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Edited on Mon Nov-29-04 10:47 AM by Philostopher
is that I can't help but envision loyalty oaths of some kind being required, once the God-botherers who've been calling for this stuff finally get their way completely.
You know, things like 'I believe in Jesus Christ and accept him as my personal savior,' of course, and maybe even a requirement that the person seeking help will have to officially join the church that's distributing the money ... but not only that ...
That people will have to swear (perhaps in a legal contract, as part of their application for aid) that they won't drink, won't smoke, if they're gay (or even hetero and unmarried) that they'll remain celibate, and that getting help from these organizations will be contingent on their dancing to the tune of whichever denomination has been given the money.
The really disturbing part of this is, when I grew up in a church, I was taught that the concept of freewill was a big part of the whole 'heaven Monopoly' game we played. You know, that it was a virtue to make the right choices, and we earned 'points' for doing that, sort of. Not literally, but that our choices -- making the right ones -- raised our odds of going to heaven.
Requiring people to join your church in order to have access to resources like food to eat or medical care is exactly counter to the whole freewill concept. In fact, it could almost be called a form of religious blackmail, or at least extortion.
It's annoying enough for somebody who doesn't believe in organized religion to be assailed with the social pressure to conform and go to church, even if they actually do believe in God and Jesus and the whole story in the bible as literal truth, but choose for whatever reason not to affiliate themselves with a church.
There are plenty of people out there, I'm sure, who 'consider themselves Christian' who don't attend any one church or belong to any one denomination. Not that I think they'd have any problem signing a loyalty oath to get food or shelter, but even they'd have been bribed.
I really find it disturbing that this is what these people want -- they want the U.S. Government to enable them to bribe or coerce people into joining their churches. That's what it comes down to, in my mind. If Christianity isn't attractive enough to people to entice them to come in and try it for themselves, let's force them to come to the church and officially join just to keep food in the refrigerator, feed their kids, or heat their homes.
Am I missing something, here? Do I misunderstand the basic concept of the whole 'faith-based' thing? Is there likely to be any control on what hoops these churches can make people jump through to qualify for the money? Maybe there will be, I don't know. That's why I'm posting this -- I'm wondering if I've misconceived this whole thing.
I'd love to think I was wrong, I really would, but right now it just seems like this whole concept is designed to turn churches into the Jesus Mafia, and that this stuff is going to enable them to threaten people's access to needed resources if they don't agree to hop on their bandwagon.
Thoughts?
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