Atheists who attack Christianity

If you want prayer in schools then take your kids to a religious school.

Lack of forced prayer and cramming religion down people's throats has NOT ONE THING to do with the decline of schools. If you want to listen to the 700 club, go ahead. It's good parenting and good teachers that teach tolerance and respect, not religion.

You can call it a Christmas tree if you want, but the tree tradition was stolen from a pagan holiday, and the time we celebrate Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus's birth, (Jesus's birth should actually be celebrated during the summer if we were to be correct). You're quite welcome to celebrate it any time you want. It's a free country.

This country was founded with SPIRITUALITY as a base, a sense of a higher power. Your precious bible is not the only thing that has the claim on that concept. You are VERY arrogant in assuming that. Yes, a lot of people who founded this country were Christian, but there were also a number of them who were not. This is why there was the "make no law establishing" clause.

"In God We Trust" was not on our currency until the past 120 years. "Under God" was not originally in the pledge of allegiance.

You know exactly where you can stick your ideals of making this country a theocracy! You are ignorant of other cultures, ignorant of different ways of looking at things, ignorant of history (other than the 700 club reconstructionist version) and I have no respect for people who are completely brainwashed by absolute buffoons like Pat Robertson.

You're free to practice your religion, and I'm free not to practice your religion. If I ever have kids, they shouldn't have to be bombarded with your religion when they go to school unless I took them to a religious school. If there is to ever be prayer in schools, it needs to be moments of silence so people of whatever belief (or non-belief) can pray in the ways they choose.

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Let's talk about this in a way that assumes that you're right about the principals in which this country was founded on--let's assume that Pat Robertson is right for a moment. We NOW live in a country with a huge variety of beliefs. However it was started makes no difference anymore--we live in a culture with many beliefs. If you want some good examples of countries that religion and government are together, just look at Israel and the entire middle east. Yeah, that's a great example of people who are peaceful--believe our way or suffer the consequences. How about that Spanish inquisition? Witch burnings anyone? The world is flat, and we'll kill people to prove it. Those savage native Americans just couldn't see the light of Jesus' words.

I would be willing to fight to the death to protect my freedoms in this country. I will not tolerate being forced to pretend that I'm a Christian everywhere I go. NO WAY! Again, you know exactly where you can stick your ideals of turning the U.S. into a theocracy!

You hit a REALLY sore spot in me!

Blah blah blah blah.

I hereby direct you to the entire rest of the thread, wherein you can learn, if you care to learn, why your whole tirade is utterly nonsensical (save the part about Christianity being deeply imbedded in our laws and history, which is every bit as true as it is tragic).

Anyway, go read it for yourself. It's all there, but I'm not going to hold your hand and walk you through it. I just don't care to.

I'm afraid like so many others in this country you've been bullied into believing a revisionist and false version of history. This country was founded on secularism and many of the founders were, in fact, very hostile towards Christianity.

James Madison is known as the "father of the constititution" so let's see what he has to say about Christianity...

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."

I guess you could say he wasn't a fan Let's hear what he has to say on religion and its relevance to our system of government...

"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."

That seems pretty clear don't you think? Let's hear what he has to say about the separation of church and state...

"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."

Let's hear what John Adams had to say on the subject of Christianity...

"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!"

and on the role of religion in government...

"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."

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

Here are some words from Benjamin Franklin on the subject...

"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here [England] and in New England."

His close friend, Dr. Priestly, wrote in his autobiography about his friend Franklin, ""It is much to be lamented that a man of Franklin's general good character and great influence should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and also have done as much as he did to make others unbelievers"

Here's more from Thomas Paine...

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my church. "

"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. "

Still think these guys intended us to be a nation "Under God"?
If so, don't you find it a bit odd that nowhere in the Constitution is there a single mention of Christianity, God, Jesus, or any Supreme Being? The Constitution contains only two references to religion, and both are exclusionary... The 1st Amendment's says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. . ." and in Article VI, Section 3, ". . . no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

The famous letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists that has been used to support the intent of the establishment clause in every supreme court case on this subject states ""I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."

I'm more inclined to take Jefferson's word on the intent of the establishment clause than I am to take the word of religious people who have a bad habit of rewriting history to suit their own twisted worldview.

And before you say anything about the bible being the foundation of western law, I'll address that too... Western law is based on Saxon common law. Saxon common law was in existance for more than 200 years before Christianity was even introduced among the Saxons.

Thomas Jefferson elaborates...

"For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law. . . This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it.

". . . if any one chooses to build a doctrine on any law of that period, supposed to have been lost, it is incumbent on him to prove it to have existed, and what were its contents. These were so far alterations of the common law, and became themselves a part of it. But none of these adopt Christianity as a part of the common law. If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians, and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are all able to find among them no such act of adoption, we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."

If all of the above wasn't enough for you, here's a quote from out treaty with Tripoli which was passed unanimously by the house and senate before being signed by president Adams. The following portion was also printed in the Boston Globe at the time and created no pulbic outcry...

"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..."

