Is God Punishing America? Part 2

UPDATE to Part 1: In balance and in respect to my thinking Christian friends - Comments from an Ordinary Everyday Christian in response to the wave of RRU hysteria regarding God punishing America.

It is my hope that the majority of Christians have a greater sophistication than is displayed in Part 1 of this article. People who call themselves pastors and yet use not the fear, or "awe" as it may better be translated, of God, but the Fear of Punishment to keep their flocks in line and donating to the church coffers have no valid claim to the title of Reverend or Pastor. In my humble opinion, they are shameful hucksters robbing the people who follow them of the full love of God by teaching fear and hate. Jesus taught us to have the perfect love of God in our hearts. What is the greatest commandment? "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the second is like the first: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" - Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 22:34 - 40

When asked, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus responded with the story of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritans were hated and despised by the Jews. In this parable a Jew is waylaid by robbers, beaten and left for dead along side the road. A Jewish priest passed by and did not stop. A Levite also passed by looking the other way and ignoring the man's cries for help. But when the Samaritan came by the man, he stopped and dressed his wounds and took him to a inn for care and paid the innkeeper for the man's expenses.

What was the point of this story? Show mercy even to those who spitefully misuse and abuse you. The Samaritan had the least reason of all to help the Jew beside the road, but he showed the love of God to him anyway. The Samaritan understood who is a neighbor. Jesus said, "Go and do likewise."

The Radical Right wants no neighbors but has only a desire to see the world around them plunged into the burning fires of hell so that they alone may dwell in God's heaven. What would you hope Jesus would find you doing if he returned today? Hurling hatred and abuse towards people with alternate life-styles? Or would you rather be living your life dressing the wounds of those in need and living in the way of the true love of the Saviour?

In my humble opinion, Jesus did not bare the burden of our sins, endure a night of endless beating and vile abuse, hang on a cross until death and utter as his last words, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" in order to raise up a church filled with people pointing angry fingers at the world around them longing for an Armageddon to destroy the world so that they would not have to live with the "sin" of their neighbors. This is just a guess, I think Jesus had in mind that we would pray for the sick that they might be healed, feed the hungry, and take care of orphans and widows in their time of need.

A modern day version of the Good Samaritan story might go like this: Pat Robertson is the man robbed and left at the side of the road...John Hagee passes by but is on the way to the airport heading out to host a conference titled: Armageddon, the impending War against the Apostate Church. He can't dare miss his flight so he gives his condolences to Pat and goes on his way.

Then Rod Parsley passes by, but looks the other way because he is on the way to a Morning Talk show on Fox News to discuss why America must revoke all clauses in equal rights laws which include allowances for sexual orientation because in reality as everyone should know, this is actually granting "special rights" not equal rights. He would miss the air time if he stopped. He is sure that help is on the way and that Pat's faith will carry him through.

Next along comes Congressman Barney Frank. Congressman Frank has many important committee meetings today and a planning meeting with his staff. However, seeing Pat Robertson laying hurt and in need beside the road, Mr. Frank pulls out his cell phone, calls his secretary and has his meetings rescheduled and offers his regrets to the committee chairs. He pulls over, calls 911, and takes care of Pat Robertson waiting with him, offering him water, until the ambulance arrives. Pat Robertson has been robbed of his wallet, so Barney goes with Pat to the hospital to insure that the finances are in proper order and that Pat is given the care he needs.

