For anybody that thinks America was not founded under Christianity

I personally think it is a very important topic, since a difference in cultures is often the cause of conflicts.

Can a Muslim who is obedient to Koran co-exist with other people?
Of course not.
The purpose of the Koran is to convert or destroy the Infidels (any non-Muslim).
It is a "religion of peace" TOWARDS other Muslims ... not to the rest of the humanity.

 

Please tell me the name of the school in which you was educated from. This way I know where not to send my children. I will admit the only thing I read was: Really............interesting.

So how do you explain the behavior & actions of these "Christians" that allowed them to try to enslave Native American Indians that they deemed as heathens & savages? (they actually tried to make slaves out of Indians before they resorted to Africans, look it up)

Or how when that didn't work, the very next best thing to do with them was to march all of them off towards the West in the freezing weather while watching their women, old folks & children die from the cold. "Trail of Tears"?

Or how their "Christian faith" allowed them to come up with the "lovely idea" of going to Africa to buy people to use them to basically cultivate the land, and practically build the country........at the end of a whip while their families were ripped apart and then separated (for profit)?

This is all I had to read to learn how ignorant you either are, or being. Slavery was around long before America. Matter of fact, there is not one nation that did not or does not participate in it. America stood against it, regardless of how you feel.

Indians like all humans were evil as well, they would rape, scalp, slavery, just about everything (except scalping to my knowledge) that every human race has done. They would steal from other tribes by killing, for resources or land, or for simply not being of their tribe. This is how they lived, therefore this is how they died. And I'm not saying all of them were like this, just as I'm not saying all humans are like this.

 

The authors of our constitution and our declaration of independence were deists.

There's no denying that the majority were Christian, the US is very much a Christian culture, but it was never intended by the people who first established our government to create a Christian government.

 

The vast majority of conflicts are about resources (oil, money, land etc...), people just use religion and culture as an excuse.

I am wondering however, what Muslims have to do with whether the US was founded under Christianity or not? Muslim extremists hate secular governments as much if not more than Christian ones.

 

This is mostly true.
But the reasons these are used as tools to ignite conflict is because people know there indeed is a significant difference between cultures and religions.

The OP is making a point that U.S. is a Christian country (or at least is based on Christian principles).
I am saying that this is an important to identify what the roots are.
The reason I am comparing to Muslims, is because their roots are very, very different from that of Christianity.

Actually Islam is a Christian Cult, since it perverted the Bible and made itself a most violent religion as far as doctrine is concerned. Islam is a flip side of Christianity.

And their teaching is - All the non-Muslims must be converted or killed.
So, yes, it is very important to recognize where this country came from.
And we should keep it this way.

 

In all honesty, this thread annoys me. Atheists first deny that America was built on Christian principles and they insinuate that the founding fathers were atheists themselves. Okay, so let's see if they will sit down and answer a question I've asked many times on other threads.

Let us presume that all the alleged atrocities were carried out as the atheists describe... slavery, racism, etc. Now, none of the founding fathers were Christians... according to the atheists. So, are the atheists claiming responsibility for the wrongs committed on others? Did atheists and secularists condone all the wrongs the atheists want to enumerate on this thread?

Next, there is no debate that one cannot find "Jesus" mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and I don't find that unusual since Christians were having a hard time expressing who they thought they should call their God: Jehovah, Yahweh, God, Jesus, Lord, etc., etc. Churches have fragmented over that issue, so why would the founding fathers risk it? It made better sense to refer to a generic God they could all agree on.

Next, I'm tired of the atheists playing that card wherein the Treaty of Tripoli somehow proved we are not a Christian nation. Let's get to the real deal here:

The treaty was being made with Muslims and they ARE a religious nation a Muslim theocracy. But, let's visit the truth for a change.

