God, is that you?
The point of my comment is that it’s not your decision if that someone’s a real Christian or not.
Also, the comment about faith being of God and religion being of man is a strange distinction. Religion is, by its very nature, faith.
Well I think it’s done. It’s over, wrapped up. Christ has taken over the world, the mission is over, and those annoying fundies finally get to shut the fuck up. New World Order baby, know it, live it, love it.
Erek
So if someone goes around slaughtering babies by fucking them to death, and claiming that he’s doing it in the name of Christ, we shouldn’t question that?
Honestly, the only comments I can make in regard to Erek’s last few posts here are ones that would flatly violate the rules. (I’m not sure that saying that doesn’t in and of itself, but I refuse to let him trash this thread without one final comment.)
The sum total of what Erek is saying is that the majority is entitled to impose anything they choose on anyone else, that human rights have no business being advocated, and that any form of stupidity is acceptable in support of this goal.
That does not admit of reasoned response.
And quite frankly I cannot muster the vitriol to express verbally how disgusted I am.
Well summarized, Poly.
Now best to just walk away from this thread.
Praying over the loudspeakers at a public school seems to be “praying to be seen by men.”
Excellent post. You said everything (and more) than I would have, and even did it without the sort of anger I would normally end up using. Good on you.
You don’t see how this woman used some clever legal wrangling to impose her will on a sleepy little small town that she suddenly moved to? You think that this sort of colonialism is respectable somehow? Why are her rights so much more sacrosanct than the rights of all the people who lived in that town long before she moved there?
I don’t believe in the tyranny of the majority, but I believe that everyone should have a place that they can go to and build a community that they want to build, and I really hate this idea that we should have a monoculture where everything is exactly the same everywhere, and people can move to Mississippi from Wisconsin and enforce their own particular values on the locals, and the locals have to abide by it or be forced into compliance by violence from the state.
I wonder what kind of ruckus she caused that got her kids into that mess. I wonder how prayer in school exactly violated her rights or her kids rights. I also wonder what got her to move to that town and force her way into their way of life without a care for the way they’d been doing it for years.
Erek
tomndebb: Yeah, that use of Matthew 6:5 is the best argument I’ve heard, but it wouldn’t be something you’d use in court.
Actually I would to mswas, it is something the artical didn’t mention. But then again I don’t expect that artical to say that Lisa was a real B-tch.
It is something we don’t know, I have to allow her the benefit of the doubt for now.
Have you seen the spelling errors and you ask this!
Nor did I ever say this - with one exception, I can decide for myself if I am a real Christain - or do you deny me this?
Not it is not, they are quite different. People can know there is a God (have faith) and not subscribe to any religion. People can be religious and not beleive in a God. They can overlap, but no more then people who drive red cars might also go to Mc D’s drive thru’s.
If they were adults I could see this, but since they are children it may not be the same. I don’t have the exact words, and if anyone know please post them, but IIRC it is written if anyone prevents the children from knowing God the would be better off having a millstone tied around their neck and dropped out of a airplane at 30,000 ft.
(again I’m not sure that those are the exact words)
Where did I say or even imply that? Try to be honest in your response. Try not to use stuff that I did not say or even imply and pretend that I did.
For one thing, if someone says he’s a Christian but is still a murdering, baby-raping scum, guess what…he’s a Christian. Now, he’s obviously not a good Christian.
Oh, and yes, you certainly should question if his actions are moral, but most importantly, you should question if his actions are legal. (Here’s a hint for those of you with reading comprehension problems (mswas, for one): those actions aren’t.)
You don’t see how this woman used the courts to protect her children’s (and other children’s) constitutional guarantees? You don’t see how it doesn’t matter (a) how sleepy the town is, (b) how small the town is, or even (c) that she suddenly moved into the town? You don’t see that all that matters is (1) the town is in the US and (2) a governmental agency of said town was violating the Constitution.
Are you just pulling words out for their pretty looks? Do you not understand that she’s not any kind of colonist, but is someone who is already protected by the primary governing document of the town into which she moved.
They’re not. Here’s yet another clue for you: the people there–according to that nifty primary governing document–had no right to violate the Constitution. She went to court to force the governmental agency concerned to cease and desist violating said governing document.
Governmental obedience to the Constitution isn’t a monoculture.
