Religious Fanatics are Frightening

[zeleni]

That's what irritating about the whole picture. That these people would rather live in a world with higher crime rates than live in a world with more 'Christians' -- so much for their hypocritical battlecry of 'tolerance'...

Now this is hypocritical. Criminal politics and Prison system is payed by taxes. Elected officials and government have responsibility, while none of the outside activists have that responsibility and shouldn't have that responsibility. Their actions meet only the law requirements.

I think the separation of Church and State is not a belief. It is fundamental cornerstone for checks and balances USA is so famous for. Anytime any church has support from the government, whole party system collapses. Religion is not a political movement and so shouldn't be a political factor that it could be if a government could also finance a religion by increasing membership of any religion.

I'm not good in English, so I'm sorry for all the mistakes.

[Phenomanul]

Now this is hypocritical. Criminal politics and Prison system is payed by taxes. Elected officials and government have responsibility, while none of the outside activists have that responsibility and shouldn't have that responsibility. Their actions meet only the law requirements.

I think the separation of Church and State is not a belief. It is fundamental cornerstone for checks and balances USA is so famous for. Anytime any church has support from the government, whole party system collapses. Religion is not a political movement and so shouldn't be a political factor that it could be if a government could also finance a religion by increasing membership of any religion.

I'm not good in English, so I'm sorry for all the mistakes.

I understand that and agree that the Government is and should always be a separate en y from the 'Church'... the problem is that the government never truly has enough resources to take care of all its problems... And so the misconception, with regards to the prison system, is that the government is paying the 'church' to do it... but the dilemma is not as black and white as that statement.

The 'church' participates, because the basic tenets of the church dictate that we should help our brothers; that we should help the poor, the downtrodden, and the forsaken... That's how that particular ministry came into being... An ex-prison convict turned-Christian saw a big need and headed a movement to help convicts change their outlook on life by encouraging their faith, by capacitating them with job skills, and simply by providing the necessary support and the feeling that 'others' do care... That change in outlook is what helps many of them from turning back to the old habits that got them there in the first place. It's not 100% effective, but it's more effective (and cost effective) than the next program out there...

But returning to the issue, that particular program has enough private donations of its own to function independently and in fact doesn't rely on governmental subsidies to be effective. The government has chosen to particpate on account of the success that the program was having and has allowed for the virtues of the program to impact even more prisoners - should the prisoners themselves choose to enroll, of course. But Barry Lynn and the such can't tolerate it. They have set out to abolish all instances of Church-State relationships without regard for the people that said programs help. They honestly don't care about them.

The State exists to serve the people with 'fair, balanced and responsible' rule... The government is held accountable to that responsibilty by the results that they produce. The Barry Lynns of the world only exist to serve themselves, and unfortunately their facade fools many people in believing that they operate under the 'ideals of democracy'... they themselves don't even realize that democracy and the freedoms in this country were earned and instated by faithful Christian stewards (the founding fathers of this nation) who ironically are more similar to the people they have chosen to hate (on account of their faith), than to themselves.

Your English is fine.

[DarkReign]

I'm not good in English, so I'm sorry for all the mistakes.

Whatever mistakes you made had nothing to do with your English. Well said.

[zeleni]

I understand that and agree that the Government is and should always be a separate en y from the 'Church'... the problem is that the government never truly has enough resources to take care of all its problems... And so the misconception, with regards to the prison system, is that the government is paying the 'church' to do it... but the dilemma is not as black and white as that statement.

The 'church' participates, because the basic tenets of the church dictate that we should help our brothers; that we should help the poor, the downtrodden, and the forsaken... That's how that particular ministry came into being... An ex-prison convict turned-Christian saw a big need and headed a movement to help convicts change their outlook on life by encouraging their faith, by capacitating them with job skills, simply by providing support and the feeling that 'others' do care... That change in outlook is what helps many of them from turning back to the old habits that got them there in the first place. It's not 100% effective, but it's more effective (and cost effective) than the next program out there...

But returning to the issue, that particular program has enough private donations of its own to function independently and in fact doesn't rely on governmental subsidies to be effective. The government has chosen to particpate on account of the success that the program was having and has allowed for the virtues of the program to impact even more prisoners - should the prisoners themselves choose to enroll, of course. But Barry Lynn and the such can't tolerate it. They have set out to abolish all instances of Church-State relationships without regard for the people that said programs help. They honestly don't care about them.

The State exists to serve the people with 'fair, balanced and responsible' rule... The government is held accountable to that responsibilty by the results that they produce. The Barry Lynns of the world only exist to serve themselves, and unfortunately their facade fools many people in believing that they operate under the 'ideals of democracy'... they themselves don't even realize that democracy and the freedoms in this country were earned and instated by faithful Christian stewards (the founding fathers of this nation) who ironically are more similar to the people they have chosen to hate (on account of their faith), than to themselves.

Your English is fine.

I agree with you. Well, except in the story about big and small government..which is the main point of this whole discussion.

Small government should finance the most important pieces of the state nurture. That is mostly Police, Justice, Prisons, quality rehabilitation and Health. Prisons are on the top list, since the bad guys are in there. Government should allways have enough money for prisons.

Big Government should finance social needs and all thing the small government does.

If judiciary says something is wrong on a cons utional base, something was really wrong. That seems to be truly the problem...since no one says that is a simptom of your Zeitgeist.

All I want to say that Christmas is not under attack, religion is not being prosecuted (mostly is being mocked) and all is well in your USA. No person should be judged by her/his claim, if the claim is fair and legally building your nation. Afterall, you could still say that nobody of Gideon wanted that lawyers rule the USA. Nonetheless, that case made Gideon a pretty important guy who solved his problem. And that is possible only in USA.

So the question is pretty much: Do you want to be religiously or cons utionaly proud? And that is of a question since proud is a sin...

And yes, I agree, that lady was just an activist with an agenda. She didn't care about the people, she wanted just to make a point. She couldn't care less about those 1000-or-so inmates who could go thru the programme.