Beware Faith Monologues

hi pam iam an artist but i'm also dyslexic i leave my unpuntuated and mispelled words to educate intolerant people like you and the teachers who tormented me growing up before they knew what dyslexia was i thought i cou'nt write as it turns out i write very well but cant spell or punctuate...i have found in life the message is more important than the envelope or fancy paper or the ink that is why our country was burdened by crooks like we see in high public office. they had money but no message or wisdom this may or may no9t pertain to you.but we should all learn by real life lessons peopl teach us. the religious right got what they bought and paid for. it just wasnt what they wanted. in life peopel often dont know what it is they want . i will tell you in my opinion good points and truth win out over correct spelliling every day.... i'm sure brownie ata boy brownie can spell very well but he like the president and vice president cant or wont actually do the will of the [people they pretend to represent. you wood appear 2 have nothing better to do but bash people you think are inferior.. i note your point i would rather have a punctuation or a disability than intolerance,,, and a mean spirit.. you most likely voted for george bush and steal from the poor and sit quietly in your very nice church buliding and avert your eys from the poor and talk about abotionn and life but condem human every day to death because they simply do not have health care in our... country...i was one of those people i happened to live. i will wil pray for you and george bush he seems to be getting betting since i have been praying for him maybe you will gain some understanding and tolerance or perhaps god will provide you with an opprotunity so you will understand your dissability which is i suspect moral or you dont know what it is like to be different or suffer or be traumatized by tragedy maybe god will provide you with this insight soon so you will not harm any helpless people.. different doesn't mean better or worse each of us bring unique strenths and weknesses. i will try to blunt your shrpe edge before you hurt some helpless somebody with your intolerance i hope your art is good perhaps you are just having a bad day and dciding to unload on me thankyou you have made me think and if you read this perhaps i will have made you think ..fre speech is a wonderful thing not all people contribute or utilize the wisdom and experience of others

Yours has been a blatantly partisan political monologue.

You have been blatantly campaigning for Senator Obama, criticizing Senator McCain at every turn, for a long time on this forum.

It that what a theology professor supposed to do on a religious forum such as this?

Just asking because I'm confused.

Politicians should be judged based on the facts of this world, not suppositions about the next. Their religious beliefs should be a wholly private matter -- just as JFK insisted. Anything else is another brick in the road to Christian theocracy.

Diana Hsieh
Coalition for Secular Government
http://www.seculargovernment.us/

WHERE ARE AMERICA'S RELIGIOUS LEADERS ?

*** SADLY THIS REPRESSIVE JUDICIAL INJUSTICE HAS BECOME AN AMERICAN ART FORM !!!

** WHEN GOD'S FACE BECAME VERY RED **
THE US SUPREME COURT GAVE ENEMY COMBATANTS FEDERAL APPEAL HC RIGHTS LAWYERS AND PROPER ACCESS TO US FEDERAL COURTS,AND POORER AMERICANS (MANY EVEN ON DEATH ROW ) ARE DENIED PROPER FEDERAL APPEAL LEGAL REPRESENTATION TO US FEDERAL COURTS OF APPEAL, AND ROTTING IN AMERICAN PRISONS NATIONWIDE ??????

**** INNOCENT AMERICANS ARE DENIED REAL HC RIGHTS WITH THEIR FEDERAL APPEALS !
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE $LOWLY FINDING OUT HOW EA$Y IT I$ FOR MIDDLE CLA$$ AND WORKING POOR AMERICAN$ TO FALL VICTIM TO OUR U$ MONETARY JUDICIAL $Y$TEM.

****WHEN THE US INNOCENT WERE ABANDONED BY THE GUILTY ****
The prison experts have reported that there are 100,000 innocent Americans currently being falsely imprisoned along with the 2,300,000 total US prison population nationwide.

Since our US Congress has never afforded poor prison inmates federal appeal legal counsel for their federal retrials,they have effectively closed the doors on these tens of thousands of innocent citizens ever being capable of possibly exonerating themselves to regain their freedom through being granted new retrials.

This same exact unjust situation was happening in our Southern States when poor and mostly uneducated Black Americans were being falsely imprisoned for endless decades without the needed educational skills to properly submit their own written federal trial appeals.

