founding of country under religion?

[packfish]

This country was founded by God fearing Christians but that doesn't seem to mean squat.

[chuckmiester]

hank flying a flag higher than the American flag IS illegal. make sure you know what you are talking about before you pull crap out of your...if you think im wrong, look it up then tell me im wrong.

[hank moon]

hank flying a flag higher than the American flag IS illegal. make sure you know what you are talking about before you pull crap out of your...if you think im wrong, look it up then tell me im wrong.

Commonsense check: if burning the American flag is legal, how could flying one - however irreverently - be illegal?

Look up the statute and you will find:
a) that its language is suggestive (i.e. "should") rather than commanding (i.e. "shall").

b) The only group of people who are "supposed" to comply with the statute (i.e. complyees) are gov't employees who are engaged in flag handling, display, etc. Observance by any other group or individual is voluntary.

[stefan]

to reiterate what hank says, the supreme court has ruled that enforcement of this law is in conflict with one's first amendment right to freedom of speech. the supreme court ruling is the higher law.

this is of course why some are so interested in an amendment.

[hank moon]

hank flying a flag higher than the American flag IS illegal. make sure you know what you are talking about before you pull crap out of your...if you think im wrong, look it up then tell me im wrong.

Hi Chuckmiester

Can you tell us why you thought flying higher is illegal? Common causes of false beliefs :

a) good ol' wishful thinking
b) misinformation or disinformation from a "trustworthy source"

Either of those?

[CarpeyBiggs]

This country was founded by God fearing Christians but that doesn't seem to mean squat.

Again, this is debatable. Not sure why everyone thinks this is an absolute truth.

[Sombeech]

This country was founded by God fearing Christians but that doesn't seem to mean squat.

Again, this is debatable. Not sure why everyone thinks this is an absolute truth.

That this country wasn't founded on Judea Christian concepts?

[hank moon]

This country was founded by God fearing Christians but that doesn't seem to mean squat.

Again, this is debatable. Not sure why everyone thinks this is an absolute truth.

That statement was so absurd I thought it was a troll...

If American ignorance could be packaged and sold, our economy would be in good shape for the next Millenium...unless our schools actually started conveying facts instead of propaganda...hey, maybe with them newfangled vouchers? :-)

[CarpeyBiggs]

That this country wasn't founded on Judea Christian concepts?

Judeo-Christian is different than God-Fearing Christians. And it is still debatable as to whether those principles were espoused when the constitution was created.

This nation was not founded "One Nation Under God." Start another topic in the political forum if you are interested in pursuing this topic further.

[Sombeech]

Start another topic in the political forum if you are interested in pursuing this topic further.

Oh, I thought you were the one who started debating this point. Oh well. :ne_nau:

[CarpeyBiggs]

Start another topic in the political forum if you are interested in pursuing this topic further.

Oh, I thought you were the one who started debating this point. Oh well. :ne_nau:

Nope. Packfish brought it up. But I'd be more than happy to continue discussing it. Wrote my senior paper at BYU on this very matter... Should've seen the looks on my professor's face as I told her what my topic was.

[James_B_Wads2000]

Wrote my senior paper at BYU on this very matter... Should've seen the looks on my professor's face as I told her what my topic was.

Holy crap!! Your weren

[James_B_Wads2000]

This nation was not founded "One Nation Under God." Start another topic in the political forum if you are interested in pursuing this topic further.

Intresting side note: that phrase,

[donny h]

The original pilgrims were indeed religious, there were looking to establish
there own religion which would be supported by their own government. Fortunately, the founding fathers had a different point of view (cut and paste fest):

The Constitution:
The First Amendment
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

Article VI, Section 3
"...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

John Adams (the second President of the United States)

Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli (June 7, 1797). Article 11 states:
"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

From a letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756):
"Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, 'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.'"

From a letter to Thomas Jefferson:
"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"

Additional quotes from John Adams:
"Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?"

"The Doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

"...Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."

Thomas Jefferson (the third President of the United States)

Jefferson's interpretation of the first amendment in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association (January 1, 1802):
"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."

From Jefferson's biography:
"...an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, 'Jesus Christ...the holy author of our religion,' which was rejected 'By a great majority in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Infidel of every denomination.'"

