The government’s got it wrong.
For a while now, there has been a push to redefine what freedom of religion means. Freedom of religion comes from the following:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Here’s what people seem to think it says:
Congress shall not let anybody holding public office exercise their religion. Anybody who works for the government cannot exercise their religion during work hours. All exercise of religion outside of strictly religious organizations is prohibited. Government money cannot go to any religious organization, even if it provides a service better or cheaper than the government could provide.
What I’m saying is that the violation of the Constitution wasn’t when we had the Ten Commandments at the court house. It was when we removed them.
Now we have the issue of the prayer before starting a public meeting. Everybody on the committee agrees with it, but people who aren’t involved are up in arms about it because it brings religion into government. You know what? Those are people in the government. And the law doesn’t say they need to stop praying. The law says that you, concerned citizen, cannot stop them from praying. That’s unconstitutional for you to do.
There’s a bunch of backwards rules that are coming out of the justice system because they can’t even read a document that spells it out clearly. The very law of our nation that is supposed to keep the government from being able to stop us from praying, celebrating, and exercising our religion has been misinterpreted to mean that they MUST stop us.
I would urge any Christian specifically, because most of this seems to apply only to us, to fight back in two ways. One, don’t let them trample on your rights. Two, don’t trample on the rights of other religious groups. If a Muslim wants to pray, too, that’s HIS right and you shouldn’t stop him, either. Show the world that it is religious persecution against the Christians instead of just a societal struggle to eliminate all religion from public life. If it’s not, we’re going to end up in the same place as the other religions. But what it feels like, is that we’re going to end up with a country that doesn’t allow Christianity, but allows every other religion. I hope I’m wrong.
You can keep your zany beliefs in your own home...
Same goes for atheists, who are becoming as militant as "believers"...
Though I would not object to "Christmas" being declared an economic holiday for the good of the country. eg: Feel free to spend taxes on blinking lights, xmas trees and Santa if it gets people spending money... but keep the angels and Jesus out of it...
That's just it, though, Lord-Orion. The Constitution guarantees me the right to have my zany beliefs wherever I want them.
Sorry, to "keep your zany beliefs in your own home" is the same as stating anyone with beliefs must undergo house arrest for no reason.
We have freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. No court has ever ruled otherwise.
Just found your article Jythier.
There is definitely a war on religious freedom....that's is....as long as the religion is Christianity and the last 4 years of Obama's regime have witnessed Obama's radical control over us "the people" in direct violation of the Constitution.
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=15847
In this article, a Washington Bishop states homosexual "marriage" will threaten religious liberty....
The constitution guarantees you nothing special, why should it (?) ... it is all in your mind. What the Constitution does guarantee is the separation of church and state a fact you always seem to forget. The first amendment to the constitution grants you this much …
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
If you honestly believe this gives you some “RIGHT” to do and say whatever you want, then you are just being religiously foolish as usual.
Your hatred of my religion still doesn't give the government the right to prohibit the free exercise of my religion.
My, my.....Interesting that you would limit the scope and range of practicing religion in our own home ....
while Obama's war on Christian religious freedom tries to confine religious practice to within the walls of our churches.
Hmmm....try that with Muslims! They have been known to stop traffic in New York City for their required prayer ritual!
Humanism is a religion and I intuit that you practice it and not just in your own home!
You either believe in science as a proven fact of life or you don’t. You cannot pick and choose like you do the bible. They are all too intermingled and cross-supportive for that, so unlike your silly book. If you want to continue believing in completely improvable fairy tales that is no skin off my nose for sure. But hate no that is best suited to the peaceful religious folk who would acquire the world through mind control and terror. Me, why it is live and let live. But feel free to keep banging your head against a pillar of ignorance and the world will run away from you even more than it has. The only thing I know of that will regress the sciences … are the religious nuts that seem to think a first century lifestyle is the in thing, go figure ... and that will never happen.
I believe that the Constitution guarantees this freedom to everyone, not just Christians, which I said in the original post. I believe we're not seeing this 'normal' treatment, even though this treatment is guaranteed by the Constitution.
The only thing a Christian deserves is death.
What’s wrong with Wikipedia anyway??? Full of lies and whatnot huh … how about a few examples or is this just another religious talking point? Proof will be necessary here even though you think your ‘opinion’ is enough as in all matters you address.
Jythier writes:
[quote who="Jythier" reply="10" id="3248979"]I believe that the Constitution guarantees this freedom to everyone, not just Christians, which I said in the original post.
