Prager: Single Payer Healthcare

that's sad. the Christian part of the school should be the glue, not the meat of the school. I went to catholic school and the Jesuits taught you to think and make the decisions for yourself. brainwashing these kids does no one any favors and isn't more likely to turn them into believers either.

 

I'm not saying you are, I'm speaking in general. I know plenty of people that think contact with someone that doesn't go to church 3 times a week results in God less horrible humans

 

No you can not!

Thankfully the persecution isn't violent but the denial of rights is still a form of persecution. Yes I believe a Christian has a right to abstain from any participation in gay marriage. I do not believe they should discriminate against gay persons who come in for other services unless the request for those services promotes homosexuality.

I oppose sodomy laws because they violate the 4th amendment and not because I think the act itself is acceptable behavior.

80 percent of the electorate in TN voted for one man one woman. 30 other states did something similar.

Hopefully SCOTUS will get a few more originalist on the bench. Hopefully it will be people who understand the 9th, 10th and the original intent of the 14th amendments. The more I study the constitution and history the more I realize that the Charlotte ordinance is not dissimilar to segregation laws. Its just the opposite side of the same coin. In neither case was private business the problem. It was government interference in the market place that caused the issues. In the former the government is insinuating itself into the bathroom policies of a private business. In the latter government was forcing business to discriminate based on race.

As for the nuclear thing? Well Russia still has a ton and who are we butting heads with today? China has a few hundred. NK has tinker toy nukes and Iran wants them. The inner cities are still hotbeds of violence.See Detroit, Chicago and Memphis.

The current DMV lists gender dysphoria as a mental illness. How long until the left has that removed as well?

The 50s and 80s and even most of the 90s were IMO better times.

 

LOL Dang I associate with an atheist, a lesbian and Buddhist frequently. All are decent people. It doesn't mean I want my kids to grow up and be like them. It doesn't mean I cant teach my kids that the first and last are wrong and the second is living in sin. I want to send them somewhere where those ideas of right and wrong are reinforced not eroded.

 

No brainwashing is occurring. Its a non-denominational school. They do everything public schools do except they also teach the Bible and Christ.

 

there are different types of Christian schools. the ones he was talking about are fundamentalists. If you are seriously teaching creationism and not talking honestly about real science and evolution you aren't giving the kids a chance to decide for themselves.

 

Who's forcing Christians to participate in gay marriages? What rights are being denied Christians? Being able to discriminate against a person, whether through your job or business, is not a violation of your rights. The Kim Davis' of the world fail to understand this particular point.

Who cares? You can't vote on the rights of other people. If so, interracial marriage might still be illegal and poll taxes legal in Mississippi and Alabama.

Those cities are much better than they used to be and having social problems is something that occurs in any society at any point in history. Russia today is not even remotely the threat it was as the USSR during times like the Cuban Missile Crisis. I prefer the 2017 threat of nuclear annihilation than 1956, 1962 or 1983.

Hopefully very soon.

The 50s were awful times of real persecution, racial violence, fear and small minded people. Hell, you had the KKK (Under the guise of White Citizen's Councils) basically running the Deep South, McCarthyism ruining people's lives, stifling conformity and so on. The 80s had the utterly destructive crack epidemic, murder rates well beyond where we are now, the AIDS epidemic and was just alright.

The 90s was cool. I was in high school and the economy was good, even though it was built on a bubble, and America became a lot more socially liberal, which was great after the 80s. It is on par with now. The biggest draw back to now is there's so much whiny pessimism about everything. Too many think that, if things aren't going exactly they way they want them to be, then it's a terrible time. Meanwhile, I don't really have to worry much about dying from some disease like smallpox, my chances of being killed in war, a terrorist attack or anything similar is exceptionally small and it's the most interest, technologically advanced time ever, allowing me to watch soccer games from Germany and 50 different college football games on the same day. I'm doing alright here.

 

Sorry thats your experience. Its not mine or my kids. I went to public school. Times change and not always for the better. My kids aren't taught any legalism. It is a non-denominational school. In fact they rarely do any study of the OT much to my disappointment. Its hard to find a lot of legalism in the NT even though the moral law was not overturned. Its more about what they are not taught.

