100% FREE ONLINE DATING
sponsored links
Previous
| Topic: Christian world? | |
|---|---|
|
|
|
It seems that in this new day and age that it is popular to look good and giving, when it should be done right here at home to those that seek it, but do not get it. Christains come in so many forms these days. The true and real ones, and the ones that confess themselves as such. More than not, the true ones have meager means and try, but those with the means talk the talk. While those with the heart wish to walk the walk.
Now, there are so many non Christains that do give and reach out, but because they are not Christian, are not recognized. I believe in God and Jesus as His SON,with the Holy Ghost as my conscience. I do not profess to be a Christian because I do not like the stigma I see associated with the term. Now don't get me wrong....but I almost feel like I am being cussed at when someone calls me a Christian. Because of what I see coming from those that say they are. I have no problem calling someone respectfully a Christian, but I often find myself wondering what is really meant when I am called one? Are they seeing someone that is a liar or not good? Am I seen as a fake? Am I being lumped in with what I see as Christian talk without the Christian walk? You see? This was from another thread. ========================================== My thoughts are that we as a Nation throw out crumbs to other countries and call ourselves good and giving. Making us look good to people to seem "A good Nation". What of our country? Our people? Other countries take care of their own. Making it profitable and healthy to be a citizen free of desease and famine. Where as our own make profits from the very poor and ill? The starving and weak? A largly Christian country that gets paid for our woes? The Drs, the pharmacies, the insurance companies? A government that makes it almost impossible to get off of welfare? Because we cannot get health care unless we are on it? But, get a job, and you lose it? We, a mostly Christian Nation having the largest economy and wealth, the know how.....having the largest homeless, sick and starving people in the world? When being well and full and in a place of comfort would be a betterment to our States? But, instead....if one does not make money from it, it is not a good thing? Wheres the God in that? Countries that are not as Christain as our own do more to keep their own healthy and fed than we do. Making it profitable to be well and not sick. Where did we go wrong? Kat |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
maybe its the down right stupidity of Christianity that brought down the nation. Denial can only go so far.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Edited by
scttrbrain
on
Mon 03/03/08 10:46 AM
|
|
maybe its the down right stupidity of Christianity that brought down the nation. Denial can only go so far. True Christianity is alive and well. Our government of "In God we Trust" has become the problem. They have taken a good thing and made it about money. As Christians or a Christian Nation...what can we do to get this country back on track about the people and for the people? Not the rich and famous? The popular? Or the MONEY... Kat |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Retards...Allways gotta go on about their b.s.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Retards...Allways gotta go on about their b.s. That was rude. Kat |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Retards...Allways gotta go on about their b.s. That was rude. Kat Actualy Im not sure if you ment well or not Im confused ! I apologize and withdraw my statement... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Edited by
scttrbrain
on
Mon 03/03/08 10:56 AM
|
|
Retards...Allways gotta go on about their b.s. That was rude. Kat Actualy Im not sure if you ment well or not Im confused ! I apologize and withdraw my statement... I mean well my friend. We are a hurting Nation where money is the root of it. Christianity is a good thing and needs to step forward to take away the pain of our people as a whole. I am not what I see as a Christian, but believe we can do something to help our country. Kat Not meaning that one needs to be Christian to benefit. But if those that believe in God could and would step forth and make a difference and give us back our world as it was, then we would not be falling apart...as it were. |
|
|
|
|
|
Edited by
wouldee
on
Mon 03/03/08 11:02 AM
|
|
This nation is....
