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Post by quincannon on Jul 11, 2017 3:05:20 GMT
ML --- There is one ironclad truism about people who constantly advertise themselves as "Good Christians" - They Ain't
I don't know who said it first. I am sure it was some saint or the other perhaps Francis, who was the only one that really counts anyway, and I paraphrase - If you don't know me as a Christian for what I am, me telling you I am a Christian will not make any difference.
All this Christian nation stuff is just bunk and bull shit. Those that subscribe to that particular lie display a degree of ignorance beyond my comprehension. They obviously never read the Declaration of Independence, are completely unfamiliar with the Founding Documents, do not understand that the wall separating church and state may not be in the Constitution as such but was promulgated by Jefferson, who can be arguably called "The Founder" in a letter, addressing that very subject near enough to the moment of our birth for that letter to be included as a founding belief. We were set up as a religiously neutral nation on purpose, and that purpose being that religion itself is a corruptor of republican democracy.
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Post by quincannon on Jul 11, 2017 3:41:36 GMT
Perhaps Beth we could use a new Age of Enlightenment. It seems we have done a bit of backsliding from the ideas that made us free in the first place.
Religion corrupts, and I say that as one who faithfully practices my own. It corrupts when religion is the basis of formulating law. Morality should be the basis, and morality transcends religion. Sometimes even basic morality is in conflict with itself. There may be more than one answer to a basic moral question. The decision then lies in the hands of the people to deal with that conflict and codify right. Religion has no place in this process.
I will get arguments on that, primarily from those who confuse faith and religion. Faith is a direct relationship of any one person with the Deity he calls God, while religion is nothing more that a man made organization of the like minded.
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Post by Beth on Jul 11, 2017 3:45:37 GMT
Has anyone here caught History Channels other gem "Curse of Oak Island?" I swear it one of the most entertaining hour on TV--they defy logic and history to new levels every episode. The irony is it is one of their most popular shows and I suspect most people don't see that it is pretty much a big joke.
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Post by Beth on Jul 11, 2017 3:59:24 GMT
Perhaps Beth we could use a new Age of Enlightenment. It seems we have done a bit of backsliding from the ideas that made us free in the first place. Religion corrupts, and I say that as one who faithfully practices my own. It corrupts when religion is the basis of formulating law. Morality should be the basis, and morality transcends religion. Sometimes even basic morality is in conflict with itself. There may be more than one answer to a basic moral question. The decision then lies in the hands of the people to deal with that conflict and codify right. Religion has no place in this process. I will get arguments on that, primarily from those who confuse faith and religion. Faith is a direct relationship of any one person with the Deity he calls God, while religion is nothing more that a man made organization of the like minded. When you lose sight of why things were done, they it is easy to start to backslide. We have Freedom of Religion because many of the colonies were formed because they were forced to resettle because to practice their own faiths could mean death or imprisonment. The only tolerated religion in may areas of the "Old World" were the faith of your King or Queen and depending on where if you were RC or Protestant you were not welcome and if you were Jewish you were even more limited where you could live. The same goes for every single one of the Bill of Rights. I know when I was in school we spent weeks in government going over the Constitution and its Amendments. I think that now schools spend more time with pep rallies that teaching government. I will have to check Gwen's schedule for the coming year. I believe she finally has government, which means she will have the right to vote before she learns (at last through the school) on how much that right cost through history. (Gwen turns 18 in September-as hard as that is to believe)
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Post by Beth on Jul 11, 2017 4:09:23 GMT
Religion corrupts, and I say that as one who faithfully practices my own. It corrupts when religion is the basis of formulating law. Morality should be the basis, and morality transcends religion. Sometimes even basic morality is in conflict with itself. There may be more than one answer to a basic moral question. The decision then lies in the hands of the people to deal with that conflict and codify right. Religion has no place in this process. I am under if religion corrupts, historically it has always attracted corrupt people-from Popes who used their power for personal and family riches to the new breed of Televangelists who beg their viewers to send money for various reasons while they line there own pockets and build houses that are the modern equivalent of the Papal country homes and cavernous churches that require a police force every Sunday to deal with traffic. If you study history though you know that religion, like politics have cycles, we are always moving from one extreme to the other. I remember hearing we need to know history so we don't repeat it. I have come to the conclusion that even knowing history doesn't prevent it from happening again. History teaches that we can get through it and come out at the other end.
