Curtis Dahlgren
GOT GOD YET? How hard have you been LOOKING?
By Curtis Dahlgren
"Laughter is the shortest distance between two people." – Mel Brooks
"A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip." – Billy Graham
"The difference between the pessimist and the cynic is that the pessimist carries on the losing battle against life in his own soul, while the cynic tries to wage the battle in someone else's soul." – Fulton J. Sheen
IN THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES (as it is written). This is my post-Fat Tuesday column. I'm not celebrating Lent – technically – but I'm celebrating the fact that Mardi Gras is over. It must have been colder than Hell this year for the topless. I haven't gone to a movie in years, but I'm interested in "Son of God." Personally, I don't believe in a long-haired Jesus, but for the first time ever, I saw a picture of a smiling Jesus advertising it. Hold that thought while I put together some quotations. As an equal opportunity quoter, you have to put the quotes in the right order:
- "Jesus Christ is who's great, little girl. I knew that long before them rock and roll freaks made Him a 'Superstar.'" -Archie Bunker
- "Got no religion. Tried a bunch of different religions. The churches are divided. Can't make up their minds and neither can I." – Mick Jagger
- "God loves all men, but is enchanted by none." – Isaac Asimov
- "I do benefits for all religions; I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality." – Bob Hope
- "If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets . . so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well." – Martin Luther King, Jr.
- "Work is the Protestant ethic? I think of it as Jewish." – Ed Koch
- "Elsewhere you die and disintegrate. Here you die and mingle." – Saul Bellow
- "Look at Jewish history. Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So, for every ten Jews beating their breasts, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast-beaters. By the time I was five I knew I was that one." – Mel Brooks
- "Although the world is very full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." – Helen Keller
- "Gentiles have a different way of suffering. They suffer without neuroses." - Henry Miller
- "Why is it that when we talk to God, we're said to be praying – but when God talks to us, we're schizophrenic?" – [long distance operator] Lily Tomlin
- "The Christian life is not a way 'out' but a way 'through' life." – Billy Graham
- "Lincoln understood the gospel to mean the salvation of men in both a this-worldly and a next-worldly framework. Many ministers had reduced Christianity to a message of escape for individuals in the NEXT world." - "The Religion of Abraham Lincoln" (Wm Wolf, 1963)
- "You cannot have faith without results any more than you can have motion without movement." – Kathryn Kuhlman
- "When a man is drowning, it may be better for him to try to swim than to thrash around waiting for divine intervention." – William Sloan Coffin
- "In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action." – Dag Hammarskjold
- "Funny had better be sad somewhere." – Jerry Lewis
CONCLUSION
That's another paradox. I use that word a lot because liberals/atheists just can't handle paradoxes. They are baffled by paradoxes. Also, as Bertrand Russell once said, "All movements go too far."
The co-founder of Greenpeace decided the movement had gone to far, and he dropped out. It's rumored that one of the founders of MADD decided the same thing about hers. I just wish Al Gore'd kick himself out of the Church of What's Happening Now (the enviro-mental wacko movement).
March 3rd was the coldest morning of the winter up here – about 26 degrees below zero. You know it's going to be a bad day when it's minus 26 Fahrenheit and you get a chimney fire going at your house. I found myself up on the roof in my PJs and a robe, shoving snow down the chimney. SO DON'T START WITH ME ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING, AL! I haven't been seeing any live videos of drowning polar bears this year, have you? They've had ice on the palm trees in Myrtle Beach though!
Even so, many mainstream news outlets still talk as if man-made global warming is a de facto item for the history books. BTW:
- "American journalists today have been forced and lured out of their normal and proper role in society. They are becoming not just critics in the aisle but actors in the play." – Eric Severeid
- "Idealism is fine; but as it approaches reality, the cost becomes prohibitive." – Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.
- "Eggheads of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your yolks." – Adlai Stevenson
- "Diplomacy, like politics, is the art of the possible; and if we use our leverage toward an unachievable end, we will create a mess." – George Ball
P.S. ANOTHER paradox. And a few quotations more:
- "U.S. policy on the world scene is viewed as being neutral toward our enemy, friendly toward the neutrals, and unfriendly toward our friends." – Senator Strom Thurmond
- "To treat comrades like enemies is to go over to the stand of the enemy.' – Mao Tse-tung
PPS: There might be a lesson in there somewhere for the GOP and the Tea party. Or the U.S. and Israel? One of my favorite all-time quotes was by Golda Meir: "Don't be humble. You're not that great." Or, as she once said, with Secretary of State Kissinger:
"We agree completely on everything, including the fact that we don't see eye to eye."
[As I said of the brother of a friend of mine, "He believes in God – BECAUSE HE HAS TO!"]
Or, as Woody Allen once said:
"I DON'T BELIEVE IN AN AFTERLIFE, ALTHOUGH I AM BRINGING A CHANGE OF UNDERWEAR."