This devious and deceptive judicial process of making our poor and innocent prison inmates formulate and write their own federal appeal legal cases for possible retrials on their state criminal cases,is still in effect today even though everyone in our US judicial system knows that without proper legal representation, these tens of thousands of innocent prison inmates will be denied their rightful opportunities of ever being granted new trials from our federal appeal judges!!

Sadly, the true US *legal* Federal Appeal situation that occurs when any of our uneducated American prison inmates are forced to attempt to submit their own written Federal Appeals (from our prisons nationwide) without the assistance of proper legal counsel, is that they all are in reality being denied their legitimate rights for Habeas Corpus and will win any future Supreme Court Case concerning this injustice!

For our judicial system and our US Congressional Leaders Of The Free World to continue to pretend that this is a real and fair opportunity for our American Middle Class and Working Poor Citizens, only delays the very needed future change of Federal Financing of all these Federal appeals becoming a normal formula of Our American judicial system.

It was not so very long ago that Public Defenders became a Reality in this country.Prior that legal reality taking place, their were also some who thought giving anyone charged with a crime a free lawyer was a waste of taxpayers $$.

This FACADE and HORROR of our Federal Appeal proce$$ is not worthy of the Greatest Country In The World!

***GREAT SOCIETIES THAT DO NOT PROTECT EVEN THEIR INNOCENT, BECOME THE GUILTY!

A MUST READ ABOUT AMERICAN INJUSTICE::
1) YAHOO AND 2) GOOGLE
MANNY GONZALES THE KID THAT EVERYONE FORGOT IN THE CA PRISON SYSTEM. ** A JUDICIAL RIDE OF ONES LIFE !

lawyersforpooramericans@yahoo.com 424-247-2013

Susan: Thanks for pointing out what SHOULD be obvious to people who think broadly.

Rick Warren, bless his soul, was interested in how the candidates related to the "liberal" evangelical tradition. But STILL the Christian evangelical tradition.

None of our business. And not the business of the candidates.

Their business is to give us their postion on the *political* issues of the day, and leave Faith Issues to be debated in the communities of Faith.

There is no way we could get an exhaustive response of the candidates to the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, Jehovah's Witnesses, Atheist, Secular Humanist, and Unitarian traditions.

Since that is impossible, and since the constitution forbids favoring one Religion over another

candidates should stay away from "Faith" issues and talk about Political Issues. Values clearly relate to Political Issues. But religion does not.

Keith Vipperman,
I'm sure that you think it's "artistic" to eschew the use of capitalization, punctuation, and paragraph breaks, but in fact, it makes your posts so annoyingly illegible that I, for one, just scroll right on by.

Just thought you should know.

BTW, I'm an artist, too, but I prefer to show it with my work, rather than by making my writing "artsy".

There is a big difference between spirituality and religion. Spirituality doesn’t have any dogma, fiction, or perversion. Spirituality is simply based on everything being connected and part of one body, with One Being behind it all. This is what Jesus A Christ was trying to communicate. It is that simple.

Politics being how various needs and wants are expressed and met or obtained how combined efforts are implemented and what joint ventures are formed and funded. Politics should include the view that we are all one; part of the same body. Religion should not be involved in Politics because it has become perverse in the eyes of the Lord it has become the house of hypocrisy not the House of God.

What is disturbing is how fast both candidates were swept into the Illusion, each not daring to question the popular fiction.

CHURCH: a body or organization of religious believers

FAITH: a system of religious beliefs

There is no difference yet neither candidate questioned it and was able to see through the Illusion created by Rick Warren. In other words he was propagating a fiction.

RELIGION IS AN EGO CREATION NOT ONE OF SPIRIT - scripture says and we are warned that the Churches (institutionalized religion) are the Antichrist; which must be true if we have Faith in Scripture?

McCain with his understandable doubts about the existence of a God resulting from his experience in prison camp, and Obama doesn’t really buy the Jesus died for our sins crap.

