ACLU (Dragon Slayer's Rant)

[Dragonslayer4ever]

People don't go to church cause they are forced to. They go cause they want to. Thats one of the things that the bible states. That God gives man free will. That free will means that worshiping him is by choice only. I know the bible pretty well since I took a bible history class in high school. I understand alot of religions as I have studied alot of them. I know about Hindu and Paganism as well.

[Dragonslayer4ever]

ok. Your right about that as well. But it should be up the local community's school board to decide what be taught and what not. Schools have a PTA. They decide on alot of this stuff right. Let them decide what is best for the kids. I was brought up on the Darwins Theory at school and Creationism at church when I was little. Let the person invovled decide what they will or not learn or beleive. We don't need groups like this coming in trying to force this on us. They are doing the exact thing they are trying to stop. They think they are making it so that everyone can beleive everything they want. But they are making everyone believe what they want. Not what that single person wants.

[Talapus]

This is the kind of sentiment that makes me wish that the entire west coast would declare itself a sovereign nation.

[rklenseth]

Just to point out; American rights are based on the individuals not the group. The Constitution protects every person from religious persecution and gives religious freedom as well as freedom of speech.

So taking away a Bible (could be a Koran or Tora as well) from kid during any point at school is an infringement of these rights. Same goes for praying at any time.

I agree the ACLU is definitely a bad, extremely Socialist Liberal organization. They have attacked anything religious over the past decade and are infringing on the religious rights of others. Thier core belief is that since they don't believe in God or any religion that everyone else shouldn't or should be made to do it privately. That is wrong and is religious persecution. Thats what happened in many places of Europe during the 16th Century. The Catholic threw out and killed the other Christians, Jews, and Muslims from France and Spain. The places in the Netherlands controlled by the Calvinists threw and killed anyone not agreeing with them. Thge same in Ireland, Germany, Russia, England, etc...

A lot of those groups came over here to America and that is why religious freedom was established when the United States came to be because many of these same people who left Europe due to religious persecution remembered and vowed it would never happen here.

Remember, no where in the Constition does it say that Church and State will be separated. It says that the government will not establish a religion. There is a difference in meaning that we have lost in this modern age.

[Schme]

I must say that I do indeed agree.

People overeacte when trying to make everything all secular like. France, for example, is a fucking nightmare, thanks to their trying to sterilize it.

They forget that in there minority appeasement campaigns, they take aways things from the others.

I do not have any perticular faith, myself, but people do often seem to forget that Canada and America were in fact founded by god fearing and deeply religious people. And guess what? People of other faiths understand that. They're not demanding mofo's or anything. Sure, there's a couple, but nobody likes them except for people afraid to look prejudiced.

Let me put it this way. If I went to Turkey, I wouldn't go and demand that Eid not be a public holiday, just as a Turk would not come to Canada and demand Christmas not be a public holiday.

And people often forget that there are many lessons to be learned from religion.



However, as for George Bush, Jr., I cannot say I have any respect for him whatsoever. He is an actor, a puppet and a traitor to his nation.

I used to hate but respect him. Why do we not have a leader like that? He's like an American Pierre Trudeau, but with less women, and religious. What happened to our good old leaders?

But now it is quite clear that he is not even a patriot. What disgusts me more is that he is kept there.

Him at the pope's funeral? He would have looked bad had he not been there. Do you really think he gived a damn? Hell no. Neither did that Saudi Arabian prince. But you have to be there. It's just like attending call to prayer. If your not there, the whole community knows, weather you want to go or not.

George W. Bush is a terrible example. I could go on and on, but that's a whole other thing.


But on this one, I agree. Shut up, hippies. Your the only one's complaining. Why don't you go outside? The people who you claim to be fighting and protesting for don't like you. Your giving there communities bad publicity.

[Dee]

But from what I understand about the muslim religion it talks about killing everyone that is not part of that religion. Now thats not always the case but from what I here on the news it is a good part of it.

That was never the case with Muslims. From the very beginning of Islam, people have always had the right to choose whatever relegion they belonged to. In the old days, if you weren't a muslim, it was fine, but you had to pay some money as taxes or whatever, I honestly don't know why, but that's not the case nowadays.

The muslim religion is a peaceful and progressive religion, fundamentally. Much more so than christianity.

