Somebody has got to do something!

[Texas Lynn]

Do we forget that in the begining of this nation, the choice was between the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans? And later between the Democrats and the Wigs? The GOP was a "Third party" Until Lincoln was elected. So to will it be that one of the third parties will one day bump one of the two off the ticket.

The dominance of the top two parties, Democrats and Republicans, has endured since 1860 and is not too very likely to change.

Third parties who had some effects included:

1. 1892 and 1896 - Populist Party (allied with Democrats)
2. 1912 and 1924 - Progressive Party (Theodore Roosevelt running for a third term and Robert LaFollette)
3. 1948 - States Rights Party (Dixiecrats, Strom Thurmond) and Progressive Party (Henry Wallace)
4. 1968 - American Independent Party (George Wallace)
5. 1992 and 1996 - Reform Party (Ross Perot)
6. 2000 - Green Party (Ralph Nader)

Of these only LaFollette and Wallace won electoral votes, LaFollette those of his home state of Wisconsin, and Wallace of 5 Deep South States, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia (Thurmond, by then a Republican, delivered South Carolina to Richard Nixon). Only Nader affected the balance-had Nader's votes all gone to Gore, Gore would have won the electoral college by carrying, in addition to the states he won, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Florida (Florida's close vote would thereby not have resulted in a court challenge).

That is as good as it gets for third parties in the last 150 years more or less. The duopoly stands largely because people are satisfied with the two major parties and it's hard to get third parties on the ballot in most states. The two major parties tend to coopt third party movements by adopting watered down versions of their rhetoric and ideas.

Sure, there's a chance the "teabagger" movement could evolve into a meaningful third party, but not likely. It is mostly Republicans who are in the movement and the true independents who are in it are coopted by them. They are similar to the Perot voters, who heralded Perot as a businessman who could change things, ignoring realities like how he got rich on contracts with welfare programs and was every bit as much an insider as his Republican and Democratic opponents. If anything the teabaggers are at best an even more minor movement than the Populists, Progressives, Dixciecrats and Wallaceites, and Perotistas.

Go ahead if you want to and start a third party. Without Perot's wealth and ability to self-fund or Wallace's single issue (racism) it's not likely you'll get very far.

 

[Texas Lynn]

...we have to ask why God
bothered adding Revelation...

That was actually the Council of Nicea. Until the late 19th Century the concept it referred to future events was largely a very minor view. Scholars outside the more apocalytic sects tend to regard its' 'Evil Empire" as a metaphor for Rome which persecuted early Christians.

 

[starbrite]

The council of Nicea was responsible for much altering and rewriting of the bible...
they left out a scad of "books"
I believe historically it is claimed that the bible was created at that time, much being made up on the orders of Constantine in order to perpetuate his empire....
starbrite

 

[Nadiine]

Council of Nicea did not chose the books of the bible, page 1

I'm sure this is heavily disputed - you make claims, but you
need proof to back such an assertion.

For the sake of argument, I'll add this, even IF they added
this book, is God powerless to stop them if He is adamant on
it being false?
If God didn't want it in our Bible, it wouldn't be in there to
lead people into error or false teaching.

This is just another attempt to undermine the authority
and inerrancy of scripture.

 

[LightHorseman]

Council of Nicea did not chose the books of the bible, page 1

I'm sure this is heavily disputed - you make claims, but you
need proof to back such an assertion.

For the sake of argument, I'll add this, even IF they added
this book, is God powerless to stop them if He is adamant on
it being false?
If God didn't want it in our Bible, it wouldn't be in there to
lead people into error or false teaching.

This is just another attempt to undermine the authority
and inerrancy of scripture.

If scripture is inerrant, how come you never managed to come up with a reasonable explanation for why you so blatantly disregard the bits that contradict what you want to believe?

 

[LightHorseman]

Read the link Nadiine posted.

Even if you don't agree with the Evangelical doctrine of Inerrancy, there are historical facts that testify to the pre-Nicene existence of biblical sources. Namely, references in the Ecclesiastical History (Pamphilus, cited by Eusebius) and the works of the fathers. Irenaeus, Ignatius, Tertullian - all make references to the books of the bible and extra-canonical things that were at the time considered equally authoritative.

I myself don't agree with a literal inspiration for philosophical reasons, but disputing cold, hard historical evidence is something a little more difficult to do. Unless you have substantive proof as to suggest a lack of credibility as regards that evidence. In which case you'd be the most significant thinker in the history of the Church this century. Really. There's room to say that texts were subtly modified and glossed by copyists, or to debate the authorship of certain works, but a claim as broad as the majority of the canon being a Nicene fabrication at the whim of Constantine is both ludicrous and totally unsubstantiated.

There's quite a difference between acknowledging that much Biblical material existed in a recogniseable form pre Nicea, and demanding that people treat the King James version as the inerant and direct Word of God

 

[LightHorseman]

I never said there wasn't, did I? I was responding to Starbrite's crackpot conspiracist post that demonstrated a total lack of any historical awareness.

I wasn't intentionally implying that the text was Pre-Nicene and therefore inerrant. I did cite Nadiine's link, but that was because it said that the text was ante-Nicene in origin. I sort of assumed that there was no way in which the inference to authority could be made rationally from that so left it alone. Ah wel.

Apologies if I sounded like I was attacking you, that was not my intention. There are, however, a great many people who seem to think that the fact that there are some extant Biblical texts that predate Nicea, somehow translates to mean that the modern Bible you would buy in any bookshop is somehow inerrant and divinely authored.