here is something a bit different, I used to own a small business. it was a small engine repair shop. seveal times I refused to work on someone's equipment because they had a attitude. if someone started to rudely complain about how long it was taking, or something 10 years old did not run as if were brand new, I would load their stuff and ask them not to come back. so there is an angle on how to refuse service on some occasions.
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
D
Yep, I agree a business should be able to choose....no matter how appalling the discrimination is. If it's your goods or services, you sell them to who you want, when you want, and for how much you want. I go the whole nine yards on that too, food stores, hospitals.....anyone going overboard on the discrimination would miserably fail due to boycotts and business going elsewhere. I'd rather have 100% freedom and zero security, than to compromise on anything. Not that it will ever happen of course, that's just an ideal I agree with.
I don't know about you guys, but if a racist dude didn't want to sell me something because I'm white.....I'd be happy to take my business elsewhere. If someone didn't want to sell me anything because I was a Christian, I wouldn't want to buy anything from them either.
I don't know about you guys, but if a racist dude didn't want to sell me something because I'm white.....I'd be happy to take my business elsewhere. If someone didn't want to sell me anything because I was a Christian, I wouldn't want to buy anything from them either.
1
After reading this thread, I conclude that popular opinion and consensus is that community rights are more important than individual business owner rights.
Is that right?
Is that wrong?
Sometimes popular opinion believes a certain way due to familiarity.
This is how we've always thought, and we think this way because it hasn't been challenged.
What happens when we challenge the very premise that says the community gets to dictate to the private business owner?
What if a sense of entitlement is what drives us to believe the community can dictate who a private business does business with?
The community, at least in America, seems to think it's entitled to a lot when it comes to those who run businesses.
People who invest THEIR money, effort, labor, and risk, have very few rights over THEIR money, effort, labor and risk once they go into business.
What if what's wrong with society is this sense of entitlement?
What if what's wrong is an attitude that says to the private business owner, "Hey I'm entitled to use the very thing you invested YOUR money, effort, labor, and risk in."
I know these questions push against what is popularly held belief.
But sometimes popularly held beliefs need to be questioned.
Maybe it's time to fight for the rights of those who invest THEIR money, labor, effort, risk into starting a business?
Maybe, just maybe our sense of entitlement has gone too far?
Is that right?
Is that wrong?
Sometimes popular opinion believes a certain way due to familiarity.
This is how we've always thought, and we think this way because it hasn't been challenged.
What happens when we challenge the very premise that says the community gets to dictate to the private business owner?
What if a sense of entitlement is what drives us to believe the community can dictate who a private business does business with?
The community, at least in America, seems to think it's entitled to a lot when it comes to those who run businesses.
People who invest THEIR money, effort, labor, and risk, have very few rights over THEIR money, effort, labor and risk once they go into business.
What if what's wrong with society is this sense of entitlement?
What if what's wrong is an attitude that says to the private business owner, "Hey I'm entitled to use the very thing you invested YOUR money, effort, labor, and risk in."
I know these questions push against what is popularly held belief.
But sometimes popularly held beliefs need to be questioned.
Maybe it's time to fight for the rights of those who invest THEIR money, labor, effort, risk into starting a business?
Maybe, just maybe our sense of entitlement has gone too far?
1
See this is where I agree yet disagree on the issue.
Sorry, it's a complicated issue.
There is lots of idealistic overlap.
What if there is only one grocery store in a community?
People have to eat.
What if it's a poor community where people don't have access to good transportation, so they can drive to a store on the other side of town?
Yes I know I seem like I'm contradicting myself, by calling for private owner rights on one hand, but then the right to get food on the other. That's the reason I started this thread though. Because finding the proper balance is hard, and I wanted to see where folks stand. In this debate one almost has to sacrifice one ideal to uphold the other ideal. That's what makes it so tough and interesting to me.
Sorry, it's a complicated issue.
There is lots of idealistic overlap.
What if there is only one grocery store in a community?
People have to eat.
What if it's a poor community where people don't have access to good transportation, so they can drive to a store on the other side of town?
