US refugee crisis: a moral litmus test of white American Christian response.

@sree251 The church has always been separate from the state since 1776.

@LeopoldBloom [quote] The church has always been separate from the state since 1776.
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The church is one thing, and the state is another institution. However, back in the days, white Christians ran the state, and their moral influence on the state was dominant. 2024 is shockingly different. They all think like you.

@sree251 Yes, people tend to be influenced by their religious beliefs, and politicians are no different. However, you can't justify a law because it's in the Bible, you have to come up with a secular reason for it.

And yeah, it was different in the past when Christians were in charge of government. Slavery was legal and it was open season on Native Americans. Also, the US was an agrarian backwater and not the global superpower it is today.

@LeopoldBloom [quote] Yes, people tend to be influenced by their religious beliefs, and politicians are no different. However, you can't justify a law because it's in the Bible, you have to come up with a secular reason for it. [/quote]

Coming up with a secular reason for a law in the Bible? This would be like reading the US Constitution as the Torah, and debating its provisions in the Talmudic tradition. This would strip off Christian morality from American jurisprudence and supplant it with rabbinical laws.

@sree251 I wasn't talking about Biblical law. Of course Biblical laws are justified by the Bible. I'm talking about secular law. Despite your claim that the US is a Christian nation, all secular laws are supported by secular reasoning. You can't walk into the Supreme Court and base your argument on the Bible. No one has even attempted that even if the basis for their argument was religious belief.

If you can cite a Supreme Court decision that was based on the Bible, I'd like to see it. Meaning "we decide XXX based on Chapter YYY, Verse ZZZ."

@LeopoldBloom [quote] If you can cite a Supreme Court decision that was based on the Bible, I'd like to see it. [/quote]

How about the 7th Commandment: Thou shall not kill? Is that good enough for you? 5th Commandment: Thou shall not steal. And 8th Commandment: Thou shall not bear false witness.

There is no secular law. Get out of here, man. Don't turn America into the Devil's haven.

@sree251 I didn't ask for Bible verses, I was asking for Supreme Court decisions supported solely by the Bible. I'm not aware of a Supreme Court decision mandating pacifism. We'd have to get rid of the police and the military if killing is forbidden. In fact, the way you misquoted the verse, it would seem to require us to be vegans because we can't kill animals either.

The reality is that allowing people to kill each other with impunity, or rob each other, or lie in court would result in a chaotic society, so we pass laws against these acts. The verses you quoted reflect human law, not the other way around. This is why murder, stealing, and lying under oath are forbidden even in non-Christian countries.

Religious law only applies to religious practice. If you can't cite a Supreme Court decision supported solely by the Bible, you should admit that you don't know what you're talking about.

@LeopoldBloom [quote] Religious law only applies to religious practice. [/quote]

American laws are informed by the Christian moral code. Religious laws are canon laws pertaining to ritualistic practices of the Christian faith (e.g. celebrate the mass, baptism, keeping vows of matrimony, etc)

[quote] If you can't cite a Supreme Court decision supported solely by the Bible, you should admit that you don't know what you're talking about. [/quote]

You are muddying the waters here. Why do that instead of cooperating in clarifying the matter for mutual benefit and betterment of society? US Supreme Court presides on constitutional matters. [b]You [/b]don't know what you are talking about.

@LeopoldBloom [quote] The reality is that allowing people to kill each other with impunity, or rob each other, or lie in court would result in a chaotic society, so we pass laws against these acts.[b] The verses you quoted reflect human law, [/b]not the other way around. This is why murder, stealing, and lying under oath are forbidden even in non-Christian countries. [/quote]

Human law? Are Christians not humans? Why are you making a distinction between Christians and human beings? You may have a point in putting humans in one camp and Christians in another. After all, Christians are created by God while human beings are biological organisms that evolved from basic matter that came out of the Big Bang. I would support a segregated American society that protect each respective group from infiltration and cultural subversion.

@sree251 You seem really confused. Secular law is not based on Christian law, because Christians can't agree among themselves what Christian law is. And yes, Christians are humans, but we're talking about the difference between religiously-motivated restrictions and secular law.

