I think this may have just become my new, favorite blog.
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Amazing! Goldy likes a blog that hates religion. Who would have thunk it?
I don’t know what the big deal is with conservatives and religion.
This country was in now way founded on Juedo-Christian religon.
Original intent. Yeah, becareful what you wish for.
I don’t hate religion! I LOVE Isis, and everyone who worships her will have eternal life! The rest of your poor sad unfaithful sinners who worship “false gods” will spend an eternity in the arms of Hades. What? You think YOUR religion is real and mine is just silly obvious made up myth? Oh….
Re 2
Uhh, not on Judeo Christian religion, but certainly on Judeo Christian principles. Be careful what you mis-characterize.
I’ve never been able to figure out the rabid anti christianity of the far left. Is it something in your granola?
Re 3
Sorry. My mistake. Leftists hate Christians. Every other faith is wonderfully multi-cultural and tolerant and all those other meaningless phrases you guys use.
So you know, GBS, there isn’t really a specifically Judeo Christian religion. The term refers to faiths (in the plural) that come from that tradition, specifically Christian or Christian inspired religions.
Lost @ 6:
You’re right I should’ve added the “s” to religion as to not confuse anyone. They are, in fact, two distinct religions that share a common beginning.
Thanks.
Lost @ 4:
Interesting commentary. You separate religion from principle as if that’s a major point of contention.
Can you be specific as to which principles that are solely and only Juedo-Christian as founding principles of our Constitution?
Re 8
The whole cultural background of the framers of our Constitution was European Christian. This of course doesn’t mean all of them were Christian (some were Deists, some agnostic or deeply skeptical etc,) but to pretend that the faith and how it informed the mostly English culture from which they came didn’t impact them would be disengenuous, in my humble opinion.
I am glad of the freedom of religion our Constitution establishes. I’m glad that the experience of a King who was also the head of the official church made these men reject that paradigm.
But to pretend that they hated religion and particularly Christianity as much as many on the left of the political spectrum do today is just false.
By the way, I apologize for the earlier blanket condemnation of all of those on the left hating Christianity.
@5
Ever heard of liberation theology?
Our very own Ed Murray gets a nod. Woot! Way to go Ed!
I really hope this is parody.
lost @ 9:
Interesting rebuttal, and I apologize for seeming like a stick in the mud, but what specific Juedo-Christian principles are you referring to that forms the basis for our nation?
@5
Check it out. I done went and found a Christian member of The Left.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Óscar_Romero
Goldy’s new favorite blog, certainly better than the old out-of-favor HA, didn’t get the memo: Anstinence makes the heart grow fonder.
Faithnotfreedom piles on abstinence, especially when it’s taught. Adstinence ed failed, says the left. Proof? There’s been a recent blip in what we quaintly called the illegitinacy rate. There’s no proof it ever did any good, unlike, say, condom cucumbers.
The rant’s eerily familiar. Maybe nothing works. But here’s what we know: Under failed comprehensive cucumber sex ed that BDW deconstructs, all the bad numbers shot up. When abstinence started getting play, the bad numbers leveled or went down until the recent little blip.
Maybe goldy needs to find a better new favorite blog to divert his attention from the stench of the HA cesspool.
illegitinacy = illegitimacy
@ 14:
Yeah, Bristol Palin agrees with you!
Abstinence may make the heart grow fonder but it can leave you with a case of blue balls.
No Judo-Christian religon? Now way!
So how about Kung-Fu Christianity … work for you?
(Puddy: Check out the stained glass windows in the chapel at Cornell? In an annex, windows are dedicated to Goodman and Schwerner.)
Anstinence = Abstinence
Adstinence = Abstinence
Must be something in the granola.
Barbara Dafoe Whitehead wrote the new favorite essay of 1993, Dan Quayle Was Right.
Lost,
I was going to wait until you tried defending your erroneous comment about the United States of America being founded on Christian principles. But, I have to go.
The notion that we were founded on Christian principles is a fallacy and a dream of the conservative right who must use lies, deceit, and fear to win over the minds of its constituency.
History, as you are about to learn, can be a real bitch when you haven’t learned it.
Presented here for your reading enjoyment and your first step towards understanding the United Sates of America.
“Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary.
Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;”
There are four notable distinctions you must take note of:
1) the date June 7, 1796 – merely 20 years after the founding of our nation. Clearly, these people understood what our country was founded on since they were largely the people who founded America.
