Howdy all! And what a weird weekend for yours truly. I spent most of it getting the squirrels fed so the computer would work right. The rest I spent trying to find all of my old bookmarks without knowing what their internet addresses were. In the immortal words of the Beatles, "I got blisters on my fingers!"
Any hoo,..
He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those who walk with integrity. ~ Proverbs 2:7
Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck. ~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Smith, 1822
What do you think of Jefferson's quote? Does it sound like he is dissing faith, calling it gullibility? Sounds like it, but he is definitely not. And one only has to look to the verse from Proverbs for proof. He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. Common sense; aka, reason. With reason, He also is a shield to those who walk with integrity. Now a s Thomas says, the man who gives up his reason has no remaining guard against the most monstrous absurdities. So,if one has the common sense (reason) granted by our Creator, we have His guard remaining, and therefore protected. We must only walk with integrity. To illustrate this one simply needs to look at the difference between a tea party rally and an Occupy Wall Street rally. I don't think I need to describe these two scenes to clarify. What about the difference between the Restoring Honor rally and President Obama's Inauguration. The national grounds were left pristine by the restoring honor crowd, but the aftermath of the inauguration looked like nuclear winter. Or in other words, a wreck. Jefferson's message is not one of bashing religious faith over reason. Instead it is a message to Americans on how to maintain the republic. It is a message expecting Americans to use the reasoning, the treasure of common sense granted by Him to the honest, as the shield of integrity against the most monstrous of absurdities which will send this ship of ours aimlessly into the rocky shores of socialism.
Take care, God bless,
AND STAND WITH ISRAEL!!!
Tom Kiley
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