"A prominent member of Adams' cabinet, Secretary of War James McHenry, protested the language of article 11 before its ratification. He wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, Jr., September 26, 1800: "The Senate, my good friend, and I said so at the time, ought never to have ratified the treaty alluded to, with the declaration that 'the government of the United States, is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.' What else is it founded on? This act always appeared to me like trampling upon the cross. I do not recollect that Barlow was even reprimanded for this outrage upon the government and religion."

A second treaty, the Treaty of Peace and Amity signed on July 4, 1805, superseded the 1796 treaty. The 1805 treaty did not contain the phrase "not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli

I'm just starting. I'll be back with more.

 

... good post.

 

Weird, I know several Muslims here in the states (some I consider friends) and NONE of them have ever talked about killing or converting Christians, in fact they love this country and hate the extremists. On the other hand, I have seen, on this very forum, so called Christians call for the death or conversion of Muslims. Hmm...

Also the Old Testament had some pretty harsh sections where God told the Israelites to slaughter their enemies and rape the women, stone homosexuals and even stone non-believers. Yeah, you guys are a lot closer than you want to admit, which is why I will fight tooth and nail to keep religion out of government.

 

And that is fine ... but they are going against the Koran.
It is your duty as a good Muslim to convert an infidel or have him killed.

Why do you think Christianity is illegal in many Muslim countries.
And the ones that do allow Christianity to some of their locals, converting TO Christianity is a crime.

Your friends cannot convert of kill is because the do not live in a Muslim country.

And Extremist Muslim is the one who follows Koran.
And Koran is the source of Islam.

Christians do not follow the Old Testament.
Christ said that the Law was fulfilled for the ones who follow Christ ... Christians.
All the 613 laws and regulations are no longer practiced as a need ... animals no longer sacrificed and so forth.

Old Testament is a history of what was in the "stone age" of civilization.

At that time the harsh rules reflected the harsh hearts of people.
Even the good one behaved like we might consider today savages behave.

The Bible is not a propaganda of Christianity.
It is a very honest book of the spiritual history of Man.

 

The first governing document of the Plymouth Colony was the Mayflower Compact. Here were people that were fleeing the religious persecution of King James of England. Here were Separatists (as they called themselves) who had been mistreated in ways beyond what we can imagine and yet, even having fled religious zealotry, they kept the faith. Here is how the Mayflower Compact goes:

"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620"

Seems that our nation began to advance the Christian faith. Now, that's not an attempt to establish a theocracy and the colonists never sought to force their religion on anyone else. They already knew the dangers of organized religion and they merely wanted to be able to worship freely and not be coerced into accepting any particular denomination or tenet.

The colonists sought freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion.

 

This, according to Madison scholars is a false quote

No such quote has ever been found in any of Madison's extensive writings.

source Robert Alley PhD. University of Richmond.

Jefferson, Franklin and Washington were all Deist's not Christians. They did not believe in the divinity of Jesus.

David Barton was forced to publicaly retract a number of quotes that he used in his books, once they were proven to be false.

 

Not really. Deists, maybe. They didn't think very highly of the Bible or fundamentalism and would laugh in the faces of Christians today trying to make these claims about them.

 

No it does not. Here is what it says "Laws of Nature and Nature's God" A Christian of that period would not use that phrasing, Deists would however use exactly that formulation. Buddha is not a deity. What about the phrasing indicates specifically the Christian Deity?.

 

I attended Kindergarten in Hartford CT, and I attended Elementary school, Middle School, and High School in a little town in NJ a stones throw away from Rutgers College. Later in life I earned a bachelors degree in Business, and a Masters degree in Quality System's, while simultaneously earning a Black Belt in Six Sigma from completing a capstone project.....all in colleges back in Connecticut

Then there were all of the other various certificates & apprenticeships along the way but I think that about covers it. Oh, I almost forgot - while I was in college I took many "history" courses as well as some "psych" courses which really proved to be beneficial.

Especially on days like today when I've got Super Blue Flame Specials like you to deal with.

So now that you've gotten your insults out of the way, and I've answered you pathetic attempt at trying to embarrass & discredit me......can we get down to some brass tacks here?

