Creationists

[Hollie]

Let Divines, and Philosophers, Statesmen and Patriots unite their endeavours to renovate the Age, by impressing the Minds of Men with the importance of educating their little boys, and girls — of inculcating in the Minds of youth the fear, and Love of the Deity, and universal Phylanthropy; and in subordination to these great principles, the Love of their Country — of instructing them in the Art of self government, without which they never can act a wise part in the Government of Societys great, or small — in short of leading them in the Study, and Practice of the exalted Virtues of the Christian system. Sam Adams

"Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."

-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America"



Of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve ... the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from episcopal fingers."

-- John Adams, "A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law," printed in the Boston Gazette, August 1765



"The Church of Rome has made it an article of faith that no man can be saved out of their church, and all other religious sects approach this dreadful opinion in proportion to their ignorance, and the influence of ignorant or wicked priests."

-- John Adams, Diary and Autobiography

 

[Hollie]

"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes."

-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814



"Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude....

 

[Hollie]

Thomas Jefferson

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."

SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS,
by John E. Remsburg, letter to William Short


But America is a "christian" nation?

 

[Hollie]

Thomas Jefferson - (on freedom FROM religion)


"It is proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe, a day of fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant, too, that this recommendation is to carry some authority and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription, perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed?... Civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents."

--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428

 

[Hollie]

"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man."

--Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moor, 1800.


But... but.... but.... but.... but the U.S. is a "christian" nation?

 

[LittleNipper]

"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man."

--Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moor, 1800.


But... but.... but.... but.... but the U.S. is a "christian" nation?

It must be remembered that Thomas Jefferson was not noted for being perfect. He also took one of his slaves to bed, and chopped up the Bible to eliminate all the verses he objected to... What Jefferson said and did privately is not what he said or did publically. He is not my most favorite Founding Father, but he is one of the most colorful.

 

[LittleNipper]

And as much as you would like to force the xtian gawds on others, the Constitution is quite clear you cannot.

As usual, you miss the point. The Constitution embraces the free will teachings of the Christian religion and also reflects the Pilgrims initial reason for fleeing England, so that the government could not have an official Church. This doesn't change the fact the nation was found by Christian men, on Christian principles, for a largely Christian populace. And as long as the websites like the Library of Congress and the National Archives don't succumb to the rabid revisionism that you continually preach, any one who searches will still be able to find the truth. My fear is that the actual documents will be lost, and eventually the bits and bytes will be corrupted, and evil people like you Hawly will have their way at erasing what really happened, to serve their own miserable, self-loathing, Christ-hating agendas. People like you are dangerous like Hitler was, because evil and violence against a certain group is your goal. Just one of the tools of your hate and bigotry is revisionism. The other is repeating lies over and over enough that you first believe the lie yourself and then you convince other weak-minded and impressionable people like NP and Daws to believe your lies.

What you're missing, dear, is that the Constitution actually protects me and other americans from religious fundamentalists such as you and others who, given the chance, would seek to turn this nation into an Iranian style theocracy.

How interesting that the Christian men who framed the constitution knew precisely how religious fundamentalism (Christian) tends to propagate and thus chose to protect the free exercise of religious freedom (freedom FROM religion).

Obviously, they knew quite well the dangers of a majority religion imposing its views on the populace.

This nation was a tad more Christian than it is presently and quite a lot more tolerant in the 1950's. I know what you're already thinking ---- what about Blacks, Gays, and Abortion. The reality is that we had come a very long way by the 1950's. Blacks faced the biggest issues in the Democratic South. Deviate sex was behind closed doors and not in everybody's lap, and abortion was and still is murder (there was a whole lot less of that then than there is today --- even when abortion is excluded). The major religion today is hedonistic atheistic Humanism.
But lets see ---- in the 1950's a smoker could smoke anywhere. Guys could ride in the back of a pick-up truck. Scouts could bring pen knives to class --- we even played dodge ball. Banks provided 1% interest for passbook accounts opened for $1.00. Blacks were free to sit with whites at Billy Graham Crusades. Doctors made house calls. Milk was delivered. A litter of unwanted kittens could be drowned. And dry cleaners made house to house pickups. Ethnic jokes were told openly and everyone was a target. And I went for a ride at the age of six on the back of my uncle's cycle without a helmet. Was everything perfect and acceptable? NO. Was the "Christian" nation more tolerant of bad choices and less restrictive? I believe it actually was. Sorry, I feel that today we are living the "Brave New World" and "1984" and "Fahrenheit 451" but simply too controlled to realize it ---- dear.

