It is good to see there are many fellow godless infidels here in Do-Da. I hope to attend the next meet up on the 4th.

I would do a short introduction about myself, but that would not be interesting. Usually when I am the subject of a conversation, I have either done something wrong, or it will be embarrassing. You know, the stories that include phrases such as- "We were drinking...", "Watch this!", "You can't do that", and "That'll never happen".

Does anyone read the Eagle? Nothing gets me more riled up then the Op-ed section, except, maybe the front page. Leonard Pitts wrote a nice article about sending Glenn Beck a bible that has all the parts mentioning the poor. I think, going off memory here, he said something about talking to a few bible scholars and they have found 20 places where the bible mentions the poor. 20 places? Just 20 Places?!? I don't know if that is a few too many times, but I would think the "good book" would mention the poor a few more times then 20 in hundreds of pages. I guess the bible talks more about killing and slavery then about the poor. I really feel like sending Mr. Pitts all the passages in the bible that are written about killing, slavery, infanticide, genocide, unicorns, etc. It would be easy, just tear out 20 pages, I guess.

I saw that Health Care passed the House today. I will not to go on a rant because I do not have enough characters left to post. I have come to the realization that I might become part of a Minority Group! Well... I hope to be part of this group. I have even thought of a catchy name too. "Employed-Americans" Finally, I get a hyphen to call my own!

Interesting bus billboard picture I saw on the internet- "Science sends people to the moon, Religion sends planes into buildings"

Thoughts, opinions, ideas?

Gak

Hi Gak,

The Bible actually mentions the poor quite a lot more than 20 times. It just doesn't call them "poor" until it got around to pushing Paul's communal utopia in the New Testament. Prior to that, they just called those people "slaves" and exploited the hell out of them.

I hope to see you on the 4th. Be sure to RSVP if you can make it, and I'll save a seat for you.

- Matt

Yeah, My memory really sucks, and I was off by a bit. He said 2,000 passages.


Still, you are correct, I think "poor" is probably a stretch of interpretation.

When is the last day for RSVP?

I was curious, so I searched an online Strong's Concordance for "poor", and came up with 139 hits in the whole Bible, where the word had been used in that particular translation. I'm not quite curious enough to go looking for synonyms, though.

RSVPs are technically open until the start of the event. I typically check 30 minutes ahead for a final RSVP count, or a couple hours ahead if I need to call for a reservation. The meetup on the 4th will be a non-reservation affair.

139 in the whole book? Seems my misremembering(What a great word) of 20 times is closer to the truth then Mr. Pitts's claim of 2,000 passages. I don't blame you about not wanting to look for other interpretations of the word "poor", as what constitutes being poor varies wildly and is a relative term that can vary from different perspectives. Not to mention poor(no pun intended) translations and loose interpretations through the years.

Folks shouldn't need to read a fictional book to find out how to treat people. The golden rule has been around before primitive man even thought about creating cave drawings.