Podcast #51: Amber Waves of Jesus

106 July 5, 2015 by

51_mainIn this episode of Drunk Ex-Pastors, Jason begins with a riddle for Christian, the answer to which Christian is not sure he agrees with (but then, neither do thousands of PhDs, but what do they know?). We dabble briefly in geopolitics once again, this time weighing the pros and cons of having more female world leaders (because as men, we feel it’s our place to opine on such matters), after which we take a call that causes Christian to ask Jason to hide his erection. We discuss the issue of how “Christian” America was intended to be on a scale of “Pretty Damn” to “Utterly and Completely.” Christian’s bieber has to do with sticky messes, while Jason is biebered by (wait for it) not enough technology.

Also, trust us: You always switch doors.

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106 Comments (click here to leave a comment)

  1. As with most things in life, context matters. This is true regarding the use of Jap in last week’s podcast as well as using profanity or slurs in quotations. However, what about when it comes to singing?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSJMAX5NrBc

    Not to mention in the video it’s not even the real variant! But the reality is, none of us can see into the hearts of anyone else. Just because I don’t say the n word, it doesn’t mean I’m not the biggest racist around and repressing minorities at work by denying them opportunities. Which is worse?

    On the whole issue of women leaders, as you guys pointed out, the world hasn’t had that many women leaders (in modern times) but whole rafts of research has shown that involving women almost always tend to lead to better decision making; 1. Fortune 500 companies with more women directors tend to make more money (http://www.catalyst.org/media/companies-more-women-board-directors-experience-higher-financial-performance-according-latest), 2. women traders tend to make fewer riskier bets than their male counterparts (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/behavioral-economics-show-that-women-tend-to-make-better-investments-than-men/2013/10/10/5347f40e-2d50-11e3-97a3-ff2758228523_story.html), the list goes on and on. And on a personal note, it looks like Taiwan is going to, for the first time anywhere (happened in Chile in 2013), have a presidential election between two women.

    Here’s a religious question that I’ve always had. How does Christianity square the fact that there are three deities (God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit) it claims to worship yet still call itself a Monotheistic religion? I mean, Jesus is either God or God’s son, he can’t be both right?

  2. I don’t think you’ll ever find anyone capable of explaining the Trinity without leaving some theological holes in it or crossing into outright heresy.

    My own explanation is if we ourselves as personal beings, then God would be a super-personal being. Much like a cube to our being squares. We are defined, but limited in dimension, whereas he would possibly have infinite depth to his personhood. Jesus would be one plane or person within the cube, the Father would be another, and the Spirit would be another.

    This would leave open the possibility that God has more persons than three, but those three are the only ones we are aware of. Hell, it would leave open the possibility that perhaps through the redemption we will be integrated as one of the infinite planes within the cube.

    And now that I’ve definitely crossed into heresy, I’ll go listen to the podcast and get to work.

  3. We’re not going to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, unless maybe America loses its goddamned mind and elects Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. We’re not going to invade Ukraine. If the GOP takes power, we might start arming the Ukraine government, which would be monumentally stupid, but even that is still a proxy war, not a direct war.

    No one wants nuclear war. Putin may say “all options are on the table”, but that’s what we say as well, and in nuclear war, no one is going to win. Putin is using us as an ‘enemy’ to win nationalist support for his regime.

    If you really want to be scared, you should read up on all of the false positives that happened on the US and the Soviet’s early warning systems that could have ended the world probably a dozen times during the Cold War were it not for some human officer who said… “Uh, that can’t be right. Maybe we should wait and confirm that there are actually missiles coming at us before we start WWIII.”

    If a nuclear war happened and Seattle was bombed, you might survive the initial blast, but depending upon the prevailing winds, you’re probably going to be bathed in radioactive fallout from the blast, which means a slow lingering death from radiation poisoning or an even greater likelihood that you’ll die an even slower, more painful lingering death from cancer a couple of decades down the road.

    America was founded in an act of rebellion against the lawful governing authority.

