No, America is not a Christian nation

olaru12

seeker1963


But then again, the government has proven that by separating us and dividing us into "categories" that they gain more power over us.

The government?

From my perspective we do a damn fine job of dividing ourselves into categories with out government intervention.

We are still a primitive tribal species afraid of anything that is different from our own narrow viewpoint.

I don't know about all that. Do we divide ourselves? Sure. But there is an active and real push to keep us divided and you can see it though our politicians, our news media, church, etc. People encourage the division of america from soap boxes, pulpits and talking heads, that we naturally do the same.

I'm just gonna leave this here.

reply to post by Dondylion


Well, then...you can't really argue with that, can you?

reply to post by Grimpachi


Our nation did start out as a Christian nation and still is.. Back in the old west and before, pretty much every family owned bibles.. Most still do..

It is funny that you think only conservatives can be Christians.. You at least seem to emphasize it as a talking point..

The only problem is that this is totally inaccurate..

99% of the congregation of the Christian church I am a member of are democrats!, In fact, most of them are card carrying Obama marxists to boot.. Does that make any sense? Even though there are glaring contradictions with these philosophies when they are "combined" makes no difference to someone who has been blinded by the "light" of obama worship!

The Pastor of the church even encourages the resident gay dude to bless the communion and take part in duties that church elders do.. Nevermind how this contradicts basic morals of Christianity.. They sure don't seem to mind.. (Why is this?) It is because people today think that because they want these behaviors to be accepted as good and right, that they can make it that way by always presenting it this way, and even acting like God will also be okay with it.

Today it is politically correct to do anything in life that you want, and go about your day as if all behaviors are acceptable and to be encouraged.. Just look at how the Vatican has treated these issues..

Today, political ideology is better defined as political and moral idiocy, since they seem to mesh quite accurately, don't you think?

A Christian nation ? America ? Is there any such thing ?
A country where the leaders think it could be " worth it "
to bomb the children of other countries in their schools and
on their playgrounds.

Nope this ain't it . A Christian nation would have leaders that
weren't going to hell. Instead of Rulers that are.

So I don't see no big prize anyway. Not no more.

olaru12

Magister


The writers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and those who signed it, were mostly Christians. But they considered these natural rights to belong to all "men", regardless of their religious beliefs.

Right....

unless you were black or native American; then all bets are off....

They did the best they could with the mentality of the time to create something that everyone would agree to.

I would argue that the secular direction North America has been heading in is only due to Christian values that permeate locally. The fact that opinions like the OP have the freedom and chance to flourish are partially due to the fact that Christian values of pacifism, tolerance, do unto others, equality without class, forgiveness, compassion, etc. are theoretically at the heart of Christianity. And I am not necessarily saying all this is true but is what many strive for and some uphold.

Rights are social conventions. Vows by the government to investigate, indict, prosecute and punish those private persons who infringe on the rights of their fellow citizens.

You have a right to life yet thousands of people are murdered each years. Hundreds of thousands die of natural causes each day.

Hundreds are killed by wild animals each year.

What of the people that concluded their life between the jaws of a shark or in the belly of a crocodile?

Etc.

reply to post by alienreality

It is funny that you think only conservatives can be Christians.. You at least seem to emphasize it as a talking point..

My apologies next time I post something like this I will make sure to bold the fundamentalist part because that is where the emphasis was meant to be in my OP.

reply to post by Grimpachi


I should admit that our nation really isn't a Christian nation anymore, at least it sure is nothing like it once was...

One thing I see that it is, is a nation of many people calling themselves Christian, but living lives that aren't Christian at all..

The fundies you mentioned is so true, I worked with a guy that attends a 7th day adventist church, and he told me that 100% of his church are all conservatives.. Plus he began talking about how the earth was only about 6,000 years old, to which I laughed at him quite voraciously.. This dude is quite intelligent, and knows more than the average person about pretty much anything, but when he gets to religious subjects, he suddenly becomes brain dead..

I think this is a result of self pride that happens to people, especially many Christians and other religions, where they think they have somehow attained a "favored" status with God, so they begin thinking that what they know is also what God thinks, and they become "overzealous" to a sickening degree...

Reading through the thread and pondering all the many posts got me thinking that your OP premise is actually accurate.. My thinking of our nation being a Christian nation still, was just wishful thinking afterall..

reply to post by Grimpachi

If Christian fundamentalists manage to get their way and convince the public that rights and the US constitution come from god then it will be that much easier for them to strip every right away they don’t like that isn’t in the bible.

Did you ever think about it the other way around Grim? Should I explain or should I leave it to your imagination?

