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.
GFTESS, in #14, you asked what has the USG done to prohibit the free practice of your cult? NAME ONE!
I answered pass the 2,700 page "Obamacare" into law..you know, the same one Catholic hypocrite Nancy Pelosi said you have to pass it to know what's in it!
"Obamacare" assaults freedom of religion amongst other things but mostly through its HHS (Health and Human Services) mandate.
Here is an article from a non-Catholic that completely answers your questions.
Any health care reform that supposedly is fixing women's reproductive health issues, and is allowing them choice, but makes contraception coverage required but not midwifery care is absolutely idiotic.
GFTESS:
The U.S. Constitution acknowledges and guarantees free exercise of religion...that fundamental right is indeed something special to many, many people of different religions. Pluralism is alive and well in the USA.
No one has said the Constitutional free exercise of religion gives the right to do and say whatever we want.
Religious pluralism is a demographic fact in the USA...and that seems to be what the Founders wanted in the American experiment.
Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and all the pagan religions, as well as Secular and Atheist Humanism are included in the First Amendment.
The attacks against free exercise of religion is focused on Christianity and that's what Jythier brought up in his article.
Well said, Jythier. You've pegged it...hatred of Christianity seems to be the gist of it.
As to "free thinkers"....I agree with Jythier's brilliant response.
"Free thought" has been the nice sounding phrase that the Atheist crowd has played like a fiddle.
Any thinking person understands that "free thought" is an absurdity because thought is not free at all, rather, it is subject to the law of thought. For example, if 2 x 2 = 4, then we are not free to say it equals 5. If right is right and wrong is wrong, we are not free to say that right is wrong, and wrong is right. Thought is not free. What is free is your will, your power to reckon correctly or incorrectly, to do what you know to be right or wrong.
GFTess:
Here's something to consider. It's reasonable, if by "free thought", you mean freedom of inquiry, or investigation in order to learn the truth of the matter studied. But the question of freedom to investigate is not in the minds of advocates of "free thought" as shown by what you've been indicating here in this discussion.
You mean freedom to deny God and the moral law as interpreted by His revealed one true Christian religion.
Ya, I know "free thinkers" invariably assume that the intellect of believers, especially Catholics, is enslaved because Faith is the starting point of their study and acceptance of belief in the existence of the one Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Don't you realize that when these "free thinkers" send their children to school, they do so with the command that they do what they did, that is accept upon faith in their teachers, the belief that 2 x 2=4. Are the minds of those children free? Assuredly not. They are bound for life to the arithmetic they accepted from their teachers on faith. But objection is raised by "free thinkers" when the same principle, the same process, is followed in the sphere of religion, especially the Christian one.
Lula that is nothing but an advertisement for Romney. Bet it is tough to swallow the Mormon stuff though. Even if you can tolerate it I'll bet your perceived master won't be influenced by politics like you are. It is not like we have any options, as usual. You just don't get itthough. Anyway you are thinking way to small here ... try ~15 Trillion and you will be on my page.
PS - seems you have been buisy, geeze.
Oh my heart bleeds at the inhumanity. I hope you, by that I mean your bosses, decide for option two for expedience. I’m sure tht YOUR soup kitchens will suffer as well as most of YOUR charities, but the opulent Church owned castles and mansions (tax free) won’t be lacking anything for quite some time. Good luck with forcing society to conform to your standards of lunacy, it isn’t going to happen. So YOU whine and cry about having to deal with the same thing everyone else here does. Oh that’s right YOU have religious rights that guarantee YOU preferential treatment, right. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness about does it for me. The only stipulation is to conform to societal dictates. Now if YOU are so ill informed as to become a cult member, then YOU are responsible for following it’s dictates (within the law) … as I am under no obligation to even consider them at all … and I don’t. YOUR religious problems real or perceived are between YOU and YOUR masters who unerringly know the path to YOUR god. The RCC has no stomach to do anything to interrupt their cash flow so be prepared to capitulate to the state that protects you.
You just don’t get it and I suppose you never will. I am free to say yes or no to any question put to me. What comes next depends on the circumstances. I can and do reject your god because you cannot even prove it exists. Your adherence to a midlevel world view is appalling and your disrespect and loathing for the best minds on the planet makes me sick. You would control the country without the first shred of proof or the even the truth to back you up. That is BLIND, blind faith.
Listening to the debate now and your man just guaranteed all women contraceptives for the asking, just thought you might be interested, hahaha, sorry.
