Like Your Freedom? Thank a Church.
That idea found its best expression in law when our founding fathers wrote these words into the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Here was a rule under which men would not have to bare their necks to the swords of tyrants in order to defend the dictates of their creeds. It was as if it had taken mankind some 1800 years to say, “Oh wait, I get it! Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar; give God what belongs to God!”
As I understand the Catholic ban on contraception (after slogging through much of Pope John Paul II’s mind-wracking Theology of the Body), it’s based on the idea that people should act in the completeness of their spiritual humanity even in the moments of their most intimate physicality. Thus sex should only take place within a sacralized and lifelong commitment of love without being detached from its essential purpose of conception.
I don’t have to agree with this doctrine to understand that it’s an heroic attempt to defend the one most essential ingredient of freedom: the concept of the inviolable human soul. In taking this stand, the church of Rome is doing exactly what churches are supposed to do. It is institutionalizing the fact that man is spirit, that he cannot live by bread alone.
Kings have wanted to snuff out this idea forever. They want to convince us that we’re bodies only, collections of material needs — and that they can fill those needs in exchange for their power over us. Without our churches, without our religions, nothing would stop them from filling us with bread and stripping us of freedom. Obama offers us this exchange virtually every time he opens his mouth. He will give you your contraception, but he will command your conscience.
Whether we’re Catholic or not, whether we agree with the Catholics or not, every single one of us should stand up against the Obama administration’s assault on their church. The Jews of Caesarea will be standing with us. So, I believe, will the Christ.
C.S. Lewis wrote this about the effect of Christianity on the relationship of the state and the individual: if man is simply a material being who lives for 70 years or so and ends, then a state that can last for centuries is more important. But if a man is a spiritual being who can live eternally, then a state is just a passing, temporary, ephemeral thing. (This is not an exact quote, but the gist of what he wrote, in more than one book.)
I believe this is the basis for the view of individual freedom and rights at the base of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. The lack of this basis is why the materialist revolutions–Russian, Chinese, French, and others–produced bloodbaths.
I know Lewis pretty well, and one of the things you mention comes at the end of “The Weight of Glory:”
“Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning … The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment …”
Another good one is his Willing Slaves of the Welfare State which can be found online. And it shouts from every page of The Abolition of Man.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/abolition1.htm
Good stuff. I don’t agree completely with everything you say, but I often agree with most of it.
C.S. Lewis said it best in this case: “You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.”
As one who is clinging to his religion, I say, “Amen, brother!”
Long before Jesus Ben Pantera was born Israel had been conquered by Greece. The Jews accepted the political rule of Greece and only when the Greeks interfered with Jewish religious life did Jews revolt. In short ‘ rendering unto Caesar ” was not a new concept introduced by a false messiah. The Jewish holiday of Chanukah celebrates and commemorates these events. The men who ‘ bared their necks ‘ in Caesarea were fallowing the example of the Maccabees – to live as Jews or die as Jews. To claim they did otherwise is a perversion of history and to use their sanctity as a justification for a theology antithetical to theirs is absurd.
Well, methinks this might be a debate challenge brewing here…
Jesus was a Jewish teacher and said he came to fulfill the (Jewish) law. So why should it be surprising that he taught Jewish principles?
“Jesus Ben Pantera.” Well, if that doesn’t expose you right there…
Thanks for the mark at the very start of your post that you’re a crackpot.
That was his name. The truth doesn’t change simply because you refuse to accept it. Do a little research and see for yourself.
I knew this article would draw out the bigots. And here you are.
Now that is funny. Rather than deal with the historic bigotry of your own theology you point your finger at its victim because he has the temerity to ask you to examine your beliefs uncomfortably close. Bravo on a world upside down.
In what language?
If you want Anglicized Hebrew, it would be Yehosua or Yesua ben Yosef.
If you want full Anglicization, it would be Joshua ben Joseph.
“Jesus” is the Anglicization of the Greek version of his name, and “Pantera” is Latin for “panther”, which I’ve never seen associated with anything like this.
Also, to be technical, Israel was inherited by the Greek-descended Seleucids, and was not ruled by Greece itself.
You might want to do research checking yourself.
Hairs split do not suffice to uproot arguments, only hairs.
By Seleucid, do you mean the Selucian dynasty which was started by one of Alexander the great’s generals and inherited most of the middle east after Alexander’s death? Selucians are regarded as a persian dynasty which was followed by parthians and can’t be regarded as greeks.
Actually, his name was Jesus of Galilee; as I understand it the “ben” (son of) was primarily used by the big-city Jews of Jerusalem. And it would be Jesus ben Joseph, anyways.
Actually, it was probably Emmanuel Ben Yosef. Jesus means annointed one in Greek and Christ means Son of God. So we don’t use HIS name at all. We are basically calling HIM The Annointed One, Son of God.
lolly,
Immanuel means “God [is] with us.”
Yeshua means “Yahweh [I AM] [is] salvation.”
Christos is the Greek translation of Moshiach, which means “Anointed One.”
That’s the name given by those accusing Jesus of being the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier and Mary, as it appears in the Babylonian Talmud. Using it in this context is indicative of someone looking to pick a fight.
Is that where it comes from?
Well then, as a Jew I am offended.
That’s one of the references the rabid anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists use.
For someone to claim to be a Jew and use it is simply disgusting.
The brutal irony is that the Jesus-ben-Pantera meme was adopted by the Nazis in constructing their “historical” Jesus and Christianity. They viewed the Catholic Church as a Jewish conspiracy invented by St Paul.
As with almost everything Clayton Cramer says about Judaism, this claim about the Talmud is sloppy at best and stupidly mistaken at worst. Gil Student has done a marvelous job of examining “the Jesus narrative” in the Talmud, including references to a Yeshu ben Pandira (who is most likely not Jesus of Nazareth), here:
http://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/jesusnarr.html
So it’s okay then? Clayton Claymer is enlightening us who did not know that the USE of the name is meant to be offensive to Christians.
Why would we need to read up on it when it is clear that the original insult was intended to imply what CC has indicated here?
Am I reading between the lines correctly that it is okay if it is offensive to Christians, but not okay if it is anti-semitic? Not that it matters to the discussion at hand.
As the item to which you link points out, “Some historians claim that Ben Stada, also known as Ben Pandira, was Jesus.” That is certainly what I have read. I am pleased to read other accounts, and learn. I see no reason to insult me for having read works that make a claim that Gil Student acknowledges other historians make.
I allowed that Cramer’s claim might be sloppy rather than stupid. To be as exact as possible: There are no references to Jesus in the Talmud, and certainly nothing about his being “the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier and Mary.”
Son of Jacob, far from being a false messiah, that Man is your God! But of course, you Pharisees are willfully blind. John the Baptist came preaching repentance, calling out “Prepare the way of the Lord!” in fulfillment of the prophesies of Isaiah, and you Pharisees called him a madman. Then Yeshua of Nazareth, the Son of God, who led you out of captivity and into the Promised Land and fought your battles for you, slaying the Assyrian army and commanding the armies of Heaven against your enemies, came forth to proclaim salvation and release you from bondage to sin, healing the sick, the blind, the lame and the possessed, and you called Him a heretic and a blasphemer!
Do you think you’re a son of Abraham? A son of Jacob, yes, but not of Abraham, for one is not a child of Abraham according to lineage or circumcision, but rather by doing the works of Abraham. Therefore, “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I say to you that God can raise up children for Abraham from these rocks.” But you stiff necked sons of Jacob have no more an answer for these words of John the Baptist than the Muslims have for St. Paul. Rather than believing God and having it credited to you as righteousness, you put your trust in the pseudo-righteousness of the Pharisees, not according to the Law but according to the Talmud. Yet even if you did your works according to the Torah, it would be worthless, for no one was ever absolved from his sins by keeping Torah, but rather by trusting in God’s mercy, according to the Provision He appointed. For all your rules, you are whitewashed tombs. You may indeed tithe garden herbs, but you neglect God’s righteousness and mercy. You obsess about Sabbath keeping while missing completely the point of the Sabbath in the first place!
It is unseemly to preach to someone whose blood your religion has shed for one thousand five hundred years. To think that Christianity has anything substantive to offer Jews is absurd. All Jews want, have ever wnated fron Christians, is that you leave our children alone.
And all that just because your religion shed the blood of a false messiah, as you say. Now, it plays both ways, no?
That is a lie, though perhaps you repeat it ignorantly. I will not bring up the issue of deicide, because Jesus willingly chose to die and would have done so whether the Jews were involved or not. The Christian martyrs, on the other hand, are another story. The blood of St. Stephan, the protomartyr, rebukes your outrageous statement that Jews have only ever wanted Christians to leave them alone. Your ancestors tried to stamp us out, believing that the Church could be strangled in Her crib.
And furthermore, what was the sin for which the Jews were exiled from the Promised Land? Or do you dare to call God a liar for exiling your ancestors when He promised that exile would only come if Israel transgressed the covenant and refused to repent even after multiple warnings.
Multiply every harm done a Christian by a Jew by one million fold and you will barley scratch the surface of the sins Christians have committed against Jews. And, as I sit at home in Jerusalem, I wonder if you have noticed that we Jews live in a free state of our own once again. Or perhaps this disproof of your theology is something you are more comfortable ignoring.
And perhaps YOU notice that the only reason you sit in Jerusalem is because the British and later the US supported and enabled your return. But probably not. Whine all you want about being the victim of unrelenting Christianity, but don’t expect anyone to buy into your victimhood.
And furthermore, what was the sin for which the Jews were exiled from the Promised Land?
(Depending on which “exile” you’re referring to) I think it involved a “golden calf”, but what does it matter? They apparently made amends and were subsequently “allowed back”, no?
And anyways, didn’t this happen a bit before Isaiah? That is, this whole “coming of the Messiah” thing was prophesied by a bunch of sinful bozos who didn’t know any better, correct?
Not into the postmodern cultural/moral relativist stuff and am perfectly OK with people defending the “correctness” of their respective faiths, but y’all are getting a bit ridiculous, to say the least.
Shibumi, I was referring to the Diaspora, and I believe that the sin in question was rejecting the Son of God. If the Jews wish to reject that hypothesis, then they must submit another plausible one in its place. Pleading innocence is an act of blasphemy because God promised never to exile a faithful Israel from the Promised Land.
