He said it best when he adapted a quote by John F. Kennedy. He said, “I am not running as a Mormon; I am running as an American.”
I have studied Mormonism extensively, and my beliefs are incongruous with the belief of Mormons. However, the specifics are irrelevant. What matters is that we will have a strong, committed president who can balance the budget and protect us from terrorists.
Is it a joke? It is increasingly hard to believe otherwise.
This will be one of the most personal topics I ever discuss on this site, but I want your feedback so it is necessary to opine.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have openly struggled with whether or not Jesus/Christianity is real. And I’ve come to the conclusion that while He is real, Christianity is questionable at best.
Between the ridiculous ramblings of the “Moral Majority” and the actions of those I know who profess to be Christians I am back to where I was before questioning God’s presence — questioning the “church.”
I believe in God, and I believe that Jesus is the son of God. I also believe in Heaven and Hell. I believe that in order to get to Heaven one must ask Jesus.
What I do not believe is that Christianity, at least as we know it today, is as aboveboard as many would have us believe. While I realize there are probably people trying to live their lives as Christ did, I realize that 99.9% of professing Christians are full of crap.
Over the last two weeks, I have sought answers about Christianity. Should I find a church to attend in New York City? Should I give Christians another opportunity to show me they are not all pathetic posers? Was Paul right when he said Christians should fellowship with each other? Should I let down my guard, and trust Christians though I was hurt by the church years ago?
The answer to my questions was to take people for who they are; instead of judging them by the deeds of others, to trust them on a case by case basis.
Any professing Christians would remind me that none of us are perfect. I realize that everyone – Christians and atheists – will let me down at some point. But aren’t Christians supposed to live by a different standard? In John 15:12 we are commanded to love one another as Christ has loved us.
In order for me to love, I must trust. I recognize that perhaps I have hang-ups that other people do not possess, but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me. To me, it makes sense in this order: trust, respect, honor, love. I know forgiveness should be somewhere in there, but this is where Christianity gets complicated for me.
Sitting at this table with my laptop and a macchiato, it hit me like a ton of bricks – Throughout my adult life I have attempted to put my faith in the wrong thing. If I put it in the church –which is made up of people, I will undoubtedly be disappointed. And if I base my entire opinion of Christianity on people like James Dobson then I am certain I will believe the whole religion is a joke. it was not until I had a discussion with Mrs. Martin, my high school teacher de espanol, that I figured out that it doesn’t matter what Dobson is doing. And it doesn’t matter how “Susie Christian” acts all week. That is between them and God. The only thing that matters is my personal relationship with Christ. It makes sense, doesn’t it? He is the one who is perfect and all-knowing. He is the only one who won’t let me down. I am not attempting to sugarcoat anything. It is a fact that I have struggled with the idea of religion, but I know now that it is because I must place my faith in God.
While it was somewhat debatable three weeks ago, today I have no doubt that God is real. I also believe He spoke to me as I was writing this.
I am curious to hear the thoughts of those who have taken the time to read this post. Do you believe in God? Do you question your faith? The Church? Send me your thoughts.
<p>Those of you who know me know how much I value the ability to sing the national anthem the way it was written. Never have I seen a recording artist do that — until tonight. </p><p>Trisha Yearwood just ROCKED the anthem while preserving the integrity of the song. As someone who has sung the song on multiple stages, I can tell you from experience that it’s not the easiest song to sing. She nailed it. </p><p> I already had respect for her as a woman and an artist. Now I have more. She just did it better than anyone I’ve heard. </p><p> Good work, Trisha!<br /> </p><p> Now I hope that <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Holliday” target=”_blank”>Matt</a> and the Rockies can keep this series going tonight. </p><p> Go Rockies!<br /></p>
Below is a message from a fellow student who was the target of racism last week. i have debated whether or not I should post it, but I’m as mad about it today as I was when I first heard this. I know I have opined regarding racism from black to white here, but I honestly had no idea things like this still happened — and to people in my world. It makes me sick to my stomach:“On Sunday evening (10/22) myself and two of my Frat brothers were harassed by the Richmond Police Department(No. California) and besides my obvious frustration and overall remorse for the continual death of equality and justice, I began to realize that Living While Black is just my reality.
The Facts:
- We were visiting friends
- When we left their house (12:30AM), we chatted across the street by my brother’s car.
