Tag Archives: Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln’s God…..

Other Quotes, Quotes • Tags: , , ,

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Starry NightI never behold the heavens filled with stars that I do not feel I am looking in the face of God. I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist. but I cannot conceive how he could lie looking up into the heavens and say there is no God.

When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for membership, the Saviour’s condensed statement of the substance of both law and Gospel. “‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and thy neighbor as thyself.” that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul.

Abraham Lincoln

I have scores of books of quotations from many different people but one of them that I enjoy the most, besides Will Rogers of course :) , is Abraham Lincoln.  He had a way of being able to find just the right words to say something simply but in the most meaningful way. The above quotes are a glowing example.

I was a moody kid growing up. I was much too serious for my young age. In that regard I used to spend hours looking up at the sky at night. It was a wondrous sight to behold. It seems I remember that there were many more stars visible in my early years than now. Could that be because of childhood perceptions or maybe increased air pollution? That is beyond the topic of this post so I will leave it unanswered.

In my studies of Jesus and religion I have come to very much agree with Lincoln’s second quote here. The very core of the message of Jesus is to love God with all your heart and to love each other.  Unfortunately it seems to be lost, or at least vastly shrunken in importance, in many of today’s churches. It is nice to know that Abe believed this long before I did.

By the way, I am still looking for that church at puts others ahead of their membership…..

Just Because You Write a Book… 2

In The News • Tags: , ,

Source: Ford’s Theatre, citing errors, refuses to carry Bill O’Reilly’s ‘Killing Lincoln’ – CSMonitor.com.

Just because you write a book doesn’t mean you are an expert in something. Fox New’s Bill O’Reilly I’m sure has a large following on his news show. I know he rants and raves just like most do on that network. He often mentions that he is a self-proclaimed expert on Lincoln who was the founder of the Republican party. However, it seems that his book on the subject of Lincoln’s assassination will not be sold in Ford’s Theatre where the killing took place. The historians there say there is just too many errors in the Reilly account to be sold there. They don’t want the historic site to lose credence.

It sounds like Reilly was no more true to facts about Lincoln than the current day Republicans are to the party that he founded.  Lincoln was if nothing else a president for the people. His words and actions backed up that world view. Today’s Republicans have given up that mantle to the Democratic party. I don’t know exactly when that happened but it is fully obvious today. The Republican party’s mantra now seems to be “I got mine so screw you”.  They are now the party of big money, ultra-conservative fundamentalists, and not much else.

But we can’t really put any of the errors in the book on Bill O’Reilly himself as he “co-authored” the book with someone else. Who is to know what percentage of contributions he actually made? I always wonder about that whenever I see two names on a book. Is one there for name recognition only in order to sell more books? I’m sure this is not the first time that errors appear in supposedly historical works. I recently read  the book by Herndon, who was Lincoln’s business partner in Springfield. When it came out it was scorned by many of the current historians as it had places where Lincoln was not shown in the best light. In fact Mrs. Lincoln was depicted at a downright “loony”. It has only been in the last forty years or so that the book has gained respect.

Maybe someday the book by whichever person on the cover actually wrote it will get respect. The current denouncement of it by some noted scholars just gives Fox News something else to yell about with the “liberal” press. As if they don’t have enough ;)

But what do I know….