"Of course they think that it will be their own religion that will be chosen. But if they thought for one minute that the Catholic Church would be chosen, or THE MORMON CHURCH!, why then they'd be yelling FOR the First Amendment louder than they're now yelling to have it torn apart!"
***You know from my posts that I believe God will offer everyone who has ever lived the opportunity to receive eternal life as members of God's family.
Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, etc... Even all these Christian denominations that stray, sometimes far, from the Bible's instructions, will be given their opportunity.
During this present age God is calling His elect. These firstfruit will be resurrected in the first resurrection as sons of God. As such, they become gods, lesser in might than both the Father and Son.
However, they will be greater in power and might than Satan.
Jesus and the firstfruit will lead and teach those who are still alive when He returns and sets up His Kingdom. After the One thousand years of His Kingdom the rest of the dead will return mortal life.
These billions of resurrected will then be taught the ways of God by, not only Christ and the firstfruit but, the countless members added to God's family during the 1000 years kingdom of God on earth.
I fully understand that many, even most, Christians are deceived by Satan into worshipping a false Christ. In any event, atheists and evolutionists are persuaded by Satan, the present ruler of this age. But it is far better to know about God than to not believe in Him at all.
Atheists have killed more people, by far, than Godless Christians. Fascism and communism are responsible for a much greater number of deaths.
These systems rob people of their dignity, as well as their God given freedoms. In these systems one is not permitted to worship God. If you take away their faith, they are much easier to control.
Christianity is responsible for justice, universities, charity, and hospitals. The belief in God and stable physics led men, such as Sir Issac Newton, to trust in science.
Christianity fought against slavery. They understood that it was a moral sin against God.
A strong faith in God led men to fight against eugenics, while evolutionists believed some were more deserving of life than others. They looked on some as being inferior.
Without God we are no different than animals. We mate, we eat, and we try not to be eaten.
Why the fuck are you trying to bury us in blathering nonsense JUST SO YOU CAN AVOID REPLYING TO US?
Just reply! What the fuck is wrong with you?
In your desired system, the government would be in charge of religious indoctrination, INCLUDING CHOOSING WHICH RELIGION IT WOULD ESTABLISH AND INTO WHICH ALL THE CHILDREN ARE TO BE INDOCTRINATED.
AND, since you believe that SATAN is running the government, then that means that YOU WANT TO PUT SATAN IN CHARGE OF THE RELIGIOUS INDOCTRINATION OF OUR CHILDREN. Why?
I have long suspected, due to your constant lying about everything, that you actually worship and serve Satan. Now this is smoking-gun evidence that you are in fact a Satanist.
Also, I did not write what you were "replying to", but rather it was a QUOTE from Orson Scott Card's 1980's Secular Humanist Revival Meeting. Here it is again in context from my Message 278:
The only reason they think it's okay is because they're sure the religion that will be promoted in schools will be Christian. If they thought there was a possibility of the prayers of other religions being recited in schools they'd definitely be against school prayer.
But which kind of Christian? According to Google, there are 45,000 kinds of Christianity in the world, about 200 in the USA. They don't just want that prayer (and other religious indoctrination) to be "Christian", but it must be the "right kind of Christian", which of course means their own and not that of those others like the Catholics or the Mormons!
Secular Humanist Revival Meeting, Orson Scott Card, c. 1984:
Of course they think that it will be their own religion that will be chosen. But if they thought for one minute that the Catholic Church would be chosen, or THE MORMON CHURCH!, why then they'd be yelling FOR the First Amendment louder than they're now yelling to have it torn apart!
The point I was making was that the choice of which religion to establish would far more likely NOT be your religion, but rather one of the many others which you do not accept. That is what you need to reply to.
Would you really be so enthusiastic about putting the government/Satan in charge of our children's religious indoctrination if they were going to be turned into Mormons? Or even Muslims?
