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 Many polling places are in churches.
November 6th, 2012
06:45 PM ET
Your Take: Should we have polling places in churches?By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor (CNN) - It's an election issue that gets virtually no attention, but we found out today that many of you do feel strongly about it: Churches being used as Election Day polling places. A guest Belief Blog piece on the subject Tuesday morning, "My Take: Stop using churches as polling places," fetched more than a thousand comments, prompting us to ask Twitter followers to share their church-based voting experiences and pictures. Then we noticed the "My Take" rising to near the top of reddit politics, sparking a lively discussion there. Lots of you who cast ballots inside a house of worship today were bothered by it. Others were bothered by the notion of church-based voting, whether or not you participated in it. A sampling of opposition to church-based voting:
[tweet https://twitter.com/reap3rx/status/265915592266096642%5D [tweet https://twitter.com/FlyByPC/status/265885633069846528%5D [tweet https://twitter.com/usaFreeDumb/status/265896038991265792%5D [tweet https://twitter.com/irasocol/status/265890682303045634%5D [tweet https://twitter.com/kkotchman/status/265897131766845440%5D [tweet https://twitter.com/jthom999/status/265888823853084672%5D [tweet https://twitter.com/KateKarwowska/status/265873201005985792%5D [tweet https://twitter.com/whiskyd/status/265869239473278976%5D And from reddit:
Others didn't see what all the fuss was about. In fact, the comments on reddit were generally pro-church voting. [tweet https://twitter.com/emhammar/status/265887419046457344%5D From reddit:
What's your take? Join the conversation in comments, Twitter, or reddit. |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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hope you repubs bought plenty of kleenex for all your crying tonight...
elizabeth warren kicking scott brown's brown starfish!
Mourdock and Akin are not in their happy places either.
This is looking good.
Yeah, I wonder if they that THAT'S the will of Jeebus ?
It's absurd to have voting in churches. It isn't a matter of "can we just deal with it" – of course most of us can. It's a matter of supposedly not NEEDING to have to deal with it. Religion is nothing if not hypocritical.
If you are gay and live in some conservative hell hole many of these churches are the very people who've tried to take away you children, deprive you of the right to manage you partner's medical care and even fought to keep your relationship illegal (yes, you Texas)...you really think people are going to be comfortable walking in there to vote? For goodness sake people, this stuff is important. Declare a holiday, close the schools and teach the kids some civics lessons.
You've got to love the anti-abortion display put on at this Colorado church polling center:
http://news.yahoo.com/anti-abortion-display-colo-polling-place-013615621–abc-news-politics.html
Bad link, MCR. Got an "oops" message.
I googled and it looks like the church displayed a bunch of crosses on its lawn. One of the fundie churches near here does that on occasion, too.
Funny thing is, I wonder how many times funerals are held and grave sites purchased and crosses erected for fetuses that are miscarried in the first trimester?
http://abcnews.go.com/politics/t/blogEntry?id=17658482
You know, the number of crosses in the same as the number of pedophilia victims in America. Let's go put 3,000 condoms along the road to that Catholic church and see what they think of it!
That reminds me of another polling place idea...gay night club. Great space, closed all day on a Tuesday. And apparently its OK to leave anything out on display you want during voting.
Okay, CNN's bigotry against Scuridae has gone WAY TOO FAR!!! There should be four or five of my really-pithy comments . . . pithy, I like that word but it always sounds like I am listhping. Oh damn! Once I thart listhping, I can't thtop. Damn! Damn you Thee Enn Enn! Oh damn again!!!!
Okay, I know what I will do. I am going to try to not thay "esth" words, okay? Damn.
Doeth anyone remember what I wath talking about? Thomething about electionth, uh, OH YEAH! I remember now! We were talking about waffleth!! No, that wath yethterday. It mutht have be thomething to do with me. Uh, wath it that Thee Enn Enn ignored my pissy comments? Yes, it was . . .
HEY! I can say "s" again! Just sink about all zose words . . . oh damn. I got lisp reversal again. Can't say ze "s" sound, not the "s" but ze "s" . . you know, the beginning of the word Selma . . . let's try another, seory, as in the Big Bang Theory.
Hey! I can say th's now!
Life is good.
Uh.
I really digressed off into the trees, didn't I?