-7-10 minutes into our conversation, two Richmond PD officers approach us and tell us to put our hands on the car.
-I respond, “What’s the problem officer ?”
- He says, “The car behind us was being reported as being broken into by us”
- Perplexed, we all assure him that this couldn’t be the case because we’re standing, talking in front of a car that is owned by one of us.
What ensues is the usual degrading, insulting line of questioning.
- Why are you over here? Where are you from? You went to Cal( as to presume three black men in Richmond, couldn’t possibly be educated, never mind that Cal is at most 10 miles away)?
- I tell them that we’re in town that day for the funeral of our frat brother’s wife and in the neighborhood visiting.
- My frat brother spits off a remark about being college graduates, the officer asks where.
- I proceed to whip out both my former Cal ID, and recent Yale ID. I guess via the background check it came up that my other frat brother went to M.I.T., another question of surprise, “Who went to MIT?”
- Background check clears, “sorry for the inconvenience.”
-Stunned, I hurt deeply.
- Pissed off I start for the passenger door, spewing forth frustrated words of disgust.
- Officer asshole antagonizes, “Is there a problem, are you pissed or something?”
-My response, “Excuse me, did you say something?”
-My brother insists I get into the car and ignore him.
- They walk off.
-Furious, I begin praying to God that he will reveal to their hearts the pain and frustration we feel.
-Day ruined, we ride back to Fairfield, CA reminded what our degrees mean in the real world,
NOT a damn thing.
Your thoguhts…”
I am a single, educated and accomplished woman who is more than adequately informed regarding politics and voting in this country. Mitt Romney has my support in the 2008 presidential election.
<br><br>
The statement <a href=”http://www.observer.com/2007/coulter-culture”>below</a>, by Ms. Coulter, is offensive to me.
<br><br>
“On women:
<br><br>
If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.
<br><br>
It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and ‘We’ll pay for health care and tuition and day care — and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?”
<br><br>
My respect for Ms. Coulter has decreased exponentially over the last two years, but today my respect for her has hit an all-time low. It appears that while she wishes to impede my right to vote she also hopes for a decline in books sales.
<br><br>
I own her previous books, but “How To Talk To A Liberal If You Must” is the last book written by Coulter that I will ever own.
<br><br>
And instead of reaching beyond political barriers to contribute concise points in a debate, she can continue to preach to her choir — the otherwise uninformed Fox News crowd.
<br><br>
If one of you can stomach her overwhelming self-puffery will you remind her that she is a woman?
Hugging is no longer allowed in <a href=”http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local_story_271193938.html”>school</a>. This is absurd.
That is all.
Barack Obama spoke at a <a href=”http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_270202407.html”>rally</a> yesterday in Greenwich Village. He did not say anything I haven’t already heard, but he repeated a statement that, to me, is troublesome. It should be troublesome to all of us.
The question is — Where will Mr. Obama place the occupants when he closes Guantanamo?
Here’s some <a href=”http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/museumday/articles/about.php”>information</a> about Museum Day which is this Saturday, September 29.
This is a free opportunity to broaden our scopes of knowledge a little regardless of location.
Check it out.
We should all go…I’m just saying.
“We’ve done in a few months what most people have been trying to do since they were in the choir in high school.” What the heck does that even mean?
Are you kidding Fred?
Perhaps the thunderous cheers from Leno’s audience will make him feel good for a few days. But he’ll need more than that to enjoy Election Day.
His lack of opinions and his choice to keep possible constituents out of the loops makes him as unpopular with me as Tom Tancredo.
He’s only been in the race officially for a few hours, but I am already tired of him.
IS THERE A TRIAL LAWYER IN THE HOUSE?
September 19, 2007
The only “crisis” in health care in this country is that doctors are paid too little. (Also they’ve come up with nothing to help that poor Dennis Kucinich.)
But the Democratic Party treats doctors like they’re Klan members. They wail about how much doctors are paid and celebrate the trial lawyers who do absolutely nothing to make society better, but swoop in and steal from the most valuable members of society.
Maybe doctors could get the Democrats to like them if they started suing their patients.
It’s only a matter of time before the best and brightest students forget about medical school and go to law school instead. How long can a society based on suing the productive last?
