I come from MA. I know about Mass Health. This is a fact. If you apply for it through any other means than being in person, then whatever papers you have filled out for snail mail are tossed in the trash. Folks don't have the time for stuff like website applications even in my state, which is orders of magnitude smaller than the scale of trying to achieve socialized health care. A much better way to do this has been pointed out by
Robert Reich, and that was to extend Medicare to include health for all. In addition, I believe that trying to insure the entire country will be a difficult if not impossible task, especially since it requires more bureaucracy than Mass health, and believe me, it is no easy walk in the park to get health care here. Many providers often complain that Mass Health doesn't pay them, even though it should. Really, the best way do do this would be Medicare and via separating the union with respect to health care as places like New England, Mid-Western, etc.
One thing that I don't get about ACA is why so many folks that comment also can pay out of pocket are more concerned about second tier Americans than third and underclass tiers? I myself pay out of pocket for my psychological care. I would guess anyone who trusts regular health care for psych would be nothing but a disaster, such that out of pocket psychiatrists that do not accept health care is the only way.
Conservatives often give to fund their priests, but that is all. Ever heard of a conservative give no an NGO (Non governmental organization) like Heiffer International? Probably not. I do admit though that the shoebox charity of Christian is quite good. I, myself, have done missionary work in the Dominican Republic doing things like pouring cement to build a hospital. Often I am very suspicious of Christian charities like the Salvation Army because really their assistance is often motivated by Jesus and is not humanistic. (This is probably more like what Christians are like in the Bible belt. I have evidence that Christians are not like this where I live, Cape Cod)
I don't buy that. I live in Massachusetts, sometimes called the blue-est state. Far fewer people in my state go to church and still far fewer are zealous about their religion here. And, guess what, our water is clean and through legislating charity we have one of the most robust states in the union. Boston has weathered the financial storms of economic demise far better than many other USA cities.
One fact is, if you give many but not all people a sense that Zeus is watching the behavior of men, then, the majority of men will use belief in Zeus as a reason to behave, and they will behave just as well for Zeus as they will for Jesus.
There is ample evidence to suggest that Zeus was Zerah son of Judah, born by Tamar, and brother of Pharez.
If Jesus was the Messiah, then please explain to me why after his coming here life expectancies decreased. Also, that Jesus walked the earth reminds me of a silly old song my mom used to sing, "And, he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me that l am his own."
Thanks ... for not praying for me. When Christians say that to me (That they are gonna pray for me), I take it as a common passive aggressive cheap-shot.
Exactly, when Isaac blessed Jacob, he gave a lesser blessing to Esau. In the Bible Isaac represents justice. Thank you for at least trying to show some discretion over who and what you pray about. Indeed, you are trying not to caste pearls to swine (why it is written "before" beats me. Its almost like poor English, as if the pearls turn men into swine). It should be, don't caste pearls to swine, if you are concerned with parsimonious English.
Thank you for taking time to address this with me. I am not Christian. I believe that the religion of Judaism is correct though I am not a Jew, meaning I do not have Jewishness that one supposedly gains through ritual conversion.
First, let me address the issue of free will. I believe G@d knows us, and controls our destiny to a certain extent, but that we also control our own destiny because we have souls. These souls give us purpose, and individuality. Most Bible's include this in the creation account where G_d say, "And let them rule." "Let" separates our souls from being G-d's automatons. "Them" is plural indicating our individuality. To "Rule" over creation is the purpose of humanity. Also, several times in Torah we read that if we do good things, then eventually good things will happen to us, and that if we do bad things we will eventually fall from grace through the evil of G!d. A couple of time in the histories of the Jewish kings in Tanach G:d is called evil. In addition, G=d is the ruler over Satan, the Angel of Death, and so on. So, because we have souls we can choose to a certain extent how we are to live, and G$d may or may not punish or reward us, according to His perfect wisdom. Thus, as the rule of karma applies, if we do good, then eventually good things will happen to us, and if we do evil eventually G-d is probably going to multiply our afflictions.
I do agree with you that the Christian message is quite muddled. To believers, however, to be a Christian is secretly defined as doing what is morally upstanding, while shunning evil.
