FYI re the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment

[RogerCooper]

I assume you're making this claim by going off of the fact that the word "Christianity" specifically isn't there, but we can all interpret it for ourselves.

If a guy with a bomb in his backpack says "Long live Allah", I don't tell people "Well now, we don't know he was Islamic - he didn't specifically say the ISLAM word"

Isaac, the founding documents of the United States are conspicuous in their lack of Christianity. The interesting phrase in the Declaration of Independence is "the Laws of Nature and of a Nature's God", which is a Deist phrase, not Christian.

Lacking direct word from God, there are only human interpretations, which are likely to correspond to the human's prejudices and ulterior motives.

You should check 2 Samuel 21 for an example from the Bible where King David receives by no explained means an instruction from God to kill King Saul's grandchildren, which has "nothing" to do with insuring succession of his own son Solomon.

 

[Isaac]

Isaac, the founding documents of the United States are conspicuous in their lack of Christianity. The interesting phrase in the Declaration of Independence is "the Laws of Nature and of a Nature's God", which is a Deist phrase, not Christian.

Lacking direct word from God, there are only human interpretations, which are likely to correspond to the human's prejudices and ulterior motives.

You should check 2 Samuel 21 for an example from the Bible where King David receives by no explained means an instruction from God to kill King Saul's grandchildren, which has "nothing" to do with insuring succession of his own son Solomon.

Your focus on 2 tiny documents is impressively small for a perspective. Go bigger. Study the writings of the 2 groups that essentially founded this country, the Pilgrims and the Puritans. Both were eminently Christian, brought their Christianity into everything they did (especially ordinances), and specifically intended America to be a place where they could practice their Christianity specifically and have a Biblically-based worldview and resulting societal structure. It is overwhelminly evident in all their writings, practically on every page.

 

[Isaac]

You should check 2 Samuel 21 for an example from the Bible where King David receives by no explained means an instruction from God to kill King Saul's grandchildren, which has "nothing" to do with insuring succession of his own son Solomon

And what about it? Maybe God knew better and maybe these grandchildren would have wrought havoc. In those days, a person in power could wreak a lot of havoc

 

[RogerCooper]

The Puritans and Pilgrims did not found our country. They founded the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies. By the time of independence, people had become much more secular.

 

[RogerCooper]

And what about it? Maybe God knew better and maybe these grandchildren would have wrought havoc. In those days, a person in power could wreak a lot of havoc

The account of King David in the Bible contains many crimes (and that is the pro-David account). Are you suggesting that David's crimes reflect divine inspiration?

 

[Isaac]

The Puritans and Pilgrims did not found our country. They founded the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies. By the time of independence, people had become much more secular.

In essence, they did found our country though.
It's a massive piece of evidence that those who settled America were primarily Christian and sought to normalize those values and socialize them into the broader picture. You have to limit your focus to 2 documents because otherwise your argument fails.

 

[Isaac]

The account of King David in the Bible contains many crimes (and that is the pro-David account). Are you suggesting that David's crimes reflect divine inspiration?

Which ones are you referring to, and why are they "crimes" ?
And why must everyone in the Bible avoid crimes? It's a true story, after all.

 

[RogerCooper]

In essence, they did found our country though.

What about the Virginia colony which started earlier. Or the Dutch in the New Netherlands. Or Connecticut and Rhode Island, both founded by refugees from Puritan rule.

 

[RogerCooper]

Which ones are you referring to, and why are they "crimes" ?
And why must everyone in the Bible avoid crimes? It's a true story, after all.

The murder of Uriah the Hittite. The murder of Absalom. The usurpation of King Saul. Even King David's propagandists couldn't find an excuse for Uriah the Hittite.

David was a mercenary leader who was hired various Philistine cities, and then grabbed control of Israel. He faced constant rebellions. Another Middle Eastern despot.

Even the "historical" parts of the Bible are of questionable historicity. (They were written centuries after the events depicted). However, the account of King David's murders sound like history.

 

[Mike Krailo]

Not sure who that was addressed to, but yeah - He knows that Mike, most people know the majority of the founders held a Christian worldview of some flavor or another, people who deny this have to pretend they don't know the obvious and then ask you for proof.

That was for Doc. I was in the parking lot on my phone so I got lazy.

 

[Isaac]

What about the Virginia colony which started earlier. Or the Dutch in the New Netherlands. Or Connecticut and Rhode Island, both founded by refugees from Puritan rule.

And yet the Puritans and the Pilgrims left their heritage to us, which is why up until just a few years ago (not pre-independence, as you claim), 90% of Americans believed in the God of the Bible.

 

[Isaac]

The murder of Uriah the Hittite. The murder of Absalom. The usurpation of King Saul. Even King David's propagandists couldn't find an excuse for Uriah the Hittite.

David was a mercenary leader who was hired various Philistine cities, and then grabbed control of Israel. He faced constant rebellions. Another Middle Eastern despot.

Even the "historical" parts of the Bible are of questionable historicity. (They were written centuries after the events depicted). However, the account of King David's murders sound like history.

And so what? is God not allowed to tell a story of people doing bad things? I'm not seeing a point

 

[Isaac]

Even the "historical" parts of the Bible are of questionable historicity

Then why are you believing them in saying David committed many crimes?

