ABC has a truly bizarre and disturbing story. Brian Ross reports that a military contractor has encoded hidden New Testament Bible passages on high-powered rifle sites. The contractor is Trijicon, which apparently confirmed the practice.
The biblical references appear as, in one case, 2COR4:6 — an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
The company received $660 million under a contract to supply 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps. It has other contracts with the Army.
U.S. regulations prohibits proselytizing of any religion. Moreover, such additions to military equipment should violate the contract which presumably did not ask for biblical citations with gun sights.
The use of biblical citations will only reaffirm the view of many that the U.S. went into Iraq and Afghanistan on a “crusade.” This view was magnified by Bush calling its a crusade and later citing Biblical passages to convince other leaders that this was a worthy, if not divinely ordained, effort. His subordinates appeared to keep Bush in a Biblical mindset by adding prominent quotations from the Bible in reports on the war, here.
In my view, this raises serious legal questions that should result in a review of this contract. As a minimum, the contractor should have to pay for the removal of the citations. We have to able to trust contractors not to carry out their hidden or religious agenda as part of a contract with the American people. Just imagine if these were citation to the Koran. If the company wishes to proselytize it should do so with theocratic governments. Perhaps the Swiss Guards that the Vatican need a few sights and citations.
For the full story, click here.
“You might ask yourself how you get into a position where you hear that every day.” sezu
Wow, that didn’t take long. Ok, one more question.
The answer to your question new blogging person…. is that I don’t.
You can walk into any left leaning blog on the web where any sort of religious issue is the topic and find the exact same comments as we see here.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but you guys are not unique in that way. I can hear the same mocking of the Christian faith in any left wing blog out there on any given day.
Without my uttering a word.
Ok, I guess if no one has any other questions for me I’ll bid you adieu.
Perhaps I’ll pop in sometime after the elections, just to see if we’ve learned anything new.
ThirtyPercenter, This is the kind of crap reasonable Christians have to listen to every day.
Do you really hear all this every day? Every day? Maybe it’s your alternate personality calling you from the real world.
You might ask yourself how you get into a position where you hear that every day.
Very well. If that is the end of the Inquisition I will bid you all adieu. I will leave you with this.
As we all watch in horror as the House and Senate majorities shift back to republican control, and as we watch in 2012 as the republicans take back the White House, take a moment to consider the following.
The majority of left wing blogs are like this one. People who proclaim their superiority via their tolerance yet are full of intolerance towards anyone defending the Christian faith.
We see thread after thread targeting the pious hypocrisy of the neoconservative right, and rightly so. Threads like this one for example which shows the hypocrisy of putting messages designed to instill peace on weapons of war.
But we see nothing, ever defending the reasonable Christians out there who do not endorse these things. And in the threads themselves, the commentors mock and ridicule religion and the faith of hundreds of millions of people with their special form of erudite smugness. Only its not erudite. Most don’t have a clue about the religions they mock. As we’ve seen many use deception, like Mespo did, editing and removing key parts of scriptures to make them appear to support their argument.
And of course we see that the mob mentality prevails as the politically correct thing to do today seems to be to mock other peoples faith. We’ve come a long way baby.
So when we lose the upcoming elections perhaps it would be prudent to contemplate the merit of continuing to insult and slur hundreds of millions of people, every day, online for all the world to see. Because whether you know it or not, people see what you write every day without uttering a word. Christian people. Many too shy or afraid of even saying a word. Because they see what you do, to those that do. The only Christians you welcome, are the ones who accept your ridiculing and disrespect of their faith and sit quietly by not daring to object.
Earlier tonight I was mocked for alluding to myself as a “reasonable Christian”. Christians in general were mocked by an individual claiming to be a former law enforcement officer. (former I am assuming based on his public display of bigotry towards Christians, means he was fired). He indicated there was no such thing.
Of course by “reasonable” I did not mean someone who agreed with him. Or someone who he “liked”.
By reasonable of course I meant Christians who do not subscribe to the neoconservative twists of their basic beliefs. Christians who do not believe in torture, or offensive wars, or putting scriptures on rifle sights.
Obviously that is what I meant. And obviously there are millions of such Christians alive today.
“But 30” you’ll say. “We never hear from them”.
True.
That’s because you’re too busy shouting them down.
So when we lose the House, the Senate, the White House, etc.. just remember. Those Christians out there you’re offending every time you mock their faith, ridicule their beliefs, twist and distort their beliefs and speak about things in the bible you know little about, they’re the reason we lost.
Not that they will go out and vote republican. Some might but most won’t. They just won’t go.
They’ll just stay home.
“Maybe you taste like tofu.”
I think that would probably be a correct statement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hufu
How do we know if they got the formula right?
Thirty percenter,
I didn’t mock anyone’s faith. You are the one that called me a bigot. I am a Christian, but I do not believe everything that you do. That is not mocking you, that is disagreeing with you. I am sorry if you can’t handle it. WWJD?
