But spending mega billions to send people to the moon or to orbit Mars or whatever other foolish thing they want to do, just infuriates me!  It is a waste of money that could do more good and give so much relief elsewhere.
We know what God did when foks built the Tower of Babel.  If he wanted us on the moon he's have put us there instead.  If the moon had any resources that we could cultivate, God would've made it available to us.  We've been there and there is nothing there.  So what since does it make to race to return there?  Other than it would make us the "winners".  In my opinion it is just idiotic.

But spending mega billions to send people to the moon or to orbit Mars or whatever other foolish thing they want to do, just infuriates me!  It is a waste of money that could do more good and give so much relief elsewhere.

You could have made the same case against Isabella financing Columbus.

Would the money actually be used for relief? I doubt it.

If he wanted us on the moon he's have put us there instead.

They used to say "If God wanted man to fly he'd have given us wings." Following your path we wouldn't have airplanes.

If the moon had any resources that we could cultivate, God would've made it available to us.

There may well be resources there, and they are available to us if we want to go after them.

Having said that, I believe the Lord will return before we ever get out to Mars or the rest of the Solar System, much less the galaxy or universe. Everything not done for Christ is a "waste of resources" in that light.

Our pastor encourages us to visit other churches on occasion to see what they are doing and to keep in contact with other believers, but few actually do.

Amen!

Should we not try to spread that word and place it every where we can just because we think it will be destroyed? It may be just those things that we do that helps His word to survive. Even if it isn't then it will still benefit many up until that time He decides it isn't necessary any more.

Brother Tom,
I don't disagree - in fact I totally agree. I just think we shouldn't rely so much on the most fragile media in existence but think about what is most likely to survive and be able to be read and copied under adverse circumstances. But we should use all means possible and you are doing a good work in making so much available over the internet.

The only thing that I know for sure is that GOD'S WORD will be preserved forever. Just as an opinion, I believe there will be tons of Christian materials for covert use regardless of what evil happens in the world. I could make some guesses regarding materials on computers and nets. I like thinking about the example that we already know that people in foreign countries use the materials on Christians Unite. They even use the messages on the forum for Bible Studies, and it makes me extremely happy that they do. Huge libraries can be stored on CD and DVD, and I'm positive that tons of them have been shipped around the world with excellent Christian materials on them in just about all languages.

Mankind has tried to destroy the Bible before, and it can't be done. Further, GOD promised that HIS WORD would be preserved. I really believe that it would be almost impossible to destroy Christian materials today, much less the Bible.

Amos 8:11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
12And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.


While God's Word will last forever. it may well become very hard to find. Most CDs and DVDs will last about ten years at best and depend on computers to decode them into readable form. Computers are extremely complex and fragile. They can be wiped out with a single EMP strike. They require electricity, which may become unavailable. In fact, the practice of putting all of our knowledge on computer makes it extremely vulnerable.

Paper lasts longer, but even then we wouldn't have the Bible (or many other ancient books) if they hadn't been recopied over and over, usually by hand. 500 years is about the MAXIMUM for paper to survive, and most of our books, including Bibles, aren't published on anything like the best quality paper.

If civilization collapses literacy can be wiped out in a single generation due to failure of education. Even in a less radical situation, oppression can limit access. Bibles were very rare under communism, though there were lots of them before the communists took over. Sure, there were some, but the average Christian was likely not to have access to them.

Sounds like they are looking far ahead, as waiting for the appropriation and modifying the bombers will take some time and Israel doesn't seem willing to wait all that long. They may figure Israel will fail to totally destroy Iran's nuclear capability and we will have to finish the job later on.

Starting a war with Iran right now when we are tied down in Iraq and both the Turkish and Pakistani situations are deteriorating is insane. The resulting oil crisis will crash our economy.

The calendar has changed so many times since Jesus day that it would take a mathematician to calculate anything reasonably accurately. I've read Jesus could have been born anytime from 4 BC to 1 BC.

He told us we can't set exact dates for His return, though we can recognize the times and seasons. The way things are going in the world, it looks like it will be soon. The important thing is that we are busy doing what He wants whenever He returns.

Tom,
We have three operational computers - my main desktop (Dell Dimension 2300) has XP, my wife's new notebook has Vista, and I have an older Dell L667r with Ubuntu Dapper (6.06?) on it.

I was given the old Dell by my boss in the Spring and put Ubuntu on it to learn Linux. However, we have our daughter and 5 year old grandson living with us and the Dell ended up in his room. He has sort of taken it over so I haven't had much chance to work with it, (besides my not having much time in general).

Right now I am waiting for a CD of the latest version (7.10) to arrive, when I plan to update it. (I have dial-up).

I notice that Vista has borrowed a lot of features from Linux.

Rhys...
On point #2 you cannot fault the judicial system for ignorance of something that was not even invented.  DNA evidence is a relatively new technology.  And as far as cases of people being released because of it, are old cases and the people were put away because the evidence pointed to them, and a jury of their peers said they did it.  The judicial system we have works, are there problems with it?  Yes...it takes far to long for appeals to be heard, someone can appeal far too many times.  And we do not put enough money into the penal system to house the prisoners so instead we let them go back out into the street. 

There is crime in other countries.  But in other countries where they are ALOT tougher on their criminals they have alot less crime of that sort.  In Egypt if you are drinking and driving...you can be punished by death...they have very little drinking and driving.  I personally think that is a bit excessive...however if you have a judicial system that acts upon what it says it will do...20 years for a crime should mean 20 years, not 5.  Then crime would go down.

