(October 29, 2012 at 8:03 pm)IATIA Wrote: Just because our technology is better than god's is no reason to to suggest this is not a christian nation.

Well then doesn't that technically make this nation satanic?

(October 29, 2012 at 8:05 pm)JohnDG Wrote: Well then doesn't that technically make this nation satanic?

Was not Satan the one that freed Adam and Eve from their indentured servitude?

(October 29, 2012 at 7:57 pm)JohnDG Wrote: Ok when the United States largest exports are weapons and pornography the whole notion that this nation is christian goes out the window.

I've been saying we were founded as a Christian nation and have changed.

Let's cut to the chase. Let's say we were a Christian Nation, whatever that means, but have fallen away.


What should we do now, and why?

(October 29, 2012 at 9:44 pm)chi pan Wrote:

(October 29, 2012 at 7:57 pm)JohnDG Wrote: Ok when the United States largest exports are weapons and pornography the whole notion that this nation is christian goes out the window.

I've been saying we were founded as a Christian nation and have changed.

And who's to say that's not for the better?

After all, when Europe was full of Christian Nations, it was also full of scenes like this:



And, no, this isn't a witch being burnt, just your ordinary run-of-the-mill heretic.

(October 29, 2012 at 10:14 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: And, no, this isn't a witch being burnt, just your ordinary run-of-the-mill heretic.

As if there was even ever such thing as a witch...superstitions are dangerous.

Wait a minute...
Exodus 22:18 "Do not allow a sorceress to live" [NIV]
Exodus 22:18 "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live: [KJV]
Is the bible trying to suggest that witches/sorceresses actually exist? Has anyone pointed this out before, because it seems contrary to common sense. I mean not that there aren't plenty of other parts that are, but even theists would agree that there is no such thing as a witch or sorcerres, so...? (And why only female? I guess that's just more biblical sexism for you.)

(October 29, 2012 at 10:02 pm)apophenia Wrote: Let's cut to the chase. Let's say we were a Christian Nation, whatever that means, but have fallen away.


What should we do now, and why?

this is not a persuasive topic, it's an informative one.

(October 29, 2012 at 10:14 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote:

(October 29, 2012 at 9:44 pm)chi pan Wrote: I've been saying we were founded as a Christian nation and have changed.

And who's to say that's not for the better?

After all, when Europe was full of Christian Nations, it was also full of scenes like this:

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And, no, this isn't a witch being burnt, just your ordinary run-of-the-mill heretic.

did any of this happen after the US were established? no, then this is not a concern.

(October 30, 2012 at 4:10 am)chi pan Wrote: this is not a persuasive topic

No truer words were ever spoken.

Quote:Every grade-school kid in the country knows the cherry tree story. As a young boy, George Washington, for unknown reasons, took a hatchet to his father’s cherry tree. When his father came home, he saw the tree and asked, “Who chopped down my cherry tree?” Young George answered, “I cannot tell a lie. I did it.” The way the story is normally told, we don’t find out what happened afterwards — was young George taken out to the woodshed? The story ends with George’s one-liner.

We know that this story never happened, because the person who invented the tale later admitted to having done so. He was a Christian minister named Mason Locke Weems, usually known as Parson Weems. As a later biographer of Washington, Parson Weems confessed that he made up the story, even though he once had claimed that he received it from a credible eyewitness (a nice paradox: he “told a lie” in this story about not lying).

— Forged: Writing In The Name Of God, Bart Ehrman

“The tragic poet should thrill and charm his audience for the moment by the verisimilitude of the words he puts into his characters’ mouths,
but it is the task of the historian to instruct and convince for all time serious students by the truth of the facts and the speeches he narrates.”
— Polybius

"The reason a historian such as Polybius had to argue this point so strenuously, of course, is that other historians did precisely what he opposed,
inventing speeches and even narratives as they saw fit for their “historical” accounts. It is certainly true that people in general, not just professional historians,
made up a lot of stories about historical figures. In Christian circles this can be seen for nearly every historical figure of importance we know of: Jesus, Paul,
Peter, and other members of the apostolic band."
— Ehrman

"[Eusebius] often needs to be taken with a pound of salt."
— Ibid.

(Eusebius is one of our main sources for the history of the first 300 years of Christianity.)

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“The proceedings, as published by Thompson, the secretary, and historian of the day, show that the question was gravely
debated whether God should be in the Constitution or not, and after a solemn debate he was deliberately voted out of it. …
There is no recognition of God’s laws and sovereignty.”

— Episcopalian Rev. Bird Wilson, Albany, N.Y., in a sermon in October 1831

(October 30, 2012 at 4:10 am)chi pan Wrote: did any of this happen after the US were established? no, then this is not a concern.

With one notable exception in the early 1800's, nope. Do you know why? Because no religion enjoyed or could lay claim to the legal ability to perform such an act.... Separation of church and state and all that jazz.