Double Derp

seeker1963
reply to post by signalfire

 

When a government official use the term GOD, I just assume they are talking about Gold, Oil, and Drugs!

"When a government official use the term GOD, I just assume they are talking about Gold, Oil, and Drugs!"
This right here, fantastic

Grimpachi

It’s common to hear conservatives say things like Paul Ryan did during the campaign: “Our rights come from nature and God, not from government.” Liberals shrug most of the time when they hear such rhetoric. It sounds like an empty platitude, much like praising the troops or waving the flag, that makes audiences feel good but doesn’t actually have any real-world importance. What liberals don’t understand, however, is that what sounds like an empty platitude actually signifies an elaborate, paranoid theory on the right about sneaky liberals trying to destroy America, a theory that is being used to justify all manner of incursions against religious freedom and separation of church and state.

The Christian right theory goes something like this: Once upon a time, a bunch of deeply religious Christian men revolted against the king of England and started a new nation with a Constitution based on the Bible. Being deeply religious fundamentalist Christians, they intended for their new society to reflect Christian values and the idea that rights come from God. But then a bunch of evil liberals with a secularist agenda decided to deny that our country is a Christian nation. Insisting that rights come from the government/the social contract/rational thinking, these secularists set out to dismantle our Christian nation and replace it with an unholy secularist democracy with atheists running amok and women getting abortions and gays getting married and civilization collapse. For some reason, the theory always ends with civilization collapse. The moral of the story is that we better get right with God and agree that he totally gave us our rights before the world ends. Insert dramatic music here.

None of this actually went down that way, but there are Christian right revisionist historians who are pushing this claim hard. David Barton is a major advisor to all sorts of Christian right figures and he has long promoted the completely false theory that the Founders wanted something very close to a Christian theocracy. Indeed, in their desperation to make people believe what simply isn’t true, activists on the right have even gone so far as to try to push Barton’s lies about the Founders into public school textbooks. The notion that America’s founders believed rights come “from God” goes straight back to Barton’s making-stuff-up style of “history.”

link

If Christian fundamentalists manage to get their way and convince the public that rights and the US constitution come from god then it will be that much easier for them to strip every right away they don’t like that isn’t in the bible. I read something along those lines a while back for pertaining to the revolutionary war. Hey the bible wasn’t against slavery and pertaining to now it sure doesn’t advocate for equal rights especially not for women. This entire push to re write US history portraying us as a Christian nation is nothing but counterproductive.

really?

"Your rights come from God! Now you don't have them anymore cuz we say so"

Somehow that doesn't add up....I have to say your thread is poorly thought out.

The Bible does advocate for equal rights for women, it just also advocates Gender Roles.

Pejeu
Rights are social conventions. Vows by the government to investigate, indict, prosecute and punish those private persons who infringe on the rights of their fellow citizens.

You have a right to life yet thousands of people are murdered each years. Hundreds of thousands die of natural causes each day.

Hundreds are killed by wild animals each year.

What of the people that concluded their life between the jaws of a shark or in the belly of a crocodile?

Etc.

Really? So if society decides to take away a right to life, you're ok with that because the social convention is ok with it?

FreeMason

Grimpachi

link

If Christian fundamentalists manage to get their way and convince the public that rights and the US constitution come from god then it will be that much easier for them to strip every right away they don’t like that isn’t in the bible. I read something along those lines a while back for pertaining to the revolutionary war. Hey the bible wasn’t against slavery and pertaining to now it sure doesn’t advocate for equal rights especially not for women. This entire push to re write US history portraying us as a Christian nation is nothing but counterproductive.

really?

"Your rights come from God! Now you don't have them anymore cuz we say so"

Somehow that doesn't add up....I have to say your thread is poorly thought out.

The Bible does advocate for equal rights for women, it just also advocates Gender Roles.

edit on 19-10-2013 by FreeMason because: (no reason given)

If you had read the link I provided I don't think you would have posted that reply. Because if you had looked further than just the few paragraphs in the OP you would have seen this.

Well, as tempting as it is to take conservative bait and try to argue a secular version of where rights come from, the smarter move is to refocus the conversation. Where rights come from is less important than emphasizing how important rights are for people’s lives. The right to vote, to get an abortion, to have food on the table and access to a doctor, to marry whom you like: These aren’t rights because your version of God whispered it in your ear. We respect these rights because we know that people’s lives are made worse if they don’t have them. At the end of the day, distracting from real people’s lives is what conservatives are trying to do with all this talk about rights coming from God.

