Religious Arbitration - Page 4

piece-itpete · #1 05-02-2011, 02:48 PM

BAM! ROTFLMAO! Rob, you get the cynicism award this week

Pete

piece-itpete · #2 05-02-2011, 02:54 PM

I fully understand that D and agree they have NO PLACE in that at all

But I do know that the courts get involved over church schisms (who owns what?) etc, and am talking about what would be secular matters from the courts' POV.

Pete

merrylander · #3 05-02-2011, 03:37 PM

Yeah we should treat the churches just like everyone else - tax them.

piece-itpete · #4 05-03-2011, 08:08 AM

Well said.

Pete

d-ray657 · #5 05-03-2011, 08:22 AM

What's the equivalent of Partisan when we speak of fealty to a particular dehomiation: denominasan? In any event, I will speak for my experience in the Methodist Church. I grew up a Methodist, and I have to say that I have seldom witnessed a "holier than thou" attitude among members. As a matter of fact, each week we join in a confession of our shortcomings. What I have seen is plenty of warmth and acceptance of one whose attendance is sporadic, of different races, of different economic backgrounds, and of different faith backgrounds. I have seen a youth group whose annual trip is a service project somewhere. Whatever hypocracy I have seen is individual. I can acknowledge my own and guess about others'.

Regards,

D-Ray

merrylander · #6 05-03-2011, 08:32 AM

I grew up in a Union church simply because the village was too small for all the protestant denominations to afford individual places of worship. We did not even have our own clergyman but 'borrowed' the United Church minister from across the river.

In Canada the United church came about by a merger of the Methodists and about 80 - 90 percent of the Presbyterians. My parents were very active in the church, possibly to the point that the expression "the willing horse does all the work" originated there. Heck, my copy of the Bible is inscribed "For perfect attendance".

My experience since those days has disabused me of any great love or respect for "Organized" religion as the organization seems to have become more important than the message. So we describe ourselves merely as christians, without the capital C. BTW Florence was raised in the Roman Catholic church but at the time of our marriage expressed no desire for a church wedding, so we had a civil service.