[TheRealVille]

^ Are you really trying to put your usual spin onto official US documents now, TRT? Really?

[nky]

Using the Treaty of Tripoli is an interesting angle to say we were not founded on Christian principles.
But someone is misreading what Article 11 is stating It's being used out of context of the period. The United States was a new country when that treaty was signed. We were trying to establish trading partners while trying to set ourselves apart from the European powers of Spain, France, England. Since the Barbary Coast pirates controlled most if not all of the trade in North Africa/Middle East even into Asia Minor we would say anything to appease the Mussulmen of the region. It was about business not religion. Do more reach and see what the US leaders/enforcers of this treaty really felt.

[TheRealVille]

Using the Treaty of Tripoli is an interesting angle to say we were not founded on Christian principles.
But someone is misreading what Article 11 is stating It's being used out of context of the period. The United States was a new country when that treaty was signed. We were trying to establish trading partners while trying to set ourselves apart from the European powers of Spain, France, England. Since the Barbary Coast pirates controlled most if not all of the trade in North Africa/Middle East even into Asia Minor we would say anything to appease the Mussulmen of the region. It was about business not religion. Do more reach and see what the US leaders/enforcers of this treaty really felt.

Go ahead and post something official(not some Christian site trying to explain it away) that says article 11 was just to appease the Mussulmen.

[nky]

Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it - It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
George Washington's Farewell Address

[nky]

Go ahead and post something official(not some Christian site trying to explain it away) that says article 11 was just to appease the Mussulmen.

not from some "Christian" site from my own reason and understanding of the period

[TheRealVille]

Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it - It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
George Washington's Farewell Address

Yes, George Washington believed in God, he was a mason. He was certainly no practicing Christian. Much has been written about his religious views. Your point?

[TheRealVille]

^ You guys will never find where the US is, or ever was a Christian nation. It's impossible, because it never was. Christians had a part in the founding of it, as did men of other religions. All were adamant to leave religion out of it, and let the people decide who they would worship, without the help of government. Just like I can't say this is a Deist nation, because Deists helped to form it, Christians can neither say it.

[nky]

To say we were not founded on Christian Principles is disingenuous. By the way the Treaty of Tripoli was only in effect for 4 years

[TheRealVille]

To say we were not founded on Christian Principles is disingenuous. By the way the Treaty of Tripoli was only in effect for 4 years

Does it matter how long it was in effect? Does that negate what they said about Christian nation? It wasn't founded on Christian principles, though there were Christians that help found it. There were also Deist? Can we say it was founded on Deist principles. Those guys believed in human rights also. If you guys wanted to make it a Christian nation, you should have done it 200 years ago, because it sure isn't happening now. I always have the phrase below to back me, what do you have?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

[nky]

^That means we will not have an official religion like England, France, or Spain. Just like we don't have an official language.

[nky]

Does it matter how long it was in effect? Does that negate what they said about Christian nation? It wasn't founded on Christian principles, though there were Christians that help found it. There were also Deist? Can we say it was founded on Deist principles. Those guys believed in human rights also. If you guys wanted to make it a Christian nation, you should have done it 200 years ago, because it sure isn't happening now. I always have the phrase below to back me, what do you have?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

You do know that Deist believe in God -Right?

[TheRealVille]

You do know that Deist believe in God -Right?

Yea, I am one. I don't think the US is a Deist nation, though.

[TheRealVille]

^That means we will not have an official religion like England, France, or Spain. Just like we don't have an official language.

Right, we aren't a Christian nation. We don't have a religion. We are a secular country, that has people that believe in many different religions. We aren't a Christian nation, but we are a nation that has Christians, along with Deists, Humanists, Unitarians, atheists, Muslims, and countless other religions.

Deist helped put the word "God" in official writings, the same as Christians, and Unitarians did. All believe in a God.

[TheRealVille]

Nature's God is a deist term. Does that make us a deist nation?

Although the Declaration of Independence mentioned “Nature’s God” and the “Creator,” the Constitution made no reference to a divine being, Christian or otherwise, and the First Amendment explicitly forbid the establishment of any official church or creed. There is also a story, probably apocryphal, that Benjamin Franklin’s proposal to call in a chaplain to offer a prayer when a particularly controversial issue was being debated in the Constitutional Convention prompted Hamilton to observe that he saw no reason to call in foreign aid. If there is a clear legacy bequeathed by the founders, it is the insistence that religion was a private matter in which the state should not interfere.

In recent decades Christian advocacy groups, prompted by motives that have been questioned by some, have felt a powerful urge to enlist the Founding Fathers in their respective congregations. But recovering the spiritual convictions of the Founders, in all their messy integrity, is not an easy task. Once again, diversity is the dominant pattern. Franklin and Jefferson were deists, Washington harbored a pantheistic sense of providential destiny, John Adams began a Congregationalist and ended a Unitarian, Hamilton was a lukewarm Anglican for most of his life but embraced a more actively Christian posture after his son died in a duel.

