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The problem is, I'm not an inactive heavy metal, I'm a human being. And I'm not Christian, and it's my country, too.
When you call it a Christian nation, you make me REALLY wish Obama would just come out and say he's an atheist on Jan. 21, 2013, so a lot of evangelical heads explode.
And ya know what?...I'd have NO PROBLEM with that. If that is his true mindset, he should proclaim it and embrace it.
But he won't!...because instead, he's gonna suck-up to the citizens of this majority Christian nation to get the votes, so he can keep his position, power, and super-deluxe/top-level, luxurious lifestyle.
So you are STILL going to hear him...in probable contradiction to his TRUE self...suffix every speech he gives with, "God Bless you, and God Bless the United States of America."
If this WAS/IS a nation where 4 out of 5 were Atheist, I'd have NO PROBLEM defining this as an "Atheist Nation".
Not everything can be the way one wants it to be CannedAdvice.
For example: I believe that abortion it tantamount to willfully executing babies...but this nation allows baby-aborting. It hasn't always been that way during my life...but since 1973, it has been. I'm a citizen here...so, as you say, "it's my country too"...but, even though I can't stand that this is a "Abortion Permitting Nation" because it goes against what I believe...that's just THE WAY IT IS.
It IS what it IS...and it ISN'T what it ISN'T. And that's based on what it ACTUALLY IS and ACTUALLY ISN'T.
Sometimes a gentle whisper accomplishes more than a loued shout...
That's a very wise observation you make ptsum...as usual.
I'll keep that in mind. But I'm gonna have to get someone else to do the "gentle whispering" though...it's just not "how I roll". That way I'll have both ends covered!
Dang, what is it with the right-wing holy-rollers and their absolute inability to form proper analogies and metaphors? We're an "abortion-permitting Nation"? When has that been bandied about?
The reason we object to the "Christian Nation" tripe is that it is squarely inapposite to the Constitution and the laws of the United States.
Your analogy is like me saying "dang, I really hate that people are allowed to purchase pistols at gun shows without registering them, but hey, I'll accept we're a pro-purchasing-handguns-at-gun-show-nation and that's what 'is'!"
It just makes no sense to define our nation with regard to narrow policy points or by way of religious makeup. Period. That's our founding, and that's what "is" in our country.
HaHaHa! You mistake me for a "right-wing holy-roller"...you are wrong. You are addressing a guy that's been in the porn business for 26 years...and I'm typing this from my stripclub! I'm no "right-wing holy-roller"!
I never said "Abortion Permitting Nation" was ever "bandied about"...I labeled this nation that BECAUSE WE ARE.
And whether anyone likes it or not...we are also currently a "Purchasing Handguns at Gun Shows Nation"....again, BECAUSE WE ARE.
The fact that Constitutional Law doesn't say we HAVE TO BE a Christian Nation...is inconsequential to the fact that WE ARE.
MOF, Constitutional Law could say it's not lawful to be a "Christian Nation"...but if we were ANYWAY...then that IS what we would be.
See, REALITY, not "the law", determines WHAT IS.
"The Law" proscribes illicit drug possession and usage...but we are a "Teenage Drug Using Nation" ANYWAY.
During Prohibition...we were a "Booze Drinking Nation" ANYWAY...even though it went against The Constitution. Could one REALISTICALLY say we weren't, simply because "the Constitution said" we shouldn't be?
What "the law" or "legal theories" have to say, only speaks to how the people who drafted and enacted the laws think things "should be"...not necessarily how things REALLY ARE.
This IS a "Christian Nation"...becaaaaaaause IT IS a "Christian Nation".
If it was something else...then THAT is what it would be.
IT IS what IT IS...and THAT is REALITY.
I deal with REALITY...you can deal with "Legal Theory Based on Constitutional Law"...but that won't change REALITY.
Very good point Mightyqueen. There's a big difference between "not getting it" and not buying it.
So true Zekester and MightyQueen!
Just like the Bible Fundies that "don't agree" with evolution...just because they "don't agree", "don't buy", or whatever...doesn't change the REALITY of evolution....whether they "get it" or not.
Same with this being a "Christian Nation" (since the hostile take-over by the Europeans)...one doesn't have to "agree", "buy", or "get" that...but, that doesn't change the REALITY of it.
REALITY is what counts!...whether you "agree", "buy", or "get" it, is inconsequential to WHAT IS!
Well no, they claim to be Christian, but truly are not. In addition, they could not begin to argue any of their own positions on pretty much any talking point without coaching from the sidelines. Think back to our founding fathers! They pretty much all declared their deep Christian spirituality, since to deny or denigrate it would have been tantamount to political or cultural suicide.
Think of that scene in the High Noon movie in which Gary Cooper's town sheriff character shows up at the church to get any help he can to deal with the inbound thugs. The minister initially shrugs him off, as do the congregation, since he doesn't participate in the congregation. Shame on him!
