A confession by Ben Stein

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. It does
not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled
trees, "Christmas" trees. I don't feel threatened, I don't feel discriminated against.
That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to
me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto.
In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters
celebrating this happy time of year.

It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key
intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a manger,
it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think
Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who
believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea
where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I
can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we
should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we
understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are
a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and
where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little
different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get
you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane
Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?"
(regarding Katrina).

Anne Graham (Lotz) gave an extremely profound and insightful response.
She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but
for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our
government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe
He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and
His protection if we demand He leave us alone?' In light of recent events...
terrorists attack, school shootings, etc.

I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a
few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we
said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The
Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as
yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't s pank our children when they
misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we
might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock's son committed suicide). We said
an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they
don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill
strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it
out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the
world's gone to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but
question what the Bible says.


My Best Regards, honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

How do I feel about Christmas you ask? Well it will surprise you. I don't see it as a religious Holiday at all. As a matter of fact it was the Pagans that founded the capitalistic Idea. The Idea of remembering the birth of Jesus once a year on an arbitrary date is both inaccurate and non-biblical. So I don't see where seculars, atheist and non-Christians get offended. Actually true believing Christians have more reason to be offended. There is NOWHERE in the bible that instructs followers of Christ to memorialize his birth. Most die hard Christians will attest that his death was far more significant than his birth, and they are instructed to observe his life, death, burial and resurrection when they participate in "Holy communion". Something that is done in most church's on the first day of the week (Act 20:7).

So Christian's, although having their savior glorified thru retail sales, have this once (out of two, Easter being the other) opportunity to share their belief system with non-Christians. But in a forum that is not endorsed by the scriptures that Christianity uses to build its belief structure. It's a double edged sword. Both Christmas and Easter. It's a great recruitment season, yet a religious fallacy. So while both left/seculars and right/religious fanatics duke it out from Satan's day (Halloween) to New Year's eve, Jesus must be looking down upon it all smiling yet shaking his head while saying to Himself, "they're missing the point."

How do I, personally feel about Christmas? It's Americana. It's a great reason to get people to stop war for 24 hours. It's great for the economy. It represents 75 percent of retail sales. It stimulates temporary employment. It makes most people "hopeful". It gives some people an excuse to "try" religion. And aside from the sky rocketing suicide rate and needless persecution of Douglas firs, I'd say the upside outweighs the fallacy/religious collateral impedance it has on non-Christians.

BTW, where's the outrage over Halloween? Why doesn't the tolerant right get upset over families dressing their children up as minions of Satan? Halloween is treated as mother's day. (Although I did get a laugh when a school district in Oregon outlawed Halloween because they thought it discriminated against witches. lol The funny part of the story was, some head of the local witch chapter went on TV and said, "No it doesn't". lol.....

Satan must be looking up at all of this shaking his head and saying "Good their missing the point."

Merry Christmas all.

OBAMA's PC GOES TOO FAR

THIS IS A MESSAGE FROM AN APPALLED OBSERVER:

Today I went to visit the new World War II Memorial in Washington , DC . I got an unexpected history lesson. Because I'm a baby boomer, I was one of the youngest in the crowd. Most were the age of my parents, veterans of the worst war in history, with their families. It was a beautiful day, and people were smiling and happy to be there. Hundreds of us milled around the memorial, reading the inspiring words of Eisenhower and Truman that are engraved there.

On the Pacific side of the memorial, a group of us gathered to read the words President Roosevelt used to announce the attack on Pearl Harbor:

'Yesterday, December 7, 1941--a date which will live in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked.'

One elderly woman read the words aloud:

'With confidence in our armed forces, with the abounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph.'

But as she read, she was suddenly turned angry. "Wait a minute," she said, "they left out the end of the quote. They left out the most important part. Roosevelt ended the message with, "so help us God."

Her husband said, "You're right. We're not supposed to say things like that now."

"I know I'm right,"she said angrily. "I remember the speech!"

The two looked dismayed, shook their heads sadly and walked away.

Listening to their conversation, I thought to myself, "Well, it has been over 50 years; she has probably forgotten."

But she had not forgotten. She was right...

I went home and pulled out the book my book club is reading --- "Flags of Our Fathers", by James Bradley. It's all about the battle at Iwo Jima .

I haven't gotten too far in the book. It's tough to read because it's a graphic description of the WWII battles in the Pacific.

But right there it was on page 58. Roosevelt's speech to the nation ends in ''so help us God.''

The people who edited out that part of the speech when they engraved it on the memorial could have fooled me. I was born after the war! But they couldn't fool the people who were there. Roosevelt's words are engraved on their hearts.

Ace's Theory of Advanced, Intelligent pre-historic humans.

Erick Von Däniken is the father of the Ancient Alien Theory. He published his theory in his book "Chariots of the Gods".

I'm here to offer an alternate theory. We are the ancient aliens that Von Däniken wrote about. Since the archaeological discovery of Göbekli Tepe (Turkey) in 1994 which carbon dates this evidence of an advanced civilization 12,000 years ago, previous human races could have developed far superior advanced technology to our current paradigm.

I theorize that mankind had more than enough time to develop technology to create the UFO's we're still trying to understand. It was us, not aliens from another universe. Look at the advancements we've made in the last 30 years. Imagine what man will be capable of in another 3,000 years. Our ancient ancestor were a pre-historic advanced intelligent civilization that discovered the principals behind anti-gravity technology. Perhaps even "middle" earth sub-terrains survival.

Perhaps we made the earth uninhabitable for a thousand years then came back in our advanced space travel. (maybe even time travel).

If the archaeological dig at Göbekli Tepe proves the existence of an advanced civilization 10,000 years before Christ. Who knows what mankind was capable of achieving given the time?