Posted on 10/23/2007 8:06:54 AM PDT by goldstategop
John McCain -- not my idea of a Constitutional scholar - nevertheless stumbled upon something significant in the course of a recent interview: that America was built on a foundation of Christian morality.
The Presidential hopeful put his foot in it, in an interview with the website Beliefnet ("it" being the increasingly shrill assertion that this nation was established on a secularist worldview and that the best exemplars of the American way are the ACLU, Hollywood and the Gay, Lesbian and Trans-gendered Caucus).
McCain told the interviewer, "But I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, personally, I prefer someone who I know has a solid grounding in my faith," to lead the nation.
Like the prospect of hanging in the morning, running fourth in the polls does much to concentrate the mind.
McCain said he agreed with the 55% of Americans who believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation, according to a poll released by the First Amendment Center last month.
The Senator observed, "The Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation ... in the broadest sense," and that, while Lady Liberty standing in New York harbor welcomes all regardless of creed, newcomers should "know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles."
McCain is genetically incapable to saying anything sensible without adding a dollop of dumbness, hence the Arizonan's homage to political correctness,"I admire the Islam. There's a lot of good principles in it." Like, for instance - jihad, the inferior status of "infidels" in a Muslim society, the subjugation of women? But I-admire-Islam is a ritualistic incantation (akin to "Islam is a religion of peace"). Any attempt at elaboration would expose its inanity.
That qualifier (along with McCain's assurance that he could vote for a qualified Muslim for President) didn't shield him from a firestorm of criticism.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokes-thug for the Council on American Islamic Relations (an un-indicted co-conspirator in a recent federal terrorism trial) charged, "That kind of attitude goes against the American tradition of religious pluralism and inclusion."
Hooper (who belongs in the special "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World") also insisted, "Islam and other faiths have their basis in human dignity." Well, at least he got the "other faiths" part right.
Abu Hooper should have driven home his point by mentioning all of the Muslim countries which have come to be synonymous with the concept of human dignity - Iraq (which won't allow Jews to emigrate), Saudi Arabia (where it's illegal to openly practice a religion other than Islam), Pakistan (where insulting the Prophet is punishable by death), the Sudan (where Christians are butchered in droves), Kosovo (where those Christians left after the Muslim takeover live in a state of siege) and so forth.
A friend of mine, an Egyptian lawyer and a nominal Muslim, told me he was asked to give a lecture to an American audience on religious tolerance in the Muslim world. "I told them there was none," he chuckled.
While Hooper believes the observation that America is a Christian nation is the height of intolerance, he longs for the day when minarets dot the American landscape, the muezzins' call to prayer drowns out choirs at Sunday services and we all live under the code of the Koran.
In a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Hooper confessed, "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future." Human dignity, here we come! And ladies, don't forget to pick up your mandatory burqas in several stylish shades of black.
McCain's comments also provoked ire of Ira N. Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council. (How proud he must be of his party's embrace of notorious anti-Semites like Al Sharpton, and its desire for a dialogue with Ahmadinejad.)
"Someone running for President ought to understand the Constitution a little better," Forman sneered. "Nowhere does it say the United States is a 'Christian' nation. How can we trust someone to uphold the Constitution who doesn't even know what's in it?"
Nowhere does the Constitution say that there's a high and impregnable wall of separation between church and state. That hasn't kept liberals like Forman from repeatedly reading those words into the Constitution over the last 60 years.
Guess only the left gets to engage in Constitutional exegesis. ..
Our Constitution ends with these words (which come just before the signatories), "Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the 17th day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand, seven hundred and eighty-seven...."
Who does Forman think the drafters of the Constitution were referring to as "our Lord" - Allah, Buddha, Krishna, The Great Pumpkin? The signers were declaring that Jesus was their Lord, and - by implication - that the government they had just established reflected the tenets of their faith.
Take a stroll through U.S. history and try not tripping over evidence of America's Christian heritage.
