[NYer]

Anthony B. Bradley is a research associate at the Acton Institute.

(This article is a product of the Acton Institute — www.acton.org, 161 Ottawa NW, Suite 301, Grand Rapids, MI 49503 — and is reprinted with permission.)

[NYer]

Catholic Ping
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[bjcintennessee]

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[microgood]

With consciences formed by utility, pragmatism, and sensuality, instead of virtue, we should expect to find a culture with even more women subjected to the dehumanization of strip clubs, more misogynistic rap music, more adultery and divorce, more broken sexuality, more fatherlessness, more corruption in government and business, more individualism, and more loneliness.

Wow, I wan't aware that individualism is a bad thing. All the greatest Americans have been rugged individualists.

[TruthBeforeAll]

“Less Religion Means More Government”

No, less real men/fathers/husbands means more government.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Marxism IS a religion, complete with unprovable dogmas which are not allowed to be challenged, including objectively implausible prophecies about the future. Think about Marxist teaching: once everybody sees the light of Marxism, the billions of people on earth will all be contentedly working as hard as they can for the collective good, and wanting no more for themselves than they absolutely need. Hard to find any evidence of rational, scientific thought there.

[El Cid]

We all have a need to worship.
Either we worship the True God of the Bible - or we worship other inventions: government; self; materialism... But people who lose sight o God tend to make Government, and various political leaders, their false idols.
And with idolatry comes slavery...
Freedom and liberty only comes only through love and worship of God ...

2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

Romans 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

John 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

Believe and be free ...
John 8:31-32 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Jesus IS the Truth
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

[VOA]

“Less Religion Means More Government”

I’ve heard a quote (sorry, don’t know who said it) to the effect that:
“When people stop believing in G-d, they’ll believe in anything.”

The current faith movement concerning Obama and Big Government
is Exhibit A.

[little jeremiah]

placemark.

[little jeremiah]

I agree pretty much with everything except the part about more "individualism". I think he meant that people without religious faith tend to be self-centered and less caring about others. Also, I would have taken some of his ideas further; such as Burke's quote (which I used to quote a lot, can't find it at the moment) about the less inner restraint people have, the more outer restraint they need.

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[annalex]

The correlation is logical. Religion provides a fabric of behavioral correction that comes from the individual’s belief. A good Catholic, for example, does not need a government to tell him to be a good father, husband and citizen: his religion tells him that, and shows how.

If that fabric is broken, jurisprudence begins to bracked undesirable behavior. Complex laws are put in place to make better fagthers, husbands and citizens, who now lack internal motivation to be good. The government grows.

But the government is not a meare reaction to immorality. It has an evil of its own: it has an appetite for growth. Many people become its clients, either as direct or indirect employees or as economic dependents. On the next stage the government stops to simply react and actively seeks lines of attack in order to expand. Laws are invented that foster immorality; then the very govenrment that gives us these destructive laws gets democratic support for further expansion. At this point, growth becomes cancerous.

The mistake of Catholic leadership in this country may be that they seek to persuade the government to adopt rational policies, while the likelihood of that happening is about the same as a hurricane choosing to stay over the Atlantic. Perhaps our leaders should instead teach us how to better survive in an atmosphere that is deliberately hostile.

[verity]

Soviet communism adopted Karl Marx’s teaching that religion was the “opiate of the masses” and launched a campaign of bloody religious persecution How would you apply this tenet to radical Islam?

[myknowledge]

Atheism is the religion of the masses.