Second grade student says teacher took away her Bible during rea

Uh oh, all those people on this site talking about turning the middle east into a glass parking lot.....ummm..... well, I guess it speaks for itself?

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Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto- - Jefferson

I don't recall anyone saying that, other than liberals suggesting that that's what conservatives would like to see. I guess it does speak for itself, or at least the radical left. But that really is irrelevant to this topic.

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"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun" - President Obama June 14, 2008

I guess we'll have to disagree on this one. My idea of tolerance is to leave people in peace to live as they please, which I'm certainly willing to do. However, I reserve the right to hold my own opinions about their beliefs.

Also, I don't expect everyone to believe as I do ... in fact, I think it would make for a pretty boring world if we all were alike! Don't you?

But it would be nice if religious people could stop harming one another, and harming nonbelievers, in disputes over religion. No?

The only way I can envision that happening would be if religion were to go away ...

That's not to say that people would miraculously stop harming each other; I guess it would simply give them one less excuse!

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

Christians on the whole, have stopped harming one another and those who don't believe. So I can envision a way to a more peaceful world without religion going away. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that a world without religion would be a lot worse off...

http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_Mass_Murder

Concerning atheism and mass murder, Christian apologist Gregory Koukl wrote that "the assertion is that religion has caused most of the killing and bloodshed in the world. There are people who make accusations and assertions that are empirically false. This is one of them."[1] Koukl details the number of people killed in various events involving theism and compares them to the much higher tens of millions of people killed under atheistic communist regimes, in which militant atheism served as the official doctrine of the state.[1] It has been estimated that in less than the past 100 years, governments under the banner of communism have caused the death of somewhere between 40,472,000 to 259,432,000 human lives.


Be careful what you wish for. Because from the same page...

there have been twenty-eight countries in world history that can be confirmed to have been ruled by regimes with avowed atheists at the helm … These twenty-eight historical regimes have been ruled by eighty-nine atheists, of whom more than half have engaged in democidal162 acts of the sort committed by Stalin and Mao …

The total body count for the ninety years between 1917 and 2007 is approximately 148 million dead at the bloody hands of fifty-two atheists, three times more than all the human beings killed by war, civil war, and individual crime in the entire twentieth century combined.


It appears the world would be 100M or so people to the good if there were no atheists.

I think that has more to do with Communism than with atheism.

Communism is predicated on people behaving in very unnatural ways. For instance, there is an expectation that a member of the collective will work hard for no reward, or no reward beyond what is given to the slacker or the person who doesn't work at all.

It's going to take a heavy hand to keep people compliant in a system that runs so contrary to human nature. I think the solution usually boils down to, "If we just kill all the dissidents, we'll finally have our Worker's Paradise!" But dissidents, like the heads of the Hydra, seem to just keep popping up, requiring yet another purge ... sigh.

And I suspect those statistics of Deke's, which employ the phrase " have caused the death of," probably take into account all the deaths attributed to famine, which frequently accompanies Communism, as the hard-working sorts who normally produce abundance cease to do so once they're no longer rewarded for it.

I don't think Christian Communists would fare any better than atheistic ones; the system is simply too flawed at its core. In fact, I understand the early Church pooled its resources, although this practice obviously was discarded at some point, which begs the question why? There are rumblings of discord in some of Paul's letters -- in fact, I think in one place he states that people who don't work shouldn't expect to eat. It appears early Christianity discarded its communistic practices before it had the muscle to conduct the kinds of bloody purges of which Stalin and Mao were capable. Like the modern Chinese, perhaps Christians simply decided capitalism really wasn't so bad after all.

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

WG - you make valid points about communism and atheism. The Inquisition was anathema to Christianity, but nevertheless, it happened in the name of Christianity with at least some approval of the organized church. Islam is today world leader in religion inspired death. In the 1930s and 40s, Japan, Italy, and Germany were responsible for millions of deaths without a primary goal of advancing any particular faith but rather the borders of their countries.

All this proves is that I agree with one of your earlier points. Man's inhumanity to man is boundless; we always seem to find an excuse to kill and dominate one another. So to hope for the demise of religion as a means to ending the inhumanity is a bit shortsighted. Especially when you consider the good that is done by the various Christian groups.

Well, it would give us one less excuse!

But I acknowledge that a lot of good is done in the name of religion, too, and I respect the folks doing it even if I don't buy into their faith.

It occurs to me if Christians stuck to their original charge -- the "taking care of widows and orphans" bit -- it would probably win a lot more hearts and minds than their present focus on abortion and gays.

Or maybe not -- other people's sex lives tend to be a lot more juicily interesting than mere do-gooder-ism!

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

You might want to read and understand what Christ instructed his followers, to love God and love one another as He has loved us. All the disagreements among different Christian groups is not Biblical.

Christianity is all about loving God and other people?

Really?

Who knew?!

From an outsider's perspective, it looks to me like Christianity is mostly about stopping gay marriage, making abortion illegal, and voting Republican.

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

You forgot pot luck suppers.

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Less barking! More wagging!

Then you might want to stop judging when you don't know what the vast majority of Christians believe. The Westwhatever Baptist Group is not a Christian group--just a loud one.

Actually the onus should be on Christians, not willow girl...

We're supposed to make being a believer look appealing to non-believer, remember?
Sharing the Gospel is supposed to be a blessing, not a threat.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Only when they're open to the word. When they only want to discuss it to find fault and rip apart the advice not to cast pearls to swine comes in handy.

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Just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right.

Eh.
In my experience that's usually just a handy excuse.


We are commanded to go forth in the world, loving others as Christ first loved us. That's Scripture.
If non-believers see us not as a faith of peace and love, but rather judgement and legalism, we're doing something very wrong.
Besides, we draw more flies with honey than vinegar.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

You can't please everyone. There where people in Jesus's day who only found fault with him no matter what he did or said. Jesus didn't mince words with them. He called a spade a spade.

Besides who's judging who in this thread? I may not agree with how these parent's handled the situation but it's their child and their right to handle it as they see fit.

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Just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right.

And IIRC, his harshest words were reserved for the 'church people' of his day.

Not the harlots and tax collectors ... the self-righteous Pharisees.

Kinda makes ya wonder, don't it?

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

As well, He was hanging on the cross, seeking mercy for the mob, begging God to "forgive them for they know not what they do."

Something tells me if Christians genuinely loved as Christ first loved us, sacrificially and all, we wouldn't have half the problems we do today.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

What makes me wonder is here we have yet another thread that turned into ' lets bash Christians ' some even going so far as to decide ( without proof )the child must have thrown the book by people who 'claim' that they accept all walks of life. I find it hard to take y'all seriously.

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Just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right.

That's an amusing attitude given the insults hurled at liberals and democrats here every day. But let someone find the smallest fault with Christianity and it magically becomes "Christian bashing"? Please.

Hmm, so label it as Christian Bashing....much as the fake 'War on Christmas" as what? A reason or excuse?

Sorry, one could look at the bashing as noted on Liberals or Democrats or any other religion outside of Christianity and perhaps have a point.

And if you believe this is Christian Bashing, no one can tell you different. I just find it along the same lines as the 'mock outrage' on that 'War on Christmas'.

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Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto- - Jefferson