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Grex > Agora46 > #187: The myth of church-state separation | |
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| 25 new of 92 responses total. |
tod
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response 25 of 92:
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Sep 4 18:42 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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scott
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response 26 of 92:
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Sep 4 18:44 UTC 2003 |
I think it points out inherent problemswith Christianity, and I think we
should dig up some of Russ's suggestions for dealing with Islamic extremism
and apply them to Christianity the same way. ;)
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tod
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response 27 of 92:
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Sep 4 19:30 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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happyboy
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response 28 of 92:
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Sep 4 23:01 UTC 2003 |
i don't trust 'em!
sonofabitches!
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tod
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response 29 of 92:
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Sep 4 23:47 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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russ
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response 30 of 92:
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Sep 5 02:30 UTC 2003 |
Re #24: If you actually read the piece, you'll see that the
qualifications include:
... who preach that Christians are under attack, that their
beliefs are being assaulted by "Christ-haters," and that
"atheists and devil-worshipers want to remove every vestige
of religion from the public square."
If that's sweeping, I'm the king of Siam. (Though I found this
editorial particularly compelling because one of our own, Bruce
Price, has apparently bought into that last lie. I'd include klg
there if I thought klg believed anything he said.)
There are some very wealthy people paying to broadcast the lies that
Bruce is buying: http://www.au.org/churchstate/cs7003.htm
Re #25: Paul Hill may not be the last at the rate things are going. :/
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happyboy
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response 31 of 92:
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Sep 5 07:48 UTC 2003 |
paul hill will be reincarnated as a paintchip eating
mongoloid who gets raped and impregnated and forced to carry
the mutant baby to term. this will occur sometime in the
1940's.
that or he will be reborn as an unwanted crack baby.
IT'S TRUE!
8D
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gull
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response 32 of 92:
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Sep 5 13:40 UTC 2003 |
Re #30: Part of the reason the televangelists are so big on this is that
if you want to get people to really rally strongly behind a cause (and
send you money), you need to convince them that they're a threatened
minority who is in real danger of losing everything. A side benefit of
this, if you're a political figure, is you get to take credit for
slaying the dragon you've created.
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happyboy
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response 33 of 92:
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Sep 5 18:15 UTC 2003 |
dirty stinky fundies.
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bru
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response 34 of 92:
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Sep 6 02:29 UTC 2003 |
I need to see if I got any change coming from my buyin...
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russ
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response 35 of 92:
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Sep 6 12:23 UTC 2003 |
Bruce, you're thinking too small. Go for a full refund.
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other
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response 36 of 92:
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Sep 9 04:58 UTC 2003 |
Oh, come on, Russ! At least commend him for the attempt! I thought it
was a good, humourous response to your not necessarily unwarranted, but
not necessarily necessary attack.
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aaron
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response 37 of 92:
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Sep 10 00:14 UTC 2003 |
I'm curious, Bruce - how religious are you? How many times per year do you
go to Church? Is your endorsement of state-sponsored Christianity more about
your desire to put down other religious than your own religous beliefs?
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happyboy
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response 38 of 92:
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Sep 10 00:24 UTC 2003 |
/cracks knuckles and leans back with a bowl of heathen popcorn
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bru
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response 39 of 92:
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Sep 10 03:34 UTC 2003 |
I haven't been to church for anything other than weddings and funerals more
than three times in the last 20 years.
I do not beklieve in any state-sponsored religion. I also do not believe in
the state acting to prevent the free exercise of religion.
What right does a cross standing at ground zero of the World Trade Center
violate? Which right of yours do you believe it violates?
What about the Ten commandments in a public park? How does that violate your
civil rights? Tell me which right is violated.
Tne commandmants in the lobby of a court house. How are you harmed by it?
What clause of the Constitution is violated?
The establishment Clause? It was put there so that no state could force you
to attend religious services, not so it could be used to prevent the free and
open exercise of religion.
I know of no law, federal, state or local that tells a single american what
religion they have to follow. I do not believe that monuments erected in
public locations are state sponsored religion.
Aaron, I consider myself a Christian. There are 17 tenets to my faith, none
fo which you will find in any christian, jewish, or moslem text because I
arrived at them thru my own personal, independent thought. I am christian
because I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Other than that, I doubt
you could find much in common with my reasoned philosophy with any of the
major religions today.
I have no quarrel with Christian, Moslem, or jewish faiths. They worship the
same God I do, they just haven't figured out how to play together nicely yet.
Budhism, shinto, wiccan and any number of other minor religions bother me.
mostly because unlike the threee major religions, they do not believe in the
one true God. But then again, maybe God saw a way around all these other
religions that bring us closer to the truth. Maybe that is why we have them
out there, and why we have athiests.
Here are tenets 9, 10, and 11 of my beliefs:
9. All men and women are equal.
God makes no distinction in people, either in sex or in color. Each of us
has a destiny to fulfill. For some it will mean going to the stars, for
others it may be teaching a stubborn man how to love a less than perfect
child. Whatever our form, be it beautiful or ugly, God created us all equal.
