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Obama's America 2016 - sanantone - 11-09-2012
Publius Wrote:One sided? Hardly. I’ve researched and studied both sides and the 3-4 quotes that “the other side” uses, are either 1) not taken in the entirety, 2) taken out of context, or 3) misunderstood. You can go to WallBuilders | Presenting America's forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on our moral, religious, and constitutional heritage. to find, quotes from both sides. A problem we have today are historians and writers who get their info from other historians and writers who got their information from other historians and writers, and so on. If you want to know what they believed, thought, and said, go back and read it.
Have the “advances” in quantum physics and the String Theory include how life came from none-life? Where the matter for the Big Bang came from? Solved the problem with the Cambrian explosion? Or solved the problems with Carbon 14 dating? Just to name a few of the many flaws. Most people simply say, “science” hasn’t found answers to those questions yet. So in other words, “I don’t have any evidence and blindly believe”.
What things in the Constitution are outdated? And what beliefs of the founding fathers are? There’s not doubt they disagreed on some issues. Just look at the anti federalist papers and federalist papers.
He didn’t think highly of Christianity? Would you mind suggesting a reason why he spend tax payer dollars, when he was president, to create and propagate Christian literature for the native indians? The famous Jefferson Bible wasn’t him cutting out the pieces he didn’t like, but the life and works of Christ so it could be used as a tool to reach unbelievers.
I’m not saying Jefferson himself was a Christian, no. But we find repeated places where Jefferson himself, speaks and acts in a supportive manner of the Christian faith. To say he did not think highly of Christianity isn’t accurate.
You’re actually the one who has failed in providing evidence. WHICH founding fathers thought religion was stupid? Even the deists among them saw it as good. This quote is from Franklin to Paine, “If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?” I’m in no way saying that there were not founding fathers that didn’t think highly of religion. I’m saying, I asked you which ones, and you never listed any. I’m sorry, but how was I wrong? I asked you a question and then said "I THINK you may find that even the founding fathers that were deists believed that a free nation could not survive with out a moral and religious people." Of which that statement, holds to be true. I never stated none of them thought religion was stupid.
On another note, let's say 5% of the founding fathers thought religion was stupid (which is likely a very generous number). Let's not do what most historians do. Look at the minority, the exception, and rewrite history around it. That was not the way in which most of them thought. It was not the thought process of the time.
How about beliefs on slavery and women's rights are outdated. I, personally, believe the electoral college is outdated, but that's another debate. The quotes in my links have names by them. Those are are the founding fathers who did not think highly of religion. Do I have to do the work for everyone? Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, and George Washington. There were a lot more than 3-4 quotes in my links. Now I'm even more convinced that you didn't even bother to look at them. Of course, you pull a bunch of quotes from charters and other documents that are almost 100-200 years older than the Revolutionary War and were not written by revolutionaries. These documents, in most cases, were written by the British government. Then, you take metaphoric quotes and try to pass them off as some of the founding father's personal beliefs. If you were able to find all of these quotes from both sides, it would seem as if you would be able to come up with something better than that. You could post a thousand quotes of founding fathers making biblical references and it still won't refute what some have said about religion. A lot of white people back then thought they could "civilize" the Native Americans by forcing Christianity down their throats, but that's also another topic. Thomas Paine's quote to Franklin still sounds like an insult to religion. If people are wicked with religion, how is religion important for making a moral society?
How life came from non-life is a separate topic from the Big Bang Theory. This has more to do with chemical reactions. The Big Bang Theory attempts to explain the origin of the universe; the theory of evolution attempts to explain the origin of life on Earth. This is further evidence that people know very little about the Big Bang Theory. Theories are theories for a reason. They have some evidence to back them up, but they have not been fully proven like the Theory of Relativity. So if anyone says that they believe the Big Bang Theory as fact, then they obviously don't understand the definition of "theory." On the other hand, I haven't seen any real evidence provided that the universe was created by a mass-less being. Although, I think that would be impossible to find evidence for and completely depends on blind faith.
Obama's America 2016 - OtherSyde - 11-09-2012
Publius Wrote:No, the founding fathers did not found a universal religion for their new nation. If, in the Constitution you’re referring to the “separation of Church and State” no where in it does it state that. That clause is actually from a letter, not the constitution. It wasn’t until, long after the founding fathers, the Supreme court ruled that there should be the separation. The constitution states that the government shall make no one religion mandatory, supreme, etc. Nowhere did they encourage the absence of religion.
