it certainly wasn't european non-christians who brought into being the sort of slavery to which you refer.  i don't think a smart lady such as youself really wants to get into who was responsible for enslaving those the spanish & portugese "discovered" when they reached the western hemisphere or whose religious precepts provided not only justification but seemingly divine approval for enslaving africans. 

not that it was solely a catholic thing, of course.  fervent, god-fearing christians of various denominations caught, transported, bought, sold, traded as well as profited from slaves and the slave trade. 

while a good many of those responsible for abolishing slavery were generally another sort of christian entirely, they--along with their christian europeans and american brethren--seemingly had no problem whatsoever enslaving most of the non-christian people of the world in return for saving their souls

forgive me if i presume too much here, but it wouldn't surprise me if you yourself can recall a time when large numbers of the faithful vehemently refused to permit other people of faith and other colors to join them in worship.   some of that goin on even today. 

In america youll get food to eat
Wont have to run through the jungle
And scuff up your feet
Youll just sing about jesus and drink wine all day
Its great to be an american
--randy newman "sail away"

wouldn't surprise me to learn that was one of cardinal spellman's favorite fantasies.

not to mention using the legion of decency or something similar to "protect" adult americans from themselves. one need not look back too many years at ireland, spain and the countries of central and south america to see what kinda other doctrine and dogma the church had no problem imposing as civil/criminal law on both believers and non-believers

i could be wrong but i'm not sure that many american catholics are swept up in the sorta rabid dominionism i mentioned in my reply #11.  non-catholic christians seem more interested in bringing the pie outta the sky and establishing god's earthly city now so they can walk dem golden streets while they still has feets. 

all i'm saying is anyone now claiming to know god's plan for anyone or anything may just decide--tomorrow or next week--to help usher in the end of days.  or that you should wear something a bit more modest...like a bhurka.  

to paraphrase some cute lil smartass kid from the 30s (may even be shirley temple for all i know) "i say it's theocracy and i say to hell with it."

Strong defense, Kingbee!

Yes but a lot of Christians believe in X because of their religion, and the liberal reaction is often 'ZOMG you stupid idiots believings in a GOD o_0!'

Whether you like it or not, in a country which is so strongly religious as America, political dialogue is always going to be 'messed up' by religion because a religious belief almost always comes above a political preference.

lula posts:

Christianity is God's divine religion revealed through sacred oral tradition and written Word.  God gave true religion to mankind gradually so that men would be prepared by more simple doctrines for still more noble truths. First through Adam, then transmitted by the Patriarchs, then He sent Moses, the lawgiver (the Ten Commandments) and after him a series of prophets to explain the law and predict the coming of the Messias, Christ. Christ fulfilled these and taught the perfect law of God. In short, Christ taught the truth, and only the truth and nothing but the truth. Christ sent His Apostles (and referring to the future, said, "I will build My Church" ---their lawful successors) to preach His truth to all nations until the end of the world.  Christ prescribed new doctrines, new rites of worship, and a new form of authority. He retained the Ten Commandments contained in progressively revealed Jewish preparation of God's people.

Christ wants all to follow His principles. If you think His truths are not truth at all, then you really insult Christ's wisdom as a Teacher. And if you think it's OK for people to believe all kinds of contradictory things and to indulge in a kind of religious go- as- you- please, then with all due respect, you are very much in error. Why? Becasue it is for God to say by what path we will come to Him, and not for man to tell God to be content with whatever man chooses to do.

Yes, we are free to reject Christ and choose our own path. Please consider this.....if God not only appoints the destination, but also the road by which we must travel, we cannot say that any other road is just as good.

 You seem to object to the  restrictions made by the Catholic Church, yet, all you can really ask is why the CC should draw the line in a different place from that you've chosen by yourself.  

The worst assertion I have heard in the modern culture is the belief that 1) religious expression is immune to scrutiny 2) to question those of religious alligience as unethical or intolerant. We don't applies this notions to any field of human study except for religion but for good reason...they know they can't win. Let us not forget the lessons of the Enlightenment Era, the time of our founding fathers, the largest athiest coming out party in human history and when religion (the very idea of it) was examined and left wanting.

The two issues that are bugging me here are "freedom of speech" and "right of religious epxpression".  These are rights protected under the American Constitution.  No one should be requirred by liberal news people, with no god, or any one else to justify their faith.

The Constitution does not protect religions or philosophys from scrutiny and you would do well to stop asserting it. There is a word for that...its called censorship. Britain has a Blasphemy Law which makes it a crimes (and thus deemed enthical under the law) to question or defame the Anglican Church and he/she that is head of that Church (the Queen in this case). This law is hardly enforced and damnably good reasons.

Further more, ANYONE who believes in an unalterable truth, mandated by a personal intuition, which inturn is interperrated by bias spin doctors such as priests/rabbis/imams for them, MUST be questioned. Human

I'm curious...I smell bias and prejudice in your posts; you must deem yourself as intelligent so presume you know the origins of the word 'Liberal' right? Of course you do

 Except the right to scrutinize religion right? We can exmaine other philosophies and political ideologies, as well as those who prescribe to them, but we must coddle or make exceptions for the religious? How unwise...if your arguement was sincere then I must logically assert that you do not believe in equality (btw, equality under an unbias law is a notion invented by Liberals, but you knew that )

You don't need to paint Palin as a delusional panderer, the educated amongst us knew that already. Also, to defend her so baselessly implies prejudice, making you just as guilty as those you acuse of attacking her baselessly. The wise course of action was

And here it is...the ugliest monster of religion; the assertion they the godly have the copy-right to truth and all others are philosophically incomplete unless they add that final piece of the puzzle, which just so happens to be the name of their deity.

