The Republic of Heaven

Where Is God

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Where Is God

Postby Nix » Mon Sep 01, 2003 10:42 pm

I got this in an email ages ago

>In light of the many perversions and jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke, it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.
>
>Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" (regarding the attacks on Sept. 11).
>
>Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.
>
>And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"
>
>In light of recent events ... terrorist attacks, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.
>
>Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school .... the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
>
>Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.
>
>Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. The school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued (there's a big difference between disciplining, touching, beating, smacking, humiliating, kicking, etc.). And we said OK.
>
>Then someone said, let's let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won't even have to tell their parents. And we said OK.
>
>Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they're going to do it anyway, let's give our sons all the condoms they want so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school. And we said OK.
>
>Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. Agreeing with them, we said it doesn't matter to me what anyone, including the President, does in private as long as I have a job and the economy is good.
>
>Then someone said let's print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body. And we said OK.
>
>And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then further again by making them available on the Internet. And we said OK, they're entitled to free speech.
>
>Then the entertainment industry said, let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence, and illicit sex. Let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes. And we said it's just entertainment, it has no adverse effect, nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.
>
>Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
>
>Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."
>
>Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.
>
>Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.
>
>Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
>
>Are you laughing?

well?
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Postby Silvertounge » Mon Sep 01, 2003 11:09 pm

yeah i got that email before too
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Postby donkey_booter » Mon Sep 01, 2003 11:11 pm

She has a bloody good point to be honest. The "we reap what we sow" bit got me thinking. Although im not sure if bringing back the cane is a good idea i think some kids really do deserve it sometimes.

I think reading the bible in school is a bit too forceful for kids to join the Christian faith but maybe it puts the right sort of ideas into their heads. If their told "if you nick this pencil you get a detention" they might really want the pencil so they might risk the detention but if the teacher says "if you nick this pencil you go to hell" then i doubt the kids would nick it. Actually maybe just saying "if you nick this pencil then God will be very dissapointed in you" would be even better. If the love of God is preached in schools and how God loves you and then someone says that God is dissapointed in you then that'd really hurt and you'd feel hella guilty.

Reading that i've realised that Christians do get attacked and supressed a bit. Maybe the ever dwindeling supply of people becoming Christians isnt the churches fawlt at all and is fact due to the fact that they AREN'T ALLOWED to have any new people joining the faith.

It did get me thinking for definite but sometimes. . .
Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school .... the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
it sounded like she thought people who hadn't read the bible would go out and kill someone. Actually maybe non-believers are more likely to murder. . .but then you get religious nuts who think God is telling them to kill their daugher and niece.

Wish i got emails like that instead of "for hot busty babes just go to. . ." Ive put on a junk mail blocker but its blocked a lot of stuff from people i actually WANT to recieve email from *sigh*
Nice one anyway Nix
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Postby Daniel » Mon Sep 01, 2003 11:50 pm

I think reading the bible in school is a bit too forceful for kids to join the Christian faith but maybe it puts the right sort of ideas into their heads. If their told "if you nick this pencil you get a detention" they might really want the pencil so they might risk the detention but if the teacher says "if you nick this pencil you go to hell" then i doubt the kids would nick it. Actually maybe just saying "if you nick this pencil then God will be very dissapointed in you" would be even better. If the love of God is preached in schools and how God loves you and then someone says that God is dissapointed in you then that'd really hurt and you'd feel hella guilty.
Isn't that using religion to control people? If that kind of scolding is what makes people behave, then the "higher morality" of religious youth is caused by threats, not faith.
*sigh* Well, at least you tried.
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Postby lostinthought451 » Tue Sep 02, 2003 12:49 am

i don't think religion should be in schools, ever. or in government. and that bit about the abortions was dumb. i mean, just b/c someone's daughter went out and got an abortion w/o telling them, the united states is going to hell?!? seriously, how does that affect the state of the nation?!?





religion has caused much pain over the course of human history, but it has also helped people. the times it helped people, religion brought out the best in human nature. the times it caused pain, well, you've seen it already.






ok, i'm done ranting.
FIGMENT.

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Postby jessia » Tue Sep 02, 2003 1:48 am

i don't think religion should be in schools, ever.
i'm assuming this applies to public schools, but no religion at all? my school board offers a world religion class, not promoting any particular religion, but teaching about the major religions of the world and stuff. i always thought that was a good thing... it helps learn what people actually believe and why they might beileve it, the kind of stuff that demotes (or opposite word of promote?) prejudice.
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Postby AySz88 » Tue Sep 02, 2003 4:22 am

I agree with the above, and also...

