The Evangelical Universalist Forum

How To Live Under An Unqualified President by John Piper

Yes indeed Don… if whoever one’s neighbour is keeps the law of the land, as we all should, it’s no one’s business whatever their expressed religion is or isn’t. I’m mightn’t particularly go for the neighbour 5 doors down who religiously gets off his face every Friday night on the booze… so long as he doesn’t drive his car or hurt anyone else what and how he does it is his business.

As to ‘religions’ as such… it’s ALWAYS the fundamentalists that give each one cause for concern — but to judge the whole by the few simply shows our own weak and pathetic bias’.

What I’m saying is - look at many places where Muslim communities have grown - starting with a few families, and growing - and just freakin’ LOOK.
It’s not a judgment I’m making - it’s reportage. I will list all the stories I can find if that will help (but don’t make me).

What would I do if a Muslim family moved next door? First thing I’d do - is watch my house value overnight, lose about $50,000.00. Not the Muslim’s fault - it’s the scare that people have of the Muslims.

Well wait - why do people fear Muslims? It’s because the Muslims by and large say and do nothing to discourage or finger or identify or snitch on the Radicals that they know about. They don’t by and large SPEAK OUT LOUDLY enough to discourage terrorism by the Rads.

I think you are trying to paint me with an inappropriate brush. I am not an Islamaphobe - which means, btw, an ‘unreasonable fear of Islam’. What fear I do have comes by keeping my eyes and ears opened, and watching the fools who run the educational system, the immigration system, the justice system - become derilict. Davo you’re over there, and Don is up there, I’m here. You both are clear-headed and smart - as well as others here at the forum - but you are not seeing this from a US citizen’s viewpoint. I think. But surely you see what is happening in Europe and other places? It always starts small, but it does not end that way.

Just an observation Dave… this type of rhetoric true or otherwise probably just adds to stereotypes. :confused:

Well yeah, but this ALL comes back to cause and effect… the lies of 911 Howard, Blair and Bush fabricated to further their own political ends in terms of the fear-mongering and manipulation they peddle to justify the military action taken ultimately RESULTED IN this flood of people out of their homelands to borders beyond their own — hence the Muslim migration; history show war does that.

Davo, ‘true or otherwise’ is a snide remark, you’re better than that. You do NOT know southern Oregon; $50k was being conservative.

What was your obfuscation? Oh yeah, the off-putting “Well, yeah but…” Very helpful. Did not address the issue at all, but it gave you a chance to deflect the import (at least to me) of what I was saying.

No matter, as it does not affect you down under at all, right-o?

Does anyone here have a constructive thing to say, about how the U.S. can avoid the problems much of the world is having because of their idiotic immigration policies?

If you have a close friend, in the Muslim circuit. It’s easier to enter that world. :smiley:

Because so many Americans still live mentally in a time when intolerance was considered the greatest evil, they have difficulty understanding that an indiscriminate tolerance can father just as many sins. -WK

Well yeah, but this ALL comes back to cause and effect… the lies of 911 Howard, Blair and Bush fabricated to further their own political ends in terms of the fear-mongering and manipulation they peddle to justify the military action taken ultimately RESULTED IN this flood of people out of their homelands to borders beyond their own — hence the Muslim migration; history show war does that.

I always thought Bush bent over backwards to repeatedly call Islam a religion of peace and what resulted in the flood of muslim immigrants was Bashar Assad the Syrian dictator who as a muslim Shite has been trying to wipe out the Sunni majority in Syria igniting a flood of immigration into Europe. As others saw that you can get into Europe it fueled further immigration from Africa. The Europeans never learned how to secure their borders and they now will lose their cultures over a generation or two.

Dave, I don’t think the rest of the world has “idiotic imm1igration policies.” Many countries have compassion on the multitudes that can no longer live in their own countries because of persecution or of unjust laws that make it impossible for them to live a normal life in those countries. But it just so happens that some unscrupulous persons take advantage of these compassionate countries and immigrate to them in order to wreak havoc. Countries are morally right to take the risk of their being such unsavoury characters among the multitudes who need a decent, democratic country in which to live.

Let me give you a personal example. After the North Vietnamese (Communists) overtook South Vietnam, they persecuted educated people. Many of those people escaped in boats or ships to other countries. My own family and the families of two of my nephews, formed “The Refugee Assistance Group” and sponsored a Vietnamese man and his wife, and three sons. We arranged to buy a trailer and set it up on a part of my property (160 acres).

