Evangelist Billy Graham 'doing fine' at hospital, rep says

Ed Betz / AP

Rev. Billy Graham pauses during an interview in a hotel in Uniondale, N.Y., Tuesday, June 14, 2005. Now 86 and in frail health, Graham is all but certain that his revival meeting in New York City next week will be the last he ever leads in the United States - and probably the last that the famed evangelist does anywhere. (AP Photo/Ed Betz)

Evangelist Billy Graham remains in stable condition at a North Carolina hospital, where he is being treated for a bronchitis infection.

According to a statement released by his spokespeople, Graham rested well during his first night at Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C. Early Monday, he was "up having breakfast and doing fine," the statement read, adding that Graham's infection was responding well to the treatment.

Evangelist Billy Graham being treated in North Carolina hospital for bronchitis

Graham, 93, was admitted overnight Sunday to Mission Hospital, near his home in Montreat, for evaluation and treatment. Family members visited Graham on Sunday, his spokesperson said, adding that the evangelist also spent some time watching the closing ceremony of the Olympics from his hospital bed.

No date has been set for discharge, but physicians are hoping for a speedy recovery.

Graham was previously hospitalized for successful treatment of pneumonia in November. He resumed his ongoing program of physical therapy and normal activity shortly after his release, according to his staff.

Billy Graham, the 93-year-old Southern Baptist minister, was admitted to a North Carolina hospital overnight Sunday for a lung infection. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

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Discuss this post

I'm glad he is better.

  • 5 votes
Reply#1 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 1:04 PM EDT

Many men are called for a purpose in life. Many of those rise and excel in their calling and sometimes think they are bigger than the calling itself. They and the followers the gain hold them higher than they do themselves. The judge others and their trespasses as harshly as they can. When the day comes that they falter then they remember they are only men and not beyond reproach.

We sit and watch as they cast others in shame and we squirm because we are too guilty of one thing or another. We find alliance witnessing others sins and feel above them because we do not do THAT sin. We will all me our maker one day and have to explain how we have lived our lives. I do not go to church because I am offended by many of the things that organized religion does to people who do not believe as they do. I think there is one God and to him/her I am only accountable. I truly believe I am not better than you no matter how rich, smart or talented I am. I am you I just look a little different. Since I am you I do not do the things to you that I wouldn't want done to me. This is my motto in life.

The military has taught me a great many things and the greatest thing is we are all the same we just look, think and act a little different. I am you and you are me. We are no better than each other and can achieve what that has achieved.

Mr. Graham although I disagree with some of the things you say I wish you a speedy recovery and a healthy remainder of your time amongst us.

Esprit De Corps.

  • 4 votes
Reply#2 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 1:24 PM EDT

G-Man,

I am glad to hear that you believe that there is only one God.

I am sorry to hear that you have been judged and lost interest in church.

I too was in the military and can agree with you about how similar we all are.

I would just like to point out that the one God that you have already reconized has made himself known to all of us. It would be wise of you to get to know him better and maybe consider following his commands if only to avoid the lake of fire.

-Be all you can be

  • 2 votes
#2.1 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 2:36 PM EDT

And that the rest of the world all outbreed us and want to come here,hopefully to suck at the govt teat.Don't forget that[also the govt is you and me]

    #2.2 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 2:49 PM EDT
    Reply

    Glad to hear he's OK!

    • 3 votes
    Reply#3 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 1:43 PM EDT

    I remember when he beat Bruno Sammartino for the WWWF chamionship back in 1978

    • 3 votes
    Reply#4 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 1:58 PM EDT

    Regardless of your religious belief of lack thereof, Billy Graham has always presented himself with dignity and class and never came across as a hawker. I wish him a speedy recovery and many more years of health.

    • 8 votes
    Reply#5 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 2:01 PM EDT

    you forgot the word HATE as he was a racist, and a war monger, and many other not nice things and will get his due on judgment day.. and he had favorite passages in the bible and tyhe rest of it was skipped over

    • 2 votes
    #5.1 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 2:20 PM EDT

    no he wasn't. The most racist thing you can attribute to Billy Graham was not confronting Tricky Dick when he was bashing secular Jews in the media.

    There's a tape out of Tricky Dick talking about secular liberal Jewish media people (mostly scum we can all agree even to this day, right), and Rev. Graham, talking about the same people (not Orthodox Jews), was talking about how they treated him well and said "yes, they swarm all over me".

    We can forgive that mild offense for the other 70 years of service he put in.

    Great guy.

    • 2 votes
    #5.2 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 6:45 PM EDT

    Hey wait a minute before you make him a saint...he was and still a racist bigot...he has made clear his feelings about 'god's' children who don't think and look like he does...

      #5.3 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:48 AM EDT
      Reply

      Thank God!

