Jesus, did you not see the smiley I put in place of a period at the end of my sentence?

Just for the record, IMO, if there is an organizing principle behind the cosmos other than the laws of physics, I'll be pretty surprised and if there is a Saint Peter on judgement day, in the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo...." I'll have some 'splainin' to do!"

That doesn't mean that I can't find the teachings of Christ to be a pretty decent philosophy.

But I kinda figure Phill couldn't resist the low hanging fruit Phill does have a touch of the Biblical Eve in him, or haven't you noticed.

God the father was a petty, jealous, homophobic, vengeful, slave loving genocidal maniac. But then Jesus came along and he was a tree-hugging, socialistic, all loving hippie type. The bible is basically Family Ties but in reverse.

I would say the Domionist/"The Family"/Paul Ryan's brand of "Objectivist Catholicism" doctrine is proof of my point.

Actual Christianity is full of namby pamby hippie **** about feeding the poor and clothing the naked, so while the religious right wanted to appropriate the brand name "Christianity" they essentially had to replace all the theology of the Bible with the selfish ideas about how feeding poor people is like feeding animals they already had.

Well, it depends.

The first thing they used to teach us when looking at research was to always be aware of the biases of the examiner. When Phillip Morris funds a study on the safety of smoking, you just might want to look at the methodology with an extra jaundiced eye.

Certainly, Phill COULD be able to interpret the Bible well, just as Michelle Bachmann MIGHT be able to look at social research on gay marriage objectively.

But somehow..... I doubt it

You don't think someone who was brought up with no religion can look at the text without the blinkers that being brought up in a faith implies? Your analogy seems more for a christian interpreting the qur'an or a muslim interpreting the bible.

Tom,

First of all, I have no idea how Phill was brought up wrt religion. It is not a lock he was brought up without religion, so I don't make that assumption.

For my own part, I was brought up in the Catholic tradition but by the time I was in my teens , I moved away from religion and would consider myself a non believer. Phill though seems more "virulent" (I'm not sure that's the precise term I'm looking for) in his atheism. I'm not so sure he is capable of giving such matters a fair or at least reasonable hearing.

In general I am very pro Jesus' message. Its the magic fairytales, the old testament in general and all the bull**** added on through dogma outside of the bible I am against. Plus the kiddy fiddling and corruption is bad.

Like most atheists I probably know more about religion in general than most religious people. I just dont believe in it.

1. If I was your landlord and you were behind on your payments and I wanted to cut you some slack I might say, "Give to your bill collectors what is your bill collectors and to me what is mine." However, it would be a bit silly to say that I was endorsing increasing your bills because I was a supporter of paying big bills.

2. In no way is that suggesting that rich people don't deserve their possessions or poor people deserve some of them. It does however point out that a lot of rich people are not good people.

3. I just read every policy that obamacare contains and I did NOT see one mention of it covering the costs to either raise the dead or drive out demons.

4. You totally missed my point. I was saying that Jesus never said love everyone except rich ppl.

My man!

There is no way someone who is intelligent enough to hit a button to turn on a computer is stupid enough to believe this.

I think a lot of GOPs would like to see cuts to SS and/or medicare. Hell, I want to get rid of SS all together (not cold turkey, but find a way to slow get rid of it).

What government program helps predominantly black and hispanic people?

You are deliberately reading around these passages to find a technicality you can use for your side. Your interpretations of #1 and #3 are loltacular.

In other non-religious news...

GINGRICH: WHY ROVE AND STEVENS ARE PLAIN WRONG

lol, no you're not, Newt. Nice try though.

Well, he is when they don't pick him

Polls suggest otherwise and you got Santorum as the runner up in the GOP presidential primary.

There is a contingent that want this. But once you dig into the polls it's apparent we're in the minority, even within the GOP.

A little more than half of food stamp recipients are either black or hispanic, nearly double their proportion of the population.

See Santorum, welfare queen rhetoric, Obama phone youtube, and more examples than I really care to remember. You have to be utterly blind to not see the racial undertones in the GOP (especially from the Tea Party corner) attacks on social welfare.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...t-food-stamps/

hahahahahahaohwow.jpg

Good to hear bahbah has finally read what Obamacare is, even if it was a couple years of comment on it late.

Oh come one. You have never heard a anyone say (or hint) that someone may or may not "deserve" a handout based on their race. The fact that you threw in "sexual orientation, stance on abortion, among other social issues" that may effect this is ridiculous.

I couldn't even image how someone could group words together to say that someone doesn't deserve welfare because of their stance on a social issue or who they choose to love.

Eat less, you could probably afford to lose 20 pounds.

And what do you say to the U.S. service member who still has to be on food stamps because pay of low ranking enlisted members is inadequate?

C'mon, give us something as equally pithy.

But I thought we weren't having any inflation?

I was hoping for more of "Eat less, you could probably afford to lose 20 pounds," followed by you actually going up to a young E-3 Marine with one or two kids and telling him that to his face. Followed by pictures. C'mon, don't disappoint us.

i think this was a phrase originally uttered by one of the disciples of Jesus

So you're saying God is Archie Bunker and Jesus is Meathead.

Again, action speaks louder than words.

You have to be willfully blind to not see what the GOP has changed for the worse in the last 8 years or so.

Yes, he has. In this forum, he's seen it explicitly. In the world at large, we all remember when that "Obamaphone" video made the front page of Drudge.

It's called the Defense of Marriage Act and the GOP is currently spending taxpayer money to defend it in court.

Oh, and this might be a good place to put this:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.co...-opposing-mass