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Post by mlynn on Jul 11, 2017 11:11:37 GMT
Perhaps Beth we could use a new Age of Enlightenment. It seems we have done a bit of backsliding from the ideas that made us free in the first place. Religion corrupts, and I say that as one who faithfully practices my own. It corrupts when religion is the basis of formulating law. Morality should be the basis, and morality transcends religion. Sometimes even basic morality is in conflict with itself. There may be more than one answer to a basic moral question. The decision then lies in the hands of the people to deal with that conflict and codify right. Religion has no place in this process. I will get arguments on that, primarily from those who confuse faith and religion. Faith is a direct relationship of any one person with the Deity he calls God, while religion is nothing more that a man made organization of the like minded. When you lose sight of why things were done, they it is easy to start to backslide. We have Freedom of Religion because many of the colonies were formed because they were forced to resettle because to practice their own faiths could mean death or imprisonment. The only tolerated religion in may areas of the "Old World" were the faith of your King or Queen and depending on where if you were RC or Protestant you were not welcome and if you were Jewish you were even more limited where you could live. The same goes for every single one of the Bill of Rights. I know when I was in school we spent weeks in government going over the Constitution and its Amendments. I think that now schools spend more time with pep rallies that teaching government. I will have to check Gwen's schedule for the coming year. I believe she finally has government, which means she will have the right to vote before she learns (at last through the school) on how much that right cost through history. (Gwen turns 18 in September-as hard as that is to believe) Beth, when I was in High School, I had a government teacher that was above the average teacher. Part of the way he tested was to take you in a testing room and ask questions orally. This way you had to prove you understood what things meant. I was scared to death of this testing and studied extra hard in order not to make a fool of myself. This was also just post 1968, one of the most dramatic political years in the history of our country. My classmates still talk about how much they learned from this teacher and how much they liked him. Everyone needs this kind of education before they are old enough to vote.
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Post by quincannon on Jul 11, 2017 12:35:36 GMT
I was reminded just yesterday of the manner in which religion corrupts freedom and republican democracy.
Turner Classis presented a 1953 vintage movie called "The Moon Is Blue". Now if you were a Catholic of a certain age, my age for instance, going to that movie in 1953 in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church was a one way ticket to the Infernal Regions, no passing Go, no $200, just straight to hell. The movie was condemned by the Roman Index.
Every week you got the Catholic newspaper and checked the movies that were condemned. If you went to the library, you had best check in advance to see if the book you wanted to read was on the Roman Index as well. If you picked up "The Three Musketeers", or "Count of Monte Christo", and read them you were in a state of mortal sin as far as that church was concerned. Dumas was a particular condemnation favorite, why, because Dumas' books are chock full of a practice the church condemns, and if you read them you just may take up the practice of dueling as a way of settling the differences between men.
That is control of your mind, by an outside force, a limitation on personal freedom, that has no place in a country that represents itself to value and protect the freedom of its citizens. Still it was allowed to exist, no one ever brought the Catholic Church before the bar of the Supreme Court to my knowledge. Censorship was codified by law. Religion and the religious told us what a free society may and may not consume. If you watch some of the older pictures you see in the opening titles that the movie had been passed by some board of review or other. If it was not passed it could not be shown which is a restriction on commerce itself.
Of course they did not limit this practice with their own flock. Where the danger lies is that they tried to censor what all could see or read, indeed what all could think.
Any religion that has a tenant, that indicates that a man has a superior position to a woman in society is in violation of the basic tenants of freedom itself. What right do they have to place one human being in a superior position over another. That is a form of chattel slavery. It is both reprehensible and morally deviant. But it was and still is law in some places in this country, and it is still in place by and large by the influence religion has over governance.
Blue laws, thankfully long gone, were there because religions demanded of government that they be there. It took a hundred and fifty years before they were declared unconstitutional, a restriction on commerce, in some cases a threat to public health and safety. I do not personally care to shop on Sunday, but if I need to I will, and the operative word being need. When I was a kid though you could not buy an aspirin at a drug store on Sunday, because of religious domination of the law making process.
Any religion therefore that inserts their religious beliefs into the legislative process is in fact corrupting freedom itself. If your religion tells you that for your moral welfare you must do this or prohibits you from doing that, then do it or don't do it as the case may be, but do not try and legislate it to the point where you are telling me as well.