Jesus was a Jew and not a Christian. Furthermore the Christians should be thanking the Jews for crucifying Jesus since their act actually redeemed Christians, Jesus could have just committed suicide to die for your sins right?
What this character Jesus did was refuse to buy into the worlds fictions and he set the ultimate example of being steadfast in the truth.

Religion is one big fiction, and it was people protecting The Religion that crucified Jesus because he questioned the fiction and saw through it.

So if anyone really wants to honor Jesus, start ripping the fictions apart with your rational logical discerning minds and live steadfast in the truth, don’t sell out to the ego empire.

Remember a divided people are a weak people. This is what allows 10,000 to take advantage and make subservient the other 300 million people in the United States.

Religion is being used to divide you amongst your selves, in the US and other countries. It is one of the most effective weapons of the source disconnected ego to protect it's fictional world. Religion is a behavioral control mechanism a producer of shame, guilt and irrational conformity.

Most people have no idea what love is, because love that comes with a condition is not love. There is only one source of love, and one can choose to be a channel for it or not.

Why die and go to Heaven when you can bring it to you?

If I recall correctly Jesus once said something like “I am in your world but not of your world”. He was speaking of the world of fiction that most are living in which still persists today but looks like it is in it's end days and the Ego empire is going to fall.

Divine Source connected - Ego Divine
Divine Source disconnected - Ego Bastard

Yes, faith meaning trust is a verb not a noun. The word has been perverted by the Ego and made into a false idol.

"PaganPlace: I am glad that we have historically interpreted the establishment clause as being broad and definitive. However a strict constructionist might argue that it restricts only Congress."

Well, a lot of people are claiming to be 'strict constructionists' then try to 'prove' the First Amendment doesn't mean what it means when it doesn't suit them. Good thing one of the candidates is versed in civil rights law. :)

PaganPlace: I am glad that we have historically interpreted the establishment clause as being broad and definitive. However a strict constructionist might argue that it restricts only Congress.

Massachusetts (and I believe several other states) still had official state churches at the time the Constitution was ratified - so it is clear that the establishment clause did not prevent states from supporting a chosen religion. (Although the 14th amendment and supporting Supreme Court decisions subsequently extended establishment prohibitions to states)

I would beg to differ with Ms. Thistlethwaite's comment that the separation of church and state is not in the Constitution. I think that the combination of Article VI and the 1st and 14th amendments clearly put it there.

(And that's not to say I don't think there can be a place for faith and community based initiatives: if religious groups are willing to pitch in and get some public service work done out there, great, ...only that it should be over and above the government doing what it can, not a way to make the Christian 'base' feel better about *cuts* to aid to the poor and so many other poor-screwing measures and policies,

...Also it's important to realize that big religious outfits would get the same bureaucratic inefficiencies as any public department if scaled up to help all the people they claim the 'don't need government to help' ...with the additional burdens of trying to promote and enforce their own ideologies, not to mention a somewhat deluded idea that converting people or making them more 'faithful' actually magically *would* change economic realities. Sometimes religion might inspire some individual to get out there and compete, but it doesn't change the game. Or how much is out there for the lower classes to 'compete' over.

When people throw out flippant answers about 'Government shouldn't be feeding the poor, churches can do that,' I don't think they really grasp the *scale* they're talking about. Especially if government weren't there. Or what would happen to their own lifestyles without 'the welfare state.' It's more complicated than a bumper sticker.

Well, Jenny, like the panelist, I think it's a prime thing to worry about, as evidenced by this little media event, is that evangelical Christian churches... and others, do certainly evince an agenda of trying to convince the media and the country that 'faith' is actually an ever-narrower and more strident version of conservative *Christian* faith, a bias which the Bush administration has supported through its version of 'faith based inititatives' and who gets them, and how political and proselytizing and discriminatory such groups can take federal funding can be with that Federal funding.

Whenever they proclaim their notion of 'putting faith in politics' or whatever, they're really covering up for imposing their own agendas and beliefs... and only theirs.

So, on this:

" Jenny Hurley:

"Why doesn't the churches of today realize that when they have to hire people who are not of their faith, if they get federal funding, that it could be GOD'S WAY of BRINGING SINNERS to the church. People who need to see the good of Christians. It COULD BE AN OPPORTUNITY of GIGANTIC PROPORTIONS - but their eyes are closed."