Watch this video:
In it, Viced Rhino replies to yet another video by Calvin of Answers in Genesis Canada in which Calvin presents a situation where your Christian children are in an Islamic school and how horrible that would be for your non-Muslim children. Basically, he's arguing against his own position (and yours) of wanting to turn public schools into Christian schools to the intolerable detriment of non-Christian students and even to the intolerable detriment of Christian students who are "the wrong kind of Christian."
Part of your actual reply would need to address that problem.
In early America God was in almost everything. God has been forced out, not the other way around.
Rather than repeating statements like this in various forms, why not engage in an effort to persuade, which is what this thread is about. What do you think might be the best way to persuade people that an omniscient, omnipresent God can be forced out of anywhere?
In your desired system, the government would be in charge of religious indoctrination, INCLUDING CHOOSING WHICH RELIGION IT WOULD ESTABLISH AND INTO WHICH ALL THE CHILDREN ARE TO BE INDOCTRINATED.
***My assertion is/was that God was forced out of school. Anyone who is truthful will admit the America was founded Christianity. As America became more secular it became less Godly.
I have never told you or anyone else that the schools should force students to pray to God. It can't be forced. I stated, and correctly, that as schools distanced themselves from God, they began to be less effective.
This decline also began at the same time that liberal teachers gained control. The Democrats have the teachers and the teacher's union in their back pocket.
The liberals have done more than indoctrinate our students. They have imbued them through and through with lies and deceitfulness.
Today they teach young impressionable kids that one can transform from boy to girl, or vice versa. They impress upon them that homosexuality is good. Some schools have brought drag queens into schools to talk with the students about the good side (as though there is one) about homosexuality.
At some schools they have books, designed by liberals, that they are required to read. Books with such topics as "my two moms" and "my two dads."
People send their kids to school to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. I was so proud to see President Trump withhold federal money from schools.
The "so called theory" of evolution is forced in students, both in K-12 and our universities. It is taught as FACT, and both of us know that it is not factual. You know this, but you would never admit it.
I have no issue with teaching that evolution is merely a possibility. But stop presenting it as fact. And stop giving students failing marks for disagreeing with it. Or, for refusing to give textbooks answers.
Democrats are destroying our educational system. They teach that all whites are racist. CRT and wokeism have no place in school. It devides the races and it creates open hostility between.
It teaches minorities that hard work and making right choices will not benefit them. This locks them into a mindset that regardless of how much effort they put out that they will fail.
Every white Conservative that I know is concerned with their work and providing for their families. This is enough for them.
It isn't Christians that are indoctrinating our kids. It is the liberals that do this.
To your repeatedly expressed desire that we return to the early practice of mandated state-run religious practices (eg, organized prayer) and indoctrination (eg, Bible study), I replied:
In your desired system, the government would be in charge of religious indoctrination, INCLUDING CHOOSING WHICH RELIGION IT WOULD ESTABLISH AND INTO WHICH ALL THE CHILDREN ARE TO BE INDOCTRINATED.
***My assertion is/was that God was forced out of school. Anyone who is truthful will admit the America was founded Christianity. As America became more secular it became less Godly. I have never told you or anyone else that the schools should force students to pray to God. It can't be forced. I stated, and correctly, that as schools distanced themselves from God, they began to be less effective.
Unpacking that:
My assertion is/was that God was forced out of school.
How was "God forced out of school"? Simply because the public schools are no longer allowed to conduct religious indoctrination or to force the students into the religious practices of religions different from their own? How is that supposed to constitute "forcing God out"?
Let it be clearly known that STUDENTS HAVE AND HAVE ALWAYS HAD (at least since mandatory organized school prayer was removed) THE RIGHT TO PRAY. Private personal prayer, just what Jesus ordered (Matt 6:5-6, but then since when have you ever valued what Jesus taught?), with the only proviso be that they not be disruptive (and even then the situation must be handled with respect). I know that to be true because as a public school teacher and teachers union representative my ex-wife was well-versed in the applicable laws; ie, she knew what she was talking about. Contrary to the lies you have been fed, students never lost their right to pray.
Nor has the Bible been removed (except in recent years because the Bible violated a culture-war book ban law/policy for being obscene (eg, people lusting after donkey dicks, the incestual rape of Lot) ) nor education ABOUT religions, but rather schools were no longer allowed to force religious practices and indoctrination on the students, something that you just now have given lip service (see item # below).