wrong in the arrogance bred from the asumption that we are above humility. Security comes from developing the weak and not preying upon the opportunity to overlook the obvious needs closest at hand. The cost of such an oversight is evidence of a lack of accountability for exemplification NEAR and far. My observation about the USA is that we are a nation that gives lip service to Christian thought without having embraced the ongoing challenges of walking by faith and stepping into the unknown each day without idloizing the past rewards for ever having do so. The American Idol is the arrogance that we are above our own needs which are many and beneath the weight of burdensome abundance and desire for more than we can possibly consume privately without giving away that which is held back in fraudulent selfishness and contemptuous and callous disregard for the less priveleged and disenfranchised among us. Avarice and greed have consumed the landscape. Focusing the charitable actions of the nation onto the world and not looking in the mirror has established that our corporate vanity is not the reflection of reality that views needs in truth but displays wants in disguise. The privelege of the franchise, so to speak. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This nation is.... wrong in the arrogance bred from the asumption that we are above humility. Security comes from developing the weak and not preying upon the opportunity to overlook the obvious needs closest at hand. The cost of such an oversight is evidence of a lack of accountability for exemplification NEAR and far. My observation about the USA is that we are a nation that gives lip service to Christian thought without having embraced the ongoing challenges of walking by faith and stepping into the unknown each day without idloizing the past rewards for ever having do so. The American Idol is the arrogance that we are above our own needs which are many and beneath the weight of burdensome abundance and desire for more than we can possibly consume privately without giving away that which is held back in fraudulent selfishness and contemptuous and callous disregard for the less priveleged and disenfranchised among us. Avarice and greed have consumed the landscape. Focusing the charitable actions of the nation onto the world and not looking in the mirror has established that our corporate vanity is not the reflection of reality that views needs in truth but displays wants in disguise. The privelege of the franchise, so to speak. YES! That is where I am coming from. The greed of this country as a few in popular realm have killed our spirit and ability to overcome the reality of what has become a poor Nation of people in pain. Kat |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Edited by
wouldee
on
Mon 03/03/08 12:09 PM
|
|
Can we return from the abyss? I wonder....
Henry Ford showed that building a better mouse trap and marketing it at a cheaper price would yield a tremendous profitability from supplying a demand at an affordable price and applying the law of diminishing returns which says 4% of a lot is much more than 100% of a little. As long as that can be accomplished with the resources of a local population being employed to generate such windfall profits, it is a convenient principle of economic prosperity. But when such a model is assumed to be the intended prize of balanced equitability and the practice becomes commonplace in the market environment then costs rise and profits decrease. To maintain profitability in the model then requires cutting costs even further without increasing market share or inflating price points while trying to absorb increased costs assuming that market share and brand loyalty will reflect a greater perceived quality of product with a more useful life expectancy and utility of use. At some point, the whole of the endeavor will assume that cutting costs is more efficiently achieved by tapping into a cheaper workforce elsewhere where the cost is viewed as windfall to a less advantaged workforce and a burdensome extravagance selfishly implied upon the workforce that was employed to increase the rewards of the law of diminishing returns in the first place. The paradigm shift that assumed the original model then evolves into a new model to be emulated competively by other producers. This lifts emerging economies while sinking older economies in the name of "economy of scale" and employing assumptions based on the practice of "the law of diminshing returns". Avarice and greed have become the intrinsic commodity of the American business model. The world at large has embraced this model. The frenzy has magnified itself into a form of warfare. There is no peace to be found in this battlefield. Only to the victor go the spoils. Will it be America Inc. or Global Inc.? Who will ultimately be the CEO? Will love be in this CEO's heart? Will it be love that rises to the occasion and seizes leadership? NOT AT ALL. The American dream has ended and the slumber that brought it about has greeted a new dawn on the horizon. It was not a restful night's sleep, after all. Nightmares never are....... amended afterthought....The Boof of Revelations suggest this and Christ warned of a calamity to befall mankind globally, but neither depiction of such a calamity due mankind had been described well enough to prevent its being forseen clearly. If such a calamity as described 2000 years ago is knocking on our door with a less than benevolent dictator at the helm whose description fits being psuedo-christian, than it is possible that we are seeing the dawn of a prophetic warning showing the signs of a pseudo-light that disguises its own very darkness. Are we prepared to face such a revelation and embrace the knowledge that such a scenario may very well accompany such a revelation as believably likely? Would the understanding of such knowledge lead to wisdom and thereby restore clearer equities or lead to an inequitable conclusion that belies the possible bankruptcy of the wisdom of man as has been foretold to be the case for our disengenuous employment in continually and defiantly excusing God as a mythical crutch of the weak and helpless? LOVE teaches otherwise, yet LOVE is not what mankind is apparently seeking, in my opinion. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Now, there are so many non Christians that do give and reach out, but because they are not Christian, are not recognized.