Oh...btw, your god is not loving nor did he make his whorshippers humble and quite undignified. Anyone who defines this notion has lost of explaining to do. Richard Dawkins said it best in his decription of god:

Dare me to quote biblical passages that further demonstrates your god as immoral and shelfish?

So if I believe in a religion that says that every first child born in a family should be sacrificed as an offering to the Gods of Despair, and I somehow get to run for VP, I shouldn't have to justify that faith?!! IMO it is a very serious question whether a politician intends to be guided by their religious beliefs when executing the powers of their office, or if they will keep their personal beliefs separate from their duties. It's done with Obama all the time for example, with people pointing out how he says he is a Christian yet supports abortion. Meanwhile I don't feel any religion should be free from scrutiny, since that is a very dangerous path to follow as I hope my (extreme) example illustrates.

why the hell would anyone--especially a supreme being knowing as only a creator could--"gradually", not to mention ineffieciently and arbitrarily, disseminate any information of any import, much less stuff without which each and every human being ever conceived might well end up spending eternity in (as pat robertson likes to call it) a lake of farrr? 

ya think moses' mother had him brissed before tossin his lil self into the nile?  if not, when did he dispense with the ultimate tip? was it a do-it-yourself thing or might someone provided a--hopefully steady--hand?

good thing someone finally got around to givin the rest of us a heads up. 

now, back to sarah palin:

another damn elitist writing off all those who've not completed 2nd grade (including those currently in first grade or whatever precedes it these days).  

No you should not be expected to justify your faith. You should also not expect to be elected.

In this country people are expected to respect others beliefs or lack there of. We are expected to, no, we are by law to allow you to have a belief and your belief system whatever it may be. We are not required accept it, or adopt it. My belief says that a Muslim can be just as good a president as a Jew or a Christian. When you force your belief system upon others that is where you cross the line.

Faith based programs are legal because it is open to all faiths to participate. They work very well because they are not for profit organizations so the majority of the money they spend goes to the people they seek to help rather than in administrative costs such as salary and perks. Using this system Jews help Jews, they know the culture and the people of their area and know best how to serve their community. So each faith is given tax dollars to provide a specific service and the community is the better for it. Then you have the people that don’t want people to prosper because they make money on the misery of others. They oppose faith based support. Their stated reason is that people will be preached to. Well that is one of the purposes of a faith organization they ago hand in hand. As long as the government does not pick and choose which religion to support there is not violation of the constitution or any laws on the books. The constitution states that there will be no state religion. There is no separation of church and the state that is something some religious fanatic came up with and people have used it ever since.

According to the Christian faith we are required to follow the laws of the land unless they conflict with God’s laws. This means that even though we are against abortion we are still required to pay our taxes which, in part pays for abortions. Just like people who are against war and killing of any kind for reasons of religious faith are still required by that faith to pay taxes and support our government in a time of war. The government is more religious than you know.

The first day of the week on a government calendar is Sunday, no executions can be preformed between sundown Friday and sunup Monday. All of this comes from the torah not the bible. Sunday is a paid religious holiday, for those that work for the federal government if you have to work on Sunday you get and extra 10 or 15% for working that day. You also get a 10% pay bonus if you work before sunup or past sundown any day of the week. These were enacted because the government supports religion and compensates its people for violating their beliefs to perform vital work on the Sabbath. This is why government shuts down by sundown Friday and remains closed until sunup Monday unless you work for a vital government agency. Even the Supreme Court closes its doors early on Friday in support of this. If you are a Jew or Muslim then you are not supposed to work past sundown Friday, the Christians fill that gap while the others fill in on Sunday. Schedules are arranged to cover your religious beliefs when possible. The three major religions are taken care of by these rules. My point is that there is no separation of church and state. The US Government supports religion in all forms no matter how distasteful that religion may sound to you and others. To sit back and point a finger at Senator Obama for his Muslim faith is just as wrong as doing the same to Governor Palin for her faith.

It is expected that you in a government leadership capacity guide and lead using all of you including your faith. Those that lack faith seem to be the ones that run into trouble with the people that elected them. Faith is the ethics of the faithless. Our laws are based on the commandments of God as given to Moses. I don’t see people marching in the streets wanting to repeal religious laws like don’t murder, steal, rape, these were okay before we set down the laws of God. Following God’s law’s and commandments seem like a good idea because all the major religions have the same basic laws, mostly because they came from the same God.

may be worse if one is deliberately and intentionally attempting to deceive others through implication, rumor-mongering or outright prevarication about the senator's religious beliefs.

i'm pretty sure that kinda crap violates one of those commandments you mistakenly cite as the basis of our legal system.

Care to elaborate?

Legalized slavery existed BECAUSE of the religious.  They used your bible to rationalize their actions.  Kind of just like you do.

Then you need to relearn the English language. I asked you to elaborate, (intransitive verb to go into greater detail about something that has already been spoken about or described in broad terms), on your statement not prove it. You make broad statements that cover many different topics or ideas and leave the reader to figure out which one you are talking about, or what context did you mean something. Rather than using my own judgment as to what you meant I offered you the opportunity to explain what you meant so I could better understand you. For this attempt at fairness, I am berated, and my motives are misunderstood. I would have asked if asking for elaboration I meant I wanted more information or proof of your statement, I guess you don’t’ understand conservatives as well as you think you do, while you in this instance have acted like a stereotypical liberal. You assume what I meant and was frustrated by it.

I am truly hurt by this because I was assured you were a liberal with a mind of his own, and although you are a liberal I respected most of your statements though I disagreed with them.