Forcing Cesar to live as a Christian

I_are_sceptical

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There's nothing wrong with forcing non-Christians to live like Christians.
As a member of a non-Christian religion, I disagree with this statement.
We Christians are the ones who have something to offer non-Christians -- not the other way around.
Can you prove to my complete satisfaction that God agrees with you instead of with the Founder of the group I belong to? If you cannot, I think I would rather obey God than your personal opinions.
 
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I_are_sceptical

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...America, which is a Christian nation established by Christians, for Christians.
As I recall from history lessons in school, when America was first established women were not allowed to vote or to own property. What is your position on those issues?
 
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JGG

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In Saudi Arabia and Iran, everybody is required to live as a Muslim. I see no reason why we shouldn't do the same thing in America, which is a Christian nation established by Christians, for Christians. As a Christian nation, we can (and should) require everybody to live as a Christian -- or at least offer a higher class of citizenship to Christians. People who do not want to abide by established Christian beliefs and norms are free to live elsewhere.



It should be self-evident to any Christian what a Christian is supposed to believe and how a Christian is supposed to live. As an atheist, you would not know this -- but it still does not relieve you of the responsibility of living like a Christian if you are going to CHOOSE to live in a Christian society.

Uh-huh. No point in letting this puppy just go by...let's just bask in its ridiculousness...
 
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Shakespeare

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In Saudi Arabia and Iran, everybody is required to live as a Muslim.

No, they aren't. In Saudi Arabia, people are required to respect and honor the Muslim faith, not to follow it. It is not illegal to be a Christian (or Buddhist or Taoist or even Hindu) in Saudi Arabia, just inconvienent and at times difficult. Yes, there is discrimination against non-Muslims, but it is not (yet, at least) official. In Iran the religious freedoms have been eroding for decades and likely will continue to do so under the current president, so it may soon come to pass there that people will legally be required to be Muslim, but at the present moment, it is not.

I see no reason why we shouldn't do the same thing in America, which is a Christian nation established by Christians, for Christians.

The Treaty of Tripoli, signed and ratified by the United States Government on June 7, 1797 by unanimous acclimation of the Senate, signed by President John Adams (who was a founding father himself, and personally knew all the others as well) reads in Article 11 (and I quote): "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." This treaty has never been overturned in more than 200 years. It is as valid today as when it was written by John Barlow at the request of the young US government.

So the founding fathers, the people who actually created the United States Government, do not agree that it was founded as a "Christian" nation.

Now, you may be taking the approach that while the government was not founded on the Christian religion, the nation was. Sorry, that doesn't hold up. The nation of the USA did not exist before the government existed. While some of the original colonies established in North America may well have been establised as bastions of religious belief (and not religious freedom, as we like to say; the first thing the Pilgrims did when they got to the New World was to outlaw any religion but their own), the nation was founded on the principals of political and social freedom. Which is why you, me, and everyone else out there can be Christians without fear of government interference. And which is why Muslims can be Muslims, Buddhists can be Buddhists, and all the rest as well.

lioninoil said:
As a Christian nation, we can (and should) require everybody to live as a Christian -- or at least offer a higher class of citizenship to Christians. People who do not want to abide by established Christian beliefs and norms are free to live elsewhere.

As a Christian, I believe in Jesus Christ. As an adult, I know that you can not force anyone to believe in something. You can force them to act like they believe it, but that's all. In fact, by doing so, you are probably making it less and less likely that they ever will believe it.

You will never be able to force saving faith into a human being. You will never be able to make someone be a Christian. That's not how it works. Did Paul preside over the establishment of "Christification" camps throughout Asia Minor, or did he spend his life tirelessly establishing churches, nurturing them, ministering to them when they were weak, praising them when they were strong, praying for them constantly, and never flagging in spreading the Word?

There is no easy fix. If you want to spread the Word, then spread the Word. And you can't spread the Word with a closed fist.

And if you give the government the authority to persecute, it is only a matter of time before you will be persecuted.

I would continue, but the only place to go from here is Godwin territory.

lioninoil said:
It should be self-evident to any Christian what a Christian is supposed to believe and how a Christian is supposed to live.

"Self-evident." Possibly the most dangerous term in Christianity, it means "evident without proof or reasoning," or "obviously true without supporting evidence." If what Christians were to believe was self-evident, then why would we need the physical repository of God's Word on Earth: the Bible? I always thought that it wasn't self-evident and that we needed the Word to make it evident to us.

"Self-evident" is too often used to mean "the way I say it is." You are saying that if my truth about being a Christian is not exactly the same as yours (which, by the way, you refuse to define or qualify), then I am not, in fact, a Christian. Well, the truth I hold to is Biblicaly based, not human-based. I do not trust in the word of men for eternal truth, but the Word of God as expressed in the Bible. There are many parts of it that make me uncomfortable, or are difficult to understand, and that's fine. I trust that when I need them to make sense, they will.

lioninoil said:
As an atheist, you would not know this -- but it still does not relieve you of the responsibility of living like a Christian if you are going to CHOOSE to live in a Christian society.

I look around me, and I fail to see a "Christian society." Even many of those professing Christianity do not make even the slightest effort to adhear to the teachings of Christ in their lives. We live in a Corinthian society, not a Christian one. Paul did not deal with the Corinthians with force, but with love, with patience, and with the Word. I see intollerance, bigotry, hatred, and violence. I see an obsession with money, and with revenge, and with personal, selfish gratification. Where is this "Christian society?" Our leaders lie to us, they say one thing and then do the opposite. In Washington, money is poured out on the heads of the mega-rich, and the poor are left the starve. Where is the "Christian society?"

