Washington Journal Question...Is the US a Christian nation??

Apparently Texas inserted that language into their state GOP platform, and a poll says that very religious people support * with 59%.. BFD.. Is that a surprise?? He has propagandized so much, that the righwinger biblethumpers think HE is their Messiah (cue Edward G Robinson)..

I am so dreadfully sick of this "Christian nation" stuff.. I wish the GOP would just call itself what it is.. Christian Fundamentalist Party.. The oldtime republicans must be very unhappy to have to cast their lot with these wackos.. Maybe the GOP shoould be TWO parties.:)

And I am a spiritual person. At least I want to be. ;) I just hate fundies and the fact that others want to force feed their way of thinking on me.

Every Am in churches or not should be screaming his head off. Go back and read about John Winthrop and his "City on the Hill" and just what a church /state does. Calvin, Cornwall and right back in history we learned how bad this was.This is why our founders wanted no rule on what church you went to. They came from the enlightenment. We do not want the Christian Talban here.

You know, I read that book written about that guy, Jesus and his dad, and I tell you that I don't remember reading anywhere in it justification for what is happening now in our world. When friends spout Old Testament passages that "support" their anger and our assaults (they call it retaliation), I try to explain that the New Testament is an amended, simplified version of the Old.

From reading that book these kooks thump to support their greed and waste and destruction and indifference and hate, I can recall quotes from their religion's namesake, Christ, quotes like "judge not lest ye be judged" "turn the other check" "love thy brother as thyself".

My impression of the Bible is that Jesus would not vote Repug.

So in response to your inquiry, is the U.S. of A. a Christian nation, no, it is not. We just pretend to be.

the lady that posed the question "isn't this why we left England?" was right.

from the Washington Times here's a good link that was posted earlier from Salon.
I like the title Lone Star loonies bwahh haa ha! So true, so true!
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/06/11/texas_republicans/index_np.html

Lone Star loonies
Texas Republicans endorse God, squabble, call for dismantling the federal government, await indictments and pray for Bush.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
By Jake Bernstein and Dave Mann

June 11, 2004 |

On the first night of the Texas Republican state convention last week, there were plenty of receptions to attend. Instead, almost 200 delegates and visitors chose to file patiently into a room in the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in downtown San Antonio for the meeting of the Permanent Platform Committee. The next two and half hours would be one of their few opportunities to influence the party's ideology.</snip>

If you don't have a membership to Salon you can get a free day pass by viewing a short advertisement.

that we are a Christian Nation. Culturally the nation is largely Christian, but that is losing ground, slowly. Our Constitution makes no reference to God, nor to Christianity, only in 2 parts is religion mentioned, first in the body itself, forbidding religious tests for public office, and second in the First Amendment.

Our legal heretage is based on English Common Law, with Viking underpinnings, believe it or not (12 person jury). Some influence from other older and current republics of the time, Greco-Roman, Icelandic, Germanic, and the Low Countries all had some influence. This is divorced from any religious leanings of either the founding fathers or the population at large. It doesn't matter what they believed or not, only what they left us as the legal underpinnings for our Government. Looking at the religious strife that ripped apart the European Nations, they thought it best to set up a Government that was neutral (Secular) to religious matters of the populace.

I'm curious how you'd answer this one...a question I hear and throw around in religious discussions about the founding fathers:

When the term "Creator" is used...how is it to be interpreted? Is it "God" (a monolithic, mono-theistic one), a god (as one in many), some alien being? Or, as I feel, open to strictly individual interpretation that can cover any belief system...which is what religion attempts to control.

I've felt that Jefferson, Madisson and others were strong indivdualists who valued self depenency and this included one's politics and faith. These men were Humanists...something the fundies will never discuss and we never were sure from their writings what their truth religious beliefs were...and I'm grateful for that.

Let the GOOP wrap itself in the cross and oppress...history books have shown what's happened to oligarchies that get too scooped up in playing god.

Cheers!

as in the Deist God, a being who started the Universe and left it to its own devices afterwards. Jefferson's "Nature's God" points to a naturalistic view of Divinity that is not Christian. More based on a Faith in the natural over the supernatural, basically a Enlightenment view of God.

How few fundies ever look in history books to see how religion looked in the enlightened and heady times of the late 18th Century. Also, to look at why the various colonies were formed...almost all for some form of religious "freedom" and that the uniting of these states was as much a statement of tolerance and acceptance than mandating this a "Christian Nation".

Another great retort to the Christian Nation crap is one I heard from a Native American once: "If America were a Christian Nation, why did we get here first???"

