Another US Patriot passes away..

[toscano]

However 90% of Americans do believe in God.

<>

source ?

 

[toscano]

More from abraham Lincoln:

My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.
-- Abraham Lincoln, to Judge J S Wakefield, after Willie Lincoln's death (Willie died in 1862), quoted by Joseph Lewis in "Lincoln the Freethinker," also appearing in Remsburg's "Six Historic Americans" (Authenticity questioned by some because it allegedly does not appear in Wakefield's papers [Andrew Lutes, persistent picker of insignificant separationist nits]; authenticity questioned by others who claim that Wakefield did not exist [forgotten web site which also featured all the regular and long-refuted arguments for Lincoln's Christian piety]. Go figure!)

What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.
-- Abraham Lincoln, quoted by Mary Todd Lincoln in William Herndon's Religion of Lincoln, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beleifs of Our Presidents, p. 118

It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to Infidelity.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Manford's Magazine, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, p. 144

The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession.
-- Abraham Lincoln, quoted by Joseph Lewis in "Lincoln the Freethinker"

The only person who is a worse liar than a faith healer is his patient.
-- Abraham Lincoln, quoted by Victor J Stenger in Physics and Psychics

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not that we be not judged.
-- Abraham Lincoln, sarcasm in his Second Innaugural Address (1865)

It is an established maxim and moral that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him.
-- Abraham Lincoln, chiding the editor of a Springfield, Illinois, newspaper, quoted from Antony Flew, How to Think Straight, p. 17

Oh, that [his Thanksgiving Message] is some of Seward's nonsense, and it pleases the fools.
-- Abraham Lincoln, to Judge James M Nelson, in response to a question from Nelson: "I once asked him about his fervent Thanksgiving Message and twitted him with being an unbeliever in what was published." Quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, p. 138

The United States government must not undertake to run the Churches. When an individual, in the Church or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest he must be checked.
-- Abraham Lincoln, regarding the Churches, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, p. 143

If there is no military need for the building, leave it alone, neither putting anyone in or out of it, except on finding some one preaching or practicing treason, in which case lay hands on him, just as if he were doing the same thing in any other building.
-- Abraham Lincoln, order relating to a church in Memphis, Tennessee, issued on May 13, 1864, Nicolay and Hay, Works of Abraham Lincoln, chapter on "Lincoln and the Churches," quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, p. 143. In the same chapter Nicolay and Hay state that in order to prevent treasonable preaching, Secretary Stanton appointed Bishop Ames, of the Methodist Church, to be supervisor of all the Churches in a certain southern district. President Lincoln at once countermanded the order.

When the Know-Nothings get control, it [the Declaration of Independence] will read: "All men are created equal except negroes, foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
-- Abraham Lincoln, letter to Joshua F Speed, August 24, 1855, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure....
If today he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us," but he will say to you, "Be silent; I see it, if you don't."
-- Abraham Lincoln, in an 1848 letter to his law partner, William Herndon, criticizing Polk's decision to invade Mexico for the purpose of preventing future war (and, in essence, pointing out some of the flaws in what is now called the "Bush Doctrine of Preventative War"), quoted from a letter published in the Post Crescent by Jack Bradford, quoted from a December 26, 2003, letter to Cliff Walker by Robert Nordlander

There was the strangest combination of church influence against me. Baker is a Campbellite; and therefore, as I suppose with few exceptions, got all of that Church. My wife had some relations in the Presbyterian churches, and some in the Episcopal churches; and therefore, wherever it would tell, I was set down as either one or the other, while it was everywhere contended that no Christian ought to vote for me because I belonged to no Church, and was suspected of being a Deist and had talked of fighting a duel.
-- Abraham Lincoln, letter to Martin M Morris (March 26, 1843), in The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln (Nicolay & Hay Edition, volume 1, page 80), quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents (page 112)

Short Graphic Rule

Would God Show His Will For Me To Others and Not To Me?

