94 percent of America's founding era documents mention the Bible

[drkitten]

Peter never claimed he had vision of the Resurrected Christ. He claimed he was an eye witness.

Which has nothing to do with whether or not Christianity was a Jewish sect.

And other gospels claimed Christ appeared to all the apostles and actually ate with them. This explains why Christianity spread so fast.

Which has nothing to do with whether or not Christianity was a Jewish sect.

Something caused Peter to go from a man who denied Christ 3x's to a woman at a campfire to a bold leader who ended up preaching and leading Christianity in Rome within walking distance of the Roman Emperor. All of this just doesn't add up without a Resurrection.

.. .but nevertheless has nothing to do with whether or not Christianity was a Jewish sect.


By the way, according to Paul, who actually met with Peter for about 2 weeks, there were 500 other witnesses to the Resurrected Christ.

Which has nothing to do with whether or not Christianity was a Jewish sect.

Once again, this helps explain the incredible growth of Christianity in Roman occupied countries.

... but says nothing about whether or not Christianity was a Jewish sect.

One hundred twenty-five words. Zero relevance.

[kmortis]

One hundred twenty-five words. Zero relevance.
...but plenty of revenants.


i'll keep repeating this joke until someone gets it, you know.

[Garrette]

...but plenty of revenants.


i'll keep repeating this joke until someone gets it, you know.I get it. And I only had to look it up a little bit.

[joobz]

I get it. And I only had to look it up a little bit.
Which part,
The "but" or the "plenty"?

[Garrette]

Which part,
The "but" or the "plenty"?I've had quite enough of kmortis' butt, thank you, so I refuse to look it up again. For your information, mister nosy bottom, I had to look up "of." I could find no legal definition and I was getting antsy with that blue dress staring me in the face.

[kmortis]

Which part,
The "but" or the "plenty"?

Sweet! I have a Butt of Plenty! And think, Thanksgiving is coming up. My family will be so proud!

[Michael Redman]

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

One would expect that a country that was was "founded on" religion would appeal to a higher power for authority. Not this one, though. This country's founding documents say the people did it themselves.

This country is founded on popular sovereignty.

There might have been a wall in 1947 but not during Jefferson's term.

I almost suspect that this is a joke.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

Emphasis mine.

http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html

If you don't believe the 1st Amendment created a wall of separation between church and state, you must know more about the founding of this nation than Thomas Jefferson.

.

[kmortis]

<snip>
.
Mike,
I suggest that you pop on over to R&P. Take a look at a thread entitled "Thomas Jefferson's financial support of Christianity" or somesuch rot. We've been all over the Danbury Baptist letter. And the Treaty of Tripoli. And the First Admendment. And the Ninth Admendment. And all the SCOUS rulings.

DOC won't have any of that. Dr. D. James Kennedy said not to, and that's good enough for ol' DOC. To say otherwise is libel.

[Hokulele]

I suggest that you pop on over to R&P. Take a look at a thread entitled "Thomas Jefferson's financial support of Christianity" or somesuch rot.


Michael, if you value your sanity at all, do not do this. I repeat, do not do this.

[kmortis]

Michael, if you value your sanity at all, do not do this. I repeat, do not do this.

Don't listen to her. She's still upset after having been cast the bull. It's fine....trust me :desmile:

[Hokulele]

Don't listen to her. She's still upset after having been cast the bull. It's fine....trust me :desmile:


Says the man with the clown suit on . . .

[joobz]

Ignore, Hokulele, The Jefferson thread is great.
join us. We all float down here!

[Hokulele]

*Sigh*

It looks like joobz is off his meds.

Again.

[DOC]

Michael, if you value your sanity at all, do not do this. I repeat, do not do this.


Michael if you value NON-secular humanist edited history take the plunge:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2351125#post2351125

[joobz]

Michael if you value NON-secular humanist edited history take the plunge:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2351125#post2351125
Using the DOC to reality translator:
"NON-secular humanist edited" means
"Complete lies that I know are lies but will pretend otherwise"

[Hokulele]

Using the DOC to reality translator:
"NON-secular humanist edited" means
"Complete lies that I know are lies but will pretend otherwise"


It looks like DOC went straight back to his dishonest debating tactic of not reading one single word of Michael's post before making a comment. Typical.

[joobz]

It looks like DOC went straight back to his dishonest debating tactic of not reading one single word of Michael's post before making a comment. Typical.
Of course DOC is using his SOP, Otherwise, he would have to admit that Michael already has the truth of the jefferson thread.

