The fall of Christianity in America

B_IanTheTall

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Irish said:
A wonderful point. I think we should attack ALL religions and be done with it.
It is unfortunate that the certain zealots have forgotten that The US Constitution guaranteed 'freedom from religion' when "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" was written in to the First Amendment. Since this allows people to believe what they choose to believe and not be subjugated to mortals that have economic interests in promoting certain lines of indoctrination/thought/prejudice.
 

JustAsking

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IanTheTall said:
It is unfortunate that the certain zealots have forgotten that The US Constitution guaranteed 'freedom from religion' when "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" was written in to the First Amendment. Since this allows people to believe what they choose to believe and not be subjugated to mortals that have economic interests in promoting certain lines of indoctrination/thought/prejudice.

Actually, the First Amendment that you quoted only protects citizens from the government establishing or interfering in religion. Citizens, amongst themselves, are free to harangue each other up unto the point where they break another law, such as disturbing the peace. Unfortunately, that leaves us vulnerable to be subjugated, indoctrinated, harangued, and suffer hate-based (oops, sorry, i meant faith-based) laws to be passed.

On the other hand, this is the right trade-off. As ugly as public opinion, religion and politics can get, I would much rather face those things than a government controlled religion. Give me the messy, barely in control, chaos of a free society over a totalitarian one anyday.
 

B_IanTheTall

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Faith-based laws do establish a religion, namely that of the sponsors. Just as giving public money to faith-based "charities" provides those "charities" government sponsored religion.
 

JustAsking

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IanTheTall said:
Faith-based laws do establish a religion, namely that of the sponsors.
Yes, the net affect of passing a law sponsored by a faith-based organization is that some of the agenda of that organization is furthered. But this is a subtle point. The First Amendment requires the government to be neutral on religion (meaning neither for or against). In terms of affecting public opinion for building support for a law, the government has to respect a religious motivation the same as it would respect a civil group doing the same thing. It has to be completely neutral.
However, if the law that gets passed is itself unconstitutional, thats a different matter. It still doesn't matter where it came from, it has to survive a court challenge in order to survive. (For example, the ridiculous legislation for teaching Intelligent Design Creationism in public school science class.)

IanTheTall said:
Just as giving public money to faith-based "charities" provides those "charities" government sponsored religion.
Remember the government has to be neutral on religion, not against it. Because being against it would be tantamount to a state based religion of Atheism. So that implies that faith based and non-faith based charitable groups should have equal access to public money that goes directly to the charitable cause. For example, my church should not get public money in order to operate as a church. However, a particular ministry in the church, such as a food pantry or a homeless shelter should be able to apply for a public grant to help subsidize its operation.
 

DC_DEEP

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JustAsking, you seem to have a much better understanding of law than the average citizen, especially regarding the US Constitution. Is this by formal training or by compulsive interest (as is the case with me..)?
 

SpeedoGuy

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JustAsking said:
So that implies that faith based and non-faith based charitable groups should have equal access to public money that goes directly to the charitable cause.

If a church or some religious charity uses public funds only to accomplish nuetral charitable works such as food, shelter, childcare, clothing, etc, then I guess I could possibly live with that. The key word here is only.

However, I hasten to add, I've personally seen a number of cases where church groups just can't resist the opportunity to withhold charitable aid until after proselytizing a captive audience. Or, worse, they selectively distribute aid based on arbitrary value judgements. Hardluck people seeking aid such as homeless families, unwed mothers, drug abusers on the skids, etc shouldn't have to be subject to a religious recruiting drive to receive public aid. That's why I'm skeptical about religious groups acting as agents of the government.
 

Freddie53

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SpeedoGuy said:
If a church or some religious charity uses public funds only to accomplish nuetral charitable works such as food, shelter, childcare, clothing, etc, then I guess I could possibly live with that. The key word here is only.

