- Joined
- Jul 1, 2011
- Messages
- 67,218
- Reaction score
- 28,530
- Location
- Lower Hudson Valley, NY
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Independent
And is that the best dodge you can come up with? It does not look any more clever than the ones from last night. Or the first one this morning. You really can't articulate what the relevance of how many homes Olsteen owns is supposed to be. If in fact you do understand how trust work and what they are for, you are not articulate enough to not make a hypocrite of yourself by crying about Olsteen taking advantage of the same manipulations of the law that you did. That's OK. And obvious.
You finally got something right! It will be OK, I agree. I'm new here, so it takes a while to figure out who is what. I enjoy a good debate or fight and can appreciate good "smack talk" too. As when you broke out your "I have a policy" cliche earlier, I have one too. I like the smack talk to actually be a component of, or a compliment to something intelligent. As in it is fine to have smack to talk to say, but it would be nice if you also had something intelligent to say. You don't. Watching you make a hypocrite of yourself as dodged yourself into your own "trust" trap is less amusing than pitiable. Particularly given your admission that alzhiemers runs in your family. What else is there to say really? I'm getting the lay of the land still, but I can see clearly that you are here to cook up and serve prepackaged "easy bake" Troll House cookies. What can I say? No thanks, they taste like s**t and are loaded with chemicals and plastizers which can cause "anal seepage". *Shudders*. You might enjoy that diet, and having to wear a diaper, but it sounds like a horror show to me. You have a Merry Christmas anyway though.It will be OK
Just wait a couple of hours and the caffiene will work its' way out of your system.
As mentioned yesterday I'm not religious myself. But you make some interesting points. What drew me into the thread was to debunk some of the comments and exact attitudes you spoke of. Namely those that point their fingers at churches or the religious and then expose their ignorance with arguments like "Mega Churches should make Mega Donations" and other idiocy. I say idiocy because of course mega churches do make mega donations. There is a particularly virulent form of idiocy in America that teaches some people to not examine the history of religious organizations and charity work. But to go ahead and assume that none exist and criticize the very people and types of organizations that always have fed the homeless and sheltered the poor. And likely always will. By way of comparison, frequently these critics identify themselves as liberal democrats. Liberal democrats, at least elected ones, are some of the least charity minded and anemic givers of charitable donations in the country.I like Joel. I admit to being one of the old geezers not in the greatest health. Joel's inspirational ministry is popular among us guys.
The mega churches are simply taking up where the main line denominations left off. I am one who believes the main line has been intentionally subverted by counter reformationists, who infiltrated the churches with one world government leftists. The Presbyterians and the Lutherans seem to take turns at seeing who can lose members fastest. The Lutherans took a 500,000 member hit, recently, over one issue in one six month period. They have gone from around 5.5 to under 2.0 I think.
The thing we should be looking out for, in this free country, is not the great success of prosperity churches, but the rise of another kind of church -- the ones that remind us of the New World Order: Cults. Very centralized and dictatorial global organizations. Those that preach the one and only true collection box. The ones who are always harping on the poor and pointing the finger at the well to do. Those are the ones I would be looking at.
When it gets right down to it, Joel and Victoria Osteen preach the American way, one nation under God. Other churches should get a clue. Maybe then Lakewood wouldn't have it all. After all, seats 18,000, six services on the weekend, that's a dollar per attendee to get to sixty grand.
I tune in to Joel and Victoria on Serius XM channel 6. Four or five times a week. My passion and hobby is playing and singing old hymns. I find my singing voice has improved considerably, listening to Joel Osteen. Not only is my phrasing more direct and powerful, by my tremolo, you know, voice quaver, is much stronger and more effective as a result of my letting go, trusting in God that my destiny will be fulfilled if I should only trust God put my soul in His hands. Voice tremolo is like a flag in the wind. Notice the flag doesn't just stand straight out in the wind, but it flaps. Unless the wind is blowing ninety miles an hour. The vocal chords yield to the wind to a certain point, then they automatically recover their original shape. This goes on with frequency. The result is what is called tremolo and you can't force it. Musicians consider it a sign the singer is doing something right.
Prosperity Gospel indeed.
Is this what worship is supposed to be about? Seriously?
See what I mean Red_Dirt? These truly ignorant memes rely on the uneducated to perpetuate them.The term "worship" is not what church goers do. They go to a building, sing songs say little prayers, hand over some cash and leave thinking they "worshipped". that is the extent or proof that they believe in a god. It is called "being lost".
I don't think it is a coincidence that this thread was started at the same time as the 'Mega Church/Joel Olsteen does not care about or feed the poor' meme swept Facebook and other social media. That meme died pretty quickly owing to how poorly associated with history and what the facts of the matter really are. It was truly ignorant and it relied upon the uneducated to perpetuate it. As you can see by the content of this thread, "they" just can't really dig up anything on Olsteen outside of hyperbole.
