......This isn't the whole right wing. I respect Dr. Ron Paul; although I don't agree with his economic policies, he understands that freedom means other people might be free to do things that, gasp, he doesn't like. Also, this isn't a rant against what Christianity is supposed to be, or those Christians who follow that. It's a rant about the Christian right, the fundamentalist, hate filled bigots and the politicians that either fall into this group, or use this group to further their careers........

I'm not a republican, and I don't really care for the politics of the republican party. I agree with some of their positions, but mostly their Christianity is something that is tacked on to pander to us.. Now. if you're arguing that the Christian right largely run by a bunch of hypocrites, I agree with you. If you want to say anyone who speaks out against homosexuality is a bigot, I disagree with you. We're commanded by God to speak out against sin and we aren't going to stop obeying God to listen to the politically correct establishment. You and your ilk feel free to bash Christians all the time, so you don't really have much to say about tolerance.

>> ^Quboid

>> ^Hanover_Phist:

>> ^Quboid:

The Christian Right is neither Christian, nor right.

Brilliant.



Thanks. That's definitely not original, but very apt. I did a search to see who said it but there's many variations and I've no idea who originally said that.

>> ^Quboid:


The Christian Right is neither Christian, nor right.


Brilliant.

>> ^shinyblurry:
The Christian religion has brought freedom and liberty where ever it has gone...<snip> The catholic church used Christianity to control people, this is true, but they clearly weren't following anything Jesus taught.


What? So there is some secret sect of Christianity that is doing it right were others are wrong.. I see now. Thank goodness we have your interpretation to sort us out.

All the freedoms who enjoys? Who is free? You keep saying that everybody is free but we're far from it. The only other countries that we're more free than...are countries that are just slightly more religious than the US. That's right...the more religion, the less freedoms. Inverse relationship between religion and freedom. On the individual, on the community, in a country. Religion is ALWAYS a form of social control, it has never been used to "free" anybody.

You don't think you're free in America? Let me guess..you take issue with Americas drug laws, right? And you're quite incorrect about the inverse relationship between freedom and religion. The least free countries today are atheistic states and totalitarian regimes. The freest countries in the world all have a rich Christian heritage, though not all of them necessarily honor that heritage. You're also talking about religion as if they're all the same, which they clearly aren't. The Christian religion has brought freedom and liberty where ever it has gone, whereas religions like Islam are oppressive and grind their people into the dirt. The catholic church used Christianity to control people, this is true, but they clearly weren't following anything Jesus taught. There is nothing oppressive about Christianity..it teaches us to regard everyone as equal, to love our neighbors as ourselves, to hate no one, and to minister to the poor and helpless. If everyone followed that we would have an ideal world.

>> ^rottenseed

>> ^residue:

Wasn't part of the reason for initial colonization of America (by Europeans) to escape religious prosecution? The thought that America has to be an entirely Christian nation is in direct opposition to the principles of freedom that the country makes its stance upon...


I think that's not true. The puritans went to America to escape persecution of their particular brand of fundamentalist Christianity. In today's terms, the English got sick of these bible bashing morons, so they shipped off to become the American Christian far right.

They didn't want freedom from religious persecution; they wanted religious persecution - but crucially, their religious. Exactly what the Christian right want to do now.

I don't think I will ever get tired of Rick Perry parodies.

Jefferson wrote about a wall of separation, not a one way door. "Religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God" means just that. Note that the government is not mentioned in that relationship. Further, the idea that homosexuals can't serve in the military has nothing at all to do with the Bible. Even if we accept that the Bible says that homosexual feelings or activity is a sin, there's no mention in the Bible that I'm aware of that says that sinners can't be in the military. If the military wishes to exclude all sinners, then according to many Christians no one could serve at all. But regardless of all that, the Bible is indistinguishable from fiction, and deserves to be treated as such.

You're correct, that there is nothing in the bible that specifically would exclude someone practicing homosexuality from serving in the military. I was mainly decrying the fact that they have legalized sodomy in the miltary.

As for whether or not the founding fathers were mostly deist, I do need to do more research. Some of your claims point to you being correct. Others aren't relevant.

