I am Joe's Gun

Joe's Gun

Thank you for stating your position. Now in this post you mentioned that you can go left and right and then you said you would give us an example. What you did not say was......which point was right and which point was left. I think, if I may presume the gun position was "right", then...was the separation position "Left"? Could you please clarify?

Bartimaeus

 

Look what happened to show up today!

http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2007/05/26/toon26edt.gif

 

Joe's Gun

Wow!, very funny.
Some of us might be like that....I think that's OK.
But just remember the other side has ........Mayor Daily and Barney Frank.
That is the biggest joke.


Bartimaeus
I adhere to gun control, in fact I teach it whenever I can.....using both hands when you squeeze off a round.

 

Yes, but I believe that the original intent of separation of church and state goes farther than you do.

My opinion: Yes. But the teacher doesn't need to make an issue of it or use class time to express religious opinions.

This is allowed and strongly supported by the courts.

This is allowed and strongly supported by the courts.

It implies that the City (the public entity supported by taxpayer dollars) endorses a certain set of religious beliefs. Furthermore, if the City is involved in purchasing the manger scene, they are spending public tax monies for religious images. I don't think City governments should spend money to purchases statues of Joseph Smith, Jr. (Mormonism), the Buddha, an Islamic crescent, or images denoting the birth of Jesus. Let citizens and private groups erect these things on private property.

Beyond the theological issues that Christians should consider, the school coach is a government employee who has significant authority over students. Why does the government (through the person of the coach) believe they have the right to prompt us to prayer, or worse, lead the prayer, selecting the content and emphasis for the students? No student is forbidden from prayer individually (that's impossible since prayer does not necessarily involve any external act) and students have the right to gather voluntarily and pray as long as it is not disruptive to the school day or school event (skipping class or blocking access to public areas, etc.).

Yes.

That's likely a mischaracterization of most "liberals." There are certainly liberals out there who are hostile to Christians, but I think Christians earn much of that disdain by the way they treat those to the left of the political spectrum. I certainly want the beliefs of Christians to be respected (that is, for the government to refrain from attempting to help or hinder the Christian faith), but I don't see any of the issues that you seem to believe have gone too far as going to far at all.

That's just dumb. Either do it, or don't do it at all.

For what it's worth, when I graduated high school nearly 25 years ago, a friend of mine had recently become a believer in Christ. He was also salutatorian that year, the position that traditionally led the opening prayer for the graduation. He was pleased with the idea until the head of the English department requested a written copy of his prayer so she could review it, correct it, and remove any content that might offend the guests. He refused to do it, so they threatened to exercise disciplinary action. I told him that, on constitutional grounds, they had no right to do what they were doing, so he should either fight it out (something his parents did not want his to do) or bow out of leading the prayer. So the school selected the third person in class ranking to lead the prayer (a young man who was an outspoken atheist). He didn't believe a world of what he was praying and everyone knew it. All the policy did was make everyone a hypocrite. Furthermore, I doubt God was interested in the prayer at all. (An interesting thing to notice in all of the prayer battles is a nearly complete absence of the discussion of whether or not God wants to her the prompted, prefunctory prayers of those who have no personal conviction toward God. It is assumed that God want to hear them, but my reading of the Old Testament prophets and the teachings of Jesus tell me otherwise.)

 

Yes.

The gun position is generally considered very right wing and my position on separation of church and state is generally considered left wing.

I didn't realize that there would be a question regarding the separation of church and state position. When I first came to Baptistboard about six years ago, a certain participant (who is now a moderator) spent an enormous amount of effort trying to "unmask" me as an atheist since I held such a "liberal" view of separation of church and state. She seemed to believe that anyone who opposed state-sponsored school prayer could not be a real Christian.

 

Joe's Gun

Baptist Believer,

I think this is a great subject that you have opened up here, I know it was not meant to run a rabbit on the "joe's gun" issue. Maybe we could start a new thread on personal conception of what is right or left depending on the subject.
For instance: I cannot imagine how that today anyone who believes in the ENTIRE separation of church and state as an issue can be left wing, (unless it would be interpreted to promote a specific left wing personal stance). I always considered this to be right wing and of course a distinctive principle of the person who is called a Baptist.

Bartimaeus

 

How do liberals kill reactionaries if they don't "pack heat?" You're being irrational.

 

Yes, that is certainly the best place to find unbiased reports of "guns saving lives".... :laugh:

What would you say if I told you to visit a gun-control website that gave myriads of examples of armed people doing more harm than good?

 

Hit lists?

 

NRA simply takes reports from newspapers around the country and reports the incidents...

 

anti-gun sites do the same thing......

 

Biggest differnce that I've seen is that the anti-gun propaganda gets spouted from prominent positions in most of the mainstream media.

Most of the positive stories are buried, if they're carried at all, and many of the positive stories, which outnumber the negative, have to come from police blotters because most media outlets don't carry the stories.

For example, where I used to live, during an attemted robbery, I held some bad guys at gunpoint until the cops got there. I was interviewed, but nothing in the media. A couple of days later, there was an attempted breaking and entering in another part of town, with the criminals shooting as they entered, and the home owner killing one and wounding the other; nothing in the paper.* But, there was carjacking at gunpoint the same day, and it was on the front page.

*It was, however, carried on an online "newspaper", which is gaining in popularity, while the subscription numbers on the other continue to dwindle, but their solution is to look to the government to regulate things "better".