Roman Catholics, Evangelicals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and other Christian groups can barely get along with each other now. Segregating them from everyone else wouldn't help matters. But you're free to set up a commune with your fellow Christians and follow whatever rules you like without bothering the rest of us.

In Matthew 19:21, Jesus said “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” That's not the law anywhere in the US. Even Christians don't follow that law despite the fact that Jesus made it very clear in that passage what he wanted. If you Christians don't even follow Christian law, it's presumptuous of you to try to impose it onto secular society. Why don't you set an example by following your own laws and maybe the rest of us will take notice.

@LeopoldBloom [quote] You seem really confused. [/quote]

Even if I were confused, is pointing it out conducive to a cooperative discussion?

[quote] Secular law is not based on Christian law, because Christians can't agree among themselves what Christian law is. [/quote]

What is a Christian law, in your opinion? What makes you say that Christians can't agree on what it is?

[quote] And yes, Christians are humans, but we're talking about the difference between religiously-motivated restrictions and secular law. [/quote]

What makes you say that Christians are humans as defined by science? Christians are created by God. Secular folks evolved from apes that have no souls.

Let's deal with the above for starters. I look forward to your replies.

@sree251 You're the one who says the Constitution is based on Christian law. You should define it.

I'll give an example of disagreements among Christians. Evangelicals think homosexuality is the worst sin of all. Episcopalians not only don't care about that, they have openly gay priests. So you have two sets of Christians with diametrically opposed beliefs on this issue. If the Evangelicals get to make the law for everyone, being gay will be illegal; if the Episcopalians make the law for everyone, gay people will have the same rights as everyone else. And both of them justify their positions based on the Bible.

In the past, Christians disagreed on slavery. The Northern and Southern Baptist churches split over this one issue. Christian slave owners pointed to Bible passages like 1 Peter 2:18 as justification, while John Brown, a profoundly devout Christian, came to the opposite conclusion. So even back then, basing secular law on what Christians wanted wouldn't have worked any better than it works today.

Your last paragraph is idiotic. Christians are humans and have the same origins as other humans. It's just a belief system that anyone can convert to if they want. And if anyone was created by God, prove it. The evidence shows otherwise.

@LeopoldBloom [quote] You're the one who says the Constitution is based on Christian law. You should define it. [/quote]

Fair comment. I give you that.

Let's take one of the Commandments: Thou shall not kill. This Commandment is absolute. Life is sacred; especially, your life that no one has the authority to terminate for any reason. This Christian law is violated in Gaza. To the horror of Christian Americans, the secular US Government support and facilitate the breaking of this Christian law by supplying arms to commit this sin.

Is this clear enough for you?

@LeopoldBloom [quote] I'll give an example of disagreements among Christians. Evangelicals think homosexuality is the worst sin of all. Episcopalians not only don't care about that, they have openly gay priests. So you have two sets of Christians with diametrically opposed beliefs on this issue. If the Evangelicals get to make the law for everyone, being gay will be illegal; if the Episcopalians make the law for everyone, gay people will have the same rights as everyone else. And both of them justify their positions based on the Bible. [/quote]

You pointed out that Christians cannot agree on what Christian law is.

Is Christian law based on the Bible? You have stated that it is. You have created the premise that Christian law is based on the Bible. And you inferred that the confusion arising therefrom among different people professing to be followers of Christ Jesus can't agree on what the moral teaching on homosexuality is.

Christian law is not based on the Bible. It is based on you when evil is absent. Being Christian is to be Christlike and in communion with that which is untouched by evil.

Following the Bible is a tradition of the Jews whose religion of Judaism is based on Jewish scripture. Right and wrong in Jewish culture is a matter of debate by the learned of the law. You don't know what is right and wrong until the head honcho of the Temple tells you.