I do not have a good answer with respect to radioactive dating and the Bible. So far as I can conceive, there once was a time where humanity became nearly extinct due to an ice age, according to the fossil record. The entire world is thus thought to have been repopulated by 70 individuals, according to science. I believe that Noah's flood was actually due to global warming and thawing a glacier, and that the 70 individuals that scientists say repopulated the world, are the 70 nations of the Bible following the flood.
I believe that it is possible that we have miscalculated the age of the birth of Hebrew. There is ancient Hebrew (no vowels, only consonants), as our human ancestors probably could only speak with consonants (see The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins), and there is modern Hebrew, which of course has vowels. Modern Hebrew was created through isolating a child in Jewish culture, and deigning the words he came up as Hebrew. Please keep in mind that no one had spoken perhaps middle Hebrew or Ancient Hebrew for roughly 2,000 years before Modern Hebrew was created. Talmud and Torah through the Middle Ages etc were studied in the vernacular, but the Hebrew was only read, not spoken. This is one reason I believe Hebrew is very similar to old French according to Rashi, meaning that Rashi had adopted old French into a Hebrew creole. Rashi is best known for writing what is often called the most important commentary on the Torah.
Forgive me if I am in error in the delivery, but if I can remember correctly, reconciliation of the modern dating system science is possible through Torah. Observing the dates of the Bible, I was able to conclude that through taking Torah (non-Tanach {I think it was}) dates and connecting them with modern dates, I was able to come to an interesting conclusion with respect to the Hebrew word “Yom,” which can mean either day or age. This word “yom” is also used in the creation story, which is why some folks believe in the Day-Age Theory. At the time of the flood, G-d numbered Noah’s years, saying that man’s days are numbered 120. If you factor in Torah one of the years of a person’s life is actually 120 years of our time because of this verse, then we are accurately able to date the time of near human extinction in the fossil record in Torah. In addition, the fossil record contains 2 departures from Africa, one being that of Abraham, the other being that of the Israelites fleeing Pharaoh. Using this system, it is also possible to conclude that the Canaanites were the Neanderthals, and that for some of us our ancestors intermarried with them, as we have their DNA. There is definitely fossil record of Neanderthals in Israel, which is the land of Canaan. Additionally, I am fairly certain that while all know white people have Neanderthal DNA, it is the Jews that are Jewish via lineage that have the highest concentrations of Neanderthal DNA.
This raises an interesting question, which you, yourself, posed. Why the hell is everything with respect to the Bible so muddled, be it any religion, as though I like Judaism on paper, I still think people are people? For one, Paul and the Talmud are correct on one thing, that the Jews have Torah. However, that is not to state that the Jews fully comprehend Torah. That is, G-d gave the Torah to the Jews in a state, very similar to the way the Jews are now, and not all comprehend this Torah though many of the Jews wrestle with it in their life, and indeed some go on to become Rabbis and probably fewer become students of these Rabbis.
One conclusion is that each name of every person in Torah, or at least Genesis is actually a tribe, and not a single person.
I resent that about donating other people's money. i do give money to charity, and I am a charity case. The Bible says that the poor should not be so impoverished that they are unable to give back, and that describes my situation. There, in the play by play I did charitable a good deed by letting you know that. I used to be an electrochemist several years back, and having mental illness even I could see that I would cost tax payers less on SSI, not to be confused with SSDI, if I just take a check and stop doing science. Plenty is already known in science and people need to put that to use and not just publish paper after paper. The system is archaic. Science is supposed to be repeatable, but recorded written and moderated commentary on articles isn't done, especially since terabyte drives are commonly available. The Jews have been doing this since the Dark Ages through Talmud. Science isn't all that grand and it costs a lot of money, so I decided not to add to the problem, and see what I could do that might benefit people in the form of charity.
The majorities of faith associated religions include Christians and Muslims, and while there is a very small minority of Christians that worship like Jews, not messianic Jews, however, billions of Christians do not worship in the way that Jews do.
Most Jews would probably say Islam is closer to Judaism than Christianity. The Jews that say Islam is closer to Judaism than Christianity are correct. It is a shame when Jews and Muslims don't get along. Islam and Judaism should be like monotheistic brothers. From the perspective of Judaism, calling Gd Allah is probably just fine, as Allah means, "Hallelujah," in English.