Boys and Girls State a great opportunity
Siloam Post 29 of the American Legion and Unit 29 of the Legion Auxiliary are very excited to let you know we have 19 girls and 18 boys that will be attending Arkansas Boys State and Arkansas Girls State programs May 26 through May 31, 2019. The boys will be staying on the campus of UCA in Conway and the girls will be staying at Harding University in Searcy. Cost for the six-day program for both the boys and girls is $225 per student.
This is a great opportunity for these students, that are currently juniors in high school, to learn first-hand about citizenship, democracy and government on the state level. The course is a six-day training course in study and practical application of problems of self-government. American citizenship is a priceless possession. America is a free land and believing that principles of democracy as guaranteed by our constitution have made us a great and powerful nation.
The American Legion hopes to assure this freedom to our citizens and of future generations. These young people can further this hope of the future through programs such as the Boys and Girls State, where they will learn not only the theory of government, but the practical practice and operation.
Siloam Post 29 and Unit 29 is very proud to sponsor these great programs. During the past several years the post and unit have had successful fund-raising events to offset the cost of allowing these worthy students to attend these programs. Due to the increase in number of applications, combined with increase in tuition cost, we are turning to our community for support for scholarship money or whatever amount that can be given. To donate, please mail your money to:
Siloam Post 29, P.O. Box 35, Siloam Springs, AR 72761 or call at 479-228-3561 for more information.
Jerry Cavness
Post 29 Service Officer
Absurdities
"Those who can make you believe absurdities; can make you commit atrocities," is one of Voltaire's admonitions. Another is, "If you do not use the intelligence with which God endowed your mind to resist believing absurdities, you cannot use the sense of injustice which God planted in your heart to resist a command to do evil." He was a deist and was NOT referring to the Christian God!
In my letter (March 13), I summarized the absurdity of God's love, mercy, righteousness, and justice as revealed in 2 Samuel 11 & 12. King David committed adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of one of David's soldiers, Uriah, and she became pregnant. David tried to conceal his adultery but failed to get Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba. He then schemed and had Uriah killed. God ignored both of his previous commandments requiring the death penalty for adultery and for scheming to kill another and spared both David and Bathsheba from any direct punishment. God killed the infant born of the adultery despite his edict not (to) execute children for the sin of parents.
In his response of March 20, Mr. Calvert compounded the absurdity and injustice of this episode, he wrote, "He [God] is sovereign and can do as he likes. Take a life or forgive sins that go against what he has spoken." By allowing his superstitious belief to supersede his God-given intelligence he cannot understand the whole of what is happening here. See if the following makes any sense to you.
No god has ever written anything or spoken directly to the majorities of humans. They always use a human emissary to record their scriptures and then another emissary, or even a chain of emissaries, to communicate their instructions to others. Analyze this episode. The NIV Study Bible preface to the Books of Samuel explains, "Who the author was cannot be known." So In 2 Samuel 12, God instructed this unknown emissary to write that God told Nathan to go tell David that God sent him (Nathan) to tell him of his sin.
Now, if God tells an emissary angel to visit Calvert in a dream (as he is sometimes prone to do) and tell him that God said for him to harm someone, what might he do? If Calvert did what the angel said, would a court of law accept his defense that, "in my dream, an angel said God said I must...."?
Oren Piper
Siloam Springs
Editorial on 04/10/2019