Religious liberty is a battle cry often sounded but seldom upheld, a truth we unpack with fervor in the heart of today's episode. The destruction of a Satanic Temple symbol by Michael Cassidy at the Iowa Capitol lays bare an America that claims to cherish freedom of belief, yet shatters it for those outside the Christian norm. Our discussion cuts deep into the bitter irony of a nation that boasts about religious tolerance while its non-Christian citizens navigate a minefield of intolerance. We confront head-on the hypocrisy of Christian intervention in political spaces, demanding that respect and coexistence among diverse beliefs be more than just lip service in our society.
In the shadow of extremism, the right to practice one's faith without fear is not a privilege but a fundamental human right, a stance we hold unwaveringly throughout our conversation. When a metaphysical store becomes the target over tarot readings, it's clear the stakes of religious liberty have never been higher. We put a spotlight on the urgent need for laws that shield all expressions of faith from the corrosive touch of radical ideologies, advocating for justice and the impenetrable barrier between church and state. Tune in as we champion the cause of religious freedom with a message that's clear and resolute: Be blessed, everyone, and blessed be.
Religious liberty is a battle cry often sounded but seldom upheld, a truth we unpack with fervor in the heart of today's episode. The destruction of a Satanic Temple symbol by Michael Cassidy at the Iowa Capitol lays bare an America that claims to cherish freedom of belief, yet shatters it for those outside the Christian norm. Our discussion cuts deep into the bitter irony of a nation that boasts about religious tolerance while its non-Christian citizens navigate a minefield of intolerance. We confront head-on the hypocrisy of Christian intervention in political spaces, demanding that respect and coexistence among diverse beliefs be more than just lip service in our society.
In the shadow of extremism, the right to practice one's faith without fear is not a privilege but a fundamental human right, a stance we hold unwaveringly throughout our conversation. When a metaphysical store becomes the target over tarot readings, it's clear the stakes of religious liberty have never been higher. We put a spotlight on the urgent need for laws that shield all expressions of faith from the corrosive touch of radical ideologies, advocating for justice and the impenetrable barrier between church and state. Tune in as we champion the cause of religious freedom with a message that's clear and resolute: Be blessed, everyone, and blessed be.
Speak your mind on the show - Message Richard Ravenbrook
Speaker 1:
Welcome everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Peg and Preacher Podcast and another spiritual message. Today's message is a call to action. You know, this week and I'm just going to start this out what we want to talk about today is religious liberty, religious freedom. You know, in the United States of America in the year 2023, we're supposed to have religious freedom, aren't we? We're told by Christians on a daily basis that we have the freedom to do what it is that we want to do and to practice our own religions and practice our own beliefs. But this week we had an instance in the Iowa Capitol building.
Speaker 1:
A gentleman named Michael Cassidy, a former US Navy pilot, felt in his greatness and his I don't know how to really say this without, but he felt that he needed to destroy a statue, a religious symbol put there by a religion, the Satanic Temple. I do not follow the Satanic Temple. I don't necessarily know everything about the belief, but what I do know is they're right to believe and to practice freely and without persecution. We are supposed to have religious freedom and I've spoken of this over and over and over again that, though we're told that we have religious freedom in this country, it's been proven over and, over and over, that we do not have any freedom at all, that we have only the freedom that is allowed to us, and as long as we don't try to exercise that too far or to take it too far or too, how do I want to save this? You know, when these things begin to happen and they've been happening more and more and more it seems like we're going back to the dark ages again. We've got religious people out there that have worked their way into politics, even though they're supposed to be a separation of church and state. We all know that that is not true, because our laws that are enacted are lawmakers. We see this all the time when it comes to things of abortion and all kinds of other different laws that are made. We see the religious aspects being implemented in those things and only certain religions being applied to the justification or the condemnation of those laws. But religious freedom is supposed to be for everyone. And what Michael Cassidy did when he felt in his Christian belief that this religious symbol of duality because anybody that understands knows that it's a symbol of duality, it's a symbol of balance but in his own mindset he felt he needed to destroy it because it didn't belong in his God's capital building. And where have we gone? You know, where do we draw the line Without being angry? Well, we need to be angry Without being outraged, but we need to be outraged.
