Do I have freedom FROM religion?

reply to post by SaturnFX


It is a religion, it is stated as a faith by its proponents, the authors were Unitarians(thats a church if you didn't know) and faith is very much a part of it. Did you not read the very words I posted which were written by them? Are you in a state of denial over it simply because to fight Christians they had to say they were not a religion?

Originally posted by Theprimevoyager
I prefer to believe in humanity.

But that has let me down since the day I was born.

I suggest to believe in yourself and work with humanity

or..believe in your own humanity...either way.


I would rather my money not tell me who I trust, or have a school teach my child that God is the king of the united states.

reply to post by lucid eyes

Im not sure children can grasp the meaning of all that, so I wouldn't see it as that big of a problem. As adults we are more capable of chosing what we pledge allegiance to.

Perhaps to make my point a bit clearer, the Pledge was one of the original targets of Progressives.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Dear SaturnFX,

Educating the population is a national security issue (we need some people whom know how to work nuclear reactors sort of thing) and an economic imperative (unless we want to be the dirt farmers of the world). So, it became mandatory...that is an argument (why should the state tell me to teach my child anything)... land of the free indeed. Evolution does not require a belief system. It was taught to me, in a catholic school, like this: This is the current theory of evolution based on scientific uncoverings. the picture is not complete, and it may be incorrect, but the best understanding we have today is as followed...(then something about monkeyfrogs and turtlebunnies...don't remember the specifics). We were allowed to question it (and many did). So, to answer the question..yes, state interests do overrule your right as a parent in some aspects of your raising (but I want my daughter to watch porn all day! She needs to please her man when she gets married!....ya, that just sounds wrong..time to bring in the state and question your fathering ability). Ya, I just dropped the porn defense (when you don't understand something, mention kids and/or porn and you win the debate). The criteria is the same though...agreeing or disagreeing on the concept of requiring education itself is a completely different discussion. I am personally for it, but do acknowledge there are oppositions based strictly on ideals...still, I would rather have a slightly authoritative nation of moderately educated people than a free nation of morons.

Then would you truly want to keep the discussion of the possibility of their being an afterlife and a greater being out of the schools? What should people know or consider, what does the state have a right to force my child to hear so that we have obedient workers who improve our economy? What should I have a right to teach my child and what should you, someone not their parent, be able to require me to teach my child? Do you really wish one right for you and a different one for me? The description you gave could be used by religious people to justify your child being taught sharia law or Christianity. Thing about the real issue, it is about forcing people to hear your perspective and not allowing them to succeed unless they can say that believe what you have said is true (we call that the public school system). You who are not spiritual believe you have the right to force my child to hear you and I who im a Christian says that I should not force your child to hear me. Do you see how amusing this is?

The issue is not about religion, the real issue is about societal or governmental forces having the accepted freedom to force me to do anything and their belief that they have the final say in what people are taught. The fool thinks he can keep his children from views that oppose yours, the answer is found when your children decide for themselves what they believe and I want them to have heard all sides. You don't.

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

You have the freedom to walk away if you do not want to hear what we have to say, there's your freedom from religion. Stick your fingers in your ears and walk away.

If you obtained "freedom from religion" then all churches, synogogues, mosques, buddhist temples, masonic lodges and well....even soup kitchens and food pantries for the poor would have to be burned down. Not constitutional by any means so, no you do not have freedom from religion.

If we can feed your sorry ass when you're broke and destitute you can at least sit and listen to stories about Jesus, it aint gonna kill you.

edit on 26-5-2012 by lonewolf19792000 because: (no reason given)

From what I read, he isn't opposed to individuals sharing their beliefs,he's opposed to the government sharing the beliefs of only some of the citizens by putting the words on our money, in our pledge, in the schools, etc.
Individuals have freedom of speech and can tout anything they want, but the government shouldn't decide next week that they're going to reprint all money with the slogan "ISLAM ROCKS" or "BUDDHA IS DA MAN" and hey shouldn't have "In God We Trust" on the money because not everyone believes in God, let alone trust him.
I do, but my government has no right to force that one anyone. I can tell everybody around me about God, share my experience, encourage them to come to church with me, whatever... but the government shouldn't be doing it, it's not their place and not their job.

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

It is a religion, it is stated as a faith by its proponents, the authors were Unitarians(thats a church if you didn't know) and faith is very much a part of it. Did you not read the very words I posted which were written by them? Are you in a state of denial over it simply because to fight Christians they had to say they were not a religion?

