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Nice post, good points, agree on most.
Religion is not the best weapon to prevent wars. Often it is used to go to war, as in Iraq when Bush declared stealing the country as a crusade. Religion works best at personal level, and only that.
Yes. One of the greatest gifts this country was given was that no state religion should ever be established. Maybe one day more people will come to accept that we are not and never were a "Christian nation".
Yes. One of the greatest gifts this country was given was that no state religion should ever be established. Maybe one day more people will come to accept that we are not and never were a "Christian nation".
I am afraid the world is going the other way. India for instance has always prided itself for being a secular nation, its constitution modeled after the US. The present govt. is aggressively taking the direction of making it a Hindu State. That would be a tragedy.
I am afraid the world is going the other way. India for instance has always prided itself for being a secular nation, its constitution modeled after the US. The present govt. is aggressively taking the direction of making it a Hindu State. That would be a tragedy.
My statement implies that there are unjust and unnecessary wars.
Do we spend too much money on the military? I don't know. Or is it that that keeps us relatively safe?
If we spent half as much on the military this year as last, do you really think the money would be shifted to the poor? No.
Since the main driver of opposition to those spending priorities is that it should be used for the poor, vulnerable and needy, or just to guarantee certain things to all that other societies guarantee and we don't (health care and higher education and decent old-age pensions as human rights come to mind) then one can reasonably expect that most of any military cuts would go exactly there. Some portion would doubtless go back into individual pockets through tax cuts, I suppose, which is fine depending on exactly how those are implemented (whether they go to primarily to the wealthy who are doing just fine rather than to the lower income folks who could most benefit from them).
Since the main driver of opposition to those spending priorities is that it should be used for the poor, vulnerable and needy, or just to guarantee certain things to all that other societies guarantee and we don't (health care and higher education and decent old-age pensions as human rights come to mind) then one can reasonably expect that most of any military cuts would go exactly there. Some portion would doubtless go back into individual pockets through tax cuts, I suppose, which is fine depending on exactly how those are implemented (whether they go to primarily to the wealthy who are doing just fine rather than to the lower income folks who could most benefit from them).
Well, as a public school teacher and principal (now retired), I used to hear that type of thing all the time with state and local budgets. I never saw it actually happen.
Nice post, good points, agree on most.
Religion is not the best weapon to prevent wars. Often it is used to go to war, as in Iraq when Bush declared stealing the country as a crusade.
Religion works best at personal level, and only that.
Bush declared a crusade against "evil doers" (fueled in large part by a desire to finish what his father had started)...
The reason(s) we humans go to war are many and the excuses, justifications and rationale we use for war purposes are no fewer.
How can we teach our children that violence is not the answer in their own lives, when we endorse a government that is so quick to use violence to handle its own disputes?
I don't think that the human race does enough thinking about actual killing. It's sanitized for us by the media and politicians who push forward an active military industrial complex.
Our government kills thousands of innocents with drone strikes and most don't make the headlines. Spiritual and religious people too often don't know, or do know and find it acceptable. I understand some may say it is a necessary evil, but when our government has 11,000 to 21,000 causalities of innocent civilians using the drone strikes, it is time to reevaluate our policies and stand by our morals...what is religion without morals?
"Thou shalt not kill."
""An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." -Jesus
Quaker Norman Morrison set fire to himself to protest the Vietnam War, killing himself and leaving behind children. I disagree with that kind of extreme action, but people needed to stand up against that war. Today in Vietnam, there is a city named after him that lives on.
A very long time ago, in 2019, I had attended a drone strike protest....only a few people showed up and I was the only one with a sign focusing on the religious reasons for our government to not behave in such a way. In 2021, our government killed 10 innocent people with a drone strike by using an out of control policy...many children....and I attended another protest, with just a handful of the same people from 2019 and although they welcomed me and my religious message they wanted to know why more very religious people like me don't show up. I didn't know what to say.
It just seems to me like it is our responsibility to make our government follow proper morals and the most basic moral is opposing such violence.
I am sorry if this post crosses a line and do not mean for it to be bad. Please delete moderators if I am inappropriate here.
I consider myself spiritual, not opposed to a certain religion, and I feel that the opposite to be true. Why are woke secular people so war hungry?
Wars are good for US economy. The military industrial complex contributes a lot to politicians of both parties. Raytheon has scooped up a whole lot of profit from the Ukraine war. Who holds Raytheon shares? No, we will never not start wars, not send our drones out to kill civilians as “collateral damage”, send our poor ypung men and women out to die or return physically and emotionally damaged to keep our economy humming. This is a damage to our spirituality and religious beliefs.
