Arnold 2008???

Either way you have lived with an assface for a long time.

 

That is happening to some extent already. Many companies now offer
insurance coverage to the employee's life partner.

- Kurt

 

You're right... I'd have more faith seeing a Swedish swim suit team marching
over the horizon...

Larry L
94 RC45 #2
Have a wheelie NICE day...
Lean & Mean it in every corner of your life...
If it wasn't for us the fast lane would rust...
V4'S are music to the seat of my pants...
1952 De Havilland Chipmunk...
Yank and bank your brains loose...
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It's implied by Beastie Boys...

Larry L
94 RC45 #2
Have a wheelie NICE day...
Lean & Mean it in every corner of your life...
If it wasn't for us the fast lane would rust...
V4'S are music to the seat of my pants...
1952 De Havilland Chipmunk...
Yank and bank your brains loose...
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/-xlax-/
http://home.comcast.net/~netters2/
http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vg&user=netters2

 

And I provided reasons why those groups shouldn't get married. I'm
still waiting for you to supply a reason why gays shouldn't?

Asked and answered.

I think we have found the reason you are against same-sex marriage. You
think gay sex/love is icky.

Everybody bit as cool as if they were a man and a woman.

Josh Rosenbluth

 

I don't even know you, much less live with you. Now crawl back in your
little hole.

 

Where does it state separation of church and state in the first
amendment?



Regards
Michael H. Fell

 

Well not something I like to think about. Actually if their agenda
didn't enter our public school system I would be more sympathetic to
their cause.

The great thing about this great country of ours is the majority of
our population agrees with me. Here it is not the case. You got a lot
of lefties living in the Republic of California posting here. I am
just glad to know my views are not of the minority on this issue. I
have said my piece on this subject. You have won. You can have the
last word.
Regards
Michael H. Fell

 

The majority of the voting population in the few states that had it on
the ballot may agree with you, but you do not know how the majority of
the population feels, since it wasn't put before the majority of the
population to vote on, nor did all of the population even vote. You
have NO way of knowing what the majority of the population think.

--
Odinn

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rot13 to reply

 

Thinking something is icky is a piss-poor reason to discriminate against
a class of people.

BFD. The majority once thought that blacks shouldn't marry whites.

Josh Rosenbluth

 

The separation of church and state is not in the First Amendment per se.
Its a long held doctrine. When this nation was founded all of the countries
in Europe had a state church (some still do). That had caused a lot of
baggage over time. Not just the English Calvinists (the Puritans), but
French Huguenots, and the Quakers had all come to America looking for the
freedom to worship. The goal of the first amendment was to insure that
people could worship as they saw fit. The clear historical presumption was
that it was Christian worship. For example, non-denominational prayer have
historically been Christian non-denominational (vice Jewish, Islam, Baha'i,
Wicca, Hindu...). In more recent times the first amendment has been
interpreted to mean that freedom of religion is also freedom from religion.
The vast majority of the founding fathers (Jefferson being the primary odd
man out) would be aghast at how far we have moved from their world view and
the importance of religion in schools and public life. Then again, a lot of
other things have changed since then as well. Like my other posts in this
thread I am *not* taking a position, but pointing out a few facts.

 

IOW, you're saying they would have supported your freedom of religion as
long as it was the "correct" religion...

 

That's actually hard to tell. They were very progressive for their day.
However, what was progressive then seems positively repressive now. Things
need to be taken in the context of their time in history. Sort of like JFK.
If you read his words you would think he was a Regan democrat.

 

I'm not so sure about this.

John Adams:

"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!"--John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson

"But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legaends, hae
been blended with both Jewish and Chiistian revelation that have made
them the most bloody religion that ever existed.--John Adams in a letter
to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816, _2000_Years_of_Disbelief_, John A.
Haught

"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere
in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths,
Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in
Christianity." --John Adams

Benjamin Franklin

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."--Benjamin Franklin,
_Poor_Richard_, 1758

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."--Benjamin
Franklin, _Poor_Richard_, 1758

"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects
or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely
above it." -- Benjamin Franklin,
_Articles_Of_Belief_and_Acts_of_Religion_, Nov.20, 1728

"I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... I mean
real good works ... not holy day keeping, sermon-hearing ... or making
long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise
men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity." -- Benjamin Franklin
, _Works_ Vol.VII, p.75

"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects of
Christianity, we shall find few that have not in turns been persecutors
and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought
persecution extremely wrong in Pagans, but practiced it on one another.
The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution on the
Roman church, but preactied i on the Puritans. They found it wrong in
Bishops, but fell into the practice both here (England) and in New
England"--Benjamin Franklin, _Poor_Richard_, 1758

