Judeo-Christian values and liberty

Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries can’t help but feeling that to some extent, The United States of America is reaping what they’ve been sowing as a society.

In one way he may be right, but in an other he may be totally wrong by pointing his damning finger to for him too liberal Christians.

Everywhere in the capitalist countries we have seen a move of people’s attitude considering belief, worship and their relationship with God. In many, so called civilised places, the citizens said to God, “Get out of the public arena.” but they also often said: “Get out of my life.”

Lots of people are not interested any more in good customs and traditions about decent morals. Ethics are far away to look for. Nobody looks up any more if some one offends common or public decency. The decorum has just become some scenery of the older generation. The younger ones do think you are not with time if you do not change partners regularly to have some good fun. Love has got a physical meaning instead of a psychological relation.

But some of those who do not mind to watch certain television shows of lesser quality and movies with a lot of, all sorts of, violence, do mind when tradition are disputed. In the States we, for example, notice they do mind that the government would take away the morning tradition of greeting the flag and praying all together.

Jerry Newcombe said: “I’ll never forget what an Alabama black pastor said to me one time when I interviewed him about Judge Roy Moore, the Ten Commandments judge. He said: “All across America people should stand with Judge Moore about the Ten Commandments. Why? Because when they took prayer out of school, you didn’t hear about kids killing each other, about them bringing dope to school, shooting the teachers, you didn’t hear about that. You see what I’m saying? That’s what’s wrong. We need more God-fearing.”

Does he really belief that in those countries where they say no prayers before the classes start, people are shooting at each other like nothing. No they do not in such countries, as in Belgium, because they do not allow weapons to be carried in those countries, while in the States lots of people do think they can’t defend themselves without something that can kill the other person. Are they not able to find other weapons that can not kill peoples or animals, to defend themselves, if they are not able to do it with words or with body language?
Also lots of Christians do not keep the Sabbath, though they find it important to have it engraved in stone before them so that they should not forget?

Do they forget in those states that Jesus demanded his pupils not to take up any weapon? Jesus Christ, the Messiah, even mended the ear of the person who was going to bring him closer to death.

Newcombe argues that the founders gave the American people a system where voluntary God-fearing was the underpinning of civility in society. “The more internal restraints people have, the less need they have for external restraints. (And the converse is true.) That’s why I can’t understand the ongoing crusade of those who want to remove any vestige of Judeo-Christian in the public arena. All they’re doing is making everything worse for everyone else.”

But they forget that we do not have to throw away certain Judeo-Christian values to be democratic and respective for people of other faiths or non believers. Those who have a believe, Advaïta, Animism, Asatru, Buddhism, Confusianism, Christianism (inclusive Gnostic), Haptonom, Hindu, Ikwanism, Jainism, Ikwanism, Kabbalism, Legalism, Manichaeïsm, Mazdaznan, Miticcism, Mithraism, Muslim, Non-thitics, Occultism, Paganism, Pantheism, Platonism, Satanism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Taoism, Theosophism, Universalism, Wicca, just to name the most important wones we encounter in our communities, in a democratic system, should be free to live according to their believes, but should also know they should never impose their believe to others.

Freedom means respecting the freedom of the other. When two or more people are together they should know and respect that they could have more than one opinion.

A State wanting Freedom, should take care that such freedom can be guaranteed to everybody living in that community. Therefore they should look to the common values and should take care nobody in that society can get hurt, physically or psychologically. They should also take care that no professional organisations could make use of certain systems to enrich themselves on others. (Think of private insurance companies who could misuse their power, by setting somebody out of the policy-protection when he has become too ill or too old.)

For that reason it is also better custody is taken by the government to provide a safety net or at least some security, so that those who are less fortunate in life can be helped. That is a matter or loving your neighbour: willing to provide also for him or her when he is in trouble.

George Washington may have highlighted the source of morality: “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” This is one very important element in the choices we want to make: Morality. But that has nothing to do with carrying weapons or having to impose those who believe something different to act and do the same worship. Worshipping belongs in your own environment. In your own house you can pray, in a public place you can pray, in a special provided building, like a church or temple you may pray, but nobody should force any body to pray with him. Prayingshould be free to all. And everybody should be free to pray thea way they want to do it. If they prefer doing this kneeling, so let them do it; if they prefer it standing up arms wide open, let them do it; if they prefer to dance and sing, let them do it, but before all let them never disturb or offend others with it.

