Monday, November 23, 1998
Letters
STUFF:
Do your homework
before criticizing Christianity
Is this the "Year of bashing the Christian" or what? In Bao
Nguyen’s article "Sinners’ company in Hell a more tempting heaven"
(Viewpoint, Nov. 19), he makes several comments (which would take
way too long to comment on) that leads the serious Bible student to
several conclusions. First, he has never seriously studied the
Bible. Second, he makes conclusions based on people who have never
seriously studied the Bible or are disgruntled by its precepts.
Third, he’s seen a little too much TV or read too much popular
culture which feature common Christian misconceptions.
Well, I challenge Nguyen to study this Christianity thing by
researching the source from where its doctrine comes. It would be
just as bad for me to conclude that statistics is a rotten subject
to get into, based on what politicians do with the numbers.
One must study The Word systematically by comparing historical
references, studying hermeneutics (the study of Biblical
interpretation), exploring the context of phrases, and looking at
the original Greek and Hebrew underneath the words written.
Otherwise, how can someone even hope to understand a 2,000-year-old
book – much less the doctrines that devout (not ‘recreational’)
Christians hold dear – from what they consider God’s word?
From what I see, Nguyen has an unclear concept of God, heaven,
Hell, sin, Satan, or other concepts and doctrines that are equally
important.
If you don’t like Christianity because it just doesn’t suit you,
fine – but please, please don’t use those who practice what they
don’t preach as an empirical basis for your observations. Go to the
source! If I wanted to know how to do applied math, I wouldn’t go
to someone who flunked the course, would I? If I based my feelings
regarding the subject on that, I would never take the course. (The
"F" student would have badmouthed the teacher, the books,
everything but him or herself.)
Believe me, it takes just a minute to believe the Bible, but a
lifetime to understand it. My advice, Nguyen, is that if you’re
going to be a critic of the Bible and Christianity, be a scholar
first so you can criticize with knowledge.
Adrian Haymond
Senior budget analyst
College of Letters & Science, Provost
Funding training helps save lives
This letter is in response to Adam Komisaruk’s column "Overgrown
U.S. military unnecessary today" (Viewpoint, Nov. 11), in regards
to diminishing the United States military budget.
Your belief that the United States should decrease its military
spending, to say the least, hits home. Having served for just over
four years in the United States Marine Corps and currently having
family members serving in the Marine Corps, I believe I have a
unique view of the situation as described by him.
As an infantryman I depended on my training and the training of
my fellow Marines to help keep me alive in a combat situation.
Having been in the military before and during the reduction of
forces and the budget cuts, I can attest to the number of times we
were not allowed to train because of the lack of money. Having
family in the military, I do not find it pleasing that he suggests
they should be ill-trained for combat.
Yes, I do agree with Komisaruk about the re-prioritizing of
social and military programs, but if the military budget is cut,
the funds for training will be lost, not the funds for the
all-important airplane. While in the combat situation that I
referred to above, my only goal was to stay alive – the same goal
everyone else in the military has. My limited military training
helped me stay alive. If there would have been major budget cuts
before my combat experience, then I do not know what would have
happened.
Change needs to occur, but do you want to risk the lives of the
people who allow us to write letters and responses? We, the
citizens of the United States, need to limit our government’s
involvement in world crises.
This would help military units use the money they are given for
training purposes instead of for conflict expenses, thus helping
better train our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and
daughters for situations that cannot be settled without the use of
military force.
As for the CIA, I have no problem believing what you wrote about
them, as they are nothing but a bunch of "farging bastigies"
anyway.
Christopher M. Green
Former Marine
Second-year history student
Comments, feedback, problems?
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