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]
I skimmed your idiotic reply and missed the above. How silly. Deists believe IN ALL that except miracles which is silly since the DO believe in a Supreme Being. Maybe you should stop coping website, trying to steal credit for stupidity and start THINKING for a change.
Talk about nullifying your credibility! I was willing to give you a pass for an accidental shot in the foot, but now you are observed carefully squeezing off 6 more aimed shots into the same appendage!
Which as I pointed out were varied, with many of the participants leaning toward deism and other beliefs.
If you read the History of the constitutional convention you will find that the convention was on the verge of collapse until George Washington(a deist) decided that they needed the assistance of God Almighty in drafting a document that all of the competing factions could agree upon. Thus George Washington instuted opening and closing prayers on the proceedings -- a practice that continues in our congress to this day.
Once again God...not Jesus. Was this country founded as a Godly country...perhaps, but a Christian Nation? I don't think so.
It was only after the prayers to the Almighty were invoked that the convention proceeded forward and the document we have as our constitution was agreed upon Unanimously.
There were no "praise Jesus" uttered in the chamber afterward.
Or none recorded in history books.
It is either a huge coincidence that the parties only got together AFTER the assistance of the Almighty was requested or it is a result of the intervention of the Almighty that the Constitution was completed.
Despite the admitted efforts of all of the participants to keep the Document from becoming a "Christian" document, the words the year of OUR Lord were placed in and ratified. They could have put the more common term the "year of THE Lord" or the term Anno Domini or left it out altogether. They didn't. The reference is personal and is a direct reference to Jesus Christ as Lord. Thus your assertion that there were no references to "Christianity" in the constitution was incorrect.
As I pointed out in the above excerpt,..."Some Christians were of course involved in the shaping of our nation, but their influence was minor compared to the ideological contributions of the Deists who pressed for the formation of a secular nation." This entry may have been a concession to the "Christian faction", but that brings up this point..."no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." (excerpt)"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".
Jesus is Gods son snooter, as are you.
Gotta go now. Got a vanload of senior citizens at Manor Care waiting for me to take them to church.
Because they all recognized that the European model of marriage of the state to particular sects or religions was a disaster. That is why the ancestors of our Founding Fathers came to the Colonies.. in order to escape State imposed religious persecution. It was not that the Founding Fathers did not wish to acknowledge the Hand of God upon this Nation, indeed they acknowledged it on a regular basis. They simply did not wish for the Federal Government to dictate the religious qualifications for its leaders or its citizens. Something that many of the Left and many of the so called religiously tolerant and those who claim to advocate separation of chruch and state cannot understand.
Those who scream that George Bush should tone down his religious rhetoric are the ones who are actually calling for a "religious test" for office. Those Senators who would deny a judgeship to a Religious Catholic because religious catholics might be against abortion are those who violate this section of the constitution.
The constitution does not forbid any Federal or State Official from proclaiming his own religious beliefs from the halls of congress to the classrooms of our public schools. Indeed, it guarantees that right.
I'm an amature (wannabe) historian. I would be one by profession if I had not had to get a job to support my family immediately after college. My history degree opened enough doors so that I ended up with a great job, but my intent had always been grad school and a Phd.
I have studied history my entire life, and I assure you that many, if not most, modern historians deal with their "wishes" rather than the "facts" all the time.
Our founding fathers established a religiously neutral nation,
That isn't the point. You stated that the Founding Fathers were Deists. I correctly replied that some were and some were not.
Separation of church and state is what the founding fathers wanted for the nation,
You cannot back that up with historical fact.
we must never allow anyone to distort history to make it appear otherwise.
History is distorted every day. The trick is to have enough historical knowledge to see the counterfeit "history" that, say, the ACLU and People for the American Way are trying to shove down our throats.
I thought God reserved the judging of men's hearts for himself.
What unadulterated bull hockey! As I just posted in another thread, deism never really caught on in America. It was fleetingly embraced only by a handful of non-founders during a very brief period in the 19th century. Jefferson, when accused of being a deist, hotly and indignantly denied it. And although Franklin's youthful flirtation with deism is well-known, his later repudiation of it is also no secret. Deists, as you know, don't believe in providence (divine intervention) and therefore don't believe in the utility of prayer. They also do not appeal to scriptural authority. Note Ben Franklin's speech to the Constitutional Convention, which follows --
"In this situation of this assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark, to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings. In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of dangers, we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?
"I have lived, sir, a long time, and, the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that 'Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.'
"I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed, in this political building, no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and by-word down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.
"I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service."
Sound like a "deist" to you? In just this one citation, we see Franklin referring repeatedly to divine intervention, calling for prayer and citing scriptural authority. Of the 55 men at the Constitutional Convention, a typical account of their faiths will show 28 Episcopalian (Anglican), 8 Presbyterian, 7 Congregationalist, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Lutheran, 2 Roman Catholic, etc. There was hardly a "deist" to be found among them, so your argument that the "primary" founders were "deists" is absurd. Did you know that in some states in 1789, you couldn't even hold public office if you were a deist? As early as the Great Awakening of the 1740s, deism was a distrusted and discredited relic of the French enlightenment, and as late as 1828, Noah Webster's definition of "deism" left no doubt about this.
See post 92.
Revel in your achievement, Sir!
If you read the History of the constitutional convention you will find that the convention was on the verge of collapse until George Washington(a deist) decided that they needed the assistance of God Almighty in drafting a document that all of the competing factions could agree upon. Thus George Washington instuted opening and closing prayers on the proceedings -- a practice that continues in our congress to this day.
In point of fact, Washington was an Episcopalian and a Calvinist. You really should check your facts before you post.
We should all be praying for the souls of not only our nation, but the world.
Pre-war is not the time for any of us to be cocky.
As Christians we should mourn for those that we cannot reach and for those who we fail to try to reach.
God bless President Bush for realizing that he is not the One in power. Thank God that the one who thought he was in power is out of office.
My prayers will go out for all of you regardless of faith. For those who don't believe the way that I do, thank you for letting me prayer for you tonight.
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