Just because I am against limitless social programs does not follow that I support tax cuts for the wealthy. If you're trying to pick a fight, you've chosen the wrong guy.
Nice try, Jorge, at least you know I did not make up the 650,000. I'm glad you clicked on the link. Don't stop there. After all, you are online. Branch out a bit. Do you like Google? . Did you try out a search or two? It is not really that hard. I promise. I think even a few Republicans will back me up on this. Jorge, back to the topic. Church goers and prayers for dead Iraqis. Any input? Perhaps you are not a church goer yourself, just a sort of uninformed country club type of Republican as your bud Bigtex desribed himself. I can understand. Maybe you just replied in this thread due to your "support for President Bush and the troops" to quote from a yard sign that you might have wished that you had the stones to also put in your yard.
That was uncalled for. I am used to you belittling everybody who disagrees with you and taking potshots at the intellect of people you have never met. This is something different. This is a serious allegation. So now because he is concerned with the overall body count and disapproves of the war, he is one of the enemy? Sedition is a serious allegation, and is not one to be made lightly. IMO...that was simply uncalled for.
Im not sure how a debate on taxes and wealth distribution is "picking a fight". Our perceptions are based on one's own life experiences. Your premise of no government intervention for the poor is predicated upon tax increases. 1. You can always redirect tax dollars to different causes without increasing taxes. 2. If you eliminate tax cuts for the wealthy, that creates a funding source for the poor, without affecting the middle class.
You have to admit that he is a good business man. I was surprised to hear he owned Channel 55. He is a good speaker,though I don't like his exact style that much or his topics generally. I don't know him at all. My opinion might be different if I knew him personally.
Halfbreed, I don't know your ethnic background. You might for instance even be of mixed ethnicity, race, etc. Don't your think your screen name is sort of racially offensive to many folks? It is to me and I am, I'm fairly sure, 100% Causcasian. I'm even a native born American, though some, perhaps you, have told me that I might be happier living in another country. However, Scandinavia is cold and so is Canada. Spain might have a better climate, but their welfare state is not quite as good.
I don't pray to affect outcome. i don't expect God to abide my wishes like a genie. particularly not in a world of free will. to answer the question: yes. in fact, in my small group recently we prayed for the people of Iraq. we also prayed for the man who mugged one of the girls in our small group earlier that day.
because prayer is as much part of process as part of outcome. because prayer is like meditation that way. you meditate, right? didn't you tell me you meditate?
We don't pray for dead people. They're already dead. Praying for them is not going to change their fate. That was determined while they were living. We do pray for the family and friends of the deceased though. It is a false belief to believe that you can pray the deceased out of purgatory and get them into heaven, that their fate can be influenced by prayers or by giving a bunch of money to a church or a priest.
I wouldn't go that far. I don't believe in purgatory either, but it does have biblical roots (Apocrypha), and there is nothing that Biblically denies purgatory. I wasn't convinced by reading arguments for the existence of purgatory, but that doesn't mean it's a false belief.
No, I don't. Well maybe to help me sleep, but not formal meditation. Meditation is not thinking. It is stilling your mind, not concentrating on your desires. But there is also loving-kindness meditation. http://www.buddhanet.net/metta_in.htm Loving-kindness is a meditation practice, which brings about positive attitudinal changes as it systematically develops the quality of 'loving-acceptance'. It acts, as it were, as a form of self-psychotherapy, a way of healing the troubled mind to free it from its pain and confusion. Of all Buddhist meditations, loving-kindness has the immediate benefit of sweetening and changing old habituated negative patterns of mind. But it is practical and does not rely on some outside force. That type of "prayer" I understand completely.
ok, i thought you did. my bad. i hear you. i don't understand everything of God. I won't pretend to you I do. I pray to Him, though. I feel like I've grown through it. I don't believe Christianity is merely to be spiritual, however. That we are to sit back. I believe God uses us to be a part of the redemptive process of this world. That we're called to serve other people...to work for justice...not merely to pray for Him to do it.
Christianity is not merely spiritual. If we aren't serving others we are ignoring God's command. One of the last encounters Jesus had with Peter was along the beach (after the resurection). Jesus asked Peter if he loved him (3 times) and each time Peter claimed he did and each time Jesus answered "Feed my Sheep". Not show your love to me by praying and being pious but by feeding his sheep. I have encountered the presence of God many more times in the service of others than I have in a church setting.
I would not go to a church where this was true. Our most fervent prayers should be for the lost. A Christian dying of cancer needs our prayer less then a non-believer who is healthy.
Church for me is like walking into American Airlines Center for a Mavericks game. You know you just don't belong.
