Michigan Opens Door to Muslim Immigration

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Drett

Senior Member
Feb 16, 2013
1,663
38
48
#81
John 14:6
King James Bible
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
The question is are you following the teachings of Jesus so you can be with the Father ?

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
 
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A

AgeofKnowledge

Guest
#82
I'm going to discard your lengthy ad hominem directed at me Lizathrose as it just reflects poorly on you as a person. Firstly, I'm glad that your understanding of history is good enough, at least, to admit that opposing worldviews exist and that they have spawned conflict throughout world history because that is a well documented fact that any professor of world history will readily assert and point to observable instances in our world today.

For example, we're discussing in this thread the Islamic expansion into Hindu India through military conquest, genocide, forced religious conversion, human enslavement, and the destruction of Hindu religious archeological artifacts that arose primarily due to a conflict of religion in which Islamic religious epistemology posited non-Muslim pagans as inferior to them because of their "diametrically opposed worldview" (e.g. Hindu pagan religion) and Qu'ran, Hadith, etc... instructions to subject them (see Sahih Muslim 1:33 for an example in which violence is sanctioned until the victims embrace Muhammad's religion).

So I'm not sure why you argue that homogeneous (uniform) cultures "in particular" experience more violence than heterogeneous (dissimilar) ones as ever since Plato and Aristotle (law of non-contradiction) it has been commonly held among political theorists that disagreement over dissimilarity leads to far more and greater conflict than uniform agreement which does not. Read Mill, Dahl, Easton, Rustow, Lijphart, Offe, etc...

And it doesn't stop with those "diametrically opposed worldviews" either which are creating social upheaval in those "many modern Western multicultural democracies" [an observable phenomena you deny] but also includes extreme inequalities, a high amount of subcultures, etc... all of which are unfavorable for both the development of democracy and a threat to existing democracies.

This is why the scholarly literature asserts that heterogeneity is a challenge to democracy with respect to both developing states and mature (post-) conflict states. On the one hand, heterogeneity potentially destabilizes mature democracies and, on the other hand, heterogeneity often poses an obstacle for emerging democracies to consolidate.

You appear to be in denial of both the scholarly literature on this topic, world history regarding it, and observable phenomena in the world today with respect to it.

But let's speak to this "relatively peaceful state of many modern Western multicultural democracies" further (which are presently experiencing increasing social upheaval due to the immigration of heterogeneous people groups despite your false assertion to the contrary). Firstly, most came about through violent conflict and revolution. Secondly, they warred with each other throughout history. In fact, just last century they were involved in two sweeping world wars and a political Cold War (which I honorably served on our side) in which those "diametrically opposed worldviews," cultures/people groups, and interests battled for supremacy with each other.

Just because a resulting homogeneity at the end of those sweeping conflicts which our side won created a space for the
temporary peace you've enjoyed in your short lifetime doesn't mean they aren't presently being threatened by the present rise of religious, cultural, and economic heterogeneity because: they, in fact, increasingly are.

And even in temporary periods of relative peace, a constant redefinition and renegotiation of heterogeneous inter-group relations must be successfully concluded to maintain it. Contrary to your view, the present rise of increased religious, ethnic and cultural, and economic heterogeneity in Western Civilization is threatening the stability and quality of young as well as mature democracies. Obviously, people don't fight because they identify with, agree with, and share with each other: they fight because they don't.

Next, your assertions for post #47. The founding fathers (including Thomas Jefferson) did view Biblical morality essential for a just and harmonious society. As John Adams stated, "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."

Twenty-nine of the fifty six signers of the Declaration held what are today considered seminary or Bible school degrees in addition to their other accomplishments, and many others of the signers were bold and outspoken in their personal Christian faith. Significantly, not one of the Founding Fathers was atheist or secular in his orientation; even Thomas Paine (certainly the least religious of the Founders) openly acknowledged God and announced his belief in his personal accountability to God, and he also directly advocated teaching creationism in the public school classroom (See Paine's speech delivered in Paris on January 16, 1797).

Your assertion that Christianity was not the driving metaphysical epistemology behind the Declaration is false. So is your false assertion that Enlightenment thought supplanted Christianity as the founder's primary epistemology. And, I had not yet discussed my views on the Enlightenment or what influence it played on the founding fathers so obviously it was premature of you to make assertions about my views regarding it. You should have just asked. That would have been the wise thing to do. So why not just ask me now instead of creating straw men?

But I'm not going to accuse you of intellectual dishonesty as you wrongly did as part of your infantile campaign of ugly ad hominem that only makes you look intellectually dishonest. I'm just going to ascribe it to your ignorance.

And while I appreciate your quote with respect to Luther Martin: the Declaration was the epistemological precursor to the Christian believers that drafted and signed a Constitution designed to avoid invoking denominational conflict in their new government. And, now might be a good time for you to read the 2008 Congressional H.Res. 888: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hres888/text

When the First Amendment was drafted, newly independent states had established Christian churches. These churches were the "official" religion in their colonies and were paid for by taxes collected by the government. Dissenters, or members of churches that disagreed with the established church, were tolerated in every colony, but they had to accept certain restrictions as a result of their religious choice. Many had to pay taxes to support the established church despite their disagreements with it, and many were barred from holding public office. The First Amendment did not change any of this. It
guaranteed only that the federal government would not establish an official national church or pass any laws interfering with a person’s religious practice.

Over time, a series of rulings and legislative laws were passed changing this situation culminating in Everson v. Board of Education (1947) which altered the original intent of the First Amendment (to forbid only a national religion and allow state religions) to forbid both. Very simply, the "fence" of the Webster letter and the "wall" of the Danbury letter were not to limit religious activities in public; rather they were to limit the power of the government to prohibit or interfere with those expressions.

Your letter notwithstanding; Jefferson was one of five men who drafted the Declaration and asserted by signing the Declaration that he believed that God, not government, was the Author and Source of our rights. Yes, he was closely connected with Unitarianism and one of the few founders identifying primarily as a Christian deist (e.g. a deist [believer in God] who believes in the moral teachings, but not the divinity, of Jesus Christ) but the letter you quoted must be
taken in context with the aggregate of his statements and actions which puts Jefferson in the small camp of Christian deism whose materialism was they did not believe God broke into human history through supernatural miracles.

