I can only speak for myself, opinion-wise, here. But I would like to point out how you are, well... missing the point. You've completely skimmed over and missed everything the writer of this post has written.
I don't think you know as much as you think you do. A humble person is never superior to another person when they have knowledge, they share it. Jesus tought that.
One of the things that Christians do not understan about their faith is how they abandoned it. I won't go too far into detail, but I will say that most Christians today celebrate Pagan traditions and barely understand a thing about their Jewish roots, let alone actually practicing them.
Personally, I do not judge you as a bad person because you are a Christian republican. In a very anithetical fashion, my parents and my father's family are conservatives and Catholics. I can not hate them, they are my family. I do not judge them falsely (another teaching of Jesus -or should I say, Jeshua). I will not spread hate to an individual for being a republic &/or christian. I have many Christian friends who mean the world to me, although I must say that they have little in common with any Republicans I know of...
My point is, I do not judge YOU based on the actions of your party, however, it would be a lie to say that I judge the Republican party based on the actions of a few. It is a PARTY, and the vast majority of its members support, well, their own values? I think it makes sense for me to say that the Republicans act Republican, and that Jesus did not behave in a manner that treated the people of society the way the Republicans do.
I guesse that would be the defenition of a Christian, wouldn't it? I don't mind that. You believe Jesus is the son of God, and I don't. Therefore, you are a Christian and I am not. It's funny how alot of Republican Christians I know wouldn't recognize a quote from the bible that I know by heart if I were to say it too them, but I, being a non-christian, happen to admire the teachings of Jesus and live my own life in a similar fashion (poor, charitable, easy to forgive, tolerant, etc). I am not saying that I am above you. You're religion is a legit one, if only its followers would try to learn something from their own religion. Ghandi once said, "I love Jesus, it is not him who I am unfond of. I am bothered by the Christians who are so unlike their Christ".
Jesus might encourage a conservative lifestyle (pro-creation, heterosexual marriage, a nuclear family, etc.) but you are missing the point. Legality is out of the equation for Jesus. In the past, he never forced one to agree with his lifestyle, and he always practiced what he preached. Making things legal and illegal is forcing a lifestyle upon someone, which Jesus would have frowned upon. Therefore, Jesus may not have agreed with the various lifestyles of those that are Democrat, but he would have sided with them solely because they are not forcing anyone to live (or not to live) a particular lifestyle.
All religions are dogmatic. If there are are religions that promote violence, I have never heard of it.
The Golden Rule:
Christianity- Do unto others as you would do unto yourself.
Hinduism- This is the sum of Dharma, do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.
Buddhism- Hurt not in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.
Confucianism- The one word to sum up how life should be conducted is "shu". It means reciprocity. Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.
Islam- Not a single person truly believes in God until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.
Judaism- Thou shalt love thy neighbor as one loves thyself. What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man; the is the only law and all the rest is commentary.
Shammanism- Respect for all life is the foundation. What we do to everything we really do to ourselves, so harm nothing, for all is one.
Roman Paganism- The law imprinted on the hearts of all men is to love the members of society as themselves.
Shinto- The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form.
Sufism- The basis of Sufism is consideration of the hearts and feelings of others. If you haven't the will to gladden someone's heart, then at least beware lest you hurt someone's heart, for on our path, no sin exists but this.
Taoism- Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss.The sage has no interest of his own, but takes the interests of the people as his own. He is kind to the kind; he is also kind to the unkind, for Virtue is kind. He is faithful to the faithful; he is also faithful to the unfaithful, for Virtue is faithful.
Vodooan- One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts.
Wicca- An' it harm none, do as thou wilt.
Rastafari- What Him don't like for Himself, do not give to Him brother, for I is I and Him is I, and Her and Him and I are all one child of Jah (God).
Politics encourages violence, not religion. Bush encouraged a war for oil in the east and masked it by saying we need to protect our country. Our own men and women and many Arabs are dead now for the sake of "patriotism"... except the real reason was to start another crusade (for oil... that makes sense -note the sarcasm).