2) this treaty was read aloud in its ENTIRETY to the United States Senate. Which voted UNANIMOUSLY to APPROVE the treaty. (bonus lesson for you, this was only the third time in our nation’s history that the United States Senate voted UNANIMOUSLY on anything.)
3) John Adams, a socially conservative Christian president, signed the treaty into LAW.
4) It’s worth repeating “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion:” Get that? Not in ANY SENSE, religion, principle or otherwise.
What do you think the phrase “not, in ANY SENSE” means? Religous dogma only? Puh-lease!
You can read the treaty in its entirety here: http://www.stephenjaygould.org.....ipoli.html
You cannot proclaim the mantel of Patriot unless you know a little something about what we have fought, bled and died for. “Country First,” indeed!
@1 How is demanding the right to force your religion on others (a) religious freedom (b) what the writers of the First Amendment envisioned?
Seems to me “freedom of religion” includes the right to be free of your religion.
I prefer this site over the one Goldy linked to, kind of like the way I prefer reason over hate. Not that I think any progressives here hate Christians or anything. Far be it for me to suggest something like that.
http://www.talk2action.org/
Charging interest is classed in the Book of Ezekiel as being among the worst of sins and is forbidden.
@15
Teen pregnancy rate in Denmark, where there’s both universal healthcare and comprehensive sex ed: 8.2/1000
Teen pregnancy rate in the USA: 55.6/1000
Teen pregnancy rate in the USA in 1950 (about): 80/1000
@1 Equating freedom to choose our own religion with “hating” religion is the raving of a peawit.
@25 Does this mean all the bankers will go to Hell?
What conservatives don’t get, and try to use as their own wedge issue and self serving virtue when opposed by Liberals, is that not that “we hate Christians”, we hate Christians who try to change who we are as a nation.
You forget that many Liberals are Christians themselves. Yet, we understand the dangers that come with interjecting religion with public politics.
We’ve learned from our history, and the reasoning of our Founding Fathers, that blending religion with public politics has caused great human suffering.
Thus, when we formed a new nation we eliminated religion from politics. In fact, the only two references to religion in the Constitution are specific bans on religion in governing.
The First Amendment, bans congress from forming a national religion.
And the 14th, which bans a religious litmus test to hold public office.
Thomas Jefferson famously clarified the issue of religion and politics in reply letter to the Danbury Baptist. Which is where we get the whole “Separation of Church and State” phrase.
Jefferson cleared the air in the second paragraph of his letter. Posted here for your journey to patriotism:
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
Pretty powerful stuff to have the Founding Fathers on my side of the argument. Do you really feel you should continue to move your erroneous argument in light of the evidence?
@24
I like that site better too. But, unfortunately, we need to keep tabs on the crazies like the folk(s) at Faith Not Freedom. I don’t think Goldy’s Christian bashing; I think he’s nut-job bashing.
You don’t have a right to use government or public institutions to promote your religion, period! That violates the constitutional rights of people who don’t share your religion.
@23 No problem with that. On the other hand, you often speak of your belief in the Great Mother Rabbit and I’ve never once seen HA progressives hating on you. I mention my Christian faith and I receive hate comments from progressives. They even go so far as to call me a (gasp!) Republican. Now, that’s hate. I’m puzzled by this.
“your belief in the Great Mother Rabbit and I’ve never”
No! no! no! Great Mother Rabbit Spirit! There’s also a Great Mother Rabbit, but she’s another story altogether.
@32 Well, I get flak from other rabbits about my conversion to Christianity. They accuse me of “hating” the trees, wind, sky, rocks, etc., that they worship. I think they’re just jealous because, as Chief Rabbit Stud, I get more bunny nookie than they do.
I was eating dinner, so missed your call to cite specific principles.
You, however missed the point of my post, probably willfully, possibly not. A person cannot separate themself from their cultural realities. Like it or not in Europe and specifically in England this was a Christian culture. It’s like asking me to tell you which tea leaves in the bag created the flavor in the steeped tea. I could go through an exhaustive list of what I understand to be basic principles of Christian faith. You’d belittle them and expect me to waste time responding. Why bother with the song and dance, when you clearly hate the music?
I get that you don’t like Christianity, and respect that. I don’t understand why others not sharing that dislike is so threatening to you and others like you.
