The War on Religion

[1stAmendguy]

[Christians] would rather have a solid moral foundation to follow than just have arbitrary moral standards attached to social norms that change with the wind.

"Those who merely preach morality, that is, people who spin out ethical rules without the ability to condense them into an idea of specific action are morally unproductive." - Rudolph Steiner

 

[moostraks]

It is also easier to judge others than to understand personal real life situations.

That said- I was homeschooled and I believe the public school system should be abolished and schooling should be left to families and/or local communities and private schools.

People can choose to educate their children anyway they see fit, but when they start to gripe about the ill effects of their choices others are going to point out what seems obvious to those who chose a different path. Calling it judging people is just trying to shut down the discussion by making the person with an opposing opinion seem to be in the wrong. If someone is offended by what I said then they are judging themselves.

 

[Revolution9]

That's true. Christmas is a pagan holiday.

Christmas is a holiday based on where the Sun is rising on the horizon. It is the first day that it actually appears to be heading back in the other direction. For those without calendars they could understand that the planting season was coming up and the darkening of days has passed. This is celebrated worldwide and is not pagan but geoastronomical.

Rev9

 

[shane77m]

If parents would do what they are supposed to do then it wouldn't matter if they sent their children to public schools or not.

As far as a war on religion, it seems to me that Christianity has received more attacks, but I am biased.

A war on religions make sense, the worship of the state is the only "true religion".

 

[moostraks]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. He was correct in pointing out the pagan roots of Christmas. It's an important distinction that needs to be made if you really care about where your faith lies. Similarities between Christianity and Pagan culture are an unfortunate phenomenon, and despite the fact that it is true that they have intermixed a bit, it shouldn't be like that. Christian doctrine is incompatible with Pagan culture.

I believe God is greater than the constructs created by man (religion). I think religions are man's means of defining the undefinable and the overlaps are evidence of God rather than unfortunate phenomena.

 

[moostraks]

If parents would do what they are supposed to do then it wouldn't matter if they sent their children to public schools or not.

As far as a war on religion, it seems to me that Christianity has received more attacks, but I am biased.

A war on religions make sense, the worship of the state is the only "true religion".

The quantity of time and the type of influence that one's education has in shaping one's views of the universe will outweigh what influence parents have who send their children to government schools.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

From what I have seen, science and religion go hand in hand. Research that is consistent with God creating the universe is accepted and funded. Research that is inconsistent with God gets ignored.

Additionally, the scientific methods used are flawed. They are constantly trying to find the smallest of details which have no chance of explaining the universe as a whole and develop tunnel vision. There have been very few realistic attempts to explain everything. The theories I have seen have no chance of explaining everything, even if they are right.

Science isn't meant to explain everything. It really only pertains to what we can perceive through our five senses and has nothing to do with the history of the natural world, nor anything outside the natural world. It cannot answer philosophical questions, either. The details that science is used to find may not mean much to you, but that doesn't mean the scientific method isn't correctly applied in finding them. Science is useless once you start trying to answer life's really meaningful questions.

Also, research that is "consistent" with the idea of God creating the universe is very subjective. Things that might actually support the idea of intelligent design aren't funded, even though things that support or rely on the basis of evolution certainly are funded. What's more, if some new study happens to contradict the popular story of evolution, it simply changes the way we understand evolution, it never actually leads us to the conclusion that perhaps evolution is a bad theory.

 

[pcosmar]

I am a Christian Believer,, but am rather irreligious.
It is my personal belief that religion harms and distorts the truth.
Political Religion being the very worst kind of religion.

I can respect folks of all faiths that are honestly seeking the truth,, and will offer what I have found to their search.
Not religion,,but Christ's message.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

"Those who merely preach morality, that is, people who spin out ethical rules without the ability to condense them into an idea of specific action are morally unproductive." - Rudolph Steiner

Okay. Thanks for giving me Rudolph Steiner's opinion. Productivity isn't really my concern. If you understand what is morally right, then you will know what to do. I don't have to tell you what to do because it is already laid out in the Bible. I'm not concerned about whether you think I'm being "productive" or not. It's irrelevant. How much morality I "produce" in the world is between me and my God, not some ruler against which people can judge me for my moral practicality.