Jefferson's "The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom":
"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on our opinions in physics and geometry....The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

From Thomas Jefferson's Bible:
"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 Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

Jefferson's Notes on Virginia:
"Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these free inquiry must be indulged; how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse ourselves? But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?"

Additional quotes from Thomas Jefferson:
"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."

"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."

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear....Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it end in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue on the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others which it will procure for you."

"Christianity...[has become] the most perverted system that ever shone on man....Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus."

"...that our civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics and geometry."


James Madison (the fourth President of the United States)

Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments:
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise....During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."

Additional quote from James Madison:
"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."


Benjamin Franklin

From Franklin's autobiography, p. 66:
"My parents had given me betimes religious impressions, and I received from my infancy a pious education in the principles of Calvinism. But scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself."

From Franklin's autobiography, p. 66:
"...Some books against Deism fell into my hands....It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quote to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations, in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."


Thomas Paine

From The Age of Reason, pp. 89:
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of....Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and of my own part, I disbelieve them all."

From The Age of Reason:
"All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

From The Age of Reason:
"The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion."

From The Age of Reason:
"What is it the Bible teaches us? -- rapine, cruelty, and murder."

From The Age of Reason:
"Loving of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has beside no meaning....Those who preach the doctrine of loving their enemies are in general the greatest prosecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches."

From The Age of Reason:
"The Bible was established altogether by the sword, and that in the worst use of it -- not to terrify but to extirpate."

Additional quote from Thomas Paine:
"It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible."


Ethan Allen

From Religion of the American Enlightenment:
"Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian."

[CarpeyBiggs]

[quote=CarpeyBiggs]This nation was not founded "One Nation Under God." Start another topic in the political forum if you are interested in pursuing this topic further.

Intresting side note: that phrase,

[CarpeyBiggs]

[quote=James_B_Wads2000]
Holy crap!! Your weren

[Rev. Coyote]

I suggest those who really want a theocracy should check into how well that has worked in garbage heaps like Saudi Arabia.

[Scott Card]

This country was founded by God fearing Christians but that doesn't seem to mean squat.

Again, this is debatable. Not sure why everyone thinks this is an absolute truth.
I think it is accurate to say many if not a majority of the founders were believers in God. Interesting question is what religion were they? Some names for "God" that come to mind coming from Ben Franklin and Jefferson were "Father of lights" and "Creator" What were your conclusions Dan? I'd be interested. Maybe a topic for our next hike. :2thumbs:

[hank moon]

I think it is accurate to say many if not a majority of the founders were believers in God.

I'll go along with many if not a majority believed in "a" God. Clearly, TJ himself was no "God fearing Christian" as he wrote his own Bible to explain clearly his religious position.

It's also accurate to say the faddahs thought gov't and religion should not mix.

[Rev. Coyote]

I think it is accurate to say many if not a majority of the founders were believers in God. Interesting question is what religion were they? Some names for "God" that come to mind coming from Ben Franklin and Jefferson were "Father of lights" and "Creator" What were your conclusions Dan? I'd be interested. Maybe a topic for our next hike.

Good questions. There are a lot of universal principals underpinning spiritual systems regarding how we should live (with some exceptions, sure). "Thou shalt not kill," for instance, is something even an atheist can agree with. So a lot of those principals in the Bible (not sure how the Book of Mormon addresses things) are just good common sense and showed up in our laws.

[JP]

You tell them, you Atheistic Episcopalian :lol8:

[Rev. Coyote]

You tell them, you Atheistic Episcopalian

I ain't atheist! I preach the Gospel up at Coyote Chapel in Old La Sal.

My daughter, on the other hand.... grrrrrrrrr

[cmpbiker]

Can somebody explain to me a value that is uniquely Christian? It seems such values are revered by most religious groups?

Another issue that needs to be addressed is that quite a few of the founding fathers considered themselves Christian/Diest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deist which would fly in the face of any divine inspiration governing the country.

[hank moon]

Can somebody explain to me a value that is uniquely Christian?

Evangelism

[Rev. Coyote]

Can somebody explain to me a value that is uniquely Christian?

Evangelism

Not so much a value...