Americas Constitutions point towards Christianity

[goldcatt]

Wow, that's incredible. Even more interesting. Abraham only founded one religion, but from that religion came Judaism, Islam and Christianity. It's why the holy books of all three religions have many of the same people, including Mary, Joseph and Jesus.

All three religions view Abraham as their first prophet. Christianity developed from Judaism, and Islam developed from Judaism and Christianity. The three religions share many holy places.

Many of the same traditions are found in all three religions. Multiple wives, homosexuality being a grave sin, the woman being subservient to the man. Teaching Mystical Creation in place of Science.

It's actually secular laws that shape those religions in society. Some have more successful that others. Iran is currently in chaos because the people want religion out of government. That is the entire basis of the current revolution. The people of Iran want to be more like we are now. Isn't that amazing?

What is incredibly ironic is that many of those that support the Iranians throwing off the shackles of religion actually want to make the US more like Iran is now. Isn't that ironic? We want to put more religion into government and they want to remove it? It's incredible!

Careful how you throw that "We" around, rdean. There are many, many people on all "sides" of the political debate who don't want churches messing around with our government - or perhaps even more important, government messing around with our churches. Too many people forget the concept of separation is meant to protect the Church as much as the State, if not more so.

 

[THE LIGHT]

Please tell us what other parts of the Constitution you see as disposable when they do not suit your personal beliefs. I'm sure we'll all find it quite fascinating.

I'll let you start first.

 

[KittenKoder]

I vote for Jehovah's Witnesses, that's the christian religion they should force since we have to pick only one religion for our country.

 

[del]

We all know that the Declaration of Independance refers to the existance of God along with its religious conotations throughout, but did you know that even many of the original Constitutional documents for the states had refferences to God and even some required one to be a Christian in order to hold office. Yep that's right, imagine that, a "secular" nation requiring you to be a Christian to hold office.

To name a few

Pennsylvania Constitution (1776)
Section 10:
"And each member [of the legislature], before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: "I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration."

the pennsylvania constitution has been rewritten four times since 1776. here's what the most recent version says:

Oath of Office
Section 3.
Senators, Representatives and all judicial, State and county officers shall, before entering on the duties of their respective offices, take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation before a person authorized to administer oaths. "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support, obey and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity." The oath or affirmation shall be administered to a member of the Senate or to a member of the House of Representatives in the hall of the House to which he shall have been elected. Any person refusing to take the oath or affirmation shall forfeit his office."

Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

fail

South Carolina Constitution (1778)
Article XXXVIII:
"That all persons and religious societies who acknowledge that there is one God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, and that God is publicly to be worshipped, shall be freely tolerated... That all denominations of Christian...shall enjoy equal religious and civil privileges."

and what. do religions not named herein take second class status?

fail.

Delaware Constitution (1776)
Article 22:
"Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust...shall...also make and subscribe the following declaration, to whit:
"I, _____, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration"

unfortunately, this constitution has also been rewritten three times since 1776 and this language hasn't appeared in it since 1831. the current version was written in 1897.
Delaware's Constitution

fail

Massachusetts Constitution (1776):
"All persons elected to office must make the following declaration: "I do declare that I believe the Christian religion, and have firm persuasion of its truth"

oops, amended by art Vi and VII of the mass constitution.

Massachusetts Constitution

fail

 

[THE LIGHT]

All those who like to say "the US is a christian nation" stop and think, which christian religion would you want forced onto everyone when it becomes one?

Now your thinking. That's why the Bill of Rights Amendment 1 states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The Light clearly does not understand our constitutional history, our American history, and the role of religiosity in it.

The Light is probably unaware that Puritans were judicially murdering Quaker missionaries and "witches" before 1700 in Massachusetts.

The Light is driven by a radical conservatoid right wing religious agenda that intends to capture all in a religiously unrighteous domination.

Or I don't understand it the way you want me to.

I agree that you do not understand the role of American religiosity in our history.

 

[KittenKoder]

All those who like to say "the US is a christian nation" stop and think, which christian religion would you want forced onto everyone when it becomes one?

Now your thinking. That's why the Bill of Rights Amendment 1 states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Thus everything that has been used in this thread to state it "points to" christianity, is against the law.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Jefferson on Deism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
________________________________________
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
________________________________________
They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.
-Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800
________________________________________
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802
________________________________________
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
________________________________________
The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
________________________________________
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
________________________________________
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
________________________________________
If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814
________________________________________
You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, June 25, 1819
________________________________________
As you say of yourslef, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, Oct. 31, 1819
________________________________________
Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820
________________________________________
To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820
________________________________________
Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.
-Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822.
________________________________________
I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
________________________________________
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
________________________________________
It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825

I'm not questioning any of the quotes but yeah, Wikipedia. Great source man! If that's where you get your info from I can see why your history is screwed up.

Snap, and the trap closes on The Light!