Days later, Barney calls Pat to inquire about his recovery. (Hagee and Parsley have been swamped with conferences and talk show appearances and haven't had time to call. But each did instruct their secretaries to send a "get well" card.) Pat is so thankful for Barney's concern. Pat now recognizes that he can show God's love toward Barney and it is up to Barney to talk to God about his personal life. Pat has also been starting to consider whether the erratic weather patterns we have been experiencing may actually be caused by an overload of CO2 as a result of pollution and not really God's judgment. Now this is fiction right? But how do you explain this:



Good Samaritan image along with other beautiful religious art images can be found at Breadsite.org


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Is God Punishing America? Part 1

UPDATE 12/12/2010: Review of this article revealed that three videos originally attached had either been removed from the internet, You Tube had censored the posters account, or the owners had added security so that only members of their website or organization could view them. The videos supported the fact that extreme right-wing people believe God does today destroy cities because of sinners and that they view God as the source behind terrorism toward the United States. I don't know if my humble blog had anything to do with the videos being banned, removed or hidden, but it shows that this topic is almost too controverisal to remain public. That only supports my point that extremist views of the religious right are dangerous and we cannot simply ignore them.

Comments two days after September 11, 2001 while America is in shock and mourning:


God is America's Terrorist

The 9-11 attacks and Katrina disaster were both attributed to God's judgment on the US. John Hagee, Ron Parsley, and the late Jerry Falwell have taught this way of thinking to hundreds of thousands from their pulpits...and Hagee and Parsley recently endorsed John McCain's 2008 presidential bid. (UPDATE: McCain has since rejected the endorsements of Hagee and Parsley amidst an uproar from the main stream media, the Obama campaign and the Catholic Church. McCain had called for Obama to reject the views of his pastor of 20 years, so it was an obvious open door to question McCain's endorsement from Hagee and Parsley. In another commendable action, Hagee sent a letter of apology to William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for the statements he has made in regards to the Church.)



The "religious" right has successfully used marriage equality which they put in terms of "traditional family values" as an issue to energize their voter base in past elections - the 2004 election being a prime example. Just a few months before the 2004 election, marriage licenses were being issued to hundreds in San Francisco and gay marriage was made legal in Massachusetts. However, while the gay & lesbian community was celebrating, the "religious" right successfully used this issue to scare their voter base to come out and vote. Why does this work?
I attribute this to evangelical churches preaching fear and hatred of liberalism and homosexuality from the pulpit. Adherents to right-wing Christian churches believe that liberalism and homosexuality are on the move to destroy America and that God will punish America if homosexuality becomes accepted in the United States. (http://www.christiancoalition.com/ and http://www.renewamerica.us/ will affirm this statement.)
This is extreme, but it is in our America and there are many more groups like this in varying degrees of extremity.



The radical right expects something similar to the Biblical Soddom and Gomorah to happen because of legal gay marriage. I expect the Faux News Network to play heavily on this fear with their usual hobgoblin fashion. As scary as it may be, they have millions of minions watching every day.
Hagee endorsed John McCain...did he also ADVISE George Bush?

Is this why we diverted our troupes to Iraq rather than completing the mission in Afghanistan?
Listen to the end of the clip to hear John Hagee talk about a little revelation of his own in which God is the one who mysteriously created the voting anomalies in the 2000 election to Bush's favor. Good to know our God would tinker with the vote of the people, according to Hagee.



John McCain:"I am honored and proud to have the endorsement of Pastor Hagee..."



My point is that if we don't want McCain as our president, we need to be mindful of what we do between now and the election. Don't give any ground to those that would diminish our freedoms. We have to understand how the political system works and how the games are played. We need to be strategic and we need to focus on getting a Democrat in the oval office so that we can rebuild the freedoms we have lost or have never had because of discrimination.

We need a better America than we have had for the eight  W years . The world is watching and waiting and also hoping for a better America. We can do it. We can change America. You know what they say about freedom...just because a battle has been won you can never let down your guard. The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. A battle has been won, but the war is still being waged.

Whatever you do, do not be apathetic, do not sit by silent. Be brave, be bold, get active.

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The SECRET LIFE of John McCain

Is it possible he's a Manchurian candidate?
*This is a spoof on a HumanEvents email which seriously portrayed Barack Obama as the Manchurian Candidate in this fashion. I have applied their style to John McCain. It works well and maybe too well.

