Christians launch defence of faith 'under attack'

[Father Heathen]

America is great because of Christianity

That's funny. It's the values of liberty, rights, equality and democracy that made America great, and none of those values are promoted by the bible. If this nation was really founded upon and ran by "Christian values" then we would be under a third world theocratic tyranny just like Iran.

 

[Man of Faith]

That's funny. It's the values of liberty, rights, equality and democracy that made America great, and none of those values are promoted by the bible. If this nation was really founded upon and ran by "Christian values" then we would be under a third world theocratic tyranny just like Iran.

Liberty, rights, equality and democracy are all based on a creator, the Christian creator. It says it right in the Founding documents. The first Bible every printed in the US was by the federal government and church was held in the White House. There is no getting around our Christian heritage.

 

[sandandfoam]

America is great because of Christianity

I think America is great because of WW2

 

[Bismillah]

America is great because of Christianity

It must have been God that told the Americans to wage genocide against the Native Americans?

 

[Kathryn]

curious,
do either of you know any europeans, or have ever been fortunate enough to travel abroad?

I just have to ask - what's this got to do with their expressed opinions on this thread?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Liberty, rights, equality and democracy are all based on a creator, the Christian creator. It says it right in the Founding documents. The first Bible every printed in the US was by the federal government and church was held in the White House. There is no getting around our Christian heritage.

Please show me where the word "Christian" appears in any of the founding documents of the United States.

The only official document I know of where the word "Christian" appears that any of the American Founding Fathers had any hand in is the Treaty of Tripoli:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...

I think America is great because of WW2

I agree. Not having your cities bombed regularly for six years creates a significant competitive advantage.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I've traveled to over ten different countries, but not in Europe, however I know people from there that moved here. I don't have a problem with a secular government as long as it has freedom of religion. America is great because of Christianity, not any other religion. If American was prodominently Muslim, we know what would happen.

If Christianity was what made a country great, then Malta would be the world's leading superpower.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

It's kinda sad when piddly cases like this are taking up time and money.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It's kinda sad when piddly cases like this are taking up time and money.

I think it's especially funny when the article talks about how hard done by the Catholic Church has been by the secular movement. The secular movement is the main reason why it's legal to be Catholic in England today. Heck - there's still a legal prohibition against a Catholic becoming the head of state, and their bishops don't get the rights of the Anglican Church to actually play a role in passing legislation.

IMO, the biggest threat to religion is other religion, not secularism and not atheism.

 

[sandandfoam]

IMO, the biggest threat to religion is other religion, not secularism and not atheism.

Funny enough I agree. Scariest thing about Christianity is some Christians. Enough to put anyone off.

On the other hand I should be free to wear a cross or a pendant that says Jesus is a big eejit or a specially made helmet incoroporating a Bible if I feel like it.

This crack of legislating what people can and can't wear get's right up my nose.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I think it's especially funny when the article talks about how hard done by the Catholic Church has been by the secular movement. The secular movement is the main reason why it's legal to be Catholic in England today. Heck - there's still a legal prohibition against a Catholic becoming the head of state, and their bishops don't get the rights of the Anglican Church to actually play a role in passing legislation.

IMO, the biggest threat to religion is other religion, not secularism and not atheism.

haha - religion is its own worst enemy.

I've heard, and I think that it's true, that the distaste in Europe for religion (Christianity and Islam in particular) is rooted in the religious wars and then the failure of religion to improve humanity so that WWI and WWII could be avoided.

For Christians, many churches in Europe have ceased to operate as churches and are now markets or just closed (etc).

For Islam, they are immigrating to Europe with amazing zeal, and as immigrants are suspected of the usual things (taking up welfare without paying taxes, adding to the crime rate, wearing away at local customs). So we see in France the forbidding of burchas and in Britian they are afraid of Islamic law.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

On the other hand I should be free to wear a cross or a pendant that says Jesus is a big eejit or a specially made helmet incoroporating a Bible if I feel like it.

This crack of legislating what people can and can't wear get's right up my nose.

Well, some of it is safety-based, as in the case of nurses. There's a blanket rule against wearing dangly things that can be grabbed by patients or accidentially fall in a wound. A crucifix isn't any safer than a locket in this case, so I think that it's entirely appropriate to get rid of them (along with doctors' ties, which have many of the same issues associated with them).

As for the case of the flight attendant that the article mentions, I've got mixed feelings. On the one hand, I do agree that people should be generally free to express themselves as long as there's no good reason to stop them. On the other hand, the whole point of having a uniform is so that all your employees have the same "look". Customization of this defeats the whole point.

Also, in the specific case that the article mentions, there were other factors at play:

- apparently, some of her co-workers felt that the cross she was wearing was part of an overall attempt on her part to evangelize in the workplace:

The tribunal also heard how Eweida's attitude and behaviour towards colleagues had prompted a number of complaints objecting to her: "Either giving them religious materials unsolicited, or speaking to colleagues in a judgmental or censorious manner which reflected her beliefs; one striking example," said the judgment, "was a report from a gay man that the claimant had told him that it was not too late to be redeemed."

Indeed, the proselytising motivation of her desire to wear the cross over her uniform instead of underneath it was underlined when she said: "It is important to wear it to express my faith so that other people will know that Jesus loves them."

