chuck schmidt

According to Scripture (source forgotten) the knowledge of both God and of the difference between right and wrong is within all of us. Ergo the belief is there. Beside, you're playing semantics. If you know enough to wonder, you have an opinion. Even if it is only that you want to know more.

I use the KJV sparingly. I use it to quote He 11:1 because it is so poetic. I love the way that verse sings in my ears. But that's not all. Because the KJV was created on the order of the reigning British monarch to assist in his war to wrest power from the pope, it is partially a political manifesto. What do you think would have happened (or maybe even did happen) if the king's translators came up with a version of the scriptures that offended their king and risked his power? Would the king have said, 'Oh heck, let the pope have it?' Or would he have required that the scripture be reinterpreted? Why do you think the NIV is "revisionist"? "Revisionist" suggests that it was intended to change something, and in the context suggests that it was intended to change the KJV. I don't think it was. My NIV has a preface of four pages of tiny print discussing the process used in creating it. The preface describes going back to the basics and having teams of scholars examining ancient documents to compare and determine meanings. The NIV is not anti-KJV. By my observation many people know very little about religious history, so they assume that the KJV is the ancient standard against which all others should he measured. It is not. It is important because it is the first example of the distributing of the Bible amongst all people, and taking it away from the exclusive property of the Churches who held secular power. That importance makes it historical, but not necessarily infallible or even always accurate. As to your point that "religion is a tool used by men to further an agenda," of course it is. Any source of power will be used by people that way. But that is not all religion is, and all religion isn't reflective of God and spirituality.

The word "religion" is just defined that way. Here are some definitions from a different site: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion 1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. 2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion. 3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions. 4. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion. 5. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith. 6. something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice. 7. religions, Archaic. religious rites. 8. Archaic. strict faithfulness; devotion: a religion to one's vow. —Idiom 9. get religion, Informal. a. to acquire a deep conviction of the validity of religious beliefs and practices. b. to resolve to mend one's errant ways: The company got religion and stopped making dangerous products. Are you seeking a discussion of "gods" or God?

If you possess absolutely no belief concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe (ie. of life), why do you post here and explore the meaning of religion? Is it that you have not yet settled on a final determination so you are exploring?

Oops, that quote of Hebrews 11:1 is from the KJV.

What is non-religious? Wicki says that, "A religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when [emphasis added] considered as the creation of a supernatural agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs." "Especially when" does not mean "only when". For example, Stephen Hawking disputes the existence of God in his book "A Short History of Time," but the book is "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe." Join the club, Stephen Hawking. You are just one more of the millions who create their own personal religion. Like many, you chose to exclude God. In my opinion God gave you that option when He gave you a magnificent mind and total freedom of choice. Maybe that is why many people believe that God is a personal god to each and every person?

How? Become richer? Become militarily stronger? Become more like America? Become more moral, such as a comparison between Western "free [and rented, and purchased] love compared to extremist Muslims who prefer chastity before marriage? Or do we simply insist that they are doing some things right, but they must attain perfection before we stop bombing and beating on them? According to some respected writers (Gwyn Dyer for one) some Gulf nations have been prevented from getting their own house in order by the West. Western governments have used force or the threat of force to help keep friendly leaders in power since at least the end of WW2. The West does it to protect "its" oil supplies. Leaders kept in force that long become corrupt and oppressive and the electorate becomes frustrated, just like any Western population would if a leader was the same guy for 20 years supported by an outside power. What we are seeing now is in part the boiling over of the pot that we (the West) have helped keep under pressure. Look at Iran for example. Iran has never attacked the US. Yet the US supplied Saddam Hussein with nerve gas against Iran. The US has maintained an aggressive naval force off the Iranian coast. A US cruiser that was illegally in Iranian waters shot down a totally innocent civilian passenger jet causing hundreds of deaths, and denied it at first. I am willing to bet that if Iran did that off the coast of the US, America would wage war on Iran. How would any western power react if Iran kept a permanent and threatening naval force off its coast? How about Iraq? What legal cause did the US have to wage war on Iraq, or commit any of the hundreds of atrocities committed there? Look at the US attitude in general. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident caused a decade of US war on North Vietnam and untold casualties - over 55,000 US dead and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. What was the Gulf of Tonkin Incident? Allegedly two North Vietnamese torpedo boats opened fire on two US destroyers on the open seas. They did, because the US destroyers were cruising off the coast of North Vietnam near Hanoi directing South Vietnamese air force bombing strikes against targets in North Vietnam. What would America have done if the North Vietnamese navy was assisting another power to bomb Washington, DC? Or New York? Or Boston? Would America consider it an act of war and attack the foreign destroyers? I think so. It seems to me to be clearly arguable that the super power is bullying the impoverished Third World, and people in the super power wish to argue that, "The Third World needs to make some effort to get its own house in order." How? Grovel, roll over and play dead?