The controversial Ten Commandments display at ... — The controversial Ten Commandments display at the Texas State Capitol. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In case a government would like to have prayers said in school, before class starts, which prayers and which songs are they going to enforce on all those present (atheists, Christians, Jews, Muslim and others)? Best is that State and religion are totally split. Religion is something persona and can and may not imposed on somebody else without his free will.

Imagine for example that Mitt Romney wins the election and agrees that the flag shall be greeted before the classes start, and that everybody joins in with singing and praying, after having listened to a reading out of the Book of Mormon. Because as president elected by the people they have chosen to follow his wisdom. And the Christian brothers of Romney who would be very pleased to see polygamy at last allowed by legislation, would demand him to get the Mormon prayers said before every action taken in public.

Are the Americans going to stay to ignore the religions of the native Americans, or are they going to introduce their religion as the frame to follow in the National educational system?
Many Native Americans would agree that the American people have gone far away from their gods and therefore have become so bad. Because in their religion there is the focus around nature, and around having unity in the family. Today there is not much unity to find in the many divorced families everywhere in the capitalist countries. They did not focus on ‘having’ and owning’ but knew that they were blessed by being able to be a part of this universe. They know that they are tenants of this system, while many Christians forgot that as a leaseholder of this world they should have respect for everything and for everything in the Creation of God.

The landscape, animals, plants, and other environmental elements play a major role in the religion of Native Americans. Many of the legends passed down were an attempt to explain events that occurred in nature. are the modern Americans wiling to accept Native American religion in their midst? Is Romney to include a number of practices, ceremonies, and traditions in the schools and in public ceremonies?

Are the voters for having the Catholic or other Christian symbols prepared to allow the symbols of the original American population? Are the modern Americans willing to accept that as Christian celebration are kept also native ceremonies can be brought publicly in honour of a number of events? The practice of taking certain hallucinogens was commonly used to gain greater insight or communicate with the gods, so would it be reasonable than to legalise such drugs? Are is one community saying to an other one that they may not come in communication with their god? Ceremonies may include feasts, music, dances, and other performances. All believers should do that in theri own environment but leaving it open to others to join in or to be a guest.

But the same as the original American population, the native Indians cannot demand of the others to join their festivities and worshipping, the others have even lesser right to demand such a thing in a land that they conquered and took away from those natives. Also they may not demand it from others whose ancestors just fled those chains of different sorts of religions and political systems.

The American Indian Religious Freedom Act is a United States Federal Law and a joint resolution of Congress that provides protection for tribal culture and traditional religious rights such as access to sacred sites, freedom to worship through traditional ceremony, and use and possession of sacred objects for American Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Native Hawaiians. It was passed on August 11, 1978.

Why should the Ten Commandments or the Mozaic Law be displayed in a public place, or why can it not be displayed? Everybody living in a free community should have respect for other believers, history and tradition, and for the majority in the community. In case a community wants to set up a monument or a stone resembling the Ten Commandments, this should be possible. Having them place in a house of justice this could be a way to remind people of certain values to which many people would like to hold on. There should be no ‘No’ against letting others know values behind which one can find themselves. But by placing certain symbols in public places one should also accept symbols of other beliefs to be placed on those premisses as well. How much do the Americans accept the symbols, actions, monuments of the Native Americans? In the first place should they not have first priority to bring on their totems, symbols, way of worship, in public? They were the inhabitants of the land which was conquered by the white Europeans. Would it be right that those white Europeans keep imposing their tradition on this native folk? Is that the idea of liberty where they want to stand for: “You may be free, but this means that you only do and say and think as we do say and command you to think”?

All the people in the United States should remember why they forefathers left the Old Country. They should be glad their ancestors dared to take such a dangerous trip, and be proud for what they could establish. But they should never forget the dream so many of those ex-Europeans had to go to a place where they could be free, meaning not bounded.

Today it looks like you have many Americans who are afraid and are against new laws which would bring more equality and more recognition of other cultures and attitudes. Today so many fight against those people who want to continue in the line of their ancestors their dreams to bring more freedom for Everybody, and not just for a few rich or lucky people.

