George Bush isn't the only president who talked to God

[Riprorin]

"Well, I will tell you how it was. In the pinch of the campaign up there (at Gettysburg) when everybody seemed panic stricken and nobody could tell what was going to happen, oppressed by the gravity of our affairs, I went to my room one day and locked the door and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed to Him mightily for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him that this war was His war, and our cause His cause, but we could not stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville... And after that, I don't know how it was, and I cannot explain it, but soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul. The feeling came that God had taken the whole business into His own hands and that things would go right at Gettysburg and that is why I had no fears about you." [July 5, 1863] - Abraham Lincoln

A prayer to be said by all good citizens on the day of fasting & prayer, ordered by Abraham Lincoln

 

[0marTheZealot]

OBL says that God talks to him. That is enough for me to label both of them crazy.

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
OBL says that God talks to him. That is enough for me to label both of them crazy.

That's funny, most consider Abraham Lincoln one of our greatest presidents.

 

[Red Dawn]

David Koresh and Jim Jones also claimed to talk to "God"

 

[0marTheZealot]

I meant OBL and Bush, not Lincoln.

Lincoln actually moved the country forward. Sorry about being unclear there.

 

[TuxDave]

1) I think most Christians will say they speak to God daily and during prayers. Hell, not only is God speaking to them, he's holding their hands, watching over them... etc. Ask any Christian and that's not a crazy thought. I particularly don't hold those feelings but I wouldn't be surprised if a someone had those feelings.

2) If a person said he spoke to God, you cannot conclude anything about his morality. Some people are good. Some people are psychopaths that will kill people and say "God told me to do it!!!!"

3) If Lincoln ordered the people to pray, that's not within his power and he was wrong to do so. As great as Lincoln was, he was not a faultless man.

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
I meant OBL and Bush, not Lincoln.

Lincoln actually moved the country forward. Sorry about being unclear there.

According to scholar Stephen B. Oates, Lincoln one of the most unpopular living presidents of our history.

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: TuxDave
1) I think most Christians will say they speak to God daily and during prayers. Hell, not only is God speaking to them, he's holding their hands, watching over them... etc. Ask any Christian and that's not a crazy thought. I particularly don't hold those feelings but I wouldn't be surprised if a someone had those feelings.

2) If a person said he spoke to God, you cannot conclude anything about his morality. Some people are good. Some people are psychopaths that will kill people and say "God told me to do it!!!!"

3) If Lincoln ordered the people to pray, that's not within his power and he was wrong to do so. As great as Lincoln was, he was not a faultless man.

On what basis do you say that he was wrong?

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: TuxDave
1) I think most Christians will say they speak to God daily and during prayers. Hell, not only is God speaking to them, he's holding their hands, watching over them... etc. Ask any Christian and that's not a crazy thought. I particularly don't hold those feelings but I wouldn't be surprised if a someone had those feelings.

2) If a person said he spoke to God, you cannot conclude anything about his morality. Some people are good. Some people are psychopaths that will kill people and say "God told me to do it!!!!"

3) If Lincoln ordered the people to pray, that's not within his power and he was wrong to do so. As great as Lincoln was, he was not a faultless man.

On what basis do you say that he was wrong?

I'm not sure of the circumstances surrounding that paper nor am I aware if 'order' is being used in a figurative sense. If order means 'forcibly by law', then he cannot 'order' me to pray.

 

[BBond]

George Bush isn't the only president who talked to God

Strange, but that doesn't make me feel any better.

The problem isn't people praying for guidance. The problem, IMO, starts when people insist God is on their side. They then feel free to perform all manner of hideous acts in his name.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: BBond

George Bush isn't the only president who talked to God

Strange, but that doesn't make me feel any better.

The problem isn't people praying for guidance. The problem, IMO, starts when people insist God is on their side. They then feel free to perform all manner of hideous acts in his name.

Good description of Islamofascism.

 

[Neos]

Originally posted by: BBond

The problem isn't people praying for guidance. The problem, IMO, starts when people insist God is on their side. They then feel free to perform all manner of hideous acts in his name.

Actually - God loves all - saint and sinner - even OBL, Hitler ..etc. He is "no respector of persons" - meaning that HE has wonderful life for all to experience.
I really think that He has set down principles that would guide us down our daily path - and experience real life. Thing is most of us do not study the book that well.

 

[conjur]

Funny how that quote Rip posted can't be attributed to Lincoln. This is the closest to it:

http://www.mrlincolnswhitehous...ID=182&subjectID=2

Gen. Dan Sickles (1819-1914)

Congressman from New York who shot Philip Barton Key for having an affair with his wife, Sickles was seriously wounded and his leg was later amputated.