Ultimately, you severely understate the profound and sweeping influence that Christianity had on the founding fathers and the form of government they drafted. You also severely understand the profound influence Christianity had on America's early higher education. They were not universities of the Enlightenment, they were primarily Christian universities. In fact, 106 of the first 108 colleges were founded on Christianity. Even by the close of 1860 there were 246 colleges in America: only seventeen of these were state institutions; almost every other one was founded by a Christian denomination or individuals who avowed a religious purpose for beginning it.

And lest you forget, it was Jefferson himself who set up a department of divinity in his state supported University of Virginia, signed into law a treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians (1803) to pay a Catholic missionary to do mission work with them, stated governments owed allegiance to God asserting: “God who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation remain secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of God?” etc...

Other colleges started before America's Independence include: Columbia founded in 1754 (called King's College up until 1784), Dartmouth ,1770; Brown started by the Baptists in 1764; Rutgers, 1766, by the Dutch Reformed Church; Washington and Lee, 1749; and Hampton-Sydney, 1776, by the Presbyterians and in every one of them the Bible was truly the first and primary textbook which isn't surprising with men like John Adams reflecting the majority view of the founders in regard to the place of the Bible in society when he wrote: "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!… What a Utopia; what a Paradise would this region be!" John Adams, Feb.22, 1756.

But even Jefferson, one of the few odd men out, believed that there is one God, the Creator, Sustainer, and Manager of the universe. He held that this God is infinitely wise, good, righteous, and powerful. Influenced by Isaac Newton, Jefferson understood the world to be harmonious, under the rule of natural law, and open to human investigation. God created it that way. That all this is true is clear from the design of the universe, stating "I hold (without revelation) that when we take a view of the universe, in its parts, general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a
conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces; the structure of the earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere; animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particular; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth; the mineral
substances, their generation and uses; it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is in all this design, cause and effect up to an ultimate cause, a Fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their Preserver and Regulator." [Foote, 10]

Returning to the First Amendment. Now earlier courts long understood Jefferson's intent. In fact, when Jefferson's letter was invoked by the Supreme Court (only twice prior to the 1947 Everson case – the Reynolds v. United States case in 1878), unlike today's Courts which publish only his eight-word separation phrase, that earlier Court published Jefferson's entire letter and then concluded:

"Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it [Jefferson's letter] may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the Amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere [religious] opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order."

That Court then succinctly summarized Jefferson's intent for "separation of church and state":

"The rightful purposes of civil government are for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order. In this... is found the true distinction between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State."

With this the Baptists had agreed; for while wanting to see the government prohibited from interfering with or limiting religious activities, they also had declared it a legitimate function of government "to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor."

That Court, therefore, and others (for example, Commonwealth v. Nesbit and Lindenmuller v. The People), identified actions into which – if perpetrated in the name of religion – the government did have legitimate reason to intrude. Those activities included human sacrifice, polygamy, bigamy, concubinage, incest, infanticide, parricide, advocation and promotion of immorality, etc.

Such acts, even if perpetrated in the name of religion, would be stopped by the government since, as the Court had explained, they were "subversive of good order" and were "overt acts against peace." However, the government was never to interfere with traditional religious practices outlined in "the Books of the Law and the Gospel" – whether public prayer, the use of the Scriptures, public acknowledgements of God, etc...

The Congressional Records from June 7 to September 25, 1789, record the months of discussions and debates of the ninety Founding Fathers who framed the First Amendment. Significantly, not only was Thomas Jefferson not one of those ninety who framed the First Amendment, but also, during those debates not one of those ninety Framers ever mentioned the phrase "separation of church and state."

The "separation" phrase so frequently invoked today was rarely mentioned by any of the Founders; and even Jefferson's explanation of his phrase is diametrically opposed to the manner in which courts apply it today. "Separation of church and state" currently means almost exactly the opposite of what it originally meant.

If you need further correction, I'll be happy to provide it free of charge. :).
 
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AgeofKnowledge

Guest
#83
And sorry for the formatting. I like to write up my replies in notepad and transfer them here but the phone rang and so I had to stop adjusting for the difference in formatting between notepad and CC and take the call hitting Post Reply in the process to focus on doing some consulting work that puts money in my pocket... lol.
 

crossnote

Senior Member
Nov 24, 2012
30,742
3,670
113
#84
The question is are you following the teachings of Jesus so you can be with the Father ?

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
He also said 'you must be born again/from above to enter the Kingdom of God,' which goes beyond His moral teachings.
 
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Agricola

Senior Member
Dec 10, 2012
2,638
88
48
#85
It should not technically matter what percentage of the population are Muslim, because there are legal precedents that cannot be undermined regardless of the parliamentary majority's religious views. As for 'Sharia Towns', it's nothing more than a few hard-line Muslims putting up stickers in central London, which the councils then go round adn take down, and Scotland Yard investigate.

It's ludicrous how much of a sensation the media has made of this, when it is literally impossible and unfathomable for there to be Sharia Law zones in a country under United Kingdom law. It just cannot and will not happen - if someone breaks the law, they will be arrested, regardless of their religious beliefs. Women have been threatened in these areas and the police investigate and arrest as normal.

As for the schools issue, there were only a few schools with Muslim majorities and there were, in the words of educational investigators, 'plots to run school ls by Islamic rules'. Obviously, since the UK is a free state where religious opinion is secondary to the laws of equality and freedom of thought, this is being harshly opposed by official authorities and will be nipped in the bud.

It's the same thing as when my school teacher tried to instil feminist viewpoints in us; she was fired.
I never said that there was Shaira law in place, I did not even say that is what would happen. What I did say was that when populations are great enough we will see Muslims being returned in elections, eventually we would end up with Muslim controlled councils.

This does not necessarily mean Shaira law, as many Muslims do not like Shaira law. in 50+ years time We could end up with an Islamic political party which then gains hundreds of seats and we end up with an Islamic Government.

This is not sensationalism and propaganda, this is fact. You can still run Islamic councils without breaking existing UK laws.
 