Grimpachi

FreeMason

Grimpachi

link

If Christian fundamentalists manage to get their way and convince the public that rights and the US constitution come from god then it will be that much easier for them to strip every right away they don’t like that isn’t in the bible. I read something along those lines a while back for pertaining to the revolutionary war. Hey the bible wasn’t against slavery and pertaining to now it sure doesn’t advocate for equal rights especially not for women. This entire push to re write US history portraying us as a Christian nation is nothing but counterproductive.

really?

"Your rights come from God! Now you don't have them anymore cuz we say so"

Somehow that doesn't add up....I have to say your thread is poorly thought out.

The Bible does advocate for equal rights for women, it just also advocates Gender Roles.

edit on 19-10-2013 by FreeMason because: (no reason given)

If you had read the link I provided I don't think you would have posted that reply. Because if you had looked further than just the few paragraphs in the OP you would have seen this.

Well, as tempting as it is to take conservative bait and try to argue a secular version of where rights come from, the smarter move is to refocus the conversation. Where rights come from is less important than emphasizing how important rights are for people’s lives. The right to vote, to get an abortion, to have food on the table and access to a doctor, to marry whom you like: These aren’t rights because your version of God whispered it in your ear. We respect these rights because we know that people’s lives are made worse if they don’t have them. At the end of the day, distracting from real people’s lives is what conservatives are trying to do with all this talk about rights coming from God.

edit on 19-10-2013 by Grimpachi because: (no reason given)

There is no right to abortion, or to have a doctor or to have food. Those are the statements of a fascist; a warlord who says "This person doesn't have food, so I'm going to take from YOU, keep most for myself, and give some to that starving bum over there."

You don't know what a RIGHT is.

You don't have a clue what anything is, because you never had to fight tyranny, because you are the TYRANT.

What is a Right, is to SELF-GOVERNMENT, and freedom from people like you.

And if you support Abortion, you deny that right to a CHILD.

And that makes you my blood enemy, and I will never compromise with you.

reply to post by FreeMason

There is no right to abortion, or to have a doctor or to have food. Those are the statements of a fascist; a warlord who says "This person doesn't have food, so I'm going to take from YOU, keep most for myself, and give some to that starving bum over there."

You don't know what a RIGHT is.

You don't have a clue what anything is, because you never had to fight tyranny, because you are the TYRANT.

What is a Right, is to SELF-GOVERNMENT, and freedom from people like you.

And if you support Abortion, you deny that right to a CHILD.

And that makes you my blood enemy, and I will never compromise with you.

You know you sound a lot like the guys I fought against over in the Middle East.

You just need to scream Allah Akbar and you would be indistinguishable.

You pretty much proved the OP with that last one.

Rights are given by man to man. There is nothing in the bible saying abortion is wrong but there are other threads for that. The bible certainly didn't give women equal rights either.

Grimpachi
reply to post by FreeMason

 

You know you sound a lot like the guys I fought against over in the Middle East.

You just need to scream Allah Akbar and you would be indistinguishable.

Do I need to worry about you sniping at me? You pretty much proved the OP with that last one.

edit on 19-10-2013 by Grimpachi because: (no reason given)

*SNIP* "Rights come from God? No, they come from man, I'm a man, follow my rights and your life will be better".

Meanwhile you go around aborting millions of children a year.

If time travel became possible, would abortion then become illegal? Or could I go back and pay your mother to abort you?

How can you justify abortion for someone else when you yourself would deny abortion if it affected you personally?

Just pure utter disgusting hypocrisy.

And what about this right to food? So some dictator taxes me and keeps 90% of the tax for himself in the name of helping the starving?

I actually buy food for homeless people, I don't give them change, I give them cakes and meat.


Mod Edit: Please Review the Following Link: Courtesy Is Mandatory

reply to post by FreeMason

The only thing I proved is that the OP is the tyrant mass murderer in the disguise of a reasonable secularist. "Rights come from God? No, they come from man, I'm a man, follow my rights and your life will be better".

Meanwhile you go around aborting millions of children a year.

If time travel became possible, would abortion then become illegal? Or could I go back and pay your mother to abort you?

How can you justify abortion for someone else when you yourself would deny abortion if it affected you personally?

You assume to know me but you don't.

That's fine you are not MY blood enemy I will turn the other cheek.

If you could time travel that would be great but first go back to when a bunch of sheep hearders were making up stories to control those around him and claiming it was gods word. You could then move on with your life in a logical manner. You could also see that this country was founded by man and not by the bible. If you still wanted to make sure I was never borne it wouldn't bother me because you can't miss what you never knew. My position hasn't changed in the slightest.

I also feel no need to explain my military service just know your initial assumption that I have never fought anything couldn't be further from reality.