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[mindfulwhim]

What kind of soldier would Jesus be? Can you say "Consciencious objector"?

[eclectic67]

To Mike,

I would like to stick it to fundamentalists of all religious persuasions who insist on trying to impose their preposterous views of reality on the rest of us.

I have met many Christian “fundamentalists”.  None wish to impose their faith on others.  They know sincere faith in God does not come at the point of a sword or by imposition.  I am offended by those who label and stereotype as you have on this forum.

Although faculty and administrators are in positions of authority relative to students at civilian colleges, the power differential at the service academies is much more pronounced.

Faculty are always in position of authority if they grade. The instances where secular humanists impose their faith, politics or world view on students in the classroom are too numerous to mention.  I believe, at many schools, there is a good old boys club in academia that discriminates against people of faith.

It takes as much faith to believe the fine tuning of the universe is a fluke is it does to believe in a creator.  We all take a leap of faith no matter what we believe about how we got here.  Secular humanism is also a religion.  If you say anything in a classroom to reveal where you place your faith, is it imposition?

[smart_e_pantz]

TIt takes as much faith to believe the fine tuning of the universe is a fluke is it does to believe in a creator.  We all take a leap of faith no matter what we believe about how we got here.  Secular humanism is also a religion.  If you say anything in a classroom to reveal where you place your faith, is it imposition?

Secular humanism is NOT a religion!  This is simply a term those who wish to force everyone to allow them any and every forum they wish to shove their religious beliefs down everyone else's throats.  The fundamentalist Christians came up with this so-called religion to justify inserting religion where it has no place.  They could only legitimately argue for religion in public spaces by declaring the absence of religion a religion.

[eclectic67]

Merrian-Webster OnLine Dictionary

“4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith”

Secular Humanism is a religion based on the definition of the word.

I’ll say it again, no Christian I have ever met has tired to impose accepting Christ as their savior on others.  It may have been attempted with failure in the past, but faith is a personal decision that cannot be forced.  Many Muslims don’t understand this, or ignore it.

Give me a specific example of a Christian "shoving it down peoples throats."

Why the hostility toward Christians?  Is it because they revive a persons conscience when it has been worn down to the point of ineffectiveness?  If that is the reason, your gripe is with the Bible not Christians.  Really, I’m trying to learn why there is hostility toward Christians.  Is it that you perceive some Christians as trying to impose certain standards of conduct which they believe is for the betterment of society?

Christianity and the United States of America have been the greatest influence for good the world has ever seen.

The world would be a dark place with much more pain and suffering if not for these two influences.

What would the world be like without the instruction to treat others as you wish to be treated, and the story of the good Samaritan?  Some who hold to re-incarnation leave people in the gutter because of a belief system that teaches they are paying for poorly led past lives.

What do others think about my opinions?  Please contribute to this important conversation.

[conjugate]

Give me a specific example of a Christian "shoving it down peoples throats."

Why the hostility toward Christians?  Is it because they revive a persons conscience when it has been worn down to the point of ineffectiveness?  If that is the reason, your gripe is with the Bible not Christians.  Really, I’m trying to learn why there is hostility toward Christians.  Is it that you perceive some Christians as trying to impose certain standards of conduct which they believe is for the betterment of society?

Christianity and the United States of America have been the greatest influence for good the world has ever seen.

The world would be a dark place with much more pain and suffering if not for these two influences.

What would the world be like without the instruction to treat others as you wish to be treated, and the story of the good Samaritan?  Some who hold to re-incarnation leave people in the gutter because of a belief system that teaches they are paying for poorly led past lives.

What do others think about my opinions?  Please contribute to this important conversation.

I was in high school when a teacher spoke to me considering the possibility that I might run away from home so that my parents' "interference" would not prevent me from being baptized into the particular cult sect denomination he encouraged me to join.  I consider that, as well as his earlier excessive proselytizing, to be "shoving it down my throat."  Other members of the same denomination were much more reasonable, and felt that this individual's actions were regrettable.

I hold no hostility for Christians per se, but I do indeed hold hostility toward the kinds of hard-sell evangelism that I think many people here identify with the body of faiths that comprise Christianity.  The same teacher I mentioned above, by the way, used the phrase "Catholics and other atheists" and referred to the Unitarian church as "the cover church for atheists." 

Your statement "Christianity and the United States of America have been the greatest influence for good the world has ever seen" is at least open to debate.  For each good you might list, others might respond by either debating whether it was really good or matching it with an atrocity.  My opinion lies in between.  I believe that the US has provided nearly as much suffering as good, but the balance is on the good.  Modern Christianity is much less... Oh, what word goes here?  intolerant? hateful? uncompromising? ... than the faith used to be, though there is still a lot of work to be done.  At least some Christian churches allow homosexuals and women an equal role with straight males.