Jesus was a Jew, and the first Christians were Jews. He is the fulfillment of the promises to Adam, Abraham, Isiah, et al of the Messiah. He came first and foremost to the Jews, and then to the rest of the world. Christianity itself has shed no Jewish blood, although people calling themselves Christian have, to our shame.
WEll said.
http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=3&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=624&PID=0&IID=2951&TTL=The_Origins_of_Christian_Anti-Semitism
Per the comment below…your country wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the efforts of other countries, which BTW are predominantly Christian.
Also, shouldn’t you be off spitting on little girls?
Son of Jacob, you have refuted nothing. You never addressed what sin caused the exile in the first place, and you ignore the fact that there was no national repentance that led to the end of the exiles in Egypt or Babylon either. Rather, God led the children of Israel into the Promised Land because He gave His Word. I am not the least bit surprised Israel has been regathered in unbelief, for the prophets foretold it. What better way for God to show the children of Israel He has not forgotten them than to bring them back to their ancient homeland even though they profaned His Name throughout the nations (that’s in Ezekiel- take it up with God if you have a problem with it)? Still, the reason for regathering the children of Israel is to bring them to repentance.
Again I say, the restoration of national Israel refutes nothing. On the contrary, the children of Israel dying out would be a refutation, for God has promised to save a remnant, just as Joshua and Caleb entered into the Promised Land while all the rest of their generation died in the wilderness. Jesus promised that Israel would not see Him again until they said, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord,” but the day shall come when they will say it.
Menachem,
It depends on how one sees, “leaving our children alone”. This is the issue that Klavan is talking about. Governments and societies everywhere tend to persecute the alien or the minority in their midst.
Have you looked into the treatment of Messianic Jews? Would you dare to assert that Messianic Jews are treated better in Israel than Jews in America (or England or Australia, for that matter?)
I do not for a minute want to minimise the atrocities done to the Jews through Western history. And as a Jesus following Christian I repudiate the thinking perhaps alluded to in a comment above that Jews somehow deserve this abyssmal treatment at the hands of “Christian” governments and societies because “they killed Jesus”. (The Romans killed Jesus, so where does that leave Western civilisation if such logic applies…)
I would like to suggest that not Christianity, nor Judaism, but human sinfulness has caused these troubles.
However, ideas matter. Beliefs are important. Principles.
Like Klavan, I want to wrestle with ideas and ask which ideals stand against this tendency and which allow it, encourage it or demand it. It seems to me that the teachings of Jesus recorded in the narratives of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John speak against discrimination, hatred, persecution, blaming, insult, murder.
Please join with Klavan in discussing these things, please make your particularly Hebrew points known. But please stand with Klavan against tyranny, against hatred. It seems to me he wants to make his country a better place for Catholics (which he is not) but also for Jews and Atheists and all.
Michael Hutton.
Jews have another word for ” messianic jews “. That word is apostate. They are Jews no longer. Their philosophy is truly Hitlerian though their methods are not. They share the same goal as Hitler- to remove all jews from the world.
It does not surprise me that so may here are upset by the truth. Israel was not created by the Americans or the British. To claim so is a demonstration of historical ignorance. Our deed to our land is the oldest in recorded history and given by the Ultimate Authority. The mere fact that the world is obsessed by us is proof enough of Torah truth. That the eyes of the world are upon us is only preparation for what is to come.
Yeshua of Nazareth is referred to quite clearly in Daniels prophesy- ” The renegades among your people will exult themselves to fulfill the vision, but they will stumble.”
Maimonides, who you may dispute at the risk of your own sanity said the following in reference to Yeshua-
” Can there be a greater stumbling block than this one? All of the prophets spoke of the Mashiach as the redeemer of Israel, and as its savior, who would gather their dispersed and strengthen their observance of the commandments, and this one caused the annihilation of Israel by the sword, and caused their remnants to be scattered and scorned. He caused the Torah to be altered and brought the majority of the world to err and to serve a god other than the Lord. ”
Maimonides spoke this truth 800 years before the Christian world participated and promoted the destruction of one-third of the worlds Jews. Nothing has changed.
Son of Jacob, your own words convict you. You point to Daniel but neglect the prophesy of the 70 weeks, which decreed that Messiah must die after the 69th week of years, that is, 483 years, starting from when the decree to rebuild Jerusalem was issued. To hold to the belief that the Messiah has not yet come is to call God a liar, or else to call Daniel a false prophet, because if Messiah has not yet come, even though the appointed time has passed, then the prophecy has failed.
You are right to call Yeshua a stumbling block, but not because He isn’t the Messiah but rather because He is the Messiah, for it is written in Isaiah “Behold I am setting a stumbling block in Zion and whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.” What did David say about this Rock? It is recorded in our Paschal Hymn: Psalm 118 “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” And of course, the New Testament is not silent about Jesus as a stumbling block; besides quoting Isaiah, the New Testament also says, “The preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that are perishing, but to we who are being saved by it, it is the Power of God.” So whoever believes in the Rock, the Cornerstone set up by God shall not be put to shame, but whoever refuses to believe in Him will stumble over Him.
Jeremiah 5:21 “Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not.”
Just great. Someone who likely thinks Saul of Tarsus was an okay guy until he sold out on the way to Damascus.
heh, heh.
Menachem – Please stop this needless bickering with those who don’t share your religious background. The following verse is worth contemplating. “Its ways are pleasant ways, and all its paths are peace” (Proverbs 3:17).
Menachem – You’re being needlessly confrontational, and making Jews look bad. Please contemplate the following verse from Proverbs 3:17. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
Menachem, I am sorry this debate has deteriorated into yelling over the back fence.
May I suggest that Klavan’s use of the example of the Caesareans was appropriate. This whole article seems to me to say that government ought to leave religion alone and that religion ought to stand up to government when it becomes bullying. (oversimplified, I know) I read it this way and this seems to me consistent with what Klavan has written elsewhere. If this is his point then these Caesareans are a noble example of his point and is it not appropriate for him to refer to them? He then goes on to show his readers from a Christian background that the teacher they revere taught this as well. He maintains that Jesus continued what his Jewish forbears started.
I can’t/won’t tell you what to think, but isn’t it encouraging that Klavan exposes his predominantly Christian audience to such a noble and worthy example of Jewish faith?
G_d bless,
Michael Hutton,
Tamworth, Australia
Well done on the article! I am a Christian. All of my favorite guys are Jews! Jesus, St. Paul, the Apostles and Mark Levin! LOL! I am not an expert on any subject except myself, but it hurts my heart to see the Jesus Ben Pantera remark. Pantera was a Roman soldier that was credited for the rape of Mary. (yes… that Mary!) Hence the name Jesus son of Pantera. It is intended to be a hateful slur.
Now I understand that people of all stripes have done all sorts of evil things to each other in the name of. None of which ever truly has to do with true faith or religious principal. This kind of nastiness is what causes the divides that conquer. All that can be said is that we are all, regardless of what stripe we are, capable of cruelty. My pastor teaches us that we (the human race) is neither good nor evil. Good men do bad things, and bad men do good things. Our actions and the choices that we make are what His Majesty will judge us for on that day. If we believe in a just God, then by definition there will be a day of reckoning. Remember the whole of the law? Love. Love thy neighbor as thyself…Do unto others… Try to be at peace with your neighbors…you all know the drill. The point is, we are all in this together. We must stand up for one another, or fall altogether. A root of bitterness destroys many. If you only love those that love you, what reward do you have?
Thanks everyone of you who post. I become a little smarter every time I read the article and the discussions. I appreciate all of you, even the ones that are “rough” around the edges!
http://ttj.sagepub.com/content/30/4/365.full.pdf
Oh please…I don’t know anything about Rosellen, but obviously she is a happy soul. No doubt she has many frieds who share her love in the Lord and they share wine and joy and pray together for sad souls like you.
You are a somewhat pathetic individual who gets pleasure in picking silly fights that are the equivalent of throwing buggers and you think it makes you look clever.
I assure you, the nonsense you throw out is only going to make her feel sorry for you that you have so little joy in your life that this is what you are reduced to. Turn off the computer and get out more. Get a dog. Get a bike. Garden. Do something constructive.
My life is a blessing that provides infinite happiness to myself, my family and my people.
I do not pay attention to the barking of stray dogs.
I have no doubt that you never, ever hear the barking of stray dogs. You are so busy yipping and yapping and nipping at the heals of passerbys that it is obvious to everyone (but yourself) that the only voice you ever hear is your own.
Actually, Jesus’ comment about “…render unto Caesar…” was a clever reply to keep the Pharisees from getting him arrested, AND a subtle commentary that only a Jew would (or SHOULD) have understood at the time.
The part about “…render unto God…” was the Tell. Since Israel was God’s nation, there was NOTHING in Israel that belonged to Caesar.
In other words, Jesus told the Romans to get lost without tipping his hand in a way they would understand and arrest him for.
That was why the crowd “marvelled” at his reply. Every Jew standing around knew exactly what He was saying.
Along with the idea of Man being a Soul which has a body C.S. Lewis, in “The Weight of Glory,” ( http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf ) makes the point that eternal beings have an innate desire for eternal good. Many of the earthly, temporal things that we desire are just dim shadows of those eternal things. They’re good, but they’re not the real thing.
I believe that the desire for freedom is one of those eternal longings. After all we were created with free will, meant to make our choices freely and accept the consequences.
Lewis also points out that our longing for eternal good is almost constantly under attack by the modern philosophies that try to convince us that what we desire can be found, in its entirety, on earth, hence the persistence of Communism and Socialism with their utopian visions which are as hollow as an empty eggshell.
This is an astounding blunder by the Obama administration. He may have just cost himself re-election.
I predict that sometime in about mid-October the Obama regime will announce that they’ve changed their position and decided to “allow” Catholic institutions to have a conscience exception to the abortion/contraception mandate. And all the stupid Catholic liberals will gleefully say how pleased they are that the Obamatron has seen the light and how good Catholics should now vote for him because, of course, he’s a supporter of “social justice.” Idiots! And if he wins, the day after he’ll reinstate the mandate.
That thought’s crossed my mind, too. Once he gets all the campaign donations from the rich liberals, he’ll throw them under the bus. Modus operandi.