10. All people are sinners.
Every single one of us is born with a flaw in our character. No one of us is
perfect. One of the challenges is to see beyond the sin into the soul of the
sinner and to show each and every one the way to salvation. We can forgive
the sinner, and not the sin. Only God can forgive the sin.
11. Faith needs only faith.
Those who believe need no miracles to neither prove nor strengthen their
faith. You need no logical arguments to prove the existence of God. Each
person finds God through faith in their own way. Some see it in the sunset,
some in a leaf; some hear it in the peals of laughter from a playground, or
the smell of hot bread fresh from the oven. All man is, and all he
accomplishes, are a tribute to God.
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dah
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response 40 of 92:
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Sep 10 03:43 UTC 2003 |
And you're an English major.
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other
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response 41 of 92:
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Sep 10 04:24 UTC 2003 |
I'm curious, Bruce. Why does it matter to you what form of god or lack
thereof that other people believe in and/or worship, or not? Especially
being someone who does not subscribe to any particular religion beyond
your own particular interpretation of Christianity, that particular facet
of your belief system is a bit bizarre.
In effect, what you are doing is saying, "No church is good enough for
me, so I'm going to make up my own, but other people ought to believe
what I choose to believe." Do Buddhist, Shinto, Wiccan and other "minor"
religions practiced by significant proportions of the population of Earth
bother you because deep down, you fear that your own beliefs might
actually be wrong? And even if they were, what's the problem with that?
If your belief in a particular higher truth demands that all other truths
be subject to it, than you'll have to come up with something more
substantial upon which to base it than "faith," as you call it. Because
if faith is your only means of testing truth, then "truth" is determined
by cultural influences and nothing more. That kind of truth is nothing
more than a haven for those too incapable or intellectually lazy to
pursue reason. And, it is the basis of moral relativism and bigotry.
It would be disingenuous to say that I didn't mean to be so vigorous in
my expressions here, but it is just unconscionable to me that people who
actually think similarly to the ways you have just described have
undermined the democratic process and are forcibly reshaping the world in
which I and the people I love have to live, so my righteous indignation
has gotten the better of me. Don't take it personally.
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happyboy
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response 42 of 92:
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Sep 10 08:27 UTC 2003 |
re39:
i hadn't realized that buddhism is a *religion*
and a minor one at that!
you are a smelly bigot.
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bru
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response 43 of 92:
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Sep 10 13:35 UTC 2003 |
atheism is a religion to some people.
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aaron
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response 44 of 92:
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Sep 10 14:04 UTC 2003 |
Gee, Bruce, what right would the state be violating if it made applicants
for Section Eight housing listen to a sermon on the evils of depending on
government subsidy, as part of the housing application process? A nice,
Calvanist sermon about how God favors the righteous with economic success,
and how you had best cure your evil ways. Or if all public parks and
school yards contained a giant state-sponsored placard, "God hates unwed
mothers and their bastard children." You could plug your ears or avert
your eyes, but somewhere along the line isn't there a right to be free
from that type of state sponsorship of religion?
You get all giddy about state sponsorship of religion because you assume
first of all that it will be sponsorship of Christianity - that is, that
somebody else's ox will be gored - and second that it will less be about
religion than it will be about the advancement of a right wing social
agenda - an agenda you espouse, even if you have never been quite able to
live it.
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bru
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response 45 of 92:
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Sep 10 14:52 UTC 2003 |
wait a minute. If the government wnated to dissuade people from government
housing, wouldn't they just stop building it?
As I said. A Menorah sitting on a table in a state supported museaum, does
that support a religion? Does the holocaust museaum get any stae sponsorship?
Does a school taking children there support religion?
Is a school allowed to have someone from a moslem school come in and talk
about religion? Is an islamic child allowed to take his prayer mat into
school and pray at te times he is supposed to?
Seeing the symbols of other religions does not offend me. Why does seeing
the symbols of my religion offend you?
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rcurl
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response 46 of 92:
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Sep 10 15:46 UTC 2003 |
The problem is that the display of religious sumbols in public venues can
be a threat to conform in some fashion. The KKK's burning crosses is the
extreme example of this. It is particularly threatening if done by the
majority religion, as they generally have some social, political or
judicial power over others. If I see any religious symbol in any public
venue, especially related to goverment, I think that it would be against
my interests to show any disrespect or perhaps even indifference to other
expressions of those religions. It could be "stepping on toes".
I favor keeping any religous displays totally unassociated with any
function or branch of government.
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bru
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response 47 of 92:
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Sep 10 17:14 UTC 2003 |
So we cannot teach tolerance of other people and cultures in public schools
because that would be supporting various religions, right.
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flem
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response 48 of 92:
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Sep 10 17:21 UTC 2003 |
Exactly right, bru! Promoting intolerance and cultural monopoly is exactly
what we liberals have been after all this time. We're so glad you've taken
the time to understand our arguments.
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happyboy
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response 49 of 92:
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Sep 10 17:48 UTC 2003 |
re43 ...and in your case being a smelly retard-o is a religion.
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