Christianity tells us to stay married even when we don’t “feel” like it, and not to stray outside the marriage. It tells men to love their wives and to treat them as of extraordinary value. It tells wives to respect their husbands, and children to obey their parents. Are any of these “automatic” actions of love? How does one even define love? Christianity tells us; our instincts do not. (Now we’re being told that men “instinctively” want more than one woman over their lifetimes. I think I’d rather look to Christianity’s virtues, thank you very much.)

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It’s easy enough to act loving when other people act lovable. And I don’t know about “the human heart” in general as I only know my own (naturally I tend to assume – often wrongly – that others would be a good deal like mine), but forgiveness does not come naturally to me. Nor does the will to say or do things that may displease other people even when I know that it is the right thing to do or say. Relationships are very difficult for me, and I doubt I would have ever dared try to have a family of my own (for fear I would be too much like my mother) if not for my faith.

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I’m sorry you misunderstood my comments as a rant. I’ll try to address your objections.

1. Yes I voted for Bush, again because of the alternative. I didn’t think that Gore or Kerry were better choices. Bush had executive experience as a governor. Obama was a community organizer. Coming from Chicago, I can tell you that community organizers are a dime a dozen, very ineffective, and usually only work for a few years before they move on to other things. As a State Senator Obama’s record is less than sterling and as a U.S. Senator, his record is non-existing.

2. I truly believe that islamofascism is as serious a threat as any other “ism” that hates democracy. I don’t profess to know the answers as to why Bush is talking to the “Axis of Evil”, but I can guess that the reason they are listening now is because we are talking from a position of strength. I don’t believe that the U.S. uses its strength to arbitrarily bully people around. But enemies of freedom better learn to let a sleeping dog lie.

3. If you’ve read my comments before, you will know that I believe that government and business can partner together. It is a thin rope to walk, but excessive taxation strangles an economy. The average U.S. worker now has to work approximately 5 month to pay his/her tax load. That excessive taxation is causing havoc in families as both partners have to work in order to achieve a modicum of the American dream.

4. I’m not sure who you think I “deem unworthy” but let me assure you that I have plenty of compassion for those who are truly down and out and have no problem with helping them out of my own pocket or through taxes.

5. One final thing. I’m an independent. Conservative right to be sure, but independent. When I lived in Chicago, I had little choice but to vote for many Democrats in the elections because of the dominance of Democratic politics. I try to vote for what I believe are the best from the choices I have been given.

In this election, I would have preferred someone else over Obama or McCain, but such are the choices we’ve been given.

I hope that helps keep the dialogue open.

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One thing that most of modern Christianity does do which I like is encourage families to spend some time together once a week; something that cannot be said about other religions which separate the sexes.

But overall, the Christian god seems to be a jealous god and normal human family (and other) relationships must take a back seat to obeisance. Jesus himself said it, didn’t he?

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http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3620576

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If you can find a better place than Christianity for good family values, I sure would like to hear about it!

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And when you talk of “appeasers” are you seriously comparing today’s terrorist threat to the Axis armies? Or the Soviet Union of yore?
And in case you hadn’t noticed that your current President is busily talking to ALL the members of the current “Axis of Evil”.

And as for your anti-liberal rant, I guess maybe you have no objection to huge deficits and debts as long as the money is going to business rather than thos whom you deem unworthy?

NJL: As noted, deliberately killing one own child is part of all of the time honored Abrahamic traditions. I’m sure I don’t have to post the various pieces of Judeo-Christian scripture honoring and even demanding such actions. Some of the time it is gussied up as “sacrifice” or penance, but mostly it’s just deliberate killing for violation of one or another divinely delivered law.

The simple truth is that neither the bible nor the koran is a very good place to look for family values.

I too find such killings uniquely abhorrent, but in the name of faith all manner of atrocities become possible.

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I can “understand” the wife who drives over her husband with a Mercedes or the husband who shoots the wife. That’s less “personal” and I think that’s why they can actually do it. I can’t understand these methods of murder being used on one’s child. These aren’t even cases where a person is in the heat of passion, angry yes, but these are planned murders, and in the one case, the mother held the daughter down.

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A bit of clarification. For me the bottom line is only partly financial. When I speak of the bottom line I am inclined to include:

1. The kind of judges that will be selected to serve on the Supreme Court
2. The cost of the learning curve for an inexperienced blank slate of a politician that Obama is.
3. The continued obstruction of a liberal politician who will not support domestic drilling for more oil, even though the answer to our energy problem includes more domestic drilling in the short run while developing other sources for the future.
4. The cost of continuing to court appeasers in Europe rather than maintaining our position of military strength and the edge that military strength give us diplomatically.
5. The cost of naively believing that we can “talk sense” to terrorists and their states supporters.
6. The cost of enlarging existing entitlement programs and creating new ones that will continue to put a larger tax burden on all Americans.

The “costs” are multidimensional.

I hope that helps you see my perspective better.

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