In America’s early years, a “future state of rewards and punishment” was an important concept, but nothing says this has to be thrown away. What we have noticed the last few years is that it was the plebs wanting to do whatever it wanted to do, and the rich trying to make more money no matter what the consequences where for others. The loss of values, moral, ethics and respect for the environment (human, animal and plant), that has caused the humans to be derailed.

Though we as believers, may never think that others do not have values or ethics, we may not think we are superior to them. In all sorts of folks there where some rules which made living together possible. All cultures have certain values. But what we can notice is that by the Christian population a lot got far away from the teacher, they are supposed to follow, his teachings. Instead of looking in their own bosom they want to put the problem by the other ones.

Instead of striving division among themselves they should have concentrated more on getting the flock to keep to the Ten Commandments of God. Instead of blaming others we should all acknowledge blame.

It is high time to search one’s own heart and to get a clean conscience.

Making a free country implies that there is the will to open everything up for others and to give them freedom to believe their own things, but whit the promise that the other person also allows the other the same freedom.

That freedom does not mean everybody can just do as he likes, because they there would be an infringement on the other. It also does not have to mean that everything has to go unpunished. Punishment and discipline are necessary to lead everything in good order.

Those who call themselves Christian should know that we are blessed to have the Holy Scriptures to give us guidance and to teach us how to go through this life and how to win the race. We should make more use of those Scriptures to teach our own flock and those people around us.

“But you, stay in what you have learned and trusted, having known from whom you have learned, and that from a babe you have known the Set-apart Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for deliverance through belief in Messiah יהושע{Jeshua}. All Scripture is breathed by Elohim and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for setting straight, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of Elohim might be fitted, equipped for every good work. ” (2 Timothy 3:14-17 The Scriptures 1998+)
“The proverbs of Shelomoh son of Dawidsovereign of Yisra’For knowing wisdom and discipline, For understanding the words of understanding, For receiving the discipline of wisdom, Righteousness, right-ruling, and straightness; For giving insight to the simple, Knowledge and discretion to the young. The wise one hears and increases learning, And the understanding one gets wise counsel, For understanding a proverb and a figure, The words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of יהוה {Jehovah}is the beginning of knowledge {1}; Fools despise wisdom and discipline. {Footnote: 1See 9:10, Ps. 111:10}. ” (Proverbs 1:1-7 The Scriptures 1998+)

Those who know wisdom and instruction should take care that from the beginning, when the children are small, they shall get used to discipline and learn to have respect for everything around them. This has to happen at home in the first place. And it is because so many children did not learn such things any more that when they became adult they were not keeping to those values any more. The education system wanting to have enough pupils and by that enough money to stay in existence offered certain values and ways of discipline to keep their students. Often under pressure of parents discipline was loosened and teachers were not allow to punish any more. To say now that it are the liberal Christians who are at fault is not justified. The parents and that generation who prefered to have it easy are at fault. Life is just not easy. We do have toe learn by falling and getting up.

Because not all parents can provide enough possibilities the State (government) has to take care that everybody shall be able to receive proper education. And that education should be free of any bias, giving the proper values to give the opportunity for everybody to be respected in the whole community. Either the State could choose to provide moral or educational courses as an option or people should take care of that extra education themselves, as in previous days in the Sunday school. In how many Christian countries are there still Sunday schools, and people going to it regularly?

“The heart is crooked{1} above all, and desperately sick – who shall know it? {Footnote: 1See 7:24, 16:12, 18:12, 23:17}. ” (Jeremiah 17:9 The Scriptures 1998+)

The community should take care that nobody can be deceived and has the opportunity to know wisdom and instruction, to discern the words of understanding, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness and justice and equity, to give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion, that the wise man may hear, and increase in learning, and that the man of understanding may attain to sound counsels, to understand a proverb, and a figure, the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

The fear of God of many should have them taking on the right attitude, so that they can become an example to follow. In such an instance no atheist or different believer would mind following that right attitude. Though we must always remember that whatever is done, the foolish always shall despise wisdom and instruction.

