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Author | Topic: Religions are fairy tales for adults. Should we encourage them to grow up? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
Faith writes: Yes, that's how the logic goes. Brand new law never before in existence, barely two months old at this point, just happens to challenge the Bible. Just HAPPENS to challenge the Bible. Right. Disenfranchising all Bible believing Christians. True--in this case, Christians are disenfranchised of a long-held power. That change was long overdue, as were beer sales on Sundays and legal birth control. You suggest that Christians cannot fully realize their religious practice without imposing morals and practices on others through the power of the state. I believe that is true; I suppose it stings like any other loss. In your grief, you should reconsider those Bible passages where Jesus recommends living out your faith through the use of government coercion against others. Perhaps you misread them."If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5
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Phat writes: There is no evil in heaven. A war was fought and evil got thrown out. Leaving only the "possibility of evil" permitted by God, as you put it earlier. So evil could be emergent in Heaven now, or brewing on the back burner for later. We've still got plenty evil here. Given the opening God made for evil in Heaven, why would you think none is possible there?"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
Faith writes: I don't want to be complicit in the state's giving the license either. Then you shouldn't go to work for Caesar. Clerks in many places have issued licenses and permits for KKK and neo-Nazi marches and rallies, Wiccan festivals, etc. These groups violate Biblical strictures on a regular basis--the witches aren't even to be allowed to live. But no Christian clerk that I recall has taken a public stand to refuse to issue other licenses and permits. You keep telling us it's not about the gay, per se, but the failure to meet the biblical definition of a man and a woman. If that were true, we'd see acts of Christian conscience from civil servants and bureaucrats, civilly disobedient and not, constantly in the news. There is only one sin, apparently, with the juice to make Christians draw a line, while other sins, with Biblical death sentences, pass by without comment. One can change anything about the license applicant without triggering the Christian conscience. Except one thing. It's the gay, Faith."If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
No, Faith, you wouldn't want to work for Caesar--not because of any possible new law--but because new hires have to swear to uphold Caesar's laws. For someone like a town clerk, it is pretty much a condition of employment. Could you honestly swear such an oath?
No one should want any faith to have a special handle on the law, perhaps least of all a devout member of another. Christians will never have exactly the laws they'd like to have; neither will Jews or Muslims or Jains or Hindus, because the law is human law. Our law. Secular law. That's the law public officials are obligated to abide by, and THAT'S religious freedom, for the rest of us. No one has a right to be town clerk. If religious scruples stop you from fulfilling your duties as outlined by the law, that, as the Army likes to say, is a personal problem. NB: Actually, that's religious freedom for all of us. Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given."If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
Faith writes: Yes, this is what we've been expecting, the marginalization of the faith that built the west. Been expecting it as I've said and yet it's still a surprise, that people could be so captured by such evil. The attitude at EvC is often like a punch in the stomach. Sheer evil. Unbelievable. Frankly, I wish you no personal distress whatsoever. Surely the apocalyptically awful nature of our evil must be some comfort. But prying religion's sanctimonious hands off the law has been a centuries long process. We're still not done."If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
I'm not afraid of the future. It belongs, if we can keep it, to a reasonable sanity, not a religious vision.
As to nations, ah, Faith, vanity, vanity...
quote: "If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5
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According to her lawyers, Kim Davis will pray tonight for guidance from God, then show up for work tomorrow knowing what to do.
I hope God tells her (again) to render under Caesar's what is Caesar's--the peddling of civil licenses--but one never knows. In any event, she will not be required to add a gay marriage to her resume, nor will she be required to aver her approval of gay marriage. She doesn't have to participate in the gay wedding, or even send regrets. She just has to fill out the form and hand it over, just like she would for adulterers, fornicators and Hindus. I think the media attention and her movement lawyers--who have already advised her previously to defy a federal court order, risking contempt charges--increase the odds that she will choose dramatic martyrdom. Probably the anti-gay attorneys reckon (rightly, I think) that the sight of a white southern lady being jailed for defying gay marriage would serve their purposes as well as a stay. Unfortunately, the debate was framed for her, and she clearly believes that doing her paperwork job according to the law contaminates her with gayness--that's the movement cant. Wrecking her work life in an empty gesture of defiance (and contempt charges)--that's her movement lawyers. Maybe she'll do the right thing. Her job. Maybe the Right side of the web will send her riches. At the moment, I pity her."If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5
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No, an $80,000 a year job or mindless bigotry.