"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it
does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so
that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power,
'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." -- Benjamin Franklin,
_2000_Years_of_Disbelief_ by James A. Haught

"Religion I found to be without any tendency to inspire, promote, or
confirm morality, serves principally to divide us and make us unfriendly
to one another."--Benjamin Franklin

James Madison

"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish
Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with
the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all
other sects?" -- James Madison, _A_Memorial_ and_Remonstrance, addressed
to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of VA, 1795

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of
Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in
all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility
in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." -- James
Madison,_A_Memorial_ and_Remonstrance, _2000_Years_of_Disbelief_ by
James A. Haught

"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and all of which
facilitates the execution of mischievous projects. Religious bondage
shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble
enterprise, every expanded project."--James Madison,
_2000_Years_of_Disbelief_ by James A. Haught

"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past
one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in
greater purity, the less they are mixed together."--James Madison in a
letter to Edward Livingston in 1822

"It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of
separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with
such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential
points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a
corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will best be guarded
against by an entire abstinence of the Government from interference in
any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and
protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by
others."--James Madison, "James Madison on Religious Liberty", edited by
Robert S. Alley, ISBN pp 237-238

"The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated
hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions
with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality
of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly
increased by the TOTAL SEPARATION OF THE CHURCH FROM THE STATE."--James
Madison

Thomas Paine

"I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to
that book (the Bible)." -- Thomas Paine

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the
cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which
more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we
call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of
wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize [hu]mankind." --
Thomas Paine, _The_Age_of_Reason_

"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the
worst."--Thomas Paine

"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, not by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my
own Church."--Thomas Paine,
_Excerpts_from_The_Age_of_Reason:_Selected_Writings_of_Thomas_ Paine_,
edited by Richard Emery Robers, NY Everybody's Vacation Publishing Co,
1945, p.342

"All national 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."--Thomas Paine,
_The_Age_of_Reason

"The adulterous connection between church and state."--Thomas Paine,
from _The_Age_of_Reason_

"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is
always the strongly marked feature of all law-religions, or religions
established by law."--Thomas Paine, _The_Rights_of_Man_, 1791, ed P.S.
Foner, 1945

"Here it is that the religion of Deism is superior to the Christian
Religion. It is free from all those invented and torturing articles that
shock our reason or injure our humanity, and with which the Christian
religion abounds. Its creed is pure, and sublimely simple. It believes
in God, and there it rests."--Thomas Paine,
_Of_The_Religion_of_Deism_Compared_With_the_Christian_Religion_

"As priestcraft was always the enemy of knowledge, because priestcraft
supports itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was
consistent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real
sin."--Thomas Paine,
_Of_The_Religion_of_Deism_Compared_With_the_Christian_Religion_

"The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system."--Thomas
Paine, _2000_Years_of_Disbelief_, James A. Haught



Looks to me like SEVERAL had a serious disdain for christianity.

--
Odinn

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rot13 to reply

 

Civil and civilization are not the same thing!

So is the curvature of my penis.

 

SNIP

Especially a messers Paine and Madison judging by the quotes
you chose. I especially identify with Paines
reasoning...then again I always have liked rabble rousers
who know how to make REAL sense and think clearly.

--
Nefarious Necrologist 42nd Degree
Some people ride, some just like to show off their butt
jewelry once in a while.
Dum vivimus, vivamus
<3 )3~~ <3 )3~~ <3 )3~ <3 )3~

 

I figured I would grab the ones that spoke out mostly against religion.
George Washington never said much for or against religion, other than
this. "The United States is in no manner founded on Christian
principle." - Treaty of Tripoli

Unfortunately, people will continue to claim that the US was founded on
Christian principles irregardless of the facts against them.

--
Odinn

'03 FLHTI ........... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/ElectraGlide
'97 VN1500D ......... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/VulcanClassic
Atlanta Biker Net ... http://www.atlantabiker.net
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rot13 to reply

 

The Faith of Our Fathers by Gregory Koukl

Was the faith of the Founding Fathers deism or Christianity?
What does the answer mean for us today?
Both the secularists and the Christians have missed the mark.

-------------------------------------------------------------
There's been a lot of rustle in the press lately--and in many Christian
publications--about the faith of the Founding Fathers and the status of the
United States as a "Christian nation." Home schooling texts abound with
references to our religious heritage, and entire organizations are dedicated to
returning America to its spiritual roots. On the other side, secularists cry
"foul" and parade their own list of notables among our country's patriarchs.
They rally around the cry of "separation of church and state." Which side is
right? Oddly both, after a fashion.

