Nobody said that some of the principles are uniquely Christian, but I'd be willing to wager they weren't thinking in terms of Islam or Buddhism.
You're right, though, about signing posts. Force of habit, and usually at places where most people don't do that kind of stuff. It's happened to me before. Perhaps I should've learned...
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
Which brings up another point... why the hell do we care what the founding fathers intended anyway? I mean, they were only human... humans who lived over two centuries ago. Why is this even a point worth discussing?
Then why do we even have a Constitution in the first place, if we don't care the intent? Let's just scrap it and rewrite!
Sarge out.
Interpreting intent isn't necessarily the same thing as inferring motivation.
Also, people will fuck with you for signing your posts. I found this out a long time ago.
I dunno, if anything it makes me even less inclined to get intimate with him, particularly taken alongside the stuff he's actually saying.
I guess I'd say in return that I'm unsure what principles this country was founded on that are exclusively Christian.
I don't think anyone threw in the "Exclusively" qualifier in any of their statements.
;-)
So... if they're not exclusively Christian, then how do we know the country was founded on Christianity?
I mean, Islam forbids murder and theft, too; clearly, we were founded as an Islamic country.
Do either of you--Kauser or Sarge--have any examples of any principles the country was founded on that are inherently Christian in nature? You just keep claiming they are, as if it's self-evident, in spite of all the facts that point to the contrary. If it's such a clear, obvious fact, you should be able to give some clear, obvious points that support it.
So, if I'm Christian, and I start a club that celebrates the collected works of R.L.Stien, and one of the guiding principals of the club is that you aren't allowed to kill anyone...
Then it's a Christian club?
No, but if one of your rules is that you shall have no other God but Him, then it is. Or if one of your rules is that you can't be gay, or that anyone who fornicates is kicked from the club, or that no club member is allowed to buy liquor on Sunday, etc. etc. etc.
VC none of those things are uniquely christian. Muslims would be against most of them as well. Really until it start incorporating shit from the Nicaean Creed (?) I think the case is pretty shitty.
Of course if the members of the club just use it as a vehicle for religion the matter is different.
Regardless, go out to Idaho and look around if you want to see some of our God freaks. Christian Nation, Aryan Nation, Christian Identity, whatever. All claim to follow the Bible and the Bible tells them to do some stupid shit.
By the way, a lot of the God quotes you see bandied about by idiots who want to make believe that Jesus fought the Revolutionary War? Yeah, they were made when the Founding Fathers were much much much younger before they went about and decided to make a nation. Most of them indeed were Deists, and no one really is sure what Madison actually was.
But yeah. Eric Rudolph, ring a bell? String of abortion clinic bombings across the South, blew up the Olympics? That guy?
Nobody said that some of the principles are uniquely Christian, but I'd be willing to wager they weren't thinking in terms of Islam or Buddhism.
You're right, though, about signing posts. Force of habit, and usually at places where most people don't do that kind of stuff. It's happened to me before. Perhaps I should've learned...
Right, and what we're saying is they likely weren't thinking "Hey, what're some good Christian rules", but that it's more likely they thought "Hey, how should we do this without fucking anyone over?" and a few of the basic rules came out sounding somewhat similar to Christianity, which in turn is some good ideas everyone can agree hidden beneath a lot of terrible ideas and poorly evidenced beliefs.
I guess I'd say in return that I'm unsure what principles this country was founded on that are exclusively Christian.
I don't think anyone threw in the "Exclusively" qualifier in any of their statements.
;-)
So... if they're not exclusively Christian, then how do we know the country was founded on Christianity?
I mean, Islam forbids murder and theft, too; clearly, we were founded as an Islamic country.
Do either of you--Kauser or Sarge--have any examples of any principles the country was founded on that are inherently Christian in nature? You just keep claiming they are, as if it's self-evident, in spite of all the facts that point to the contrary. If it's such a clear, obvious fact, you should be able to give some clear, obvious points that support it.
Why do we get christmas off from work?
Why Not Yom Kippur?
Jesus was born in the spring, not the winter. Christmas falls on the winter solstice of the pagan religion, and is about as Christian as a menorah.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
So, if I'm Christian, and I start a club that celebrates the collected works of R.L.Stien, and one of the guiding principals of the club is that you aren't allowed to kill anyone...
Then it's a Christian club?
No, but if one of your rules is that you shall have no other God but Him, then it is. Or if one of your rules is that you can't be gay, or that anyone who fornicates is kicked from the club, or that no club member is allowed to buy liquor on Sunday, etc. etc. etc.