They aren't the best minds on the planet if they can't even figure out that God exists. They make the assumption that there is no God. They make the assumption that the researcher before them didn't make faulty assumptions. They assume the Bible isn't the Word of God.
Other researchers assume the Bible is the Word of God, that there is a God, that the researchers before them may have made faulty assumptions, and they come to vastly different conclusions using the same evidence. The thing changing the conclusions is the assumptions, not the evidence.
And I should believe these are the best minds?
"Freedom of religion"... What happened to "Freedom of NO religion?"Religions want everybody to tolerate them, but isn't tolerance supposed to go two ways? For example; The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Islam & Christianity) are by default not tolerant religions. They are designed that way. Why should people tolerate what does not tolerate them?
I think there should be a quid pro quo here. If for example Christianity is willing to re-write the bible and exclude everything in it that discriminate groups of people that are non-Christian, then they have truly taken a step towards being tolerated. But until then, Christianity is just hostile by default(unless you're a Christian, of course)...
Hostile to whom, exactly?
This is what Christianity says:
"If you want to, you can be in eternity with God forever. If you don't want to, you don't have to."
Is that really that hostile?
The problem is, there won't be God in Hell with you, therefore bad, horrible things are all that's left for you there. Why didn't you want to be with God, then? You knew the way.
So, you're invited, man. Come on in. Want to know how to become a Christian? I'll gladly tell you, and then you can be with God forever too.
If you don't want to believe, you're free to do so. Nobody is going to stop you. Christians should not be hating you for it. Christians should not be hating people for any reason. Sometimes we fail at not hating, though. More often, though, we fail to love.
What I feel the need to express to you, though, is that you are perfectly free to go about your business not believing in this country, same as I am free to go about my business believing. If I pray, you don't have to join in. If I read the Bible, you don't have to listen or learn from it. However, I don't see where that gives you the right to stop me from praying, or stop me from reading the Bible, whether it's a public meeting or not. If I'm at a public meeting, you better hope I asked for God's wisdom, or mistakes are going to be made.
Anyway, there is no lack of being free to not believe in this country. It wasn't always like that, I know, but now it is. So what are you complaining about? Are you complaining about Christians being able to practice their religion, or about not being able to not practice anything?
There is a caveat, of course, in that you cannot harm others in your (non)worship. So if my religion told me to sacrifice you to my God, which it doesn't, but if it did, that's not okay.
As for not being tolerant, sin cannot be tolerated, but people are not sin.
I know who wrote the Bible... there are a couple of books that are toss-ups, like Hebrews, but for the most part, it's very clear who wrote them. Moreover, when they were being brought into canon, Christians of the day were very careful not to take for scripture books that were not able to be traced back to either an apostle, or a close associate of an apostle. Some writing, even good writings, were rejected simply because they could not trace the heritage of it. Do you really think that these people, who were dying left and right as martyrs because of their faith, would allow things to just be 'altered' or 'changed' to be more palatable? If you stuck by Jesus in the days of the Roman's persecution of the church, you would be fed to lions! So they stuck to him because he was palatable?
The people of that day knew how important it was to have the scriptures, so they would painstakingly copy the letters that would become books, to send them to different churches so that they could be taught too.
Recently, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. In finding these, we found the oldest manuscripts of the old testament Bible ever. In translating them, they found that there were no material differences between that and the version that we have today. Changed to be more palatable, my butt.
Oh I am sure they had plenty of time and opportunities to spell check their documents … when they weren’t dying left and right, geese. What do the Dead Sea scrolls have to do with the NT? Or is this an invitation to revisit the OT? And how could you possibly know how old they are because the sciences are so screwed up, or did you forget. Seems that science is just fine when you want to use them, but somehow they just don’t work when I want to use them, just typical Christian hypocrisy. How much of the OT do you incorporate in your life (rape, infanticide, murder, genocide, sexism, homophobic torture, death, persecution of ALL other religion, etc.). How many people have you put to death for violating the Sabbath? You are nothing but a cherry picker like all Christians who take it upon themselves to prioritize gods supposed word leaving most of the ridiculously inhuman aspects out. If the bible is the perfect word of your god as you stated, then why don’t you follow them verbatim … all of them?
Hostile to anything not Christian. But there are some themes that Christians are told to be more hostile with then others, like homosexuality, abortion, other religions, atheism, etc... If you had true tolerance, you would realize that your version of freedom is not the same as everybody's version of freedom. Tolerance is about respecting that your freedom end, where mine begin. This means that if you're tolerant, you don't go impose your religion everywhere you go, which you're told to do by the bible. If your scripture does not preach tolerance, then there is no way that you can allow yourself to be tolerant without going against the will of your god or messiah.
