Trump calls out Biden on religion

[LilyM]

Doesn’t exist. You cannot have laws without morality. And as Catholics we are not called to have a secular society. We are explicitly to make sure our society has laws based around Catholic morals. See the syllabus of errors.

I think lots of things are wrong - adultery, divorce in most cases, fornication, pornography, theft, not going to Mass on Sunday. And am more than happy to speak out on the moral wrongs of abortion and of many other things.

Not good enough, Catholic teaching says we have to do more than speak out. We have to strive to make laws to reflect our morality.

That doesn’t mean the best or most workable response in each and every case is to force or forbid the relevant act on pain of secular legal punishment

When done alone, then it is not a good response. But it should also be taught in schools. Regardless, laws are a start.

why not simply go the whole nine yards and require everyone to do all that is required of a faithful Catholic on pain of punishment by civil law?

Because this is condemned by the Church. There is a difference between creating a good, legal atmosphere based around catholic (and God’s) morals and forced conversion.

baptise or confirm their children,

I’m fine with fining Catholics who willfully do not baptize their children.

who fails go to Mass on Sundays,

Not fining people who fail to go to mass, but closing down businesses that are not in the service and infrastructure fields on Sundays is a good start. Society used to be closed on Sundays and Holy Days. That would be great to bring back.
[/quote]

So what else would you do - that is not currently already being done - apart from criminalise abortion? And why do you think criminalisation would achieve anything more than current non-legal measures?

And how is what you propose really anything other than forced conversion in disguise?

“Act like you believe this unborn child has a right to life. Why? Not because you believe it, not because more than one in a million non-religious people believe it, and in fact a lot of religious people also don’t believe it, but because God says so, and that’s good enough for me so it should be for you too”.

 

[Dovekin]

Did we read the same post? I saw no accusation, except now yours. We really need to not use this sort of verbal bludgeon for political differences. Biden’s faith gives no pass to scrutiny and analysis.

I do not know. What post did you read?

I read one that stated that Biden is someone to be feared. Don’t you think that is an uncharitable description of a fellow Catholic? If any scrutiny and analysis had accompanied the bald assertion, I probably would not have said what I said.

 

[Freddy]

The Church decides.
[/quote]

Originally it was the government:

So let me get this straight. If the Spanish government says ‘fight the fascists’ then you’d agree. Unless the church says ‘join the fascists’, in which case you fight with them. And if the Italian government and the church says fight for Mussolini then you obviously join the fascists again. But if you were German (and aligned with the Italians) and the government said fascism is good but the church resisted to a degree, then…I’m not sure where you are in that situation.

If the church supports one ally but decries another then it depends which side of the border you live on I guess.

 

[Freddy]

HomeschoolDad:

Freddy:

Yes, there is an argument (well, it’s not an argument - it’s fact) that those cells are human. No disputing that. And a potential person. You or I for example. But…they are considered differently by the person who counts most. The woman who decides to have an abortion.

I don’t know what these women think. I really would not want to push anybody to dredge up painful memories, least of all with my being a male, but I would be interested to know “did you regard the being inside of you as not quite a human life, or did you regard it that way, and if so, how were you able to justify doing what you did?”.

I would be willing to bet “well, it was legal” is an argument that would frequently be advanced.

My heart goes out to any women who have ever been in that situation, and it is not my intent to condemn or judge them. What’s done is done.

I really think the sort of arguments raised would be much more likely things like

“I/We couldn’t afford to raise the child”

“My health (or possibly the child’s if it is found to have a serious genetic or other health problem) would be at serious risk if the pregnancy went ahead”

“my parents/husband/boyfriend would refuse the support I would need, and possibly be violent or kick me out of the house etc”

I think so too. Not that I’m unaware that some women would have an abortion because the pregnancy was deemed inconvenient and used it as a form of contraception. I have no desire to support that type of view.

But I would suggest that the earlier in the pregnancy the abortion takes place, the easier it is to go through. Psychologically I mean. Which confirms what I said earlier: people consider later term abortions to be worse than early term ones. Just as people, using an extreme, would consider it abhorrent to kill a baby a few days before birth but have no problem in an abortion immediately after conception.

There is an obvious reason why some states were pushing for a requirement for a woman to have a scan before proceeding with an abortion. If the pregnancy is late enough then one can see a baby. Not just a few cells. Let’s face it, no woman goes into an abortion clinic and says: ‘Excuse me, I’d like you to kill my baby’. But very many have no problem in saying: ‘I’d like my pregnancy terminated’ if it’s no more than a few cells.

That will never change.

 

[twf]

I don’t agree with name calling. But Trump does it all the time… in childish and sometimes nasty ways… and not just with Democrats… he name calls and trashes his own former staffers, fellow Republicans. It seems a bit rich for an ardent Trump supporter to complain about name calling.

 

[Freddy]

Men, women and children…

 

[otjm]

Well, by Catholic standards, Trump is a polygamist and an adulterer.