VC none of those things are uniquely christian. Muslims would be against most of them as well. Really until it start incorporating shit from the Nicaean Creed (?) I think the case is pretty shitty.
Of course if the members of the club just use it as a vehicle for religion the matter is different.
What about people who aren't Christians or Muslims? And not even Jewish? What about people whose only "religious belief" is that we shouldn't be dicks to eachother? Rules that can only be made to make sense under the force of the phrase "it is God's will"?
What about people who aren't Christians or Muslims? And not even Jewish? What about people whose only "religious belief" is that we shouldn't be dicks to eachother? Rules that can only be made to make sense under the force of the phrase "it is God's will"?
I'm not following your point at all there. I will note that plenty of people and the groups they form are less than rational even without religion to screw them up.
I guess I'd say in return that I'm unsure what principles this country was founded on that are exclusively Christian.
I don't think anyone threw in the "Exclusively" qualifier in any of their statements.
;-)
So... if they're not exclusively Christian, then how do we know the country was founded on Christianity?
I mean, Islam forbids murder and theft, too; clearly, we were founded as an Islamic country.
Do either of you--Kauser or Sarge--have any examples of any principles the country was founded on that are inherently Christian in nature? You just keep claiming they are, as if it's self-evident, in spite of all the facts that point to the contrary. If it's such a clear, obvious fact, you should be able to give some clear, obvious points that support it.
Why do we get christmas off from work?
Why Not Yom Kippur?
How is that even remotely relevant to this discussion? Do you actually think getting Christmas off became any kind of nationally recognized event prior to the 1900's?
Sentry on
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wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
So, your argument is that this country was founded on Christian principles, and the best you can do is "we get Christmas off from work?"
You should have a list of things, far more significant than one holiday, which are indicative of the founding principles of our country. This should be easy.
So, your argument is that this country was founded on Christian principles, and the best you can do is "we get Christmas off from work?"
You should have a list of things, far more significant than one holiday, which are indicative of the founding principles of our country. This should be easy.
I know people who've gotten Muslim holidays off for work. So your point really dosen't stand.
But then again, you took one ancedotal incident of friendly fire to paint an entire army as "a bunch of psychopaths", so your reasoning skills aren't exactly what I'd call par to our standards.
The the last founding father to die was Madison in 1836.
Not only that, but in 1999, a federal court acknowledged the secular aspects of Christmas in rejecting a claim that the holiday impermissibly endorsed and furthered a particular religious belief. It is still a Federal Holiday solely because of the non-Christian aspects of it.
Yea, I'm an agnostic from a secular family and Christmas is still the best holiday of the year. I'm almost surprised that Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc, haven't started celebrating it too (though I suppose if you've already got your own holiday around then it might make things a bit too busy).
Yea, I'm an agnostic from a secular family and Christmas is still the best holiday of the year. I'm almost surprised that Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc, haven't started celebrating it too (though I suppose if you've already got your own holiday around then it might make things a bit too busy).
It's mainly because it is a Christian holiday. One that was usurped from pagans or no, it's still the celebration of the birth of the messiah to Christians. The court's ruling is BS, but they didn't want to get tarred and feathered by declaring it unconstitutional so they deferred to making it a 'secular holiday' in the same way that Brown deferred to the local governments implementing changes with 'all deliberate speed.'
It's hard not to love Christmas... granted, I wish the orgy aspect taken from the Roman's was still a component, but the shopping and lights are nice too.
I don't know what that has to do with anything... but so be it.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
I know people who aren't even christian at all and they celebrate christmas.
And im not talking about people whose ancestors were christian, and now they just don't really believe in it but its still culturally their thing. I'm talking about like, east Indians.
I'm not really Christian but I celebrate Christmas, both for the Santa dude and for Jesus. I still recognize him as one of if not the most influencial person to have lived and gladly celebrate his birth. Just you know, wanted to throw that out there.
yeah, Jesus was fine. It's the bulk of his followers I take issue with. Again, not remotely relevant to the discussion.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
I'm not really Christian but I celebrate Christmas, both for the Santa dude and for Jesus. I still recognize him as one of if not the most influencial person to have lived and gladly celebrate his birth. Just you know, wanted to throw that out there.
Yeah, I celebrate Muhammad's birth for the same reason.
I'm not really Christian but I celebrate Christmas, both for the Santa dude and for Jesus. I still recognize him as one of if not the most influencial person to have lived and gladly celebrate his birth. Just you know, wanted to throw that out there.