    That right there should cause Christians to realize that our nation’s founding was not steeped in Christianity.

    And that’s before we get to slavery, ethnic cleansing, using the government to benefit the rich and well connected, and the subservience of women in the new Republic.

    EDIT: David Barton was the other ‘historian’, I believe. He’s since been discredited after trying to apply the Jesus lens to Thomas Jefferson and being laughed at by legitimate historians.

  4. The fear these days isn’t state to state nuclear war (other than maybe India & Pakistan) because even as much of a Tsar Putin has made himself these days, he’s still thinking somewhat about his legacy and doesn’t view the current conflicts as existential, at least not in the same way India and Pakistan view their current entanglement.

    And that’s before we get to slavery, ethnic cleansing, using the government to benefit the rich and well connected, and the subservience of women in the new Republic.

    Hey, if you’re into prosperity gospel as espoused by some of these mega churches you might be on board with that.

  5. My question to the cube to square thing is, why does God need all these extra dimensionalities, especially when it seems that they’re just being used to communicate to us….

  7. Couple other thoughts I forgot:

    1. While discussing the treatment of Japanese people in the media, you guys kind of glossed over the fact that United States citizens of Japanese descent were sent to internment camps illegally! Kind of a big deal guys.

    2. Jason – I’m back in Irvine on Wednesday, if you’re still in town Thur/Fri and have time, would be great to get together for a beer or two.

    3. I was having a hard time with the Monty Hall puzzle until I read the mathphiles comment and cottoned onto the fact that this isn’t really a maths puzzle…

    The absolute key here is to ALWAYS remember the following… Monty KNEW what was behind the doors and his opening of a “zonk” was not a random act… There was NO CHANCE the car could be revealed at that moment. He was REQUIRED to reveal a zonk from one the two unchosen doors!

    4. I am curious, the way you guys defined deism is kind of how I’ve always described agnosticism. What are the distinctions, if any?

    5. The anaethesiologist’s license was revoked and he got $500K. Here’s the story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/anesthesiologist-trashes-sedated-patient-jury-orders-her-to-pay-500000/2015/06/23/cae05c00-18f3-11e5-ab92-c75ae6ab94b5_story.html?tid=ptv_rellink

    6. Jason, being the U2 lover that you are, you might enjoy the latest ep of Song Exploder: http://songexploder.net/u2

  8. Like the cube’s infinite Z planes, the trinity could simply be the nature of Its being, or it could be the way It chooses to express Itself towards us, or it could be the result of an evolution in theology from monotheists who held to a weak Christology to those who held to a strong Christology.

    But in that instance, Jesus would be the Z-plane that intersected with our dimension. The physical aspect of the cube that was visible to the rest of us squares. The Holy Spirit and the Father still being invisible to us, because they are outside of our plane of existence, but the Christ aspect we saw referred to them and assured us that they had some effect on our plane.

    I mean, it’s an interesting thought process, but ultimately, I think the answer is that you have to take it on faith.

  9. 1. We definitely mentioned the camps at some point. Unless we didn’t.

    3. The riddle really has nothing to do with Monty Hall other than that he hosted a game show which had a similar scenario.

    4. Deism would say there is a god, but he remains rather aloof, right? An agnostic would claim to not really know if there is a god or not, with individual agnostics leaning sometimes more towards there not being one or towards there being one.

  10. I will never say that war cannot happen, or that we do not live in dangerous times. We’ve lived in dangerous times all of our life.

    Fortunately, thus far, we have had a president who is cautious in regards to the Ukraine situation. That could change and I think Republican hawks could make the situation worse.

    But, barring that, I think Putin is a rational actor and is more concerned with power than he is with destroying the world. I don’t think he would risk using nuclear weapons unless Russia was faced with invasion from the West and was desperate.

  11. 1. Ya you guys did mention the camps (although called it concentration instead of internment) and as I said, mentioned it in such a passing way which kind of undersells the significance of that act.