You believe the bible is the word of God, fine. Keep in mind, the bible can be the word if God if that's what you think it is, but PEOPLE wrote it and translate it. I don't have to agree with the biases of any particular person, and if you want to believe that these biases belong to your God and not whoever actually wrote the bible, fine, but if you believe the teachings of the prophet John, verse 14:6, then it is just as much your word as it is any devine being's, and saying that it is the word of God does not make it an excuse for it to be the word of an entire society.
I'm not going to argue about Bush's "patriotism". I don't care if he loves his country or not, the point is that his politics are incompatible with his religion. Just for the record, nationalism was the attitude that caused two world wars, and it is a scary time to become fanatical about one's country.
Free will means exactly what it sounds like it means: feel free to do whatever you want, if you go to hell for it then it is your problem. Don't try to mask in by saying, "oh, but Christians can make votes prohibiting people from living their life as they please, because it doesn't matter if they don't believe in God, they have ti live like a Christian, and if they don't, we'll make it illegal for them to get married, have an abortion, whatever". The whole point is that such behavior is unchristian. If you believe in the teaching of free will, then you can't stop me from marrying another woman or becoming a socialist, because Jesus would frown upon you for voting to make that illegal. If you DO want to limit how I can live my life, fine, but don't use your relegion as an excuse for pushing your perogatives, because your religion does not actually support forcing me or anyone else to live my life your way.
Noone is saying that Jesus would support abortion or gay marriage. Heck, I would never get an abortion, I think it's evil. The point is, there are situations (such as rape) where someone may get pregnant and simply feels that an abortion would be the right thing to do, and I can not make that person feel the same way I do. Jesus, much like the liberal party, would not allow abortion to become illegal for people who do not believe it is wrong. Now, alot of people would feel uncomfortable if murder became legal, there are simply things that society can't deal with if it isn't illegal. What I'm saying is, Jesus would not approve of abortion, but all of this legality business would equate to coercion in the mind of someone like Jesus, and I would like to remind you that it was people of the law that nailed Jesus to a cross.
Trickle down doesn't ever actually "trickle down". No liberal is going to tell you that making money is wrong, but Jesus would tell you that money is evil. The problem with trickle down is that it makes the rich even more rich while poor people lose job oppertunities because bigger businesses are made and rich people generally keep those businesses in the family. The majority of people who work for corperations are doing the small work and getting minimal pay. The rest of the people in the corperations, the family that owns it for instnance, get richer while more people try to get a job there. Trying to equally distribute paychecks (which doesn't actually happen, by the way) makes it difficult for the people who need money to get more of it.
The stock market isn't doing great, I don't know where you heard that garbage.
Generally, our bigger businesses are starting to do better, sure, but the poor people still have the same amount of money as always and prices are always rising, while these people can't afford the healthcare they need and to pay their bills, the lower classes are paying more because the richer people are too scared to pay a little more tax than they already are paying, which wouldn't hurt them much and would take some of the weight off of the lower classes. Jesus wouldn't want people to go suffering, yet the rich Christians are too concerned about paying higher taxes than helping out those that can't pay their taxes if they can't pay their bills.
I'm not saying that rich Christians don't give charity, because I know that they do. The point is that it is not enough, and it is too ironic how such charitable people wouldn't want to make it easier for the poor by taking off some of the weight. Did Jesus not help to carry the cross of a theif as well as his own?
And just so you know, the poor aren't lazy. Most of them are on welfare for a reason you have yet to comprehend. The majority of poor people come from poor families or foster families, and could never afford to go to a good college. You don't go to a good college, you don't get a job that pays enough for you to pay for your taxes, bills, health care, to put food on the table, and to get whatever other things are neccesary in this society. These days kids can't do homework if they don't have the internet, a television, and a phone. So many families are feeling the pressure because they can't afford cable (such as my own family) as well as the internet (such as many families in rural areas that depend on small businesses. I can barely even begin to tell you how many
small family owned businesses I've seen close down in the past few months). When these people can't pay for what they need, regardless of whether they have a job or not. People can't find jobs in the town that they can AFFORD to live in, get your facts straight. People can't find jobs for MILES.
