Christianity Remains Dominant Religion in the United States

[BT]

can corporations vote ?

No

But they can contribute to political campaigns.

Money is speech apparently.

[Plane]

What happens to a company happens to all of its people.

When a ship sinks , the whole crew is wetted.

When Atlanta drinks half the river The Citys downstream in Alabama and Florida have to make do with half size rivers.

When the Raiders loose the the Steelers , or vice versa there may be a MVP but the MVP is not an individual that wins or looses the game by himself.

When the nation makes some behavior taboo, or the government makes some actions illeagal, it is seldom effective on few , it is effective on that class of persons that crave to transgress the more.

    If someone says he doesn't like collective punishments , rewards, what can they do about it?

    Some things are appropriate for individuals and some things are appropriate to groups, including some good fortunes and some punishments.

[Xavier_Onassis]

None of these things you describe is the result of a judicial process, which we have come to see as necessarily fair and just.

Nature is neither fair nor just, that is pretty clear.

The idea of an afterlife is one way that humans have devised to bring fairness into the world. If you are evil in this world and go unpunished, God will get you in the next. Recently I have seen cartoons depicting Kim Jong Il, Qaddaffi and Assad all contemplating their new assignment in the underworld. Saddam in Hell was a recurring theme in South Park.

As Maud was wont to say "God will get you for that, Arthur!"

If someone does not like the punishment meted out by a court, there is a possibility of an appeal. If one does not like the punishment of Nature, bad luck or How the Cookie Crumbles, there is always a possibility of God setting it right in the afterlife. If one disagrees with God, then one is stuck with the verdict. God is the celestial equivalent of the Supreme Court.

[kimba1]

I used to work with a satanist(really cool guy,has the best house parties) and we both used to deal with this holier than thou co-worker who even had a preacher husband.

I couldn`t help it and said to my friend , if thier is a heaven and hell. I know 100% you will be in charge of her in the after-life.
he always say" you`re the sickest baptist i ever knew".

[BSB]

Nature, just doing her thing, can be cruel to all manner of species. The environment is far from being a consistently hospitable place. We all in fact live on the edge of a rocky cliff. But to think that this lack of hospitality is purposely engineered, and metered out, as a form of judgement is a very sad interpretation of reality. In fact it is so far off the mark I wouldn't whish a mind that lived with that interpretation on my worst enemy.


BSB

[hnumpah]

Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life
 End over end neither left nor to right
 Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights
 Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life.

 Make me, oh make me, Lord more than I am
 Make me a piece in your master game plan
 Free from the earthly tempestion below
 I’ve got the will, Lord if you’ve got the toe.

 Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life
 End over end neither left nor to right
 Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights
 Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life.

 Take all the brothers who’ve gone on before
 And all of the sisters who’ve knocked on your door
 All the departed dear loved ones of mine
 Stick’em up front in the offensive line.

 Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life
 End over end neither left nor to right
 Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights
 Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life.

 Yeah, Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life
 End over end neither left nor to right
 Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights
 Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life.


Sung by Bobby Bare, words and music by Paul Craft

[Xavier_Onassis]

"Drop kick me, Jesus, through the goalposts of life"

Heh, heh. That is a great and truly American metaphor.

[Plane]

God is the celestial equivalent of the Supreme Court.

   Good point!

    Take note that no scripture in the Bible points to communal punishment in the afterlife.

      Evolution is team play, and God is ,in part, all of nature .

[Xavier_Onassis]

The truth is that the Old Testament says almost nothing of the afterlife. It was not a major topic for Jesus, either.
It was, however, a major theme of the Gospels and all of the stuff that followed.

God did, according to the prophets, communally punish pretty much every group mentioned at least once, including the entire 'human race in the case of Adam& Eve and everyone but Noah & Co. And He didn't hide behind nature to do it, either.

Evolution is mentioned nowhere in the Scriptures, as I am sure you are aware.

[Plane]

The truth is that the Old Testament says almost nothing of the afterlife. It was not a major topic for Jesus, either.

  Havent read it eh?
   That is not the truth.

     I don't need to draw a distinction between Nature and God .
      God Runs Nature.

        "Evolution" the word is not used but earlyer than 1800 who would have used it in this context?, When Jacob was paid in cattle, all of the calves emerged in the selected color, was this a miricle or Jacob's understanding of selective breeding? How is the reader supposed to understand that all of a heard producing calves of a selected color is unusual?

       The Scripture states that esch creature brings forth after its own kind, an understanding of nature equaled in science in about the year 1735.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linnaean_taxonomy

[Xavier_Onassis]

Where does the OT address the afterlife, other than suggesting that Moses was sucked straight up into Heaven?

I do not deny that the OT gets into sheep breeding, but that is not any theory of evolution.

[kimba1]

Air has hydrogen and oxygen,that's not in the bible. But genesis state animals came before man.

People got no reason to get upset about evolution.

[Xavier_Onassis]

And yet some do, because only God can change His creations, according to some. The world is not old enough for evolution to have taken place, according to some.

[kimba1]

For the past ten years i recall several instance religious folks getting involved with scientific research.
Ex. Stem cells, cloning. The worry was the ethics of such things. Ever notice nobody talks about bioweapons?
I just can't believe in he church as the source of ethics on this topic.

[Plane]

  Bio wepons are not contriversial.

    Nobody favors them, Richard Nixon nixed them.