Yes Thom Hartman and others who hate of Christianity misuse this old treaty to demean the notion of a fundamentally Christian oriented nation. He is here, as in most other things, wrong. That was a specific reference to religion in any sense, not principles or basic culural mores. You and the rest of the atheists can over-reach in interpreting the document all you like, it still won’t establish the anti-christian culture you’d like to imagine the framers to have lived in. Historical revisionism isn’t history, it’s creative writing.
And I never wrote anything about ‘country first.’ If my country were wrong I’ll say so, and have done. If it’s right I’ll applaud it. Am I happy to have been lucky enough to have been born here? Certainly. Can improvements be made? Absolutely.
Rabbit, I never asked to force my religion on you or anyone else. One of the fundamental principles of the Christian religion is that those who choose it do so freely. Were I Islamic or Buddhist or anything else I’d respect your right to worship whom you please, or believe in nothing at all. Freedom of religion doesn’t mean you get to stop me from practicing mine, though.
@33 Of course. I knew that! Oh, for want of an edit function I have slighted a friend. I blame Goldy.
“Freedom of religion doesn’t mean you get to stop me from practicing mine, though.”
Who’s trying to stop you? How do they go about doing that?
Schools aren’t permitted to have Christmas programs celebrating the reason for the holiday.
Public forums have been stripped of all reference to the faith which sustains many Americans.
Churches are being asked to participate in policies and practices wholly foreign to their beliefs or risk government backlash.
Who’s trying to stop me? A minority of the country not content with simply believing as they do. They feel the need to impose their secular beliefs on everyone else.
“how it informed the mostly English culture from which they came didn’t impact them would be disengenuous, in my humble opinion.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was ENGLISH? Who knew? (entire passages of the Declaration and most of the work of Thomas Paine are cribbed from Rousseau.
The notion, though not unheard of in post-Roman society pre-Rousseau, of a govenrment by, for and of the people is lifted from (GASP) the French (or France via Geneva!) or going further back, Greece.
@38
Ever heard of the concept of “Blow Back”?
Using stricter interpretations of the laws around church and state is blow back from a small minority of Christians trying to push their form of Christianity on to everyone else.
We used to not see “Christian” things in schools or public life as indoctrination or trying to govern our actions. That changed when far right Christian groups started trying to take over school boards and city councils and push their beliefs on everyone else.
So now there’s no grade school Christmas pageant and high school drama clubs can’t perform Godspell. And I think that’s a shame.
You’re right that we have a more secular society today and that we’ve lost some things of value because of it. We lost those things because of a militant Christian right trying re-write our text books and our laws, not the other way around.
Michael, we don’t ever try to rewrite anything. The Bible has always been the same, unless it needs to be made holy.
Then we forget it ever happened, as God commands.
Re 39
With respect, try to read more carefully. First, I called the framers European Christian in cultural terms. Last I checked France was in Europe, unless they moved it since 1776.
Also, the English reference had to do with the specific national culture from which the English colonists came. Sure these mostly educated men drew from the classical education they received. But their primary cultural experience would have been English.
Re 40
I would respectfully argue that militant atheists/agnostics have more to do with the elimination of faith from the public square than militant Christians. I would point out that it’s largely the secular rewrite of texts and social experiences that led to the rise of militant Christianity. Rightly or wrongly this this humanisation was perceived as an attack on Christianity. Still, I can see your point and respect it.
Heh. The tweet about Chuck Norris was pricelesss!
@ 29
These are good arguments most of which I agree with barring the now ubiquitous calling of anyone with whom we disagree not a patriot.
There’s plenty of good scholarship about the ‘separation of church and state,’ on both sides of the debate, your conclusions notwithstanding.
For instance, viewing the whole thing in the light of the barring of an establishes religion like the Church of England is pretty common. This makes the separation more of an amicable one than the divorce your side of the debate would like to file for.
Heh. That bears repeating.. I thought to right wingers 1950 would be the “good old days”..
Those godless atheist socialists in Denmark must be really uptight and instilling that Karl Marx in their teen youth. Nothing like a little Marx to kill the sex drive!
Re 45
Apples and Oranges YLB. The Danish are a largely homoogeneous society. We aren’t. Comparing them is sociologically untenable. You can’t get to the cause of social events like teen pregnancy rates until you consider cultural issues other than birth control. And what universal healthcare has to do with it boggles the mind.
