Christians VS Democracy??

[Karlin]

Will America declare itself to be "A Christian nation" , constitutionally?

Canada has allready declared separation of church and state and made it law, so the christians won't be declaring Canada "a christian nation" anytime soon. The USA has some small notions of separation of C and S, but it is being rejected by some states and juritictions where rabid christianty is evident.


I happened to see one of those TV Preacher personalities today, he was blasting us with a message that said over and over "We ARE a Christian Nation!!". He went on to say "I talked to the Cree Reservation yesterday, and they declared themselves to be 'A christian Nation". He mentioned a few foreign nations that have made the same proclamation.

They really believe it is a movement gaining ground, despite the truth - christianity is less popular now than 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago. Only Islam has increased it's numbers in the past decades, and athiesm has gained the most numbers, all other religions have lost numbers. The christians really do believe christianity is growing, and anyone who watches the major media will also believe christianity is growing, domninating in numbers of members - but its is just not true.

Problem is, it is a semi-isolated group saying "We Are a Christian Nation", they are well defined, and define themselves, as Christians. What about democracy that says I also get to say "what we are".?? - The christians are simply hijacking the democratic process, like terrorists against democracy, and using coersion to get this declaration.


Separate church and state was enacted because it would eliminate wars against the various religions.
What was happending was that one religion would get enough elected officals to make life miserable for other religions, and then the other religions revolt. We might see this soon in the USA if the Christians keep pushing their agenda on others.

On a global scle, one imperialistic nation spreading the gospel of christianity abroad could incite another world war. Currently it looks like Islam VS Christians.

Historically, it doesn't matter who was fighting who, it is all religious wars being fought on the basis of one or another god being the real one ina contaxt where niether god will be "proven", since, in all likelyhood, they don't exist. All this without one concrete sign of gods existence.... this species is really bonkers man. {I choose athiesm, as a way to gain god's favour, lol [since god would be pretty pisssed at the goings on here now, sinning in his name etc., if there were a god.]


Hey - The Conservative Party of Canada closely aligned with christianity isn't it?

 

[angelhome]

All the laws came originally from the 10 Commandments, the Bible for those who don't know what that is.
Now-a-days the laws are fast disappearing to allow most anything, if you are rich, or a politician........
or can afford a good lawyer to get you off.
No wonder they want to get rid of the Church in government, then they can really do whatever they want.
There is a God, and His word is true.
It is sad so many will find out too late.
Politics and Church are very related, just look back as to how they all came together in the first place.
I ask "Why are some so afraid of the connection?"

 

[Reverend Blair]

All the laws came originally from the 10 Commandments, the Bible for those who don't know what that is.

That's not true. Most of our laws came from British commonlaw, much of which predates Christianity in the region. Moreover, all societies tend to have similar laws whether they have a history of Christianity or not.

or can afford a good lawyer to get you off.

I'm kind of partial to that little brunette one on The Practice. She can get me off whenever she wants.

No wonder they want to get rid of the Church in government, then they can really do whatever they want.

The church has no place in government.

There is a God, and His word is true.

Prove it. Scientifically.

Politics and Church are very related, just look back as to how they all came together in the first place.

No actually. Politics predates the church by several thousand years.

I ask "Why are some so afraid of the connection?"

Common sense, an understanding of democracy, a knowledge of history, a grasp of basic science. Take your pick.

 

[pastafarian]

My own view is to give people the benefit of the doubt when they say :

There is a God

I can accept that as a working hypothesis, although most people who start with that explicit assumption tend to define "God" in terms that make the existence of the Easter Bunny seem more likely. The second part ngives me more trouble, i.e.

His word is true

.

How do we go about PROVING that the Koran is true? Even though it is the only holy book dictated to man by Allah in its entirety, how do we know for sure that Mohammed didn't misunderstand, misquote or interpolate?

Of course discussion of the truth of the Word of God don't have much bearing on Christianity, but then Christianity and Democracy don't have much to do with each other either since hardly any of the societies (e.g. Ancient Greeks, Iroquois Nation) which have experimented with democracy have been Christian.

The historical link between capitalism and institutional Christianity is better established, despite the fact that Jesus was clearly socialist...oh well, strange bedfellows and all that...

 

[peapod]

Book of myths....the tooth fairy has just as much credibility...and he/she does not exist! I know...I waited up...turns out...it was my papa

 

[pastafarian]

Maybe the tooth fairy just didn't like YOU, peapod. Every time I left a tooth under MY pillow, I'd have a shiny quarter in the morning when I woke up, and I would have heard my parents, so it wasn't THEM. The tooth fairy has never failed my kids, either.

 

[Vanni Fucci]

Book of myths....the tooth fairy has just as much credibility...and he/she does not exist! I know...I waited up...turns out...it was my papa

8O

When I was 8 years old, I woke up to find some strange guy with his hand under my pillow...I promptly jumped up and cracked him across the eyes with my Louisville Slugger that I kept onhand for just such occasions...well the dude dashed out my bedroom window and ran squealing into the night...

I'm so sorry pea, I didn't know that was your papa...

 

[peapod]

Well he gets around... and instead of a shiny quarter, I gots a dollar.....the price for me silence :wink: 5 dollars when I questioned how santa came down a chimmey that we did not have..... :twisted:

 

[unclepercy]

All the laws came originally from the 10 Commandments, the Bible for those who don't know what that is.

That's not true. Most of our laws came from British commonlaw, much of which predates Christianity in the region. Moreover, all societies tend to have similar laws whether they have a history of Christianity or not.

or can afford a good lawyer to get you off.