First: cool your jets long enough to let me explain why I wrote what I wrote.

It wasn't a slam on Christianity or Christians as much as it was an attempt to point out how it's pretty hard to make the claim that America was founded on Christian principals when the Europeans that came here to escape persecution wound up persecuting those that were "already here" and followed that up by treating almost everybody after that not from their ilk extremely unchristian-like & poorly.

Everything I said about the early settlers trying to enslave Native American Indians before Africans was absolutely true....look it up.

Everything I said about how African salves were treated was absolutely true, and this was not a debate on where slavery started first.

Egyptians had slave hundreds of years before Europe was ever populated but that wasn't the point.

The point was that these people that went around professing to be sanctimonious did some pretty ugly things, and they were definitely un-Christian

True their actions have no bearing on how Christians interact with each other today, and I would be the first person to say that most Christians (in todays world) are incredibly loving, generous, forgiving people.

The early settlers.............................not so much.

I'm fully aware of how many Native tribes interacted with each other, what there skirmishes were all about & why. Yes, like all people some of them lived near each other in complete harmony and others fought constantly, but nothing they did with each other or how they behaved warranted how the early settlers treated them.

Your trying to infer that they were fair targets of violence because they were violent people. That's called over simplifying and over generalizing the argument - not too mention that - that type of fuzzy logic is just all wrong.

The analogy your making is that it's ok to drive people off their lands or kill them because they have beef's with each other. If that were true, fair or accurate the entire world would have the right to drive each other from their lands & kill them.

It seems like (for whatever reason) you took my post personal, and you lashed out at me by insulting me, and providing poor excuses for a counter argument.

There was no need to take it personal (if in fact you did) and there was definitely no need to call me ignorant or poorly educated.

In fact I have made it my life's work to study history, and I have a firm grip of what really went down in this country in the early years because I was fortunate enough to have teachers & college professors that threw the watered down textbooks away in history class and taught us the truth about who did what to who & why.

Have a great evening, and the next time you feel the urge to lash out, count to ten & take a deep breath first instead.......

 

It really is clear as bell that Christianity was the key to our way of thinking.
Even in the old movies every gangster knew some quotes from the Bible.
Christianity was the very substance of our thought as a country.

 

See, see what you did here.........?

Slick, but all wrong, and I can't in good faith just let you off the hook here.

Whenever anybody does something immoral like the act of killing or committing any type of aggression towards another human being (regardless of what religion they may be affiliated with) their religion has mostly nothing to do with what their brain has instructed them to do.

When people make the conscious decision to do bad things it primarily comes from one of two things:

Desensitization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desensitization_(psychology)

Or

Intrusive Thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thought

Christians nor Muslims nor any other human for that matter are not driven by religious books written thousands of years ago by flawed men who lived during violent, harsh times where "all" people did horrendous things towards each other.

People simply make the decisions they make based on any one of a few hundred different scenarios raging in their brains, and they act out.

This incessant argument that good Muslims are only Muslims that kill on command like robots, and bad Muslims are only Muslims that don't strictly follow their bible is incredibly mean spirited, inaccurate, disingenuous, and patently false.

Please think for a moment about what you're saying when you make a claim like that.

Your basically saying that the Quran is nothing more than a field guide on how to kill all nonbelievers, and that Muslims cannot possibly consider themselves good Muslims practicing & following their faith as they believe they should.

Almost 1.6 billion Muslims (by your standards) are bad Muslims then....because those 1.6 billion do not partake in terrorist activities, nor do they have the desire to kill anybody.

 

I am not blaming individuals at all.
There are vicious people who call themselves Christians and there are kind people who call themselves Muslims.

I probably misspoke when I defined what "good" Muslim means.
What I meant was what an "obedient" Muslim means in a context of a faith s/he chose as a guideline.
Obedient Muslim follows Koran.
In my opinion, only an ignorant or a bad individual would willingly and soberly choose a religion that aims to convert or kill.