I'm not try to push for some kind of mandatory absence of religion in America in general; I'd never argue that people don't have the right to be religious or believe what they want, or congregate and worship. Just that since NO religion is supreme, then no religion should be marginalized (unless it happens to be extremely socially destrucitve/incompatible, like that radical cabal of Muslims that likes to chop off peoples' heads and such). There should be no "standard" religion. Religion should be religion. Government should be government. Religion is about belief and usually involves a lot of strong convictions and sentimental passions; Government should be run with cool-headed humanistic logic, empathy, and fairness, treating all religions equally and without favor.
Also I think they should leave all of the religious books in school libraries, and let people pray if they want. It's not hurting anyone.
Publius Wrote:Well actually, I stated that it took much more trust/faith to believe in man’s theories then God’s word. Nevertheless, it surely is for the common man, a religion, I agree 100%. To be honest, it takes no physicist to see all the flaws. It just takes someone who will use their brain. Okay, so if no one knows anything, how do you know that? How do you know that no one knows?
But how does anyone who thinks they know really know? They don't. Or maybe they do. They can't prove it to themselve or anyone else. But that's what religion is about, I guess: Faith and choosing to believe. It really doesn't take any more faith to believe in proposed or established scientific human theories, since humans certainly seem to exist; I can walk up and touch a human and interact with one, which is pretty convincing (although, granted, not absolute proof of existence if you want to get neck-deep in philosopy and existentialism), whereas God's Word© (at least on this plane of existence) is nothing more than humans walking around claiming they know what God's Will© is, usually based on some book that (surprise!) humans wrote.
Publius Wrote:In a world where guidelines are relative, that is to say, up to individuals, who’s to say that is right or wrong. Your neighbor could believe that injuring or torturing people are morally fine. Plenty of people do in fact. Furthermore, You many cringe, others may do so with glee. Furthermore, if moral compasses and guidelines can exist without anything to base it on. Who’s to say that they’re even superior. Let’s take this a step further. You say these truths are “self-evident truths to any sufficiently mentally capable person” but from where do these self-evident truths come from? Or, maybe WHY do these self-evident truths exist? Is there a reason? If not, and it’s merely random, how do we know that it is true?
These sorts of sadistic people are generally lacking in some sort of emotional and/or intellectual development or capacity. They're called "sociopaths" or "garden-variety psychopaths," and they can't get their heads around the concept of empathy. And no there really is no universal right or wrong. If the will of the universe is served, I guess, then simply living by one's nature would be right, whether that means succumbing to one's base urges or rising up to adhere to "higher" standards. Also, we don't need religion to set norms or moral rules; societies can do this without religions.
Publius Wrote:For theism in general, yes there are many logical reasons and conclusions. But Christianity, when compared to other religions does rise above. I’m not saying this because I’m intolerant, or think “my” religion is the best. But when you come and look at the facts, the data, what’s written, there’s things in all the other religions that doesn’t add up. Whether or not that that’s the case, looking for a reason, what is wrong with that? Because there may be no reason? How would you know if you didn’t go, look, and reach that conclusion after going through all the possibilities. You can prove something exists much more easily then if doesn’t exist.
...But no one can prove or disprove either one in any capacity, that's the reality of it. You can stare at the vast puzzle and weave all the logical conclusions you want from the tapestry of life; maybe Christianity even has come up with more than usual, any number of which could be right or wrong, but in the end it's all just speculation and nothing more. That's all religion can be, until you die and find out if you were right or wrong, or simply fade into oblivion.
Publius Wrote:I don’t think that “the inability to accept that everything could just as easily have happened completely by chance” is a flaw at all.
It's probably a natural byproduct of a developing intellect in a species: the need to assign meaning and to understand one's envirnment as a more evolved method of survival. It's human arrogance and unwarranted self-importance to self-assign some higher cause to one's species or religious denomination, which is what many religions, not just Christianity, seem to love to do ("We are God's People and nobody else is, unless they follow our book and our rules and our God! We know this because our book conveniently denotes this irrefutable fact.")
Publius Wrote:First of all, what is chance? How can “chance” itself cause anything? It can’t.
Anything can happen by chance, assuming the universe doesn't revolve around a fatalistic or divine theory.
