Reap What We Sow - BLAH BLAH

I receive this email written by 'Ben Stein' occasionally and I'm thinking a retort is needed. I've shared with others before, so if it's a repeat for you - my apologies. If you like it, please share it with others. If I actually had more than 3 people who read this dang thing, I might make it more of a priority :P My take is red.

Enjoy!

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW." Or just perhaps, it has a lot to do with people actually PARENTING their children. Could it also have something to do with our culture? Maybe the way our American culture puts the dollar above the people? Long before the Christian “Lord” was named as such and written about people still believed in a higher power. They did the things that were supposed to be done. They gathered enough food to feed themselves and they had a sense of family and community.

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. The only people who believe the world is going to hell are those who actually believe in one and that would the part of the population who believe in the Christian God and have faith in him.

Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. I don’t know who really believes everything they read in the newspapers, but just for the sake of pointing out facts: Newspapers are companies. They no longer are a service to keep people informed in an unbiased way. While many articles are written in an as un-biased manner as possible, sometimes it happens. However, when any sort of news agency, be it a printed publication or a telecast, submits a story to the public that isn’t entirely on the up and up, there is usually an outcry, a remission and a rebuttal. When inaccuracies of the Bible are pointed out, along with the fact that numerous books were left out and those in power re-wrote it to help better keep control over the populace, that is shooed away by the faithful as an attack on Christianity. Also considering that it wasn’t actually written down until at least 150 years after the death of Christ, how reliable is it? If the stories were handed down orally for thousands of years before being committed to paper, why is it any more reliable than any other sort of oral history?

Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Most jokes are just funny. People like to be humored, not preached at. Besides the fact that Christianity isn’t the only religion in the world, you don’t know what everybody believes, why offend someone? I know that most Christian faiths believe in ‘witnessing’ but come off it already. The Christians as so fractured you have more flavors than Baskin Robbins. You’ve got Baptists, Catholics (yes Catholics, you ARE Christians, you believe in CHRIST, right?), Methodists, Lutherans, etc. Maybe before you start trying to convert people by sharing the love of Christ, you all should sit down and agree on what that actually is.

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace. Do I really have to address this sentence? It should be plain as day, obviously you can find just as much God in cyberspace and just as little lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles in school and the workplace.
Are you laughing? Actually I’m waiting for it.

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it. Actually I won’t send along anything I don’t believe in unless it has a pretty picture, or good joke that people I know might think is funny. Will I send Aunt Debbie a little Johnny joke? No, but I’ll send it to Ericka and Mom.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us. It’s not always about what other people think of us, but what we think of them. Do we want to pester them with something that isn’t their cup of tea just because it’s ours?

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in. I won’t sit back and complain. I won’t just sit here and pass along emails on why the world is the way it is, I’ll go out and do something about it. I’ll be an informed voter. I’ll take responsibility for my kid and teach him some. I’ll put my change in the Salvation Army bucket. I’ll give my extra coats directly to those who need them. I won’t litter. I’ll mentor others. I won’t be perfect, but I’ll try hard to be a good person to others.

My Best Regards.
Honestly and respectfully,
Ben Stein (The real BEN STEIN? From Ferris Bueller, Bueller, Buller’s Day Off? Awesome! Maybe he can take some of that money he makes from tv and movies and game shows and put it to good use by making a PROACTIVE stance to better our society)