Many of us were shocked by the scene of Tea Party activists attacking a disabled man with Parkinson’s disease who held a sign calling for health care reform. One man threw money at Robert A. Letcher, 60, and began screaming uncontrollably that him. The man has now been identified as Chris Reichert and he has issued an apology.
Letcher, a former nuclear engineer, suffers from Parkinson’s, was attacked while sitting in front of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy’s district office. Since my father died after years with Parkinson’s (here and here), the video was particularly disturbing to watch Letcher dealing with such bullies.
Reichert now says “I snapped. I absolutely snapped and I can’t explain it any other way.”
He has added “I made a donation (to a local Parkinson’s disease group) and that starts the healing process.”
For the story, click here.
Hi Joe.
Sorry for the late reply – time difference y’know.
Had dental check up the other week – everything fine.
Mrs M! gets her free smear test next week, but maybe that’s too much information!
You see that’s another advantage of our “evil commie” system – regular check ups catch any issues before they get too serious and treatment can then be less costly.
I understand that you are perfectly capable of ruining your own country – believe me, you are not alone in that one. See the article on the kid stuck up a tree. But the point is that you don’t HAVE to ruin your country to set up a “disgusting socialist” healthcare syste. We set up ours just after WW2 when we were almost broke and 62 years later it still works.
Tootie,
I hate to disappoint you, but I am not an atheist. I merely was trying to show you that the belief in any God without any skepticism leads to the abuses that we see in every religion. The blind faith that you and others display allow these miscreants to continue to abuse children and women. As “meso” said, I am the undisputed ultimate power in the universe. However, we are all the undisputed ultimate power in our own respective universes, but only if we use our brains. I can still believe in religious ideals and ideas, but I shouldn’t let those ides deny the rights of other religions and other peoples to believe as they wish. It is pretty late for an old ultimate power like me, so good night all!
mespo:
I’m a witness that God exists. Accept or reject. End of story.
That is faith.
Oh, and there are billions who have agreed with me.
That is evidence.
Meso=Mespo In the strange universe of Tootieville.
Meso:
Islam admirably deals with the issue of punishment in the hereafter in its theology, and in that sense it offers more to resolving the problem of the denial of justice than you or the atheist does.
But we have more evidence to examine. I’m quite sure that God did not center His religion around a 54 year old man who had sex with a 9 year child (wife), and bought and sold sex slaves, considered it Holy, and permits all Muslim men the same privileges today.
It therefore has to be a false religion and gets scratched off my list of choices available to the human race. That makes things simpler.
Therefore, the false religion of Islam is as useless as you are in dealing with those who literally got away with murder and mass murder as well.
Bdaman: Nice video clip at 4:57pm March 29th.
DUH: Okay on the embedding business. Thank you for putting it in the thread.
Woosty:
I don’t know what you are referring to with the bible verse you quoted out of context.
And just what vengeance am I taking?
You really don’t believe that I’m not to make judgments about people do you?
If, hypothetically, I don’t judge the registered sex offender who lives near me and invite him to my kid’s birthday parties, and he comes to them, you can be sure that if something dreadful happened to any of the kids I invited, the court and the parents of those kids will have wisely expected me to have been sensible enough to make the right judgment and keep such a predator away from children.
I can just imagine all the clucking going on here at the website if such a thing really did happen. The atheists would all be a twitter about how stupid those moron Christians were not to keep a registered pedophile from birthday parties.
I believe the law (rightfully so) expects me to make the right judgments about many things like this.
Christian ethics requires that we make judgments and it is generally non-Christians or ignorant Christians who spread the myth that they we not supposed to judge.
What Christians ought not do is judge others unjustly:
Matthew 7:1-5 “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”
This is a warning against unjust judgment, not against judgment.
Non-believers don’t know how to read scripture. All verses in the bible discussing a particular topic have to be studied together in order to understand the meaning of that topic.
Some bibles are organized topically–they are called Topical Bibles. They are written in a format that studies the word of God by subjects: Marriage, children, or justice.
In such bibles one gets the full picture of what the Bible actually says about each issue covered.
By tossing out a verse and not understanding all the other verses that discuss the same topic, you take things out of context and spread myths and misinformation.
It should be avoided if the pursuit of truth is your goal.
http://www.cfirecm.com/QandA/Judge%20Not%20Lest%20Ye%20Be%20Judged.htm
I don’t know who these people are but the summary is spot on.
“Your god is yourself and all the little thoughts that run around in your brain.”
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By your own god criteria, rafflaw has killed no one to our knowledge and we can easily prove that he and his thoughts actually exist. Ipso facto, rafflaw is the undisputed ultimate power in the universe, and you are bound to accept it under the rules you, yourself, have laid down. Eureka, a breakthrough!
And by the way, if we can’t blame the omniscient, omnipotent power in the universe from whom all compassion springs, for the horrible things He either wills or permits, whom can we blame? Certainly not His worthless, servile creatures who can know or do nothing without His express permission and guidance?
rafflaw: Don’t blame God, that’s a cop-out.
Oh, and it was the atheists last century who committed more murder and slaughter last century than ever was done in the name of religion throughout all human history according to the best available information we as a race possess.
