Abraham Lincoln Foreshadowed Cure to Poison Infecting America’s Culture: ‘We Have Forgotten God’
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
I’m old enough to remember when pledging allegiance to any one particular politician was something to condemn, when singing affectionately about a president was problematic , and when Christianity in-name-only was inexcusable .
But it’s 2019 now, and times have changed.
Those on the progressive left are, these days, picking and choosing which parts of the Bible to invoke, using Jesus’ words as a political cudgel to hammer away at their ideological foes while some on the right are trading in the moral high ground for a pragmatic counterfeit, failing to acknowledge their own shortcomings.
For example, some on the left have modified their faith to fit around issues like abortion and sexuality and well-known figures on the right have reversed course on personal morality in order to make sense of the 2016 presidential election.
These things are just symptoms — signs of an illness, a poison infecting America’s political discourse. America is, as President Abraham Lincoln once famously described it, “intoxicated with unbroken success,” and there’s only one remedy.
We are a prideful people who have lost our way; we’ve chosen to recreate a god in our own image rather than embrace the image in which God created us. There is a path, though, to restoration, and the blueprint has already been laid.
More than 150 years ago, in the wake of the Civil War, Lincoln issued a proclamation for a “Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer.” Today, the United States is torn and her society tormented by the same sin with which the former president wrestled: “We have forgotten God.”
Lincoln wrote in his March 30, 1863, proclamation:
We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
Because we have believed our successes to be ours alone — that morality and rightness are dependent upon our own flawed determination — we’ve become arrogant and eager to dismiss one another, willing to split the nation in half in hubris rather than listen to one another in humility.
We have chased healing without the only true cure: recognizing what Lincoln described as the “supreme authority and just government of Almighty God.”
The words written by Lincoln, whose own faith remains something of a mystery, seem, even in their age, to create a fascinating parallel between then and now.
The president prescribed the only appropriate solution to the divisions plaguing America at the time, and it seems the remedy is just as right today. Lincoln declared, “It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”
“I do hereby request all the people to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion,” Lincoln wrote.
Lincoln’s words may be more than a century-and-a-half old, but as the 2020 presidential election draws closer, I cannot think of a better blueprint to bring healing to this broken and divided land.
It may be 2019, but the path to restoration was laid 156 years ago, when Americans were divided in much deeper and more dangerous ways than we are today. The only way back from the brink, as Lincoln rightly recognized, is not by looking to the left or to the right, but by looking up.
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“The president prescribed the only appropriate solution to the divisions plaguing America at the time, and it seems the remedy is just as right today. Lincoln declared, “It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”
“I do hereby request all the people to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion,” Lincoln wrote.
Lincoln’s words may be more than a century-and-a-half old, but as the 2020 presidential election draws closer, I cannot think of a better blueprint to bring healing to this broken and divided land.
It may be 2019, but the path to restoration was laid 156 years ago, when Americans were divided in much deeper and more dangerous ways than we are today.”
“We have forgotten God.”
I suppose the first thing one would have to establish is which God is being referred to?
So many to choose from, sort of like looking for paint at Home Depot or Lowes, too many options.
But of all the gods, there is only one true God.
All the rest are imposters!
Okay, just asking which one that may be.
Once that question is answered, the appropriate follow up would be a challenge to prove it.
There is only one real God. One God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All the rest are nothing more than idols, frauds against the One True God by the great deceiver.
No proof coming. People will believe by grace through faith and grow in that or they won’t. People will go to Heaven or they won’t. It’s all that simple.
More like no proof at all. Neither dies belief equal fact. The gullible, ignorant, and/or irrational might believe whatever nonsense belief they hear or spew. But some more logical or rational minded individuals prefer some evidence or proof of absurd claims before accepting them as valid or true.
I have no need to prove to you or anyone else that I believe in the God of the Doxology and that all others are false, not real. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gotquestions.org/amp/doxology.html
Then you have no credibility and neither I or anyone else have any reason to accept your claims, much less regard them as valid or true. You can believe whatever you want. But when you pass off your beliefs as fact or make affirmative claims based on them, then you bear the burden of proving. Passing them off as true when you can't support them only makes you intellectually dishonest!