    2. Sort of, the supposition remains that the person who opens the door will not open the door that has the car, thereby increasing the odds for the door that you did not choose (therefore meaning you should change your choice).

    4. Hmm, interesting. In which case I guess I am more of a deist than I ever thought.

  12. Right — having glanced through the vox article, it isn’t quite as alarmist as @christiankingery:disqus made it out to be. Putin, despite his rhetoric, is a rational actor, playing up nationalist sentiments. He wouldn’t be in power for too long once nuclear winter hits.

  14. On your Trinity question, it is a mystery. We simply don’t have enough insight into it to wrap our minds around it. There is one God that exists in 3 persons, yet is still 1 God. Like Comrade said, anything short of the Nicene creed is heresy. Here is a humorous video about Trinity analogies failing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw
    We would have never arrived at the idea of the Trinity through natural reasoning, it had to be Revealed. What is interesting about the Trinity is that it makes sense of ideas such as Creation not being necessary (God could have chosen not to Create anything and been perfectly fulfilled without it), God being Father eternally (eternally begetting a Son), and God being Love. Since God is three persons, God can be love (love implies an object) without need of Creation; God is love by His very essence. That love is in between different persons, so it is not selfish. And sense that love is >2 it also isn’t exclusive.

    If god was one, and one person (such as in Islam). God couldn’t be love without creation. If god was love, it would be a selfish inward looking love. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine a god like that ever bothering to create anything at all. Or it would mean that god can’t be fulfilled without creation. God would then be dependent on creation.

    However, here is my favorite analogy for the Trinity (realizing that all analogies fail). God the Son is the Word of God the Father, the Revelation of who and what God is to Himself. His communication of Himself is so perfect and complete, that It is God also (the Son), yet a separate person. God is therefore begetting the Son eternally. God the Father and the Son love each other so fully and so perfectly that That love is also God (the Holy Spirit). So you have God the Father eternally communicating himself, giving, fathering, begetting the Son. And both the Father and the Son communicating, giving, loving each other eternally that takes on the form of the Holy Spirit. Their love is so perfect, overflowing, and outward focused that they decide to Create.

  15. Yeah no kidding! I know you are talking about war, but look how quickly the confederate flag thing erupted in the consciousness of our society. Rightly of course, but the rapidness and degree it took, was shocking to me. I mean, ebay, amazon, and walmart striping their shelves, yet you can still buy nazi stuff on ebay and amazon!? Also, remember GW Bush has both the highest and lowest presidential approval rating records for any president; he broke the 90% mark following 9/11. He could have started a war for no reason with that kind of approval… oh wait…

  16. Deism, is a claim to know that there is a creator god from observation and reasoning about the natural world; but no further claim to that god being personal, interacting with or even caring about their creation. So it is a claim to knowledge, so not agnosticism. Deism is usually referred to the god of the philosophers.

    I’m pretty convinced at the moment about Christianity. However, I’m even more convinced about God’s existence. It seems absolutely absurd to me to believe there is no God. We can talk about what can and can’t be known about that God, how much He has revealed about himself, or even how personal or not He is, but His existence in my mind is very solid.

  17. On being afraid of the atomic age….. this video is long, so I know Jason won’t watch it. But if anyone else is interested CS Lewis did a radio show on this exact topic decades ago. Really freaking interesting. Plus the illustrations are rad.

    https://youtu.be/oxFmkg5dcyk

  19. I like the analogy of curburus the three headed dog. You have 1 being with three different persons. (Assuming each head has its own consciousness) the Trinity is “kind of like that”. Or else if you imagine a person with schizophrenia. Let’s say someone literally has 3 unique persons in one brain. We can’t ever explain the Trinity perfectly, but there are great analogies.

  21. Haha! Neither is partialism because remember, in each analogy there are actually three distinct persons present 🙂

  22. I thought they were good tries. I liked the Cerberus one. But as you know, there are no perfect analogies for the Holy Trinity. =)

    “Partialism taught that Father, Son and Holy Spirit together are components of the one God. This led them to believe that each of the persons of the Trinity is only part God, only becoming fully God when they come together.”
    (http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/Trinitarian%20Heresies.html)

    I think Cerberus fails due to Partialism. The schizophrenic person fails due to Modalism.

