"America Founded on Christian Principles"

I accidentally left some quote tags open in my last post.

Here's the part that got shlubbed up. It includes the reasons the Bible should be inadmissable for legislation.



If you won't produce a source, I'll have to assume you can't produce a source.

1) This is a nation of many different world-views, not just Christians.

2) Unless you can prove the validity of the Bible, which you can not, it has no authority on truth. You may believe that it does, in your own life, but this does not give you the right to force that opinion on others, not in America, land of the free and home of the brave.

I'm talking about politics here, not every possible conversation between two people.

Not if a particular behavior or precept is submitted as if it were true just because Jesus did it. Otherwise you must also allow the followers of Zeus, Posidon, Muhommed and Buddah the same curtesy. Would you like it if laws were passed requiring women to wear burkahs in public based on the reasoning that Muhommed would want it that way?

I'm not alone in believing the Bible is just a book.

And I still have to make this clear, even if the Bible was corroborted by evidence about the life of Jesus, which it is not, that wouldn't give it a single iota of authority on politics.

Nope. That's not what I said at all. That is obviously the exact opposite of what I said (about law not constitutionalist/libertarian). Passing federal legislation against gay marriage takes the decision out of the state's hands. You are the one who wants to do that, and I'm the one who wants to stop it.

Which means what for homosexuals? That federal law forbids them from marriage, exactly as I explained.

Right now, there is no federal law saying homosexuals can't marry

I think the following needs to be submitted, and taken for whatever it's worth:

Article 11 of The Treaty of Tripoli states:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Thomas Jefferson's submitted draft of the Declaration of Independence was edited by the signers to include god. He was definately a deist. No doubt about it.


Quote:
This phrase:

"All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable."

...was changed to:


Quote:
"...are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Even in the final draft, it referred to 'Nature's God', not Aberham's God.

And to provide a window into their intent, some quotes from the uttmost influential American founders:


Quote:
But is uniformity, of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and as there is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable ?Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand. That if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments.

-Thomas Jefferson "Notes on Virginia"



Quote:
"But I was scarce fifteen. . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my 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."

-Benjamin Franklin, Letter to his father

Let's compare that with later in his life:

"the necessity of a public religion . . . and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern." -Benjamin Franklin's 1749 plan of education for public schools in Pennsylvania.

In 1787 when Franklin helped found Benjamin Franklin University, it was dedicated as "a nursery of religion and learning, built on Christ, the Cornerstone."


Quote:
You are happy in dwelling in a land where those inestimable privileges are fully enjoyed; and the public has long felt the good effects of this religious as well as civil liberty... Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."

-James Madison, Letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774 (Comparison of religious liberty vs. religious bondage. The very thing this country was founded upon.)



Quote:
"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! With the rational respect which is due to it. knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill, or might fill, the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history. "

-John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson (Commentary on religious abuses, and the fact that the rational of it all was 'The Cross')

Need more convincing? Look at these other John Adams Quotes:

The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God
-John Adams letter written to Abigail Adams when the Declaration of Independence was approved by Congress
We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus! [April 18, 1775]


Quote:
"We do not admit the authority of the church with respect to its pretended infallibility, its manufactured miracles, its setting itself up to forgive sins. It was by propagating that belief and supporting it with fire that she kept up her temporal power."

-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (Well, what can I say, Thomas Paine disliked Christianity, but this quote specifically deals with the Roman Catholic Church.)


Quote:
"Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by the difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be depreciated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society."

-George Washington, Letter to Edward Newenham, 1792 (I don't have a problem with this quote, since it is accurate in principle.)

Christian and jewish immigrants came to america to excape the oppression of the british state church and other european oppression- this is how america got started.

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Delaware Constitution (1776)

Article 22:
"Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust...shall...also make and subscribe the following declaration, to whit:
"I, _____, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration"

Maryland Constitution (1776)
Article XXXV:
"That no other test or qualification ought to be required...than such oath of support and fidelity to this State...and a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion."

Massachusetts Constitution (1776):
"All persons elected to office must make the following declaration: "I do declare that I believe the Christian religion, and have firm persuasion of its truth"

Pennsylvania Constitution (1776)
Section 10:
"And each member [of the legislature], before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: "I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration."

North Carolina Constitution (1776)
Article XXXII
"That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State."

New Hampshire Constitution (1784)
Part 2:
"[Provides that no person be elected governor, senator, representative or member of the Council] who is not of the protestant religion."

Tennessee Constitution (1796)

Article VIII, Section 2:
"No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall old any office in the civil department of this State."

The translation of the Treaty of Tripoli by Barlow has been found faulty, and there is doubt whether Article 11 corresponds to anything of the same purport in the Arabic version.[17]
In 1931 Hunter Miller completed a commission by the United States government to analyze United States's treaties and to explain how they function and what they mean in terms of the United States's legal position in relationship with the rest of the world.[18] According to Hunter Miller's notes, "the Barlow translation is at best a poor attempt at a paraphrase or summary of the sense of the Arabic" and "Article 11... does not exist at all."[19]
After comparing the United States's version by Barlow with the Arabic and even the Italian version, Miller continues by claiming that:

The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter, crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant, from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. How that script came to be written and to be regarded, as in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point.[19]

From this, Miller concludes: "A further and perhaps equal mystery is the fact that since 1797 the Barlow translation has been trustfully and universally accepted as the just equivalent of the Arabic... yet evidence of the erroneous character of the Barlow translation has been in the archives of the Department of State since perhaps 1800 or thereabouts..."[19]

Oh, goody. All of those years of college just didn't do it. Thank goodness I have your genius to fall back on.



And I agreed with you.



OK. If you say so. You're free to believe that if you like. Personally, I think I'll continue to get my history of the founding and nature of our nation from the words of the founding fathers and the founding documents.

In addition to our nation's founding documents, which you've already been shown, here are a few words from the states:

http://www.whateveristrue.com/heritage/preamble.htm

I'm curious, in what way do you believe that the following demonstrates that our country was founded on secularism:

True seahale - Why did the british state church types escape to the U.S.?