We picked them up in Kenora, and thought that if we took them to a Chinese restaurant, they might get food similar to what they were used to eating. But they hardly touched the food, because they thought it would be an economic hardship for us. Once I found the husband, Van (pronounced "Vaang) , in a clearing near the trailer with four stakes in the ground on which a cloth had been stretched, and on which potatoes had been cut up in the shape of French fries, and were placed on the cloth. I asked the man what he was doing. He replied, “I’m drying these French fries in the sun.” I said, “Why not just put them in a frying pan with oil and cook them?” His answer: “Save electricity.”

They had brought some tubes toothpaste with them. His sons held the tubes straight up and lightly moved the heads of their toothbrushes across the opening to the tubes so as not to make it last by using as little as possible.

Van, the husband had been an electro-chemical engineer in Viet Nam,and his wife had been a pharmacist. I tried to get Van a job at the paper mill in Fort Frances, but they wouldn’t hire him. So he managed to get a job with a local farmer, but it was very hard on him. Because of his slight frame and structure, he came home very tired every evening.

Their religion was Confucian. I asked him how a Confucian practises his religion. He said, “We look at pictures of our ancestors, and feel thankful that they have given us birth.”

When he found out that we attend a Christian church, he wanted to come. On their journey to Vietnam, the family and other families who were on the boat with them, were robbed by a crew of Thailand pirates. A second group of pirates came on board later; there was nothing left to steal, so they gave the Vietnamese people some fish. However, they were angry at being robbed,and wouldn’t eat it. Later, they stopped at a large island country where they were told to get back into their boat and move on. They tried pushing it back into the water (not very hard) and said, “It seems to be stuck.”

“All right!” said the officials, “We will make a border around this little area. Anyone who steps outside this border will be shot!” After they started to get hungry, they went back to the boat and took out the fish (which was then in a stage of being unfit for consumption), cooked it up and ate it.
Later, a Catholic woman and her daughter discovered them, and brought them food and reading materials. This kind act resulted in Van having a positive view of Christianity. So when he found out were were attending a Christian church, he and his family were happy to attend it, too.

Their children attended the local school and were at the top of their class.

He said that what was done in the meetings made him feel good. I managed to get a Bible for him in the Chinese language (He was able to read that fluently). “Yes,” he said, "First I will read the Christian’s Holy Book before I decide to become a Christian.

A day or so later, he said to me, "I have been reading the Christian Holy Book, and have a question. Whose son was Jesus anyway? Genealogy is very important to a Confucian, and so he had started to read the genealogy in Matthew 1.

Later, Van’s wife was getting letters from Vancouver, in which they were urged to move out there where there would be greater opportunity. Sometimes, I heard Van and his wife arguing in Vietnamese rather frequently. She wanted to move to Vancouver; he didn’t. But finally she convinced him. Then he told me, “I tried to get a job here, but I fail. We will be moving to Vancouver.” I had loved the family so much, that I wept.

That’s an excellent story, Don, thanks.
We keep coming back to this point, where I’m made to look like I have no compassion, and your side is all-loving. Ok that’s a caricature of both of us, but you get my point. And it’s a false dichotomy.

So you don’t have any advice - noone seems to - except to point fingers at the USA and accuse of a lack of compassion. Strange - where is the compassion for those wives and kids mowed down in a movie theater, or children blown up at a concert, or raped in Muslim areas, of killed in 9/11?

Seriously - What about them? Is it more important to allow terrorists into the country - and we seem unable or unwilling to do that - than to protect our own citizens?

I agree with a compassionate stance. But we have to take care of our own as well.

What advice would you on the forum give?

Well, I tend to lean more to Dave’s stance, with the understanding that you need to try to have compassion without putting your loved ones or every thing you’ve worked for at risk of being ripped away. Don’s story was fantastic, But the one thing about the story that intrigues me is that Don and company ‘decided’ to help this one family. They were not compelled to do so. And how did the family respond? They were so humble and grateful that they wouldn’t even eat the Chinese dinner. The kids became model students and the folks lived what sounded like simple responsible lives. And I assume that the family was legal from a citizenship standpoint. NO ONE has a problem with that.

I’LL REPEAT No on has a problem with that as far as I am concerned. But Dave raises issues that are easy to sweep to the side until it arrives in your back yard so to speak. Forced or illegal entry is different than compassionate and legal citizenship.

My daughter just got married to a young man from England a few weeks back. His short term travel visa (not sure if I have all these terms right) was up and he had to go back across the pond to go back to work so he is there and she is here waiting to try to go there and for the authorities in England to decide if he can support her and if she is not a security threat. The red tape is incredible when you try to do it legally. I feel for them, not being able to be together.