  23. Lane,

    Im confused by your response. The three heads of Cerburus are not “components” of one dog. They are three distinct dogs (each with its own consciousness) that make up one being! Thats spot on! Head number one is Cerburus, head number two is Cerburus, and head number 3 is Cerburus, yet they are all distinct and make up one entity. Thats as close as it gets!

    The schizo passes modalism because each of the three share the same nature and are in fact distinct. It is not “the same guy” displaying different personalities. It’s three different persons in one head!

  24. Cerberus fails for the same reason the Patrick’s 3 leaf clover fails. Each of the heads of the Cerberus is but part of the overall Cerberus, and not the whole Cerberus. Also, since probably only one can control the body of the Cerberus at a time, it also fails due to Modalism.

    The schizo person fails because the personalities can’t control nor expressive themselves as a full person at the same time, but one at a time; thus Modalism.

  25. Lane,

    Isn’t it true though that any person in the Trinity is not the whole trinity? Each person is fully God, yet not the other persons. In the same way, we could say that each of the souls or minds of Cerberus possesses the whole of Cerberus’ body. Boom. Fixed.

  26. Okay, fair enough. It is a pretty good analogy.

    If I remember correctly several years ago James White was giving WLC a hard time about the Cerberus analogy.

  28. If you haven’t seen it, take a look at the three accomplishments listed on Thomas Jefferson’s tombstone (he wrote the epitaph himself and being POTUS didn’t make the cut). It does include authoring the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom, which is pretty damning of the Christian Right and includes such gems as “our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.” In the end, the document served as the foundation for the First Amendment.

    And if nothing else, the man rewrote the Bible by taking a razor blade and cutting out all the supernatural stuff which he dismissed as “superstitions, fanaticisms, and fabrications.”

  31. Have you followed the kerfuffle in Oklahoma about the 10 Commandments on State property? OK Supreme Court said take ’em down, the Governor said no, the Church of Satan has built their own monument to be put in next to the 10 Commandments, and things are just going to escalate from there.

    Frankly, I’ve never understood the argument that US law is based on the 10 Commandments. Most of them either dictate religious practice or ban thought crimes, and the others are pretty much universally banned in all societies (theft, murder, slander). There are no explicit connections between the supreme law of the US (Constitution) and the 10 Commandments.

  32. I bet the majority of people who are concerned about taking down the 10 commandments from government buildings couldn’t tell you what the 10 commandments are.

    I love that that church of Satan has done their own things. It just highlights the idiocy of marrying church and state.

  35. (Gasp) How disrespectful of you to say such a thing! I can imagine Dr. White would have a very smug response to such an affront coming from a lowly agnostic. BTW, if you’ve never seen the debate between James white and Bart Ehrman it is absolute gold. I didn’t know wtf either man was talking about (p55 this E44 that, manuscript H97, etc etc) but it was definitely an epic ego battle!!!

  36. He is a really good debater, although I find WLC a more compelling personality; JW can be quite the a-hole. He is fun to watch debate non-catholics.

  38. I think his catholic debates are great! He wins most of them for sure. Sungenis really gave him a hard time though. Too bad that guy got all whacky.

  39. 1. I am the Lord your God.

    2. You shall have no other gods before me.

    3. You shall not make any graven images (which ironically would include a statue of the Ten Commandments to be put up and venerated in public.)

    4. Don’t use God’s name worthlessly (in vows, in a pejorative fashion, etc.) Slathering our money with “In God we trust” would seemingly qualify as a violation.

    5. Keep the Sabbath. No work on Saturdays at all. (Guess this must be one of the optional commandments for Americans.)

    6. Honor your father and mother.

    7. Do not kill. (Another optional commandment for Americans.)

    8. Do not steal. (Definitely an optional commandment for Americans.)

    9. Do not commit adultery. (Are county clerks going to stop giving marriage licenses to divorcees to stop them from committing adultery? No? Just gays? Okay, duly noted. This one is optional too.)