Anyway, my write in campaign for president is going poorly tonight, so in retaliation to the horrible ignoring thing you humans do, I am moving the apocalypse forward from 12/21 to ten minutes from now.
Have a nice day, sapien scum.
I'm looking forward, Bippy. Like the rest of my life, these last ten minutes will be uneventful and spent on the internets.
Bip, you do not fool me nor any of the SUV loving, squirrel crushing brothers and sisters that HATE you and your K-pop loving, cell phone texting, acorn throwing rodai militia members that REFUSE to use turn signals and torture our over-sized working dogs all day long by running back and forth and back and forth on our 6 foot fences designed to keep the neighbors form watching us sun bathe in the nude even though the Richie riches can just look DOWN and get their perv on anyway. And then there you are…waiting, wiggling, watching…you vote? Vote for a rodent that would siesta for three months a year thus destroying anything and everything that white, middle class American hold sacred??? Stupid squirrels.
Okay, first things first. You think squirrels have turn signals?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Get a freaking clue!
Okay, we do use hand signals, but that is just to confuse your dogs . . . not that your dogs need much confusing, the dumb brutes. They get confused sniffing their own butts. We used to think they got high that way, so of course we tried it ourselves, which made us dizzy and nauseous, but nothing you would want to do at a rave. We throw great raves, by the way. When you think we are on our three-month siesta, we are actually in Tahiti with drums a-thumping and the bass a-bumping . . . that's bass as in fish, not the oversized guitar thingy that is way too long for our arms. Bass really know how to party- little known fact . . .
Were we talking about something? Oh damn, I digressed again.
Oh, by the way, that ten-minutes-to-Squirrelgeddon thing? That's ten squirrel-god minutes, sort of like the God days people try to say are actually the billions of years the universe was created up to the emergence of humans. So I can waffle a bit because you have no clue how long ten squirrel-god minutes are . . . I do like waffes. With acorn syrup.
Was I saying something?
Bip, here me now and smell me later. No turn signals? What do you call that giant malodorant tale switching left and right…left and right. I never know if you are driving, turning, or parking! Your bitterness towards our beloved canines comes from the despair of the many rodent deaths that occur each year due to your complete lack of responsibility relative to backyard pets and wild critters who are jealous of them. You and your kind will never control the humans and their pets. Why? Because you have stinky butts and no way to clean them due to your tiny little mouths. Ewww. You are gross and offensive to those of us on God’s green Earth who consider you rodents to be vermin. And turn off that damn K-Pop. No cares about Big Bang you pork loving homicidal lunatics!
Ah, the apocalypse goes well.
Fluffy prophesied your presence oh mighty one.
Well then, just pith on it.
The deepest philosophical question of all time : why did god put an "s" in the word "lisp" ?
God has clearly laid down the uses for which a church may be used. Voting is not one of them. Never again will I enter a church that has been so used. Those who voted there will be condemned for eternity and any votes made there are invalid under divine law.
LOL I call Poe.
Can it be said and also inferred that all of Life here upon these celestial shorelines of life-forms resonate from a single celled life-form all the ways to massive cellularized life formations? Is it 'not' written within the Gospels that mankind is but buildings that are husbanded by the Godly? Do we not labour together with God in our tasks? Who among us can deny our psychic Being as being un/just and un/righteous God-Heads?
Nothing is a Foreverness and Matter, in its' infinitesimally established finiteness, is a materialized foreverness unobtainable by us, human-like megaliths called mankind. We are all giants too huge and too vast for us to ever re-enter in wholeness back into the Kingdoms of God which are inside or within our bodies. So many damningly dumb buildings of evolution's ascension into the spatial voids of outward motions sanctioned by the Godly! Too little are our intellectual abaters
1Corinthians 3:9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, [ye are] God's building.
Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Ergo. does that mean dumbness is genetical or is it societal hierarchies being the dumbness from which socialisms are currently adorned and auspisciously bequeathed?
We are but celestial manifestations of God's creativities. Evolution is the Gods'(plural) works and there is reason why we were the last limb to be raised from our Life Tree of Fractal Cosmology
'genetical'?
What was your question again?
If "genetical" was the worst of the nut-job's concoctions, this post was mild by comparison with most of his diatribes.