Santa is pretty influencial, but I wouldn't say the MOST influential person.
yeah, Jesus was fine. It's the bulk of his followers I take issue with. Again, not remotely relevant to the discussion.
yeah, I was trying to decipher what this discussion was about it started about french people shooting other people and is now about christmas.
oh, is America a Christian country? I would say not absolutely. Sure it was founded by people of that faith and many decisions then and now revolve around the generally held ideas of christiandom but... no, at least in my mind I like to see it as slightly separate. Our government and our actions might be influenced by Christian views but are not ruled by them. This is a residual effect from the majority of our population being Christians. If there are decisions being made and one option lends itself to being a "mostly Christian" viewpoint, then it is likely to be decided in that fasion because a majority of the people voting on it might classify themselves as Christian and side with it.
I actually do agree that most Christians are pretty moderate; most of them I've met have pretty secular beliefs. They don't do the "God hates fags / let's bomb abortion clinics" thing. Mind you, I live in the Pacific Northwest, it could be totally different in the Bible belt. One of my friends in Alabama apparently got harassed for her religious beliefs (even though she IS Christian), so . . .
Regarding America, I roll my eyes whenever someone talks about we're supposedly a Christian nation. No . . . we're a nation that happens to have a big percentage of Christians. We have laws that happen to use some principles common in various religions and societies, such as "don't kill people." A lot of the founding fathers (ugh, I hate that term) were deists. Thomas Jefferson is interesting in that appreciated Jesus' philosphy, but didn't believe in his divinity or in miracles. He also wrote, "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make half the world fools and half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world."
Doesn't sound like "Go Christians, rah rah" to me.
Which brings up another point... why the hell do we care what the founding fathers intended anyway? I mean, they were only human... humans who lived over two centuries ago. Why is this even a point worth discussing?
Then why do we even have a Constitution in the first place, if we don't care the intent? Let's just scrap it and rewrite!
Because I am too lazy to type out why you're an idiot:
Original "intent" is functional, not motivational. The private motives of the Framers or Founders are irrelevant and largely unknowable, and likely to have been diverse. The common law rule of interpretation understood by the Founders was to discern the functional role of elements of the law, not the private purposes of the lawgivers.
Opponents of originalism note several points. First, the Constitution may have been the product of the Framers, but it was ratified by hundreds of delegates in 13 state conventions - should not the opinions of these people hold even more weight? Also, the Framers were a diverse group, and many had issues with specific parts of the Constitution. Whose opinion should be used? Next, do the opinions of a small, homogeneous group from 200 years ago have the respect of the huge, diverse population of today? To a black woman, how much trust can be placed in the thoughts of a white slave owner who's been dead for generations?
In truth, as with all of the following interpretations, most people use originalism when it suits them
America is a pretty goddamn Christian country. That is not a good thing.
Yeah... the issue is the morons who say either A) It was always this way or even worse, This was the way the founding fathers intended it to be
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
America is a pretty goddamn Christian country. That is not a good thing.
Yeah... the issue is the morons who say either A) It was always this way or even worse, This was the way the founding fathers intended it to be
Man, whatever. If the founding fathers shat in outhouses and used leaches when they caught pneumonia, then clearly indoor plumbing and penicillin are unAmerican and need to be banned.
When I was in Europe, one thing that struck me was the secularism and lack of a lot of jingoism. Like when I was in England, I didn't see anyone wearing the UK version of the "Eagle crying w/ American flag in the background with Twin Towers on Fire" shirt, which I guess would be the London Underground bombings.
I'm sure there's jingoism over there, but I can also see why my girlfriend's friends (the majority of which were homosexual) were worried because she told them I was a Catholic. I'm pretty sure when Bush talks about how he speaks to God, a lot of people wonder "What the fuck is going on over there?"
Posts
You're right, though, about signing posts. Force of habit, and usually at places where most people don't do that kind of stuff. It's happened to me before. Perhaps I should've learned...
I dunno, if anything it makes me even less inclined to get intimate with him, particularly taken alongside the stuff he's actually saying.
Why do we get christmas off from work?
Why Not Yom Kippur?
VC none of those things are uniquely christian. Muslims would be against most of them as well. Really until it start incorporating shit from the Nicaean Creed (?) I think the case is pretty shitty.
Of course if the members of the club just use it as a vehicle for religion the matter is different.