I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal His will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed that He would reveal it directly to me ... These are not, however, the days of miracles.... I must study the plain, physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.
-- Abraham Lincoln, in a speech to an assembly of clergymen regarding the struggles he was having over the Emancipation Proclamation that would soon be issued (1862), quoted from Susan Jacoby, "One Nation, Under Secularism" (January 8, 2004)

I have neither time nor disposition to enter into discussion with the Friend, and end this occasion by suggesting for her consideration the question whether, if it be true that the Lord has appointed me to do the work she has indicated, it is not probable that he would have communicated knowledge of the fact to me as well as to her.
-- Abraham Lincoln, to a Quaker (Friends) clergyman who had given him a message from the Lord, from Allen Thorndyke Rice, ed, Reminiscences of Lincoln, pp. 284-285, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, p. 136

Short Graphic Rule

Gettysburg: 'Under God' Inserted Long After Speech Given

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
-- Abraham Lincoln, closing the Gettysburg Address, according to the Nicolay Draft (see photo, below), one of two that he wrote on the day he gave the address. Neither draft contains the phrase, "Under God" (quoted from a photo of the Nicolay Draft, below). Delivered at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863

 

[diamond]

source ?

Harris Interactive | The Harris Poll - The Religious and Other Beliefs of Americans 2003

<>

 

[toscano]

Harris Interactive | The Harris Poll - The Religious and Other Beliefs of Americans 2003

<>

and yet

Many Americans Not 'Absolutely Certain' Of God - Family News Story - WSMV Nashville

One-Third of Americans Believe the Bible is Literally True

Regardless, it's not 100%, never will be, nad if it was it wouldn't even be the SAME god, assuming of course the pollsters remember to include the ever growing Indian and chinese communities whose god is different than your god

maybe the "motto" should be "In a god some of us trust"

 

[INDY500]

Plus, he share his bed with another man.

Which was not all that uncommon until after WWII. Watch some old movies or Laurel & Hardy or The Three Stooges. Read about traveling profession sports teams, Vaudeville, stage or circus troupes of old. About sleeper cars on trains and boats.

Families were bigger and houses were smaller and people didn't give it a second thought.

 

[INDY500]

maybe the "motto" should be "In a god some of us trust"

Are you a U.S. citizen out of curiosity?

If you don't like In God We Trust on the money or as the official motto, what do you and cydewaze think of Annuit Coeptis? Which is on the back of the one dollar bill and has been on the reverse side of the U.S. Seal since it's design in 1782.

What does the eye above the pyramid symbolize?

 

[diamond]

Which was not all that uncommon until after WWII. Watch some old movies or Laurel & Hardy or The Three Stooges. Read about traveling profession sports teams, Vaudeville, stage or circus troupes of old. About sleeper cars on trains and boats.

.

i think it's funny how the gay movement reaches for ways to manipulate a historical person's sexual orientation.



<>

 

[toscano]

Are you a U.S. citizen out of curiosity?

If you don't like In God We Trust on the money or as the official motto, what do you and cydewaze think of Annuit Coeptis? Which is on the back of the one dollar bill and has been on the reverse side of the U.S. Seal since it's design in 1782.

What does the eye above the pyramid symbolize?

Yes

No opinion

Don't care

 

[INDY500]

I wrote the posts alluding to Jefferson, Franklin and Paine; I know what I intended and so did most responders.

I wasn't referring to you. But be careful about Paine. The Founders had little sympathy for the bloody excesses of the French Revolution and its attacks on traditional Christian doctrines and they dismissed Paine's Age of Reason summarily. No American cemetery would accept his remains after his death.

Abolition was advanced on non-religious grounds by enlightenment thinkers while it was justified in explicitly religious terms by slave-owners. That blacks are the sons of Ham and bear the curse of Cain made slavery alright with Christianity. Even if all abolitionists were conservative Christians (as opposed to dissenters, radicals and a host of infidels) you can't say they were any more justified in religious terms than bible-quoting slave holders. If you take a second and think about what makes anything right or wrong in the context of slavery religion rapidly evaporates, because both sides can rightly claim religious justification it can't go one way or the other; the reason that Wilberforce was right inevitably back to secular principles of humanitarianism and human solidarity.

And people can't take opposite sides of an issue on secular terms? Economic and political factors were used to argue for and against slavery as well.

And surly then you'd be against any federal holiday to celebrate the life of a preacher who used biblical arguments and reasoning to make his case for public policy change.

Moving along to gay marriage, you've just undercut any argument for civil rights, and told the truth that opposition to gay marriage is ultimately religious. God hates faggotry, so Leviticus must trump equality under the law. Setting up laws which undermine the stability of relationships, as a means of coercion against homosexuality, is wrong. It's almost impossible to justify homophobia in secular terms; homosexuality isn't against nature, it doesn't cause harm and gays are citizens - you seem to take pride in championing bigotry, as if having politicians legislate a Judeo-Christian agenda by banning gay marriage isn't pursuing a religious agenda. You are wrong on this issue, I hope that 50 years from now the gays won't let the mainstream Churches pretend that they were the vanguard of equality, I hope that their reactionary positions are immortalised, because they are so utterly illiberal I would hate for them to be whitewashed.

