4 Him:

You're not really seeking an answer so i will pass on that.

I'm not really seeking an answer? Thanks for that.

In God we trust - became official US motto in 1956 but had been widely in use as early as 1863.

Below is an 1864 US coin

I don't think it was widely used, and the country was founded well before 1863.

KAG:

I don't think it was widely used, and the country was founded well before 1863.

Sorry, it was widely used on US coins as early as 1863. Considering how common coins are i'd wager pretty much every school kid as at that time was familiar with the motto. The country was founded in 1776 not 1863 (a moot point): but since you choose to pursue the matter . . .

President George Washington, September 17th, 1796 "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible"

4 Him:

It is usually claimed by noise makers who pretend to be informed that the USA was not founded on christian PRINCIPLES (note that there is a big difference between a principle and a religion) . . . a cursory look at history tells us otherwise. A simple case in point is the motto of the USA - IN GOD WE TRUST.

It might interest Huxley to note that it smacks of poor scholarship to base American internal policy on a "treaty" signed with foreign powers (Tripoli) primarily to protect US shipping interests in what used to be moslem waters. The treaty was written in arabic (not a US language) and a careful reading of the above quote from article 11 of the treaty is clear evidence that this was written as a form of political appeasement.

What are Christian Principles? Are any such principles, such as may exist, enshrined in the US constitution, or in any principal legislative documents of the US?

What does it mean "to found a state on Christian Principles"?

If your thesis is correct, then no sooner had they founded the US on Christian principle than they embark on the following christian acts;

1) Enslave millions of African (Not condemned in the Christian text)
2) War civil against each other
3) Enslave and ethnically cleanse huge tracks of land of the native America just like their Christian forebears did to the Canaanites, Hittites, etc
4) Drive to near extinction some native animals
etc
etc

Admittedly, Americans have learnt from some of the mistakes of the past. But how could a country founded on so called christian principle immediately disintegrate into war and slavery?

Thank goodness for some of the leading lights of freedom like Thomas Paine, etc.

huxley:

What are Christian Principles? Are any such principles, such as may exist, enshrined in the US constitution, or in any principal legislative documents of the US?

What does it mean "to found a state on Christian Principles"?

If your thesis is correct, then no sooner had they founded the US on Christian principle than they embark on the following christian acts;

1) Enslave millions of African (Not condemned in the Christian text)
2) War civil against each other
3) Enslave and ethnically cleanse huge tracks of land of the native America just like their Christian forebears did to the Canaanites, Hittites, etc
4) Drive to near extinction some native animals
etc
etc

Admittedly, Americans have learnt from some of the mistakes of the past. But how could a country founded on so called christian principle immediately disintegrate into war and slavery?

Thank goodness for some of the leading lights of freedom like Thomas Paine, etc.

1. Did the communist states (supposedly athiest) like Russia (Stalin), China fare any better? Christianity does not gloss over the fact that as humans we will make mistakes.

2. "leading lights" of freedom? Thomas Paine moved to France in 1781 and did not return to the US until 1802. To parrot the lie that he was more instrumental to the founding of the US beyond writing inflammatory pamphlets is to pander to your own propaganda.

What are christian principles and where are they in US legislative documents?

4 Him:

Sorry, it was widely used on US coins as early as 1863. Considering how common coins are i'd wager pretty much every school kid as at that time was familiar with the motto.

That's debatable, but you do have a point.

The country was founded in 1776 not 1863 (a moot point): but since you choose to pursue the matter . . .

President George Washington, September 17th, 1796 "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible"

Oh, I thought your argument was to show that the USA was founded on Christian prinicples", not that 100 years later some coins bore reference to a god and Washington perhaps said something about the Christian god and the Bible. I guess not.

Do we still know what Christian principles means?

huxley:

What are christian principles and where are they in US legislative documents?

The founding fathers of the US were smart enough to understand that not every citizen would subscribe to the christian faith. They realised that the foundation of a modern state was to keep religion separate from state . . . HOWEVER there is no shying away from the FACT that those devout men who put America on its feet relied heavily on their christian faith. Such is evident from their various writings.

You will not find christian doctrine in legislative documents of the US, it was not founded as a theocracy.

