John Robinson

When my late grandfather was a young farmer, all eleven of his kids (including my mom) begged him to take them to church. He'd never gone, and neither had they, but their mother had died a year earlier, and they felt they should start. Reluctantly he agreed. The next Sunday, all eleven freshly-scrubbed kids in tow and wearing his best pair of overalls (they were poor, and it was the best he had), they entered and sat. The pastor came in, took his place at the podium, looked over the crowd, and then locked his eyes on my grandpa. For the next sixty seconds the pastor pointed a shaky finger at him, thundering that my grandpa was making "a mockery of the house of the Lord." Finally my grandpa had enough. Face red with shame, he called the pastor a vile name, gathered his kids, and left. Until the day he died, he never went back to any church. That's why to my thinking, a dress code is an abomination. And should our pastor ever initiate one, my wife and I would be out of there at the speed of sound.

I'm an Army vet, and back in the day I served under a lot of different officers. They came in all flavors: the "nice guys," the "career guys," the "short-timers," the "useless martinets" (think Frank Burns from MASH) ... you name it. But the ones we prized were the warriors: the ones who knew their men, who knew our strengths and weakness, the ones who truly did see the best in us ... but who also knew the enemy for exactly who he was. Those officers were competent, focused, skilled, and would accept no substitute for victory. If you had one of those as your commander, you did everything in your power to stay with them; if you didn't, you did everything in your power to get transferred in. He was your best chance to stay alive, and win. My late uncle fought in Europe with General George S. Patton's Third Armor Division, and he said the movie had it almost exactly right. Patton really was a profane, rough, hard-bitten man who expected a top effort, especially from himself. General Omar Bradley, who served under Patton, was an entirely different soldier--more mellow and less driven; a "nice guy", if you will. But when the war effort was hanging by a thread, and the Supreme Allied Command needed a leader to push hard, fast, and relentlessly against the Nazi forces, they chose Patton. All that to to say, today I voted for Trump.

It's a widely-known fact Sir Winston Churchill basically saved his country from Nazi annihilation during the early days of WWII. He rallied his people to stand fast against the onslaught, promising them nothing but "blood, sweat, and tears" as the populace endured not only nightly saturation bombings by the Luftwaffe, but buzz-bombs, V-2 rockets, and German fighter planes that frequently outnumbered the English Spitfires six to one. It's all written down, and it's called the Battle of Britain. What's lesser known is Churchill--a vile-speaking, hard-drinking, cigar-chomping bulldog--replaced a very sweet man named Neville Chamberlain, who promised the citizenry "peace in our time" if only they would play nice with Hitler. Three days later the German Anschluss began, Austria was annexed, and Europe started to burn. Country after country fell to the jack-booted thugs. All but England. To this day, historians acknowledge Churchill--that "nasty, brutish man," as he was called by the press--really had come on the scene in the nick of time. Something to think about, isn't it?

My late father fought in the Pacific campaign in WWII, island to island. Late in the war, the Allies had a plan to mount a full-scale invasion of the Japanese mainland. My dad was on one of those troop ships. They were told to expect heavy casualties, somewhere in the forty-five to fifty per cent range. In other words, one out of every two of those men would not make it back alive. When they got word of the Japanese surrender, those soldiers--who'd been through horrors untold--broke down and wept. So was what we did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki worth it? Ask those men.

Haddonfield was that big monster that tore up New York ... wait a minute, that was Cloverfield. Nah, I got nothin'.

Guess that's a "no," then. Why is it so difficult for some folks to answer a simple direct question?

I wonder if this guy has considered who's nest he's about to enter. He may have done his kum-bay-yah act in other countries, but it's a lead pipe cinch he's never met anything like ISIS. They may let him in with ease ("come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly"), but his odds of getting out are vanishingly thin. The worst part is when they show his tortured, dying body over the Internet, we'll be obliged to send in a Special Ops team to rescue him. I wonder how many lives THAT will cost.

On one hand I'm amazed this site allows heretics and cultists to post their prattle, but on the other, it's a good thing to know how the enemy presents himself. I'll admit it's educational.

Haven't we already had about eighty-seven hundred "Christians shouldn't celebrate Christmas" threads? Legalism kills, folks. But first it'll take your joy. For me and my house, Christmas time is here, and we rejoice in the birth of Jesus our Savior! Let the bells ring!

I had a friend who was on the plane that hit the second tower. Anyone is free to ask his widow if it was a hologram.

Agreed. As the old Buffalo Springfield song says, "battle lines are being drawn ..."

What a buffoon. And a tool.

Exactly my thought as well: these questions aren't as innocent as they appear. Something's not quite ... right.

Worthy gets one of these threads (seems like millions) every year at this time. They always generate more heat than light, and invariably cause division. At the end of the day no one's mind is changed. As for me, I celebrate Jesus' birth every day, and on December 25th everyone else joins in!

Legalism kills, SS. Trying to keep the old testament laws will break your heart. If you use any of them as your benchmark--instead of Christi's completed work on the cross--you'll have to keep them ALL, and that's an impossible goal. Thank God for the blood of Jesus that has freed us from that bondage!

The idiots won't be satisfied until we're in a full-blown, shooting racial war. That seems to be their end-game.

Something tells me the OP has brought up this same subject on other Christian sites, hoping to get controversy; maybe he's even gotten the same reactions. Betcha a ham sandwich he'll tire of it in the next few days, and then move on to the next site. I guess fun's where you find it, but to me it's utterly pointless.

This is one of the oddest threads I've ever seen, and I've seen my share. Robin Hood, as long as you're born again (which IS the definition of a Christian, by the bye) you can call yourself a chocolate eclair for all it matters. Can you afford the rest of us the grace to do the same? Or is something deeper bothering you?

If a man's yellow ... he knows it.

This thread comes up here every few months, and always seems to generate more heat than light. And yes, I own guns. And yes, if I was armed and some thug was attacking my wife, I'd park a round in his chest without hesitation. As a former combat infantryman I've made my peace with that; let others do as they will.

I rarely post about politics, but this needs to be said about the Iran nukes deal, and Elie Weisel said it best: "When someone says they want to kill you ... believe them."

We get the oddest people here, saying the ODDEST things ...

I've long maintained the best thing that could ever happen to American Christians is the 503 © status of every church and charity be repealed. That would greatly curtail Uncle Sammy's "reach."

Who's surprised? After all, it's the Church of England, "a wretched hive of scum and villainy" if there ever was one. They wouldn't know gospel truth if it bit them on the hindquarters.

Unbelievable. http://www.charismanews.com/us/49928-creflo-dollar-will-get-a-70-million-private-jet-after-all