halinsalem

I am with Joseph on this subject. If some of the people I am eating with want to say Grace before eating, either at home or in a restaurant, then I will join them. I have no quarrel with what ways other people want to practice their faith. It does not offend me and I do not want to offend them.

Unfortunately, the old cliche is usually true and is good advice: "Don't wrestle with a pig, you will not gain anything, and you end up dirty!"

As the Dalai Lama advises: "Practice Compassion". Bishop Tutu stated "Real love is not an emotion or a feeling, it is what you do." I sometimes wonder why we are kept in ignorance of what comes after this life - we can only wonder or guess, we don't really know.

The only solution so far for violent inmates, used by prison authorities, is isolation, called "Solitary Confinement". Individuals with mental health problems are in a separate institution. Some of those individuals respond positively to medication. Almost every inmate eventually goes back out into the community. Some of them can be a real problem for their parole officer, while a certain number will do their best to do what is right - those are the ones that should be given as much help as we can give. Education and recovery programs should be available to every inmate, but sadly, they are few and far between.

I just read a most interesting book, borrowed from the local public library. We are very fortunate in that we have a very good public library. Whoever buys books consistently purchases books related to religion and/or related topics and there is always a group of ten to twenty new books available (index #’s 200 to 300) and there does not seem to be a bias in their selection. The Smithsonian Edition of The Jefferson Bible (index # 226) is part of this group. THE THOMAS JEFFERSON BIBLE In the book published by the Smithsonian Institution (which includes Jefferson’s edition of the bible in four languages – Greek, Hebrew, Latin and English) there is an introduction written by Harry R. Rubenstein and Barbara Clark Smith which tells of Thomas Jefferson’s efforts to edit the bible – it was evidently not an easy process, but he got it done after he retired from politics. Mr. Jefferson called it: “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted Textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French & English.” The introduction states: “Nonetheless, the completed work reflects the goals that Jefferson had set out to accomplish. Left behind in the source material were those elements that he could not support through reason, that he believed were later embellishments, or that seemed superfluous or repetitious across the Four Evangelists’ accounts. Absent are the annunciation, the resurrection, the water being turned into wine, and the multitudes fed on five loaves of bread and two fishes. It essentially offers what the title indicates: a distillation of the teachings of Jesus the moral reformer, combined with what Jefferson accepted as the historical facts pertaining to Jesus the man.” Another part of the introduction told of the relationship of Jefferson and John Adams in their retirement years: The two men found distance from their earlier partisan conflicts and substantial commonality in their views. Adams shared Jefferson’s concern about the continuing influence of the wealthy and well-born: “Your aristocrats are the most difficult animals to manage of anything in the whole theory and practice of government. They will not suffer themselves to be governed. They not only exert all their own subtlety, Industry and courage, but they employ the commonality to knock to pieces every plan and model that the most honest architects in legislation can invent to keep them within bounds.” Does John Adams’ opinion sound familiar?

As Paul points out, there are some prisoners or convicts that are a danger to staff and other prisoners. The standard procedure for dealing with them is to isolate them. I spent five years as a Parole Officer and twenty years supervising other Parole Officers. My philosophy always was to give the most help to the individual who would accept or want it and to avoid doing anything that would be harmful or denigrating to any member of a caseload. Not every person that I supervised (and sometimes my superiors) agreed with this philosophy, but in the long run it pays off. I could probably write a book on this subject, but I will not bore you with paragraphs of opinion. The United States has the highest percentage of individuals incarcerated of any first world country. The politicians want to be "tough on crime" and do not want to waste any tax money on education or recovery programs. After retiring I spent fifteen years as a volunteer teacher in the local rescue mission's Learning Center, helping ex-cons and recovering addicts prepare for Community College and GEDs - the same philosophy applied there. Those individuals who want to be helped should be given all the help that is available and we just have to put up with the remainder.

I guess I will have to go back and re-read Bishop Spong's book "Liberating The Gospels". When I first read it, it seemed to make good sense, but what do I know? I am somewhat leery about professional theologians, most of them still believe in a three-tiered universe.

It seems to me there is a certain amount of logic in Bishop Spong's opinions. 1. The large majority of Christians in the first century were Jewish 2. If they observed the sabbath, they attended a synagogue (churches and clergy as we know them did not exist) 3. The synagogue attendees had to be convinced that Jesus was real and that his teachings were valid and fulfilled the Old testaments's prophecies. 4. The synagogue ceremonies had to have a liturgy if they were to be heard 5. Why is this so unacceptable?

There is a featured article in this week's TIME magazine about Rob Bell and his book. The TIME correspondent seems to think that Pastor Bell's opinions are new and revolutionary. I found the article interesting, but not particularly worth shouting about. As someone has already pointed out in this thread, Mr. Bell is just joining the "modern" church. Hal

I am puzzled! The ultra-conservatives, fundamentalists, literalists, self-advertised patriots have come up with another pejorative label. Guess what it is: PROGRESSIVE! It was in the Opinion section of the local newspaper this morning. Fifty or sixty years ago it was "red" or "communist" (now the Republicans are "red" - go figure!) I was never a communist, the first Presidential candidate that I voted for was Eisenhower. The next negative label the conservatives used is "liberal" (I have always been a liberal). Lately the bad label is "socialist". When I commented that Jesus was a lot closer to being a socialist than a capitalist, the only emphatic reply that I got was "Jesus was NOT a socialist!" Now the conservatives are going to downgrade the "Progressives" by using it as a nasty label. Where do we go from here? Don't take me too seriously - every time I think I have seen and heard everything in my 84 1/2 years, something else rears its head. My biography: Liberal, great-grandfather, grandfather, husband, father, son, brother. The old Silverback of a rather large extended family. My best friend and I celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary two months ago. Hal