Publius Wrote:Secondly, when there are reasons, and plenty of reasons, to believe that our existence and the existence of things was not by chance, then why would a hypothesis, that contains little to no evidence, have equal weight as the possibility of something that does?
The alleged "evidence" only supports the theory of God/Creationism if you already want to believe in that theory. Just because some people (who are driven by their nature or their emotional need to find reason and inclined to actively try to see reason whereever they look) have found and gathered a bunch of bits and pieces, and connected these bits through various associations that make sense to a human brain's way of thinking, the fact that these people have chosen to connect these dots in this certain way doesn't mean those dots actually really connect in those ways, or even not at all. This is why I don't much bother trying to immerse myself in this desperate attempt to find reason and meaning, whether it's in a religious book or in a Richard Dawkins book; Both argue such strong cases with so much "evidence" and are so well though-out and debated that people easily just get lost in it all. How can they both have such strong cases? Because human reasons and conclusions are subjective, based not just on real facts (which are often present), but on the varying perceptions of those facts. Not to mention trying to use even the brightest human intellect to comprehend the universe or divine truths is like some voodoo shaman in the 1700's trying to understand the nature and functionality of an iPhone with his intellect and knowledge (which his tribe sees as far superior and enlightened, of course).
Again, I'm not arguing that there is or isn't a god or cosmic deity; more that the existence or nature of which could never be fully grasped by humans' limited neurological structures or articulated in any real degree of accuracy by human words. Tribal shamans were replaced by the priests of organizaed religion, who are gradually being superseded by the scientist who can speak to the Layman; all just social leaders trying to help humans make enough sense of the world to feel secure and help unify themselves.
And finally back on topic, I'm gathering that, although the founding fathers were by and large Christian themselves, they didn't found America specifically Christian (although it might have sounded that way in their letters and speech of course, simpy because they were Christian and it was reflected in their thoughts and speech). However, they didn't specifically found the nation as Secular or non-Christian either. They just founded it as not-any-specific-religion. Which means the status of America and its government would still be up for grabs, and in this day and age no religion has enough clout to take precedence (except maybe the new religion of Science).
[EDIT] - When I said "the new religion of Science," I wasn't proclaiming it superior to religion, nor was I claiming that the practice of scientific method is a "religion." I was referring to the way people often have faith in science more than religion now (faith... In science? Ironic?) and governments/organizations often use it as a justification for their actions (whereas in past governments it was often done on religious grounds. I was emphasizing the fact that popular science, which may or may not be correct in many cases, is often followed just as zealously as some religions now, which sort of defeats the purpose of science and objectivity itself.
Obama's America 2016 - LaterBloomer - 11-10-2012
When you state, "...over the last several decades, religion, prayer, etc. in the schools has been under attack." it would be helpful to provide more information regarding the basis of your argument. It would take up too much of my time to research the first three allegations as the information provided is insufficient to easily research.
As to the other, might I suggest that you go to the case, and reread (read?) them. Your interpretation and my reading of the cases are radically different.
In Ohio v. Whisner, 1976, the finding of the Court was that the state had imposed unreasonable standards on non-public schools. Nothing about using "God" in its official writings. (Even if it did hold that, why would the Board of Education be using "God" in its official writings?)
In Roberts v. Madigan, 1990, Mr. Roberts, a teacher, had his students read quietly for part of each class. To model the importance of reading, he would use the fifteen minutes to read, too. Often, it was the Bible. In the Court's ruling, no mention is ever made that he read the Koran, Torah, etc. In addition, the Bible was on his desk during the entire school day. While the children could bring books to class, he had created a library for the classroom and the students could choose any book from the library. It contained two Christian books; one was on the Bible, and one was on the life of Jesus. Again, the Court's ruling makes no mention that he or his attorneys provided evidence that there were books on other religions in his personal library. Finally, he had a poster on the wall which said, "You have only to open your eyes to see the hand of God." For the most part, I adored and looked-up to my elementary school teachers. I don't think that I am unusual in that. It would not be unreasonable to make sure that teachers are not influencing children's religious beliefs at public schools. IMHO Mr. Roberts was subtly indoctrinating his students, and his freedom of expression/academic freedom did not outweigh his students' rights to be free of such indoctrination.
