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I wasn't going to talk to you, because I told you are weird. But what this shows is how some people will look through a small scope while others will use a much broader one. Adams wanted to save lives, not mix with words in order to get that accomplished. He didn't have any more time to waist on the matter, urgency is at its up most high as thousands were being brutally enslave, killed and this activity had been going on for a long, long time. He needed the royal navy support and he needed it yesterday.
All of that may be true. How does that change the fact that he signed and Congress ratified a treaty that begins with the assertion that the United States was not "founded on the Christian religion?"
It's not myopia. It's simply balancing the evidence for one position against the evidence for the other. And the evidence is (and our Constitution avers) that our nation is explicitly secular. We are the United States, not the UK or Sweden.
Quote:
Originally Posted by actonbell
Seriously I do not know what was up with the Joe Barlow, translator dude that thought, what?, this would be funny to insert the article 11. Could he not read, or did he have his own agenda? Also, if it wasn't in the Arabic version, did the Algerians take it out? (others that do not believe to this day American not a Christian nation)
Don't know, don't care. All I know is that the English translation represents the understanding of the American President and the American Congress. It is what they read, considered, approved and signed.
No more in error there as he was when he expressed his view on the corruption of Christianity (organization).
The difference between you and I is that I have heard the Lord's voice 4 times in my life. Each time was to give to me an insight (heads up) about something that was relevant to me and only me. I'm not a church goer.
I have no doubt and neither did the founding fathers of this nation. They had nothing to prove, either.
You weren't alive at the time. It's been shown to you that several of the Founding Fathers professed themselves to be Deists. And yet you still feel that you can honestly make this statement. Do you think that's rational?
You weren't alive at the time. It's been shown to you that several of the Founding Fathers professed themselves to be Deists. And yet you still feel that you can honestly make this statement. Do you think that's rational?
No more in error there as he was when he expressed his view on the corruption of Christianity (organization).
So your answer would necessarily be, "Yes. He was in error."
I dare say his opinion on the issue would carry a tad more authority than yours. So we'll keave the acknowledgment that you disagree with him at that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by actonbell
The difference between you and I is that I have heard the Lord's voice 4 times in my life. Each time was to give to me an insight (heads up) about something that was relevant to me and only me. I'm not a church goer.
Oh... I assure you that there are more and greater differences between us than merely that. But it is clear that you and I hold different perspectives on the phenomenon of "hearing voices."
Muhammad, for example, "heard the Lord's voice" often enough to create an entire volume of those words and thus found one of the worlds great religions. Your perspective would (to be consistent) require his revelation of the Qur'an to be true. Mine would be that it was the progression of paranoid schizophrenia. Am I calling you crazy? Not at all. Hearing the "Lord's voice" 4 times is orders of magnitude less severe than continuous visitations from Allah himself declaring you to be "The Seal of the Prophets."
But my default presumption when someone claims to hear the voice of god is that there are fewer than the required number of oars in the water.
Quote:
Originally Posted by actonbell
I have no doubt and neither did the founding fathers of this nation. They had nothing to prove, either.
Your certainty, particularly in the face of the evidence, does you no credit.
Benjamin Franklin as he writes, in his own words, in his autobiography:
"Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."
“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.”
“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”
“As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?” -letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816
“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved– the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!” -letter to Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Paine:
“Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.”
“Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies.”
“What is it the New Testament teaches us? To believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.”
“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.”
“The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.”
James Madison:
“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.” -letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774
Thomas Jefferson:
”Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. - letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787
“They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.”
“I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.”
“We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication.”
“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.” -Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
“Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law.” -letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814
“The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come, when the mystical generation [birth] of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation [birth] of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” - to John Adams, Apr. 11, 1823
“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.”
“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”
“As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?” -letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816
“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved– the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!” -letter to Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Paine:
“Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.”
“Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies.”
“What is it the New Testament teaches us? To believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.”
“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.”
“The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.”
James Madison:
“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.” -letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774
Thomas Jefferson:
”Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. - letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787
“They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.”
“I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.”
“We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication.”
“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.” -Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
“Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law.” -letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814
“The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come, when the mystical generation [birth] of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation [birth] of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” - to John Adams, Apr. 11, 1823
And the word deist appear where exactly? That's right, it is as always, subject to interpretation.
I'm going to let some one else take this as this is just, well, never mind.
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