Whether you choose to believe that God is real or not is up to you. I advocate that He is and you choose not to be believe despite enough reasons to have a rational faith that He is. That is your free will choice to make. What you think of me and my beliefs means nothing to me as you are unreachable and there are others we who are believers can outreach to who are objectively undecided. I will continue seeding articles like the above about Lincoln and America regarding God [deleted]
No one forces you to read the article or respond to it.
We wouldn't expect anything less from a militant dogmatic theist.
It's not a choice. I am simply incapable of believing something for which there is no evidence or proof.
It's a shame you are never able or willing to prove he is.
What reasons would those be? Wishful thinking or mere belief is not a reason.
An oxymoron. Faith by its very definition is irrational.
See first statement. But if there were a god, there would be no such thing as free will.
Works both ways. But if you want to reach me, try using logic, reasoning, and science. Not emotion and wishful thinking.
Fortunately, there are also those rational and logical enough to explain what BS you really spew.
And I (and others) will continue to expose your BS, disingenuousness, and baseless claims as the absurd, irrational tripe it is!
Making things personal now I see. That really shows how weak your position really is. I gave you the perfect opportunity to validate your claims, plain and simple. And yet, unsurprisingly, you just prefer to bury your head in the sand and parrot the same nonsense over and over, despite being logically challenged and/or refuted! Again, you only show how weak your position and claims really are and why no one should take anything you say with any serious consideration.
I don't let BS, lies, or misinformation go unchallenged.
Every thing we say, do, and believe is a choice, some thing that through our God given free will we all have and all are accountable for.
You have no way to prove that God does not exist and that belief that there can be and is no God in the universe is strictly an article of faith that can’t be logical or provable by your definition.
You have no way to prove that Zeus does not exist, and isn't the one true god.
And what's really hilarious is that if he'd been born in Pakistan he'd be telling you Allah is the one true God, because apparently where you're born and into which culture determines who the true God is. Whichever one you were born into, that must be the right one, right? I can't even imagine how much hubris it takes to maintain that stance. I also find it funny how religious conservatives proclaim atheists ignorant for casually dismissing their God beliefs yet they do the same of every other faith on the planet. He's just one God away from being an atheist yet he can't even see it.
How true. And if he had lived in ancient Greece, he would have worshipped Zeus and a lot of other gods.
I wonder if people like that consider the Olympics to be blasphemous, since they were started to honor Zeus?
Of course I cannot prove that God does not exist, as one cannot prove a negative and that is a logical fallacy. Neither am i making any affirmative claims. Once again you take the intellectually dishonest and illogical tactic of trying to shift the burden of proof when you are first challenged to support your claims. Feel free to continue to shoot yourself in the credibility foot if you wish. I and others easily notice it. But I have no reason to believe or accept claims a god exists, as there is no evidence for any god/s. Neither do I "believe " god doesn't exist. That's just silly. I simply lack any religious belief in god/s. A lack of belief is not a belief in itself. What's illogical is believing or accepting outrageous claims like a god when there is no evidence whatsoever. Faith or belief is neither evidence nor logical!
That's a contradiction in logic. If there is a (supposedly) omnipotent, omniscient god, them it is logically impossible to have free will of choice. The appearance of free will as we perceive it is just an illusion.
Nah, they just appropriate anything they enjoy and relabel it "Christian" just like they did Easter and Christmas. Besides, it would take having an actual wide base of knowledge instead of being a homeschooled evangelical to even know the Olympics' origins.
Nonsense...
Ooh - that is definitely proof. It is a miracle. Praise Poseidon!
I mean ... err ... Neptune.
(deleted)
Got it, Neptune is the one true God... or, wait, is it Zeus? Or Baal? Or Vishnu, or Allah, or Moloch or Aphrodite, or maybe Obatala or Nana-Buluku?
