Monday, May 31, 2010

Why would many not want an invocation as opposed to a moment of silence at publicly funded Greensboro City Council meetings?

How is a taxpayer funded prayer at a municipal function
not a free, publicly funded commercial
for those purposefully picked to present the invocation?

Are members of a church more likely to give campaign contributions
to a Council Member who attends the same church,
if said church’s preacher gives the invocation?

Are Greensboro’s clergy more or less likely to bring in new business
from being viewed/endorsed on publicly funded TV?

Will those Greensboro residents who do not privately fund a local church
be represented during invocations at City Council Meetings?

Will clergy who give invocations receive privileged access
to Greensboro’s political and municipal executives?

Are invocation granted clergy more likely to tow their political benefactor’s “line”
in tax-free “non-profit” pulpits?

No man shall be compelled to frequent or support
religious worship, place, or ministry
... nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief
but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain
their opinion on matters of religion

Thomas Jefferson
Virginia Bill on Religious Freedom

Should a preacher who gives an invocation
then advocate for public spending on secular priorities?

Should wealthy evangelists
who spend millions of dollars of church funds on marketing and luxury lifestyles
be invited/endorsed by municipalities to give invocations/advertisements
on publicly funded TV?

How should those other than Christian
explain to their kids when a member of the clergy says "in Jesus' name we pray"
at a publicly funded government meeting
where rational and balanced decisions are to be made for “all” taxpayers?

How is Greensboro in the land of the free
if one religion dominates 90% of the invocations?

Are communities who lean towards religion infused government
more or less likely to pass religious based legislation
like alcohol prohibition, dancing, women’s rights, book burning,
public school curriculums, abortion or homosexuality?

Should elected lawmakers seek to avoid imposing their religious views
upon the communities in which they reside?

Religion
…is the opiate of the masses

Karl Marx

Why are weak governments more likely to embrace religion or nationalism
in times of social instability
and/or when distractions appear helpful to bury other more important issues?

Sheep who elect bears to protect themselves from wolves
are still devoured.

Beezlebubba

Is Greensboro better off if Council Members can't endorse church's
in a moment of silence
or if our elected representatives can gain advantage
by maneuvering specific clergy to be picked to offer prayers
at publicly funded events?

If Greensboro City Council Members could be considered blessed by God,
to act in the name of God after a prayer
but not necessarily after a moment of silence
which would most of the rational electorate prefer?

Should our taxation
be based on what the government says it needs to keep the peace etc...,
or based on what God may have told City Council via prayer,
rendering those who object subject to the Omnipotent backed wrath of the believers?

Why did many white religious and political institutions teach congregants
that God supported racial segregation
and nationalistic state supremacy bestowed by deities
and totalitarian authority for the ruling classes
and military endeavors
and the status quo?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The fewer the words, the better the prayer"

Martin Luther

Anonymous said...

Reasons Greetings

How have monarchies legitimized leaving kingdoms to kids?

Do you lock your car when you go to church?

If more than 60 million died in WWII, where are their belongings, and who’s living in their homes?

Was Jesus circumcised?

Would Jesus want everyone to be circumcised?

Why should men be able to get drugs so they can have sex
but women cannot be given the same access to needed drugs
so they can have sex safely and without the risk of becoming pregnant?

Do men somehow have more of a right to sex than women
as implied by the unequal coverage of these drugs?

If men are entitled to keep having sex beyond the age of erectile impotence are women woman entitled to remain fertile beyond menopause?

Why does insurance reimburse for Viagra, but not birth control?

Is it immoral to provide contraceptive measures
to a woman who has been raped?

Why has the US dollar’s purchasing power declined by more than 80%
since the motto “In God we trust” was added to the dollar bill in 1957?

If abortion was illegal
what should be the prison sentence for the mother?

Does religion help prevent the poor
from killing the rich?

Do suicide bombers
act in ways they think God wants them to?

Do you?

Anonymous said...

If God were a defined certainty
would the number of people following different religions increase or decline?

What if it were proved an all powerful, all knowing
all loving God doesn’t exist?

Can God make mistakes?

Can God get Alzheimer’s
if man was made in his image?

Have many adherents of Prosperity Gospel
who believe
"God would make a way for people to enjoy the better things in life"
been more severely affected by the current financial crisis?

"Is man one of Gods blunders
or is God one of man’s"

Friederich Nietzsche

Is evil compatible
with an omnipotent and benevolent God?

How do you play a game
against an omniscient opponent?

Would God be invented
if he didn’t exist?

Could God
be an underachiever?

Is there an unknown entity that observes everything everyone does
at all times?

Is America an agent of God?

If God is all knowing
does God know what’s going to happen before it happens?

Was Jesus a Rabbi?

If Jesus about 5-foot-1-inch tall and weighed 110 pounds
have we evolved?

If a female Komodo dragon developed eggs
and gave birth without contact with a male for more than a decade
is virgin birth rare but not unheard of?

Was Christ a successful anarchist?

Is the idea of Christ
older than Christianity?