Sounds like cherry picking the parts of the Bible you'd best like to believe - ergo, doing the same thing you claim I'm doing

 

[The_Doc_Man]

There were no muslim colonist. Thats just ridiculas to even sugest that. It was merely a difference between denomination of believers in the God of the bible.

Who gives a ding-dong that there were no Muslim colonists? I never claimed there were - for the 13 original colonies. My objection is that a theocracy (and as recently shown, also a bureaucracy) leads to an authoritarian government that doesn't allow room for variant beliefs. My reference to Islam is because we have not just one or two but SEVERAL countries in the world today who have devolved into a theocracy, so we can EASILY see how that works. Particularly if you are not in favor with the theocratic majority. It's not a pretty sight. Can you learn from someone else's mistakes? Because those mistakes are there for all of us to see.

You want to believe in God? Fine. Do so. I'm not stopping you. But when you want to push theistic laws onto people who don't share your particular theism, that is where you cross the line. This is a fractal case... the same thing happens for the microcosm as would happen for the macrocosm. Back in the founding era? Just a few rogue/refugee groups tried to escape the powerful and not too forgiving Anglican Church. Now we recognize over 1200 Christian sects alone. Officially pushing a particular flavor of theism would be explosive today because there is no place left to go (at least until we develop functionally practical space travel.)

 

[Isaac]

It was a little like the abortions that the left is so fond of

That's another strange situation. To hear the panic that liberals use when they talk about abortion, you would seriously, honestly, think, all else being equal, that they literally didn't know how babies were made.

After 50 years of the most explicit sex education the world had ever seen, do they still not get it? Babies come from people having sex with each other. It is a totally preventable condition. (Now please don't bring up to me some pink headed toad in Malaysia that can have a baby without sex).
To hear them talk, you would think that if you are a poor woman of color, babies are just flying out of you like a batting machine, with no way for poor you to turn off the spigot.

You'd think with all the sex education, it would do what it was designed to do - to give people more information , ergo, autonomy over their decisions and the obvious outcomes. Yet when they talk about abortion, it sounds like it did nothing - and perhaps even had the opposite effect (who'd of thunk? - conservatives, that's who)

It's just more liberal drivel that starts, continues, and ends with zero personal responsibility. Let the State be your grand protector.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Pat, be aware that there are occasional "whoops" cases even with regular birth control pills. My 2nd grandson was a "whoops" because there are stress-related and illness-related situations where "the pill" doesn't stop pregnancy. We believe that #2 came along because of stress hormones that canceled the hormones in the pill.

AND for the record we dearly love BOTH grandkids. We don't care that #2 was a "whoops" because he is a good kid, well behaved, smart as a whip (as that old saying goes), studious, honest, and has a good work ethic. #1 grandson is a trip in his own right and we enjoy him too. Both boys were raised with a strong but fair parental environment.

 

[Isaac]

Prior to Roe v. Wade the ability to have an abortion legally was much more important due to the unavailability of reliable birth control (condoms don't count since men refuse to wear them). The pill was new but available only by prescription and only to married women. If you were single, unless you had a very liberal doctor, you were not getting a prescription. Today, birth control pills are virtually free and a prescription is easy to get. Even the morning after pill which actually causes abortions is readily available. There are also medical devices for women who can't use the prescription pills for some reason.

I forgot to mention this aspect - and I totally agree. Prior to contraception, I'd have a lot more sympathy because obviously it's that much harder to control. Still, something is 'off' when liberals discuss it as if there were absolutely no known cure to becoming pregnant.

 

[Isaac]

Pat, be aware that there are occasional "whoops" cases even with regular birth control pills. My 2nd grandson was a "whoops" because there are stress-related and illness-related situations where "the pill" doesn't stop pregnancy. We believe that #2 came along because of stress hormones that canceled the hormones in the pill.

AND for the record we dearly love BOTH grandkids. We don't care that #2 was a "whoops" because he is a good kid, well behaved, smart as a whip (as that old saying goes), studious, honest, and has a good work ethic. #1 grandson is a trip in his own right and we enjoy him too. Both boys were raised with a strong but fair parental environment.

My second child, our son and last child, was a bit of a surprise (I mean, as I said before, not really because we were having unprotected sex my wife and I, so I can't claim 'surprise' - and yet we were indifferent to birth control, so it was left to chance) as well.

After that, we decided 2 kids provided more than enough joy + work and were perfect for each other, and I got fixed. I was shocked that it was such an easy, quick procedure and wondered why I hadn't heard more about it or it being more popular. No need for my wife to be on perpetual birth control when I was able to have a 10 minute procedure that solved the issue for life.

Of course, such a simplistic approach to the issue only really works well within the paradigm of one life, one wife, one marriage, etc.
For people on and off the relationship boat in a frenetic or disorganized way, it wouldn't work as well.

Lifetime marriages provide dozens and dozens of benefits. You only start realizing how many as the decades go by! I feel bad for those not within such a thing because they are really missing out and life is SOOO much more complicated.

 

[RogerCooper]

For the first 150 years of our Republic, immigration was largely unlimited. The United States prospered greatly as a result.

I will condemn government interference in the free flow of labor as immoral, even if the Communist wing of the Republican party thinks that the government should have final say in every business and personal decision.

 

[Isaac]

For the first 150 years of our Republic, immigration was largely unlimited

Do you not understand Time and Space?