Re 39
Ever read the ‘Social Contract?’ One of the main conclusions Rousseau drew was that we submit to the least government we can for purposes of personal security. This led to the famous “that government governs best which governs least.” Kind of antithetical to the whole liberal point of view, don’t you think?
@44
Yeah, I think we can agree to disagree on that one.
@46
Universal healthcare = universal access to birth control and family planning.
Denmark has a population of 5.5M, an immigration rate that is about half what the US is and a population that is largely Lutheran, an overall birth rate that is slightly lower than that of the US. What Denmark is, is a good example of where the US could be teen preggers wise if we had better access to healthcare and comprehensive sex Ed.
Your argument might work if our rate was 12/100. But, it’s not, it’s 55.6/1000. Our rate is the highest in the industrialized world. And our teen pregnancy rates are lower where people have access to healthcare and comprehensive sex and and higher where they do not.
Everone has access to health care in the US. Whether they have to pay for it directly or through exhorbitant tax rates as in Europe is the real question.
What do you mean by ‘comprehensive sex ed?’ What I can tell you is that I know of not one 13 year old girl or boy who doesn’t know a) where babies come from and b) how to prevent conception. Nor do I know of a single teen unable to purchase birth control pills or a condom. They’re both a great deal less expensive than a baby and less evil than an abortion.
#4 Judeo Christian principles
You mean incest, father daughter sex, murder of all 1st born children, genocide, slavery? THOSE Judeo Christian principles?
You’re an idiot. Christians have not 0.00001% more morals than any other group of superstitious idiots. Your magic book is full of the most horrendous actions you can imagine.
All that’s left is don’t steal, kill or lie? Idiot…EVERYONE on earth believes that. Unless you get a pass in your religion to “kill” the non-believers (Muslims killing Jews, Catholics killing Protestants, etc, etc, etc).
@50
Birth control pills come from the doctors office and if you don’t have health insurance, good luck with that.
@47
Without getting into a philosophical debate, Rousseau argues for small government when governing small numbers of people. The city state or town council model is Rousseau’s ideal form. As governments rule more and more people, the more power said government must wield over them as the collective good may often lose out to the popular good. (This isn’t Socialism. It is the profound notion that a society is a collection of individuals working for the advancement/fulfillment whatever word you choose to use of ALL not the powerful.)
So while your reading is correct on Rousseau’s model of the ideal government, Rousseau himself would not have expected “that which governs least governs best” in a nation consisting of vast amounts of Hamlets, Villages, Towns, Cities, Counties, 50 states and one unifying Federal government.
@50 Ask any European whether they would trade their health system for ours. They’ll laugh in your face. European governments fall like autumn leaves, but their health system has endured for decades, so they must like it.
One of the things Europeans do right is they pay their doctors for outcomes, not procedures. As a doctor, you do better when your patients get well. Here in America, we package and sell health services like bath soap, and our results put us somewhere in the middle of the third-world countries in terms of overall quality of care.
@44 Europe was torn asunder by bloody religious wars for centuries. The Framers were very familiar with this history; many of their ancestors came to the colonies to escape Europe’s religious conflicts. The Constitution contains no halfway measures on the subject of religion; the grant of religious freedom to citizens is unrestricted, and the prohibition against government establishing or favoring any religion is absolute and unqualified. It is this, more than anything else, that made America different from Europe, and made our history different; we have had no American religious wars.
@47 Rousseau is not the philosophical fountainhead of American democracy; Locke is. Rousseau’s greatest influence was on the French Revolution, which degenerated into the Reign of Terror. The core ideas of American government, including individual worth and separation of powers, are Lockean.
You are correct that Rousseau’s ideas conflict with Lockean liberalism; that’s why the founders of our country rejected them.
@47 Basically you are arguing that we should replace 225 years of American law, tradition, and history with a philosophy the founders rejected 225 years ago. Sorry, pal, you lost that argument in 1781.
No, I’m arguing that we should replace 80. years of big government nanny state lliberal thought with the core values on which the country was founded.
You folks aren’t ‘taking the country back.’ You’re consistently revising history (nmaking stuff up) to support a notion of America that never existed and which most Americans don’t want. That’s why Obama and democrat numbers are slipping, that’s why you’ll do poorly in the mid terms.
As for the popularity of Robin Hood health care in Europe that’s no surprise. When a small minority pays for the health care, subsidizes the housing and child care and generally carries the vast majority in taxes is it all that surprising the majority votes for this theft?
