"for the bible tells me so"

"jesus loves me this i know/ for the bible tells me so...yes, jesus loves me/ for the bible tells me so."
i'm sorry, but that just isn't not good enough for me.

i grew up singing this song and thought of it as a wonderful little declaration of child-like faith. then one day, about five or six years ago it took on a new meaning to me. people all over the globe believe "because the bible tells them so". shouldn't there be more than that? if we're going to stake our lives and our eternity on a belief doesn't there have to be a better reasoning behind our point-of-view?
other peoples believe because the koran tells them so. or the pentateuch. or the apocryphah. or the book of mormon, or doctine and covenants. or the watchtower. just because it's written down doesn't make it truth. now, don't misunderstand me here. i believe. inherently and without a doubt i believe. but not simply because a book told me to do so. the bible, regardless of whether or not you credit it with any divine truth is a great guide to live by. jesus' teachings are still the highest moral standard set by anyone ever. i am discreditting the bible itself, i am questioning the veracity of those who only believe because they are told to do so by a book penned from four to two thousand years ago.

what is crazy?

i once owned a 1979 monte carlo. it was two tones of green; one ugly, the other hideously ugly. when i bought the car, the radio didn't work; neither did the horn. every other day or so, though, i would start the engine and turn on the radio to see if anything had changed. every time i got the same result - a dead radio. one day, however, i indulged in my usual habit of turning the dial to 'on' after starting the ignition and i heard static. after fiddling with the dials i picked up an oldies rock station and every day thereafter, the radio worked.
now this was no miracle. as it turns out, i had had a problem with a turn signal or the dashboard lights or something and had searched for the cause until i found two burned-out fuses. so i replaced them both. it was the day before the radio started working. the solution had simply been a burned-out fuse but i never would have realised the radio was now operational had i not habitually checked to see if would one day miraculously come to life. a few days later, i realised my horn was working, as well.

they say the textbook definition of insanity is 'repeating the same action while expecting different results'. this doesn't work for me. suppose a man walks into a dark room and flips the light switch and the light comes on. so he flips the switch the other way and walks out of the room. then he walks back in and flips the switch again. the light, of course, comes back on. now, suppose he repeats this action over and over and over and each time the light comes on when he flips the switch. by definition, for him to expect any other result is insanity. but what about the one time weeks later when he walks into the room and the light doesn't come on in response to the switch being flipped? obviously, we all know that the bulb has burned out but the result has still dramatically changed.
so my question is this: was the man sane after all? or is insanity sometimes correct?

"do your duty..."

so, i'm watching all the groundbreaking news this morning (ie, the daily show and colbert report) and i see this news clip on the report. they've taken a short segment from some real news show where the reporter is complaining that white babies are outnumbered by latino babies. this means that in the not-too-distant future, the population will shift to a latino majority. the reporter then said, "~so do your duty: make more babies~" (indirect quote). isn't that eerily familiar to a white supremicist attitude? i'm getting flashbacks from "gangs of new york" here, with bill the butcher (historically, there was such a man) trying to keep all the mics from coming over from ireland. and today the united states population has a very high percentage of scotch-irish.
i don't see how we, as a nation, can be so calloused to those seeking a better life in this nation. virtually all of our ancestors arrived here for exactly the same reason - unless, of course, your ancestors were brought in by the boatloads to work as slaves. or, i don't know, maybe your ancestors already lived here and had their land ripped from their grasps by the manifets destiny-believing 'new americans'. the mexican and american indian peoples were here first and our ancestors took this land from them by force. how can we now deny them the right to live on the land of their forefathers?

honestly, i can think of only one real precedent for the way the early americans treating this land native inhabitants. the bible. it's basically the same approach the israelites took againstthe canaanites. they believed that their god had told them to take the land of canaan away from its natural inhabitants by killing every single one of them. that was their solution - genocide. and all for the sake of the 'promised land'. they were promised land that already belonged to someone else. but just like manifest destiny centuries later, they believed their god had told them it was theirs to take. and since israel did so, their has not been a single year of peace in that land except under king solomon. even today, the conflict rages on due to the near-genocide and seizure of land thousands of years ago. is that really the history we americans are desperately seeking to follow? and the best part is that the bible only claims israel made one mistake in all of this bloodshed: the massacre wasn't complete, they failed to kill all of the canaanites.

the failures of a great man - abraham lincoln

1831 - failed in business
1832 - defeated for legislature
1833 - failed in business again
1834 - elected to legislature !!!!!!!!!!!!
1835 - woman he loved died
1836 - suffered a nervous breakdown
1838 - defeated for speaker
1840 - defeated for elector
1843 - defeated for congress
1846 - elected for congress !!!!!!!!!!!!
1848 - defeated for congress again
1855 - defeated for senate
1856 - defeated for vice president
1858 - defeated for senate again
1860 - elected as president !!!!!!!!!!!!*

shit happens. life happens. what happens is not as important as how one reacts to what has happened. he must learn from his mistakes and keep going. or learn from his mistakes and begin going in a different direction. Build on your strengths.*
consider moses, gideon and paul the apostle. they would not seem to be the best choices for the roles god put them in. but he knew their strengths. if you believe god has a plan for your life, then look to these men and their transformation into the men god wanted them to become. it wasn't easy. god trained moses for eighty years to deliver his people out of captivity and when the time came, moses argued with god and made excuses about his inability to speak well. gideon asked god for at least two physical manifestations on god's part to prove that he had understood correctly. paul killed christians until he came face-to-face with a blinding light. and these are the men that the omniscient chose to lead his campaigns. who are we to argue the circumstances in which we find ourselves? could moses have led out the children of israel had he not been a shepherd for forty years? could paul have defended christ so effectively and without respect to his own life had he not been respnosible for the deaths of so many. guilt may not be the most noble attribute but it sure is one hell of a motivator.
"and we know thatall things work together for good to them that love the lord and who are called according to his purpose."**

* taken from "whose child is this" by bill wilson
** R0mans 8:28, kjv