* In a 1776 message to his troops, George Washington expressed the hope "that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becoming a Christian soldier, defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country." In 1778, the Commander-In-Chief directed that "Divine service" be performed on Sunday morning.
* In 1799, a Connecticut court proclaimed, "By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all denominations of Christians are placed on the same equal footing."
* In 1845, Supreme Court Associate Justice Joseph Story, author of a famous treatise on the Constitution, observed that at the time of its adoption, it was "the general if not the universal sentiment in America, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State...."
* An 1854 report of the Senate Judiciary Committee acknowledged what was considered a truism, "The great, vital, and conservative element in our system (the thing that holds the American system together) is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
* In an 1892 case, the Supreme Court held: "Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise, and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian." As late as 1931, another Supreme Court would declare, "We are a Christian people."
* Woodrow Wilson told a campaign rally in 1911, "America was born a Christian nation." Harry Truman -- who assured Pope Pius XII "This is a Christian nation" - agreed. So did Truman's predecessor. Throughout World War II, FDR appealed to Christianity to justify the Allied cause.
* According to Forman then, for most of our history, neither Presidents, nor Congressmen nor Supreme Court justices knew what was in the Constitution.
* Every President of the United States has taken his oath of office on the Christian Bible. To emphasize the connection between our government and that book, our first President kissed the Bible after swearing to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
* The first Congress appropriated sums of money for Christian missionaries to American Indian tribes. After passing the First Amendment, it voted a salary for a Congressional chaplain. It wasn't until the Civil War that a non-Christian gave an invocation at an opening a session of Congress.
* And, it wasn't until the 1947 case of Everson v. Board of Education that the U.S. Supreme Court got the barmy notion that the First Amendment erected a "a wall of separation between Church and state" - words not used by the Amendment, which speaks of an "establishment of religion."
* Prior to that, Americans understood the First Amendment the way the Founders intended. Webster's 1828 Dictionary (published less than 40 years after the adoption of the Bill of Rights) defines an "Establishment of Religion" as "an ecclesiastical authority, as in the Anglican Church in England."
* Up to the era of creative jurisprudence, the First Amendment was never taken to exclude non-denominational school prayer, Bible reading in the classroom, "one nation under God," "in God we trust," public displays on the 10 Commandments, and creches in parks at Christmas, among other mild manifestations of our heritage.
That McCain, once the darling of the establishment media, should be savaged here is predictable. ("McCain Casts Muslims as Less Fit to Lead" read the headline in a New York Times story on the controversy.) The idea of America as a Christian nation is at the heart of the culture war.
The concept of Christian America has profound implications for the political tug-of-war over abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning, gay marriage, hate crimes legislation, pornography, sex education and other issues whose outcome will determine our survival as a free people.
In politics, as in the physical world, nature abhors a vacuum. Everything must be something.
If America isn't a Christian (or a Judeo-Christian) nation, what is it to be - a Muslim nation, a Marxist nation, a nation inspired by the French Revolution, the Humanist Manifesto II or "The Earth In Balance" (prequel to "An Inconvenient Truth")? A survey of the 20th century - with particular attention to Europe, Asia, the Middle East and San Francisco - will show how successfully those belief systems have worked in terms of promoting human dignity.
The same Father of our Country who commended Christian values to his soldiers and ordered Sunday services, who kissed the Christian Bible after taking the oath of office, and who commented, "To the distinguished character of a patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of a Christian," wrote a letter in 1790 to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island that exemplifies human dignity and individual rights, American-style.
In it, this Christian gentleman assured the members of the Truro Synagogue that: "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving on all occasions their effectual support."
Similar sentiments were never expressed by a Muslim ruler, in the 18th or any other century.
That's what this Hebrew congregant thinks of when he hears interminable whining over the words "Christian America."
