Posted on 02/16/2003 2:16:43 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:09:08 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WASHINGTON - In the midst of a war on terrorism and before a war in Iraq, two combatants are not shy about invoking the name of God.
And both President Bush and Osama bin Laden fervently assert that God is on their side.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
This offends me to core. Bastards.
I couldn't agree more. Look what happens when people don't have faith to guide them through the uncertain times in their lives. We need leaders who lead.
Consider also if our President didn't refer to God and Faith in leading our nation. Would young people (or anyone for that matter) think that God and faith were equated with the actions of terrorists, if the only time they heard the term "God" was in reference to evil propoganda? People look to faith and to God, the question is is where will they hear about it?
I'm with you on that.
Christianity is nowhere mentioned in our Constitution.
Let's leave religion to our Churches to promote.
"This nation is founded and based on a faith in God."
In God yes...not Jesus Christ.
The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists. Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution. Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws. The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible.
Bump!
God forbid America should have an American-centric President. And one who is certain he's right? Why, why, why...that's appalling! [Sputter, cough.]
From Article VII
"Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven..."
Just which LORD do you think they were referring to when they unanimously placed those words into our founding document?
1) I know it ticks off leftists. Even policies that don't appeal to me personally gain a certain charm when I imagine the ACLU gnashing its teeth and rending its clothes over it.
2) I know that few atheists feel they have any moral authority to fight for America. I'm one of those few, but we are rarer than pro-Israel communists. Christians, however, DO feel confident in their right and duty to protect this country. So I'm perfectly happy with my Christian Cowboy president. Really, my only complaint is that he's not Right Wing enough.
Here are a couple of quotes which, I am sure, have not made your list:
"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man." Alexander Hamilton
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." Patrick Henry
"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed." Patrick Henry
Whatever else it might turn out to be, the Convention would not be a `Barebone's Parliament.' Although it had its share of strenuous Christians like Strong and Bassett, ex-preachers like Baldwin and Williamson, and theologians like Johnson and Ellsworth, the gathering at Philadelphia was largely made up of men in whom the old fires were under control or had even flickered out. Most were nominally members of one of the traditional churches in their part of the country--the New Englanders Congregationalists, and Presbyterians, the Southerners Episcopalians, and the men of the Middle States everything from backsliding Quakers to stubborn Catholics--and most were men who could take their religion or leave it along. Although no one in this sober gathering would have dreamed of invoking the Goddess of Reason, neither would anyone have dared to proclaim that his opinions had the support of the God of Abraham and Paul. The Convention of 1787 was highly rationalist and even secular in spirit" ("The Men of Philadelphia," 1787 The Grand Convention, New York W. W. Norton & Company, 1987, pp. 147-148, emphasis added).
Needless to say, this view of the religious beliefs of the constitutional delegates differs radically from the picture that is often painted by modern fundamentalist leaders.
At the constitutional convention, Luther Martin a Maryland representative urged the inclusion of some kind of recognition of Christianity in the constitution on the grounds that "it would be at least decent to hold out some distinction between the professors of Christianity and downright infidelity or paganism." How ever, the delegates to the convention rejected this proposal and, as the Reverend Bird Wilson stated in his sermon quoted above, drafted the constitution as a secular document. God was nowhere mentioned in it.
As a matter of fact, the document that was finally approved at the constitutional convention mentioned religion only once, and that was in Article VI, Section 3, which stated that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." Now if the delegates at the convention had truly intended to establish a "Christian nation," why would they have put a statement like this in the constitution and nowhere else even refer to religion?
Common sense is enough to convince any reasonable person that if the intention of these men had really been the formation of a "Christian nation," the constitution they wrote would have surely made several references to God, the Bible, Jesus, and other accouterments of the Christian religion, and rather than expressly forbidding ANY religious test as a condition for holding public office in the new nation, it would have stipulated that allegiance to Christianity was a requirement for public office. After all, when someone today finds a tract left at the front door of his house or on the windshield of his car, he doesn't have to read very far to determine that its obvious intention is to further the Christian religion. Are we to assume, then, that the founding fathers wanted to establish a Christian nation but were so stupid that they couldn't write a constitution that would make their purpose clear to those who read it?
Clearly, the founders of our nation intended government to maintain a neutral posture in matters of religion. Anyone who would still insist that the intention of the founding fathers was to establish a Christian nation should review a document written during the administration of George Washington.
Article 11 of the Treaty with Tripoli declared in part that "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion..." This treaty was negotiated by the American diplomat Joel Barlow during the administration of George Washington. Washington read it and approved it, although it was not ratified by the senate until John Adams had become president. When Adams signed it, he added this statement to his signature "Now, be it known, that I, John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said treaty, do, by and within the consent of the Senate, accept, ratify and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof."
This document and the approval that it received from our nation's first and second presidents and the U. S. Senate as constituted in 1797 do very little to support the popular notion that the founding fathers established our country as a "Christian nation."
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