Pray for those in governement and those outside the faith, and place all our trust in that which will not fail us a kingdom with no end, as opposed to a secular government. Those who use the 1st amendment of the free secular governement to oppose us, have the support of the secular government to do so.
I’m confused by this statement. The government of our choosing is a government that has to show equality to everyone according to our founding documents. That means those of religions A, B, and C, and those without any religious inclination at all. Our government didn’t start that way, it evolved into this in the last 70 years. Proof of this is the attempt in the 1850s to have all references to religion removed from government displays, policies, etc by the introduction of legislation. Both the House and the Senate referred it to committee, and a year or so later both committees reported, and resoundingly defeated such an idea, quoting many of our Founding Fathers who insisted promoting the moral principles of the Christian faiths were essential to our society.
You can judge the evolution of these ideas for yourself. Try to imagine a President of the US caught in the scandals of say, Bill Clinton, and that happening in 1860. Do you think all that would happen is the loss of his law license for lying to a federal judge? Imagine a member of Congress in 1860 getting caught taking a bribe… losing his job, then wanting to run for office again. Think that would fly in 1860? Why then does it fly today?
Up until about 1952, there was no opposition to government doing anything that might benefit or even in a passing way acknowledge the beliefs of some religions. We were founded by men who held religious beliefs, promoted the benefits of Christianity’s moral foundations, and expected that to always continue in our society. But starting in 1952 and after, there has been a slow creep of the idea that the mere acknowledgement of any principle of any religion automatically means the government is either promoting it or showing favoritism toward it. This comes from the notion common today that “all men are created equal” must be interpreted to mean “all men ARE equal in every way, and if not, it’s the government’s job to make it so.” This is why we hear such daffy logic every year over some town’s Nativity scene. The argument goes that if we allow the Catholics or the Lutherans to put up a display, we have to also allow the Satanists or the Wiccans to put up their display. Or worse, we can’t allow anyone because then we’d have to buy one of each. Why?
We don’t follow this logic with books. Someone selling a book in a shop does not, by the same argument, give another the right to sell child pornography books, yet each is a book. Same thing if we have a video rental store, we don’t automatically grant them the right to sell or rent X-rated material, yet each is a video. We have the right as citizens to elect people who will make laws that reflect our society, thus if our society rejects child porn, we expect laws that prohibit it. Only a fool would argue that kind of material is equal in format and thus must be allowed.
So we can make distinctions and we can survive 10 seconds if one group puts something in the public eye without the other. Right now we have Atheists putting ads on the sides of buses and trains saying there is no God. I’ve not read in the news where Christianity has folded its hand and gone home as a result. It might offend someone, but we aren’t guaranteed freedom from offense. This is why the argument that posting the 10 Commandments in the public square is “offensive” to someone is ridiculous. How do they imagine Christians feel when they view a bus with a “God is dead” sign on it?
To moral relativists, who abhor an absolute standard, this kind of thing is easy to do. Each case presents a new chance to make yet another confounding definition of something with the demand we must all respect it and follow it. Why? Because they say so and they also think they are right, using their own standard of what is right. It’s not right for you to put up the display most pleasing to you, but if I want to, you have to let me. There really isn’t any real standard behind it other than the false idea that the government has to be everything equally to everybody. The sad result is that when tried, it results in a government who is little to anyone, and whom everyone distrusts.
I try to be tolerant of all religions, but I’ve had just as many bad experiences with Christians, unfortunately. I must admit it is really hard to divorce the bad experiences from the good ones that I’ve experienced. I’ve been called things on this forum because my posts have “Discordianism” on it. I think it’s wrong to judge, no matter what faith you are, and there are people of all faiths that give their faith a bad name. I hope you will find that myself, Ken, and Cyberwolf are a lot more open-minded.
Not trying to be a jerk, just saying.