That’s the problem right here. Christianity has become an religion that’s all about judging people who aren’t Christians as having ‘rejected’ God. As long as it continues down that path it will forever be a lost cause. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Edited by
scttrbrain
on
Mon 03/03/08 12:39 PM
|
|
I believe that as far as I can find; it began with the Nixon admin. Drs office calls rose as did all medical things.
With the rise of sick and poor came the profits of our country. It is a market that makes money befalling our people that have nothing and are very sick and homeless. Why on earth do we stand for this? This Nation is becoming a Nation of the very rich where we all suffer from their wealth. The meek shall inherit the earth? The poor shall rise? When? When we get off our collective asses and make right what once was? Take the profit away from the business that grow from our misfortune. Make Drs get paid for healing and not in keeping us sick. Make hospitals profit from healing. Take away the profits from pharmacuetical companies who thrive on our weaknesses. Give them profit for making us right. Just to have a roof over our heads is too expensive for those that work for mimimum wage. This country was founded on God and the belief that we all should thrive and prosper. Where is the God of the rich? Where is the prosperity? Only the rich and the Government know that answer. So...let's leave God out of it. Where is the mere humanity of it all? I can barely watch a homeless person on the street without feeling guilty that I have transportation and and a home to go to. I can't afford meds. I can't afford a Dr. I barely afford gas to get to work. When I am sick and down...there is no way I can get help. What has happened to this place? I have an anger issue right now about our system. I see it growing while we fall apart. Kat |
|
|
|
|
|
Edited by
feralcatlady
on
Mon 03/03/08 01:17 PM
|
|
Arthur C. Brooks, Director of the NonProfit Studies Program at Syracuse University, conducted a study on charitable giving a couple of years ago, and published the following findings.
70 percent of Americans give to charity each year, and do so at far higher levels than people in other developed nations: three times as much as the British, four times as much as the French, and seven times as much as the Germans. … Why are Americans so much more generous than our European counterparts, many of whom look down on us as being mercenary and crass? Do we give more just because we have more to give? That may be part of it. Americans don’t just give more overall; we give proportionately more, relative to our income, than people in other countries. In the same study cited above, Professor Brooks also researched relationships between how much individuals give to charity and their socio-political perspectives. Based on the results, he proposed a possible explanation for why Americans are more generous in our private charitable contributions than Europeans are. Those who believe that government should redistribute income are far less likely to give voluntarily to help others. This helps explain why, compared to the United States, European states … see low levels of private giving. Perhaps those who feel it’s the government’s role to help the needy don’t contribute as much privately because they believe the government has it covered. Presumably, they figure they’re already contributing through taxes, so it isn’t necessary to donate privately as well. Yet, in this country, the people who believe the government spends too much on social welfare programs pay the same amount of taxes, but still feel impelled to give more of their own private resources to help those who are truly in need. This raises the question of whether those who think it’s up to the government to take care of the poor would be inclined to contribute more to humanitarian causes if the government were not assuming that role. If they paid less in taxes, would they donate proportionately more to charities? If so, we might be able to do a better job of helping the truly needy by eliminating government welfare programs and reducing taxes. Private charities tend to be more efficient than government programs. Given the same amount of money, it’s likely that private charities could address the problem more effectively than the government does. If the government were to get out of the charity business, perhaps the folks who think we’re not doing enough would contribute more of their own time and money, instead of always crusading for higher taxes. Now to even put this more into a level that all may understand.....Let's just take me as an example now this is in mow way to boast or to take the Glory away from God as that is where I always put it. Raised 14,000.00 for an orphanage, school and water well in India Raised enough money for 9 surgeries for Operation Smile where they fix cleft palets of children in third world countries...this is at a cot of $550.00 per surgery Headed up a team at church where we did 500 boxes for Operation Christmas Child. These boxes are given to children for Christmas also in third world countries. All throughout the year put together bags with soap, wash cloth, tooth brush, toothpaste, etc for battered Women's Shelters where I live. Raised and donated more then 10,000.00 for different animal rescue groups. And this is just a fraction of what I did personally.....and this doesn't even include what I have done with my Woman's Club where 12 wonderful ladies throughout the year do wonderful work for our community as well as internationally. I think people in general if they took the time to see where people's hearts are...would then understand how blessed we are as a country, and as a people. It is my Christian duty to help others that are in need.....but it also ingrained in me as a human being with compassion to help anyone I can. And this is not for me ever...or for gratification from others.....that is not at all what makes me tick. And I know this applies to everyone at my church also.....We are loving, compassionate, and want to help Christian people...... I also think of more people spent time looking at the good of this planet instead of the bad we would be a far richer nation for it. We watch the news and people thrive on the bad....instead of all the truly good that comes from this great nation of ours. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The government took it upon itself to kick us when we are down. You post what is a truth, but also an expense. It takes money to pay those that run these charities. Ever notice that most of them wear fine clothes and drive fine cars. Not to mention their homes?
