Don't Teach God at School

CONTINUE AND FINISH

When it was all over, Elijah had all the prophets of Baal rounded up and they took them down to the brook Kishon and slew them there. God then blessed the people by sending rain upon the land. Read the full account of this piece of history of Israel in 1 Kings 16, 17, and 18.

Perhaps Rabbi Hirschfield can tell us when God quit taking an interest in the affairs of men. Psalm 2:1-5 states, "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure."

Yes, Rabbi, God does choose sides. I'm afraid that you are on the wrong one.

CONTINUED

But, I digress. Let's get back to the part of God choosing sides. Perhaps Hrischfield knows the story of how King Ahab was an evil king and turned the hearts of the people away from the Lord by worshipping Baal. Elijah, the prophet, came to Ahab and told him that there would be neither dew nor rain in the land for several years. Then the Lord told Elijah to flee eastward and to hide himself by the brook Cherith and that he would be fed by the ravens. He drank of the brook until it dried up. The Lord then told Elijah to go to Zarephath, which was in Zidon and he would be cared for by a widow. Eventually, in the third year of the famine, God told Elijah to return and to confront Ahab. When he met with him, Ahab accused Elijah of "troubling" Israel. Elijah answered, "I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim. Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table."

Well, the rest is history. They set up altars and Elijah challenged the false prophets to call upon there gods to send down fire to consume the meat sacrifice that they had placed on their altar. After hours of pleading, cutting themselves and parading around the altar, nothing happened. Then Elijah placed his sacrifice upon the altar and they drenched it with four barrels of water three times. They poured it on the meat, the wood and filled the trenches round about the altar. Then Elijah called upon the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel and said, "Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again". Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, "The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God."

TO BE CONTINUED

Since Brad Hirschfield is advocating that students be taught what part religion has played in our nation's history, one would think that he, as a Jewish Rabbi, would be aware of God's part in the history of his ancestral homeland, Israel. You would think that he should know that God does indeed choose sides. Instead, he makes a charge, against religious zealots, with the following statement, "It seems they want nothing less than curricula which tell students who God is, which side "He" is on and how we are all doomed if we don't subscribe to particular beliefs. Forget crossing over the line; these folks don't even acknowledge that the line exists."

It seems that Hirschfield is totally unaware of Israel's failure to honor God's commandments to them and how He promised to abandon them (for a time) and that they would be slain and scattered to all corners of the earth. And so it was fulfilled; they became a people without a nation. All this was foretold in the Old Testament and many of us lived to see the terrible atrocities of the holocaust against the Jews by Nazi Germany. But God promised that a remnant would remain and that they would once again become a nation. This prophecy was fulfilled in 1948.

Israel's greatest sin was the rejection of God, Himself, when he came as their Messiah, Jesus Christ. But, all is not lost. Israel will finally turn back to God and will accept Christ. (Read Romans 9, 10 and 11).

TO BE CONTINUED

Gee, dunno, the nonexistence of Yehoshua Messiah (Jesus Christ), aka Marduk, Osiris, etc., might be an interesting topic.

Angels, fathers, sons, holy ghosts, goblins, fairies, holy uncles, aunts, cousins, cross-lugging, incense, walking on water, etc., all might spark the creative genius of this or that wee Texan. Look what it has done for CCNL1.

Score one for Jesus the water-skier, of new testament fame. Let's here it for'm. Also, good for teaching the rudiments of American capitalism. The mythical jc, after all, was one famous free-loader, as CCNL1, knows, sleeping and eating off the poor in the mythical homes in which his fantastic self dwelled.

Then there is that great cannibalistic blood drinking and flesh eating that them christers so love. Good for instructing younguns in American imperialism, no?

Religion 101- Chapter One- the New Torah

origin: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20E1EFE35540C7A8CDDAA0894DA404482

"New Torah For Modern Minds

Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, probably never existed. Nor did Moses. The entire Exodus story as recounted in the Bible probably never occurred. The same is true of the tumbling of the walls of Jericho. And David, far from being the fearless king who built Jerusalem into a mighty capital, was more likely a provincial leader whose reputation was later magnified to provide a rallying point for a fledgling nation.

Such startling propositions -- the product of findings by archaeologists digging in Israel and its environs over the last 25 years -- have gained wide acceptance among non-Orthodox rabbis. But there has been no attempt to disseminate these ideas or to discuss them with the laity -- until now.

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which represents the 1.5 million Conservative Jews in the United States, has just issued a new Torah and commentary, the first for Conservatives in more than 60 years. Called ''Etz Hayim'' (''Tree of Life'' in Hebrew), it offers an interpretation that incorporates the latest findings from archaeology, philology, anthropology and the study of ancient cultures.

To the editors who worked on the book, it represents one of the boldest efforts ever to introduce into the religious mainstream a view of the Bible as a human rather than divine document. "

I am a Christian and, as I often say, I am sold out for God. That being said, God should not be taught in public schools. There is a commom sense reason for that: Render unto Caesar...

We live in an intensely multicultural society. Intense because the various cultures and religious backgrounds and beliefs have all been thrown into the stew and no single distinct flavor can be identified; there is an over-abundance of flavors.

The fact that each person can rightly claim that their flavor is the dominant, and correct flavor for the stew, is what makes the teaching of God so problematic in a public school setting. To select one is to offend the others. And the argument that it is better to obey God than man, is out of context. For each can make the same claim. This is Caesar.

The teaching of God belongs in the home and in religious gathering and in religious institutions; that is rendering to God...