The morality of Christian religion & politics

[Nine of Spades]

Anyway, getting back to the actually interesting thing in this thread rather than who really get to use the title grandpohbah, in your imagined Theocratic States of America will there be legal definitions of doctrine within the church? Would that be determined by poplar vote or from a council? Would voting even be a thing anymore or would that be out for fear of people voting in rights for atheist and other miscreants?

The content of my original post didn’t put forth the idea of promoting a theocratic America. Religious freedom for Christians isn’t a theocracy; it’s two different concepts. But if you’re asking how I believe the relentless attacks on faith in politics should be settled, I sort of answered that question on post no. 28, page 2 of this thread. Basically, I think the atheists, secularists, and anti-Christian spokespersons should be censored. They shouldn’t be allowed to participate in politics because it seems like all they do is attack religious freedom.

 

[Paulos23]

The content of my original post didn’t put forth the idea of promoting a theocratic America. Religious freedom for Christians isn’t a theocracy; it’s two different concepts. But if you’re asking how I believe the relentless attacks on faith in politics should be settled, I sort of answered that question on post no. 28, page 2 of this thread. Basically, I think the atheists, secularists, and anti-Christian spokespersons should be censored. They shouldn’t be allowed to participate in politics because it seems like all they do is attack religious freedom.

Religious freedom means nothing if you are censoring people not of your religion, or not letting them criticize your religion.

You can't claim religious freedom and only have it for your religion.

 

[Nine of Spades]

Religious freedom means nothing if you are censoring people not of your religion, or not letting them criticize your religion.

You can't claim religious freedom and only have it for your religion.

I disagree. Atheism isn’t a religion; it’s a lack of belief in God. Atheists therefore aren’t entitled to religious freedom because their worldview doesn’t qualify as a religion in the first place.

 

[Desk trauma]

The content of my original post didn’t put forth the idea of promoting a theocratic America.

True. That came later and is much more interesting than the worn out list of grievances that the persecution complex of US Christians has spawned.

Basically, I think the atheists, secularists, and anti-Christian spokespersons should be censored. They shouldn’t be allowed to participate in politics because it seems like all they do is attack religious freedom.

Which isn't something that you take issue with were it directed at others.

 

[Paulos23]

I disagree. Atheism isn’t a religion; it’s a lack of belief in God. Atheists therefore aren’t entitled to religious freedom because their worldview doesn’t qualify as a religion in the first place.

There are plenty of rulings that disagree with you.

Atheism

It is not a religious organization like a church, but it is a position on a religious topic, and it deserves the same protections for someone holding that as someone who believes in a god.

What you want is for your religion not to be criticized and to be the only one to be pushed out there. Religious freedom doesn't work that way. You want Christianity to be held as the true religion and all others censored because they are not the true religion. And that is the start of a long nasty path that others have gone down and I would like my country to avoid.

 

[Desk trauma]

I disagree. Atheism isn’t a religion; it’s a lack of belief in God. Atheists therefore aren’t entitled to religious freedom because their worldview doesn’t qualify as a religion in the first place.

As you take no issue with denying freedom of belief to others why bother with this silly argument?

 

[dlamberth]

It doesn’t. The point I was making is that it’s better for kids to grow up believing some of the mythology-like tales in the Bible as if they were facts instead of go to public schools where they are indoctrinated with secularist propaganda.

I find myself somewhat glad that you see them as "mythology-like tales". The problem with seeing them as facts is that it is a dumbing down of society.

 

[Par5]

Would you rather have children grow up believing the earth is 6,000 years old and evolution isn't real? Or would you prefer if they grew up with secular knowledge? In the former case, at least they'll get saved. In the latter case, they risk becoming atheists who won't get saved. Remember what happened after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and gained enlightenment? Sometimes too much knowledge can be dangerous; it can mislead people and result in perdition.

