being of any religion, in light of todays world. what would you say is the point that keeps the faith for you.

do you think that vast amounts of difference on this topic might occur, and in effect apply confusion to the populace of religious persons at large. i viewed a show in whitch a pastor talked of confusion, and i think that it is generally related to this issue. he only used thier lives in light of society, fighting among each other, i believe that the church leadership is trying to combine christian faiths for something.

finding this could be of importance to the republican party, they could really talk to a large amount of people. correct ways to speak on it is of importance to. with that in hand you could have a large populace to back your issues in society, this would be of vital importance because it would carry over to so many other facets.

the freethinker group i suscribe to is scareing me with some of the stuff that is going on under the mainstream of current events in our world today and i fear for the worst, as if american culture is implodeing on itself. i see this as a loss of progress to a more peaceful nature in light to something.

oh and i got a cable modem today, its pretty fast i usually download around 350-560kb a second now so the web is useful again.

I'm not sure I understand your post.

If you mean to ask about different branches of Christianity combining together (the ecumenical movement) I don't have much of an opinion except to say that the people behind it seem to be well-meaning and sincere, but I don't think it will come to much; if anything, I think more and more sub-branches of Christianity will exist in the future.

If you mean to ask about Christians organizing to support the Republican Party, well, there are a lot of things to say. This is certainly a phenomenon in the United States -- the "Christian Right." Certainly, there are Christian organizations that support the Democratic Party, but they don't seem to be as well-organized; you hardly ever hear about the "Christian Left."

Of course, these organizations have the right to support the political causes in which they believe. They should be treated, however, as political organizations, not as religious organizations, if their activities are clearly political.

If you mean to ask about the Republican Party (or any other political organization) reaching out to voters on a religious basis, well, they have the right to do this, but I find it very unpleasant. The separation of church and state is an issue on which you can consider me a fanatic. I think the wall should be high, solid, and constantly patrolled.

I hope I have not misunderstood you.

nileriver - Ms. Silverwolf is right. Your post is hard to understand.

It seemed to start with a good question, "What keeps the faith for you?" But then you delve into such ideas as political control of churches and the future of America.

I'm closing this pending a PM with a clear question to debate. I hope to hear from you, nileriver.

After a bit of clarification, nileriver has chosen this question for us to debate:



Have fun debating!

"Do you feel that the christian church has to much influence in the Republican party?"

I wouldn't say the Christian church has too much influence on either the Republican or Democratic parties. The Christian faith has been divied up so many times it's almost impossible to get an overwhelming power from any one "sub-faith" (aka denominations).

I'm not privy to each politician's personal faith, but I imagine there are some Catholics up in Washington. Bush is some breed of evangelical. I wouldn't be surprised to find straight Southern Baptist and Protestant as well. And for all I know there could be some wandering the halls without any ties to the Christian faith at all, though I would be mildly surprised if there was.

At any rate, each faith has its own interpretation of things and its own moral codes, standards of conduct, whatever. Even though I might personally feel there's a little too much faith in politics, I don't think there is enough of any one denomination to have any kind of unfair advantage. And for that matter, I think the diversity actually serves to keep each faith that is there in check.

No, I don't feel that the Christian churches have too much influence in the Republican Party. I feel they are seen as constituents like other interest groups. G.W. Bush is born-again and talks about it when it suits him, same with his pro-life stance. But when legislation comes up about abortion, he pretty much stays out of the way.
Both parties do this. Both parties try to claim the moral high ground.
It would really be scary if one of the parties declared itself to be "God's party." The religious denominations can name whatever candidate or party they want; I'm going to vote my conscience.

Well, in Colorado Springs the religious right controls a lot of the action. Here we find Focus on the Family, along with a couple other self-proclaimed true religion organizations, messing with politics.

I live above this little big city in the hills. My community of Woodland Park has a slight majority of conservatives, but not the religious type. More like the retired USPS worker type and retired military type. Some middle managers, some you don't want to ask where the income originates type--not that it's illegal, just hard to explain and it might make your jaw drop.

I fit into that last category for now.

For a while, it seemed the religious right was making a power drive to take over school boards, city councils, county commissioners, and a slew of other low-level offices. This was successful to a degree, and we got some real doozies in there--nationally known for their moronic musings.

But now that's changed a little. Now a little gay bashing pays off the religious right while the real controllers of power--the monied special interests like developers--have sway over the little big town down the pass.

But God has final say. We are still in a drought, and that has to be delt with. In my community, we voluntarily cut water usage to bare minimums. It just makes sense. Down there, the Republicans want the free market to decide--but that doesn't work, so restrictions are going into place.

Reality versus wishful thinking. Reality wins every time.

I strongly suspect this is reflected in national politics, too. Organized, established churches of the Christian variety don't hold much sway any longer. Nor do outfits like Focus as it struggles with economic realities. Something else, possibly much more fearful, does.