FLOREY v. SIOUX FALLS SCHOOL DISTRICT, 1979 does NOT stand for the position that it is unconstitutional for a kindergarten class to ask whose birthday is celebrated on Christmas. The school district was attempting to set up guidelines for religion and school activities. Before the Christmas holiday season had even rolled around after the creation of the guidelines, some people who feel strongly about religion and school activities sued the School District. In its ruling, the Court cited The Beginners Christmas Quiz as an example of what could NOT be used. (I'll cut and paste it at the end of this post so you can see what it entailed.) In my opinion, it was dealing with the greatness of Jesus. A religious position, no?
At this point, I figured I didn't want to spend anymore time disproving any more of your "facts." Also, in case it's not obvious at this point, I suspect that we'll have to agree to disagree about whether America not being the same America it used to be is a bad thing.
The Beginner's Christmas Quiz:
Teacher: Of whom did heav'nly angels sing, and news about His birthday bring?
Class: Jesus.
Teacher: Now, can you name the little town where they the Baby Jesus found?
Class: Bethlehem.
Teacher: Where had they made a little bed For Christ, the blessed Saviour's head?
Class: In a manger in a cattle stall.
Teacher: What is the day we celebrate as birthday of this One so great?
Class: Christmas.
Obama's America 2016 - quasarvs - 11-11-2012
sanantone Wrote:No, he did not. I was not talking about the separation of church and state. His quotes were in response to someone else's post. I said some, not all, of the founding fathers thought religion was stupid. This was to support my argument that the founding fathers were not monolithic in their beliefs. People love to say the founding fathers wouldn't do this or they wouldn't do that. The truth is that not all of the founding fathers agreed on everything. There is further proof in the fact that they eventually joined separate political parties with very different views on the role of the federal government. SOME! SOME! SOME! What is there not to understand about the word some? Again, being religious is not synonymous with believing in God. He asked for proof and I posted it. I was right and he was wrong. There is no way of getting around it.And yes, immigrants can become Americans, what I meant was that Paine was not born here whereas most of the key founding fathers were. Also as far as Iâm aware Paine did not sign or compose any key documents (Declaration) of our founding. Rather he wrote educational pamphlets. I didnât think of him as a âstrongâ founding father. I assume perhaps he is considered one, nonetheless.
Thomas Paine was an immigrant. Many Americans were immigrants at that time and there are even millions now. Immigrants can't become Americans all of a sudden?
A comment you said earlier was that everything changes with the times, and I would say no not everything. However, it is helpful when looking at the past to examine the context in order to try and find clues to understand something better. One example of things that donât change with time are principles, such as life and liberty.
Well I looked one of the sites you mentioned that I didnât before, and for a Christian you sure are reading something that is obviously strongly biased against Christianity. How do you expect to get a perfect fact from it? - Just trying to point out that a lot of bias does discredit a source. Also, interestingly you say, you were not talking about separation of church and state, however the title of one of your links is History of the Separation of Church and State.
However, I did read a few of the quotes of James Madison and John Adams and a few things stood out to me. Madison talked about âecclesiastical or (church) establishmentsâ. He mentioned this more than once, and I think he was referring to church as an institution of rules and rituals more than he was talking about personal religion itself. He was talking more about a certain characteristic of religion the outward symbols/acts rather than the whole thing. John Adams interestingly mentioned the Catholic church. Most Christians today will tell you that Catholocism is a different religion, because it believes in praying to humans like Mary as well as God. John Adams asks how can a free country coexist with the Catholic church? The Roman Catholic church had a history of power-hungry popes that ruled nations and kings. Obviously this connection between church and state would not be compatible with liberty. Also at the time of the enlightenment (1700âs), religion and church had taken a back seat particularly in Europe to things like science and philosophy. People became so empowered with their own thoughts they decided to reject God. This enlightenment thinking carried over to government also. This gives a backdrop of what thoughts and ideas the Founding Fathers were surrounded with. Having said all this, yes, I will concede the point that not ALL the founders were necessarily Christians.
However Americaâs laws are based on Biblical concepts. For instance, the Ten Commandments with the commands against, stealing, killing and lying are all things that we have laws against today, except lying is often called fraud. This is a simple example but it serves to illustrate that America had a founding based on Christian principles therefore it was a Christian nation, regardless of the fact that not everyone was a Christian.