We send monies to other countries yet let our own down. My complaint is that it has become a money thing to companies, government, professions of all types to get rich while letting the people fall by the wayside. Profits are the way. If we took the profits away from those that have the means and replace them with making us healthy, would we not in turn be more able to fix the economy and health system? Giving us more reason to get out and work and make our way? It is discouraging to say the least for many who cannot get anywhere because we get kicked when we are down. Instead of a hand up. Kat |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Edited by
wouldee
on
Mon 03/03/08 02:19 PM
|
|
The government took it upon itself to kick us when we are down. You post what is a truth, but also an expense. It takes money to pay those that run these charities. Ever notice that most of them wear fine clothes and drive fine cars. Not to mention their homes? We send monies to other countries yet let our own down. My complaint is that it has become a money thing to companies, government, professions of all types to get rich while letting the people fall by the wayside. Profits are the way. If we took the profits away from those that have the means and replace them with making us healthy, would we not in turn be more able to fix the economy and health system? Giving us more reason to get out and work and make our way? It is discouraging to say the least for many who cannot get anywhere because we get kicked when we are down. Instead of a hand up. Kat when laws are enacted to redistribute wealth we see an increase in jobs and businesses moving off shore. because they can... when our elected officials, our lawmakers, think in terms of redistributing wealth and creating social entitlements it is to secure the future votes of those that benefit from such redistribution, if only as an indirect consequence. But statisitcally, more than 40% of the workforce finds their paycheck directly or indirectly funded by government agencies and contracts. That helps explain the momentum that the Democratic Party seeks to continue for their own benefit as well. Taking this country down the slippery slope of institutionalized socialism will engender a populus that will vote for the continued growth of government and government funded jobs and entitlements. But this same nation of laws has an elite that is monied and very powerful, economically speaking, and very well entrenched in generating profits. Much of the nation is invested in this through the ownership of stocks, bonds and securities and instruments of passive income in the form of dividends and value added growth. The world at large is also invested in the financial markets as well as the financing of our federal budget on an on going basis. Laws benefit those that prosper financially from legal entitlements too. Patents, etc... None of these things can be displaced without creating a different balance to the equation as a whole. One of my greatest frustrations about our nation is the unwillingness to invest in good nutrition and the restoration of our soil that has been poisoned by pesticides. The crops that contribute to the food stocks of this nation and the world at large are bereft of the minerals and nutrients and vitamins and amino acids and enzymes necessary for a healthy body and strong metabolism and immune system because the soil that these crops are grown in is sterilized and dead!!!! Restoring the soil and reclaiming the natural benefits of agricultural products to their inherent nature restores the balance of wellness and health in all people's bodies and the alarming advance of disease and obesity will reverse itself. The rapid decline in our physical health is directly porportional to the advent of pesticides being implemented universally since the 1950's. The two go hand in hand. So does our mental health and well being require good nutrition. No wonder we have become fat...we must eat massive quantities of food to get minmal nutrition for our sustenance. It is not the fault of fast food, per se, but the profit driven motives that have contributed to such errors of judgement. Ironically, we have created an enormous medical industry to offset the imbalance created and yet the problems deepen at an ever increasing and alarming rate. We have come to ignore the basics of life on so many levels that we can not return from the abyss. Creating a market for