A few extremists who have the skin color of a muslim, and therefore the racist american media groups all terrorists as muslim, and all muslims as terrorists.

Nick, you are 100% right. Extremists give the Islam a bad name, they attack people and countries and say that by that way they are defending the relegion and the mankind. Which, of course, is very wrong.

And, believe it or not, there are people out there who just do not like the Muslim relegion and just want to give it a bad name, so they make terrorist attacks under the name of Islam, when they aren't really muslims or anything.

Out of curiousity, do you believe that the Earth was made in 6 days?

The universe was made in 7 days, according to the Qur'an. Allah (God) created the skies in one day, the planets in another, the water in another day, and so on and so on... Every one thing was created in one day. Of course Allah was (is) able to create the whole thing in just a glimpse of a second, but there's wisdom in why He did it in 7 days. I can't really remember it right now. Anyways, thanks for reading this.

[Sunni Daez]

I have to add my 2 cents to this

1. I didn't see anything about a child getting a bible taken away, but if this is true fact, then it is wrong. If the child is reading during recess, and not reading it aloud..then he bothers no one..let him read! No education is a wasted education...if that is what he chooses to learn...on his recess ..let him. Personally, I think it is better for him to read than Dr.Suess.

2. This one always gets to me..Christmas is a Christian holiday, yet many many celebrate it for thier own reasons, most employers close thier door and pay the employees for this day off of work...now I have never heard a non-christian complain of being paid for that day, I have never heard of anyone saying "no, you can't pay me for it, I am not christian and it is not a holiday for me..I want to work" ...Even the post office is closed, and that is a government building...so why is it ok in some instances and not others?

see....only 2 cents worth

[Peanut]

I have to add my 2 cents to this

1. I didn't see anything about a child getting a bible taken away, but if this is true fact, then it is wrong. If the child is reading during recess, and not reading it aloud..then he bothers no one..let him read! No education is a wasted education...if that is what he chooses to learn...on his recess ..let him. Personally, I think it is better for him to read than Dr.Suess.

2. This one always gets to me..Christmas is a Christian holiday, yet many many celebrate it for thier own reasons, most employers close thier door and pay the employees for this day off of work...now I have never heard a non-christian complain of being paid for that day, I have never heard of anyone saying "no, you can't pay me for it, I am not christian and it is not a holiday for me..I want to work" ...Even the post office is closed, and that is a government building...so why is it ok in some instances and not others?

see....only 2 cents worth

Hmm?

Wasn't christmas just an holiday that fell on a important christianitic day?

I could have sworn it was something germain.

Or was that newyears day.

And wasn't the original santa claus a green kobold with a cape with the colors of a rainbow?

The overhyped american santa claus was invented by coca cola.

[Jur Schagen]

The overhyped american santa claus was invented by coca cola.

I'm afraid not... he's the twisted version of our very own "Sinterklaas"...

[wichita]

No actually Christmas was an ancient pagan ritual, with traditions reaching back to ancient Mesopotamia. It was a feast to encourage the reincarnation of Nimrod the Hunter I think, but I'm a bit fuzzy on the details at the moment. The important part is that the holiday is pagan in origin.

The early Christians in the Roman Empire were facing intense persecution, as most everyone should know, so when they were searching for a time to start a traditional celebration to celebrate the birth of Christ, they did so under the cover of the celebration of the Chritsmas holiday. Over time, the pagan traditions became incorporated into the Christian celebration and as the religion gained social acceptance the name was added.

Christ was actually likely born in April or March, not in December.

[rklenseth]

Just like Halloween is a Pagan holiday turned into a Christian holiday.

Irish Celts use to believe that on Halloween the dead rose from the Earth and walked the Earth for a day. The only way to survive the dead was to dress up and look like them. When the Irish became Catholics they kept their old Pagan traditions and made them fit into their new religion. So on Halloween, all the dead that died during that year rise from the Earth and walk it for one last time until the next day when God and the Saints of old allow them into Heaven (or Hell depending on what they did during their life).

Christmas and the whole Santa Claus myth is the same way. A Pagan tradition that was made to fit into Christian belief when a Pagan people were converted.


Anyways, the way I see it, Christian, Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish are all the same religion. They preach for the most part the same morals. And in essence they all come from the same origin. Abraham is the Father of all these religions.