Thank you so much. I knew there had to be such a term but never saw it. Here is what wicki says, for anybody interested: misandry: 16 January 2010 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Misandry (pronounced /mɪˈsændri/) is hatred (or contempt) of men or boys. Misandry comes from Greek misos (μῖσος, "hatred") and anēr, andros (ἀνήρ, gen. ἀνδρός; "man"). It is parallel to misogyny—the hatred of women or girls. Misandry is also comparable with (but not the same as) misanthropy which is the hatred of humanity in general. The prefix miso-, meaning 'Hatred' or 'To hate' applies in many other words, such as misocapny, misogamy, misarchy and misoxeny. Misandry is the antonym of Philandry—the fondness towards men, love, or admiration of them. Contents [hide] • 1 Misandry in literature o 1.1 Misandry in ancient Greek literature o 1.2 Misandry and literary criticism o 1.3 Misandry and feminism • 2 Conservative discourse on misandry o 2.1 Analogies to other forms of bigotry • 3 See also • 4 References o 4.1 Footnotes o 4.2 Bibliography • 5 External links [edit] Misandry in literature [edit] Misandry in ancient Greek literature Classics professor Froma Zeitlin of Princeton University discussed misandry in her article titled "Patterns of Gender in Aeschylean Drama: Seven against Thebes and the Danaid Trilogy."[1] She writes: “ The most significant point of contact, however, between Eteocles and the suppliant Danaids is, in fact, their extreme positions with regard to the opposite sex: the misogyny of Eteocles’ outburst against all women of whatever variety (Se. 181-202) has its counterpart in the seeming misandry of the Danaids, who although opposed to their Egyptian cousins in particular (marriage with them is incestuous, they are violent men) often extend their objections to include the race of males as a whole and view their cause as a passionate contest between the sexes (cf. Su. 29, 393, 487, 818, 951).[1] ” [edit] Misandry and literary criticism In his book, Gender and Judaism: The transformation of tradition, Harry Brod, a Professor of Philosophy and Humanities in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Northern Iowa, writes: “ In the introduction to The Great Comic Book Heroes, Jules Feiffer writes that this is Superman's joke on the rest of us. Clark is Superman's vision of what other men are really like. We are scared, incompetent, and powerless, particularly around women. Though Feiffer took the joke good-naturedly, his misandry embodied the Clark and his misogyny in his wish that Lois be enamored of Clark (much like Oberon takes out hostility toward Titania by having her fall in love with an ass in Shakespeare's Midsummer-Night's Dream).[2] ” Julie M. Thompson, a feminist author, connects misandry with envy of men, in particular "penis envy", a term coined by Sigmund Freud in 1908, in his theory of female sexual development.[3] [edit] Misandry and feminism In My Enemy, My Love (1992), Judith Levine reveals a position of misandry within women when the following inappropriate labels are applied to males : • Infants: the Mama's Boy, the Babbler, the Bumbler and the Invalid • Betrayers: the Seducer, the Slave, the Abandoner and the Abductor • Beasts: the Brute, the Pet, the Pervert, the Prick and the Killer[4] Another example of misandry can be found in the SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas, a radical feminist: As for the issue of whether or not to continue to reproduce males, it doesn't follow that because the male, like disease, has always existed among us that he should continue to exist. When genetic control is possible — and soon it will be — it goes without saying that we should produce only whole, complete beings, not physical defects of deficiencies, including emotional deficiencies, such as maleness. Just as the deliberate production of blind people would be highly immoral, so would be the deliberate production of emotional cripples. —Valerie Solanas, SCUM Manifesto[5][6] [edit] Conservative discourse on misandry Christina Hoff Sommers, a conservative commentator, argues that feminism has a "corrosive paradox" and that no group of women can wage war on men without at the same time denigrating the women who respect those men.[7] Wendy McElroy, an individualist feminist and Fox News commentator,[8] argues that some feminists "have redefined the view of the movement of the opposite sex" as "a hot anger toward men seems to have turned into a cold hatred."[9] She argues that men as a class are considered irreformable, all men are considered rapists, and marriage, rape and prostitution are seen as the same. McElroy states "a new ideology has come to the forefront... radical or gender, feminism", one that has "joined hands with [the] political correctness movement that condemns the panorama of western civilization as sexist and racist: the product of 'dead white males.'"[10] Conservative pundit Charlotte Hays argues "that the anti-male philosophy of radical feminism has filtered into the culture at large is incontestable; indeed, this attitude has become so pervasive that we hardly notice it any longer."[11] [edit] Analogies to other forms of bigotry Masculist writer Warren Farrell compares dehumanizing stereotyping of men to dehumanization of the Vietnamese people as "gooks."[12] In the past quarter century, we exposed biases against other races and called it racism, and we exposed biases against women and called it sexism. Biases against men we call humor. —Warren Farrell , Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say Religious Studies professors Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young make similar comparisons in their three-book series Beyond the Fall of Man,[13] which treats misandry as a form of prejudice and discrimination that has become institutionalized in North American society. Nathanson and Young credit "ideological feminism" for imposing misandry on culture.[14] Their book Spreading Misandry (2001) analyzes "pop cultural artifacts and productions from the 1990s" from movies to greeting cards for what they consider contains pervasive messages of hatred toward men. Legalizing Misandry (2005) the second in the series, gives similar attention to laws in North America. [edit] See also • Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them! • Female chauvinism • Men's movement • Men's rights • Valerie Solanas [edit] References [edit] Footnotes 1. ^ a b Zeitlin, Froma I. (PDF). Patterns of Gender in Aeschylean Drama: Seven against Thebes and the Danaid Trilogy. http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=ucbclassics. Retrieved 2007-12-21. Princeton University, paper given at the Department of Classics, University of California, Berkeley 2. ^ Gender and Judaism: The transformation of tradition, Harry Brod 3. ^ Emphasis added. Julie M. Thompson, Mommy Queerest: Contemporary Rhetorics of Lesbian Maternal Identity, (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002). 4. ^ Levine, Judith (1992). My Enemy, My Love. Doubleday. ISBN 0385410794. 5. ^ Solanas, Valerie (1967). "The S.C.U.M. Manifesto". Gifts of Speech: Women's Speeches from Around the World. http://gos.sbc.edu/s/solanas.html. Retrieved 2007-12-28. 6. ^ Echols, Alice (January 1990). Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-75. American Culture Series. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9780816617876. http://books.google.com/books?id=6zaVkAjBuPEC&dq=daring+to+be+bad+radical+feminism+in+america&pg=PP1&ots=zKUGyl6xQU&sig=lV_wr1FAGjayiW-NuflcG21KnKk&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=Daring+to+Be+Bad:+Radical+Feminism+in+America,&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPA104,M. "SCUM Manifesto [...] was one of the earliest, wittiest, and most eccentric expressions of second-wave feminism. Solanas’s unabashed misandry — especially her belief in men’s biological inferiority — her endorsement of relationships between ‘independent women,’ and her dismissal of sex as ‘the refuge of the mindless’ contravened the sort of radical feminism which prevailed in most women’s groups across the country." 7. ^ Hoff Sommers, Christina (1994). Who Stole Feminism. Simon and Schuster. pp. 256. ISBN 978-0684801568. 8. ^ The Independent Institute 9. ^ (McElroy 2001, p. 5) 10. ^ (McElroy 2001, p. 4-6) 11. ^ Hays, Charlotte. 'The Worse Half'. National Review 11 March, 2002. 12. ^ Farrell, Warren (1999). Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say. New York: Tarcher. ISBN 087477988X. 13. ^ (Nathanson & Young 2001, p. 4-6) "The same problem that long prevented mutual respect between Jews and Christians, the teaching of contempt, now prevents mutual respect between men and women." 14. ^ (Nathanson & Young 2001, p. xiv) "[ideological feminism,] one form of feminism — one that has had a great deal of influence, whether directly or indirectly, on both popular culture and elite culture—is profoundly misandric." [edit] Bibliography • Hoff Summers, Christina, Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women, 1994. • Farrell, Warren. The Myth of Male Power. Berkley Trade, 2001. ISBN 0-425-18144-8 • Ferguson, Frances and R. Howard Bloch. Misogyny, Misandry, and Misanthropy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. ISBN 9780520065444 • Levine, Judith. My Enemy, my Love: Man-hating and ambivalence in women's lives. 1992. • McElroy, Wendy (2001), Sexual Correctness: The Gender-Feminist Attack on Women, Harper Paperbacks, New York: McFarland & Company, ISBN 978-0786411443 • Nathanson, Paul; Young, Katherine R. (2001), Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture, Harper Paperbacks, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, ISBN 9780773530997 • Nathanson, Paul; Young, Katherine R. (2006), Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination against Men, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, ISBN 9780773528628 • Schwartz, Howard. The Revolt of the Primitive: An Inquiry into the Roots of Political Correctness. Revised Edition. Transaction Publishers, 2003. ISBN 0765805375 [edit] External links • Bailée, Susan (2001). "Misandry in the Classroom". The Hudson Review 54 (1): 148–54. doi:10.2307/3852834. http://www.jstor.org/pss/3852834. "My rough-and-tumble first grader, Mark, came home from school yesterday and nonchalantly told me a story about his day that set me shivering". • Leader, Richard (2007). "Misandry: From the Dictionary of Fools". Adonis Mirror. http://adonismirror.com/10152006_leader_misandry_and_misanthropy.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-28. article critical of the use of the term • Wilson, Robert Anton (April 1996). "Androphobia: The only respectable bigotry". The Backlash!. Shameless Men Press. http://www.backlash.com/content/gender/1996/4-apr96/wilson04.html. Retrieved 2007-12-28.

