Secular folks should worry.

[huckelberry]

In other words, the conservative anti-government paranoia is losing in the marketplace of ideas. Too bad, so sad. The conservatism of Ronald Regan dismantled the greatest achievement of the American economic system: the creation of a strong middle class. Until 1980, the fruits of the engine of American prosperity were shared proportionately by rich and poor. That all changed starting in 1980, when the Republican Party began shifting the distribution of wealth and income more and more in favor of the rich. The U.S. continued to enjoy ever increasing real per capita income, but it all went to the wealthy. And on top of that, it set the middle and lower classes against each other to fight over the scraps in the hope that no one would notice where all the money went.

Conservatives have no answers for the problems and crises that face the newest generation of Americans. Among first-world countries, we pay the most for the worst health care simply because conservatives pee their pants at the mere thought of government involvement in health care, despite the evidence we see from other first-world countries. If you can't afford health care, the conservative's answer is, then die and be quick about it.

When we had a healthy middle class, the way middle class families tapped into wealth accumulation was home ownership. Now, ownership is foreclosed for the vast percentage of young people as the rich acquire portfolios of single family homes as investment vehicles, turning what would have been a new generation of home owners into a permanent renter class. What's the conservative answer? Something something something market something.
........

my my my,
Res Ipsa, careful you may be becoming as much a disruptive trouble maker as that Mr Jesus that dasterdly stem is always complaining about.

[huckelberry]

Res Ipsa, that was a sharp presentation of where we are at. I certainly hope that your hope that younger people are seeing it is correct.

[Manetho]

I certainly hope that your hope that younger people are seeing it is correct.

It seems to be. Voter turnout among younger demographics is always depressingly low, but according to this source, in 2022 it was ten points higher than in 2014. And those who did vote preferred Democrats by whopping margins: 35% in 2018, 26% in 2020, and 28% in 2022.

[Morley]

As is par for the course I am being misunderstood…to put it kindly. January 6 was a dark day in American history. Donald Trump was a major player in the unfortunate series of events. His supporters may have a sense of foreboding. But others who are not his acolytes may also have concerns about the future of the Republic. Including moderate Republicans such as myself.

Trump has trampled on our Constitution. It took someone like Mitt Romney to call him out.

I get tired of these false accusations folks.

Others, including lurkers, can see right through it.

And Doc’s comment, as usual, was off the rails.

Regards,
MG

(My bold.)


Ha!

No moderate of any kind would post this:

[Res Ipsa]

Res Ipsa, that was a sharp presentation of where we are at. I certainly hope that your hope that younger people are seeing it is correct.

Hope springs eternal.

[MG 2.0]

As is par for the course I am being misunderstood…to put it kindly. January 6 was a dark day in American history. Donald Trump was a major player in the unfortunate series of events. His supporters may have a sense of foreboding. But others who are not his acolytes may also have concerns about the future of the Republic. Including moderate Republicans such as myself.

Trump has trampled on our Constitution. It took someone like Mitt Romney to call him out.

I get tired of these false accusations folks.

Others, including lurkers, can see right through it.

And Doc’s comment, as usual, was off the rails.

Regards,
MG

(My bold.)


Ha!

No moderate of any kind would post this:

I do have concerns with those things listed in the picture.

That doesn’t make me a far right loonie.

I am a moderate Republican.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

I appreciate your response. At this point I think I’ve expressed my thoughts/sentiments as concisely and clearly as I am able to do so. As with so many things the truth usually lies somewhere in between extremes. The two extremes in this instance are those who speak from a secularist non theistic worldview and those that speak from a theistic view of the world and man’s place in it.

Interesting that you would describe being a theist as an “extreme.” I don’t think being a theist as being extreme at all. Likewise, I don’t see being a not-theist as extreme at all. I see this as confirmatory evidence that, despite the image you have of yourself, you use religion to divide, not unite. I’ll repeat — it’s you who views religious belief as a wide divide, not me.

At the end of the day it becomes a compromise between folks that see the world and man’s place in it as a result of only man’s genius or whether one is responsible to God also in respect to natural law.

Well, yes. Civil society is pluralistic — it requires compromise among people with all sorts of different values. Some of them will be humble enough to realize that they don’t have all the answers, while others will arrogantly claim that their personal beliefs are endorsed by a supernatural supervening.

Personally I am more comfortable in the imprint on our coinage:

In God We Trust

Well, bless your heart. Of course you are. The Cold War addition of God to all currency and to the pledge forts perfectly with your Cold War vintage Paranoia.