I work with my kids on their homework, assignment and projects. Again my son was in public school until this year - 5th grade. I wish the focus on math was more involved but it is still better than what he was getting in public school. In fact he entered 5th grade without knowing his multiplication tables. I knew them by the end of 2nd grade. It infuriated me that the public school curriculum did not do the proper foundational work. I did what I could but my hours were/are more limited. His current teacher has taught in the public schools. She is doing more foundational type work and is also teaching the kids the lost art of cursive writing LOL. Its amazing the gains he has made in math this year.

The schools standardized test are the same as some other states public school tests. I believe public schools in Fla and TX use the same test. My daughter has scored post high school in various subjects since 8th grade. Unfortunately she scores below grade level in math. This schools students average a 27 on the ACT.

 

But we have cookies and cake!

 

Kim Davis worked in government.

Marriage is a regulated privilege and not a right. For government to deny a person a a legal privilege based on race is unconstitutional. Marrying you mother, sister, first cousin, multiple persons, your dog and someone of the same sex, until recently, are fairly prohibited.

SCOTUS could have easily said homosexual behavior is not protected under the constitution. And it is not. It could have ruled that states have the purview over marriage as they stated in the DOMA case and that each state will decide for itself. They ignored their own DOMA ruling when affirming same sex marriages. SCOTUS could have and should have said DOMA was too broad but that for the purposes of financial benefits the central government has a right to determine what is or is not marriage at the federal level.

Yes as a child of the 80s whenever the civil defense alarm went off it was in your mind is this a drill or real?
Putin is a thug and has the button. Heck one guys assassination set off WW1 think of all the crap going on today.

McCarthy was right about most of the people he fingered and after the fall of the USSR their documents showed it. Stifling conformity? Thats not how my mom or dad saw it.

The 80s were just plain awesome. You didn't have to worry about AIDS if you kept it in your pants and in America it is still a predominantly gay related disease.

I would keep gender dysphoria in the manual and get these people help. They dont need to be adding or subtracting body parts.

I am all for being more socially conservative.

As for today. Technology wise yes there is no better time to be alive.

 

But being more "socially conservative" is also fluid and doesn't mean the same thing today that it meant 25, 50, 100 or 200 years ago.

Used to mean women didn't work and couldn't vote. Africans could be slaves. Inter-racial marriage was not kosher nor legal.

So which time do you choose to be your social conservative time? Most likely (and this is a generalization, not you specifically) we pick from our childhood, so most likely guessing from your comments the late 70s to early 80s. Your dad and mom, and most likely, your grandparents would think that 1981 was too wild west and not enough conservative in posture.

 

Based on what article or amendment?

 

I love cookies and cake! Meet me on the fabulous level of hell.

 

Marriage is not a privilege and that wouldn't be the first time the Supreme Court has reversed a decision, whether Plessy, Heller or Korematsu. Marriage to your dog is not even in the same realm as gay marriage as dogs can't give consent, nor is it similar to marry your mother. Two consenting adults is a very simple concept.

If you think the threat of nuclear war is as dangerous now as in the Cold War, then you aren't paying attention to what's happening now or what was going on then. Putin isn't remotely close to Stalin, nor has he threatened to "bury us". And, World War I had a lot of mitigating factors well beyond the assassination of the Archduke. The specter of world conflict is quite a bit less now than in 1914.

McCarthy was an alcoholic idiot who was right as often as a broken clock is. He had phony lists of commies that changed depending on who he was talking to and used the hearings as a method. He probably hurt the process of rooting out communists and spies than helped, especially as he worsened society through his fear mongering and recklessness.

The 50s conformity was so disliked that the subsequent decade had two of the largest anti-establishment social movements in American history.

The 80s was great if you were a white Yuppie asshole, for one, yeah (Not insinuating you were one. Or that only they liked the 80s), but quite a different story for a number of other people. And, you must not be remembering the 80s like I do if you think that people just thought "keeping it in your pants" made them unconcerned. I'm sure Ryan White would disagree with you.

I, actually, did have a decent 80s, but I was also just a kid. The cities were in serious decay from deindustrialization and were not safe, at all. In Nashville, for example, you did not go anywhere near downtown because it was not safe, at all, which had precipitated the Grand Ole Opry moving from the Ryman. You certainly didn't go past the river. Otherwise, the status of American cities is so much better and more vibrant now than in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Sounds a lot like the "praying the gay away" stuff that doesn't work.

