poligion: The Differences between Conservatives and Liberals

where religion and politics meet

Everybody has a worldview. A worldview is what you believe about life: what is true, what is false, what is right, what is wrong, what are the rules, are there any rules, what is the meaning of life, what is important, what is not.

If a worldview includes a god/God, it is called a religion. If a bunch of people have the same religion, they give it a name.

Nations have worldviews too, a prevailing way of looking at life that directs government policies and laws and that contributes significantly to the culture. Politics is the outworking of that worldview in public life.

We are being told today that the United States is and has always been a secular nation, which is practical atheism.

But our country could not have been founded as a secular nation, because a secular country could not guarantee freedom of religion. Secular values would be higher than religious ones, and they would supersede them when there was a conflict. Secularism sees religion only as your personal preferences, like your taste in food, music, or movies. It does not see religion, any religion, as being true.

But even more basic, our country was founded on the belief that God gave unalienable rights to human beings. But what God, and how did the Founders know that He had? Islam, for example, does not believe in unalienable rights. It was the God of the Bible that gave unalienable rights, and it was the Bible that informed the Founders of that. The courts would call that a religious opinion; the Founders would call that a fact.

Without Christianity, you don’t have unalienable rights, and without unalienable rights, you don’ have the United States of America.

A secular nation cannot give or even recognize unalienable rights, because there is no higher power in a secular nation than the government.

Unalienable rights are the basis for the American concept of freedom and liberty. Freedom and liberty require a high moral code that restrains bad behavior among its people; otherwise the government will need to make countless laws and spend increasingly larger amounts of money on law enforcement.

God, prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments were always important parts of our public life, including our public schools, until 1963, when the court called supreme ruled them unconstitutional, almost 200 years after our nation’s founding.

As a secular nation, the government now becomes responsible to take care of its people. It no longer talks about unalienable rights, because then they would have to talk about God, so it creates its own rights. Government-given rights are things that the government is required to provide for its people, which creates an enormous expense which is why our federal government is now $22 trillion in debt.

Our country also did not envision a multitude of different religions co-existing in one place, because the people, and the government, would then be divided on the basic questions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Our Constitution, which we fought a war to be able to enact, states, among other things, that our government exists for us to form a more perfect union, ensure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. It could not do this unless it had a clear vision of what it considers to be true, a vision shared with the vast majority of the people in this country.

I want to engage the government, the culture, and the people who live here to see life again from a Christian perspective and to show how secularism is both inadequate and just plain wrong.

Because religion deals with things like God, much of its contents is not subject to the scientific method, though the reasons why one chooses to believe in God or a particular religion certainly demand serious investigation, critical thinking, and a hunger for what is true.

Science and education used to be valuable tools in the search for truth, but science has chosen to answer the foundational questions of life without accepting the possibility of any supernatural causes, and education generally no longer considers the search to be necessary, possible, or worthwhile.

poligion: 1) the proper synthesis of religion and politics 2) the realization, belief, or position that politics and religion cannot be separated or compartmentalized, that a person’s religion invariably affects one’s political decisions and that political decisions invariably stem from one’s worldview, which is what a religion is.

If you are new to this site, I would encourage you to browse through the older articles. They deal with a lot of the more basic issues. Many of the newer articles are shorter responses to particular problems.

Visit my other websites theimportanceofhealing blogspot.com where I talk about healing and my book of the same name and LarrysBibleStudies.blogspot.com where I am posting all my other Bible studies. Follow this link to my videos on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb-RztuRKdCEQzgbhp52dCw

If you want to contact me, email is best: lacraig1@sbcglobal.net

Thank you.

Larry Craig

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

The Differences between Conservatives and Liberals

The Differences between Conservatives and Liberals

[Disclaimer: In real life, people can hold any number of views that are inconsistent with their other views, and most people fall along a long continuum of political, religious, and moral beliefs. So, yes, this is dealing with stereotypes, though my son says exist for a reason.]

Conservatives believe you should be kind and generous to the poor and needy. Liberals believe the same thing, but they take other people’s money to do it and then claim credit for their compassion.

Conservatives believe that, just as you receive a booklet from the manufacturer with most new purchases telling you how the thing works, so our Manufacturer has given us a Manual to tell us how life works and how it is supposed to work. Liberals believe that human knowledge is progressing such that we can figure all this out on our own.

Conservatives believe there are rules in life given to us by God and reflected in many of our traditions. Liberals believe you can pretty much make your own rules apart from the cardinal rules of letting others do what they want (tolerance) and life should be fair (Everybody should have the same things as everyone else.).

Conservatives believe that you should love your neighbor as yourself. Liberals believe you should tolerate your neighbor, which is just another way of saying ignore him.

Conservatives will write a check or give what they have to someone in need. Liberals will point them to the appropriate government agency that will help them.

Conservatives believe that God gave us laws so we can live a happy, fulfilling life. Liberals believe you should go your whole life not really knowing the best way to live your life, and hopefully you will die suddenly so you won’t lie on your deathbed thinking of all the regrets about what you should have done differently.

Conservatives believe that children are a blessing, a gift from God, a privilege to raise the next generation, and the thing we will prize most in our lives. Liberals believe that children are one of many options but often a hindrance keeping women from achieving the same things as men.

Conservatives believe that individuals, through their faith and knowledge of God, hard work, and community, can and should provide for the general welfare of our society. Liberals believe that government can and should solve every problem. Usually it will take money and a new government program and agency to do this.

Conservatives believe sex is sacred, a gift from God to create the next generation but also to unite a husband and wife in a way you wouldn’t have imagined. Liberals believe sex is just a form of recreation, like a massage or a tennis match, or a bodily function like eating, sleeping, or eliminating.

Conservatives believe that our rights come from God, from what He has made us as human beings. Liberals believe that the government can and should expand those rights and force other people to secure those rights. E.g. a right to a living wage means that someone else has to pay them more than they want to to perform a particular job.

Conservatives believe that you can’t do everything you want in life, no matter how good or noble. You have to make choices, set priorities, and do what you can. Liberals believe that everything good can and should be done regardless of the cost, and the government should probably do it, because they can do it better and make sure it gets done in ways that protect the health and safety of every living and non-living thing in the world.

Conservatives believe that life has risks, and people are generally capable of assessing risks and making good choices. Liberals believe that the government has a responsibility to protect everyone from all danger, loss, risk, or failure at any cost.

These differences basically describe the two very different views of the world and the role of government that exist in our country, and people wonder why they compromise on solutions for the betterment of our country. They can’t decide what is better.