Tired_Old_Man

It was not meant to be sarcasm (although I can see how it might be taken that way). It was meant to skip one step, by anticipating the next response (as in chess). Ron, I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you have no ill intent, but then I have to tell you that I feel that no matter how kindly your intent is, that you are subconsciously (benefit of the doubt again) putting down everyone's religion but your own version. You continually flip-flop between literal and "what that means is". I said many pages ago, that my relationship with Christ might be better than those who need to have proof of the deeds of Jesus and the Bible being literal, because I am doing it on faith and since when isn't faith enough? I was not putting anyone down. I was making a case for the possible multitude of viable viewpoints toward religion and how one sees God. I do not know if all types of Christians (including roman Catholics) will gain salvation, or all types of Jews or all types of Muslims, or members of any other types of religions or anyone at all. I even broached the concept that maybe God initiated many varied religions to test faith and that He might have told each group that only that group's way was the right way. God may have done that to make it harder to gain salvation. Maybe, if everyone believed in the same ideas, there would be no challenge to man. No, I do not have scriptures to back that up. I have a mind, a God given mind (I believe) that allows me to question myself and my surroundings and to think, but never to know. I know that I think. You think that you know. Neither one of us really knows what God has in mind for us. We can hope and have faith, but we can really never know.

TommyO is a member of LBT. Tired_Old_Man is another member of LBT. Some people refer to TommyO as Tommy or Tom. Some people refer to Tired_Old_Man as TOM or T_O_M. Nobody refers to Tired_Old_Man as Tommy (until now).

One more thing. Look me in the (cyber) eye and tell me that you believe that Christian denominations that do not believe in the literal Bible are as good as your religion. If you can not say that, then you are putting down other religions. Oh, and you did put down Islam and the Qur'an way back about 124 pages ago in this thread.

I will assume that you wrote what you meant to write. Of course I remember “The Crusades” and “The Inquisition”. I just mentioned them. Of course you have put down religions. You are in the middle of a debate now with Carlene and TommyO about the Catholic religion right now. You are too clever to say that the Roman Catholic religion is phony, but you imply it. You have mentioned you left the Roman Catholic religion. Are we to assume you left it to go to a religion that was worse? No, the implication is that you left it to go to a religion that is better. Better or worse? Implications are some religions are inferior and if they are inferior, can they get a follower into Heaven? Of course, I know that these are not your opinions, you are just quoting scripture which is interpreted by scripture. Or you are quoting what theologians have said, but when other members quote theologians, then those theologians are wrong. You need to win, just like the Roman Empire's army needed to win. Constantine may have proliferated Christianity, but I doubt he did it any favor. I can take a quart of 100% orange juice and and add 9 quarts of water and sell it as “Orange Aid”, but just think how much I would have to drink to get the benefits of one glass of the real thing.

People who jack up their pickup trucks with "Off the Road" springs, shocks and other kits, so that the bumper of the truck is higher than or even with my head while I am sitting in my Camry or my S10 pickup. These vehicles are deadly to anyone they hit because they will roll right up on top of any normal vehicle. I have actually seen trucks with signs that say, "Laugh, but I will Live and You will die" and similar writings on them. I have talked with some of the owners and they say they would rather live through an accident and don't care if the other car's occupants die. There was a law passed about 25 years ago mandating that all cars have the same bumper hight, so that the impact of a crash would be absorbed by the bumpers, but pickup truck are exempt, even though most of the pickup trucks around here are used as cars, not trucks.

That might have been a good thing. Maybe today's Christians would not be acting like Romans, sending troops to Muslim countries and killing and maiming. Maybe today's Christians would have been more involved with the Beatitutes than with the politics of the USA. Maybe there would have been no inquisition, no Salam Witch Hunt, no Crusades. And maybe this thread would not be about putting down everyone's religion but your own.

I want to thank all those that expressed their feelings about my family's problems this year. I just got back from the airport. Because of the JetBlu fiasco of last week and the fact that JetBlu cancelled all its flight for 4 or 5 days, there is a huge backlog of people trying to fly on all airlines. I could not get out to NY directly, so I took a flight to NC, but then could not make the connection to NY. I stayed overnight in NC but still could not get out, so I came back to Florida. I wanted to be with Tina, but it will be impossible.

Try this site. It will play the whole list for the year selected.

Well, they say truth is stranger than fiction. Or, "You just can't make this stuff up". I just checked my e-mail and another of Tina's Uncles has passed away. That makes two uncles for her and one aunt for me this year. Now, there is the logistical problem of Tina being in Brooklyn taking care of her mother and me being in Florida. We will have to work things out, somehow. I'll see you people in a while, I guess. Happy Posting, TOM

If it hadn't been for Luther, all Christians might be called Roman Catholics today.

Nobody was shocked that they got a reaction. I would have hoped that the people that became the mob would have had more self-control so as not to fulfill the expectations of the people who painted the cars and I also would have hoped that people would not make excuses for the mob. Freedom of speech means that people should not be beaten for what they say. My neighbor was walking down the street in a $3000 suit, $500 shoes and a $5000 watch. Why isn't that provocation for mugging? For the same reason that the mob had no right to attack the Brits. No one has a right to use deadly force except as protection of their physical person. As long as anyone condones beatings for affronts, we will have people murdered because someone “stepped on my new sneakers" or because someone "insulted my mother" or some other lame excuse. Yes, it could have been expected for "the good ol' boys of Alabama" to act that way. Condemn the expectation that came true; the expected action, not the expectation.