These are the prime differences and they are really just trivial in the end anyways;

Catholics and most Christians believe that Jesus suffered and died on the cross for their sins and by doing so became a god and their savior.

Mulsims believe that Jesus was a great man but do not believe he was a savior or a god.

And Jewish people believe that Jesus was a good man but do not believe he was the savior (they believe that the savior is yet to come), nor that he was the Son or God, or that he became a god himself after dying.

Other than that there isn't very many major differences between those major religions.

[Dee]

The way we see it (Muslims) is that Jesus was not killed, he was raised to God and he is still alive till this moment. He is protected by God and always will be until certain things happen on Earth (which I am not able to explain right now because of my not so good commands of the English language) and Jesus will come to save us from them. He is not going to be fighting alone though; a man called Al-Mahdi will be fighting along with him.


We do not believe that Jesus is a God or the song of God. We believe that there is only one God (Allah) and He has no son, no parents, no relatives at all. How Allah was created or how he exists is something our minds won't be able to interpret in this life, so this is something that we will know about after we die. In heaven or hell.

[rklenseth]

hmmm....that whole thing about Jesus returning and fighting sounds a lot like Revelations with Jesus returning and fighting the Anti-Christ.

I never knew Muslims had that prophecy.

Very interesting....

[wichita]

That's news to me as well. The Muslims I have spoken with in the past accepted Jesus as a prophet but nothing more. The concept of the trinity (unified separation of one God in three persons) is core to the Bible and therefore Christianity. This is not this thread for this discussion, but the three religions are not the same. Abraham is not the father of Christianity, God the Father is the father of Christianity.

And I'm not meaning to sound argumentative, Dee. Sitting here reading over that line again, it looks kind of harsh. I just haven't heard that doctrine from a Muslim before either. One of these days I hope to actually manage to read the Qur'an someday to verify the things I have heard from it.



As for the separation of church and state, as I think PKL pointed out, that was a Jeffersonian concept introduced in a letter written in 1802 and is not constitutional. I believe that the sentiment has unfortunately been misused starting in the 1960s in the states, maybe adopted earlier than that in other places. As I recall, Jefferson's motivation for coining his phrase "a wall of separation" between the Federal government and religion was a unidirectional one. The US Federal government had no right, according to the policies of the Jefferson administration, to establish a state supported church, or to interfere with the first ammendment religious freedom of any church. He felt that a man's religion exists between himself and God and the government has no right to interfere with that.

Consequently, the government is set up to be of the people, for the people, and by the people, and therefore reflect the ideals of the people. If the populace is mostly Christian, the government will more than likely have a Christian flavor and should not be discouraged to be that way until laws are passed that explicitly prevent other groups from excercising their first amendment rights. The policy is religious TOLERANCE, which does not demand ACCEPTANCE. There is a difference between the two, but having merely the first without the second does not require hostility. It's called agreeing to disagree.

What Dragonslayer was lashing out at by opening this can of worms, is the increasing pervasiveness of reverse discrimination in the modern world by certain people who demand acceptance and are intolerant to people who are merely tolerant of other cultures and viewpoints. All this is done in the name of progressive thought, but I believe it is worse than the patterns of the past it is reacting against.


I say worse because at least traditional bigotry has the chutzpah to admit to what it truly is.

[Dee]

hmmm....that whole thing about Jesus returning and fighting sounds a lot like Revelations with Jesus returning and fighting the Anti-Christ.

I never knew Muslims had that prophecy.

Very interesting....

Is the Anti-Christ the man who is going to try and make us believe that he is God and if we don't believe in him he would kill or harm us? If that is him, then yes, that's what we believe in, Jesus will be returning to fight the Anti-Christ.

That's news to me as well. The Muslims I have spoken with in the past accepted Jesus as a prophet but nothing more. The concept of the trinity (unified separation of one God in three persons) is core to the Bible and therefore Christianity. This is not this thread for this discussion, but the three religions are not the same. Abraham is not the father of Christianity, God the Father is the father of Christianity.

The three relegions are not that different... They all invite us to believe in God (Allah) and just be peaceful and not commit the 7 deadly sins (in christianity). The basics are the same. The Judhasim was the first relegion ever, the Christianity was the second, the Islam was the last one ever. Abraham was the first prophet ever, Muhammed was the last prophet ever. He wasn't only a prophet, he was a prophet and a messenger.