ThirtyPercenter
“Being a Christian today in a left wing blog or any left wing venue, means having your faith ridiculed, mocked and condemned”
Maybe you taste like tofu.
I know that this is so on-topic that it will likely be seen to be off-topic, but I’ll give it a shot.
What if the sights were not produced specifically by the military, but instead, purchased, without modification, by military supply officers who knew nothing about the encrypted reference? It’s not like somebody would know what the combination of letters and numbers that appear on the scope are that obvious.
This would mean that the manufacturer wouldn’t have duty to comply with any military regulation. Wouldn’t it?
“Of course the Model T did come with a manual. You can download copies of the original manuals online at several places.”
I got one on Ebay from Dan Rather. Looks good.” – Pinandpuller
Here is a link to an original 1922 Model T Owners Manual.
http://old-carburetors.com/1922%20Ford%20Operators%20Manual/
Now.
How many more mundane, inane issues would you like to try to “get a point” on?
10?
100?
1000?
10,000?
How many more “questions” do you have for me?
If your inquisition is finished I’d like to bid adieu to you and this place.
I’ve been to many left wing blogs in the past but I can honestly say this one is “special”.
Too special for me.
FFLeo:
How’ve you been. I was wondering if you liked my Charlie Daniels reference.
ThirtyPercenter
“Moving the goal posts is doing something like grasping an obvious euphemism and proceeding to argue against it.”
Are you sure you don’t mean metaphor?
“Of course the Model T did come with a manual. You can download copies of the original manuals online at several places.”
I got one on Ebay from Dan Rather. Looks good.
“But of course no point about Model T’s was being made. It was simply an analogy as you well knew.”
I make no statements in regards to what I know without benefit of council-although I’m not sure about this Model T maintainence agreement I purchased from Sears.
Analogy, that’s a euphemism for metaphor-correct?
In 2005, the USMC’s own website featured an Abrams tank doing duty in Iraq with “New Testament” emblazoned on it. After expressions of outrage, the boneheads took it off their website after abut a week.
Some links to the story:
http://www.americablog.com/2005/05/dod-web-site-jokes-of-christian.html
http://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2005/05/new-testament-book-movie-tank.html
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:ambtLb6KzEYJ:www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2005/05/mil-050518-usmc02.htm+%22said+Gunnery+Sgt.+Richard+J.+Layton%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk
““reasonable Christians”
________________________________
That phrase is one of the most abjectly oxymoronic combinations of words ever uttered.” -Former Federal LEO
Lo and behold. One more example of pure bigotry coming from a group of people who are supposedly against it.
And this is why the democrats lose elections. This is why we suffer under republican rule.
Because for as bad as the republicans are when it comes to intolerance,… we have no one on the left who is much better.
Being a Christian today in a left wing blog or any left wing venue, means having your faith ridiculed, mocked and condemned.
Day in.
Day out.
And the only Christians tolerated in liberal blogs are the ones who sit quietly by and do not defend their faith from the ignorant, uneducated slurs and insults from the mob.
“Reasonable” Christians? Sounds kind of funny after this diatribe by 30%’er and the “I’ve got an answer for every question” routine.” mespo
Quite reasonable actually considering the bellicose and rude tone your first comment to me was.
As for “answer for every question” one can only wonder as to the nature of an individual who barrages someone with a slew of questions, and then criticizes the person for answering them.
“30 percenter,
I have been called alot of names over the years, but never an anti-christian Bigot!” – rafflaw
Well what would you call someone who mocks and ridicules the faith of others?
Tolerant?
yikes.
“reasonable Christians”
________________________________
That phrase is one of the most abjectly oxymoronic combinations of words ever uttered.
“This is the kind of crap reasonable Christians have to listen to every day.”
*************
“Reasonable” Christians? Sounds kind of funny after this diatribe by 30%’er and the “I’ve got an answer for every question” routine. I thought only the divine had that ability, but maybe we are in the presence of greatness and don’t know it!
Reminds me of an old ditty:
“He said: “Jesus walked on the water,”And I know that is true,
But sometimes I think that preacher man,
Would like to do a little walkin’, too.”
30 percenter,
I have been called alot of names over the years, but never an anti-christian Bigot! First of all, I have discussed in past threads of a religious nature, but I was born and raised a Catholic and attended Catholic grade school for 8 years. I was an altar boy, I was a Eucharistic Minister and an usher. Yes, the Bible is a story book. That view does not make me an Anti-Christian Bigot. The good Benedictine Nuns taught us that Christ used the stories or parables to teach. Not all of them were claimed to be fact. When it comes to whether I believe 30 percenter or the Benedictine Nuns, the choice is easy. The Nuns win hands down. One more thing, a real Christian wouldn’t call someone an Anti-Chritian Bigot just because they don’t like what they hear or don’t agree with it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKTRkmwDP-c&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
I forget whether or not embedded video works on this site.