    10. Do not bear false witness (presumably in court.)

    11. Don’t covet your neighbor’s house.

    12. Don’t covet your neighbor’s wife either.

    13. Seriously, don’t covet anything belonging to your neighbor. (All three of which are also optional given our consumerist economy and lifestyle.)

  40. Ha ha. I think 1 & 2 are just 1, and then all the coveting ones are 10. Off the top of my head, of course. The coveting ones remind me of a scene from “The Mindy Project.”

    Jeremy: “Are you jealous of me?”
    Danny: “What? No I’m not jealous of you. Screw you. I’m saying there are things about you I wish I could have.”
    Jeremy: “You’re describing jealousy.”

  43. They should also ask about the virginal status of both parties and hurl large rocks at them when they find out it’s a negative.

    But, you know, biblical literalism is really only applicable to the other guy’s ‘sins’. When it comes to their persons, they like theological nuance and mumbo jumbo about how those laws no longer apply.

  44. I know! He was one of the best too. Now he is just a looney tune. He was a trad and got tired of defending the church when he felt like there was so much corruption from V2….. soooooooo now he’s an apologist for freaking geocentrism. Awesome.

  45. Past fornication can be forgiven. However, remarriage constitutes people unrepentantly entering into a known ongoing adulterous arrangement.

  47. This is why I won’t get remarried. It’s probably better to not know for sure whether I’m going to be fornicating than to be entering into a contract to do so. 😉

  49. The contract itself isn’t the sinful part – if it is a 2nd marriage it doesn’t exist anyway 😉 – the adultery is.

    Catholic teaching takes this seriously. Catholic converts who come into the Church who have “remarried” and are unable to obtain an annulment must abstain from taken communion so long as they continue their adulterous relationship with their “spouse”. Since known adultery is a mortal sin and they would be eating judgment on themselves. They must either get back together with their real spouse or remain celibate until their spouse dies. They can however continue to live together with their current “spouse” for practical reasons (such as they have children together) if they continue their relationship as a “Josephite marriage” (think Mary and Joseph) in celibacy.

  51. Our current culture defines what marriage is quite differently than how the Church has historically. I’ve actually heard that it might get to a point that any marriage done outside the Church might be considered invalid until proven otherwise.

  52. They can however continue to live together with their current “spouse” for practical reasons (such as they have children together) if they continue their relationship as a “Josephite marriage” (think Mary and Joseph) in celibacy.

    Yeah… that didn’t happen.

  53. I’ve actually heard that it might get to a point that any marriage done outside the Church might be considered invalid until proven otherwise.

    You mean the Church wouldn’t consider it valid?

  54. If they think your current marriage is not sacramental, then it would just require a convalidation.

  56. @christiankingery:disqus, would it be possible to make your links to the most recent comments on the right column of this site link directly to the comment’s location, and not just to the podcast’s page that the comment was made on?

  57. I believe a virgin birth before I believe in a man who would stay married to a girl for over 12 years without a bit of something something going on.

  60. lol, that’s what I figured. Actually, if I was going to have hard time with something, it was going to be that the Church teaches that the Ever Virgin Mary remained a virgin even during the birth.

    Would the story of the Mother of God remaining a virgin following the birth of Jesus be any more believable (I know you will say no, but regardless) if I told you that there is a tradition in the Church that teaches that St. Joseph was a widower and much older, and Mary was dedicated to the temple at a young age (consecrated a virgin, ~nun)? That she was married to St. Joseph so that he could be her guardian. Take note, that St. Joseph isn’t mentioned and may be dead by the time of the Crucifixion. See Protoevangelium of James.

    Also, next time you look at early renaissance artwork, especially various Eastern Orthodox icons, notice that St. Joseph is very commonly depicted as a much older man.