© Curtis Dahlgren
March 5, 2014
"Laughter is the shortest distance between two people." – Mel Brooks
"A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip." – Billy Graham
"The difference between the pessimist and the cynic is that the pessimist carries on the losing battle against life in his own soul, while the cynic tries to wage the battle in someone else's soul." – Fulton J. Sheen
IN THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES (as it is written). This is my post-Fat Tuesday column. I'm not celebrating Lent – technically – but I'm celebrating the fact that Mardi Gras is over. It must have been colder than Hell this year for the topless. I haven't gone to a movie in years, but I'm interested in "Son of God." Personally, I don't believe in a long-haired Jesus, but for the first time ever, I saw a picture of a smiling Jesus advertising it. Hold that thought while I put together some quotations. As an equal opportunity quoter, you have to put the quotes in the right order:
- "Jesus Christ is who's great, little girl. I knew that long before them rock and roll freaks made Him a 'Superstar.'" -Archie Bunker
- "Got no religion. Tried a bunch of different religions. The churches are divided. Can't make up their minds and neither can I." – Mick Jagger
- "God loves all men, but is enchanted by none." – Isaac Asimov
- "I do benefits for all religions; I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality." – Bob Hope
- "If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets . . so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well." – Martin Luther King, Jr.
- "Work is the Protestant ethic? I think of it as Jewish." – Ed Koch
- "Elsewhere you die and disintegrate. Here you die and mingle." – Saul Bellow
- "Look at Jewish history. Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So, for every ten Jews beating their breasts, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast-beaters. By the time I was five I knew I was that one." – Mel Brooks
- "Although the world is very full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." – Helen Keller
- "Gentiles have a different way of suffering. They suffer without neuroses." - Henry Miller
- "Why is it that when we talk to God, we're said to be praying – but when God talks to us, we're schizophrenic?" – [long distance operator] Lily Tomlin
- "The Christian life is not a way 'out' but a way 'through' life." – Billy Graham
- "Lincoln understood the gospel to mean the salvation of men in both a this-worldly and a next-worldly framework. Many ministers had reduced Christianity to a message of escape for individuals in the NEXT world." - "The Religion of Abraham Lincoln" (Wm Wolf, 1963)
- "You cannot have faith without results any more than you can have motion without movement." – Kathryn Kuhlman
- "When a man is drowning, it may be better for him to try to swim than to thrash around waiting for divine intervention." – William Sloan Coffin
- "In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action." – Dag Hammarskjold
- "Funny had better be sad somewhere." – Jerry Lewis
CONCLUSION
That's another paradox. I use that word a lot because liberals/atheists just can't handle paradoxes. They are baffled by paradoxes. Also, as Bertrand Russell once said, "All movements go too far."
The co-founder of Greenpeace decided the movement had gone to far, and he dropped out. It's rumored that one of the founders of MADD decided the same thing about hers. I just wish Al Gore'd kick himself out of the Church of What's Happening Now (the enviro-mental wacko movement).
March 3rd was the coldest morning of the winter up here – about 26 degrees below zero. You know it's going to be a bad day when it's minus 26 Fahrenheit and you get a chimney fire going at your house. I found myself up on the roof in my PJs and a robe, shoving snow down the chimney. SO DON'T START WITH ME ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING, AL! I haven't been seeing any live videos of drowning polar bears this year, have you? They've had ice on the palm trees in Myrtle Beach though!
Even so, many mainstream news outlets still talk as if man-made global warming is a de facto item for the history books. BTW:
- "American journalists today have been forced and lured out of their normal and proper role in society. They are becoming not just critics in the aisle but actors in the play." – Eric Severeid
- "Idealism is fine; but as it approaches reality, the cost becomes prohibitive." – Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.
- "Eggheads of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your yolks." – Adlai Stevenson
- "Diplomacy, like politics, is the art of the possible; and if we use our leverage toward an unachievable end, we will create a mess." – George Ball
P.S. ANOTHER paradox. And a few quotations more:
- "U.S. policy on the world scene is viewed as being neutral toward our enemy, friendly toward the neutrals, and unfriendly toward our friends." – Senator Strom Thurmond
- "To treat comrades like enemies is to go over to the stand of the enemy.' – Mao Tse-tung
PPS: There might be a lesson in there somewhere for the GOP and the Tea party. Or the U.S. and Israel? One of my favorite all-time quotes was by Golda Meir: "Don't be humble. You're not that great." Or, as she once said, with Secretary of State Kissinger:
"We agree completely on everything, including the fact that we don't see eye to eye."
[As I said of the brother of a friend of mine, "He believes in God – BECAUSE HE HAS TO!"]
Or, as Woody Allen once said:
"I DON'T BELIEVE IN AN AFTERLIFE, ALTHOUGH I AM BRINGING A CHANGE OF UNDERWEAR."
© Curtis Dahlgren
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