I think OtherSyde had made the comment that society can define or legislate morality without religion. I contest that though, because our government is based on people having rights. Where do these rights come from? Or, whatâs the point of having rights if you donât have right or wrong? In other words there is an objective standard and it is established in the laws of God, as my example of the ten commandments shows.
sanantone Wrote:How about beliefs on slavery and women's rights are outdated. I, personally, believe the electoral college is outdated, but that's another debate. The quotes in my links have names by them. Those are are the founding fathers who did not think highly of religion. Do I have to do the work for everyone? Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, and George Washington. There were a lot more than 3-4 quotes in my links. Now I'm even more convinced that you didn't even bother to look at them. Of course, you pull a bunch of quotes from charters and other documents that are almost 100-200 years older than the Revolutionary War and were not written by revolutionaries. These documents, in most cases, were written by the British government. Then, you take metaphoric quotes and try to pass them off as some of the founding father's personal beliefs. If you were able to find all of these quotes from both sides, it would seem as if you would be able to come up with something better than that. You could post a thousand quotes of founding fathers making biblical references and it still won't refute what some have said about religion. A lot of white people back then thought they could "civilize" the Native Americans by forcing Christianity down their throats, but that's also another topic. Thomas Paine's quote to Franklin still sounds like an insult to religion. If people are wicked with religion, how is religion important for making a moral society?
How life came from non-life is a separate topic from the Big Bang Theory. This has more to do with chemical reactions. The Big Bang Theory attempts to explain the origin of the universe; the theory of evolution attempts to explain the origin of life on Earth. This is further evidence that people know very little about the Big Bang Theory. Theories are theories for a reason. They have some evidence to back them up, but they have not been fully proven like the Theory of Relativity. So if anyone says that they believe the Big Bang Theory as fact, then they obviously don't understand the definition of "theory." On the other hand, I haven't seen any real evidence provided that the universe was created by a mass-less being. Although, I think that would be impossible to find evidence for and completely depends on blind faith.
I wouldnât necessarily say that slavery is outdated more than I would say it was just wrong, but the Constitution doesnât condone slavery it just didnât fix it. It was something in the culture that no one was willing or at the time particularly wanted to address. However, one of the signers of the Declaration, Benjamin Rush was an early opponent of slavery.
The Constitution doesnât address womenâs rights because at the time it wasnât an issue. Women preferred being at home primarily taking care of their kids, home, garden etc. or going to social clubs rather than getting up early every morning to go slave away at an office. When the enlightenment and industrial revolutions hit thatâs when new fields of discovery opened up in the world and both men and women and youth, for example in the 1920âs became discontented with their positions in life. Even before womenâs right to vote in the early 1900âs you have a societal shift that industrialism brings to take the men from their agricultural work and business to the cities and away from working at home. This shift in culture encouraged the issue of womenâs rights.
Thomas Paineâs quote about men being wicked when they have religion was to make the point that because religionâs aim is for the betterment of mankind, without it we would surely be in a worse state. So it is not an insult to religion rather just the opposite. However I guess Paine could have been sarcastic but I highly doubt that and would need more information.
Obama's America 2016 - LaterBloomer - 11-11-2012
Quasarvs, if the Ten Commandments is an indicator for you that America is based upon Christian principles, then you're misuga (misspelled, I know. Would my Yiddish writing friends jump in?) It means all messed up, more or less. The Big 10 are from Jewish religious history. While I'm not a scholar of that area and era, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that other kindoms/tribes/groups had similar rules for governing behavior. If you come right down to it, other than the first commandment, the others are rules that any group would incorporate to protect itself.
As to, "...the Constitution doesn’t condone slavery it just didn’t fix it." You might want to go and read the Constitution. Article 1, Section 2, third paragraph (later modified by the 14th Amendment),which deals with the make up of the House of Representatives, reads as follows, "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of other Persons." Three-fifths? Those not quite "whole" people were slaves. Our oh-so-principled Founding Fathers, in order to get the the southern states to agree to the Constitution, let slaves be counted as partial people so that the South would have more Representatives. The same principled men, in Article I, Section 9, first paragraph "fixed" the problem by punting. The paragraph reads as follows: "The Migration or Importation of such Persons a any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior the the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person." In other words, states could "import" such persons as the states "shall think proper to admit," the Federal government could tax them on the "imports," and this could continue until 1807. N.B. this says nothing about home grown slaves. Quite a profitable business, I suspect.
Oh, and as for women not wanting rights? I've got to head out, but I'll address that later. (Feel free, however, to reconsider your position in the interim.)
Obama's America 2016 - rvadog - 11-11-2012
There is so much fail in this thread that it boggles the mind. I will never understand how those that are most worried about Sharia Law are the same people who would jump at instituting christian sharia here. Do they not understand irony?