More than that, I read the manifesto (Second one). (Add: Skimmed..no pop quizzes!)
It is an attempt at a religion
it is absurd
the ideals they give are for the most part good..not all..but the majority.
good for a general guideline and ideal for a society...

I understand it is an attempt at some deityless religion (which that as a concept is nonsense..the whole idea of a religion is having a deity.)
What we have here is a self help book for society that some rather uncreative people are trying to make a religion out of.
the book itself...ya..most are pretty good tenants
but I don't go to the how to win friends and influence people church...

I see it like that...good ideas wrapped up in a absurd premise. I am not arguing it isn't objectively a religion (an attempt at one anyhow)...I am just saying it isn't for me, and most people I know whom also agree with it would laugh at the idea of going to a church based on that...sort of missing the point of you have a deityless religion anyhow.
like going to a bar that doesn't sell alcohol.

I am not going to defend the humanist religious movement...I don't need to, because I am not part of that "religion". But I do find much of what they say to be very idealistic for society, if not self evident.

I also like the do unto others as you would have them do unto you that Christ said...that doesn't make me a christian though...I am allowed to pick the wisdom out of books without becoming a full blown worshipper of whatever they are selling.

Oh speaking of God on the money, prepare to be forced to take the mark of the beast when they force the cashless society on us. Then we won't have to look at that funny eye in the capstone on the one dollar bill anymore.

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus

Perhaps to make my point a bit clearer, the Pledge was one of the original targets of Progressives.

So you are saying what they now oppose they once promoted?

reply to post by SaturnFX

...I am allowed to pick the wisdom out of books without becoming a full blown worshipper

Hey there's a lot of stuff I like to pick out of other religions. I am notorious for posting taoist ideas, Hindu ideas on karma and reincarnation and so on, but does that make me a Hindu? Actually, though one friend of mine said he thinks I have a Hindu soul(likely I had many incarnations in India and relate easily to the religion and the cosmology).

Originally posted by lucid eyes

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus

Perhaps to make my point a bit clearer, the Pledge was one of the original targets of Progressives.

So you are saying what they now oppose they once promoted?

Something like that. Remember, there was a time when Progressives embraced fascism in this country.

Try this little bit from Doscover The Networks

It is hard to fix a specific starting date for the progressive race to the Great Society,” writes Jonah Goldberg, “but a good guess might be 1888, the year [when socialist] Edward Bellamy's novel Looking Backward burst on the American scene.” Set in the year 2000, this futuristic book depicts a utopian society run with the hierarchical efficiency of a military battalion. All workers in this idealized world belong to a unified “industrial army” that labors within the confines of an economy controlled by a coterie of central planners

Bellamy's book became immensely influential, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. It was particularly effective at setting afire the hearts of idealistic young people who were moved by the author's vision of a socialist utopia. All across America, “Nationalist Clubs” were formed to advocate for “the nationalization of industry and the promotion of the brotherhood of humanity.” Bellamy presented his utopia as a forum for the genuine expression of Jesus Christ's teachings. The author's cousin Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister who penned the “Pledge of Allegiance,” shared this perspective, as he stated forthrightly in a sermon titled “Jesus, the Socialist.”

www.discoverthenetworks.org...


But you see, once Hitler gave fascism such a bad name, Progressives had to distance themselves from it and from their background of it. Typically today they try to pin fascism on today's conservatives. As such they targeted the Pledge of Allegiance because of it's "nationalistic" feel, but more than that, because it contained the word "God" in it, which fit nicely into their pretentious need to separate church and state.
THe same goes with Margaret Sanger's American Birth Control League which was a Progressive movement of eugenics, from which Hitler actually took his cue. This was the forerunner of Planned Parenthood, it just had a name change to distance itself from the awful sound of eugenics, which it was to begin with but now since Hitler made it look so horrible they had to hide it.
Abortion today is still a Progressive dream and agenda. Who can deny it?

reply to post by AQuestion


Thats what electives are for.
Discussions of afterlife are for theology. its not a science, its not a math, its not language.
There are tons of electives people choose to go. I have no issue with public school offering religious classes as electives that parents and students choose (and supported by parents and students via monthly fee's for such classes..or they can just teach them themselves after school).

the core though needs to just stick to what they are...reading to create higher literacy rates, math and science to keep a technical edge on our economy. history is also just that...an account of events that happened that lead us to where we are today..make it as unbias as possible and as close to the facts as can be (no interpretation from the teacher..let the students discuss that, but don't lead them.).