Anyone who is truthful will admit the America was founded Christianity.
Rather, anyone who is truthful will immediately see what a monstrous lie that thoroughly bogus Christian Nationalist propaganda is. Starting decades ago (ie, in the late 1980's on CompuServe; I should share my reply in that discussion) I've been asking for an enumeration of those "Christian founding principles" and have received none (just like my requests in vain for creationists to reveal what they mean by "evolution" or even "evolutionist"). Like with creationists, they don't know what they are talking about and can only regurgitate the undigested bullshit lies they have been told.
Whereas the biblical form of government would be a monarchy, our government rejects kings (Trump's megalomania notwithstanding) and is instead based on PAGAN institutions like democracy and representative government. It is based on the Enlightenment's humanistic (definitely NON-Christian) ideas and ideals like inherent human rights and religious liberty -- many in the long line leading to Christian Nationalism have openly denounced those ideas our government was founded on (e.g. democracy, human rights, pluralism, religious freedom) as being humanistic heresy and inventions of Satan (refer to "Democracy as Heresy" by Rodney Clapp, Christianity Today, 20 Feb 1987)).
The Declaration of Independence said that governments derive "their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed," which is contrary to the more properly Biblical belief in the "Divine Right of Kings." Instead of "God standards", human standards are applied to governments, which derive their power from the people that they govern. The government's mandate does not come from heaven, but from the people. Is this not humanistic by definition and NOT Christian?
Preamble:We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
We took it upon ourselves to form our own government through which to govern ourselves for our own benefit and wellbeing. There's nothing Christian about any of that. Indeed, the fundamentalist teaching was that Man can do nothing on his own, but rather needs God to make anything work, but the Preamble makes no mention of God. The Radical Religious Right of the 80's (ie, Falwell, Robertson, et al.) constantly denounced what the Preamble proclaimed as "Secular Humanism".
Even the idea of religious liberty, which entails the principle of religious tolerance is humanistic and runs counter to Christianity. Allowing everyone the freedom to practice (or not practice) their own forms of religion is anathema to Christianity but fits very well in humanism. For example in what's considered by some to be a third version of the Ten Commandments:
The Bible:
Exodus
34:12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: 34:13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: 34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name [is] Jealous, [is] a jealous God:
Verily, in the Bible the very idea of religious tolerance will not be tolerated! How then could it be considered "Christian"?
As America became more secular it became less Godly.
And your point is?
Seriously, American government was secular from the start, but that was corrupted when the "Godly" took over social institutions in order to make them intolerant and to engage in persecution. Trying to lessen the deleterious effects of "Godliness" in society is an effort to return to civility.
So moving society away from "Godly" is a good thing. Individuals can still be as "Godly" as they like, but that doesn't give them a free pass to persecute others.
I have never told you or anyone else that the schools should force students to pray to God.
Then what the fuck have you been talking about?
The former situation was one in which the schools were indeed forcing students into religious practices alien to those students, including using alien prayers to alien versions of "God". In Message 279 I described the Philadelphia nativist riots (1844); follow those links to learn more. Contrary to your dissembling denial of the facts, Protestants ran the public schools in which Catholic students were forced to engage in Protestant prayers and read from the Protestant Bible while being denied the option of using Catholic prayers and readings:
Wikipedia:The Philadelphia nativist riots (also known as the Philadelphia Prayer Riots, the Bible Riots and the Native American Riots) were a series of riots that took place on May 6—8 and July 6—7, 1844, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States and the adjacent districts of Kensington and Southwark. The riots were a result of rising anti-Catholic sentiment at the growing population of Irish Catholic immigrants. The government brought in over a thousand militia—they confronted the nativist mobs and killed or wounded hundreds of anti-Catholic rioters.
. . .
