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The Daily Dish - 2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan

God And Government

By The Daily Dish
Feb 10 2008, 1:25 AM ET

Loved this succinct rebuke to Christianism:

I think the ultimate tribute to God, in any form, is to maximize individual freedom –- and not to obstruct that freedom for others. The thing that puzzles me about moralistic government is that if you force everyone in the country to act a certain way morally, there ceases to be free will. Then nobody is truly benevolent at all, just pawns of the state. If I’m forced to act in a Christian manner by threat of law, am I really a Christian? Seems like this is quite detrimental to the Church. And to be honest, I’m less afraid of social conservatives in this regard as I am of fiscal liberals. If the government hijacks my income to redistribute it into some form of pork designed to help the less fortunate, especially when it doesn’t go toward its intended purpose anyway, not only are they stealing from me, but they’re preventing me from being charitable. It’s destructive for all parties.



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