True thanksgiving

Do you know why we celebrate Thanksgiving?

The latest comment on the first Prop 8 blog:

KatF said...

I am a Baptist Christian who lives in Georgia. I believe homosexuals can be Christians, and that they have the right to use the word marriage if they so choose. You spoke of double standards; what of your double standard that the homosexual community must conform to your way of life, but not you to theirs? Can they vote on YOUR marriage? Can society vote on how many children you have, or where you live or work? Laws exist to keep an orderly society. Things like murder and stealing have laws against them because of the harm they cause to other humans. Homosexuality would only someone's family, religion, or children if they let it happen. People spread fear because they themselves are afraid. What word usage are we voting on next? What happens when a group of people decide to put the definition of a religion to a vote? If we can decide whether or not someone can be married, what else can we decide about one another's lives? Funnily enough, my objection to Proposition 8 has nothing to do with my religious beliefs. Just because I may believe something is wrong does not it so. Christians have a habit of thinking they are absolutely right about things. To my knowledge though, Jesus is the only infallible person alive.
Monday, November 17, 2008 10:24:00 PM

Summer said...

Proposition 8 doesn't force anyone to live my way of life. It protects an institution. We are all equal under this law- no one can marry someone of their own gender. The only difference is that some people want to. That desire is not something we're trying to legislate. It is just something that, through normal democratic proceedings, the whole of society has (this time) chosen not to condone. It is how the government works with every issue.

Now whether or not you believe what you say you do- that's your business. If I were you, I'd figure it out before I affiliate myself with any church. Either you believe something is true, or you don't. "True for me, but not for someone else," just means you have no idea what you truly believe. Knowing Jesus was the only infallible person alive is a good start.

Your own concern is the very reason this Proposition had to pass. "What word usage are we voting on next? What happens when a group of people decide to put the definition of a religion to a vote?" You're forgetting that the "group of people" who decided to put this definition to a vote was the gay community. What happens when that community, and people like you, who don't know what they stand for, decide to put the definition of religion up for a vote? Irriligion. Our nation under God will be a nation denying God.

To any of you who have ever thought, “I won’t vote the way I believe because I don’t want to impose my beliefs on others, and that is the Christ like thing to do,” I ask for a reassessment of thinking. Imposing your beliefs would involve tying the hands of others on voting day. This system is set up so everyone has a voice- you included! If you don’t stand up for your beliefs who will? If you vote the way others would because of their beliefs, whose hands are tied now?

You read scriptures that talk about fearing God, not man.

2 Ne. 28: 31- Cursed is he that putteth his trust in man, or maketh flesh his arm, or shall hearken unto the precepts of men, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Do you believe that?

Open your Doctrine and Covenants and start reading from page one.

For they have strayed from mine ordinances, and have broken mine everlasting covenant; They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol, which waxeth old and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall fall.
Wherefore, I the Lord, knowing the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the earth, called upon my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and spake unto him from heaven, and gave him commandments; and also gave commandments to others, that they should proclaim these things unto the world; and all this that it might be fulfilled, which was written by the prophets— the weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones, that man should not counsel his fellow man, neither trust in the arm of flesh— but that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world; that faith also might increase in the earth…

He’s talking about us! Today! Do you believe what He says?

Do you know why we celebrate Thanksgiving? It’s not only to commemorate the blessing it was for our forefathers to come to a land where they could worship as they believe, but to celebrate the fact that God has yet again extended mercy to us in our degraded state. After the civil war, President Lincoln instituted an official day to celebrate an already popular observance. He wanted his nation to give credit where credit was due.

By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln

We have temporarily staved off another degradation of our society. Now is not the time to stand idly by and let those who oppose God lead our loved ones astray. People have fought and lost their lives for you to be able to think for yourself, and make your beliefs heard. You've read the Book of Mormon. You know what happens when the righteous back down and whole of society is left to do what "feels good." The attitude of cowardice is becoming too popular, under the clever guise of “true Chrisitanity.” Raise your voice. Stand up for yourself. DO SOMETHING!! A good place to start? Count your blessings.