Yes I know I seem like I'm contradicting myself, by calling for private owner rights on one hand, but then the right to get food on the other. That's the reason I started this thread though. Because finding the proper balance is hard, and I wanted to see where folks stand. In this debate one almost has to sacrifice one ideal to uphold the other ideal. That's what makes it so tough and interesting to me.
That's another contradiction, but you're playing devil's advocate anyway.
If you assume a business has sole intrinsic rights to decide who they provide services to, then the idea of handing ''more rights'' does not make sense at all.
The issue with most people is assuming certain privileges are intrinsic rights. If a business was only about the owner, why must the owner even pay taxes?
From a Christian viewpoint, Jesus set an example for us to serve others. To deny service to anybody based on colour, beliefs, smell or identity goes against those principles (unless its threatening the lives of others or morals)
How does handing an ice cream to a gay man violate any Christian belief?
Such laws which provide leeway for such acts of discrimmination are breeding grounds for racists and hatred filled people anyway.
Any business which tries to cut off and refuse service to communities is stupid as it's losing profits and value.
However it's not a question of the marketplace driving businesses.
It's about social responsibilty, and any business which refuses services to people because of race, religion and smell or other minutae, lacks it.
If you assume a business has sole intrinsic rights to decide who they provide services to, then the idea of handing ''more rights'' does not make sense at all.
The issue with most people is assuming certain privileges are intrinsic rights. If a business was only about the owner, why must the owner even pay taxes?
From a Christian viewpoint, Jesus set an example for us to serve others. To deny service to anybody based on colour, beliefs, smell or identity goes against those principles (unless its threatening the lives of others or morals)
How does handing an ice cream to a gay man violate any Christian belief?
Such laws which provide leeway for such acts of discrimmination are breeding grounds for racists and hatred filled people anyway.
Any business which tries to cut off and refuse service to communities is stupid as it's losing profits and value.
However it's not a question of the marketplace driving businesses.
It's about social responsibilty, and any business which refuses services to people because of race, religion and smell or other minutae, lacks it.
1
Of course it's a contradiction
That's the fun of discussing issues like these.
Customers have rights.
Business owners have rights.
Upholding one side may intrude on the other and vice versa.
We see these contradictions and overlaps anytime rights/liberties are discussed.
As Christians we believe ONLY our God should be worshipped.
Yet we're also for the right of others to worship other gods.
Seems like a contradiction, but both sides have overlap, and finding the right exercise of each right, well..it's just interesting to discuss....to me anyways.
That's the fun of discussing issues like these.
Customers have rights.
Business owners have rights.
Upholding one side may intrude on the other and vice versa.
We see these contradictions and overlaps anytime rights/liberties are discussed.
As Christians we believe ONLY our God should be worshipped.
Yet we're also for the right of others to worship other gods.
Seems like a contradiction, but both sides have overlap, and finding the right exercise of each right, well..it's just interesting to discuss....to me anyways.
Don't you think quarrel starting could also be making pointless threads with inflammatory connotations to women or threads that could give racists too much liberty to spread their agendas?
Psalm 101:3
I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.
Good point.
But we at least agree that threads do end up poking eyes too, and hence they're equivalently quarrel starting.
2 Timothy 4:2
Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.
And I don't think this thread is worthless. It has a very noble cause.
But we at least agree that threads do end up poking eyes too, and hence they're equivalently quarrel starting.
2 Timothy 4:2
Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.
And I don't think this thread is worthless. It has a very noble cause.
B
Agree with you 100%. Will give you a perfect scenario of stores exercising their rights not to serve a specific group. Detroit has had for many decades the highest crime & murder rate in America, and many shoppers fear going out after dark to shop or dealing with the thugs who hang the stores. These stores who are in Detroit have to serve the community no matter how crime ridden the area is around these stores. For clarification purposes, these stores are national grocery chains. These stores, more than often, received federal funding to exist. To exercise their discriminatory practices without breaking the law with the fed & state lawmakers, these grocery chain moved out of urban Detroit to the suburbs. To this day there is not one grocery chain in Detroit city. As you can see, there are ways around the community rule mentality. However, there are small & medium stores to serve urban Detroit but their prices are usually higher because of the cost of doing business in the community (theft, security, etc.)
