Johnny Mc didn't know that his FRIEND was a Jew hating bigot.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-politics/20080522/McCain.Pastor/

Trixter, I figured you radical libs would have fun with this one. Go for it.

Like YOU EXTREME RADICAL EXTREMISTS on the REICH do with Obama and anyone else that doesn't think as you?

ME a radical Lib? EARTH to 5 yr old!

I'm just like O'LIEly... I'm an Independent.

If it walks like a duck...........

If it craps like a goose......

If it walks like a duck and craps like a goose......

It's an EXTREME RIGHTIE!

Is there anything that happens that ISN'T part of God's will? ( for those that believe in God ). Is someone / something over-powering God? How do they do that?

That's not rhetorical.

Is there anything that happens that ISN'T part of God's will?

All believers would say no, but some believers do not passively ascribe credit or blame to God. Those believers take responsibility for the actions of man.

Is someone / something over-powering God?

Yes. Man.

How do they do that?

By removing God from God and inserting themselves instead.

IMHO, of course.

To add to the topic, apparently, this story has been brewing for awhile. Here is an interesting report from Max Blumenthal at the 2007 Christians United for Israel Washington-Israel Summit: "Rapture Ready".

In light of the news, Rabbi Eric Yoffie wrote a letter asking for an explantion. Here is an excerpt:

Dear Pastor Hagee,

I have received questions from many of my members who have read recent articles about themes in your speeches and writings. You have been quoted as suggesting that the Holocaust was part of God's plan to force the Jews to go to Israel and that the Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves by defying Herzl's Zionist dream to have all Jews go to and settle in the land of Israel.

I am deeply troubled by these quotations. The Holocaust was the work of a deranged, bigoted, and anti-Semitic figure supported by a racist government. To suggest otherwise is surely an affront to the 11 million individuals, 6 million of whom were Jews, who lost their lives in the ashes of what is unquestionably the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. To blame the victims for the Holocaust and to suggest that they brought it on themselves is a desecration of their name and their memory, and an insult to the survivors and their descendents who thankfully remain in our midst today.

Are these sentiments representative of your current feelings and perceptions of the Jewish people and the people of Israel? Were they at one time representative? Have you in some way been grossly misquoted? Are these views which you have now repudiated?

As a Pastor to one of our nation’s largest churches, your influence is widely felt and your model of leadership is surely one that will influence many Americans. I hope that you agree with me that justifying the Holocaust or blaming it on the Jews is anathema to all who repudiate group defamation and cherish tolerance and respect. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Eric Yoffie

The letter should have been sent to Senators Lieberman and McCain too.

God allows all kinds of things to happen. In fact, an argument could be made that anything that DOES happen, he allows. If God didn't want it to happen, he wouldn't.

The premise that man can over-rule God assumes that #1. There is a God. #2. Someone who is doing something, knows that God doesn't want it to happen and...well...

Uhhh - there is a disconnect there.

Uhhh - there is a disconnect there.

Bingo!

Saying a prayer before dropping an atomic bomb is an outrage.

"A prayer? For whom? Surely not for Hatsuyo and her neighbors in Hiroshima. Could it be a prayer that asks for divine pity on the unknowing victims, because human pity no longer exists?"

Harvard Summer Review

What Hagee and his ilk have in mind is far more than an outrage.

Hagee embraces Israel in order to ensure her destruction. He wants desperately to fulfill a nihilist interpretation of the Bible. Claiming that the Holocaust was "God's will" and that a future world war is inevitable is unbridled lunacy. They are the ravings of a mass media madman.

John McCain worked pretty damn hard to gain this endorsement. He will have to work twice as hard to distance himself from it.

Thanks for posting that. Has bugged me since I was a late teen, very unhappy with the "live by God, or else!" speeches. (and since all I saw were authoritarian personalities, with control issues, leveraging the pulpit for their own gratification, it just never did go well)

That particular disconnect really does undermine the whole, "legislate it because God wants it." bit, doesn't it?

Either we have free will, or we don't.

If we don't, no worries on any of it right?

If we do, then it's permitted and we get to account for our own choices. Again, no worries.

Bishop: "There is no God."

Ooops, wrong thread.

Heh!!