  61. Not really, because depicting him that way very likely springs from the Catholic idea that Mary remained a virgin after Christ’s birth and that James, Jude, and the rest of his brothers and sisters not being real brothers and sisters, but children of Joseph from a previous marriage, so Joe needs to be aged up a bit to allow for that.

    I just don’t see much support for that idea from the gospels or from human nature.

    But the perpetual virginity is one of the lesser wonky things about Catholicism to me.

  62. wtf, all it takes to become a saint in the catholic church is to be a stepfather? Shit, I’d like to get me some of that.

  63. The marriage of Church and state is not idiocy. The government is obligated to align it’s laws with the moral law of God. If it does not, the government’s laws cease to be just. When you divorce the Church and State you have only shackled yourself to a sovereign populous. One that governs by popular opinion alone. Sounds nice, until you find yourself a minority. Good thing our nation still believed in “God given rights” during the Civil rights movement. If they aren’t given by God, they are given by whomever holds all the power and wealth. I would rather have my constitution bound by God’s Word than by the whims of ignorant masses….. other than that I don’t have much of an opinion 🙂

  65. Whose god? Neither the constitution nor the declaration of independence says mentions a christian god.

  67. It mentions a “Creator”, but does not mention a specific religion. This is celebrated by secularists but I think it’s a tremendous error. You are held captive by the Sovereign Populous. You are chained by the tyranny of the majority. Moral values and human dignity are puddy in the hands of lady liberty. Good luck with that.

    Personally, I’m hoping agnostic humanists keep stealing from the Christian worldview. If they ever stop and live consistently, we are fucked.

  68. Do you even understand what you’re arguing for? Should the government have laws against adultery, breaking the sabbath, worshiping other gods, lust, etc? That would be a marriage of church and state. Should divorce be illegal? Should someone be jailed for having sex outside of marriage? How about taking the Lord’s name in vain? Is that a ticket? Or jail time?

  69. I wouldn’t have a problem with civil penalties for adultry, no fault divorce, etc. The Church teaches that human dignity demands no one be coerced into the faith against their will. People could still enjoy their own religion within due limits. You talk about these things as if they are bad. I don’t get it.

  71. How so? You realize we had like one thousand years of christendom right? During that time we invented hospitols, public universities, the scientific method, advanced philosophy, abolished slavery, womens rights, and laid the foundation for the most incredible civilization to ever inhabit the earth. It’s a pretty successful system actually. Secular humanism is still in its infancy and largely steals from our worldview whenever it accomplishes anything at all. So which is really short sighted and dangerous?

  72. I think our thoughts on this are so far apart from each other that we’re not going to have a profitable discussion on it. Our realities and how we view history couldn’t be any further apart.

  77. What about the part in John eight where Jesus tells the Pharisees not too punish a woman who had been caught in adultery even though she had clearly broken the law of Moses. Doesn’t this seem to imply that Christians shouldn’t try to enforce their beliefs through the law.

  79. I agree that Jesus was merciful and I thnk that’s clearly what lead him to say this. But if Jesus was willing to break the law for the sake of mercie shouldn’t we do the same.

  81. Also, keep in mind that Jesus did not break the law, but He did pardon her crimes. There is a difference.

  82. I wasn’t saying that Jesus sinned, that would have f***ed up the whole gospel. However, if Jesus, the only person Christians believe to be without sin, is more than willing to let an adulteres of the hook why should Christians do something different.

  84. Because Jesus is God. He can forgive sins as he pleases. There is nothing in that text that addresses how a state should formulate it’s laws. Further, once that principle is introduced, there is virtually no law that should be punished. How would that work?

  85. I’m not saying that the gouvernment can’t punish people who break the law. I just think that way the gouvernment is suposed to run and the way that the Church is are complete opisites. The gouvernment is concerned only with the actions of its people and clearly it must enforce its laws through the threat of violence. On the other hand, I believe that the Church is suposed to be forgiving and non violent and should try too change peoples hearts through love. Based on how different these two are I think its better that the church stay out of the gouvernment.

