War on Christians

[TragicMonkey]

There seems little point in playing the "who furnished much thought" game, since everyone's borrowed from everyone else. That's how philosophy works. The Enlightenment thinkers borrowed from Christianity. Christianity borrowed from the Greeks (anyone who thinks otherwise has never read Aquinas or Aristotle. You cannot have the former without the latter.). And the Greeks borrowed from everybody they met, whether it was Babylonian astronomers, Egyptian priests, or poets making up stories to entertain people. Thoughts outlive the people that came up with them, merge with other thoughts, get distorted, forgotten, revived, written down, mistranslated, misunderstood, rediscovered, repudiated, championed, restored, and transformed all the time. They evolve. There is no point in history where you can produce a cutoff line and say "this is where the good thinking started" because that good thinking was always based on what came before. The highest scientific rationality owes a debt to the insane religious beliefs of primitive cave people, just as the most brilliant scientist ever started out as a drooling, poopy baby.

So even if you don't agree with or respect previous beliefs, there's not much justification for putting on airs about it.

 

[elliotfc]

This is probably the most genius work of spin, how else do you convince people that 90% of the population of this country is being persecuted?

I dunno, ever heard of apartheid?

I'm not drawing a perfect analogy. I'm just debunking the concept.

They claim that their religious faith is under assault by secularists and atheists/agnostics/secular humanists, for some reason they can't seem to distinguish between those.

If they are *effectively* the same, that's beside the point.

They blame these groups for prayerless school, creationless school, and ten commandmentless court houses.

Here I agree with you. I blame believers for these things, more than unbelievers.

The reason christians can say that they are being persecuted is that they have been the persecuters for so long that they don't know how it feels to be on the other end. Religious persecution is not being forbidden to put religious icons in government buildings It's being refused a job because you are a muslim, it's being forced by law to live in a section of town (called ghettos, yes this is where the term comes from) as Jews were in many areas historically, and it's being forced to convert under threat of torture or death as many indigenous cultures were. Christians in the USA encounter none of these and are 90% of the population, so they have no reason to complain.

No, they do have reasons to complain. Saying otherwise is fine, but ignores objective reality. They've already listed reasons for complaining. Are they legitimate reasons? I dunno. Call them illegitimate reasons, and then supply your morality which makes that classifcation valid.

-Elliot

 

[gnome]

No, they do have reasons to complain. Saying otherwise is fine, but ignores objective reality. They've already listed reasons for complaining. Are they legitimate reasons? I dunno. Call them illegitimate reasons, and then supply your morality which makes that classifcation valid.

-Elliot

Top of the list: The "War on Christmas".

Some Christian leaders (and political leaders and pundits that wear their Christianity like a badge) have explicitly stated that somehow the popularity of "Happy Holidays" over "Merry Christmas" is an attack on them. That is not a legitimate reason. The morality which makes that classification valid is that another's refusal to use an exclusive term cannot in any way be described as an attack.

 

[Oolon Colluphid]

Top of the list: The "War on Christmas".

Some Christian leaders (and political leaders and pundits that wear their Christianity like a badge) have explicitly stated that somehow the popularity of "Happy Holidays" over "Merry Christmas" is an attack on them. That is not a legitimate reason. The morality which makes that classification valid is that another's refusal to use an exclusive term cannot in any way be described as an attack.

It would be laughable, if it wasn't so pathetic. I wonder how many of them know the following:

"Christmas wasn't always celebrated the way it is today. In fact, the Puritans of Massachusetts banned any observance of Christmas, and anyone caught observing the holiday had to pay a fine. Connecticut had a law forbidding the celebration of Christmas and the baking of mincemeat pies! A few of the earliest settlers did celebrate Christmas, but it was far from a common holiday in the colonial era."

http://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/AmChristmas/

Freakin' hypocrites! lol

 

[FredFlash]

The Presbyterian's Argument That The National Religion is Atheism (1834)​

We proceed now to establish the charge of immorality against the Constitution of the United States.

