God Expelled

[DavidGD620]

Back in the old days folks would gather down at the old store and discuss all sorts of things.  Today we gather around that shining rectangle called a monitor and individually  discuss, cajole, argue, cuss and generally have it out verbally with each other without saying a word or having a face-to-face confrontation with anyone except our image in a blank monitor. I think I liked the old days better.

 As to the current topic, I guess I have to give in and say I agree with everything everybody says; meaning I don't think it is important from the larger view of things.  It's sort of like evolution, things just happen, and you or I have no discernible effect on the outcomes. If you understand what I just said, please tell me, I don't understand what I just said except that I could care less about the purported issue being discussed; what does the constitution mean when it says "government should establish no religion".

 Religion is personal and cannot be transferred to another. The practice of saying the pledge of allegiance in public schools is common, as are other forms of worship, such as a period of silence.  We don't have a Church of America because our constitution does not allow it.  Most early settlers came from England which has a state supported church, The Church of England.

 We have an offshoot from the Church of England,  the Episcopal Church, which because of many bad experiences with a state supported church, our ancestors decided against allowing the Episcopal Church to have state support.  The decision to do away with a national church was not an easy one, as many states had state supported churches when we were a colony (I remember it well), and resisted the constitutional ban against state supported churches.

[RJLeeb]

If you don't understand what you are saying, I'm not sure how the rest of us are supposed to figure it out.

You must have been around during the days we were a colony, since you "remember it well".

[randy]

If you don't understand what you are saying, I'm not sure how the rest of us are supposed to figure it out.

You must have been around during the days we were a colony, since you "remember it well".

I was thinking the same thing

[randy]

I see that commercial on the side of the BBS board of a movie claiming Jesus never existed.  Didn't we go over that in the 70 and 80' where most scholars all agreed a historic Jesus did exist?

[chrstnhsbndfthr]

I will assume this comment comes from ignorance and is not a deliberate attempt at deception on your part. Many of the founders wanted to abolish slavery from the start, but did not have the support of the people, to abolish slavery in the beginning and still form the union.  I know the historical rewrite of this is popular among the leftists and therefore has fooled many. Even many of those who recognized the political situation for what it was, found it deplorable, and would have preferred to end the practice in the beginning. And oddly, at least if you buy into some of the leftists hateful rewrites, they opposed slavery on religious grounds and fought diligently against it.

http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/slavery.html

We need to spend more time reading and teaching our founding principles. It is amazing what permeated the thinking of the founders that is not even tolerated today.

Like slavery?

[belle]

I will assume this comment comes from ignorance and is not a deliberate attempt at deception on your part. Many of the founders wanted to abolish slavery from the start, but did not have the support of the people, to abolish slavery in the beginning and still form the union.  I know the historical rewrite of this is popular among the leftists and therefore has fooled many. Even many of those who recognized the political situation for what it was, found it deplorable, and would have preferred to end the practice in the beginning. And oddly, at least if you buy into some of the leftists hateful rewrites, they opposed slavery on religious grounds and fought diligently against it.

http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/slavery.html

We need to spend more time reading and teaching our founding principles. It is amazing what permeated the thinking of the founders that is not even tolerated today.

Like slavery?

OK then, what permeated their minds that is not tolerated today, oh he who knows the mind of God and dead men?

[bobsyouruncle]

 

We need to spend more time reading and teaching our founding principles. It is amazing what permeated the thinking of the founders that is not even tolerated today.

Like slavery?

As I was saying-- slavery is not tolerated today.  It obviously pervaded the thinking of the founding fathers because it must have taken some ciphering to calculate that a slave should count as three fifths of a man when determining congressional representation for each state.

There is a problem with seeing the world in absolutes.  Two things that seem to be opposites can be true at the same time.  There were many admirable things done by the men we call the founding fathers, but these men also reflected common beliefs of their time and upbringing about some things--such as slavery-- that we do not tolerate today.   

This has been true of every generation--ours included.  It's not something we have to be defensive about.  It's just how it is.  Earth would be paradise if we had all evolved in our hearts and minds to the very best we can be in terms of how we treat ourselves and each other. 

I include "how we treat ourselves" because so much poor behavior is caused by our failure to understand what is in our own best interests. We are more connected than we know.

We all want to be valued and respected-- and we want that for our loved ones. When we work to create a society where every person is valued and respected, then we and our loved ones are assured that we will not be left to try and fend for ourselves when we become sick or old or fall upon hard times. 

In 1784, five years before he became president of the United States, George Washington, 52, was nearly toothless. So he hired a dentist to transplant nine teeth into his jaw--having extracted them from the mouths of his slaves.

from the US News and World Report, 01/04/04
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/040112/12slave.htm

The founding fathers were heroes in some ways and missed the mark in others.  Just like the rest of us.  They were on the right track about human rights so far as the was the custom of their day,  but it's our responsibility to keep advocating for everyone to have the same rights the founding fathers so eloquently claimed for themselves and others of their gender, race and class.