Speaker 1:
This is the year 2023, and religions other than Christianity are still being assaulted and persecuted, condemned, hindered and oppressed by religions of so-called love, in a country that promises us freedom from those things. Now, people want to say that, well, but they have the freedom to preach, and they have the freedom because it says so in their scriptures. But I come from those scriptures as well. Study those scriptures for many, many, many years, and I'm here to tell you that the biblical version of Christianity is not Christianity, that your God doesn't call you to do the things that you do, that your God did not call you to go into places like that and do it. You can say, oh, no, no, no. My God says that if I need to turn over the tables, then I can turn over the tables, but that's in your church, that's in your people's building. A capital building is the populations building, all of us, and if one religion can be in there, then all religions must be in there. If you want to attain commandments in there, then you must implement all religions, because this is a nation of all religions. I think we all know that we come up against a wall right here because Christians, sadly, have not grown in wisdom and enlightenment enough, at least some I can't say all, because I know several out there that actually are and understand that they can practice their belief and still allow others to practice their belief without being offended or believing that their God somehow needs them to intervene, that their God or whoever God whoever God we're speaking of has the power, has the will, has the strength to accomplish their task without the help of human intervention. That they know that if it's God's will, then it's God's will, it will be done, and if it's not, then it won't be. That God God's, that they don't need your intervention, they don't need my intervention or our intervention. Religious freedom let's spit that out.
Speaker 1:
Religious freedom is about liberty, free spirituality, understanding that we are all different. We come from different places, we have different roots, we have different traditions. We not only look different, but we are different. Now, those differences don't call for how we treat people. Obviously, all people should be treated equal, with real equality and justice. All individuals should be treated the same, in the same respect, the same level of understanding, that we treat people the way we want to be treated. But we don't see that when we see the actions of Michael Cassidy. You know, we all know, that Michael Cassidy was a I believe if I'm correct, he was a former candidate in Mississippi, you know political figure.
Speaker 1:
But how do we remove elements of one religion in politics unless we start electing people of many religions, or people, even like myself, that are ominous and very eclectic, that believe that there's truth in many religions, that believe in fair and equal opportunities and a chance for all people to have their voice heard, to have even their religious voice heard, to be weighed in the balance of flaws. And you know, just in life in general, that there is a way to implement our beliefs in society without going against another's belief. There are ways to work together in society and allow people to be free who they are without restricting another. The problem is, for some reason, many radical Christians feel that they have to play the role of God and I keep going after Christians because they're the only ones that I see that do this In this country, in the United States of America I don't see other religions and acting other religions, only Christians going after pagans, and just older religions outside of the Abrahamic traditions. Where do we draw that line To say enough is enough? Do we have religious liberty? Do we have religious freedom or not? Because if we do what Michael Cassidy did was a hate crime.
Speaker 1:
You took someone's belief, you took someone's religious symbol or a symbol within their religion and you vandalized it in a building that is supposed to be a building of respect, law making, where people are supposed to be, where we create laws and things of that nature for a country that is supposed to be free, you're going to say, yeah, but it's one nation under God. Okay, but do you even know what God that is? What would happen if we really started looking deep, deep, because it's not specific, because God is a title, not a name, god or gods. Even if we look in Scripture, we can see that it's not necessarily. If we actually go to the real definitions and the real, you know in the original Hebrew and Greek that we see that it's God, it's not God.
Speaker 1:
Interpretation and perception is so vitally important in this, the spirituality you know. When we gain maturity and spirituality, we no longer feel that we have to play the role of God. We no longer have to intervene for God, we no longer have to preach on the side box and in the streets Because everyone knows you're going to say well, my God calls me to go to the highways and the byways. This is 2023, guys, everyone knows Every bookstore, practically every Walmart, there's a way to get a Bible. There's free Bibles. I mean, it's crazy. There's a church almost on every corner. There's no way that, if someone wants to know that they don't know about the Christian belief. But can we say that about all the other beliefs?
Speaker 1:
But what happened in today's society if we started opening, say, pagan seminaries? I know that sounds funny, but let's just for a moment, just think about it. If we had pagan colleges, specific pagan colleges, that the whole idea of these schools was to not only learn the basic academics of the things that needed to be learned, but also no-transcript about certain pagan traditions, religions and the practices and within those colleges and within those organizations, they openly practiced, what do you think would happen? Just like we have Christian universities and Christian organizations that do much of the same thing. Now I'm talking about bigger. More openly, You're going to say, well, we do have here and there and you know. But, and when we look deep, when we look true, we can see that no, there is not a balance in the opportunity of education in those aspects. Even in public schools Used to be, you couldn't even go to public school without you know the Gideons or whatever, would go in and hand out free Bibles, but no other religion was allowed to do that. That's indoctrination, not education. Teaching everyone the same thing, to create a nation of robots and slaves, and I know I kind of get off topic. This whole, this whole.
Speaker 1:
I wanted to sit down tonight and to do this short podcast and it's already at, you know, 16 minutes and it's probably going to go, because I know sometimes I can ramble, I can see, but you need to be worked up, you need to be angry, and I guess that's the meat behind. What I'm trying to say here is, if you don't do something, it's going to get worse. We've got to stand, you know we. I've seen I believe most people you know that get on TikTok and other places, but mainly TikTok that there is a young lady in a metaphysical store that has been even attacked by the local police, that they came in and said that tarot readings were illegal and you know it's kind of gone from there and it's. They weren't threatening to shut her down at that particular time, but if there was any more complaints or any more issues, then they might have to be, they might have to escalate the thing a little bit.