No, Jesus is not about health care. But politicians are dragging religion into everything these days, open your eyes. Religion isn't even faith anymore, it's all just dirty and ugly politics.
Jesus would not agree with a health care that needs to be payed for at all, let alone one that only the rich can afford. Therefore, Jesus would not agree with either party. He'd perform some fish-in-a-basket miracle and give health care to everyone for free. Did he not freely and at the drop of a hat cure the blind, bring back a boy from the dead, and heal the sick? But the world doesn't work that way, and what the writer of this post is trying to say is that someone LIKE Jesus, for instance, a REAL Christian, would be in favor for socialised health care so that everyone could be taken care of. Do you realise how selfish you sound when you go complaining about how much you work, and then, heaven forbid, taxes increase so that sick people can pay for their health care. How Christian of you -again, note the sarcasm.
Yes, Jesus would want the Christians to step up. He would want everyone to stand up no matter if they believe he is the son of God or not. Like I've said, I'm sure you are a kind person with good intentions, but you are very unlike your Christ. Trying to stand up for a party that stands for nothing your religion stands for doesn't make any sense at all, which was the point of this post.
JB wrote:You have you interesting thoughts about two things that I know a whole lot about. Christianity and Republicans. I’m saddened by the fact that you have animosity towards religion, which I’m assuming you are referring to Christianity. I’m not sure why it became unrealistic to you but regardless please don’t consider all Republicans bad based on the actions of a few.
I’m a Christian because I believe in the Bible and I believe Jesus is God’s one and only Son. I’m a Republican because the Republican National party lines themselves closer to my conservative values more so than the Democrats.
I do understand when you compare Christianity to other religions we are very dogmatic. When we quote John 14:6 we mean it and it makes people upset. Keep in mind that is God’s word not mine. Also, Christianity is a religion of love vs. some religions that promote violence. (I’m talking about religion not denominations.) Bush may come across stern and harsh but he does have a true love for the American people.
I’m not quite sure what you mean when you discuss the Republican Party taking away this free will that was so important to God. Anyway, the free will God address is our free will to accept His Son Jesus or Deny His Son Jesus. God does not want to force us to love Him. When it comes to abortion we believe that it’s killing a baby. (I know the arguments about when life begins etc.) I’m just stating what we believe. We as Christians are against gay marriages. (I’m not gay bashing or anything just stating what we believe.) As a side note I do not think being gay is considered an unforgivable sin nor is it worse than any sin I have done. With all that being said I respectfully disagree with you when you say Jesus would side with democrats on the above issues. If that is what you are saying…..
Economics……humm… As for taxes why do Democrats want to penalize people for making more money? They tell you in school that trickle down doesn’t work yet we are seeing the lowest unemployment rate in years. Our stock market is doing great and people say they can’t find jobs but what they really mean is they can’t find a job in the town they want to live in. They can’t find a job that pays them what they think they are worth. They can’t find a job that is better than welfare. Why work when our Government takes for the rich and gives to the lazy.
Wow you bring out some good thoughts. I hope you don’t mind me sharing…so I’ll move on to NPR radio evangelist. You are correct. Republicans do not believe in socialized health. I work my rear off and pay a bunch in taxes. If you socialized health care then who knows how much more we would have to be taxed to pay for it. Now…as for Jesus and health care. Christianity is about Jesus and his love for us. It’s not about health care. It’s not about politics. You are correct when you say America seems consumed with money. America is consumed with wealth and worldly possessions and not necessarily Republicans. When Jesus was making his statement about the rich man he was making a point. The point being that wealth will not get you into Heaven. The problem with most people is they will allow the pursuit of wealth to consume their whole life.
I’ll leave with this last statement. I realize as a Christian that I’m a sinner saved from Hell by the grace of God. I’m not perfect but my Jesus is. I also realize that my lifestlye at times gives Him a bad name. I apologize to you for anything a fellow brother or sister in Christ may have done to offend you. Jesus does want us to help the poor and needy and most of the time my check books reflects this. I also believe that Jesus wants it to be the Christians who step up to help the sick……….Not the Government or my National party.
jb
