ryking:

conservativebrew:

From article:

The poll shows that 40 percent of Republicans say they attend church weekly. While 21 percent say they attend nearly weekly or monthly, and 38 percent say they rarely go to church.

Meanwhile of their political counterparts polled, only 27 percent of Democrats who say they go to church every week, 20 percent say they go monthly and 52 percent of Democrats say they seldom or never go to church.

Almost one in five Democrats identify with no religious faith compared to only one in 10 Republicans who feel that way…

Just for good measure, because all of the lefties will cite their “enlightenment” as reason for not believing in God, here’s what a couple of nobody’s said about society and religion:

“Every human society that tears out religion, removes its foundation.” - Plato, 10th Book of the Law

“The most Pious cities and nations have ever been the wisest and most lasting.” - Xenophon, 4th cen. B.C. historian and philosopher

“It’s easier to build a city in the air than to constitute a society without belief in the gods.” - Plutarch, 1st cen. A.D. historian and philosopher

1) Left-wingers are more enlightened than right-wingers.

2) None of your quotes bolster the case that a magical deity exists, nor that a belief in such a deity is either necessary or beneficial to human societies.

3) You said you were citing a “couple of nobody’s” but you cited three people (not two) and misspelled “nobodies.”

4) “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.” That’s from a “nobody” named James Madison. Here’s another quote, this one from Edward Gibbon, the historian who wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” — Ryking

Not surprising.  I certainly feel more despondent pretty much on a weekly basis, the more fanatical zealotry this country displays.  ~whyinthehell

Many of the world’s religions — including Christianity — supported same-sex unions, a reality obscured by modern-day shrill, conservative commentary.

    “Through much of history, especially prior to the Fourteenth Century, many Christians did not share the view that marriage was a reward for being heterosexual, nor that a same-sex union was objectionable.

An icon from St. Catherine’s monastery on Mount Sinai illustrates this point. It shows two robed Christian saints getting married. Their pronubus (official witness, or “best man”) is none other than Jesus Christ.

It is a standard Roman portrayal of a wedding. The difference: the two saints are both male, Fourth Century Christian martyrs, Saint Serge and Saint Bacchus, close friends in the Roman army who were purportedly singled out for their secret adherence to Christianity before being tortured and killed.

Their unity, considered romantic by some historians and depicted through the image of marriage at St. Catherine’s monastery, was commemorated in many subsequent liturgies. The late Yale historian John Boswell found evidence for other Christian same-sex marriage ceremonies continuing even into the Eighteenth Century.

It is broadly and falsely assumed that the world’s religions uniformly condemn same-sex unions. That error is even repeated in the recent favorable decision on same-sex marriage by Chief Judge of Federal District Court in San Francisco, Vaughan R. Walker. 

It is true that all major religions exhibit some heterosexism, a bias in favor of heterosexuality over homosexuality. However, religions also have shown openness to same-sex unions, a reality that shrill conservative commentary, which dominates the public square on matters religious and sexual, has blocked from public view, even from the view of Judge Walker.

Many Buddhist authorities insist that privileging one sexual orientation over another is not the path of wisdom and insist that the successful management of sexual desire is the moral issue, not the orientation of that desire or the gender of your lover.

Jewish scholars show that compulsory hetero-normativity is not supported by basic Jewish values.

Pioneering scholars in Islam argue that in spite of the negative Qur’anic texts on homosexuality, a solid Muslim case, based on Islamic justice, can be made for same-sex unions. Observant Muslim lesbians, known as the Samadiyyah, are living out this expression of Muslim life and tolerance.

Some Native American religions portrayed “two-spirited,” persons, i.e. sexual minorities, in a very positive light.

Hindu scholars have shown that respect for diversity is at the heart of Hindu cultures.  Since early times, the Hindus saw that persons were not divided neatly into male and female and spoke of a “third sex” which opened space for and normalized gender and sexual variety and same-sex unions.

Lawmakers take note: because religions give this warranty and allow for this freedom of same-sex unions, laws that would legalize only the conservative religious view are in violation of religious freedom.

Religions are pluralistic on same-sex unions. It is not the function of law to curtail freedoms granted and authorized by mainstream religions.

Conservative Christians who insist that “traditional marriage” has always been “between a man and a woman” are wrong and historically uninformed. Thus, they are poor guides for lawmakers and judges.

There is strong support in world religions for the view that homosexuality is not the problem; heterosexism is.

The principles of justice and equality that pulsate through those flawed but powerful classics that we call the “world religions,” are moving toward seeing heterosexism, with its resistance to same-sex loving unions, as a prejudice in a class with sexism, racism, anti-Arabism and anti-Semitism.

Humanity needs its exuberant diversity but humans shrink from it.

As theologian William Sloane Coffin said: “Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with — and perhaps the most dangerous thing to live without.” “