ethanol based fuels have driven the price of corn and fertilizer through the roof. Food prices are soaring and the food stocks require us to eat more and more for less and less benefit from the exercise. A snowball of increasing dimensions is rolling uncontrollably down a slippery slope! How much more for Europe and all developed nations entrenched in populations of underpriveleged and disenfranchised citizenry? Socialism has not benefitted their populations, only furthered the gap between the rich and poor. And now we witness this phenomenon gripping the entire planet. Civil wars everywhere are fueled by the same problems we have here and in Europe. The haves continually seek to insulate themselves against the needs of the have nots. As much as charitable acts of kindness by individuals that care contribute to reversing hunger and disease and poverty, these problems grow uncontrollably deeper and more prolific upon the population of the entire world. The Christian influence is not problem. Religion at large is not the problem. Government is not the problem. Hunans wrestling advantage over other humans is the problem. Seeking our own good and not the good of others around us equally as well is the problem. It is a systemic problem of our own attitudes governing our own behavior world wide in our own dissimulative approach to survival of the fittest. Working together, humans accomplish so much more than working against ourselves, but there are always those that abuse this principle and it is esteemed as heroic. We have collectively brought it upon ourselves as a species and have always known how to avoid the calamity. Inherently? Coherently? Mankind prides itself that it has evolved. Evolved into what with the increase of knowledge? What knowledge? We haven't learned a collective thing about doing what is right and just for one another's good in any name...in any form...in any contrivance that overlooks the needs of our closest neighbor. Never will, collectively.....left to our own devices. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sometimes our perceived understanding of a situation is grossly different from the facts. Honestly, I can't figure out what this thread is about other than a rant about how greedy Christians, Americans, American corporations and/or the American government are. While this is a personal opinion, I would point out that our government barely gives money to charity and we are still ranked 19 out of charitable countries. As FeralCatLady pointed out, the private citizens of the US give, by far, more charitable donations than citizens of any other country. And US corporations give 1% of their profits to charity. Corporations are in business to make money and they give as much (percentage wise) as Sweden (the top charitable country).
So what is the problem? This thread has been all over and I hope that I'm not the only one who is confused as to the actual topic. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
maybe its the down right stupidity of Christianity that brought down the nation. Denial can only go so far.
I have to agree with Drmagix. The USA already is a result of Christian values. It was founded on these principles and look at what it has produced. We are living in a society that results from a Christian mindset. We’re still a predominately Christian nation even today, we even have a Christian president who has us in a war because he believes that God told him to invade Iraq. Christianity had more than ample opportunity to show the world what it is all about, and look what the results are. The USA – a Christian nation! And now Christianity wants a second chance??? Instead of pointing fingers at others and asking for a second chance, I think it’s time for the religion to confess to itself that its bigotry has failed and that it knows nothing of the meaning of love or of God. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Edited by
wouldee
on
Mon 03/03/08 05:16 PM
|
|
maybe its the down right stupidity of Christianity that brought down the nation. Denial can only go so far.
I have to agree with Drmagix. The USA already is a result of Christian values. It was founded on these principles and look at what it has produced. We are living in a society that results from a Christian mindset. We’re still a predominately Christian nation even today, we even have a Christian president who has us in a war because he believes that God told him to invade Iraq. 