Naturally I disagree with your whole premise here. Imposing religion on people is wrong but imposing secular values on religious people is OK? Well, same-sex marriage is 0 for 30 so clearly more than fundamentalist Christians are voting against it.
But you seem to be saying that values derived from religion (unless you're a black icon) should be disqualified in public policy making and are always inferior to those derived from, say, pop culture or science journals.

You only see the first amendment as a prohibition on state church, wholly ignoring the context of the text, if you take wider evidence such as Jeffersons letter to the Danbury congregationalists it becomes a more separationist statement.

Separation of church and state was apparently not important enough to actually put in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. But I'm sure we could go on and on about how to interpret the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses.

The secularists are on the pro-freedom side, the theocrats (the appropriate antonym of secularist) are imposing and autocratic.

Again, if you use theocracy I'm going to ask which specific theology because I might join your fight.

You wondered about my statement of abandoning religion being the start of genuine freedom, I think you answered my rhetorical question better than I could have, only in a state that doesn't recognize any religious beliefs, that shows no preference between them, can a genuinely free society begin to exist.

Of course, that's not what happens in the real world is it? What actually occurs is what G.K Chesterton observed. “Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God."

 

[Irvine511]

Well, again to be accurate it's a painting "The Prayer at Valley Forge" rather than a picture. But a nice painting at that and one unlikely to appear in any current public school history book.

Perhaps, rather than a lost mitten, he's looking for the Abominable Snowman, The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, The Right to Same-Sex Marriage or some other mythical notion.

tell me, INDY, is it hard being a straight, white, protestant American?

because it sure seems it reading these defensive, chip-on-the-shoulder posts.

 

[Irvine511]

Which was not all that uncommon until after WWII. Watch some old movies or Laurel & Hardy or The Three Stooges. Read about traveling profession sports teams, Vaudeville, stage or circus troupes of old. About sleeper cars on trains and boats.

Families were bigger and houses were smaller and people didn't give it a second thought.

none of these situations are applicable to how Lincoln grew up.

there's ample evidence that shows that Lincoln had deep, meaningful relationships with other men. it's impossible to tell if these were romantically consummated relationships, but there is ample evidence to suggest as much. of course, history and context were different then -- despite some protestations that, say, the eternal, blessed relationship between men and women united in marriage is timeless and is exactly the same today as it was 2,000 years ago.

however, it is entirely likely, based upon what evidence we have, that if Lincoln had been born in 1965, he would identify as a gay man.

but that's another topic that was covered exhaustively in here years ago.

my opinion? who knows? it's interesting to think about, and there's certainly evidence to suggest he was same-sex attracted. but i think understanding Lincoln as "gay" is impossible.

however, what is fascinating is watching the fits and tantrums thrown by those in the GOP and on the cultural right at the very suggestion that our arguably greatest president engaged in sodomy!

 

[diamond]

or

He could have been acknowleding in a belief and Faith in God that *some have tried to expugn from the public and

recorded USA history.

<>

*edited to say some.

 

[INDY500]

tell me, INDY, is it hard being a straight, white, protestant American?

because it sure seems it reading these defensive, chip-on-the-shoulder posts.

Actually I find it much harder to be right all the time. That's a lot of pressure.

 

[diamond]

#500=my hero.



<>

 

[Irvine511]

Actually I find it much harder to be right all the time. That's a lot of pressure.

it makes it easier when you see it that way, though, i'm sure.

i still find it baffling that you'd go to such great lengths to try to "prove" that our "founding fathers" would be acolytes of the cultural right were they around today.

it simply isn't true.

as has been said before, despite your claims to their Jesus-freak-ness, all the references to any sort of deity are intentionally, purposefully, knowingly vague. there's an appeal to a common creator upon which a faith in the people to govern themselves *without* some sort of divine right of kings is predicated upon. since we're all the same, no one's god is more "right" than anyone else's god. and no atheist is ever "wrong." this is absolutely a part of our history, and to point that out is actually critical to the creation of a secular society whereupon the state doesn't interfere with anyone's church, and vice versa.