Putting God (the sacred) on money (the profane) is one of many absurdities of modern Christianity. Despite what the money says, you don’t trust in God. If you did, you wouldn’t need to trivialize God by using them as a talisman on filthy lucre. Rather than follow Christ’s teachings on money, you profane your God by using his name in a way that secularizes them. Good work!

What that compromise will look like going into the future is anyone’s guess at this point. But again, let it be said, there are valid concerns that many reasonable people have as we see current trends in ethical/moral behavior and what that may look like/mean in the future.

I agree. The movement toward authoritarian Christian government is something that should concern anyone who is committed to the Constitution.

Not sure where to start with this. So I won’t. Misinterpretation and misrepresentation seem to be the flavor of the week/month.

Regards,
MG

[malkie]

When you talk about "God", are you referring to whatever god people may believe in, and "religion" likewise, or are you more interested in the Christian god and his religion, or, more specifically, the Mormon god and his religion. As you are aware, not even all Christian religions accept anything close to the Mormon god or his religion.

You ought to know better than to even ask this question.

As I’ve already said, my main worry/concern is the durability of the First Amendment.

You don’t know me as well as I may have hoped.

Regards,
MG

To answer your last point first: I would say that while I may have thought that I had some appreciation for MG about 8 or 9 years ago, as a reasonable and decent guy, it's like MG 2.0 is not the same person I met. Perhaps you feel the same way about the malkie you met back then compared to the one you see now.

Anyway, since I should "know better than to even ask this question" - I assume meaning that you feel it's outrageous that I did so - I wonder how I can fix it. By the way, please excuse me if I am not familiar with how you see the 1st Amendment - it's not a Canadian thing, and like several of the posters here, I'm not an American.

Is it the case, then, that your references to god and religion are not intended to privilege the particular god and religion you subscribe to over all others? You're happy with all gods and all religions being treated equally. The gods of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, New Age Spirituality, Buddhism, Satanism, Scientology, etc. are all fine in your eyes, and you would be happy having the preferences of any of these religions take the place of Christianity, including in the influence that they have in public life, lobbying for and making of laws?

If the influence of Mormonism in Utah were replaced by an equally strong influence of Islam, or Judaism, you'd be OK with that?

A few years ago a Utah legislator held back a law he was drafting because Elder Oaks asked him to do so - Oaks thought that his ideas were superior to those of the State Senator. Are you saying that you would be no more or less happy or unhappy if the legislator had acted that way based on the preference of a Catholic priest, or an Imam?

Is it only non-religious people you have no trust or faith in? Or should they also be allowed to wield the same level of influence?

[dastardly stem]

In other words, the conservative anti-government paranoia is losing in the marketplace of ideas. Too bad, so sad. The conservatism of Ronald Regan dismantled the greatest achievement of the American economic system: the creation of a strong middle class. Until 1980, the fruits of the engine of American prosperity were shared proportionately by rich and poor. That all changed starting in 1980, when the Republican Party began shifting the distribution of wealth and income more and more in favor of the rich. The U.S. continued to enjoy ever increasing real per capita income, but it all went to the wealthy. And on top of that, it set the middle and lower classes against each other to fight over the scraps in the hope that no one would notice where all the money went.

Conservatives have no answers for the problems and crises that face the newest generation of Americans. Among first-world countries, we pay the most for the worst health care simply because conservatives pee their pants at the mere thought of government involvement in health care, despite the evidence we see from other first-world countries. If you can't afford health care, the conservative's answer is, then die and be quick about it.

When we had a healthy middle class, the way middle class families tapped into wealth accumulation was home ownership. Now, ownership is foreclosed for the vast percentage of young people as the rich acquire portfolios of single family homes as investment vehicles, turning what would have been a new generation of home owners into a permanent renter class. What's the conservative answer? Something something something market something.
........

my my my,
Res Ipsa, careful you may be becoming as much a disruptive trouble maker as that Mr Jesus that dasterdly stem is always complaining about.

Hey huckelberry. I don’t think Res Ipsa has included explicit mixed messages like Jesus did. I can’t help that Jesus preached both love and hate, and violence and peace. And I can’t help that people honor such confusion as if it came from an all knowing god. I’d question whether pointing out that Jesus’ messages were clearly confused amounts to complaining. That is the mythic character, wholly expected in his time and place, but definitely not expected if he were actually divine.