Drett

Senior Member
Feb 16, 2013
1,663
38
48
#86
He also said 'you must be born again/from above to enter the Kingdom of God,' which goes beyond His moral teachings.
I am not going to go into biblical interpretation. :)
 
J

J-Kay-2

Guest
#87
[FONT=&quot]THIS IS THE REAL AND TRUE MESSIAH'S COMING.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Revelation 19:11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. (12) His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns ... (15) And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. (16) And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
[/FONT]
 
Jun 18, 2014
755
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#88
Early attacks upon and conquests by Muslims of Hindus were Arab conquests such as the Muslim Arab military attacks of Sindh and Multan along the Indus River for the Umayyad Caliphate by Arab generals such as Muhammad bin Qasim (who was born and raised in Saudi Arabia).

Following that would have been military incursions during the Ghaznavid Period under the Muslim Afgans Mahmud of Ghazni and Mu'izz al-Din, etc... which eventually brings us to the of the Delhi Sultanate in which the first four of the five dynasties between 1206 AD and 1526 AD were of Turkish origin.

I'm not sure what your point is in arguing that Turkish Muslims are not as Muslim as Arab or Persian Muslims as they were certainly all Muslims who based their laws on the Quran and sharia and participated in Indian atrocity and enslavement.

Moving along, you seem to think Islam and Christianity view Jesus the same way. They don't. In Islam, Jesus is a prophet and the exact number of prophets, while not stated in the Qur'an (40:78), is based on the belief that every community has had a messenger. Muslim tradition has put the number at 124,000 prophets. Now among the prophets, five are recognized to be in the highest rank and given the title of ulu'l-'Azm (people of the determination or perseverance). They are: Muhammad, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus (some Muslims also include Adam as the sixth person in this list).

In Islamic theology, it is Muhammad who is the greatest of all prophets superseding Jesus whom they deny as God leveling a charge of blasphemy against us Christians for rightfully asserting that Jesus Christ is exactly who He said He is which is God. As John 8:58 recorded; Jesus declared, "I say unto you, Before Abraham was [and Muhammed], I am."

Why am I telling you all of this in response to what you posted you may be wondering. The reason is simple. Your attempted correlation that the Jesus of Islam and the Jesus of Christianity are equitable fails because the authoritative revelations and resulting epistemologies concerning Jesus Christ are diametrically opposed in the two worldviews.

In Islam, according to the Qur'an, Jesus was merely a human being who was chosen by God as a prophet and sent for the guidance of the people of Israel. Mullah's throughout Islam's history have taught that Jesus' ministry was limited to the nation of Israel, and his revelation was basically one of confirmation and revision of the Mosaic covenant (5:46-47). Muslims aren't following Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior as genuine Christians do: just the opposite.

They're highest authority is Muhammed in Medina. Islam teaches that the newer violent revelations of Muhammed supersede the earlier Meccan ones. It's the Medina Quran that incorporates much of the moral blessings and instructions of Jihad, violence, human enslavement, raiding, etc... That's their highest authority: not the words of Jesus Christ.
Mecca is the place Muslim's revere, hence the pilgrimage. There are also many Muslims who see the violent Islam with suspicion, the way Canonical christians see the teachings of Jesus being a vegetarian non-violent messenger of universal good-will.

The angel said said: I am only a messenger of thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a faultless son. Sura Maryam 19:19

Muhammed, by the Koran's own admission, was not faultless, nor was he the one to show 'the coming of the hour of judgement', nor the one born of a virgin womb.

Muhammed himself admits he's not sinless, yet Jesus was seen to be so, given a knowledge by God much more far reaching that Muhammed's. Any decent Muslim I know is not violent, nasty, spiteful, hateful or corrupt. But you're an American Christian - you're meant to hate Muslims.

It's predictable.
 
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prodigal

Guest
#89
quite a bit of predictability going on here... theres a parable about a plank and a splinter

[h=3]Matthew 7:3-5[/h]New International Version (NIV)

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
 

Elizabeth619

Senior Member
Jul 19, 2011
6,397
109
48
#90
I am Christian. I know I stand a chance of being beheaded by Muslims who hate me for
Jesus Christ ( our Jesus ) not their mahdi, being my Savior. So I am willing to give my
life taking a stand for Christ. And remember their Allah does not believe in a peaceful
religion. Are we, as Christians ready to give our head for Christ ? I am very serious.

I'll give my life as well. That's why I do not get overly concerned with this. It will happen. The bible says we will be hated because of Him. By no means am I condoning the death of Christians, but pretty well pointing out that the bible...yet again...proves to be true.
While I will willingly give my life, I won't go down without a fight either.
 

Elizabeth619

Senior Member
Jul 19, 2011
6,397
109
48
#91
And while the Koran does state that Jesus is a pretty important guy, and Muslims do admit Jesus was a man of God they do not agree that Jesus died on the cross therefore never died for our sins.
 
J

J-Kay-2

Guest
#92
[h=5]John McTernan's Insights
[/h]3 hrs ·

"Iraq militants bringing the people under Sharia law" 06/22/14
This is real Islam.
The people who do not submit to sharia law will suffer the punishment. Women and Christians now have NO rights. This is the real Islam preached by Muhammad. It is not very pretty is it!
I believe, that as the caliphate forms in the Middle East, it is going to radicalize Muslims throughout the world. They are going to turn to the authentic Islam preached by their prophet.
Everyone now sees what Islam is really like and have NO excuse saying the God of Islam is the same as the Holy God of Israel.
Remember, this caliphate is forming for judgment by the God of Israel. Islam is going to meet its doom when the caliphate attacks Israel in an attempt to destroy this nation and take Jerusalem as its capital. God is going to smash it to bits.
Zechariah 12:6 In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.
"In the two weeks since it was seized by Sunni militants, some residents of the northern Iraq city of Mosul feel the clock has been turned back hundreds of years.
The militants, led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group, have begun imposing an extreme interpretation of Islamic law in the days since they took the city, residents reached by telephone told AFP.
"These militants will return us and our country hundreds of years backwards, and their laws are the opposite of the laws of human rights and international laws," said Umm Mohammed, a 35-year-old teacher.
"We live in continuous fear of being subjected to new pressures," she said. "We are afraid of being prevented from working and contributing to building the community."
The Holy God of Israel has no part of Sharia thus there is no liberty in it.
2Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
 