Ah, yes. Let’s, yet again, blame the victim. She didn’t get her kids into a mess. She demanded that the government obey the primary governing document, said document to which that government was already subject long before she moved into that community.
You may now cease wondering. It violated her rights, her children’s rights, and the rights of everyone else there by it being a governmental endorsement of religion.
Why she moved there is irrelevant to the facts of the matter. At any rate, she has the freedom to move into any town in the country, just as you do.
Now, here’s something specifically for you, mswas, since you evidently have problems using words with the same definitions nearly everyone else uses: www.dictionary.com. You may consider that a New Year’s gift. Don’t worry, it’s free to use.
Where did I attempt to deny anyone that decision for themselves? I pointed out that it’s not the prerogative of anyone to decide that for anyone else.
You thus display a severe misunderstanding of what religion is. Not all religions (faiths) require a belief in deity.
Millstones in the sea were reserved for people who caused the “little ones” to “stumble.”* There was no action by Ms. Herdahl that would have caused children to sin and she did nothing to prevent religious services in religious places. (She prayed there, herself, until the vicous actions of the rest of the congregation drove her out.) I would tend to think that the actions of the parents who branded this good Fundamentalist Christian as a satanist or atheist and encouraged their children to harrass and persecute her family are probably in more danger of being judged for causing little ones to stumble than she is.
Tom raises a good point, IMHO. Who was it causing the children to not know God? I would think it’s those people (the sleepy little “God-fearing” community) who are going around telling lies and gossip.
That’s what the Unitarian church in my town does. They have seminars where the speakers come and speak on everything from ‘auras’ to Episcopalianism to Sikhism to religion in video games (like Diablo) to astrophysics to evolution to Sufism to just about any philosophical/religious/scientific movement one can think of. It’s pretty cool, actually. I’ve learned a good deal of information from these seminars. The ‘pastor’ also tends to talk about everything from paganism (in all its forms) to early Judaism/Zorostrianism to modern Hinduism to geology to…well, the sky’s the limit.
If you’ve been avoiding Unitarian churches because they’re so secular, you might want to think again. The situation up North might be different, but in my Southern Unitarian church most are liberal Jews, moderate to liberal Christians, pagans (Native American, Wiccan, Dianic, and Asatru seem to be the popular ones around here), a few Muslims, a Hindu, a few Buddhists, and handful of secular humanists. Pretty good mix altogether.
mswas, so it’s okay to force little Jewish kids to say the “Our Father”?
You’re a real douchebag.
mswas, when I moved to this neighborhood twenty years ago, it was primarily white with some blacks and a few Hindus. Since that time we have had a major immigration of Hispanics, Kurds, and Cambodians. We are called “The LIttle United Nations” now and I’m certain that there are many other countries represented that I don’t know about. (One grocery store has signs out in nine languages.)
If our schools had still have been having sermons and prayers as they did when I first began teaching, at what point should they have changed?
I do know that it continued long after it was legal and that what I had to sit through as a teacher was demeaning to my own beliefs and to those of other teachers. When one of the Jewish members of the faculty objected, she was verbally assaulted with a screaming fit and a slamming fist in front of the entire faculty. Fortunately for all of us, her husband was an ACLU attorney and the screaming, harassment, visiting evangelists, and daily Bible study stopped.
Do fundamentalists not believe that God hears silent prayer? Do they not believe that Christianity can be taught best by practicing the Beatitudes and the fruits of the spirit? Why are so many of them angry and screaming and trying to control other people instead of themselves?
No individual, no town, no group has the right to decide what shall be “orthodox” for someone else. It’s the law of the land. Nobody can tell another, who to pray to, how to pray, when to pray, or where to pray, or even that they have to pray.
*“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” --Robert H. Jackson
“Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.” – Thomas Paine
“I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.” -Thomas Jefferson
“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” -Thomas Jefferson
“…no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no way…affect their civil capacities.” -Thomas Jefferson
Thanks for those quotes, SteveG1. It’s nice to be reminded that the likes of Jefferson and Paine gave serious thought to the horrors of the Tyranny of the Majority as regards religion, as well as in other matters.
Just because a majority of citizens wish for the government to institute specific religious teachings in public institutions does not mean that it is legal or constitutional to do so.