And if you didn’t notice you have entered into the my god is better than your god cat-fight. Your god is yourself and all the little thoughts that run around in your brain.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MURDER.HTM
rafflaw:
Thanks, rafflaw. I happily accept Grand Poobah status again! 🙂
Mespo,
No matter what tootie says, I pick you over the “invisible God” any day of the week. There is much too much killing and molesting, all under the name of God to satisfy me. Just ask those “deaf boys” in Wisconsin.
Woosty’s still a Cat
“…………………………..
Judge Not, lest you be judged ~G*d
Vengeance is MINE sayeth ~ the Lord”
=============================================================
Ah, now there’s the rub.
Forgiveness
Thank you puzzling, that was very cool…I am an animation freak btw.
Tootie:
“If the only choice I have in life is to choose between is what you say or what the invisible God of the Bible says moral excellence is, then I’m going with the invisible God because you offer me nothing to solve the problem of injustice.
With the God of the bible, wisdom is certain and never changes and the problem of punishment (do you really think Hitler was punished?) is solved.”
Judge Not, lest you be judged ~G*d
Vengeance is MINE sayeth ~ the Lord
Byron wrote:
Someone’s misfortune does not give them the right to lay claim to my life.
QFT — This is precisely right.
The statement reminded me of the clever animation done by Schoolland in The philosophy of Liberty. I thought Woosty and others might have an interest.
Buddha:
“God doesn’t make the world this way. We do.”
*************
“…or we don’t,” he sadly added.
Amen, brother.
Rorschach: You see, Doctor, God didn’t kill that little girl. Fate didn’t butcher her and destiny didn’t feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night he didn’t seem to mind. From then on I knew… God doesn’t make the world this way. We do.
“I’m not satisfied to live in a universe where justice doesn’t win. And I think that the law of cause of effect demonstrates that Hilter ought not to have gotten away with his crimes. If life ends with our deaths and no life beyond, than the law of cause and effect was violated because Hitler in no real sense paid for what he caused.
My world view guarantees Hitler will pay. Yours offers me nothing. True justice then doesn’t reside with your “superior” moral status.
Your alleged superior moral status allows for the worst of people to get away with with the worst of crimes and I cannot bear that. Nor do I think it is logical.
I also cannot bear knowing millions of children have starved to death over the centuries and no one paid a price for it.”
*****************
It is abundantly clear that the universe is morally neutral and your “I couldn’t live in the universe otherwise” argument adds nothing to the proof that there is some anthropomorphic judge out there torturing Hitler, Stalin, or Cardinal Torquemada for their “sins.” You might as well say I couldn’t live in a universe that didn’t recognize that the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven on a winged-horse,as the Muslims do, and for which I am sure you have no trouble being atheistic towards.
The problem with the Bible-thumping crowd is they are always trying to profess as true, things they couldn’t possibly know to be true and for which no good evidence exists. Stymied in their attempts to prove the irrational by rational means, they resort to the “it must be true, because I want with all my heart, that it be true.” Do I really have to point out to you how childish this line of thinking really is?
The point is you can believe what ever you want to believe in “your world.” My world is the world of reality, and I see no reason to believe that Hitler was punished unless some other human did it. That’s why I’ll take my justice here, instead of in some vaporous, netherworld that I have no reason to believe exists, and know nothing about. What “my world” offers is plain, unvarnished, cold truth which you may disagree with, but which, to this point, you have woefully failed to disprove by one iota. Make believe is fun and cute, but its charm wanes when practiced by presumably rational adults.
meso:
Let me get this straight; The superior moral agents among us (like Nietzsche and you, I presume) get to decide who the inferior moral agents are based on their opinions alone. Based on their opinions alone they have decided that the inferior moral agents are trying lower their superiors by equalizing all morality?
Did I get that right?
Because if I did, then you still have the problem of deciding what is or is not moral and over time that has changed. That is one reason why I came to distrust human wisdom. While humans sorted this out, people suffered.
If the only choice I have in life is to choose between is what you say or what the invisible God of the Bible says moral excellence is, then I’m going with the invisible God because you offer me nothing to solve the problem of injustice.
With the God of the bible, wisdom is certain and never changes and the problem of punishment (do you really think Hitler was punished?) is solved.
I’m not satisfied to live in a universe where justice doesn’t win. And I think that the law of cause of effect demonstrates that Hilter ought not to have gotten away with his crimes. If life ends with our deaths and no life beyond, than the law of cause and effect was violated because Hitler in no real sense paid for what he caused.
My world view guarantees Hitler will pay. Yours offers me nothing. True justice then doesn’t reside with your “superior” moral status.
Your alleged superior moral status allows for the worst of people to get away with with the worst of crimes and I cannot bear that. Nor do I think it is logical.
I also cannot bear knowing millions of children have starved to death over the centuries and no one paid a price for it.
How will you make that right and balance out the law of cause and effect that demands justice for wrongs?
You cannot. Your inferior and my inferior morals cannot.
But Christ, the Great Judge of this world, will render righteous judgment for every unjust act committed against the innocent which you and no one else was able to punish.
They await review in the heavenly court docket.