If you want something hilarious, look no further:
http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/cfo/index.php
As far as voting is concerned, it is indeed Christians that are the problem. Jews, not so much, due to their paltry headcount. More than half of U.S. Catholics chose Obama in 2008. As you sow, so shall you reap.
If more than half of U.S. Catholics chose Obama in 2008, then it is the Catholics who are “the problem,” not the Christians. Please don’t confuse the two.
Point taken; in fact, Protestant churches voted overwhelmingly against Obama, so let me rephrase it: Amongst Christians, Catholics are a big part of the problem.
Unfortunate as it is, there is no escaping it.
God willing…
The separation of church and state only works when there is clear allegiance to Judeo-Christian moral codes.
Enlightenment thinkers saw “natural rights of man” because they were steeped in Jewish moral teaching – but now, 3 centuries on, rationalist agnosticism and multi-culti attack have fractured the moral bedrock on which the secular Western state is founded.
It was one of the Adams brothers who said:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Mr. David: That is exactly right. That’s the real danger to the republic and the civilization. All else are simply examples of the problem.
Respectfully, Gentlemen, please consider that the separation of church and state is good for all, no matter what one’s religious beliefs or lack of beliefs. Further, the Enlightenment (Age of Reason) resulted from the re-emergence Greek reason and rationality and the rejection of Christian dogma that had stunted the progress of Western civilization for over a millennia. Enlightenment thinkers were strongly influenced by Aristotle, his systems of logic and his Nicomachean Ethics. Among those Enlightenment thinkers were John Locke, who, in turn, greatly influenced the American Founding Fathers.
You make a grave error in lumping agnostic rationalism with 20ths century multi-culturalism. Many of the Founding Fathers (including Jefferson and Madison) today might easily be described as agnostic rationalists—they certainly were not overwhelmingly religious and they certainly believed that religious issues are personal and should remain separate from the issues of the state. They would abhor multi-culturalism which claims a moral equivalence of tribal and collectivist societies to the society they established which guaranties individual rights. It is to the degree she upholds individual rights, nothing more and nothing less, that makes America a moral society. Individual rights are a moral value to all mankind, now matter if they are Buddist, Hindus, Christians, Jewish, Muslim…or atheist in their personal lives.
David, you would do well to investigate this further. Our Founders were profoundly Christian. I suggest checking out David Barton’s research. He is in possession of the largest collection of Founders’ documents in private hands. He has done significant research on this point.
There was considerable variation in attitudes about religion among the Founders. Jefferson, without question, was something of an oddball, far less orthodox in his religious beliefs than others. Madison seems to have been quite traditional in his religious beliefs, as was John Adams in his youth. (By 1810 or so, Adams is definitely moving into unitarianism.) Ben Franklin was, like Jefferson, rather heterodox in his Christianity. But the population as a whole, and the Founders on whole (such as Washington), were pretty orthodox Protestants. While it has some flaws, George Washington’s Sacred Fire does a good job of demonstrating that Washington was a quite traditional Anglican.
The church is a large entity and it will take them a long time to respond, but respond they will.
I don’t think that the church will compromise on this.
Excommunicating Pelosi would be a good place to start. Make an example.
I am an atheist, and I will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Catholic church to defend their right to be free.
If a person won’t fight for the freedom of others, how can he ask them to fight for him?
I am right there with you Mr. Mayo, even though I disagree with many of the believers posting here who contend that America’s morality is based upon Judeo-Christian ethic rather than a reason-based guarantee of individual rights.
I will stand with you also Mayo! I am a Christian of the Protestant persuasion. I will stand up for every freedom loving Atheist, Catholic, Jew, Buddhist, Pagan and whatever else ya got! Mayo gets the big picture…United We Stand…Divided We Fall.
I will stand with you also Mayo! I am a Christian of the Protestant persuasion. I will stand up for every freedom loving Atheist, Catholic, Jew, Buddhist, Pagan and whatever else ya got!
I don’t think so – the Catholic Church declared a crusade against my religion (the Albigensian Crusade, to be specific).
Good luck with that 800 year old grudge.
Nice to have one of those religions that you can pretend still has historic continuity. What are your scriptures? Dan Brown novels? Or do you go for the far more serious “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”?
You’re a Cathar? Wow. Do you know any Nestorians?
The Obama administration has no authority to insist on any insurance covering anything……why is it even being discussed?
Why are so many treating that pipsqueek like a king. A king he is not. A president he should never have been.
In point of fact, the Obamunist assault on the Church is the end point of a long development. Freedom of religion has been dead in the United States for decades.
Freedom of religion is impossible, de jure or de facto, when government’s powers are unbounded…as they have been since Wilson and FDR trashed the Constitution.
“…he will command your conscience.”
There is the root of it. This is a direct attempt by the left, led by captain zero, to command our conscience. If they succeed ( which they most definitely will not ) in this instance, they will extend that command to replace our consciences altogether. The simplest summation of The Bill of Rights reads like this; Freedom of Conscience. This is an attack on both the spirit and foundation of the constitution.
It is worth mentioning the latest news from planet pelosi; She has announced that she will stand with her fellow Catholics in supporting the administration. (????)
I have been complaining for years about the left’s collectivist mentality and actions, but I never thought they would go this far. I predict that Americans will not be flinging themselves to the ground and bearing their necks, nor will they acquiesce. Captain zero is going to lose big on this one. He is going to lose big in november also. I cant wait.
“This is a direct attempt by the left, led by captain zero, to command our conscience.”
Exactly. And, as the old saying goes, what goes around comes around.
Under the doctrine President Obama seeks to impose to please his supporters on the left, a future President could declare that there is no right for anyone to be a “conscientious objector” to military service, even in the combat arms. Forget saying your religion forbids you to take human life, and serving as a medic or file clerk- in event of a military draft, you could be put on a bus to Fort Chaffee (or wherever Basic is today), and once there be handed a rifle and told to shut up and get on with it.
If the government can tell one religion that its power trumps their conscience, then nobody’s conscience is beyond the reach of the power of government. And those who approve of Obama’s actions probably wouldn’t like what some future president might do with the power they want him to have.
Of course, I’m sure that those like the President and his supporters on the left (whom he is pandering to in this) are sure the problem will never arise, because they are convinced that they, “enlightened progressives” all, will rule us ad infinitum.
Funny thing- the Directory never saw Napoleon Bonaparte’ coming down the pike, either.
clear ether
eon
What a load of historical nonsense.
The Church, under the serial murderer Constantine, became the most destructive, immoral institution in the history of Western civilization, plummeting the West in the Dark Ages for more than a thousand years. The myth, promoted by Christians, that pagan Rome was savage, has long been exposed and abandoned by real historians. Our own government was founded on the PAGAN principles of Greece and Rome, not the ludicrous, savage teachings of the bible.
Until the late nineteenth century, the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, supported human slavery. Catholic and Anglican priests used to bless the slave ships as they set off and came back. The absurd concept of the Divine Right of Kings, which our Constitution refutes (“all men are created equal”), is a biblically-derived one. The Church NEVER advocated freedom of any kind, and the fact that it does today means nothing historically. All the advances of humankind, which the Church stringently opposed with the sword the pyre, it now takes credit for. How amazing.
Here are some good (free or cheap) downloadable books to read, many from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, explaining what modern Christians have completely forgotten, if they ever knew: their religion’s real origins and sordid history.
The gospel stories are fiction, recycled PAGAN fiction, embellished over the centuries with more and more absurdities. The Pontius Pilate story may be one of the most historically impossible of all, and was clearly concocted by someone who knew nothing of Roman law or legal procedures.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004TPAH4G/ref=docs-os-doi_0
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CDYAO2/ref=docs-os-doi_0
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005G3RLLC/ref=docs-os-doi_0
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00466H73C/ref=docs-os-doi_0
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CDYAO2/ref=docs-os-doi_0
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006QPYUN6/ref=docs-os-doi_0
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0029ZBHWO/ref=docs-os-doi_0
You are like your father, the Devil, who from the beginning was a liar, a thief and a murderer. If anything in the Bible sounds like paganism, it’s because paganism stole it from the Bible (New Testament or Old Testament makes no difference in this respect). If the Gospels were fiction, then somebody would have produced the corpse of Jesus of Nazareth after the Apostles began proclaiming His Resurrection in the very city where He was crucified! Now see the folly of Diocletian, who once commissioned a coin that said, “The Christian religion is destroyed and worship of the gods restored.” Today, he and his religion are long dead, while Christianity is professed by a third of the world!
Myth Buster, your handle is a joke, right? You haven’t busted any myths; you have drowned yourself in them.
How could the pagan stories, hundreds or thousands of years older that the Christian, have been copied from the latter? The early Christian fathers, realizing that their mythology was already ancient by the time they latched onto it, claimed that the Devil had given it to the pagans ahead of time so they could create religions and traditions that mocked future Christianity. Apparently, you also subscribe to this lunatic school of reasoning, ignoring the obvious: The Christians copied their stories from the older pagan stories. The parable of the mustard seed is copied almost verbatim from the Buddhist scriptures dating four hundred years B.C. The unknown author of Mark plagiarized Plato.
The reason Jesus’s corpse wasn’t found and produced is BECAUSE THERE WAS NO JESUS IN THE FIRST PLACE. The story is a myth, and a very popular and common one found in many religions prior to Christianity. Look up the stories of Mithra, Chrishna (note the name), Esus (note the name), and see for yourself.
Read the books on the list. Most are free. You won’t be struck by lightning, but you might actually gain a little enlightenment. Right now, you sound positively insane.
And the book of Isaiah predates their myths by centuries. Christianity rests on a foundation of Judaism which at its core claims that God reveals the future to His prophets. This is how I dare say that the counterfeit copied from us centuries before the Church came to be- they stole their myths from the Old Testament prophets.
Your claim that Christianity rests on Judaism is true only when you admit that Jews , having looked at Christianity, consider it false. You claim provenance from someone who states you have defaced the message. There is nothing Christian about Judaism.
Menachem, you clearly know nothing about Christianity, and I suspect damned little about Judaism.
Myth Buster, you’re an idiot. The Old Testament also heavily plagiarized pagan religions and their scriptures. Go back to the list I posted, click on the links, download the books, and read them. You might be shocked to discover Isiah and its supposed prophecies are a load of crap, too.