J

J-Kay-2

Guest
#93
And while the Koran does state that Jesus is a pretty important guy, and Muslims do admit Jesus was a man of God they do not agree that Jesus died on the cross therefore never died for our sins.
Elizabeth..... It is good to know we neither want to give our lives up for Christ but
we both agree it will be a possibility. I wonder when you said you would do it but
not without a fight .... Have you any idea in what way you could fight ? I am not being
cute here, I am serious.
RE: Them believing Jesus exists, I think you already know they believe Jesus will
come with their Messiah, the Mahdi, and Jesus supposedly will tell them He never
was the real Savior.
Such confusion Elizabeth... we have a lot of young people who are so impressionable
and will not know what to believe.
I was not kidding when I asked if you are a Christian. I have not checked out your
profile. I just have seen your photo/avatar and see you do post, but usually I am not
in on them. I presumed you are. I apologize for being testy yesterday, or maybe
it was day before. It has been one of those weeks where things don't go smoothly.
God bless .... and don't forget to tell me how you would not go down without a fight,
okay ? JK~2
 
May 4, 2014
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#94
If you need further correction, I'll be happy to provide it free of charge. :).
"Correction"? Your evasive (and largely fabricated, if you'll bother to even source them) quote mines, which have no bearing whatsoever on the actual text of the amendments of the Bill of Rights (alongside numerous legal documents before and after the Constitution's ratification) are a common ploy used by discredited Christian revisionists, such as David Barton, that the vast majority of historical scholarship disputes. You're gish galloping through an exhaustive plethora of contextually inappropriate material, and from this highly dubious source material (again, you're utilizing fabricated quotes that can't be accurately sourced), you're attempting to extrapolate the idea that an exclusively Christian morality or authority as implied by the Founders has a valid legal precedence in spite of an utter lack of any mention of Christianity (or religion in general, save for the prohibition of religious tests for holding public office as stated in Article 6) in the nation's foremost legal framework. It's bad scholarship that historians and legal scholars almost universally dispute, regardless of religious preference, save for the handful on the fringe whose personal motivations and beliefs supersede the facts of history. Whether you choose to accept it or not, you reside in a secular nation with a clearly secular legal foundation, and offhand quotes will never, ever change that. You need to be made to understand that quotes can easily be taken out of context, and have to be taken into consideration from the perspective of circumstance. I'm going to make this very, very clear to you in what follows, because you can't even bother to source-check material you're "quoting" in defense of your own point of view.

Where to begin... Hm.

Next, your assertions for post #47. The founding fathers (including Thomas Jefferson) did view Biblical morality essential for a just and harmonious society. As John Adams stated, "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."

You fell hook, line and sinker. Since you clearly show no interest in reliably sourcing material on your own, I'll do the legwork for you. In essence, this "quote" is actually little more than a combination of three separate phrases written to Thomas Jefferson, and contains several clever omissions that misinterpret Adams' original meaning to give a contextually improper impression. For context, here's the full letter:


"Who composed that army of fine young fellows that was then before my eyes? There were among them Roman Catholics, English Episcopalians, Scotch and American Presbyterians, Methodists, Moravians, Anabaptists, German Lutherans, German Calvinists, Universalists, Arians, Priestleyans, Socinians, Independents, Congregationalists, Horse Protestants, and House Protestants, Deists and Atheists, and Protestants “qui ne croyent rien.” Very few, however, of several of these species; nevertheless, all educated in the general principles of Christianity, and the general principles of English and American liberty.

Could my answer be understood by any candid reader or hearer, to recommend to all the others the general principles, institutions, or systems of education of the Roman Catholics, or those of the Quakers, or those of the Presbyterians, or those of the Methodists, or those of the Moravians, or those of the Universalists, or those of the Philosophers? No. The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence, were the only principles in which that beautiful assembly of young men could unite, and these principles only could be intended by them in their address, or by me in my answer. And what were these general principles? I answer, the general principles of Christianity, in which all those sects were united, and the general principles of English and American liberty, in which all those young men united, and which had united all parties in America, in majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her independence. Now 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; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system. I could, therefore, safely say, consistently with all my then and present information, that I believed they would never make discoveries in contradiction to these general principles. In favor of these general principles, in philosophy, religion, and government, I could fill sheets of quotations from Frederic of Prussia, from Hume, Gibbon, Bolingbroke, Rousseau, and Voltaire, as well as Newton and Locke; not to mention thousands of divines and philosophers of inferior fame.
"

John Adams asserts the importance of the "general principles of Christianity," but contextually, it's easy to see this is intended by Adams to be a very broad, general designation in addition to the extent to which he characterizes the general principles of liberty separately as an equally important element. Above all, Adams' letter shouldn't be misconstrued to imply that Christianity was "essential for a just and harmonious society," but rather was one source of credit among others in achieving independence. You've obscured Adams' context by alleging the "principles of Christianity" (which, in the full letter, are implied in a very general sense) while omitting his statement concerning human nature alongside the "general principles of English and American liberty."

So, we've established that Adams isn't giving sole credit for achieving independence to the “general principles of Christianity." He also includes the “general principles of English and American liberty.” The general principles where all could agree would have to be a pretty small subset of principles given the long list of sects and denominations listed by Adams. Also note the religious skeptics (e.g., Bolingbroke, Hume, Voltaire and Rousseau) in his list of philosophers. The inclusion of these skeptics makes clear that Adams was looking beyond explicitly Christian influences and lauding something of a general set of principles which could be derived from both Christian and non-Christian sources. Let's move on.

"Twenty-nine of the fifty six signers of the Declaration held what are today considered seminary or Bible school degrees in addition to their other accomplishments, and many others of the signers were bold and outspoken in their personal Christian faith. Significantly, not one of the Founding Fathers was atheist or secular in his orientation; even Thomas Paine (certainly the least religious of the Founders) openly acknowledged God and announced his belief in his personal accountability to God, and he also directly advocated teaching creationism in the public school classroom (See Paine's speech delivered in Paris on January 16, 1797)."