@sree251 If Christian law is based on the internal feelings of individual Christians, it's useless as the basis of secular law. Let's take abortion, which is very controversial now. The Bible is silent on it (except for the Bitter Water test, which could result in abortion as a side effect). Some Christians are opposed to it, others think it should be legal. You can't resolve that debate religiously because everyone is claiming to be channeling Jesus (even though he never said one word for or against abortion). So it has to be resolved through secular channels. It's fine if a Congressman says "I'm against abortion because my faith tells me it's wrong," but that will only have an effect if a majority of other Congressman support him.

If Christians didn't follow the Bible, they wouldn't constantly be quoting Bible verses in support of their positions. So it's not just Jews who follow it. And as you point out, Jews engage in scholarly debate, which is very different from Christian "Bible study" where the Bible is approached on the most superficial level and taken literally, with no consideration for the agenda of the people who wrote it or the time they wrote it in.

"Thou shalt not kill" is very clear. So that means Christians should be pacifists, like Quakers, who not only refuse to serve in the military, but also don't believe in killing in self-defense. I used to work for a woman who was a devout Quaker. They are opposed to violence against other people for any reason, with no exceptions. So rather than send terrorists into Israel to murder innocent people, Hamas should surrender immediately and give up their armaments.

Also, still waiting for your evidence that God created mankind. You may want to start by proving that God exists and isn't just a figment of your imagination.

@LeopoldBloom [quote] If Christian law is based on the internal feelings of individual Christians, it's useless as the basis of secular law. [/quote]

Quite right. You've got it, man. Secular law is a matter of thought and definable by the mind. Christian law is of the heart.

[quote] Let's take abortion, which is very controversial now. The Bible is silent on it (except for the Bitter Water test, which could result in abortion as a side effect). Some Christians are opposed to it, others think it should be legal. You can't resolve that debate religiously because everyone is claiming to be channeling Jesus (even though he never said one word for or against abortion). [b]So it has to be resolved through secular channels.[/b] It's fine if a Congressman says "I'm against abortion because my faith tells me it's wrong," but that will only have an effect if a majority of other Congressman support him. [/quote]

Abortion is a secular matter. So is war. There is no right way to deal with consequences of a wrong act. We have got to stay out of trouble. One bite of the forbidden fruit and you go straight to Hell, the secular world.

@sree251 OK, so if the major issues of the day are determined by secular law, do you care to amend your earlier claim that the US is under Christian law?

@LeopoldBloom [quote] If Christians didn't follow the Bible, they wouldn't constantly be quoting Bible verses in support of their positions. So it's not just Jews who follow it. And as you point out, Jews engage in scholarly debate, which is very different from Christian "Bible study" where the Bible is approached on the most superficial level and taken literally, with no consideration for the agenda of the people who wrote it or the time they wrote it in. [/quote]

Christianity is a confused religion at one level, and amazing in another. As you must know, the Bible was written by Jews, those apostate Jews, his disciples and followers, who were drawn to Jesus. He was definitely a Palestinian if he was born in Nazareth.

According to historians, the Bible began to take shape some 400 years after Jesus walked the earth. The question of the Messiah was central to the breakaway of apostate Jews, who believed Jesus was the Messiah, from Judaism. Those Jews who followed Christ were known as Christians. They continued using the Torah, books of the Hebrew Bible, that formed the Old Testament of the Christian Bible to provide religious context to Jesus. I am not a biblical scholar and won't argue on the details. The second part of the Christian Bible consists of scriptural writings of the apostate Jews (Christians): Jesus apostles who wrote the gospels, and mainly the writings of Paul.

Naturally, the following of the Bible is a Jewish religious tradition because at the beginning of this new religion, Christianity was practiced by Jews using a different religious book, the Christian Bible, written by Jews. This is the basis of the Christian confusion. What gave this Jewish religious mutation phenomenal power was the universal appeal of Jesus' teaching. It speaks to a fundamentally different morality of human affection that forbids interpersonal enmity. If not for this single doctrine, Christianity would not have more than a billion followers across cultures and be just an obscure cult of the Jewish tribe.