BTW...I consider myself a practicing NOTA (A None Of The Above)...kinda like an agnostic diest :evilgrin:

Cheers!

to hear people who have obviously never read anything by Thomas Jefferson, declaring that he supported their childish conception of the universe. You are clearly familiar with Jefferson, who held views that were, perhaps not surprisingly, very similar to those of Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan. The far-right folks would be equally correct in saying that Jefferson believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny as in saying he shared their immature understanding of "God" and humanity.

never underestimate the influence that the Enlightenment had on the Founding Fathers, also I don't deify them like the Radical Right Wingers do. They all had varying beliefs, but the real point is, thier beliefs in Deity had no bearing on the forming of the United States Government. This government is based on all the things I pointed to above, and was modified when needed in the 200+ years since, with no God or Gods invoked in the Constitution.

an evolving mind, a man of great intellectual curiosity who considered things far outside of the mainstream. One example that I think is telling is that Jefferson and Franklin were influenced by the Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations Iroquois. A number of meetings between them over a period of time are well-documented. The ideas in the Articles of Confederacy are remarkably similar in contend to the Iroquois Confederacy of the Six Nations. One of the things the oral traditions of the Iroquois tells is that their Grand Council recommended to Jefferson and Franklin that there be far more influence of religion in the laws of the government. The Founding Fathers rejected this advice. While the long-term implications can be sincerely debated, the fact that this happened can not. Despite what beliefs any, each, or all of the Founding Father's held, which as you note influenced them in many significant ways, they did conclude the new country would be best served by a separation of church and state.

There are numerous high quality books about Jefferson available. It is probably in our best interests to have more people read and understand the significance of the Jefferson school of thought, versus the Hamiltonian philosophy.

fundamentalists go to church in FEAR every couple of days, these people just USE them, these people are scum. Fundamentalists just don't know any better.

during the Reagan festivities, when he went off about how the US was founded on the Christian ideals of the puritans.

Which Christian ideals were we founded upon?

You had to be a member of the church to hold office, you learned to read to read their Bible, you lived no more than 4 miles from a church which you went to 2 times on Sunday (the second named church) is still around as you had to have a new church if you lived to far away. I think you will find it was a hard life and you were not treated to well even if your were a nice peaceful Quaker. Where do you think RI started from? The 'City on the Hill' Boston was just for John Winthrop's style Puritans. Adams sure did not want to go back to this.Look at your history. These people did not even have Christmas.

in the county he lives in. Talking with a Depression-era teacher a year ago...the county wouldn't hire single women to teach because times were so tough.
She was single and hired only because they could not find a male to teach her specialty.

I could see stuff like this coming back in a flash if we aren't diligent.

Someone ought to tell these right wing callers that the U. S. is a pluralistic society that has many religions. I don't want to list all of the religions that are present in this country. These Bible-Belt jerks consistently say that line that the U. S. is a Christian nation. Where they got that idea from, I don't know.

They will do or say anything at this point to further their goals.

The Puritans brought us the Salem Witch Trials. One of the women who was condemned to death as a witch (she confessed under torture, but refused to give up her daughter and granddaughter, so she was condemned) was considered one because she had stopped going to church. The fact that she was very old and in poor health, and that a daughter had been murdered by her drunken husband, were not taken into account. This woman died in the Salem jail before she could be executed. Her name was Ann Foster and she was my direct ancestor.

I you are a Pagan or Wiccan and practice the craft you are considered to be a devil worshiper even though you don't believe in hell or the devil.

If you see the god/goddess in nature you somehow threaten their world. I believe in tolerance but it is hard sometimes when you listen to the fundies talk. It is a shame that you can't see or hear about pagan ideas on mainstream TV but you can see and hear their hate filled rants almost daily.

and in doing my research, discovered that the thesis of the US being a "Christian nation" can be directly traced to the "creation" of Thanksgiving, beginning in the mid 1800's.

An excerpt:

In history, truth should be held sacred, at whatever cost…especially against the narrow and futile patriotism, which, instead of pressing forward in pursuit of truth, takes pride in walking backwards to cover the slightest nakedness of our forefathers.—Col. Thomas Aspinwall, United States Consul at London, 1815–1858

Thanksgiving is just one facet of the larger myth of the Pilgrim Fathers. This “origin myth”, if you will, is not unique to the United States. Most cultures have an origin myth—a myth that, according to Mircea Eliade, “narrates and justifies a ‘new situation’–new in the sense that it did not exist from the beginning of the World.” This origin myth was shaped and reshaped over the years of the nineteenth century to impart a sense of beginning to a fledgling nation, to the point where this myth, “filled the cultural and historical void created by separation from the English motherland.” The Thanksgiving feast became the ceremonial part of the ritual observance of the origin myth, allowing participants to “live” the myth, as a religion. But Thanksgiving, while retaining its religious overtones, soon became a civic observance, one that, on the surface, purported to unite people of all faiths and nationalities—but in actuality symbolized the power and rightness of white Protestant culture.

