I'm a Marine, currently serving civilian duty <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Anyways not to turn this into a thread locker religion debate as everyone has their views. As for me I grew up Baptist, church on sundays, good food afterwards. Baptist private school, Baptist stampted on my dog tags. I used to rub the raised letters on the tags at night, long nights looking down the barrel of a M249 SAW.

Anyways I'm the last person to get offended at Joe's atheist comments, he will come around someday. Until then I offer up this little clip I found on the internet. You can
call it bunk if you want, wont matter to them one bit <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

"When I was in my 20's, I went to visit a friend at St. Anne's Nursing Home. We were seated in the activities room when the staff began wheeling in some of the other residents. These people were pitiable, all confined to reclining wheelchairs, their arms and legs grotesquely bent at odd and unimaginable angles. I had the thought that if I ever found myself in a state as deplorable as theirs, I would rather be dead.

Most were unable to speak or even move their heads, and I was curious to see in what activity these six patients had been assembled to participate. A nurse saw my curiosity, and giving a weak smile said, "They have church every week." The program director introduced a Baptist choir and, as they sang 'Amazing Grace', I watched those men and women in the crippled audience and I was shocked and unsettled to see peace and happiness take over their expressions. Some sat there with frozen smiles while others silently mouthed the words of the hymn, but there was victory in their eyes. At the time, I recall having thought that these people were already in heaven, despite being confined to an earthly hell.

After the choir left, I half-heartedly spoke to the one patient who could still verbalize. "How are you doing?" I asked. She was completely paralyzed and couldn't even turn her face to see me, but she was glowing.

"Wonderful!" she replied and continued smiling as a nurse wheeled her back to her room.

How could these people be happy? What allowed them to be this way in their tragic affliction while I could barely manage a smile in all my good fortune? "