Don't expel God from our society

Ms Lehn, do you realize that quoting the following, "tribal belief suppresses individuality. Anxieties strike deep, grinding down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People respond with passivity, not initiative." can also apply equally to Christians if you simply replace the word "tribal" with the word "Christian?" I wouldn't suggest that we expel God from our society, but I sure as hell believe that God should be expelled from our everyday intercourse in public and political matters. GGpap

As Christianity is removed by government from our everyday lives, our morals and standards fall in a direct proportion. And, as or morals and standards fall, we use government to remove more of the Christian traits from our daily lives. The downward spiral continues. GGpap, your naive approach is very popular with those who seem unable, or unwilling, to see the big picture. You are currently living with the result of your wishes. Do you think things are improving?

really... did YOUR morals change becasue there is no longer public prayer?

morality is a personal responsibility. Just becasue there isn't a legal statute requiring you to follow the tenets of Christianity - does that relieve a Christian from following them?

Just wanted to point out to Ms. Lehn that our society is hardly Pagan, since Pagans account for maybe a tenth of a percent (at most) of people worldwide. And most of those are practitioners of ancient folk religion in China. There aren't too many authentic pagans here in the US and A.

flabbergasted, please. When lowered social standards and morality is okay'd by the government mandates and the "progressive" teachings in our government schools and when "slightly questionable" behavior becomes the spice of life for our G rated shows, then the bar slips a little. It's not an immediate switch to a life of crime and debauchery. Your comment @ 7:11 comes across as narrow minded and short sighted. That's not how the world works. Have you ever heard the old story about how to boil a frog? It got to be cliche because it's been around for so long, and it's been around for so long because it's true...from the perspective of the "big picture".

Other than not allowing someone to force their religion on others (except the obvious taliban like blue laws, and prohibition of alcohol sales on Sunday-which I'd bet the LTE writer is in favor of) the government has no role in religion. You are the only one who can remove religion from your life.

Atheists are not Pagans. All of the Pagans I have met are very nice people. Unfornately, many of the unpleasant people I have met profess to be Christians. Go figure.

The AC opinion page is a disgrace to free inquiry and the exchange of ideas. It is nothing more that a bulletin board for blinded Christian religious freaks like Kathryn Lehn. That is not the function of a newspaper.

That society today is more debased and vulgar than it ever was is largely a myth. What is different today is more exposure. Benjamin Franklin had a slew of girlfriends and sexual partners. Thomas Jefferson had a slave concubine. People are just more open today. Human nature never changes. I'll take free thinking over repression and superstition any day. Why is sex always associated with moral decay? We just can't get away from the sex is dirty way of thinking, thanks to stupid religion.

Where can I get a bottle of jedex6? Once again, skill & cunning triumph over ignorance and superstition!

Please note, all you Christians who think Matthew Parriss endorses your beliefs. He is an ATHEIST! He doesn't believe God exists! What he is saying is that BELIEF in God, not God herself, may produce values helpful to a culture. Of course there are many philosophies, as well as other religions, which promote the same values, but that is another issue.
Parriss sees Christian Evangelicalism as significant for its values, not its metaphysical truthfulness. You've been had!

To even think of God as someone that can be expelled from "wherever" is hubris beyond all comprehension...My word people you just have not one clue but you will one day when you stand before your Creator...Whether you believe or not is moot...

god herself?

Does the LTE writer realize she just quoted an openly gay writer?

No. What is hubris beyond all comprehension is to believe that you are going to "stand before your Creator". That there is a place in the sky and God is sitting there on a throne waiting for you. That is religious hubristic superstitious nonsense. You live in a world of fantasy. It has all the reality of the story of Dorothy going to see the Wizard of Oz.

jedex6 I would not trade my faith for your abysmally lack of faith in anyone but yourself for all the tea in China...You will stand before your Creator, God Almighty...As well as one day you will call on Him in your darkest hour...That is not fantasy it is a given and I do not even know you....

your religion is perfectly fine... just keep it in the church or in YOUR home

Morality existed long before Christianity.