Until you can prove any God exists, you're stuck believing on faith alone. Perhaps your faith is strong enough or your sense and reason weak enough to believe in a specific God without any empirical evidence, but why do you think everyone else should be like you? Why should everyone else just throw logic and reason out the window and believe just because you said so or someones interpretation of a two thousand year old farmers almanac claims it?
But go ahead, just keep repeating the same old tired nonsense, no one is actually listening, just laughing.
Unless you can prove your God is real or the "true" god, then your God is no more "true" than the myriad if other god/s of other cultures and societies throughout history. As usual, your claims are entirely baseless, illogical, and lacking in credibility.
No one demanded Thomas Jefferson or John Adams Or George Washington Or Abraham Lincoln to prove there was God that they referenced in all their words and writings. Knowing the secular left of today, they would have howled in protest during FDR’s prayer to God on D-day and thrown a fit when the first astronauts to orbit the earth read Genesis One on world wide tv and radio to express our origins.
Just because God knows what we will do with our free will choices doesn’t in any way mean that God compels is to make that choice. Gods wish is for all to choose to follow and worship Him and be saved. Most will not.
This has been explained to you countless times yet you continue to express the exact same confusion.
You have things exactly backwards.
Free will means that the future is determined (in part) by each choice. Thus with free will the future cannot possibly be knowable. The future cannot be knowable because it is created as reality moves along.
Pause. Let that sink in.
So if the future is knowable then clearly there is no free will (because free will precludes a knowable future).
Pause. Let that sink in.
So we can have a knowable future without free will or free will without a knowable future. But we cannot have both. They contradict each other.
Pause. Let that sink in.
Now here is the critical thing to recognize. If God is omniscient that means the future is knowable (because, in this case, God knows it). So if God is omniscient, free will is impossible.
This has absolutely nothing whatsoever with God compelling choice. (Also, it does not even matter if God is omniscient; the only factor that matters is if the future is knowable ... able to be known ... even if no sentient entity actually even knows it).
I’ll take God’s word for it over that of any mere mortal man any time anywhere every single time.
Thing is, you are 'taking the words of' ancient men.
Further, rather than simply take the words of other men, I encourage people to use their own brains and reason through this stuff.
Merely accepting as truth what other human beings tell you is what allows others to control you.
That's the best rationale you can come up with to avoid asking questions, much less answering them: a weak appeal to authority and an assumption with a non sequitur? Your dishonest tactics are not only transparent, but also male you look foolish. It's almost as if you think some things should not be questioned at all.
Clearly, understanding the logical contradiction between an omniscient god and having free will continues to elude you. It's been explained to you ad nauseum by now. So you're either being willfully ignorant about it, or willfully dishonest about it. Which is it?
His reply to you is the equivalent of covering ones ears and yelling "LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU." Such intellectual close-mindedness and dishonesty (while not surprising) does boggle the mind.
Well it is either ignore or consider something that would disrupt his worldview.
Some of us seek truth even if the truth is discomforting. Others cling to comfort. So it goes.
What exactly is the point of letting this charade continue then if God knows exactly how each person will act or react throughout their life and knows if they will be worthy of 'saving' or not? Why go through the motions if it's all already set in stone? Why bother waiting for man to sin? Why not just pass judgement now?
If there is a grand creator, I do not believe it can be omniscient. It could certainly be powerful, and if it knew how every atom in the universe moved it would have amazing powers of prediction that some might confuse with omniscience, but it wouldn't actually be omniscience, just a close facsimile. I believe this because I can't imagine any being creating a universe that it knows exactly how everything will turn out.
Also, if discussing the God of the bible, being omniscient is incongruous with Genesis when it says " Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time. 6 And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the LORD said, “I will blot out man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—every man and beast and crawling creature and bird of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them .” Genesis 6:5-7
That certainly doesn't sound like an omniscient God. Sounds more like a grand creator making changes on the fly like a troubled artist who was dissatisfied with his initial work just smashing the clay back into a ball to start his sculpture again.
Indeed.