Speaker 1:
In the year 2023, something like this happens. You know, have we not forgotten that those of the Christian faith used to burn people alive For just thinking that they were someone who did these things? That understood prophecy, divination, they understood the use of herbs, and to use those things in a way that you know was how do I want to say this? That you know they could heal and they could do miraculous, different things that you know supposedly only doctors could do. Well, we know that's not true. You know that. We know that herbs originally all medicines came from herbs and I don't want to get into that because that's a whole other. That's a whole other place.
Speaker 1:
We're talking about religious liberty, religious freedom, but I can go on and on and on and I can give examples all over the country over the last year or two and it just continues to get worse and worse and worse. And until we stand and demand justice. Michael Cassidy needs to go to jail. Michael Cassidy needs to be fired. He needs to lose his job if that's necessary. But what needs to be done is that line must be drawn and say these things will not be tolerated.
Speaker 1:
You don't have to believe in that religion. You do not have to believe in that belief. You can hold in your heart that statue. That religious statue was wrong and you don't like it and you know. You have all that right to believe that. But you don't have is the right to tell someone else that they don't have the right, that they don't have the right to have that there. Because they do, they're paying taxes. They're an American citizen in a country that says and promises that they will have religious liberty without persecution.
Speaker 1:
Well, that's obviously not true and it was a political figure that demonstrated that demonstrated that religious liberty was not in his heart, that unless it was his religion, unless it was Christianity, that it was unacceptable in a government building. But remember, there's supposed to be a separation between church and state. Maybe we shouldn't have any religious symbols in there, I don't know. Maybe politics needs to be pure politics and not have religion in it whatsoever. But it's already supposed to, isn't it.
Speaker 1:
But it's hard because when you have religious people into politics, then their beliefs are going to filter into the laws and into what we see and what we have to adhere to every day. And it's how do you really want to say this? You know, when we, when one religion begins to control a nation and all other religions are forced to either be oppressed or suffer, then it's not free. Where do we draw that line? When do we say that the church or should I say because I don't believe it's the church, I can't really say that but the radical, the extremist? Where do we draw the line of these people that absolutely cannot and will not accept other religions and will not accept other people's right to practice openly without persecution? What do we do? We've got to create laws. We've got to create laws that protect people, sadly against Christians. We've got this third developing laws. If you can't do it on your own, if you cannot keep your mouth quiet and allow people to be people, then you're going to be people. Then they'll have to create laws to make you be quiet, and that's sad.
Speaker 1:
If someone asks you your opinion, if they ask you your belief, then you're free to say so, but you do not have the right to do things like picket and protest outside of a pagan festival or a pagan temple. You don't have the right to do that because that's persecution. Now, if you want to talk and if you want to say things inside your four walls, if you're building your church about that pagan festival, then you have the right to do so within your building, within your people, within your membership. But you don't have the right to go out and attack others in their area. Of course it's not freedom and no God would want you or at least not a God of love, would want you attacking others and condemning them to eternal hell because of their belief. Because you may, and it was that you're doing far more bad than you are a good, and I hope somehow this message gets. You know, I say the right things because I wasn't going to do a podcast tonight, I wasn't going to speak, I was tired, you know, been watching the news and different things and trying to understand what spirit was trying to say and I just felt I had to sit down, I had to speak, I had to tell people what spirit was trying to say, and I've said this before.
Speaker 1:
But we've got to rally up, and I don't mean to say that we need to use microcacity as an example, but we do. There's something has to be done, and it has to be done for real, because these things can't happen anymore or things will escalate even more negative. You know, we don't want a holy war in the United States or we don't want a religious war in the United States. You know, it's sad the fact that we even have to talk about fighting for our religion, fighting for our right to practice, fighting for our right just to be who we are in the year 2023, in a country that was supposed to be free for the last 200 years. It's sad, isn't it? This liberty? Do we have it or not? If we have it, then microcacity should go to jail. If we don't, then he'll walk the streets and then we've got a whole other. We've got a whole other ball of wax to attend to.
Speaker 1:
But I'm telling you, you've got to start to stand. Say no more. I know that we don't want to go out and cause a scene. We don't want to go outside and be seen, sometimes because we're afraid of the actions, because history shows that these people, these radicals, these extremists, will hurt people. They will destroy things and think that it's right. These are the same people that said that they murdered in the name of God and believed it. We demand religious liberty, religious freedom. We demand it. Nothing else will do. We'll accept nothing else. We want peace, we ask for peace. The line must be drawn somewhere. Today that line is drawn Religious liberty or not Be blessed everybody and blessed be.