Should Christians Be Involved in Politics?

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I don't agree with your God's standards, so it doesn't matter if I fall short of his.

The point is, fundamentalists are the modern day Pharisees who Jesus would condemn today.

I have asked the following question many times the past twenty years or so. Nobody has yet answered me. Since most fundamentalist denominations are so very wrong about a subject like evolution that has literally tons of physical evidence supporting it, how can I possibly trust their opinions on spiritual matters not so easily checked?

Doesn't that question make sense to anyone else but me? Why should they be right about God or sin or the afterlife when it can be easily shown that they are flat out WRONG about something like evolution that has overwhelming evidence supporting it from every branch of science all pointing to the same reality?

And while I would not go so far as to ban Christians from politics, if they do try to impose their beliefs on others they are crossing the line. Those well-meaning but misguided and badly misinformed politicians who try to legislate reality by introducing creationism into public school science class rooms are crossing the line. IF there were any scientific evidence to support the creationist view, any at all, don't you think such evidence would have been presented in at least one of the dozen or so major court cases on this subject in the USA since the late 1960s?

To fundies evolutionary biology challenges there very being, if they accept it to be true then they need to discard their belief that the bible is the true word of god, this they cannot do. So instead with regard to evolution they lie, misrepresent, obfuscate, and manipulate.

Stranger still they do seem to actually believe themselves.

There is a strong tradition of Christian parties all across Europe.

Christian democracy is quite strong still, and Germany's ruling party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is of that orientation. In this sense y

Many of the centrist and liberal-ish ones are more or less secular I believe, but there are some that aren't. There are both parties of the evangelical Christian right in Europe and the Christian left.

Then we have the various Christian parties dotted across Europe.

On the Christian right, we have:

The Reformed Political Party in the Netherlands, which are ultra-conservative and Orthodox Calvinist.

Switzerland has the Christian-based left-wing Christian Social Party. They also have the centre-left and Christian democratic Evangelical People's Party. On the socially conservative Christian right stands the Federal Democratic Union.

In Britain, we don't really have any strong political forces based around Christianity. The right-wing evangelical Protestant DUP is the largest party in Northern Ireland. Other than that, you're looking at very minor parties like the centrist Christian People's Alliance and the very socially conservative and right-wing Christian Party.

The Republic of Ireland has a Christian anti-abortion party, but it's very small.

Poland has a lot of Catholic parties - the Law and Justice party is one of the largest parties in Poland, and it's quite conservative and rooted in Catholicism. United Poland is a much more right-wing, socially conservative and Catholic outfit.

Scandinavia has a long, long tradition of Christian parties of one form or another, but most of these are of the centrist kind and are not rabidly religious.

Belgium already has a new party called the Islam Party, which has won seats at municipal elections.
Our RESPECT Party is more or less a Muslim party, even though it's not technically so. (Most of the people in it are Muslim.) RESPECT has a single MP in George Galloway, who represents Bradford West, one of the most Muslim constituencies in Britain. (He won the seat by heavily campaigning on 'Muslim' issues.) Having said that, it's falling apart as this year alone, five of their councillors in Bradford have resigned, and Salma Yaqoob - its vice leader - deserted the party last year.

I wouldn't have any objections to an Islam Party standing here in principle. I'd be very worried about the obvious lack of secularism that this entails, just as I would be in the unlikely event that overtly Christian parties underwent a revival here in mainland Britain.

Everyone has fundamental beliefs they carry about life; Jesus doesn't condemn anyone for that. The main reason He harped on the Pharisees was because of their hypocrisy, which stemmed from jealousy and pride. There's a very real difference between someone who honestly loves God with their heart, and those who use the Bible to hide their own maliciousness from others.

For example, I'm 100% against homosexuality and abortion, but you'll never see me advocating the murder of doctors who kill these kids, or carrying hateful signs at the funerals of gay soldiers. I'll remain staunchly against certain practices and behaviors, but that doesn't equal despising the people.

All so-called "evidence" only appears to support macro-evolution when certain assumptions are accepted. One common mistake is the worldview of uniformitarianism, which says "everything has always worked and/or existed the same way, as it does now". We can't know that beyond a reasonable doubt, because we weren't present at the beginning of the world.

A popular example of this philosophy is that the Earth's oceans have always existed in their present form. So, a person of this belief looks at something like the Pangea theory, and assumes its true based on a pre-existing assumption about nature. But what if at one point in history, the Earth had more land on the surface than water? Could that lend some credibility to the possibility of a large flood, or even a global one?

This is the core difference between those who believe in Creation versus macro-evolution; both camps have the same data, but they start with different questions.

News flash: everyone tries to impose what they believe on someone else. What matters is whether that belief has any rational logic behind it. There's nothing wrong with someone challenging another's mindset or beliefs, so long as its not done with condescending or malicious intent.

Even though he got himself in big troubel over tax issues, I like how Kent Hovind described his stance on this. He said, "I am not trying to get evolution out of the schools. I am not trying to get Creation into the schools. I just want the lies out of the textbooks."

It depends on what courts hear each case, and whether any Christians are in positions of authority at the time. Collectively speaking, the church largely removed itself from politics over a century ago out of fear, and we've been fighting to get back in ever since. People can claim to follow Christ, but as the saying goes, "actions do speak louder than words".

Well,no. Both camps do not start with the same data because creationists ignore some of the evidence and deny or distort what they do not ignore. Your sources such as Hovind are very flawed, quite wrong, and if you trust them to provide you with information on this subject then you are s.o.l.

Check some of the links that were provided for you IF you are interested in this subject, but don't think you can make ridiculous claims and be unchallenged (at least in the PPR section of WP).

