lucifer_sam

It's absolutely ridiculous to compare abortion to infanticide. Many women (or teenage girls) aren't ready to become mothers and really have no other option than to abort. It isn't evil or wicked, and it most certainly isn't for "convenience." A child is an enormous responsibility, and it should not be under the judgment of conservatives to determine who must have a baby. I know several girls who have had abortions, and I can honestly say that it would have been the worst decision of their life to bear a child.

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first.am

WWWP

I'd rather someone have an abortion than see unfit parents bring a child into the world.

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#DEMODFROWNLAND
#TERMLIMITSFORMODERATORS

The Unfan

I know I'm on ignore by her but I figure I should address this anyway for passers by.
Well...no, but yes. She wants creation theory taught as science. However, creation theory has no scientific backing where evolution is a strictly scientific discussion. Religion shouldn't be a required course, and should not be funded by tax dollars. However, if a private school wants to use their private funds not payed for by tax dollars to teach religion thats fine. Teaching it isn't wrong, however if I had children I wouldn't want to impose religion on them, and most certainly not in school.

Yes the way he was saying. The first amendment wouldn't have it any other way. As long as something is paid for by taxes it can not be religious activity. It really is that simple.

America was founded for two major reasons. The first of which are tea taxes, or more expansively taxation of consumables. The second reason, and the important one for this discussion, is to escape the tryanny of state ran mega churches. Among the founding fathers we had mostly Christians and Deists probably because of their background more than anything. However, it was made pretty clear in the Treaty Of Tripoly, article 11 that the U.S. government is not in any way founded on the Christian religion.

So how about "In God We Trust"? Well, America wasn't founded in the middle of the cold war.

Anyway, just so i know where you're coming from ~

Yes...
No
Yes
I have a few Christian friends who are in favor of *** marriage because they don't view America as a Christian nation. Likewise, neither should you, because it isn't. It never was, and as long as I am alive it won't be.

lucifer_sam

My point exactly.

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first.am

anticipation

Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, two of the leading organizers of the first Continental Congress, were deists. Deism places reasoning and logic as being more significant than scriptural proof. That is also why the First Amendment of the Constitution explicity created a separation of church and state. Deists also believe that God created a set of natural laws to govern the universe, and did not directly interfere with humanity.

America was not founded by a largely Christian congress that fiercely obeyed a orthodox set of morals. It was founded by a group of liberal, landowning entrepenuers who set out to gain economic freedom from England.

The Unfan

Because they already do read like they purposefully exclude God, gods, deities, mysticism, and supernatural concepts in general. The constitution mentions a possible reference twice. Care to see the context?
Which in and of itself references no god in particular much less the Christian God.
and...
Which could very well mean nature, abiogenesis, your mom & dad, but most importantly is not a reference to any particular religion. ****, it even tries to be sensitive to all religions so that all people can accept it for what it is.

How about the first amendment?
See? NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION. Pretty clear. There can by no law that exists strictly because of religious reasoning. You know why that is? Because America was founded as a secular nation.

As for the founding father's beliefs. Most of them were Deists, not Christians. Aside from the mentioned two, Jefferson was probably the most out spoken of the deists. Washington didn't speak much of religion and pretty much made it publically known that it wasn't in his interest at all.

anticipation

nearly all of the founding fathers embraced Deism, and were not Puritan wackjobs.

anticipation

had it ocurred to you that the Founding Fathers would have needed the support and strength of the combined sectarian Christian groups throughout the Colonies, and had placated them through their so-called "unshakable faith?"

if the founding fathers were in fact as steadfast in their morality, then this country's most important documents, such as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, wouldn't contain liberal sentiments. Puritanism, the vastly dominant religion in America during colonial times, does not value privacy, individualism, or equality. The closest semblance to religion that is evident in those documents mirrors that of the Quakers, who believed in equality and universal suffrage. incidently, the Quakers were the most persecuted of all Christian groups in the new world.

most of the fanatical christian believers were royalists as well, and supported the Protestant king who reigned in England as a result of the Glorious Revolution.

lucifer_sam

Even if they were a bunch of uptight asscracks, times have changed, and our perception of the law should have as well.

You can't even try to refute the disparity in relevance of the second amendment two hundred thirty years ago as compared to now. The right to keep and bear arms was meant to safeguard the country against invasion and attacks by Native Americans, and even then there were implications; it wasn't absolute.

