right to pray

So, this shows that you are more prone to violence than the Christians are. This is not my own idea, you have said this yourself...

when its my home i consider it a hostile invasion......

Well, do not open the door to the people you do not want to be your guests. But breaking legs is not justified in this particular case: these people are not burglars or murderers that endanger your life and property, such a behavior is beyond mere self-defense.

Steissd isn't, I think, an American. A country born of those who fled religion and proselytizing. It's important to realize many of those who fought to form a nation were very precisely aware of the dangers of state religion and -- in fact -- the arrogance of much organized religion.

Steissd: Most of us (including mostly likely Dys) grit our teeth and are polite, if cool, when missionaries intrude. But as fundamentalism gets more insistent, we are more and more willing to take to the law to make sure they do not bring their mission into public space. It's their choice: courtesy and respect for others, or rejection.

Maybe, the Christian groups should have more tact and find another, less publicly annoying, ways of proselytizing. But you should not object their rights for freedom of speech, including speech in public.

Growing up my family was Methodist but we consistently had Mormons, Seventh Day Adventist, Pentecostals, and the odd Baptist wacko showing up on our door step, bible in hand ready to demonstrate with text and argument that they were the true believers and convert us to their way. The worst were those that showed up in groups and came to "extend fellowship and hang around all day. My father used to escort them of the property, but they never got the message, and were always back the next year. Dyslexia's point is well taken

well, i didn't say anything about breaking legs, (a kick in the shins maybe) I have had the experience of trying to sit at my front door reading and had "christians" come to me on my property yelling at me for reading a book about evolution ("you are a victim of the devil and those anti-christ books should be burned") I have in the past been, as Tartarin suggests, polite but the extremism is getting worse and worse as those self-righteous closeminded racist bigots feel they have a right to impose their inane comic book theology on anyone in the area. as i said at the beginning of this tread respect is mutual, when i get none, i give none.

streissd
You illustrate my point perfectly: So what if they don't like the Christian message; force it on them anyway, seems to be what you are saying.

Yes, Steissd, but not rituals and proselytizing in public.

Using recent residence in Texas as an example:

In the city, they are allowed to knock on your door if you live in the kind of house which is not gated and has easy access. But they must not try to enter and must leave promptly if you ask them to. So the whole thing can be done politely. Sometimes they persisted and it was then I gave them the "treatment"!

In the county, where I now live, and where my house is set back and there's a cattle gate between me and the road, I came home one day and found some 7th Day Adventists in my fenced (from cattle and deer) yard, looking through the windows into the house. They were nicely dressed and polite, so I gave them the leeway of about two sentences of explanation. After which I expressed surprise that they had opened both gates and hung around when they realized no one was home. They smiled and shrugged and left. I called the Sheriff and told him. He asked me for as much of a description as I could give of them and their car, and he went off to try to round them up and give 'em hell. They are not allowed, in rural areas, to enter properties without permission. A practical law -- since opening cattle gates (quite apart from anything else) can cause real problems.

No, I mean that in borders of your private estate you may resrict their right to talk to you. But they cannot be prohibited from talking in public places, unless they expres support to anything illegal: violence, racial hatred, freedom of drugs consumption or molesting kids and the like.

You cannot prohibit public praying, true. But, in the good ole USA you can prevent them from broadcasting it on a pa system in inappropriate places.

bobsmyth






I would say that statement nails it. This nation was founded as a secular nation with freedom of religion being one of it's core principles. The writer seems to believe that since the majority in the US are Christians that somehow Christianity takes precedence. Sounds like tyranny of the majority. That certainly not a guiding principle of our founding fathers.

What Au said.

This penchant for suing is a sign of the times more than a loss of faith. There have always been those who will ride the wave of current social thinking until it passes. I don't believe Christian religion is undermined anymore than those who wish to think for themselves.

There are Christians and then there are Christians, as in any other aspect of human endeavor.

Right-o, edgarblythe! :wink:

Steissed 2 dys;
"So, this shows that you are more prone to violence than the Christians are."

r we talking actual "christians" following the guidance of christ a jew living in the middle east 2000 odd years ago? (who r best represented by people like ghandi who was a hindu, etc.) or 'nominal' christians, e.g. g. w. bush - enough said!

while i would b fully in support of those who find it of merit 2 internally think they r communicating with a deity, in their own terms, and on their own time, 2 do so; i do nor see their right to arrogantly waste my time and that of many others, waiting 4 them 2 do so in public for the benefit of rationalizing some need 2 do so in a specific time and place in an affront 2 anyone elses reasoned philosophical choices.

I agree you shouldn't be bothered at home. I was accosted by a holy roller once who wouldn't stop. During a pause I told him I had talked to God the day before and he wasn't mentioned. Stopped him cold.

Seems to me we assume that prayer must be said aloud and in the company of other people. I don't know that to be true. If prayer time arrived while waiting in the checkout line at WalMart, perhaps one should either pray quietly or remove oneself to a quiet part of the store and pray under one's breath.

The point is, in our society declaiming or engaging in a religious ritual in public has become a confrontational act, made so by the social and political aggressiveness of some Christian churches. We are careful and polite and gentle when paranoid schizophrenics accost us in the park (that's happened to me quite a lot) and insist that we listen to their perorations. But we do that because they are ill and in need.

Fundamentalists use the same tactic, but they are sane and not in need and their purpose is as confrontational and repellant having a completely unknown person shout in a public place, You m******f****** you're all a bunch of s*** and I'd like to p** in your faces. That's no worse than having J**** C*****'s message thrown at me as I eat my lunch on a park bench.

Had not members of some sects poisoned the message, we might be more tolerant -- put up with occasional ravings as we do with the schizophrenic homeless person. But the latter is benign compared to the fundamentalists. We know how scary and repellent less familiar fundamentalism can be; why should not the same apply to Christians? Because you can bet that if a Muslim fundamentalist let go with a wad of loud religious gripes in the line at WalMart, he'd be behind bars right quick, legally or not.