The Atheist and Marco Rubio

[God of Mr. Hanky]

This atheist voter has a good question for Marco Rubio:

Free speech is one thing. Using the public office to commit fraud is something altogether different.

The teaching of theism = fraud = organized crime!

[Minimalist]

Don't you think the values of the people of the time played a role in the values of they created for the culture/society, though?

The constitution was not written by "the people."  It was written by the elite who were largely deists and products of the Enlightenment.

France had been a catholic country for a millennium before the revolution yet somehow they came out with this:

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp

Declaration of the Rights of Man - 1789

The church, then as now, was always about money.... and they came down on the side of the monarchists.

http://www.historytoday.com/gemma-betros...lic-church

The Church’s revenue in 1789 was estimated at an immense – and possibly exaggerated – 150 million livres. It owned around six per cent of land throughout France, and its abbeys, churches, monasteries and convents, as well as the schools, hospitals and other institutions it operated, formed a visible reminder of the Church’s dominance in French society. The Church was also permitted to collect the tithe, worth a nominal one-tenth of agricultural production, and was exempt from direct taxation on its earnings. This prosperity caused considerable discontent, best illustrated in the cahiers de doléances, or ‘statements of grievances’, sent from throughout the kingdom to be discussed at the meeting of the Estates-General in May 1789. Calls for the reform or abolition of the tithe and for the limitation of Church property were joined by complaints from parish priests who, excluded from the wealth bestowed upon the upper echelons of the Church hierarchy, often struggled to get by. When crowds began to gather in Paris on 13 July 1789, the religious house of Saint-Lazare and its neighbouring convent were among the first places searched for supplies and weapons. The Catholic Church may have been the church of the majority of the French people, but its wealth and perceived abuses meant that it did not always have their trust. - See more at: http://www.historytoday.com/gemma-betros...LCPlf.dpuf

[Catholic_Lady]

Right, and the values of the people of those times *were* Judeo Christian, because that's what those people were.

They where not all judeo Christian

Obviously there were exceptions. But most of them, especially those in power, were. To say their values didn't influence or play a role at all is silly.

[Mr.wizard]

They where not all judeo Christian

Obviously there were exceptions. But most of them, especially those in power, were. To say their values didn't influence or play a role at all is silly.

No no the founders who where of all types of religious backgrounds decided that laws and rights based on religious values where not best for America, there is nothing Christian about the American constitution.

[Catholic_Lady]

Obviously there were exceptions. But most of them, especially those in power, were. To say their values didn't influence or play a role at all is silly.

No no the founders who where of all types of religious backgrounds decided that laws and rights based on religious values where not best for America, there is nothing Christian about the American constitution.

I'm not saying the constitution is Christian. Having Christian people's values influence society doesn't mean it's some sort of theocracy or that there should be no separation between church and state. As Rubio said, part of his "Christian principles" IS the understanding that human beings have the inherent human right to choose to believe whatever they want without being forced into any particular religion.

[Minimalist]

As Rubio said, part of his "Christian principles" IS the understanding that human beings have the inherent human right to choose to believe whatever they want without being forced into any particular religion.

Now he's making up his own religion.

[Mr.wizard]

No no the founders who where of all types of religious backgrounds decided that laws and rights based on religious values where not best for America, there is nothing Christian about the American constitution.

I'm not saying the constitution is Christian. Having Christian people's values influence society doesn't mean it's some sort of theocracy or that there should be no separation between church and state. As Rubio said, part of his "Christian principles" IS the understanding that human beings have the inherent human right to choose to believe whatever they want without being forced into any particular religion.

It is not a Christian principle, just because the person who holds it is Christian. That's like the KKK being a Christian group and saying white supremacy is a Christian value.

[Faith No More]

Right, and the values of the people of those times *were* Judeo Christian, because that's what those people were.

Of the people that wrote the constitution, around only half were Christian. The rest were Deists and others that did not believe in Jesus Christ. So, to say we are founded on Christian values is rewriting history. It's factually not true.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Don't you think the values of the people of the time played a role in the values of they created for the culture/society, though? I think that's all he was saying.

Edit to add: and by "values" I don't mean belief in God... I mean what specifically *comes* from that. Believing in freedom, justice, etc

No, He specifically says judeo Christian values

Judeo-Christian values were written into the Constitution.  They believed in slavery and wrote it into the law of the land.  The BS about freedom is just that, BS.  Any dummy that wants to return to those values wants to reimpose slavery in America.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

They where not all judeo Christian

Obviously there were exceptions. But most of them, especially those in power, were. To say their values didn't influence or play a role at all is silly.

Not Thomas Jefferson.

Not James Madison.

Not (least of all) Benjamin Franklin.

Not James Monroe.

Not John Quincy Adams.

Not Americas' most influential author at the time, Thomas Paine.

Masonic symbols on American cash are not a modern conspiracy by the "Illuminati", they were inspired by the overwhelmingly Masonic culture of those who founded our country and drafted our Constitution.

Freemasonry has always focused on improving the individual through means that work, not through doctrine, therefore it has attracted many Enlightenment thinkers (and still does). While I have no personal experience in this group, my understanding from what anyone can read is that it is practiced by people who bring the gods of their culture in with them. Deism was also popular during that era among the world's brightest minds. These groups provided a place for those who lived in a world where it was too dangerous to be an atheist, or to admit that publicly.

The 1st Amendment protections against church/state separation was important to the above people, many who had witnessed the evils which a religious organization can bring when its political power grows first-hand.

George Washington wrote that he never, ever took communion in his church, and was known for getting up and leaving long before services had ended.