The First Council of Constantinople decreed that anyone criticizing Christianity or the gospel selection of the Council (completely arbitrary by the way; there were hundreds to choose from) was a heretic and deserved death. There were dozens of Christian sects at the time, but only one, the one CHOSEN BY CONSTANTINE, was allowed to decide what Christianity would be, would it would teach, and what its scriptures would include. This was what later became the Roman Catholic Church, fictitiously founded by St. Peter, another mythological character (symbol of the astrological sign Pisces, and derived from Mithraism, whose leader, Petros, wore a Mitre–the headdress of Mithra–and ruled from Vatican Hill). And why did he pick this sect above all others? Because when his own pagan priests refused to absolve him of his multiple murders of relatives, including his own son, the priests and bishops of this sect told him THEY would absolve him, currying his favor. In return, he made theirs the official religion of Rome, and gave them wealth, property, and fabulous power, which they used ruthlessly to suppress and destroy anyone and everyone who didn’t do their bidding. But, Constantine, though claiming to have converted to Christianity, waited till his death bed to get baptized, so all his sins could be instantly “washed away” without having to give up anything throughout his entire life.
Now tell us all about the ancient space aliens who visited planet Earth…
The only one who sounds insane here is you, because you insist that history as recorded by secular historians didn’t happen. The existence of Jesus is well documented by Pliny, Emperor Trajan, Josephus, and others, as is the rise of Christianity. The tomb of St. Peter is well known, and Peter clearly was buried there, and likewise the empty tomb of Jesus is also well known. The Western mythologies all date to after the fall of Babylon- older than Christianity, but more recent than Isaiah and Jeremiah, and much more recent than Moses.
As to you, Son of Jacob, I don’t care what that brood of vipers that calls themselves Rabbis thinks. I count the words of Jesus of Nazareth, the Conqueror of Death as being more weighty than all the scribes and teachers of the Law. It is my conclusion, therefore, that the interpretation of Judaism taught by Jesus and His Apostles is the correct one, and the Rabbis teach a perverted Judaism that is contrary to the Torah and the Prophets. If you can quote me Tanach to back your points, I’ll accept them if the interpretation is sound, but I reject the Talmud as not only unauthoritative, but blasphemous, and I would no more accept you quoting the Talmud than you would accept as valid me quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
ALL of the secular sources you mention as confirming the existence of Jesus have long been discounted by theologians (including Catholic theologians) and historians as late interpolations (forgeries inserted into prior texts). Not ONE original text from any these authors has been found that mentions Jesus. Not one.
Look up the term “pious fraud” on the Internet and find out how uninformed and misinformed you are.
Not a single record exists from the time assigned to Jesus to indicate such a being ever existed. The gospels are alleged translations of Aramaic texts, but no such texts have ever been found. Odd that a religion supposedly started in Jerusalem claims as its founding documents contradictory narratives written in Greek centuries after the events they purport to describe. Odder still, that not one of the apostles, much less Jesus himself, left a single written line to make sure the message got out correctly. The names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John weren’t appended to the gospels now found in the bible till centuries after the alleged life of Jesus.
Millions of Muslims believe their prophet ascended to heaven on a horse, citing alleged eye-witnesses to the event. Their evidence is just as good as yours, perhaps better, which doesn’t say much. Until True Believers realize that their own mythologies are as fictitious as everyone else’s, humans will not progress.
Florida, Many myths have foundations in truth. Many archaelogists ignored the “myth” of Troy until the German amateur archaeologist who acually believed this myth, found the remnants of a city in Asia minor and claimed it was Troy and many years later Iman Wilkensen analyzed homer’s writing and came to the conclusion that the names, weather patterns, geography, etc fitted Celtic rather than greek and founded a site in England with evidence of a great battle. Both Fleischman and Wilkensen were outsiders who saw what the rank and file arechaeologists didn’t. Christ’s body, Arc of the convenant, Atlantis will all be found if more experts were looking for them and not just claiming they are myths and Egyptologists and arechaelogists acted more like scientists than priests.
Sorry to have mostly ignored the actual point of the article.
Obama is a crackpot: the most arrogant, pretentious charlatan ever to be elected President, though not necessarily the most convincing. His attempt to shove his personal anti-values down everyone else’s throats is both literally and figuratively breathtaking. At what point do the American people who actually pay taxes and make useful products stand up and say “no more?” The American Catholic community made a grave mistake in bowing before Obama and supporting his candidacy, and now faces the consequences of its own vanity and need to appear trendy and progressive. Churches should stay out of politics, and politicians should stop meddling in religion, except to prevent it from doing harm (human or animal sacrifices, etc.) or denying the rights of citizens.
The Courts will not uphold Obama on this one. Though his supports claim he was a professor of Constitutional law, he clearly has never read the document; giving fictitious lectures to a captive audience does not a professor make.
Poor Florida – the courts will and have already sided with what this Administration is doing. Heck Romney did almost the same thing in MA when he was Gov. But then no one is attacking Religion or their beliefs here either.There is a religious exemption for places that mostly only hire people of the same faith – like a church or maybe a school. It’s when you get o bigger institutions and they are offering employees insurance of which many who are not of that religion that they have to offer what every other employer offers – so it has nothing to do with their performance as a Church but everything to do with their performance as an insurance provider.
This has been state law in CA, NY, and Oregon and these holy bishops did not protest – why now? Most catholics don’t listen to the church when it comes to birth control anyway. Much ado about nothing but the religious wacknuts of the conservative base will bow their heads in their normal unthinking way and plow ahead anyway. Let’s have a religious discussion when we have a Mormon running – I can’t wait.
Yes, when we suffer the continued depredations of your vicious authoritarian government quietly there’s no problem, but when we say, “No more! This cannot stand!” we’re “wacknuts.” Sorry, but just because a wrong was allowed to stand before doesn’t mean that it is suddenly right.
For Flaming Boot Licker there is no there “there”.
What is “there” is, the distorted reflection of an image from the polished boot that beckons him to go down.
Yes indeed, that self satisfying reflected image that has been sold as the feeling of security that so needed, that comforting thought that no others can and will be “freer” than Flaming Boot Licker. Except the Boot.
What is it today Boot Licker? Kiwi or Kelly’s? No matter, you gave up your choice some time ago.
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Oh, go away! As the article stated, the zealotry was the actions of men, not doctrine.
Wrong. At the Council of Constantinople, the Church declared as doctrine and dogma that anyone speaking against it or in doubt of its teachings should be tortured and executed, preferably by burning. That was the official teaching (doctrine) of the Church for over twelve hundred years.
No such thing happened at either of the Councils of Constantinople (there were two). Constantinople I did, however, condemn the false teachings of Arius and the renegade ordination of Maximus as bishop of Constantinople.
Wrong! Man calling something doctrine doesn’t make it so. Find something in the New Testament that backs up your claim (hint: you will not find it. Atheists have been looking for over 300 years to tar and feather Christians with).
You obviously haven’t read any atheists of late. There are literally hundreds of examples in both the Old and New Testaments of “God” ordering, or condoning, the execution of non-believers, pagans, etc., including their children (he even orders the Jews to dash the heathen’s babies’ brains out on rocks). You obviously, as well, haven’t read any of the books I linked to, which are there, free for the taking, for all you besotted Christians who believe in your revisionist histories. Most Christians have no idea what’s in the bible or where it came from, and would be horrified to find out. Ignorance is bliss.
Giving people the choice between converting to Christianity, being executed, and/or burning forever in hell is not freedom.
The notion that Christianity–a religion based on scapegoatism and plagiarized mythology–civilized the West as as absurd as the notion that Islam civilized the Middle East. How many millions of men, women, children, and even pets does a Church have to torture and execute for heresy before the faithful take notice that all isn’t quite as claimed?
Citation please: you claimed the New Testament endorses killing unbelievers- please cite chapter and verse. And no cheating- God has the right to take lives Himself at any time, for any reason. Only a direct order to kill somebody or an approved killing in the New Testament meets the criterion.
God does not have the right to take any life at any time for any reason. What kind of a lunatic are you? We don’t live in Iran, but your God sure does.
To worship a tyrannical, murdering God is insane, and shows how absolutely fearful you are. You don’t love God; you are terrified of God, or the fantastical imaginary being you think is God, and grovel like an Obamabot to win his favor. I would tell your murdering God to shove it. No living creature is a possession or toy that he can amuse himself with or torture to get off on.
No, I’m not listing chapter and verse. I listed, with links, many free books that cover ALL THE CHAPTERS AND VERSES you seek, in great detail, starting with page one of the Old Testament. The fact that you won’t click on the links and download the books tells me, again, that you are terrified of grumpy old Jehovah (Yahweh), who might smite you and give your children two heads. What a tool!!!
Do you have a citation for this? What are the exact words?
Of course God has the right to demand your life at any time- He created it, He owns it, He can do with it as He pleases, just as a potter can fashion a piece of pottery out of his own clay and then choose to decorate it or smash it to pieces. And furthermore, who are you to challenge Him? You sound like a tough guy, but really a two year old talking that way to a marine can back up his words better than you can.
Myth Buster, your argument is a load of crap. It was crap when St. Paul supposedly concocted it, and it’s still crap. That you would paraphrase “Paul” instead of speak for yourself says a great deal.
A father does not have the right to create a life and then torture it for all eternity. Once you create a new life, it has the same right to life and all that entails that you do. Humans are not sewer pipes; they are not pottery. They are living, sentient beings. Your god damns people before they’re even conceived, deciding who will or won’t be “saved” (meaning saved from HIM) just for the hell of it.
A human father who treated his children the way your lunatic god treats his would locked away for life and shunned as a monster. But, your god functions by the “Do as I say, not as I do” philosophy. We’re supposed to turn the other cheek, but he isn’t. We’re supposed to forgive everything, but he isn’t. He can do anything he wants, however hideous, because he’s the big dog in the pack, and we’re his puppets created to worship him and do his bidding, because he’s so insecure and needy.
Your god is a demon, far crueler and more bloodthirsty than the alleged Devil. Your god throws people into eternal hellfire, and refuses to accept unbaptized babies into his kingdom. Your god tortures and kills people just because they don’t believe this or that, as if one can simply suspend disbelief and accept things contrary to ones own experience and background. Worse, he is the one who gives them or denies them faith in the first place, so if they don’t believe something, because he prevents them from believing it, he then punishes them for being exactly the way he made them. Your god is insane.