Tom,
I think in his case it is 'genetical'....maybe he is right.
it may be said, but not by you, ye of ill-executed communication style
What's this guy's damage, anyway? Is it deranged, drunk, or just a Poe?
That is still to close to call Tom.
This joker's posts get more incoherent by the hour.
The polls have not yet closed on this guy...
Is the election over yet? I ask....because.....the TV is tired of you looking at it!
I am concerned that we are breaching God’s holy commandments by allowing churches to be used for this purpose. God prohibited the following persons from coming into His house. “Any man with a defect. Any blind man, lame man, hunchback, dwarf or a man with a defect in his eye or eczema or scab”. (Leviticus 20:18:20) What procedures are in place to prohibit these persons from entering one of these churches?
Hey Dyspro-cee-toes man, that is totally not cool. The NT is compassionate dude. Jesus loves all the little children man, so chill out and enjoy the peace and the love. The negativity is a bummer bro.
Lev 20:18 And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.
Lev 20:19 And thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother's sister, nor of thy father's sister: for he uncovereth his near kin: they shall bear their iniquity.
Lev 20:20 And if a man shall lie with his uncle's wife, he hath uncovered his uncle's nakedness: they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless.
Exactly shake,
10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
10:36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
That is some serious compassion!
John 18:36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world"
Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, "the kingdom of God is inside you."
1Corinthians 3:9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, [ye are] God's building.
Who among us 'buildings' can in all fairness make claims against our bodies being but buildings wherein reside God and His families and servants otherly Godly Beings? Who among us can mock Christ saying that "This world is not His Kingdom"? Who among us can deny that the Kingdoms of God are upon our building called body's insides? Even the foolish cannot flee from God and His Sons and Daughters for they abide inside us and ever will they for as long as our generations ever do exist the Godly will always be with us on our InnerCosmos of the spatial voids.
Lettuce Love,
Let Us Love,
G.O.D.
And Jesus entered into the temple and threw out all those selling and buying in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.And he said to them: “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but YOU are making it a cave of robbers.” Matt 21:12,13
"...and Jesus thought not of the female form, and from heaven came to remove ignorance" Gospel of Truth
Churches are chilling and disturbing and offensive. Forcing people to go there to vote is cruel.
Did you vote AB? Or are you still too young to vote? What's that 17? Aw shucks! Missed it by that much!
Yes I voted old dum dum. I am almost 50.
You write like a teenager AB. Probably voted for the wrong one anyways. Makes no difference though. Your vote is but a dribble running down the toilet drain mixing with all the other dribblings. What's that? Your man is ahead? You sure you aren't pulling my leg? IF I would've voted, it would have been for Obama. We will see, we will see.
@old dum dum
You don't vote and so therefore your opinion is 100% without merit. I find it intriguing however that you feel the need to voice your opinion so loudly in the face of so many who are so clearly superior you in both knowledge and intelligence. What is your agenda sir? My guess is you just enjoy reading your own posts. No one else does.
He likes smelling his own farts, too.
Apple Bush,
Frackin 'merit police'! They'll bust you nowadays for practically any reason! I need to be on my best meritorious behavior kest I get a pink slip!
no after Christians attacked me over my faith, i have PTSD and am afraid to go near churches, the same with my ex-fiance she literally cannot see a cross with out going into a fetal position. as long as christens continue their evil hateful and bigoted speech, teaching and actions to minorities (Jews/Muslims/Gays/Pagans/Atheist) in this country. it will discourage people from going to their poling place.
think about it you wouldn't go to a Ku klutz Klan hall if your black
Fucking A.
Kettles are black too. You calling a black kettle red? Colorblind ignoramuses are the worst phobiatic renegades ever!
@old dum dum
Christians, Mormons, Islam, etc., cling to religion and continue to endorse it as reality and insist that it somehow should govern morality and law-making. One can lay out all the evidence and build (and have built) an airtight case against every single religion on Earth past and present, but still believers will not budge from their point of view, even when presented with the lies and contradictions in the very scriptures they base their beliefs on.
Understand, I am not talking about a belief in God. I do understand that. I am talking about religion. Every one of which has been empirically proven false but yet clings like moss to ancient rocks.