I find it interesting that a common complaint among atheists/nonbelievers is that believing religious people, usually Christians, are vicious, judgmental, mean-spirited, not living up to the message, hypocrites, etc. And there certainly are some Christians who forget themselves and behave very badly indeed; no excuses there. Yet there seems to be no standard for good behavior at all for unbelievers. After all, if there is no God, good and evil become a mere matter of personal taste and preference. You can say and do whatever you like no matter whom you hurt. If there is no God, anything goes. More people were killed during this past century than all others put together due to governments run by atheistic leaders. Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Minh, Hitler (who thought he was a god), to name a few, were all atheists who forced their beliefs on their own people and slaughtered them when they met with resistance. Or when people didn't resist at all and these leaders simply needed to kill at random to discourage dissent. True, there were Christian leaders in the past who were bad guys but none of them could touch these atheistic leaders when it came to committing atrocities.

Nope TrukinRanger...Can't do that...As a matter of fact don't want to do that...I speak on faith, Jesus Christ, Almighty God always...It is great eh...

grouse God existed long before the earth existed...He has always been and always will be...Christianity was in God's plan from the beginning...Came to fulfillment when Christ came to earth as our Savior and Redeemer...Arose to ascend into Heaven and will come again one day...So for you or others to dispute this is your problem...It has no bearing on the validity of the truth.

Funny thing. In the God-saturated South, murder, spousal abuse, teen pregnagcy, crime, drug abuse and almost every common measurement of social pathology is much higher than in the more liberal Northeast.

This is precisely what happens in a world that has Satan on the prowl along with his demons...What did you expect in a fallen world jedex6? God has a plan for all of us...What man has done in the name of religion is not relevant in terms of believing or not believing? Religion can be anything...God is to be worshiped and obeyed, His Son is to be worshiped and obeyed...Evil is and has been rampant ever since Lucifer was cast out of Heaven...Many actions yesterday, now and in the future have no logical understanding as far as men can fathom but I do know that God will always stand by His Word...All things will become clear in God's time...

No christian134. It is your problem that you believe that dead bodies rise and virgins conceive. You've been had. The Jesus story was meant to be symbolic of a new approach to life. It was never meant to be literalized. You betray an astoundingly brainwashed fundamntalist mentality in which your ability to think has been stunted. Sad. No theologians worth their salt today, including church officials, believe in the bible literally. Only the extreme fundies, resistent to new ideas and learning and stuck in the first century and the Dark Ages of christian made up dogma. That is where you are at. You are free to choose that, but personally I'll take control and free inquiry over being controlled and ignorance. Ignorance and faith do not interest me.

In a region where there is more worshipping going on, I would expect there to be less evil. Since there is not, it proves my point that religion is nonsense. You always have to make excuses for your supposedly all powerful God. That's lame.

The bottom line is this.....jedex6...truckinranger....grouse...effete elistist liberal...uncle bill.....tech lover......chuchi......christian134......GGap....patriciathomas.....flabbergasted.......and myself....and all others have one thing in common. Our Savior Jesus Christ is among us and we will all stand before His throne to be judged according to our obedience to His Commandments. Whether you want God to be among us or not He is here and we are powerless to do anything about it. As my Creator and Savior I will take my chances with Jesus over anything else including government.

:-) That is your own set of problems as I have stated before jedex6...

what fun to read side by side the posts of christian134 and jedex6, the medieval and the modern, the Bible-besotted literalist and the Bible-questioning realist, the ignorant and the enlightened, the thrall to religious rhetoric and the mind freed by reason. Hey christian134, you never responded to my earlier post, where I pointed out that Matthew Parriss is merely noting what many thoughtful atheists have said before: to the extent the values associated with Christianity promote "liveliness, a curiosity and an engagement with the world, and more openness," then Christianity is a good thing. Of course to the extent it condemns homosexuality, a woman's right to choose, and death with dignity, it's a very bad thing. I might point out that humanism, my set of values, promotes the same "good" things as Christianity, but rejects the "bad." What Parriss did NOT do what profess a belief in the reality of "God." What the world really needs is a set of values which is consistently life enhancing, embracing of ALL people, and rational.
Humanism fills that bill admirably.

Is a posting name beginning with "c," followed by a whole bunch of numbers some code for ignorance? Just wondering....

Aw now stop with the wonderful comments:-)... How long have you been hovering in the shadows eel? Did you learn anything in school today or are you skipping class again? Now you know that can cause you some setbacks?:-)