- the issue wasn't just wearing a cross. Apparently, there were other issues as well:

The employment tribunal, to which she complained, has just published its judgment, and it tells a rather different story. Not only did it kick out all her claims of religious discrimination and harassment, it also criticised her for her intransigence, saying that she:

"... generally lacked empathy for the perspective of others ... her own overwhelming commitment to her faith led her at times to be both naive and uncompromising in her dealings with those who did not share her faith."
​

One example of this was her insistence that she must never be required to work on Christmas Day, even though she had signed a contract that made it clear that she, like her colleagues, would be working in an operation that functions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and therefore required shift working and bank holiday working, too.

Most of the other "attacks" in the article basically amount to people getting fired for refusing to do their jobs, which I have no sympathy for at all.

 

[gnomon]

I've traveled to over ten different countries, but not in Europe, however I know people from there that moved here. I don't have a problem with a secular government as long as it has freedom of religion. America is great because of Christianity, not any other religion. If American was prodominently Muslim, we know what would happen.

It's true that America was and is predominantly Christian. It's also true that every leader behind running the African slave trade in the Americas, the forcible removal of native tribes from their lands, the enslaving of Chinese immigrants, the refusal to recognize established treaties with the native tribes, the forced democracy established in Latin and South America, the internment of Japanese Americans (or as the Japanese Americans would say, the internment of Americans), etc. were all led by religious men.

We didn't need a predominantly Muslim nation to engage in horrid acts against others. U.S. history is full of them and all of them enacted by Christ loving religious folk.

Liberty, rights, equality and democracy are all based on a creator, the Christian creator. It says it right in the Founding documents. The first Bible every printed in the US was by the federal government and church was held in the White House. There is no getting around our Christian heritage.

No, it doesn't say it in the founding documents. The Declaration of Independence is not a founding document. It was a letter written to the King George III .......... declaring Independence. There were no states. There were colonies.

But you are right. There is no getting around our European Christian heritage. We are reminded of the wreck they made continually.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

It's true that America was and is predominantly Christian. It's also true that every leader behind running the African slave trade in the Americas, the forcible removal of native tribes from their lands, the enslaving of Chinese immigrants, the refusal to recognize established treaties with the native tribes, the forced democracy established in Latin and South America, the internment of Japanese Americans (or as the Japanese Americans would say, the internment of Americans), etc. were all led by religious men.

We didn't need a predominantly Muslim nation to engage in horrid acts against others. U.S. history is full of them and all of them enacted by Christ loving religious folk.



No, it doesn't say it in the founding documents. The Declaration of Independence is not a founding document. It was a letter written to the King George III .......... declaring Independence. There were no states. There were colonies.

But you are right. There is no getting around our European Christian heritage. We are reminded of the wreck they made continually.

This is an exceptionally poor understanding of history.

 

[gnomon]

This is an exceptionally poor understanding of history.

Hardly. And unless you can elaborate I'll just accept you don't have the faintest clue as to where I'm going with Man of Faith.

In other words, I'm tired of the stupid responses on ReligiousForums. So offer up something substantive in the next ten minutes or go post about yourself or Willie Nelson somewhere else.

But such idiotic blurbs are merely wasting time.

 

[linwood]

There can be no doubt that there is a full blown attack on Christianity, especially in Europe and spilling over into the United States. We are in a culture war and the center of it is a major offensive against Christianity. People are allowed to attack and laugh at Christianity, but not at other religions, especially Islam. We remove the Ten Commandments from our courts and then call for Muslims to be allowed to being in Sharia Law.

Are you saying that in the US of A people shouldn`t be allowed to attack and laugh at Christianity?
Do you understand the principles the USA was based upon?

You`ve got to stop watching so much Glen Beck.

There is no call for Sharia in the US, there are no Christians persecuted in the US.

I publicly ridicule Islam just as much as I publicly ridicule Christianity.
No discrimination here.

Stop whining so much.




Edit: Apparently you don`t understand the principles the USA were based on

Originally Posted by Man of Faith
Liberty, rights, equality and democracy are all based on a creator, the Christian creator. It says it right in the Founding documents. The first Bible every printed in the US was by the federal government and church was held in the White House. There is no getting around our Christian heritage.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Hardly. And unless you can elaborate I'll just accept you don't have the faintest clue as to where I'm going with Man of Faith.

You can't take him anywhere on misunderstandings or fabrications of history.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It's true that America was and is predominantly Christian.

It's also true that America was predominantly anti-Christian as well. It all just depended which part of Christianity you belonged to.

There were anti-Catholic laws on the books long after independence in many states. Many Quakers and Amish were run off their land or otherwise punished for following the dictates of their faith by refusing to fight in various wars. It was technically illegal to be a Mormon in Missouri until 1976.

 

[waitasec]

I just have to ask - what's this got to do with their expressed opinions on this thread?

because 18% of the US population has a passport and guess where the majority of passports are? cities like los angeles and new york which are cosmopolitan.
my point is, are people aware that a country like sweden, a very secular country, compared to the united states has a much lower crime rate, unwanted pregnancies and std's? wonder why that is?
my point being if we look at the bible belt, it's not a good example of how faith enriches lives where unwanted pregnancies, std's and divorce is prevalent .
my point being it would be wise to look around in other parts of the world to see what does and doesn't work.

 

[waitasec]

I've traveled to over ten different countries, but not in Europe, however I know people from there that moved here. I don't have a problem with a secular government as long as it has freedom of religion. America is great because of Christianity, not any other religion. If American was prodominently Muslim, we know what would happen.

america isn't great because of christianity. it is great because we hold the standard that all men are created equal. and it is liberty and justice for ALL not for the religious majority. the 1st amendment is directly in violation to the 1st commandment...
christians are not under attack, they're just being re-directed to where they belong, and some find that uncomfortable...
what's that parable?
pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall
get used to it, pal.