Griswold Resists Atheists’ Demands
December 12th, 2006 by Peter
GRISWOLD, Conn. (AP) — Local officials vow that the bells of a Baptist church will continue to peal above the complaints of atheists.
A sound system owned by the borough of Jewett City and the town of Griswold and housed in a church has prompted the Connecticut chapter of American Atheists Inc. to demand that the governments cut their ties with the bells. The group also wants the volume turned down.
More than 75 residents pushed back Monday, demanding that the borough’s Board of Warden and Burgesses not silence the sound system that plays the chimes heard throughout the area.
Some officials say that barring a court order or legal advice to the contrary, the bells will continue to sound.
“The bells will continue to toll until they stop us,” Borough Warden Cynthia Kata said.
Burgess Patrick Sullivan was defiant.
“The borough is not gonna run,” he said. “We’re here, and we’re gonna fight.”
One atheist responds:
“If you read your Constitution, government is not supposed to promote any religion,” he said. “What are the bells in the Baptist Church doing? Promoting religion.”
If a lawsuit ensues, several residents and businesses say they will buy the equipment and donate it to the church.
Sheesh, don’t folks have anything better to do than to gripe about this? Um.. and if the town gives in , aren’t they promoting atheism? (that’s a religion/belief system too). Maybe the atheists in Griswold are cranky because they haven’t got a holiday to celebrate. How sad.
William Russell is quoted as stating, “If you read your Constitution, government is not supposed to promote any religion…What are the bells in the Baptist Church doing? Promoting religion.”
Mr. Russell, you do not know your history nor your Constitution. The First Amendment was added by the Founders to prevent the “establishment” of a national Church, NOT to prevent the public acknowledgment of God. Until 1947, the Supreme Court’s decision in Emerson v the Board of Education, there was no question about this issue.
It is time to end this judicial tyranny whereby the government is antithetical to Christianity. This country was founded upon Christian principals which extended liberty to all peoples of all faiths. The quoted source in our Constitution was the Bible. If it weren’t for our Christian roots, you atheists would have no rights to attack our faith.
It’s time for you folks to get a life.
Atheists could always celebrate April 1st?…
The church should just buy its own equiptment. Why did the town pay for it anyways? You have to admit that it’s strange that a town is paying for items for a church. I don’t want the government inside of my church, and neither should anyone else.
Chris,
Due to tax exemption laws, the government is already in your church via regulated speech.
Atheists don’t just want the separation of church and state, they want to separate religion from society. That’s how they have (successfully) framed the debate.
The First Amendment was added by the Founders to prevent the “establishment” of a national Church
The key words in that sentence are “national church.” Little is it known that some states had official (and legal) state religions at the time of the constitution’s ratification. Connecticut was among them, and did not disestablish until 1818.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_religion
Atheists have a deep faith that there is no God. Their deeply held belief is not attacked, nor are theist beliefs established, by hearing a bell. The ring of a bell is a belief-neutral sound; assuming, of course, one is not psychotic. Do atheist believe their phones are proselytizing to them? What about the little kittens with collar bells– are they just preachers in disquise? Maybe I have over-assumed when it comes to atheists.
Perhaps they can have a bell at their “place of non-worship”, and not ring it, as a form of protest. The silence can symbolize, for them, the absence of God in their lives.
Schools have government funded bells- so atheists better steer clear of them.
Their banter is just temporary ringing in our ears, but unlike them; we take it like men.
This is America. This is how we do it. Churches can
sound church bells. If you don’t like it…..there are
approximately 200 other countries to choose from.
Move.
Rich in # 2 is spot on. A great website for anyone looking for ammo in these kinds of annoying debates is Wallbuilers. Go to:
http://www.wallbuilders.com/
Merry Christmas!
You are all showing the results of your secular mis-education. Allow me to make several points points.
1. There separation between the church and state is nowhere in any of our founding documents…including the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
2. There are no such thing as Constitutional rights….only God-given rights. The Constitution was put in place to secure those rights….the Constitution can’t grant anybody anything…it can only restrain government from intruding on individual rights.
3. Congress shall make no law….neither can judges make a law…nor presidents…nor school boardfs…regarding the establishment of a religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof….they are God-given rights….