Imagine what that culturally dismissive attitude would have been like in a town with a population of, say, 3,000 people, tops? You had to go with the flow, no matter how fetid it was, just to survive. Religion by peer pressure.
Quite the recommendtion, to be sure! Join in or perish! The true way and light of Christianity!
___________________________
And, let us not forget: the usefulness and participation in organized Christianity in N. America is, in fact, falling precipitously, except amongst the generally technically illiterate Hispanic community, southern Baptist types who do not value a good education, and ghetto African-Americans who face, on a daily basis, severe societal & educational discrimination. They mostly come from agricultural or manual labor roots and are used to mindless, blindered faith and what it supposedly offers them, to wit: direction and hope in life.
Woo-hooo! What a wonderful group to belong to, huh? "Baaaa...aaahhhh!"
______________________________________
But your assertion does beg the question: so what? How should we be behaving or legislating differently than we do now? The forced inclusion of Christianity in our kid's education? In our daily politics?
Oh my poor thread! Oh how you have fallen! Descended upon by barbarians of every stripe, ridiculed by the witless, trivialized by the trivial, desecrated by the profane and trampled under foot not unlike the great library of Alexandria at the height of Cyril's siege against reason itself. And yet even now among the ashes, hither and thither, a few embers of rationality yet glow -quietly, valiantly refusing to be extinguished. Thank you Rifleman.
I never called you an atheist! As I've stated, I'm not exactly sure what you believe. Anyway, June's put the whole thread into the R/P section, so now we can actually quote Jesus without the atheists getting their knickers in a twist and grabbing for the garlic everytime the Word of God is mentioned. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we're free at last! Quoting that notable theist, and Christian, MLK.
Not to mention there is a rumor he was a wifebeater, but we all have our blemishes I suppose.
I've already made it quite clear that I am fundamentally Agnostic. However, I am also a theist, in that I believe in the true God. I don't happen to have enough evidence to believe in "supernatural deities" but I do have enough evidence of "good". I remain an atheist to the believe in ghosts and spirits. No ghost or spirit deserves my worship unless it is completely good. And I couldn't really care less about a "Creator" or "Sustainer" or "Judge" or "Destroyer" as much as I care about a "Good". Anyway, I don't agree with all of the teachings and implications of U/U beliefs. I will continue to use the philosophy of Freethinking to ultimately reach the most reasonable and logical and scientific religion.
What I most certainly believe is that all thinking* things are agnostic.
*in that there exists a capacity for all thought, including doubt. For even those that don't have doubt, could still be wrong.
What you may call me is an Agnostic; that is my firm and unshakeable faith. Since I have never been able to doubt such a theological position legitimately. I used to call myself an agnostic Christian, then when I learned more about Christianity I turned toward comapartive religion where I found I could not legitimately chose any of the main established ones. My faith in agnosticism became firmer and firmer untill I was converted by atheists into agnostic atheism, then I saw atheism as a belief that could inspire error in reason and philosophy (pessimistic Nihilism and/or selfishness) and since I felt something that I believed was God's presence and inspiration, I became an Agnostic theist until recently that I become sure such a feeling was not evidently tied to something "extra" or "outside" of myself, however, having redifined God as something even better than than the possible source of that feeling, mainly "goodness" I am again a firm believer in this all-deserving thing, now defined as the true God by me. So I am now again a type of theist. However, having doubted that the inspiration for my Agnosticism came from outside of myself, I have mainly lost that "god-feeling" yet I remain sure that what truely deserves worship is goodness, irrespective of where it comes from. I believe in Agnosticism, and I believe in good, beyond doubt... yet deities remain doubtful. And again, if a deity embodies goodness, then good for it, that should be it's own reward... I'm not going to bother with the messanger when the message is so much better.
Last edited by LuminousTruth; 08-17-2011 at 12:54 AM..
Your Jefferson quote is from a letter he wrote criticizing John Calvin. Here's a longer quote from the letter---
"I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. The being described in his 5. points is not the God whom you and I acknolege and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor of the world; but a daemon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no god at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin. Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a god. ... So much for your quotation of Calvin's `mon dieu! jusqu'a quand' in which, when addressed to the God of Jesus, and our God, I join you cordially, and await his time and will with more readiness than reluctance."
It looks like Jefferson thought that "Atheism" meant "WithoutGodism"; and I'm sure there was a lot of anti-atheism back in the day to gamble on surviving politically. Most non-Christian Freethinkers back then thought Deism was the answer against the (social, progressive, and mental) sloth that they probably thought Christianity inspired. I like Jefferson's hypothesis on John Calvin's actual religion...Demonism. It reminds me of the "evil demon" philosophical exercise.
The God of Jesus the man? What a great theological mind that Jefferson had.
Thank you jazz!
Quote:
Originally Posted by kiggy
Ok, Tommy J, what is it? God or no God? Sheesh!
I think what Jefferson meant was that "rather No God, than an Evil God"
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