Who Were the Founding Fathers?
------------------------------
Historical proof-texts can be raised on both sides. Certainly there were godless
men among the early leadership of our nation, though some of those cited as
examples of Founding Fathers turn out to be insignificant players. For example,
Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen may have been hostile to evangelical Christianity,
but they were firebrands of the Revolution, not intellectual architects of the
Constitution. Paine didn't arrive in this country until 1774 and only stayed a
short time.

As for others--George Washington, Samuel Adams, James Madison, John Witherspoon,
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Adams, Patrick Henry, and even Thomas
Jefferson--their personal correspondence, biographies, and public statements are
replete with quotations showing that these thinkers had political philosophies
deeply influenced by Christianity.

The Constitutional Convention
-----------------------------
It's not necessary to dig through the diaries, however, to determine which faith
was the Founder's guiding light. There's an easier way to settle the issue.

The phrase "Founding Fathers" is a proper noun. It refers to a specific group of
men, the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. There were other
important players not in attendance, like Jefferson, whose thinking deeply
influenced the shaping of our nation. These 55 Founding Fathers, though, made up
the core.

The denominational affiliations of these men were a matter of public record.
Among the delegates were 28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7
Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman
Catholics, 1 unknown, and only 3 deists--Williamson, Wilson, and Franklin--this
at a time when church membership entailed a sworn public confession of biblical
faith.[1]

This is a revealing tally. It shows that the members of the Constitutional
Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations
of our nation, were almost all Christians, 51 of 55--a full 93%. Indeed, 70%
were Calvinists (the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and the Dutch Reformed),
considered by some to be the most extreme and dogmatic form of Christianity.

Benjamin Franklin
-----------------
Even Franklin the deist is equivocal. He was raised in a Puritan family and
later adopted then abandoned deism. Though not an orthodox Christian, it was
81-year-old Franklin's emotional call to humble prayer on June 28, 1787, that
was the turning point for a hopelessly stalled Convention. James Madison
recorded the event in his collection of notes and debates from the Federal
Convention. Franklin's appeal contained no less than four direct references to
Scripture.

"And have we forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer
need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time and the longer I livethe
more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of
men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it
probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in
the sacred writings that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain
that build it.' I firmly believe this and I also believe that without His
concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the
builders of Babel." [2]

Three of the four cornerstones of the Constitution--Franklin, Washington, and
Madison--were firmly rooted in Christianity. But what about Thomas Jefferson?
His signature cannot be found at the end of the Constitution, but his voice
permeates the entire document.

Thomas Jefferson
----------------
Though deeply committed to a belief in natural rights, including the
self-evident truth that all men are created equal, Jefferson was individualistic
when it came to religion; he sifted through the New Testament to find the facts
that pleased him.

Sometimes he sounded like a staunch churchman. The Declaration of Independence
contains at least four references to God. In his Second Inaugural Address he
asked for prayers to Israel's God on his behalf. Other times Jefferson seemed to
go out of his way to be irreverent and disrespectful of organized Christianity,
especially Calvinism.

It's clear that Thomas Jefferson was no evangelical, but neither was he an
Enlightenment deist. He was more Unitarian than either deist or Christian.[3]

This analysis, though, misses the point. The most important factor regarding the
faith of Thomas Jefferson--or any of our Founding Fathers--isn't whether or not
he had a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The debate over the religious
heritage of this country is not about who is ultimately going to heaven, but
rather about what the dominant convictions were that dictated the structure of
this nation.

Even today there are legions of born-again Christians who have absolutely no
skill at integrating their beliefs about Christ with the details of their daily
life, especially their views of government. They may be "saved," but they are
completely ineffectual as salt and light.

By contrast, some of the Fathers may not have been believers in the narrowest
sense of the term, yet in the broader sense--the sense that influences
culture--their thinking was thoroughly Christian. Unlike many evangelicals who
live lives of practical atheism, these men had political ideals that were deeply
informed by a robust Christian world view. They didn't always believe
biblically, having a faith leading to salvation, but almost all thought
biblically, resulting in a particular type of government.

Thomas Jefferson was this kind of man. In Defending the Declaration, legal
historian Gary Amos observes, "Jefferson is a notable example of how a man can
be influenced by biblical ideas and Christian principles even though he never
confessed Jesus Christ as Lord in the evangelical sense."[4]

What Did the Founding Fathers Believe and Value?
------------------------------------------------
When you study the documents of the Revolutionary period, a precise picture
comes into focus. Here it is:

* Virtually all those involved in the founding enterprise were God-fearing men
in the Christian sense; most were Calvinistic Protestants.