No, I’m arguing that we should replace 80. years of big government nanny state liberal thought with the core values on which the country was founded.
Please define terms. Please give me a paragraph, what is the country like once those “Liberal” ideals are stripped off.
What do you envision the country and WA state being like? How is life different than now, for someone of the middle class, the poor or the rich?
Right you are Herr Goebbels Himmler Dumb Bunny. You can thank the Catholic Church for that. They didn’t like religious dissent. You tend to act just like them with your “political dissent” attitudes on this blog Herr Goebbels Himmler Dumb Bunny.
Lost et al:
It’s no surprise to me that you opted not to list the Christian principles you think this nation was founded on. You are correct, you would have been belittled for presenting erroneous and inaccurate points.
If they were valid you would have presented them as such. And, if valid, would have stood the test of public scrutiny and debate.
Instead you try to boil your argument down to the cultural influences of a Christian European society on our Founding Fathers and thus, our nation was therefore formed on Christian principle.
That’s a very weak and broad based conclusion on your part. Also, inaccurate and inarticulate.
Read The Age of Reason (parts I & II) by Tbomas Paine. Another key figure in the formation of our nation. And, then imagine a key public figure doing the same thing today.
I, on the other hand, present clear, concise and cited passages from our Founding Fathers, our Constitution, and treaties with the force of law behind them. You on the other hand dismiss them out of hand and antiquated and my interpretation of them as “over reaching” even though the interpretation comes from legal scholars and not Thomm Hartman.
The passage in art. 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli doesn’t mean just the religious aspects of Christianity as you try to frame it. It says in very plain English, we were not founded, IN ANY SENSE, on the Christian religion. In any SENSE of Christianity that is solely a Christian value. That’s what it means. That’s how I referenced it.
BTW, I didn’t bring up Thomm Hartman and I learned of these things in American History and Civics classes. You, obviously did not. Also, Thomm Hartman is a devout Roman Catholic, you moron, not a hater of Christianity. Sheeeez.
Just for further clarification I never said this country was founded by anti-Christian framers. I merely repeated what our Founding Fathers said and wrote in very plain English.
Did you know that the First Continental Congress worked on Christmas Day? Yeah, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Did you also know that Christmas did not become a federal holiday until about 70 years after forming our nation.
Yeah, just about the time those Europeans began migrating heavily to the New World bringing with them their old views of Christianity and politics that our Founding Fathers left Europe to get away from.
Did you know that the phrase “In God We Trust” was not printed on any currency until the mid 1800’s? And was only minted on a few coins and that the phrase didn’t appear on the $1 bill until the 1950’s in response to the “Cold War” scare?
The reason why people like me are threatened by people like you who want to interject your form of religion into the government is well documented though out history. As the old saying goes “No kingdom has shed more blood than the Kingdom of Christ.”
Ask Puddy, he’ll tell you all about the Catholics and their crimes against humanity.
The Crusades.
Ask the Jews of Europe how they feel about Passion plays.
The Aztecs may have a different feeling about Christianity other than warm and fuzzy.
And you wonder why I defend the true founding principles of this nation. The ones that so many Americans have fought, bled and died for?
Push-lease.
Like I said, history is a bitch when you’re on the wrong side of it.
I suggest you digest the words and meanings of Jefferson’s famous letter to the Danbury Baptists. I sense that the 18th century colloquialism and use of words may have cast their meanings in a light you don’t comprehend.
Duh! All things to do with public (meaning government sponsored) forums are supposed to be devoid of religion, thus the “Separation of Church & State.”
Not too difficult to understand, is it?
This is just bull crap on its merit. Citations please. No government institution is “compelling” a church to do anything. If this is a vague reference gay marriage — stop. Marriage, in the United States of America is wholly a government institution. People like to have religious ceremonies surrounding the act of marriage, and also like to have them in a house of worship . . . but, as the preacher, priest, rabbi or whoever will say, “by the power vested in me by the state of . . . ” says it all. Not by power vested in my by God, Jesus, the Lord, The Pope, Buddha, Moses, Zeus, Allah, Ra, or any other religious icon. Nope. The power is vested and granted by the state for two people to enter into a legally binding contract.
A) NO one is trying to stop you from practicing your faith. That is total and pure bull shit and you know it.
B) So, you “feel” a tiny minority is trying to impose their secular beliefs on you, BUT, you have no problem having a school play whereby YOU get to impose your Christian beliefs on someone else. Is that it?