Your god tortures and kills harmless animals by the billions, but denies them an afterlife. Your god is obsessed with foreskins and hymens, and tells his “chosen people” to rape and pillage neighboring tribes, not to mention bake and eat bread made from human feces. Your god says there is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood. In other words, your god is John Wayne Gayce, Jr. Dr. George Tiller, Charles Manson, Alleister Crowley, Ted Bundy, and Jeffrey Dahmer all rolled into one, with a hefty dose of the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini thrown in for good measure.
Just as so many abused women cling to the men who abuse them, and so many abused children cling to the parents who abuse them, you cling to this abusive entity, giving it carte blanche to step on you, crap on you, starve you, kill you, and eternally torment you IN FIRE if that’s his wish. You are pathetic.
I’m not afraid of your crazy god, because he doesn’t exist outside the imaginations of his depraved worshipers. If there is a god of the Universe, it certainly isn’t the little Middle Eastern despot of your bible, creating creatures for his own sadistic entertainment.
As opposed to you, Florida, who takes the suicidal course of challenging the God whose permission you need in order to breathe. You are being offered eternal bliss, and instead you choose to damn yourself and then blaspheme God because of your lot. You’re pathetic. You’re destroying yourself to spite God and then you have the audacity to blame God for your self-inflicted condition, and beyond that seek to murder souls (that is, seek the damnation of souls) who actually want to be saved.
I am writing this more for the edification of the PJ Media readers then your narrow minded view:
Claim 1: The Church, under the serial murderer Constantine, became the most destructive, immoral institution in the history of Western civilization, plummeting the West in the Dark Ages for more than a thousand years.
Fact: Some historians have blamed the rise of Christianity for the fall of the Western Roman Empire, see Gibbons, but you seem to ignore the Roman Western Empire was having problems before Constantine. For example Diocletian, who launched the last major effort to stamp out Christianity, in response to the growing problems Rome was facing did a major reorganization of the Empire to make it more manageable, and imposed price and wage controls which still serve as a warning of the economic disaster such a program results in You ignore the 800 lb gorilla of the barbarian invasions in the West. You conveniently ignored how the Eastern Roman Empire, aka Byzantium, embraced Christianity and survived for a 1,000 years after the end of the Western Empire. There is a nice audio lecture on this topic from Dan Carlin on his history website.
Claim 2: The myth, promoted by Christians, that pagan Rome was savage
Fact: If pagan Rome was so irremediable then why did the Roman Catholic Church adopt Latin as its official language? Why did the Roman Catholic Church use the Roman administrative system as the framework for Church organization? The term diocese was in use by Rome long before the Catholic Church adopted it as identifying an administrative unit. Why did Benedictine monks copy classical works of philosophy, politics, etc from “pagan” philosophers and writers? You can visit the Vatican today and see Raphael’s “School of Athens” and perhaps you would be shocked to see pagans like Aristotle, Socrates and Plato.
Claim 3: Our own government was founded on the PAGAN principles of Greece and Rome, not the ludicrous, savage teachings of the bible.
Fact: I will concede that Athens and Rome serve as pillars of our government but it was the Judeo-Christian ethic that made equality of the law and the dignity of the individual prominent in the West.
Claim 4: Until the late nineteenth century, the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, supported human slavery. Catholic and Anglican priests used to bless the slave ships as they set off and came back.
Fact: You are correct but you ignore how it was prominent Catholic and Protestants who started and lead the abolitionist movement which were entirely absent in the non-Christian world. One can show the example of Dominican monk Bartolomé de las Casas who decried the enslavement of the indigenous people of the Americas. De Las Casas’s main philosophical opponent another Dominican monk argued using ARISTOTLE that the indigenous people were naturally predisposed to slavery while De las Casas argued the Indians were rational beings who should be given the chance to convert to Christianity by their own free will. Have you ever heard of William Wilberforce, a devout Christian, who almost single handily ended the slave trade and slavery in the British Empire? Here are the timeline for the non-Christian areas where slavery was abolished:
A: China – 1910
B: Thailand – 1912
C: Nepal – 1921
D: Saudi Arabia – 1962
Notice how these non-Christian areas slavery was ended decades or even centuries after it was abolished in the West
Claim 5: The absurd concept of the Divine Right of Kings, which our Constitution refutes (“all men are created equal”), is a biblically-derived one.
Fact: Divine Right of Kings is about as common across the world as slavery. For example, the Persian King Darius and Xerxes claimed they were divinely appointed by the Zoroastrian deity Ahura Mazda. Chinese Emperors ruled because they claimed a mandate from heaven. Pagan Roman Emperors starting from Augustus Caesar claimed they were divine. If Christians were so supportive of Divine Right then why did Thomas Aquinas give a justification for regicide and why Christians did not have to obey a tyrant?
Claim 6: The Church NEVER advocated freedom of any kind, and the fact that it does today means nothing historically.
Fact: Since you used “NEVER” I only need one counterfactual. Thomas Aquinas wrote this: “The Creator has given humans the ability to reason and choose. Reason aligned with truth will lead inevitably to liberty.” Or this” Our gift of reason is a means to a specific end. If we use our intellect in harmony with natural law—that is, free of contradiction from truth—we become more free and progress toward our ultimate end. I don’t pretend to know what that end is, but our nature rewards acting out of love, and moves us closer to unity. Our gift of will is tied to rational thought. We use reason to judge the options before us and then we choose, resulting in action. Every voluntary act is an expression of our ability to choose rightly. But we always choose based on our evaluation of what will result in the most good. Our thought processes can fail to deliver the Good. We may believe instead of reason, holding close those institutions of security that contradict fundamental moral truths. Or we might think we know based on false information. We’re not perfect, but striving to discover and understand that which is true will always keep us pointed in the right direction.”
You raise two valid points on the Church’s contribution to the Enlightenment and the greatest accomplishment of the Enlightenment: the founding of America:
1. The Church’s emphasis on individual salvation played a signficant role in the concept of sanctity of the individual which later supported the development of individual rights.
2. Thomas Aquina’s role in fostering the coming Enlightenment, tolerance and human freedom. However, Aquinas is considered the bridge between Ancient Greek rationality and the coming Enlightenment (Age of Reason) in the West, so you still must the Greek’s fountainhead status.
Overall, the argument still seems strong that, historically, the Church has not been a good steward of freedom or individual rights. Even today, the Vatican often supports socialist ideology that tramples individualism and individual rights.
Points well taken. I was concentrating on refuting what Mr. Florida was saying. Although one should be careful because America was one fruit of the Enlightenment but the other was Rousseau, the French Revolution and one can say leading to the Russian Revolution. Edmund Burke argues the American Revolutionaries were fighting for their rights under the English Constitution going back to the Magna Carta. (Good compromise would be the Founding Fathers took the best of Enlightenment thought combined with some good English moderation). As you mention Aquinas found “pagan” philosophers that Mr. Florida claim the Church rejected very useful in his work. Thank you for reading and responding.
One must separate Christian Socialism and charity from Marxism and the heresy of Liberation Theology. Many early Christians lived in communes and lived out the ethos of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” as an act of love for one another. There was no compulsion involved, only compassion for the aged and the sick, as well as fear of God. Marx is the antithesis of Rand, but neither of them are antithetical to Christ; rather, they both took Christian ethics and perverted them by divorcing them from God. Thus, they took good things and made them evil- Marx by making force and covetousness into virtues, and Rand by making greed and lust into virtues. Truthfully, that’s what makes them so dangerous, because Satan comes appearing not as the malevolent destroyer he really is, but rather as an angel of light, promising enlightenment, pleasure and/or prosperity if you’ll follow his advice, but in the end, following that advice will lead to destruction, even if you momentarily possess what he baited you with.
Myth–
Please reconsider your criticism of Rand and perhaps read her more closely. Rand was the first writer I ever saw who gave credited Christianity pivotal contribution of the concept of individual rights. She observed that the Church’s emphasis on individual salvation and individual sanctity was key in the development of the concept of individual rights in Western thinking.
She was an atheist, but not primarily an atheist; she was primarily a proponent of reason in the Aristotolian tradition. Her main complaint against religious conservatives was their faith-based defense of individual rights and capitalism, thus conceding a proper defense of based upon reason. Religious conservatives’ concession of reason to the Marxist was, has been and still is devastating to our culture.
I always got the impression from We The Living that her big objection to Christianity was how subservient the Russian Orthodox Church was to the Soviet system. I can understand her upset about this.
We are what we are. Human rights are sacrosanct, but our primary focus must always be the salvation of souls. What I have said is the most positive thing I can say about Rand- Objectivism is a perversion of Christian ethics, meaning that much is right about Rand’s philosophy, but I cannot condone what is wrong with it, and a church teaching Objectivism is just as heretical as one that teaches Liberation Theology.
Furthermore, let us dispel any delusions that St. Thomas Aquinus was in any way contrary to the Church- he would not be revered as a Doctor of the Church if that were the case. Thomas was a devout Catholic who wrote many apologetics for Christianity using natural law and reason. He also wrote the book on Eucharistic Adoration (which as a rite predated Thomas by 500 years). St. Thomas Aquinus wrote Sacris Solemniis, Verbum Supernum Prodiens and Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corpris Mysterium. The last two verses of Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corpris Mysterium are called the Tantum Ergo, and the common English translation is:
Down in adoration falling/
This Great Sacrament we hail;
Over ancient forms of worship/
Newer rites of grace prevail;
Faith will tell us Christ is present/
When our human senses fail;
To the Everlasting Father/
And the Son who made us free/
And the Spirit, God proceeding/
From them each eternally;
Be salvation, honor, blessing/
might and endless majesty.
Amen.
From these three hymns, we can conclude without reservation that St. Thomas Aquinus believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. And just so there is no mistake, the word “adoration” in an ecclesiastical context always means “worship.”
I think you are missing the point Florida.
That the catholic church is guilty of the very thing the administration is doing is irrelevant. When great injustices are done the way to set them right is not to pile another injustice on top of it by exchanging victims, but to put a stop to the injustice altogether.
That the church has forced people against their conscience in the past is no justification for captain zero and his minions to do it today.