Exactly. Just another one of the glaring contradictions of the Bible (an omniscient entity that is surprised) that prove it is errant and thus not the divine word of a perfect god.
No, it just shows that in addition to being Omni everything, he also has emotions and feelings that even in our fallen condition, we His ultimate creation can relate to.
It falls on you to apply reason and not simply make excuses. Logically, how can an omniscient entity be surprised? Try to actually answer the question.
How do you know God has emotions? More like human assigned emotions to a deity as a reflection of themselves. One would think a god would be above such petty things like emotion. But your post doesn't actually address any of the points TiG or I bring up. As TiG pointed out, you're just trying to make excuses now and avoid answering or addressing any of the points and logical inconsistentsies regarding your God.
... and refusing even to consider them.
Indeed. That's the intellecually dishonest part. It's "head buried in the sand" syndrome.
Do you two really think that by name calling, personal put downs, and mocking our beliefs and faith that you are going to persuade us to move over to the dark side? We’d sooner be martyred than give up our Christian beliefs and faith. That’s the bottom line and no amount of so called science or “logic” will ever change that about many of us.
On that you are correct.
Just wasting your time.
Unless you can prove God exists, you will never hear the end of this argument. It is the free will argument--"God can not be omniscient if people have free will". To me, proof of free will is their thinking differently on it. They can not fathom an omniscient God, so it is always illogical to them.
Just be secure in your beliefs and don't worry about what people who don't believe in God think.
You will never change their minds, and they will never change yours.
Free will means that the future is determined as we go; it is thus not knowable.
Ergo free will and a knowable future are logical contradictions.
No god is necessary in this logic.
Just be secure in your beliefs and don't worry about what people who don't believe in God think.
You will never change their minds, and they will never change yours.
Sorry, but we will always agree to disagree on this topic.
My comment had nothing to do with god.
Show me the flaw in my logic.
Sorry, I forgot to use the quotation marks in my earlier post.
That was my advice to HA. I am taking my own advice.
I didn't claim your logic was flawed. I stated that we would agree to disagree on the topic.
If you disagree with my logic then you consider it flawed. Not really any other option there.
So what is the flaw?
Do you seriously not know what "agree to disagree"means?
If you do, and I assume you do know, just let it go. No need to ask anything else.
Thanks.
Yes it means that you disagree with my logic.
I asked you to name the flaw. Clearly you see no flaw to name but you disagree nonetheless.
Oh, FFS.
LET IT GO!
YOU ARE RIGHT FOR YOU.
I FEEL I AM RIGHT FOR ME.
IS THAT A FUCKING PROBLEM FOR YOU?
Interesting.
No one is trying to persuade you to do anything. We are simply exposing the logical flaws in your assertions and explanations. I'm not sure why answering questions and challenges is such a problem for you. But it's very telling (and sad) that you consider logic to be the "dark side."
Who's asking you to give up your faith. So spare us the hyperbole and persecution complex.
Which only affirms what we already said.
Of course we can fathom an omniscient god. That's why we deem it so illogical. Especially since there are logical contradictions or inconsistencies. Omniscience by definition negates the possibility of free will. Seems some people cannot fathom the logic in that.
Perhaps if one provided evidence for a god, then that would be far more effective in changing our minds rather than simply making empty assertions.
Because some are close minded to logical and rational reasoning and prefer the emotional comfort associated with belief.
How can there be disagreement if his logic is not flawed?
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but we don't debate or argue using feelings. We prefer logic and reasoning.
Apparently it is for you.
The definition doesn't mention free will.
So, the usual "prove it". Expected and predictable.
That is what you believe. I believe that people who can't accept the existence of God without proof (BTW, what proof would ever satisfy you?) are a little closed-minded.
Simple. You saw it. I disagreed with him. That is how.
What you personally prefer has little to no bearing here.
That is a rather ignorant comment. I stated 3 times prior to that post that we would agree to disagree. The poster kept badgering for some reason of their own.
So I will be taking my own advice and am finished with the topic.
Have a nice day.
TiG was quite clear in his explanation of free will with regards to omniscience.