 

[UltimateReality]

I think the religion of the founders is nothing like that of modern christians. Perhaps there were those people around in their day. But these men were often men of education. Some even men of science, limited as it was in that day.

They didn't use the government models of imposing a godly king. (Washington would have been the ideal choice.) Instead they looked to the heathen Greeks and early Romans for inspiration. These were not fundamentalist who believed man inherently evil. They believed that mankind could make the right decisions if only they were educated

They so did not!!!! Pick up a history book, a real one, not an electronic one!!! Please!! The numerous quotes from the founders do not support this at all!

(a truly liberal and humanist position if ever there was one).

So they may have believed in a god. But I've seen nothing in my extensive reading to suggest they were anything like the christians of today.

Dude, what history books are you reading??? The Founders absolutely felt that mans propensity for evil was as sure as the sunrise. That is why they attempted to install so many checks and balances to keep evil tyrants out of power. They knew men were evil and easily corrupted by power.

I wouldn't be so quick to impose your self-hate and retrogression on the Founding Fathers.

Therein lies the danger of religious fundamentalism. The point being, theism does not allow for options -- it can’t be emphasized enough that from a christian point of view, humans are inherently evil, base, greedy, etc. That is a self-fulfilling speculation, and given that fact that we continue to survive, it is not empirically true. And because it's not true -- what purpose does self-hate serve? Is it extraneous and superfluous? Yes, of course it is. Assuming that evil acts are borne out of the influence of religion, is religion worth the price is extracts on human development?

Dismissing the net effect of cooperation that has grown over time is just ignoring the vast majority of people throughout time who have behaved benevolently. Humans are progressing, in spite of some ideologies that are regressive. Remember, slavery was a common global phenomenon until a mere two centuries ago. What was it other than the implementation of an "ethical" system that considered slavery to (at least some) individuals as a positive good? But were those societies themselves "immoral?" Certainly not by their own standards. And arguably not by the standards of any "revealed" ethical system as the Abrahamic monotheisms (just for example) tolerated the institution of slavery for centuries or millennia.

Actually, man's ethics and morality beats out god by light-years. God tacitly and obviously approves of slavery (Jesus speaks of servants to a Master and never thinks to condemn the injustice of one man owning another)-- man finds it repulsive. God not only approves of war, he ignites them left and right -- man creates a United Nations in an attempt to stop war. God commits genocide without blinking an eye -- man imprisons mass murderers and is repulsed by wanton slaughter. God not only approves of raping young women, he specifically rewards his soldiers with them.

You have no clue what you are even saying. Under your materialistic worldview, there is no such thing as evil. If matter is the only reality then all behaviors are natural. Child molesters, murderers, rapists... they are just a product of their genes, which evolved he behaviors they exhibit.

 

[UltimateReality]

Let Divines, and Philosophers, Statesmen and Patriots unite their endeavours to renovate the Age, by impressing the Minds of Men with the importance of educating their little boys, and girls — of inculcating in the Minds of youth the fear, and Love of the Deity, and universal Phylanthropy; and in subordination to these great principles, the Love of their Country — of instructing them in the Art of self government, without which they never can act a wise part in the Government of Societys great, or small — in short of leading them in the Study, and Practice of the exalted Virtues of the Christian system. Sam Adams

"Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."

-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America"



Of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve ... the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from episcopal fingers."

-- John Adams, "A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law," printed in the Boston Gazette, August 1765



"The Church of Rome has made it an article of faith that no man can be saved out of their church, and all other religious sects approach this dreadful opinion in proportion to their ignorance, and the influence of ignorant or wicked priests."

-- John Adams, Diary and Autobiography

Hawly, your posts reveal your rampant ignorance. John Adams had a very low opinion of the Catholic church, which your quotes above refer to. As usual, you make the critical error of leaving out the important and pertinent parts in order to further your lying agenda and Christian-hating bigotry. You are befuddled with anger and aren't thinking straight. Here, John Adams declares he is a Christian and declares the nation was founded on Christian principles.(never bring a knife to a gunfight)

-The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence, were ... the general principles of Christianity, in which all those sects were united, and the general principles of English and American liberty, in which all those young men united, and which had united all parties in America, in majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her independence. Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system.

More quotes from John Adams courtesy of Wikiquote:

-Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.

-The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.

-The new Government has my best Wishes and most fervent Prayers, for its Success and Prosperity: but whether I shall have any Thing more to do with it, besides praying for it, depends on the future suffrages of Freemen.

-Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

-I have thought proper to recommend, and I do hereby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the 25th day of April next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain as far as may be from their secular occupations, devote the time to the sacred duties of religion in public and in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the Most High God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore His pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to His righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that "righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people;" that He would turn us from our transgressions and turn His displeasure from us; that He would withhold us from unreasonable discontent, from disunion, faction, sedition, and insurrection; that He would preserve our country from the desolating sword; that He would save our cities and towns from a repetition of those awful pestilential visitations under which they have lately suffered so severely, and that the health of our inhabitants generally may be precious in His sight; that He would favor us with fruitful seasons and so bless the labors of the husbandman as that there may be food in abundance for man and beast; that He would prosper our commerce, manufactures, and fisheries, and give success to the people in all their lawful industry and enterprise; that He would smile on our colleges, academies, schools, and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of sound science, morals, and religion; that He would bless all magistrates, from the highest to the lowest, give them the true spirit of their station, make them a terror to evil doers and a praise to them that do well; that He would preside over the councils of the nation at this critical period, enlighten them to a just discernment of the public interest, and save them from mistake, division, and discord; that He would make succeed our preparations for defense and bless our armaments by land and by sea; that He would put an end to the effusion of human blood and the accumulation of human misery among the contending nations of the earth by disposing them to justice, to equity, to benevolence, and to peace; and that he would extend the blessings of knowledge, of true liberty, and of pure and undefiled religion throughout the world.

Presidential proclamation of a national day of fasting and prayer (6 March 1799).

-

 

[UltimateReality]

"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes."

-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814



"Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude....

Here you go again, cutting and pasting things you know not the history nor the meaning of, and there is your lackey, weak-minded impressionable NP thanking you for your fallacious post!!! Adams, as a good protestant, rejected all the Catholic doctrines, including the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which teaches the bread and wine become the REAL body and blood of Christ. This is heresy to a protestant!!!!

Sorry, but you have for the hundredth time revealed your ignorance of things. You have not proven Adams was atheist. You have just proven your own stupidity.

Jefferson, an admitted Deist, who believed in God but rejected the Divinity of Christ, is all you got. So quote away!!!

 

[Hollie]

"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes."

-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814



"Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude....

Here you go again, cutting and pasting things you know not the history nor the meaning of, and there is your lackey, weak-minded impressionable NP thanking you for your fallacious post!!! Adams, as a good protestant, rejected all the Catholic doctrines, including the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which teaches the bread and wine become the REAL body and blood of Christ. This is heresy to a protestant!!!!

Sorry, but you have for the hundredth time revealed your ignorance of things. You have not proven Adams was atheist. You have just proven your own stupidity.

Jefferson, an admitted Deist, who believed in God but rejected the Divinity of Christ, is all you got. So quote away!!!

As usual, you are limited to cutting and pasting what you are ignorant of.

In almost all of their writings, it is evident that many of the founding fathers were Deists -- they believed in a creator, but not such that Christianity or the bible offered. Instead, they needed a "supreme author" of existence but not one who necessarily was involved in the day to day requirements or needs of humanity.

Deism was very popular at the time, and waned when Darwin's Origin's of Life made it clear that a creator was not neccessarily required. For example, Thomas Jefferson's Bible ends with Jesus crucified and nothing more. He does not return from the dead, which is quite essential from a Christian perspective. Jefferson "believed in Jesus Christ" as a philospher, but not as a god incarnate. Thomas Paine, of whom it was said, "Without Paine's pen, Washington's sword would never have been wielded", was a thorough-going Deist who's "Age of Reason" deconstructed the bible completely. Notice Franklin also uses very deist terminology, although Franklin did waver back and forth and his autobiography clearly depicts this.

I find it not strange at all that a fundie takes it upon himself to force his religious beliefs on others.

 

[LittleNipper]

"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes."

-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814



"Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude....

Here you go again, cutting and pasting things you know not the history nor the meaning of, and there is your lackey, weak-minded impressionable NP thanking you for your fallacious post!!! Adams, as a good protestant, rejected all the Catholic doctrines, including the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which teaches the bread and wine become the REAL body and blood of Christ. This is heresy to a protestant!!!!

Sorry, but you have for the hundredth time revealed your ignorance of things. You have not proven Adams was atheist. You have just proven your own stupidity.

Jefferson, an admitted Deist, who believed in God but rejected the Divinity of Christ, is all you got. So quote away!!!