Frankly, if people are helping those less fortunate through charities, it's always kind of troubling then the ulterior motive is taking advantage of someone's misfortune to target them for conversion when they're most pliable, rather than, say, out of some spiritual motivation.

Even if you think converting people by whatever means necessary is a *lovely* thing to do, let me tell you, when someone hires you for a job with the intention of converting you, it's an equation for resentment and even workplace abuse: especially in tough times where jobs are scarce: one has to put up with harassment and, well, demeaning attitudes... that the *paid job* is some kind of charity, even if it's actually way under scale.

If they figure you're only 'really' there to allow them to feel like they're making a convert, they'll get pretty resentful of *you* for not 'seeing the light' like they trumpet to each other about, (there's ego at stake, there) however many hours the hapless conversion target might put in doing what they were ostensibly hired to.

So that's just not a good idea, even if you want converts. The power relationships are all screwed up, and distinctly non-'spiritual.' However, a little interaction with people who are different on an equal and respectful basis, (and not just seeing the world in terms of 'our group' and 'sinners' ) could probably do certain folks a world of good.

So many of these churches love to proclaim how 'only Christians are charitable or helpful,' and then of course try to systematically exclude anyone else from such ventures. The government certainly shouldn't be taking away people's public aid, and then paying churches to serve a select few, employing only their own, and spending much of the effort selling themselves. That's just...not only Unconstitutional, it's... tacky.

"NotSoGreatScot:

"The establishment clause seems too horribly vague to be the sole constitutional support for separation of church and state"

Well, I wouldn't say vague. I'd say, definitive. Inconvenient to some, but it's right up there first and front and center in the Bill of Rights because it's meant to be broad and sweeping and definitive. And a clear statement of principle. Government stays out of this.

Why doesn't the churches of today realize that when they have to hire people who are not of their faith, if they get federal funding, that it could be GOD'S WAY of BRINGING SINNERS to the church. People who need to see the good of Christians. It COULD BE AN OPPORTUNITY of GIGANTIC PROPORTIONS - but their eyes are closed.
When you deal only with people who are like you, you are missing a great opportunity, and if you can help a disadvantaged person by hiring them - well, the religious community needs to become religious.
Thanks

With a weakened constitution, all you get is secret police and firing squads. Things the constitution never intended. My faith is in the constitution and the strong being just, the weak secure and the peace preserved.

I believe what the founding fathers intended would not go against churches recieving funds or at least tax breaks while being able to engage and even support a candidate.

Looking at the time the constitution was written the family and then the church were likely the welfare orginizations. Personally, I don't think welfare is the government's job but if it is I don't have a problem and I don't think the majority of our founding fathers and signers of founding documents would have a problem with the church recieving some of the welfare funds without limiting how the church operates in any way.

The majority want to narrow the range of thought in our country and prove that they are right. How better to do this than not give voice to others?

But I say, if the whole world said a foolish thing, it would still be a foolish thing to say.

So many good ideas are outside of our one-party Democrat-Republican party.

Where was Bob Barr and Ralph Nader?

Can Noam Chomsky host a similar forum with the candidates?

.
As you pointed out in effect, there are many churches, i.e., many expressions of faith.

Right. And we see that in the differing ways Obama and McCain responded to the questions posed by Warren. The former was "nuanced"; the later, forthright and terse. From their manner, you can perceive their attitude towards faith and religion. Obama's religion ensued from a long, complex, intellectual confrontation; McCain, as almost "a given," "handed down" and accepted with hardly any doubting and "nuancing." Neither one is more religious or faith-led than the other.

There really is scanty more that can be justifiably drawn from the "confrontation" than the foregoing. Commentators merely choose sides in line with their own take of faith and religion, in accord with their own proclivities.

It would henceforth be more productive to quiz them about their patriotism, their adherence to the provisions of the Constitution, international commitments, and their attitude towards social problems, their preferred ways of identifying what government needs to pay attention and how and when. Which are all what election of political leaders ought to grapple with. This being not the Vatican and the exercise is not to choose a pope or wheter is the equivalent in the various Protestant groupings.