Of course, Wiki is not good, but all the rest, which you conveniently ignored, are found in the writings of Jefferson. You can look every one up. Silly Light.

 

[THE LIGHT]

We all know that the Declaration of Independance refers to the existance of God along with its religious conotations throughout, but did you know that even many of the original Constitutional documents for the states had refferences to God and even some required one to be a Christian in order to hold office. Yep that's right, imagine that, a "secular" nation requiring you to be a Christian to hold office.

To name a few

Pennsylvania Constitution (1776)
Section 10:
"And each member [of the legislature], before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: "I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration."

the pennsylvania constitution has been rewritten four times since 1776. here's what the most recent version says:



Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

fail



and what. do religions not named herein take second class status?

fail.






unfortunately, this constitution has also been rewritten three times since 1776 and this language hasn't appeared in it since 1831. the current version was written in 1897.
Delaware's Constitution

fail

Massachusetts Constitution (1776):
"All persons elected to office must make the following declaration: "I do declare that I believe the Christian religion, and have firm persuasion of its truth"

oops, amended by art Vi and VII of the mass constitution.

Massachusetts Constitution

fail

It's a failure because they have been changed? How does that make this a nation not founded on Christian principles?

 

[goldcatt]

I think that Congressman Randy Forbes described it best.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, on April 6th of this year, the President of the United States traveled halfway around the globe, and in the nation of Turkey, essentially proclaimed that the United States was not a Judeo-Christian nation.
I don’t challenge his right to do that or dispute the fact that it is what he believes, but I wish he had asked and answered two questions when he did that. The first question was whether or not we ever considered ourselves a Judeo-Christian nation, and the second one was, if we did, what was the moment in time where we ceased to be so? If asked the first question, Mr. Speaker, you would find that the very first act of the first congress in the United States was to bring in a minister and have congress led in prayer, and afterwards read four chapters out of the bible. A few years later, when we unanimously declared our independence, we made certain that the rights in there were given to us by our creator. When the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, it ended the revolutionary war and birthed this nation. The signers of that document made clear that it began with this phrase, “in the name of the most holy and undivided trinity.”

When our constitution was signed, the signers made sure that they punctuated the end of it by saying, “in the year of our lord, 1787”, and 100 years later in the supreme court case of Holy Trinity Church vs. United States, the Supreme Court indicated, after recounting the long history of faith in this country, that we were a Christian nation. President George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, all disagreed with the President’s comments, and indicated how the bible and Judeo-Christian principles were so important to this nation. Franklin Roosevelt even led this nation in a six-minute prayer before the invasion of perhaps the greatest battle in history, in the Invasion of Normandy, and asked for God’s protection. After that war, congress came together and said, “Where are we going to put our trust?” It wasn’t in our weapons systems, or our economy, or our great decisions here. It was in God we trust, which is emboldened directly behind you. So, if in fact we were a nation that was birthed on those Judeo-Christian principles, what was that moment in time when we ceased to so be?


It wasn’t when a small group of people succeeded in taking prayer out of our schools, or when they tried to cover up the word referencing God on the Washington Monument. Or, when they tried to stop our veterans from having flag-folding ceremonies at their funerals on a voluntary basis because they mentioned God, or even when they tried in the new visitor’s center to change the national motto, and to refuse to put “in God we trust” in there. No, Mr. Speaker, it wasn’t any of those times because they can rip that word off of all of our buildings and still those Judeo-Christian principles are so interwoven in a tapestry of freedom and liberty, that to begin to unravel one is to unravel the other.

That’s why we have filed the Spiritual Heritage Resolution, to help reaffirm that great history of faith that we have in this nation and to say to those individual’s who have yielded to the temptation of concluding that we are no longer a Judeo-Christian nation, to come back. To come back and look at those great principles that birthed this nation, and sustain us today. We believe if they do, they will conclude as President Eisenhower did and later Gerald Ford repeated, that “without God, there could be no American form of government. Nor, an American way of life.” Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic expression of Americanism. Thus the founding fathers of America sought and thus with God’s help, it will continue to be.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back.
​

Do you honestly believe a speech by a grandstanding modern congresscritter, a motto dating to McCarthyhism and meant to distinguish us from the atheistic Soviets and a phrase of common formal usage in the late eighteenth century estabishes Christianity as the national religion above the plain language of the functional portions of the Constitution?

No I honestly don't believe that it was meant to establish Christianity as the national religion. Nor do I believe that your babble proves otherwise.

We are not a Christian nation to force religion down anyones throat rather the founders felt that the reason Christianity would stand against all other reasoning as long as freedom of religion was protected. That is why athiests are trying to remove any mention of Christianity from this country.