Uh, no. The Catholic Church had serious misgivings about slavery even in the medieval period, discouraging the holding of slaves, and especially Christian slaves. And Pope Paul III (not exactly a wonderful guy) prohibits slavery in the New World. By 1700, especially in the New World, Protestants are beginning to question the validity of slavery. Quakers as a denomination first prohibit their members from selling or buying slaves, then from holding them–and that’s before 1800. Of course, the abolition movement is largely a Protestant movement in both America and Britain, and British demands at the end of the Napoleonic Wars largely are what drives many other European countries out of the slave trade.
So that’s why Delaware’s Constitutional Convention on September 6, 1776, modified a statement required of all members of the House:
And during the dark days of the Revolution, the Continental Congress wrote these words:
And why Benjamin Franklin, near the end of the Constitutional Convention, addressed the members concerning prayer, God, and the founding of our nation:
And this is why the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, section 10, includes this requirement for officeholders:
Yeah, our government was founded on pagan principles all right!
Can we split it?
We are founded on pagan principles, just not those of Greece and Rome, but rather of the Angles, with some input from the Saxons, Jutes, and Danes.
The mechanics of our system of government and law draws overwhelmingly from the Germanic traditions as opposed to the Roman traditions.
Our morality, which of course determines how those mechanical principles are applied, derives overwhelmingly from the Judeo-Christian principles, in stark contrast to the pagan Roman morality, and thankfully moderating the excesses of the pagan Germanic morality.
Both elements are essential to fully appreciate the distinctive nature of our culture and the freedoms that are its foundation.
There is no question that a lot of Germanic traditions underlie our legal system. The jury comes from the compurgation oath system, for example. But the notion that paganism was the only root, or that Christianity was not a significant part of our system of government, is absurd.
Clayton E. Cramer, You’re the guy who is in total denial of historical fact that the Declaration Of Independence was first drafted upon hemp before it was later writtren on parchment.
Uh no, but certain potheads insisted that the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution are both written on hemp. They are not. There was a lot of paper back then made from hemp, no question. But that’s not the claim that the potheads were making (along with many others that were far more wrong). Growing hemp for paper and fiber is also quite a bit different from growing hemp for its intoxicating properties.
“The Church, under the serial murderer Constantine, became the most destructive, immoral institution in the history of Western civilization, plummeting the West in the Dark Ages for more than a thousand years.”
No, THAT is a load of historical nonsense (just to scratch the surface, your conflation of the Dark and Middle Ages shows you up as a buffoon from the outset.) In fact, you twit, it was the Church and its monasteries, and from the 12th century its universities, which kept the embers of Classical learning alive among the brutish barbarians who had destroyed the Roman world in the West.
The Church (Catholic and Protestant) killed hundreds of thousands–some estimates run into the millions–of innocent humans and animals during the Dark Ages for the so called crime of heresy (that is, free belief). It killed Protestants, non-conforming Christians, Jews, and pagans by the wagon load, burning them alive. And you call this Church a beacon of enlightenment? The same church that claimed witches were real, followed Satan, flew through the air, and caused climate change? The same church that claimed the Earth was the center of the Universe and was flat with four corners, and imprisoned and murdered people for saying it was not??? The same church that confiscated the money and property of anyone accused of heresy, prohibited anyone else from defending the accused heretic, and then tortured and executed the heretic, evidently for the fun of it? The same church that became extraordinarily wealthy from just such confiscations? The same Catholic Church that sold indulgences, allowed Inquisitors to absolve each other of sin after torturing, raping, and murdering women and children? This church? This center of spirituality and holiness?
Where can I sign up? Who could resist an institution with such a stellar history surpassing that of all the evil Buddhists, Bonbos, Janes, Zoroastrians, and Chrishnas? After all, who could possibly be worse or more loathsome than a vegetarian who opposes killing???
Killed millions? Seriously? You know who HAS killed around a hundred million in just a couple of decades? Atheists using communism.
I think the Church and all of the Churches should sue the government in fifty different ways. There should be every class action lawsuit filed and no letting up. This is beyond acceptable, it is outrageous.
First they tell the Church that they must go against their beliefs and do as commanded by the government.
Then …. and make no mistake about it ….. they will start telling the people who and who will not have an abortion. Only the government will decide who is to be born and who is not to be born.
But this dictatorship has to start somewhere to begin the walk down this road. And it would appear the Church is first in line for their agendas.
Wrong.
We the People were first, and have been the target in big and little ways for nearly a century. Dictating consumption through forced purchase of health insurance coverage is just one example.
This attack on the separation of church and state is just the next move in the play book.
Does the govt. have unlimited authority to override the conscience of the individual citizen?
Andrew, might I suggest reading Paul VI’s ‘Humanae Vitae’?
Instead of persecuting the conservative churches, the welfare state should be applauding them. For they create the very human beings that will join the ranks of the working and pay taxes to support the welfare state!! Ironic, isn’t it?
If the church run hospitals continue to take medicare, then they will be subjects of the state. I don’t believe they can have it both ways. Either stop taking medicare, and probably run larger losses then they are now, or bow to the dictates of their master.
Another troubling thing about this is the narrative the left is spinning. They are calling reproductive services, and health care in general, a civil right. By doing such, it gives them the authority to impose new rules and expand their programmes. And who with a conscious would argue that point? Health for me but not thee. What a catchy campaign slogan.
Obama telling Catholic Hospitals that they must provide access to contraception is clearly an attack on freedom of religion and, by definition, an attack on The Constitution itself. This should end any chance of Obama being re-elected. He is no doubt confident that he can sell this as simply providing access to contraception.
What isn’t being pointed out here is that the Catholic church (Christians) are being specifically targeted. Muslims are exempted from this law, and all parts of obamacare.
Andrew – Maybe you can point out what the Catholic Church has said about these very same provisions being applied to them in Oregon, California, and New York? Were they very upset when those states required the very same thing?
But more to the point where most here cheerfully and ignorantly ignore – no one is saying the Church has to get into the insurance business. If however, they do want to get into the insurance business and they also are insuring many other’s who are not Catholic then they are required to follow what other employers follow. Also there is no requirement forcing Catholics to actually purchase birth control.
Of course we know that the vast majority of Catholic disagree with their church on birth control and the vast majority of Catholics also think birth control should be covered in insurance policies.
Andrew maybe you can ask all those Catholic bishops why they did not protest coverage for erectile dysfunction. Isn’t that god telling them no more sex for you.
This war on women’s wombs is a lost war already within the Catholic community. When people go beyond the sound bites and get informed on this issue the Bishops per usual will look silly.
The war on women’s wombs is being waged by men and lesbians by teaching stupid little girls to have as many sex partners as possible; having as many abortions (by teaching her that her baby is her slave/property that she may murder at will) as possible; by getting as many diseases as possible in order that she become barren and suffer breast cancer in her later years if one of the other diseases doesn’t kill her first.
Only men profit from a whore of a woman.
You mind is in in a very strange place.
Erectile dysfunction is a disease; fertility isn’t. The Church readily approves of drugs to treat infertility, as well as drugs intended to treat all manner of infections or medical conditions that make sex impossible, unsafe or unpleasurable. Sex is so important that a marriage will be declared void if it is unconsummated and impossible to consummate.
This is not a religious issue. It is supported by 80% of the women in the US. Not everyone has to believe in what the Catholics believe, even Catholics don’t believe most of that stuff.
So in your mind the majority should rule, right? It’s funny how often the Left rejects that premise…unless it suits their purposes. Hypocritical as ever.
Moira – so where is the government forcing the Catholic Church to do anything here? Well they aren’t. Where is the government forcing anyone to purchase Birth Control – they aren’t.
Oh and just what did Romney do in 2005 when he was Gov of MA. that was very similar?
Please let’s bring on this false religious war when we have a Mormon running. Now that’s real smart.
You are of course completely misrepresenting what the Obama administration actually did. In fact, everything you claim hasn’t been done, has. It’s just another case of, “Who’re you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”
80%? Where did you get that false information from?
If the Federal Government can force Catholics to bend to its will, it will force all religions to do whatever IT wants them to do. The Federal government is already consolidating its power by taking excessive amounts of money from us and spending it on things that we do NOT need, such as bailouts for auto companies or bailouts for AIG or a “stimulus” bill that only “stimulated” more dollars into the pockets of union hacks that will vote Democratic in November. And now not only will the Federal government force you to buy a product (such as insurance), but it will tell your church what it can or cannot believe in, especially when it comes to the matter of life. Tell me, what’s next? Will ALL churches be threatened with the loss of their tax exempt status unless they show infomercials for the Democratic Party on Sundays? At the rate we’re going, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Obamacare used as a weapon against perceived political opponents? Say it ain’t so…
This is just another shot from our emerging police state (see the other pajamas article, on how people with anti-government political views are now classified as terrorists).
Obama is a tyrant. He’s not a self-caused phenomena though – his tyranny is a reflection and result of the general rotten character of American society.
In the Lawrence v Texas case, the SC ruled that it is unconstitutional for the government to police a private act in the bed room, between consenting adults. Now the government demands that everyone pay for it, regardless of their religious beliefs. What is being missed is that pregnancy follows from an act of conduct. Creating life is an act of choice; it is not a disease. And every act of conduct requires personal responsibility.
My government has gone nuts. If they can not intrude in the bedroom, they surely must not leave their wallet.
What a mess. At the end of the day, though, the fact is this: the federal government is explicitly making one religion, and one religion specifically, violate its beliefs over something that isn’t even a human-rights issue. It’s like criticizing the paint choice of one house while the one next door is crumbling into its foundations. Don’t they have anything better to do?
Thank you for a rousing defense of the faith.
It is bizarre to me, beyond belief bizarre, that Obama cannot count. The American gov’t has been around 200+ years. The Catholic Church has been around for 2000+ years. Which means it has a lot of practice watching other governments come and go. For great stretches of history, in so many lands, the church was the government- St Martin, for instance.
The pope and the great President broke an empire. I’m not sure how Obama thought this was going to work. I am, however, thankful that he has so visibly overstretched his boundaries, so that most people have woken from their dream, and cry out against his horrors.
I’m told that priests are giving sermons and homilies and speeches explaining why this is so very, very wrong. They are getting standing applause.
My congregation, however, isn’t. Mine, of course, is going to go down into history as a curious irrelevancy. It’s kind of odd, knowing one is on a Titanic.
