Religions are not tolerant by design. In fact, they are extremely intolerant. They have to be, otherwise, what would be the point? A religion, after all, is a set of rules. Adherents agree, as a condition of admission to the faith, to follow that list of rules. To be a Catholic, for example, means doing things required of Catholics and not doing things prohibited by the Church. That’s how all religions work.
Like a baseball team, if you will not obey the rules, then you can’t be on the team. There can be no tolerance for the systematic breaking the rules as a matter of logic. Things, including religion, are defined by their limits. A baseball team has uniforms and they must show up at certain times and do certain things. If they can dress as they please, they are not a team. They are a bunch of guys in a park.
Religions also have an obligation to recruit new members. If you believe your way of doing things leads to salvation, the afterlife, eternal bliss or even just a discount at the local deli, you are obligated to encourage others to join. The reason for that is simple logic. If your customs are the right ones, rational people will want to join you. The test of that is to recruit new members to your faith.
The exception would be those based on race. Black Muslims will not be recruiting white people to their faith. Jews do no recruiting. Norse pagans were not interested in spreading their faith for a number of reasons, but primarily because they saw their gods as unique to them. With the exceptions noted, the general rule holds. Religions are covetous and seek to push out other faiths and dominate society.
We see this with the Left. It tries to chase off any faith that it sees a threat to its dominance or to its prosperity. It’s why the Left hates Christianity. America is a country founded by Christians. The founders, with a few exceptions, took their religion quite seriously and they wanted the people to do likewise. They expect America to be a Christian nation in that it was populated with Christians, white Christians.
They were men of their times and understood the danger of state religion. Continental Europe tore itself to pieces over state religion. The Thirty Years War left parts of Europe depopulated. Other parts were reduced to cannibalism. There was also the suppression of Catholics by Protestant monarchs and the persecution of Protestants by Catholics at various times. A limited government, in the minds of the Founders, could have no opinion about the religion of the Christian people.
To the Founders, it clearly meant that the national government would be indifferent to religion. The states had official religions and the people, could and should insist on members of their faith running their communities. As the ideas of the French Revolution washed up on the shores of America, the new religion was born and spread among the ruling classes. This is the religion we call liberalism today.
Thus the war on Christianity has been with us for a long time now. Few members of the ruling class are Christian. The religion of the ruling class is liberalism, a mix of socialism, managerial-authoritarianism and cultural Marxism. Because it is a pagan faith, the rules are always changing, but one thing never changes. That’s the continued focus on Christianity as the enemy of the faith. No matter how much Christianity fades from public life, they will continue to hunt it wherever they can.
Way back when the Left was starting to ban Christianity from schools and public places, Christians made the argument that it was part of a larger assault on their religion. First it was kicking Christmas out of public buildings and then it would be banning Christianity from private life. This was laughed off with the claim that freedom from religion was ensured in the Bill of Rights. It was not an assault on Christianity, but rather a defense against it. At least that was the claim.
It looks like the Christians were right all along. The Left’s assault on middle class health care arrangements has provisions designed to weaken Christianity. Forcing Catholic charities, for example to fund things they believe are sins has nothing to do with health and everything to do with religion. What the Left learned about their destruction of Protestant sects like the Episcopalians is that once you stop enforcing the rules, people stop showing up, so they are forcing churches to break their rules.
They also learned that banning public displays of Christianity makes it really hard to get and keep members. That’s what is behind this new front opened by some outfit ironically calling itself The Freedom From Religion Foundation.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has sent a letter of complaint to Clemson University, citing “constitutional concerns about how the public university’s football program is entangled with religion.”
According to the foundation, Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney has promoted a culture in the program that violates constitutional stipulations of the separation of church and state.
No, he has promoted the wrong culture. That’s really what this is about. If he were preaching about the joys of sodomy, you can be sure the Cult would applaud him for promoting their culture.
The foundation said it had submitted an open records request in February and reviewed emails and published articles.
The foundation, a national nonprofit educational charity based in Madison, Wis., says it is the nation’s largest association of atheists and agnostics. According to Elliott, the organization does not intend to infringe on Swinney’s beliefs, but to ensure that the players’ constitutional rights are protected.
The foundation has recommended the elimination of Clemson’s chaplaincy position, currently held by former Clemson player James Trapp. It contends that Swinney and Trapp have used their positions in the program to proselytize, by arranging Bible studies, organizing devotionals and distributing Bibles and other religious materials.
“What we have observed in the records is that the football coaching staff is doing a number of things to promote Christianity to their student-athletes,” foundation staff attorney Patrick Elliott said.
“While student-athletes can pray, conduct Bible studies and engage in religious activities, the coaching staff, as public employees, should not be doing that with their student athletes.
In other words, Christianity must be banned from all public places. What logically must follow is you cannot be a Christian outside your home. After all, if a bunch of Christians were employed at a firm and were permitted to be Christian outside of their home, wherever they congregated, like the office, would take on the culture of Christianity. That, under the rules of liberalism, is forbidden. therefore, the only solution is to restrict the practice of Christianity to the home and approved places of worship.
What comes next is the last bit. If you cannot be a Christian outside, your worship houses cannot be Christian outside either. Unless Christians wise up, it will not be long before zoning boards dominated by ululating lunatics from the Left begin banning crosses and other religious iconography from public view. If freedom from religion is to be taken seriously, how can such public displays ever be tolerated?