these men were well aware of the divine right of kings, of the inquisition, of the crusades. they were very well aware of what humans can do when they tell the masses that god wants them to go to war, to invade, etc. (and, gosh, that just happened again pretty recently didn't it?)

so in order to get religion off our backs, to get religion *out* of the creation of, say, a war policy, or an economic policy, what you do is give a clear rationale for the merit of all people, their inalienable human rights. who bestows that? could be Vishnu, Zeus, God, Allah, or Nature. the important thing is that the government doesn't care beyond establishing basic equality in the eyes of the government for people of all faiths or non-faiths. pray as hard as you want, you're still not going to get to vote twice. be a super-duper shiny Christian, you're still going to have to win election on your own.

so all this legwork to make the FF's out to be pious, bible-and-a-gun men taming the great American wilderness for the creation of a kingdom to glorify Jesus is *precisely* what these men were trying to avoid. maybe that's what an individual might see himself as doing -- but that's never, ever the project of the government.

 

[Diemen]

Ok, here's what I understand:

On the 30th of April Washington was inaugurated President of the republic. The ceremony took place in the open gallery of the old City Hall (afterward called Federal Hall), on the site of the present Custom-House, in the presence of a vast multitude. Washington was dressed in a suit of dark brown cloth and white silk *stockings (note potentail Gaydar situation), all of American manufacture. His hair was powdered and dressed in the fashion of the day, clubbed and ribboned. The oath of office was administered by Robert R. Livingston, then chancellor of the State of New York. The open Bible (then and now the property of St. John's Lodge of Freemasons of the City of New York), on which the President laid his hand, was held on a rich crimson velvet cushion by Mr. Otis, Secretary of the Senate. Near them were John Adams, who had been chosen Vice-President; George Clinton, Governor of New York; Philip Schuyler, John Jay, General Knox, Ebenezer Hazard, Samuel Osgood and other distinguished men. After taking the oath and kissing the sacred book reverently, Washington closed his eyes and in an attitude of devotion said: "So help me God!" The Chancellor exclaimed, "It is done!" and then turning to the people he shouted, "Long live George Washington, the first President of the United States." That shout was echoed and re-echoed by the multitude, when the President and the members of Congress retired to the Senate Chamber, where Washington pronounced a most impressive inaugural address. At the conclusion, he and the members went in procession to St. Paul's Church (which, with the other churches, had been opened for prayers at nine o'clock that morning), and there they invoked the blessing of Almighty God upon the new government. The first person who grasped Washington's hand in congratulation, after the ceremony, was Richard Henry Lee, his friend from childhood, to whom he had written when they were boys nine years of age-"I am going to get a whip-top soon, and you may see it and whip it." How many human whip-tops had these staunch patriots managed since they wrote their childish epistles!
<>

It would be good if you cited the source you're copying.

 

[toscano]

Actually I find it much harder to be right all the time. That's a lot of pressure.

Especially as you so rarely accomplish it.........

 

[toscano]

#500=my hero.



<>

mormon-on-christian man-love.......eeeewwwwwwww.........

 

[INDY500]

as has been said before, despite your claims to their Jesus-freak-ness, all the references to any sort of deity are intentionally, purposefully, knowingly vague. there's an appeal to a common creator upon which a faith in the people to govern themselves *without* some sort of divine right of kings is predicated upon. since we're all the same, no one's god is more "right" than anyone else's god. and no atheist is ever "wrong." this is absolutely a part of our history, and to point that out is actually critical to the creation of a secular society whereupon the state doesn't interfere with anyone's church, and vice versa.

these men were well aware of the divine right of kings, of the inquisition, of the crusades. they were very well aware of what humans can do when they tell the masses that god wants them to go to war, to invade, etc. (and, gosh, that just happened again pretty recently didn't it?)

so in order to get religion off our backs, to get religion *out* of the creation of, say, a war policy, or an economic policy, what you do is give a clear rationale for the merit of all people, their inalienable human rights. who bestows that? could be Vishnu, Zeus, God, Allah, or Nature. the important thing is that the government doesn't care beyond establishing basic equality in the eyes of the government for people of all faiths or non-faiths. pray as hard as you want, you're still not going to get to vote twice. be a super-duper shiny Christian, you're still going to have to win election on your own.

so all this legwork to make the FF's out to be pious, bible-and-a-gun men taming the great American wilderness for the creation of a kingdom to glorify Jesus is *precisely* what these men were trying to avoid. maybe that's what an individual might see himself as doing -- but that's never, ever the project of the government.