Obama's America 2016 - sanantone - 11-11-2012
quasarvs Wrote:A comment you said earlier was that everything changes with the times, and I would say no not everything. However, it is helpful when looking at the past to examine the context in order to try and find clues to understand something better. One example of things that don’t change with time are principles, such as life and liberty.
That's not exactly what I said. I said everything changes within the context of the times. When you judge someone's actions in the past, you have to consider whether that action was generally acceptable during that time.
Quote:Well I looked one of the sites you mentioned that I didn’t before, and for a Christian you sure are reading something that is obviously strongly biased against Christianity. How do you expect to get a perfect fact from it?
I'm not afraid of hearing other points of view. Unlike most of the participants in this thread, I give credit where credit is due even if the person's beliefs do not align with my own. I'm a Christian, but I'm not a very religious person. I am a spiritual person who does not believe in or participate in the man-made doctrines/rituals of many Christian denominations.
Quote:- Just trying to point out that a lot of bias does discredit a source. Also, interestingly you say, you were not talking about separation of church and state, however the title of one of your links is History of the Separation of Church and State.
The quotes in the article were relevant to my point.
Quote:However, I did read a few of the quotes of James Madison and John Adams and a few things stood out to me. Madison talked about “ecclesiastical or (church) establishments”. He mentioned this more than once, and I think he was referring to church as an institution of rules and rituals more than he was talking about personal religion itself.
People are still confusing religion with the belief in God. They are not one and the same. One can be religious without believing in a god and vice versa.
Quote:He was talking more about a certain characteristic of religion the outward symbols/acts rather than the whole thing. John Adams interestingly mentioned the Catholic church. Most Christians today will tell you that Catholocism is a different religion, because it believes in praying to humans like Mary as well as God. John Adams asks how can a free country coexist with the Catholic church? The Roman Catholic church had a history of power-hungry popes that ruled nations and kings. Obviously this connection between church and state would not be compatible with liberty. Also at the time of the enlightenment (1700’s), religion and church had taken a back seat particularly in Europe to things like science and philosophy. People became so empowered with their own thoughts they decided to reject God. This enlightenment thinking carried over to government also. This gives a backdrop of what thoughts and ideas the Founding Fathers were surrounded with. Having said all this, yes, I will concede the point that not ALL the founders were necessarily Christians.
You sound as if you have a bias against Catholics. Catholicism is a denomination of Christianity, but it is not a different religion. I don't think most Christians view it as a different religion. You would have to come up with some data to substantiate that claim because I can't find any. Anyway, Great Britain had already broken away from the Roman Catholic Church, so the religious "tyranny" that Americans lived under did not come from Catholics.
Quote:However America’s laws are based on Biblical concepts. For instance, the Ten Commandments with the commands against, stealing, killing and lying are all things that we have laws against today, except lying is often called fraud. This is a simple example but it serves to illustrate that America had a founding based on Christian principles therefore it was a Christian nation, regardless of the fact that not everyone was a Christian.
Those laws are pretty universal and predate Christianity and Judaism.
Quote:I think OtherSyde had made the comment that society can define or legislate morality without religion. I contest that though, because our government is based on people having rights. Where do these rights come from? Or, what’s the point of having rights if you don’t have right or wrong? In other words there is an objective standard and it is established in the laws of God, as my example of the ten commandments shows.
There are a few majority Buddhist nations that have no problem with this. Although, some Buddhists do believe in God, many don't and it's not a central tenet of the religion. They operate under democracies and their people have rights. Now majority Muslim countries on the other hand...
Quote:I wouldn’t necessarily say that slavery is outdated more than I would say it was just wrong, but the Constitution doesn’t condone slavery it just didn’t fix it. It was something in the culture that no one was willing or at the time particularly wanted to address. However, one of the signers of the Declaration, Benjamin Rush was an early opponent of slavery.
Their views on slavery are outdated. If the Constitution were written today, no one would even consider making slavery legal except for maybe Arkansas Representative Jon Hubbard.
Quote:The Constitution doesn’t address women’s rights because at the time it wasn’t an issue. Women preferred being at home primarily taking care of their kids, home, garden etc. or going to social clubs rather than getting up early every morning to go slave away at an office. When the enlightenment and industrial revolutions hit that’s when new fields of discovery opened up in the world and both men and women and youth, for example in the 1920’s became discontented with their positions in life. Even before women’s right to vote in the early 1900’s you have a societal shift that industrialism brings to take the men from their agricultural work and business to the cities and away from working at home. This shift in culture encouraged the issue of women’s rights.
