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.
Thank you for the welcome. Can't guarantee I'll be around for super long, but hopefully I can insert a couple of useful 5 cents here and there
Far most of Christianity is bits and parts stolen from other non-Christian places and then "Christianized". I've seen several stories and quotes, that are written as part of the Vedas published by Christians as Christian. Even pagan holidays were stolen and Christianized by the Christians. Funny thing is, that the Christians can't see what's wrong with holding on to stolen goods and keep claiming that it is "their" goods. The right thing to do, is to give back what belongs to the right people. Same with cultures and countries. Mexico as one example also got stolen. Huge cultural monuments were destroyed(and are still being destroyed) by Christians... Tolerance and Christianity is not compatible. You can tell me it is, but the actions of Christianity say that there is no tolerance in Christianity. What Christianity actively has shown me, is a highly narcissistic behavior, which is strange, because with a perfect and all-powerful god to back up the Christians, there should not be a need to go and destroy other cultures or brainwash little kids.
If I was an all-powerful god I would not feel threatened by lesser beings. Why? I would be able to wipe them out in a split second if I wanted just by creating "non-existence", the same way you delete a faulty typing, using the backspace key. Why organize floods and all that dramatic stuff? Just hit the "delete"-key and it's over with in an instant. This Christian god is really not that smart - If the Christian god really existed, I would fight till my death such a god. Most 5 year old human kids would make better gods than the Christian god...
Not all people who claim to be Christians are Christians.
No Christians are perfect.
Also, Mexico is not the USA. They don't have our constitution. I'll let Mexico worry about Mexico for now.
What is the 'Vedas'?
Also, anywhere where Christianity has become an official or preferred religion is a place that will soon be acting non-Christianly, in the name of power for the non-Christians who were able to usurp the power of the church to their own devices.
ExpressoKid; I have, well not anymore, dreamed about heaven, and cannot phantom it. Honestly I think the fabled heaven will be ... well empty actually. All Adam did in Genesis was to take a bite from a fruit after a talking snake (no vocal cords) convinced Eve to become knowledgeable (sound familiar). Who in their right mind could do so little wrong and not be likewise condemned for eternity whatever that means. Anyway, I thought of chess boards, concerts, sports facilities, mountains to climb, seas to swim and dive in and a universal internet … eternal peace. Whoa … well then I woke up with a start realizing that everything I value, everything I enjoy and everything I would like to learn more about are all earthly things (normal I like to think) and therefore have no place there. All I can envision is sitting at the feet of god basking forever in that glory with harps playing background music. Considering what Christian folk say and don’t say Lucifer was never given a chance to speak for himself or even allowed to present his case. If I were a gamester willing to play this game, that alone would make me wonder.
I'll also skip the mexico comment, because really... If you can't see the connection we wont get any further on that one.About your question on the Vedas. You have Google right at your fingertips. Why ask? I have seen you quote from Wikipedia before, yet you... what? Was too lazy to look up the Vedas?https://www.google.com/search?q=Vedas&aq=f&oq=VedasI also know this for a fact. There are many religious groups that create one profile on an internet community, and then they rotate in using the profile. In other words - I think that the profile "Jythier" is a group of three or four people, and not just one person. Often it is young people that has close to no knowledge about anything else than the bible, their parents and minister, priest, whatever and the occasional headline they read on billboards the pass. Come on! Give us some meat here to work with and not the usual repeated arguments we have answered and grinded in to the ground millions of times since the start of the internet.
The problem with internet forums is that we don't have to dialog at all - you could just look up every counter-argument to everything you say. Why didn't I look up Vedas? Because she brought it up, and we were having a conversation. That's where two or more people are talking about things.
It is my understanding that every other religion requires some sort of behavior change in order to be saved. Christianity requires no behavior change, but behavior changes are evident after salvation anyway. That's the difference.
PS - ExpressoKid, I wouldn't have bothered had I seen your post. I wrote mine this morning but became involved with something important and just threw it in when I got back. Amazing.
if you believe in God, by default, you can't believe in another God, therefore you are correct, you can't be another religion. But gay, democrat, communist... all welcome. Which is what I said. Not sure why you keep thinking I've said this. I think you're hearing it from somewhere else and attributing it to me.
Christianity is perfect. Christians are not perfect in behavior. Why did you think I was saying, "Christians are perfect in behavior?"
But if Christians are not perfect in behavior - How come the Christians spread their imperfection to all corners of the world? Seriously - wouldn't it make more sense to first have the erfection and spread that?
Really? That's what you guys got from that? You guys are both so confused about what Christianity is.
No behavior change needed indicates that imperfect people can still be saved.
As for Old Testament law given to Jews, that's Old Testament law given to Israel - a country that existed then, that exists again, but they no longer have that law either. Christians don't need to follow those laws for several reasons.