As usual, you are limited to cutting and pasting what you are ignorant of.

In almost all of their writings, it is evident that many of the founding fathers were Deists -- they believed in a creator, but not such that Christianity or the bible offered. Instead, they needed a "supreme author" of existence but not one who necessarily was involved in the day to day requirements or needs of humanity.

Deism was very popular at the time, and waned when Darwin's Origin's of Life made it clear that a creator was not neccessarily required. For example, Thomas Jefferson's Bible ends with Jesus crucified and nothing more. He does not return from the dead, which is quite essential from a Christian perspective. Jefferson "believed in Jesus Christ" as a philospher, but not as a god incarnate. Thomas Paine, of whom it was said, "Without Paine's pen, Washington's sword would never have been wielded", was a thorough-going Deist who's "Age of Reason" deconstructed the bible completely. Notice Franklin also uses very deist terminology, although Franklin did waver back and forth and his autobiography clearly depicts this.

I find it not strange at all that a fundie takes it upon himself to force his religious beliefs on others.

You are right that all the Founding Father's were not Christian. This is very evident in the mistakes they overlooked (one being slavery). However, many belonged to the Church of England. And with the Revolution that church (reigned over by the King of England) became a problem for many members in the colonies for obvious reasons. So they called themselves diests until such time the dust settled... Franklin suggested that the national language should be Hebrew, so that Americans might read the Bible in its original form. This might have been a bit of a joke, but Mr. Franklin had a deep respect for the Word of God, and like most he felt that a good education was impossible without reading it.

 

[Underhill]

As usual, you miss the point. The Constitution embraces the free will teachings of the Christian religion and also reflects the Pilgrims initial reason for fleeing England, so that the government could not have an official Church. This doesn't change the fact the nation was found by Christian men, on Christian principles, for a largely Christian populace. And as long as the websites like the Library of Congress and the National Archives don't succumb to the rabid revisionism that you continually preach, any one who searches will still be able to find the truth. My fear is that the actual documents will be lost, and eventually the bits and bytes will be corrupted, and evil people like you Hawly will have their way at erasing what really happened, to serve their own miserable, self-loathing, Christ-hating agendas. People like you are dangerous like Hitler was, because evil and violence against a certain group is your goal. Just one of the tools of your hate and bigotry is revisionism. The other is repeating lies over and over enough that you first believe the lie yourself and then you convince other weak-minded and impressionable people like NP and Daws to believe your lies.

Violence? Really?

I see christianity as a myth. A fraud. A means of control. I grew up in it. Know the book cover to cover and think Jesus teachings, while good, are among the most ignored in the whole bible.

I see christians as judgmental, hateful, spiteful people who bath in ignorance.

But violence? Come on...

You sound like a Jew in Nazi Germany, totally in denial of what was to come. You kids these days, our dumbed down education system has failed you. You believe the horrors of the past can never happen again. But they can, and they will. Humans are inherently evil.

Where did I say any of that? But if it will happen, it will be by demonizing the opposition. Something you are guilty of with your bullshit claims that we want violence.

Hitler did not kill the jews by telling them they were wrong. He didn't bother talking to them about their faults.

He did it by claiming they were conspiring against the german people. By making up lies about them. By demonizing them and then destroying them.

As you are doing here with us...

So if I sound like a Jew, it's because you sound like a Nazi.

 

[UltimateReality]

"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes."

-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814



"Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude....

Here you go again, cutting and pasting things you know not the history nor the meaning of, and there is your lackey, weak-minded impressionable NP thanking you for your fallacious post!!! Adams, as a good protestant, rejected all the Catholic doctrines, including the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which teaches the bread and wine become the REAL body and blood of Christ. This is heresy to a protestant!!!!

Sorry, but you have for the hundredth time revealed your ignorance of things. You have not proven Adams was atheist. You have just proven your own stupidity.

Jefferson, an admitted Deist, who believed in God but rejected the Divinity of Christ, is all you got. So quote away!!!

As usual, you are limited to cutting and pasting what you are ignorant of.

In almost all of their writings, it is evident that many of the founding fathers were Deists -- they believed in a creator, but not such that Christianity or the bible offered. Instead, they needed a "supreme author" of existence but not one who necessarily was involved in the day to day requirements or needs of humanity.

