Christian Tenets/Principles this Country's founded on...

[bodecea]

shame

I was hoping for some point counter point debate.

Turns out it's another bash religion thread.

But it does amuse me to think there are people out there dim enough to think there is no faith based tenents in the founding of America. Considering how important church, faith and religion were in those days.

Who's bashing religion? What comments are bashing religion?

 

[Dr.Drock]

The US was founded on a list of good principles, they can be attributed to christianity, or the person's own good morals, the collective principles of people of different backgrounds etc, could be any of those things I don't think either side can be certain.

In my opinion it was founded on the shared good principles of christians and non-believers, non-believers that may have happened to have principles christians look up to also.

So I think you're all partially right, and partially wrong.

 

[JBeukema]

which sect of christianity preaches that?

Every single one that uses the Christian bible. Ever read it?

Read the descriptions of heaven and the 'special treat' the 144,00 are 'lucky' enough to enjoy. Read what awaits all those who do not properly believe. The fortunate ones face the 'outer darkness'. The rest get the eternal lake of fire.

Whatever one it is i'm glad my faith in God doesn't believe that type of stuff.

Then you believe a false doctrine, as Jesus warned. You walk the broad and winding path to damnation.

I've read the new testament and it doesn't say that specifically anywhere that I recall. You can correct me with a linked passage if you want

I believe in God, not a doctrine. Your claim that I am dammed for my belief in God is false.

It's not my claim. It's the Nicene Council's. They chose what books were 'officially' in the 'bible'.

 

[Two Thumbs]

shame

I was hoping for some point counter point debate.

Turns out it's another bash religion thread.

But it does amuse me to think there are people out there dim enough to think there is no faith based tenents in the founding of America. Considering how important church, faith and religion were in those days.

Who's bashing religion? What comments are bashing religion?

bodecea, please meet JBeukema

JBeukema, this is bodecea


You can go through all JBeukemas comments and pull out the ones that aren't bashing religion if you choose.

 

[bodecea]

shame

I was hoping for some point counter point debate.

Turns out it's another bash religion thread.

But it does amuse me to think there are people out there dim enough to think there is no faith based tenents in the founding of America. Considering how important church, faith and religion were in those days.

Who's bashing religion? What comments are bashing religion?

bodecea, please meet JBeukema

JBeukema, this is bodecea


You can go through all JBeukemas comments and pull out the ones that aren't bashing religion if you choose.

OK, I'll give you that one...I read what he said about Catholics

 

[JBeukema]

Who's bashing religion? What comments are bashing religion?

bodecea, please meet JBeukema

JBeukema, this is bodecea


You can go through all JBeukemas comments and pull out the ones that aren't bashing religion if you choose.

OK, I'll give you that one...I read what he said about Catholics

How is pointing out that the Catholic church declared the Christian faith anathema 'bashing' anyone?

The Gospel of Rome: Roman Catholic Plan of Salvation

Catholicism is not Christianity any more than Islam is Christianity.

 

[AllieBaba]

Sheesh, JB, would you please just stop? You just sound fucking crazy.

 

[Trajan]

Exactly, but let us also remember as Europeans at that time, they had to tip toe around the Church and the Monarchies in place....I believe Locke, in his writings, had to be very careful in not pissing off England's rulers and England's church....it was in AMERICA where the influence of the home churches was weakest because of distance that the secular ideas of the Enlightenment could flourish in our new government.

It appears you have not digested what I posted originally and what I have said, maybe I have said it badly- the founders intentions were to do exactly that, the “Not” Europe and to us take us away from the semi feudalism of Europe, where in the state drove society, but yet use the best principals of the "Western" culture as a forge to build a federal republic where in we would be imbued with those values, yet not have to have them codified.

It is no accident, and there is a reason as to why the codes of Hammurabi and the Ten commandants are engraved in the walls and doors of the Supreme Court yet many of their dictum are detailed or inscribed code in law but their 'virtues' aren't.