KAG:

Oh, I thought your argument was to show that the USA was founded on Christian prinicples", not that 100 years later some coins bore reference to a god and Washington perhaps said something about the Christian god and the Bible. I guess not.

Do we still know what Christian principles means?

more roundabout discourse saying nothing of substance. God was an integral part of the lifestyle of the men who drafted the US constitution and served as its founding leaders.

As for christian principles? Pls read the bible.

4 Him:

more roundabout discourse saying nothing of substance. God was an integral part of the lifestyle of the men who drafted the US constitution and served as its founding leaders.

As for christian principles? Please read the bible.

Which of these from the Bible are christian principle?

1) Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. Exodus 21: 17

2) Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:18, NIV)

3) Stone a woman who is not a virgin on her wedding day

4) Do not defend yourself against evil. Instead turn the other cheek (the one on your face, not the one on your bottom; in case your are a Catholic priest)

5) Make no plans for the morrow

4 Him:

more roundabout discourse saying nothing of substance. God was an integral part of the lifestyle of the men who drafted the US constitution and served as its founding leaders.

As for christian principles? Please read the bible.

Well, this has certainly developed into redundancy. Good showing.

huxley:

Which of these from the Bible are christian principle?

1) Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. Exodus 21: 17

Jewish laws may appear in the bible but are not necessarily christian principles.
One example - the jews celebrate the feast of passover till tomorrow as expressly commanded them in the bible, christians do not.
One more example - jews celebrate the feast of Purim (book of Esther), celebrate 50yr jubilees . . . none of these pertain to the christian as we are not jewish.

The ability to correctly identify what laws pertain to the jew (as a nation) and what pertains to the christian (as a member of the body of Christ) is critical to understanding several of these questions you ask NOT for clarification but for derision.

huxley:

2) Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:18, NIV)

Love is the cornerstone of the Christian faith, the death on the cross symbolises the greatest love that any man could have for a friend.

huxley:

3) Stone a woman who is not a virgin on her wedding day

again, a tribal jewish law that has nothing to do with christianity.

huxley:

4) Do not defend yourself against evil. Instead turn the other cheek (the one on your face, not the one on your bottom; in case your are a Catholic priest)

the bible says nothing about catholic priests.
The bible speaks so many times in parables . . . turning the other cheek is symbolism for the 2nd question you asked earlier and not literarily refering to the cheek on ur face.

huxley:

5) Make no plans for the morrow

Again another wrongly applied parable . . . the same bible says . . . he that will not work (or plan) will not eat.

KAG:

Well, this has certainly developed into redundancy. Good showing.

especially as you cant really defend your position beyond posting sarcastic ripostes.

4 Him:

especially as you can't really defend your position beyond posting sarcastic ripostes.

4 Him: It is usually claimed by noise makers who pretend to be informed that the USA was not founded on christian PRINCIPLES (note that there is a big difference between a principle and a religion) . . . a cursory look at history tells us otherwise. A simple case in point is the motto of the USA - IN GOD WE TRUST.

KAG: What are Christian principles? "In God we Trust" was added a few decades ago as, IIRC, a response to the "Red scare"

4 Him: You're not really seeking an answer so i will pass on that. [Latter part was the only one to receive a response that wasn't a cop-out]

KAG: I'm not really seeking an answer? Thanks for that.
I don't think it [in God we trust] was widely used, and the country was founded well before 1863.

4 Him: Sorry, it was widely used on US coins as early as 1863. Considering how common coins are i'd wager pretty much every school kid as at that time was familiar with the motto. The country was founded in 1776 not 1863 (a moot point): but since you choose to pursue the matter . . .

President George Washington, September 17th, 1796 "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible"

KAG: That's [coin issue] debatable, but you do have a point. Oh, I thought your argument was to show that the USA was founded on Christian prinicples", not that 100 years later some coins bore reference to a god and Washington perhaps said something about the Christian god and the Bible. I guess not.

Do we still know what Christian principles means?


4 Him: more roundabout discourse saying nothing of substance. God was an integral part of the lifestyle of the men who drafted the US constitution and served as its founding leaders.

As for christian principles? Please read the bible.


intellectual dishonesty must be a staple element in that ambiguous "christian principles" thing.