Putting up no boarders, or reasons why not to attend a school; like being Catholic, Protestant or of an other denomination, the government should provide schools with the rightly trained teachers, who keep to the values and moral of the majority, but allowing also further private schools which can or should be able to provide education in the way they self prefer. So in case they want to learn creationism, it can be presented in a private school as long they learn also biology and history. But to ask to have such a teaching for everybody can not be demanded. What can be proposed is that it also becomes a subject which can be chosen to follow. By letting to choose subject everybody can stay free either to follow such a course or to ignore it. For praying in such or such way, also can be done in the appropriate class, be it a conservative or liberal Jewish teaching or a classic or more progressive Christian teaching, or even an Islam class.

The world has to recognise it has a multicultural population and that there is a globalisation which we have to follow. We all have to grow to one united people.

It is very strange that when Osama bin Laden was finally killed in May 2011, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released that 61 percent of the public thought he went to Hell, as a place of torture for ever, that so many Americans do live a live which gives the impression it does not matter what they do. They even are not afraid of the impression of them, what they would leave behind. But it is know and not after life they have to prove themselves. It is also know, in this live that they and we should take care to be ready to be able to enter the Kingdom of God. When we die it is to late to do anything about it. Then we missed all chances. Now is the moment to run the race laid in front of us.

On the 9° Av (27th of July) the Summer Olympic Games may start, but on that remembrance day we should see Babylon in front of us.

While the world is preferring bread and games, we should offer them better ways, by allowing good education, care for the psychological as well as the physical health. This shall only be possible in case enough people are willing to contribute financially to make such things possible. Not willing to contribute to a National Health System and to a Public School System, can be more a selfish thing than an excuse that it would not be catholic or protestant enough. We should show ‘Babylon’ the way of love and sincere interest.

The Christian value of taking care of the needy should be the free way not only for the good Samaritan but also for the enemy to get to know the real brotherly love as, long before us, Jesus has given his brotherly love to many, believers but also to non-believers and sinners.

Please do read:

A dark night indeed
Another senseless act of random violence in America has made the headlines. This time there was a random shooting in a movie theatre, during the opening night of The Dark Knight Rises. This was the midnight showing in Aurora, Colorado, just outside of Denver.
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I can’t help but feel that to some extent, we’re reaping what we’ve been sowing as a society.
Newcombe: CO Shooting a Result of the Fact that Americans Don’t Fear God or Hell
AFA News Director Says Liberal Churches, Media Share Responsibility for Colorado Shooting
Jackson maintained that unlike in the communities of forty years ago, liberals in the media and churches, along with movies and the internet, have “have come together to give us these kinds of incidents.”
The Spirit of God imparts love,inspires hope, and gives liberty
The Spirit of God brings love, hope and freedom
No time for immorality
Native Americans
Indian Symbols
Native American Religion
Native Americans Chart

Also of interest:

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The antidote for public-school indoctrination (wnd.com)
In this day of public-school indoctrination and even political correctness infecting the American church, what can lovers of truth and liberty do to counteract the cultural rot impacting our kids?The uncompromising pastor and musician Bradlee Dean took up that question and built a controversial but resolute ministry sharing the truth of God, freedom and personal responsibility by taking it directly to young people – and the results have been jaw-dropping.
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“If you want to see what’s wrong and right with our country, watch Bradlee Dean’s ‘My War’ DVD series. It’s full of surprises.”
Multicultural apocalypse: Stealth jihad has taken root in Europe and is coming to America (worldnewstribune.com)
From Holland: Geert Wilders spoke at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, Colorado on July 1. The following is the complete transcript of his speech.
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Denver is also privileged to be the home of Colorado Christian University and the Centennial Institute with its motto “Faith, family and freedom”. Your motto shows that you have your priorities right. Faith, family and freedom are the pillars of our Judeo-Christian civilization and need to be defended.
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As the Muslim population is concentrated in urban areas, many European cities have very large Islamic concentrations. We are confronted with headscarves and burkas, polygamy, female genital mutilation, honor-killings.
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The number of people who organize their lives according to Islamic requirements is growing, especially among young people. Among 15-year-old German Muslims, 40 percent consider Islam more important than democracy. Among Muslim university students in Britain, 40 percent support Sharia. One in three of those students consider it legitimate to kill in the name of Islam.
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Cultural relativism is weakening the West day by day. Government leaders, lawyers, judges, churches, trade unions, media, academia, charities – all of them are blinded by political correctness and are condoning Islam. As a result of cultural relativism a little bit of the free West dies each day.
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Multiculturalism made us open our borders to those who cannot be assimilated; it made us tolerate the intolerant, and now intolerance is annihilating tolerance. We should, in the name of tolerance, claim the right not to tolerate the people who are intolerant to us anymore; we should, in the name of self-preservation, not allow those who refuse to assimilate to our values to enter our countries anymore.
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My friends, you and I, Americans and Europeans, we belong to a common Western culture. We share the values and ideals of our common heritage. In order to preserve our nations and our homes, in order to pass our heritage on to our children, in order to survive, we must stand together. Otherwise we will be submerged in the uniform Nation of Islam. That is what we do not want to happen.
How not to respond to a tragedy (maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com)
After the Columbine massacre, for example, then-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) blamed science textbooks for the murders
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In 2007, after the Virginia Tech massacre, Newt Gingrich blamed liberals for supporting “situation ethics,”
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after the slayings in Aurora, Louie Gohmert weighed in with some stupidity of his own.
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During a radio interview on The Heritage Foundation’s “Istook Live!” show, Gohmert was asked why he believes such senseless acts of violence take place. Gohmert responded by talking about the weakening of Christian values in the country.
“Some of us happen to believe that when our founders talked about guarding our virtue and freedom, that that was important,” he said. “Whether it’s John Adams saying our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people … Ben Franklin, only a virtuous people are capable of freedom, as nations become corrupt and vicious they have more need of masters. We have been at war with the very pillars, the very foundation of this country.”
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in the mind of this strange Republican congressman, a madman killed 12 people because of … the separation of church and State? The First Amendment is to blame for a shooting spree in a movie theater?If decency had any place in American politics, this would be an immediate career-ender for the ridiculous congressman from Texas. Some political missteps are simply unforgivable.
Humanists denounce Rep. Gohmert’s comments linking Colorado shootings to “attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” (secularnewsdaily.com)
“Rep. Louis Gohmert truly tortures logic when he concludes that this violence had something to do with perceived attacks on majority faith in America,” said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. “At a time when families are mourning in the wake of this tragedy, Gohmert used it as an opportunity to push a religious agenda.”
Gohmert: Obama Encouraging War On Christian And Jewish Faiths (secularnewsdaily.com)
Discussing accusations that the director of a federal cemetery in Houston removed religious references from the cemetery, Gohmert claimed that the government was trying to make secular humanism the established religion of the land. The congressman went on to suggest that President Obama and his administration was working closely with the Muslim Brotherhood as part of a “war on Chrisitan beliefs and actually Jewish beliefs,” and Perkins agreed that the administration is “sympathetic to if not embracing the Islamic religion”
‘NHS doctors have a duty of care that does not include proselytising’: BHA comments as Christian GP investigated following complaint (secularnewsdaily.com)
Dr Richard Scott, a former missionary and a lay preacher, is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre, the sister legal organisation of the socially conservative lobby group Christian Concern, which aims to ‘introduce a Christian voice into law, the media and government’. The BHA has reported on a number of cases raised by the Christian Legal Centre on the grounds of discrimination, including those of a Christian registrar and a couple who wished to foster children, and the subsequent dismissal of these arguments in the courts.
Gohmert Blames ‘Attacks on Judeo-Christian Beliefs’ for Colorado Massacre (dokmz.wordpress.com)
“You know what really gets me, a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this.”
Let’s keep America exceptional (humanevents.com)
America was founded on Judeo-Christian values, but today many of us hesitate to voice such values lest this or that immigrant group might take offense. Consequently, we have become a ship without a compass, not knowing whence we came or where we are going.How can a nation that once stunned the world by its superhuman achievements castrate itself into such sheepish timidity where its people now hesitate to celebrate their Judeo-Christian patriotism? The answer is fairly simple—America has turned its back on its founding values. It is an apostasy that is particularly poignant on the Fourth of July.