One, we're not living in Israel from the OT.
Two, we're not Jewish.
What the law DOES tell us is that homosexuality is wrong and wouldn't have been allowed in Israel of the OT because it was contrary to what God wanted for His people.
So, you keep on misinterpretting scripture based on what it says out of context. But you don't know the first thing about Christianity. Whatever you do know is wrong, or you wouldn't think of it as a religion of terrorists.
God miraculously made a virgin named Mary pregnant.
Also, the Israelites these days are mostly atheists.
No behavior change means exactly what I said. No behavior change. That doesn't make the person perfect. It means imperfect people can be saved. I can't believe you can take "No behavior change" and think I meant "They're perfect already." See, the thing about English is that if I meant they were perfect already, I would have said that. That's English. Again, you're arguing against something I don't believe and didn't say as if I said it.
Now, I've known some very intelligent and reasonable atheists who I really can respect because they have good arguments and good questions and they at least understand what I'm telling them, even if they don't believe it.
I like having those kinds of people around because they make me think.
You two just make me upset because you don't listen, you make stuff up as if I believe it, and then argue against that instead.
Please leave my blog until you can stop creating fictitious things to argue against.
Ok, let me give this another try without taking things quite so personally. I do not understand why or how you feel that Christianity is being persecuted? Or why this political stuff in the works somehow doesn’t involve everyone else too, except for the ones responsible of course? We all live in the same country sort of anyway and are pretty much in the same boat legally. What other religion has more displays of their faith in America assuming ~80% Christian? How does losing the public venue affect you, your church, your religion or your beliefs? I don’t buy your argument that you don’t want to pay for this or that because of something covered because we never know where our tax dollars go except away never to return??? They may not ‘give’ the church money (which one would they give it to?), but they sure do provide a very lucrative tax shelter for religious organizations. But you don’t realize that any more than I do because we are just people in the end and we are all getting kicked in the throat.
You may not believe this, GFT, but there are people out there who believe that any faith at all is dumb, and that the people following Jesus or any other person are idiots.
There is a certain superiority complex that these people have, because they intrinsically believe that they are automatically better than any person of faith.
These people can't accept that to a Christian, prayer isn't just something we do - it's our direct connection to God.
While I can't prove the existence of God to you, I don't have to prove the existence of God to other Christians, because they are also directly connected to Him.
So, when those people who believe they're smarter and better than Christians come to a public meeting and say they don't want prayer to be a part of it, they are coming directly between the officials and their God. This is the God who Christians rely upon for wisdom. So, when the officials need to be wisest, the atheist is attempting to cut off that connection between the Christian and wisdom.
Freedom of religion is not about the ability to stop others from doing religious stuff in public. Freedom of religion is about the ability to continue doing religious stuff in public, despite those who want to stop you.
The persecution the church in America is feeling today is nothing. It's nothing. The church in America is barely doing anything at all anyway. It's not praying, it's not believing, it's not evagelizing. For the most part, when that new mega-church is growing, it's because other churches are shrinking, not that new believers are coming to Christ.
The atheist community is just taking advantage of a situation that the church has allowed to happen to shut down prayer even further.
Why is what other people think important to you because this is a difficult concept for me to wrap myself in? I am one of those people who see no need for any religion but it doesn’t have anything to do with being dumb, smart or even intelligent, it has to do with ones beliefs only and it doesn’t matter where the programming comes from. Everyone seems to have a ‘superiority complex’ today, but on what grounds do you not include yourself (Christians) here? I don’t believe there is a god to pray to so it is difficult to grip the purpose of prayer in any real sense, surely you can understand this?
You do not have to prove anything to anyone else and neither do I, so I don’t even try anymore. Everyone is just as capable as I to pick up a book and read it. Unlike you I have lived the life of a Christian (atheist for you) for many years and I was just as obnoxious about it as most Christians appear to be today. If prayer is your ‘channel’ to god, when has he ever communicated back through it? There is no ’atheist’ community per se, just the religious (not just Christianity) and the nonreligious. I have never been to a gathering of atheists because I fail to see what I could learn there, same for religious gatherings, nothing there for me. I know what an atheist is, end of the story.
This is the paradox as I see it. You and I were not born Christian; we were born into a Christian family and were taught to be Christians. I have posed this question before and have never received an honest answer from any dogmatic Christian I posed it to. If you or I were to have been born into a good Muslim family and brought up in their traditions, what god would we pray to if any and what would we think of Christianity then”? I don’t have the luxury of picking one religion over another because I view them all in the same light which just happens to be the same light you apply to all other religions too, as well as my lack of one. I don’t really understand the motives of people who live such petty lives as to think having religious symbols placed where others can actually see them is some kind of insult. For the same reason I don’t understand the Christian insistence for having them there either. I just don’t see how Christians feel that they alone are being singled out somehow and persecuted.
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