I'm out; thanks for your time.

KAG:

intellectual dishonesty must be a staple element in that ambiguous "christian principles" thing.

I'm out; thanks for your time.

if there's any intellectual dishonesty it is from those who erroneously/mischievously assumed "in God we trust" was not used in the US until 1956 and those who dishonestly reference the "treaty of tripoli" to show the US was not founded on christian religion (it wasnt founded as a theocracy).

thanks for ur time too.

To neatly tie this all up and back into the initial subject of this thread would it be fair to summarise that ideological extremism of any sort whether it be religious or atheistic is detrimental to[b] intellectual integrity[/b] and will be a blight on our academic institutions.

It seems obvious to me that to properly pursue knowledge one must be open to wherever the quest may lead and it is harmful to harbour prejudices or to be rigid in your preconceptions. Ultimately these will lead to a willful distortion of the truth. Another good example is Nazi science.

Why does religion promote anti-intellectualism?

Be carefully who you trust in life. Parents I would not suggest you this Bob Jones University, And such people who support such racial-conservative viewpoint well you have to understand its administration is negative toward certain minorities in this country who are new, yes racism still is present there at University, I would characterize that institution by greed. It is Boo Jones Univerity!!!!!

I suggested many months ago that Christian fundamentalism is dragging Africa into the Dark Ages, and by what is happen in some parts of Nigeria, there are already in the Dark Ages.

Hoorah, The Christian for bringing the Dark Ages back into the 21st, 450 years after it had been consigned into history.

what of Cameroun?

DavidDylan:

what of Cameroun?

Cameroon is already there too, or not too far behind.

Any new takers?

If the United States was founded as a Christian nation on Christian principles, why did the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights ever get passed? It makes four of the ten commandments unconstitutional. This is really odd isn't it? Biblical literacy was much higher in those days than it is today. (Even though overall literacy was much lower, people definitely knew their Bibles. In many 18th Century homes, the Bible was the only book.) So the men who wrote the Bill of Rights certainly knew what they were doing when they set down the establishment clause and the free exercise clause. I don't think the United States was founded as a Christian nation. I think most of the founding fathers were veiled atheists. Doesn't Dawkins talk about this in The God Delusion? Abraham Lincoln isn't some one you would refer to as a Christian, Thomas Jefferson? The founders of the United States were a group of enlightenment thinkers who specifically set up a secular constitution to run a secular country.

Here are some of the words of American "Christian" founding fathers

"Religions are all alike — founded upon fables and mythologies."
— Thomas Jefferson

"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man."
— Thomas Jefferson

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
— Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

"It is between fifty and sixty years since I read the Apocalypse(book of revelation), and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac."
— Thomas Jefferson

"The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it; and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right,from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine.  In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds.  It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills."
— Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams (January 24, 1814)

"The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."
— George Washington, 1st U.S. President

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."
— Benjamin Franklin

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible.  Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies."
— Benjamin Franklin, Toward The Mystery


"Religion I found to be without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serves principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another."
— Benjamin Franklin

More quotes from the American "Christian " founders

"The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history.  Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity.  It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses, "
— John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America; from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, p. 258

"Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion."
— John Adams

"The United States of America governments have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature.  It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses."
— John Adams


America was never founded by Christians, it was founded by people that believed in a God, Most of them were deist.


http://godvsthebible.com/chapter11.htm

the problem is i am yet to see an serious intellectual competence with any of you who deny the existence of God. You people are simply vacuous noise makers. Show me your intellect and lets see whether its any better than those of us who read a bible.

davidylan:

the problem is i am yet to see an serious intellectual competence with any of you who deny the existence of God. You people are simply vacuous noise makers. Show me your intellect and lets see whether its any better than those of us who read a bible.

bla bla bla bla bla. Mr intellect  . We do not believe in a God that used to hide himself like a chicken in a man made wooden ark.(or one that used to hide in the Ka'aba) and strikes any body that dares to look at him inside. we do not believe that humans were created from sand or that a goat can give birth to goats with stripes and patches by simply peeling off branches of trees. by the way we do not believe that you can associate kindness to a deity that almost tried to kill his best friend Moses because of circumcision. We also do not believe in a deity that says he is everywhere and sees all things that says still needs lamps to look for people that disobey him, ooh despite the all knowing character that is attributed to him he still needed his "chosen people" to mark their doors with the blood of animals so that he can differentiate it from the doors of his enemies when he sent his angels to kill off all the first born of the enemies of his people. What an intellectual deity and an intellectual follower we have here.

