based on human reasoning and law and designed to to "trap." You personally have no intention of accepting the truth that there is a God who loves you and wants a relationship with you. As a result of your hard heart, your question only serves a rhetorial purpose and shows you have no intention of truly seeking the truth.

Codas, I do not claim Christ's exclusivity, He did that Himself. Sir Loin will continue to claim only a historical Jesus, based on no historical document, who was changed into something He did not claim to be by his deluded followers. Fine, we can argue about that all day, however, the head of your church, Christ, Himself in the text pronounces His exclusivity.
How do you reconcile that with what you just posted? Do you not think these words are true?

Posted by: cee at October 16, 2006 06:47 AM

I know all the scripture you quoted. But what does it all mean? I do feel that as believer in Christ I have an advantage in that I know he is there. I believe in his mercy. I also believe that he is Lord if I know it or not. He is the judge not my faith in him. It does not say belief in Christ is the way and the truth and the life. "22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." Did Christ ask for worship for himself or did he point to "the truth". The truth is loving your neighbor, do unto others, forgive us our sins as we forgive those that have sinned against us. Laying down your life for your friend. In other words to me that last one means putting others needs above your own. People are doing that all around you everyday that are not Christians. They do these things because they know the truth. Worshiing him in truth and in spirit is doing what's right in Gods eyes I think. The good Samaritan did it. He was not one of the chosen people so to speak and one of the verses you qoute says the worship what they do not know, but Christ knew that one knew the truth of Gods will. Another reason I believe God saves and is present in worlds outside the born again Christion world is the fact that %90 of the earth is not born again in the Christian evengelical sense. Then If I am to believe them %90 of the human race is going to eternal damnation. Question. How do you sleep knowing that? Most of the people that love and supported you in your life are rotting in hell. Praise the Lord? No cee. Love is the end of the law. If you love you will not murder, steal, turn your back on the less fortunate. I have faith that God is in control. How can I believe he would let little Jewish girls like Ann Frank rot in hells fire because she was not "saved". A little muslim boy who honors his mother and loves his neighbor burn baby burn. Then we in heaven can all give glory to God for doing such a horible thing that even Hitler couldn't have dreamed. All noncomformist suffer eternal damnation. God is your and my father. He will rebuke his child but he promised to never abandon.

In response to codas at 8:50 AM...A question first....

Do you think Noah existed and the flood as told in the first book of Moses actually happened?

My answer is yes and has brought me to the same crisis you seem to be facing. I am interested in your answer as an indication of what your beliefs are regarding the character of mankind.

Sorry. acceptance of "Fallen" and "evil", as you use them, require a priori acceptance of the things of which you are using these terms to convince me. Tautology.

You empower the state - by lending it all of your moral and political authority - to protect you from the dangers of the world, which you give causal attribution through your supernatural cosmology. Then you invoke this cosmology (A very particular, fatalistic interpretation of the belief system "Christianity")to absolve the state of any murder, pillage, and destruction it might commit in your name - things specifically proscribed by your religion's prophet. All this rationalization just to protect your way of life from a far from imminent threat?

Is our "way of life" that much better than that of those who first listened to Christ? Do you think he's looking down from his cloud and saying "Well, fuck me! When I said all that about turning the other cheek and loving your enemy, I had no idea you'd come up with TIVO and green tea lattes! Go ahead, kill whoever looks sideways at you!"

No, Sir Loin, I include myself and you in the state of affairs as they are, the tendency to do wrong. It is not just "the state," George Bush, Adolf Hitler, Mother Theresa or my 1 year old son who is guilty of sin.....we all are. Salvation through the grace of God through His Son is the way out of a state of death brought about sin.

I know you think this universe has no creator. Fine, like I said before, you are convinced of this. Without a creator, the explainations of good and evil must be made somehow...would you not agree? So I ask you.....Why does my 1 year old child hit me when I tell him, "No, do not touch that outlet?" Why do people lie to eachother and steal from eachother, and kill eachother? Please answer this question for me Sir Loin. I really want to know.

According to cee I have a "hard heart" because I don't subscribe to the mystical/bureaucratic extortion of his cosmology. I may be trying to talk him out of liscensing his government to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent people in order to make him feel safe/redeemed, but I'm the one with a "hard heart".

BTW, Jesus is God, and "I AM." He was, is and will be, so He already knew about Starbucks as He knows what is in the future. This is another point in the scriptures exclusive naturalists, because they can't get their frontal lobe around it, dismiss because it must be accepted "a priori."