Obama will orate; McCain will tell anecdotes -- that is who they are honestly. Look more to the substance of what they say, not the ways of saying them.

Good luck -- to America and her future.

.

i think maybe the thing to rember is what most of what i'm hearing is that the word faith is trying to be described as a static concrete point whether that be in time place or precedent...i'm not sure that is the best way to try and define faithunless you are doing it in hindsite after a great bit of soul searching and self reflection about motives, hopes and or coarse since are all human mistakes, and it in that context that faith may truely be able to be seen and acknowledged and i'm a little reluctant to say judged... because who besides god himself can actually do that gen the unique historys experience and gifts and disabilities we all posses, and even that varies ojn a dailey basis with most of us .. some of us quite profoundly. i myself think sometimes the best judge of ones faith is to see what we do in the confines of our own minds and our veryreal worlds when confrounted with things that are right.. or wrong.. what do we doo and almost as important why... because if one is held in check from doing wrong only by the thought that the consequence would be to great to indure but they really wanted to do it it could one really call tha tperson moral... my opinion would be pragmatic and realist... faith is when you do the right thing for the right reason .. sometimes and in my experience maybe quite often being willing to pay some form of consequence for doing the correct thing.. in our backward moraity or what i like to call dyslexic moralls or outr world it would seem to be the wrong thing to do to get ahead.. but if one was to ever want a just and right world it would be the path that would have to be taken and over time when the majority of humans were actually doing this then the consequences would be positive instead of negative and the people who were amoral and only doing the things they paid the least consequence for woudl be forced to doo.. the right thing... now in our prostituted world of money and power and success we would also need to first make sure the people i call social preditors and who i feel are mentally ill because no matter how much money power and possesions it can never be enough because they are sick need to be held in check and identified and taken down from thier perches of public idolotry they have now and there would be no poor if the very sick robber barrons did not need t steal from the poor to have thier excess which will never be enough. these people should simply be denied the ability to participate in politics or business free speech does not intitle monopolies to perpetuate thier injustice with money alone at some point it becomes anti american and actually anti business because when the people have no money the business's actually fail then we are once again ..slaves ..faith would actually cure this if practiced in the real world maybe... we have tried the alternatives including corrupt coperate religeoa-bussiness

Good news for the Washington Post. The New York Times is now running an ad here. Great, I was sick of seeing those University of Phoenix ads. We have more universities than we had industry around here and we had a lot of industry. They have managed to destroy most of the little community newspapers around here in a mad rush to go global. They are working on destroying all the local neighborhood churches for act II. You will need to go to the stadium or arena for faith is in sports and the money is for nothing. We need $10 billion to fix the bridges and they really need fixed. I believe the slot machines are going to help pay for that mess, so if we all lose our shirts we can walk to the bridges and jump off together if they don't collapse before we get there.

You try doing the right thing and then you do the right thing and all you do is catch hell for it. Then to really make it more difficult, you have one vote and the evil twisted demons have seven votes, so getting the numbers to work right isn't easy. We can only have faith in the future if we have faith in ourselves. Faith in government has been dead or dying since Watergate. "The object of the constitutions is to limit the legislature." http://starturl.com/ampxx

Look at the growth of legislatures and you can see how the constitution and protections it provides have been reduced or eliminated. Then look at the quality of people running for office, all because they have some special knowledge that the rest of us don't have and you end up with corruption at all levels of government. That's why the bridge collapse in Minnesota on the road to hell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nerQhIyOwxM

Then there's the endless war plan, designed to throw us into a hell of debt for generations to come. And it only gets worse. The churches are all getting bigger along with the government. The problems are getting bigger in direct proportion. Globalism is failing and failing in a spectacular fashion and people like Rick Warren are going to fix it with big talk. All faith is local.

The establishment clause seems too horribly vague to be the sole constitutional support for separation of church and state. Article VI feels much more specific: "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States".

How much public funding can an organization (faith based or otherwise) receive before it qualifies as a public trust?

"But in the age of mass media, what establishment can come to mean as well, in my view, is identifying only one faith voice as the voice of faith."

Good point. I would add that establishment can also come to mean identifying one faith as the voice of patriotism.