Don't let a politician turn your faith into their business!

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 28, 2023

What you believe on a religious basis, is what you were free to choose. Would you want someone else passing laws based on what they believe if it went against your own?

Which church do you belong to among the Christian houses on this list? If you chose to be Catholic, which of the 24 different ones did you choose? If you chose to be Protestant, which one of these did you choose? If you chose to be Orthodox, which one did you become? Do you think that everyone else has chosen the wrong one because you are so sure your choice was the only right one? Would you want someone else to be able to take away what you chose was right for you? Then why would you, or anyone else be allowed to do it to others? Should you have the right to take away the choices of non-denominationalism? Should you have the right to force spiritual but not religious believers to pick something you find acceptable? What about the other faiths in the country, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and others among the people of this country? What about atheist people? Shouldn't they also have the same right to know they are protected as well as everyone else?

That is what people get wrong all the time. Sure, when a politician agrees with what you believe it can make you feel as if you won something. It also means someone else lost their ability to believe something else. You may not have noticed that your approval of this step gave politicians the authority to go against what you believe, because they believe otherwise. That's how all this works. If you call yourself pro-life, you may feel empowered to seek to control all other matters of faith, but the thought you should invalidate the free will choices of others has just invalidated your own. It puts you on the wrong side of the tomb and the womb, along with the Constitution.

Why? I was listening to a man this morning, claiming he was evangelical and pro-life. He also talked about Catholics. Nowhere in his words did he express the fact that everyone else in this country, and frankly, the entire world, are free to believe as they choose. It doesn't matter how their government operates or what laws they pass to control others. No one can ever take away what people believe. That is why matters of faith have always, and will always be used as a weapon to control the people.

If you live in America, your faith, no matter what it is, is protected under the law. At least it used to be. If you are Christian, then your choice of where to worship is supposed to be equally protected as all other houses of worship, including non-Christian ones. Trying to take control over them is claiming your faith is the only right one and everyone else must abide by what you believe.

I find many claims from other Christians appalling but I believe they have the right to believe what they want even though many of them think they have the right to take mine away from me. Scriptures in the New Testament support the God-given right to free will, just as the Old Testament does.

Decide if You Can Follow Me
25 Many people were traveling with Jesus. He said to them, 26 “If you come to me but will not leave your family, you cannot be my follower. You must love me more than your father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters—even more than your own life! 27 Whoever will not carry the cross that is given to them when they follow me cannot be my follower.

Jesus reminded them they are free to make the choice to do or not do and what the outcome would be based on the choices they made of their own free will. Yet somehow we arrived yet again with a group of people trying to take away the free will choice of others, much like during the Salem Witchcraft Trials when faith was used to control others, seek revenge and intimidate others into conforming or find themselves accused of witchcraft facing torture, loss of all they had and death.

The 1st Amendment to the Constitution protects matters of faith/religion because of what happened in Salem. Why can't people see what is going on is putting them on the wrong side of what this country was built on? We are all free to make our own choices or none of us are.

If you claim to follow Jesus as a Christian, trying to force someone else, goes against what He taught as well as what He sacrificed His life for. It goes against God after He gave Adam and Eve the free will to listen to His warning or not in the Garden of Eden. It puts you on the wrong side of His Son's tomb.

If you call yourself pro-life because of your religious beliefs, you are on the wrong side of the womb as well. Scriptures tell us that God is God on the living and Jesus taught everyone claiming to follow Him how they should treat others living in the world. If you only care about the unborn, and what others do then, while you have the right to decide for your own house, you are trying to usurp the rights of others. Passing judgment on others grants the authority of others to pass judgment on you. Should you be forced to do what Jesus said and feed the poor, give them clothes, and housing, visit the prisoners, or do anything else He said you should do because you claim to value and follow Him? Or should it be left up to what you choose to do and can afford to do?

Your rights begin and end with what you choose for yourself and if you seek to control others, remove their right because you think your faith and what you believe is the only right way, you have opened the door for your own rights to be taken from you. Don't let a politician turn your faith into their business!

UPDATE:
It is stories like the following that should cause all of us to question these self-appointed-anointed demigods the idea they should control everyone else. To this "lawmaker" if you did not give birth to chichildren, you are not a mother!
Marjorie Taylor Greene faces criticism after saying a stepmother is 'not a mother' USA Today

Greene asked her during the hearing whether she is a mother, and Weingarten replied that she’s a “mother by marriage.”

The Georgia lawmaker called her “not a biological mother” and later told the union leader, “The problem is, people like you need to admit that you’re just a political activist, not a teacher, not a mother and not a medical doctor.”

And then there is this one.
A Montana lawmaker suggested she’d rather risk her child’s suicide than let her transition NBC News

State Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe said in a floor debate in March that her daughter "was suicidal for three years" and when asked if she'd do anything to save her, her answer was "no."

A recent comment by a Montana state lawmaker who sponsored legislation to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors has gone viral and drawn backlash online.

State Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe, a Republican, suggested during a floor debate that she would rather risk her daughter dying by suicide than allow her to transition. Seekins-Crowe did not say that her daughter identified as transgender, but said she was “one of those parents who lived with a daughter who was suicidal for three years.”

She is in the same state where this is what lawmakers have focused on. Bills Dictating Religion, Prayer and Sex Ed in Schools Advance Ahead of Key Deadline

Salem Witch Trials, apparently, some people learned nothing from history!

Wounded Times

Kathie Costos

April 24, 2023

We may have thought the religious battle ended with the Salem Witch Trials but apparently, some people learned nothing from history!

Ex-Marine calls for action after GOP rep grills VA official on 'faith-based' PTSD partnerships

Van Orden said Campbell's response suggested the department is not actively working with "wildly successful" programs "because they are faith-based – which according to you guys are 'non-evidence-based'."

That is a bunch of bull! For 40 years I've seen it all and if you go to the National Center For PTSD, which, by the way, addresses PTSD for all Americans, you'll see clearly how they provide a Clergy Tool so that veterans can make their own choices as to their personal faith. The evidence is clear that when the mind-body and spiritual needs are addressed, based on their own beliefs, there is greater healing. To fund or push one faith-based group over another would go against the First Amendment.

The First Amendment

This is what people get wrong all the time. Everyone wants the ability to make their own choices and have their rights protected. The problem comes when some want their rights protected by removing the rights of others. The Founding Fathers understood human nature enough they saw a time coming when some people would want to control others using the government to do it. Considering that the Salem Witchcraft Trials were the basis for this Amendment, they wanted to make sure it never happened again.

The Salem Witch Trials

Many people in Puritanical Salem Massachusetts died because they were different, and the Puritans were afraid they could not control them easily.

Many people in Puritanical Salem did not conform to the societal beliefs and ended up losing their lives as a result. There were many rules and if citizens did not follow all of those rules, they were cast out. The religion of the Puritans was very strict and “the Puritan community rewarded conformity-you were expected to fit in and do what everybody else did” (Mills 15). The Puritans desire for conformity was so strong that they wanted to get rid of anyone that was different. The trials were an excuse for the people of Salem to expunge of all those people who were different. Witches were thought to be able to harm people and therefore were feared greatly. The Puritans feared the Devil and God equally and “they believed the Devil was real, and had the intent to influence and harm."

Today we see people just like the Puritans. They seek to control others and when they are met with people standing up for their own rights, they claim that their religious freedom is being taken away from them. WOW! This is why so many people have lost faith in the government's ability and willingness to stand up for all of our rights.

Their beliefs are their own and should remain that way but they cannot see that power ends with them so that everyone else retains the same right.

Spending all these years helping people on a spiritual basis, no matter what they personally believed, with mutual respect, worked wonders! They saw their own power to reach out to God or whatever Higher Power they believed in directly and to see whatever caused their PTSD was not sent by God as some sort of punishment. It got them to understand the difference between stupid things they heard, such as "God only give us what we can handle," meaning they were told God did it to them. It was more beneficial for them to hear, "God is there to get them through it," so they know they are not fighting the survivor battle alone. It was not up to me to try to convert them to accept what I believed but to empower them to decide on their own to explore faith through a spiritual lens.

Scriptures support this and are there to be found. If those seeking to control others spent more time reading them and less time trying to corrupt the God-given gift of free will, they would be filled instead of emptying their own souls. He did not seek to control anyone, so why is it they think they can? What we see today, just as in Salem, is not a matter of faith but a matter of control.

What makes all this worse is when reporters fail to understand this. No matter what the topic is on social issues, they lump Christians together. The fact is there are many Christian houses of worship with different viewpoints. There are many different faiths in this country and they are left out of the discussion. While the claim this is a Christian nation is a valid one, the truth is the majority do believe in Jesus but do not agree on everything. This is why there are "Estimations show there are more than 200 Christian denominations in the U.S. and a staggering 45,000 globally, according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity."

When most people hear something about Christianity being attacked, and God taken out of schools, they get upset no matter which denomination they belong to. Yet, when they think past the word and remember why they chose their affiliation, they acknowledge there are many different faiths in this country. When they hear a term such as "pro-life" used to defend the desire to control what others do in their own lives, they condemn them. Yet when they think past what their church deems right and wrong, acknowledging other religious groups do not hold the same view or need to be in control, they become repulsed enough to stand up for everyone needing to make the decision and condemn the attackers.

When we allow one group to take control over all others, we go against the God we claim to believe in and the foundation of the country we claim to love!