Dominionist colonialism. Bush's effort to create a US-led neo-con "coalition" to conquer the world in God's name (for big business).
Faith-based initiative. A gold-mine of government freebies for neo-con projects, nearly all as phony as a 3 dollar bill.
"Weapons of Mass destruction", the "justification" for invading a peaceful nation and massacring its people.
Government imposed drugging of schoolkids. One of the most evil things any nation has ever done.
Bush's economic policy. Created the present situation.
When a president's approval rating drops down into the teens, it's pretty safe to say that ALL of his policies were failures in the eyes of most people.
Yes, any sin at all makes us imperfect and condemns us to death outside of God's presence.
But look closely at the story of Adam and Eve.
As they are driven from the Garden there is a prophecy of Christ.
Gen. 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
Who will be enemies? The seed of the woman and the seed of Satan.
Whose head gets crushed? Satan's.
By whom? By the "seed" of the woman.
And does the Bible show the fulfillment of that prophecy? Yes indeed.
Romans 16:20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
Revelation 12:17 (a prophetic vision of the future) So the dragon (serpent) was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
The promised seed who would crush Satan's head is Christ. Without Christ all sinners are condemned to stay outside of God's presence forever. But through Christ sinners can be forgiven. And we are all sinners.
I can certainly agree that there are a lot of myths in the Bible.
Creation myths exist in every culture. They are the necessary starting points for building a worldview.
Genesis is just the starting point on the path that led to Christ. It has no special significance beyond that.
The Laws of Moses are the same. They served a purpose along the way to the coming of Christ, but have no significance at all beyond that. Every culture had its basic laws, and they are always pretty much the same.
But there's only one Jesus Christ.
Jesus fulfilled the OT, just like cash fulfills a check.
Once it has been cashed, a check is no longer of any value other than to prove the source of the funds and demonstrate that the transaction was done legally.
That about all the Old Testament serves for too. It only serves to validate the New Testament.
So why waste time looking for a person to stimulate production of the ingredients? Why not just take a ready made "love pill" that has the entire "chemical coctail"?
Because you know that love is infinitely more than the mix of neurotransmitters you claim it to be.
Your "chemical coctail" love would never satisfy anybody's need. Not even your own. And you know it.
The best and most affordable healthcare exists in countries where nobody has insurance. There the laws of supply & demand and competition keep costs low and quality high.
Insurance greatly adds to the expense because besides the actual cost of the healthcare you are also paying for the insurance company, all of its executives, employees, buildings, cars, salesmen, advertising, etc etc etc, not to mention paying profits to all the stockholiders.
But whatever private companies can do. Government can do even worse. If you think the insurance companies abused the situation, just wait till you see what government can do.
Why is it ok for us to give 100's of Billions of dollars to foreign countries every year, but totally objectionable to insure that every American citizen has quality affordable health care? And just where is the totally broke and deeply endebted government going to get any money to provide "quality affordable health care" for everybody?
Why would you want to entrust your life and all you posess into the government's hands?
And the other side of the coin is that, just as all politicians are cut from the same fabric, so are all supposed "student movements". There is no such thing as a spontaneous movement of any kind in French politics. Every student "protest" is organized and directed from behind the scenes by existing political parties who just use the students as pawns in their projects.
Typically a student protest will choose some "student oriented" cause such as the closing of certain schools or the lack of teachers or something like that. The major parties choose their position and the kids just take their place in the marches as assigned. It's fun to miss school, and besides someone is taking names as to who did and didn't participate.
So everybody plays their part, including the hired troublemakers who insure a certain degree of violence and destruction, thus mandating some sort of political action.
Peace only comes again after the desired legal change has been imposed, under the guise of political necessity.
Trying to judge France by French politicians is like judging a dog by his fleas.
All French national politicians, regardless of party, must, by law, graduate from the same "Polytechnique" University, from which they cannot successfully "pass" into national politics unless they submit to the authority of a secret society similar to the "skull and bones".
So of course, politics here are totally corrupt. Just as they are in the US, England, and most everywhere else.
The major difference is that here in France, the people KNOW their politicians are just as corrupt and self-serving today as the kings were in the past.
So they do what they have always done. They do their best to live around it all.
The only people who get involved in politics in France are those who want to impose their own program on others. And everybody knows it.
Trouble is, there is all sorts of proof that the world is far far far older than that.
Whether one believes in evolution as described by Darwin or not (I don't) it is nonetheless evident that in the distant past there were totally different animals and plants than there are today.
I see it as a process of continued creation overseen by God himself and not a chaotic chain of mechanical reactions driven by trial and error and random mutation.
But what about Genesis?
Genesis is a collection of myths. That's normal. Every culture has its creation myths. That's how illiterate peoples explained their past. And those myths defined their cultural identity.
There may or may not be any real "truth" to the myths. They are nonetheless the only truth that counts in the growth of the new culture.
It wasn't their myths that made Hebrew culture special. It was faith in a loving God who promised to bless all nations through faith.
God is much more concerned about the truth than he is about old Jewish myths.
Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth." (Titus 1: 13-14)
The truth is, God created the dinosaurs, the apes and you and me. Nothing is "descended" from anything eles. We were all created as we are.
We have babies, but that's just a part of the creation process. Each baby is custom built.
But there ARE significant factions everywhere rattlenake.
More than just about anywhere else, the world of science is full of competition for money, fame, position, and credit.
That competition occurs at the individual level, and at the group level as well.
There are only so many available government positions, university chairs, research grants, government projects(etc etc) and there are always a lot of people, and groups vying for them.
The peer review system doesn't enshure anything. Like the legal system, it can be used to condemn the guilty and spare the innocent, or vice versa.
All it takes is a little corruption to move peer review into the enemy camp. And "corruption" (not the speed of light) is the true universal constant.
I find a timeline from between 100,000 and 150,000 years since the earth was created. Polar Ice, Carbon dating, and geology all say that its way up in the hundreds of millions of years.
I don't know, I wasn't there. You'll have to ask somebody who was.
RayfromUSA Forum Posts (6,611)
RE: wHAT DO YOU DRIVE AND HOW....
I drive a VW Golf,and I drive it like I can't afford to waste money on traffic tickets, increased insurance rates or car repairs.