My children are now mature adults with children of their own and they don't believe the world is only
6,000 years old, nor do think that evolution is false. And it gets better. As they have therefore not been "saved", it means they haven't grown up to be like you. That is a big plus, so all in all, I am very happy with the way things have turned out.
Another thing they don't believe is your claim that witches call up spirits from hell to inhabit their bodies and set about gaining favours for their host.
In making such a claim, do you have any evidence to support that claim? Do you know who these people are who are spirit-possessed? Could you actually point these people out and confront them, and how do you know they have employed a spirit to help them?
You said you were concerned that they could hurt people, so don't you think it is your duty to expose these people before they do, if they have not already done so?
You probably think it is unfair of me to ask you to provide proof for your claim, but you know we ungodly secularists are so hung up on evidence we just can't help ourselves!

 

[stevil]

I disagree. Atheism isn’t a religion; it’s a lack of belief in God. Atheists therefore aren’t entitled to religious freedom because their worldview doesn’t qualify as a religion in the first place.

Freedom from religion is a form of religious freedom.

Atheists typically are all for religious freedom.
Unfortunately what people who still complain about not already having religious freedom, consider as the rules that intrude up their "religious freedom", it typically comes down to them wanting to have the right to discriminate on others. They want the right to discriminate based on their religious beliefs.

Be that the discrimination against atheists, LGQBT, and other non Christians.

It is unfortunate in this world that we have people that cannot play nicely with other members of society. It is unfortunate that some people's religious beliefs take them to this position.
This is why religion becomes a threat to a harmonious society and why some atheists become anti-religion.

If I were to try and ascribe a term such as "evil" it would be the aspect of people that cannot play nicely with others in society. Under this definition, it would be the person's beliefs that they are right and that they must force others down this righteous path that would be evil. It is absolutely a case of "the road to hell is paved with Good intentions". Hell being a disharmonious society on Earth with "good intentions" being a holy war where each person fights to force their beliefs on others.

Religion doesn't have to be evil and many religious folks don't take on this evil aspect to their personal religious position, but for some people their religious beliefs turn rotten and become evil.
I do wish that the religious leaders would be more sensible and teach their followers how to be good in society and to steer them away from this kind of evil. "good" being how to be tolerant and respectful of others in society, how to live harmoniously together despite differences in beliefs, lifestyles, cultures and heritage.

 

[Strathos]

If God cannot do evil, then it stands to reason he wouldn’t do something terrible like supernaturally create an evil spirit whose purpose is to destroy people’s faith. To have done so would have contradicted his benign nature. Hence my theory: Satan was once a human who didn’t inherent salvation, though I know not how he became the chief demon of hell. That’s my evidence, if you can call it that.

Satan was created as an angel. He chose to rebel due to his pride.

 

[JackRT]

I don't think "faith" is under attack at all. What I think is happening is that people are moving from the dominance of Christian beliefs to other spiritual trajectories.

I have to wonder which of the three Biblical versions of the ten commandments should be displayed. My personal preference is the one which Bible scholars believe to be the original.

Exodus 34 (NIV)

4 So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the Lord had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. 5 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” 8 Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. 9 “Lord,” he said, “if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.” 10 Then the Lord said: “I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the Lord, will do for you. 11 Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

1st commandment

12 Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. 13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles 14 Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. 15 “Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.

2nd commandment

17 “Do not make any idols .

3rd commandment

18 “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread. For seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in that month you came out of Egypt.

4th commandment

19 “The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. 20 Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck.

5th commandment

Redeem all your firstborn sons. No one is to appear before me empty-handed.

6th commandment

21 “Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.

7th commandment

22 “Celebrate the Festival of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering at the turn of the year. 23 Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord, the God of Israel. 24 I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the Lord your God.

8th commandment

25 “Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Festival remain until morning.

9th commandment

26 “Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God .

10th commandment

“Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

27 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

Note: In the passage above all bolding and italics are mine. It is also worth remarking that this is the oldest of the three versions of the ten commandments and the only version to self identify as "the Ten Commandments".