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In fact, if all cultures are equally relevant and respectable, then they must be equally capable—yet why is there not a single non-Western culture that indigenously produced a great democracy which continues to attract people from all over the world?
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Take the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They were written by white men from a Judeo-Christian ethos—and the country they founded has become the most egalitarian nation in the world, a refuge for men and women of all races and religions. Despite the liberal claims about the wonderful accomplishments of non-Western cultures, none of those cultures has ever produced a human-rights instrument as powerful as the Declaration or the Constitution.
BREAKING: “American Freedom Law Center” (atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com)
Through AFLC, Yerushalmi and Muise seek a return to what they describe as “America’s founding commitment to receive God’s continued blessing for America.” Yerushalmi commented, “AFLC will fight for faith and freedom by advancing and defending America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and moral foundation through litigation, education, and public policy programs. Fighting for our Judeo-Christian values is more than simply defending religious liberty; it is fighting for the very survival of our Nation.” He added, “Throughout history, great nations have fallen from within. Make no mistake, America is a blessed Nation, but only so long as it remains faithful to the Judeo-Christian values upon which it was founded.”
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“To great effect, elite secular progressives are systematically assailing and destroying our Nation’s moral foundation. Driven by a transnational world view that is hostile to our Nation’s Judeo-Christian values, progressives are zealously sweeping religion from the public square, foisting sharia law and other harmful international precedents into our courts and Constitution, assaulting the traditional family, and weakening our national defense by — among other things — undermining the strength of our military through social engineering and political correctness. Our traditional liberties hang in balance. And for good or ill, this battle for America’s soul is being waged in the courtrooms across America.”
Louie Gohmert suggests the shootings could have been avoided if the country had not lost faith in God (freakoutnation.com)
People are quick to lay the blame or invoke God in all things, such as George Zimmerman recently stating that Trayvon Martin’s shooting was part of God’s plan. Gohmert is part of the recent McCarthism-like witch hunt, so his voice in the Aurora shootings, is nullified by his distinct bias.
Romney understands America (wnd.com)
Most American universities seek to graduate men and women who are as committed to secularism as nearly all the members of faculty are. In contrast, at traditional Christian and Jewish schools, the aim is, as Romney said, to produce students who know “whom [they] will serve.”What Romney is asking is this: If one is not morally accountable to God, to whom or what is one morally accountable? Most universities will respond: to one’s conscience. But those who adhere to Judeo-Christian values do not trust the conscience alone. What Nazi or Communist mass murderer was not at peace with his conscience? The conscience is as easily manipulated as the heart (the heart being the other guide to behavior among most college graduates).
You can’t separate politics and religion… nor should you try. (boilingthefrogs.wordpress.com)
It takes intentional deception or just plain ignorance to believe that our Founding Fathers intended or would tolerate any restrictions on religion. They did place heavy restrictions on Government…. restrictions that have been blatantly and repeatedly violated, shredded, burned, beaten, stabbed, electrocuted and sodomized by government.
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no matter how hard you try, you cannot separate politics and religion. More importantly, and contrary to the secular-left hand-wringers who hyperventilate at the mere thought of Christians… the result is not ‘one extreme or the other.’ In fact, even in the perfect Judeo-Christian world, Judeo-Christian teachings do not call for a theocracy, nor should it. But no one has EVER addressed this highly volatile subject more beautifully or more wisely than our Founding Fathers.
Greenberg’s Muslim remarks widely decried|Congressional candidate cites ‘cult’ (rep-am.com)
Congressional candidate Mark Greenberg put himself on the defensive Thursday when he called Islam “a cult in many respects,” during a live WNPR interview.
Campaign seeks to unleash God’s Spirit on election (wnd.com)
There’s a new campaign that puts Election Day 2012 in the bull’s-eye, but organizers say it’s not about a political or social issue, or about who gets in Congress or the White House. It’s not even, really, about people.It seeks to turn God loose on the nation.The “40 Days to Save America” campaign has been launched by a who’s who list of Christian leaders who say the Bible explains in simple terms the solution to whatever troubles a nation, from social turmoil to financial stress to a failure of faith.
In the News: ‘GOP struggles to banish ghost of Jeremiah Wright’ (awitchylife.wordpress.com)
Romney:“Without question, the legal code in this country is based upon Judeo-Christian values and teachings, Biblical teachings, and for the president not to understand that a wide array of religions and a conviction that Judeo-Christian philosophy is an integral part of our foundation is really an extraordinary thing. I think again that the president takes his philosophical leanings in this regard, not from those who are ardent believers in various faiths but instead from those who would like America to be more secular. And I’m not sure which is worse, him listening to Reverend Wright or him saying that we must be a less Christian nation.”
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How does the idea that the US is a “Christian nation” still find a way to live? The US is a nation of many different faiths and beliefs, and clinging to this idea that it is one way and only one way is putting a stranglehold on attempts to move beyond the belief and the politics associated with it.
Giles case settled: Ten Commandments removed (secularnewsdaily.com)
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Urbanski accepted a settlement and ended the lawsuit between a Giles County, Va., parent and student and the Giles County School Board on July 3. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed the suit last fall.The school board has agreed that the Ten Commandments will not be posted in any school “unless and until there is precedent in the Fourth Circuit or United States Supreme Court allowing the posting of the text of the Ten Commandments in the public schools.”
School board candidate Kemple calls foul on fake website (tbo.com)
Terry Kemple, a candidate for the countywide seat on the Hillsborough County School Board, said he plans to fight back against an invisible foe who has set up a bogus website maligning him.
It’s out with the old as Christian values fall away (smh.com.au)
Given the Judeo-Christian origins of our long-held tradition of caring for the frail, census data indicating the demise of Christianity and the ageing of Australia’s population could herald a perfect social storm.The 2011 census makes clear that Christian affiliation is diminishing, falling 7 per cent over the past decade to 61 per cent. The slack has been picked up by the ”nones”, those claiming ”no religion”, with almost 5 million of us, or 22.3 per cent, turning our backs on God (or, at least, on God’s registered brands). That’s up 7 per cent since 2001.