One quasi-religious conviction they all shared, however, was a discernible obsession with living on in the memory of posterity. One reason the modern editions of their papers are so monstrously large is that most of the Founders were compulsively fastidious about preserving every scrap of paper they wrote or received, all as part of a desire to leave a written record that would assure their secular immortality in the history books. (When John Adams and Jefferson discussed the possibility of a more conventional immortality, they tended to describe heaven as a place where they could resume their ongoing argument on earth.) Adams, irreverent to the end, declared that, if it could ever be demonstrated conclusively that no future state existed, his advice to every man, woman, and child was to “take opium.” The only afterlife which they considered certain was in the memory of subsequent generations, which is to say us. In that sense, these very blog posts are a testimonial to their everlasting life.

http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2007/02/...s-beliefs/

[TheRealThing]

No. I don't know what article you are talking about, but it's not one I've read. I posted the official wording from the 5th Congress, I don't give a rat's rear about your conspiracy theory version. We can read the official version, we don't need a Christian sites trying to add a different meaning to suit their needs. 2nd bold: Again, which god? The Christian god? The Deist god? The Unitarian god?


http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html

Well, you can say what you want, this was not just rattling around in your head during all these conversations we've had regarding our national heritage.
The treaty, regardless of who you listen to, is less than a snippet of our historical record and certainly bears no association with our founding documents. As my post reveals, your own left wing brethren did their best to make this mole hill a mountain and it was their research that revealed the only surviving Arabic copy of said treaty doesn't contain article 11 in the body of the text.

In any event, the treaty was authored by Joel Barlow, an American diplomat. Not the product of the Senate or the House. Who is to say why they let this thing get out in the first place? Maybe Barlow convinced them that this one obscure document may help get things settled down in the Middle East. The region remains depressed to this very day and we can only imagine the illiteracy and economic depression of that day. To leap to any conclusion is unsupportable.

In the end, this is much the same kind of an argument the left made about Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists. However, in both of these cases, your left wing zealots aren't too keen on interpreting the text in light of Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom of 1777 ---

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

was drafted in 1777 (though it was not first introduced into the Virginia General Assembly until 1779) by Thomas Jefferson in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. In 1786, the Assembly enacted the statute into the state's law. The statute disestablished the Church of England in Virginia and guaranteed freedom of religion to people of all religious faiths, including Catholics and Jews as well as members of all Protestant denominations. The statute was a notable precursor of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Statute for Religious Freedom is one of only three accomplishments Jefferson instructed to be put in his epitaph.

Partial text of statute

"An Act for establishing religious Freedom.
Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free;

That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do,"


FULL TEXT OF JEFFERSON'S STATUTE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_St...us_Freedom



I found it particularly interesting that Jefferson considered this work so important that only it and two others, were to be put in his epitaph. The arguments of the left are nothing more than clever concoctions of liberals and are intended to deceive and deny the American people their true heritage. All of them are liars and enemies of the state. Who, would gladly rob an entire civilization, possibly the greatest civilization ever, of their true identity in the name of sexual depravity and rebellion against the Almighty. And for the record, Jefferson doesn't seem the least bit confused to me, and speaks with reverential awe, understanding and adoration about the God of this universe in this writing particularly. The founders couldn't put wording like this in the text of the constitution, and therefore, the left seizes on the opportunity to employ one of their favorite tools, that of deception to get their way.

[TheRealThing]

^ Are you really trying to put your usual spin onto official US documents now, TRT? Really?

:biglmao: Just jumping up on a dirt pile doesn't necessarily give you the high ground there RV. So you can drop the self righteous protestations.

[TheRealThing]

^ Are you really trying to put your usual spin onto official US documents now, TRT? Really?

I'd like to show you the original 'whose your daddy' of spin.

Genesis 3:1-5 (KJV)
1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

There you have it. The original spin doctor shows how it's done and at the same time, how gullible folks are and how old a tactic this really is, --- is.

[TheRealVille]

Well, you can say what you want, this was not just rattling around in your head during all these conversations we've had regarding our national heritage.
The treaty, regardless of who you listen to, is less than a snippet of our historical record and certainly bears no association with our founding documents. As my post reveals, your own left wing brethren did their best to make this mole hill a mountain and it was their research that revealed the only surviving Arabic copy of said treaty doesn't contain article 11 in the body of the text.

In any event, the treaty was authored by Joel Barlow, an American diplomat. Not the product of the Senate or the House. Who is to say why they let this thing get out in the first place? Maybe Barlow convinced them that this one obscure document may help get things settled down in the Middle East. The region remains depressed to this very day and we can only imagine the illiteracy and economic depression of that day. To leap to any conclusion is unsupportable.