Sadli. it would require a rather large slab of marble.

 

[JackRT]

DP

 

[muichimotsu]

If you don't belong to Jesus but instead practice an Eastern meditation religion, how would you know what constitutes good Christian preaching and what constitutes bad Christian preaching? The way I talk about my faith to others isn’t like a road to hell paved with good intentions. What I say is consistent with scripture.

Frist off, I don't practice a religion, Buddhism is a placeholder at best, but so many seem to just go based on the label and have no concept of eclectic or even just acknowledging an influence from a religious tradition without adhering to it.

And I could understand Christianity better than you think even if I'm not part of the religion, that's a gatekeeping attitude characterized by an arrogance that I feel like Jesus would be more than a bit insulted by you insinuating that anyone who doesn't beat their chest and talk about how pious they are must not be even in the same ballpark as Jesus even fi they don't honor him as God as YOU and others claim he believed himself to be

Your interpretation of scripture is all you have, the evidence is not in your favor as to any improvements that can be directly attributed to Christianity as the cause. And your oppressive ideas of how to treat non Christians makes you little better than extremist Muslims who want to enforce sharia law, which, ironically enough treats Christians as second class citizens more often than not

 

[muichimotsu]

My point was that many self-proclaimed “witches” aren’t actual witches in the literal sense of the term. They’re using the title as a moniker. Real witches make infernal pacts with Satan and receive a familiar demon who does the witch’s bidding from behind the scenes. What’s wrong with my belief on this subject?

That it's factually wrong and presumes that the only definition is in the bible, which is, again, highly arrogant and condescending with the absolutist attitude based on your emotionally vulnerable state where you need some authority to tell you that murdering people is wrong and to make you feel special

 

[muichimotsu]

The content of my original post didn’t put forth the idea of promoting a theocratic America. Religious freedom for Christians isn’t a theocracy; it’s two different concepts. But if you’re asking how I believe the relentless attacks on faith in politics should be settled, I sort of answered that question on post no. 28, page 2 of this thread. Basically, I think the atheists, secularists, and anti-Christian spokespersons should be censored. They shouldn’t be allowed to participate in politics because it seems like all they do is attack religious freedom.

Qualifier there is "seems", you haven't actually substantiated that but just paint with a broad brush instead of having the good sense to judge people as individuals and not a group

 

[stevevw]

The fact cannot be understated that faith is under attack in America. Years ago the State of Alabama tried to honor God and respect Christian principles and morality by placing a Ten Commandments monument in a courthouse. Psalms 9:17 says that all nations that forget God will be cast into hell, so naturally we Christians are obliged to publicly declare our support for our heavenly father. However, the ungodly secularists at the ACLU couldn’t tolerate such innocuous displays of faith, so they initiated a lawsuit and successfully had the said monument removed. It was a true act of sacrilege.

And it was none other than the notorious SPLC, a radical leftist smearing racket that likes to put conservative Christians on their “hate criminal” lists alongside Nazis, that wrote a report celebrating the removal of the Ten Commandments monument. Read their gushing report here: Judge Orders Removal of Ten Commandments Monument

Isn’t it sad that our nation faces so many problems such as homelessness, crime, violence, climate change, an expensive and inefficient healthcare system, etc. Yet our government is prioritizing “separation of church and state” above more pertinent problems.

Some people might argue that the Ten Commandments monument violates the ungodly US Constitution because displaying it purports to favor one religion over another. If that nonsense were true, why is the Church of Satan being allowed to display their Statue of Baphomet in public government places? Read about it here: Statue of Baphomet - Wikipedia

It appears that our government thinks it’s terrible if the Ten Commandments get displayed at a courthouse, but for some reason they think it’s okay if the Statue of Baphomet is allowed on state capitol buildings. Could it be because the ungodly secularists are in conspiracy with Satan to snuff out Christianity from public life and publicly declare their support for the Devil?

