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Fred "Mister" Rogers
Quoted here
"You work to love everyone, even people who are rude to you, even ...
Everyone means every one, not just people in general."
"HOUGH: Well, my perception, Bill, is that there is a definite intentional move on the part of political leadership in this country. In the direction that I think is not at all compatible with the prophetic tradition in Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. And that is the obligation on the part of people who believe in God to care for the least and the poorest. That central teaching, that sacred code, I think, is very well summed up in Proverbs where the writer of Proverbs says, 'Those who oppress the needy insult their maker'. ...Here, I will do my standard trick of "inverting" the meanings to see what we get:
Because the central teaching of Jesus is announced when he says, from Isaiah 61, 'God has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, deliverance to the captives, freedom to the oppressed, and the year of Jubilee'. ...
If Tom Delay is acting out of his Born Again Christian convictions in pushing legislation that disadvantages the poor every time he opens his mouth, I'm not saying he's not a Born Again Christian, but as a the Lord's humble fruit inspector (that's the metaphor from Matthew 7:16-20 and Galatians 5:22: Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. -- The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.) , it sure looks suspicious to me. And anybody who claims in the name of God they're gonna run over people of other nations, and just willy-nilly, by your own free will, reshape the world in your own image, and claim that you're acting on behalf of God, that sounds a lot like Caesar to me."
Greater love has no man than this: that he lays down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)
By this we know we have passed out of death and into life: because we love our brothers. (1 John 3:14)
"Nations where fewer people attend church tend to be more generous in their support for development in poor countries than those where church attendance is much greater, according to the third annual edition of the "Commitment to Development Index (CDI)", published this week in Foreign Policy magazine.
... the U.S. Treasury last year imposed nearly two billion dollars in tariffs on imports from the four countries that were most affected by the tsunami -- India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand -- twice the 900 million dollars in relief aid approved by the U.S. Congress for the same countries last May. ...
While the United States was the most generous in terms of its private giving -- citizens gave an average of six cents a day to private charities that financed overseas aid -- U.S. ODA ( official development assistance) averaged only 15 cents per day per person, bringing the total to 21 cents/day/person. By contrast, Denmark, the leading aid-giver, spent an average of 90 cents/day/person, 89 cents of which came from the government and only one cent from private sources.
In aid terms Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands led the other 17 donor countries by a wide margin. The worst performer was Japan, followed by Italy, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia in that order. ...
Denmark received the highest Index rating, yet only three percent of Danes attend church at least once a week -- the lowest attendance rate of all 21 donor nations. While church attendance rose to 14 percent in second-place Netherlands, Sweden (3), Norway (5), and Finland (6) all had church attendance rates well below 10 percent.
Meanwhile, the most religiously observant country, Ireland -- where nearly two-thirds of the population attend church at least once a week -- ranked 19 in the Index, while the next two most-observant nations, the United States and Italy, ranked 12 and 18, respectively. "