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Some politically conservative Christians say that America is "a Christian nation," and at this time of year, with the country saturated with Christmas imagery, it can seem that they are right. Are they? Is America a "Christian nation"? Should it be?
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/2006/12/is_america_a_christian_nation/
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
V writes:
Should the US be a Christian nation?
That is an excellent question.
Probably so, what is the alternative?
Buddhism is OK, but Buddhism offers little in charitable work as the Christians do.
"Real Buddhists" detach themselves from life to escape samara, begging for their food, not handling money, not reproducing. Not very practical for a flourishing US economy. Even if money be damned, we can't all beg off each other. And someone has to make the electric and process the human waste. Early Buddhists realized this problem and Mahayana and Pure Land Buddhism was invented to get around some of this problem.
See:
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=508.0
In addition, the Christians can defend us in war, where the Buddhists would end up like the monks do in Burma.
Should our country be an atheist run country like China, Russia or Burma?
I think history answers that question.
Atheists like to fantasize what the world would be like if religion would never have been invented.
Sure Christians do bad things, so do all practitioners in other religions.
Taoists tell us - "fleas come with the dog." So we must accept that every man made religion has some problems and defects within it.
But many of these religious practitioners also do good things. You never see atheists taking up charitable works and feeding and clothing the poor in any organized way as Christians do.
There may be the odd atheists philanthropists here or there, but nothing organized like Christians charitable organizations. I wrote to the president of American Atheists, UK Atheists, the Secular Humanism Foundation, Sam Harris and others about this very topic...none had the courtesy to reply.
Shows how much interest atheists really have in humanity.
No, I prefer to keep things as they are and allow freedom for ALL religions, even with all their imperfections.
I believe religions do more good than harm.
I shudder to think what the world would be like if it was composed solely of atheists. But I also like to keep the atheists around to remind us all to come back to earth once in while and look for truth...especially when some of us start to kill in the name of God.
But as for the mix of spiritual based or atheistic persons in the US or the world? The facts show clearly that when people are devoid of religion they generally stink as humane humans.
See:
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=509.0
A Hindu sage once told me -
"Just as water floes downhill without effort but requires outside forces and energy to make it move uphill. So the human consciousness falls to its lowest levels of the senses without effort and energies to make our consciousness gravitate to more than our base desires."
As such, religion and the search for spiritual values are the lesser of two evils with humans, if the other choice is a life devoid of spiritual values.
But spiritual values and atheists do not generally mix?
An anonymous atheist once told me:
"What is spirit or spirituality V? Without knowing what you mean by the word, one can't know what you mean. Why study something for which you not only have no evidence, but not even a definition?"
Yes, spiritual concepts are hard to define, just as the source of the wind is hard to define. Since spiritual matters deal with the unseen and the unknown, how can we define them perfectly?
If we could do that they would not be spiritual studies.
You can't see why one person is loving and kind and another person is a fiend of perennial shame, hate and destruction. Nor can you see what made the hate monger change into a kind and loving human.
We can describe spiritual concepts and the journey that made the change possible, but it is impossible to put our finger on it all exactly.
Spiritual growth is a journey that is a never ending, an imperfect process in this life. But just as we can see the effects of the wind, while being blind to its source; we can most definitely see the difference in people that incorporate spiritual values within their lives when compared to people that live a life devoid of any spiritual values.
"No man is so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master." Ben Jonson
No one said we have to 'investigate it all,' but we do have to give it some thought if we wish to be at peace.
That is the beauty of being a freethinker. We can think for ourselves. As such, when we get a toolbox we can decide which tools to use for the job. Some tools are used a lot, other tools are left alone for the time being, and still others are trashed when we see they are broken and useless.
Traditional freethinkers (atheists) do not accept me as one of their group, since I draw from spiritual paths as well as wordily areas to garner wisdom to live at peace.
Traditional freethinkers do not like anything that comes from religion.
Kind of a misnomer isn't it...I'm a freethinker...but I must block out everything that comes from religion and spiritual traditions and whatever other prejudice I wish to inject into the equation?
See:
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=470.0
Psychologist William James once said, "A great many people believe they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
When we limit prejudice we can open our minds to truth and peace. And realize the truth of Blake's words that "all deities reside within the human breast."
Yes, if it is religion that an atheists need to adopt, they only have to look as far as the religion of humanity. But just paying secular humanism lip service will not do any good. Our talk of spiritual values must match our actions.
See:
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)
It would be nice if humans acted logically and their actions only worked to make their species flourish and promoted inner peace to all - but they don't.
Humans need moral guidance or a moral conscience since they have a 'free will' of sorts.
Actually it is like this.
We are free to do what we want -- but are not free to want what we want.
All our actions have consequences, and many of our actions produce consequences that end up destroying peace. (both ours and other's peace).
This is what separates us from the animals that run solely on instinct.
Humans run by instinct as well as moral guidance. And religion offers a prepackaged set of morals for humans to adhere to.
Whether this moral conscience in divinely inspired or from Nature I don't know - that is why I am an agnostic.
But If I had to guess I would lean towards the atheistic view of Nature based conscience, since I have not found any evidence of a God such as the monotheists claim....but as an agnostic I keep looking.
And as I look with an open mind, I am reminded each day that there are powers greater than myself in charge and we are all interdependent and not independent with one another and hope one day we can all come to realize that we all share the same breath.