Under a secular government the constitution does not side with one religion but allows freedom of religion regardless of the faith or lack of. So the judge in placing the 10 commandments in the grounds of a public court house was breaching the constitution by only promoting one religion in the name of the State. As some have said if you allow one you have to allow all regardless of what they stand for. So the State would normally not allow any particular religious association on public grounds.

I don’t think this is any great controversy as this has been the case with laws, rights, values and morals for a long time. The government is not a theocracy and therefore has allowed anti-Christian laws and values for some time like abortion, divorce, civil unions, etc. and for people to promote whatever lifestyle this wish.

In saying this I find it confusing and contradictory because I thought the government was founded on Christian values and at least up until recently did support Christian ideals like the 10 commandments, swearing on the bible and prayer in courts and parliament and other public places. I know the US dollar bills have 'In God we Trust' on them and this seems to be OK. I know many presidents have advocated Christian values and expressed this publically.

It is only in recent times with the PC movement where there has been a concerted effort to highlight any association with Christian beliefs as wrong that this has become more of an issue.

The problem I find is that there is a targeted effort to get rid of Christianity altogether for some reason. I dont think its just about the equality. At the same time some want to push other beliefs and values that are obviously wrong and against our way of life. Also many people don’t want any association with a particular belief and yet it is belief that gives morals to society.

The idea that we not allow any belief system undermines society as it means that we end up with no moral values because it pits one set against another and no set of morals/values ends up being put in place. One set disputes the one and all moralityis undermined. I think this is why we are seeing a degree of anarchy in recent times against the government and institutions. There is a lack of respect for law and morals in society.

By disallowing the one (Christianity) and allowing all beliefs including Satanism we are undermining our own societies ability to have consistent and firm morals because we allow beliefs and morals that we know are no good and unhealthy for our children. That seems like a strange and dangerous road to take in the name of freedom and equal rights. But that is the way the secular system works and we as Christians cannot change that but rather live according to our Christain values and beliefs.

 

[SilverBear]

Would you rather have children grow up believing the earth is 6,000 years old and evolution isn't real? Or would you prefer if they grew up with secular knowledge? In the former case, at least they'll get saved. In the latter case, they risk becoming atheists who won't get saved. Remember what happened after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and gained enlightenment? Sometimes too much knowledge can be dangerous; it can mislead people and result in perdition.

So you want your children to be stupid???

 

[SilverBear]

My point was that many self-proclaimed “witches” aren’t actual witches in the literal sense of the term. They’re using the title as a moniker. Real witches make infernal pacts with Satan and receive a familiar demon who does the witch’s bidding from behind the scenes. What’s wrong with my belief on this subject?

to start it's not accurate

 

[SilverBear]

There’s a big difference, though: Wicca is a fake religion, but Christianity is real.

yes it is a real religion. According to religioustollerance.org it is the 7th largest religion in America.

Many Wiccans are teenage girls whose imagination is out of control.

the average age of a Wiccan is 42 Ref:Adler, Margot (2005). Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-worshippers and Other Pagans in America Today

Hence their spiritual experiences are misperception. On the other hand, we Christians who have divine experiences are witnessing and feeling something real and tangible. For this reason, Wiccans aren’t credible and therefore have no authority to tell others the truth on spiritual matters, but we Christians do.

Riiiiigggghhhhhtttt

 

[Cis.jd]

It's hard to defend Christianity on the topic of morals just by my experience in this forum.

The longer I've had conversations with many here, the more I just end up seeing how negative Christianity can possibly be. You have people here who think battered wives can't leave their husbands, to random good people not going to heaven but a horrible person who believes in God can, and there is a recent thread about how it's not good being friends with unbelievers.. with thinking like this, how can a christian just point fingers to even a satanist about morals?

So really, is it "faith being under attacked" or have christians soiled the name of faith enough that people are fed up?