The Bible doesn’t say anything about the nationality of the AntiChrist. Rome is a historical symbol for any powerful government. Europe, Russia, Muslims, etc are not mentioned in the Bible.

I went thru sites on this subject and I saw dangerous political extremism and delusional, psychotic stuff, none of it consistent with Christian philosophy. I have my own ideas on the subject, with no more proof than anyone else. IMO, evil appears where it’s least expected, evil appears where it can do the most harm, and evil doesn’t know itself. As for McCain, he’s just a corrupt politician, morally and politically. I do have my own ideas (again, without any proof, just like the evangelicals) of who could be the Anti-Christ, just a feeling, nothing more; watch the Presidential campaign closely for a rapidly rising star.

Would Christ be in favor of torture? Being a Republican is not about condoning torture, that is absurd. Is it sometimes necessary? If your own family were kidnapped and you had the kidnapper in custody and you knew that if you didn’t persuade this person to tell you their location they would die in a matter of days..you wouldn’t do something to extract this information from the kidnapper? We are talking about torture that is not life threatening, by the way. It is pussy torture by comparison to what any other country would perform. The person feels like they’re dying but they aren’t. Waterboarding is highly uncomfortable. Permanent? No.

If you think Democrats have put an end to this practice, you are believing propaganda. Also, rest assured enemies of this country call Christians infidels and they speak openly about wiping Christians from the face of the earth (study Iran), and yes they condone torture and practice it. Not the kind of torture that makes you feel like you’re being drowned, but the kind where you lose limbs and are maimed for life.

Intolerance. The Bible says to love your neighbor and pray for them. Nowhere in its pages does it say to be tolerant of sinful nature and condone it, in an openly liberal fashion. The bible says to be apart from the world, subject to Gods laws, thus morality. Tolerance of another persons beliefs is one thing. Condoning a practice or belief that is in complete contrast to God’s word (in the name of tolerance) is foolishness. Wrong is still wrong.

Carrying a hand gun. Not surprisingly, criminals really dislike having a level playing field with the general public, and if you knew your statistics you’ll find that when a town has a gun toting rate of about 80%, the number of crimes decrease to almost inexplicably low numbers. You’d think everyone would just be gun happy and shooting one another, right? No, that is not statistically true. In most liberal cities, the only citizens carrying guns are the criminals, while joe public is going to rely on the police to protect him from violent criminals with weapons. This is not realistic, and I have lost friends this way. I don’t carry a gun, but I should, and so should you. This is in the constitution for a reason. If you trust the government to protect your family at every hour of the day, be my guest. I don’t share your optimism. Read about towns who have required all citizens to be armed. Hmm, no gun related deaths in 25 years, by ANYONE. http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=41196

Womens right to choose. Not enough space to cover that topic here. I see that as a grey area. Yes, it is murder. Yes that is unfair to force a woman to make a choice when her own body and health is involved. This is not a simple topic and anyone who thinks it is should look more closely and study every scenario. You think women just get off on killing babies? Of course they don’t. This is not easy for a woman to do, and criminalizing it is not the answer. On the flip side, I don’t a cent of my tax dollars spent to pay for a single abortion. That is my right.

Death penalty. This is a huge topic as well. This topic can be researched in multiple countries and is such a deterrent in some places that the crime for is NEVER committed.
In El Salvador you will be executed before a firing squad if you are caught driving intoxicated. We endure more innocent deaths annually in the United States from DUI related accidents than we lost soldiers in the Vietnam War. In El Salvador, no one is stupid enough to drive under the influence, for fear of capital punishment. Well? It works. Suddenly thousands of innocent people aren’t killed behind the wheel because of a threat to kill the person responsible for the crime. No deaths under this capital punishment law? Gee, this is really easy math.

Invading foreign countries under false premises. You think every Republican was offered a vote that said, “well we don’t have a real reason, but would y’all be cool if we just went in there fer just whatever and we can make up a reason later? That aight with you?” Come on, even Democrats in the Senate and all over the country were pawns in this political game. Even John Kerry himself said we needed to take care of Hussein immediately or face dire consequences if we leave him unchecked. Google it. Kerry (a democrat) was all for the invasion strategy until it was a way to platform politically against Bush and call him out for his failures.
I’m not saying the invasion was justified. I’m saying, a great deal more information is in play than just Republicans solely masterminding the invasion for their own gain. That is a myopic assessment to the big picture.

I consider myself to be independent and will probably register Libertarian. However, the examples of Republican values you cited here are not accurate. There are reasons that the USA is a great country, and I hate to say but those things are eroding at an exponential rate due to ignorance and socialist agendas wrapped in a liberal blanket to gain support. I hate the 2 party system because it divides the people. However, this is probably completely impossible to avoid now because we are really talking conservative and liberal agendas.
Tolerance and let’s all just get along doesn’t work today, as great as that sounds. Yes, pray for your enemies, but that doesn’t mean you join them.

I’m not a book-burner, David. I abhor such tactics. But I would simply rather not read any of O.S.C.’s stuff anymore. I’m sure he doesn’t need MY money.

Eagerly awaiting an opportunity to use it. Shouldn’t be long.

I could be wrong, but I simply cannot believe the ‘8,000 gal of water/lb of beef’ figure, in terms of true water “cost” to the system.

Potatoes, as far as I know, do not pee. Cows do, and it qualifies as recycling of water. Cow pee percolates down through the earth, being filtered and purified along the way, eventually ending up in the water table again and available for use by living things.

Cow pee — many, many gallons of it per cow lifetime — contributes (via the nitrogen and other nutrients it contains, as well as the water it returns to the system) to the production of all the earth’s greenery — including, presumably the potato. It’s a neat system, which would be less so without the cow, as well as without the potato.

I, too, am oversimplifying. But I hope it demonstrates why I am distrustful of attempts to reduce the argument to: potato=good; beef=bad.

BTW, loved your post on John Shore’s blog – that’s some great stuff on marriage. I have been married 21 years – and learned alot! Best of luck to you and that incredible wife of yours!

Blessings!

You find something amusing, ironic or stupid (or all three) in the news and then write about it and find some vague way to categorize it as “mediocrity”.

However, if something is terrible, and yet very good at being terrible, then clearly it’s superlative nature on both ends of the spectrum make it anything but mediocre… unless you’re averaging out.

OR… unless it is the blog post itself that is intended to be mediocre, in which case, how ironic, amusing and stupid. What a very run of the mill job you’ve done. I give you a C for lack of any real effort.

Nice to see that Palin is proving to us that mediocrity stretches to the furthest outskirts of our country.

So’s your face.

http://grammartips.homestead.com/toetheline.html