In the end, this is much the same kind of an argument the left made about Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists. However, in both of these cases, your left wing zealots aren't too keen on interpreting the text in light of Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom of 1777 ---

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

was drafted in 1777 (though it was not first introduced into the Virginia General Assembly until 1779) by Thomas Jefferson in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. In 1786, the Assembly enacted the statute into the state's law. The statute disestablished the Church of England in Virginia and guaranteed freedom of religion to people of all religious faiths, including Catholics and Jews as well as members of all Protestant denominations. The statute was a notable precursor of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Statute for Religious Freedom is one of only three accomplishments Jefferson instructed to be put in his epitaph.

Partial text of statute

"An Act for establishing religious Freedom.
Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free;

That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do,"


FULL TEXT OF JEFFERSON'S STATUTE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_St...us_Freedom



I found it particularly interesting that Jefferson considered this work so important that only it and two others, were to be put in his epitaph. The arguments of the left are nothing more than clever concoctions of liberals and are intended to deceive and deny the American people their true heritage. All of them are liars and enemies of the state. Who, would gladly rob an entire civilization, possibly the greatest civilization ever, of their true identity in the name of sexual depravity and rebellion against the Almighty. And for the record, Jefferson doesn't seem the least bit confused to me, and speaks with reverential awe, understanding and adoration about the God of this universe in this writing particularly. The founders couldn't put wording like this in the text of the constitution, and therefore, the left seizes on the opportunity to employ one of their favorite tools, that of deception to get their way.

Jefferson was a Deist, so his "Almighty God" was the same as mine. "Nature's God" is my God. I don't care who authored the Treaty of Tripoli, the 5th Congress approved it.

[TheRealThing]

Jefferson was a Deist, so his "Almighty God" was the same as mine. "Nature's God" is my God. I don't care who authored the Treaty of Tripoli, the 5th Congress approved it.

Let's see, how did you put it? "It's official, we aren't a Christian nation. We don't have a set "state" religion. I will take official writings over BGR interpretations any day."


Well darn, I guess everybody who thinks America was founded on Christian principles can all go on home now, RV has declared that to be an "official" error. But seriously folks, if Jefferson was a deist one would never know it by his self approved epitaph. It is truly amazing how elaborate a web you guys can weave while trying to justify your own stand against our Creator. The left comes up with this blather about Jefferson being a deist and you accept that at face value because that suits your purpose. And now you and Jefferson are deists?


FWIW, I have yet to hear any person of any stripe, and that includes the clergy, ever indicate that America has or ever had, a "set" state religion.

[Hoot Gibson]

Let's see, how did you put it? "It's official, we aren't a Christian nation. We don't have a set "state" religion. I will take official writings over BGR interpretations any day."


Well darn, I guess everybody who thinks America was founded on Christian principles can all go on home now, RV has declared that to be an "official" error. But seriously folks, if Jefferson was a deist one would never know it by his self approved epitaph. It is truly amazing how elaborate a web you guys can weave while trying to justify your own stand against our Creator. The left comes up with this blather about Jefferson being a deist and you accept that at face value because that suits your purpose. And now you and Jefferson are deists?


FWIW, I have yet to hear any person of any stripe, and that includes the clergy, ever indicate that America has or ever had, a "set" state religion.

Straw man arguments are the only kind that RV has a shot at winning. I don't know anybody who has ever claimed that the United State was founded as a Christian theocracy, and RV has proven that it was never a theocracy beyond reasonable doubt. Of course, there was no doubt to begin with

What he cannot prove is that the U.S. Constitution does not reflect the basic values of its first citizens, who were overwhelmingly Christian.

[TheRealThing]

Straw man arguments are the only kind that RV has a shot at winning. I don't know anybody who has ever claimed that the United State was founded as a Christian theocracy, and RV has proven that it was never a theocracy beyond reasonable doubt. Of course, there was no doubt to begin with

What he cannot prove is that the U.S. Constitution does not reflect the basic values of its first citizens, who were overwhelmingly Christian.

Agreed, no way could anybody who has actually read the Jefferson authored, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom say with a straight face that Jefferson was not a deeply religious man.

Liberals are so used to lying to themselves and others about this matter, they've totally managed to convince, well, themselves lol. Get these guys outside the classroom where the little munchkins don't hang on every word they say and suddenly, they find that they are on less than equal footing.

[TheRealVille]

Agreed, no way could anybody who has actually read the Jefferson authored, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom say with a straight face that Jefferson was not a deeply religious man.

Liberals are so used to lying to themselves and others about this matter, they've totally managed to convince, well, themselves lol. Get these guys outside the classroom where the little munchkins don't hang on every word they say and suddenly, they find that they are on less than equal footing.