I had to laugh when I saw your example, because there is no passage in the bible that has that passage. I might have overlooked it, but if it is not, then it is made up, and thus not Christian. Many Christians are "pick and choose"-Christians. They select what make them look like "good people" and what can justify bad behavior and the rest is just ignored. The rest of the sentence you present yourself - the little thing about being cast to hell, if you're not a believer. So we are still not talking tolerance, when fear is used as a means to manipulate the minds of people. That is actually how Christianity grew large - by force and fear. Not by common sense, evidence and peacefulness. "If you don't believe, you will be cast to hell" That does not sound like non-hostile words to me. You might as well put a gun to my head and say "Believe or I'll shoot your brains out"... I was in Thailand when the Tsunami hit. During the aftermath, I saw Christians offering help, but only to those whom first let themselves convert to Christianity. Come on! How are going to justify that? What happens there, is taking advantage of people when they need help the most, and that is as dirty as anything can get. That is not a help. That is called "hostile takeover".
But I'll tell you this... If it turns out that there is a God, I'd gladly become a devout Christian, just to get close enough to god to stab the malicious, narcissistic and psychotic bastard to death. There are so many flaws in Christianity at all levels, that it can not possibly be created by a perfect God. Among religions - Christianity is the Nigerian hoax...All written with a kind condescending smile...
Read your bible as much as you want. Eat it, burn it, whatever - just leave other people out of it. Your business is your business and what other people do, is then not your business. But leaving people alone is no an option for you, since the bible tell you to go and spread your virus as far as possible. So how do we do this? REwrite the bible? or we simply just build anti-Christian barricades to keep you from infesting everything.
As a Christian, your God tells you to stone homosexuals on sight. There is no way around that. It's in the bible, and your god has decided it to be so. If you don't, you go against your god. Going against your god, is exactly what Lucifer did before he was cast out(which is a weird flaw from an otherwise "perfect" god). If you pick and choose, then you're just the same as Lucifer, and what you're REALLY worshiping is then the rebellion of Lucifer, rather than the malicious psychotic nature of the Christian god. Easy as that.By the way - the word "sin", is a violation against rules that your god has established. If there are rules, there can not be freedom...
God doesn't tell me to stone homosexuals on sight. That was part of a legal system that was given specifically to the Jewish nation, God's people, people who were supposed to be set apart and holy as a nation. I am not of that nation, so I don't have to follow the laws to that nation.
Jesus came and gave many examples of grace (to you, common sense) where he, for example, didn't stone the woman caught in adultery, but let her go.
If you don't trust Jesus to take away your sins, a just God is going to punish you for them. If you do, a merciful God already punished Jesus for it, by His choice. So really, you know the way to heaven, but you choose not to take it - why are you blaming God? He offers you eternity with him, but under his rules, or you can go your own way and have no rules in eternity. It wouldn't be just for him to let you get away with your sin, but the only thing stopping you from not going to hell is YOU, not God. It's not even 'do this' or 'do that' to get in, it is just 'believe Jesus was God, came to earth, died on a cross to take the punishment for YOUR sin, because you are a sinner, and then rose from the dead on the third day.' Look, it's obvious to anyone that it had to have happened - GFT will say I'm stupid for thinking so, but it's true when you look at the context that the disciples were CRUSHED when Jesus died, and would not have recovered had he not risen. The sect would have died THEN, and there would be no New Testament today, unless Jesus had risen. It existing doesn't make sense if the eye witnesses didn't verify the story in those days.
ExpressoKid, you are free. Free to do what you want religiously. It's a guaranteed right from the Constitution. God also gives you the free will to choose him, or choose something else. Yet you say, "I'm not free because of hell!" No, you're still free. There are just consequences for exercising that freedom, just like there are consequences for all things.
Also, I paraphrased the idea behind many scriptures. If I quoted actual scripture I would give you the reference. But that doesn't mean it's not Christian. If we went with that, we'd have to say that the rapture isn't Christian, the trinity isn't Christian, because the words are not mentioned in scripture... no, they are, but they are words that describe things that the Bible talks about over many passages.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."
Romans 5:8
"when we were in our sin Christ Jesus came to die for us." Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,"
Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
2 Corinthians 5:21
"He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we may be made the righteousness of God through Him."
Romans 10:9-10 "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."