Last edited by a moderator:
B
Sadly, GLBT is a powerful group with tons of money & support in the form of lobbyists. Christians, who were the most powerful group in this country have lost considerable power and are not united as one voice or just chose to say nothing. It is really about the MONEY and the GLBT community are buying off politicians for so-called civil rights. Get used to it because it will get worse. The good news is that this immoral agenda will be short-lived because Jesus is coming home and He will eradicate this nonesense.
D
Yes, that emboldened part is exactly the crux of the issue. I don't think there is any possible balance on this one. Your either free to do business or not do business with whomever you want, for any reason...........or your not. Whether your obligated to do business with someone or prohibited to do business with someone, any way you slice the cake....you gotta jump on one side of the fence or the other. I just tend to think the grass is a little greener on the side I chose.
As far as the underlined part, they would obviously have to buy their food somewhere else or move to an area where they have a better access to food supply (Or loot the place if they are so inclined, food riots aren't pretty).I tend to think good ole fashioned capitalism would take care of the problem 99% of the time though, if the one owner has a monopoly on the entire food supply in that town.....he would be a fool not to do business with everyone.....he's only inviting competition by doing it any other way and slashing his own bottom line. Free market competition would provide economic balance (By my estimation anyway, we have no way of knowing or predicting exactly how it would play out in modern times).
I really don't believe anyone would starve to death if we done things this way. Not that it will ever happen, I think the noose that is government regulation is only going to tighten during my lifetime.
As far as the underlined part, they would obviously have to buy their food somewhere else or move to an area where they have a better access to food supply (Or loot the place if they are so inclined, food riots aren't pretty).I tend to think good ole fashioned capitalism would take care of the problem 99% of the time though, if the one owner has a monopoly on the entire food supply in that town.....he would be a fool not to do business with everyone.....he's only inviting competition by doing it any other way and slashing his own bottom line. Free market competition would provide economic balance (By my estimation anyway, we have no way of knowing or predicting exactly how it would play out in modern times).
I really don't believe anyone would starve to death if we done things this way. Not that it will ever happen, I think the noose that is government regulation is only going to tighten during my lifetime.
A
The founding fathers were by far Protestant Christians. The largest number were raised in the three largest Christian traditions of colonial America:
1. Anglicanism (as in the cases of John Jay, George Washington, and Edward Rutledge).
2. Presbyterianism (as in the cases of Richard Stockton and the Rev. John Witherspoon).
3. Congregationalism (as in the cases of John Adams and Samuel Adams).
Other Protestant groups included the Society of Friends (Quakers), the Lutherans, and the Dutch Reformed. Minority positions included three Roman Catholics (Charles Carroll, Daniel Carroll of Maryland, and Thomas Fitzsimmons of Pennsylvania) and a few deists with Thomas Paine being the most prominent.
While it is true that the American enlightenment influenced their thinking, so did their Christian view of the world. It is a false assertion to wrongly state that it did not.
According to the founding fathers, the United States should be a country where peoples of all faiths could live in peace and mutual benefit. James Madison summed up this ideal in 1792 saying, "Conscience is the most sacred of all property."
Additionally there was a limited involvement with Freemasonry of the antique kind (not like today) that had a relatively small influence on America's foundations. If you're interested in this subject, I recommend 'The Question of Freemasonry and the Founding Fathers' by David Barton.
The war over whether Christian was intended to be a secular or Christian nation is not black or white; one or the other. As Bill Flax notes:
"All thought the Bible essential for just and harmonious society. The Founders disagreed on much, but were nearly unanimous concerning biblical morality. They understood the relationship between state and society differently than progressive thinkers today: government cannot mold man. Righteous men must mold government which requires the inculcation of virtue through vibrant churches and the transmittal of values generationally via a social structure based on families.
Usurping the First Amendment to obstruct public expressions of faith would leave the Founders aghast. Not only did the Constitution leave extant the official religions authorized in most of the states, but as historian Thomas Woods explains:
'Prohibiting prayer in public schools runs exactly contrary to the Framers intent... a stupefying departure from traditional American principles and an intolerable encroachment on communities rights to self-government.'
