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May Allah praise you and may your name be blessed among the faithful:mrgreen:
I thought it already was.
May Allah praise you and may your name be blessed among the faithful:mrgreen:
I thought it already was.
only among the shiites:2razz:
Wow you found a quote, I can do that too.
Our Founding Fathers Were NOT Christians a website full of them with information and sources. Long and short, I don't want to know the religion of someone running for public office and religion has no place in politics, this was the view of the founders, this is the view of people who think freely.
The important thing to note is that the founder's religion isn't even important.
Our laws are not based on christian values, the only example anyone has given are the commandments and saying that our laws are based on the ten commandments is so stupid it's unreal.
I will say again, religion has no place in politics, and I would even go so far as to say that it has no place at all.
Actually, you are vastly overgeneralizing much of Genesis and not correct in other aspects.
In fact, it sounds quite egotistic of us to assume that God made everything just for us.
I hear all the time that "this is a Christian Nation". Do you think this is so.
I am going to go ahead and say anyone who truly thinks this country was meant to be a Christian nation is a complete moron. The founding fathers were secularist, there is some evidence indicating Thomas Jefferson was at least agnostic.
" The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes; fools and hypocrites. To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." -Thomas Jefferson
an interesting claim. the only self-proclaimed Deist i'm aware of among the Founding Fathers was Benjamin Franklin. Jefferson probably was as well intellectually, but he worshipped at Christian services, and certainly had no problem with public expressions of faith in the Divine.
perhaps you could cite for us the numbers of this "majority" of Founding Fathers who were deists?
as for this notion:
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
-John Adams
Well, since we're quoting Adams, he of the Almost Took Down The Country Adamses, hows this bit of history?
North Carolina was a bit more specific:[the] good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend(s) upon piety, religion, and morality... by the institution of public worship of God and of the public instructions in piety, religion, and morality
No person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of either the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State (e.g. pacifism), shall be capable of holding any office, place of trust or profit, in the civil department, within this State
Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?
i'm going with a rough outline, certainly. Adam, you will note, makes no individual entrance. the point isn't that Genesis is an exacting account of the degree of accuracy that we would demand from modern science - it's that it's an exacting account of the degree of accuracy we would expect from a nomadic culture in the 10th Century BC. compared to any other creation myth, the Genesis account remains eerily accurate.
Andrew Parker does a much better job of walking through this as a biologist with a specialty in evolutionary history; but he himself is agnostic, so i'm not sure i would take his spiritual musings.
perhaps so indeed; yet it keeps cropping up that way. the universe seems incredibly fine-tuned for the purpose of supporting life. scientists call it the anthropic principle.
This nation was founded on Christian values and people that held those values. The founders also saw the dangers of a theocracy so they put in place the ability to have freedom of religion.I hear all the time that "this is a Christian Nation". Do you think this is so.
I am going to go ahead and say anyone who truly thinks this country was meant to be a Christian nation is a complete moron. The founding fathers were secularist, there is some evidence indicating Thomas Jefferson was at least agnostic.
" The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes; fools and hypocrites. To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." -Thomas Jefferson
We should also let it be known that Franklin was quite pleased when religious leaders stressed the importance of helping their fellow man and their communities as a whole. He would attend these religious ceremonies and contribute funds. If they deviated from his preferences he would no longer attend the services nor would he contribute to their funds.
I think, if my reading of his autobiography was correct, religion could be properly utilized for the City if it was truly interested in helping the City. If it really tried to separate itself from the good of the community, what practical use was it?
As something of a Biblical historian, I have been enjoying your posts.
Most modern Bible experts have placed Genesis 1--the first creation story--as one of the latest of Old Testament documents most likley written during the disapora period - probably late sixth century or possibly even a bit later. This would have put it very close to the culture of early scientific thought that gave us Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Aristophanes, and ultimately Aristotle. However, while the first chapter of Genesis was not exactly produced in a scientific vacuum, it was not intended to be scientific but rather was a pure doctrinal statement to illustrate that all that was, is, or will ever be comes from God. The second chapter of Genesis was one of the earliest manuscripts included in what we call the Old Testament.
None of this, however, addresses the question of whether the country was founded on Christian principles, but I have always held to concept that one cannot fully understand or appreciate the New Testament without a good grounding in the Old Testament as all the writers of the New Testament well knew and took the content of the Old Testament for granted and assumed their readers did so also. And so did the Founders in their Christian beliefs see that all that was, is, and will be comes from God, and founded this country on that belief and therefore the unalienable rights given by God would not be infringed.
all the writers of the New Testament well knew and took the content of the Old Testament for granted and assumed their readers did so also.
The time was the late 18th Century, otherwise known as the Age of Reason. The founding fathers of the our country wanted to not repeat the mistakes made in Europe with setting up another monarchy entwined with a religious "state". The founding fathers were religious only to the point that they attended church on Sundays and tried to live their lives according to the example of the Ten Commandments. However, they also believed in the philosophy of Aristotle, John Locke, Thomas Paine and others of the time who advocated the rights not of the "state" but of the individual. The right to acquire and own private property without any hinderance or interference by a government. To treat each other as equal traders and not force others to submit to any form of totalitarianism or despotism that already had existed in Europe and the rest of the world for the previous 1800 years. They attempted to take the best ideas that would give people freedom but with responsibility, protection of one's rights without taking away someone else's. And most if not all based upon common sense and rational thinking. The Age of Reason was not an reaffirmation of the the despotic and religious tyranny and hypocrisy of Europe. In the United States, the concept was to free people from those negative influences and allow normal intellectual and economic growth and development. It was the very first time in the history of the entire world that such an experiment had ever been allowed to take place and with such success. Others were inspired to do the same, such as France in 1789 but they failed miserably. Thousands executed and in the end they ended up with a military dictator, Napolean. Other countries have tried to do the same that the U.S. but all or at least have failed.