Basically, what you're saying is that their views are outdated. Attitudes towards women have changed. The belief that only white, male landowners should vote is outdated.
Quote:Thomas Paine’s quote about men being wicked when they have religion was to make the point that because religion’s aim is for the betterment of mankind, without it we would surely be in a worse state. So it is not an insult to religion rather just the opposite. However I guess Paine could have been sarcastic but I highly doubt that and would need more information.
Even if he weren't being sarcastic, the opinion that people are still wicked with religion means that religion doesn't do a very good job at policing morality.
Obama's America 2016 - quasarvs - 11-11-2012
sanantone Wrote:That's not exactly what I said. I said everything changes within the context of the times. When you judge someone's actions in the past, you have to consider whether that action was generally acceptable during that time.
There are clear objective right or wrongs, at anytime.
sanantone Wrote:I'm not afraid of hearing other points of view. Unlike most of the participants in this thread, I give credit where credit is due even if the person's beliefs do not align with my own. I'm a Christian, but I'm not a very religious person. I am a spiritual person who does not believe in or participate in the man-made doctrines/rituals of many Christian denominations.
For example? What man-made doctrines/rituals do you not believe in?
Also what do you mean by spiritual? The reason I ask is because most Christians believe they are spiritual, and the common belief in Christianity is that everyone has a spirit.
sanantone Wrote:People are still confusing religion with the belief in God. They are not one and the same. One can be religious without believing in a god and vice versa.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary says: An organized system of beliefs and rituals, centering on a supernatural being or beings.
I would say that they are one and the same.
sanantone Wrote:You sound as if you have a bias against Catholics. Catholicism is a denomination of Christianity, but it is not a different religion. I don't think most Christians view it as a different religion. You would have to come up with some data to substantiate that claim because I can't find any. Anyway, Great Britain had already broken away from the Roman Catholic Church, so the religious "tyranny" that Americans lived under did not come from Catholics.No I do not have a bias against Catholics. Actually, to put it simply I believe a Christian is someone who puts their faith in Christ alone, not plus anything.
Yes, that's correct the colonists were not under the Catholic religious rule. In fact, Catholics were the minority in the colonies. I was giving some history from farther back for context sake.
Essentially, I believe that the founding fathers were trying to keep religion from being established and instituted by government and vice versa.
sanantone Wrote:Those laws are pretty universal and predate Christianity and Judaism.
The ten commandments are not universal. Many ancient civilizations believed in more than one god. Please provide some examples for that statement.
sanantone Wrote:There are several majority Buddhist nations that have no problem with this. They operate under democracies and their people have rights. Now majority Muslim countries on the other hand...
A very basic morality is ingrained in all cultures and peoples. God wrote these laws that dictate morality so that we could see them. So it is very clear.
sanantone Wrote:Their views on slavery are outdated. If the Constitution were written today, no one would even consider making slavery legal except for maybe Arkansas Representative Jon Hubbard.Perhaps not, after all, Washington freed his slaves before the civil war occurred. They just didn't address the issue at the time. It wasn't long before people discovered the very strong opinions folks had in the south against taking slavery away. It would have destroyed the union if they had did it then. I don't think that if you talked with the founding fathers they would have defended slavery. All they did in the Constitution was govern and legislate it, and I think that's all they could do from the get go. America barely had enough support from all the people in the colonies to fight England therefore they would not have been together on the issue of slavery.
Let me restate that slavery was a cultural status symbol of the time that way, way pre-dated America. So you can't tac that to the discredit of the founding fathers.
sanantone Wrote:Basically, what you're saying is that their views are outdated. Attitudes towards women have changed. The belief that only white, male landowners should vote is outdated.
No, I'm not saying they are outdated, because I actually disagree with those cultural shifts I described. My point was that the Constitution didn't address women's rights, because they weren't an issue, so there was nothing to be outdated there.
sanantone Wrote:Even if he weren't being sarcastic, the opinion that people are just a little less wicked with religion means that religion doesn't do a very good job at policing morality.
I understand religion and faith.