Romans 10:13 "for Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved."
You can do whatever, but if you don't do Romans 10:9-10, you can't get into heaven. Confess, believe. Easy. Open to all.
Here's some things you don't have to do to be saved, according to that passage.
Stop being gay
Stop murdering people
Stop sleeping with your side piece
Etc.
Too bad about those who were 'helping' Tsunami victims. That's very sad to me. They should have helped everyone first. Sometimes physical needs should come first, in order to open a door to the spiritual need. If they were going to pick and choose, they should have helped those nonbelievers first - the believers go to heaven if they die. It doesn't sound right to me what they were doing. It does sound like exploiting - what kind of conversions are you going to get from that, anyway? Foolishness.
Jewish Nation??? Was Jesus not Jewish? Is that what you're saying? That the God Jesus spoke with on the cross, isn't the same God that you worship? When did that get twisted around to feel better in your pocket? Are you saying, that the God that made the old testament happen, is not the same god that had made the new testament happen? What god are you referring to? Or are you really referring to Lucifer, because it sounds more to me that you're worshiping the ideas of Lucifer, than the ideas of the Christian god.
If you really think that the old testament does not apply anymore, then tell me where it says in the new testament, the god make a mistake with the old testament and it's only the new testament that apply... Please do that for me.
So okay - What you're saying is, that I have freedom - as long as it is the "right kind" of freedom I choose. If I choose the wrong kind of freedom, I will be punished. Can't you see how messed up that is? How can some freedom be either "right" or "wrong". If there is such a thing as "wrong freedom" there is no freedom at all. Christianity does not promise freedom. The Christian god does not promise freedom. So constitution or not - I am not free, because Christianity, by default, doesn't want me to be free - because according to Christianity my type of freedom is a wrong kind of freedom.
Here is a little list, that indicate clearly how the Christian god does not support neither freedom or tolerance of anyone that is not worshiping him:
Kill People Who Don't Listen to Priests (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)
Kill Witches (Exodus 22:17 NAB)
Kill Homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)
Kill Fortunetellers (Leviticus 20:27 NAB)
Death for Hitting Dad (Exodus 21:15 NAB)
Death for Cursing Parents (Proverbs 20:20 NAB) (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)
Death for Adultery (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)
Death for Fornication (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)
Death to Followers of Other Religions (Exodus 22:19 NAB)
Kill Nonbelievers (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)
Kill False Prophets (Zechariah 13:3 NAB)
Kill the Entire Town if One Person Worships Another God (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)
Kill Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)
Kill Followers of Other Religions. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB) (Deuteronomy 17:2-5 NLT)
Death for Blasphemy (Leviticus 24:10-16 NLT)
Kill False Prophets (Deuteronomy 13:1-5 NLT) (Deuteronomy 18:20-22 NLT)
Infidels and Gays Should Die (Romans 1:24-32 NLT)
Let's not forget a few passages from the supposed peaceful and oh-so-wise Jesus:
"Do not suppose that I [Jesus] have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. (Matthew 10:34)"
"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away an withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. (John 15:5-6)"
"So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, 'Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!.' (John 2:15)"
"He [Jesus] said to them, 'Go!' so they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. (Matthew 8:32)"
Come on! This should set off several alarms in your head that something truly is not right. That maybe - just maybe Christianity is the religious version of a Nigerian Computer scam.
"Sad for you?" You should be thrilled! They are convinced they are doing the work of Jesus and saving a spot for themselves in heaven. So you should be happy for them. But you're not - because it is wrong. Even you can see this. If any religion can be corrupted and used to take advantage of people, it is a flaw not only in the construct of the religion but also in the god behind the religion. Why not leave this corrupted version of religion called Christianity and carry your own belief in your heart, which is not in conflict with your way of life. Each individual carry a seed of existence, that grows in to something unique. This unique construct can not be named, because it is different for each person, as it should be. Your beliefs are not the same as the beliefs of the nest person. Will never be. For you to call yourself this or that, does not fit together with the concept of freedom. If you're free in your development, it also means that each individual ha a unique set of beliefs, which again means that no belief is more right or wrong than the next belief. It also means that the belief you carry would be incompatible with another person around you, which makes preaching obsolete.
In other words - You're created in the image of your god. God has no religion, therefore you can not have a religion either. God does not worship, hence you should not worship either, and so forth. It's not so hard to understand the non-corrupted type of religion. Filter out all the bullshit, and what you have left is individuality, anarchy(in its true meaning), and true freedom.
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