I'm not sure how the e-mail escalated from stuff that was perfectly acceptable "...The school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student [to disipline them, as punishment]... And we said OK." to stuff like "And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then further again by making them available on the Internet. And we said OK, they're entitled to free speech". (And who said that it was free speech?)

"Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace. "

I don't understand that statement at all. First of all, discussion of God is not surpressed (though teaching Christianity as fact is). And the "lewd, crude...articles" are being surpressed (as best as possible).

(Truthfully, by the end of the article I was almost laughing...)
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Postby Nix » Tue Sep 02, 2003 8:26 am

i don't think religion should be in schools, ever.
i'm assuming this applies to public schools, but no religion at all? my school board offers a world religion class, not promoting any particular religion, but teaching about the major religions of the world and stuff. i always thought that was a good thing... it helps learn what people actually believe and why they might beileve it, the kind of stuff that demotes (or opposite word of promote?) prejudice.

those classes are compulsory in most english schools
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Postby jessia » Tue Sep 02, 2003 8:48 pm

lucky. we have to choose between courses, and i don't have time to take all the courses i want without staying an extra year in high school.
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Postby Shivy » Wed Sep 03, 2003 11:37 am

Yeah its compulsory here too, up till the end of 4th year in high school..
We have assemblies every month where the minister comes round and does a stupid game or whatever and shows how thats related to God or whatnot..
But I think they're beginning to realise that the majority of people in our school are not religious of any kind.. so they don't do it so much any more.. (we only had 1 in the whole of the last year..)
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Postby TonyOn » Wed Sep 03, 2003 12:41 pm

In finnish schools you may choose beetween Protestant (lutheran) Religion and Ethics. In the european school you may choose beetween all the major religions in europe, and ethics...
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Postby la bohemia » Fri Sep 05, 2003 1:05 am

To be honest; she had a point; but a lot of what she said was totally unappealing to me. I don't believe in hitting children, but I do believe in safe sex and condoms should be available. And it's a girl's body; what she does with it is her own business. I personally would never consider abortion, but I still think everyone is entitled to their own choice. (then again, I am also considering dying a virgin, so it's all good) God...I'd much more happily believe in unicorns again, than God.
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Postby viper » Fri Sep 05, 2003 5:13 pm

My school is a cofe but our religeon class is great (not just because we do hardly any work) but we do loads of religeons and it realy helps understand other countries cultures and how the world works, seeing as every race is based on religeon. wot would we be wiv out religeon?


P.S. why is this topic called `wheres god when weve only talked about if religeon was right?
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Postby Nix » Fri Sep 05, 2003 5:16 pm

simply because the original email was entitled where is God
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Postby viper » Fri Sep 05, 2003 5:25 pm

i am silanced
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Postby Qu Klaani » Fri Sep 05, 2003 6:55 pm

On the subject of Religous education, i start my theology A level on Monday, which should be fun. Ive always hated doing stuff in Religous studies where we just look at the Bible. But i doubt anyone wouldnt enjoy doing entire terms on "The arguments for the existnece of God"
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Postby viper » Fri Sep 05, 2003 7:10 pm

GOOD LUCK :P 8) :shock:
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Postby TheLadyofShalott » Sat Sep 06, 2003 12:04 am

I thought that article has a fairly good point, but I don't think that just because we "took God out of our schools" (Church and state SHOULD be seperate) there's songs with obscene lyrics, abortions, free condoms (better to have safe sex than unprotected sex :roll: ), nude pictures on the Internet. Yes, we all know the Bible has some good messages, but they can still encorperate the Ten Commandment's theme into their school without reading from the Bible. But still the forward was better than that really scary petition about how America should be solely Christian. (Isn't it enough Christian already?)
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Postby Tristan » Sat Sep 06, 2003 1:13 am

While I'm a Christian, I agree that the separation of church and state is a good thing. One of the basic rights is freedom of religion, and forcing what you believe onto other people via schools, or anything else, is just wrong. The best way to convince people that your religion is right isn't to force it down their throats, it's to live your life as a good example. Classes ABOUT religion are ok, since they'll help to educate and give people a better understanding of different cultures and viewpoints, but they shouldn't be forced.

There was a point I heard somewhere about the whole 10 commandments monument thing that I think bears repeating: a reporter quoted one of the protestors, who had said that "They can take the monument away, but they can never take it out of our hearts".. the reporter asked, "Isn't that where the 10 commandments were supposed to belong in the first place?"
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Postby TheLadyofShalott » Sat Sep 06, 2003 6:43 am

That article made the front page of our newspaper...the people were so upset about the removal of it, it was pretty funny. :roll: We don't have any religion classes in my school, but I would like to take one 'cause religion is fascinating, but it would really piss me off if the government was Christian dominated (more than it already is...)
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