Their intentions are borne out by the excepts etc. I posted and their success realized by simply perusing a political map of Europe circa- 1800, 1900, 1950 and now.

Please read my original excerpt again as to intentions and influences, what you seem to want is exactly what , in 4 Bullets, they wished to avoid, you cannot bulletize virtue/morals/ethics etc. .

4 bullets was just a suggestion, not a firm number...to get a list started.

I still fail to see the Christian aspect of our founding tenets tho....sorry, really don't. From the look and behavior of our founders, the actual ideas they put is place were ideas put forth in opposition to the Christian ideas of the old world.

Ok, so tell me what those tenets are you are looking for, you apparently don't agree with the interpretations I gave you.

Divine Right of Kings....gone. Christian enforcement by government...gone. Overlap of church and state...gone. Church courts...gone. Almost solid class structure based on birth, church status...gone. Patron saint of country...gone.

exactly,you just answered your own question, because they were mechanisms of gov. not altruistic at all other than to accrue the ruling class a veneer to hold the people underneath them.Their intentions ( theres that word again) and interpretations of those guiding lights who wrote from the belly of Europe saw this misuse and the masquerade. If you want to say they just used same basic tenets European monarchy's etc. cloaked themselves in, sure, you can say that, but the application ( in that gov. applications has been removed from the code and the working mechanisms they used to rule) is wholly different, and the advances away from what you listed has taken place, there by realizing those tenets as those authors who lived it and wrote about them in a truer sense, a freer sense.

again-

they derive from the complementary ideas of free will, the moral accountability of the individual rather than the group, the spiritual imperative of imperfect man’s struggle to do what is right and the existence of true moral law in the teachings of Christ and the Jewish prophets. Along with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, they are the political and cultural heritage of the Founding Fathers.

 

[Old Rocks]

Give unto caesar = separation of church and state.

Are you saying that the concept of Separation of Church and State is a Christian concept?

It's a concept that was instituted by men of religious influence.

That is correct. Those men were Diests. Most of our Founding Fathers were.

 

[Old Rocks]

It appears you have not digested what I posted originally and what I have said, maybe I have said it badly- the founders intentions were to do exactly that, the “Not” Europe and to us take us away from the semi feudalism of Europe, where in the state drove society, but yet use the best principals of the "Western" culture as a forge to build a federal republic where in we would be imbued with those values, yet not have to have them codified.

It is no accident, and there is a reason as to why the codes of Hammurabi and the Ten commandants are engraved in the walls and doors of the Supreme Court yet many of their dictum are detailed or inscribed code in law but their 'virtues' aren't.

Their intentions are borne out by the excepts etc. I posted and their success realized by simply perusing a political map of Europe circa- 1800, 1900, 1950 and now.

Please read my original excerpt again as to intentions and influences, what you seem to want is exactly what , in 4 Bullets, they wished to avoid, you cannot bulletize virtue/morals/ethics etc. .

4 bullets was just a suggestion, not a firm number...to get a list started.

I still fail to see the Christian aspect of our founding tenets tho....sorry, really don't. From the look and behavior of our founders, the actual ideas they put is place were ideas put forth in opposition to the Christian ideas of the old world.

Ok, so tell me what those tenets are you are looking for, you apparently don't agree with the interpretations I gave you.

Divine Right of Kings....gone. Christian enforcement by government...gone. Overlap of church and state...gone. Church courts...gone. Almost solid class structure based on birth, church status...gone. Patron saint of country...gone.

exactly,you just answered your own question, because they were mechanisms of gov. not altruistic at all other than to accrue the ruling class a veneer to hold the people underneath them.Their intentions ( theres that word again) and interpretations of those guiding lights who wrote from the belly of Europe saw this misuse and the masquerade. If you want to say they just used same basic tenets European monarchy's etc. cloaked themselves in, sure, you can say that, but the application ( in that gov. applications has been removed from the code and the working mechanisms they used to rule) is wholly different, and the advances away from what you listed has taken place, there by realizing those tenets as those authors who lived it and wrote about them in a truer sense, a freer sense.

again-

they derive from the complementary ideas of free will, the moral accountability of the individual rather than the group, the spiritual imperative of imperfect man’s struggle to do what is right and the existence of true moral law in the teachings of Christ and the Jewish prophets. Along with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, they are the political and cultural heritage of the Founding Fathers.