[DavidGD620]

I fail to see where these arguments concerning the founding fathers and slavery are going.  I fail to see the rationality of making this argument over and over again, when the original question had to do with religion.  If you do not agree with the US constitution, when it says, paraphrasing,  "government shall make no establishment of religion", then, as has been attempted before, attempt to change the Constitution. 

Slavery is a totally different issue.  I think almost all the signers of the Constitution believed that slavery was an evil, and their failure to outlaw it in the Constitution was only to make it possible to construct a nation out of the thirteen colonies.

 Many of you fail to understand humor when I say, "I remember it well" when talking about the colonial days.  These comments are sort of a lightening rod that I place in the text, to short circuit your thinking and to get you off the old beat and down a new road, the road to rationality.

[randy]

However this outcome goes, let the kids go to the auditorium and use God in the Pledge, It will make them realize more what they stand for in this life and to fight the good fight for Gods will for them.

[DavidGD620]

I agree, Randy.  If those saying the pledge think on what they are saying, with the option of personally adding in "Nation under God" or leaving it out, this is great. Everyone, by virtue of living in this country, will be required to personally decide what they think about "God" and all that entails.

The great thing about this country is that everyone has the freedom to decide this issue without official coercion.  There will always be diverse opinions, but the official opinion or position on these issues should always be moot, non-existent, Nada.  Everyone should have the greatest freedom to believe and practice whatever religion, or set of beliefs, or what ever, they wish, with the only caveat that they do no harm to the personhood of anyone else.  Amen

[RJLeeb]

Many of you fail to understand humor when I say, "I remember it well" when talking about the colonial days.  These comments are sort of a lightening rod that I place in the text, to short circuit your thinking and to get you off the old beat and down a new road, the road to rationality.

Short circuit our thinking?  What are you, Johnny Number 5?

Will all due respect, you've got to be the least rational person I've ever seen post on this board.

Since you are talking about the freedom to decide things without coercion, I'm sure you are against open voting within the unions.  Right?

[DavidGD620]

Again, I fail to understand much of the thinking expressed on this site.  The reason may be that my early experiences are probably much different that most of yours.  I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin--a rather liberal urban-rural area, compared to the premillennial south.  My mother was very liberal for her time and almost worshiped Eleanor Roosevelt. I tried the conservative road during my early professional carrier, but fell off the tracks during the Nixon debacle.  I have since moved to the left, as did my father during his later years.  I have conservatives in my family, but we try to get on together.  I don't believe the differences are all that great.

[Beel]

CHF said above:  I know the historical rewrite of this is popular among the leftists and therefore has fooled many. Even many of those who recognized the political situation for what it was, found it deplorable, and would have preferred to end the practice in the beginning. And oddly, at least if you buy into some of the leftists hateful rewrites, they opposed slavery on religious grounds and fought diligently against it.

It may be many things, but historical rewrite it is not, to simply note that in our Constitution, slaves are "defined" as 3/5ths of a person for the purposes of determining representation in the Congress.  It's also not a historical rewrite to take note of the fact that on our $20 bill, today, is the picture of President Andrew Jackson, a "great man" who also might be reasonably viewed as a genocidal maniac for his part in the Trail of Tears. 

"Give me Liberty or Give me death" is a ringing phrase.  Where slaves and Cherokees are concerned, the choice was often death.  Things didn't much change after the Civil War either--we sent the most genocidal minded victors out west to deal with the Native Americans in those parts, and the just destruction of George Armstrong Custer was met with an American outrage worthy of our 40 year punishment of Cuba for "going communist." 

Nobody is "rewriting history," Mr. CHF.  Some folks don't so much believe in history as in amnesia.  That's the truth of it. 

[randy]

Trail of Tears was just as bad as the Japanese shooting down our POW soldiers back in the war that dropped down with fatigue and was shot in cold blood.  My Uncle Tredway married a Indian woman in Ok and had direct descendants of the trail of tears.  She used to tell me stories about and has much historical literature on it, many children died.  One of the cruelest things in our nations history beside the lives lost in the War between the Sates and slave trade.

[chrstnhsbndfthr]

It may be many things, but historical rewrite it is not, to simply note that in our Constitution, slaves are "defined" as 3/5ths of a person for the purposes of determining representation in the Congress. 

Here is a perfect example of a historical rewrite, and of course it might actually fool people if they didn't know what really happened. It was NOT the slave-holders that wanted representation that way. The slave-holders wanted their slaves counted the same as anyone else. They just didn't want them to have ACTUAL representation, such as might occur if they were allowed to vote.  The truth of the matter is plain enough. If the slaves had been counted fully, the representation for the slave holders would have been greater, benefiting the slave-holders, and inhibiting those who opposed them. This compromise actually helped the situation of blacks in America, but has often been misrepresented to perpetuate racial strife. In short, it had nothing to do with ratifying their humanity, it had to do with how powerful the slave-holders would be in the new government.

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