[MG 2.0]

You ought to know better than to even ask this question.

As I’ve already said, my main worry/concern is the durability of the First Amendment.

You don’t know me as well as I may have hoped.

Regards,
MG

To answer your last point first: I would say that while I may have thought that I had some appreciation for MG about 8 or 9 years ago, as a reasonable and decent guy, it's like MG 2.0 is not the same person I met. Perhaps you feel the same way about the malkie you met back then compared to the one you see now.

Anyway, since I should "know better than to even ask this question" - I assume meaning that you feel it's outrageous that I did so - I wonder how I can fix it. By the way, please excuse me if I am not familiar with how you see the 1st Amendment - it's not a Canadian thing, and like several of the posters here, I'm not an American.

Is it the case, then, that your references to god and religion are not intended to privilege the particular god and religion you subscribe to over all others? You're happy with all gods and all religions being treated equally. The gods of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, New Age Spirituality, Buddhism, Satanism, Scientology, etc. are all fine in your eyes, and you would be happy having the preferences of any of these religions take the place of Christianity, including in the influence that they have in public life, lobbying for and making of laws?

If the influence of Mormonism in Utah were replaced by an equally strong influence of Islam, or Judaism, you'd be OK with that?

A few years ago a Utah legislator held back a law he was drafting because Elder Oaks asked him to do so - Oaks thought that his ideas were superior to those of the State Senator. Are you saying that you would be no more or less happy or unhappy if the legislator had acted that way based on the preference of a Catholic priest, or an Imam?

Is it only non-religious people you have no trust or faith in? Or should they also be allowed to wield the same level of influence?

malkie, I had a long and detailed response put together and it somehow got ‘trashed’ as I went to preview it (I’m on an iPad). I don’t want do go back through point by point all over again. It probably wouldn’t make much difference anyway. We’re both set in our ways of viewing the world and the church.

I will say that I see the world as it is. Utah has its religious impulses and influences. Same with other places. It is what it is. Hypotheticals are rather meaningless.

What is of major concern moving forward is whether or not the protections regarding freedom of religion and/or freedom from religion will remain as guiding principles not only in the United States but throughout the world as we move into the future. The concerns I and many others have is what the outcomes will be if a ‘godless’ majority took over the reigns of government. Would the free exercise of religion remain?

As it is, the laws of the land protect both the religious and the non religious folks. And that is as it should be. And this is with religious folks, on the whole, in the majority in both state and federal government. Atheists and other folks of all different ‘stripes’ in regards to belief have the freedom to move about in society with equal protections.

Unfortunately the track record is mixed when ‘godless’ individuals take hold of government institutions. This should be a concern for everyone no matter what your ‘stripes’.

Personally I think that freedom of conscience and free exercise OF that conscience has a much better chance when protections are in place that prohibit interference by governmental institutions in the free exercise thereof. If we were absolutely sure that these protections would remain in place indefinitely if the ‘nones’ and or others that have a non theistic worldview were to take the reigns of power, then folks like me and millions of others would be able to sleep at night with little or no worries.

But again, the track record is mixed. Free exercise of religion is and has been under attack many times throughout the world and its history by those who would ‘root out’ the “opium of the masses’.

Millions have been subjected to a loss of their individual liberties and freedom of conscience. This unfortunate ‘curse’ can potentially happen anywhere. We are not free from the risks of a gradual decline into a society devoid of religious freedom and liberty. Of course the secular humanists and/or atheists (the minority at this point in time) say, “No worries!”

Occurrences such as the bakery owners being forced to bake wedding cakes for those in whose views of morality they disagree with on religious principles are just a tiny slice of what we might see if religious liberty and free exercise were to be curtailed and/or done away with. The radical left would have government step in and force its way into the free exercise and practice of religious conscience and principled behavior regardless of constitutional protections.

Whether or not GenZ and their children and their children’s children would continue to hold up freedom and liberty FOR ALL is an open ended question. But we do have examples of countries and nations that have fallen prey to systems of suppression and oppression due to the ‘godless’ nature of individuals who took hold of society and institutions, governmental and academic.

And you don’t have to be ‘far right’ or a Trump acolyte to have concerns. Everyday people who find themselves in ‘the middle’ have the same concerns. That would be me.

That’s the whole point of why I started this thread. And I knew full well that I would be stepping on a hornets nest with the majority of folks here being of a certain and/or similar ‘stripe’.

Regards,
MG