Take a look at this and tell me what you think?

[CarGuy]

Subject: Ben Stein's thoughts


Finally, someone says what REGULAR people
think!

The following was written by Ben Stein and
recited by him on CBS
Sunday Morning Commentary . . . excellent.

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from
my beating heart: I have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them
on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog
biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers
at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and
Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my
life if I know who they are and why they have broken
up? Why are they so important?

I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either,
and I do not care at all
about Tom Cruise's wife. Am I going to be
called before a Senate
committee and asked if I am a subversive?
Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica
are. If this is what it means to be no longer young,
it's not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every
single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does
not bother me even a little bit when people call
those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas
trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel
discriminated against. That's what they are:
Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people
say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or
getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It
shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy
time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a
manger scene on display at a key intersection near
my beach house in Malibu. If people want a crèche,
It's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few
hundred yards away.
I don't like getting pushed around for
being a Jew, and I don't think
Christians like getting pushed around for
being Christians. I think
people who believe in God are sick and
tired of getting pushed around, p eriod. I have no
idea where the concept came from that America is an
explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the
Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down
my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where
did the idea come from that we should worship Nick
and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as
we understand Him?

I guess that's a sign that I'm getting
old, too.

But there are a lot of us who are
wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where
the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one
another for a laugh, this is a little different:
This is not intended to be a joke, it's not funny,
it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on
the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could
God let something like this happen (regarding
Katrina)?"

Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful
response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just
as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our
schools, to get out of our government and to get out
of our lives. And being the Great God that He is, I
believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect
God to give us His blessing and His protection if we
demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events... terrorists
attacks, school shootings, etc. I think it started
when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her
body found recently) complained she didn't want
prayer in our schools, and we said OK.


Then, someone said you better not read the
Bible in school, the Bible says thou shalt not kill;
thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as
yourself. And we said OK.

Then, Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't
spank our children when they misbehave because their
little personalities would be warped and we might
damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said
an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our
children have no conscience, why they don't know
right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to
kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.


Probably, if we think about it long and
hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a
great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

It's funny how simple it is for people to
trash God and then wonder why the world's going to
hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say,
but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can
send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like
wildfire but when you start sending messages
regarding the Lord, people think twice about
sharing.

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene
articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God
is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing?

Funny how when you forward this message,
you will not send it to many on your address list
because you're not sure what they believe, or what
they will think of you for sending it. Funny how we
can be more worried about what other people think of
us than what God thinks of us. Pass it on i f you
think it has merit. If not then just discard it...
no one will know you did. But, if you discard this
thought process, don't sit back and complain about
what bad shape the world is in.

This Ben Stein Guy seems to have summed up a lot of things that have been on my mind lately.

[kmfarm]

Amen

[Crys]

Here's the problem with what he says -- he's assuming there is Abrahamic religion with your one god and there is atheism and that's all there is. He's not offended by Christians pushing their Bible in schools because the Christians and the Jews worship the same god and he rightly sees the two religions as different understandings of the same god.

As a non-Christian polytheist who routinely got detention for refusing to say "under God" in the Pledge because they would not let me either remain silent during those two words or change it to "under the Gods" to match _my_ religion (among hundreds of personal examples of the discrimination against non-Christians in the country), I have to say that I would rather have no religion in our schools and government than to be constantly told that I don't belong in this country, even though I was born here and my family has been here since before there was a United States of America, even though we fought for our Independence as part of the Revolution and every generation since has had warriors in the military spilling their blood to protect our rights and freedoms, just because I'm not a Christian. All religions or no religions. That's the only fair and Constitutional choice.

This idea that Christians are being pushed around in this country is just stupid. Utterly, ridiculously stupid. We just want you to STOP FORCING YOUR RELIGION ON THE REST OF US. It makes me so angry I want to hit something. When a gaggle of children ties your child to a tree and tries to burn her alive and the police and school refuse to do anything about it because "she deserved it" because of her religion (as happened to me), then you come talk to me about discrimination.

You'd think that Christians at large would have learned this from their own history. When the Christians were persecuted in Rome, it was not because they were Christians, it was because as Christians they refused to worship the Emperor as a god. All the state wanted was for them to also acknowledge the Emperor; they were otherwise free to practice their religion how they wanted. But they wouldn't. It was blasphemous to them. They refused to let the state religion be forced on them. They stood up for themselves and their brethren and I admire them for it.