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
“A friend of mine, an Egyptian lawyer and a nominal Muslim, told me he was asked to give a lecture to an American audience on religious tolerance in the Muslim world. “I told them there was none,” he chuckled. “
Saudi Arabia - Conversion by a Muslim to another religion is punishable by death. Bibles are illegal. Churches are illegal. Easter celebrations are illegal. It is punishable by death for a non-mulsim to enter the “holy” muslim cities of Medina and Mecca.
Yemen - Bans proselytizing by non-Muslims and forbids conversions. The Government does not allow the building of new non-Muslim places of worship.
Kuwait - Registration and licensing of religious groups. Members of religions not sanctioned in the Koran may not build places of worship. Prohibits organized religious education for religions other than Islam.
Egypt - Islam is the official state religion and primary source of legislation. Accordingly, religious practices that conflict with Islamic law are prohibited. Muslims may face legal problems if they convert to another faith (up to and including death). Requires non-Muslims to obtain what is now a presidential decree to build a place of worship.
Algeria - The law prohibits public assembly for purposes of practicing a faith other than Islam. Non-Islamic proselytizing is illegal, and the Government restricts the importation of non-Islamic literature for distribution. The country has passed the “Regulation of Religious Practice” law, which stipulates a punishment of two to five years’ imprisonment and heavy fines for anyone convicted of urging a Muslim to change his religion.
Syria - The constitution requires the president to be a Muslim and specifies that Islamic jurisprudence is a principal source of legislation. Sharing your Christian faith is discouraged as “posing a threat to the relations among religious groups” and carries a penalty of up to life in prison. A Christian is not allowed to proselytize – ever. Churches who want to hold an extra service must get a government permit. Sermons are routinely monitored, as is church fundraising.
Jordan - Has the death penalty for any Muslim selling land to a Jew.
Sudan - Conversion by a Muslim to another religion is punishable by death.
Pakistan - Conversion by a Muslim to another religion is punishable by death. Bans proselytizing by non-Muslims. Christians regularly put in prison for charges of blasphemy. Islam is the state religion, and in a court of law the testimony of a Christian carries less weight than that of a Muslim. Section 295(c) of the Penal Code calls for a death sentence for anyone who defiles the name of the Prophet Muhammad and requires the testimony of four Muslims for a conviction. This fosters an environment in which Muslims can feel free to use intimidation and violence against religious minorities for personal gain. Also, if any criminal Muslim rape with any Christian female and then take plea that she has accepted Islam and marry with him. Such person is not culpable under Pakistani criminal law
Qatar - Islamic instruction is compulsory in public schools. The government regulates the publication, importation, and distribution of non-Islamic religious literature. The government continues to prohibit proselytizing of Muslims by non-Muslims.
Malaysia - Under Malaysian law, any convert to Christianity must apply to a shariah (Muslim law) court to legally renounce Islam. Many Christians prefer to remain silent converts rather than take their battle to the shariah courts, where apostasy or conversion out of Islam is punishable by whipping, fines, imprisonment and—in the most extreme application—death. In a country where Muslims account for more than half of the population, conversion from Islam is punished with a 5-year prison sentence and a $3,000 fine. A Malaysian Muslim who marries a non-Muslim and who converts the non-Muslim to Islam is rewarded with an apartment, a car, a one-time payment of $2,700, and a monthly stipend of $270.
The Maldives - In the island paradise visited by tens of thousands of tourists each year, Christianity is simply not tolerated. While local Christians – said to number around 300 out of a total population of 300,000 – do get together to worship, they do so at the risk of imprisonment or worse if discovered by the Muslim authorities. Bibles are banned, and tourists can be arrested for trying to bring them into the country.
