What’s up with all these churches that are popping up everywhere? Several local churches with expansion plans have made the local blogs recently, here and here. The latest proposed church is targeted for Rt. 40 near Forest Motel.
Obviously, I am a strong believer in freedom so I don’t oppose church organizations expanding their operations (and I think residential/commercial zoning is a bit of a joke), but it is a concern of mine that public demand is so high for places where you go to be told things that aren’t true.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Disillusionment with a side of freedom
Useful Links
- Tales of Two Cities
- HoCo Rising
- HoCoBlogs
- HowChow
- Explore Howard
- National Debt Clock
- Webcasts of HoCo Gov't stuff
- Columbia Talk
- Hibanism
- 53 Beers on Tap
- Animal Advocates
- Hometown Columbia
- Columbia Blog Project
- Embrace Hostility
- Columbia Now
- MD State Board of Elections
- Vote No'Malley
- HoCo MD Blog
- Howard County Blog
- Leviathan Montgomery
- Inside out Campaign
- Howard County Library Website
6 comments:
I'm very happy about church expansion and the congregation growth (if that's what expansion means).
But church expansion must follow the rules, just like everyone else. In the case of Font Hill, it looks like the church is following the rule of the powerful rather than the rule of law.
Nothing applies anymore - nothing legit in any case. DPZ is granting 100% of petitioned variances and Bd of Elects passes 0% of petitioned referenda. That is just plain unlawful.
We're a county government of men and not law (reverse john adams). Law is arbitrarily enforced each day - examples upon examples pile up as time passes. The "justice" system is a game of craps for attorneys and judges.
A church who contracts with a hired gun is not doing the work of a legitimate church, but instead adds to the blog host's skepticism and promotes nothing good.
The notion that some of us are above the law is revolting. Any church that practices what is preached would not fight with the community by exploiting our local governmental malfunction/unlawfulness for their own benefit.
Your blanket statement "it is a concern of mine that public demand is so high for places where you go to be told things that aren’t true" is a bit unfair. Not all Churches preach the Bible literally and many focus on spirituality, doing good for your fellow man, and provide a place to help put some perspective on life.
How many Churches provide daycare and preschool for children, food for the hungry, and shelter for the homeless? And not to mention the philathropies such as collecting donations to help the poor.
Without Churches (and Synogogues and other places of worship) a lot of the benevolent care and charity work required for a productive society would fall upon an already financially exhausted (and irresponsible) state and local government.
If you want to go in that direction, I am upset that the state is building so many schools where they teach a lot of things that are not true. I don't know how many times I hear about things that are taught in schools that are inaccurate.
I second the claim that schools teach things that are not true, and add that public education teaching is out of balance. What do we have, 3 publishers servicing the entire United States?
If we really want to be Constitutional about it, religion would be back in the schools and there would be more respect between parents and schools.
I don’t dispute that church members may do good things for the general community, but they also harness the democratic process to do a lot of harm (banning abortions, regulation of marriage, etc.) Of course, that is an argument against democracy, not religion. Also, they do many of their good things under false pretenses (believing they will be rewarded by an old man in the sky, etc.) Besides, there are many secular private charities that do good stuff, too.
I remember that my fourth grade public school teacher told us that Noah’s Ark was found in Russia, but the Russian government was hiding it. Go Lisbon Lions!
It's a dangerous thing to demonize the mythic "they" with generalizations based on stereotypes.
Whilst there are people, yes, that do good in the name of reward (i.e. heaven or 87 virgins) there are also those that do good for the sake of doing good. And those people may be church goers just as they may be blood-drinking heathens.
By demonizing entire church communities simply because our elected officials cater to the whim of of evangelicals is to slight millions and millions of churchgoers, parishes, synagogues, and whatever unitarians are considered.
If your biggest concern in life is that there are collections of people feeding the homeless as a means of going to heaven when they die, I'd say you're pretty darn lucky.
Anon, I read your comment very carefully and I am struck by how you really don’t say anything in opposition to my points. In fact, we agree with each other. Our only quarrel is that you state that I am “demonizing” the religious folk, presumably by saying that religion is not true. I don’t think I am demonizing anyone.
Post a Comment