So why is it that it was wrong when Rome did it, but now that it's Fundamentalist Christians trying to make their religion the state religion (in a country founded on Enlightment Deism, NOT Christianity, and founded to guard AGAINST a forced state religion) and expecting the rest of us to worship their god (hey, we're free to practice our own religion as long as we also worship the Christian god publicly...), it's ok? Why?

[Hobo]

"Amen" to Cry's response!

I also am tired of Christians trying to force their beliefs on me. They are not happy to just let other people live their lives, they must try to make their beliefs into laws that now dictate how I should live my life.

[CarGuy]

Crys,

What was done to you was wrong no matter who did it... Or for whatever reason. I am sincerly sorry to hear that something like that would have happend to you.

Most of the points that I agree with in that quote have to do with why we have to play so much follow the leader. Who cares what all the actors are doing. I am frankly sick to death with hearing about them.

[rudedog]

i agree with it wholeheartedly.
i grew up an athiest, then after years of pain and anger a very simple truth changed my outlook on the whole issue.

i got what i deserved, because there are always consequences for my actions, wheather they are good or bad. and thats the problem today as i see it. people think they can do anything without having to answer for it.
there is nothing secred anymore, just whatever pleases the person.
no right, no wrong. just a bunch of prejatice people who dont agree with you.
ever notice that? instead of answering for what they do, they just want to accuse everyone else.
believe me, my friends and i used to be the same way.

ok so im going to have one of my politically incorrect moments here. its NOT A FLAME so ill Put all kinds of smiles here.

i know this is going to tick some people off, it always does.

think about this, would you be able to practice you alternative religion in any country that didnt have a majority christian population.
not in africa, even though they most definitly have alternative religions, you eather practice the one they practice or else. you believe what the shamain says you believe.
not in south america, same deal practice what everyone else does or be declared a witch. in some regeons even the christains seem to disapear.
not in china, only those religions that are state sanctioned and properly regulated allowed here.
not in the middle east. they dont even tolerate the major religions real well, or havent you noticed. anyone read the news from samalia today.
"""jihad.""" i really wouldnt try to declare my religion in a place where they cut hands off just for shoplifting.


in those countrys they would do things that we wont even mention here, just because you mentioned it. but here you get to practice it. why?
because the christians made sure it was going to be that way! thats why.
and in return they get what? they get a lot of people going around refusing to admit that they arent as persecuted as they claim, while rejecting the basic principles that allowed them to speak up in the first place.

and before anyone starts deniging the whole christain foundation thing ( someone always does), i would like to remind them that the founding fathers were not ashame of their faith and that the fact that they were all christains is very, very, well documented, for all of history. can you say quakers!!!

i usually point this out to people who argue the whole gay rights thing, ever notice that only the christain nations have to deal with a gay rights issue, or is it my misperception.
maybe the whole christain gene pool has a recesive gene?
or maybe their the only ones who dont stone the gays within an hour of coming out of the closet.

yep,yep, them nasty ol, christans and their one nation under god. phoooey.

ok? happy happy!
what do you wanna bet someone still accuses me of being a mole?
oh yeah, and let me tell you before you even reply with " you bigeted redneck crackerhead blah blah blah". that i never denighed being any of those things. so there! ill check back for replys after i watch my hee haw marathon.

p.s. i dont have any clue who nick and jessica are eather.
maybe im jewish?! oy! :lol:
or a member of the top secret misspelllers cult. we plan to take over the world through misscommunication, but i didnt tell you that!! it wouldnt be topsecret if i had.. ssssshhhhhhh

[Crys]

So let me answer your statement this way:

I'm being poked in the eye with a needle. The laws of this country say I'm not supposed to be, but they tend to look the other way and let it slide and in a number of cases the original laws that said I wasn't supposed to be poked in the eye with a needle have been changed to say that sometimes it's ok to poke me in the eye with a needle. But just one needle, and that I get poked less if I lie and pretend to believe in someone else's god in addition to my own, even though ANY lie dishonors me to the point where my life lacks worth.

So by your logic, I should just be grateful that it's one needle in the eye instead of two or three needles, and that I shouldn't try to change the world so that no one ever has to be poked in the eye with a needle here or anywhere else, just because it's one needle here and it's two needles there.

I will never agree to that. Things can always be better and we have to work for that where we are. I happen to be here, in WI, in the US, therefore I am most able to make a change here. It's my duty as a civilized human to leave things better than I found them. Just because most people shirk that duty doesn't mean that I should too or that I will.