The point is that the United States is a VERY different country than when it first began in the eighteenth century, and our culture serves to show that. Sex isn't just a procreative tool anymore - it's a fundamental part of our culture. And there are most certainly implications on our lifestyles as a result.

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first.am

The Unfan

This isn't true. You can have morality without Judean laws or even roots. It is absurd to think morality even derives from Christianity much less necessitating it. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that Christian morality is not only repugnant and vile, but comparitively immoral. That is neither here nor there though. The question being if the founding fathers used Christian morals should be answered first by defining morals, then defining, "Christian morals" and then defining where they derived their morals from.

So let us look at what the word "moral" means.

Definitions 5 and 6 don't really apply. So we have 4 definitions to work from which essentially add up to "good behavior." This seems like a fair definition.

Second, lets define "Christian morals." Based on the two words in use we can derive two meanings. The first being "Behavior which is good in accordance with Christianity" and the second being "Good behavior deriving from Christian faith." Again, I'd say these are fair. Feel free to disagree.

Lastly, what were the morals of the founding fathers vs morality as derived from Christianity and also where did the founding fathers derive their morality or sense there of. Let us assume the 10 commandments are what define Christian morality. If you disagree with the use of the 10 commandments just note so and I'll bring up other scripture. For this we will use the 10 commandments as found in the book of Exodus (For other references you could use Deuteronomy). They are as follows followed by my reason why the founding fathers most certainly, by this standard, did not use Christian morality.
1. Since many were deists they did believe in a god, but not God. Many believed in natural God who operated through natural means without all the supernatural mystic nonsense. This sort of deity is not the God of the bible.

2. They most certainly wanted freedom of the press, and that would include artistic interpretations of all the things mentioned. They did not view God as too sacred for artistic intent.

3. I've got no real comment for this one. It might have applied to some of them.

4. The "sabbath day" isn't considered holy. For most Americans, and especially the ones in congress, the senate, and office, it is just another day of work.

5. Doesn't seem to apply too much. It is one of those cases that could have been true.

6. Fine, this should be law.

7. With scriptual backing you will see that this also includes "lusting in your own heart" which I will liberally take to mean "feel attracted to some fine piece of ass." I'm not sure how many followed this and to what degree. I'm almost certain some of them had to be deviants to some degree though. If I recall some documentaries noted Franklin in particular had a thing for younger women, though I don't recall the documentary or if it even exists as its been so long. I could be wrong on this.

8. Again, I agree this should be law and so did they. This is totally acceptable.

9. You shall not lie in court. Seems fair.

10. The fathers were actually pretty highly in favor of at least a semi-free market. The word "covet" means to "want with a passion" or something to that degree. Of course the founding fathers weren't against wanting things or else they wouldn't have wanted a free market of any sort. Wanting things is how business works. If my neighbor has something and I think its cool I'll buy one. Economics 101 says this is pretty good.

So between the 10 commandments 4 most certainly were heavily argued against by the founding fathers at least in terms of running the country. 2 seem more like personal choices, and 1 I'm not sure on but shouldn't be law. This leaves 3 things that are "morally good" according to Christianity that the founding fathers found necessary and I can make a case for why all 3 of them just seem natural later. 3 more which some might have adhered to but didn't see as necessarilly good for the country, and 4 they felt were outright bad for the country.

So now lets look at the other option for "Christian morals" which would mean "morals derived from Christianity." Since we've established that some were deists, some were Christians, and some were probably neither that some may have morality derived from Christianity and some may not.

I strongly feel that it is insincere at best to derive morality from that which you don't believe in or know to be true. You seem like a fairly Christian person, so would you derive morality from The Big Platypus In My Shoe? Of course not, you don't think it exists, so why would you? I think this would apply to the non-Christians. Why would they use God to fathom morality when they disbelieved in God and didn't know God to be true? It just seems silly.

Secondly to say your morality is derived from your religion says a lot about your character. It means you're telling me that without your religion you would have no morals. If you're really the kind of person who would be a rapist and a killer if not for God than you have no room telling anyone they are immoral.

If I had to take a guess evolution. My theory is at some point in the development of the human brain we were much more primative and so we had to develop courtesy as a survival skill. We were probably close knit roamers who would see that same people a lot. Through this we developed a sense of community and thus developed morality. Because we were developing into communities or groupings we had to develop a sense of mutual benefits. Among these would be things like not hurting each other, because hurting each other hurts the community. So basically morality was caused by the brain adapting to a larger scale of existence.