A protest sign, and it's not misspelled.....

[Heartstrings]

No spelling errors obviously denotes “what side” this woman has chosen.

From Left Action page on Facebook.

[ad121rome]

1. Good idea

Separation of church and state, the founding fathers gift that keeps on giving.

[calimary]

3. Welcome to DU, ad121rome!

Another great quote! A keeper for sure, because it sure sums things up for me.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Welcome to DU, calimary

ad121rome has been on DU only 7 years less than your 20 years.

[calimary]

16. I go by post count. Anything under or around 100 posts tends to suggest

a recent arrival.

And btw, thanks for the welcome! Haven’t had one of those in about 20 years.

[FakeNoose]

2. Hah! This is brilliant!

[plimsoll]

4. This is explicitly saying what Christians claim is persecution.

If they are not allowed to put their beliefs into your life without interference the government is persecuting them. It took me years to realize this, but the notion that someone may want to be left out of their religion is what offends them the most. Any other sin could be forgiven, but telling them to leave you alone is viewed as rejecting god (lower case intentional for philosophical reasons.)

[Tiger8]

5. Well stated. Thank you!

Religion relentlessly seeks political power.

They seek it because their end goal is always total compliance and obedience to their god and creed - and to make that happen they need to political power to discriminate, punish, dominate, and ultimately kill anybody who refuses to comply.

Give the Catholics, baptists, Mormons or any other religion political control of a country…..and it’s only a matter of time until the killing begins. The founding fathers knew that.

[modrepub]

6. There Are Christian Teachings

that go counter to this.

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's":

This can be interpreted as supporting the separation of Church and State IMHO.

“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.

This was my something my wife quoted (Mathew 6:5 I think). Kind of refutes the whole evangelical premise don't ya think?

Not to fully disagree with your point. Since the Bible was basically put together hurriedly at the request of the Emperor Constantine from writings of multiple authors, it's bound to be full of contradictions. Additionally, a lot of the passages are subject to translation since they were not written in English, which is a much more recent in origin than the time Christianity came into being.

Religion can be inspiring. But as you noted, it can also be used as a bludgeon to control other folks. All things in moderation.

[Ligyron]

8. 😃Once again, Christians are using cafeteria style pick and choose.

Shellfish and mixed thread clothing are totally fine but OMG man on man sex is an abomination. Although girl on girl action the male hypocrites secretly love. Probably a few of the female ones do too but they do so even more secretly.

It’s pretty obvious they like that old testament self righteous justice much more than the hippie New Testament love and forgiveness stuff.

[rickyhall]

13. It also says, "Pay your taxes and Caesar will you the fuck alone."

[NotANeocon]

18. Religion can be inspiring.????

I have never found it so. Even as a child I found it a source of cognitive dissonance and discord before I knew what they were.

[plimsoll]

20. Yeah, it's true that there are comments that contradict the "convert or die" ethos.

But that's not what the evangelicals practice, and pointing that out will mark you as out as a non-believer.

There are seriously dangerous ideas in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scripture. As with any other human endeavor dangerous ideas will be latched onto by people who desire power.

[Tiger8]

24. That's the problem!

Yes, the bible is an unintelligible morass of contradictions.....but that confusion has enabled a blood soaked parade of charismatic, power hungry sociopaths to create a dangerous political movement....with political power to convert their religious views into federal law, further enhancing their power. A few examples...

- Billy Graham pushed Eisenhower and a Republican congress to add "In God We Trust" to money, and "Under God" to the pledge of allegiance.

- Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson created a movement, using Abortion and LGBTQA rights as bogeymen to push Reagan into office.. They labeled AIDS as "God's Judgment" for sinful behavior, and valuable years were wasted, causing thousands to become infected and die, while Reagan administration officials actually laughed about it, rather than educating people on safe-sex, and providing research funding.

- That movement continued pushing their leaders such as Newt Gingrich, both Bushes and even an amoral scoundrel like Trump into power.

In my view, Moderate and Liberal Christians are part of the problem, because they refuse to see how Christianity causes people to gravitate to charismatic leaders with simple answers - which have always included bogeymen...bogeymen their followers are encouraged to scapegoat, and dehumanize as sinful.

Today, we have 6 of 9 SCOTUS judges because of religion. And today, those 6 "Christian Approved" SCOTUS justices make decisions that cost people their lives.

[lastlib]

7. "It would be almost unbelievable,,,"

"...if history did not record the tragic fact, that men have gone to war and cut each other's throats over what was to become of them after their throats had been cut."--Walter Parker Stacy, Chief Justice North Carolina Supreme Court.

[NullTuples]

17. If people can live well w/o their religion, is it still "necessary" as they believe?

[plimsoll]

21. Interesting question, and not one that I could answer for another person.

If they believe it's necessary, it may be necessary for them. The question i would ask is "did they arrive at the belief that it's necessary on their own, or where they coerced into it somehow?" If they arrived at it on their own how can we say their wrong? If they were coerced (physically, emotionally, socially) then I'd suggest that they're probably lying before god and themselves, can that truly be necessary?

[NullTuples]

22. My apologies, that wasn't the perspective I was questioning.

If someone else can live a good life without my religion, it calls into question whether my religion is necessary for everyone. And if it's not necessary for everyone, well, that might mean that equal alternatives might exist for me, too.

That scares some people. Especially some religious leaders, but also people who have formed a good part of their self identity around their religion being a necessary component to live a "good" life, whatever that may be defined as.

[Joinfortmill]

10. 👍

[liberalla]

11. K&R! Oh man, that is excellent!

[Initech]

12. I approve!

[YoshidaYui]

14. not in this day and age...

Republicans gonna run over you and the sign with a Ford Bronco.

[czarjak]

15. Lubbock, Texas radio "personality" Robert Pratt...

Was advocating physical violence to justify his religious beliefs. Praise the lord, huh?

[NotANeocon]

19. Taliban and Talibornagain - same evil.

.