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.