1. It does not acknowledge or make any reference, to the existence or providence of the Supreme Being. The nation, as such, has no God. This is an essential evil in the constitution, which involves the hideous charge of national atheism! "The general government is erected for the general good of the United States, and especially for the management of their foreign concerns: but no association of men for moral purposes can be justified in an entire neglect of the Sovereign of the World. No consideration will justify the framers of the federal constitution, and the administration of the government, in withholding a recognition of the Lord and his anointed from the grand charter of the nation."[6]

2. The United States Constitution, does not recognise the revealed will of God. All moral government flows from God the Sovereign the Universe, and must be regulated by his will, otherwise it cannot bind the conscience. In the original state of man, the moral law, which we written on his heart, included in it the will of God relative to this as we as all other moral duties. To meet the exigency of man’s fallen condition, God has given a new revelation of his will, in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. All who enjoy this new, and now more perfect revelation of the will of God, are bound to regulate their civil and political relations by it, as well as those that immediately relate to the worship of God. To proceed on the ground that man may dispense with the instruction of scripture in the constitution and management civil government, is unquestionably to set aside the authority of God when He speaks to us in the holy scriptures. The universal depravity of human nature unfits men for performing either the personal or social duties of life, in a manner agreeable to the will of God. The scriptures contain instructions how all these duties are to be performed. "To the law and to the testimony" we are commanded to look. And no moral principle whatever can it be admitted, that men may form their constitutions of civil government according to the mere light nature, when the author of nature has given another and a more perfect rule by which they may be flamed. The authority which binds men to the light of nature, as far as it is applicable, binds them also to the scriptures, as the subsequent and more complete revelation of the will of God. "Revelation contains the true standard of civil government. It prescribes the supreme criterion according to which those states which have ordained this superior light should act in forming their constitutions, choosing their officers, and determining their leading objects."[7] In the Constitution of the United States, however, there is not the most distant allusion to the revealed will of God. The Bible, as containing the fundamental principles of political morality, is not even indirectly acknowledged. Here then is an evident violation of a moral duty.—Men are bound, as has been proved by the preceding observations, to make the Bible the basis of their political constitutions; but the United States of America have entirely excluded it from the charter which binds them together as a nation.

3. The Constitution of the United States acknowledges no subjection to the Lord Jesus Christ. A moral right to exercise universal dominion bas been given to Him as the Mediator, by God the Father, "He hath put all things under his feet, and set him far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come."[8] In the whole universe of created existence there is not a solitary exception to the mediatorial rule of Christ. He has moral authority given to him over all things for the sake of the Church, which is his body. Every intelligent being is bound to obey the Redeemer, and submit to his authority. Civil society, and all communities, are in their congregated character equally bound with individuals to honor Him. On their part it is not a matter of choice—"nations and their rulers are placed in a state of subjection to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of the kings of the earth, and are bound to acknowledge his mediatorial authority, and submit to his law; framing their laws, appointing their officers, and regulating their obedience in subserviency to the interests of his kingdom."[9] The revealed commands of God bind them to give obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ in all their social relations. "Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little."[10] The claim which the Mediator has to the homage of nations is held forth by his mediatorial exaltation and dignity. "He hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords."[11] The constitution and government which have no respect to the Mediator and his authority, as "Prince of the kings of the earth," are in a state of rebellion and opposition against "the Lord and his Anointed." They are destitute of an important moral feature, that justly exposes them to the charge of impiety. The Constitution of the United States is chargeable with this impiety. It makes no mention of the Lord Jesus Christ, nor his right of rule, over the nations. It contemns the commands of God that enjoin obedience to his authority, and as far as moral principle is concerned, the language of the Constitution respecting "the Lord and his Anointed" is, "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us."[12]

There are principles essential to the moral character of a civil constitution and government, destitute of which, no government can be the ordinance of God. Of three of these essential and radical principles of the ordinance of God, the Constitution of the United States is destitute. That a government may furnish an exemplification of magistracy agreeable to the will of God, from whom this ordinance flows, the constitution of government must explicitly avow and acknowledge the existence, providence and authority of God. It must be framed according to the revealed will of God: and it must include a professed subjection of the government to the Lord Jesus Christ the Mediator. The Constitution of the United States is destitute of all these three essential characteristics of God’s moral ordinance of government. It has no regard to the mediatorial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ; and is therefore chargeable with rebellion against Him. It rejects the revealed will of God; and is therefore infidel. It does not acknowledge the existence of the Supreme Being; and is thus godless.