This is a completely irrelevant point of contention when considering the context of the era, Paine's deism, and arguably James Madison's almost complete apathy toward religion that overshadows Paine's perspective as described in the aforementioned speech, as well as the fact that the religious orientations or beliefs of the Founders in reference to any sort of Christianity in particular are absent in the Constitution. There's literally no point in establishing Paine's views concerning what's now referred to as creationism, or the lack of atheists in the Founders' ranks. At all. It simply has no relevance for the purpose of our discussion. I'm not attempting to imply that three out of five of the nation's key founders were philosophically atheistic deists that espoused modern methodological naturalism over religious inquiry, and if* this portion of your response is to imply that this is what I've asserted or suggested, I'm afraid you're mistaken.

"Your assertion that Christianity was not the driving metaphysical epistemology behind the Declaration is false. So is your false assertion that Enlightenment thought supplanted Christianity as the founder's primary epistemology. And, I had not yet discussed my views on the Enlightenment or what influence it played on the founding fathers so obviously it was premature of you to make assertions about my views regarding it. You should have just asked. That would have been the wise thing to do. So why not just ask me now instead of creating straw men?"

Sir, that's complete rubbish. Christianity was not the "driving metaphysical epistemology" behind the Declaration. I'd ask you to prove me wrong, but you can't, because the political and philosophical overtones inherent in the Declaration in its entirety completely eclipse Christianity in particular in the document, which isn't mentioned. Furthermore, the Declaration of Independence, when taken contextually, refers to such things as "Nature’s God," "Creator," and "Divine Providence." These are all terms used in the sort of deism which was common among many of those responsible for the American Revolution, as well as the philosophers upon whom they relied for support. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was of course himself a deist who was opposed to many traditional Christian doctrines. Additionally, what little the Declaration even states has little in common with Christian doctrine, to begin with. Thus, to imply that Christianity has any sort of metaphysical association to the Declaration is to completely ignore the deistic nature of Jefferson's beliefs, the predominantly political thrust and intent of the document, and the general lack of any specific mention of Christianity, the Christian God or Jesus, or specific, uniquely Christian doctrines. You are wrong.

"When the First Amendment was drafted, newly independent states had established Christian churches. These churches were the "official" religion in their colonies and were paid for by taxes collected by the government. Dissenters, or members of churches that disagreed with the established church, were tolerated in every colony, but they had to accept certain restrictions as a result of their religious choice. Many had to pay taxes to support the established church despite their disagreements with it, and many were barred from holding public office. The First Amendment did not change any of this. It guaranteed only that the federal government would not establish an official national church or pass any laws interfering with a person’s religious practice.

Over time, a series of rulings and legislative laws were passed changing this situation culminating in Everson v. Board of Education (1947) which altered the original intent of the First Amendment (to forbid only a national religion and allow state religions) to forbid both. Very simply, the "fence" of the Webster letter and the "wall" of the Danbury letter were not to limit religious activities in public; rather they were to limit the power of the government to prohibit or interfere with those expressions."

Except the First Amendment's "original intent" (which in and of itself is a legal philosophy that suffers from numerous problems, including the inherent rigidity implied by the philosophy that undermines the flexible nature of the Constitution) makes no statement concerning "state religions." In essence, the First Amendment's only original intent was to preserve the status quo, since none of the thirteen original colonies had official religions but nonetheless held heavy, diverse religious demographics. The rise of state-sponsored, official religions was merely an effect of this privilege. Furthermore, the legal validity of state-sanctioned, official churches was undermined decades before Everson ever went into play via the Fourteenth Amendment, even if this wasn't the de facto legal status quo until the twentieth century. The "original intent" of the philosophy of separation of church and state wasn't turned on its head, because there was no "original intent" beyond gaining favor with diverse colonies in the most pluralistic manner reasonably possible; rather, the Supreme Court simply didn't consider how it applied to the states until Everson, which itself was based on the Supremacy Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment, which in turn is based upon the intentional flexibility of the Constitution as times, demographics, and society in general changes. I'd also like to point out that restricting a state's right to hold an official religious preference is hardly tantamount to restricting religious activities -- the public is still free to affiliate with whomever they wish, which is the fundamental purpose of the First Amendment. It simply negates the state's ability to punish X atheist or Y Methodist because Z state in question happens to be officially Baptist. While the effect of the philosophy of separation of church and state in reference to the First Amendment has changed, its intent and effect hasn't fundamentally been altered into an opposite of its original purpose.

"You also severely understate the profound influence Christianity had on America's early higher education. They were not universities of the Enlightenment, they were primarily Christian universities. In fact, 106 of the first 108 colleges were founded on Christianity. Even by the close of 1860 there were 246 colleges in America: only seventeen of these were state institutions; almost every other one was founded by a Christian denomination or individuals who avowed a religious purpose for beginning it.

And lest you forget, it was Jefferson himself who set up a department of divinity in his state supported University of Virginia, signed into law a treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians (1803) to pay a Catholic missionary to do mission work with them, stated governments owed allegiance to God asserting: “God who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation remain secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of God?” etc...

Other colleges started before America's Independence include: Columbia founded in 1754 (called King's College up until 1784), Dartmouth ,1770; Brown started by the Baptists in 1764; Rutgers, 1766, by the Dutch Reformed Church; Washington and Lee, 1749; and Hampton-Sydney, 1776, by the Presbyterians and in every one of them the Bible was truly the first and primary textbook which isn't surprising with men like John Adams reflecting the majority view of the founders in regard to the place of the Bible in society when he wrote: "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!… What a Utopia; what a Paradise would this region be!" John Adams, Feb.22, 1756.

But even Jefferson, one of the few odd men out, believed that there is one God, the Creator, Sustainer, and Manager of the universe. He held that this God is infinitely wise, good, righteous, and powerful. Influenced by Isaac Newton, Jefferson understood the world to be harmonious, under the rule of natural law, and open to human investigation. God created it that way. That all this is true is clear from the design of the universe, stating "I hold (without revelation) that when we take a view of the universe, in its parts, general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a
conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces; the structure of the earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere; animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particular; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth; the mineral
substances, their generation and uses; it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is in all this design, cause and effect up to an ultimate cause, a Fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their Preserver and Regulator."