It's not my babble that was trying to prove we are any kind of Christian nation. Quite the opposite, in fact.
But the "babble" you are referring to happens to be verbatim from the Constitution, with which you are obviously not as familiar as you seem to think you are, and in response to your question as to why the provision in the Pennsylvania State Constitution is in direct conflict with the Federal and therefore unenforceable.
To which you responded saying you preferred the words of some joke of a Congressman claiming "in the year of our lord" and other pro forma claptrap means the United States waas clearly meant to be Christian.
Do try to keep up, I can't take the time to rehash, paraphrase and simplify for you after every few posts.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The Light, as all agendists do, carefully cherry picks his quotes, and gets their interpretation out of context. The context was that Jefferson loved the moral virtue while detesting the various dogmas and priestcrafts of Christianity. Here, The Light: Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy. This will help your research.

 

[KittenKoder]

Actually, are nation was founded on one single concept, an easy one, one that few people support these days:

Freedom

 

[Smartt33]

If the point of the thread is to state by inference via the material provided, that we are a Christian Nation, that is not true. We are not a Christian Nation. We are a nation that has many Christians in it. There is a big difference between the two.

Many of our founding fathers had a belief in God, whatever that was for them. However, that does not change the fact that from a Constitution standpoint, we are not a Christian Nation.

I watched a movie a little while ago (today) that had a lot to say about what is happening regarding opinions on the relationship of the nation to Christianity.

Some say, "We are a Christian Nation" meaning that we are a nation which is governed by Christian principles.

Some say "we are a nation that was founded upon Christian principles" Meaning that laws, and government are not based upon Christian controls, but are certainly formed because of Christian principles.

In the movie statements like, We have become a nation who reads the Word of God, but doesn't honor the God of the Word. It also said that today's morals are less than God would have allowed, but the people have been blinded by the fact that the high moral standards no longer have the authority of God. God has been removed from all media, and all government places, so His influence has been lost. Morals have fallen to their lowest ever because of that. Morals of God are OK, but the God of morals is not allowed anymore.

 

[BasicGreatGuy]

All those who like to say "the US is a christian nation" stop and think, which christian religion would you want forced onto everyone when it becomes one?

Now your thinking. That's why the Bill of Rights Amendment 1 states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Which takes us right back to what I said at the beginning. We are not a Christian Nation. The Constitution and the supporting founding documents support my assertion.

What is the actual purpose of the thread?

 

[del]

We all know that the Declaration of Independance refers to the existance of God along with its religious conotations throughout, but did you know that even many of the original Constitutional documents for the states had refferences to God and even some required one to be a Christian in order to hold office. Yep that's right, imagine that, a "secular" nation requiring you to be a Christian to hold office.

To name a few



the pennsylvania constitution has been rewritten four times since 1776. here's what the most recent version says:



Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

fail



and what. do religions not named herein take second class status?

fail.






unfortunately, this constitution has also been rewritten three times since 1776 and this language hasn't appeared in it since 1831. the current version was written in 1897.
Delaware's Constitution

fail




oops, amended by art Vi and VII of the mass constitution.

Massachusetts Constitution

fail

It's a failure because they have been changed? How does that make this a nation not founded on Christian principles?

the point you are disingenuously trying to make is that we are a christian nation. we're not. hence, fail.

 

[THE LIGHT]

Actually, are nation was founded on one single concept, an easy one, one that few people support these days:

Freedom

Freedom endowed by our Creator.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

No Creator no Freedom

 

[goldcatt]

Actually, are nation was founded on one single concept, an easy one, one that few people support these days:

Freedom

I don't know that few people support it these days, KK. Ask them they'll tell you.
Of course, too many only support those parts of it which agree with their own point of view.

 

[KittenKoder]

Okay, a point many people fail to realize. Our founding fathers in this great country were uneducated and naive people, they knew very little of the world and all the religions that existed, since the church in England had made certain people were that way at the time. This is not their fault, and luckily our educational standards have improved drastically since then (in spite of its failings). Now we know, there are a lot of religions, many different ideas of what "god(s)" is/are. When they wrote the first documents they wrote it based only on what they knew, with the intent to prevent any freedom from being lost, ever, in this country. While the wording should probably be updated (though not like what they do with some just adding in a long list of what's included) the ideal is still the same, the government cannot tell anyone what to believe and how to worship so long as it's an excepted action within the law (which basically means anything that does not take away anothers freedom or cause harm to another person). As long as we hold the government to these ideals (something we have failed too often lately) we are obeying the constitution, anything that goes against these ideals is unconstitutional.

 

[KittenKoder]

Actually, are nation was founded on one single concept, an easy one, one that few people support these days:

Freedom

Freedom endowed by our Creator.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

No Creator no Freedom

Aah ... but what if our creator is just a natural force or mathematic formula ... "Creator" is subjective, thus why they used that word.

 

[goldcatt]

Actually, are nation was founded on one single concept, an easy one, one that few people support these days:

Freedom

Freedom endowed by our Creator.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

No Creator no Freedom

You do realize the Declaration of Independence carries no legal weight, then or now. Right? I mean, it's nothing but a rather polite fuck you letter to King George, after all.