Why did the Christians who burned others on stakes
believe Christ approved?

Why do some born-again
make some wish they’d never been born?

If you don’t know about god and sin
and you don’t go to hell
why would proselytizers tell those who don’t know?

Should Christian values
form the basis of America’s publicly funded educational system?

Are Christians
fighting a holy war with Islam?

How many of the founding fathers
were ministers?

If Adam and Eve had Cane, Able and Seth
who did they marry?

Why would God predestine some to be gay?

Could A Dog Evolve Into A Cat?

If a fire breaks out in a fertility clinic
and you can only save a canister with five inseminated eggs
or one 4-year old child
which do you save?

Anonymous said...

Does hell have to exist
to be saved from it?

Is God a very strong word?

When you say God
what do you mean?

Is life support God’s will
if $100,000 keeping one patient on life support
could provide seeds and food for 10,000 starving others?

Do Embryos Have Souls?

If something started everything
is everybody at least about 13.73 billion years old?

Why wasn’t under God
in the pledge of allegiance before 1954?

Anonymous said...

If you were God
would Earth be more important than humanity?

What if it was between fish and humanity?

How about vegetation?

Have you ever heard a Baptist preacher
call anything homogeneous?

Would most biblical profits
be considered anarchists today?

Could this be heaven?

Anonymous said...

Would the God of rectangles
have four sides?

Can an atheist
be superstitious?

Do some believe in ghosts
to believe in something after death?

Should active euthanasia
be legalized?

Can a robot be one of God’s children
and if so, is it OK to enslave intelligent machines?

Is a human the only animal on earth
capable of both believing in Santa clause
and able to realize…?

Is dying
the first time you don’t see yourself die?

Do you get to wear clothes in heaven but not in hell?

What do you believe that you can’t prove?

Anonymous said...

If sentient beings on another planet played chess with Earthlings
whose side would God be on?

Does God picks sides in sporting events?

If the North Pole melts
what happens to Santa?

"God was invented to explain mystery

God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand"

Richard Feynman

Why is it in the best interests of organized religion
to be pro life?

If something started everything
is everything else supposition?

Where does it say thou shalt believe?

"I like your Christ

I do not like your Christians
they are so unlike your Christ"

Mohandas Gandhi

Anonymous said...

If about 1,500 animal species
including bears, gorillas, flamingos, owls, dolphins and salmon
exhibit same-sex sexual behavior
is homosexuality natural?

If evolution hasn’t eliminated homosexuality
does being gay serve a purpose?

Can life rise from non-living chemicals?

Anonymous said...

If abortion were illegal in one state
should law enforcement and social services personnel
be diverted from other duties to detain and incarcerate women
for leaving the state to receive an abortion?

If abortion became illegal
who would care for the increased number of potentially unwanted babies
and who should pay for the increased taxpayer costs?

Should a married pregnant unemployed high school drop out
who knows the child will have AIDS and autism
have to receive permission from her husband to get an abortion
after being raped by her schizophrenic brother-in-law?

Anonymous said...

Who knew Earth wasn’t in the center of the universe
before 1514?

Who knew of dinosaurs
before 1855?

Did anyone know of other galaxies
before 1923?

Who knew there were trillions
of more than 2,000 species of microorganisms living in the human body before 2008?

When what lives dies and/or matter disintegrates
does what was become part of something else?

"Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars
and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you"

Bill Bryson

If something started everything and everything’s the same only different
is everything everything?

If there was, is, and will be only so much stuff
how old are you?

If what is, is until it’s not
is non-sentiency more probable than sentiency?

Could there be other universes with sentient life
inside this one?

Anonymous said...

What are you remembering
if you don’t remember but then do?

Could everything have already happened
and you’re just remembering it?

Is the present a place you’ve never been?
Is yesterday a certainty
if the past is dependent on the present?

Could the present and past
be from the future?

Would the universe have to be recreated
to make a doughnut from scratch?

If the Sun
which could burn out in about five billion years
revolves with another 100 to 400 billion stars
around the center of the Milky Way galaxy
about once every 250 million years
in a universe with ~140 billion galaxies
how long is a day to who?

If Earth spins ~1,043 mph at the equator
revolves at about 66,660 mph around the sun
around the Milky Way at about 489,600 mph
towards Andromeda at ~180,000 mph
towards the Local Super Cluster at about 540,000 mph
how fast are we surfing space?

Could everything be simultaneous?

Is everything but the here and now
supposition?

Anonymous said...

If there’s no certainty of what was, is, will be, or why
is the only certainty present thought?

Is the present a point of no return?

Is yesterday tomorrow today?

Does time exist independently
of human consciousness?

Can reality not be
or be more than you think?

If just under the speed of light travel slows time
and an hour can be experienced in a minute
can a minute be lived in an hour?

"Here we are and it is now

Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine"

H L Mencken

Is everything just right?

Anonymous said...

If sentiency is exceptionally rare
and cognitive thought could be one of the best things ever
should life be lived for as long
and in the best circumstances possible?

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