Yes, there are places in the world where Christians are persecuted. This just isn't one of them and I'm really sick to the point of violence of hearing them claim they are when all that's really going on is that they get treated like the rest of us.

And you have a number of factual errors in your statements. The primary one is that the country was founded by, yes, some Christians, but also by a very great number of Enlightment Deists, who believe in _A_ god, a disengaged god who created everything and went away and left us to our own devices, who is NOT the god of the Christians. There were also a few atheists involved, and I am sure that there are other religions and various flavors of each them represented somewhere and somehow. I refer you to the story about Tom Paine, one of the primary motivators of the Revolution, who was so non-Christian that when he died some of his enemies made up a story, quickly discovered to be a lie, that he CONVERTED to Christianity on his deathbed. Pure rubbish.

"One nation under God" was added to the Pledge in the fifties by Christians who had power in the govt and wanted to distinguish us from "those godless Commies" in the USSR. A stupider reason I've never heard.

My point is that this is NOT a christian country. This is a country of no state religion whose citizens are SUPPOSED to be free to practice any religion or none, with equal protection of same FOR ALL. People's big problem with many countries in the Middle East is that they have mixed their religion (generally fundamentalist religion) and their government... but it's ok to do it here? No.

If you found religion after not having any, bully for you. If it were the other way around, you grew up with religion and when you were an adult you had a personal epiphany and became an atheist, bully for you then, too. You having a religion does not threaten me or my own faith. Why does my having a religion that is not yours or not having a religion at all, threaten yours?

And on the stupid "only christian nations have gay people" line, you're very very wrong. Completely. Abt. 10% of all mammals, not just humans, but most species of mammal and also at least a few species of birds, display homosexual behavior. Do you want me to try to find links to some of the research? I can't right this minute because I only have a very small amount of time while working on the site to answer forum posts, but I will dig them up later at home if you want me to.

Just a few weeks ago, there was a boy killed in front of his home by police because he was gay... in Iraq, about as non-Christian a country as you can get. Story: BAGDHAD, IRAQ -- Human rights groups have condemned the barbaric murder of a 14-year-old boy who was shot and killed in front of his home by police for what they're saying was the crime of 'being gay'.

http://www.bgay.com/bnews/news60509_..._by_police.htm

Also, this year's World Pride is being held in Jerusalem, where a radical group is distributing flyers offering a reward for blowing up the parade: (Jerusalem) Hundreds of leaflets distributed to homes in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox area and other parts of the city overnight offer 20,000 Israeli new shekels or about $4,500 US to anyone who kills gays marching in next month's World Pride in Jerusalem.

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/07/071106jerusalem.htm

I didn't take what you said as a flame. After all, you are capable of using punctuation and aren't typing a post of "OMG U R SO STOOPID" in all caps

[Crys]

I am sincerly sorry to hear that something like that would have happend to you.

The problem really is that my experiences are not unique. And comparatively, they're minor. After all, I'm alive. I don't even have any scarring from them trying to burn me because I was better at untying the knots than they were at tying them and I got away with just a ruined pair of shoes and jeans. I know people and I know of people who have endured far far worse than anything that has happened to me, things that make me sick to the pit of my stomach just thinking about them. It it was just me, if I was just unlucky enough to be in the wrong places all those times, and no one else was being treated that way for being who they are instead of pretending to be someone else, well, that would be a tragedy for me but nothing worth getting angry over or even doing something about. But I don't ever want to have to go to another funeral of someone who was killed for being gay or non-Christian or a different skin color from the majority of their community, and as long as I can fight to keep it from happening, I will.

[talleyJudy]

Back to the origional post question, I concur with Ben Stein's thoughs and observations. But then maybe, like him, I am getting too old too. :P

And I, an Apathetic Agnostic, am relieved that I will not live long enough to witness the sacrifice and death of what was known as the "American Spirit" on the altar of Political Correctness.

[CarGuy]

These are some interesting points... I would love to hear more. Let's not think of this is a personal attack, or an affront to your beliefs. The reason that the USA is such a great place to live is because everyone has the right to believe in what ever they want to believe in. I have to agree with the political correctness crap! Why are we rewriting history? because it was too brutal? I think that the reason it was written brutally accurate is simply to remind us of the stupid crap we did in the first place.

I am sure that Nick and Jessica would have done things a little differantly had they been around back than......LOL :lol: :lol: :lol: