Want a Better Life? Go to Church: Is religion good for society? One man who would answer in the affirmative is Gourverneur Morris, the founding father who spoke at the Constitutional...

Parky60 Loc: People's Republic of Illinois

Is religion good for society? One man who would answer in the affirmative is Gourverneur Morris, the founding father who spoke at the Constitutional convention more than anyone else. He originated the phrase “we the people of the United States.”

He once said something that virtually all of the founding fathers would have agreed with:

“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.”

How is the church good for society? Through the years Dr. Byron Johnson of Baylor has talked about the impact of faith on society. He has taught at Vanderbilt, the University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton. For the last several years, he has headed up Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR).

The website describes its mission: “Baylor ISR exists to initiate, support, and conduct research on religion, involving scholars and projects spanning the intellectual spectrum.”

In a radio segment, Dr. Johnson saud, “Churches are phenomenally important to society and important in so many different ways.” That includes volunteering and charitable giving. He told me that Americans give more than a billion dollars a day to charities – much of that coming from church-goers.

Johnson added, “If you just look at dollars and contributions, it’s staggering. One study shows that religion brings about 1.2 trillion dollars to the U.S. economy each year.”

Johnson keeps abreast of the psychological and sociological studies on the impact of church on society. For example, Oxford University Press published a study two years ago showing the positive impact of church-going on the health of individuals.

They found that “compared with those who never attended religious services, individuals who attended services at least once per week had a lower risk of all-cause mortality by 26%...heavy drinking by 34%...and current smoking by 29%.”

The study also found that depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and loneliness—as well as physical maladies like hypertension, heart disease, and strokes—were lower in those who regularly attended church, while satisfaction with life, social connection, and a feeling of purpose were higher.

In short, living for Christ is good for you. Not that we live for Christ in order to live longer or lives with a higher quality. But that apparently is a happy by-product.

We live for Christ because He who is divine became human, lived a perfect life, and died in our place, so that we might be forgiven for our sins through faith in Him. He sealed the deal by rising from the dead and will one day return.

Dr. Johnson has written a scholarly book highlighting the kind of research featured in the study cited above. It’s called “Objective Religion.” The ignorant may rail against church – and surely there are many who have had bad experiences at church because of abusive leadership. But the studies show that all things being equal, the gospel really is good for you.

Another man who studied the impact of religion on society came to Baylor because of Johnson. Dr. Rodney Stark, who died in July, wrote many books documenting religion’s impact.

In his 2012 tome, America's Blessings: How Religion Benefits Everyone, Including Atheists, Stark wrote:

Americans benefit immensely from being an unusually religious people – blessings that not only fall upon believers but also on those Americans who most oppose religion. In America, militant atheists are far less likely to have their homes broken into or to be robbed on their way to work than they would be in an irreligious society, because of the powerful deterrent effects of religion on crime.

He also added, “Religious Americans also enjoy superior physical health, having an average life expectancy more than seven years longer than that of the irreligious”

Another scholar who has also been studying the impact of faith on society for years is author Dr. Joseph Loconte. He has written for the Heritage Foundation, taught at The King’s College in New York City, and is now a distinguished visiting professor at Grove City College.

He said:

Skeptics and secular critics of Christianity have to circumvent an awful lot of history to argue that political societies are better off without it. The rights and freedoms that our secular friends take for granted – freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, government by consent – grew from philosophical soil that was watered by biblical religion… Take away the Christian ethic of love of neighbor – even love of enemy – and you sweep away nearly everything that makes modern life tolerable and humane.

Atheists like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris see the increasing secularization of our culture as a good thing. But in reality, ostracizing faith and marginalizing churches will ultimately only harm all of us. Literally.

son of witless

Parky60 wrote:

Is religion good for society? One man who would an... (show quote)

maryla

Parky60 wrote:

Is religion good for society? One man who would an... (show quote)

What a read!! Thank you for posting this.

donrent Loc: SW Florida -Born Texas-Lived Panama & Alaska

son of witless wrote:

There is NOTHING more obnoxious in life than someone telling me how to live and conduct my life............