"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
It seems she wants her job and her bigotry, too--Ms. Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples this morning.
She has exhausted her immediate avenues of appeal. Perhaps the next news will be the size of the contempt of court fine she must pay daily for her failure to do her job. I hope so. A jail cell should soon follow. Here's the oath she took upon taking office:
quote: She now refuses to keep her oath, citing the authority of God. I wonder which God witnessed her oath and which one she's citing now."If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5
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Phat writes: As to which "God" witnessed her oath....seems to me that secular humanists are defining which ":God" helps the state. That doesn't make any sense. I don't want God in our secular oaths, but Christians put and keep God in those texts. I suspect his discomfort. She took an oath of office, an oath clearly in conflict with her present behavior. The 'so help me God' is irrelevant except for the richness of its irony. She believes what she says? No doubt. So do members of ISIS. That doesn't mean she gets to institute Christian Sharia law in her county. She could have earned some respect from me by resigning: "The oath I took before God, and my beliefs about God and marriage, are in conflict. I cannot in good conscience continue as county clerk." Her present course draws from me what it deserves from the court: contempt. She wants her 15 minutes of martyrdom, and she deserves it."If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
Phat writes: I dont agree that gay marriage is of the highest spiritual ethic, but then neither do i think that the majority of straight relationships are of the highest order either. The issue is simply a legal one...morality left the arena years ago. Morality never leaves the arena. She is not only illegal, she is wrong. No one has the right to deny someone what the law has granted them, especially not an agent and servant of law. The attempt is immoral."If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
It's interesting that this is being described as a typical Christian act, while she's the only county clerk in the country doing it.
Perhaps the others are not true Christians. I gather she's elected and can't simply be fired. Maybe she'll go directly to heaven for her saintliness."If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
The federal judge in the case has ordered Davis and her staff to appear Thursday at 11 a.m. "to explain themselves" after plaintiffs asked him to find Davis in contempt and to impose fines.
"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
JonF writes: Heck, she's not even the only one in Kentucky. "Casey Davis (no relation) has sworn he will die before issuing a license to a gay couple. IIRC he's walking across the state ti Kim Davis' office to show support for her. Or something equally stupid. He talks, but he hasn't defied a federal court order to issue licenses. If you spot any cases like Davis', let me know. I don't think there have been any other holdouts. "If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
I'm puzzled about why Ms. Davis continues to deny marriage licenses to straight couples.
As a sort of sop/claim to fairness, it''s the thinnest of fictions; as a legal tactic, it's meaningless. The state could move to eliminate licenses, but she can't. How does she justify denying licenses to straights? Her God apparently has no problem with state control of straight holy matrimony: of course, the state never got in the way of it before. Maybe there will be a weather event. She's an enthusiast of marriage. The refusal to issue licenses is clearly and explicitly about gay marriage. So what's she up to with denying licenses to straights? Note that six assistant clerks must also appear at the contempt hearing tomorrow. I wonder if the judge will take them one by one, asking if they will obey the law or pay the fine. It reminds me of helicopter interrogations to encourage the others. Note also that the unrelated Mr. Davis, he of the big talk and apparently also a county clerk in KY, is biking to the coast while the local fire burns. I think he's getting a free look at consequences, grabbing the stage for his own fund-raising and campaign profile, and generally having a great time. But in the end I suspect he'll be encouraged, too...way too much bluster. I doubt all six assistant clerkss will toe her line; times are hard, those jobs are patronage plums and her line sucks. Anybody give me odds? "If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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