  86. Evan,

    The functions of the Church and the State can be very different. One of the functions of the Church is to proclaim God’s moral law, or what God expects of us. The state has an obligation to align it’s own laws with the laws of God. If it does not, those laws cease to be just. The fact that the two function in different ways does not entail that they should be separated.

  87. It’s not the government’s job to legislate morality, and it shouldn’t be. There are laws the government makes that seem to be about morals (i.e. it’s illegal to steal, murder, etc) but those are laws because the government’s job is to protect the liberty of its citizens. It also does this through foreign diplomacy, defense, etc. Wanting the government to legislate morality is, in my opinion, insane.

    How would you even do that? Being drunk is a sin according to the Bible. You want the government to tell you how much you can drink? People disagree on morals, but you want the ones you happen to agree with enforced on everyone else? Sex outside of marriage? Should that be a punishable offense? What if the government adopts a different religion than yours? Do you want the government to enforce the Sabbath? No oral sex? How about envying your neighbor’s boat or car? How many days in jail is that? How about not worshiping God? I mean that’s the first commandment. Is it illegal to stay at home on Sundays now? Should non-Catholics all be jailed? It’s such a bad idea that the government should legislate morality that I’m in awe that there are people shortsighted enough to think that it’s a good idea.

  88. Christian,

    You keep acting like this is some bizaar concept that has never been tried before. Spain only recently separated church and state a few decades ago. Most of the western world did too. The issue comes down to what you believe the obligations of the government are and how you think society should conduct itself. You have bought into the idea that liberty is the and all be all of human civilization. I disagree. Catholic civilizations were not as boogy man like as your imagination suggests. Read here.

    http://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/archive-christ_the_king.htm

  89. Are you able to step away and look at this from another perspective than Catholic? Who would it be good for? Who was it good for? I don’t think a Catholic civilization is all that good for non-Catholics. (That’s sarcasm. It wasn’t good AT ALL.)

  90. I understand that noncatholics don’t like the idea at all!!! Ha no doubt about that. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong 🙂

  91. You’re missing my point. A government married to a religion is bad for anyone not following that religion. If your government decided it liked Islam better then Christianity, you’d change your mind real quick about whether government should be secular or religious.

  92. I’m just going to try and give my reasons for why I think the Church should stay out of the gouvernment quickly so as to avoid further arguing. You don’t have to agree with me just try to understand were i’m coming from.
    1. The goal of the gouvernment is to change a persons actions where as the goal of the Church is to change a persons heart.
    2. It’s imposible for a gouvernment to be effective without the use of and threat of violence where as I believe Jesus taught christians to be non violent.
    3. During the hundreds of years in which the Church held politicle power it comited countles acts of pointless bloodshed that put the name of Jesus to shame.
    4. When a group of christians does gain controle of the gouvernment they quickly begin to persacute other christian groups they disagree with.
    5. When it’s politicaly advetagous to be a christian people will use christianity for their own ends or will say they believe to fit in with society. This creates a christian culture that is completely inauthentic and makes it imposible to tell who is actually devoted to Jesus.
    These are my primary reasons for suporting complet seperation of Church and State. Feel free to disagree or point out any flaws you find in my reasoning.

  93. Great points, Evan. I agree with them all.

    (Now Kenneth will come in and tell you how great it all was for everyone when the Roman Catholic church was in charge.)

  94. Thank’s man. Listening to you and Jason has really helped clarify my beliefs on lot of things (or at the very least to admit that I really don’t have all the anwers) so that means a lot to me.

  95. Christian,

    I understand your concerns, but I don’t think that is a valid objection. The principle that I am arguing for goes like this:

    If there is a God mankind has an obligation to obey His moral commands and live in a way that honors their creator. I’ll turn to the teachings of the Church to illustrate my point.