So there you have it. I'm not sure how much more plainly stated you need it to be before you'll accept that you've been misled. This country was not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion, no matter how much Christian revisionists insist otherwise. Sorry.

HEY!! WHO LET THE LOGICAL THINKERS BACK INTO THIS THREAD?

Sorry, Billybob. I just can't let the "Christian nation" thing go unchallenged.

I worked hard to derail this thread, I don't want to see wasted effort

I'm sure it will spiral back in to nonsense before long

You've never actually read the works of the Founding Fathers, have you?



Rambling - you've segued from the secular / religious basis of our country to the objections you have to the way /your/ society works.



How is it that you graduated from High School? You /obviously/ have never read the Constitution, nor the works of Jefferson, including the Virginia General Assembly Constitution of Virginia, including the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. The United States of America is a secular government, founded on the principle of the rule of law, the balance of individual liberties to the needs of society, small and unintrusive government, and a separation of church and state. You've drank the Kool-Aid.



A: Medical science has only recently come to the point - within the last hundred years - of being able to properly care for people undergoing surgery. Abortions were performed before 1920, and much of the time they ended up scarring, deforming, or outright killing the women they were performed on - because hygiene was unknown, and poisoning one's self to induce an abortion was an art, not a science.

If you would like to have and espouse strong, authoritative opinions on medical issues (including mental illnesses), may I happily suggest that you go back to school, actually /graduate/ from High School this time, and go on to get an undergraduate, Master's, and doctorate in Medical Science?

The /unmitigated gall/ and ignorant /irony/ of "We have become a society of whiners, and its [sic] always someone elses [sic] fault." - Pot calling Kettle - BLACK!! YOU are the one whining here about "oh teh demise of LeaveItToBeavermerica".



Guess what? Nothing is stopping you from having prayer in school. Schoolchildren can pray as much as they need to - but they are not allowed to hijack the school system to force their beliefs on others, nor use their religious activities to disrupt school for others. I'd like for /you/ to grow into an adult, /too/, but I somehow doubt that you're willing to undertake the responsibility of properly educating yourself (since your school system seems to have failed you in that regard) in order to become one.



"Winter Solstice Tree" - waaaaaait. Exactly, uhm, could you point out to me in the Bible the bit about how a /tree/ in the middle of /winter/ is an inherently /Christian/ thing? Because /I/ can point out to you the parts of the Bible that /explicitly/ instruct believers to /not/ have Christmas trees, and Bill O'Reilly is /still/ a delusional pig.

Don't Hold Strong Opinions About Things You Don't Understand.


And may I suggest that you consider how your schooling has failed you?

No No No!!!! No More Logical Thought In This Thread!!!!

The balance must be maintained.

no just wait till they implode,

Our Lindens, who art in the Labs,
Hallowed be thy prims.
Thy Grid-dom come, thy will be done,
On sims, as it is in The Preview.
Give us this day our daily crash,
And forgive us our Spammery.
As we forgive those, who grief against us
And lead us not, into private parcels.
Amen

Tis a game Forum... lets keep it about game topics/gods etc

no I prefer to keep it entirely irrational and filled with pics of booze

i could sooo go for some Gin and tonic right now. Linden bless Booze!

You all got way off topic but ....

Point one ~ Although not stating "what" religion, could be many, I quote the Declaration of Independence:

"IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — "

Hmmm, seems God and Creator are mentioned. Sound athiest? By Creator and God (and they are capitalized on the document) I don't think they are talkin about mom and pop.

Point two ~ As for any history ... It is writen by the winners, not the losers. Read and believe what you want cause none of us living today were alive 200 or more years ago to know the truth.

Point three ~ Chip, you are one very angry man in my humble opinion hehe

I just can't ... bring myself ... to care anymore.

Apathy ... taking ... over ... @.@

Note: NATURE'S GOD. NATURE'S GOD. NATURE'S GOD. NATURE'S GOD.

Where does it mention the bible? OH, wait, it doesn't. It's NATURE'S GOD. It's the concept of a higher power.

That certainly doesn't mean atheist in any way shape or form, but it also certainly doesn't mean the God of the Bible, the Bible that teaches that things that are natural are abominations and are unnatural. It would have to be an enormous stretch to consider the God of the Bible to be "Nature's God"---a stretch too extreme to even consider.

Where were you when we were discussing the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools? The atheists all insisted any mention of a "possible" creator was pointing to the Bible and Christianity. That any who suggest it be taught are Christian fanatics.

btw, the Bible doesn't "teach that things that are natural are abominations and are unnatural".

It's very simple--people that believe in "Nature's God" (which is somewhat more of a pagan viewpoint) generally do not reject evolutionary theory like those that believe in the folklore and legends of Adam and Eve.

How true, BillyBob.

Let me go back to what I was basically saying before Kevn cut in with his troll bait:

Any references to "God" by the founding fathers was generally referencing "Nature's God" which, to today's standards, would be considered more of a pagan belief. This country was in no way founded to only support Christian principals.