4. Check this guy out if you want the real story…
http://www.newswithviews.com/Daubenmire/daveA.htm.
What of America? Any honest casual reader of its history will clearly see the intent of the non-establishment clause reflects freedom OF religion, NOT freedom FROM religion. Every President ever elected made public statements seeking the Providential Blessings of God. And what of Griswold? Athiest that seek to force Griswold to throw their VALUED Christian history into the waste can, can go live in some communist nation where rights are purely at the discrestion of its totalitarian masters. Our INALIENABLE RIGHTS IN AMERICA COME FROM GOD! and we’re keeping our right to express that publically.
Man, after awhile some of you guys start to sound like Muslim fundamentalists. Not only do you subscribe to a fake persecution complex, (your religious freedoms aren’t under attack, seriously they’re not),… But you also seem to feel the need to try and establish YOUR religion as the law of the land.
When President Bush says “They hate our freedoms”, couldn’t he be referring to some of you? Sure, American culture can be bothersome and disturbing, but I’d rather be part of a free society than a police state fueled by religiosity and obsession.
Christianity was the law of the Lord and will be once again after He deals with Sodom America. You have nothing to fear from us – your unalienable rights to mouth anything you want, are derived from above. You have more fear from Him than us.
Rich, the God of Abraham was far different than the God of the New Testament, I think we all know that. How can you believe in Jesus, yet pretend that Christianity is about the “law of the Lord”.
Christ was sent to us not to command, but to teach and lead. Your sense of a vengeful God isn’t really in keeping with the religion I know.
The only way I can imagine God being angry, vengeful and unforgiving is if we screw up this wonderful gift called Earth. Are you an environmentalist too? And can I ask if you’ve yet seen “An Inconvenient Truth”? It worries me greatly that we might be screwing up the world for generations to come. It’s almost too sad to contemplate.
Atheists want the bells turned down.
I would like not to be forced to pay for the murder of embryos with my tax dollars.
You think you as an individual should not need to be forced to hear some bells. What about me as an individual being forced to pay for what I view as the murder of an innocent human being?
You make me sick. You want what you want. If you can’t get it by force, you’ll whine about your rights. I’ll take that seriously when someone shows they care about my rights. Until then, though, the idea of “rights” is a joke. It’s all about forcing others to do what you want them to do.
The same atheist group has sent a letter to Mayor Jarjura demanding that Waterbury replace its annual Christmas display. Jarjura’s quote in yesterday’s Rep-Am:
“We’re not removing anything.”
TrueBlue, #13 above, wrote,
“Rich, the God of Abraham was far different than the God of the New Testament, I think we all know that.”
If you think “we all know that,” you are clueless. None of the New Testament writers believed that the God they wrote about was not the same as the God of Abraham. This is nothing but ignorance on your part, TrueBlue, pure and simple.
Sure, God doesn’t want folks to hurt others by polluting the environment in which we live. But God will punish all hurting of others. The Bible shows Christ saying, at the end of Matthew 25, “Depart from me into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” to those who did not care for others during their lives on this earth. You, on the other hand, think God will not avenge those who did not love others. Fine, you may construct such a God for yourself to worship, but it sure isn’t the God that the Bible depicts.
You go ahead and believe what you choose; but don’t go shoving your beliefs on others and telling them what God is like. You don’t like it when others do it, but it doesn’t seem to bother you when you do it yourself. You offer not a single shred of evidence to back up the things you say about God, so why should anyone think that you know what God is like?
TrueBlue, #11, wrote,
” … your religious freedoms aren’t under attack, seriously they’re not”
Again, you’re just plain clueless.
Here is an article about Matt Barber, who was fired from his job at Allstate Insurance because he wrote an article against homosexual marriage. The article was written at home on Mr. Barber’s own time, and does not give any mention that he worked for Allstate.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44961
But, according to you, TrueBlue, firing someone for his religious beliefs isn’t “freedom under attack.”