And Cyrus was a tyrant and a pagan. But he still freed the Jews from Babylonian captivity.

It is said that God writes straight with crooked lines. Given that Biden just picked Kamala Harris, a Catholic hater from the get go, and the fact that Biden has been fading mentally, the election is not about Trump and Biden; it is now about Trump and Kamala Harris.

If you watched the hearings on Kavanaugh you got a pretty good view of what kind of person she is. She carries some interesting baggage herself as an attorney who had to be forced by the Courts to finally free a man from death row. And she has nothing to say about others in the area of sexual morality.

I fear for this country if she is elected.

 

[Freddy]

You have vales that you were forced to give up? You couldn’t keep them? Somebody made you change them?

Gee, what I think you meant is that some of you values are no longer shared by the majority. If any one of that majority tries to make you change what you believe then tell me who they are and they’ll have me to deal with.

 

[Freddy]

I fear for this country if she is elected.

If this is simple partisanship then you won’t be able to nominate any other Democrat for the position.

Who is your option and what are their good points?

 

[LilyM]

Because they aren’t forced to go to Church, to say they worship God, or anything like that. They just have to live in a moral society where the laws reflect the fact that unborn babies have a right to life, which does not depend on what you believe, just that you acknowledge it is the law.

A forced conversion is, “IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN GOD YOU ARE DEAD, DEAD I TELL YOU!!!”

No extra taxes, no violence, just submission to the law.

It’s no different than being forced to live in a society that sacrifices unborn babies on the altar of the gods of wealth and a “happy” life.

Notice how in this society I am being forced to give up my values? Funny how you don’t care about that.
[/quote]

So religion to you consists purely of lip-service and the outward formal expressions of worship?

It isn’t forcing religion on people, for example, to mandate that they follow the practice unique to Islamic sharia law of publicly executing gays or women who have sex before marriage? The only thing that counts is forcing them to say “Alahu akhbar” or similar?

And it is only forced conversion.if forces on pain of death, clearly. So life imprisonment or lesser penalties don’t count somehow?

 

[otjm]

If this is simple partisanship then you won’t be able to nominate any other Democrat for the position.

It is not simple partisanship, as I am neither Democrat nor Republican. I can’t stand Trump personally (my snide comment being I wish someone would break Trump’s fingers so he would not longer be able to yap on Twitter). However, I strongly support most of what he has accomplished.

I would have strongly supported Huckabee, as anyone who could come along behind Bill Clinton and work successfully with a Democratic legislature had the skills to be President. Being a Baptist probably would have ended up with Hillary at the wheel.

As far to the left as the Democratic Party has become, I don’t have anyone I would want to see in that office. The more they sound off about what they want for the near term future, the more bat guano crazy they get. The least whackadoodle in proposals has been Tulsi Gabbard; and I don’t know that she is strong enough to withstand the far left of the party. My recollection is that she did a pretty good job disassembling Harris - maybe she will pop up again.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

If this is simple partisanship then you won’t be able to nominate any other Democrat for the position.

It is not simple partisanship, as I am neither Democrat nor Republican. I can’t stand Trump personally (my snide comment being I wish someone would break Trump’s fingers so he would not longer be able to yap on Twitter). However, I strongly support most of what he has accomplished.

I would have strongly supported Huckabee, as anyone who could come along behind Bill Clinton and work successfully with a Democratic legislature had the skills to be President. Being a Baptist probably would have ended up with Hillary at the wheel.

As far to the left as the Democratic Party has become, I don’t have anyone I would want to see in that office. The more they sound off about what they want for the near term future, the more bat guano crazy they get. The least whackadoodle in proposals has been Tulsi Gabbard; and I don’t know that she is strong enough to withstand the far left of the party. My recollection is that she did a pretty good job disassembling Harris - maybe she will pop up again.

This I don’t get. I am rusted on Labour. Or Labor as it is in Australia. Roughly equivalent to the Dems. But I could name a half dozen people from the opposition that could do a good job as Prime Minister down here. And as much as I dislike a lot of the policies of the current incumbant, he is doing an excellent job in the situation in which we find ourselves. There is a feeling in Australia of rallying around whoever has the reins at this time and giving them our support.

But everything I see from the US is ‘us against them’. And take no prisoners. Destroy the country to save it!

God help America.

 

[farronwolf]

Ok, just one simple question, which I have raised previously for those who want the US laws to reflect what the Church teaches.

The US is 20% Catholic, Italy is 80% Catholic. Abortion is a right in Italy codified in their laws. How in the world can anyone expect our country at 20% Catholic to do something (ban abortion) that a country which is 80% Catholic won’t do.

If you can explain that I will gladly entertain any ideas on just how we might approach it in the US. Until then, it ain’t going to happen. Period.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Ok, just one simple question, which I have raised previously for those who want the US laws to reflect what the Church teaches.