There are 150,000 items and growing on a Google Search for John McCain manchurian candidate. Why all the speculation? Why is he suspect to the radical right? Why do POW's have such animosity against John McCain? Why did the North Vietnamese dub him "Songbird McCain?" Why would a fellow Republican congressman say, "The thought of John McCain as president sends cold chills down my spine?"

Is this the man you want as YOUR president?

Is John McCain a war hero who would lead the country with moral courage and strength as he has led many people to believe? Or is it possible he's a Manchurian candidate – harboring an ominous secret agenda few understand, a man destined to wreak havoc on America should he become president? Is John McCain a true "right wing" conservative candidate or is he saying whatever he must to whomever he needs in order to win the election?



What is John McCain's agenda?
Is John McCain still fighting the Vietnam war? Is Iraq the mission of his dreams? He says it is quite possible we will keep troupes in Iraq for 100 years! What is his stance on Iran? If you don't like it you can, "get a life" is his response.

Is this the man for YOUR commander in chief?
Our preemptive attack on Iraq has reduced our image in the world from being "the home of the brave and land of the free" to that of world tyrant and imperialistic opportunist. John McCain has been said to have a "volcanic temper." How would that play out in world diplomacy?

How will a man with so little respect for his wife, whose family money paved the way for his political career, be viewed by the rest of the world? What will that say about all of us if we elect him?

Is this the man to answer the hot line with his finger on THE BUTTON?
If John McCain handles a high school town hall by calling a questioner "a little jerk" what will he do under the pressure of the office of President when times get tough?

What about Carol McCain, the woman who stood by John McCain, POW and war hero, waiting for him to return home that he dumped for a younger and wealthier woman? Was it really just "mid-life" crisis as some say or raw ambition to find any way possible to become POTUS?

Was John McCain tortured?
...or is that only a trumped up story to make him look heroic? If he was tortured, what scars remain buried deep inside? Torture breaks the psyche and scars the emotions and reasoning. McCain claims months and years of "torture." Was he also brainwashed or did he willing record 32 broadcast messages in defense of communism and in defamation of the USA? Could John McCain actually be a "Manchurian Candidate?"

It will be up to the voters to decide. In my opinion, we can't afford a reckless and volatile person as our Head of State and Commander in Chief. We should not elect a person whose loyalties appear to be only for his best interest as he has exhibited as a POW, as a husband, and as Senator.

Who is the Real John McCain?



Songbird McCain - Manchurian Candidate?
Veterans Against McCain




Embarrassing documents concerning John McCain's captivity buried
The CofCC.org News Team -The "Manchurian Candidate" McCain
In 1992 the US House of Representatives approved a bill, 401-0, to declassify documents about POWs from theKorean and Vietnam wars. The bill was killed in the Senate by Senators John Kerry and John McCain. One possible reason is potentially embarrassing classified documents concerning John McCain’s captivity.




The Worst Person in the World: Ann Coulter - What was she thinking?
Ann Coulter has been insinuating that Barack Obama may be a Manchurian candidate. But in the 1962 movie the Manchurian Candidate was a supposed war hero POW who had been tortured and brainwashed by the Chinese and was programmed as a Soviet sleeper/mole agent to assassinate a Presidential candidate. Considering John McCain's history as a POW, tortured by the Chinese...WHAT WAS ANN THINKING?


Will bringing up the topic of a Manchurian Candidate cause some people to speculate on the past of John McCain? That just might happen!

Movie review: The Manchurian Candidate

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The SECRET LIFE of Barack Obama

Is it possible he's a Manchurian candidate?

Who believes this stuff? You ask yourself that. You try to hold on to the fact that reasonable and sensible people don't read this crap. But Oh Mama! They are out there and they are reading it. And paying for the opportunity.

