August 26: Chunkers, Holy Writ and WWJD

Our country spends $147 billion annually in health care for overweight adults, and obesity is expected to shorten U.S. life expectancy.

I propose a CASH FOR CHUNKERS program, whereby people who are overweight are paid to lose weight and get healthier.

Sound odd? Well so does paying people to trash their vehicles. Obesity strikes the poor the hardest, and they couldn't afford to participate in the Cash for Clunkers program.

Paying them to lose weight would help them afford healthier food and cut down on national health care costs. Their kids would eat healthier, diabetes wouldn't be so prevalent, and life expectancy could again increase. This could all be paid for with a tax on junk/fast food.

Per the recent obesity article, obesity has been declared "death and illness on a massive scale." Isn't saving lives at least as important as trashing clunkers?

- Mary Hayhoe

Anchorage

Sin and Scripture This is in response to Geneva Walters' comments Aug. 24 ("Prevo wastes resources fighting gays"). Quite sometime ago, two people, one male one female, lived in a perfect place called the garden of Eden. Now there was just one requirement given, "Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest of thereof thou shalt surely die." I believe that was in Genesis 2.17 So then God set boundaries, rules to live by, and also gave man the opportunity to choose to obey or not. Free will.

Also in the same chapter in verse 24 it states: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they two shall be one flesh." So far so good? Great.

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve disobeyed God's command and where "kicked out" of the garden for their disobedience, and you now suffer in child birth because of it.

You believe quite well what Christianity is about, except there is some misunderstanding in how God feels about sin, disobedience to His commands.

Leviticus 18.1--30 give strong direction to the Laws of Sexual sin. In verse 22 we are told, men are not to lay with each other: it is an abomination. Continuing on till verse 26 gives God's statement as to what will take place because of said actions. Pretty clear. Sin separates us from fellowship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

Jesus Christ stated in Luke 13.1-9 that except they repented, that they would likewise perish. This is something that multiple millions have done, including myself and you also.

In John 5.14 we read where Jesus tells the man whom He healed that, "Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee." And finally, John 8.11, our beloved Saviour tells the woman caught in adultery; "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." Her sins were forgiven, but don't sin anymore or else.

Moral depravity has destroyed more nations than anything else, and that is the real issue. Do we agree or accept that kind of behavior and treat it as acceptable or do we stand against that type of practice? If we become complacent with that practice, we sin by association because we are in effect saying that it is okay to do. One of our assembly men said, "We are mature enough to handle this." Really? Do we feel we are "mature enough" to handle murders, rapist, child molesters, wife beaters, etc, etc.? No, God demands we don't, and this goes along with those things He hates. Go check out Sodom.

Those who practice same-sex relationships need to be given the opportunity to repent, accept Christ as Saviour and be delivered from such practices. Jesus loves them just as much as He did those we've just talked about, and as much as He loves us, but their practice of their life style is an abomination to Him and should be to us. We should not honor them nor their practices.

- James Mercer

Anchorage

WWJD?

Thank you, Geneva Walters, for the Compass piece on August 24 that speaks for me and thousands of others like me. Think: how would Jesus have treated the gays in Anchorage?

- Susan Grindle

Anchorage