Gosh, cee you win. Can't argue with that.
"He was, is and will be, so He already knew about Starbucks as He knows what is in the future. This is another point in the scriptures exclusive naturalists, because they can't get their frontal lobe around it, dismiss because it must be accepted "a priori.""

And I'm the one who's "postmodern"? what do you call it when you call for all manner of physical measures, including blowing innocent populations to smitherines, in order to defend the integrity of your physical, very secular lifestyle; but then you retreat piously into circular fairy tales when you are confronted with your hypocrisy. You are not even a fundamentalist - you're a opportunistic fundamentalist.

"I know you think this universe has no creator. Fine, like I said before, you are convinced of this. Without a creator, the explainations of good and evil must be made somehow...would you not agree? So I ask you.....Why does my 1 year old child hit me when I tell him, "No, do not touch that outlet?" Why do people lie to eachother and steal from eachother, and kill eachother? Please answer this question for me Sir Loin. I really want to know."

Does your child stop trying to touch the outlet, or stop lashing out at you only when you tell him that "Jesus wants you to stop", or when you firmly and lovingly show him that you only have his best interests at heart?

Are you insinuating that I'm out here murdering and stealing because I have not abdicated my rationality to your mythology?, or that I'm protected from my neighbors' doing likewise by a a band of warrior-monks? Neither is the case. Empathy, reason, and immagination are all one needs to develope a wonderfully servicable moral code. In fact, one structured thusly is far less liable than is a system based on didactic insistence to be hjacked by demagogues bent on murder and pillage. Just look at this argument the two of us are having - who is arging which side?

Why can't you answer my question regarding the existence of good and evil, Sir Loin? I was willing to enter your frame of reference since you are unwilling to enter mine. The question of whether the particular frame of reference even exists will not be decided, but concentrating on only questions you want to pose to bolster your argument is not intellectually honest either.

So lets cut the run-around and I'll pretend to be an athiest and enter your realm to discuss the existence of good and evil....how about that? Or we talk like Lecter proposed in Silence of the Lambs and "quid pro quo."

Sorry, I had overlooked your question because of its sheer banality. No there is no eternal standard or arbiter of "good" and "evil". Such classifications change radically throughout history, and even between the covers of your scriptures. The "Golden Rule" that figures so strongly in most religious belief systems tends to be the standard that is actually applied by mst people in most places and times. In varying contexts this rule acts as a consensus of how people within a particular social matrix agree that it is appropriate to treat one another - on top of that laws and mores are formulated to regulate the system to a greater degree.

Then some religious nutjob blows up an abortion clinic or flies a plane into a building and complicaes thing.

You are saying that there is such an eternal standard, and for simplicity you boil it down to strickly a matter of acceptance or rejection of or particular faith. I don't trust anyne who comes in with a lne like that.

... and if, for the sake of argument, there is such an eternal standard of morality (more specific than the Golden Rule, anyway), then somebody is doing a really shitty job of getting the message across. Obsolete languages, internal inconsistencies, vague allegories, and a breakdown of communications between propets in various corners of the world....

I'm not sure the individual in charge of all this is the one we need to be occupying that crucial position!.

In response to codas at 8:50 AM...A question first....

Do you think Noah existed and the flood as told in the first book of Moses actually happened?
Posted by: cee at October 16, 2006 09:11 AM

I think mankind is an evolving being. I believe like something like the flood happened. I am not a literalist. The nature of man includes self preservation as a dominant trait. Selfishness. I do believe that God included the fall of man in his plan. You don't think he actually said you can have it all, just don't touch that tree and thought they wouldn't, do you? It's part of a process of development. He doesn't want mindless slaves. He says we shall know the truth and the truth shall set us free. A lot of people think we are filthy rags and no man is good. Jesus said only God is good. But as is the case with much of scripture it also says there are good men. Jesus said "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, And the evil man bring forth evil." God knows a good man when he makes one. "Every knee shall bend and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is lord" Thats because they will know the truth. The truth sets us free. Not being a Christian. Man has evil inclinations as well as good. We have free will, at least to a certain extent. I don't fear atheists or secularists as much as I worry about people who are sure they know Gods will. I question. I doubt. I ask him for guidance and patience. I am learning and I will give the benefit of the doubt to anyone who wants truth. Trust in the lord not my own understanding of scipture or the pastors weekly sermon. The bible is great, but it confuses mankind. It is a riddle to confound the wise in their own eyes. You may think you have it all figured but you don't.

codas, that was cool! I'm going to let you hash this out with our adamant freind, because your messages are far more graceful than mine have been - but I think you and I basically agree (details notwithstanding), at least that is my impression.