End Notes

[6] Scriptural View, &c. by Alexander McLeod. D. D. [back]
[7] Application of Scriptural Principles to Political Government, by the Rev. Peter Macindoe, A. M. [back]
[8] Eph. 1:22, 20, 21. [back]
[9] Summary of the Principles and Testimony of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland, p. 55. [back]
[10] Ps, 2:10, 11, 12. [back]
[11] Rev. 19:16. [back]
[12] Ps. 2:3. [back]

 

[brodski]

No, they do have reasons to complain. Saying otherwise is fine, but ignores objective reality. They've already listed reasons for complaining. Are they legitimate reasons? I dunno. Call them illegitimate reasons, and then supply your morality which makes that classifcation valid.

-Elliot

The reasons their complains are not valid is that the outcome they wish to achieve are that people who do not believe in their particular brand of religion still observe some aspects of their religion, or that non believers be forced (through taxation) for them to further their religion.
There is no "war on Christianity" because Christianity receives no worse treatment than any other religion, and in fact receives preferable treatment in some areas.
If they feel that Christianity should have special treatment because the vast majority of Americans are Christian, well then they have a democratic option open to them, amend the constitution to allow Christianity to get special treatment.
The only way in which Christians can argue that their religion is being discriminated against, is to call a lack of publicly professed religious belief a religion in itself, which is a nonsense.

 

[gnome]

Fred--some context? Is this an official Presbyterian publication? What is their current stance on the matter?

 

[elliotfc]

Top of the list: The "War on Christmas".

Some Christian leaders (and political leaders and pundits that wear their Christianity like a badge) have explicitly stated that somehow the popularity of "Happy Holidays" over "Merry Christmas" is an attack on them. That is not a legitimate reason. The morality which makes that classification valid is that another's refusal to use an exclusive term cannot in any way be described as an attack.

Popularity? Rather, it's an enforcement of the decision of a few over the many. If a school decides that only Happy Holidays may be uttered by teachers or on any school documents, and not Merry Christmas, what does that have to do with popularity?

If it was a matter of popularity, I'd be inclined to agree with you.

Anybody can refuse to say anything. When they enforce that refusal on others, that's a different matter.

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

It would be laughable, if it wasn't so pathetic. I wonder how many of them know the following:

"Christmas wasn't always celebrated the way it is today. In fact, the Puritans of Massachusetts banned any observance of Christmas, and anyone caught observing the holiday had to pay a fine. Connecticut had a law forbidding the celebration of Christmas and the baking of mincemeat pies! A few of the earliest settlers did celebrate Christmas, but it was far from a common holiday in the colonial era."

http://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/AmChristmas/

Freakin' hypocrites! lol

First of all, Puritanism is the most famous branch of predeterminism. Puritans were rejected by the VAST majority of Christians of their day (which is why they came to America) and they'd be rejected by 99.9999999% of all Christians today. They don't exist anymore. Their lifespan was quite short, generously 100 years. They changed their name, you know, to the Congregationalists. They rejected themselves in the end.

Using Puritans to defend a Christian perspective is, to me, laughable, whether you are defending from a secularist or religious perspective.

Just my 18 cents. Hypocrisy is irrelevant viz a viz Puritanism.

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

The reasons their complains are not valid is that the outcome they wish to achieve are that people who do not believe in their particular brand of religion still observe some aspects of their religion, or that non believers be forced (through taxation) for them to further their religion.
There is no "war on Christianity" because Christianity receives no worse treatment than any other religion, and in fact receives preferable treatment in some areas.

I think war on Christianity is a bit hyperbolic, I agree.