The US is 20% Catholic, Italy is 80% Catholic. Abortion is a right in Italy codified in their laws. How in the world can anyone expect our country at 20% Catholic to do something (ban abortion) that a country which is 80% Catholic won’t do.

If you can explain that I will gladly entertain any ideas on just how we might approach it in the US. Until then, it ain’t going to happen. Period.

Well, for one thing, people other than Catholics believe that abortion is murder, and you will hear many of them say that “life begins at conception”. (I hope, then, that they are willing to give up abortifacient contraceptives. Some may have thought this through, some may not have.) We have a massive evangelical Christian population in this country, and they are not bashful about calling out right and wrong for what it is. They also object to things such as pornography, adultery, and prostitution. Some of those things are either illegal or used to be. Were they “forcing their morality” upon an unwilling majority?

For what it’s worth, Italy also has a long-standing left-wing political tendency, no doubt at least in part as a reaction against past clericalism. Being a communist or a socialist in Italy is so common as to be unremarkable. The US Democratic party, by comparison, would be viewed as a conservative party in much of the world.

 

[farronwolf]

Not really going to get into arguing about the “moral majority” who now wants to be called the “silent majority”, when in fact they aren’t nearly close to a majority. Everyone has that really loud relative that just loves to be heard don’t we.

I will just say that the evangelicals aren’t all they are cracked up to be when you get past the surface. They are out there getting divorced and remarried, looking at pornography, committing adultery, and hiring prostitutes, cheating people, lying and whatever other immoral actions we can think of at pretty much the same rate as the rest of society.

I live right smack dab in the middle of the baptist bible belt. Decades ago when I worked at a liquor store it was quite comical to see the lengths bible thumping christians would go to to hide actions which were preached as sinful but quietly participated in.

Regardless of Italy’s past or current political leanings, they are a Catholic nation based on the percentage of the population, whom all should believe that abortion is wrong, yet they have voted and passed legislation which makes it legal.

So again, I just don’t see how people can ever imagine that the US is, in my lifetime at least, ever going to magically have a change of heart on the matter, or legislate it out of existence.

 

[vz71]

How in the world can anyone expect our country at 20% Catholic to do something (ban abortion) that a country which is 80% Catholic won’t do.

The Catholic Church is not the only church that condemns abortion.

 

[farronwolf]

Never said it was.

However the US is currently making a steady decline in both christian and Catholic populations. So again, I don’t see how folks think somehow great numbers of people in this country are going to have an epiphany and switch sides on the issue.

 

[pnewton]

I read one that stated that Biden is someone to be feared. Don’t you think that is an uncharitable description of a fellow Catholic?

It is an opinion, not of him as a person, but as a president. There are also people who fear a Trump presidency. That does not make that a lack of charity. Biden is a Catholic, but our charity, the Golden Rule, and moral justice extends to all. His being Catholic is not relevant to the actions we take.

I think we can be uncharitable in expressing our opinions, when that turns to personal attacks. I particularly find the attacks on Trump over his hands or walking down the ramp rather distasteful, as I do the “sleepy Joe” name-calling.

 

[pnewton]

It isn’t forcing religion on people, for example, to mandate that they follow the practice unique to Islamic sharia law of publicly executing gays or women who have sex before marriage? The only thing that counts is forcing them to say “Alahu akhbar” or similar?

Therein is the problem with this poster’s theocratic America. If you believe all should follow Catholic teaching by force of law when we can elect the right people, then by the Golden Rule, all should follow Sharia where Muslims have the majority. This leads to the tragedy of bloodshed and violence in the name of God. We must learn from history.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Regardless of Italy’s past or current political leanings, they are a Catholic nation based on the percentage of the population…

One word: Poland.

Similar Catholic percentages, similar levels of Catholic practice, only real difference, Italy has a thousand-year head start on Poland’s Catholic culture. Polish abortion laws very closely (but not exactly) reflect Catholic morality on the matter.

You could say much the same about tiny Malta.

As far as being “smack dab in the middle of the Baptist Bible Belt”, shake hands with a fellow denizen. I was raised among Baptists, my grandmother was a Baptist, and except for a nine-year sojourn in the DC area (Northern Virginia was pretty moralistic itself back in those days, let’s just say times have changed), I’ve always lived in “Bible country”. As do Catholics, they run the gamut. Just as there are Catholics who sin, go to confession, and sin again — and isn’t that really any of us? (I know it’s me) — so there are Baptists who cry “once saved, always saved”, even when they “backslide”?

Regardless of Italy’s past or current political leanings, they are a Catholic nation based on the percentage of the population, whom all should believe that abortion is wrong, yet they have voted and passed legislation which makes it legal.

You would also think the same thing about wide swaths of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, historically Catholic regions, yet generally speaking, they return pro-choice legislators to federal and state capitals time and time again, and give their electoral votes to pro-choice Democrats. Maybe they fell for the same sophistries that the Kennedys did? The same sophistries that also influenced Biden, Pelosi, the Cuomos, and many others?