However, I hasten to add, I've personally seen a number of cases where church groups just can't resist the opportunity to withhold charitable aid until after proselytizing a captive audience. Or, worse, they selectively distribute aid based on arbitrary value judgements. Hardluck people seeking aid such as homeless families, unwed mothers, drug abusers on the skids, etc shouldn't have to be subject to a religious recruiting drive to receive public aid. That's why I'm skeptical about religious groups acting as agents of the government.

There has to be a balancing act and faith based groups that abuse their position should lose and perhaps pay back the government money used. I don't have the technology to devise a formula, but faith groups shouldn't have to remove all religious symbols from a room used for charity tha is also used in other ministires. Nor should they require any kind of indoctrination in order to receive food or help.

And those receiving aid should not be barred from asking about the beliefs etc. of the faith based group.

The kicker is making the needy be sujected to attempts to win converts. While they may still be a goal of the faith based groups to win converts. No proselytising or partiality can be shown using tax dollars.

In short, if a faith based group is adamently oppposed to homosexuality and a gay partners show up needing food and clothing, they must be afforded that equally and without reagard to their sexual status. While the faith based group might invite them to services. The faith based gorup can not begin to subject the gay couple to sermons on "homosexuality is a sin and you are going to hell." The faith based group can preach that all they want in a regular service, but not force the needy to hear this while receiving food, shelter and clothing.

I know I have rambled. I admit I don't know the forumula to enforce this. That is why I am hesitant to give tax dollars to faith based groups. I think it can be done constitutionally. I just don't know how to write the guidelines that could be universal.

However, until and unless such guidelines are in place, money shouldn't go to faith based groups as the temptation for those groups to preach and try to convert using tax dollars is jsut too great.

Unlesss there is absolutely no visable evidence of the faith based beliefs etc. at the place where the charity work is being carried out. Some faith based groups have done this. Those groups do meet constitutional guidelines.
 

JustAsking

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SpeedoGuy and Freddie53,
I agree with both of your points. Although hard to enforce, I would support the notion that any organization, religious or not, should not be allowed access to public funds while practicing any form of discrimination.
I also agree with the proseletyzing comments, but so would most of the denominations I am involved in. My church shelters and feeds the homeless firsthand, and I am involved in that effort. I end up in many conversations about God and human suffering with homeless people who stay at our church, but most of those conversations are started by the homeless people. We do not proseletyze or recruit in the midst of our ministries, except in that we model Christ as best we can.
One of my favorite sayings came from St. Francis of Assisi who said, "Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words only when necessary."

DC_DEEP.
Thanks for the compliment, but no formal training here in Constitutional law. My interest comes from having moved from the East Coast to Ohio which is more of a culture shock than moving to Paris, I think. I just found myself in so many conversation with people in Ohio about issues like school prayer, Ten Commandments displays in a federal courthouse, and teaching Creationism in High School science class. It might have been the last one that pushed me over the edge, however. Ohio was one of the early targets of the Discovery Institutes political movement to push Intelligent Design Creationism into the classroom. Being a religious person and a scientist, I became very interested in that topic when it first hit here.
 

JustAsking

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solong,
Ok, I have a some time to respond to your last and very long posting. I think you made the following points:

1) If people don't live by God's laws they will be judged harshly by God and they will not be materially successful.
2) If people live by God's laws they will be materially successful.
3) There was a time when Americans lived by God's law and that is what made America great.
4) These days we are not living by God's law and that is why we are lagging behind other countries in science, technology, medicine, etc.
5) Examples of God's law are the honesty and trustworthiness that allows business deals to be conducted by a handshake.
6) The Golden Rule as found in Mathew is an example of God's law and it began with Christ.