Also expected and predictable is the usual failure to support, much less actually prove anything.
That is your prerogative.
How is requiring proof close minded? Requirement of proof is actually quite logical. Otherwise, one is just being gullible at the very least to accept baseless claims, no questions asked.
Objective, empirical, verifiable, and falsifiable proof. The same requirement for anything else.
And yet, you fail to explain why or point out how he is wrong as it leads to disagreement.
That works both ways! You prefer belief. We prefer logic.
Considering you repeat yourself and use all caps with profanity thrown in, my comment seems spot on.
Because you do not explain why you disagree nor explain what flaw there is in TiG's logic that would cause a disagreement, even when requested to. It seems you are only interested in disagreeing for argument's sake.
You think it should?? If one looks up a definition for a word, the definition will not engage in an encyclopedic treatment of the word and the various relationships it has with other concepts. Dictionaries define usages of a word; that is all.
Which means you disagreed with my logic. Thus I naturally asked you to name the fault . Clearly you actually could not find anything wrong with my logic but instead of simply saying so you resorted to deflection and ultimately pure nonsense suggesting that what is right is a function of ' feeling '.
If one cannot handle being challenged, best to steer clear of debates.
If one doesn't understand what "agree to disagree" means, one should really try to get someone to explain it to them.
Maybe someone can even understand it for them.
I love the smell of irony in the morning!!
This is what I find most revealing in these cases. Here we have entirely secular logic that is true by definition:
Free will means that the future is determined as we go; the future is thus not knowable.
Rather obvious. Free will necessarily makes it impossible to know the future since the future is dependent upon the free will choices and those choices are not known until the very instant they are made.
I strongly suspect that this obvious fact triggers cognitive dissonance. The cognitive dissonance must be resolved and, it seems to me, that is accomplished by ignoring that which causes the dissonance.
The essential dialectic:
A: There must be free will!
B: Free will might exist, but that means that the future is not knowable.
A: But the future must be knowable because God is omniscient.
B: Both cannot be true at the same time.
A: I feel they are both true at the same time; they must be!
Agree to disagree. Good idea.
I am assuming you know what that means.
That makes the polling equal--2 that understand it and 2 that don't.
Maybe we need a bigger sample size.
I'm not the one simply proclaiming to "agree to disagree" and disregard everything else.
Careful TiG, you might find yourself crossing over to the "dark side."
One would think. But apparently, logic eludes some.
Simple and logical.
When one rejects logic in favor of "feeling," then clearly there is some sort of disconnect.
It comes down to one using (or preferring) their "gut" rather than their brain.
And exactly which one would that be? The Egyptians had some 1500 different "gods". Later religions borrow from many of these gods to include christianity.
Oh I think at least one of them recognizes the contradiction; ergo the lame deflection.
You might be giving them too much credit.
Maybe. The seed was about Abraham Lincoln and his comments about America and God in his time and how his words then might apply to America today. All this other stuff the other two brought up has nothing to do with the seed.
Well, good then. That makes at least 2 of us.
So you've answered TiG's challenge to point out his logical flaws, or refuted his arguments themselves with something other than "agree to disagree?"
Where did you read where I stated that his argument was logically flawed?
Can you quote me, or are just asking inane questions AGAIN?
Is there any particular part of "agree to disagree" that is flummoxing you so?
That is not what I stated. Check it again. I questioned whether you answered TiG's challenge to point out his flaws in logic, as he mentions in his posts 1.1.47, 1.1.49 & 1.1.51.
"agree to disagree" is meaningless unless you can explain why you disagree.
You don't even seem to understand what's being asked of you.
Is there any particular part of "agree to disagree" that is flummoxing you so?
What part of that can I help you to understand?
I can explain it to my 8 year old niece, so I might be able to explain it so you, too, can understand it.
Just tell me what you don't get and we can start, okay?
I've already explained it, and yet you continue to deflect.
I never asked you to explain shit.
No deflection, either.
That is just crap you made up.
Can you go bother someone else for a bit?
