Hi DD…..

>However, the federal government is, by nature, more inefficient and unwieldy. >The problem, of course, and this harkens back to my note about the church not >doing its job the best way, is that until people want to do 'good' they will >not so do. The feds can't make people 'want' to, and neither can the church >unless by prayer. That's that's the failure of the spiritual leaders IMO; >trying to do spiritual 'type' work by non-spiritual methods.


Well I made a vow to stay out of all threads with any of this tension and it has really been difficult to do, as I LOVE a good CLEAN spirited debate. I will, however, chime in with this thought on some of what you have said in this paragraph.

IMO the only reason that the Government is involved in helping people at all is because the church totally dropped the ball in doing one of the major things that it is called to do. That is… helping those that have needs. The church pulled a Pontius Pilate and washed its hands of their responsibility and the Government had to step in.

This, fortunately, is slowly beginning to change as more and more churches are realizing their need to work toward improving the lot of the less fortunate, the addicted, and others with needs. BUT.. there is a lot of ground left to reclaim and I hope I live long enough to see all benevolent work done by people of all faith traditions and the Government left out of it.



P.S.… I apologize for my friend Earnest T and his post to you. I left the UT on my computer and he just had to go and stick his nose in. < g >