Posted on 02/24/2002 3:48:41 AM PST by TomSmedley
You've accused Dr. Dobson of being a money grubber, caring only about money, a copier of Mormons, deceitful, and somewhat like a professional sex person. And you say all of this with a sense of knowing authority.
Care to source your so-called facts?
If all of this were true, better men than you would have exposed Mr. Dobson long ago. I've followed his career for 25 years, and I support Focus on the Family. I don't see anything to support your accusations.
As for why Glen Eyrie is "run by religious fundamentalists", all I know is that it is run and owned by "The Navigators" a Christian organization that specializes in discipleship programs that have been used by churches for decades and that is used as a retreat center.
As for my view of Dr. Dobson's facilities, your reply that my view was weak was unsupported by any facts.
Religion doesn't need money. Period. Religion doesn't need truth for its foundations, it just needs beliefs and faith. If there were full truth in religion, there would only be one religion.
Today's businesses that run as religious clubs are systems that pretend truth and build beyond what is necessary for the stated mission. They build for the unstated mission: to seduce followers and give them a physical foundation of fellowship, which I prefer to call followship.
Take Compa$$ion International. Funds are donated to it to feed children, and every dollar counts. But, instead of making sure that every dollar possible goes to feeding children, let's build a beautiful building on expensive property with some of those funds. We'll ignore a few thousand hungry kids so we may surround ourselves in these lavish confines and beautiful location. All the while we ignore the possibilities that our feeding kids in poor countries is causing more and more problems. The term is "Blowback."
So, for the point: Are Focus on the Family's buildings more than are necessary? For the followers "No." For the objective outsider "Those were made with tax free donations for an organization that's politically active?" in other words: Yes.
I like Dobson's views and am very religious. I just saw through the acting jobs that most religious persons employ to seduce the masses. I worked, let's say, a little too close to the profession and saw it for what it is.
I really wished you hadn't said I said that all Dobson cared about was money. In dealing within discussions please be accurate.
I do strive to be accurate. In the post I replied to previously, you used the word "Jesus" with dollars signs for the "S"'s. Your take was communicated to me that the pursuit of the almighty dollar was in control here, thus the term money grubber. It doesn't appear to be an inaccurate interpretation on my part at all.
Every denomination and movement has its share of charlatans, of that we both agree. I just don't place Mr. Dobson in that category. You assume I am naive in that regard, and that is your opinion.
Now, you make reference to Compassion International. The missus and I are sponsoring our second child through them. I'll check their building out and see if it is too good for them.
The moneychangers went from the temple and have built their own.
You are kind to support a child. I lived in Central America for years and saw how the poor live and die. I can't put a valid argument together on the matter, but have these terrible thoughts that we may be causing unseen problems in the future with that help.
Oh please. Who has brought more people to Jesus Christ -- people who will carry the gospel to the next generation and the next? Eternity is pretty enduring.
Oh please. Who has brought more people to Jesus Christ -- people who will carry the gospel to the next generation and the next? Eternity is pretty enduring.
According to the Graham organization's own statistics, something like 4% of their "converts" actually are for-real, enduring, new Christians. Charles Finney pioneered most of the "methods" used in "crusade evangelism," and confessed towards the end of his life that most of the conversions engendered by humanistic emotional manipulation were false, rather than true, conversions. Dobson focuses on personal resposibility, exerted over the entire arc of one's life. "Crusade evangelism" defines all of life in terms of one instantaneous experience. For these two reasons I stand by my original assertion:
Of coure, I'm of Paul, he's of Cephas, and you must be of Christ! ;-)
That's interesting, not true but interesting. The highest statistic that I've seen is 90% believe in a god, any god.
Wow, drink responsibly! I guess that those liquor companies are going to spend millions on advertising that won't increase their sales. They must care. Every other company buys advertising to increase sales of their product. But not liquor companies. They do it to encourage their customers to "drink responsibly."
Of course parental responsibility is important. But it has it's limits. It cannot stop the drunk driver. It won't be there when the peer pressure to drink increases. It won't help their child's friend whose parent becomes abusive when they drink. But then again that's not why people use that cute little line about parental responsibility. It's said because it sounds a lot better than saying we just don't want to be bothered by other people's problems.
The problem I have is when we start making our little clubhouse rules of all our taboos and things that we don't do, even if Scripture nowhere denounces the things that we do. We're known as the goody guys who don't do this and don't do that, yet how many outsiders can tell us what Christians really stand for? And even if they could say that, how many outsiders can say they've ever seen us live what we stand for?
Well we know what James Dobson stands for. He's spent his entire life trying to help parents raise their children, and to help couples stay together. He's led efforts to help seniors, teenagers, and children. He founded the Family Research Council, a leading thinktank for the conservative movement. And he's helped people overcome their addictions. Isn't that funny, an organization concerned about addictions, is also concerned about increasing liquor sales. Who would have suspected it?
Say jamey what are you for?
So increased sales (or brand share of market) automatically means "irresponsible" use. Wow, that logic can't be opposed even by God himself.
Let me clear up another cluelessness: The people who Paul admonished for boasting that they "were of Christ" were those who claimed that because they had personally met, or hung around, Jesus during his incarnation, they had some special advantage over other Christians.
I must apologize for the rude crack. It is not worthy of Christ. But neither is the equation of a life that is "responsible" in earthly, "moral" terms (Japanese Shinto/Buddhist and -- shock! -- many Muslim societies are good at this) to any kind of "Christianity."
What really concerns me about Dobson is his authoritarian half-truths. I don't believe I have picked up a single one of his little so called "Solid Answers" tracts without seeing at least one such assertion -- my church (which preaches a truly "solid" gospel message) sometimes slips them in the programs but I don't give them more than a glance any more; it's not worth locking horns with him so to speak.
The 10 years of alcohol prohibition corrupted the legal system in this country beyond tolerance, the 70 years of drug prohibition has turned our government into the largest organized crime syndicate in the history of the world.
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