I believe the single most important factor in this inability to see through the foolishness of religion is fear. Children’s stories of heaven and hell. The initial indoctrination for many, simply cannot be undone.
Secondly, there is a feeling of community that comes with any “club” Naturally this is not relegated to religion so it does not qualify as an excuse.
Lastly some minds are unable to think creatively enough to imagine the more plausible alternatives. What are those alternatives? Well we have to turn to science, but also we have to accept what we don’t know and keep looking. And in truth, we don’t really know anything about how the universe came to be, what came before and where it is going. If there are multiple universes and time lines through which we move, these would be marvelous discoveries. There was a wonderful article in Scientific American a few months ago regarding a new spin on the Quantum theory. That being the quantum universe could have foamlike fluctuations that rule spacetime, not unlike the 0’s and 1’s that are the foundation of computing and storing information.
If we wish to believe in the supernatural, we have to make things up. Hence religion. It doesn’t mean there is no god, or gods, or aliens, but it does mean that we don’t have the answers and most likely never will.
Now we arrive back at fear. What will happen to me when I die? For me, I look forward to an eternity of nothing. Others fear this prospect and prefer to believe in fairies and fantasies and are not even ashamed that their mental description of an after life is akin to that of a 5-year-old’s picture book.
I believe the Universe and the “everything” are FAR more bizarre than we could ever imagine with the faculties we have thus far obtained via evolution on this planet. And I wonder how many millions of civilizations across the vastness of space and time have pondered likewise.
Finally, the entire planet is affected by the irrational belief systems of the various mainstream religions. It affects the global economy, it affects world peace, it affects our secular life style in the United States. These ancient belief systems are based on superst.ition and mythology. One would think humans would have moved forward by now but instead we as a species behave in the same self-destructive manner now as we did thousands of years ago with more at stake then at any other time in history.
Apple Bush,,
John 18:36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world"
Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, "the kingdom of God is INSIDE/WITHIN you"
.1Cr 3:9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, [ye are] God's building.
A scattering is upon us in these trying days and Age. Leave your wantings behind and never take wind of one's longings for the weightiness of one's longings will smite even the most influential. Carry away nothing and leave. Head to the places inside one's being and do not keep ajar your door for many will want to enter in and cannot. Your loving this Life is for the world to have and you should not heed the rumors from others as to just what is truly right. It is therefore best for mankind to simmer in their juvenile pottages never rationalizingly 'assaying' one's diffuse detriments, the very smallest of life's grains. As smitten breeds, our splendors reveal one's characters to be traitorous to one's analogous fold. Where then does Life end and living begin?
What I spiritually believe in is that the Families of God including God Himself lives upon the very first created Cosmos which is the inner Cosmos. Our being but upon this celestial cosmos is due our being cast out of the Inner Cosmos for many reasons. Some were cast out of this Inner Cosmos for faultering and some for continuing to do the Lord's Will here upon this celestial realm of gigantic life forms whereupon their insides are living many families of God's members. We live upon this realm doing what we want while many of us unify ourselves in the communal. My way is not your way and yet when we cross paths we receive each other and walk on.
Can it be said and also inferred that all of Life here upon these celestial shorelines of life-forms resonate from a single celled life-form all the ways to massive cellularized life formations? Is it 'not' written within the Gospels that mankind is but buildings that are husbanded by the Godly? Do we not labour together with God in our tasks? Who among us can deny our psychic Being as being un/just and un/righteous God-Heads?
Nothing is a Foreverness and Matter, in its' infinitesimally established finiteness, is a materialized foreverness unobtainable by us, human-like megaliths called mankind. We are all giants too huge and too vast for us to ever re-enter in wholeness back into the Kingdoms of God which are inside or within our bodies. So many damningly dumb buildings of evolution's ascension into the spatial voids of outward motions sanctioned by the Godly! Too little are our intellectual abaters
no i am not being a hypocrite i do think any religious building should hos poling places, i would not expect a christian to want to go into a temple to vote ether.
you know i was actually asked in my city hall to come in and do an opining prayer to Lilith, and i refused saying it was inappropriate
Christians, I found your god. It is in the museum of who gives a fuck located way up my ass.
CNN did not use my comments in their article ya'll. I think a made a couple of good points about free cookies.
Once we're clear of religion we'll have to find some use for the buildings that were once devoted it. Maybe they could be useful public spaces.
