Subscription: $15 / year Membership: $15/year All correspondence to: Editor: Joyce Bates All correspondence to: P. O. Box 1744 Greenville, SC 29602 May, 2010

The Voice of Sanity THE NEWSLETTER OF THE UPSTATE S.C. SECULAR HUMANISTS Visit our web-site for current and back-issues at: www.uscsh.org e-mail: secularhmnst@aol.com

CALENDAR 

The May Brunch will be on Saturday May 8th, 10:30 a.m. at Denny's Restaurant, 2521 Wade Hampton Blvd, Taylors. 

There will be NO fourth Sunday dinner in May. We combine the May meeting with the June brunch,which will be June12 at Denny's Restaurant. 

There will be NO fourth Sunday dinner in June. We have NO meeting of any kind in July. The August brunch will be on August 14th.  Our annual picnic will be August 22nd. 

All dates, etc will be announced in the Voice of Sanity. There will be NO Voice in July. Reminders will be sent as events come up. 

HOW CHRISTIAN ARE CHRISTIANS?

The very word, Christian, conjures up God and Bible talk. A Christian is suppose to be committed to the teaching and principles of Jesus Christ, i.e. CHRISTians. I once heard that the “ian” means “I am nothing,” thus, Christ is everything in my life. A Christian’s new life begins with a “new birth.” 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Then it follows that, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” One who calls themselves Christian and fail to be a doer, is deceiving themselves. 

Jesus Christ had some very inflexible and rigid teachings. He was more militaristic than loving. One of the most extreme teachings of Jesus is found in Matthew 5:29-30, “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.  And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” Christians simply refuse to do as Jesus teaches! Another absurd Jesus teaching is found in Luke 14:26, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Notice the restriction, “he CANNOT be my disciple.” Another  in Matthew 5:43-44, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you…” In every situation here: love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them which despitefully use you, Christians simply act like those they accuse of being “lost and headed to hell in need of redemption.” Just let anyone despitefully use a “Christian” and they will not hesitate to talk to an attorney about bringing some kind of action.

These are but a very small few examples of the passionate teachings of Jesus. But, if you think those are stringent rules, note: “Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” Jesus taught perfection. “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” Matthew 5:48. First of all, Christians fail that test. Then I know of no Christian or anyone else, for that matter, since day one, who has SOLD ALL THEY HAVE AND GIVEN TO THE POOR. No one! That is the standard by which Jesus Christ expects his “Christians” to live up to. To be doers of the word (the things that He spoke) and not hearers only. The standards are high but to be a Christian one must adhere to the teachings of Jesus Christ - the chief architect of the rulebook. 

I must mention Luke 19:27, “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.” How many Christians are advocating bringing nonbelievers before an altar of God and killing them? There are some in our world today who would gladly do that! Thy have no clue as to what a Christian should be in the first place. Thinking, reasonable and sane people in most churches simply ignore the teaching of their Lord and Savior. They go about their lives and have no testimony for their great God. They are of this world, when their Bible commands them to have not part of this world system, (1 John 2:15-16) “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” I wager that 99.9% of so called Christians have no idea that that teaching is in their Bible to say nothing of their refusal to obey the command! 

It is difficult to imagine any one living up to the principles set forth in the Bible, therefore Biblical apologist make every attempt to explain away and make rational excuses to the world of Christendom as to how they can circumvent the rules making excuse that “we are weak, the flesh is weak, God loves us in spite of our failures, God will forgive over and over and over again to ad nauseam. 

The whole idea of “living like a Christian” is ridiculous. Sunday morning is a time to “play church” and satisfy the ego. They have fulfilled their Christian duty by sitting through an hour service and afterwards could not tell you what the minister’s subject was. The average person who calls himself Christian, has no clue what Jesus Christ taught and commanded of his followers. 

Though they would defend placing the 10 Commandments on the schoolhouse and courthouse lawns, after the morning service they rush to a restaurant and are contributing to workers breaking the fourth one. Actually, food eaten on the Sabbath should have been prepared on the day before so NO work will be performed on the Sabbath. The rules are tough! 

How Christian are Christians? Christians are not Christian. 

Lee Deitz

The US Budget Revisited

Four years ago Duane Bates wrote a comparison of the US budgets, receipts, and deficits for the years 1980 and 2006 and compared them. He stated the increasing debt during those 26 years could be passed along to future generations but sooner or later all it would have to be paid. He also stated that the statistics regarding the 2006 debt had been massaged to make the picture seem less severe, but the trend toward deeper debt had not changed. In 2010 we find that, indeed, the trend has continued.

This is a comparison of the budgets of 1980, 2006 and 2010.

Proposed budget Receipts Deficit

1980 590.94 billion 517.12 billion 73.83 billion

2006 2.77 trillion 2.37 trillion 40 billion

2010 3.55 trillion 2.38 trillion 1.17 trillion

Now let’s look at an update on the national debt load for the years 1980, 2006, 2010:

Public debt is also called National Debt and private debt is also called consumer debt.

Public debt Private debt Total national debt Debt load GDP

1980 $930 billion $351 billion $1.281 trillion 46% $2.8 trillion

2006 $8.0 trillion $2.2 trillion $10.2 trillion 82% $13.4 trillion

2010 12.7 trillion $2.5 trillion $14.4 trillion 98% $14.62 trillion

It should be noted that the $2.2 trillion private debt of 2006 included debt on homes, cars and credit cards, but the $2.5 trillion private debt of 2010 that I found on the internet does not include homes. All figures for the year 2010 are projections. The actual numbers won’t be known till the end of the fiscal year.

The “debt load” featured in the fourth column is found by dividing the total public and private debt by the Gross Domestic Product. The original article stated that if we had wished to pay all the public and private debt off for 1980 it would have take us 168 days, in 2006, 199 days. For 2010 it would take nearly the whole year (until about Christmas). In other words for the year of 2010 the country will owe nearly as much as it earns.

Stated in a different manner, if the 2010 debt to GDP ratio was the same as 1980, 46%, out total private and public debt would be only $7.8 trillion, not $14.62 trillion.

In the following paragraph I have changed only the percentages to fit the situation for 2010. The remaining paragraph contains Duane’s original comments.

“Obviously the debt load on public and private borrowers has increased dramatically. Since 1980 consumer debt has increased by 712%, and public debt by 1125%, while GDP has increased by only 522%. Politicians and consumers who continue to spend more than they have coming in only make the problem worse. We are told that deficit spending is supportable as long the economy continues to expand and that we can “grow” ourselves out of the problem. This can only happen if incomes, both public and private grow faster than debt accumulations. Debt has to be repaid by increasing current income, by selling assets to raise cash or by reducing expenditures.

Current economic information indicates that the incomes of an increasing number of lower and middle-income earners are seeing their incomes either stagnate in relation to inflation or actually decrease, while incomes of the top 20% of earners are increasing at a much greater rate

The increasing public and debt load presents a serious danger to our economy. Each of our elected officials and we as individuals need to address this problem and get our public and private debts into a more balanced condition. Debt by itself is not the problem, but when debt loads increase to the point that there is no realistic way to reduce or retire them we are in a serious situation.”

(Footnote: The statistic for the GDP for 2010 in the above article was recently upgraded from approximately $13.8 trillion to $14.62 trillion because of recovering business conditions. JB)