During the 1840s, students in Philadelphia schools began the day with reading the Protestant version of the Bible. On November 10, 1842, Philadelphia's Roman Catholic Bishop, Francis Kenrick, wrote a letter to the Board of Controllers of public schools, asking that Catholic children be allowed to read the Douay version of the Bible, used by Roman Catholics. He also asked that they be excused from other religious teachings while at school. As a result, the Board of Controllers ordered that no child should be forced to participate in religious activities and stated that children were allowed to read whichever version of the Bible their parents wished. Nativists further inflamed hostile feelings towards Catholics by reportedly twisting Kenrick's requests to the Board of Controllers as an attack against the Bible used in Protestant devotionals.
If you are actually not advocating returning to that intolerable situation of the schools forcing all students into sectarian religious practices which conflict with the students' own religions, then just what are you calling for if not for a turn to the intolerable, intolerant past?
And do remember that students have always the protected right to private personal prayer on their own, except during that intolerable, intolerant past that you appear to want us to return to despite your attempts at denial.
So just what the hell are you talking about?
[Students praying to "God"] can't be forced.
Surprisingly humanistic of you. Further evidence that you have given none of this any thought.
I would not be surprised to learn that you are completely ignorant even to the very existence of James Madison's A Memorial and Remonstrance (1785, six years before he drafted the First Amendment). Sadly ignored as a founding document, its descriptions of the corrupting and detrimental effects of mixing government and religion have been quoted, plus it is the earliest mention that I know of of the Wall of Separation between Church and State, 17 years before Jefferson's letter to Danbury Baptists, though here in the second remonstration Madison uses the wording, "the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people."
Madison starts by discussing "rights of conscience", which is the exactly what you just expressed with your "it can't be forced", even though Christian history is filled to overflowing with zealous efforts to force religious compliance. That is why I was surprised by the humanistic tone you suddenly adapted.
For your edification, knowing that you will always refuse to follow a link, here is the beginning of A Memorial and Remonstrance and the first two of the fifteen remonstrances:
James Madison:circa 20 June 1785
To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia
A Memorial and Remonstrance
We the subscribers, citizens of the said Commonwealth, having taken into serious consideration, a Bill printed by order of the last Session of General Assembly, entitled "A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," and conceiving that the same if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power, are bound as faithful members of a free State to remonstrate against it, and to declare the reasons by which we are determined. We remonstrate against the said Bill,
Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, "that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence." The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considerd as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man's right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority.
Because Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: it is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents. The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.
I stated, and correctly, that as schools distanced themselves from God, they began to be less effective.
That is what's known as a non sequitur, "It does not follow."
IOW, what the hell is bemoaning the loss of mandatory sectarian prayer in the schools supposed to have to do with the schools' effectiveness. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. What the fuck are you talking about?
Though that Wikipedia page led me to a related psychiatric disorder, derailment, which you appear to suffering from:
Wikipedia: Derailment:In psychiatry, derailment (aka loosening of association, asyndesis, asyndetic thinking, knight's move thinking, entgleisen, disorganised thinking) categorises any speech comprising sequences of unrelated or barely related ideas; the topic often changes from one sentence to another.
That's enough casting pearls before swine for now.
Edited by dwise1, : Corrected punctuation for the appositive " related psychiatric disorder, derailment, which you appear to suffering from"
I'm done trying really, I'm not as good with all the details, but sticking to a topic or even just an argument made seems to be impossible with Candle.
I'm one of the worst debaters on here, if he were to accept any challenge, I have brain damage, I don't remember scripture, details in various ways, I build my case on what I deal with and find and piece together on the spot because I at least have a fast mind. But it's been silently rejected.
And that's the crux of the matter, silently rejected, how many times have points been brought up only to be ignored the moment someone responds to them? To me, at this point, it feels like a troll tactic. Draw out more effort than you put in yourself.
If anything, it shows a severe dishonesty, a willingness to lie over and over for no purpose at all but to avoid direct confrontation with any of his beliefs.
I'm done trying really, I'm not as good with all the details, but sticking to a topic or even just an argument made seems to be impossible with Candle.
I sympathize with you and fully agree that trying to carry on even the simplest conversation with Candle3 has proven to be impossible.