Much of our political institutions and rules derive from the practice of Native American rules of governance.

Specifically, the Iroquois, or Huadenosaunee.

 

[AllieBaba]

Of course. The founding fathers were patterning the US on Indian societal norms...that's why they said they were applying Christian values.

Jesus.

 

[bodecea]

Of course. The founding fathers were patterning the US on Indian societal norms...that's why they said they were applying Christian values.

Jesus.

Do you know ANYTHING about the Iroquois Federation, Allie?


(Time for my daily neg rep...get to work)

 

[AllieBaba]

I know the founding fathers didn't list them when they SAID THEY WERE FOUNDING THE COUNTRY UPON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE.

 

[bodecea]

I know the founding fathers didn't list them when they SAID THEY WERE FOUNDING THE COUNTRY UPON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE.

And those Christian Principle [sic] are? (is?)

 

[AllieBaba]

Reference the repeated quotes, links, and red, bold, large font type.

 

[Valerie]

I know the founding fathers didn't list them when they SAID THEY WERE FOUNDING THE COUNTRY UPON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE.

More like enlightened deist than Christian really...

The Declaration of Independence gives us important insight into the opinions of the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the power of the government is derived from the governed. Up until that time, it was claimed that kings ruled nations by the authority of God. The Declaration was a radical departure from the idea of divine authority.

The 1796 treaty with Tripoli states that the United States was "in no sense founded on the Christian religion" (see below). This was not an idle statement, meant to satisfy muslims-- they believed it and meant it. This treaty was written under the presidency of George Washington and signed under the presidency of John Adams.

None of the Founding Fathers were atheists. Most of the Founders were Deists, which is to say they thought the universe had a creator, but that he does not concern himself with the daily lives of humans, and does not directly communicate with humans, either by revelation or by sacred books. They spoke often of God, (Nature's God or the God of Nature), but this was not the God of the bible. They did not deny that there was a person called Jesus, and praised him for his benevolent teachings, but they flatly denied his divinity. Some people speculate that if Charles Darwin had lived a century earlier, the Founding Fathers would have had a basis for accepting naturalistic origins of life, and they would have been atheists. Most of them were stoutly opposed to the bible, and the teachings of Christianity in particular.

Yes, there were Christian men among the Founders. Just as Congress removed Thomas Jefferson's words that condemned the practice of slavery in the colonies, they also altered his wording regarding equal rights. His original wording is here in blue italics: "All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable." Congress changed that phrase, increasing its religious overtones: "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights." But we are not governed by the Declaration of Independence-- it is a historical document, not a constitutional one.

If the Christian Right Extremists wish to return this country to its beginnings, so be it... because it was a climate of Freethought. The Founders were students of the European Enlightenment.

Our Founding Fathers Were NOT Christians

 

[AllieBaba]

http://www.usmessageboard.com/relig...ot-founded-upon-christianity.html#post2473957

 

[AllieBaba]

"No one can deny that many of the founding fathers of the United States of America were men of deep religious convictions based in the Bible and their Christian faith in Jesus Christ. Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, nearly half (24) held seminary or Bible school degrees."

""While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian."
--The Writings of Washington, pp. 342-343.

John Adams
2nd U.S. President and Signer of the Declaration of Independence

"Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God ... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be."
--Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Vol. III, p. 9.

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God."
--Adams wrote this on June 28, 1813, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson.