Abra, I am missing your point altogether. I know your judgement is not clouded, only your view of Christianity that is obscured. This nation is a nation and construct of laws which were designed to exhibit agreeable discipline in the governance of a free and liberated people from tyrannical judgements and the attendant priveleges of an elitist nation's oversight and meddling into the affairs that were decidedly best left to self determination being that the inhabitants of the land had loosed themselves of being sequestered from privelege and franchisement unattainably present in their native homelands from which they emigrated. The model of the new government borrowed heavily from, if not altogether plagiarized, the Magna Carta and the French Constitution. Talk about re-interpreting things for self serving purposes is more incumbent upon the fathers of this nation than pandering to the emotions of the Christian population within it at the time for their acceptanc of which was not necessarily of any greater concern to them than the bondages that they had previously known all too well. Invoking God to bless their doings does not qualify as God's will necessarily. Quite to the contrary. This nation's rebellion was not engendered by humble people, by any means, but was expressly engendered by those that sought their own piece of the pie of material wealth to be gleaned from ownership and control of land and its resources and treasures that could be plundered for personal gain. New markets. And that, quite necessarily was motive enough. I find no Christian persuasion in that. But rather the emulation of spurious values by the have nots that had neither the power or the means to wrest their own ambitious intentions from those with the fruits that they sought to emulate for their own benefit. This nation fought to embezzle much less noble plunder from the inhabitants encountered that had not yet sunk to the depravity of destroying habitats and mining fleeting riches from the land at the detriment of the lands'perpetuity through assaulted ravaging. They actually expressed an awareness of such evils. The appearance of greatness and noble purpose and civility and social harmony is not readily apparent in the romantic notions of a young love affair, but clearly distinguishable in the character of its lifelong maturity. The U.S. is full grown now and the fruit is ripe on the tree. Is it deliciouly edible? How easy it is to blame Christian thought and morality for the invocations of self serving plunderers that disguise their advantage and privelege as noble and righteous when the cost for such bears little resemblance to the benevolence depicted by men intent on providing generous resources to build a nation that rewards the investor far greater then it benefits the consumer. Taxes on tea and the obstinant consternation towards such burdens that lead to the destruction of private property of certain British merchandisers should testify to the duplicitous nature of the jealous and envious rebels that could well have chosen to pay the tax or refuse to purchase such goods altogether. Commerce in America was far more highly prised than brotherly love, my friend. Or have we forgotten to remind ourselves of how well history is being rewritten to suit certain purposes. Surely the Christian faith has this thrown in it's face as though it is fact, why not also the American experiment? After all, most decry this nation's beginning as one of secular origin and not one of a religious nature. The garden of Eden was turned into a wastland from overuse and plunder. As was the nILE vALLEY, AS WAS THE WHOLE mIDDLE EAST. sorry, caplock trouble again... Lebanon is not the garden it once was nor is Africa. where else shall man moves his plunderings? Into the heart to steal things from God that were not always highly prized and expedient? Blame God. Blame Christianity for the ills of this world and then what? Christianity? Is it the plunder of Judaism? Judaism? is it the plunder of ancient myth? Who engendered these fancy excuses, if not those that suffer the losses generated by the greedy and insatiable plunderers of well intentioned peoples everywhere? You are excusing the wickedness of the depravity known as man when excusing the required accountability due the personal responsibility of every individual that profitted from his nefarious endeavors materially. Christians are more apt to not misuse this world beyond their personal needs. How often have Christians been labelled with the moniker of being too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good? The Jews of old were not privy to building architectural wonders without enlisting the aid and expertise of the artisans and craftsmen of their time that were under the protection and direction of foreign Kings. Nor were they civilization builders. How is it that transference is seeking to offer a second chance? I don't see it. wouldee apologies for wrecking your quote box 
Christianity had more than ample opportunity to show the world what it is all about, and look what the results are. The USA – a Christian nation! And now Christianity wants a second chance??? Instead of pointing fingers at others and asking for a second chance, I think it’s time for the religion to confess to itself that its bigotry has failed and that it knows nothing of the meaning of love or of God. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
To me christianity is one of several religions that became too powerful and was infected with the sickness of greed. Christ in the bible story threw the money changers out of the temple.
This would be sacrilige to todays televangelist. Of course some churches do good with their tax free status and seek to support those in need in their communities. But I don't see why money that is spent "converting others" should be tax free. That's just seeking to increase your income base. The modern american christian church is as much a corporate money making excessively materialistic machine as any other big business.... But of course I have been prejudiced by growing up with Jim and Tammy Faye and their air conditioned dog houses and gold stretch limos in the name of Jesus as they drive by the homeless across the tracks and Tammy Faye wept copious tears through her clown-prostitute layers of mascara. Sigh. And I cannot understand how people accepted Oral Roberts and his threat that god would kill him if he didn't receive a certain amount of money?! How could this not seem insane? It certainly seemed like insanity to me as a child... God would threaten to kill someone if they didn't get him money? Why would god need money? He created everything? I will never get it...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Edited by
Rapunzel
on
Mon 03/03/08 08:14 PM
|
|
jim and tammy faye...
a lot of really bad people 
use Christ 
for their own selfish & perverted gain... 
I agree... it is deplorable 
it is not the true essence of the Christ, 
though by any means 
|
|
|
|
|