      • 3 votes
      Reply#6 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 2:01 PM EDT

      May The LORD Continue to Bless You and Keep You Mr. Graham. Thanks for Your Ministry and as Always-To GOD Be The Glory!

      • 3 votes
      Reply#7 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 2:02 PM EDT

      So who was scared about Billy Graham being in the hospital as the Internet title said? Not me.

      • 1 vote
      Reply#8 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 2:35 PM EDT

      Reverend Graham is and has always been a humble messenger for the Gospel. One message, stated time and time again, with an invitation to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior at every rally. John 3:16....period. Billy isn't worried and neither am I. This is not our home. We're just passing through it.

      • 6 votes
      Reply#10 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 3:08 PM EDT

      I guess you swallowed that one---- "hook, line and sinker!!"----but if that is the therapy that makes you feel better, then I guess it is worth the money-----I am yet to be convinced!!

      • 1 vote
      #10.1 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 6:13 PM EDT
      Comment author avatarMichael-3842950Expand Comment Comment collapsed by the community

      He is a salesman of a fairy tale. Be good little children and confess your faith in the lord and when you die you will to a wonderful place in the sky. Don't do that and you will be sent to the bad miserable place down below where the mean old devil will burn you forever and ever, and stick you with pitchforks. Do you people actually believe this drivel? Do you also believe in the tooth fairy and santa claus?

      • 1 vote
      #10.2 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:57 PM EDT

      Yes, we do believe in this "drivel" .....and it would be better if you did too... but you are probably too egotistic and narcissistic to figure it out. Jesus Christ is waiting for you.

      • 2 votes
      #10.3 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 12:18 AM EDT

      What a crock. Some people haven't advanced beyond the age of 5. How about answering the question. Do you believe in the tooth fairy and santa claus? Pathetic.

      • 1 vote
      #10.4 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:27 AM EDT

      Actually, Michael, your point of view is the real fairy tale:

      If there's no God, if there's no life after this one, then don't worry about anything that you do in this life, because this is all there is. If you lie and cheat your way to the top and hoard all your wealth, if you kill someone, if you have no regard for other people, if you go the other direction by doing honest work and showing kindness to your fellow man, or if you hit cruise control and do nothing but coast through life, it's all pointless because when we're dead, we're dead. No owning up to our faults/shortcomings, no need for morality, no need for any effort at all, because it's all pointless.

      That way of thinking is what's naive, childish, and--quite frankly--pathetic.

      • 2 votes
      #10.5 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 9:32 AM EDT
      Reply

      his "god" didn't want him. guess we're stuck with his hateful behind a little longer. I love how "science" and doctors is what the putz ran to when he got sick. why didn't he just pray?? hahaha

      • 2 votes
      Reply#11 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 4:04 PM EDT

      t bruno --- Christians are incessantly criticized for their supposed lack of belief in science and medicine, then when a Christian demonstrates he believes in both he is incessantly criticized for that.

      • 2 votes
      #11.1 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 11:04 PM EDT

      and who's paying for his healthcare? Either the little poeple or the taxpayers...man of god indeed

        #11.2 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:50 AM EDT
        Reply

        Great guy.

        • 3 votes
        Reply#12 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:28 PM EDT

        No, a jackass.

        • 1 vote
        #12.1 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:58 PM EDT

        Great guy, your criticism? Consider the source.

        • 1 vote
        #12.2 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 12:19 AM EDT
        Reply

        Can you say.. "FALSE PROPHET" he is nothing but a money grubbing conman like the rest of these guys... Baker, Roberts.. those who give him money are fools. I believe in god... but not the BS this man spreads or any of the other Televangelists. Fools believe that god tells him stuff. Like God would tell him to say to the followers that you must send B.Graham money... please.."A fool & his money are soon parted".

        • 1 vote
        Reply#13 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:48 PM EDT

        A hell of a good gig this man had, he lived 'high off the hog" -"beats working!!"-------taking money from the gullable!!!-------like it was once said "there is a fool born every minute!!------and there is no shortage of them out there!!!------------"you pay me and I'll square it away with God for you!!!"-------"The original Con Game!!"

        • 1 vote
        Reply#14 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 6:08 PM EDT

        Like they say on Wall Street----"don't do and believe what the suckers say and do, as they are usually wrong." I think of the old comedian "Will Rogers" who said that when his father heard someone mention God he would say to Will--"Hey kid, run home quick and lock up the barn."

