"are desperately hoping for doomsday and the end of the world" I prefer to look at things they way they are not thru rose colored glasses.Drink some more coffee.

"you do not wish for a chance for man, or a better world" I never said this at all I said I look at things they way they ARE not How I "wished" they were.

See you on the other Skybird..you and others here will keep your heads in the sand until the very end which is your "choice", I and Christ merely offers another way....what, as I asked above, is EXACTLY your plan?...you don't have one..period.

I am in no cave and I fear nothing. I have no weapons in my home to protect myself from evil men as I believe that he who kills with the sword will die with it.Do not mistake me for some crazy person I have a great job ,great family, nice home...and tommorrow it is cast into the fire to be tried.

The harvest is great and the laborers few Skybird...it is my hope sincerely that you and all here will be counted as wheat and not chaff.I'm a laborer.But just like in the days of Noah when the time is near the Door will be shut and it will be too late for ya then.

Please do me a favor and not lump me in with "Religion"....belief is not religion.

God and Christ and myself included do not hope or pray for the worlds demise...don't be silly and try to discount what I say by throwing that bs up...I know where you come from Skybird and I know your mind...it is fleshly and you and others here concern yourselves with fleshly things....but the big game the big show being played out behind the veil is for your soul.

Almost harvest time...

:dead:



Get a visum for Russia, Iceman, and join those men in the cave. They are your real brothers, believe me.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Brilliant!!!

Seldome had such a good laught. :up:

You should see his 27 others.
http://www.youtube.com/profile_video...patcondell&p=r
Be aware that the quality of his speeches is varying and some are weak, but most are very nicely thought out.

Already watching :ping:

Not that I would agree on everything but his sense of humor is pricelss :lol:

Anyone care to lighten me were this apocalyptic mentality comes to these evangelicals?
Something like 90% of Finns belong to the Lutheran church but we have very little fundamentalists. Its often said Lutherans are never "happy" and are constantly trying to make things even better and work harder. So they dont have time to think about the afterlife all the time.

I think that must be, Christ and me. :hmm:

i feel it comes from the fundamentalist unconcious (?) desire to by pass the need for faith...hence the literal interpretation of the various scriptures..here's a good example...
whilst i was working in a hospital a while back...one of the ward assistants (a fundamentalist Christian) was amazed to the point of confusion by the fact that one of the patients was a Christian..and yet was ill....this completely contradicted the literal interpretation of the Bible...where-as all illness had been taken onto Christ as part of the sacrifice he made etc..ergo no Christian could ever become ill...

i kid you not.....the literal interpretation of scripture ...(again i cannot emphasise enough just how "normal" this type of thinking is in fundamentalist groups..it's bog standard run of the mill fundamentalist doctrine)

now this ward assistant went into a deep crisis regarding this patient even to the point of haranging the patient about his lack of faith...how could he be ill?? ..she is going to spend most of her life in such a state of confusion and cause no end of harm if she does not cotton on..(if you see the relevance of the comparison)

etc

mean-while the patient maintained that his faith was not negated by his illness..far from it ...

the fundamentalist point of view and their literal interpretation of scripture is a "low brow" attempt to avoid the need for faith entirely...faith is complicated...faith is not blind...etc etc well you know the storys same as me..

fundamentalists by their actions seek to deny the need for faith by claiming the literal truth...but because faith is anything BUT literal...and....hence the need and use for/of parable..etc..thus they are unwilling to accept that faith is a struggle...not a light switch ...and that really "does their heads in" lol

The real threat comes from those who would not allow the peaceful, free exercise of religion.

As there is? China, SA?

I don't understand what you are asking Fish.

A common characteristic of both Christian and Islamic fundamentalists alike. That'S why I have some sympathy for Judaism, not for it'S content, for which I do not care that much, but for it's form and behavior. It does not try to teach me about it's greatness and truth and glory at every opportunity, but leaves me alone when I say No, and stays for itself. The same coluld be said for Buddhism, and Hinduism, at least in the forms they appear in the Western world. Give them a No, and they happily leave you alone.

That No is an answer many Christians and Muslims do not accept - and that'S when I start kicking their sectarian a$$e$. And before they, in an act of arrogant theatralic altruism, include me in their prayers nevertheless to show me how wellmeaning and superior in selflessness they are, I want them to ask me if I want to be there.

Possible that they would not like my answer to that as well. Well, life can be hard.

And now, to lead this thread back on tracks, i quote the introduction again, and what the problem is on which it all focusses:

And Skybirds mistake is that he sees boogie men under every rock and doesn't really understand Americans, their society or their politics as well as he thinks he does. Whatever our internal diferences we are all Americans first.

God is dead,
And no one cares.
If there is a Hell,
I'll see you there.

Have a good day.:)

Skybird, I'm not against anything you say but you point to Vietnam and say how much the army's political makeup has changed since then.

Probably something to do with most of them being drafted back then, no?

Not me but the study says so, plus some German essays I read some days ago in combination with that study. And if the draft has something to do with the culture shift, then this does not change a bit the fact that there has been a culture shift indeed. But I agree in so far as that the abandoning of the draft system has something to do with the shifting to the right, if it is more symptom or more a cause can be discussed. Since the religious right has increasiongly pished for power positions in government, society and the army, I think it is a bit of both.

In Germany this fear for a shifting to the right, or an isolated "society within society", is one of the arguments why many refuse to change the bundeswehr from a conscript to a professional army. that step makes an army a more closed "secret" society", that then makes it's own rites and rules and get's "closed off" to the rest of society, it has the tendency to isolate itself in order to remain itself "clean".

That is one reason, that makes even the Finnish left, support our conscription.

That makes me one of them, but the direction of the move does not matter for me.
Any move away from the rest of the society is a grave danger to us!
We follow the principle that all force in germany is monopolised by the state.
As such, the state and all it's instituitions must be strictly aligned with the people.

Using conscription is a proven way to achieve that alignment, and so far there was no convincing option discussed in germany.

That could be questioned, but it would be enough matter for a whole new thread. Also, we did have our Bundeswehr-scandals in the past years too, didn't we. So, immune to certain culture shifts the BW certainly is not. It maybe is just more difficult and thus: unlikely to happen on a wide front. In the end, every army still is a men's world, and a playing boy's secret society. Just look how language changes immediately once civilians, or worse: ladies are present. :D

I don't understand the militant attitudes towards faith. Yeah, there are militant sects of every faith, even the lack of faith has violent extremists...

I'm a Christian. I believe in God. I believe in good and evil. I've never killed anyone or yelled in anyone's face.

Mostly, I just keep my religion to myself. What I believe is my own choice, and what others believe is theirs. I can't control your faith. I can talk to you about it if you're interested, but I won't yell at you if you don't believe in God. Mostly, I'll just pray for you...how is this harmful?

ALL of my Christian buddies are like me in this way. In fact, it's my athiest/agnostic friends that do the more shouting at us than anything else.

I just want to let you all know that we're not all freaks that want the world to end ASAP. Would I care? Not really, if things were to go down fast, I know where I'm going...but I'd rather live a full life before any of that happens.

My message to religious radicals: God wants spiritual fruits, not religious nuts.