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David Hartung

wrote:
On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 05:38:27 -0600, David Hartung
wrote:

There have been many times throughout history, where the Christian
Church has gotten in bed with government. What specifically are you
referring to?

Okay, it seems as if you were speaking generally, rather than
specifically. Thank you.

From the establishment of the Christian faith as
officially Roman and the fall of the Roman Empire, the
Catholic Church and it's Popes were the ONLY government
that most/all of Europe had.

True.

The HRE empire lasted until the rise of the nation
states began throwing off the Rome authority, then the
reformation began using the "Divine right of Kings"

The desire of the local states to have more control over their affairs
was undoubtedly a factor in the success of the Reformation.

The Pilgrims were EXTREMIST religious nuts who
literally have nothing in common with any known
religous group today----outside their insistence that
THEY should have no restrictions placed on their faith

The Pilgrims colony in the New World was never large enough to "oppress"
anyone. They were quickly overtaken by the Puritans of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony. The absolutely oppressed those who did not hew to the
official faith.

HOWEVER, once established in the colonies, THEY became
the oppessors, forcing everyone to adopt their views,
punishing those who did not.

see above.

The association of official state religions dominated
Europeans

Absolutely.

Prohibition was an American example of religous nuttery
laying the groundwork for corruption, crime, and
eventually gave rise to organized crime.

Well, it gave rise to the Kennedy wealth, if nothing else. While it is
probably true that prohibition made organized crime a growth industry, I
believe that you will find that they existed long before prohibition.

The entire south was riddled with bible waving,
scripture spouting red-necks justifying their lynching,
segregation from positions of law-enforcment to judges.

What has this to do with official state churches?

Yes, the Klan misused scripture to justify their atrocities, but there
was no "state" church in the south.

Now we have had the resurgence of religious
fundamentalism promoting a hapless (and thank god
whipped) political party into more and more extremist
positions-----giving us a clearer picture of why
religion and government is dangerous.

Falwell and Robertson badly misunderstand the place of the Church in our
society, but to take a stand for strong moral values is not "extremist".

Your foul uninformed bigotry is far more extremist than anything on
which Falwell and company have taken stands.

By the way, you are aware that Jerry Falwell is dead?