That's it. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees every one free exercise of religion.
And history demonstrates the First Amendment became a vehicle to promote pluralism of religions. Even the early courts acknowledged that America was pluralistic of other religions other than Christianity.
The First Amendment's prohibition of "an establishment of religion" was designed to restrict neither religious beliefs nor religious activities, but only the federal establishment of a national religion. After that,the issue of religion was left to the States.
What are you talking about?
PS - Whine, whimper and more whining … about all Christians seem capable of today. It must be difficult to argue a case without one verifiable FACT in your arsenal.
The problem with your free thinking is that it leaves being alive as idiocy. Why live with no purpose? Even better, why live with any moral compass with no higher accountability for your actions?
So, purposeless, no better than animals in their minds, with no moral compass, you will live and do 'whatever you want' and feel opressed by the laws that say you can't do things. Laws that say a man marries a woman, laws that say abortion is infanticide, laws that say pornography is illegal, laws that allow certain people to have more than you.
You will march and say that it's wrong to enforce a moral code upon you, but your own march that it's wrong will show that you believe in a moral code as well. Except that your moral code isn't defined, ancient, relevant, or helpful to society or individuals. It's the next oldest code - that men should do what feels right. And that will only lead to our destruction as a society, and your destruction as individuals.
As far as science, I believe in science, but I don't believe in historical science. There are plenty of topics where I've talked about this at length already. You post videos that mock Christianity, I post links to answers in genesis, neither of us gives the other's source the time of day, etc. So we don't need to bring that here.
Are Christians being denied their rights in the US? Sometimes, yes. Prayer has been under attack for a long time. The funny part about prayer is that it's so powerful that it gets the main attacks. Yet the bigger attack is actually on whether it has any power at all. You would say it has no power - then why are you against us praying fruitlessly before a meeting? Christians are often being told it has no power, but when you go back to the Bible, it says the opposite - pray. Why? Because it's powerful and meaningful and it's a major agent of change in the believer and in the world - yet you would say it's useless, as you try to stop people from praying because the enemy knows it is powerful and sadly controls you.
So you will continue to do self-destructive things, make illogical arguments, and try to show me how we must have come from a lower species and not a loving God. I'll continue to do the same, as well, but with a slow process of becoming more like Christ. And in the end, you may come to your senses and want to go to heaven, or maybe you won't. But I'm going. And it's going to be awesome.
There have been over 25,000 archaeological finds that verify things that appear in the Bible.
Personally I don’t like the term ‘atheist’ because it is much too generic a term which is used in all religious banter being applied to everything (everyone) that (who) disagrees only with one specific doctrine (screw the others). I believe as do almost all theologians … that all the other religions are bogus; I just add one more religion to the list is all, depends only on who I am talking to.
NAME ONE!!! The bible was written by people who lived on this earth (all of them) and would be remiss not to include SOME real people, places and things. But that only gives validity that some of the people, places and things existed. It does nothing at all to give credence to the divine concepts you would make pretend are true too.
PS - The first sentence in the article says "Does archaeological evidence prove that the Bible is the divine word of God? No."
quoted from: http://protheist.com/apologetics/bible-apologetics/archaeological-evidence-bible
Of course that doesn't prove it's the word of God. The way lives change when the Word of God is applied to them is what proves it. The way people following the advice found in the Bible live better proves it. The miserable people who you think lack for nothing but always want something more are the proof that it's the Word of God. The people who spend their life chasing after something, only to find it's not what they need still, and then go after something else, and it's still not what they need, and so on, because what they're looking for is God... but they don't want to find God... that's what proves the Word of God. You can lie to others, and to yourself, but not to God, and not to the Christian, because we know. We know what's missing in your heart, and we want to give it to you, but you don't want to listen. If you tell yourself enough times that you're all right, you will believe yourself. There's not a thing any of us can do to change your mind.
I guess you are still incapable of answering even simple questions seemingly preferring to jump from one bogus accusation to another. Just because you freely give your will over to a fictitious doctrine and a completely invisible and impotent golden goose, doesn’t mean I (we) don’t have some reason to live … are you serious? Are you ever serious because your ‘disconnect’ from reality is really appalling. People being the apes we are live for the sole purpose of enlarging the ‘species’ a natural survival trait that afflicts all fauna and flora alike. The only exceptions are when genes go awry or someone allows themselves to become brainwashed into believing otherwise … such as you have. At what point in your misalignment did you come to believe that humans without your divine guidance would (or could) do whatever they want whenever they want to? If you want to test this out, come over to my house and ‘do whatever you want to’ and see what happens. You are so all over the place I am not going to try and make sense out of it.