Jefferson ’s 'wall of separation' guarded faith, or lack thereof, against political interference. Far from uprooting our cultural moorings, the Forefathers embraced our heritage.
Historian Larry Schweikart notes, 'The founding documents of every one of the original thirteen colonies reveal them to be awash in the concepts of Christianity and God.'
Youth learned to read using Scripture. Universities were chartered to teach doctrine. Students could not even enter Harvard, Yale or Princeton without assenting to the Westminster Confession.
John Adams noted, 'The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.'
Per Paul Johnson, 'The Declaration of Independence was, to those who signed it, a religious as well as a secular act, and the Revolutionary War has the approbation of divine providence.'
The Declaration contains four clear references to God. Independence was predicated on the 'laws of nature and nature’s God' because men are 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.'
The Continental Congress thought success dependent on 'the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions' to whom they relied on for 'the protection of divine Providence.'
Secularists claim designations like 'laws of nature' evidences Deism, not Christianity. But that phrase also appears in the quintessential statement of Protestant faith, the Westminster Confession, where 'light of nature,' meaning the same, appears repeatedly. Many Founders would agree that it does both not one or the other.
John Locke, whose influence was indisputable, clarified that natural rights need to 'be conformable to the Law of Nature, i.e., to the will of God.' And that legislation must be 'without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made.'
Blackstone’s Commentaries, a pivotal support for America’s common law system, rests upon both sources for truth in Christian thinking. There is 'special revelation' in the Holy Scriptures and 'general revelation' of a complex, yet sublime world working according to an ordered design subject to discoverable natural laws."
So while the United States was not founded as a Christian nation, it was largely comprised of Christians who never meant for the U.S. to be theocratic or homogenous religiously but did intend for the Christian worldview to be indelible to our social fabric and the founders, even the few non-Believers before the rise of rabid New Atheism, considered that a blessing.
Your false assertion is patently and demonstrably false amdg.
1. Anglicanism (as in the cases of John Jay, George Washington, and Edward Rutledge).
2. Presbyterianism (as in the cases of Richard Stockton and the Rev. John Witherspoon).
3. Congregationalism (as in the cases of John Adams and Samuel Adams).
Other Protestant groups included the Society of Friends (Quakers), the Lutherans, and the Dutch Reformed. Minority positions included three Roman Catholics (Charles Carroll, Daniel Carroll of Maryland, and Thomas Fitzsimmons of Pennsylvania) and a few deists with Thomas Paine being the most prominent.
While it is true that the American enlightenment influenced their thinking, so did their Christian view of the world. It is a false assertion to wrongly state that it did not.
According to the founding fathers, the United States should be a country where peoples of all faiths could live in peace and mutual benefit. James Madison summed up this ideal in 1792 saying, "Conscience is the most sacred of all property."
Additionally there was a limited involvement with Freemasonry of the antique kind (not like today) that had a relatively small influence on America's foundations. If you're interested in this subject, I recommend 'The Question of Freemasonry and the Founding Fathers' by David Barton.
The war over whether Christian was intended to be a secular or Christian nation is not black or white; one or the other. As Bill Flax notes:
"All thought the Bible essential for just and harmonious society. The Founders disagreed on much, but were nearly unanimous concerning biblical morality. They understood the relationship between state and society differently than progressive thinkers today: government cannot mold man. Righteous men must mold government which requires the inculcation of virtue through vibrant churches and the transmittal of values generationally via a social structure based on families.
Usurping the First Amendment to obstruct public expressions of faith would leave the Founders aghast. Not only did the Constitution leave extant the official religions authorized in most of the states, but as historian Thomas Woods explains:
'Prohibiting prayer in public schools runs exactly contrary to the Framers intent... a stupefying departure from traditional American principles and an intolerable encroachment on communities rights to self-government.'
Jefferson ’s 'wall of separation' guarded faith, or lack thereof, against political interference. Far from uprooting our cultural moorings, the Forefathers embraced our heritage.
Historian Larry Schweikart notes, 'The founding documents of every one of the original thirteen colonies reveal them to be awash in the concepts of Christianity and God.'
