Notes Around
Madanthonywayne said:
Oh yes, all are are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. Creator? Was Jefferson injecting his religious belief into the Declaration of Independence?
I think your question exemplifies a problem of perspective we often suffer when considering historical issues. Had Jefferson a twentieth or twenty-first century perspective, then yes, he would have been injecting his religious beliefs into the Declaration of Independence. However, attempting to identify such a notion in such a manner as to justify Christian evangelism in politics is simply inappropriate.
Yeah, like that Martin Luther King guy. He should have stayed the hell away from politics! And the Quakers. What business did they have injecting their religious opposition to slavery into society at large?
Look, man ... all our disagreements aside, what am I or anyone else supposed to think when you put this kind of argument forward?
Would you assert that King was attempting to compel the government to enact specifically Christian legislation? Would you compare the civil rights movement of King's time to attempts by Christian groups in later years to compel state governments to declare creationism a science, or to disenfranchise homosexuals? Are we actually supposed to believe you're honestly comparing Dr. King's work to creationists in Kansas who feel discriminated against because they feel their beliefs should be treated as a science despite being unable to present their beliefs according to the scientific method? Are we supposed to believe you're honestly comparing Dr. King's work to a bunch of bigots in Oregon and Colorado who sought to censor library books, fire state employees, institutionalize discrimination, inform medical students, and challenge the authority of the state to prosecute the killings of homosexuals, all because they said the Bible says so?
Are we
really supposed to believe that's what you're saying? Because those are the implications when we compare your statements to history.
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PJdude1219 said:
yes you are an evangelical
My advice is to leave that point aside.
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Sandy said:
No. I am NOT an Evangelical. I have no label so don't try to put one on me.
Calm down, Sandy. Most people consider CCRs evangelicals, since that's how most CCRs identify themselves. For you to get indignant and insist that you have no label is dishonest; you have repeatedly given yourself a label—CCR.
1-Unions suck. They reward losers.
2-I DESPISE criminal aliens. I want them gone!
3-No. I mean groups like CAIR and liberals
5-No broke loser will EVER be POTUS.
If you would like me to put on my green hat and tell you to take your trolling elsewhere, I will be happy to.
(1) That's not a rational argument. It's inflammatory trolling.
(2) Given that they have not been convicted of any crime, it is inappropriate for you to call them "criminal aliens".
(3) PJdude is correct: Rudy Giuliani has taken money from known Al Qaeda supporters. Calling liberals and Muslim civic groups terror supporters without any rational basis is inflammatory trolling. Either build a rational argument to support your assertion, or drop it.
(5) Why complain? Oh, right, because you get to call someone a "loser" and roll your eyes.
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I think one of the things we have to recall here is that, while Congress has the right to investigate whatever the hell they want, churches are resisting an attempt by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley to look into potential abuse of their nonprofit status. What is the defense put forward by the churches? The government hasn't a right to interfere with church business. It's an attempt to hide behind an asserted technicality: Congress, according to the churches, hasn't the right to investigate them; that is the dominion of the IRS. And the IRS won't investigate them because they have no cause. The reason they have no cause is that these churches don't feel they have to make any sort of accounting of their finances if they don't want to. And why not? Because that would violate the separation of church and state.
In contrast to this demand for separation, religious entities have attempted to influence public education in Oregon, Colorado, Kansas, and other states. They demand that in order to pledge allegiance to the United States of America, you should have to acknowledge God. And most recently, a bunch of them threw a tantrum because nine members of the House of Representatives voted against a feel-good "Merry Christmas" bill. Oh, my, the Christians feel slighted. They feel they have been discriminated against, treated unequally, because nine members of Congress voted against a bill that was not, in fact, the equal of others they'd voted for. The sitting President of the United States, a Christian, has noted that God told him to invade Iraq, and at least one GOP candidate for the office has said that Christianity should be a prerequisite for holding the office.
A Seattle-area preacher went abroad and, quite literally, made informational demands of foreign governments while representing himself as an envoy of the current president. The White House denied that they had given the preacher that status, and the preacher claims to have proof that he refuses to show
anyone.
We are currently fighting over whether or not to enshrine gender discrimination as part of our lasting federal legacy because a large number of politically-conservative Christians demand it be so, yet at the same time the very immorality and disgusting behavior that these folks decry seems to permeate their own camp. If I theorized that such sexual deviance is the result of the
religion, could we have a nationwide, public discussion with federal politicians weighing in on whether or not any given religion is healthy for society? After all, the law does not extend to protect the killing of humans as a religious practice. It does not protect blatantly religious use of peyote or marijuana. If a religious practice is shown to have a correlation to rape, ought we not consider that? Oh, right ... such consideration would be persecuting Christians.
The topic question, while perhaps recklessly constructed, does touch on valid considerations. Frankly, I'm surprised at the degree to which the response seems uninformed. I was under the impression that we were supposed to believe y'all were paying attention. If you're not, quit trolling this thread and others with baseless opinions. And if you
are and
have been paying attention to religion and politics in these United States, it shouldn't be too much to ask that you don't pretend such condescending or, as one case has it, complete ignorance.