Secular Nation vs. Christian Nation (Mormons, America, church, agnostic)
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Well I hope we are secular.
Consoder this. If a Mormon became president, encouraged everyone to become Mormons, the ring wingers would have an uprising...likewise I have spoken to many evangelic Christians who state our nation would be better off as a theocracy, but with their brand of religion at the top of course.
Meanwhile all of us non-theists sit back and wonder how and why people choose to create such problems for themselves and everyone else.
Our nation was founded on a principal of freedom of religion, as in no official state supported religion, no involvement in the governement (Who has authority and power to encat laws) to hinder or interefere with religious activity. (Relgions on hand, have no legal authority or legislative power, though some followers may say otherwise) The flirtation with theocracy since the founding of America worldwide has had disasterous rresults. Look at hte puritans/Seperatists of New England and the Witch trials. Look at the Holocaust, and most recently the Taliban in Afghanistan. Clear examples of what bad religion run amok can do to a nation. I certainly want to maintain the secular quo here. And with all of its shortcomings, with all of our economic issues, our petty day to day complaints, keep in mind: AMERICA is just a PRETTY DARN EXCELLENT place!!!! No one has ever written a better guideline than our constitution, and no such nation ever concieved has brought about the overall success we have here. America is just a great nation! Don't forget that. Something that works well in a secular setting, I say if it is not broke, don't try to fix it !
I think we have already had two or three hostile threads covering this topic. If you want to live under a theocratic government, I would like to recommend that you move to Iran and apply for citizenship. We here in the USA have had a clearly defined separation of church and state since 1791, when the Bill of Rights was passed. This has been sustained over and over again in the ensuing 221 years, and yet, you start a thread as if there was some question about it.
BTW, the word "God" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution or any of the Amendments, even those that were never adopted.
I have no idea why you think out laws "seem" to be Christian based. In a previous thread, we covered many of the 613 laws in the Old Testament, but nobody wanted to propose legislation to adopt them as laws. (Personally, I think men were afraid to propose laws allowing them to sell women because their wives would have kicked them out of the house for doing so.)
What is our identity? Americans documents say our rights are from God and our laws seem to be Christian based.
What say you?
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.
Now I want to know just where in this preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America does it say that any of these rights and laws were given to us by any god? Just in case you have a problem with that here's a copy of both the Constitution United States and the Bill of Rights, which is what our laws and freedoms are based on and nowhere is there any mention of any kind of god, Christian are otherwise.
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.
Now I want to know just where in this preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America does it say that any of these rights and laws were given to us by any god? Just in case you have a problem with that here's a copy of both the Constitution United States and the Bill of Rights, which is what our laws and freedoms are based on and nowhere is there any mention of any kind of god, Christian are otherwise.
Consoder this. If a Mormon became president, encouraged everyone to become Mormons, the ring wingers would have an uprising...
But how likely do you believe that is to happen? When the same Mormon you're talking about became Governor, did he encourage everyone in Massachusetts to become Mormons?
The same suggestion was made in the OP's very similar thread yesterday.
Somehow, I don't think it worked.
Thanks, pamela. I went and looked. Yesterday, the OP was trying to convince the forum that the Declaration of Independence was the only document that counts. (Of course, OP also thinks President Obama was raised by Marxists, but offered no statement from the Baptist church as to why they allowed the President to join.) OP has some very unusual ideas about the American government.
Agnostic that I am, I like the idea that Rights come from a Creator in that such Rights can't be taken away by government. (Of course, if you commit a crime you lose many of your Rights, but that's by operation of law and the law-abiding needn't -shouldn't, anyway -fear such loss of Rights.) I believe the Founding Fathers saw Rights as coming from G-d, but saw the dangers of a State religion and took swift action to prevent one. I do not believe that the Founders saw the 'wall of separation' in the same way many do today. For one thing, individual States did have official religions: Religion in the Original 13 Colonies - Under God in the Pledge - ProCon.org
I sincerely doubt that the Founders would have a problem with prayer in schools.
Agnostic that I am, I like the idea that Rights come from a Creator in that such Rights can't be taken away by government. (Of course, if you commit a crime you lose many of your Rights, but that's by operation of law and the law-abiding needn't -shouldn't, anyway -fear such loss of Rights.) I believe the Founding Fathers saw Rights as coming from G-d, but saw the dangers of a State religion and took swift action to prevent one. I do not believe that the Founders saw the 'wall of separation' in the same way many do today. For one thing, individual States did have official religions: Religion in the Original 13 Colonies - Under God in the Pledge - ProCon.org
I sincerely doubt that the Founders would have a problem with prayer in schools.
What you're saying is mere speculation on your part which is contradictory to what the laws of this country actually are and this is something that a lot of people fail to realize, we can sit here and speculate about what our Founding Fathers may have been thinking at the time, but in actuality, none of us really know, the only thing we have that is factual are the official documents that they left us to govern this country by and I don't see how any of that is ever gonna change. As for the states having official religions, that was during a period of time when they were still Colonies, once The Constitution was ratified and became official, all of that changed even to the point that the state's by order of the U.S. Supreme Court had to change their own constitutions to eliminate any references to any type of religion or religious belief. So like I said, we're under the laws of The Constitution of the United States and The Bill of Rights and those are the only official rules that we have to go by.
What is our identity? Americans documents say our rights are from God and our laws seem to be Christian based.
What say you?
GTBH...words men write and agree to at some given time, or laws and regulations that are drawn up and determined by so-called "officials" to be "the rules"...doesn't mean squaaaaaaat, as to "the facts on the ground".
People write up lots of stuff that is useless to change "the way things REALLY are". Things change, especially when it comes to what "the law" is determined to be...plus, people go against or just don't follow the law.
"THE ACTUAL REALITY OF THE WAY THINGS REALLY WERE/ARE", is the TRUE determinant of what is and what isn't.
The, "It's Been Written By Men As The Law" argument, is worthless to determine what the "real deal" is.
By THAT standard...every religious person could point to the "laws" written in their "documents", or point to what the laws were at any time, and declare, "This is how it REALLY was/is!".
This country (since the hostile take-over from the people it REALLY belongs to) IS a Christian Nation...REGARDLESS of what any words on paper have been written and agreed to by some group of "officials" as to what it does or doesn't have to be. MOF, if anything, the fact that "the law" states that it doesn't have to be...but IT HAS BEEN, AND STILL IS anyway...proves it even more.
That some are bothered by that, doesn't change THE WAY IT REEEEEEEALLY IS.
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