I don't know how the Jews do it in their temples. I doubt they gather solely for the purpose of religious worship. If they did, then they would probably be as superficial and literal with their mitzvot commandments. I saw a lot of Hasedic Jews with their funny dangling hair and fedoras when I was a kid growing up in New York. The Jews who made sense in scholarly debate are the reformed Jews. They could slice and dice every human issue till it has no moral value

@sree251 Jesus wasn't a Palestinian since the Palestinian nationality didn't exist until the 1920s at the earliest. He was Jewish, from Galilee.

You don't have to school me on who wrote the Bible or how Jews worship as I attended Hebrew school for many years. I will correct you on the early Christians, however. Traditionally, Mark was a Roman soldier and Luke was a Greek physician. Matthew was supposed to be Jewish, and John was a Jewish mystic.

There were also two groups of early Christians in conflict with each other. James the brother of Jesus led the Jewish group, where Christians were a Jewish sect, and you had to first convert to Judaism if you wanted to join. Paul led the second group composed of gentiles who could become Christian simply by accepting Jesus. After the Romans obliterated the Jewish state in the first century, the James group disappeared along with other Gnostic Christian groups with even more interesting beliefs. For example, the Gnostics believed that the God of the Bible was a demon named Yaldabaoth, whose mother was Wisdom, and her father was the true God which their goal was to attain union with.

The Paul group was the only one left, and his version of Christianity is the only one left despite the many denominations that exist today. The reason Christianity is so widespread is that after it was adopted by the Romans as the official state religion, it was spread across Europe at the point of a sword, and later, imposed on Latin America and Africa in the same way.

@LeopoldBloom [quote] Thou shalt not kill" is very clear. So that means Christians should be pacifists, like Quakers, who not only refuse to serve in the military, but also don't believe in killing in self-defense. I used to work for a woman who was a devout Quaker. They are opposed to violence against other people for any reason, with no exceptions. [b]So rather than send terrorists into Israel to murder innocent people, Hamas should surrender immediately and give up their armaments.
[/quote][/b]

You are presenting a situation in Hell for a response of Heaven. The two domains are not in the same universe.

Pacifism is a concept of opposition to war. This is a state of conflict. Only a fool would get caught between a rock and a hard place. Jesus didn't teach us not to kill. He told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. "Thou shalt not kill" came from the Jewish Torah, a commandment on Moses' tablet.

The situation in Gaza is toxic. Nothing good can come out of it. It is a pyre for human sacrifice. We must not get sucked into it.

@sree251 I thought you didn't follow the Bible because only Jews do that and you're not Jewish.

I agree that we should stay out of the Gaza war. In fact, we have stayed out of it so far. I was just pointing out that a pacifist would want the IDF and Hamas to both stop fighting.

@sree251 [quote]You are presenting a situation in Hell for a response of Heaven. The two domains are not in the same universe.

Pacifism is a concept of opposition to war. This is a state of conflict. Only a fool would get caught between a rock and a hard place. Jesus didn't teach us not to kill. He told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. "Thou shalt not kill" came from the Jewish Torah, a commandment on Moses' tablet.

The situation in Gaza is toxic. Nothing good can come out of it. It is a pyre for human sacrifice. We must not get sucked into it.[/quote]

The Jesus character was absolutely a moron at giving advice. He said that you must hate your family as well as yourself if you want to be his buddy. So, where in the hell does this[b][i] "love our neighbors as ourselves"[/i][/b] BS come from?

@LeopoldBloom [quote] Also, still waiting for your evidence that God created mankind. You may want to start by proving that God exists and isn't just a figment of your imagination. [/quote]

Did I not reply to a question?

God is a concept of Judaism in the Book of Genesis. I did point out that Christianity is a confused religion based on the Christian Bible cooked up by Jews. Be that as it may, the teaching of Jesus does have a divine basis in a spiritual sense. This has nothing to do with the Jewish concept of the God creator.

Perception is reality. Your perception of what you are is informed by knowledge. I do not share your perception of being a human organism. Consequently, the nature of that material organism and its evolutionary origin is of no relevance to me. My perception of what I am is mysterious. I can't discern any definite quality of being anything. This is the honest truth. It is not a comfortable situation to be in. I would rather be where I am than where you are as a soulless primate.