I am a better safe than sorry type of guy, and my daughter seems to be being slowed down because of that mentality… So it is what it is. Just the crap of a couple of young folks falling in love living in different countries.
:open_mouth:

I’LL REPEAT No on has a problem with that as far as I am concerned. But Dave raises issues that are easy to sweep to the side until it arrives in your back yard so to speak. Forced or illegal entry is different than compassionate and legal citizenship.

Here is a news flash, Dave is right and here are other facts which are , where Islam goes violence follows. Not most muslims but to many and the overwhelmingly important distinction is that violence and conquest is the bedrock of Islam unlike any other religion. So it’s not about how many muslims are violent or non violent it’s that the religion itself is cancerous. The violence and conquest built into the Quran and Hadith is open ended and unending until Allah rules the world. That is the reality.

Worse than Vegas - and no guns.
Remember last year? No guns needed.

D. Greenburg:

If somebody really wants to kill a lot of people… they have options.

A large truck plowed into a crowd of people in the southern French of city of Nice on Thursday night, killing at least 84 people and leaving 18 in critical condition as the heavy vehicle mowed over its victims along hundreds of feet, according to police and government officials.

The scene in Nice was one of devastation, with the heavy-duty white truck stalled amid the bloodshed on the street, its windows smashed and riddled with bullets, from police gunfire.

“I saw bodies flying like bowling pins along its route. Heard noises, cries that I will never forget,” he wrote.

The Muslim terrorist attack killed 86 people and wounded 458. That’s a worse toll than the Vegas attack.

And it only happened last year.

**But the media is eager to forget about Muslim terrorist attacks and very eager to have a “national conversation” full of “common sense solutions” for abolishing the Bill of Rights. Unlike the travel ban which was a common sense solution that most Americans support.
**
The gun control argument is all about how guns are an unprecedented weapon of terror. And if someone wants to kill a lot of people, he just has to use a gun.

Not really. As the Nice attack, the Manchester Arena attack, the Boston Marathon bombing and 9/11 (and Oklahoma City, for the token non-Muslim terror attack) demonstrate.

Guns are a means. As are trucks and bombs.

(emphases are mine - DB)

I just read the articles in today’s newsletters from patheos.com/ - both Catholic and Evangelical. And many are devoted to making sense, of the Los Vegas massicure. We are talking about a person, who’s a multi-millionaire. And there’s much we don’t know yet. IRIS, at least, I can understand. I understand their ideology. Naturally, I don’t agree with it. And I’m all for the good guys - owning guns. As long as they pass, the appropriate background checks.

ISIS I understand. Zombies I understand. But I don’t understand, folks like Stephen Paddock. Perhaps because not enough is known yet. Or yet released, because of the pending investigation.

http://66.media.tumblr.com/906822f718808bfc374ac57f67156180/tumblr_nz5e50DNRA1tg1e53o5_400.gif

Well this may be a bitter pill for any of you that hold the position of ‘no media bias’ ‘you cannot prove media bias’ etc.
Project Veritas strikes again!!

frontpagemag.com/fpm/268104/ … seph-klein

Is this another right wing article :question: Oh, know :exclamation: Left wing and right wing articles, will be what leads us - to the zombie apocalypse. I’m convinced of it. :frowning: :astonished: :open_mouth:

It’s more like - what’s that word again? - ah yes, FACTS. An interview with an important NYT staffer who did not know he was being filmed and recorded. TSK tsk. He spills the beans.
Maybe the beans don’t matter any more? Jonathan Gruber was filmed stating that the Obama Admin believed the American people were too stupid to understand what was being done to them with the ACA - that’s a Big Bean, but no hue and cry.

If you don’t read this, and later on claim, like so many have, that there is no ‘media’ bias, I can refer back to this, at least. If the ZA has not happened. :laughing:

All you mathematicians are racist!!

frontpagemag.com/point/26821 … greenfield

But I don’t know any zombie, that is currently a mathematician. But they are certainly waiting, for us to give the signal - for the zombie apocalypse to begin. It’s closer than we think. :astonished: :open_mouth:

I am surprised that no one has yet made reference to the dramatic events which have taken place in United States in the last two days—events that expose Mr. Trump for who he really is.

Even Fox News, to which Trump supporters claim is about the only News that is not “fake” concerning Trump, has published an article entitled “Trump’s seagull management style makes mess of Senate.” Early in the article “seagull management” is defined as “That’s when somebody flies in, defecates on everything and then flies away.”

Fox News Article

Oh.