Atheists banned in 7 states (reconquista, how much, vote, world)
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Nonsense. A republican form of government can co-exist easily with religious tests for holding office. Furthermore, freedom of religion can also co-exist easily with religious tests for holding office. The Constitution of a Christian state can and should protect the rights of minority religions.
Really? Where's the freedom to have NO religion? What is it? Just grab on to any old Sky Daddy?
I know it's considered "extreme" to say this, but our recent little experiment in godless government isn't working out too well. (Funny how so much of mainstream western civilization is now viewed as "extreme".)
Government either places itself under God or it becomes an arbitrary despotism subject only to power and money. Welcome to America 2012.
Requiring office holders to publicly profess not only belief in God, but also the faith of the Nicene Creed, would do this country good.
Meh, that is all dead letter. Religious tests for office have long been known to be unconstitutional.
What exactly is the topic? Your desire to force people to live under the rule of a Christian Taliban?
Was Texas in 1961 ruled by the Christian Taliban? America in 1950? How about 1865? Pennsylvania in 1790? Why do you despise your own country's heritage?
Here's the reality: Official recognition of God - and even preference for the precepts of the Christian religion - is far more consistent with America's historic values and national experience than the radical secularism you falsely claim is mandated by the Constitution.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles45
Was Texas in 1950 ruled by the Christian Taliban? America in 1950? How about 1865? Pennsylvania in 1790? Why do you despise your own country's heritage?
Why do you resort to baseless, inane allegations in lame attempts to make your argument?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles45
Here's the reality: Official recognition of God - and even preference for the precepts of the Christian religion - is far more consistent with America's historic values and national experience than the radical secularism you falsely claim is mandated by the Constitution.
OK, 313 was the toleration edict. Christianity was established by Theodosius I in 380. Thanks for the correction. What are the other factual errors?
The same way any power coming to the aid of another might be defensive. This is your field: you should be able to come up with a few examples, e.g. Americans went to Europe in WW-II to defend other nations against the Nazis.
The abuses perpetrated by the Spanish Inquisition certainly existed, but they are hugely exaggerated in what passes for modern "scholarship". And some of what modern secularists consider "abuses" - the expulsion of the Moors, for instance - were a matter of survival.
In any case, the abuses as they were are indefensible and even the Catholic Church condemns them. Today it is explicit Catholic doctrine, for instance, that torture is intrinsically immoral. Such doctrinal clarity was not available to most Christians in the middle ages, though it was always incipient. Protestants were in fact much more creative and liberal in the torturing of heretics. You might also be interested to know that the pope himself wrote to the king of Spain begging him to stop the abuses and insisting that it degrades the name of Christian.
The main problem is your underlying non-sequitor: the existence of religious intolerance in the history of the Church does not disprove the claim that religious tolerance in the West has roots in Catholic doctrine and experience. It proves only that painful experience was necessary to bring the concept to fruition.
Actually, I'll beg to differ.
The Roman Catholics who initially came to the Americas did so in the name of God and Glory. They were conquistadors! Conquerors! Their method of evangelizing was to give people the choice of converting or dying.
It was the non-Catholics who immigrated to America, who were trying to escape those very abuses "in the name of Christ." Many of them came "for religious freedom" because, where they were coming from, there WASN'T religious freedom.
Further, it is not because of Roman Catholic doctrine and experience that religious freedom has come about. It has been in spite of it. Wherever and whenever the Roman Catholic Church has had complete control, there have been unspeakable and evil abuses. When the RCC has not had control - which is the case in Modern America - people are free to simply walk away, and that has made the RCC seem far more docile and benevolent than it actually is.
But the very notion of religious tolerance is Christian in origin. It's normative in a Christian culture for reasons of both doctrine and long experience. In non-Christian societies, religious tolerance is imported from secularism in the Christian West or it doesn't exist.
Uh HUH........any of the following ring a bell.......
The Waldensian Inquisitions
The Goa Inquisitions
The abuse of the Cathars
The Spanish and Roman Inquisitions...........
Real tolerance there , and against ***other Christians***.........care to discuss more modern times and denominations?
Hey hows about the Trinity arguements , that usually brings Christians to the nutcuttin' , dependent on where they stand.
Or hey hws about the different versions of Hell ( or lake of fire in some denominations) and what happens after death ( soul sleep or not and all that rot) seen a few fistfights over that one too.
Or the Covenant issues...folks break out the artillery over that one. So all in all......tolerance and Christianity don't belong in the same sentence.
For example you're being highly judgemental and intolerant as regards those folks who choose no " God "......ya set up a divisive and conflict producing pardigm from the jump and wonder why there's conflict.
And as long as you lot view others as less than human for choosing no deity to " worship " then there will continue to be conflict.
Was Texas in 1961 ruled by the Christian Taliban? America in 1950? How about 1865? Pennsylvania in 1790? Why do you despise your own country's heritage?
Not everything in our heritage is admirable. If you think otherwise, it reflects poorly on your ability to self reflect.
Here's the reality: Official recognition of God - and even preference for the precepts of the Christian religion - is far more consistent with America's historic values and national experience than the radical secularism you falsely claim is mandated by the Constitution.
You apparently don't know much about the history of this country's founding. If you think the Founding Fathers' beliefs resembled anything pawned off as "Christianity" these days, you're sorely mistaken.
Once again - here is an example of someone who does not understand the Bible. You cherry-pick verses, but don't read the Bible as a complete integrated body of work. The New Testament cannot be fully understood without the benefit of understanding the Old Testament - and many parts of the Old Testament are really mysteries unless seen through the light of the New Testament. The Bible is not a book of "do's and don'ts" - it is a love story - about God and His relationship to his people - with every single word pointing towards Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world. If you read the Bible - or read it with an actual wish to learn - you would understand this. I am always amazed at people who pontificate what believers should do - when they have so little understanding of what they are even saying.
translation from the ChristoFascistSpeak to English: If you don't believe what I believe then you don't know anything about it and have never read the Bible even if you've read the Bible and it's all goody goody gumdrops in spite of all the deceit , sexual pecadilloes , flat out ripoffs and embezzlements and general abuse of " The Flock" that preachers get caught in and Christians are all really nice folks who never killed anyone and wouldn't think of hurting anyone who doesn't share their beliefs.....
Of course reality is a bit different.
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