Bindex show us this intellect and it sufficeth us.

davidylan:

Bindex show us this intellect and it sufficeth us.

I will rather show you the intellect of your all knowing deity that needs lamps to look for people who disobey him at night.

bindex:

I will rather show you the intellect of your all knowing deity that needs lamps to look for people who disobey him at night.

you're straying too far. You say he doesnt exist yet you want to show me his intellect? How daft.

You clearly agree with the topic that religion is a danger to intellectualism . . . i wish you to show me just how intellectually advanced you are . . . perhaps those of us still clutching the bible can drop it in favour of following you.

davidylan:

you're straying too far. You say he doesnt exist yet you want to show me his intellect?  How daft.

You clearly agree with the topic that religion is a danger to intellectualism . . . i wish you to show me just how intellectually advanced you are . . . perhaps those of us still clutching the bible can drop it in favour of following you.

In you haste to sound stupid you can not even understand sarcasm when you see one. Idiot. The day you stop clutching the bible is the day you will die, what other book will keeps you flying in your world of delusion and in your permanent us vs them mode? the day you stop clutching on your bible is the day that you die because I don't think you can live in a world where some imaginary figure does not consider you special above all the others. Your life is so miserable that you need to be reminded that the us vs them war will never end till your imaginary God comes and takes you to heaven. I don't think you can live in a world where some imaginary being does not keep inflating your ego by encouraging you be in the permanent we vs them mode. Try doing without that book of fables and lets see how long you will last in the world without your imaginary being inflating your ego. idiot.

Thought the article below might be relevant to the discussion here.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Soyinka On Adunni Olorisa
By Damola Awoyokun

IN his tribute to the late Susanne Wenger, Wole Soyinka as usual drapes the traditional religion TR in richly embroidered aso oke. He singled out its virtue of tolerance, made an example of it and completed the tribute with an 'irreducible' instruction: "Go to the orisa, learn from the orisa, and be wise." (The Guardian, January 20). Really?

Soyinka zeroed in on the superficial at the expense of the fundamental: that TR is a system of superstition; that like other systems of superstition it not responsible to objective verification and empirical analysis; that it is incompatible with requirements of progress and civilization; that the human mind has a duty to follow what is true and not just what is traditional; that the golden traces of beauty, justice, truth, love, ethical emphasis that it holds up as embroideries for PR are eternal values older than any religion. (All religions appropriate these to look credible and seduce the unwary).

Invention of TR started with anxiety about the unknown. In terms of space, this translated to curiosity about what lay beyond the village and the skies; and in terms of time: wanting to know what the future held. It was believed that there is a master script somewhere, the setting of which is the earth and all human beings are characters in it. To have access to this is the reason for divination, which explains why there are terms like kadara, ipin, ayanmo, akunleyan, akunlegba, akoole. Modern philosophical consensus has established all these are false. There is no destiny; nothing had been predetermined; there is no fate. We are our own meaning. Our current situation or our tomorrow is tabla rasa that is why they are products of our choice. No more. We are responsible for what we do and this determines who we are. There is no ori or chi that had negotiated a good or bad contract for one's destiny. And yet the soft force driving all religions is this concept of predestination, to know what had been written down for one's situation.