You are wrong about researching the opposition (like everything else) because I do … it is just YOU that doesn’t. As to morality, if yours comes from the pages of a book then I want no part of them because mine come from the heart and are based on the real world. Who in the world GaS if you like ‘historical’ science (whatever that is) or not, certainly not I? How would you know if my videos mock Christianity, you are still using that god info only divinely retarded computer right? Your idea of discussing evolution is to make quips like “… it doesn’t work” or “… this sample didn’t turn out right so ALL of them are wrong” which tells me what you don’t know. If you want to discuss this by all means do so, but I would advise you to bring a calculator instead of a bible. My guess is you won’t because this is a dead end for biblical realists.
What ‘power’ are the Christians being told they no longer have? Prayer is a euphoric joke just as a heroine high is. With prolonged use, the only difference is the first produces a reality lobotomy and the other death. Do you know what a mantra is and its purpose?
You make a lot of accusations as if they alone have merit, the legacy of a fool. More like Christ huh … let me know when you give your home and car to charity and desert your mealy human family and job to be ‘more Christ like’. I wait with baited breath.
Pass "Obamacare"....the federal government's unfettered control over the country's health care system which mandates that Christian hospitals, charities, and schools abandon the tenets of the Christian Faith and provide the employees insurance coverage of abortion inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization. This Obamacare anti-conscience mandate is an assault on religious liberty.
Since the passing of Obamacare, every single US Catholic bishop as well as many Protestant pastors, organizations and institutions have strongly denounced this religious persecution.
Understand that religious freedom and conscience rights of millions of Americans who are morally opposed to abortion, contraception, etc. are violated by Obamacare.
Freedom of religion includes more than just freedom of worship..it includes bringing influence to bear in public life. This is freedom to act and speak as a Christian in works of charity..(love of neighbor). And if this is banned from public life, then the public life is undemocratic and intolerent....and there is no peace.
Our job is to be "Christ-like" and Christ calls each one of us. How we do that depends on our vocation or state in life, of which there are 3...the religious, the married and the single.
In the Gospel story, Jesus tells the young man to give up his material possessions and follow Him as an apostle. That's what the religious did in the days of Christ and many Catholic religious orders still do today...some religious orders are more strict than others in living a life of poverty, simplicity and solitude such as the Cistercians, under the rule of St. Benedict.
In the married vocation, the Lord calls us to self-giving as well..by this we are not to give preference to material possessions, or honor over our family or spouse or love for Christ. These earthly goods aren't bad but they are debased when man sets them up as idols and is attached to them instead of using them as instruments for good, for just and charitable undertakings.
Whether in the married, religious or single vocation, our treasure is Christ and our love must be centered on following Him..for where yhy treasure is, there is thy heart also."
Why in the world would I want Obama care, or is it another of those things you have decided we atheists are supposed to desire? I could care less what it may or may not do to Christian medicine; I know what it will do to our failing healthcare system. What assault on religious liberties? What in the world are YOU being denied religiously? You are not being forced to use contraceptives but you lobby against them all the while knowing that millions of lives could be spared by their use. You are moral vampires that feed on the poor, the destitute and especially the ignorant. On one hand you peddle everlasting life (after death of course) and eternal suffering (after life of course) without a complete capitulation to whatever you deem proper … and only you. Problem here for me is that you cannot prove either extreme… nor do you offer any middle ground for us simple humans. I would say Inhuman and insane if I were asked. If you and millions of others don’t condone abortions, might I suggest you not have one then. How in the world does someone else having an abortion diminish YOUR religious freedoms? Just for clarity I will repeat myself … YOUR religious freedoms. Abstention is your almighty answer so those that don’t must deserve their preventable suffering, just because huh.
Bringing your influence to public life … what the hell does this mean? Have you been concealing yourselves such that the public is unknowing? Are your doors not open to any and all? Has there been a blackout on religious gatherings, broadcasts or propaganda outlets? Has your publicity branch folded? Is the internet not available to all? Where in the world have I been? Are you insane?
GFTess:
Lula:
Here's an excellent summary of what I said above.
http://youtu.be/eILPwSOtXxI
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