Depends on how you define your terms, I guess. Is answering this post to give my opinion an example of promoting my agenda? If so, maybe you're right. But not by my terms of reference. I wouldn't personally define it that way. I understand you to be incorrect, but examples and sources do not jump immediately to mind or are not at hand. It might even be that you have the cart before the horse? Maybe what you should do is wait for God to validate science, not visa versa? That is certainly the order it should occur in if science is God's way of showing us how He did it. You are assuming that there is only one truth and all accept it. My understanding is that the whole of God is intended to remain a mystery to mankind, so nobody gets to see or learn it all. In my opinion you are giving the aspirations and plans of men too much credit. I think there is a wholly spiritual side of the world that works to its own agendas. Whether we effect it, it effects us or we both effect each other I do not know, but I believe there is interaction. Perhaps in a way we cannot comprehend but God does, unless you think He is limited in His abilities to only doing things that we can comprehend? Some have, some haven't. Some had God-like agendas', some don't/didn't. I don't think one should limit God to the agendas of people. It is fair in a semantic sense in that there is nothing wrong with holding that as a belief. It is equally fair to believe that science is God's tool and the real test is that in Hebrews 11:1. You should come to God with faith. If you need evidence to substantiate faith, you lack faith. Hebrews 11 By Faith We Understand 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (NIV)

