Got this in an e-mail (PS: Snopes says it's true, although they don't show the last 3 paragraphs so I'm not sure about those). Profound The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary, Sunday, 12/18/05. Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife. Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and! Jessica are. If this is what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad. Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a crèche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away. I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to. Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this Happen?" (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?" In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK. Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave! because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK. Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW." Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
And who didn't know this was coming... my commentary. Good. Only an idiot would be insulted that the name of a tree used to celebrate Christmas would be a Christmas tree and nobody cares if a person wants to say merry christmas to people. To my knowledge, neither atheists nor jews requested the end to these terms in general - rather municipalities stopped calling them that so that they could put them up with out it being considered them celebrating a religious holiday (more on that later). I don't care if it's there either, but does that mean I should be forced to pay for it (assuming the government sets it up)? Take another look around, you're the majority! Stop being a baby and recognize that it's others' rights that are in peril, not your own. Seperation of church & state. Doesn't mean athiest, doesn't mean Christian - it means not having a stance on the matter. Hmm, what if I think god requires virgin sacrifices... it okay with you if i worship him as I understand him? And what about all the great tragedies that came before that? I guess God just didn't care about us then either. I'm almost speechless to the ridiculousness of this statement. What about all the christians that have been murdered..? Once again, the twisted view of the defensive christian (yea, pretty sure Ben Stein didn't write this part) right wing. Childdren can pray & read the bible in school all they want. Just don't have public supported schools forcing it on the children. Ohhhh, now I see. Spanking kids is an American value that teaches valuable life lessons. Without spanking, our kids don't learn not to kill people. It makes total sense! Nothing is different about the world. It is no more corrupt than it's ever been.
No kidding! Like magical people in the sky that control hurricanes and send them after black people because we don't let schools enforce praying.
What exactly is more corrupt about the world? When my grandfather was a little boy, two men tried to kidnap him. So 70 years ago, we still had fags, we still had perverts, and we still had crime. You just didn't have to hear about it every day.
More foolishnes. God isn't "magical". He didn't send the hurricane after anyone. And, there were more than just blacks in N.O. How about all of the white people that live in around N.O. who lost a lot more than a color tv and a section 8 home. The hurricane affected white's just as hard if not harder than blacks.
i need to find a new shtick, you have mine covered. it is ok though i need to evolve. edit, i misspelled word #3 in my career. i fixed it though.
God isn't magical? What do you call the ability to grant wishes? The woman said that God allowed the hurricane to hit us because we kicked him out of our homes. I guess that is different than sending it, but since he controls the fate of the world and has a master plan for everything, he must have seen it coming and allowed it to happen on purpose... right? Of course I realize this. I'm from Mandeville, 40 minutes away. I was joking because of the ridiculousness of what the woman said in the first place.
Nah. I'm not an athiest and you're still the only one that refuses to see the danger in the federal deficit. I typed that response knowing it was something you would say.