Nobody said he wasn't religious. Deists can be as religious as Christians.

[Harry Rex Vonner]

The only president whose religious beliefs are relevant today is Obama. He clearly has no Christian background other than what was necessary for political expediency. I suspect he is, like most of us, a combination of his heredity, environment, and upbringing. He, therefore, would appear to be a combination of Muslim and Secular Humanist.

As for homosexual marriage, I firmly believe that the evidence is unquestionable that it is unnatural. I'm leaving religion out of it. Obviously, humans are made to procreate. Everything else in the relationship between human beings, though vitally important, is secondary to the natural act of procreation. Homosexual marriages are an affront to nature.

Like it or not, that is how I see it- religion aside. Nature is clearly on my side.

[TheRealVille]

The only president whose religious beliefs are relevant today is Obama. He clearly has no Christian background other than what was necessary for political expediency. I suspect he is, like most of us, a combination of his heredity, environment, and upbringing. He, therefore, would appear to be a combination of Muslim and Secular Humanist.

As for homosexual marriage, I firmly believe that the evidence is unquestionable that it is unnatural. I'm leaving religion out of it. Obviously, humans are made to procreate. Everything else in the relationship between human beings, though vitally important, is secondary to the natural act of procreation. Homosexual marriages are an affront to nature.

Like it or not, that is how I see it- religion aside. Nature is clearly on my side.

You forget about the fact that 10%!of the animal world is gay. Natural or not doesn't matter if something in your makeup makes you like the same sex.

[Harry Rex Vonner]

You forget about the fact that 10%!of the animal world is gay. Natural or not doesn't matter if something in your makeup makes you like the same sex.

All that changes nothing. Anything that is not normal is against the natural order. There are many acts and states of mind, some controllable and some not controllable, that are not natural.

I think it is indisputable that the premeditated murder of the child she is carrying prior to its birth is the epitome of an unnatural act. Still, women do it many times each day and do it with the approval of much of society and man's "law". It is still horrendously unnatural.

In the same vein, homosexual marriages, indeed homosexual acts, are unnatural. If ten percent of animals commit homosexual acts, a figure often used but never proven with facts, it is still unnatural. And, we must remember that human beings, not other animals, allegedly have the ability to reason.

I'm not preaching religion. I am merely pointing out what is natural and what is unnatural. I don't think you can honestly dispute it. And, I think we can all agree that this country is moving quickly to condone and legalize that which is unnatural, whether it be killing our babies or homosexuality. We should agree that all this is blatantly unnatural. It is my hope that all who support these abominations and all who sit around and fail to speak out against the carnage pay a devastating price for their rejection of the natural law.

[TheRealVille]

Does the fact that you think it's unnatual to marry the same sex give you the right to deny the right of marriage to all legal aged citizens? How does gays marrying harm you?

[Harry Rex Vonner]

Does the fact that you think it's unnatual to marry the same sex give you the right to deny the right of marriage to all legal aged citizens? How does gays marrying harm you?

If someone murders someone in Florida, that doesn't harm me at all. However, as a civilized human being, I must oppose the act.

Whether or not something directly effects me or you or anyone else is immaterial. I am talking about what is a part of the natural law. Homosexual behavior is clearly not natural.

You can support homosexual behavior and even abortion if you like. However, that doesn't change the fact that such acts are not normal.

I do find it inconsistent that you seem to support homosexuality and abortion but get upset if you believe anyone is the least bit critical of minorities.

[TheRealThing]

You forget about the fact that 10%!of the animal world is gay. Natural or not doesn't matter if something in your makeup makes you like the same sex.

Absurd hogswallow emanating out of the bowls of bias with no way to ever be validated scientifically. The whole notion is the stuff of deceit.

[TheRealThing]

Does the fact that you think it's unnatual to marry the same sex give you the right to deny the right of marriage to all legal aged citizens? How does gays marrying harm you?

I'll start the list.

(1) - Russia, China and the Arab World are laughing us to scorn.

(2) - The so-called fundamental transformation of this land, benefits only a few percent of it's citizenry in direct contradiction to the common good.

(3) - The notion that a people or a country could be, for lack of a better way to put it, genderless, is so profoundly asinine as to defy description.

[SKINNYPIG]

I'll start the list.

(1) - Russia, China and the Arab World are laughing us to scorn.

(2) - The so-called fundamental transformation of this land, benefits only a few percent of it's citizenry in direct contradiction to the common good.

(3) - The notion that a people or a country could be, for lack of a better way to put it, genderless, is so profoundly asinine as to defy description.

We, along with the animal kingdom, could become extinct quickly! But that's cool, it's natural. Right?

"Profoundly asinine" fits perfectly.