re: Noah's Ark - Kentucky

Edit: it's not worth my time.

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Christianity is being attacked and Islam is being embraced. By our government.

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I am not defending or condemning the Christian right. I am just saying your reasoning behind the celebration of its decline is flawed, in my opinion.

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Um, okay. And you should remember that morality is personal. One person's morality might be another person's sin. It's Constitutional rights that we must all respect, not some individual's idea of morality.

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Your opinion is that morality is personal. Morality is a human abstraction so your opinion of what it is does not apply to everyone.

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Perversity is in the eye of the beholder. Most people think of religious oppression as perverse. I think megachurches are perverse. Hate preachers and the Westboro Baptist Church are perverse. The Constitution gives us the right to decide for ourselves what is perverse.

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Courts have ruled that creating pornographic art about children, if no children are involved is protected. It is perverse but protected. Is its perversity in the eye of the beholder?

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As usual, you missed that little word, legally.

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You said "legally look down upon." I said they can still legally look down upon people. I missed nothing. You likely meant "legally violate the rights of."

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The creeds of totalitarianism practiced by the old USSR and China under Mao are strikingly similar to the blatant denial of human rights that the Christian Right has championed for decades.

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I don't think you can compare the activities of the Christian right over the last few decades to the USSR and Red China. I have some books you should read.

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Actual Christians =/= extreme religious right, but yes they are the greatest threat by far.

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This is new. One week after 9/11, a poll was taken of the religious right about the greatest threats to America. First on the list were gay people.

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Actual Christians are not going to lop off your head with a sword if you are not inclined to convert.

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There are some hate preachers out there who would happily swing the blade.

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Actual Christians understand that faith is a free will choice, not one made by force or under duress of any kind.

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How do non-Christians tell the difference between actual Christians and pretend Christians? For that matter, how do actual Christians tell the difference?

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This is the age of grace, we are not under old testament law (which was only an illustration of how impossible it would be to "earn" your way into heaven). You don't sacrifice animals when you do something bad nowadays.

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And you don't deny civil rights to people who the Constitution says qualify but who aren't accepted as Christians? You live and let live? You enjoy your freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and respect that non-Christians have those same freedoms?

fig

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I am not defending or condemning the Christian right. I am just saying your reasoning behind the celebration of its decline is flawed, in my opinion.

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I'm not celebrating its decline. I'm celebrating its Constitutional containment. The boundaries for religion that were set by the Founders are being enforced in this country.

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Your opinion is that morality is personal. Morality is a human abstraction so your opinion of what it is does not apply to everyone.

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Morals - a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.

Mores - the customs, values, and behaviors that are accepted by a particular group, culture, etc.

An individual's morals are not the same as a society's mores.

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Courts have ruled that creating pornographic art about children, if no children are involved is protected. It is perverse but protected.

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Please cite a source for this incredible claim. I know not of it.

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You said "legally look down upon." I said they can still legally look down upon people. I missed nothing. You likely meant "legally violate the rights of."

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Okay. You're a literalist and I'm not. Vive la différence!

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I don't think you can compare the activities of the Christian right over the last few decades to the USSR and Red China. I have some books you should read.

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Thanks but I'm well read. It's actually a moot point now that religious fanaticism is being contained.

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This is new. One week after 9/11, a poll was taken of the religious right about the greatest threats to America. First on the list were gay people.

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I don't really like the word "religious," it is a very dogmatic word. The Pharisees were religious. Quite a few "preachers" (and their followers) out there today call themselves Christians, but are not. They are "religious." Those people's responses to polls are not what I believe in.

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There are some hate preachers out there who would happily swing the blade.

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Just like the Pharisees. Jesus talked about them, and it wasn't complimentary.

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How do non-Christians tell the difference between actual Christians and pretend Christians? For that matter, how do actual Christians tell the difference?

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By their lives, by their attitudes, what they show matters to them not what they say matters to them. But even then it is hard. We all have faults and struggles. One question you can ask usually sheds some light though. Ask them if they are afraid to die (not the same as if someone is afraid to feel the pain of whatever causes a person's death). Their answer will likely help you know.

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And you don't deny civil rights to people who the Constitution says qualify but who aren't accepted as Christians? You live and let live? You enjoy your freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and respect that non-Christians have those same freedoms?

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To me, it shouldn't matter where (if) you go to church, what color your skin is, who you want to spend your life with, etc. Our constitutional rights should be available in full without regard to any of that.

(no message)

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They fully recognize that America is a land where people from all walks of life have the same freedoms and, in order to receive respect it must be given. I like to think this is the majority opinion of Christians in today's America.

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I like to think that too. I do struggle with knowing when to take a stand and when to live and let live. Working on that.

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Thomas Jefferson
3rd U.S. President, Drafter and Signer of the Declaration of Independence

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event."--Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, p. 237.

"I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ."

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What the Founders wanted is irrelevant. Why? Because they're dead. If they were alive, they would each have a single vote.

You have no idea what they would think about the 2016 version of the US. No one does. But that doesn't stop you and your ilk from declaring that you know what their positions would be on certain issues.