I can fault them for not thoroughly investigating the crimes to begin with and for not fairly trying them. In most of these cases there was other evidence that would cast doubt upon the verdict, but it was withheld by the prosecution to get a verdict or kept out of court on technicalities. Often the person accused couldn't afford a competent lawyer.

The judicial system also spends way too much time on trivia and technicalities and seems to have little interest in determining the truth.

As far as not putting enough money into the penal system, I believe we already have a higher proportion of our population in jail than any other country. Prison should only be for violent crimes, those involving arms, and people who are a danger to society. Others should be made to pay restitution as the Bible states, and/or work at community service - not the pleasant kind but hard manual labor.

As to appeals and the time it takes, I agree - and even a first trial takes way too long to get to. But part of this is that we have way too many laws. We are trying to regulate every aspect of human behavior with laws, and many are passed to please special interest groups. As an old Chinese proverb says: "The more laws there are the more lawbreakers there will be". If we got rid of about 3/4 of our laws the courts would be freed up to try the important ones at a much quicker pace, with much less "plea bargaining".

Courts often aren't fair and appeals are necessary. Don't forget the Apostle Paul used the appeals process of his time.

Tougher penalties don't necessarily cut crime. Death for drinking and driving is excessive to say the least. When I lived in Nova Scotia years ago they could confiscate your car and sell it for even having an open container. You didn't get the money. There were very few drunk driving accidents.

What does cut crime is a clear and quick relationship between crime and punishment. When years drag by before a sentence is passed, everyone has forgotten about the crime. Meantime the person is usually out on the street so it looks like nothing happened to them. Even if convicted they often are soon back out due to prison overcrowding. I agree fully with you that 20 years should be 20 years, and I further believe concurrent sentencing should be done away with. But I still disagree with the death penalty as once a person is dead there is no remedy if the courts made a mistake, which they too often do.

What should Christian feel about Capital Punishment?

I don't believe the Bible forbids capital punishment, but I have two concerns about it:

1. As other have mentioned, it doesn't allow the person a chance to repent and come to know Christ. You are essentially sending someone to Hell.

2. The number of people released in recent years due to DNA evidence has sapped my faith in the Judicial system to convict the right people. Too often the authorities just seem to be in a hurry to arrest and convict someone and move on. If some evidence comes up that throws doubt on the conviction, they resist reopening the case whether or not an innocent man is in prison. If the person is executed beforehand, you are essentially killing an innocent person for a crime someone else committed.

I would limit capital punishment to extremely horrible crimes, and even then only to those where there is absolutely no doubt who is guilty.

I found it interesting to trace my ancestry and find ones who were Christians, as most of my relatives today are not only non-believers but hostile to the faith.

I found a number of believers in earlier days, including Rev. Aaron Foster, a co-founder of the Congregational Home Missions Society, who went to Lawrence, Abbeville, and Pendleton, SC as an early missionary but had to leave over the slavery issue in 1832 ( after receiving 7 slaves into the church),. He and his wife buried a 6 month old son on the banks of the Savannah on the way north.

Also have Rev. Jonathan Leavitt and Rev's. Thomas and Samuel Hooker, and a few others as ancestors. Will be interesting to meet them someday!

Ironic when God uses Hugo Chavez to thwart the conspiracy of a "Christian" administration!

This isn't the first time George Bush has said this:


 "I don’t talk about a particular faith. I believe the Lord can work through many faiths, whether it be the Christian faith, the Jewish faith, Muslim faith, Hindu faith."

"In an October 26, 2004, Good Morning American interview with Charles Gibson, Bush was asked: "Do we all worship the same God, Christian and Muslim?" His reply: "I think we do.""


He also said in 1994: "In his Good Morning American interview, Bush was also asked by Charles Gibson: "Do Christians and non-Christians and Muslims go to heaven in your mind?" His reply: "Yes, they do. We have different routes of getting there."



From http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance44.html
Jesus said: I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one cometh to the Father but by me". So either George Bush or Jesus is either mistaken or a liar.

The sheepskin is finally slipping off the wolf enough so people are beginning to see what is underneath.

We live in a 40 year old mobile home out in the country on 5 acres of what was once my parents' farm. The place is paid for but property taxes keep going up. People keep building more and more "monster houses" in the area, which makes living in the area more expensive.

Public transportation is nonexistent and driving to everything is the only way to get there.

There is no cable TV or internet and we are too far from the exchange for DSL, so dial-up is the only way to get on unless you can afford satellite. The phone lines are so old that it is hard to keep a connection after rainstorms.

Rents in the area run $700 and up for two bedroom apartments.

Gasoline runs about $3.11 on the New York side of the border and $2.97 on the Vermont side. Guess where everyone buys their gas?

When we were kids we used to entertain ourselves in the woods and fields. We dammed the brook with sandbags and went swimming there - no one had their own pool then. Today more and more land has been bought up by rich city people and posted, and most of the kids seem to spend their time indoors in front of the TV or on the Internet anyway. If they do want to go out and do something, they seem to have to go to activities organized by others. There are fewer and fewer kids, too, as the population ages. Most of the young people leave the area to find jobs, while the NIMBYs keep out any company that might provide paying jobs and regulate the existing ones out of business. Affordable housing is nonexistent.