Hmmmm . . . I believe that is called hypocrisy. Look, if I wanted my kids to learn about, and practice Christianity at school I’d send them to a private Christian school.
But I don’t want them learning that at school because as our Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson said, “religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions. . .”
Get it? Religion is between you and God. Not between teachers and their pupils. Also note that LEGITIMATE powers of government do not dabble in OPINIONS.
See, religion, any religion, is an opinion of faith and not FACT.
If you have concrete, irrefutable FACTS that Jesus lived or performed any of the said miracles please present them.
You can’t, so you won’t. It is, as they say, is a matter of “faith.” You choose to believe that the stories you are told, over and over are true sans any proof. Therefore, faith, is the proper way to describe religion.
I sincerely hope that helps you to understand the history of our nation a little better. You should try reading about our Founding Fathers, the formative ideas of our nation, and the letters they wrote to each other.
The facts will amaze you and stand your beliefs on your head. Unless, of course, you willfully ignore them. Then, that would be totally within your rights, but unpatriotic.
It’s akin to burning the American flag. I agree it’s a protected right under the First Amendment, but I wish people wouldn’t do it and respect our national symbol as an act of patriotism.
Same thing with understanding antiquated documents like the Treaty of Tripoli, the Constitution, Jefferson’s letters, the writings of Thomas Paine, the Preamble, Ben Franklin’s autobiography well, you get the picture.
Re 63
“I sincerely hope that helps you to understand the history of our nation a little better. You should try reading about our Founding Fathers, the formative ideas of our nation, and the letters they wrote to each other. ”
With all due respect this is among the most arrogant things I’ve read. Because I disagree with you (having read Paine, Franklin the Federalist Papers, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence etc myself) I’m ignorant and uneducated? Having said that I did learn a few things I hadn’t known before from you, and appreciate the information. I still reserve the right to disagree with your conclusions, but that’s another story.
It’s this elitist attitude that is leading to the pushback from Americans of faith tired of being treated as second class citizens on account of their faith. I’m tired of hearing that a politician is a Christian as a sort of mark of sinister intent. I’m tired of a media that ignores the abuses of any religion except Christianity. I’m tired of an academia that brainwashes students into a religion of science requiring all the faith of religion rather than teaching reading, writing and arithmetic.
Re 62
As usual you miss the point. Books have been written about how Christian principles informed European and by extension American culture. Why should I bother trying to convince a terminal skeptic of anything? You won’t agree with anything I have to say on the subject. I won’t agree with everything you have to say. I suppose we agree to disagree and let the marketplace of ideas determine the direction for the culture.
“I sense that the 18th century colloquialism and use of words may have cast their meanings in a light you don’t comprehend.”
Yus, cus Im so stoopid that I cant talk or write no good English nohow. I never larnt no skooling when I wus a youngun cus I was plowing the potato fields and sloppin the hogs. I never larnt to write or read or nothin. And my mam and pap never bought no books for me neither. Sorry I’m such a dumb hill-billy, GBS.
Really, I mispoke earlier. This may be the most arrogant thing you wrote.
lost:
Once again you prove your arrogance and distain for facts that don’t support your radical, right-wing extremist revisionist views.
Ultimately, however, you prove your hypocrisy.
In one paragraph you say “Why should I bother trying to convince a terminal skeptic of anything?”
Then, in the same thought space you write “I suppose we agree to disagree and let the marketplace of ideas determine the direction for the culture.”
If this isn’t the “marketplace of ideas” then what the hell are you doing here???
Just bitching at Liberals? How pathetic!
Grow a set of balls and defend your position with historical documents and facts that this nation was formed on Christian principles that are solely Christian values.
You CANNOT do it because it didn’t happen. No matter how badly you wish it were true, or how often you attempt to rewrite the truth it simply cannot be done in the modern age of communications with tools like the Internet that can either prove your disprove your position quickly.
This country was not, IN ANY SENSE, founded on the Christian religion. PERIOD.
Here’s a challenge for you, dissect Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist and give us the meaning and intent of the passages I highlighted, bolded or italicized.
Because “reading” the aforementioned documents and comprehending their meanings are TWO different things.
Let’s see if you have what it takes to back up your words with action.
Doubt it.
But, it’s up to you to prove yourself right in the “marketplace of ideas.”