[Hawk one]

So DOC, why did you claim that nothing about a wall between the church and state was mentioned before 1947, when we already know that Jefferson himself said just the opposite? Why do you keep repeating this old lie? Why are you unable to stop lying?

[Michael Redman]

Oh, I forgot the best part of the declaration, where Jefferson writes to the effect that governments derive their just pwers from the consent of the governed, which is a total (and probably glaring at the time) departure from the authority-comes-from-God tradition from which they came.

The US government was established on popular sovereignty, a distinctly secular humanist perspective. The few, insignificant references to the supernatural in the documents discussed are obviously cultural anachronisms, not statements of faith.



I probably never should have posted in this thread, as it's obviously past the point where anyone says anything new.

And I have looked at the Jefferson thread. Weeks ago. That's still going?

Thanks, but. . . .

[fanboy]

I probably never should have posted in this thread, as it's obviously past the point where anyone says anything new.Don't worry to much about it. I made the same mistake.

[kmortis]

Oh, I forgot the best part of the declaration, where Jefferson writes to the effect that governments derive their just pwers from the consent of the governed, which is a total (and probably glaring at the time) departure from the authority-comes-from-God tradition from which they came.

The US government was established on popular sovereignty, a distinctly secular humanist perspective. The few, insignificant references to the supernatural in the documents discussed are obviously cultural anachronisms, not statements of faith.



I probably never should have posted in this thread, as it's obviously past the point where anyone says anything new.

And I have looked at the Jefferson thread. Weeks ago. That's still going?

Thanks, but. . . .

1) To be fair, the "concent of the governed" concept came from Locke, IIRC.

2) No one probably should still be posting here, but it's like that cut on the roof of the mouth that you KNOW you shouldn't mess with...

3) Yes, sad to say, the Jefferson thread is our own Energizer Bunny of threads. He keeps setting them up, we keep knocking them down. Kinda like all DOC's other threads.

[Michael Redman]

1) To be fair, the "concent of the governed" concept came from Locke, IIRC.

Yes, The Declaration relies quite heavily on Locke's Second Treatise on Government. Jefferson and company did not invent the humanist concepts of the Enlightenment. However, while Locke, Rousseau, and the rest thought, wrote, and discussed these ideas abstractly (and maybe did a little agitating), the founders of the US decided to put them into practice in rather dramatic fashion.

[Jaggy Bunnet]

And that monarch is head of the state religion which is a form of christianity.

That is not true for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

If you mean England, say England. Saying UK is incorrect when making statements like the one above.

[kmortis]

Yes, The Declaration relies quite heavily on Locke's Second Treatise on Government. Jefferson and company did not invent the humanist concepts of the Enlightenment. However, while Locke, Rousseau, and the rest thought, wrote, and discussed these ideas abstractly (and maybe did a little agitating), the founders of the US decided to put them into practice in rather dramatic fashion.

Well, Locke et al. didn't have the chance to put their ideas into action, did they? It's a rather unique event, forming a country. :D

[Michael Redman]

Yes, the founders of the US didn't just decide to, but also had the opportunity to put them into practice.

[kmortis]

Yes, the founders of the US didn't just decide to, but also had the opportunity to put them into practice.

Hrm...

"Means, Motive and Opportunity isn't just for murder investigations any more"

:p

[tracer]

Given that the law passed to authorized creation of the prayer room says this:

It was a first essential to make sure that no part of the furnishings and no symbol used would give offense to members of any church, and at the same time incorporate in the fabric and decoration of the room the basic unity of belief in God and His Providence that has characterized our history. To achieve these purposes, an advisory panel was constituted, representing the three great faiths that form, together, the spirit of the Nation. The Chaplains of the Senate and the House, Reverend Frederick Brown Harris and Reverend Bernard Braskamp, were joined on the advisory panel by Father Edward J. Herrmann, Assistant Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Washington, and Rabbi Norman Gerstenfeld, Minister of the Washington Hebrew Congregation. The furnishings, the window, and the symbols have met with the unanimous approval of the four.


So ... to represent ALL faiths of the Nation, they picked an advisory panel consisting of a Protestant Christian, a Catholic Christian, and a Jew?

That's like that exchange in The Blues Brothers when they were planning to play at a bar they'd never seen before:

JAKE: "What kind of music do you have here?"
WAITRESS: "Oh, both kinds. Country and Western!"

[drkitten]

So ... to represent ALL faiths of the Nation, they picked an advisory panel consisting of a Protestant Christian, a Catholic Christian, and a Jew?

By the standards of 1955, that's actually a scarily ecumenical group. Bear in mind that even recently (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States), Orthodox Christians are less than 2% of the population and non-Abrahamic faiths are also less than 2%. I'm not sure that there were any accredited clergy from other religions in the Washington DC area in 1955 who could have been asked to be on such a panel.