In my opinion, this is not Christianity, but a typical form of American Spiritualism. American Spiritualism is a Jeffersonian mixture of capitalism and only those things Jesus stood for that don't get in the way of capitalism. You might call it Good Personism, or Decent Personism. Its probably the thing that De Tocq heard in American sermons and saw Americans living it out as he said. But it is not really Christianity. Its is totally backwards from Christianity. Where American Spiritualism says that God Helps Those Who Help Themselves (actually Ben Franklin said that), Christ says God helps those who are most helpless. Where AS says good behavior and hard work is rewarded, Christ says that we all get the same wage, regardless of what work we do or don't do. Where AS loves capitalism and meritocracy, Christ wants an equitable distribution of wealth, no questions asked. Where AS holds successful people as a model to be aspired to, Christ says "the last shall be first and the first shall be last". Where AS says to make good and profitable business deals, Christ says give away all your money to the poor. Where AS wants to reward the disciplined successful clean living person, Christ wants to reward the godless nasty Samaritan for his compassion in the face of the suffering of a stranger and not reward the disciplined clean living, God fearing Priest and Levite (in fact they are castigated in the parable for those very qualities). Where AS sings songs of nationalism, Christ says that everyone in the world is our brother. And so on...

Secondly, your implication that we were once a more Christian nation could only be held while believing that business deals and domestic and foreign policy were at one time in the past all nice and honorable. You would have to deny the fact that at the time of De Tocq's visit, only about 10% of the US population attended church. You would have to deny the fact that American entered the Industrial Revolution from the economic strength it derived from its profitable cotton and textile industry that was built on the backs of slaves and exploited immigrant workers. Then you would have to deny that the very land from which we got all of our wonderful resources was stolen from another group of God's children througn inadvertent and then deliberate genocide (Its now estimated that the native population of the Americas was somewhere between 10 and 100 million people just before European contact.) You would also have to deny that the attempts to create theocratic God fearing communities (Rhode Island, for example in colonial times) were total failures commercially and socially.

As for the US slipping behind, using your logic, those now more successful countries must be more God fearing. When in fact, 80% of Americans claim to be religious compared to some 15-20% in the rest of the world.

Don't misunderstand me, though. I love our country dearly and I love how capitalism raises the standard of living for many people. But I don't love how unChristlike we allow (and have always allowed since the founding of our country) an extremely inequitable distribution wealth to occur as if that were the goal all along.

I also believe that Americans have a love for decency and straight dealing. But only superfically could you say those were Christian principles. What I mean is that compared to addressing the misery and suffering in the world, "straight dealing" would be way down on Jesus list of good character traits.

But in loving our country and loving decency and straight dealing, I don't confuse it with what Christ asks us to be.

I don't even have a problem with Good Personism unless it causes a person to think they are Christlike because they are honest and decent while in the meantime most of the world is starving and dying miserable deaths and they are doing nothing about it.

As for the Golden Rule, there are 30,000 children dying each month in the Sudan from preventable hunger and disease. What would you have any of them do for you if your role was reversed with theirs? That is what the Golden Rule is all about. I don't think honorable business practices even makes it on Christ's radar screen.

This is why I don't get invited to too many parties (or Republican rallies).
 

mrmanly231

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The way I see it, it's justified because Christianity has been fucking people so long that it's their turn "bend over and take one for the team"
 

Freddie53

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mrmanly231 said:
The way I see it, it's justified because Christianity has been fucking people so long that it's their turn "bend over and take one for the team"
I can't agree. Creating another wrong is not the answer. Then in a few years, Christianity will then want special rights under this plan, Christianity would be discriminated against until things are "righted,"

However, I do strongly agree that all religions should be treated the same. Period.

A nation can determine certain values to be a mainstay of their culture such as laws against murder, theft, etc. Certainly we have to have laws. While those laws may also be moral laws of one or several or all religions, that is just the way it is. Atheists quite oftten have the same values or ideas on what the laws should be.

To admit in our government writings and documents that the vast majority believe in some form of a higher power is not the same as adopting a particular religion as the state religion. There is no comparison.

So while it is true by reading the writings of the Founders and Framers of our Consituttion that they believed in a God. I haven't read a statement from anywhere that any of the Framers of the Consitution suggesting that a God of a particular religion be recongized as THE GOD of the American Consitution and our country.

There are writings of Americans since then that have suggested that our nation be specifically a Christian nation. But we are talking about consitutional law here and not the desires of a particular person or group of people.