Capitalism Magazine article: Jesus or John Galt, whom should we follow?

#2 I search for the good in figures such as Jesus and John Galt and definitely do not need to be a follower of any one individual to the detriment of my personal soul growth. Do I need one figure to monopolize my personal teaching? Absolutely not.

#3 The acts of a specific church in no way speak to the teachings of Jesus, just as the actions of a specific follower of Objectivism speak to the leaders of that movement. Each is their own individual responsible for him or herself and his or her own actions.

#4 By following natural liberty-based political philosophy, it matters not who one follows in a spiritual sense, so long as they understand the non-aggression principle.

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My liberty-minded home base of thought:

www.ponderthis.net

The first amendment prohibits the establishment of a State controlled religion as that was one of the reasons they left for the new country. But the founding fathers believed that the republic they created was only good for a moral and religious people. If you have any Bible knowledge at all you would realize that most of the so called christian denominations stray from the teachings of the scriptures in some form or another. This is the reason there are so many different types of denominations. They focus on certian parts of the scriptures that they agree with and disregard those they don't claiming that their understanding comes from the Holy Spirit. This does not mean that the Holy Spirit doesn't provide a deeper and more spiritual understanding, only if this understanding is in direct conflict with the initial premise of the word or other passages of scripture then it is false. In essence when you read a passage of scripture, take it under pretext of its literal physical interpretation. As you read more and reread previous passages through the Holy Spirit you will gain a deeper and more spiritual insight, but this will not change the literal meaning for if it does then those have not reached this deeper understanding will view you as a hypocrit. There are a few passages that are beyond the literal interpretation because there is no way represent the spiritual realm in physical terms. The point being do not base a bias against the teachings of Christ because of mans misuse and abuse of them.

...hardly sounds like churches truly modeled after Jesus.

I'm a religious person and I appreciate the separation of church and state because I think the state would ruin religion. Which religion led Stalin and Hitler to do the terrible things they did? Ron Paul's position of limiting the power of the federal government to its constitutionally granted powers would prevent such abuse of power.

I don't think the founders advocated the separation for the reason you specify.

Sometimes people do really bad things, it isn't always religion that makes that happen.

I resent how so many try to assert that without strong central government the states behave badly, would not have gotten rid of slavery, etc. There is some belief out there that a powerful, ruling group needs to control the masses of people who would do bad things with their freedom and control the evil corporations. I really think the market allowing small companies to compete without the government showing favoritism to the big corporations is the way to keep their bad behavior in line.