You asked a question, I explained. That's how debate works. You just don't like the explanation. You were also asked to explain, and to no surprise, you both failed and deflected!
I guess you don't know what deflection means.
Only in your mind.
You first. Didn't you say you were finished with this topic? I guess you didn't bother taking your own advice.
Agree to disagree
Standard deflection tactic. So typical.
The topic is what President Lincoln said about our country and God then in his time and how his words apply to us today. All else is nothing but off topic derail trolling and deflection.
I hope you apply the same standard of conduct to everyone equally across the board then.
Regardless, what Lincoln said applied to him in his day. God is irrelevant to our secular country and policies. It's only relevant to those who believe in such fairy tales.
No wonder the once Grand Old Party of Lincoln is now known merely as the gop...
The corruption that caused this was not the lack of Christ. It was a lack of humanity.
Let me remind the damn gop of something Christ actually did say. He said, "I was hungry and you fed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you comforted me. I was imprisoned and you visited me. I was a refugee in your land and you welcomed me".
When those around Christ asked Him, "When did we do these things for you, Master?" He replied, "Whatever you did for the least among you you also did unto Me"...
Lincoln's GOP was trying to end human suffering. Trump's gop to inflicting it.
Trumps economy has done much to alleviate poverty in America. Lowest unemployment for minorities ever and lowest overall rate in over 50 years. Wages going up and going up by percentage rate the fastest for the lower wage earners. When it comes to charitable giving religious conservatives lead by far among the various demographics. We take what Jesus said seriously regarding helping the less fortunate among us and globally.
Trumps economy has done much to alleviate poverty in America.
Correct!
As I pointed out in my astute comment #1.1.1 here (see above) there are many "gods"-- but only one real God-- yes, only one is the authentic true diety!
And BTW, your estream of posts here adulating Trump have not gone un-noticed.!
Yes, these are incredibly valuable...
Because, (let me let you in on a little secret)...Donald Trump is actually the re-incarnation of Jesus the Christ himself (Peace Be Upon Him).
Yes, it should be obvious from all he's done to bring Americans together-- to spread the gospel of peace and love amongst all Americans.
DONALD TRUMP is..JESUS CHRIST (PBUH)!
Today they seem to suffer from segmental amnesia. Funny thing that they can easily find the passages justifying slavery, child brides and the like when needed.
So what are you getting at, are you saying that the gov't should be governing using Jesus' words and to enforce through taxes, Jesus' humanity on everyone whether they believe or not?
The best way I see to accomplish what Jesus said is what XX stated in 2.1, if everyone is employed they are feeding themselves, clothing themselves, taking care of their own medical needs, keeping people from being imprisoned because of poverty in the first place, and if you come to this land, without deception, with skills and/or willingness to learn then you are welcome.
How about the people using Jesus and god to make a point actually follow the tenets of love one another, be judged by how you treat 'the least of these', and other values. It's not about 'buy your own health insurance if you want medical care!' Its not about 'bootstraps'! Those aren't spiritual ideals. Its disgusting to use Jesus to justify cruel and inhumane behavior.
I am saying that the base line for our basic human decency as a society, the humane ways in which we and our government should treat the poor, the sick, criminals and refugees at our borders has not changed in over 2,000 years. One need not believe in Christ to believe He was speaking wisely in this regard. It is the exact same conservative evangelicals who elected Trump, who claim to be Christian, that are clamoring for our government to do the exact opposite off what Christ advised while claiming the problem with America today is not enough of God and Christ in our lives. If you don't get how very wrongheaded that is then I must give up...
So what are you getting at, are you saying that the gov't should be governing using Jesus' words and to enforce through taxes, Jesus' humanity on everyone whether they believe or not?
This "separation of church and state" nonsense should really end..what this country needs is to put back the GOD in GOVERNMENT!
(Ever since the idolaters and worshippers of Satan have proliferated throughout the land (i.e. the liberals) this country has gone downhill!