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever."
--Adams wrote this in a letter to his wife, Abigail, on July 3, 1776.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd U.S. President, Drafter and Signer of the Declaration of Independence

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And 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 of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event."
--Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, p. 237.

"I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ."
--The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, p. 385.
Founding Fathers Quotes - Christian Quotes of the Founding Fathers

Not that it matters. They could have been atheists, Mormons, Muslims, Hindu...and still have used Christian tenets to set up the country. Their actual religion doesn't matter. They SAID they were founding the country in Christian principle. You can argue that they weren't Christian, that they were lying, that they were ignorant of the fact that really they were following IRAQUOIS principle (LOL!) but the truth is..they founded the country on what they perceived as Christian tenets. And I, for one, think they were a lot more knowledgeable both of the bible, and of their motivation, than Bod, or NYC, or anyone else on this board. So I'll just go with what THEY told us.

 

[bodecea]

"No one can deny that many of the founding fathers of the United States of America were men of deep religious convictions based in the Bible and their Christian faith in Jesus Christ. Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, nearly half (24) held seminary or Bible school degrees."

""While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian."
--The Writings of Washington, pp. 342-343.

John Adams
2nd U.S. President and Signer of the Declaration of Independence

"Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God ... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be."
--Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Vol. III, p. 9.

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God."
--Adams wrote this on June 28, 1813, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson.

Nice...but what of that did he put into our governing documents?

You DO know he was president and signed the Treaty of Tripoli (a legal document unanimously approved by Congress) that SAID, in writing, that the U.S. is not a Christian nation, right?

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever."
--Adams wrote this in a letter to his wife, Abigail, on July 3, 1776.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd U.S. President, Drafter and Signer of the Declaration of Independence

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And 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 of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event."
--Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, p. 237.

"I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ."
--The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, p. 385.
Founding Fathers Quotes - Christian Quotes of the Founding Fathers

Jefferson ALSO wrote the concept of separation of church and state and wrote this also:

"Believing 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 (Letter to the Danbury Baptists, 1802).

and this:

"Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle "(letter to Robert Rush, 1813).

and this:

"I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them, an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises and the objects proper for them according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands where the Constitution has deposited it... Every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents "(letter to Samuel Miller, Jan. 23, 1808).

And this:

"In justice, too, to our excellent Constitution, it ought to be observed, that it has not placed our religious rights under the power of any public functionary. The power, therefore, was wanting, not less than the will, to injure these rights "(Letter to the Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Pittsburg, Dec. 9, 1808).

In other words...Jefferson, like any politician, talked out both sides of his mouth....the proof is in the actual Government documents and government actions of this Country....and what Christian principles are to be seen in those documents and in those actions....I still await you telling me ANY.

Not that it matters. They could have been atheists, Mormons, Muslims, Hindu...and still have used Christian tenets to set up the country. Their actual religion doesn't matter. They SAID they were founding the country in Christian principle. You can argue that they weren't Christian, that they were lying, that they were ignorant of the fact that really they were following IRAQUOIS principle (LOL!) but the truth is..they founded the country on what they perceived as Christian tenets. And I, for one, think they were a lot more knowledgeable both of the bible, and of their motivation, than Bod, or NYC, or anyone else on this board. So I'll just go with what THEY told us.

And those Christian tenets....those Christian principles are.....?

You keep saying that but how odd you cannot come up with one example besides talk...no action, no government law or documents, just talk by individuals, that when we look to other things they say, are just the opposite.

Here, let me help you...

Christian Principle that is found in our Country's laws: _________________

Christian Tenet that is found in our Country's actions: ________________

Christian Principle found in our Constitution: __________________

Just fill those in...easy peasy.

(or you can call me names and neg rep me like you've BEEN doing)

 

[AllieBaba]

I never claimed that the tenets were strewn, word for word, throughout the founding documents.

I know about separation of church and state..also based upon the Christian tenet of free will, btw.