While I do not promote this idea, I have seen other critics of religion consider it to induce brain damage in its followers. I even recently heard a call-in host refer to a creationist's "shiny-ass brain", meaning that his neocortex must be completely smooth (the extent to which a mammal species' neocortex is characterized with ridges and furrows is an indication of intelligence; the "wrinklier" it is, the more intelligent).
As indicated by his years of mindless posts, Candle3's neocortex must be very smooth indeed.
If anything, it shows a severe dishonesty, a willingness to lie over and over for no purpose at all but to avoid direct confrontation with any of his beliefs.
That's an occupational hazard for creationists and excuse-ologists (what Mr. Deity calls "apologists"). They are trying to support and defend positions for which there is not only no evidence, but the evidence actually disproves. As a result, the only tools at their disposal are dishonesty, lies, and deception; they quite literally have nothing else to work with.
In the past I tried to develop a theory of the evolution of a creationist (evolution in the more original 1610 non-biological sense of development over time; eg, "The evolution of Christianity"), complete with a verbal description of a tree structure, but unfortunately that tree experienced exponential explosion as each of the next steps produced larger sub-trees.
Basically, you can describe different levels of creationism ranging from the professionals at the top down to the rank-and-file pew-sitters mindlessly absorbing what the professionals generate as it filters down through the intermediate levels. Those intermediate levels include those who start to share claims with other pew-sitters, those who present those claims to non-believers they proselytize to (including family members), those who become more active in that "outreach" (including showing up in forums such as here), those who become more active in writing and giving presentations, etc, those who publish and produce videos, etc.
There is a hierarchy of increasing involvement, which also involves more contact with non-creationists with whom they must deal. As long as those outsiders are ignorant of both science and creationism, those creationists can claim victory. But as soon as they encounter non-creationist who know what they are talking about, such as ourselves, and they find their claims (to which their belief system is inexorably bound), then they are faced with the problem of how to deal with that.
They could abandon those claims that they now know are false, but are reluctant to do so since they sound so convincing -- see my page under construction (ie, not linked to), Fundamental Differences Between Scientists and Creationists, which shows that scientists are interested in the truth while creationists only want something that sounds convincing that they can use to proselytize. So at each step, the creationist's choices will be:
Drop that particular claim, but remain confident of the other claims. Of course, this becomes increasingly tenuous as more and more of those other claims also get shot down.
As more and more claims fall, he could retreat from that level of involvement and drop down to a safer lower level where he's less exposed. Basically, retreating from the fight and from involvement -- "I don't want to talk about it."
Come to realize that the entire position of creationism is nothing but "hooey" (Russian/Yiddish: хуи) and stop being a creationist. I believe that we have many former creationists here who have gone that route.
Ignore the refutation, explaining it away according to his preferred coping mechanism, and continue on. This is the main source of creationist dishonesty and that dishonesty increases as that creationist advances.
However we seek to explain it, creationism is inherently dishonest and will inevitably corrupt its followers to being increasingly dishonest themselves.
And how could we possibly hope to have an honest conversation with someone who is so thoroughly and irredeemably dishonest?
And that's the crux of the matter, silently rejected, how many times have points been brought up only to be ignored the moment someone responds to them?
Trying to get those like Candle3 to engage in a conversation is trying to teach a pig to sing: Robert Heinlein wrote that you can never succeed in teaching a pig to sing and, besides, it just irritates the pig.
Well, sometimes the object of that evolution (in the Navy sense) is to irritate the pig. One never knows whether it might trigger the spark of a thought process in that shiny-smooth cerebrum of his.
Also, this is not for Candle3's benefit, but rather for the lurkers, what this forum used to call "Visitors" when we still posted their numbers in the "Online Now" statistic line. If all they'd see was Candle3's stupid bullshit lies without any response, some could be fooled by him. By replying to him, everyone can see that we do have responses and that he is simply full of shit.
To see that answered more nicely, here is Erika "Gutsick Gibbon" responding to a very similar question: "Do We Reach Creationists Through Debate?"
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