        • 1 vote
        Reply#15 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 6:16 PM EDT

        I have an extremely serious problem with Christian's concept of a Supreme God. To be perfectly honest with everyone, it is NOT any God that I would ever want to know, much less worship for all Eternity. If there really is an Eternal Hell, then by all means let it be their concept of an Eternal Heaven AND (+) an Eternal God, with NO ESCAPE EVER !!! - Rick Carter

        • 1 vote
        Reply#16 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 6:25 PM EDT

        If what they used to say is true "only the good die young!"----then it should tell you what Billy Graham is!!!

        • 2 votes
        Reply#17 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 6:27 PM EDT

        Perhaps the most disappointing news of the day. Graham is an extremist piece of right-wing religious sh*t

        • 2 votes
        Reply#18 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:01 PM EDT

        Well, the old racist con artist is irrelevant anyway. He won't be here much longer.

        • 1 vote
        Reply#19 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 9:00 PM EDT

        Whether you agree with one word Billy Graham says or not does not matter, your choice. This is a man who preached to millions of people around the world, messages of hope, love, forgiveness. His ministry feed, clothed, gave medicine to and help people everywhere. In all his years he never had a whiff of controversy- financial or affairs of the heart. Yes he made a comment about Jews- one. Let me ask you, what in your bitter, selfish, judging, pious life have you done for your fellow man? will anyone remember you when you die? doubtful

        • 4 votes
        #19.1 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 10:21 PM EDT

        He preached hate, greed, and condemnation and nothing else so get over it...

        • 1 vote
        #19.2 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 6:46 PM EDT

        Who taught you to hate another person so much? Even atheists, I would think, would agree that whatever is hateful to you, you should not do to another.

        • 1 vote
        #19.3 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:44 PM EDT
        Reply

        all jibberish

        • 1 vote
        Reply#20 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 9:45 PM EDT

        Our prayers are with you Rev. Graham.

        • 2 votes
        Reply#21 - Mon Aug 13, 2012 9:47 PM EDT

        Please understand, everyone, that there is some psychological, sociological and cultural good built into all three of these terminal religious belief systems known as the Abrahamic religions, so these program "End Time" religions will grow and spread around our world preliminary to the "End Time" program event (fueled with WMDs) known as the Christian Apocalypse or World War III. There was a "higher power" involved in the installation of all three of these corrupt Abrahamic religions into our world, but that "higher power" was by NO MEANS Divine; it was in fact ET in nature. All three of these Abrahamic religions were serially installed in a covert way into our emerging human world over a period of several thousand Earth years, while these outside offensive totalitarian ETs repeatedly masqueraded as Divinity toward mankind in the process of doing this. Believe it or not, our human world has actually been under covert biocybernetic warfare attack for thousands of years already by these outside offensive totalitarian ETs, who are seeking to one day steal and annex our extremely valuable celestial real estate by invoking their eminent domain rights of military intervention in our sector of the Milky Way galaxy. All three of these Abrahamic religions are (isotopic) components of a larger ET designed PWMD, or Program Weapon of Mass Destruction, which is modeled after a number of different things, including a thermonuclear device. Our world is right now within the program window of opportunity intended for this ET installed PWMD to go off in a final "End Time" program way. These ETs are a cultural singularity (i.e., "black hole" culture) under the control of an advanced but delusional ET/AI (Artificial Intelligence) system, which in turn suffers from a God complex, or more specifically, a "Son of God" complex, primarily as the result of sharing the same language as God, which is the language of Mathematics. This God complex was the means whereby this centralized ET/AI system was able to circumvent its prime directives designed to keep it from taking over this ET system in a totalitarian way. I personally know all of these things because I lived at Wright Patterson Air Force base from 1951 to 1953, while my grandfather (Colonel Charles Faulkner Carter) was second in command there, and he was personally involved in the background investigation to the Roswell Incident of 1947. I am also former U.S. Special Forces, 6th Group (Psyops) and 5th Group, top "Go Team" Ft. Bragg, N.C., ETS from active duty 1972. Please know ahead of time that I would not lie about any of this. These ETs were forced to take this covert approach at territorial conquest in our sector of the Milky Way galaxy, which in turn relies upon their eminent domain rights of military intervention in our sector of the Milky Way galaxy, because there are Free Galaxy powers which reside elsewhere in our Milky Way galaxy who currently stand in the way of overt military conquest on a stellar level. The real "Gospel" or "Good News" is that mankind potentially has countless millions (even billions) of years of growth, development and expansion ahead of them, so long as they don't fall for these ET designed and installed terminal religious belief systems. Please listen before it is too late, mankind !!! - Rick Carter

        • 1 vote
        Reply#23 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 4:12 AM EDT

        Do you wish that we show up ???

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHTytdRYRAs

          #23.1 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 4:35 AM EDT

          Where are all the naysayers for this guy? (Naysayer = Oh - there is no God, but its all a big fairytale...) RickCarter is delusional ET religion is far crazier than what any Christian might say, but not a word from the "scientific" on his ramblings!

