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1. Forcing religion - schools demanding as part of their curriculum that students read the Bible.
2. Not forcing religion - a banner showing a Bible verse being in public view. If you find that offensive, that's your problem. It's no different than driving down the highway and having to see a billboard sign that is offensive. It is simply a message that you can choose to reject or ponder.
Discrimination is a totally different topic and is an irrelevant comparison.. The only reason you bring it up is to demonize Christians.
It doesn't have to force religion, just give the appearance of support for one over the other. It could also be said that lacking a secular purpose in a school gives no place for a religious memorial as well.
So you are fine with the military showing religious symbols? If it has a religious aspect, does that mean every soldier buried there was a Christian?
Again, it serves a religious purpose. There is also equality because not just Christian symbols are shown there, but also Jewish,Pagan, and Muslim ones.
The vast majority of people in this country are irreligious and border more on spiritual. They often believe in some sort of deity but feel it's a more personal connection that doesn't require the church. One only needs to look at the declining Church numbers to see that. People like that are part of a more secular society which has driven the opinions of the court for the last 40-50 years. This is why prayer in school has been lost, the reading of the bible in school, clergy prayer in school,creationism being taught in school, etc etc etc... Those things existed for the balance of this Countries history but only began to be struck down in modern times. So no my friend, your views are the ones that don't hold up to scrutiny.
The opinions of the court do not reflect the desires of the majority. Rather it has been a small vocal minority who have boxed the courts into a corner on issues of separation of church and state because the concept allows for lots of gray area and interpretation, not easily specific. The notion that a simple memorial with a cross equates to a school establishing Christianity as the official religion of the school is absurd and ridiculous.
If Christianity is severely declining, why do you see movies like "God's not Dead" or "Passion of the Christ" pull in huge numbers? The decline in church membership is more a factor of industrialization, economic problems, and urbanization. Specifically, modern lifestyle has created an extremely busy stress filled world for most families. More people have to work on Sunday, and people move around more often than previous generations so the church doesn't become a focal part of the community any more. You rarely have churches even keep the same pastor anymore for a lifetime.
All these factors doesn't mean that faith is dying and has no purpose or role in society.
The opinions of the court do not reflect the desires of the majority. Rather it has been a small vocal minority who have boxed the courts into a corner on issues of separation of church and state because the concept allows for lots of gray area and interpretation, not easily specific. The notion that a simple memorial with a cross equates to a school establishing Christianity as the official religion of the school is absurd and ridiculous.
The opinions of the courts nearly always reflect the desires of the growing majority. Which is why they will sometimes change as time goes on. Which is why segregation was ruled legal in schools and 60 years later the opinion changed. The reason is because the growing majority didn't agree with it, which was reflected in the courts opinion. It's also why gay marriage bans were able to pass in the pass but are now being struck down.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
If Christianity is severely declining, why do you see movies like "God's not Dead" or "Passion of the Christ" pull in huge numbers? The decline in church membership is more a factor of industrialization, economic problems, and urbanization. Specifically, modern lifestyle has created an extremely busy stress filled world for most families. More people have to work on Sunday, and people move around more often than previous generations so the church doesn't become a focal part of the community any more. You rarely have churches even keep the same pastor anymore for a lifetime.
All these factors doesn't mean that faith is dying and has no purpose or role in society.
Eh, you're really reaching with the movie opinion, but I will humor you. God's not dead made sixty million dollars domestically, that's hardly what one would call "huge numbers". The Passion of the Christ did much better, pulling in around three hundred and seventy million dollars domestically. However, broken down by the average ticket price it's only around fifty nine million people that saw it. That's not factoring in parents who brought their children, people who saw it more than once, people who love history, and non believers who saw it, such as myself. Chances are the number of actual religious believers watching it was much lower. I would say that the quality of the film was more interesting to people than the actual religious story behind it. You can't really equate religious belief to hollywood films either, since movies with decidingly pagan themes blow the box office out as well.
The factors you mentioned have helped the decline, along with getting socialization from outside of the Church. However, Churches have attempted to change to deal with that in a variety of ways, with little success. My parents generation grew up with less religion than their parents, and don't view it as important as their parents. My generation grew up with even less religion and view it as even less important than our parents do. The generation of teenagers after me seem to place even less importance on religion than my generation does. How do you think their kids or their grandkids are going to feel? The Church, and the beliefs it promotes just don't connect with modern Americans anymore.
