4th July: I don't want an Europe-like America

I hear you Diana, my thoughts on what you say are, if there was only one supermarket chain selling food worldwide, without other competition then that would dictate the price and variety of food we eat, in fact it would become a dictatorship.

I think that would also happen in politics. As a Christian, would you tolerate everyone being a Muslim and having to abide by Muslim Law? or if you are a Muslim would you tolerate everyone being a Christian and being ruled by Christian Law? The same applies to the Jewish and other world faiths.

I think it would be dangerous not to tolerate peaceful opposition and the 'goal' should be peaceful toleration of all sides.

In my humble opinion, based on my beliefs, the only time we will know true peace is after the one world leader who is to come and who is to bring a false peace is defeated by Christ and Christ at last takes His place as Lord of all, creating a new heaven and new earth.  Again, this is what I believe.

I understand what you are saying Michael, and Barbara.

In line with both of you I feel that a world government representing the sovereignty of all men would be made up of representatives from all nations collaborating together for the good of all. No one nation would hold sovereignty over the other.

Barbara, I agree with what you say, but with a twist; whether Christ returns in the flesh or not is irrelevant. It's when he reigns in our hearts, that is, when what he taught, rather than what religion teaches about him takes precedence in our lives, peace will preside. He rules now, if we let him.

Human beings are free moral agents and Christ respected that (After all He bestowed that gift upon us and knew the evolutionary stages it must go through!). He didn't create religion or politics. He never taught that any one religious or political system was better than another, in fact, he pointed out the good and bad in all the religions and political institutions around him at the time, including Judaism. He taught us a way of living, with love and tolerance for one another regardless of our political and religious affiliations.

I like the way you put that, Diana. But I also agree with Michael, there will always be differences and that's why life is so interesting.  And yes, you summed up nicely what Michael was driving at - the way of living that Jesus taught made room for everybody.  It's when differences deteriorate, decay and rot into power struggles and the us vs. them mentality that decomposes peace.  But even Jesus acknowledged that not everyone would accept the gospel and told his apostles to "shake the dust of their town off your feet" and move on.  It's that free will thing again.  God gave us the freedom to choose.  We just can't seem to make the right choices.

Maranatha!

Hum, I came in here having just read they hauled in 40 top political people in the state of New Jersey, along with several rabbis for money bribes and even selling people's organs..its still breaking news. Its' not the system, it's the people behind the system that make it corrupt. They keep changing the system in answer as an retribution to the corruption, but it's not the answer. Legislating up the proverbial wall, still does not make the incorrupt people good..it only hurts the innocent and always has. The bigger the system the harder it is to keep track of what is truly going on inside of it..think about that with your one world system. Not only that but when an part of it goes out, the whole thing goes out because it is so inter-connected. That is our problem now, an certain few  made it impossible to not join them in the past, and now as they can't handle things, the whole is failing... economically especially...there is no outsider to help this time around..because an certain own everything...they killed compettion...now they are the owner and the customer.. to themselves, and can't figure out what is wrong. That was the desire of the corporations, esp. retail stores. They molpolized to become their own working "cities" by way of service and it cut out the jobs others had avaialble..so thre's no back help from any outside source. A real good example of this was Japan during the 911 incident stepped in and helped us literally from going "belly up" then...because that is what it was all about, trying to take out our stock-market. by making it "crash".One reason perhaps Bush was in the extreme patriotism "warring" mode, to take our mind off that and what was really going on. While they we watched 911 on the news glued to our TV sets, Kenny Lay was raising our basic electric rates up 40 per cent that night unchallenged. He killed an lot of old folks,not able to fund his private little utilty hike, he trashed our school system, as we rely on corproate profit taxes for the support of them, and he re-invested anything he got to say he had no profit to pay no taxes. When they came after him, he skipped out on his own employees bringing them down to their knees  destroying most everything they had worked for..for years prior.  They are still struggling to this day to make it. Bottom line is you don't give anything, you only take from others, and guess what, one day your sitting there with no one to  take from any longer because they have indeed been "drained dry". You then become your own customer to have to make your own profit off of...which is near impossible. Maybe like Henry Ford, give his own product out for free to stimulate buying it eventually...but not working today at the hgh prices that are charged for everything.  

As for Maria, I agree, each person should have individualty, each town, each state, each country also.  Would not like to go an visit an "Italy" that had over tones of "America"..as we are the "melting pot" of the world, not the individual countries, and I find it charming for them to keep their ways and traditions as long as it harms no one in doing so...such as world-wide pollution of our planet's natural resources.  One of the things recently brought out by an travel article was that many pyschologists are saying that traveling is getting depressing because there's the same businesses now world-wide. Go to one McDonalds, you have been to them all. When people travel, they like to go to somewhere that is not like what they just left, that's what an vacation is, refreshing your mind differently.

As for "JC"..the personna I deal with has in the past given anything someone wanted...you had better be wise in what you seek. I just read an joke about an woman who was granted wishes and her hsuband got 10 times that, and she asked to be the most beatiful woman in the world, so it was granted, and she said she had no fear of her husband looking at others, because she would out rate other women in being desirable. But then it back fired on her in asking for an long "life" in being superior over everyone, as that meant she had to die before her husband and she'd be under his superiority..so he ended up being the better long lived in life. You had best be wise in what you seek..and the bible says to seek "God" first...then an heart of love for others in life...and in all things you do.