---------------

Got an A on the paper, and a lot of shocked fellow classmates!

"founding fathers" or "founders" in general would have thought or what they wanted because if we were still considering everything the founders did, my black ass would still be a slave. So, I say fuck the founders of this country and what they thought.

I'm just greatful for evolution in people's thinking.

That is incredibly ignorant if you know the colonial history of the USA

an article by Sara Diamond, explained some of this in an article few years back. She is an expert on the subject:

"They do sit still, by the thousands, for David Barton of WallBuilders, Inc. From a place called Aledo, Texas, Barton has successfully mass marketed a version of dominion theology that has made his lectures, books, and tapes among the hottest properties in the born-again business. With titles like The Myth of Separation and America: to Pray or Not to Pray, Barton's pitch is that, with the possible exception of Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Fathers were all evangelicals who intended to make this a Christian nation.

"Crowds of home schoolers and the Christian Coalition go wild with applause for Barton's performances. With an overhead projector, he flashes slides of the Founding Fathers and reels off selected quotes from them saying things like "only the righteous shall rule." For the years following the Supreme Court's 1962 and 1963 decisions against public school prayer, his charts and graphs show statistical declines in SAT scores and rising rates of teenage promiscuity, drug abuse, and other bad behavior. Apparently no one has ever explained to Barton that a sequence of unrelated events does not add up to a cause and effect relationship.

"Barton's bottom line is that only "the righteous" should occupy public office. This is music to the ears of Christian Right audiences. To grasp Barton's brand of dominion theology, unlike reconstructionism, one does not need a seminary degree. Barton's pseudo history fills a need most Americans have, to know more about our country's past. His direct linkage of the deified Founding Fathers with contemporary social problems cuts through the evangelicals' theological sectarianism and unites them in a feasible project. They may not be able to take dominion over the whole earth or even agree about when Jesus will return, but they sure can go home and back a godly candidate for city council, or run themselves. Barton tells his audiences that they personally have an important role to play in history, and that is what makes his dominion theology popular.

"But Barton's message flies in the face of the Christian Coalition's public claims about wanting only its fair share of political power. In his new book Politically Incorrect, Coalition director Ralph Reed writes: "What do religious conservatives really want? They want a place at the table in the conversation we call democracy. Their commitment to pluralism includes a place for faith among the many other competing interests in society." Yet the Coalition's own national convention last September opened with a plenary speech by Rev. D. James Kennedy who echoed the Reconstructionist line when he said that "true Christian citizenship" includes a cultural mandate to "take dominion over all things as vice-regents of God.""

More historical background at:
http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/diamond.htm

It used to be said that we should watch California for trends ("As California goes, so goes the nation"). Obviously, we should keep a sharp eye on Texas as well.

Do some Googling on your own and find out how this Barton guy, operating under the radar to the general public, is one of the key people spreading this crapola. He has even admitted to using bogus or doctored documents to bolster the case against church-state separation, but the RW still eats it up. (BTW, "Wallbuilders" seems an odd & ironic title for this group, eh?):

Wallbuilders: Shoddy Workmanship:
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/boston2.htm

If you've been wondering what kind of one-party state the RW has in mind, look no further.

I don't ever want to be a republican christian.

it's time the Left... and the Religious Left called them on it.

Christian Fundamentalists are anti-Christ Fascists!

News flash to the Christian Right Wing! Jesus was a Socialist.

(The following was posted by another DUer.)

Thomas Jefferson was a Deist. A Deist according to Webster's is

(1) The belief in the existence of a God on purely rational grounds without reliance on revelation or authority; especially in the 17th and 18th centuries.

(2) The doctrine that God created the world and its natural laws, but takes no further part in its functioning. Thomas Jefferson wrote his own version of the Bible (The Jefferson Bible), of which I own a copy. It TOTALLY removes all accounts of the divinity of Christ and all of the miracles - including the virgin birth. Benjamin Franklin was raised Episcopalian, but was also a Deist. John Adams was raised a Congregationalist, but later became a Unitarian. Here are what some of the other founders had to say about it.

John Adams:

"The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

John Adams again:

"The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

Still more John Adams:

“...Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”


Thomas Jefferson:

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."

Jefferson again:

"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus."

From Jefferson’s biography:
“...an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, ‘Jesus Christ...the holy author of our religion,’ which was rejected ‘By a great majority in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Infidel of every denomination.’”

James Madison:

"What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy."

James Madison again:

"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."

Thomas Paine:

"I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book (the Bible)."

Finally, a word from Abraham Lincoln:


The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
-- Abraham Lincoln