What relevance does any of this have, again, to the legal applicability of anything resembling an exclusively Christian underpinning behind the Constitution? Besides the fact that you're completely ignoring the extent to which the American branch of the Enlightenment worked to influence and reform many of the institutes you've listed into non-denominational schools (feel free to check Wikipedia's page on the American Enlightenment), Deism played an integral part in shaping the beliefs of many of the nation's key founders, including Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and of course Thomas Paine, all of whom espoused Deistic tendencies to varying degrees, which was directly intertwined with the Enlightenment. And, really, it can't be stressed enough that the Enlightenment brought about fundamental changes in American institutes of higher education by the close of the eighteenth century. Regardless of whatever they may have been in the past, what matters for the purposes of our discussion is the influence they had on colonial intelligentsia, as well as the era that dramatically influenced the schools in question during this period of time.

To close, how about we throw in a couple quotes of my own for kicks?

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.
-- John Adams

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

-- Article 11, Treaty of Tripoli (This English translation was the text presented by the President, John Adams, and ratified unanimously in 1797 by the U.S. Senate)

Honestly -- your point of view is mistaken. It's reliant on irrelevant and poorly-sourced material, and it vastly exaggerates the influence of Christianity on the nation's founding by eclipsing the political overtones of the era in favor of a revisionist's point of view.
 
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A

AgeofKnowledge

Guest
#95
Sorry dear but my information is correct and ultimately derived either directly or indirectly from scholarly sources even though so much of your own was easy to refute because it was incorrect as are your false ad hominem allegations which but undermine your character.

Your assertion that the founding fathers beliefs, publications, stated positions, etc... have no bearing on their intent for "the actual text" of U.S. founding documents such as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is not only patently false: it's ridiculous. Of course they do and that's why the only one engaging in revisionism in this discussion is you.

Contrary to your false assertion, the founders do mention religion in the Bill of Rights. Specifically in the First Amendment they state that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Obviously this is not an "utter lack of any mention of Christianity (or religion in general, save for the prohibition of religious tests of holding public office as stated in Article 6)." You should at least read the document you make false assertions concerning it.

And to discover their intent, all one has to do is to go directly to the delegate discussions pertaining to the wording of the First Amendment to ascertain the context and original intent of the final wording (Annals of Congress, 1789, pp. 440ff.).

The facts are that by their use of the term “religion,” the Framers had in mind preventing any single Christian denomination from being elevated above the others avoiding a theocracy (something they had endured under British rule with respect to the Anglican Church). They further sought to leave the individual States free to make their own determinations with regard to religious (i.e., Christian) matters (cf. Story, 1833, 3.1873:730-731).

The “Father of the Bill of Rights,” George Mason, actually proposed the following wording for the First Amendment, which demonstrates the context of their wording:

"All men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no particular sect or society of Christians ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others" (as quoted in Rowland, 1892, 1:244, emp. added).

By “prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” the Framers intended to convey that the federal government was not to interfere with the free and public practice of the Christian religion—the very thing that the courts have been doing since the 1960s.

The wording of a sentence from Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution states: “If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a Law, in like manner as if he had signed it..." If this provision had been made in respect of Jews, the Constitution would have read “Saturdays excepted.” If provision had been made for Muslims, the Constitution would have read “Fridays excepted.” If the Founders had intended to encourage a day of inactivity for the government without regard to any one religion, they could have chosen Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Instead, the federal Constitution reads “Sundays excepted” because America was Christian in its orientation and the Framers shared the Christian worldview and gave political recognition to Sunday as accommodation of this fact.

And note immediately after Article VII, the Constitution closes with the following words:

"Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.... Their work was done “in the Year of our Lord.” The Christian world dates all of human history in terms of the birth of Christ. “B.C.” means “before Christ,” and “A.D.” is the abbreviation for the Latin words “anno Domini,” meaning “year of our Lord.”

If the Framers were interested in being pluralistic, multi-cultural, and politically correct, they would have refrained from using the B.C./A.D. designation and used “C.E.,” Common Era (used as early as 1708 in English and traced back to Latin usage among European Christians to 1615) and avoided offending Jews, atheists, agnostics, and humanists. Or they could have used “A.H.” (anno hegirae—which means “in the year of the Hijrah” and refers to Muhammad’s flight from Mecca in A.D. 622), the date used by Muslims as the commencement date for the Islamic calendar.

Instead, the Framers chose to utilize the dating method that indicated the Christian worldview they shared. What’s more, their reference to “our Lord” does not refer to a generic deity, nor does it refer even to God the Father. It refers to God the Son: an explicit reference to Jesus Christ.

So it's no surprise that the Declaration contains four allusions to the God of the Bible. It's no surprise that the founders publications, speeches, letters, etc... are replete with declarations of literal intent that the United States should rest on the Christian worldview. The U.S. Constitution contains allusions to the freedom to practice the Christian religion unimpeded, the significance and priority of Sunday worship, as well as the place of Jesus Christ in history.

And your analysis of John Adam's statement simply proves the point that the Framers believed genuine liberty derived from God (denominationalism notwithstanding) and was reflected in Western Civilization the metaphysical foundation of which was the Christian worldview. It was because the Western Civilization of their era was rooted in the Christian worldview which depicts God as a real, rational, responsive, dependable, moral, omnipotent, etc... that the world was rational and knowable in a way that produced an authoritively normative moral liberty (the benefits of which are being lost as the nation drifts from God), the rise of modern science, etc... not apart from it.

Read Rodney Stark, Stanley Jaki, etc... and learn why the prevailing epistemologies in civilizations outside Europe stifled their progression in these areas (e.g. a cyclical approach to time, an astrological approach to the heavens, metaphysical views that either deified nature [animism] or denied it [idealism]).

Modern science arose in Christianized medieval Europe in a culture dominated by belief in a conscious, rational, all-powerful Creator who's handiwork could be known. If you want to see the hypocrisy and disingenuousness of your Enlightenment intellectuals laid bare, start with Rodney Stark's 'For the Glory of God' chapter 2 'God's Handiwork: The Religious Origins of Science."

As Rodney Stark explains:

"The identification of the era beginning in about 1600 as the 'Enlightenment' is as inappropriate as the identification of the millennium before it as the 'Dark Ages.' And both imputations were made by the same people- intellectuals who wished to discredit religion and especially the Roman Catholic Church, and who therefore associated faith with darkness and secular humanism with light. To these ends they sought credit for the "Scientific Revolution" (another of their concepts), even though none of them had played any significant part in the scientific enterprise.