Among the Yoruba, the divination is Ifa. Here is a typical verse from Otura meji, a principal Odu: , adia fun Aderomokun omo ooni, ala'na kan esuru, n' ijo ti m' ekun se raun ire gbogbo; bi okan ba yo ninu igbo a ba ona wa, ire, ire gbogbo ma ma wa mi wa o, ire gbogbo,  What makes a literary work first rate is embedded in this incantation. Not only its flow of cadence, but each word being an anticipation of the next enacts the yearning for determinism they convey. Prince Aderomokun may never have existed but was invented because its meaning and the music of its syllables props the idea the verse carries. Nevertheless, must we allow this literary beauty to obfuscate the fallacies resident not only in the verse but also in the whole of all divination systems? Who says that every time a quarry emerges from the bush it heads for the village path? (Fallacy of hasty generalization and unwarranted assumption) And since this animal fortune has happened to the village, therefore fortune will come your way too? (Fallacy of false cause)

These fallacies are not unlike the odus of other scriptures. An example: that after suffering family exclusion, deprivation and security threats in the bush, the biblical David rose to the leadership of Israel hence this would happen to you too after you suffer. Or when you suffer and become leader, it is because it had first happened to David or any other biblical persona. Glossing over the superficial but zeroing attention on details and the causal relationship among them is the beginning of thinking, the automatic enemy of divination.

Even with Ifa, mysteries of life persisted unexplained. This made it easy for the foreign religions to sweep TR away. Not that they were essentially different but at some points in their development they rendered themselves open to the current state of thought and scholarship, to findings of reformists like St Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Omar Khayyam -a philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. Hence, these religions were equipped to offer sophisticated answers to the quest for understanding and attempts to find clarity in the several contradictions of life. Since wisdom is acquired through immersion in the best that has been thought and said, converting to them seemed a wise choice for our ancestors.

But not without a fight. This is why the claim that TR is tolerant is largely imaginary. TR looks tolerant because it is in the minority. When Islam and Christianity were seeping into the villages and TR was the majority, history discloses several instances where churches and mosques were razed down and converts massacred or disowned by their own families for worshipping a white man's God or going to a white man's school. Now being the minority, TR is emasculated of its powers of intolerance. This is not the same as being tolerant. It is just the aftermath of emasculation, the step before extinction. Intolerance is the evangelical zeal to be the sole majority. This is why now the foreign religions are always at loggerheads, striving to outdo each other in mass violence. To buttress TR's capacity for tolerance, its spin-doctors cite: Ogun worshippers do not fight their Sango colleagues. But they are under the same umbrella just like Baptists and Anglicans or Nasfat and Ahmadiyya. It is all the same incestuous tolerance whereas the one of virtue is the ecumenical tolerance.

Conceptually, no religion can tolerate the other. All of them insist: 'I am the truth not you,  I have the word of God, it cannot change. It is a dogma. And dogmas like stubbornness demonstrate a lack of curiosity which is the fuel of development. The foreign religions that were brimming with fresh bulletins from truth now resisted new and advanced findings of truth in humanities or sciences. As representatives of outdated knowledge and hoary ideas, they are now like TR: irrational. And a religion can only be intolerant of another religion because it has first become intolerant of rationality. From this, other monsters burst forth, spill over to other aspects of life.

In this age of democracy and suicide bomber, one reads with horror the case of Olunde the eldest son of Eleshin who in Death and the King's Horseman commits suicide so he can serve as the heavenly courier of his dead king. The play tells us he is a medical student; he himself mentions that he is "attached to hospitals all the time." Meaning: he is not simply a medical student; he has enough sophistication of intellect to have passed pre-clinicals. How come such a mind trained to preserve life, flies home and takes his own life because of a religious stipulation? Iyalode snides at his undead father: 'we fed your sweetmeats such as we hoped awaited you on the other side, ' This mindlessness is one with that of 19 young men, some studying elite courses in German universities who on a September 11 hijacked planes, turned them into altars and immolated themselves since they have been promised busty virgins on the other side. Why shed blood? Why get crucified to save one's people? Extremisms own their irrationalities to the superstitious underlay of religions.

Sutekh, Tammuz, Zeus, Manawyddan, Ra, Ubilulu in their days were Almighties with magnificent temples built to them and hundreds of prophets, seers, viziers in the business of interpreting their commandments. Where are they today? But these ex-Almighties should be commended for their precocious wisdom: having realized early the need for a post-religious society, they tore up the scripts and left the stage hence demonstrating to us the true and irreducible instruction.

Awoyokun lives in London.

[url=http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/editorial_opinion/article04//indexn2_html?pdate=080209&ptitle=Soyinka%20On%20Adunni%20Olorisa] The Guardian[/url]

Read above what religion does to people's minds

Any new ideas?