Jesus aint in the Constitution!

[Tmy]

I am sick of hearing that the US was "founded as a christian nation" whenever someone brings up these 10 commandment cases.

If our founding fathers were so big on christianity, woudlnt they have peppered the constitution with refrences to Jesus and God???

Then you have these kooks that think the 10 commandments in schools would magically fix all our problems. Well I went to catholic school. The 10 commandments did nothing to stop the students from becoming whores and drunken punks.

[merphie]

Originally posted by Tmy
I am sick of hearing that the US was "founded as a christian nation" whenever someone brings up these 10 commandment cases.

If our founding fathers were so big on christianity, woudlnt they have peppered the constitution with refrences to Jesus and God???

Then you have these kooks that think the 10 commandments in schools would magically fix all our problems. Well I went to catholic school. The 10 commandments did nothing to stop the students from becoming whores and drunken punks.

No doubt they were religious. They believe people should worship as they understood God. They may have believed in Jesus, but they understood others may not.

I think the "Christian nation" thing was invented by modern people. The majority of Americans do practice the Christian religion so the politicians are playing to that crowd.

What else is new?

[Tmy]

Originally posted by merphie
No doubt they were religious. They believe people should worship as they understood God. They may have believed in Jesus, but they understood others may not.

I think the "Christian nation" thing was invented by modern people. The majority of Americans do practice the Christian religion so the politicians are playing to that crowd.

What else is new?

Imagine if Jerry Faldwell wrote the constitution!! It would look nothing like our current version. We'd be like those wacky countries where they stone people.

[AtheistArchon]

Imagine if Jerry Faldwell wrote the constitution!!

- That... is an excellent point.

[toddjh]

I especially love the people (I think Falwell is one of them, actually) who try to argue that because the Constitution says "in the year of our lord" when specifying the date, that it's somehow establishing the U.S. as a Christian nation.

I suppose if they happened to mention it was a Thursday, that would mean they all worshipped Thor.

Jeremy

[TragicMonkey]

Originally posted by Tmy
If our founding fathers were so big on christianity, woudlnt they have peppered the constitution with refrences to Jesus and God???

Ah, but they did! I checked the Constitution using The Bible Code, and it clearly states "There is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his Prophet."

Whoops!

[jj]

Originally posted by Tmy
I am sick of hearing that the US was "founded as a christian nation" whenever someone brings up these 10 commandment cases.

If our founding fathers were so big on christianity, woudlnt they have peppered the constitution with refrences to Jesus and God???

Then you have these kooks that think the 10 commandments in schools would magically fix all our problems. Well I went to catholic school. The 10 commandments did nothing to stop the students from becoming whores and drunken punks.

Our founders were big on the theories of the Enlightenment, and that's how they founded the country, as an experiment in the theories of the enlightenment, which were purely secular.

Those claiming otherwise are historical revisionists.

[Charlie Monoxide]

Originally posted by toddjh
I especially love the people (I think Falwell is one of them, actually) who try to argue that because the Constitution says "in the year of our lord" when specifying the date, that it's somehow establishing the U.S. as a Christian nation.

I suppose if they happened to mention it was a Thursday, that would mean they all worshipped Thor.

Jeremy

Don't forget party time on Saturday. Time for a feast of Saturnalia ...

Charlie (mardi gras everyday) Monoxide

[Bentspoon]

My brother is raving Republunatic - hannitized

He is not religious but he is hannitized - pisses him off when I point out the obvious hannity-method to his argument

He went on about the Judeo Christian nation (don't forget Judeo guys and gals - still got to be PC for all the jews - I am sure that removing Judeo will happen as soon as the theocracy sets in)

I sat him down and set this criteria:

we will rate the 10 commandments' coorrelation to law - 1.0 being a complete correlation

for instance

don't steal - virtually a 1.0 correlation
don't kill - well maybe a .75 because we will kill (war, justifiable homicide, state killings)
don't commit adultery - 0.0

and so on

then I said rate them as either an American concept or not American concept

for example

though adultery has a law correaltion of 0.0, it is usually considered an American desire to not commit adultery so I see this as American

However, worshipping the One and Only God is wholly (holy?) un-American

perfect score on this exercise is a 10.

After we went through all ten and looked at the scores based on his own ratings, he decided he wouldn't be in support of that any more

took the foam right out of his mouth

My theory:

the people raving about this could not tell you all 10!!!

[Sushi]

Originally posted by Bentspoon

don't kill - well maybe a .75 because we will kill (war, justifiable homicide, state killings)

Not a Christian or theist by any means, but the mistake is with the King James version. It's better translated as, "Do not murder". The religious right will claim that abortion is murder, however.

[Temporal Renegade]

Originally posted by Tmy
I am sick of hearing that the US was "founded as a christian nation" whenever someone brings up these 10 commandment cases.

If our founding fathers were so big on christianity, woudlnt they have peppered the constitution with refrences to Jesus and God???

Then you have these kooks that think the 10 commandments in schools would magically fix all our problems. Well I went to catholic school. The 10 commandments did nothing to stop the students from becoming whores and drunken punks.


Wait a second...

Moses was Old Testament, correct? Since he is the one who received the Ten Condiments--sorry Commandments--, and since at the time, Judaism was the main religion in the area (after all, didn't Moses lead the Jews out of Egypt?), and Christinsanity wasn't around, wouldn't a nation 'founded' on The Ten technically be a 'Jewish Nation', and not a 'Christian' one?

[SezMe]

Originally posted by Sushi
Not a Christian or theist by any means, but the mistake is with the King James version. It's better translated as, "Do not murder". The religious right will claim that abortion is murder, however.
This is silly. What is murder? Illegal killing. So the translation should be "It is illegal to kill illegally"?????

Beside, the word appears in many other places in the bible and is translated (properly) as "kill" and so its translation in the commandments location is consistent and reasonable.

[Ladewig]

Originally posted by Bentspoon


I sat him down and set this criteria:

we will rate the 10 commandments' coorrelation to law - 1.0 being a complete correlation

for instance

don't steal - virtually a 1.0 correlation
don't kill - well maybe a .75 because we will kill (war, justifiable homicide, state killings)
don't commit adultery - 0.0



While there is no federal law against adultery, over twenty U.S. states have laws against adultery. That would put the correlation close to .40. Of course, to perform this exercise correctly, you'd have to consider which commandments were laws when the country was founded. That's put the correlation closer to 1.0.

[geni]

Originally posted by Sushi
Not a Christian or theist by any means, but the mistake is with the King James version. It's better translated as, "Do not murder". The religious right will claim that abortion is murder, however.

But that contians words of more than one syerbol.

[Art Vandelay]

Interesting, though, that the very same people that claim that this is a Christian country claim that it is being run by atheists. Everything they like they ascribe to Christianity, while everything they don't like is because of atheists. If this is Christian nation, then it must have been Christianity that enslaved millions of blacks. It must have been Christianity that interned the Japanese. You can't have it both ways.

Originally posted by Sushi
Not a Christian or theist by any means, but the mistake is with the King James version. It's better translated as, "Do not murder". The religious right will claim that abortion is murder, however.
Of course, this opens another can of worms. What is murder? It is killing that is prohibited by law. So law must precede the ten commandments, because the 10C are defined in terms in law. So if law precedes the 10C, how can the 10C possibly be the foundation of the law? And the problem becomes more pronounced if you look at the other commandents. "Thou shall not steal". What is theft? It's taking something that is not lawfully yours. "Thou shall not commit adultery". What is adultery? It's having sex with someone not your lawful spouse. Etc. They have it backwards. The law isn't based on the ten commandments. The ten commandments are based on the law.