I will say that Christianity does get an unfair shake, secularly speaking. In college campuses you are celebrated for dissing Christianity but don't you dare mock Native American religion or Islam. Kids who want to sing Christmas songs are not allowed to, or, forced to sing them with rewritten lyrics. These are relatively minor deals, probably non-commensurate with martial warfare.

Having said that, I think that Christians do have things that they can complain about, and as for the way they propagandize that...well, that's just survival of the fittest. Public interest and lobbies and competing points of views and how you use language and euphemism and shaking the fear stick. Even Christians aren't immune to such things. Personally, I wouldn't refer to it to a war on Christians.

If they feel that Christianity should have special treatment because the vast majority of Americans are Christian, well then they have a democratic option open to them, amend the constitution to allow Christianity to get special treatment.

Agreed. Not just this, they can amend it to get school prayer, or whatever their desire is.

The only way in which Christians can argue that their religion is being discriminated against, is to call a lack of publicly professed religious belief a religion in itself, which is a nonsense.

Well, if you were the Target store worker who got fired for wearing a cross, you might feel as though you were being discriminated against. Such examples are rare.

If they grab headlines by saying "war on Christianity", good for them. War on science, war on SUVs, war on whatever.

-Elliot

 

[gnome]

Popularity? Rather, it's an enforcement of the decision of a few over the many. If a school decides that only Happy Holidays may be uttered by teachers or on any school documents, and not Merry Christmas, what does that have to do with popularity?

If it was a matter of popularity, I'd be inclined to agree with you.

Anybody can refuse to say anything. When they enforce that refusal on others, that's a different matter.

-Elliot

Well, a public school is another matter. I don't think it's a war on Christianity to ask that any official publications by the school remain free of a religious greeting suitable for only one religion. As far as teachers saying Merry Christmas--can you come up with examples where that was forbidden?

The matter I'm thinking of is where Mr. Bill O'Reilly blasted a MALL for saying "happy Holidays" as if either A) Someone MADE them do it, or B) they were somehow runing anyone else's ability to say "Merry Christmas" all they liked.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

If they grab headlines by saying "war on Christianity", good for them. War on science, war on SUVs, war on whatever.

Interestingly there actually is a war on science and it is being waged by christians. The attempts to insert intelligent design into schools and stem cell research blocks.

 

[gnome]

I will say that Christianity does get an unfair shake, secularly speaking. In college campuses you are celebrated for dissing Christianity but don't you dare mock Native American religion or Islam.

Celebrated by the school, or by the other students? University is where many things in the mainstream are rebelled against and ridiculed. To be on that list is almost proof that you've got the upper hand in society.

Kids who want to sing Christmas songs are not allowed to, or, forced to sing them with rewritten lyrics. These are relatively minor deals, probably non-commensurate with martial warfare.

Can you give examples here as well? The devil is in the details, as it were.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

Ten Commandments can stay on Ohio courthouse lawn

By The Associated Press
04.20.06
TOLEDO, Ohio — A Ten Commandments monument that has stood on the courthouse lawn for almost 50 years does not promote religion and can remain in place, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge James Carr ruled on April 18 that the monument could stay because the motives for placing it outside the Lucas County courthouse were secular and not an endorsement of a specific belief.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued Lucas County in 2002 to have the display removed, saying it was unconstitutional and promoted religion.

Carr's decision followed a ruling last year by the U.S. Supreme Court in Van Orden v. Perry that addressed displays of the Ten Commandments.

The Supreme Court in June allowed a 6-foot granite monument to remain at the Texas Capitol. Justices said Ten Commandments exhibits would be upheld if their main purpose was to honor the nation's legal, rather than religious, traditions, and if they didn't promote one religious sect over another.

The Lucas County marker was given to the county by the Fraternal Order of the Eagles as part of an effort to combat juvenile delinquency.

Jeffrey Gamso, a legal director for the ACLU in Ohio, said the group had not decided whether to appeal.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

What part of the ten commandments isn't an endorsement of religion?
1. "I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt..."

2. "You shall have no other gods besides Me... Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above..."

Right there in the first two is an obvious endorsment of religion and is not at all secular.

