The American Lion wrote:There can be conservative atheists. I have meet some, but the problem is that for major conservative movements in the US. Having a Christian belief is almost an requirement.
No, it isn't. It is only a requirement for
religious conservatives.
So, logically, the smart thing to do is ostracize and disenfranchise religious conservatives.
The American Lion wrote:Many conservative atheists have left the GOP for the Libertarian Party for such reason.
Well, then they are not conservatives. Libertarianism is anathema to Conservatism.
qeddeq wrote:I do not know what a conservative is really,...
Well then for god's sake don't pay attention to the silly head-liner on this forum.
Conservatives have no duty to the State.
Unless you happen to be a Fascist. Fascist have a duty to the State.
As a Conservative, your first priority is your family; then you; and then your community, followed by your ethnic group if you live in a nation, or by the next higher political entity if you live in a country.
Why?
Why are you here? I don't know. Why are any of us here? Well, it doesn't really matter why you're here, but what does matter is that you engage in personal growth. In order for you to grow as a person and reach your fullest potential, it requires stability. The first level of stability is your family, followed by your community. Unity fosters stability, which promotes your personal growth. You can be an individual and still be unified in thought, or in mind or in purpose or in reason. Unity is good;
uniformity is bad.
Consequently, in the Conservative view, the State is subordinate to the individual. The State -- through the very nature of Bureaucracy -- has its own agenda, which is often contrary to your personal growth, often to the point of retarding or hindering your personal growth.
Consistent with those ideas, are the Trinity:
Do no harm
Accept responsibility for your actions
Pay the consequences
Contrast that with Liberals, who don't care if other people are harmed, refuse to accept responsibility always blaming another, and who think everyone else should bear the costs of the consequences of their actions, usually based on some perceived social slight or injustice.
Drlee wrote:There is only one time that Jesus told people exactly how to fry in hell and exactly how to get into heaven.
No, there's like 8 times Jesus presents some ridiculous criteria to "enter the kingdom of heaven."
He tells one to sell everything and give the money to the poor; then another to just give everything to the poor; to be like a child; to be like the wind; to drink blood; to eat flesh; to hate your parents and family; to love your parents and family.....he was just a charlatan making it up as he goes along.
Drlee wrote:Nonsense. Nice dodge.
Unless you are deliberately ignoring the message Christianity was the first to claim tha this care for the poor was the ONLY way to achieve an eternal reward.
Actually, no, Judaism made the claim long before christians. Theology shifts over time. You can see where there was no heaven or hell --- Yahweh/Jesus has to punish you or reward you in the here and now, because once you die, you are beyond the control of Yahweh/Jesus and there's nothing he can do -- he can't punish you, nor can he reward you once you're dead. Then you see shifts from individual punishment/reward to mass punishment/reward (once the covenants appear) then back to individual punishment.
And for all the talk of keeping the covenants and the commands, where does it all end up? Read the Latter Prophets --- to gain favor with Yahweh/Jesus all you have to do is engage in social justice --- take care of widows, the infirm, the orphans, the elderly, the poor and so on.
Eran wrote:My point was that "turn the other cheek" was the only genuinely original Christian moral principle.
No, it isn't. You got some reading to do. The phrase "turn the other cheek" is a figure of speech you can find in Sumerian texts dating back 7,000 years.
The only think Jesus is plagiarizing here is if you are insulted, do not return the insult.
The enemy numbered 600-including women and children-we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States. Mark Twain