In other words, mind your own damn busness........................

Parky60 Loc: People's Republic of Illinois

donrent wrote:

There is NOTHING more obnoxious in life than someone telling me how to live and conduct my life............

In other words, mind your own damn busness........................

Then why didn't you ignore it?

maryla

Parky60 wrote:

Then why didn't you ignore it?

Excellent question...Its rare that everyone will agree on everything!

son of witless

donrent wrote:

There is NOTHING more obnoxious in life than someone telling me how to live and conduct my life............

In other words, mind your own damn busness........................

I don't recall telling you how to run your life.

Marty 2020 Loc: Banana Republic of Kalifornia

donrent wrote:

There is NOTHING more obnoxious in life than someone telling me how to live and conduct my life............

In other words, mind your own damn busness........................

You have a fight with your domestic partner or something this morning?
You both want to use the same eye liner?
What a grouch!

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Parky60 wrote:

Is religion good for society? One man who would an... (show quote)

Does this study include highly religious nations like the Philippines or Mexico vs less religious nations like China???

And does it take into account the number of elderly that become religious in their golden years???

Also, does it hold true for Jews and Muslims and Hindus and sihks???

I think it's a pretty broad claim that's not backed by much more than wishful thinking... My mother's family are mostly atheists and all lived well into their 90s...
My father's family are also atheist... Most lived into their 80s...
Both beat the average for Canada...

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Parky60 wrote:

Is religion good for society? One man who would an... (show quote)

Declarations of Founding Fathers and Early Statesmen on Jesus, Christianity, and the Bible

The Bible in American Schools: 1700 - 1900

How The Bible Inspired The American Founding From The Beginning

James Madison, Property

29 Mar. 1792 Papers 14:266--68

This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.

According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just securing to property, should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable property.

More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man's religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the oeconomical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, the influence [inference?] will have been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.

maryla

Blade_Runner wrote:

Declarations of Founding Fathers and Early Statesmen on Jesus, Christianity, and the Bible

The Bible in American Schools: 1700 - 1900

How The Bible Inspired The American Founding From The Beginning

James Madison, Property

29 Mar. 1792 Papers 14:266--68

This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.

According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just securing to property, should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable property.

More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man's religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the oeconomical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, the influence [inference?] will have been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.

url=https://wallbuilders.com/founding-fathers-jes... (show quote)

Once again Blade_Runner: You hit it out of the park!!

elledee

Blade_Runner wrote:

Declarations of Founding Fathers and Early Statesmen on Jesus, Christianity, and the Bible

The Bible in American Schools: 1700 - 1900

How The Bible Inspired The American Founding From The Beginning

James Madison, Property

29 Mar. 1792 Papers 14:266--68

This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.

According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just securing to property, should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable property.

More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man's religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the oeconomical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, the influence [inference?] will have been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.

url=https://wallbuilders.com/founding-fathers-jes... (show quote)

How bout it Canuck what do you say to that

Parky60 Loc: People's Republic of Illinois

elledee wrote:

How bout it Canuck what do you say to that

canuckus always "thinks" he's being clever when he challenges everything I say.

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight! Isaiah 5:21

woodguru

Parky60 wrote:

Is religion good for society? One man who would answer in the affirmative is Gourverneur Morris, the founding father who spoke at the Constitutional convention more than anyone else. He originated the phrase “we the people of the United States.”

I'm pretty sure he didn't believe that "we the people of the United States" was only the christians, but then again maybe he did.

The beauty of this country is that you have the right to go to church if you want, muslims can go to their mosques, jews to their synagogues...etc. People who do not believe in gods are no worse off than those who do.

Nobody is threatening your right to belong to a church, do it and enjoy it, your enjoyment has nothing to do with anyone else.

My uncle's brother is gay, he and his partner have always attended catholic churches and have had no problems finding ones that openly accept gays

woodguru

donrent wrote:

There is NOTHING more obnoxious in life than someone telling me how to live and conduct my life............

In other words, mind your own damn busness........................

Exactly...