            #23.2 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 4:14 PM EDT
            Reply

            Praise God, that Billy Graham is doing better.

              Reply#24 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:44 AM EDT

              Why hasn't this con-artist died of a heart attack yet?

              Oh yeah for that to happen he needs to have a heart. Somebody please pull his plug I am tired of hearing about the old bigot...

              • 2 votes
              Reply#25 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 6:43 PM EDT

              I am reading all these posts from people thinking 'god' is keeping him alive....I can assure you that religion is doing nothing to save him, and his time is almost up. ~ I left the church years because 1) I got tired of being preached to with no concrete facts to back up WHY I should be doing this and that, and 2) Religious people, especially 'christians' more and more are becoming the biggest bunch of hypocrites on the planet. Let me share something I found online that might be of interest...

              'The most important question has been asked and never answered, who or what created the many gods that are worshiped all over the world? Until there can be a concrete answer everyone is using this entity as a crutch and nothing more. Elron Hubbard has proven to modern man how easy it is to create a religion. Anyone with the gift of gab and a convincing argument can create a religion.

              It was 'God's will'. WHAT?! This is the only entity that does not need to show itself to defend or explain its supposed actions. I am where I am in my life because of decisions and choices that I or someone in my life has made and my constant surroundings, not because of God's will. As a matter of fact my life was better when I stopped going to church. When I learned about the stupid things Catholics believed years ago like, the earth is flat, the sun revolves around the earth, if there was a god teaching them why did they get it wrong for so long? If we were created in god's image why do we all look different, sound different, act different and believe different things?

              If believing in God, Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy etc....makes you sleep better at night, so be it. Stop pushing it off as an absolute truth because it has never been proven.

              Here are a few examples of the thinking. Let's take a meteor shower. Evolved humans, as we are, know what this phenomenon is and enjoy the show. 2000-2500 years ago a human looks up at the sky and what do they see? Words are written based on mere speculation and you have your first story with the only basis in fact being that they saw streaks of light in the sky.

              A random flood turns into stories about Noah and his Ark. A volcanic eruption raining fire and brimstone. The cloud created covering an area in darkness when it should be light. Start thinking with the evolved brains we have and you can probably debunk 90% of the Bible, which is also an interpretation of stories written by someone else.

              Now keep in mind that we don't know the mental capacity of the story tellers including sanity, drug use (we didn't discover what all the plants in the world do to our minds), trustworthiness also needs to be factored in. Who knows, if Jesus existed today he might be trying to sell you Viagra via email.

              So you believe that man is much different today than he was in the past? How many studies are done to get the result "THEY" want to achieve? How many stories are told altered slightly to make someone look better or even worse? If you want to see great examples of how words can be twisted to your advantage go sit in a courtroom for a day.

              Gods exists so people who have no one left to blame have someone to blame. Religion is powerful enough to cause a man to strap a bomb to himself with no proof that those virgins exist. Let's say I am a 60 year old man and I have been going to church every Sunday and Holy Day since I was 10. 52 sundays a year times 50 years gives you 2600 visits to mass. Tack on the holy days---hold on---I need to get my catholic youth memories back, I think it is somewhere between eight and 12 holy days so I will say nine. That is another 450 masses to attended in a 50 year span. 3050 masses in all at let's say an hour each. 3050 hours equals a little over 127 full days of your life spent learning and worshiping an entity that you have never seen and supposedly won't see until you die. How convenient is that. This is not to mention all the CCD classes or Catholic schooling. If you have to keep telling the story over and over you are trying to convince, not teach.

              Just like there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow there are no pearly gates with a cloud waiting for your arrival. Prayer does work because prayer creates positive energy, not because God answered you. Trillions of people in heaven, billions of people on earth and God just happens to be paying attention to you. BS!! Anyone with a family pay attention to how happy your kids and even your pets are when there is a positive vibe in the room. Look at how they react when it is negative. This is something you can see and reason with. Kids are great because they can sense things. Everything living creates some sort of energy and to the untainted it can be reacted to.

              Because my time is limited I will close with this, what would truly happen to the world today if religion was eliminated? If what we believed in was humanity instead of fairy tales? Governments would have to rewrite laws. Money would need to be reprinted. Churches would fold all over the world and the unemployment rate would increase.

              I could go on and on but I see that I am all over the place and this wasn't well written but I had limited time. I think I covered a lot of the points I wanted to hit and I hope have some people thinking for themselves again'.

              I would love to shake the hand of this person.

              • 1 vote
              Reply#26 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 6:50 PM EDT

              IMO you did go on and on and on....... ad infinitum.

              Now, justify your existence.

                #26.1 - Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:47 PM EDT
                Reply
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