I never make the mistake of thinking this is a free country. We have liberties, we gave up many freedoms in order to establish security. I am personally more concerned about liberties being given up for security, not freedom. Pure freedom is anarchy, and that is as bad as democracy

Do I think we should be a purely free country? no. I enjoy the progression of our nation and species into something better than roving bands of marauders. I want freedom tempered with good governance and wise leadership to ensure the liberty and prosperity as a whole.

Should a teacher be able to counter evolutionary theory with their intelligent design hypothesis? no
why? because it is not even on the same level first off...the evol theory is well past hypothesis stage, evidence, testing, results, theory, etc...hypothesis is at stage one.
They can try again when they hit the theory stage...until then..might as well have someone say we all came from a watermelon 200 years ago. School is for understanding what we know so far, not what we can think up or deeper spiritual ideals that don't relate to anything discussed.

I am trying to avoid the whole should school be forced on parents to begin with argument...as it is so far off topic that I would need a map to find it again..lets just say, I have mixed views on it...I see the value, I understand the opposition principle.

Discussions of an afterlife and other hypothesis's, to include ghost stories and the like are not for teachers to start instructing about (and I am a "ghost" believer). Thats a discussion one has at home or in a special class

(I talk in circles)

Originally posted by lucid eyes

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus

Perhaps to make my point a bit clearer, the Pledge was one of the original targets of Progressives.

So you are saying what they now oppose they once promoted?

We could just change it to God/Yeshua/Allah/Brahma and just get everybody

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
reply to post by PurpleChiten

 

Yes... from all of them except the extremist fundamentalist evangelical cultists who thump the bible instead of reading it then shove it down your throat against your will while telling you that you will burn in hell for

I have yet to walk down a street and have Christians do that to me against my will. You know the old cliche, just say NO and walk away. Maybe you meant the JW, in which case I have found that placing a statue of Buddha on the front porch works very nicely. JW is cultish anyway and does not classify as a traditional church.
I do however remember many years ago, the ISKCON people used to prowl around streets and shopping malls hawking their books on Krishna Consciousness. Actually those books have marvelous pictures in them and are great interpretations of Hindu scripture. I still have one I think.

No, I'm talking about the little non-denominational, fundamentalist, evangelical "christian" churches with the uneducated and untrained preachers who scream on fox news at people, judge others constantly, demand that everyone believe exactly as they do, attack others if they don't and shove their beliefs down the throats of anyone they may run into. It's the cult of the "religious right" that is neither religious nor is it right. They are particularly predominant in the "red states".
Of course you've never seen a "Christian" do it, those cultists aren't "Christian"

This one comes to mind:

reply to post by SaturnFX

I have no issue with public school offering religious classes as electives that parents and students choose (and supported by parents and students via monthly fee's for such classes..or they can just teach them themselves after school).

hahaha you just reminded me of something funny I experienced in school with phase electives. I had a friend I hung out with every day, and she was into sportsy stuff and wanted to take an elective studying extreme sports (it wasnt called that back then) which studied the likes of Evil Knievel. In order to take the class together, we both put that down as our choice, but somehow, I got picked for that course, and she didn't. End result, I was in a class I really didn't want but took for her sake, and she didn't get it. I should have had the Shakespeare.

reply to post by PurpleChiten


Ummmm okay, you still have the option to NOT watch Fox news. There's always CNN(communist news network) or msnbc, I think that's where you can catch such nauseating commentaries from the likes of Schultz and Maddow, although between the two I prefer Maddow but sometimes watch Schultz if I feel like driving my blood pressure up unexpectedly.

I don't know what to tell you if you live in a Red State. I suppose if you feel that strongly, you could move to Seattle or oh Connecticut maybe. How about District of Columbia. It's blue.

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
reply to post by PurpleChiten

 

Ummmm okay, you still have the option to NOT watch Fox news. There's always CNN(communist news network) or msnbc, I think that's where you can catch such nauseating commentaries from the likes of Schultz and Maddow, although between the two I prefer Maddow but sometimes watch Schultz if I feel like driving my blood pressure up unexpectedly.