This next election season, you won't hear much religious rhetoric. That's so last century

There are some Christians on the Left. We don't push our faith like the ones on the Right do; they've confused "Right" with "Correct."
We lefties are the ones who hang out with Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, etc. There are a lot of us in the peace movement right now. I like to think we're a little harder to manipulate than the righties. But that's probably because we can't agree on blanket statements of our principles other than peace, love and freedom.

What I object to is that the Religious Right uses pro-life as virtually the only test to apply to politicians. A candidate may have an atrocious record on fiscal responsibility, virtually no knowledge of domestic policy or foreign relations, but if he is pro-life, hey, I'm going to ask my parishioners to vote for him!

I'd be surprised if the Lefties could ever exercise the clout with the politicians that the Righties do from time to time.

I really don't think that our system is imploding, it may well be eroding. Religion has been an important Civil Rights issue from the begining and our First Amendment rights are in my estimation still safe, at least for now. I don't feel threatened by things going on in the media or the world for that matter. Even if Christianity were illegal I couldn't abandon my religious convictions. But that's not the topic of debate, is it?

What keeps the faith for me is the one I am trusting. Think about the many things that people do in the name of religion that are positive. Did you ever notice how many hospitals are named for the religious organazations that started them? St. Francis, Methodists etc... Do you ever wonder why? How about things like soup kitchen and pantries. Religion makes it a point to emphasis the importance of helping people. If you think for one minute that this isn't important to our government your not paying attention. They can't duplicate what a person does from religious conviction.

I have debated a number of topics related to religion in America. My favorite quote from George Washington is the one where he says that no one who undermines religion and morality could be considered a patriot. In common law there is a presumption that you are a reasonable, sensible, decent person. That is untill you are proven otherwise. You know enough to decide what kind of a religious organization you want to be identified with. Now if that has changed somehow give me the particulars and I'll help you fight it. If there is an enemy of the First Amendment out there subverting your right to freedom of religion then they are doing something illegal and there are a couple of million people in uniform that will be willing to do whatever it takes to defend those rights.

QUOTE
Do you feel that the christian church has to much influence in the Republican party?

As was said, the Christians denomination is somewhat fragmented. The ones who are the most vocal are the fundamentalist types and I tend to believe that GWB was just paying lip service to them for the votes. I doubt he feels obligated to them for their support.
My beliefs are more Jesus based than most, as a lot of the Christians are more into the words of Paul than anything else. And if you study just the words of Jesus, you come away convinced that he was a liberal. For some of the Christians that I used to work with, the surest way to get them angry is to tell them that Jesus was not only a Jew, but a Liberal Jew! Then I tell them that all the founding fathers were liberals. It's a good way to get the noisier ones to leave you alone.
I doubt that any of our essential liberties are being threatened by this administration.

Jesus a liberal? That's not even concievable. I don't think he could be classified a conservative either. Do you really think the man that said to poke out your eye if it causes you to sin is open minded. Someone crucified for saying that he is a king isn't exactly pro status quo either. He did spend a lot of time with sinners and publicans (what ever that means) so I quess he was pretty tolerant. But a liberal, that's absurd.

He spent the majority of his time going against the established power structure, the scribes and pharisees, or the conservatives of that time.. He taught taking care of the less fortunate, hardly a conservative stance. He suggested that wealth got in the way of salvation. He was bringing radical change, if not revolution, to the established church.
What does the poking out of the eye have to do with it? He could have been speaking in parables at the time, not everything is to be taken literally.

the hippies of Rome I like that. I don’t know how the mindset was of people back then. Constant war, class warfare, all kinds of good stuff. but I know that some of the religious would go and martyr themselves in the coliseums. come to think of it, the Romans could be made out as a sin filled culture. but that is another time and state of mind.

back to the topic, I just think that a party itself to be so tied with something like a religious movement is kind of wrong, then there beliefs kind of start to go around the world, I don’t think every person is eye to eye with American religious views. Maybe I could go as far to say everyone in the u.s may not agree. corruption of power and responsibility, hey could you imagine an atheist president, I am not an atheist but I think that it would cause some turmoil don’t you, slight double standard there.

Traditionally religion in this country has been kept private. One of the main issues that brought the churches off the sidelines is abortion. Back in the late 70s there were babies being drowned and starved at birth. It wasnt common but it really shocked some people and they began to organize. When Pat Robertson was threatning to take the nomination the scandles of two nationally known evangelists broke and Dan Quale became Bush's running mate. Quale had allways been strongly pro-life in the Senate and that was the main reason he became Vice Presisdent. The churches were involved in the Civil rights movement in the 60s and the pro-life movement in the 80s but right now there is no real issue for the churches to get excited about.
Religion and politics dont mix well. Not just because of the First Amendment but generally religious people are average people not political activists. They really are not voicing anything that Bush can get excited about. Maybe that's a good thing