Do they hate our freedom?

Question

Yeah, yeah, we've all heard this about the bin Ladens and the al Zaqawis and their buddies, but I'm not talking about Islam. I'm asking if the people who protest the right of gay people to live their lives as they see fit, the people who complain about feminists and pagans, the people who want prayer in schools and compulsory religious education. Do they hate our freedom to choose to not live the way they want us to?

Jenn, then you are not a part of the "they" I am referring to, are you? I appreciate that you can accept people's rights to make their own decisions. Thank you.

So primoa, are you saying that we should dispense with democracy and go with a theocracy? You sound like you are espousing a Christian Taliban. The "Word of God" was never meant to be the law of THIS land. This is AMERICA!

Enslavementality, that is precisely what I am afraid of.

gg28ltl1s, While I agree with you that one person's liberty ends where another's nose begins, I would suggest that you not extend your nose where is doesn't belong, like into my reproductive organs, my family's end-of-life decisions, my choice regarding who to spend my life with, and my decisions on how to raise my children. The founding fathers did in fact say that government shall make no law establishing religion or forbidding the free practise thereof. Those "mature adults" who have shed their blood for this freedom would be rolling over in their graves to see us descending into theocracy.

Grim Jack, I'm a theist, but I believe in God because I think there is a God, not because somebody told me I'll burn if I don't believe, or becuase some law told me to. I believe in God, but I also admit there is no proof for it. I agree - they are afraid of their own inability to make moral choices without being told what to do. Like how they always say atheists are amoral because they have no God.

And I like cookies.

Phantom, agreed. Thank you!

Answer 1

Actually I agree. Why on earth should gay people not have the right to marry? A couple can marry and not love each other, a couple can marry for greencard privledges, and yet if 2 men love each other til death--the family who hated them, ostracized them, and pretended not to recognize the love now gets to benefit. That family makes the choices about where that man should be buried (like they would know) and claim his estate/life insurance. However--I live in a state with common-law marriages. A couple who lived together for years but never actually wanted to commit to each other--they can benefit and get rights that they specifically did not deserve.

Those who hate the pagans for putting COEXIST bumper stickers on their car apparently hate the idea of pagans being allowed to vote, work, exist.

The people who want prayer in school specifically make a problem at the schools for reading fiction novels that disagree. They want prayer to be allowed but only if everything the school teaches adheres to that. Do they want prayer allowed or taught?? B/c they wouldn't appreciate the day of the week theory. Each day we get to pray to one of the religious beliefs of a student in the school. More than likely, only about 10 different religions would be represented in any given school--but the day the Satanist child got to give his prayer, they would not like prayer in school anymore. Just like they'd rather bann Harry Potter than actually learn it has nothing to do with the Wiccan religion.

The people who want religion education don't enroll their children in a religious school--as every place has an option to do so. It has nothing to do with their child--but instead an attempt to foist those beliefs on unsuspecting kids behind their parents backs--at a place that the LAW mandates those children go.

Yes they hate freedom. They hate the idea of America being a place for multiple religions and would love to see it turned into the middle east where religion runs the country. They would love to see America returned to the Puritan days when we could hang those Quakers for expressing something different than the church. It is up to the rest of us to make sure the religious right doesn't get that opportunity and to make sure America remains the land of the free.

And to the guy that thinks you are a two year old and wants to know what you do to earn that freedom--perhaps you need to catch up on your history buddy. America made sure that is a right given from BIRTH--regardless as to if we earn it. We deserve freedom just for breathing air into our lungs. B/c we are human beings. And as for what gives me the right to say that-- I work for the USMC and do my part to fight tyranny every day.

Answer 2

I feel like the first person to answer....this is a free country...more importantly, GOD gave man FREE WILL...

As a Christian it is important that I pray for our leaders, try to convert people, and live right. I should set a fine example in life in all I do, not berate people for what I feel is THEIR PATH TO HELL.

BUT people outside the Christian Spectrum need to understand that live and let live is not really the Christian way.

NO it doesn't say belittle people, or pass laws to make their lives hard, or such, but we are called to act and bring our beliefs to other people.

But it also says clearly in the Bible that once we have done that we are to "shake the dust off our feet" or be done with it...

