Posted on 04/23/2006 8:01:06 AM PDT by Religion Moderator
Hey, we're making progress in our understanding of naturalism! As for Paine, I've read his "Age of Reason." He wasn't a Christian, but neither was he an atheist. Probably Deist. Tough to figure some of those guys out.
Yes Patrick, probably a Deist. Given his published work, one might say he is a Christian by culture if not by conviction.
BTW, thanks for bumping the article on the Cartesian Split! Patrick's already been there before.
RE: my observation that Thomas Paine was a Christian by culture if not by conviction: When people say that America is a Christian nation, this does not signify that you have to be a Christian in order to be an American. We do not have an established church here: We have a secular social order that makes a clear distinction between what is due to Caesar and what is due to God. Notice the first clause of the First Article of the Bill of Rights is designed to secure religious liberty. Clearly the Framers believed that was absolutely the first priority of the constitutional system they designed, even before freedom of speech. All faiths are protected by the Constitution, even atheism.
While it is true that the majority of Americans (some 70% or more, I'd guess) are at least nominal Christians, this is not what we mean by "a Christian nation." The nation is Christian in the sense that it deliberately embodies and upholds core values that are specifically Christian, among them life, liberty, and the "pursuit of happiness" (in John Locke's version, property). Our system of justice is rooted in the Ten Commandments which Christianity subsumed from Judaism. Our founding documents, from the DoI to the Preamble to the BoR profoundly manifest Christian understandings about the value, dignity, and liberty of the human person which no just government may infringe. In short, the American Constitution puts a leash on Caesar, so that a man is free to "render" unto his God in faith and truth.
Well, my two cents worth anyway. Usually when I say things like this, I get very strong objections.... :^)
Thank you so much for writing, Alamo-Girl!
Don't get hung up on that. The Bill of Rights submitted to Congress had twelve articles, and the first two didn't get ratified by the states. What we now know as the First Amendment was written, and approved by Congress, as the third. Twelve Amendments proposed. The two that failed (the first two) are described in the following paragraphs of that Wikipedia article.
I imagine the reason the first two proposed Amendments were not ratified by the states was because they were perceived to be "housekeeping items" for a house that had yet to be built. People were not looking for bureaucratic details WRT, say, the separation of powers under the main Constitution; they wanted to know what the Constitution stood for; that is, the essence of the type of sociopolitical order that the Constitution would put into effect. The Ten Amendments of the Bill or Rights that were ratified clearly speak to that concern. This is what We the People adopted/ratified.
Certainly Patrick, you can discriminate the categorical difference between issues of congressional apportionment and pay raises, and the rights of the people under the Constitution.
Yes. But the point I tried to make was that there's no special significance to the numerical fact that what we now know as the First Amendment ended up as first in the list. It wasn't drafted as the first, and it's current position as number one is only because the original one and two weren't ratified.
A toxic thread is a post which ridicules a person or deity who is deeply respected by other posters. The discussion is "poisoned" from the beginning.As long as the posters discuss the issues the thread is useful - but if the discussion turns personal - even slightly - it will not be tolerated.
If you don't mind, please reply to #219.
That is your preception it is not mine belief for God was always God!
1 Tim 3
16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
This passage is in reference to Christ coming to earth and becoming man. The founder of your church, Joseph Smith, taught that God is not eternal and that He was a man before becoming God.
Correction
Joseph Smith was NOT the founder, Joseph Smith was a servant, a Prophet of God who helped Restore "The Church of Jesus Chits of Latter Day Saints!"
Jesus was always God in the OT he was Jehovah and his Father was Eloheim!
You really should read John 5
19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
20 For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
Before Jesus could do what he was able to do he had to see and learn from his Father do likewise!
You are misusing Scripture to support a doctrine that is not Scriptural. God has always been God, and is not an "exalted man" as Joseph Smith would have us believe.
how so?
You have to take Scripture as a whole, and can't pick and choose verses to support a specific doctrine. In 1 Timothy 1:17, Paul says that God is "the King eternal, immortal, invisible". In John 4:24, we read that "God is a Spirit". These, and other passages in Scripture, contradict the teaching of Joseph Smith and the Mormon church that God is merely an exalted man.
First of all reading that God was exalted man, even as was Jesus, be it consider doctrinal or not, does not bother me, it bothers you!
I was raised in mainstream been there done that!
I am thankful for having the fullnest of the gosple in my life!
You are happy with in you faith celebrate it, and let the LDS celebrate ours!
Jesus was not an exalted man in the manner that Joseph Smith and the Mormon church teach that God is an exalted man. Jesus is, and always was, God. He took on the form of man, and was at the same time still God. The teachings of Joseph Smith teach that God was once just a man, before He became a god. These are totally different.
You are free to celebrate your faith as you wish. I am also free to point out where I feel it differs from the Word of God. I am merely defending "the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints" (Jude 1:3).
I am also free to point out where I feel it differs from the Word of God.
So am I that is why I voted with my action to depart mainsteam and to go forward!I am merely defending "the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints" (Jude 1:3).
May I remind you that this is
The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter Day SAINTS!
And which ONE of the wide gates in the world denominations do you belong to?
Matt 7
¶ Enter ye in at the strait gate:
for wide is the gate,
and broad is the way,
that leadeth to destruction,
and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
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