Would the eloquent and charismatic Obama unite, inspire and renew a troubled nation, as tens of millions of voters passionately believe? Or is it possible he's a Manchurian candidate – harboring an ominous secret agenda few understand, a man destined to wreak havoc on America should he become president? That's the question that is explored definitively in the April issue of WND's acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled "THE SECRET LIFE OF BARACK OBAMA."
*This is an actual quote from an email I received from Human Events.

Read this Media Matters post from Dec. 2006 - you will see that the radical right has been ramping up for a Obama run for president and planting seeds of doubt for over two years.

The Nation, Jan 2007 - Smearing Obama. A campaign of fear and innuendo continues.

American Chronicle, July 2007 - Barack Obama will not win the Democratic nomination. Hmm. Got that one wrong. This article goes so far as to have a clip of the cover of The Manchurian Candidate showing the face of Denzel Washington. What's the message? Does that matter when you are trying to plant subliminal or maybe not so subliminal messages about Barack Obama.

To illustrate how pervasive this rumor has become, there are over 165,000 items that come up on a Google Search for Barack Obama manchurian candidate. To show just how gullible the public must be, there are 142,000 items on a Google Search for McCain manchurian candidate. I believe that this alone bodes well for Obama in the November election. He apparently is the more popular Manchurian Candidate.

John Kerry was also the Manchurian Candidate according to Gerald L. Atkinson in October 2004.

Hillary Clinton is also the Manchurian Candidate.





And who is the REAL Manchurian Candidate?

Well, George W. Bush of course.



And what have we learned from this my children? When you don't like a candidate in the U.S.A., that candidate is THE Manchurian Candidate.

So I wondered? What if you applied this formula to John McCain?

RightWingWatch - Whistleblower Magazine

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ProChoice or ProLife? How about ProReason.

I am sure McCain voted ProLife, or antiabortion depending on your viewpoint, for at least the past four years in anticipation of running for president. He needs the ProLife vote. There is even a chance that he may actually be voting his conscience on this one. Obama has been recorded as saying he would not want to "punish a woman with a baby." There is a chance he actually sees having a baby as a punishment and he is speaking his conscience on the issue as well. We will never know for sure since this issue is so politicized and so wholly owned by the parties - Republicans must be ProLife and Democrats must be ProChoice. We demand that it be so.

Abortion is a sticky issue. I may be a Democrat and a liberal, but this is one issue where I take exception to the party line. I am not in favor of a "free-for-all" for abortion. I would call myself ProLife although the radical ProLife groups would not consider me so because I believe that abortion should be legal but very rare. And with that stance I would not be considered ProChoice. Maybe I am simply ProReason. Let me explain my ProReason stance. I oppose abortion on demand for two reasons. First I do believe that human life scientifically begins at conception and therefore abortion is technically taking a human life. Secondly, it is an invasive procedure that puts the woman at risk and her future fertility at risk as well.

Having said that, I think it would be very detrimental to make the procedure illegal. Women would get illegal abortions if the procedure is made illegal and would put themselves at even greater risk doing so. Illegal abortions with no regulations would be dangerous. Also, it needs to remain legal for those rare instances that the life of the mother is at risk. The woman and her family should have the right to make a choice in this circumstance if only one life will survive.

I believe the issue needs to be depoliticized and returned back to a health care status where people can think reasonably about it and where doctors are free to give solid medical advice. I believe that most doctors would not recommend it as a medical procedure if depoliticized unless it were truly indicated as a measure necessary for the health of the mother. Currently I believe that the real risks of the procedure are not accurately communicated to women because the issue is so political. Also, if depoliticized, the procedure could be returned to the hospital setting (except for Catholic run hospitals for religious reasons) where the patient would receive better care as an outpatient with the full hospital for back up.

