If that were followed by historic Christians then there would be no Christianity today, as it was illegal at several points during Roman rule.
As I don’t worship pagan gods today I have to disagree with your interpretation.
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What the Bible does and doesn’t say in support of this contention (as a Biblical scholar you’re no doubt aware of the many inescapable contradictions in the Old and New Testaments) is irrelevant when discussing the intent of the Framers of the U.S. government in particular. The Constitution not only contains the Establishment Clause but neither it nor the Declaration of Independence does defines the main purpose of the U.S. government as “punishing evil” on behalf of anyone, real or fictional.
Put another way, if you want to discuss how the U.S. government has handled the Snowden case from an enforcement POV, religion should be excluded from the discussion.
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You think your interpretation of that is the only one? That’s why we have an entire field of theology… That in fact is one of the more controversial points of theology with regards to his meaning:
And let’s not forget that the original texts (many written years after his death) have been changed over time for a variety of political reasons, and translated from the original greek and latin into a variety of languages, so which one of those are you going with? The current Catholic version? The Eastern Orthodox versions? The King James protestant version? The coptic christian version?
Given the political reality of that period, I’m much more inclined to go with Reza Aslan’s take on the statement, which was that it was much more of a statement of defiance rather than one of meek acceptance given his actions in the temple with the money changers.
But it’s also irrelevant, as not every American is a Christian, and we have a separation of church and state. Plus, a right to privacy.
Dr. King would disagree about that… another well known and respected preacher and theologian who had a phd in theology.
And very violently put down, often times… These early Christians often preached against the law, so they did not render unto cesars what was his…
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No. The quote I was using is from Proverbs and is accurate. Though Jesus said tended unto Ceasar as well, yes.
He was democratic, stated as Atheist.
The information was not illegal as President George Bush Jr. legally requested the information through the Patriot Act and was legally entitled to do so to prevent terrorism.
I have a grandpa who helped design the Patriot 4 missile defense system and B2 stealth bomber and a dad who was Military Intelligence. Your opinions of matters related to National Security are meaningless to me as you have never had a security clearance, been protected under one, nor have awareness of realistic needs for secrecy.
Your opinion on the Constitution is important, though, it does not entitled you to harbor secrecy related to information on servers you do not own, which your cellular company and social networking companies do own.
You agree to allow them to “safely” store the information, though they continually sell it to make money and have regular data intrusions as a result of their capitalism and refusal to update the systems and coding to secure profit margins.
I did a threat assessment for Homeland Security and was literally tortured by terrorists during and after the process which most of you would claim was the government or state was a lie.
The legal language of privacy says “reasonable”, a word you are ignoring as it IS reasonable to intrude on your privacy if a terrorist is using your device as a means of spreading viruses, worms, other assaults you likely are not aware are possible, are using your device to operate micro-robotics remotely, engineering you into attempting to over-through a government por purpose of after obtaining the assets when defenseless due to an inability to preplan post success defenses after shut down, etc.
I’m aware most people want privacy. But here is this issue. That same info they collected was sitting in their server with strict law governing access. Most of it was never looked at. Facebook does the same. Windows, your cell company and on the list goes, all do the same. They already intruded on your privacy by your agreement and have less ethical measures and protection for their systems.
Those nations like Iran who intruded into our systems want to nuke you. Better to keep a home. A little trust goes a long way and you’re already trusting your providers more than your government. That I find irrational and illogical.
Mod note 1: This topic isn’t about any one commenter.
Mod note 2: please remember to follow our community guidelines and debate the position, don’t attack the person. Thanks.
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Non-mod-note: I have personally been responsible for turning over data on users involved in peaceful operations for what clearly appeared to be political gain. Thankfully said data was in Canada at the time and not subject to US law.
The problem with “trust your government” is that 1) your government isn’t the laws of the government, but the people that make it up as well, and the people are not infallible and subject to pettiness and wrongdoing, and 2) the “don’t have anything to hide” works both ways - if the government wants to tap the datastreams of the world they can get authorization from the people via their elected representatives via secure authorizations - they don’t need to go around the elected representatives to do their job. That behaviour speaks of “I know better than the people I am appointed to serve” nonsense.
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Plenty of things ahve been “legal” in US history and are no less abhorrent and needed to be fought against. Slavery, oppression of women, segregation, taking property, the death penalty… the list goes on. Accepting injustice because it’s written into law isn’t “godly” it’s merely authoritarian. Injustice often comes from governments, and it should be our duty to fight that injustice, christian or not. Jesus did not buddy up to the powers that be, he rejected them and gathered his own community to try and make the world a better place.
Right?
Bingo!
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nope, wrong, fisa warrants
then you should know not to talk about their work in public
You’d be surprised how deeply knowledgable of these things I am. In fact, I hide it because I want this to be an anonymous account and I don’t want some EFFer harranguing me about my shitposts at bar trivia.
I think you’re hinting at the stored communications act but you’re being overbroad
I’ve also interacted with DHS and have no idea what you mean by this sentence.
They taught us in CCD it means don’t smoke weed and pay your taxes - case closed 
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Hey, um… no one has mentioned this yet, so:
Welcome back, @doctorow!
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It’s a post from last year.
Aww. (Non-breaking space.)
Or maybe I should refine that as the post was written last year, as @orenwolf has corrected me on. The earlier date posts caused me some confusion.
Is this anything like when you schedule-send an email and then in the time between when you write it and when it finally sends itself, reality has rendered the message completely meaningless?
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