Youth learned to read using Scripture. Universities were chartered to teach doctrine. Students could not even enter Harvard, Yale or Princeton without assenting to the Westminster Confession.
John Adams noted, 'The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.'
Per Paul Johnson, 'The Declaration of Independence was, to those who signed it, a religious as well as a secular act, and the Revolutionary War has the approbation of divine providence.'
The Declaration contains four clear references to God. Independence was predicated on the 'laws of nature and nature’s God' because men are 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.'
The Continental Congress thought success dependent on 'the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions' to whom they relied on for 'the protection of divine Providence.'
Secularists claim designations like 'laws of nature' evidences Deism, not Christianity. But that phrase also appears in the quintessential statement of Protestant faith, the Westminster Confession, where 'light of nature,' meaning the same, appears repeatedly. Many Founders would agree that it does both not one or the other.
John Locke, whose influence was indisputable, clarified that natural rights need to 'be conformable to the Law of Nature, i.e., to the will of God.' And that legislation must be 'without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made.'
Blackstone’s Commentaries, a pivotal support for America’s common law system, rests upon both sources for truth in Christian thinking. There is 'special revelation' in the Holy Scriptures and 'general revelation' of a complex, yet sublime world working according to an ordered design subject to discoverable natural laws."
So while the United States was not founded as a Christian nation, it was largely comprised of Christians who never meant for the U.S. to be theocratic or homogenous religiously but did intend for the Christian worldview to be indelible to our social fabric and the founders, even the few non-Believers before the rise of rabid New Atheism, considered that a blessing.
Your false assertion is patently and demonstrably false amdg.
A
In James 5, one of the reasons why the rich are condemned in the last days is because they oppress the righteous ("innocent men" in the NIV). In the phrase "condemned and murdered," James probably does not mean that they carried out an illegal activity, but rather that they used the courts to imprison, impoverish, and kill.
Probably even this killing was not done directly, but through taking away the means of support of the poor through fines and legal judgments.
It is all the same to God whether the death is direct or indirect, whether the proceeding is legal or illegal in human terms. In His book, it is persecution of the righteous by the unrighteous.
We are seeing that begin to play out in these last days clearly in situations with a Christian baker refusing to support an immoral event (an event is not a person) and being severely persecuted by immoral people leveraging a government originally designed to protect the Christian baker from such persecution to the point of making him a lifelong felon, imprisoning him, and bankrupting him and his family with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines which cannot be washed in bankruptcy court leaving them in abject poverty for the rest of their lives... over a cake for an immoral event.
The immoral wield severe persecution at moral people so easily... over almost nothing. They harbor an internal enmity against God and His people that is powered by the devil.
There is no doubt in my mind that, ultimately, God is going to severely judge the immoral for severely persecuting His righteous unless they genuinely repent in which case they receive grace and forgiveness.
Passages like Revelations 6 are clear about that. Other passages state their punishment on this world will only be the beginning of an eternal punishment that is far worse (see Revelations 20:10).
Probably even this killing was not done directly, but through taking away the means of support of the poor through fines and legal judgments.
It is all the same to God whether the death is direct or indirect, whether the proceeding is legal or illegal in human terms. In His book, it is persecution of the righteous by the unrighteous.
We are seeing that begin to play out in these last days clearly in situations with a Christian baker refusing to support an immoral event (an event is not a person) and being severely persecuted by immoral people leveraging a government originally designed to protect the Christian baker from such persecution to the point of making him a lifelong felon, imprisoning him, and bankrupting him and his family with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines which cannot be washed in bankruptcy court leaving them in abject poverty for the rest of their lives... over a cake for an immoral event.
The immoral wield severe persecution at moral people so easily... over almost nothing. They harbor an internal enmity against God and His people that is powered by the devil.
There is no doubt in my mind that, ultimately, God is going to severely judge the immoral for severely persecuting His righteous unless they genuinely repent in which case they receive grace and forgiveness.
Passages like Revelations 6 are clear about that. Other passages state their punishment on this world will only be the beginning of an eternal punishment that is far worse (see Revelations 20:10).