I don't know what to tell you if you live in a Red State. I suppose if you feel that strongly, you could move to Seattle or oh Connecticut maybe. How about District of Columbia. It's blue.

edit on 27-5-2012 by ThirdEyeofHorus because: (no reason given)

Oh, I don't watch the trashy fox news, just using it as the example to explain to you who the cultists are who try to shove their beliefs down the throats of others

Nah, I'm in a swing state, I have to stay here to keep them on track...you know, red+blue = purple

reply to post by SaturnFX

I never make the mistake of thinking this is a free country. We have liberties, we gave up many freedoms in order to establish security. I am personally more concerned about liberties being given up for security, not freedom. Pure freedom is anarchy, and that is as bad as democracy

You do make an excellent point here and I do actually agree with you on this.

I understand that this would be the basis for your wish to keep Christianity out of the classroom. It is too bad that the roots of the removal of it is much deeper and the real agenda was not to promote real freedom. Please don't be offended by my point here, as I get my cue from Antony Sutton who wrote extensively on the NWO, Skull and Bones, Trilateralists and so forth. He actually exposed the Bush Skull and Bones Elite and the Russell Trust in Yale plus the whole Dewey educational thing, that all came out of the Elites at Yale.

Here Sutton talks about the influence of The Order on the educational system and outright discusses the Illuminati
modernhistoryproject.org...

Originally posted by PurpleChiten

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
reply to post by PurpleChiten

 

Ummmm okay, you still have the option to NOT watch Fox news. There's always CNN(communist news network) or msnbc, I think that's where you can catch such nauseating commentaries from the likes of Schultz and Maddow, although between the two I prefer Maddow but sometimes watch Schultz if I feel like driving my blood pressure up unexpectedly.

I don't know what to tell you if you live in a Red State. I suppose if you feel that strongly, you could move to Seattle or oh Connecticut maybe. How about District of Columbia. It's blue.

edit on 27-5-2012 by ThirdEyeofHorus because: (no reason given)

Oh, I don't watch the trashy fox news, just using it as the example to explain to you who the cultists are who try to shove their beliefs down the throats of others

Nah, I'm in a swing state, I have to stay here to keep them on track...you know, red+blue = purple

edit on 27-5-2012 by PurpleChiten because: (no reason given)

Wow so speaking their mind on a tv show is cultish and forcing you to listen to them huh. I thought it was freedom of speech, but what do I know.
Really, I have to bite my tongue ....

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus

Originally posted by PurpleChiten

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
reply to post by PurpleChiten

 

Ummmm okay, you still have the option to NOT watch Fox news. There's always CNN(communist news network) or msnbc, I think that's where you can catch such nauseating commentaries from the likes of Schultz and Maddow, although between the two I prefer Maddow but sometimes watch Schultz if I feel like driving my blood pressure up unexpectedly.

I don't know what to tell you if you live in a Red State. I suppose if you feel that strongly, you could move to Seattle or oh Connecticut maybe. How about District of Columbia. It's blue.

edit on 27-5-2012 by ThirdEyeofHorus because: (no reason given)

Oh, I don't watch the trashy fox news, just using it as the example to explain to you who the cultists are who try to shove their beliefs down the throats of others

Nah, I'm in a swing state, I have to stay here to keep them on track...you know, red+blue = purple

edit on 27-5-2012 by PurpleChiten because: (no reason given)

Wow so speaking their mind on a tv show is cultish and forcing you to listen to them huh. I thought it was freedom of speech, but what do I know.
Really, I have to bite my tongue ....

Yeah, the cultists can talk all they want, just letting you know which ones I was talking about. They have freedom of speech just like the rest of us.
But as far as the government, they (the government) shouldn't take either side. They shouldn't have any religious semblance on the money or promote or detract from any religion. Sure, it would be great if our own beliefs were shared by everyone and everyone got along, but they don't. The reason I don't want the government to be able to promote MY religion (which is in the majority for now) is that MY religion may not always be the one in the majority and I don't want the government to promote someone else's religion for me to have to be exposed to.
Sure, right now, I like seeing "In God We Trust" on our money, I like seeing the 10 commandments posted and not at all against prayer in school, BUT, if it comes to the point that Christianity is no longer the majority religion, what would keep us from having "In Allah we trust" on the money and stuff from the koran posted at all the government buildings and having to do that thing about bowing to the sun several times a day at a given hour in the schools?
I can't ask that MY religion be supported by the government just because it's the majority religion because when it's no longer the majority religion, whatever IS the majority religion would get all the "perks" that we have right now and I don't want my government promoting those, so I can't let it promote mine.