___________________________________________________________
In Sweden in 2003 Ake Green was sentenced to a month in prison for simply preaching that homosexual acts are sinful. He was eventually acquitted, but only because the case was appealed and there was a worldwide outcry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ake_Green
___________________________________________________________
I could list dozens of these: Scott Brockie, a printer, forced to spend $170,000 dollars to defend himself in court because he refused to print pro-homosexual materials; Christian counter-protestors at homosexual pride parades have often been arrested in blatant violation of their freedom of speech; Canadian Chris Kempling was suspended from his job teaching at a college, merely for writing letters to his local newspaper objecting to promotion of homosexuality in the public schools; pharmacists being forced to participate in what they believe is murder through being forced to fill prescriptions for abortifacient drugs; Christian hospitals under attack for not providing abortifacients; police forced to protect abortionists, even if the policeman’s faith holds that the abortionist is a mass murderer, that police officer must aid and abet the crime; etc., etc., etc.
And the taxpayers! Our money is taken from us by force and given to Planned Parenthood, but that is not “freedom under attack” in what passes for your mind, TrueBlue, oh, no, no, no!
And the public schools! Parents must acquiesce to the teaching that same-sex couples are not to be viewed as sinful. Their only alternative is to bear the entire cost of educating their children. OK, no problem, but wait — they are also forced to pay, through their tax dollars, for the public schools that attack and denigrate their belief that homosexuality is sinful.
But they deserve it, right, TrueBlue? After all, since the Christian belief that homosexuality is sinful is a wrong belief, it’s therefore OK to treat Christians unfairly, right, TrueBlue?
Suppose you had not only to 1.) pay the full cost of your childrens’ education but also 2.) subsidize the education of others that denigrates your faith, would you feel you had been treated fairly?
But it’s happening to someone else, and they deserve it, right, TrueBlue?
I’ve only scratched the surface. David, (#13 above), mentioned being forced to pay for the murder of innocent human beings in the use of his tax dollars for lethal research on embryos. The list just goes on and on, but it means nothing to you, TrueBlue, because you are unable to perceive injustice unless it happens to those who believe as you do.
Simple as that.
Allan–
It’s hard to know for sure, but reading from the links you provide, I’d have to agree that Matt Barber shouldn’t have been fired.
In America, everyone should be free to hold their own political beliefs, that’s for sure. On the left there have been plenty of instances where people have been fired for saying/writing the “wrong” things. Maybe this is something left and right should work on together! What is the right-wing equivalent of the ACLU?
In terms of the Bible we need to agree to disagree. The difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament was that God sent us Jesus to show us the way. Jesus was the least angry, least judgemental person in the history of mankind. When it came to the rich, he never said, “take care of the less fortunate, or you’ll be damned forever…”. Instead he spoke much more mildly, “easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle” or something like that. I understand your anger, but I’m just not down with an angry Jesus, when he was anything but.
TrueBlue,
You simply do not know the Bible. It has been calculated that the Gospels show Jesus referring to the damnation of hellfire approximately ten times as often as the entire Old Testament combined.
I could quote many statements of Christ that the Gospels record, but what’s the point? You completely ignore the real meaning of Christ’s words in Matthew 25:41-43:
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'”
This is not an isolated example. Here’s another, Luke 19:27:
27 “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.”
There are many more. You can read the story of the rich man in hell in Luke 16:19-31, for example.
The image of a gentle and inoffensive Christ is a human creation, it is not the Christ that is presented in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. People who write such things as you have written (that Jesus is never angry or judgmental) simply don’t have much knowledge of what Bible says about Jesus.
Allan-
I appreciate your examples, but I don’t read them as proof that Jesus shared in your anger.
It is instructive that what you cited were instances of Jesus threatening the rich that they might not make it into heaven! Would that make Jesus a Democrat?
TrueBlue,
*Any and all* injustice angers Christ, and the Gospels clearly reflect this.
It is a mistake to speak of *my* anger. Your original comment was in answer to Rich (#12 above) where Rich said that “you have more to fear from God than from us.” To that, you replied that you cannot imagine an angry God (except over abuse of the environment) (see your post #13).
Fine. You cannot imagine an angry God. Nevertheless, angry at injustice is frequently how the New Testament portrays Christ, in contradiction to the uninformed opinion you offered at the beginning of #13.