Sir Loin
I have heard from too many atheist who I beleive know and understand what Jesus was trying to communicate to ever write them off as Godless. Christ knows and understands human nature. He made us rebelious. He made us inquisitive. He wants self sacrafice. Atheists do that too. So do Muslims and Hindus. God is not mocked. As a man sow, sow shall he reap. I wonder how people who read scripture and profess Christ just really don't trust him. Although I am Catholic, I don't beleive in the secret society of special spiritual people. God is the father of all. An atheist who doesn't beleive in him but does his will is justified by the truth. I don't know why "Christians" don't understand that.

codas,

"God is not mocked"

...I get the feeling you put that in there as a freindly cautionary note regarding some of my digs at cee. Rest assured that I have not been mocking his beliefs, but his certainty. God is aware of that, anyway.

Sir loin,

No. Scripture says God is not mocked. As a man sow, so shall he reap. To me that just means that he will not be fooled or manipulated. He knows the nature of a human being. What you do comes back on you. Karma. Thats what confounds over people who are supposed to be beleivers. When Cain was upset because his sacrifice was not accepted God said, "If you do well, it will be well with you. But sin is knocking at your door and you must be it's master." Again and again God communicates it's what you do not what you beleive. The modern day version of Christianity just teached that if you beleive in Christ existed and died for your sins you are saved. That sounds like the easter bunny or something to me. Do you beleive that his teaching is correct? Is turning the other cheek the way? Love your neighbor. If you hate your brother and say you love God you are mocking him. The love of God is not in you is what the very scripture that some people love to hit people over the head with says. They will justify killing in his name, as he said that people would do. That is mocking him. Taking his name in vain.

..and a good concept it is. Thanks fo rthe clarification.

I'm off to the Wal-Mart now to go take advantage of their low wages and no heath insurance so I can get cheap food and clothing and continue to exist in this materialistic country and world that I have to live in. All praise to the capitalistic lord of shoppers!

Codas, (and I hope Sir Loin is still reading),

I believe the bible clearly and consitently states God is holy. Do you agree?

If, as you stated, the truth is already present in man's heart, are we to dismiss Paul's writings then....

Romans 1:20-25 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

I have a difficult time reconciling your theory of man's relationship to a holy God and what is consistently stated in the hebrew and christian scriptures. Please comment.

Cee,

I'll get to it. I have something to say about it. A shopping I will go now.

cee,

I'm bowing out of this discussion because I don't believe any of the invisible portions of your doctrine, and you don't believe the visible parts.

End the illegal and destructive occupation of Iraq.

Bye Sir Loin...I believe "the visable parts," and struggle against them every day.

The stuggle against the perishable, the suffering, the enslavement to the idols created by humankind (idols like....self worship, naricissism, self preservation, materialism, hedonism) continues all around us.

Even as you live your life in freedom commiting sins of commission and omission against a God you say does not exist, I hope you do see the day I know you hope for, when humankind no longer has to suffer at the whims of the natural world and/or at the cruel hands of eachother. I also hope I can have honest debate with you someday where you can try exploring a frame of reference you are unfamiliar with.

Anon at 1:14 PM was me, cee.

And PS....All war is destructive......and please define what law was broken in the occupation of Iraq.

Guys I need your help...I still haven't gotten my fax from the Rove/Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter establishment and have no arguments against admitted hater Sir Loin, codas, et al

By the way, codas, I hope you were able to stay warm as you waited outside for hours in the food and toilet paper lines that wrap around block after city block. If you got frostbite in the fingers and could no longer type here, I would miss my daily indulgences in your codas-ness.

And codas, before I go for a couple of hours,

if people who do good for whatever reason (it is logical, it makes the world a better place, it makes me feel good, so I make my mom happy) and this makes us holy, why did Christ have to suffer and die for all sins once and for all? Christianity is only based on the fact of Christ's death and resurrection for our sins. I can understand Sir Loins disbelief, but your views confuse me. Your first Pope, Peter, even said,

I Peter 1:13-21

Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. 14As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

17Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. 18For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

Blood was required to pay the debt. How does one accept this gift of grace if one claims no deity, no reason for redemption?