As long they keep their Religion out of the way then yes.

You're assuming more than one "supreme being" actually exists, which violates the Law of Non-Contradiction. There has to be a Creator out there, whose will supersedes all other standards. You can't have more than one ultimate authority.

Besides, your statement is the equivalent of "its true for you, but not for me", to which I respond with, "go try that logic with your bank". If anything in existence is objectively true, it applies to everyone in all places, at all times...regardless of personal acceptance.

Many apologists have used this illustration, and it still works: if there is no God, why is anything more right or wrong than anything else? Morally speaking, by what definitive standard can you honestly claim the actions of people like Mother Teresa were any different from those of Adolf Hitler? If God doesn't exist, there's no inherent moral difference between protecting someone from a ruthless killer, or murdering the victim ourselves.

Examples, please?

To be fair he also condemned them for their legalism. He condemned them for their literalistic interpretation of scripture, such as their obsession with keeping the Sabbath (asking them if they'd leave their son or donkey in a pit on the Sabbath, or addressing their attacks on him for allowing his disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath), and other matters. Or how Paul had taken on the Jerusalem establishment concerning if Gentiles - or Jews for that matter - have to legalistically stick to Judaic laws at all. The fact is, the religious right of today are the Pharisees of today with their legalism.

Hi Moviefan2k4 and thanks for posting. It is very easy to find as many examples as you like if you spend a few seconds with a search engine. What it comes down to, the sad truth, is that just about anything you read from Institute for Creation Research (ICR), Answers in Genesis (AiG), or any video or book by Kent Hovind or Ray Comfort is guaranteed to have virtually NO factual content and to be riddled with errors and distortions. They shame Christ by spreading so many falsehoods in His name.

One of the most blatantly dishonest practices of nearly every Creationist web site and book is known as "quote mining." This is where they take words written or spoken by somebody famous (usually a scientist) and select the quotation out of context in such a way as to misrepresent what the person actually said when you read the full quotation in context. Then these mined quotes are endlessly copied and pasted and you read and hear them over and over again in any discussion about this subject. The Talk Origins web site has a section called the Quote Mine Project with numerous examples.

It is not my job to educate you. In another recent thread LKL addressed some of your mistaken ideas point by point. I copy and paste it here for your convenience. Thanks to LKL for taking the time to address your specific points and provide you with resources you can examine if you have a serious interest in this subject (and if you love truth; I don't know about you but I hate being lied to.)



Please forgive the condescending or arrogance of my tone and maybe others you may have encountered on this subject. It is increasingly difficult to remain polite when one hears the same lies and distortions year after year. It is very much like the game of whack-a-mole. Creationist lies are thoroughly debunked, but the creationist web sites, books and videos keep repeating these falsehoods anyway and people who don't know any better swallow their lies hook, line and sinker. I assume you love truth and that you love the USA. If so, then you should be very angry at these sources that are LYING to you and also causing harm to our country by trying to dumb down everybody's children in public school science classrooms.

Here's a real quick summary of some of my favorite examples of the strongest evidence for evolution.

Nested hierarchies
Picture a family tree, with an ancestral couple and their children, then their children's children, the tree branching off to make grandkids and cousins, 2nd cousins, 3rd cousins, etc. Well, there are different things (such as the placement of Endogenous Retroviruses or the placement of pseudogenes) found in the DNA of different species that show these family tree like patterns. Also, the family tree relationship of one type of species to another predicted from one type of genetic data MATCHES the prediction made by another type of genetic data, and they MATCH what we observe in the fossil record as to where different species branch off from each other.

Human chromosome 2
This shows many clear signs of being two ape chromosomes fused together end to end. We have found the corresponding chromosomes in our chimp cousins and know exactly where the fusion occurs. This is practically a "smoking gun" showing our relatively recent divergence from the other great apes.

Tiktaalik
A "fishapod" from 375 million years ago that has many features intermediate between fish and land animals. It is not "just a fish." What's more, it was found because it was looked for. Neil Shubin knew there were lobe finned fish from 385 million years ago and early land tetrapods from 365 million years ago, so he went looking for places on earth where rocks of the right age and the right type are exposed to find this critter, and he did! Tiktaalik is a fossil of that Darwin fish with legs you see on the cars on some atheists!

Lucy
A fossil from about 3 1/2 million years ago that has many features intermediate between modern humans and our chimp cousins.

The Fossil Record
Even if we had never found any fossils, none at all, the genetic evidence alone is so strong that once we started studying and comparing the DNA of different species we would have figured out evolution happens. But we do have fossils, lots of them, including many transitional forms that creationists deny even exist. There is a particular valley in Africa where we have a whole series of hominid fossils over a long period of time from the same area. The older hominid fossils look more ape-like and there is a clear progression to more human-like features over time. It's funny too that creationists cannot even agree on which hominid fossils are human and which are ape. Sometimes the same creationist author even changes his opinion on a particular fossil in a later book. How transitional can you get?

You need to do some research on Mother Teresa, how she became to be so highly praised is very interesting, Her ethics and morals were highly questionable, if you. like so many, venerate this woman I suggest you read "Missionary Position" by Christopher Hitchens.

If you are right and there is a heaven and hell then that b1tch will surely be burning in hell, maybe her and adolf are friends.


Moviefan if you are genuinely interested to find out why we are saying so called "creation science" is wrong read this post

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/creationism/calilasseia-creationists-read-this-t429.html

it is an excellent and comprehensive explanation of what we have been talking about.

A secular system is best. Freedom of religion and freedom from religion, and no unearned religious privilege for any religious group.