Caesars things to Caesar

How far does this concept go when it comes to real life?

Is it a thing of paying taxes or something far greater?

I was talking with a group of church goes and the subject of people trying to take "In God we trust." off the curancy and the fact that the Schools are rejecting praying.

What is the idea of having images on material things that denote religious perspectives? To whom are these created for, since those who believe say that God knows our hearts?

It just seems that many are concentrating on being known as a Christian by others instead f by God, as if it were important what other people think.

This whole materialistic view seems to place Christian's in jepardy of being angered over that which could very well be attributed to being tested.

Anger, to me is a temporary state of insanity. I can only speak for myself, but of the myriads of times I've wronged innocent people, I think 99.9% of the time, I was angry.

Anger, to me forces out love and darkens the spirit so that rational thought is obscured. If God is love and anger forces love from you, then wouldn't the state of being angered separate yourself from God?

Wouldn't that be a test and wouldn't the fact that these church goers are so concerned for material acknowledgement set themselves up for a fall?

kvnchrist said:

How far does this concept go when it comes to real life?

Is it a thing of paying taxes or something far greater?

I was talking with a group of church goes and the subject of people trying to take "In God we trust." off the curancy and the fact that the Schools are rejecting praying.

What is the idea of having images on material things that denote religious perspectives? To whom are these created for, since those who believe say that God knows our hearts?

It just seems that many are concentrating on being known as a Christian by others instead f by God, as if it were important what other people think.

This whole materialistic view seems to place Christian's in jepardy of being angered over that which could very well be attributed to being tested.

Anger, to me is a temporary state of insanity. I can only speak for myself, but of the myriads of times I've wronged innocent people, I think 99.9% of the time, I was angry.

Anger, to me forces out love and darkens the spirit so that rational thought is obscured. If God is love and anger forces love from you, then wouldn't the state of being angered separate yourself from God?

Wouldn't that be a test and wouldn't the fact that these church goers are so concerned for material acknowledgement set themselves up for a fall?

Click to expand...

The ultimate reason:

If you lived in the OT time, you do NOT do the above things. God is YOURS, and is not theirs.

Now is the NT time, You WANT to do those things. You are saved. You WANT others be saved too. This is the Lord's command.

We do all those things for one purpose: Let others know that our God is real and is the only way. The only consideration is: how to do it and do it to what a degree.

Things like 'in God we trust' on coins are good, but only in an insignificant degree, I'd say. We shouldn't encourage taking them away, but not fight too hard for them either. It was in the fifties 'in God we trust' was added to paper money (to coins in 1864), and that and things like it did not succeed in keeping America Christian. The media and universities are probably the best public places to try to be influential for Christ, not the government.

Hi kvnchrist,

From what I read of your post it seems you have 2 points you wanted to make.

1) A political movement to remove religious reference from society at large (prayer at school & religious motto from currency) and how it might bait Christians to be angered at what is perceived as an attack on their faith.

2) Christians who are outwardly trying to show/prove their Christian label to other instead of to God alone.

Firstly let me say I'm not American. My knowledge of American history and current developments are not up to par. From what I see is that the "In God We Trust" is a motto adopted by your founding fathers. It reflected on their believe system and the believe system of the majority of people back then. So displaying it on their money back then raises no objection. Same as prayer in school. But as America become more and more diverse in the newer generations people question putting religious motto on things they use regularly. It seems more of a social shift to secularized than a deliberate move to anger Christians in general.

I can't speak for the second issue as I'm not the representation of all Christians as a whole. One cannot judge what he/she perceived about Christians base solely on the conclusions you made. Being Christian means different things to different people and how they advertise it is different.

Since this is a philosophy forum and the title is "Caesar things to Caesar" I'll share my two cents about it.

If you believe all things comes from God then everything belongs to God by default. Nothing you give back to God can be considered gift since it was God's to begin with. When Jesus said render unto Caesar what is Caesar's it was a response to a trap laid by the religious leaders back then.

He means that you yourself determine what you set aside for God and what you set aside for your own. The act of sacrifice is base solely on your own sincerity.