And as for "What would the world be like without the instruction to treat others as you wish to be treated, and the story of the good Samaritan?" please observe that the instruction is common to all Abrahamic faiths and has parallels in other religions and ethical belief systems; it is not unique to Christianity, and Christians have ignored it  often (Torquemada comes to mind).

As long as we're quoting the Bible, there are a few other Biblical injunctions worthy of exploration.  Timothy 2:12, "Suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."  I don't know about you but I'm not about to try to put that across on these fora.

[mabeelrc]

Conjugate, read again.  Nowhere in the Bible does it say "Suffer not a woman to teach."  Nowhere. 

What Paul says in 1Timithy 2:12 is, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."  He says, "I do not . . .", not "You do not . . ."  Big difference. 

Why he did not, I don't know.  Maybe there were some reasons why in that place and at that time having a woman in authority would have been a distraction or lead to misunderstanding.  Maybe.

[invinoveritas]

You said: Christianity and the United States of America have been the greatest influence for good the world has ever seen.

Excuse the ad hominen, but you are a complete *****. 

The world was a dark place when Christianity ruled...that's why its called 'the dark ages'.

Do you think?  Why do you even bother to post such nonsense?

[conjugate]

Conjugate, read again.  Nowhere in the Bible does it say "Suffer not a woman to teach."  Nowhere. 

What Paul says in 1Timithy 2:12 is, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."  He says, "I do not . . .", not "You do not . . ."  Big difference. 

Why he did not, I don't know.  Maybe there were some reasons why in that place and at that time having a woman in authority would have been a distraction or lead to misunderstanding.  Maybe.

I stand corrected.  Both KJV and RSV do make it clear he says "I."  I send my apologies to you and to eclectic67, to whom my reply was addressed, and any others who may have been offended.  Let me try again, with 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

[34] the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says.
[35] If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

That's the Revised Standard Version.  The KJV says:

[34] Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
[35] And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

My point here is not to denigrate Christians as a whole, but to point out that much of the content of the Bible is, shall we say, less universally embraced than "Do unto others...."

[bkhound]

Reply to eclectic67:

"I have met many Christian “fundamentalists”.  None wish to impose their faith on others.  They know sincere faith in God does not come at the point of a sword or by imposition.  I am offended by those who label and stereotype as you have on this forum."

Your statement is beyond belief. I only wish I could make such a claim. How is it possible when I have met hundreds of fundamentalists who wish to impose their faith on others that you have not met any?

You also asked for a specific example of 'shoving it down peoples' throats.' Here is but one of many I could give that illustrates the insensitivity of many so-called "Christians":

When a friend of mine was in high school he made the mistake of confiding his sexual desire for males to a member of his evangelical church. That person told others in the church and my friend was subjected to humiliating harangues about sin, abomination, hell, etc. Apparently his questioning of his sexual orientation was too much shame for the congregation and my friend was asked by the pastor to leave the church and not come back. My friend's mother's response was to tell him it would have been better if she had died during childbirth. This all proved more than my friend could handle at the time and he attempted suicide. Fortunately, he survived and was eventually taken in by another family member who did not feel the need to shove Christianity down his throat. He grew up to be a productive (medical social worker) member of society and now attends a nondenominational and more tolerant church.

As to your comment "...your gripe is with the Bible not Christians."

I have no gripe with the Bible. It is a document that has undergone numerous revisions and translations and has been shown to be both historically and scientifically inaccurate. It has no more relevancy to me than mythologies, fairy tales, or fables that also impart some wisdom or lessons of varying degrees of usefulness. The problem is people who insist the bible is more and want the rest of us to live our lives according to "scripture." Even self-proclaimed Christians cannot agree on how that should be done and that is why we have so many different "Christian" religions. I am so tired of people who confuse their religiosity with their ability to live a good, moral, and ethical life. I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said, "When I do good, I feel good, when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion."

[benjamin_myers]

bkhound (nice moniker, btw), would you mind explaining how the bible has been proven "historically inaccurate"?  I'm curious what you mean by that.  The scientific issues are obviously a hot topic, but where is the historical problem?

And, arete1, (also a nice moniker, though it puts a lot of pressure on you to produce excellent posts) I may be mistaken, but I believe "dark ages" is generally the term for the early medieval period, the era in which Germanic paganism over-ran the Christian world and temporarily wiped out literacy and learning.  And, perhaps you can set me straight on this, I thought it was the Christian church, especially the monks, who actually preserved learning (both classical and biblical) until the darkness passed.  What am I missing?

[conjugate]

bkhound (nice moniker, btw), would you mind explaining how the bible has been proven "historically inaccurate"?  I'm curious what you mean by that.  The scientific issues are obviously a hot topic, but where is the historical problem?