The point is that we live in an imperfect world, religion doesn't save people from their own destructive desires, God does. Faith in Him is the only thing that keeps man from total corruption. God's gift of faith is the only strength humans have to be better.
Obama's America 2016 - OtherSyde - 11-11-2012
rvadog Wrote:There is so much fail in this thread that it boggles the mind. I will never understand how those that are most worried about Sharia Law are the same people who would jump at instituting christian sharia here. Do they not understand irony?
My point! A religion is a religion. Whether one is better than another is subjective, and everyone has the right (as they should) to congregate and believe what they want. There should not be a religion dominating everyone's actions through any official government channels though, nor should there be some insinuated "in-crowd" mainstream religion that you're subtly or unofficially marginalized if you're not a part of.
Also, as far as morality and human rights without religion, the only reason religion was used to push ideals back in the olden days is because humans were (and many still are) too non-intellectual to comprehend anything being important unless it was OMG GOD'S WILL. Fear was the only way to herd the dumb uneducated masses along, and keep primitive humanity from being eating alive by its own unregulated base-urges and self-destructing. Now people are generally a lot more cerebral, at least enough to comprehend the basic premise of the golden rule and some form of empathy. I know I am; God or no God, I'm not going to go harm people. I know there are a lot of people who still aren't at that level, but those of us that are don't need the training wheels of enforced religious ideals keeping us in line so much anymore.
âReligion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.â -Seneca the Younger
So here's a question in that regard: Go out on a limb for a second and assume it were suddenly somehow proven beyond a doubt that there were no God and you had to accept this. Would your empathy for other humans suddenly evaporate, leaving you a depraved sociopath with no values? Or would you just look in the mirror and say, "Well crap, that sucks... But humans are still real and still feel pain, society is still here and still needs civility and functionality; maybe I should still not rape or kill anyone or steal."
Obama's America 2016 - OtherSyde - 11-11-2012
quasarvs Wrote:There are clear objective right or wrongs, at anytime.
Yeah, but that depends on your specific objectives... Humanity? Profit? Social or technological progress? Leaders who make hard but necessary decisions where people die often justify their actions by repeating adages like Pain Causes Growth, or that all progress comes at a cost. Does this make their actions right or wrong? Depends completely on the "objectives" and values of the person doing the judging. The philosopher Thrasymachus purported the phrase Might Makes Right, where only the strong decide what is right; just another view on subjective morality.
quasarvs Wrote:Essentially, I believe that the founding fathers were trying to keep religion from being established and instituted by government and vice versa.
Not exactly secularism, but pretty close.
quasarvs Wrote:The ten commandments are not universal. Many ancient civilizations believed in more than one god. Please provide some examples for that statement.
I don't think he meant that the exact Ten Commandments were universal, I think he meant most of the basic ideas, albeit maybe in more primitive forms (mainly the ones about interactions with other people, not the ones specifically about interaction with the Christian God, as those would be more specific to Christianity).
quasarvs Wrote:A very basic morality is ingrained in all cultures and peoples. God wrote these laws that dictate morality so that we could see them. So it is very clear.
You state this like it's some kind of obvious, proven fact, but it can't be backed up by anything, so it's irrelevant as an argument. Even if humans are ingrained with a basic morality (which I seriously doubt, given a lot of human behavior), you have to assume (based on no provable fact) that there is a God.
quasarvs Wrote:I understand religion and faith.
Clearly from an internal perspective, not from an external objective one, choosing to base your ideas on the assumption that your religion/beliefs are the undisputed reality upon which everything is based.
quasarvs Wrote:religion doesn't save people from their own destructive desires, God does. Faith in Him is the only thing that keeps man from total corruption.
Weird, because I don't have much in the way of faith, but I don't seem all that corruped... Someone's obsessive belief in some magic supernatural being is not the ONLY THING THAT CAN POSSIBLY SAVE ANYONE. That's total brainwashed religious BS.
Also, why do people keep trying to assign their God a gender? If God exists as some sort of omnipotent cosmic force, God would be an IT, not a He/Him; it's a non-human, non-mammal energy force. It doesn't have a gender or a big cosmic penis floating around in space, that's a stupid ridiculous personification, obviously made up by the guys who made up the religion.
quasarvs Wrote:God's gift of faith is the only strength humans have to be better.
...Or just a need for self-betterment spurred by observation of society around you and belief in your own abilities, or the urge to succeed for the sake of one's family? How come Atheists and Agnostics can better themselves?