Regardless, go out to Idaho and look around if you want to see some of our God freaks. Christian Nation, Aryan Nation, Christian Identity, whatever. All claim to follow the Bible and the Bible tells them to do some stupid shit.
By the way, a lot of the God quotes you see bandied about by idiots who want to make believe that Jesus fought the Revolutionary War? Yeah, they were made when the Founding Fathers were much much much younger before they went about and decided to make a nation. Most of them indeed were Deists, and no one really is sure what Madison actually was.
But yeah. Eric Rudolph, ring a bell? String of abortion clinic bombings across the South, blew up the Olympics? That guy?
Right, and what we're saying is they likely weren't thinking "Hey, what're some good Christian rules", but that it's more likely they thought "Hey, how should we do this without fucking anyone over?" and a few of the basic rules came out sounding somewhat similar to Christianity, which in turn is some good ideas everyone can agree hidden beneath a lot of terrible ideas and poorly evidenced beliefs.
What about people who aren't Christians or Muslims? And not even Jewish? What about people whose only "religious belief" is that we shouldn't be dicks to eachother? Rules that can only be made to make sense under the force of the phrase "it is God's will"?
And Christmas is barely a Christian holiday anymore anyway. Most people I know that celebrate Christmas do so without one mention of that Christ guy.
I'm not following your point at all there. I will note that plenty of people and the groups they form are less than rational even without religion to screw them up.
Page 666.
Article XII. Right below how it is illegal for the Easter Bunny to operate without a license.
How is that even remotely relevant to this discussion? Do you actually think getting Christmas off became any kind of nationally recognized event prior to the 1900's?
You should have a list of things, far more significant than one holiday, which are indicative of the founding principles of our country. This should be easy.
It'd probably be easier if it were true.
I know people who've gotten Muslim holidays off for work. So your point really dosen't stand.
But then again, you took one ancedotal incident of friendly fire to paint an entire army as "a bunch of psychopaths", so your reasoning skills aren't exactly what I'd call par to our standards.
God you have no idea how much this tickles me. It will make me smile for the rest of the day.
Congress proclaimed Christmas a federal holiday in 1870!
The the last founding father to die was Madison in 1836.
Not only that, but in 1999, a federal court acknowledged the secular aspects of Christmas in rejecting a claim that the holiday impermissibly endorsed and furthered a particular religious belief. It is still a Federal Holiday solely because of the non-Christian aspects of it.
It's mainly because it is a Christian holiday. One that was usurped from pagans or no, it's still the celebration of the birth of the messiah to Christians. The court's ruling is BS, but they didn't want to get tarred and feathered by declaring it unconstitutional so they deferred to making it a 'secular holiday' in the same way that Brown deferred to the local governments implementing changes with 'all deliberate speed.'
I agree that it's a great holiday, regardless of faith.
I don't know what that has to do with anything... but so be it.
And im not talking about people whose ancestors were christian, and now they just don't really believe in it but its still culturally their thing. I'm talking about like, east Indians.
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Yeah, I celebrate Muhammad's birth for the same reason.
Santa is pretty influencial, but I wouldn't say the MOST influential person.
yeah, I was trying to decipher what this discussion was about
oh, is America a Christian country? I would say not absolutely. Sure it was founded by people of that faith and many decisions then and now revolve around the generally held ideas of christiandom but... no, at least in my mind I like to see it as slightly separate. Our government and our actions might be influenced by Christian views but are not ruled by them. This is a residual effect from the majority of our population being Christians. If there are decisions being made and one option lends itself to being a "mostly Christian" viewpoint, then it is likely to be decided in that fasion because a majority of the people voting on it might classify themselves as Christian and side with it.
K, carry on :P
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Regarding America, I roll my eyes whenever someone talks about we're supposedly a Christian nation. No . . . we're a nation that happens to have a big percentage of Christians. We have laws that happen to use some principles common in various religions and societies, such as "don't kill people." A lot of the founding fathers (ugh, I hate that term) were deists. Thomas Jefferson is interesting in that appreciated Jesus' philosphy, but didn't believe in his divinity or in miracles. He also wrote, "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make half the world fools and half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world."
Doesn't sound like "Go Christians, rah rah" to me.
Because I am too lazy to type out why you're an idiot:
Yeah... the issue is the morons who say either A) It was always this way or even worse,
I'm sure there's jingoism over there, but I can also see why my girlfriend's friends (the majority of which were homosexual) were worried because she told them I was a Catholic. I'm pretty sure when Bush talks about how he speaks to God, a lot of people wonder "What the fuck is going on over there?"