 

[Roadtoad]

You know something? Yes, it's religious, but for crying out loud, trying to stamp out EVERY official reference to God is ultimately a waste of time. Pick the battles a little more carefully, and you can do greater good in the long run.

If Newdow hadn't been such a jackass, perhaps we might have seen the Pledge of Allegiance returned to its intended wording. That might have been a better battle, and a smarter one.

 

[TragicMonkey]

What part of the ten commandments isn't an endorsement of religion?
1. "I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt..."

2. "You shall have no other gods besides Me... Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above..."

Right there in the first two is an obvious endorsment of religion and is not at all secular.

Those are the Protestant version. The Catholic version is worded differently for the first two, and the order is different, and naturally that crazy stuff about graven images isn't there.

One headache about Christianity is that there isn't one Christianity. There are dozens.

 

[brodski]

I think war on Christianity is a bit hyperbolic, I agree.

I will say that Christianity does get an unfair shake, secularly speaking. In college campuses you are celebrated for dissing Christianity but don't you dare mock Native American religion or Islam.

so Islam is never mocked in US society? ohhkayyy, perhaps you should visit our politics forum (sorry, that was nasty, I vowed never to send anyone to the politics forum here). The fact that non Christians mock Christianity? Big deal, Christians mock non Christians, does that mean that there is a "war on non-Christians"? For this situation to change, you would require that those who don't follow a particular creed, respect that creed, is that more important that freedom of expression? Should ti work both ways? Should no one be allowed to hold an opinion contrary to anyone else's deeply cherished beliefs?

Kids who want to sing Christmas songs are not allowed to, or, forced to sing them with rewritten lyrics. These are relatively minor deals, probably non-commensurate with martial warfare.

So people are not allowed to use publicly funded resourced to further their religion? You can only claim that this is a "war on Christianity" if other religions are allowed to use public resources to further their religion. If not, the n it is equal treatment for all religions.

Having said that, I think that Christians do have things that they can complain about,

please give specific examples.

Well, if you were the Target store worker who got fired for wearing a cross, you might feel as though you were being discriminated against. Such examples are rare.

are you saying that private companies should not be allowed to enforce uniform standards in their employees?
Again, Christians are the majority, if they think this piece of employment law is wrong, they should change the laws. Would they also support a worker who was sacked fro wearing a "Darwin fish" to work? Do these people want equal treatment for Christians, or do they want special treatment?

 

[elliotfc]

Interestingly there actually is a war on science and it is being waged by christians. The attempts to insert intelligent design into schools and stem cell research blocks.

Right. There is a war on science by the Christians, but, there is no war on Christianity by anyone else, science/secular/government.

Right.

-Elliot

 

[a_unique_person]

This is probably the most genius work of spin, how else do you convince people that 90% of the population of this country is being persecuted?

They claim that their religious faith is under assault by secularists and atheists/agnostics/secular humanists, for some reason they can't seem to distinguish between those. They blame these groups for prayerless school, creationless school, and ten commandmentless court houses.

Apparantly, they either haven't read or disagree with the establishment clause of the first amendment US constitution. They also make the claim that our country was founded on christian ideals. As a history buff this makes me nuts: freedom of speech, no taxation without representation, free elections, and separation of church and state aren't christian values, they derive from the enlightenment thinkers. Our founding fathers were schooled in enlightenment philosphy and religiously many were deists, Jefferson for one had a profound mistrust of organized religion.

The reason christians can say that they are being persecuted is that they have been the persecuters for so long that they don't know how it feels to be on the other end. Religious persecution is not being forbidden to put religious icons in government buildings It's being refused a job because you are a muslim, it's being forced by law to live in a section of town (called ghettos, yes this is where the term comes from) as Jews were in many areas historically, and it's being forced to convert under threat of torture or death as many indigenous cultures were. Christians in the USA encounter none of these and are 90% of the population, so they have no reason to complain.

I hung around with/was/Catholic/xian/whatever. I think their greatest problem is one of their favourite topics. Backsliding/faith/doubt. Many of them know it is all a crock of ◊◊◊◊. They find it easier to blame others than their own internal sense of logic.