You can find a lot of useful information at http://wallbuilders.com/

>> ^DrewNumberTwo

The bible isn't some mythical book written by some omnipotent being. It is a collections of short stories, carefully selected and complied by the Roman Catholic church 200 years after some guy names Jesus may or may not have lived. They were hand selected and occasionally edited to create a book that the Roman Catholic church could use to control and scare the pagan and outlying sects of early christianity under one banner.....theirs.

The bible is the inspired word of God, and your read of history leaves much to be desired. First, many of the books in the NT were considered canon around 140 AD, just as the early church was getting its start, and there was no conspiracy in selecting them. The only issue in the selection process was to weed out the gnostic writings and the uninspired works from the old testament era. Second, the RCC was not an institution until much later. By the time the bible was canonized in 367, the whole church was in agreement about what should be in it. There is also no evidence of editing. We have the early manuscripts and can check this.

To say this nation was founded on Christian ideals is a complete and utter fallacy, one that has been force fed to you and every other American for decades. The entire revolutionary war and the rebellion against England had absolutely nothing to do with god or religion. It was due to the occupation of Boston, the taxes levied on everything imported or exported from the colonies and the fact that the colonials were fed up with totalitarian control from a king 3000 miles away. When those men were killed at The Boston Massacre in 1770, their religion, race or background played zero part in the aftermath and the birth of a revolution that soon followed.

That's as biased a read of american history as I have ever heard. To say that Christianity had nothing to do with the founding of this country is patently absurd. If you want evidence, feel free to read my other post, or do some *unbiased* research. I suppose you have never seen the Mayflower Compact?

http://www.pilgrimhall.org/compact.htm

Were members of the first Continental Congress religious? Of course. Were they highly educated and well read? Absolutely. The Bible was one of the most widely available books at that time and I am sure every one of them had read it. I am a staunch atheist and even I have read it cover to cover (ironically reinforcing my atheism). Of course references to the bible are in the early writings, documents and monuments of the day. The bible, while complete, man-made fiction, is still full of fairly useful and often poignant quotes.

It's impossible for you to understand the bible without the Holy Spirit. It might as well have been written in swahili for the good that it did you reading it. The accuracy of the bible is not just a historical matter but also in how it describes the human condition. That's why you have those quotes you have to admit are undeniably true, because the bible tells us the reality of the human heart. Yes, of course the founders read it (many of them went to seminary). There were many books in those days, and many philosophies, but they specifically chose the bible, and books based on the bible, as references to draft our nations founding documents, which itself is well documented. Most of them believed the bible was the inspired word of God, which was the reason they used it, not because it was a "popular book of short stories".

Freedom of religion is as much freedom FROM religion and it is to practice whatever religions you want as you see fit. The separation of church and state was not only to avoid having a state religion, but to also avoid the church taking over the government as it had so many times in history. Sadly, we have fallen right back in the trap where religion, specifically CHRISTIAN religion, has as much impact on policy in the America government today as it did during the crusades in Europe when people's lives were dictated by what the church deemed appropriate and right and not the people as a whole. When you have a president of this nation saying that he went to war, ignoring Congress in the process, in the Middle East because god told him to, shit has gone WAY too far.

Apparently you don't know but there was a defacto state religion; almost every state had its own church, and every state constitution mentioned God. Again, they held church every sunday in the house of representitives. Clearly the founders were not interested in removing religion from government, they were only concerned about the balance of power. The secular dream you think the founders had never existed; they loved God and deliberately included Him in public affairs. After they wrote the constitution, Washington declared a day of thanksgiving and praise to God

"to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God"

"http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/thanksgiving/"

>> ^Hive13

shiney you can whine and gripe all you want. So can every christian out there. It all amounts to the same thing : The big kid on the block crying about not having EVERYTHING he wants when he already has everything else. Fact : You can NOT be elected president of these united states without being religious, more specifically christian or some version of it. It's almost as difficult to be elected to any other branch of office without being religious. When polled, people will inevitably place atheists or any other form of non-believer title as dead last for people they would vote for, beyond even muslims or gays.