I as a Protestant am not about to defend the Spanish Inquisition or any other great persecution engaged in from the early Middle Ages to the reformation. The crusades are defensible in that they were in response to a plea for help from other Christians to help them against a hostile invasion force. Ironically the Muslim threat against papal aligned states in the 16th century so preoccupied them that they could not turn their attention on Protestant nations until those were strong enough to survive the Spanish Armada and the later battles in Central Europe.
separation of church and state as originally intended and as acted upon by our founding fathers who wrote about it and lived it is just fine and as it should be.
Please do so now....
And yet study after study shows that Bible believing conservatives are the most generous with their contributions of money, possessions, time, to charitable causes, even in giving blood.
Then give up if you must. We believe in rendering unto God that which is His and unto government that which legally it has entitled itself to. It is the role of us as individuals and through our churches and through various charities including faith based to carry out mercy and charity and help the poor. It is not our role to raise taxes on everyone else and discharge our responsibility upon government to act in our place. Too many on the secular progressive side according to studies donate the least to charity believing their higher tax rate on others is their charitable contribution to society.
Charitable causes like the NRA? Trump Foundation? Church dues? Church functions? All those mega church donations are included. All those tax exempt cults like Scientology. I don't know how they could count all the giving, they wouldn't even know anything about my religion. And frankly that wouldn't make up for what is going on today with their supposed values. Some are evil, like the race baiting and hating. And the lying, the immorality, the willful ignorance, the greed, the lawlessness, the corruption, the attempts to control others, the inhumanity, the list of acceptable side effects of Trumpism is endless, because politics is more important. Money is right up there too. You can not get out of this problem, when you join the Trump team, you get in the swamp and the stench doesn't wash off. I will never forget the lack of true values when it comes to politics, they are truly shameful, and some are evil.
Fortunately you don’t get to sit in judgement as to the value of our contributions to the charitable giving of our choice. The point is that we give.
To yourselves.
Wrong. I don’t get to keep the money I donate to charity. So, I’m not giving to myself. What I give goes to help a lot of people here and all over the world.
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You need to stop interpreting everything so literally.
No I don’t. You really don’t get to sit in judgement over the relative worth of whoever we who give to and support charity give it to. The fact is that there are many faith based charities that do great work.
Not only do they want to take more and more from Americans in the form of taxes, now they want to decide what is deemed "appropriate" in your charitable donations.
Might as well just confiscate everything and give us all an allowance to subsist on.
Weird... Trump does, he took 10k out of his own charity to buy a picture of himself.
That’s what they hate. That we have the money and the freedom to direct our charitable giving as we see fit to meet needs we see out there. The secular progressives tend to in general prefer to tax us high enough so we have no money to use our own discretion on and then they can use government to direct our higher tax dollars where they want it to go.
Yes, Abraham Lincoln wrote and spoke in terms of protestant Christian faith. But Lincoln invoked God to represent higher ideals whose pursuit required humility rather than hubris.
Today's politics has devolved into a competition of prideful defiance. Popular appeal isn't grounded in humble pursuit of higher ideals.
“Lincoln wrote in his March 30, 1863, proclamation:
Because we have believed our successes to be ours alone — that morality and rightness are dependent upon our own flawed determination — we’ve become arrogant and eager to dismiss one another, willing to split the nation in half in hubris rather than listen to one another in humility.” In today’s world Lincoln’s words would be directed largely at secular progressivism, a sizable portion thereof having done exactly as described.
No, he would be describing Trump and his supporters. Lincoln would have NOTHING to do with anything Trump is doing, certainly the most ungodly person to hold the office.
If those that profess to be Christians cannot follow their own fucking bible, don't blame others for calling them out for it. Try following the bible and the evil left won't be able to call you out for violating your own damn bible.
We sinners who are believers do by grace through faith follow our Bible however imperfectly as we grow in our life relationship with God. And yes there are hypocrites in the church who say one thing and do another. But avoiding church or becoming a non believer on account of them is no excuse for any individual in the eyes of God on judgement day when the wheat and tares, sheep and goats who have grown together on earth are separated.