laxfan25 wrote:Are you kidding Jana? Don't you watch the news??
Christianity is under seige every day by the secular media and activist atheist judges. No prayer in school, teaching evolution as if it was science without allowing a balanced alternative creationist viewpoint, no Christmas creche displays on public property during CHRISTmas, no 10 Commandments display in the Alabama State Courthouse, etc., etc.
Before you know it, they'll be taking "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance - causing the founding fathers to spin in their graves.
It's only through extreme vigilance that we're going to keep the Christian roots that the country and Constitution were founded on.
I'm not kidding, and I'm hoping you're being sarcastic. Christianity is not 'oppressed' the way Christians are burned to death in auld Rome, or Christians are bombed in modern Pakistan.
If I could speak to the religious nutbags in that movie, or the preachers who consistently claim victimization (maybe it helps fill the coffers?):
In the US, Christians are free to....
....speak their minds
....go door to door to evangelize
....preach in public locations
....send their children to Christian schools
....send their children to after or before-school Christian activities at their churches
....assemble on Saturdays or Sundays to practice their religious beliefs
.....speak their minds within their churches without worrying that a government official is listening and might withdraw their license (as in China)
....collect revenues without paying federal (and some state and local) taxes
....convert to Christianity without fear of being put to death (as in Iran)
....marry someone of a different faith without being arrested (again, Iran)
....pray every day in school (just not force others to do it with them)
....open Christian Bookstores
....have religious channels on TV (oh the blue haired ladies with massive quantities of mascara in god's name!!!!!)
....avoid having their religious leaders randomly arrested, tortured and held for years without trial.
.....avoid getting chased down, bombed or hacked to death (is happening in parts of Indonesiaand southern Sudan.)
These ultra right wing concepts of "oppression" remind me of Monty Python's Holy Grail "Look! I'm being opressed! Did you see that? He's oppressing me!" Oh come on.
When our country was founded, Europe had emerged from several hundred years of bloody religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Even in the Colonies, there was regret over the hanging of "witches" in Salem and religious conflict between Anglicans, Catholics, Quakers and Puritans.
The founders wanted to prevent various new states from becoming state sanctioned religious zones, where minority denominations would not be protected. Maryland, as an example, was originally settled to be a protected colony for English Catholics by Lord Baltimore. Article VI of the Constitution was specifically written so that the president would NOT have a religious test in order to take office.
James Madison was quoted, describing the good senator from Virginia Thomas Jefferson's introduced statute guaranteeing religious freedom for all citizens is... “meant to comprehend, with the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination.”
All may believe, but none are forced to. I no more want the Ten Commandments displayed in my court system any more than I want L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics, the Sharia, or any other religious text to take prominence in my court system or state house. Those institutions are meant to uphold religious freedom for all as part of their constitutional duties - not sanction a particular creed. Placing one religion on a pedestal above the others undermines our trust that the court system will act in an unbiased manner towards all creeds.
As long as there are tests, there will ALWAYS be prayer in school. And with the No Child Left Behind laws, there are plenty of tests. It's just that the Christian style of prayer, in a formalized manner, is not acceptable, any more than I want to be asked to recite verses from the Koran or read from The Pearl of Great Price in the middle of a public school event.
If anything, removing "under god" would probably stop the grave spinning, by returning the Country to what our founders originally intended before the 1950's McCarthy congressional years added "under god" to the pledge.
Christianity is alive and well, and fully protected in the USofA. But our constitution guarantees that Christianity cannot shove their creed down the throats of all citizens. And for that, I give thanks to the Lord.