 

[mac_hine]

This is a bit off topic, yet still an interesting read.

Christ Almighty! US Foreign Policy vs. Middle Eastern Christianity
American tax dollars fund anti-Christian pogrom

by Justin Raimondo, August 08, 2012

The US State Department has quietly ceased cataloging violations of religious freedom in its “Country Reports on Human Rights.” Of course, it’s just a coincidence that this comes at a time when Washington is allying with radical Islamists in Libya, Syria, and Iraq. As CNS reports:

“The U.S. State Department removed the sections covering religious freedom from the Country Reports on Human Rights that it released on May 24, three months past the statutory deadline Congress set for the release of these reports.

“The new human rights reports—purged of the sections that discuss the status of religious freedom in each of the countries covered—are also the human rights reports that include the period that covered the Arab Spring and its aftermath.

“Thus, the reports do not provide in-depth coverage of what has happened to Christians and other religious minorities in predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East that saw the rise of revolutionary movements in 2011 in which Islamist forces played an instrumental role.

“For the first time ever, the State Department simply eliminated the section of religious freedom in its reports covering 2011 and instead referred the public to the 2010 International Religious Freedom Report — a full two years behind the times — or to the annual report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which was released last September and covers events in 2010 but not 2011.”

Part of the reason could be that the state of religious freedom in the US isn’t all that great since the Obama administration tried to force Catholic institutions — hospitals, clinics, etc. — to provide the “full-range” of contraceptive services, including abortion, to their employees. Then there’s the Chick-fil-a controversy, where the city governments of Chicago, New York, and San Francisco want to punish the company whose CEO opposes gay marriage on religious grounds.

Hostility to organized religion — unless you’re a Unitarian, or one of these guys — has long been a feature of contemporary American liberalism, but the kind of radical anti-clericalism that has roiled Europe (and Mexico) hasn’t reared its ugly head in this country until now. The Catholic Church is a favorite anti-clericalist target, but the State Department isn’t discriminating on sectarian grounds: they’ve simply eliminated accounts of all anti-Christian measures taken by foreign governments from their Country Reports.

This makes sense, if you think about it: after all, if you’re allying with radical Islamists in order to overthrow the government of Syria — which has long been a bulwark against Islamic jihadists in the Middle East — then official propaganda has got to reflect this strategy.

In Egypt, where we’re trying to retain some influence in the wake of longtime ally Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, the Islamists have gone on a rampage, burning Coptic Christian churches, murdering churchgoers, and making it impossible for a public Christian presence to exist alongside the Muslim majority. As the Muslim Brotherhood takes the presidency and the parliament, with US support, the country’s Christians have plenty of reason to worry — or emigrate.

In Libya, where a supposedly “secular” party won a plurality in the elections after US-backed rebels took power, one of their first public pronouncements was to disavow the secular label — and reinstate polygamy. You’re only allowed four, but hey, don’t be a hog. And in an economic reform that may resonate in certain quarters in Washington, the charging of interest by banks is controversial if not yet forbidden. Persecution of Libya’s Christians has remained the one constant since the fall of Gadhafi, and vigilante violence is on the uptick.

Keep reading... http://original.antiwar.com/justin/...oreign-policy-vs-middle-eastern-christianity/

 

[1stAmendguy]

//

 

[1stAmendguy]

Okay. Thanks for giving me Rudolph Steiner's opinion. Productivity isn't really my concern. If you understand what is morally right, then you will know what to do. I don't have to tell you what to do because it is already laid out in the Bible. I'm not concerned about whether you think I'm being "productive" or not. It's irrelevant. How much morality I "produce" in the world is between me and my God, not some ruler against which people can judge me for my moral practicality.

Then let's replace the Constitution with Biblical law. After all it's the word of God, are you in favor of that? Morality cannot be prescribed, we must as free agents use our moral imagination. I don't need to have a dogmatic objective morality to know what is right. By the way, I believe you have better morals than your God of the Bible.

 

[tttppp]

From what I have seen, science and religion go hand in hand. Research that is consistent with God creating the universe is accepted and funded. Research that is inconsistent with God gets ignored.

