(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.

Salem witch trials
You're right, they were mostly hung.
(Now, if you were saying that witch killing wasn't a habit, then okay. I'm just pointing out that it did happen at one point.)

Quote:
This should come as no surprise, really. As it turns out, there is New Testament evidence about Peter’s education level. According to Acts 4:13, both Peter and his companion John, also a fisherman, were agrammatoi, a Greek word that literally means “unlettered,” that is, “illiterate.”

And so, is it possible that Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter? We have seen good reasons for believing he did not write 2 Peter, and some reason for thinking he didn’t write 1 Peter. But it is highly probable that in fact he could not write at all. I should point out that the book of 1 Peter is written by a highly literate, highly educated, Greek-speaking Christian who is intimately familiar with the Jewish Scriptures in their Greek translation, the Septuagint. This is not Peter.

It is theoretically possible, of course, that Peter decided to go to school after Jesus’s resurrection. In this imaginative (not to say imaginary) scenario, he learned his alphabet, learned how to sound out syllables and then words, learned to read, and learned to write. Then he took Greek classes, mastered Greek as a foreign language, and started memorizing large chunks of the Septuagint, after which he took Greek composition classes and learned how to compose complicated and rhetorically effective sentences; then, toward the end of his life, he wrote 1 Peter.

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


Question: Why does it matter whether we were or are a Cristian nation when Christianity herself is an obvious bunch of lies, idiocy and absurdity? I'm reminded of the scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail in which the father built his castle in a swamp (several times), remarking at one point that it, "burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp." This is not prime ground for building. If this was once a Christian nation, and is no longer, apparently being Christian didn't serve sufficiently well to prevent her from becoming an Un-Christian nation. Sisyphus would be proud. The very history of Christianity shows that this is not a suitable foundation upon which to build a nation. So even if there were support for the notion that this nation was at one time "a Christian nation," I would fight to the death any attempt to return her to those roots.

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Regarding the fire in Rome in 64 AD, Seneca states that the fire burned for six days, destroying 132 palaces and 4,000 apartment buildings.

In the riots following the acquittal of the police officers in the beating of Rodney King, over 6,000 buildings were destroyed.

Worth considering.

We are a Christian country, in that the majority of our population are at least nominally Christians. That is a different matter than being a Christian nation, that is, officially Christian. There are plenty of examples of such nations in Europe, and the officialness of their Christianity is quite explicit. NOT clearly staking out the USA as a Christian nation was striking and not at all accidental.

As for 'Year of Our Lord', that makes the Constitution an establishment of the USA as a Christian nation as much as it makes the USA a Roman nation because it says the exact date was the 17th of September, September being from the Roman calendar (and means seventh month, which must have caused some confusion when it was later moved to be the 9th month).

(October 30, 2012 at 2:19 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: As for 'Year of Our Lord', that makes the Constitution an establishment of the USA as a Christian nation as much as it makes the USA a Roman nation because it says the exact date was the 17th of September, September being from the Roman calendar (and means seventh month, which must have caused some confusion when it was later moved to be the 9th month).

The Romans, being Pagan and polytheistic.

I can live with that.

Long live the Emperor! Death to spies and traitors! Give me bread or give me circuses!

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Actually, we have a hellishly lot of evidence that we are a British nation. Care to comment, Chip?

(October 30, 2012 at 2:19 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: We are a Christian country, in that the majority of our population are at least nominally Christians. That is a different matter than being a Christian nation, that is, officially Christian. There are plenty of examples of such nations in Europe, and the officialness of their Christianity is quite explicit. NOT clearly staking out the USA as a Christian nation was striking and not at all accidental.

As for 'Year of Our Lord', that makes the Constitution an establishment of the USA as a Christian nation as much as it makes the USA a Roman nation because it says the exact date was the 17th of September, September being from the Roman calendar (and means seventh month, which must have caused some confusion when it was later moved to be the 9th month).

You cannot call the country christian because it's own actions across the world do not reflect christian values. The best you could do is say some people in this country are christian but the country is not.

(October 30, 2012 at 12:19 pm)Darkstar Wrote: Salem witch trials
You're right, they were mostly hung.
(Now, if you were saying that witch killing wasn't a habit, then okay. I'm just pointing out that it did happen at one point.)

i ask again, was the US established? this was in the 1600's so obviously our nation is not guilty in this.

Sorry chippy. Your US of A is NOT a "christian nation" never was never will be.

Your own constitution forbids this.

Quote:i ask again, was the US established? this was in the 1600's so obviously our nation is not guilty in this.

It doesn`t matter if it was established or not, it is part of your history, therefor part of your culture and therefor, if you like it or not part of your nations identety!
To disregard darker parts of ones history and to simply gloryfy the parts shining in a ore brighter light is silly!
History is there to teach lessons and not to be forgoten, otherwise mistakes might be done again! That`s why we built a giant holocaust memorial next to the Brandenburger Tor.
And eaven after your nation was established on a piece of paper and by people fighting colonial British rule with French support - you cant seriously say, that nothing moraly corrupt happened in the name of christianity after that.

Meh. Yet another cherry picking Christian. Somebody call 911 — my face is frozen in an expression of shock.

Ooooh! I could send you one of these if you like apophenia. They are the best people we have here in OZ. Highly regarded and underpaid, they always will get my sympathy, my vote and $$


http://www.firefighterscalendar.com.au/

Mind you there are also the Surf Life Savers, and the SES / Ambulance officers, who are NOT privately funded.

http://www.sls.com.au/

http://www.ambulanceaustralia.com/

http://www.ses.sa.gov.au/