To bring all this back into the theme of this discussion, it was Earhart and women like her who would not be told no, you can't that brought forward freedom, and started the break down of a male dominated religiously legislated society, and perhaps that is what she will take her place in history for, and a well deserved place it is.
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Post by yanmacca on Jul 11, 2017 13:03:17 GMT
When we were between the ages of six to eleven, we were scared to death of our priest [Father Donelley], he was a huge Irish man who went on to be a Dean. He used to get all the boys together in assembly on Monday morning and make us all stand while he stood on a stage looking down on us, he then would say "put up your hand if you didn't go to church yesterday, now come on god is watching you and it is a sin to lie" well you put up your hand if you didn't go and run the gauntlet of his anger [he never hit us, that was down to the teachers], which was quite a harrowing experience from this large imposing man with this loud booming voice.
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Post by quincannon on Jul 11, 2017 14:00:13 GMT
Baron Von Steuben once remarked that Americans, meaning soldiers in his case, are the only people on earth that have to be told why before they are willing to do something.
It goes the other way as well, for when you condemn a man for not doing something, it is well to find out why he didn't do it before you open your mouth to condemn.
To condemn without knowing the why, is a restriction of personal freedom. There may be good and sufficient reason for not doing, including, but not limited to, none of your goddamned business. That's pretty hard to do between the ages of six and eleven, but does not change the fact that it was none of his goddamned business.
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Jul 11, 2017 15:03:32 GMT
Religion, government and society are not inherently evil or wrong but are susceptible to corruption by men and women. I have read the last few posts which have drifted from the topic Earhart.
Amelia was not the only female pilot during the post WW I era that had set many records and attempted to set new goals. Here are just a few: Bessie Coleman was the 1st Black/Native Indian to have a license Harriet Quimby 1st American woman to secure a pilot's license Amy Johnson, British, 1st to fly from Britain to Australia Jacqueline Cochran a gifted racing pilot also assisted in the formation of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) which freed male pilots for combat missions in WW II
Let's talk about the good things, such as exceptional female pilots, instead of problems we have as a nation and people. I can read the newspapers for news of people behaving badly. Regards Dave
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Post by quincannon on Jul 11, 2017 15:16:44 GMT
If you do not talk about the problems that face a nation they never get solved.
Do you not think that three of the women you mentioned who were American citizens, plus Earhart did not talk openly about the problems women faced in America, and still face? Had they kept their pretty little traps shut as you are suggesting we do here, then women would still be looked upon as best kept plain, pregnant, and far from town. That is not the America I want, nor any of us should want. Making nice only means same old same old, and that is not acceptable in a free society.
Woman's place in a free society must be every bit the equal of a man. Male domination of a society is evil. God had no intention of making one above the other, and therefore if we strive to serve whomever we call God, we must not either.
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Post by quincannon on Jul 11, 2017 17:36:25 GMT
I know yo will all be pleased to learn that a book has been uncovered in the Japanese Diet Library, I suppose something like our Library of Congress, that contains the photo that was the centerpiece of the Earhart program on the History Channel, and the publication date of that book was 1935. Unless Amelia and Fred were captured two years before they took off it would seem that those two people in that photo were not them.
National Public Radio has the story and it originates from a Japanese source.
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Jul 11, 2017 19:34:20 GMT
Never said that we should not post problems with America and we its people. Just believe we should chat regards Earhart on this thread and yes women's struggles for equality is a valid aspect of this thread. So continue to discuss as you wish regarding any and all topics as it is a free country. Regards Dave
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Post by quincannon on Jul 11, 2017 20:03:53 GMT
That is why Earhart endures Dave. She broke molds in our society and any discussion of her must also delve into the real progress she made for women in this country. Recall when she was born and after she reached her majority she could not vote. She could fly, but she had no say in how this country was governed. That is fairly sad. No it's really sad.
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Jul 11, 2017 21:34:55 GMT
I agree what happened where women were denied full citizenship was wrong and shameful as was the enslavement of blacks and the treatment of Native Americans. Hopefully we have learned from our errors and are making opportunities for all regardless of gender, race or nationality.
My daughters and granddaughters have more chances and fields to work than my wife and that is as it should be. We are each charged by our conscience to make the world a better place as we live but many choice to not do so unfortunately. Regards Dave
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