    In Immortale Dei, Pope Leo XIII teaches:

    Men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, not less than individuals, owes gratitude to God, who gave it being and maintains it, and whose ever-bounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its teaching and practice—not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion—it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin in the State not to have care for religion, as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for States are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, should hold in honour the holy Name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favour religion, to protect it . . . . “

    So you see it is *this* principle that you must disagree with. Simply pointing out that we might get God’s religion wrong doesn’t mean that the principle itself isn’t true. Only that we might screw up in trying to fulfill the principle in general.

    Saying that we might get the wrong religion is just the same as saying democracy I’d bad because we might elect the wrong ruler. Well, sure! But that doesn’t make democracy wrong. It just means that we might fuck it up every once in a while. It’s the same with Church and State. Is it possible we might endorse the wrong denomination/religion? Sure. But that doesn’t mean that the marriage between Church and state shouldn’t take place at all. The State should not be divorced from the Church anymore than individuals should be.

    Pope Leo XIII insisted in Immortale Dei that:

    In a society grounded upon such maxims, all government is nothing more nor less than the will of the people; and the people, being under the power of itself alone, is alone its own ruler. . . . The authority of God is passed over in silence, just as if there were no God; or as if He cared nothing for human society; or as if men, in their individual capacity or bound together in social relations, owed nothing to God; or as if there could be a government of which the whole origin and power and authority did not reside in God Himself. Thus, as is evident, a state becomes nothing but a multitude, which is its own master and ruler.

    The point I’m trying to make is this;

    Your view is *only* correct if there is no God. Mine is only correct if there is one. There is no middle of the road.

  96. I’m not saying that (assuming there is a god) that it’s not mankind’s responsibility to live up to his laws. I’m saying that it’s a bad idea to have the government attempt to be the enforcer of those laws. That’s not (and shouldn’t be) the function of government and its very dangerous to make it so.

  97. Actually I agree with all of the above 5 points. Those are accurate. However, I do not believe those are good enough reasons to allow for agnostic governments

  98. All government is dangerous bro! That’s just the nature of the beast. Is it any less dangerous to leave the common welfare in the hands of corporate dollars and ignorant masses? Hardly! The majority can convince themselves that all sorts of horrible thjngs. Again, your system works great…. until you’re the minority opinion. Until you are MLK, Douglas, Malcom X, a Japanese immigrant after pearl harbor, an American soldier coming home from vietnam, a Christian being forced to bake a cake for gays, a fetus with no voice at all. Who the hell knows what the majority will want next? The government’s laws will be dictated by *some* principle. I say it should be grounded in the only one that matters; the will of God. You say it should be whatever the most people say.

  99. Did you seriously put a christian forced to bake a cake for gays in the same category as MLK and abused immigrants. I honestly don’t even know how to respond to that.

  100. It belongs in the same category. All of those are instances where the government infringed on other people’s liberties to please the majority.

    Majority rules is awesome…. u til the majority wants jim crow laws.

  101. So the gouvernment should be able to tell you who you are aloud to sleep with and who you have to wroship, but they can’t tell you to bake a f***ing cake! How is that consistent?

  102. I never claimed that the government should tell you whom to sleep with and how to worship….

  103. So whom you can worship and who you can sleep with is not a part of god’s laws that the government should legislate? Now I’m really confused about what you’re saying.

  104. Well, you wouldn’t be Christian if you would just read my super long shared links, or else just take two months out of your life to read a history book on western civilization!!!!!

    Just kidding…. kind of….

    No. God doesn’t force anyone to worship Him and so neither should the government. In Catholic societies the State recognizes Catholicism as the official state religion, but does not coerce others to be Catholic. However, it is usually the case the other religions are discouraged from proselytizing or worshipping in beautiful buildings that look like a religious buulding. So we get the Cathedral and yall get the spot next to subway! Lol!!!

    Also, the government would not jail people for adultery, but would only recognize sacramental marriages.

    Thanks.

  106. Lol more calm not talking about abortion. Having a baby nap in his crib while discussing infant body parts just pissed me off. It’s probably an evolution thing.

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