Football and Faith

[darb72]

Once again, darb72 decides he knows what my words mean & tries to shit on me for it. Maybe he should take a hint from something Artemus Ward (Lincoln's favorite humorist) wrote: “It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us in trouble. It's the things we know that ain't so.”

I know he's a lost cause, but FTR, as JMUpurkfool pointed out very well above, there is a huuuuge difference between asserting one's faith in God & saying publicly that "it's a big part of who we are as a team."

Anyone who thinks you can publicly go on record with a statement like that without putting enormous pressure on your players to conform with is, at best, someone who's never found him/herself among people who s/he wanted to bond with (or a boss whom s/he wanted or needed to please) but who believed or acted in ways s/he couldn't agree with.

In fact, anyone with two brain cells to rub together might wonder if Harbaugh's intent in "going public" with this team-faith notion was to do precisely that--to crank up the pressure on any Raven who hasn't completely bought in.

"As for treating your fellow man with common decency and respect, doesn't that include letting him form his own opinions being allowed to say them out loud?" IIRC that is guaranteed by the First Amendment, which reads in full: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Let us note what the Constitution does not guarantee: The right to have what one says taken seriously, or allowed to pass without comment or challenge. Nor the right not to have one's intelligence & personal qualities judged & found wanting based on what one has said. (Here's a quote often attributed [probably wrongly] to Honest Abe: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.)

As for praying at the 50-yard line or anywhere else in public, anyone who self-identifies as a Christian might just want to stop & consider what Jesus of Nazareth said about that sort of thing, as recounted in Matthew 6:5-6: And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

So many self-identified Christians seem to think more of the petty, rigid, brutal, vengeful acts of the deity depicted in the Old Testament than of what their Savior is reported to have said in the New. No wonder Gandhi said, I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

What a long, rambling diatribe that in no way countered my argument.

You have said, more than once, that Harbaugh put pressure on people who don't believe what he does. You have no proof of this, nor that faith isn't a BIG PART OF the Ravens. You are attacking a man who has never done anything to you simply because his opinion is different than yours. You are a hypocrite of the highest order, one that doesn't even realize how hypocritical they're being.

And I love the multiple quotes you've used your pointlessly meanderings. You went from Ward, to the Constitution, to the Bible, and then wrapped it up quite nicely with Ghandi. You are simply a left winger who loves to find random quotes that seemingly fit whatever argument you're currently having and throwing them about in an attempt to disguise the fact you have no clue what to say. Try having an original thought in your head. You'll find you're much more open to the ideas of others.

One final point before I let you scour the internet for some more brilliant remarks from folks who ain't you. Yeah the Bible says not to pray like a hypocrite, but it also says that faith is something to be rejoiced.