He was moved to a private house in Washington where on July 5, President Lincoln visited him.
Sickles later claimed that during this visit, Mr. Lincoln related why he was confident of victory. After the Confederate invaded the North, he said he "went to my room and got down on my knees in prayer. Never before had I prayed with so much earnestness. I wish I could repeat my prayer. I felt I must put all my trust in Almighty God. He gave our people the best country ever given to man. He alone could save it from destruction. I had tried my best to do my duty and had found myself unequal to the task The burden was more than I could bear. I asked Him to help us victory now. I was sure my prayer was answered. I had no misgivings about the result at Gettysburg."1

 

[dahunan]

King George runs his cabinet via MANIFEST DESTINY

 

[CSMR]

Originally posted by: BBond
The problem isn't people praying for guidance. The problem, IMO, starts when people insist God is on their side.

For this reason I find Lincoln's statement very irreligious. I don't believe that Bush has said anything like this, to make the almost blasphemous claim that we are fighting God's battles for Him.

 

[SirStev0]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
OBL says that God talks to him. That is enough for me to label both of them crazy.

That's funny, most consider Abraham Lincoln one of our greatest presidents.

thats extremely debatable...

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: CSMR

Originally posted by: BBond
The problem isn't people praying for guidance. The problem, IMO, starts when people insist God is on their side.

For this reason I find Lincoln's statement very irreligious. I don't believe that Bush has said anything like this, to make the almost blasphemous claim that we are fighting God's battles for Him.

Lincoln was not appealing to a call from God but was calling to God out of, apparently, desperation and hope.


Bush, however, has twice said we are on a crusade, a word which resonates very loudly and very harshly in the Muslim community.

 

[LunarRay]

If God was in charge at Gettysburg... well he sure had it in for Pickett's kids and all those who went down with them.... How anyone can equate God with victory there is beyond me. It was a slaughter from one side of the line to the other.. And Ole Abe just knew we'd win the day cuz God put the warm and fuzzies in his soul... Just like Bush, I suppose.

 

[Moonbeam]

George Bush talks to God?

You know that thing U been doing there, God, that joke about me going to hell over Iraq? I wish U'd knock that off now. It's starting to get on my nerves. I know we had to josh the People a bit over WMD, but I couldn't just up and tell um we needed the oil. U know they'd a never gone for that. It was just a little white lie, God, but I'm a uniter not a divider and I know we can patch that up, so go easy on that hell stuff God or I'll have to call Ashcroft in. How's it gonna look for U if the people start hearing that the second coming was aborted.

 

[DealMonkey]

Talking to God isn't what has me worried, it's when one thinks God answers back that I start to wonder.

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey
Talking to God isn't what has me worried, it's when one thinks God answers back that I start to wonder.

Yep. When people claim that they're talking to God, it implies that it's not just a one sided conversation.

 

[judasmachine]

even scarier is when god answers and tells you to kill people.

 

[Riprorin]

Here is the text of Lincoln's Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day, issued March 30, 1863:

Whereas, the Senate of the United States devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation:

And whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is Lord:

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request and fully concurring in the view of the Senate, I do, by this proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer.

And I do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be hard on high and answered with blessing no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. By the President: Abraham Lincoln.

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: SirStev0

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
OBL says that God talks to him. That is enough for me to label both of them crazy.

That's funny, most consider Abraham Lincoln one of our greatest presidents.

thats extremely debatable...

Okay, so you don't thibk that Abraham Linccoln was a great president. Surely, yiu think that George Washington was.

President George Washington?s
Prayer for the Nation

Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy holy protection, that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow citizens of the Unites States at large.

And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and specific temper of mind which were the characteristics of Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.

Grant our supplications, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Given at Newburg, June 8, 1783, and copies sent to the Governors of all the States.)

Link

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: SirStev0

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
OBL says that God talks to him. That is enough for me to label both of them crazy.

That's funny, most consider Abraham Lincoln one of our greatest presidents.

thats extremely debatable...

Okay, so you don't thibk that Abraham Linccoln was a great president. Surely, yiu think that George Washington was.

President George Washington?s
Prayer for the Nation

Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy holy protection, that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow citizens of the Unites States at large.

And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and specific temper of mind which were the characteristics of Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.

Grant our supplications, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Given at Newburg, June 8, 1783, and copies sent to the Governors of all the States.)

Link

So he believed in Jeebus, a lot of peeple do. What's that have to do with our Government?