You've got Obama, who is probably an atheist and the most secular president we've had in a long time. In any case, this is exactly my point. If this nation were primarily atheist, do you think any Christians would be elected president? So why should you be surprised when a nation that believes in God doesn't elect any atheists? I am against the secularization of this country just as you would be against the christianization of an atheistic state.

as for the founding fathers, they lived in a time where it was even MORE dangerous for a politician to be non-religious, by default they had to be religious in public so that they could remain in a position of power. Any public action relating to religion becomes suspect, and whatever prayer services and what not they proposed, the private writings of Franklin, Jefferson and others clearly stated that whatever they were, avowed christians wasn't one of them.

The founding fathers do not equal Jefferson and Franklin. Why is it when atheists talk about the founding fathers they bring up these two as if they represent all of them? Most of the founding fathers were Christians, and many of those devout. You can believe that they were all secret atheists but the historical records don't agree with you.

>> ^RadHazG

>> ^brycewi19:

Why? Please tell me WHY do fart noises still make me laugh despite me not being 13 any more?


Ditto for my friends and me. We're over 35. Isn't that sad?

I see you're 33 now.

>> ^ant:

>> ^Phreezdryd:
All the republican debates look like this to me.

Not just Republicans. EVERYONE including you and me!

Maybe its those funky compound eyes of yours. Or maybe it's like what Stan went through on South Park when everything looked like shit to him.

I don't think that's actually Rick Perry.

Jefferson wrote about a wall of separation, not a one way door. "Religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God" means just that. Note that the government is not mentioned in that relationship. Further, the idea that homosexuals can't serve in the military has nothing at all to do with the Bible. Even if we accept that the Bible says that homosexual feelings or activity is a sin, there's no mention in the Bible that I'm aware of that says that sinners can't be in the military. If the military wishes to exclude all sinners, then according to many Christians no one could serve at all. But regardless of all that, the Bible is indistinguishable from fiction, and deserves to be treated as such.

As for whether or not the founding fathers were mostly deist, I do need to do more research. Some of your claims point to you being correct. Others aren't relevant.
>> ^shinyblurry:

Since we started turning our back on the Christian god? You mean like when the writer of the Constitution plainly stated that the first amendment was intended to provide a wall of separation between church and state? Or how so many of the founding fathers were deist, not Christian? The foundation surely has nothing to do with marriage, homosexual or otherwise. Just which Christian principles are you claiming America was founded on? And which denomination?
This is what Jefferson wrote, which was not an official government document:
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State"
What that obviously means is that it is protecting the church from the government, not the government from the church. The original intention of the establishment clause was to prevent any denomination from becoming the state religion. Since then it has been selectively interpreted to exclude Christianity from public affairs, mostly due to the inclusion of the case law standard.
Where do you get this idea that "so many of the founding fathers" were Deist? You could make a strong case for perhaps 2 or 3 of them. The rest were practicing Christians for which there is ample evidence. 24 of the signers have seminary degrees and one of them was a practicing minister. They opened the first session of congress with a 3 hour prayer and then a bible study. Franklin proposed that they open every congress with prayer at the first constitutional convention and since that time, every session has opened with prayer (until the last few years)
http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html
Do you think Jefferson is a Deist? Why did he write this?:
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have lost the only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?" - Thomas Jefferson
Why did he hold church services in the house of representitives?
These were the three main reference materials cited by the framers:
king james bible
spirit of the laws
commentaries laws of england - blackstone, based on ten commandments
The rule of law is based on Gods natural, unchanging law. James madison had the idea for our three branches of government based on Isaiah 33:22. The reason we have checks and balances is because man has a sinful nature and they didn't believe any man could be trusted with power.
The liberty bell is inscribed with leviticus 25:10. In the battle hymm of the republic: "as christ died to make men holy, let us die to make men free"
our constitution was made for a moral and religious people. it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other
John Adams
the bible is the rock on which our republic rests
andrew jackson
Now historians are discovering that the bible, perhaps even more than the constitution, is our founding document
Newsweek 12/27/82
>> ^DrewNumberTwo>> ^DrewNumberTwo

>> ^Jinx:

http://i.minus.com/ibaECqzniIgYLz.gif
A little bit NSFW.


LOL, I just wish it could be a siftable video.