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Post by rose on Jan 30, 2009 23:35:59 GMT -8
...is that similar to "certified black angus beef"?
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Post by christopher on Jan 31, 2009 0:19:44 GMT -8
Why do I keep hearing " you will be assimilated" in my head?? ;D Sorry....just discoursing.  |
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Post by christopher on Jan 31, 2009 0:22:15 GMT -8
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of my stamp.  |
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Post by Alex on Jan 31, 2009 9:20:15 GMT -8
Right! Right! Exactly my point! The borg are an excellent way to create homogeneity among a populace. A jack in the back, a laser eye and total agreement about national test standards. Now the reason you keep hearing it is the earwig. Don't concern yourself too much because it'll stop kicking and settle down. Just remember you won't like it angry  |
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Post by Margot on Jan 31, 2009 20:54:01 GMT -8
Resistance is futile...
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Post by moritz on Feb 4, 2009 9:56:28 GMT -8
Hey Jess, Christianity clearly influenced the writers of our constitution and the founding fathers as they brought into the world a new way of life. (...) The country has become more and more secularized, less faithful. Weren't the founding fathers secularists above all?  Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, 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.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802 I am convinced that the "count the cost" language was written so much more for us today than it was for the first readers. They had no doubt what it meant to be a believer. It meant the risk of death of some and certain death for others. They had to count the cost because they often paid for their faith with their lives. What does it mean to be a believer today? What is the cost? |
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Post by Josh on Feb 4, 2009 19:11:35 GMT -8
Depends how you define secularist. They were almost all religious, so in that sense no. Most were deist, some Christian.
Even though they advocated for a separation of Church and state, they readily began official government meetings with prayers and regularly used religious terms in their addresses, etc..
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Post by moritz on Feb 12, 2009 10:59:30 GMT -8
Whether the founding fathers were religious or not isn’t the point. The point is what they wanted America to be like. One main item was that Americans should be free to practice their religion (not just Christianity but whatever religion) without the government getting in their way. This means that the United States had to be religiously neutral. Hence the founding fathers decided to build a wall between the State and the Church granting every citizen freedom of and from religion. Although they certainly can’t be regarded as a homogeneous group with entirely unanimous views, they were total secularists. It is important to point this out because phrases like that “the founding fathers were inspired by the Christian faith” are in a way misleading. Yes, of course they were influenced by the Christian faith. Even I as an atheist or agnostic am thoroughly influenced by the Christian faith – for better or worse. But that doesn’t mean that the founding fathers intended America to be a Christian nation. Far from it. As you said yourself, most of them weren’t Christians. The God and creator they refer to isn’t Yahwe.
“Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.” Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom. As a historian I’m sure you’re familiar with Article XI from US treaty with Tripoli: Art. 11: 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 Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan 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. “This treaty was authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, (…) sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.”* Now, another meaning of secular is the increasing indifference of the people towards religion. That’s the kind of secularity that doesn’t apply to the founding fathers and I suppose that that’s what Jess was referring to when he said “the country has become more and more secularized”. I’m not saying that he’s wrong here. No doubt there’s been a huge shift in religious thinking and practice from the Puritans until today. But still I have to put a question mark behind his sentence, because there is actually a huge debate on this particular issue in the sociology of religion. I have explained the secularization paradigm in the thread “on secularization”. Sociologists like Steve Bruce would probably agree with Jess and point to the qualitative changes in religious habitus in which he sees a reliable sign of desintegration. People like Roger Finke or Rodney Stark however will disagree, pointing to the ever increasing numbers of church membership and the self estimation of the American people. Sociologically speaking, America is the big exception of the secular rule; the only industrial nation in which religion prevails its social importance. *http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html |
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Post by Alex on Feb 13, 2009 5:29:42 GMT -8
"One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether'."
-Abraham Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address
"The will of God prevails — In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for, and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is somewhat different from the purpose of either party — and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect this. "
-Abraham Lincoln, Meditations on the Divine Will
It would be unreasonable to say that the founding fathers were patently separating God from guidance of the nation. This has traditionally been a distinct separation between the judiciary guarding liberty and the executive setting direction.
A separate but more profound point; a recognition that the question is not which side would God be on, but are we on His side?
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Post by moritz on Feb 13, 2009 7:58:44 GMT -8
It would be unreasonable to say that the founding fathers were patently separating God from guidance of the nation. I didn't say that (in case this was directed at me). The foundingfathers separated church and State, not God and State. Their God wasn't Yahwe though. |
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