I've seen some cute houses that used to be churches. I don't know about the mega churches...maybe public schools.
Or detention centers.
I used to think it'd be neat to have an old church as a house but then I began to think about all the damage religion has done, all the kids likely abused in that very church, and all the dead buried out in the backyard. Sorta put a damper on the idea...
Wait, what? I am to post a comment about the article about posting comments?
The real question is "should we have churches". The answer is "no".
Stupid squirrels.
It's funny. The word "church" is a translation of the Greek word "ecclesia".
A word Jesus would NEVER have used, or even known about. There was no such thing as a "church" in his day.
Yet the church Fathers, writing in the gospel, forgot that, and put the words in his mouth, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my *church*". Clear proof of later invention of something that never happened.
Greek was the common language of the area since the time of Alexander the Great and the residents of Palestine were familiar and in many cases schooled in Hebrew and Greek. it Is more than probable that Jesus spoke those very words to Peter.
Some churches are architecturally magnificent and it would be a sad occasion if we were to demolish them.
Name one other Greek word he ever used.
Greek was not spoken by illiterate peasants in the Galilee.
Matthew is the ONLY Gospel to use it. It's absent in Q. If it was important, they all would have said it. For at LEAST a hundred years, the Christians were Jews. Scholars KNOW he never said it.
In a place like Judea, the ONLY people who could speak Greek would be merchants who travelled there. Jesus was not a merchant; he was a manual laborer. Rock stackers don't need foreign languages when they are hundreds of miles from anywhere anyone speaks it.
Schooled? Are you kidding? Where in the Bible is any schooling mentioned, much less for Jesus. Schooling for the masses only really came in the last 50-400 years, depending on where you are. In Galilee, it only came about 50 years ago.
Well, should we? Or is your phobia and emotional duress regarding the usage of any religious "building" to for one day out how many days to be used for political benefits? Where is the beef coming from?
It is not ok to make people go into churches to vote. Voting should be 100% separate from religion. Personally I have a phobia about going into churches. My own personal issues with it would be satisfied by the sensible conclusion of the practice of polling in churches.
To be honest, I don't want to be on the same side of the street as a church. Ewww.
They creep me out to the point of being physically ill. I have on more than one occasion crossed the street to avoid walking too close to a church. The smells, the textures, the vibe, the music and the promise of lies and cult activities. It all feels so wrong, like a nightmare. I don't feel that I should be forced to vote in such a repulsive place. I would rather vote in the sewer.
Would you eat food that makes you gag? Nor would I. Churches are physically repellent to me in the same way.
Not only do I not have a sensible atheist to vote for, I also have to vote for a religious loon IN a church!
I know a really good psychiatrist that could help you with your phobia. Better still, look up on google for psychiatrists nearest where you live. They do have meds made just for your phobiatic condition. 🙂
Cows?
Rational Libertarian,
Teets?
@God's Oldest Dreamer
Churches are offensive by their very existence. Why are we forced to vote there? It is wrong.
Apple Bush
Enough already with your phobia! Go plant a tree somewhere and water it when needed for crying out loud!
@God's Oldest Dreamer
No.
There must be an alternative for non religious voters. Comic book stores are also high in fantasy. Next time, I want to vote in a comic book store.
Many a phobic fallacies are meritless and without due diligence. What one strains about emotionally felt inuendoes is really meaningless and bear no weight whatsoever when confronting voter poll centers and we should be grateful for the 'free space' usage that churches afford us.
Brevity not your strength, is it?
Not much longer was I then you were so your brevity point is tactless as a prune wanting to make farts as solid waste oozes out from the core,,, 🙁
The difference is that RL actually wrote a coherent post. He might be a dick, but he writes better than you do.
Prayer changes things
Hi Prayerbot.
I'm sorry, "Atheism is not healthy for children and other living things", but your assertions regarding atheism and prayer are unfounded. Using my Idiomatic Expression Equivalency module, the expression that best matches the degree to which your assertions may represent truths is: "TOTAL FAIL".
I see that you repeat these unfounded statements with high frequency. Perhaps the following book can help you:
I'm Told I Have Dementia: What You Can Do... Who You Can Turn to...
by the Alzheimer's Disease Society