...and calling it Charity when it's really just an unwillingness to say the things that are true, but hard.
I put up a 'status" on Face Book about the truncation of our religious liberties. Then I got attacked for it by a self professed atheist, who posts a lot of things about how having a cross in public is shoving our religion down his throat. Not publicly financed crosses, mind you, but just a cross.
The gist of his argument was this, that it wasn't an infringement on our religious liberties to pay for contraception, sterilization or chemical/hormonal abortion meds, but our refusal to do so was actually forcing our morality on others. I tired a reasonable rebuttal--in it I asked him for the sake of argument, to accept our position that these things were sinful, and then he could see that making us pay for them was making us participate in an intrinsic, manifest evil. I also pointed out that the figure he was using that 98% of Catholic women had used contraception (Why does it always say "women"? Don't Catholic men never get involved with this decision? Like in married couples, is it only the women who say, "Gee, getting pregnant now would suck, so we'll contracept?" I wonder why men are not involved in this reporting--do we not count? could it be sexism?) doesn't address ow many stopped, and of the ones who stopped how many stopped for religious reasons--anecdotal information indicates there are more than a few! I also pointed out that Catholic laity do not vote on doctrine and dogma, that that resides with the Magisterium.
His response was really, really revealing. First, he said he would not accept, for the sake of argument to see our point, the idea that we find the practices we are forced to finance under the HHS mandate sinful, and that our beliefs were immaterial. Second, he said that if a poll said 98% of Catholic Women had used birth control, then it was obvious that it wasn't an important teaching of the Church, because that would be the final determiner of what those teachings were. He went on to say that it was impossible to accept the very idea of the Magisterium until it became more diverse, included women and ceased it's hate speech and hateful policies against gays. This person also went so far as to say that social outreach isn't religious activity, but were really just activity, generic, or business ventures.
So what this reveals is this--there are Secular people, many of whom are atheists, who actually believe--passionately believe--we have no right to differ from them in belief, because we will not tailor our beliefs to meet their expectations. More over, these people believe that the coercive power of the State should be brought to bear upon us, to force us to conform to their ethical and moral beliefs. The arrogance is breathtaking.
It's also interesting that Christians, and Christian symbols are regularly dragged into court with an eye toward removing them, silencing them, or otherwise pushing them to the margins of American Public Discourse, yet we are the ones accused of "shoving our religion down (someones) throat". I submit, that the true perpetrators of religious intolerance, coercion bigotry and bullying are atheists and seculars, who seek to make us not only be silent, but to live and think as they do. Yes, I said they want us to be silent--BTW, the status thread this discussion occurred on isn't showing up on my wall or F B home page. It seems at this point to have disappeared. Maybe it will reappear, Because FB is flakey.
So I've given up on tact and consideration, because these bastards are trying to remove my freedomof speech and my freedom to act on my religious beliefs.
I put up a 'status" on Face Book about the truncation of our religious liberties. Then I got attacked for it by a self professed atheist, who posts a lot of things about how having a cross in public is shoving our religion down his throat. Not publicly financed crosses, mind you, but just a cross.
The gist of his argument was this, that it wasn't an infringement on our religious liberties to pay for contraception, sterilization or chemical/hormonal abortion meds, but our refusal to do so was actually forcing our morality on others. I tired a reasonable rebuttal--in it I asked him for the sake of argument, to accept our position that these things were sinful, and then he could see that making us pay for them was making us participate in an intrinsic, manifest evil. I also pointed out that the figure he was using that 98% of Catholic women had used contraception (Why does it always say "women"? Don't Catholic men never get involved with this decision? Like in married couples, is it only the women who say, "Gee, getting pregnant now would suck, so we'll contracept?" I wonder why men are not involved in this reporting--do we not count? could it be sexism?) doesn't address ow many stopped, and of the ones who stopped how many stopped for religious reasons--anecdotal information indicates there are more than a few! I also pointed out that Catholic laity do not vote on doctrine and dogma, that that resides with the Magisterium.
His response was really, really revealing. First, he said he would not accept, for the sake of argument to see our point, the idea that we find the practices we are forced to finance under the HHS mandate sinful, and that our beliefs were immaterial. Second, he said that if a poll said 98% of Catholic Women had used birth control, then it was obvious that it wasn't an important teaching of the Church, because that would be the final determiner of what those teachings were. He went on to say that it was impossible to accept the very idea of the Magisterium until it became more diverse, included women and ceased it's hate speech and hateful policies against gays. This person also went so far as to say that social outreach isn't religious activity, but were really just activity, generic, or business ventures.
So what this reveals is this--there are Secular people, many of whom are atheists, who actually believe--passionately believe--we have no right to differ from them in belief, because we will not tailor our beliefs to meet their expectations. More over, these people believe that the coercive power of the State should be brought to bear upon us, to force us to conform to their ethical and moral beliefs. The arrogance is breathtaking.
It's also interesting that Christians, and Christian symbols are regularly dragged into court with an eye toward removing them, silencing them, or otherwise pushing them to the margins of American Public Discourse, yet we are the ones accused of "shoving our religion down (someones) throat". I submit, that the true perpetrators of religious intolerance, coercion bigotry and bullying are atheists and seculars, who seek to make us not only be silent, but to live and think as they do. Yes, I said they want us to be silent--BTW, the status thread this discussion occurred on isn't showing up on my wall or F B home page. It seems at this point to have disappeared. Maybe it will reappear, Because FB is flakey.
So I've given up on tact and consideration, because these bastards are trying to remove my freedomof speech and my freedom to act on my religious beliefs.
6 comments:
I once read an article describing the abortion battle as one where those whose opposition was founded on religious priciples would be impossible to debate, their beliefs were immovable since they involved the whole "salvation of the soul" thingy.
You aptly describe the secularist counterpart.
There is no debating with evil. There is no compromise. There is only a battle which we will eventually win. In the meantime, we should fight our best and pray for those we oppose.
Redneck - What is your name on Facebook? Can't find you.
Good point, Subvet, that there is no debating with evil when we're dealing with arrogant idiots.
God bless!
It's not on your wall because it's on his - that's where the argument in question took place.
Elizabeth-actually it was on my home page. Now it's not. I didn't remove it, and it had been there after I decided to defriend. That simple.
FB *is* flakey, so that's also possible. I'm just saying that I'm reading the argument you're describing on his page as a response to one of his posts right now. Not trying to stir up anything, just pointing you to where I saw what I had seen.
Elizabeth--Good enough, FB is flakier than a box of corn flakes.
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