Blood was required to pay the debt. How does one accept this gift of grace if one claims no deity, no reason for redemption?

Posted by: cee at October 16, 2006 02:32 PM

I take it from you asking me if I believe in the first book of the bible which contains Adam and Eve. We all are paying for their sin are we not. Believer or not. Why should Christs blood not benefit all mankind.

"Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God."
My faith and hope is in God, NOT in my faith itself. My faith can fail. "Be holy, because I am holy." That is something to strive for but I haven't atained it. I don't know about you but the closest thing I have ever seen to holiness was watching my wifes family go through the death of a 24 and 20 year old. A broken heart is the only holiness in this life. And I understand the apparent contradiction in what I have been saying. I believe in Christ. I don't swear by every word of the bible though. His words, Blesses are they that mourn. Did he say blessed are the Christian that mourns. Blessed are those that thirst after righteuosness. The poor in spirit. Those that are persucuted for his name sake. Maybe the ones that claim his name are the ones who sometimes do the persucuting.After all, the Jews were belivers and they missed God on account of their hardness of heart. Belief didn't save them. Christ is greater than Christianity, or the bible or my beliefs.
Jesus also stated in the last days many would come in his name "Christians?" saying he is he "The annointed one". Do not follow them. He knows that his name is used to decieve and rob widows and orphans, which by the wat is the definition of religion in the bible is it not. It says "True religion is this, care of widows and orphans and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."

connor,

I love Wal-Mart " they should pay better though" and I think that they are ahead of their time actually. I think companies should not have to be the providers of heath coverage, we should have a universal heath coverage availible to us, or should I say people like myself who are not making all that much dough. Of course that might sound like another social program to you, but think of the weight that would be off of these companies and the full time employees that they would be able to afford if they didn't have to pay for heath insurance.

codas,

Christ's shed blood does benefit all mankind, but only on those that recognize their inevitable sin and repent, all in submitting their will to Him as Lord. How can you overlook verse after verse of statements made by Christ Himself and his first followers that states this aspect of salvation clearly.

You did not comment on Paul's letter, Romans 1, which clearly defines the unsaved person's heart. I mentioned just a few before. You seem to think that God's condemnation is not justified, even asking me how I could sleep knowing there are people burning in hell.

First, I cannot believe God is unjust, mistaken or impotent. Secondly, who am I, His creation, to know His ways or judge Him. Lastly, as is described through-out the gospels, He loves us so much that he became flesh, suffered and died, without guilty, for my unrightousness. All this so I could be a part of His kingdom, His desire.

I agree with you, God does not want robots worshiping Him. But God cannot be unholy either and when the first man, Adam, willfully commited the first sin, placing his own will above God's, we inherited this nature of rebellion and selfishness against God. Jesus must indwell and in order for indwelling, the person must die to self and submit to Him.

I believe the bible clearly and consitently states God is holy. Do you agree?

If, as you stated, the truth is already present in man's heart, are we to dismiss Paul's writings then....

Posted by: cee at October 16, 2006 11:22 AM

God is holy and the truth of him is already present in man's heart. Make no mistake. I do believe a man can knowingly reject God. I don't understand it but I agree that there are humans that beyond just not being Godly seem to be down right evil. I also think that we worship and served created things rather than the Creator every day. I have not seperated myself from the world I live in. I am guilty. I never claim to be otherwise. As far as Paul is concerned you have to keep in mind that his writings appeared on the scene before the gospels and the book of James and the others at least according to those who are supposed to know that. I wonder if Paul knew he was writing scripture. I don't think he did. He was speaking his mind in letters he was sending to churches. He "sort of anyhow" made light of other apostles who actually walked and talked with Christ. Paul only had a vision. He is the father of Christianity as we know it today. Jesus said things that if you only had Pauls writing to go on would seem to be from another God altogether. It still come down to the fact that even though you can say, I didn't say it, Paul did and to believe in inerrant scripture means GOD said it I still have a problem with the fact that almost all the people you know are going to be punished forever and ever and ever in HELL! Well it was there own choice someone would say. Then how can an all knowing loving creator let it happen. I think he won't. We see through a glass darkly, would you agree? How can we know what is ahead of us? I have to trust that God is not going to let all those beautiful humans that I see everyday live their lives, minding their business, going to work and raising kids. Burying people they love. Getting sick and dying just to go to HELL. God made us for love and then lets us scream in agony for eternity? I say there is something wrong with that picture.