Quote :

"Our U.S. Constitution was founded on Biblical principles and it was the intention of the authors for this to be a Christian nation. The Constitution had 55 people work upon it, of which 52 were evangelical Christians."

http://www.noapathy.org/tracts/mythofseparation.html

Quote :

" If the founding fathers didn't want prayer in government why did they pray publicly in official meetings?"

10/13/2005 1:21:30 PM

Hahahahahahaah

10/13/2005 1:22:08 PM

because shut up

[Edited on October 13, 2005 at 1:22 PM. Reason : that's what i always say, anyway]

10/13/2005 1:22:25 PM

^^funny? elaborate

10/13/2005 1:24:02 PM

who said 52 were evangelical christians?

10/13/2005 1:42:15 PM

the founding fathers were devout christians

10/13/2005 1:44:29 PM

we should also own slaves and practice blood-letting.

10/13/2005 1:49:39 PM

I mean, in all fairness, niggers ARE property.

Am I right, folks?

10/13/2005 1:58:16 PM

i pwn them all day

10/13/2005 2:00:26 PM

You only get 3/5 the points for pwnage, though

10/13/2005 2:15:08 PM

^lol

I think this was from Gamecat a while back....

Quote :

"You're a fool if you don't recognize that we were built on a rationalist tradition, the Enlightenment's response to the centuries of superstition and all the baggage that came with it. Searched the Constitution for the following terms: "God" - 0 appearances "creator" - 0 appearances "Jesus" - 0 appearances "Christian" - 0 appearanc"

10/13/2005 3:59:10 PM

The founding fathers were religous, but they didn't intend for a religous government.

Not because they were afraid of religion interfering in government but rather because they didn't want government interfering in religion (anglican church).

10/13/2005 5:22:45 PM

diesm is pretty far from christianity

10/13/2005 5:26:54 PM

yeah Jefferson was a deist

10/13/2005 6:12:29 PM

This argument is incredibly lame.

They're Christians, so they must've wanted a Christian gov't!

Right?!


These sort of people don't get early American secularism for the same reason they don't understand modern secularism.



And 52 Evangelicals? That's rich.

[Edited on October 13, 2005 at 6:41 PM. Reason : .]

10/13/2005 6:41:06 PM

why do you think its so crazy that 52 of them were evangelicals?

freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion

10/13/2005 6:44:16 PM

Because they weren't. The website is cassifying anyone who was vaguely Protestant as Evangelical.

And it is indeed freedom from religion, for anyone who's thinking skills have developed to or beyond dualistic thinking.

10/13/2005 6:49:15 PM

where was it ever written freedom from religion?

10/13/2005 6:50:14 PM

You see,

in order to have freedom of religion,

you must have freedom from religion when gov't is concerned.


Imagine,

if you will,

the U.S. government

telling your children to pray to Vishnu

while in school.


That'd be some shit.


FURTHERMORE,

If you read Jefferson and Madison

(the authors of the BoR and DoI)

it's painfully obvious what they meant.



[Edited on October 13, 2005 at 6:54 PM. Reason : .]

10/13/2005 6:53:53 PM

THABIGL,

I don't think you understand. When they say "freedom from religion," they don't mean that religion should be illegal. They mean that government should be free of religion and shouldn't push or promote any religions.

Also, you're sitting here saying "freedom of religion!" while promoting a christian government. Who can spot the irony???

10/13/2005 7:00:28 PM

I MEAN
ITS NOT CALLED IRONY CAUSE IT MAKES YOUR SHIRT LOOK NEAT

10/13/2005 7:02:02 PM

And yet people like the OP will never change their view on the matter.

10/13/2005 7:07:30 PM

DA BIGL ALL UP IN DA SHIZL

10/13/2005 9:25:06 PM

10/14/2005 3:52:54 AM

what's an amendment?

shit was perfect in the 18th century

10/14/2005 4:05:05 AM

Godless America

my home sweet home

10/14/2005 12:17:56 PM

in no particular order:

"the highest estimates for the late eighteenth century make only about 10-15 percent of the population church members."