Now what these Moral people are doing is trying to shape the society they live in...they feel, and this has been proven faithfully, that God rewards a righteous society and that Christians are not to tolerate sin.

What is sin? In the secular world the jury is still out on it, although it is universally agreed that murder and child molestation are wrong. But even that is in dispute in some ways (child brides and things like abortion and police and soldiers killing in the line of duty) within and outside of the Christian community.

I believe that because the USA is a SECULAR society and that politics and Christianity are mutually exclusive (you cannot understand how politicians make their laws and deals without knowing it is not a fair and Christian process, but a secular one) that any discussion of Christianity and politics is moot to me...

I think it is my job only to try and convert, set an example, and such, and not to pass laws against people who are leading lives outside the Christian canon.

There is also a whole movement of people and scholars who feel the Founding Fathers set the countries course on Christian based principles..I agree to a certain extent, but I have read almost every Founding Father's diary, journals, as well as scholarly criticism and these were men like any other...

I don't know....

I think all of the above should have equal protection under the law, which is secular and man made.

I also feel that God would not wish us to "punish" people.

It is not that the Christian right wishes you not to have freedom but rather their beliefs, a mix of Christian and political, feel they should shape how the country lives and those beliefs are outside of it.

Answer 3

I think they must. Someone close to me is, unfortunately, a Republican (not a Bush supporter, though, thank God) who doesn't support gay marriage - and surprisingly, this person is NOT religious at all. He argues that gay marriage just isn't natural, that it's okay to call it something else (e.g. civil union) but that he doesn't want gay people marrying and tarnishing the vows that he gave to his wife.

Personally, I totally disagree with him, but I think he makes a better point than most do.

As far as the other stuff - Yes, I think they do hate our freedom - but think about it - it does affect them too. Feminism, which I wholeheartedly love and believe in, has changed the face of America, as has secularism. While I personally think prayer in schools should be a freedom but not an obligation (think about it - if a Muslim wanted to excuse himself to pray in another room, would we argue about it? Probably not), and religious education should be compulsory, but include ALL major (and hey, even minor) religions.

Anyhow, that was too much talking!

Answer 4

Freedom and Liberty are two different subjects and our founding fathers would have been appalled to see and hear that the Liberty they left England for, fought and died to set up a new country for and believed in is now not much more than a cry from the rebellious who use it to say: LEAVE ME ALONE AND LET ME DO ANYTHING I PERSONALLY CHOOSE TO DO..., IT'S MY RIGHT.
Your rights end where my nose begins.. and visa versa.
Rights are not automatic. YOU have probably never sacrificed any time or effort and most especially blood to ensure yours or any other persons liberty or 'rights".., your so-called opinion isn't what gets it. Mature adults who have paid some price for you didn't expect you to continue to live in the terrible 'twos' from now on.
How did you get "our freedom"?

Answer 5

My bets guess is that those within this country don’t hate freedom so much as they fear it. They probably doubt their own abilities to make good choices and therefore wrongly assume that the rest of us can’t make good choices either. To this end many of them embrace a sky pixie who will reward them for surrendering their freedom to him. At the same time they believe their shy pixie will punish the rest of us “evil-doers” who have chosen to take responsibility for our lives.

I bake cookies.

The cookie bit was added to make me seem kinder and gentler to the theists out there.

Answer 6

Yes. They want a theocracy based on Christianity. It's the new fascism, and it seems to be very popular. If I have to, I'll give my last breath fighting to make sure this doesn't happen, it would cripple our country.

Answer 7

I think Religous Ed is fine as long as they're teaching about a bunch of different Religions.

And, they're arrogant. Most people would rather everything done their way than anyway else. Most people are more confortable around people like them. They don't hate your freedom, they're just extremely uncomfortable...or maybe just stupid.

Answer 8

We give them trillions of dollars annually, and they still don't have electricity in many parts of the middle east. They blame us for buying too much saudi oil and not enough Iraqi oil. Of course, every gap in their knowledge out there is filled with their god, so when they get upset, they use god as an excuse to kill us.

Answer 9

I'm not sure if it is jealousy or fear. Any way you go about it, we have the right to be who and what we are and they have the right to not like it, whatever the reason.

Answer 10

I don't protest nor do I complain. If you like you can live your life anyway you want. Everyone has to face the consequences of their actions at one point or another.