This is a little more complex, and difficult.
It would be wrong for the government (Federal or otherwise) to force some religion to alter its codes and act in a different manner.
That is not what this regulation is doing; the Catholic Church is free to continue believing and teaching that contraceptive use is wrong, and all Catholics are free to get this insurance and never use it to purchase contraceptives.
This is a business regulation, that anyone wanting to do business in the U.S. must follow. Claiming a religious exemption from the law is not tolerable; anyone could organize a cult and claim immunity to any law they do not like, as many have tried.
On a religious freedoms issue, I simply do not see the complaint as legitimate.
However;
I do not see this, or any similar, regulation as a legitimate use of the delegated government powers under the Constitution.
The law is unlawful, and must be done away with.
It is an outrageous case of government micromanagement that has not place in our nation, at any level of government.
I’m sure that’s what the Roman Empire said of the requirement to burn incense to Caesar. No sale. We would be a disgrace to the Name of Jesus if we assented to such a law. No, we shall not obey the President if doing so means disobeying God. We will obey all legitimate authority, but no authority has the right to order us to disobey God. We will not kill for the Gospel, but we don’t deserve to call ourselves Christians if we’re not prepared to die for the Gospel.
Sorry, my reply was only directed at the first half of your post.
“Pontius Pilate, meet the Jews. With his emperor furious at the mess he’d made, Pilate was forced to back down and remove the symbols.”
As a note, this is why, in the end, Pilate handed Jesus over for crucifixion even though he tried very hard not to do so. The Temple leaders threatened a riot, and given that Pilate was already in trouble with Rome he was stuck. BTW, there is a legend that Pilate and his wife became Christians later on.
NB
Pilate crucified thousands of Jews during his reign.
Yes, but he lacked the resources to put down a riot of millions. If it hadn’t been Passover, then he probably would have stood his ground, but because it was Passover, Jews from all over the Empire packed into Jerusalem to observe the rite. With Jerusalem packed with many times its normal population, at the second-holiest time in the Jewish calendar (second only to Yom Kippur), Pilate didn’t want to risk a confrontation. Even if he won, the politics would be so terrible he’d lose anyway.
Why is it that threads that have a religious connotation always devolve into nativism.
This mess with the hospitals is a problem, but not the prime one. As Scotth (18) pointed out, the Catholic hospitals can always stop taking public money. More of a problem is the government’s stand on adoption and fostering of children.
I love the idea that anti- Semite Obama caused Catholics to rethink voting for anti- Semite Obama they think is anti- Catholics. Personally I don’t care what they think normally as long as none puts me in a Ghetto or burn my books. On the other hand if Catholic hospital do not want to provide abortions they do not have to. All they have to do is not take any Federal money. But what is very important is this: Welcome to the camp of voters who will vote to replace Obama. Nobody else can be as bad.
I am saddend by this devolving into a religeous debate. Andrew, you should stick to the topic at hand, so this is actually your fault. I believe any who support religeous freedom will support the Catholic Church on this. However, some facts. With the exception of reproductive issues, the Church has a long history of supporting liberal/progressive issues. You lay down with dogs you get fleas. Does anyone think this move by the most leftist administration in our history wasn’t forseeable? Will the Church re examine its positions on other issues? I for one doubt it.
Exactly ! The nihilists want to coerce everybody into their blind faith in the nothing and they want us to forget that Freedom is the Gift of God to the human beings (and as such is primarily the Freedom to obey the “you shall not murder”.)
Boy, the bats came out of the belfry on this one. What fun!
– Zombie gets more worked-up Comments by merely mentioning “climate change”.
What a bunch of wacky comments…Religion and politics. That’ll get ‘em going every time.For what it’s worth, another good article, Mr. K. Love your insights. As Robert Redford said in 1969: “Keep thinkin’ Butch. That’s what you’re good at.”
Homeland Security loves these kinds of articles, so they can track the loony christian element. And here they are.
1. The federal government has NO business in healthcare other than fulfillment of obligation to veterans and federal employees.
2. The federal government has NO business distributing or forcing others to distribute “contraceptives”.
3. Middle eastern mythology has NOTHING to do with freedom and was essentially created to limit freedom. To think otherwise is laughable. Freedoms are codified in the Constitution, but maintained only by the willingness and ability to do violence in to keep them.
I am a Christian, I love and serve Jesus Christ. I do know this that no one was ever won to Christ by railing on them. Myth Buster the Bible says to “speak the truth in love.” It is obvious Menachem ben Yakov has made up his mind and I would not be surprised if your attitude sealed it for him. You do not sound like a “righteous John the Baptist” brother, you have definite anger issues. Menachem, if you will read the words of Jesus, unfettered by what comments you have heard made by others and unmuddied by the history of the bloody Catholic crusades (who bear no resemblance to Biblical Christianity, but use it as a cloak), I believe your heart will be touched. He is very much Jewish and for Jews. True Christians love Jews-regardless of whether they accept Jesus or not, just as we love Gentiles the same way. Lets leave judgments to God Myth Buster and examine our own hearts and lives. God bless you all.
Perhaps I do have some anger issues, but I have no hatred for Jews at all, only a zeal for the Gospel and a desire to force the Israelites to confront reality so that they will repent. All the perceived insults are taken from the Bible, occasionally modified slightly to make more sense in the immediate context.
This looks like the most appropriate place to post this…
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/208845-romney-crusades-against-obamas-attacks-on-religious-liberty-obama-campaign-fights-back
“Mitt Romney launched a petition on Monday against a new Obama administration mandate that will force employers, including religious institutions such as Catholic schools, to provide health insurance covering contraception.
Romney blasted the recently announced requirement as part of a series of “attacks on religious liberty” by the administration.
“If you’ve had enough of the Obama Administration’s attacks on religious liberty, stand with me & sign the petition,” he wrote on Twitter.
The petition, offered on Romney’s campaign website, warns that the rule seeks to “impose a secular vision on Americans who believe that they should not have their religious freedom taken away.”
Obama’s reelection campaign immediately pushed back with a tweet from deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, who said Romney’s policies as governor of Massachusetts were “identical” to those of the administration.
“@mittromney sends petition [against] Obama admin decision on birth control,” Cutter tweeted. “Hope petition signers don’t find out Mitts MA policies are identical.”
Ben LaBolt, Obama’s campaign press secretary, re-tweeted Cutter.
Romney and other GOP presidential candidates are ramping up attacks on what they say is an assault on religious liberty by President Obama. “
Obama’s reelection campaign immediately pushed back with a tweet from deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, who said Romney’s policies as governor of Massachusetts were “identical” to those of the administration.
“were “identical” to those of the administration.”
Really! Identical?
Soooo…. the tactic the Obama administration intends to use against Romney is that Obama copied Romney’s health plan – lock, stock and barrel. Why should I vote for Obama if he’s just copying ideas that Romney came up with a decade earlier?
You have to laugh and shake your head at this stuff. You just can’t make it up.
YJCMTSU
If Americans, who believe that human rights exist prior to and independently from the state, can’t stand together, then Barak “Caesar” Obama will unjustly take those very rights away.
Coast–
The problem is individual rights must be properly defended or we will still lose whether we stand together or not. Defending individual rights based upon faith concedes their proper defense based upon reason. Bill Buckley and other intellectually bent conservatives of the 1950-80s failed miseably at defending individual rights based upon faith and contributed significantly to the mess we find ourselves today.
Wow. Yes, let’s thank all the witches who were burned to death for bring an out of control church to our attention. Let’s thank Martin Luther for ending absolution. Let’s then Martin Luther King Jr. for ending segregation in the south.
Obama has jumped from about the equivalent of 1933 Adolph Hitler to about 1938 Adolph Hitler. If he decides to run for election again, B. Hussein certainly does have a lot of baggage.
Whatever line any non-communist/progressive American ever thought of drawing in the sand, the brown eyed handsome man just crossed it.
The anointed one had better start watching what he says. His mouth is writing checks, all the leftists in the White House can’t cash.
If he was a 1938 hitler, then another election wouldn’t be an option.
question Andrew what do you get them you stuff 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag answer a mess if we don’t curve over population we might find out the hard way
Mr Claven you are incorrect.
You distort when you say “institutionalizing the fact that man is spirit”
Jesus “realizes that the problem is distortion of religion. And the worst distortion of religion anybody can commit, according to Jesus, is to keep it spiritual and disembodied and not make it flesh and blood. That’s because Jesus requires of us not “no religion,” but a religion in which the Word becomes flesh.
Please read:
Religious, Not Spiritual
Share by Mark Shea, Register correspondent Friday, Feb 03, 2012 4:54 PM Comments (5)
Recently, there was a curious kerfuffle on the Internet when somebody released a “new” video announcing that he loves Jesus but hates “religion.” It is a sentiment older than my great-grandfather’s beard, and yet it was received as a sudden and brilliant meteor of insight blazing across the skies of American religious consciousness and dazzling a moribund Christianity to whom such a thought had never ever been proposed before.
Permit me a few words as a convert to the Catholic tradition from precisely this “I’m spiritual, not religious” flavor of Christian sectarianism. Having been raised nothing, but having imbibed this white-whiskered and hoary rejection of “religion” as a thing stiff, fossilized and hobbled under the weight of doctrines, dogmas, cold Christs and tangled Trinities, I encountered a species of nondenominational evangelicalism for whom such “spirituality” was second nature. I was taught to dispense with all things “religious.” So: no baptism (except for “baptism in the Spirit”). No Eucharist (“True communion is when the spirit of Christ in me communes with the Spirit of Christ in you”). No bishops or priests (just a pastor whose every opinion carried the weight of papal dogma because it was Spirit-led and Spirit-inspired). No liturgy (except that each service was — with absolute regularity — three fast “praise and worship” songs, three medium songs, three slow songs, a time of prayer and praise and speaking in tongues, followed by an hour-long sermon riffing on a favorite Bible passage, followed by prayer for people who wanted prayer, as well as some prophesying. Then we broke for our only sacrament: coffee and donuts).