Rev is correct when he says that most of our laws (in the US too)
are derived from British commonlaw. Even our Constitution.

There is a God, and His word is true.

Prove it. Scientifically.

Rev: Prove the theory of relativity. Religiously. Same thing.

Percy

 

[Reverend Blair]

Rev: Prove the theory of relativity. Religiously. Same thing.

An invisible man in the sky told me.

There, I've presented religious proof.

 

[GL Schmitt]

. . . Rev: Prove the theory of relativity. . .

Relative to Reverend Blair, you are wrong, unclepercy. :lol:

 

[unclepercy]

Rev: Prove the theory of relativity. Religiously. Same thing.

An invisible man in the sky told me.

There, I've presented religious proof.

I'm afraid we will have to have that on paper in triplicate.
Plus notarized signatures.

Percy

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Christians VS Democra

I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours.

 

[unclepercy]

. . . Rev: Prove the theory of relativity. . .

Relative to Reverend Blair, you are wrong, unclepercy. :lol:

I wouldn't be so sure of that, kitty.

Uncle

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Christians VS Democra

You could remove the excess magenta from the photograph in PhotoShop, Uncle.

 

[pastafarian]

An invisible man in the sky told me.
There, I've presented religious proof.

I always get creeped out by statements, religious or not, that presume to some sort of epistemological purity.

The intelligent theists I know --and they're not as few as one might think, they just tend to make the error of dismissing their louder fanatical cousins because fundies tend to be soo dumb-- are aware that all religious belief is based on faith.

It is both arrogant and naive to think that a nodding acquaintance with the rules of logic and evidence is the sum total of means by which valid mental representations of the Universe are built.

Adult faith is not a belief in things for which there is no evidence. rather it is the acknowledgement that human senses and reason, while powerful, are fallible and limited in scope. Almost all of what even the most educated and well-travelled of us believe is second-hand. Very few of us can design or interpret the experiments whose results we believe implicitly when we say relativity or quantum mechanics is true. In fact very few have the mathematical sophistication to know whether they're not all just a con game, even with the original research articles in front of them.
Can you prove Julius Caesar existed? I'd like to see it. There is more evidence for the existence of unicorns than for that of Jesus Christ, man or God. Quarks are ideas, just like God. "Electron" is just a buzzword for a few contradictory phenomena (photoelectric effect and electron diffraction), no one has actually seen one.

The logic that suggests we let all carriers of AIDS die, that the rich ought to do nothing for the poor, that the congenitally handicapped should be euthanized, and that might makes right is unassailable.

Logically, the poetry , drama, fiction or movies of ______(fill in your favourite Artiste), are no more valid as an art form than child pornography (as long as we kill the children so that the cycle of abuse doesn't leak out of its artisitic community).

We experience the world only after it has been truncated aurally by ears that only hear a small range of frequencies and eyes that register only a few wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation and a brain that can only produces perceptions of colour with reference to other colours, if it doesn't just make them up. This woefully limited sense data is then filtered through a mess of preconceptions, conditioning, simplifications and assumptions, where it is converted into idealised representations specifically chosen for the ease with which they can be manipulated according to more-or-less arbitrary symbol-processing algorithms like syllogism and the like.

Conclusions are then accepted or rejected according to aesthetic criteria that depend on the conditioning the mammal has received over its relatively limited life experience.

And you people know that the validity or non-validity of the result hinges on whether or not there is room in the mental representation for constructs which transcend this pathetic dust particle of Awareness? :roll: :lol: :lol: :lol:

The scientific method is but one of many ways which we gather knowledge of our existence and pure reason is only applicable to a small number of real life problems. Empiricism helps, but you rarely know if you've got a control situation with which you can compare results.

Since you can't prove that there is no God, all that can be said is that you CHOOSE not to belive in God. And hey, that's cool with me, but let's not try to make it into a badge of honor.

Beliefs about God, either for or against, are like rectums: everybody's got one.

 

[Nascar_James]

Will America declare itself to be "A Christian nation" , constitutionally?

There is really no need to note the relationship we have between Church and state within our constitution, Karlin. It is a noted fact since we already have the statement "One Nation Under God Indivisible" witin our Pledge of Allegiance which is a part of our constitution. Just as Canada prefers to maintain an interface between Queen and state, we prefer to maintain an interface between church and state. Not forgetting that on Canada's side, the Queen is also the head of the church of England.

Our relationship with the church is noted in our everyday lives. Two notable examples are the US Pledge of Allegiance, and the US Declaration of Independence. Our motto, "God Bless America" is another indication. In addition, our currency has "In God We Trust" on it. Not to mention our courts requirement to swear under oath when on the stand.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Christians VS Democra

I ran through the many examples left by your founding fathers proving your were wrong about that, Nascar Nero.

Pastafarian: I tend to refer to my atheism as a belief since I cannot prove that god does not exist. Still, there is no real evidence that any sort of deity does exist. Since we have to exist in the physical world, insistence on a non-physical deity that we should pay homage to is silly. We'd be better off paying homage to Eric Clapton, since there is at least some evidence of his existence and some people choose to believe that he's a god. They are wrong, of course...Jeff Beck is a god, Eric Clapton is just a guitar picker. ;-)

 

[Nascar_James]

Re: RE: Christians VS Democra

I ran through the many examples left by your founding fathers proving your were wrong about that

Well Rev, our Pledge of Allegiance is rather short and has reference to God. Here it is in it's entirety ...

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Here's an exerpt from the US Declaration of Independence ...

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 amung these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

 

[Nascar_James]

Re: RE: Christians VS Democra

Ooops double post ...