The opinions of the court do not reflect the desires of the majority. Rather it has been a small vocal minority who have boxed the courts into a corner on issues of separation of church and state because the concept allows for lots of gray area and interpretation, not easily specific. The notion that a simple memorial with a cross equates to a school establishing Christianity as the official religion of the school is absurd and ridiculous.
If Christianity is severely declining, why do you see movies like "God's not Dead" or "Passion of the Christ" pull in huge numbers? The decline in church membership is more a factor of industrialization, economic problems, and urbanization. Specifically, modern lifestyle has created an extremely busy stress filled world for most families. More people have to work on Sunday, and people move around more often than previous generations so the church doesn't become a focal part of the community any more. You rarely have churches even keep the same pastor anymore for a lifetime.
All these factors doesn't mean that faith is dying and has no purpose or role in society.
The number of Atheist / Agnostic / Non-Religious is definitely on the rise and the number of Theists is on the decline... several reports show this.
The opinions of the court with regards to the constitution DO matter. Whether you like it or not, the majority does NOT rule in these cases.
The notion that a simple memorial with a cross equates to a school establishing Christianity as the official religion of the school is absurd and ridiculous.
It is possible that a particular instance of a memorial with (say) a cross is innocuous and it is even more likely that it is NOT part of an overt Machiavellian conspiracy on the part of that particular school administration to sneak religion into the public sphere. This does not make it (1) right or (2) not dangerous. For the reason why, consider for instance the recently published rationalizations on the part of members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as to why they are not guilty in any way of racism or favoritism to whites. It's clear that those folks don't see themselves as racist or favoritist. And yet ... you have the chronic under-representation of minorities and especially minority women in most Academy Award nominations. Cluelessness or lack of overt intent is more than enough to perpetuate WASP power structures in that realm. Likewise, the simple presence of the kind of unawareness that would allow anyone to even propose religious symbols on public property is enough to perpetuate religious hegemony and intimidation of minorities in the public sphere. Always assuming of course that someone didn't at some level ignore their awareness of these rules and simply decided to try to steamroll past them.
As has been explained many times, we unbelievers encounter religious expression all the time and it doesn't raise our blood pressure in the slightest ... when privately financed and displayed off of public property. Public property is and should be explicitly secular.
But you can count on unbelievers and religious minorities to regularly challenge the breaking of these rules, regardless of whether it's deliberate or not, well-intentioned or not, because they ARE the rules. As an evangelical, you know as well as I do that the Bible adjures you to obey rulers and those in constituted authority over you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
If Christianity is severely declining, why do you see movies like "God's not Dead" or "Passion of the Christ" pull in huge numbers? The decline in church membership is more a factor of industrialization, economic problems, and urbanization. Specifically, modern lifestyle has created an extremely busy stress filled world for most families. More people have to work on Sunday, and people move around more often than previous generations so the church doesn't become a focal part of the community any more. You rarely have churches even keep the same pastor anymore for a lifetime.
All these factors doesn't mean that faith is dying and has no purpose or role in society.
Things are getting pretty desperate when you are forced to admit that church membership is declining and you have to harken to the success of a Hollywood Biblical epic as evidence of spiritual hunger or demand for spirituality. Particularly an epic made by a conservative Catholic to cater to the iconic blood sacrifice and physical suffering fascinations of that particular group.
That said, I grant you that faith still plays a role and fulfills a need, and it will take a long time to become marginalized, much less dead. I won't see it in my lifetime. But the die is cast.
This has been going on across the country, in many forms, for quite some time. Radical atheism run amuck. We call it "Law-fare". Take it to the courts and threaten to sue. The ultimate goal is the purging of all religious symbols from the public arena. Once that is accomplished, the atheists will go after the private realm. All the while of course claiming there is "no ultimate agenda" and that they are just doing it because some find it offensive, separation of church and state (which does NOT appear in the U.S. Constitution) and God is dead/an invention of the human mind. Same old B.S. They don't want it and they don't want you to have it. We are all supposed to worship them, their atheism and their gods.....
This has been going on across the country, in many forms, for quite some time. Radical atheism run amuck. We call it "Law-fare". Take it to the courts and threaten to sue. The ultimate goal is the purging of all religious symbols from the public arena. Once that is accomplished, the atheists will go after the private realm. All the while of course claiming there is "no ultimate agenda" and that they are just doing it because some find it offensive, separation of church and state (which does NOT appear in the U.S. Constitution) and God is dead/an invention of the human mind. Same old B.S. They don't want it and they don't want you to have it. We are all supposed to worship them, their atheism and their gods.....
How many crosses and memorials do you have on your lawn, or in your public space? Do you only want your religion in the public square? Why is that?
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