England - Bradford, Yorkshire, UK. Pop. 300,000 - 20% Islamic. Local police required to tell community elders the location of girls who run away to escape arranged marriages. Bars and liquor stores in the Lumb Lane / Manningham Lane area of the city ‘requested’ to close on Fridays. Schools, colleges, and health clinics have to have separate areas for women, with a copy of the Koran available. Public critcism of Islam or it’s adherents, such as letters to the local paper, emails to friends, speeches etc, can and has led to criminal charges ‘Using words intentionally and wilfully to cause fear, hate, or distress. Christmas decorations not to be put up, as this may make the Moslems feel ‘culturally overshadowed’. Shops ‘requested’ not to display easter eggs for the same reason. The term ‘requested’ means not legally enforceable but local police warn that they cannot intervene if your premises get ‘damaged’ somehow. Local councillors and MPs have encouraged all this for the past 15 years. Bradford Northwest MP Ann Cryer regularly appears with long sleeves and her head covered. She once stated that women in Islam are properly liberated and that Islam is an example to us all.
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Where did you find the info in your post?
About 50% from the US State Department (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/hr/). The other half from credible newspaper articles.
OK, I’ll have a look. Thank you.
You have this in many continental European countries, too. Just goes to show that true freedom of religion is a rare and precious thing indeed, found in America and little elsewhere.
There isn't a different "true religion" for every country, and only an atheist would consider religion a local mythology serving utilitarian purposes. All that matters is what G-d says. If G-d commands something, it is mandatory. If He forbids it, it is forbidden--regardless of any nation's heritage.
I've long bemoaned Jews who demand a relativism of chr*stianity that Judaism itself forbids. Now chr*stians are getting to practice the same hypocrisy vis a vis islam.
No wonder the leftists always say the “Constitution” doesn’t say “God or Christian”
Because we were founded based on the Declaration of Independence and it is pretty clear that God was all over it.
“
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.
“
They wouldn’t have revolted if not that God told them to do so and helped.
God said through His Only Begotten Son... “these things need be... that cup of wrath is about full...
The U.S.A. has been a Christian nation throughout its history and is today, and its preceding English colonies were also--every one of them: A tolerant Christian nation, but a Christian nation nevertheless.
Anyone with a brain and an open mind--the information is available to all--knows this and is also familiar with the horrors and evil resulting from religious misguidedness, intolerance, and perversion in the past:
Okay: Religious wars. Torture chambers in the name of religion. Persecution of infidels. Et al.
and existing in the world even today:
Okay: Religious wars. Torture chambers in the name of religion. Persecution of infidels. Stoning of adulterers. Slavery sanctioned by religion. Mass murder and suicide in the name of religion. Apostasy as a capital crime. Et al.
If my understanding of the history is correct, the Knights Templar, upon returning to Europe from the Middle East, only to be destroyed as an order by corrupt so-called "Christian" representatives of a corrupt "Christian" church in collusion with the corrupt and evil King Philip IV of France, to have their wealth confiscated, to be persecuted ruthlessly on trumpted up charges of heresy, to be driven underground, and to have many of their order tortured and burned to death (one Templar "witness" was presented at one of the trials with his feet burned off under torture and the ashes in a sack on his abdomen--the sort of thing attributable to religious perversion and intolerance), and driven underground, concluded that the Muslims, with whom they had been at war for more than two centuries, were more merciful than the corrupt so-called "Christians" of Europe, and they championed religious tolerance from their underground operations, possibly as Free Masons.
All of that said and understood, it should be recognized that the U.S.A. is a Christian nation.
The United States has lead the way and set the example for the people of the world in justice and tolerance.
It was the American Civil Rights Revolution that proscribed racism and racial intolerance throughout the world.
The entire American Experiment has lead the way throughout the world for liberty, justice, democracy, and universal human rights.
The time has come for the U.S. to lead the way in acknowledging the Greek concept of nemesis: that any good thing, taken sufficiently to its extreme, becomes a bad thing, viz. the nemesis of the good thing, often its opposite.
Tolerance is no exception.
Some nations, notably in Western Europe, have taken tolerance to such an extreme that they have become incapable of protecting the very liberties, tolerance, justice, democracy, and human rights that they so rightly cherish. Tolerance has become its nemesis.
It is past time for a more profound understanding of tolerance--and its nemesis.
It's time for the United States to lead the way again.
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