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Of course, most of us love our grandmas. We don’t need religion to tell us to look after them. But as more Australians move into high-care facilities and dementia units, sometimes at a great distance from family, society will need a solid intellectual ground for increasing contributions to those who can no longer give back.Ancient Greece and Rome, the cultures against which Christianity first competed, had little by way of philosophical reasoning that could guarantee the inherent worth of those lacking rational capacity or social utility. So infanticide was common and social welfare for the aged and dying was virtually non-existent.Christianity changed this. It inherited from the Jews a theology of human dignity and a program of social welfare, and added the thought that Christ had died for the world, even for the lowly and neglected. Compassion was due to all, especially to the overlooked. And so was born the tradition of ”charity”.
Humans And Other Animals (morningstaronline.co.uk)
Although few people today would be happy reducing animals to the level of unthinking, unfeeling objects in the manner of Descartes, it’s true that most of us still assume that the dividing line between humans and all other animals is one of kind rather than degree.Yet recent studies have tended to argue that other species have developed notions of personhood, display astonishing levels of consciousness, often live in societies and employ culture, language, tools and symbolism in everyday interactions to a far, far greater extent than previously thought possible.
‘Ten Commandments’ Judge Roy Moore: Secularism leads to Sharia law(rawstory.com)

In an interview with conservative talk show host Steve Deace last week, Roy Moore opined that “a government that is denying God” was also allowing Sharia law to take hold.

