Anyone here interested in philosophy?

[One Wheel]

First, and this is just a pet peeve of mine, but when people ask for definitions of words and concepts they clearly understand solely as a (bad) debate tactic it's annoying. You know what God is, and you know what discrimination is. A better question might be "how does that create discrimination"

Second, I think the point Justin is trying to make is that putting things like "in god we trust" on money is an example of inscribing Christianity into public life, which should not be done considering there are many other religions. However, I do agree that it probably doesn't personally harm him, but it definitely has implications for groups that are negatively affected by what people interpret to be Christian values, such as LGBTQ people or people of other religions. The whole point is that glorifying Christianity as the religion of America by putting it on currency or in other places is the problem, as it certainly negatively affects people. (for example most arguments against gay marriage or abortion rights are religious in origin, and those arguments no doubt have harmful impacts on groups affected by those things, as well as the fact that the KKK, while being incorrect and not actually being good christians, ties american identity to the religious ideals that influence their white supremacy)

I understand "in God we trust" connecting the United States to monotheism, but I'm not convinced that it must be specifically Christianity. Even if it is, though, most of the founders and early leaders of this country were Christians or at the very least subscribed to Christian morality (Thomas Jefferson comes to mind). On that basis "in God we trust" is acceptable simply as a historic relic.

As to people being harmed, my Christian faith tells me that I need to love and accept everyone, but I don't have to love and accept what they do. It's incredibly frustrating when someone chooses to be defined by what they do, but I am nevertheless obligated to treat each person with the respect due a precious child of God made in his image. That extends to unborn children as much as it does to LGBTQ people and serial killers. If that hurts anyone I'm sorry, and I will do what I can to ease their suffering, but I'm not going to compromise and I'm not going to condone what I understand to be sin. Does that help explain modern conservative Christian political positions?

 

[JustinTimeCuber]

We shouldn't establish any form of religion. We shouldn't have pennies. We definitely shouldn't have religion on pennies. I guess we should call ourselves a white person nation too, because we are majority white? Just because we are majority religious doesn't mean that we are a religious nation.

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[goodatthis]

I understand "in God we trust" connecting the United States to monotheism, but I'm not convinced that it must be specifically Christianity. Even if it is, though, most of the founders and early leaders of this country were Christians or at the very least subscribed to Christian morality (Thomas Jefferson comes to mind). On that basis "in God we trust" is acceptable simply as a historic relic.

As to people being harmed, my Christian faith tells me that I need to love and accept everyone, but I don't have to love and accept what they do. It's incredibly frustrating when someone chooses to be defined by what they do, but I am nevertheless obligated to treat each person with the respect due a precious child of God made in his image. That extends to unborn children as much as it does to LGBTQ people and serial killers. If that hurts anyone I'm sorry, and I will do what I can to ease their suffering, but I'm not going to compromise and I'm not going to condone what I understand to be sin. Does that help explain modern conservative Christian political positions?

I understand your viewpoint, but in my (atheist/agnostic social justice conscious) eyes that's just an example of a contradiction in Christianity. There's not a lot of cases where what someone does isn't somehow identity-defining, which makes "accept everyone, but not necessarily what they do" to be a difficult rule to follow. It's also why fundementalists are able to misinterpret the Bible and use it for hateful purposes, such in the case of anti-LGBT groups or the KKK. For example, I know the bible condemns homosexual sex as well as being trans, but both being trans and being gay/lesbian/bi are natural predispositions (so thus you should accept them for who they are), but according to the Bible they should remain abstinent (in the case of homosexual sex) and never embrace their true identity (in the case of being trans). I understand that Christianity can do a lot of good but I think the rigid rules that are in place that often contradict themselves can lead to bigotry, so in my mind it's better to do what seems intuitively morally right (accept people and what they do) than listen to the strict teachings of a Bible that's been altered and translated and transcribed so many times that (existence of god aside) it's probably not what god originally intended it to be. In the end, what's a greater sin, bigotry, hate and violence, or allowing people to embrace their identity? The way I see it, a few lines in the Bible don't give a strong enough reason against certain things which are permissible by other moral codes, especially when the only argument the Bible makes in favor of following them is that it came from God.

By the way, I know that you probably aren't a bigot or are hateful towards LGBT people, but the point is that people often take it too far and a classification of homosexuality or being trans as sin is just as dehumanizing as regarding slaves or jews as animals, which always leads to violence and is why gay bashings occur and society as a whole is fairly homophobic.

E: Sorry for always typing up such long paragraphs, succinctness is dead in the modern educational system anyway!