Then when it comes to late-term abortions, I do firmly believe unless there is a clear choice between saving the life of the mother or the life of the child, that there is no legitimate reason for these procedures to be performed. There are very few cases where a child in utero must be terminated in order to save the life of the mother. Dilation and Extraction, D&X , Intrauterine Cranial Decompression or Partial birth abortion, are many names for a single procedure in which the body of the baby is delivered yet the head remains in the birth canal. The contents of the child's head is aspirated and then the head crushed before the head is allowed to pass through the birth canal. The woman has not escaped labor at this point so the only reason for this type of abortion is to terminate the child, not to prevent the woman from going through the "dangers" of labor. Except in very rare cases, this procedure could not be seen as a life-saving measure for the mother but a life-ending measure for the child. You can read the clinical description of other surgical methods used for abortion on the site of the American Pregnancy Association. A more experiential description of a Dilation and Evacuation procedure is given by Dr. Levantino, a former pro-choice abortion provider.

I believe as liberals we are wrong to accept that all abortion is good on the basis of this being a right to choice. This is one of those issues that lives in the wrong camp. We are proabortion (prochoice if you must dress it up) and yet against the death penalty and in favor of gun laws, while the right is prolife (or antiabortion) yet pro-gun and pro-death penalty.

The stance I take is the one I believe is most accurate to my liberal philosophy: Keep abortion legal but very rare. Depoliticize abortion and put it back in the hands of doctors to decide with their patients. Don't make it a "right" by law but don't outlaw it either.

The proponents of both sides of this issue are making a living off of it and neither would benefit by having the issue resolved. Millions of dollars are raised for both sides. Executive directors make big salaries to keep the issue alive. We would be much better off with a solid compromise...legal but rare and depoliticize it. Make it a medical issue not a political issue. And above all we do not want an amendment to the constitution either way about this. That would only prolong the debate into perpetuity.

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Discovery Health: Alertness in the Womb.
National Geographic: In the Womb

Hear from women who have made a choice from both sides of this issue:
Stand Up Girl
Our Bodies Ourselves

Carol McCain: The First Wife who will never be the First Lady

War-hero John McCain returned home to a true hero, Carol McCain to find a changed woman. While John was suffering in a prison camp in Vietnam, his wife Carol was enduring her own trials the result of a tragic car accident that nearly took her life. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries. She was hospitalized for over six months and when discharged her prognosis was still bleak. Surgeons had cut away huge sections of shattered bone leaving her confined to a wheel chair and forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer determination and painfully hard work, Carol learned to walk again. Not the tall beauty she once was, the former model, at 5'4", walked with a limp. Her body held together by screws and metal plates contained the inner-beauty of a mother determined to be strong, determined to hold her family together, determined to be there when her husband returned from war.

When McCain returned home in 1973 to much fanfare of publicity and to the handshake of Richard Nixon, it was not to the wife he remembered. His own body had changed. He was a thin as a skeleton and his hair had turned snow-white. He told reporters he was overjoyed to see Carol, but friends say that privately he was appalled by the change in her appearance. At first he was reassuring saying, "It's fine, I don't look so good myself," but his friends say that he began running around on her almost right away. Everybody knew it.

(In this picture, does he looked over-joyed to see Carol or really happy to be getting some press? "Over-joyed to see your wife picture" would have him with at least one arm around Carol, while waving to the press. In this picture he is already walking away towards the bright lights.)

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans' rights, said: 'I have been following John McCain's career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is: deceit.'

'This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.'

But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually sick and cruel even by the standards of modern politics. 'McCain is the classic opportunist. He's always reaching for attention and glory,' he said. 'After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her overboard for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.'

sources:

DailyMail, The wife U.S. Republican John McCain callously left behind

Salon.com, Mothers Who Think, Different Hero, Different War

The US Veteran Dispatch, McCain's Divorce

AZ Central, Arizona, the Early Years

New York Times, P.O.W. to Power Broker, A Chapter Most Telling

Let's Talk, Mac Daddy McCain?!

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For the next four years? Oh my! I certainly hope not!

The Raw Story, Book: McCain temper boiled over in '92 tirade, called wife a 'c***'

The Real McCain