One of the first steps in this effort was to designate their own era as the 'Enlightenment,' and to claim it was a sudden and complete disjuncture with the past. To this end, the 'Dark Ages' were invented. Among the very first ever to do so, Voltaire (1694-1778) described medieval Europe as hopelessly mired in 'decay and degeneracy.' This became the universal theme. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) wrote of previous centuries:

'Europe had relapsed into the barbarism of the earliest ages. The peoples of this part of the world, so enlightened today, lived some centuries ago in a condition worse than ignorance.' A century later, when Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) popularized the idea of the 'Renaissance,' the 'Dark Ages' were a historical certitude, not to be shaken until late in the twentieth century.

Moreover, it was not enough to blame the 'Dark Ages' on Christianity; religion must also be denied any credit for the rise of science. Hence it was necessary to discredit the achievements of the Scholastic era. In keeping with this aim, John Locke (1632-1704) denounced the Scholastics as hopelessly lost in a maze of trivial concerns, as 'the great mintmasters' of useless terms as an 'expedient to cover their ignorance.' In similar fashion, one after another of the philosophes condemned Catholic scholarship until the word 'scholastic' became an epithet- defined as 'pedantic and dogmatic' according to any edition of Webster.

With the past out of the way, the central aspect of the campaign by the likes of David Hume, Voltaire, and their associates consisted of wrapping themselves in the achievements of science to authenticate their condemnation of religion in general, and Catholicism very specifically. Franklin L. Baumer noted that 'the Enlightenment was a great Age of Faith. Then he asked, rhetorically, 'But faith in what?' Not religion, but 'belief in man's power.' And the proof of this power was science, which, to paraphrase Laplace, made God an unneeded hypothesis. Never mind that the actual discoveries had been made by 'serious and often devout Christians.'

What mattered was that, in the words of Peter Gay, 'science could give the deists and atheists great comfort and supply them with what they wanted- Newton's physics without Newton's God. "Indeed, although Voltaire and his circle were careful to acknowledge Newton's commitment to a Creator (albeit only to a remote and impersonal Prime Mover), subsequent generations of 'Enlightenment' ideologues took great pains to further minimize Newton's faith.

The leading scientific figures in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries overwhelmingly were devout Christians who believed it their duty to comprehend God's handiwork. Turning to an assessment of the 'Enlightenment,' I show it to have been conceived initially as a propaganda ploy by militant atheists and humanists who attempted to claim credit for the rise of science. The falsehood that science required the defeat of religion was proclaimed by such self-appointed cheerleaders as Voltaire, Diderot, and Gibbon, who themselves played no part in the scientific enterprise-a pattern that continues."

And continues with people like yourself. The first thing to go is integrity when one abandons God's normative morality for "an end that justifies the means." Stark and a host of other scholarly historians soundly prove each of these assertions. But then it's ignorant to ignore all of them just as its ignorant to ignore Edwards, Witherspoon, etc... as if the founding fathers and America wasn't in the middle of a huge religious Great Awakening that helped unite the colonies prior to the American Revolution and influence the founders decidedly Christian focus.

And speaking of that normative moral human liberty, it wasn't the intellectuals of the Enlightenment that brought about abolitionism. The Humanists longed for the glories of Greece and Rome and asserted the superiority of pagan classicalism largely indifferent to the fact that these were slave societies. A virtual Who's Who of Enlightenment figures fully accepted slavery. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Voltaire, Baron Montesquieu, Comte de Mirabeau, Edmund Burke, David Hume, etc...

The vast majority of the intellectuals of the "Enlightenment" fell far short of matching the extent and passion of abolitionist commitment spreading through Christian circles and I will be happy to prove it to you using their own words and actions.

It was people of intense Christian faith (both Protestant and Catholic) who opposed slavery because it was a sin against the Imago Dei of God who endows all normative moral liberty (not to be confused with the immorality). This is reflected in the Declaration and founding father's publications though they had to compromise with the minority of Americans that would not relinquish slavery to ensure the unity of the union.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay noted that there had been few serious efforts to dismantle the institution of slavery prior to the Founding Fathers in world history and it's worth nothing that Washington and other founding fathers freed their slaves before their deaths though your fetish Jefferson did not even though it's obvious from his writings that he too knew and agreed human slavery was morally wrong leaving it for the next generation of young men to achieve:
The Founding Fathers and Slavery (Founding Fathers) -- Encyclopedia Britannica

And you've latched onto a single, altered, and mistranslated treaty with far flung Muslim pirates to bolster your false assertion. The translation of the Treaty of Tripoli by Barlow has been found faulty, and there is doubt whether Article 11 corresponds to anything of the same purport in the Arabic version.

In 1931 Hunter Miller completed a commission by the United States government to analyze United States' treaties and to explain how they function and what they mean in terms of the United States' legal position in relationship with the rest of the world. According to Hunter Miller's notes:

"The Barlow translation is at best a poor attempt at a paraphrase or summary of the sense of the Arabic" and "Article 11... does not exist at all." After comparing the United States' version by Barlow with the Arabic and even the Italian version, Miller continues by claiming that, "The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter, crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant, from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli.

How that script came to be written and to be regarded, as in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point.

From this, Miller concludes: "A further and perhaps equal mystery is the fact that since 1797 the Barlow translation has been trustfully and universally accepted as the just equivalent of the Arabic... yet evidence of the erroneous character of the Barlow translation has been in the archives of the Department of State since perhaps 1800 or thereabouts..."

The evidence for U.S. Christianity is indisputable. Invoking an altered and mistranslated treaty that sought to assure Muslim pirates they were not in a religious war changes nothing.

As John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, declared:

"From the day of the Declaration, the people of the North American Union and of its constituent States, were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians, in a state of nature; but not of Anarchy. They were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledged as the rules of their conduct" (1821, p. 26, emp. added).

But back to the Enlightenment intellectuals; despite their disingenuousness and hypocrisy they did assert the protection of the individual, his liberty, and his property; freedom of conscience and religion and to express collectively a religious belief through religious community; universal compulsory schooling; and social welfare. John Adams understood that the modern quest for their freedom originated primarily on the soil of Christendom in a cultural environment that was shaped in important aspects by Christian beliefs and values whether or not they liked or agreed with it. Hence his statement.