The Republican candidate explained that he had no regrets after the Alabama Court of the Judiciary was forced to strip him of the chief justice title in 2003 because he rejected a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse.
Roy Moore on his Ten Commandments monument (reassuringquotes.wordpress.com)
Naturally the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center – also called the SPLC – which also eventually brought suit against me were happy to play on such confusion. They claimed that I had “sneaked in the monument in the middle of the night”.
Don’t blame Darwin for theater shootings (cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com)
“I doubt that religion had anything to do with these murders, but religion is so quick to point the finger at science and evolution when they happen,” Coyne wrote on his “Why Evolution Is True” blog. “So much for Rick Warren, the man Barack Obama chose to give the invocation at his inauguration in 2009.”
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On the flip side, some atheists suggested that Christianity was to blame, capitalizing on reports that Holmes came from a Presbyterian family. On the “Debunking Christianity” blog, Cathy Cooper argues that Christian belief encourages the idea that all people are sinful, but that all believers are saved by faith alone. “Christianity provides believers with a basis for the belief that they are absolved from taking responsibility for their own bad behavior,” she writes.
Egypt ex-MP guilty of indecency (bbc.co.uk)
A radical Islamist politician in Egypt has been convicted in absentia of violating public decency after police found him fondling a woman in a car.
Ali Wanis was sentenced to a year in prison for the incident and six months for abusing the policemen. The woman involved got a six month jail term.
Don’t blame the shootings on Darwin (or on God’s wrath) (cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com)
“When students are taught they are no different from animals, they act like it,” Rick Warren, the mega-church pastor and inspirational author, observed in a Twitter update just hours after the shootings.
Publicly Indecent Women (gloriabrame.typepad.com)
women busted for flouting public decency laws, and firmly establishing the fine American tradition of women standing up for sexual freedoms by taking off their clothes.
Wendy Kaminer – The Health Care Ruling Trivializes Civil Liberties (prn.fm)
This is how you exaggerate the “tyranny” of petty bans and an ACA penalty projected to affect one or two percent of the population, while you trivialize civil liberty and distract us from the growth of a potentially totalitarian national security state. This is how you generate hatred of big government and direct it at opposition to social welfare programs, environmental regulations, or oversight of financial markets, while you generate support for (or indifference to) domestic surveillance, the targeting of Muslim Americans, militarized police departments, the criminalization of political dissent, drone warfare, and the failure to close Guantanamo.
Barack Obama, Authoritarian Conservative (robertlindsay.wordpress.com)
Socialists or those on the economic left are to the left of the center line. Capitalists and those on the economic right on to the right of the center line. Authoritarians are above the horizontal line in the middle. More civil libertarian types are below the center line in the middle.
“The Fear Of God Is Not In This Place” (chuckbaldwinlive.com)
What in the world has happened to America? How has it come to this? The America that we currently see is unrecognizable from the America many of us grew up in. The America that many oppressed people risked their lives to escape to now more resembles the oppressed nations that those people fled. (I’ve had scores of immigrants tell me that personally.) And make no mistake about it, the problem is much deeper than the shallow partisan mantra, “It’s the Democrats’ (or Republicans’) fault.” The root cause of America’s woes is much deeper than that. For decades, we’ve been trading Democrats for Republicans, Republicans for Democrats, liberals for conservatives, and conservatives for liberals, and nothing has changed–except the problems keep getting worse!
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The natural fear of God is a predicate for a person’s respect for their mother and father. (Leviticus 19:3) The fear of God is a predicate for a person’s respect for others, especially those who are disadvantaged. (Leviticus 19:14) This passage specifically notes the deaf and the blind.
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how can politicians in Washington, D.C., possess the fear of God when they routinely lie, steal, violate their oaths to the Constitution, and wreak havoc upon the liberties and freedoms of the American people? How can the banksters at the Federal Reserve possess the fear of God when they deliberately rape the US economy and purposefully manipulate the markets so as to destroy the financial well being of tens of millions of families? How can federal government officials at the highest levels possess the fear of God when they engage in international drug running and murder?
Takedown: Divided We Stand (persephonemagazine.com)
No Future in France: Dire Times for French Jews
A philosopher (holding a prestigious French agrégation degree in philosophy), a graduate of the French Rabbinical School in Paris, and a former student at some of the most orthodox yeshivoth (Talmudic academies) in Jerusalem, Bernheim was until recently very eager to reconcile traditional Judaism with Europe’s “open society.” He has just devoted a book to France as a nation and how Jews can contribute to France’s public debates (N’oublions Pas De Penser La France), and in 2008, the year he was elected chief rabbi, he coauthored a book on Judeo-Christian dialogue (Le Rabbin et le Cardinal) with Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.Despite all that, Bernheim suddenly warned Jewish leaders a few weeks ago about a growing “rejection” of Jews and Judaism in France, something he linked to the global passing of “Judeo-Christian values” in French society as a whole.

‘Ten Commandments’ Judge Roy Moore: Secularism leads to Sharia law (via Raw Story )

The man who is likely to be Alabama’s next chief justice is warning that secular government will lead to Islamic law in the United States. In an interview with conservative talk show host Steve Deace last week, Roy Moore opined that “a government that is denying God” was also allowing Sharia…