You can be sure of two things. The Founders owned and knew how to use guns and they owned and read Bibles. Franklin and Jefferson, while not Christians, studied the Bible their entire life with Jefferson famously cutting out of his Bible passages he deemed supernatural.

The FF wanted rights to be inalienable and natural so as to be both universal and irrevocable. This required an entity above government to which men and governments would be held accountable. In doing this they linked the cause of liberty to God or the Creator while avoiding sectarian associations, imagery or symbols. This was their model for federal (not state) government.
Not able to establish or disestablish a religion yet never ever meaning it to be totally devoid of religious virtues or influence.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Which was not all that uncommon until after WWII. Watch some old movies or Laurel & Hardy or The Three Stooges. Read about traveling profession sports teams, Vaudeville, stage or circus troupes of old. About sleeper cars on trains and boats.

Families were bigger and houses were smaller and people didn't give it a second thought.

Are some people immune to double entendres?

 

[INDY500]

mormon-on-christian man-love.......eeeewwwwwwww.........

Religions should be capitalized. It's not only courteous, it's proper grammar.

 

[toscano]

Religions should be capitalized. It's not only courteous, it's proper grammar.

I'll be happy to treat mormonism and christianity and their god the same as i'd treat Buddhism for example when the followers of those religions treat all members of our society as equal and don't spend tens of millions of dollars to bring about the insitutionalizing of discrimination against them.

 

[A_Wanderer]

I wasn't referring to you. But be careful about Paine. The Founders had little sympathy for the bloody excesses of the French Revolution and its attacks on traditional Christian doctrines and they dismissed Paine's Age of Reason summarily. No American cemetery would accept his remains after his death.

The infidelity of Paine is important, it clarifies the attitudes that were present at the time.

And people can't take opposite sides of an issue on secular terms? Economic and political factors were used to argue for and against slavery as well.

Yes, because any position can be argued, the difference is that few people would justify abolition on the same basis that others justified slavery.

And surly then you'd be against any federal holiday to celebrate the life of a preacher who used biblical arguments and reasoning to make his case for public policy change.

He did use religious language and reasoning, but also hung around with a lot of leftist atheists, it wasn't ultimately religious arguments that made it into the law. There isn't anything particularly wrong with recognising the achievements of a person, irregardless of their religous affiliation; that is a perfectly secular position.

Naturally I disagree with your whole premise here. Imposing religion on people is wrong but imposing secular values on religious people is OK? Well, same-sex marriage is 0 for 30 so clearly more than fundamentalist Christians are voting against it.

You are not going to be coerced into entering a gay marriage, your Church is not going to be coerced into sanctifying gay marriage, the existence of a liberty is not an imposition on those that choose not to practice it.

Your effectively admitting that the consistent anti-discrimination position which is for gay rights is invalid because your religious beliefs say that you shouldn't practice homosexuality. The wonderful thing about a free society is that you are allowed to choose, having that choice there isn't imposing upon you; unless you feel really bad about having to fight the homosexual urge, and gay marriage naturally makes it harder

But you seem to be saying that values derived from religion (unless you're a black icon) should be disqualified in public policy making and are always inferior to those derived from, say, pop culture or science journals.

Yes, please be more flippant, I have addressed the issue of religious people being allowed to hold positions and act out of conviction but you are denigrating the morality of atheists and freethinkers. There are diverse types of moral reasoning, science answers the how of our moral capacities (why we feel revulsion, hatred, compassion and love) but we can look to philosophies for the ought. An atheist who adopts a system like the harm principle to rationalise what is right and what is wrong, something I have done to some degree, produces a pretty solid value system, one which is more justified than appealing to a contradiction.

Separation of church and state was apparently not important enough to actually put in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. But I'm sure we could go on and on about how to interpret the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses.

The first amendment does separate church and state, there is consistent precedent for that interpretation and it was the position of Thomas Jefferson.

Again, if you use theocracy I'm going to ask which specific theology because I might join your fight.

A theocracy need not be sectarian, a recognition of a supernatural deity by the government would make it a theocracy, what you are saying is that you are alright with theocracy, provided its your man in charge.

Of course, that's not what happens in the real world is it? What actually occurs is what G.K Chesterton observed. “Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God."