If only John Adams could have lived long enough to see the Enlightenment intellectuals false assertion that the state was the highest authority lead to the sweeping state atheist democide and persecution of religious people over much of the world in the 20th century, he may not have been so gracious in his statement. Most likely not.

Yes, let's move on. More than half of the signers of the Declaration held what are today considered seminary or Bible school degrees and you state that it's "a completely irrelevant point." Obviously not. Obviously, your continuing denial of reality is misleading you from the point. Dismissing the vast majority of the Framers to cherry pick out a few because you believe they support your false hypothesis is disingenuous.

But sadly, you fail to represent even them correctly. Here's Thomas Paine's speech (delivered in Paris on January 16, 1797):

"It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of Divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles. He can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.

When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an astonishing pile of architecture, a well executed statue or a highly finished painting where life and action are imitated, and habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the extensive genius and talents of the artist. When we study the elements of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, we think of Newton. How then is it, that when we study the works of God in the creation, we stop short, and do not think of God? It is from the error of the schools in having taught those subjects as accomplishments only, and thereby separated the study of them form the Being who is the author of them...

The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of the creation to the Creator himself, they stop short, and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter; and jump over all the rest, by saying that matter is eternal."

Yet you continue to falsely assert that the founders beliefs, words, actions, the predominance of Christian institutions they founded, etc... are completely unrelated to the work they produced. Obviously not. Obviously, you are in deep denial [Part 1 of 2].
 
A

AgeofKnowledge

Guest
#96
[part 2 of 2] But you don't want to talk about the 95% who professed an orthodox Christian worldview, you want to talk about a few that you think bolsters your false assertion. Ok, I'll play along. Next up, James Madison.

Madison was not apathetic toward religion. That's a false assertion. His religious views and activities are numerous in his writings on religion. It's true that they are contradictory with his early material often venerating the Christian worldview and his later material (such as the Detached Memoranda) not.

However, it's important to note that his public actions were in direct contrast to his later material and since Madison never made public or shared with his peers his sentiments found in the Detached Memoranda and since his own public actions were at direct variance with this later writing: it is difficult to argue that it reflects even his own intent toward religion at the founding especially in light of much of (not all) his earlier material.

For example, he encouraged his friend, William Bradford (who served as Attorney General under President Washington), to make sure of his own spiritual salvation:

"A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest, while we are building ideal monuments of renown and bliss here, we neglect to have our names enrolled in the Annals of Heaven."

Madison desired that all public officials would declare openly and publicly their Christian beliefs and testimony:

"I have sometimes thought there could not be a stronger testimony in favor of religion or against temporal enjoyments, even the most rational and manly, than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and who are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare their unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent advocates in the cause of Christ; and I wish you may give in your evidence in this way."

Madison was a member of the committee that authored the 1776 Virginia Bill of Rights and approved of its clause declaring that:

"It is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other."

Madison's proposed wording for the First Amendment demonstrates that he opposed only the establishment of a federal denomination, not public religious activities... a point Madison reemphasized throughout the debates. His proposal declared:

"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established" (emphasis added)

Etc... etc... etc...

But now you're back to Jefferson. Forget about the four Christians who drafted the Declaration besides Jefferson and forget about all of the Christians that gave their input. They don't actually exist because their writings provide empirical evidence against your false assertion. Let's just ignore them all mine Jefferson.

Yes, he was a deist but he was a Christian deist (a fact you continue to omit). Nature is not independent of its Creator. God created nature and is nature's God and divine providence is God's intervention in the world. God is the Creator and author of both natural revelation (e.g. revelation from nature) and special revelation (e.g. the Canon). The other four drafter's God was the God of the Bible because they assert that in their writings but so was Jefferson's God. Jefferson himself explains in his letter to Benjamin Rush on April 21, 1803:

"Dear Sir, in some of the delightful conversations with you, in the evenings of 1798-99, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised you, that one day or other, I would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry & reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other."

Observe that Jefferson insisted that those who accused him of being anti-Christian simply did not know his actual views. In a letter to a longtime friend, Charles Thomson, on January 9, 1816, Jefferson affirmed:

"I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author
never said nor saw."

Jefferson’s letter to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse on June 26, 1822:

"The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man. 1. That there is one only God, and he all perfect. 2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments. 3. That to love God with all thy heart, and they neighbor as thyself is the sum of religion. These are the great points on which he endeavored to reform the religion of the Jews..."

Thomas Jefferson's "god" was the God of the Bible not a god that lizathrose's active imagination fabricated for him to "prove" her false assertion that the Declaration is not actually referring to the God of the Bible.

As I rightfully stated before, Christianity was the "driving metaphysical epistemology" for both the founding fathers and the documents they authored. Which, of course, makes perfect logical sense and also why we find them stating they did in their writing. It's ignorant to falsely assert that a group of Christian men would act in direct contrast to their own worldview in contradiction of their own written statements. Why you would (and are) have to be in deep denial of the truth to assert otherwise.
 
S

Sirk

Guest
#97
Stay tune while Liza runs to her God hating mentor for a pat on the head and some more history revisionist books to read.
 
A

AgeofKnowledge

Guest
#98
Lol, you discerned it too.

Stay tune while Liza runs to her God hating mentor for a pat on the head and some more history revisionist books to read.
 
J

J-Kay-2

Guest
#99
Lol, you discerned it too.
This has to be the most unbelievable act of Christian Chat I have seen
since I joined. This has been reported and they are letting her take
up too much room trying to prove her intelligence and push her agenda.
It has to be cut off some place. Has anyone else tried to report her ?
 
S

Sirk

Guest
This has to be the most unbelievable act of Christian Chat I have seen
since I joined. This has been reported and they are letting her take
up too much room trying to prove her intelligence and push her agenda.
It has to be cut off some place. Has anyone else tried to report her ?
I don't mind some intelligent argument but, hers is propaganda straight outa the secular humanist handbook, plus she is misrepresenting herself. She is either not a 19 year old girl but instead is a 60 something hipster thug... or she is a 19 year old college student, at the behest of a mentor, honing her secular humanist debate skills. In either case, she has zero authenticity and a loose moral compass at best.