Good luck with your tremolo and have a Merry Christmas.
Yeah I meant to add that these behaviors do indeed share many of the "group think" characteristic you see in cults. That bra joke was hilarious! Take care.Posts crossed in the mail.
Right Horace. This is part of the deal. Why would anyone take time to post low level criticism of churches? If it were just a few, that could be easily understood. To each his own. But what goes on now has all appearances of a campaign. Why? Again, we can refer to that testimony of the counter reformation and cultural genocide in America and the Western nations. That subject gets deep quick.
What Lakewood does with its money should not be up to public debate. The Osteens are obviously not naive in this area. You can be sure Houston's heavy hitters, financially, in that church, have the answers to all those questions. Some of the things Joel says are meant to be taken with humor. Dark side people don't get it. Joel says remember God always, not just on Sunday morning. He prays a lot. Then, he will go off on the benefits of staying close to the Lord. He'll add something like, "Pray before you go to the mall and the Lord will lead you to the good deals!" Now, that's just using humor to make a point. But you'd be surprised at some of the comments.
The man was shopping for a Christmas present for his wife. He was in the bra department of Victoria's secret. "This is the religious bra section," said the clerk.
"This is the Catholic bra -- it uplifts the mass. Here is the Salvation Army bra. It raises the fallen. And this is the Baptist bra. It makes a mountain out of a molehill!
Merry Christmas.
You finally got something right! It will be OK, I agree. I'm new here, so it takes a while to figure out who is what. I enjoy a good debate or fight and can appreciate good "smack talk" too. As when you broke out your "I have a policy" cliche earlier, I have one too. I like the smack talk to actually be a component of, or a compliment to something intelligent. As in it is fine to have smack to talk to say, but it would be nice if you also had something intelligent to say. You don't. Watching you make a hypocrite of yourself as dodged yourself into your own "trust" trap is less amusing than pitiable. Particularly given your admission that alzhiemers runs in your family. What else is there to say really? I'm getting the lay of the land still, but I can see clearly that you are here to cook up and serve prepackaged "easy bake" Troll House cookies. What can I say? No thanks, they taste like s**t and are loaded with chemicals and plastizers which can cause "anal seepage". *Shudders*. You might enjoy that diet, and having to wear a diaper, but it sounds like a horror show to me. You have a Merry Christmas anyway though.
Ciao.
I will but since you seem to think my use of trust somehow makes me a hypocrite, I'll just say that I manipulated the system too. It's perfectly legal.
But the difference between me and the snake oil vendor, Olsteen, I'm not preaching a prosperity gospel.
Don't know
Don't care
It is pretty much just about attention. Give him some and you get a Troll House cookie.Well apparently you care what Osteen preaches.
Well apparently you care what Osteen preaches.
Not really
maybe you should review what the thread is about
Perhaps you should as well since you are the one declaring him a snakeoil salesman for preaching the prosperity gospel but yet cannot articulate what he should be preaching and have an awful lot of posts in this thread to not be caring
Spur discussion; maybe look at putting limits on the tax free status on what is obviously a financial enterprise.
Well said. On a humorous note, several pages back one of the trolls posted something about how Olsteen wants "all your money"! Last I checked Olsteen actually only wants about 10% of his members money. As compared to the government.Spoken like a true Centrist.
Lakewood's renovation of the Compaq Center from an NBA venue to a Christian church is reportedly in the area of $77 Million. I don't know
about the purchase price. Texas has a way of hanging those stadiums on the taxpayer.
The argument that money would have been better spent at the discretion of Houston, Austin, or Washington, D. C. is certainly not a new one.
Not too many years ago, Americans voted in a national pension plan for the retired. At that time, retired meant the golden years for people who spent a life time working, raising families, building and contributing to the nation. Congress was in charge of administering this bold new retirement program. Conservatives said the chances of this working our were slim. Congress used the money to buy votes and build political empires. Today, retirement can mean a narcotics habit the recipient just can't seem to shake. Meanwhile over the same time period, 1940-2014, private pension funds and administered investment funds have seen unprecedented, almost unbelievable growth. Look at the Teamsters Pension Fund or Berkeshire Hathaway Investments.
I only discuss Social Security Trust because it is such a blatant example. Comes down to a simple point of view, Calamity.
You don't trust church, I don't trust government. One man looks at Lakewood and sees a for-profit business. Another looks at the same church and sees
a long overdue American religious revival taking hold. One man wants a per cent of the revenue. Another hopes the mission spreads far and wide.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?