* The Founders were deeply influenced by a biblical view of man and government.
With a sober understanding of the fallenness of man, they devised a system of
limited authority and checks and balances.

* The Founders understood that fear of God, moral leadership, and a righteous
citizenry were necessary for their great experiment to succeed.

* Therefore, they structured a political climate that was encouraging to
Christianity and accommodating to religion, rather than hostile to it.

* Protestant Christianity was the prevailing religious view for the first 150
years of our history.

However...

* The Fathers sought to set up a just society, not a Christian theocracy.

* They specifically prohibited the establishment of Christianity--or any other
faith--as the religion of our nation.

A Two-Sided Coin
----------------
We can safely draw two conclusions from these facts, which serve to inform our
understanding of the relationship between religion and government in the United
States.

First, Christianity was the prevailing moral and intellectual influence shaping
the nation from its outset. The Christian influence pervaded all aspects of
life, from education to politics. Therefore, the present concept of a rigid wall
of separation hardly seems historically justified.

Virtually every one of the Founders saw a vital link between civil religion and
civil government. George Washington's admonitions in his Farewell Speech,
September 19, 1796, were characteristic of the general sentiment:

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion
and morality are indispensable supports....And let us indulge with caution the
supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and
experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in
exclusion of religious principles."[5]

Second, the Founders stopped short of giving their Christian religion a position
of legal privilege. In the tradition of the early church, believers were to be
salt and light. The First Amendment insured the liberty needed for Christianity
to be a preserving influence and a moral beacon, but it also insured
Christianity would never be the law of the land.

This ought to call into serious question a common tactic of the so-called
Religious Right. "We were here first," their apologists proclaim. "Our country
was stolen from us, and we demand it back." Author John Seel calls this
"priority as entitlement."

The sad fact of the matter is that cultural authority was not stolen from us; we
surrendered it through neglect. Os Guinness pointed out that Christians have not
been out-thought. Rather, they have not been around when the thinking was being
done.

Choosing cultural monasticism rather than hard-thinking advocacy, Christians
abandoned the public square to the secularists. When the disciples of Jesus
Christ retreated, the disciples of Dewey, Marx, Darwin, Freud, Nietzsche,
Skinner, and a host of others replaced them.

Seel warns of the liability of an "appeal to history as a basis of Christian
grounds to authority."[6] Playing the victim will not restore our influence, nor
will political strong-arm tactics. Shouldn't our appeal rather be on the basis
of truth rather than on the patterns of the past?

The faith of our Founding Fathers was Christianity, not deism. In this regard,
many secularists--and even some Christians--have been wrong in their assessment
of our history. On the other hand, many Christians have also been mistaken in
their application of the past to the present.

Christians have no special privileges simply because Christianity was America's
first faith. "If America ever was or ever will be a 'Christian nation,'" Seel
observes, "it is not by conscious design or written law, but by free
conviction."[7]

Success for the Christian cannot be measured in numbers or political muscle, but
only in faithfulness. Our most important weapon is not our voting power, but the
power of the truth freely spoken and freely heard.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution, (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1987), p. 43.

[2] Benjamin Franklin, quoted by James Madison in Notes on Debates in the
Federal Convention of 1787 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966, 1985), p. 209.

[3] Eidsmoe has a very thorough and even-handed section on Jefferson.

[4] Gary T. Amos, Defending the Declaration, (Brentwood, TN: Wogelmuth & Hyatt,
1989), p. 9.

[5] The Annals of America, (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1976), vol. 3, p.
612.

[6] John Seel, No God But God--Breaking with the Idols of Our Age, Os Guinness
and John Seel, eds., (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992), p. 64.

[7] John Seel, No God But God--Breaking with the Idols of Our Age, Os Guinness
and John Seel, eds., (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992), p. 69.

Copyright 2002 Gregory Koukl

 

Thanks. That was an interesting and informative read.

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Yep, but it dodged the basic point that the founding fathers
whilst they may have believed in god did NOT want the
government messing with religion in anyway nor did the want
religion to influence gravely the running of the United
States of America. They understood and even stated that it
was a slippery slope. Any person who doesn't understand that
is a delusional fool. No laws should EVER be based on
religion period. Damn you people are fucking THICK! Don't
like it? Tough shit KF me the ESAD because you are NOT what
makes America.

--
Nefarious Necrologist 42nd Degree
Some people ride, some just like to show off their butt
jewelry once in a while.
Dum vivimus, vivamus
<3 )3~~ <3 )3~~ <3 )3~ <3 )3~