Some people think that thousands in the Third World die every year because of western foreign policies and greed. What should we do about that? Matthew 7:3 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

Some people think that thousands in the Third World die every year because of western foreign policies and greed. What should we do about that? Matthew 7:3 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

Agreed. The motives are an anti-God secularism no matter how they try to spin it. I say "anti-God" not "anti-religion" for a reason. Secularism itself is a form of religion. God himself does not forbid this. He gave us freedom of choice and a keen and inquisitive mind. Lack of belief in Him does not necessarily deny us acceptance by God just because we use what He gave us to come to a conclusion out of sync with other people. I believe that He looks at the whole package. There are reasons to support the BC/BCE choice the same as there are reasons to decry it. Personally I doubt that the portion of the world that is non-Christian, non-Islamic and non-Judaic (the three major faiths which have the Bible as their source) are going to love us more or less because we re-name our calendar. Especially if they think we continue to hurt them. I also suspect that most people will accept the spin at face value and just carry on. Out of any group there will be differing beliefs as to what and why, with most people just seeing it as more small "p" politics. Personally I find it aggravating and will continue to refer to "BC" and "AD". But hey, nowadays there are lots of things I find aggravating.

Why must science and religion be mutually exclusive? Maybe God is just showing us how He did it? Or She, if that is what you prefer.

Gee, the Western gender war continues? What a waste of effort and intelligence? Who cares about Whatz Iz Name Woodz, and why? I have never understood why media stars get attention. Tom Cruise gets asked about politics. He's an actor. Why would an actor know more about politics than a plumber? Or newscasters become revered as honest. Huh? They report what other people have said has happened. Why does that make them honest or dishonest? That's how much modern media has captured its audience and how illogical people have become. Or maybe I just don't get it? Here's a question for you: Woman hating men are called "misogynist". What is the name for man-hating women, or is there no such thing?

Friends in BC who were from Quebec, deeply francophone people whose French accent you could cut with a knife, said that Quebec separatism was by and large a Montreal elitist creation.