Revenue, Rights and the Rule of Law

----- Original Message -----
From: sam nettles
To: norm k.
Cc: jritchiejr
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 12:13 AM
Subject: Fw: Baptist Revunue
I received your note about my E-mail and appreciate it.
Jack Richie had some food for thought I'll share with you. Rule of Law gets more complicated every day. It's legal for a jury to disregard a judge's instruction just like it's legal for a judge to disregard anything he wants when he makes a decision. I guess that's why we have an appeal process.
Jesus was tough and tolerant. To true believers, He has the last word. There's no appeal when he judges but people have to do the best they can.
Good intentions can be destructive but I never paid much attention to morality or life style issues so what the Baptists teach or any other religion teaches doesn’t bother me. I do get a little concerned when secular demands begin to obstruct me. I think most Americans feel the same way. Good secular leadership should prevent Baptists from having a power edge through money, especially when it comes to smoking, drinking, gambling and dancing. Only the laws we break after we do our thing, not before, should be prosecuted. There's too much thought about prevention these days and that's redundant in a free society. Most of the pleasures of the world have consequences but legislate the consequences, don't legislate the pleasures.
Phillip Wylie wrote "Generation of Vipers" years ago. The vipers are still with us!!!!!!!

Sam

Sam Nettles -"Real Texas Freedom"http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/realtexasfreedom or http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/
----- Original Message -----
From: sam nettles
To: Jack Ritchie
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:22 AM
Subject: Re: Baptist Revunue
Privileges and rights are truly mixed up these days, along with just about everything else. Jesus would be a smoker!!!!! Sam
Sam Nettles -"Real Texas Freedom"http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/realtexasfreedom or http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Ritchie
To: sam nettles
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 6:52 AM
Subject: Re: Baptist Revunue
Food for thought....

Christ was Galalian, which was consider the scum of Jewish society in his time and place. He was judged by the self proclaimed righteous, and condemed to death for preaching a doctrine of Love. If he came back today, he might very well come back as a smoker. I say that because he came to witness the evil and persecution of the defenseless here on earth. Smoking is a worldly thing and has nothing to do with the spiritual realm, unless people make it so putting prejudice and hatred first.

I know many established man made religions have designated smoking as a sin, but something to consider is if we indeed supposedly have seperation of state and religion then why are they involved in politics. How is it blue laws can exist?

Seems to be another social lie (the seperation of church and state) and like Freedom doesn't really exist here. Some think we are Free but Freedom is not conditional, Privilege is and does exist in any regulatory or dictatorial government.

Jack R.
Houston, Tex
sam nettles wrote:




This is the last part of the latest from Norm Kjono published in forces.org. How the 16 million member Southern Baptist organization has enhanced it's revenue is thoroughly reviewed. I wish he had included Jesus telling everybody to pluck out their eyeballs when they see evil or judge not lest you be judged. The cornerstone is powerful.

How Long, Lord?

Based in the foregoing it seems propitious to introduce Harold Lucius Parsons. “Harry,” as God refers to him, is the principal character in a short story that I wrote in 2000, “How Long, Lord?” Perhaps a solution to mercantile morality and remunerative religion is found in that work. Harry’s problem is that he is acutely fixated on scripture that supports his agenda but has blinders on when it comes to scripture that may impede grinding his personal-preference revenue axe. At the request of Archangel Gabriel God comes to Earth to check out the situation with Harry. God provides a divine-wisdom solution to the apparent problem of sin and inequity that Harry claims is taking over the world.
As would be expected, the Baptists have scripture ready to “justify” their new-found revenue-enhancing angst about persons who choose to smoke. They quote Paul in 1 Corinthians (6:19-20): ‘Or do you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit...?’” Perhaps they overlooked the Gospel of Matthew. From Blue Letter Bible, King James Version, the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 21:
12. And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
13. And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
42. Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
43. Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
44. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
45. And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.
46. But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.
That chapter of Matthew is recommended reading. Not only does it contain the scriptures about money changers in the temple but it also includes the story of Christ’s triumphant entry to Jerusalem that inspires Palm Sunday, the story about those who are last becoming the first, how God will remove His kingdom from a nation that does not bear true fruits of Christ’s love, and how the religious leaders of the day responded to that message by wanting to lay hands on (beat the crap out of) Christ for having the temerity to speak such words. Matthew 21 is pretty much as good a recap of today’s tawdry and unseemly mix of politics, self-serving religion, and greed for corporate profits as it gets.
So what to do about the Baptists? In a word, nothing. Let them supplicate for alms from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation by putting their own children on the pharmaceutical sacrificial altar. By doing so their will prove themselves to be a self-extinguishing species.
As to the anti-tobacco agenda, normal folks and responsible parents can simply return to the book of 1 Corinthians the Baptists use to “justify” their revenue-rage about persons who smoke. I Corinthians, Chapter 13 seems to me to speak with true wisdom:
“1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become [as] sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
11. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Norman E. Kjono

Sam Nettles -"Real Texas Freedom"http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/realtexasfreedom or http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/