You and I might wish that we lived in a "Christian society," but the truth is that we do not.

I wish you the best, and I will pray for you, but persuing a compassionate end through violent means will always destroy the end you hoped for, and it matters not if the violence is physical, social, mental, emotional, or spiritual.
 
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Shemjaza

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There's nothing wrong with forcing non-Christians to live like Christians. We Christians are the ones who have something to offer non-Christians -- not the other way around.
Actually you have made a terrible mistake. Completely aside from all the legal and secular moral problems with you idea there is a terrible danger to your Christian goals with setting up a theocracy.

Just say you do set up your powerful, organized Christian government and everyone not is obliged to follow Christian law, but they do openly. You would never have a chance to help the unsaved, because they would have no choice but to lie about their faith. All these people would be singing in Church on Sundays and never using the Lord's name in vein, but many would be "sinning in their hearts", lusting, hating and especially denying the Holy Spirit.

All these people would be damned by your Christian theocracy. You have to allow for honest unbelief or you could never be sure of conversion.

(Personally if Australia even started down this road and conventional peaceful activism wasn't helping, I'd be immigrating to Europe in a second).
 
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katautumn

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If it were only Christians that were opposed to same-sex marriages, abortion, divorce, hate crime/anti-discrimination legislation then I would say they want a theocracy; however, taking into consideration that these are not Christianity-specific issues (as there are non-theists opposed to same-sex marriages and Christians who support abortion rights) we cannot cry foul and claim anyone is forcing the general populace to live under a "Christian theocracy".
 
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Shemjaza

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If it were only Christians that were opposed to same-sex marriages, abortion, divorce, hate crime/anti-discrimination legislation then I would say they want a theocracy; however, taking into consideration that these are not Christianity-specific issues (as there are non-theists opposed to same-sex marriages and Christians who support abortion rights) we cannot cry foul and claim anyone is forcing the general populace to live under a "Christian theocracy".
In general I agree, but you have to admit that in particular for same-sex marriage the vast majority of the opposition is derived from religious values rather then any kind of secular reasoning.
 
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Electric Skeptic

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If it were only Christians that were opposed to same-sex marriages, abortion, divorce, hate crime/anti-discrimination legislation then I would say they want a theocracy; however, taking into consideration that these are not Christianity-specific issues (as there are non-theists opposed to same-sex marriages and Christians who support abortion rights) we cannot cry foul and claim anyone is forcing the general populace to live under a "Christian theocracy".
I have never come across a non-theist opposed to same-sex marriages.
 
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Shemjaza

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If only more Christians had the courage and fire for God to speak the truth like Brother Lioninoil!
So would you have your country turned into a theocracy?

What do you think about all the Non-Christians in your country and their rights?
 
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The Nihilist

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If only more Christians had the courage and fire for God to speak the truth like Brother Lioninoil!

Whether or not this is his intent, Lioninoil comes across as essentially a fascist. If more christians did speak like this, atheism would soon become very popular.
 
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Syntox

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So would you have your country turned into a theocracy?

That's how someone like you would see it, I'm sure. I just want what America was intended to be, a Country of Christian, based of Christianity and Christian values and a country for Christians to worship Christ and live in harmony.

We used to have that until the secular-progressive agenda was born from the absent-minded potheads of the 60's.

What do you think about all the Non-Christians in your country and their rights?

They have to right to live and think what they want, but in the presence of society, they should behave as Christians, and respect our morals even if they don't want to abide by them. They can keep their sin and perversion in their own houses.
 
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Shemjaza

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That's how someone like you would see it, I'm sure. I just want what America was intended to be, a Country of Christian, based of Christianity and Christian values and a country for Christians to worship Christ and live in harmony.

I’m sure all those Deist and Secularist intellectuals who founded your nation were really about setting up some kind of Christian regime. If they had wanted repressive Christian states they could have stayed in Europe.

And are you trying to hint at something in particular with "someone like you"?

We used to have that until the secular-progressive agenda was born from the absent-minded potheads of the 60's.

I think it's a little older then the 1960s:

Treaty of Tripoli said:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;

They have to right to live and think what they want, but in the presence of society, they should behave as Christians, and respect our morals even if they don't want to abide by them. They can keep their sin and perversion in their own houses.

Would they be forced to pray?

Would they be forced to have Christian Marriages?

And most importantly which denomination of Christianity would you accept? Are Catholics Christians? How about liberal Anglicans? Mormons? Unitarians? The White Knights of the KKK?
 
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Syntox

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Freedom of religon was designed so that no paticular Christian sect would take power over all other, probably to prevent a Catholic taking control and banning all protestant denoms.

They wouldn't be forced to pray, but would be forced to respect public prayer at ballgames and such by standing and being quiet.

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;

That line wasn't in the version the congress passed almost unanamously.
 
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Electric Skeptic

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Freedom of religon was designed so that no paticular Christian sect would take power over all other, probably to prevent a Catholic taking control and banning all protestant denoms.
So your hate extends not only to non-Christians, but even to Christian denominations outside your own.

They wouldn't be forced to pray, but would be forced to respect public prayer at ballgames and such by standing and being quiet.
Thankfully, the Constitution protects America from people like you.

That line wasn't in the version the congress passed almost unanamously.
Please provide some support for this claim.
 
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