"Religion's considerable influence, Tocqueville insisted, lies in directing 'the customs of the community' and in 'regulating domestic life.' Involvement in political debate about partisan issues is death to this mission."

"Americans are continually told that the framers were deeply religious, God-fearing Christians who, as Newt Gingrich likes to note, would, as Jefferson did, often integrate into their political prose pious phrases like ' 'upon the alter of God' ' I proclaim this or that.' It follows that such religious men drafted a Christian Constitution in which God presides over and inspires a christian political system. "The Constitution was designed to perpetuate a Christian order," the Christian right's Focus on the Family informs us.

That's not what happened in 1787. God and Christianity are nowhere to be found in the American Constitution, a reality that infuriated many at the time. The US Constitution, drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1788 , is a godless document. Its utter neglect of religion was no oversight; it was apparent to all. Self-consciously designed to be an instrument with which to structure the secular politics of individual interest and happiness, the Constitution was bitterly attacked for its failure to mention God or Christianity. Our history books usually describe in great detail the major arguments made against the federal Constitution by its Anti-Federalist opponents; it meant death to the states and introduced an elitist Senate and a monarchical presidency. They seldom mention, however, the concerted campaign to discredit the Constitution as irreligious, which for many of its opponents was its principal flaw. It is as if recognizing the dimension of this criticism would draw too much attention to what was being attacked-the secularism of the Constitution. In fact this under-documented and under remembered controversy of 1787-1788 over the godless Constitution was on of the most important public debates ever held in America over the place of religion in politics. The advocates of a secular state won, and it is their Constitution we revere today."

"...Those opposed to the godless Constitution did not just complain; their advocacy of a Christian commonwealth led them to propose specific changes in the Constitution at various state ratifying conventions, all of which were rejected. IN Connecticut, William Williams, a delegate, formally moved that the Consitution's one-sentence preamble be enlarged to include a Christian conception of politics. He proposed that it be changed to read, "we the people of the United States in a firm belief of the being and perfection of the one living and true God, the creator and supreme Governor of the World, in His universal providence and the authority of His laws; that He will require of all moral agents an account of their conduct that all rightful powers among men be ordained of, and mediately derived from God, therefore in a dependence on His blessing and acknowledgment of His efficient protection in establishing our Independence, whereby it is become necessary to agree upon and settle a Constitution of federal Government for ourselves, and in order to form a more perfect union, etc., as it is expressed in the present introduction, do ordain etc.' Williams also moved that a religious test along the lines be required for all federal officials. One hundred and sixty years later the Pledge of Allegiance might be changed by Congress to include the brief 'under God.' But in 178 the delegates in Connecticut chose not to introduce God, via Williams's wordy resolution, into the US Constitution"

"To the eighteenth-century liberal mind of a Thomas Jefferson, shaped by English ideals, there were to great sources of tyranny -- kings, such as mad George III, and priests, such as the clergy of Philadelphia."

-The Godless Constitution
isaac kramnick and r. laurence moore

its in interesting book, if you're interested in actual history instead of Bill Oreilly's fake news.

[Edited on October 17, 2005 at 11:28 PM. Reason : d]

[Edited on October 17, 2005 at 11:29 PM. Reason : g]

10/17/2005 11:27:05 PM

church is inherently political

10/17/2005 11:31:01 PM

What, who didn't already know all that? My dad told me at age 10 why they purposefully wrote god out of the constition: to keep the priests of Philadelphia from burning the preachers of New York. Were they wrong? Obviously their choice hasn't ended American religiosity nor has it resulted in any military let religious conflicts. As such, all things being equal, they made the right choice.

[Edited on October 17, 2005 at 11:40 PM. Reason : .]

10/17/2005 11:38:21 PM