See:
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)
Take care,
V (Male)
Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
AA#2
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)
Some politically conservative Christians say that America is "a Christian nation," and at this time of year, with the country saturated with Christmas imagery, it can seem that they are right. Are they? Is America a "Christian nation"? Should it be?
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/2006/12/is_america_a_christian_nation/
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
V writes:
Should the US be a Christian nation?
That is an excellent question.
Probably so, what is the alternative?
Buddhism is OK, but Buddhism offers little in charitable work as the Christians do.
"Real Buddhists" detach themselves from life to escape samara, begging for their food, not handling money, not reproducing. Not very practical for a flourishing US economy. Even if money be damned, we can't all beg off each other. And someone has to make the electric and process the human waste. Early Buddhists realized this problem and Mahayana and Pure Land Buddhism was invented to get around some of this problem.
See:
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=508.0
In addition, the Christians can defend us in war, where the Buddhists would end up like the monks do in Burma.
Should our country be an atheist run country like China, Russia or Burma?
I think history answers that question.
Atheists like to fantasize what the world would be like if religion would never have been invented.
Sure Christians do bad things, so do all practitioners in other religions.
Taoists tell us - "fleas come with the dog." So we must accept that every man made religion has some problems and defects within it.
But many of these religious practitioners also do good things. You never see atheists taking up charitable works and feeding and clothing the poor in any organized way as Christians do.
There may be the odd atheists philanthropists here or there, but nothing organized like Christians charitable organizations. I wrote to the president of American Atheists, UK Atheists, the Secular Humanism Foundation, Sam Harris and others about this very topic...none had the courtesy to reply.
Shows how much interest atheists really have in humanity.
No, I prefer to keep things as they are and allow freedom for ALL religions, even with all their imperfections.
I believe religions do more good than harm.
I shudder to think what the world would be like if it was composed solely of atheists. But I also like to keep the atheists around to remind us all to come back to earth once in while and look for truth...especially when some of us start to kill in the name of God.
But as for the mix of spiritual based or atheistic persons in the US or the world? The facts show clearly that when people are devoid of religion they generally stink as humane humans.
See:
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=509.0
A Hindu sage once told me -
"Just as water floes downhill without effort but requires outside forces and energy to make it move uphill. So the human consciousness falls to its lowest levels of the senses without effort and energies to make our consciousness gravitate to more than our base desires."
As such, religion and the search for spiritual values are the lesser of two evils with humans, if the other choice is a life devoid of spiritual values.
But spiritual values and atheists do not generally mix?
An anonymous atheist once told me:
"What is spirit or spirituality V? Without knowing what you mean by the word, one can't know what you mean. Why study something for which you not only have no evidence, but not even a definition?"
Yes, spiritual concepts are hard to define, just as the source of the wind is hard to define. Since spiritual matters deal with the unseen and the unknown, how can we define them perfectly?
If we could do that they would not be spiritual studies.
You can't see why one person is loving and kind and another person is a fiend of perennial shame, hate and destruction. Nor can you see what made the hate monger change into a kind and loving human.
We can describe spiritual concepts and the journey that made the change possible, but it is impossible to put our finger on it all exactly.
Spiritual growth is a journey that is a never ending, an imperfect process in this life. But just as we can see the effects of the wind, while being blind to its source; we can most definitely see the difference in people that incorporate spiritual values within their lives when compared to people that live a life devoid of any spiritual values.
"No man is so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master." Ben Jonson
No one said we have to 'investigate it all,' but we do have to give it some thought if we wish to be at peace.
That is the beauty of being a freethinker. We can think for ourselves. As such, when we get a toolbox we can decide which tools to use for the job. Some tools are used a lot, other tools are left alone for the time being, and still others are trashed when we see they are broken and useless.
Traditional freethinkers (atheists) do not accept me as one of their group, since I draw from spiritual paths as well as wordily areas to garner wisdom to live at peace.
Traditional freethinkers do not like anything that comes from religion.
Kind of a misnomer isn't it...I'm a freethinker...but I must block out everything that comes from religion and spiritual traditions and whatever other prejudice I wish to inject into the equation?
See:
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=470.0
Psychologist William James once said, "A great many people believe they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
When we limit prejudice we can open our minds to truth and peace. And realize the truth of Blake's words that "all deities reside within the human breast."
Yes, if it is religion that an atheists need to adopt, they only have to look as far as the religion of humanity. But just paying secular humanism lip service will not do any good. Our talk of spiritual values must match our actions.
See:
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)
It would be nice if humans acted logically and their actions only worked to make their species flourish and promoted inner peace to all - but they don't.
Humans need moral guidance or a moral conscience since they have a 'free will' of sorts.
Actually it is like this.
We are free to do what we want -- but are not free to want what we want.
All our actions have consequences, and many of our actions produce consequences that end up destroying peace. (both ours and other's peace).
This is what separates us from the animals that run solely on instinct.
Humans run by instinct as well as moral guidance. And religion offers a prepackaged set of morals for humans to adhere to.
Whether this moral conscience in divinely inspired or from Nature I don't know - that is why I am an agnostic.
But If I had to guess I would lean towards the atheistic view of Nature based conscience, since I have not found any evidence of a God such as the monotheists claim....but as an agnostic I keep looking.
And as I look with an open mind, I am reminded each day that there are powers greater than myself in charge and we are all interdependent and not independent with one another and hope one day we can all come to realize that we all share the same breath.
See:
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)
Take care,
V (Male)
Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
AA#2
http: (removed due to censorship guidelines)