 

We will have to agree to disagree.

 

14th under its narrow and original intent.

 

I got to wrap things up here so I can get up to Bridgestone. 9 pages is enough to have fleshed out our positions and its a long way off the OT.

 

Welcome to the 8th. That's how we roll here. You're lucky it didn't end up discussing midget windsurfing in Baja or something inane like that.

 

Midgets are people too

If the Preds win tonight the place is liable to implode. That atmosphere is 10x anything else I have seen up there. I doubt we sweep the hawks but I am hoping we do.

Out the door in 15.

 

I agree 100% with this.

I also agree with what JudgementVol has said. The reason I left the Baptist church, well they actually left me, was because in a religion where Love was supposed to be the greatest aspect, all I saw was hate. And that hatred wasn't under the surface either. It was 100% in your face. So, I don't think JudgementVol could have picked a better analogy when describing too many Christians in today's world than saying they are modern day Pharisees more concerned about their image of holiness and bragging profusely about that rather than going out to spread what was commanded by Jesus, the message of peace, love and forgiveness. Being a Christian, I'm saddened to say that in many cases we have been our own worst enemy.


I know this is a long post, but I feel moved to share the story of the last straw for me at my old church. Was in Sunday School class the Sunday following the Newtown, CT shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Naturally, the subject of such a horrific event was going to come up. I was prepared to raise the issue in relation to praying for those who had been impacted by the senseless violence, and perhaps even discuss ways, no matter how small, we could do something to help. Another person raised the topic before I could; however, they had a much different direction for the conversation than I did. So, I'm sitting there beside my wife whose father was the class teacher, and one man mentions the event in one breath. Ok. I expected it to be raised, but I was wholly unprepared and genuinely left seething by what came out of his mouth in his next breath. With a tone of utter contempt and hatred, he said, (and yes, this is a direct quote)"Obama will just use this as another excuse to take our guns!".........I sat there for a few seconds trying to come to terms with what was just said. During those few seconds, a few others added their comments along those lines, but I don't exactly remember what was said because the only focus I had was the volcano of anger and utter contempt welling up inside me just before it exploded. I slowly turned to my wife who was pale as a ghost while she frantically was shaking her head no to me. She knew exactly what was coming. I started to speak, but my wife interrupted me saying, "Please don't." I might not remember all everyone else said while this reality was sinking in with me, but I do 100% remember what I said and did, (Looking straight into the eyes of the person that opened his mouth first while answering my wife's futile pleas to not say anything)"No. I'm not going to keep my mouth shut on this one!" My voice was getting louder with each word. "Did you just say what I think you said?!?" Not giving him time to answer, I continued much to my wife's horror, "There are 20 dead CHILDREN and several dead adults here, and all you're concerned about immediately after it's happened is worring about govt coming to get your guns?!? Nothing about praying for the family but guns! That's quite possibly THE most disgusting thing I've ever heard in my life!" Turning to my wife who had an anguished look on her face, "No! That IS the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. This is a church & we're worried about our guns instead of the families? That's ridiculous! I'll never step foot inside this place ever again. I don't want any part of a "church" that thinks this way! None!" I got up and walked out & have honored my word. Only 2 people even called me to try to reach out to smooth this over, but that wasn't going to happen. There's lines you just don't cross with me, and that was ine of them.

My wife felt exactly the same way. She just isn't big on direct confrontation. She went and got our daughters and we left right then and haven't been back. This wasn't the only political issue to come up during that time. I witnessed openly hostile, I'd even say hatre-filled, words spoken from the pulpit towards many people. I go to church to worship not listen to hate speeches. Soon after we left, my father in law, eho was chairman of the elders, left the church for the same reasons. This was tough on my wife & f-i-l. They had both grown up in this church, but to their credit, they chose Christian teachings over the draw of "home". It took us a couple of months of visiting, but we've found a new Methodist church where people are focused on Love instead of hate. My wife & I knew we were where we should be when our then female pastor ended her sermon with these words, "It doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter what you smell like. It doesn't matter how much money you have. It doesn't matter how good or bad of a person you, or others, think you are. ALL people are welcome in the house of The Lord."


I even let out a hearty, "AMEN!" after hearing that. Sorry for the novel. I just wanted to share that.