Because we opposed “religion” and only wanted the spiritual (read: “disembodied”) Jesus, we tended to speak of the whole side of life that involved physical things, symbols, rituals, sacraments, and even physical bodies of human beings as though they either didn’t matter or were positive hindrances to the truly spiritual life. The Resurrection occurred, we admitted, but only for the sake of helping us know that Jesus was, in fact, alive. When he returned to heaven (I was taught), he shed his physical body because “he didn’t need it anymore.” Accordingly, the only Second Coming there would ever be had already happened — at Pentecost — when Jesus returned in the form of the Holy Spirit. Our goal in life as Christians, therefore, was to “die and get out of the way so that God could replace your humanity with his Spirit.”
The problem with all this is that it is, not to put too fine a point on it, inhuman, destructive and unlivable. It does violence to what the real Jesus came to say.
For the real Jesus did not despise human nature, but instead assumed a human nature himself. He came not to cancel us, but glorify us. As a Jew, he himself daily participated in the rituals and prayers of Israel. He knew the Psalms like the back of his hand, and his mind was marinated in the Scriptures and liturgies of Judaism. His Sermon on the Mount commends to us the religious duties of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. He habitually communicates via reference to the Old Testament. He worships at the Temple and considers it so important that he identifies his own body with it (John 2:19). He commands the rituals of baptism and Communion.
He realizes that the problem is distortion of religion. And the worst distortion of religion anybody can commit, according to Jesus, is to keep it spiritual and disembodied and not make it flesh and blood. That’s because Jesus requires of us not “no religion,” but a religion in which the Word becomes flesh.
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/religious-not-spiritual/#ixzz1lhe9BMXV
In all of time there has been this battle of good verses evil; Christianity verses others. It is as if humanity has not progressed so much after all..sure in things; inventions have, but have we as thinking beings? Not much! It should be clear by now to everyone that God IS and is not going anywhere! That said, look at all the people who refuse the knowledge and proceed in ignorance and evil. We will fight that until the end clearly and that is what will be the demise of the world!! Those that are so blind they cannot see are the ones; like Obama, that are causeing the untold havoc against all the good that our nation has produced for all!! We have GOT to stand up and state offically or just openly as humans beings, that we are NOT going to take such treatment, nor do we have to. ‘When God is for use, who then can be against us?’ The rest do not matter in the whole scheme of things and will perish…but we MUST not perish with them!!! God will always hold up His own but we have to be willing to work with Him for the good of ourselves and all because we know who we are and that Christians are ultimately the chosen people. He is giving the Jews a long time, as He is the rest of humanity to make up their minds where they wish to live for eternity. My suggestion is not to wait until you see Jesus returning in the sky!! Then will be tooooooo late!
Atheists are evil. Nice. How about hindus – are they evil too?
B. Hussein is full of B.S.
And the Catholic church is going to beat it out of him.
So … if I open a store and stick a cross over the front door, are there any OTHER laws you don’t think I should have to follow?
“Church affiliated” seems to be an awfully broad group these days.
I can’t see how requiring that policies cover a legal health service that everybody is legally allowed to use, but also free not to, is bringing down western civilisation. Get a grip. Is this supposed to mean that a protestant (or, god forbid, atheist) employee of a catholic “church affiliated” company should be prevented (by their employer) from accessing the same legally-mandated services that everyone else in the country is entitled to? That they can’t claim family planning services because their boss just doesn’t like that sort of thing?
I think maybe you’re a bit confused about how we dragged ourselves OUT of the dark ages.
Menachem Ben Yakov, your hatred is toxic. It is high time for Jews and Gentiles to put aside their hatreds. If we don’t, it will destroy us both.
If I thought you were a typical Jew, there is no way that I could support Israel. I’d just assume that the Muslims are angry because you provoked them. I hope that all Jews do not share your hatred for Goyim.
Incidentally, you talk about how Goyim have killed Jews over the years. Although none of us, Goyim, are responsible for what has happend hundreds or thousands of years ago, Jews like you will not let those grievances go. What a perfect excuse to hate other people. When confronted, most goyim are so dumb that they will apologize for things which they had no part.
Lets turn the tables for a moment. How about the millions of Goyim have Jews killed? It is my understanding that the Russian Communist revolution was led by Jewish conspirators who were following a philosopher who was Jewish by ancestory. Many of the officials who presided over the Holodomor were Jewish. Millions of Goyim died because of crimes by the regime set up by Jewish people. Although, the holodmor does not in any way excuse the holocaust, you can bet that the Nazis used it as an excuse. Also, it is my understanding that the Roosevelt administration was hesitant to bring more Jewish refugees into the USA from Germany because they knew many of these refugees were committed Communists.
Menachem Ben Yakov, perhaps you will accuse me of antisemitism, because I bring up these uncomfortable facts. I am normally very pro-Israel, and strongly support Jewish people. But hey, I suppose in your opinion, Israel has too many friends. So lets just trash the Goyim. It is wrong to blame all Jews for the crimes of the few, just like it is wrong to blame all Goyim for crimes committed by others. Therefore, despite your hatred, I intend to continue my support for the state of Israel and for the Jewish people.
The confrontation between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church is currently being presented as a confrontation between two institutions.
However, it is really an attack by the supporters of totalitarianism against people who prefer freedom and individual responsibility. It is an assault upon the rights of individuals described in the US Constitution.
In this instance, health insurance for employees is an expense which employers recover from the charges which they impose upon customers.
If the cost of health insurance were consolidated into the employee’s wages, then the employer’s costs would be unaffected, but employees would have the freedom and responsibility to purchase health insurance of their own choice, according to their own conscience.
This new consequence of the requirement that employers provide health insurance, rather than employees provide their own, illustrates that erosion of personal responsibility and growth of government, initially seemingly beneficial and justified, leads eventually to tyranny.
Most of the original proponents of employer provided health insurance would not have anticipated or condoned the tyrannical abuse of power by the Obama administration. However, the mechanism to impose tyrannical abuse of citizens and forcing them to acquiesce in violating their conciences, is already well established.
The requirement for employers to provide health insurance for their employees, rather than the employees provide their own, is effectively, to suggest that a supposedly free people, comprises delinquents or inadequates, who require someone else to look after them, as though they were children.
Freedom is seldom abandoned, wholesale. Rather, it is encroached upon, gradually.
Its encroachment should be opposed, upon principle, rather than accepted, until the degree of encroachment is unacceptable.
There should now be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the progressive mentality, which has now consolidated its hold upon the Democratic Party, is totalitarian, pays only lip service to the concept of freedom and is inclined to use the coercive power of the state to impose its will upon all.
Very well put.
John McLachlan, that is.
We order to preserve our freedom, we must address the fundamental legal problem, the modern misinterpretation of the first amendment’s Establishment clause which is the basis of the Obama policy. “Separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution, nor is it a correct interpretation of the Establishment clause. The sole meaning of the Establishment clause was to prohibit the federal government from preferring one faith as a national religion. The 20th century Supreme Court rulings expanding that clause to incorporate the bigoted 19th century anti-Catholic concept of “separation of church and state” are an unconstitutional exercise of judicial overreach, as well as creating a jurisprudence which even pro-separationists acknowledge is incoherent. We need to amend the first amendment to restore the original meaning of its establishment clause, which is non-preference among denominations, not secular hostility to faith in general. See http://www.timelyrenewed.com.
“The sole meaning of the Establishment clause was to prohibit the federal government from preferring one faith as a national religion”
The first amendment doesn’t say that either.
You might as well give up on anyone sticking to a single straightforward interpretation of any clause in the bill of rights, because everyone’s got an axe to grind. Makes you wish they hadn’t been so darn sloppy about drafting it in the first place – ESPECIALLY the people who claim to just “stick to what the text says”.
Instead of contradicting one another,like a little sample of a Babel Tower, please concentrate in the message of what the author of this article try to convey to us., and is the trampling of the freedom of religious institution regardles of their particular affiliations. Why offend one another because President Obama want to circunvent the Law ?
People who do not want the Christian God will get exactly what they want. Seems fair to me.
Right on,right on !!
The Constitution does not give us the right of Religious freedom, neither does it ensure our liberties of any kind. Our history has shown that we only have thoe rights for which we are willing to stand.
In Boston, ordinary men stood and died facing overwhelming military superiority. In Valley Forge they stood shoeless in knee-deep snow. In France they waded ashore in the face of whithering machinegun fire. And in Korea they drew the line against tyranny.
It is the indominable will inside the American body that gives us liberty. It is the willingness to face enemies abroad or at home that ensures freedom; even if that enemy is in the White House. No man can take from us that which we will not give. We only need decide to stand.
The Catholic Church has stood by (sometimes applauding) when everyone else has seen their liberty to contract restricted by the State. Has anyone in the Church protested that Americans have lost their liberty not to contract for (purchase) health insurance? But suddenly the Church discovers that it has lost the liberty not to contract for (offer) health insurance with elements contrary to its beliefs. Boo Hoo. I’ve lost my rights but the Church only cares about its own.
The same sophism that decided that whether or not I purchase health insurance effects interstate commerce (thus falling within legitimate federal power) concludes that businesses owned by the Church fund religion but are not part of religion. What did the Bishops expect?
Firstly: Jesus Himself said: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
How much more so will Lord Christ say this for those who CALL themselves “Christians” and go around killing people because of their different view points?! These types are NOT Christians! Any so-called “Christian” who goes around murdering in Jesus’ name is NOT a Christian! Jesus said so!
So, any Jew who gets upset because there is a black history of centuries where people CALLING themselves “Christians” were killing Jews is making a big mistake. Those who kill in the name of Christ are NOT CHRISTIANS!
Next: Jesus of Nazareth, genetic son of God, genetic son of Mary, [legal son of Joseph of Nazareth] did NOT come to do away with the Law, but to fulfil it.
Any Jew who gets upset because Jesus has a set of conflicts with the TALMUD and the RABBIS has got to ask himself whether he puts the TALMUD ahead of the TORAH. If he does, then that “Jew” has departed from God’s word and made an IDOL out of the opinions of men. I AM a Jew – a son of the Covenant made at Sinai. I am a son of the Commandments. I have shed my blood for that Covenenant – and I don’t give a fig for the opinion of the Rabbis. The Torah and the Prophets are what matter – these are the words of GOD. The rest – the Talmud – is just opinions of men.
Lastly, the: ‘Jesus-is-the-son-of-a-Roman-and-a-whore’ theory has been proven WRONG time and again. I’m ashamed to see there are still Jews who repeat it.