And, arete1, (also a nice moniker, though it puts a lot of pressure on you to produce excellent posts) I may be mistaken, but I believe "dark ages" is generally the term for the early medieval period, the era in which Germanic paganism over-ran the Christian world and temporarily wiped out literacy and learning.  And, perhaps you can set me straight on this, I thought it was the Christian church, especially the monks, who actually preserved learning (both classical and biblical) until the darkness passed.  What am I missing?

The Christian church is not just a one-dimensional thing.  Certainly parts of it preserved learning.  Other parts of it burned it (cf. Bonfire of the Vanities, and the fate of most of the Mayan codices).  I'm not a historian, and may be misunderstanding some of what I've read; historians should feel free to interject comments or corrections.

[benjamin_myers]

Conjugate,

Right.  Your description is accurate, which makes arete1's comment about the "dark ages" inaccurate.  Doesn't it?

No Christian could, with any knowledge of either history or theology, claim that Christianity has always been a positive force.  To deny the positive impact, however, is simply to ignore historical fact.  One could reach as far back as Augustine or Bede for examples, but perhaps a more recent example would be more beneficial.  Let us, therefore, remember the great role played by faith in the struggle for racial equality in our own country.  Were there Christians on the wrong side of that struggle?  Of course:  the first point of our theology is that all human beings are sinners.  We should also remember, however, that many people, both black and white, built the foundation on which they took a stand out of their faith.  Not least of these was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

[eclectic67]

Bkhound

I’m sorry about your friends experience but that is more a story about insensitivity than imposing believe on another

arete1

Excuse the ad hominen, but you are a complete *****. 

The world was a dark place when Christianity ruled...that's why its called 'the dark ages'.

Do you think?  Why do you even bother to post such nonsense?

I’m not the best speller in the world, but it’s “ad hominem” not “ad hominen” , and I will excuse you for calling me a ***** because it seems you have much maturing yet to do in life.

I believe the Dark Ages can refer to several aspects of that time period but your use seems faulty.  Some Protestants have referred to that time with regard to some Catholics abusing power.  One reason many of our first colonists left Europe was to escape that oppression and when the time came, separation of church and state was enacted here.

It may be a good idea, here, to differentiate between Protestants and Catholics.  I don’t want to offend any Catholics, but there seems to be some things current Catholics would like to forget about the past.  Just as some Protestants made bad choices, but I think with less frequency.  To be sure, Protestants are not perfect.  Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons sometimes fall under the umbrella of “Christian”.  My posts are referring mostly to American Protestants.

From lingus

What I find fascinating is the fact that anyone believes that the church--any church--was ever a particularly good moral compass. Or at least that people are capable of following it.

From my own experience, I honestly cannot say that the "godly" people I've known have been any more compassionate or ethical than anyone else. By this I mean that plenty of so-called atheists are very good people, just as are plenty of the faithful. No more of one than the other.

So the question is, do we really need such moral compasses at all, especially when they cause so much strife in the world?

I think that without a foundation or a rudder, everything will unravel.  What do we base morality on?  Why do we call anything good or bad?  Do we take a poll to see what popular opinion is, and base it on that?  That seems to happen much of the time in our secular society.  Keep in mind that mobs are often very wrong.

C.S. Lewis wondered where our sense of right and wrong came from.  Why is bravery preferred over cowardice in every society in the world?  Why is truth mostly valued over lies?  Until humanists, in books and film, turned it around, why was good better than bad?

Could it be a shadow of another world?

[bkhound]

eclectic67:

Interesting - my friends' experience of being harassed as an "abomination, sinner, etc." for questioning his sexual orientation and then being kicked out of the church was not others imposing their religious views? Come on!

What about professors who have been fired from evangelical schools for expressing views contrary to that particular church? Would that qualify as imposing a religious view?

Or are you going to persist with this nonsense that fundamentalists do not impose their views on others?

[plainjane]

You wrote:

C.S. Lewis wondered where our sense of right and wrong came from.  Why is bravery preferred over cowardice in every society in the world?  Why is truth mostly valued over lies?  Until humanists, in books and film, turned it around, why was good better than bad?

So much of this depends on how you choose to define bravery/ cowardice, truth/ lies, good/ bad. In much the same way, your claim that fundamentalist Christianity does not impose its views on others seems to rest on a rather questionable (or at least idiosyncratic) sense of what such an imposition would be. The story about the young man hounded to attempting suicide by his church certainly strikes me as an attempt to impose beliefs on another person; the many times during my childhood that Christians told me that my family would go to hell if we did not accept Jesus Christ into our hearts strikes me as an attempt to impose beliefs on me; pharmacists who refuse to dispense prescribed birth control medications to me on the grounds that they disapprove of contraception also seems like an attempt to impose beliefs.

The problem here, it seems to me, is that you assume these ideas have constant definitions, universal definitions. Is the refusal to fight in a war bravery or cowardice? Who determines what is truth and what is a lie? Why is it up to you to state that the attempt to tranform a secular democracy into a religious state is not an imposition of beliefs on others?