HOWEVER, I do not blame Muslims who were born into a Muslim culture.
They did not choose anything, born that way.

So the good ones from among them try separating themselves from the Koran and start calling themselves moderates.

Is this clearer?

Thanks,
Ed

 

so, what's your point ?

 

Anyone who has even a basic understanding of our Constitution will understand that we were not formed as a a nation under any one religion. The founding fathers knew the danger of a government tied to any one religion so they intelligently built in a principle for us to avoid such an occurrence - it's called the establishment clause.

If the founders actually wanted to make this country a theocracy they would have done just that.

 

It would interesting (even different), if this nation 'actually' operated as though the character of Christ significantly influenced or guided it.

Some may buy that America is a "Christian" nation because of a few things 'labeled' as such within it... but our history and heritage shows us to be less than lukewarm (for Christ and/or his characteristics), where it truly comes to acting/being like Jesus The Christ. That is hardly disputable.

Still, it's true that "God" gets a lot of lip service from many "Americans".

 

So if a Christian were to restore someone's sight in such an area you'd have a problem with it. Right?

You don't have to believe Jesus is God to be a Christian.

Actually it's pretty obvious he would, since the overwhelming majority of the signers of the DoI were professing Christians.

That's not what he said.

 

I was commenting this sentence

This would have been valid only if the Founding Fathers were Catholic. Protestants can leave the Church at its place and the State well separated without a great effort. This was valid also in late 18th century [when the Catholic Church had still a real state in central Italy, the Pope crowned Kings and Emperors ...].

 

Opthamologists generally practice in medical offices or hospitals. Those aren't in the public arena.

 

To the contrary. Just because an atheist cannot find the mention of a specific God in the Bible, they presume to tell us now that no "one" religion was the basis of our foundation. Again, I wish you guys could dispense with the dishonesty just once.

I have stipulated on this thread, and not even one Christian has disagreed, that America was not founded as a theocracy. But, we were founded as a Christian nation. The Declaration mentions a Creator; it mentions Nature's God; it even mentions divine Providence. It acknowledges a God. So, which God?

In the Constitution of the United States, we find this:

"...done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independance of the United States of America..."

Yep, they acknowledge a specific God. But, let's not stop there.

The first educational book used to teach the children of the American colonies was the New England Primer. It was used throughout the 1700s and was the major teaching tool during the founding period (when the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were ratified.) According to one source:

"Many of its selections were drawn from the King James Bible and others were original. It embodied the dominant Puritan attitude and worldview of the day. Among the topics discussed are respect to parental figures, sin, and salvation. Some versions contained the Westminster Shorter Catechism; others contained John Cotton's shorter catechism, known as Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes; and some contained both."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_England_Primer

That same New England Primer was used in our school system until the 20th Century. Now, the atheists want you to believe that there was no Christian foundation to the building of this country. We're still scratching the surface here.

 

No one is saying the founding fathers were atheists, but many of them were deists. Atheism and Deism are not the same thing

Atheism = not believing in a deity or a religion

Deism = believing in god but not religion (the bible, the quran, ect.)

Theism = believing in a god and a religious doctrine

Thomas Jefferson compared Christ to Roman mythology (saying they're both based on fables and superstitions), Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography that he became a thorough deist, and Thomas Paine wrote a critique of the bible titled The Age Of Reason


"Whenever we read the obscene stories the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon rather than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel" - Thomas Paine

As for the later treaty of Tripoli, it is true that the later treaty signed by Jefferson did not use the same line as the one signed by John Adams, but that in no sense negates the reasoning of the founding fathers to create a separation of church and state. Most of the founding fathers were faithful to Christianity, however the authors of our declaration and our constitution created a separation of church and state partially to disinvolve the US from religious wars

The argument that the line disassociating the US from Christianity was due to the fact that they were avoiding war with a Muslim country is to no point, because that is exactly why the separation of church and state was established to begin with.