As Eisenhower said we are not spending our money alone. We are spending the genius of our scientists, the sweat of our laborers, and the hopes of our children.
You know what could also help the economy? Building schools, houses, hospitals, and doing cancer research or other innovations instead of finding new ways to kill each other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea
There are occasions when violence is the only answer. Your bible even says so.
Regardless, thanks for admitting that your god-thing is fallible and makes mistakes for which he recants.
That is incorrect.
Classical Biblical Hebrew (CBH) makes no differentiation between formal and informal addresses.
German does. I used Sie and the Sie conjugation of verbs when speaking to colleagues. One day drinking beers in the bowing alley with Tommy Luhmann and Peter Regenhart, Tommy said, "Hey, let's say Du to each other" so from that point on I used Du and the Du verb form.
In Romanian, we have formal, semi-formal, and informal. Unless you want to be ignored or get slapped in the face, you address people you don't know using dumnevoastra and the formal form of the verb. For colleagues and peers of your own age you can get by with the semi-formal, like "Dumneata, imi pare bine" which is what I said to my wife the first time I met her. For family and friends, you use tu and the tu conjugation.
Olde English and Middle English had formal and informal, but modern English does not.
That makes the use of "Thou" linguistically wrong and inappropriate.
CBH has no verb tense. For example, all of the following are correct translations of Genesis 6:3
1) ...his days were 120 shars
2) ...his days are 120 shars
3) ...his days will be 120 shars
Since #2 and #3 are nonsensical, the correct translation and interpretation is "...his days were 120 shars."
A shar is 3,600 years. What the writer was conveying is that humans had been around for 432,000 years before the Deluge and note that Deluge is the only correct translation and interpretation, making the idiotic "Flood" just plain wrong.
It isn't enough to merely translate. It has to be interpreted as well. For example MAFIA: Muerte alle Francia Italia alia.
"Die all French Italians cry" is the literal translation but the best interpretation would be: Death to the French is the cry of the Italians. That dates back to the days of the wars between the French and the Italian city-states over the Riviera.
"Kill" is also the wrong translation and interpretation. If you don't understand the construct of Semitic languages, then you need to learn.
Bibles prior to 1968 correctly used the word "murder."
What happened in 1968? Black churches condemned both the draft and the Vietnam War. Then White churches jumped on the band-wagon and then bibles started spewing the politicized propaganda version with "kill."
Come to think of it, how is it that Black churches got the message from Jesus before the White churches? Maybe Black churches are doing it right and the only true religions?
The correct translation and interpretation is: You will not murder.
And that accomplished what, exactly?
Aside from creating a big mess and costing lots of money to clean up, nothing happened very slowly.
No doubt, he was emotionally disturbed.
What a waste of time.
Your time would have been better spent organizing and lobbying for a constitutional amendment to limit campaign contributions to eligible voters.
Yes, that means that since no organization of any kind can vote, they could never contribute a dime to any elected official.
It also means that people like Bill Gates and George Sorass and the Kook Brothers could only contribute money to those candidates they are eligible to cast votes and since none of them live in Ohio, none of them could ever give any money to any candidate in Ohio.
Or, you could have campaigned for a candidate that would actually bring about change instead of just giving lip service. Then again, that candidate would probably need campaign money and they'll never get it from organizations or people like Bill Gates or George Sorass or the Kook Brothers.
Oh, wait...I get why you would never do anything to actually effect real change:
Romans 13:1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which the Jesus-thing has established. The authorities that exist have been established by the Jesus-thing.Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what the Jesus-thing has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
Now, why would an enlightened being who was benevolent and supposedly loved humans subject them to dictatorial authoritarian rule and a social class structure that treated people unequally?
You know what?
By protesting, you just went against Jesus.
Maybe you should just hide out in a church or something.
And they want to kill Americans to stop Americans from stealing their country's wealth and resources while simultaneously leaving them with a very bad dictator in charge of everything who will happily give away their country's wealth and resources to Americans.
Refer to one of the 613 commandments, specifically: You will not steal.
That's exactly right.
There's no point since the Obama Administration publicly admitted it on more than one occasion. With the possible exception of Millard Fillmore, Obama did what all other Presidents have done. Granted, not all Presidents had access to drones, but they still sanctioned senseless killing.
Jesus himself was a protestor and he said that quote at trial meaning to not focus on worldly things but your spiritual self.
???
so then that means the New Testament is undone by the Qur'an
you're good with that, right?
that is a sincere question. so you can really think about what is posted above.
you = generic you, anyone, readers
Maybe time to focus a little less on the old and bring in the new? And I don't mean just another holy book...
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