I guess when my neighbor was mugged and his Rolex was taken, you could have said that he provoked the violence by wearing a Rolex.

1. What, if anything, is too serious to joke about? Nothing. 2. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or one ability, what would it be? How to express myself less offensively. 3. Whom, if anyone, do you envy enough to want to trade lives with them? The person that I think I could be if I could conquer my faults and live up to my own standards. 4. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be? Either that my father had not died on the day after I was born or that my mother could have protected me from the step father that beat me. 5. If there were a public execution on TV, would you watch it? Executions are barbaric. I have not watched the Saddam Hussein execution even though I could have on the net. Saddam Hussein still lives as long as people get pleasure from his death. 6. Would you rather arrive at a party under dressed or overdressed? Overdressed. I could always take my jacket or tie off to drop down a notch. 7. What's more important: actual experiences, or the memories that remain from those experiences? That's like asking what is more important, Christmas or Easter? Some people have memories of fictitious experiences. But, if i have to answer, I'll take the memories of real experiences. 8. In real conversations, do you tend to talk more or listen more? If you had to chose one, would you rather be blind or deaf? Anyone who has read my posts can figure that one out. Talk! But at one time, I was an introvert and only listened. I enjoy listening, but talking and eating seem to be my twin evils and both originate from the same place; the mind. Deaf or Blind. How about one eye and one ear? I don't know and I will not answer that. I will wait until I have to be one or the other.

I wasn't ready to die yet.

Telling us that your new man is a stripper sounds like a cry for help to me.

What do apples have to do with oranges?

So being made fun of is an offense punishable by death or just stoning? How did the people at the gas stastion know they were being made fun of? Do I have the freedom of speech to say NASCAR sucks in any state in the USA? Do I have the freedom of speech to say country music sucks in any state in the USA? The Brits were proved to be right by the actions of the Alabama mob. What the Brits did was dangerous and the response predictable, but it was not illegal, but the actions of the mob was illegal.

The decision as to which books went into the Bible was made by a commision appointed by Constantine. Some books that are in the Jewish Old Testament were left out of the Christian Old Testament and vice versa. Correct me if I am wrong, but after Constantine declared that all Romans would become Christians, wasn't the Roman Catholic Church the only Christian Church in town (except maybe for the Greek Othodox Church)?

On a Christian Church about a mile from my house, they have a sign on which they put a different saying every week. This week it says: A Child is like a Mirror. It is a reflection of what it sees. I think Ron sees many of us as a reflection, because he constantly accuses many of us of exactly what he does.

They better be still around. They owe me a shipment.:faint:

A TIVO is a DVR.

Only when barbaric behavior is assumed to be a justifiable behavior for anything someone finds offensive. Some time ago, a mixed couple (white man, Black woman) was crossing the street. Before they stepped off the sidewalk, the green "Walk" sign was on and the only car had come to a complete stop near the crosswalk. As the couple passed in front of the car, the tires screeched as the driver "laid rubber" to accelerate. The couple barely jumped out of the way as the driver flew past them yelling "Nigger Lover". I guess he realized that women had no choice, but the man did, but he was willing to run them both over. Par for the course at one time in the USA, I guess. We have moved on (I hope) about interracial couples and maybe we will move on when it comes to shirts or signs on cars. I saw a shirt recently worn by a twenty-ish man with a Confederate Flag. Below the flag was a sentence; "If this Flag Offends you, you can Kiss My ass." Yes, I wanted to kick him in his ass and then tell him that I misread the word "Kiss", but I refrained from my primitive impulse. I did not allow the reptilian brain to control my frontal lobe or my motor function sections. I was concerned that some of the Blacks in the Publix would say something, but I guess in my town with only about about a 10% Black population, wearing "Old Dixie" or using it for a front license plate is still acceptable.

I don't believe you can stop. I bet that I can refrain from posting in this thread for longer than you can. TOM PS: You went from possible subconscious belittling to attacking with malice.

I am not saying that at all. I have driven Japanese, German, Swedish, Yugoslavian, Italian, English, French and American cars, and driven German, English, Italian and American motorcycles and never needed a manual. I am saying that being so sure of yourself based on other people's work is very dangerous ground to stand on. I was also questioning why you fluffed off Reverend White who did learn the languages of the Bible. Well, at least some of them. I believe that the Bible was written in many languages, including Aramaic, Classic Hebrew and Koine Greek. As anyone who has ever read Beowulf in "Old English" knows, languages change so much over the years that the Greek and Hebrew of today are not the same as the Greek and Hebrew of the time of the Bible. If I might attempt to put this thread into a nutshell (so to speak): This thread is about a group of people with opinions debating a person who knows because he knows and the proof that he knows is that he knows, based on his knowledge of scriptures which interpret themselves, although the people with opinions, think that scriptures need relevance to be interpreted or that scriptures are not relevant at all. In on sentence; “Some people know that they have opinions and one person doesn't know he has an opinion.”

As I said in my first post in this thread: But the USA is not that much different than most of the countries of the world. What makes it appalling is that most Americans think they are better, but sink to the same level as the people of the countries that they despise, while at the same time berating those countries for being backward. It would be wrong for the people in the British pub to beat up the "Manchester United sucks" teeshirt wearers and it was wrong for the people in the gas station to attack the Brit's with the painted up automobiles. People are too willing to lower themselves to barbaric standards and others are too willing to excuse barbaric behavior.