What's new
TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

News alert regarding pres. bush

  • Thread starter sarracenia
  • Start date
  • #21
[b said:
Quote[/b] (TheAlphaWolf @ Feb. 25 2005,6:24)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]who cares who gets the money as long as the money is used to give out blankets, help a single mom fix her car, provide shelter and sustenance for the homeless?
I do. The government shouldn't be tied with any religion. Giving money only to christains is supporting one religion over another and that tires government (very strongly) to a religion.
let me get this straight.....you would rather no money be given to a charitable organization if it is connected to a religion rather than letting money get to those who actually need it?i would much ather see my tax dollars going to religious organizations where an actuall decent percentage of the money will actually do good rather than let the government spend it on some of the idiotic things they tend to such as to Native American reservations(a really big pet pieve of mine but that may be because ive watched the idiocity that happens on one for the last 23 years). local churches and organizations such as the Elks(a club with christian idiologies, i know i am one), Lions, KC's(these guys are christian too arent they?) and Optimists(another organization i belong to, no religion but if yah look at our creed it is remarkibly simmilar to "pure" christian views in how ppl should treat each other) know better what their community needs than Uncle Sam by a loooooong shot.
 
  • #22
President bush signed the Equal Treatment Executive Order in December 2002 ensuring equal treatment for faith-based and community organizations.

so, that argument is toast. Any faith based organization that wants the money can have it. Period, as long as they meet criteria set forth to get it, i.e. have a good plan for it, organization capable of handling it so on, so forth. Oh, and they do have to apply for it as well, so, there is that.
 
  • #23
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]let me get this straight.....you would rather no money be given to a charitable organization if it is connected to a religion rather than letting money get to those who actually need it?
who the HELL said anything about not giving any money out to charity? (and if I remember correctly he said that money was given to faith related organizations... he didn't say it was for chairty)
I'm saying money from government should NOT go to one religious organization and none to the others. They should go to all of them EQUALLY.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]President bush signed the Equal Treatment Executive Order in December 2002 ensuring equal treatment for faith-based and community organizations.
ok great. That's what I'm talking about.
 
  • #24
Wow, apparently I'm the only one who decided that there was humor to be extracted from this topic...O_O...
 
  • #25
[b said:
Quote[/b] (RamPuppy @ Feb. 25 2005,12:52)]That was a pretty funny joke, and I am a bushie.

Alpha_Wolf,   why would you ever believe that seperation is implied when the vast majority of the founding fathers were christian? if ANYTHING, you must interporet their works with a pro-christian slant.

In addition, It is widely held that the founding fathers most likely never concieved that there would be Islam, poopoism, Budhism and so on in this country, their freedome of religion was more likely 'freedom to practice your religion within a christian perspective, i.e. calvanists, catholics, baptists and puritains can all get along together."  granted, that is not the way it turned out, and our constitutions verbage is broad enough to allow such wonderful diversity.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

Means that congress will NOT establish a state religion, nothing more, nothing less.  that one line has been warped so much it disgusts me.  I have no problem with the government giving money to organizations of ANY faith, those moneys are usually spend to help people in their community, and I believe by and large, the community knows what to do with that money far better than a huge governmental juggernaught.

As for only christian groups getting the money, certainly that bears investigation, but one wonders if any other group has even applied for monies? (I have no idea)  and what if a few have and have recieved funding, this country is by far more christian in it's religious leanings than anything else, it is no small wonder that christian groups would get more money in that situation.

In the end, who cares who gets the money as long as the money is used to give out blankets, help a single mom fix her car, provide shelter and sustenance for the homeless?  A church with a 100% volunteer based labour force and an incentive to help others (it is part of their core belief system) will spend every dollar with far more effectiveness than a government agency that will have to blow most of that money on employee costs...

my two cents.
Actually, our founding fathers were by and large NOT christians. They were Unitarians, Deists, and Free-Thinkers.  

Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789

Thomas Jefferson was not a fan of christianity.  You should read some of the stuff the other founding fathers had to say.  

It infuriates me that even one penny of my tax dollars are going to support churches of ANY stripe.  I wish I could opt out of that portion of my taxes.  I'm NOT a Bushie.  

To quote Frank Zappa "Tax the churches.  Tax the businesses owned by the churches."

April
 
  • #26
Well Aprihl, I guess we agree on something, I would be willing to bet that the very programs you like your taxes being spend on, are the ones I would love to opt out of to. If you can get the government to stop supporting programs I believe in, and I can get them to stop supporting programs YOU believe in, then perhaps we will both have more money and we can spend it on those programs by writing out a check and doing it ourselves... oh wait... that makes to much sense.

BTW, I haven't read the biography you reference, and I do know there were deists and so on accounted for in our founding fathers, but the fact remains, there are a number of them, and many of them, (and many of the big names) were christian.

You are right to point out that an act to introduce the name "Jesus Christ" into the preamble would be exclusitory to other beliefs, you perhaps miss that that is an embracing manuver, welcoming all religions.

Seperation of Church and State is not an argument that can be won, it is as nebulous as arguing the origins, neither party will back down, I think we can agree to disagree.
 
Back
Top