parfait wrote:Sure, people of faith have the exact same rights to enter government as anyone else, but not when that faith is practically a requirement (in what is supposed to be a secular country) - see the current Republican presidential candidate run for an example. Another example would be how Eisenhower added under God to the Pledge of Allegiance. Faith is a private matter, thus a secular state should not show any inclination or favoritism to any religion.
Taking the sum of the founding fathers' laws and writings into consideration, it's pretty obvious to me that they never intended for this to be a completely secular society. If that were the case, why were they the ones to start every session of Congress with a prayer and, on occasion, even had preachers deliver sermons from the floor of the Senate? And then there are the Northwest Ordinances which mandated that Christianity be taught in those territories' schools as a condition of their entering the union at the time.
Their intention was that the federal government would not create a state religion, to which the people had to belong and from which they would be forced to give money to the government. They were trying to avoid a situation like they had in England with the official church there. Adding "under God" to the pledge creates no favoritism towards any one religion nor even comes close to creating a state-sponsored religion.
Gallup polls show that around 40 % of the American population believe in a literal interpretation of the creation, making it far from a red herring. A survey done by NBC in 2005 show that 44 % answered God created the world in 6 days. Scary, isn't it? Creationism has nothing to do in a science class. Why? Because science haven't found a shred of evidence for it.
Whether your view is that there's no evidence for it doesn't really matter here. My problem is that it's not even allowed to be MENTIONED, as if it's the big bad boogie man in the closet. I'm not even talking about teaching it here.
Regarding modern day Christians and their beliefs, I always ask myself: What would Jesus do? Would Jesus support the death penalty "in theory"? No, of course not.
I disagree here. The only teaching Jesus ever did as it relates to government was when he said to "Render unto Ceasar that which is Caesar's". Most of, it not all, the rest of his teaching are to individuals and how they are to relate to God and to others as individuals. All this baloney from either conservatives AND liberal Christians about Jesus being this or that politically is a bunch of baloney. Anyway, Jesus claimed to be God, the same God of the Hebrews from the Old Testament and it was he who said "If a man sheds innocent blood, by man shall his blood be shed". That's from the DRV (Dave Revised Version).
Besides that, the person whom Jesus said had the most faith in all of Israel that he had found up till that point was a soldier, someone who was engaged in at least some violence as a matter of his occupation and who most likely killed at least a few people in the course of his career. I find it unlikely that he would've said that if he were against all killing.
Would Jesus cheat on his sick wife like the fat fuck Gingrich did? Nope.
Nope...And that's the main reason I really don't like Gingrich at all. That and the fact that he thinks he's the smartest person in the room at all times.
Would Jesus go to war against Iran like Santorum wants? Fuck no.
I'm not sure Santorum really wants to go to war but, regardless, I don't support that unless Iran actually does something aggressive towards us.
Would Jesus deny to pay more taxes so that fewer people have to die because of the lack of health insurance? Fuck no.
That kinda puts a twist on the issue. Just because someone doesn't support government-mandated and provided healthcare coverage, doesn't mean that they want people to die in the streets. Most people, including myself, who have this view would like to be more free of government so that we as individuals can help others who need it or allow charities or religious organizations to be free to help those folks. Government assistance is cold and a whole lot less effective than when individuals are able to help others instead.
But still the conservative, christian right in America acts both morally and ethically superior...
Have you seen some of the liberal, Christian left churches here? The right gets slammed like you've done here but they have nothing on the liberal churches, who OFTEN get entangled with government and have liberal politicians speaking from their pulpits, supporting candidates illegally, etc.