What were they supposed to do, fly in a Shinto priest from Kyoto for the weekly meetings?

[DOC]

Yes, sad to say, the Jefferson thread is our own Energizer Bunny of threads. He keeps setting them up, we keep knocking them down. Kinda like all DOC's other threads.


Well since your making derogatory comments about my threads (without mentioning them), it seems only fair to myself to let the readers judge for themselves.


Thomas Jefferson's admiration and financial support of Christianity

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.p...43#post2347743

It is quite certain Peter spent his final years in Rome.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.p...00#post2714200

Could Communism in Russia have been successful with Christianity?

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.p...54#post2782654

Was Christopher Columbus obsessed with the Bible

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.p...13#post2806813

The Viking Leif Ericson was a Christian evangelist.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.p...55#post2792555

The Chrisian Roots of American Schools

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.p...72#post2953472

[DOC]

Hmm, it looks like you can no longer access my threads that I listed above by using the url anymore. I guess you'll have to go by title.

[strathmeyer]

Michael if you value NON-secular humanist edited history take the plunge:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2351125#post2351125

What do you hope to gain by pointing us back to your epic failure posts? Don't you have anything new to say? We've already pointed out to you what was wrong with that post many times in that thread, would you like for us to do that here? Or are you just hoping that more people will see your posts, thus increasing the chances of someone stupid enough to believe it will read it?

[Hardenbergh]

By the standards of 1955, that's actually a scarily ecumenical group. Bear in mind that even recently (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States), Orthodox Christians are less than 2% of the population and non-Abrahamic faiths are also less than 2%. I'm not sure that there were any accredited clergy from other religions in the Washington DC area in 1955 who could have been asked to be on such a panel.

What were they supposed to do, fly in a Shinto priest from Kyoto for the weekly meetings?

I'm not sure where you're getting the 2%. I was just looking at the table.

Various polls have been conducted to determine Americans' actual beliefs regarding God:


A 2006 online Harris Poll of 2,010 U.S. adults (18 and older) found that 58% of those surveyed were "absolutely certain" that God exists while 6% were "absolutely certain" that God does not exist.[6] The other 36% to 38% reported that they were only "somewhat certain" or "unsure" regarding the existence of God (21% reported they were "somewhat certain that there is a God," 11% that they were "not sure whether or not there is a God," and 6% that they were "somewhat certain that there is no God"). The poll showed that an "absolute certain" belief in God increased with age: while only 43%-45% of those aged 18-29 were "absolutely certain" that God exists, 54% of those aged 30-39 were "absolutely certain" that God exists, and 63%-65% of those aged 40 and older were "absolutely certain" that God exists.


A 2006 CBS News Poll of 899 U.S. adults found that 82% of those surveyed believed in God, while 9% believed in "some other universal spirit or higher power," 8% believed in neither, and 1% were unsure.


A 2004 Newsweek Poll of 1,009 U.S. adults, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, found that 82% of those surveyed believed that Jesus was God or the Son of God.


A 2000 Newsweek Poll of 752 U.S. adults, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, found that 94% of those surveyed believed in God, while 4% did not and 2% were unsure.


A 1998 Harris Poll of 1,011 U.S. adults found that 94% of those surveyed believed in God.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States

[drkitten]

I'm not sure where you're getting the 2%. I was just looking at the table.

Eastern Orthodox are 1.6%, "Other Christians" (which would include other branches of the Orthodox) are 0.3%, for a total of 1.9%.

For Non-Abrahamic faiths, Buddhist has 0.2%, Hindu has 0.1%, and "Others" have 0.6%, for a total of less than 2% -- less than 1%, in fact.

It makes little sense to consult a representative of the atheist community (even assuming such a community existed) regarding the design of a prayer room -- the atheist would probably just say "no, don't do it," which is not helpful once the decision has been made to provide that service. This is one of those grey areas between the establishment and free exercise clauses; it makes sense to provide a designated room for God-freaks to be religious in, but it doesn't make much sense to designate a room for the atheists to be irreligious in. That would be like having a designated room in your house to NOT watch TV in, wouldn't it?

[Jaggy Bunnet]

That would be like having a designated room in your house to NOT watch TV in, wouldn't it?

Given the number of TV's in the average home, that might not be such a silly idea!

[UnrepentantSinner]

Hmm, it looks like you can no longer access my threads that I listed above by using the url anymore. I guess you'll have to go by title.

Or one could just learn how to use the forum features...
http://forums.randi.org/search.php?searchid=1096490