Additionally, the scientific methods used are flawed. They are constantly trying to find the smallest of details which have no chance of explaining the universe as a whole and develop tunnel vision. There have been very few realistic attempts to explain everything. The theories I have seen have no chance of explaining everything, even if they are right.

Science isn't meant to explain everything. It really only pertains to what we can perceive through our five senses and has nothing to do with the history of the natural world, nor anything outside the natural world. It cannot answer philosophical questions, either. The details that science is used to find may not mean much to you, but that doesn't mean the scientific method isn't correctly applied in finding them. Science is useless once you start trying to answer life's really meaningful questions.

Also, research that is "consistent" with the idea of God creating the universe is very subjective. Things that might actually support the idea of intelligent design aren't funded, even though things that support or rely on the basis of evolution certainly are funded. What's more, if some new study happens to contradict the popular story of evolution, it simply changes the way we understand evolution, it never actually leads us to the conclusion that perhaps evolution is a bad theory.

That's the problem of science. It should be meant to explain everything, or at the very least, explain a lot more than what we currently know. Science too often focuses on the smallest of increases in knowledge, insuring our view of the world will always stay the same. Einstein attempted to learn way more about the universe than was known, and we still follow most of his work. Since then, there haven't been any major discoveries. Just incremental discoveries that don't change anything.

The reason for this problem is largely religion, which doesn't want any discoveries that can invalidate it. They want slow pointless discoveries, that way they can slowly change their story to match accepted science.

 

[Sola_Fide]

Then let's replace the Constitution with Biblical law. After all it's the word of God, are you in favor of that? Morality cannot be prescribed, we must as free agents use our moral imagination. I don't need to have a dogmatic objective morality to know what is right. By the way, I believe you have better morals than your God of the Bible.

That itself is a moral prescription. It's contradictory to say this.

 

[Revolution9]

I believe you have better morals than your God of the Bible.

Which god or God of the Bible and which testament?..The one that is timeless and so infinitely immense as to be beyond syntax and that Jesus referred to as His Father or the jealous tribal god of the wandering tribe who had the morals of a pathological criminal?

Rev9

 

[Ender]

That's the problem of science. It should be meant to explain everything, or at the very least, explain a lot more than what we currently know. Science too often focuses on the smallest of increases in knowledge, insuring our view of the world will always stay the same. Einstein attempted to learn way more about the universe than was known, and we still follow most of his work. Since then, there haven't been any major discoveries. Just incremental discoveries that don't change anything.

The reason for this problem is largely religion, which doesn't want any discoveries that can invalidate it. They want slow pointless discoveries, that way they can slowly change their story to match accepted science.

Disagree-

In the 20th Century science became its own religion and was taught in schools as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth- even though the truth kept changing. (No brontosaurus today- no Pluto tomorrow.) I used to kow a minister that was also a physicist; he said he loved his job because "Truth" changed every seven years.

Still, Religion was held as a medieval relic by the majority of the scientific world, until.....

Quantum Physics become popular. Almost every quantum physicist says that "something" is going on that can't be explained- something spiritual.

 

[Sola_Fide]

Disagree-

In the 20th Century science became its own religion and was taught in schools as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth- even though the truth kept changing. (No brontosaurus today- no Pluto tomorrow.) I used to kow a minister that was also a physicist, he said he loved his job because "Truth" changed every seven years.

Still, Religion was held as a medieval relic by the majority of the scientific world, until.....

Quantum Physics become popular. Almost every quantum physicist says that "something" is going on that can't be explained- something spiritual.

Science is a religion. It is the state religion. It's priests are the schoolteachers and its church is the classroom.

 

[cstarace]

Perhaps there is some truth in what you say. But I think it goes deeper than that. Atheists are being manipulated by those in charge and the laws used to silence the religious will be used to silence you as well.

Bullshit. I haven't been manipulated by anything other than logic, reason, and science, thank you very much.

 

[cstarace]

Science is a religion. It is the state religion. It's priests are the schoolteachers and its church is the classroom.

No it is not. Not even remotely close. Science is fact.

 

[Sola_Fide]

Bullshit. I haven't been manipulated by anything other than logic, reason, and science, thank you very much.

What is "logical" about arguments from science? Do you not understand that correlation does not imply causation?