Yes, I am a slave to the state, I think that communism is cool and we should worship a dear leader; if you take 100 atheists and 100 Christians at random it would be a fair bet the atheists would be more skeptical towards government.

Labeling atheists as communists, and alluding to the state religions created by totalitarian regimes, says nothing of liberty loving people who think the role of the state is not to interfere with their private beliefs; take a corollary of the separationist position, the state is not allowed to force your Church to stop reading bits of the bible that are discriminatory, or to make it recognise gay marriage, or become unitarian; this is because of separation of church and state, assuming that it promulgate atheism and sin rather than protects religious liberty and maximises freedom is nonsensical.

 

[A_Wanderer]

You can be sure of two things. The Founders owned and knew how to use guns and they owned and read Bibles. Franklin and Jefferson, while not Christians, studied the Bible their entire life with Jefferson famously cutting out of his Bible passages he deemed supernatural.

The FF wanted rights to be inalienable and natural so as to be both universal and irrevocable. This required an entity above government to which men and governments would be held accountable. In doing this they linked the cause of liberty to God or the Creator while avoiding sectarian associations, imagery or symbols. This was their model for federal (not state) government.
Not able to establish or disestablish a religion yet never ever meaning it to be totally devoid of religious virtues or influence.

The creator is the universe!

It is a perfectly sound statement of how humanity was created that is logically consistent with a declaration of a creator, pantheism is a legitimate interpretation; especially in light of natural rights argument.

Also you just pointed out the Jefferson bible, as he was extracting the good parts of the Christian philosophy and dumping the distortions and evil; this is exactly the position which Christians do not take, they accept it as revelation and will hold discriminatory positions on the basis of it. What place is there for executing homosexuals in a moral bible?

 

[maycocksean]

The FF wanted rights to be inalienable and natural so as to be both universal and irrevocable. This required an entity above government to which men and governments would be held accountable. In doing this they linked the cause of liberty to God or the Creator while avoiding sectarian associations, imagery or symbols. This was their model for federal (not state) government.
Not able to establish or disestablish a religion yet never ever meaning it to be totally devoid of religious virtues or influence.

I think you're basically correct on all of the above. However that in no way translates into "the FF would have been evangelical fundamentalists with the same highly politicized goals as James Dobson and his ilk. " It's ALSO a stretch to say that they would have been left-leaning atheists. We really can't know and really it doesn't matter. After all these are the same guys that were okay with me being 3/5 of a person so they're not the Final Word. These men were products of their time.

But--and I'm addressing INDY and Diamond specifically--neither of you have provided any scriptural support for your position that the nation must acknowledge God (and let me just say that any references to OT Israel don't count because we know that was a theocracy and that's not what you're arguing for, right?). Because if it's not clear that God commands that we foist our faith upon everyone else or make everyone else show due deference to it, then you don't have much of a leg to stand on as far as I'm concerned.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Joseph Smith argued for a theodemocracy.

 

[maycocksean]

Joseph Smith argued for a theodemocracy.

I wondered what the Mormon scriptures might have to say on this. I'll wait for Diamond to confirm.

I would assume they would be less inclined to foist their faith on others since they suffered so much persecution in the early days of their history.

But, I'm pretty sure Diamond also knows that arguments from the BOM or the other texts wouldnt' be as compelling to me since I'm not LDS. Plus appealing to those scriptures would make it difficult for him and INDY to continue to stand shoulder to shoulder on this issue.

 

[Irvine511]

After all these are the same guys that were okay with me being 3/5 of a person so they're not the Final Word. These men were products of their time.

thank you for reminding us of this. it's incredibly important.

so often, in our excitement to claim history for our own selfish purposes and to justify our contemporary political beliefs, we forget how flawed our forefathers were due to their time. any sort of essentialism -- be it in government, or the understanding of marriage -- is always flawed. such "timeless truths" about whatever are contemporary concoctions where the past is never understood on it's own terms. it's merely made to serve the present moment.

 

[anitram]

I would assume they would be less inclined to foist their faith on others since they suffered so much persecution in the early days of their history.

Yeah, you'd think that.

 

[Irvine511]

Yeah, you'd think that.

see, the difference is that they know they're right; they've picked the right God, and they're just doing their best to help us poor fools who have yet to accept it. you see, for every inch they push, they bring the rest of us that much closer to being saved, and for an eternity, they'll say, "you see? i was right. told you so. now, aren't you glad i insisted on Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays? it makes me feel so smug happy that you've been saved as well."