You can make 30 times as much money as doctors by becoming a trial lawyer suing doctors. You need no skills, no superior board scores, no decade of training and no sleepless residency. But you must have the morals of a drug dealer. (And the bank wire transfer number to the Democratic National Committee.)
The editors of The New York Times have been engaging in a spirited debate with their readers over whether doctors are wildly overpaid or just hugely overpaid. The results of this debate are available on TimeSelect, for just $49.95.
“Many health care economists,” the Times editorialized, say the partisan wrangling over health care masks a bigger problem: “the relatively high salaries paid to American doctors.”
Citing the Rand Corp., the Times noted that doctors in the U.S. “earn two to three times as much as they do in other industrialized countries.” American doctors earn about $200,000 to $300,000 a year, while European doctors make $60,000 to $120,000. Why, that’s barely enough for Muslim doctors in Britain to buy plastic explosives to blow up airplanes!
How much does Pinch Sulzberger make for driving The New York Times stock to an all-time low? Probably a lot more than your podiatrist.
In college, my roommate was in the chemistry lab Friday and Saturday nights while I was dancing on tables at the Chapter House. A few years later, she was working 20-hour days as a resident at Mount Sinai doing liver transplants while I was frequenting popular Upper East Side drinking establishments. She was going to Johns Hopkins for yet more medical training while I was skiing and following the Grateful Dead. Now she vacations in places like Rwanda and Darfur with Doctors Without Borders while I’m going to Paris.
(Has anyone else noticed the nonexistence of a charitable organization known as “Lawyers Without Borders”?)
She makes $380 for an emergency appendectomy, or one-ten-thousandth of what John Edwards made suing doctors like her, and one-fourth of what John Edwards’ hairdresser makes for a single shag cut.
Edwards made $30 million bringing nonsense lawsuits based on junk science against doctors. To defend themselves from parasites like Edwards, doctors now pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical malpractice insurance every year.
But as the Times would note, doctors in Burkina Faso only get $25 and one goat per year.
As long as we’re studying the health care systems of various socialist countries, are we allowed to notice that doctors in these other countries aren’t constantly being sued by bottom-feeding trial lawyers stealing one-third of the income of people performing useful work like saving lives?
But the Democrats (and Fred Thompson) refuse to enact tort reform legislation to rein in these charlatans. After teachers and welfare recipients, the Democrats’ most prized constituency is trial lawyers. The ultimate Democrat constituent would be a public schoolteacher on welfare who needed an abortion and was suing her doctor.
Doctors graduate at the top of their classes at college and then spend nearly a decade in grueling work at medical schools. Most doctors don’t make a dime until they’re in their early 30s, just in time to start paying off their six-figure student loans by saving people’s lives. They have 10 times the IQ of trial lawyers and 1,000 times the character.
Yeah, let’s go after those guys. On to nuns next!
But Times’ readers responded to the editorial about doctors being overpaid with a slew of indignant letters — not at the Times for making such an idiotic argument, but at doctors who earn an average of $200,000 per year. Letter writers praised the free medical care in places like Spain. (“Nightmare” in the Ann Coulter dictionary is defined as “having a medical emergency in Spain.”)
One letter-writer proposed helping doctors by having the government take over another aspect of the economy — the cost of medical education:
“If we are to restructure the system by which we pay doctors to match Europe, which seems prudent as well as inevitable, we must also finance education as Europeans do, by using state dollars to finance the full or majority cost of higher education, including professional school.”
And then to reduce the cost of medical school, the government could finance “the full or majority cost” of construction costs of medical schools, and “the full or majority cost” of the trucks that bring the cement to the construction site and the “the full or majority cost” of coffee that the truck drivers drink while hauling the cement and … it makes my head hurt.
I may have to see a doctor about this. I should probably get on the waiting list now in case Hillary gets elected.
That’s how liberals think: To fix an industry bedeviled by government controls, we’ll spread the coercion to yet more industries!
The only sane letter on the matter, I’m happy to report, came from the charming town of New Canaan, Conn., which means that I am not the only normal person who still reads the Times. Ray Groves wrote:
“Last week, I had the annual checkup for my 2000 Taurus. I paid $95 per hour for much needed body work. Next month, when I have my own annual physical, I expect and hope to pay a much higher rate to my primary care internist, who has spent a significant portion of his life training to achieve his position of responsibility.”
There is nothing more to say.
COPYRIGHT 2007 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
4520 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111