Deism was very popular at the time, and waned when Darwin's Origin's of Life made it clear that a creator was not neccessarily required. For example, Thomas Jefferson's Bible ends with Jesus crucified and nothing more. He does not return from the dead, which is quite essential from a Christian perspective. Jefferson "believed in Jesus Christ" as a philospher, but not as a god incarnate. Thomas Paine, of whom it was said, "Without Paine's pen, Washington's sword would never have been wielded", was a thorough-going Deist who's "Age of Reason" deconstructed the bible completely. Notice Franklin also uses very deist terminology, although Franklin did waver back and forth and his autobiography clearly depicts this.

I find it not strange at all that a fundie takes it upon himself to force his religious beliefs on others.

It is you who is attempting to force your Darwinistic, materialist religious beliefs on the traditions of American by your rabid revisionism.

The FEW founders that were Deist were not Deist in the modern sense. They believed in providence even if they didn't believe in the deity of Christ.

Like I said, all you got is Thomas Jefferson so cut and paste to your little evil hearts content!!!

 

[UltimateReality]

Violence? Really?

I see christianity as a myth. A fraud. A means of control. I grew up in it. Know the book cover to cover and think Jesus teachings, while good, are among the most ignored in the whole bible.

I see christians as judgmental, hateful, spiteful people who bath in ignorance.

But violence? Come on...

You sound like a Jew in Nazi Germany, totally in denial of what was to come. You kids these days, our dumbed down education system has failed you. You believe the horrors of the past can never happen again. But they can, and they will. Humans are inherently evil.

Where did I say any of that? But if it will happen, it will be by demonizing the opposition. Something you are guilty of with your bullshit claims that we want violence.

Hitler did not kill the jews by telling them they were wrong. He didn't bother talking to them about their faults.

He did it by claiming they were conspiring against the german people. By making up lies about them. By demonizing them and then destroying them.

As you are doing here with us...

So if I sound like a Jew, it's because you sound like a Nazi.

You need to take a long hard look in the mirror. It is you who is the Christian-hating Bigot. Might I remind you that you are in the Creationist thread making attacks. Hawly has made it clear she believes all Christians should be persecuted and wiped out. So if your comments here aren't persecuting me for my religious beliefs, then what is your motivation for being here? You, my friend, are the Nazi. Your hate has blinded you and you just can't see it.

 

[daws101]

If Evolution is a Fact.

How did there come to be male and female?

It's an undeniable fact that nearly all life forms have both male and female varieties.

So where did they come from?

How did they get started?

Who decided which was which, or which was going to be which?

Its undeniable falsehood what you just stated. The actual truth, is that Most of the biomass on this planet are made up of single-called bacteria who are asexual.

Now if they could only demonstrate that a bacterium could evolve in to something other then a bacterium

The planet is covered with bacterium how do you account for them in your evolutionary tree ?

another ignorant post by ywc

Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab
22:00 09 June 2008 by Bob Holmes
For similar stories, visit the Evolution Topic Guide




A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers' eyes. It's the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait.

And because the species in question is a bacterium, scientists have been able to replay history to show how this evolutionary novelty grew from the accumulation of unpredictable, chance events.

Twenty years ago, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski of Michigan State University in East Lansing, US, took a single Escherichia coli bacterium and used its descendants to found 12 laboratory populations.

The 12 have been growing ever since, gradually accumulating mutations and evolving for more than 44,000 generations, while Lenski watches what happens.

Profound change

Mostly, the patterns Lenski saw were similar in each separate population. All 12 evolved larger cells, for example, as well as faster growth rates on the glucose they were fed, and lower peak population densities.

But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations - the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use.

Indeed, the inability to use citrate is one of the traits by which bacteriologists distinguish E. coli from other species. The citrate-using mutants increased in population size and diversity.

"It's the most profound change we have seen during the experiment. This was clearly something quite different for them, and it's outside what was normally considered the bounds of E. coli as a species, which makes it especially interesting," says Lenski.

Rare mutation?

By this time, Lenski calculated, enough bacterial cells had lived and died that all simple mutations must already have occurred several times over.

That meant the "citrate-plus" trait must have been something special - either it was a single mutation of an unusually improbable sort, a rare chromosome inversion, say, or else gaining the ability to use citrate required the accumulation of several mutations in sequence.

To find out which, Lenski turned to his freezer, where he had saved samples of each population every 500 generations. These allowed him to replay history from any starting point he chose, by reviving the bacteria and letting evolution "replay" again.

Would the same population evolve Cit+ again, he wondered, or would any of the 12 be equally likely to hit the jackpot?

Evidence of evolution

The replays showed that even when he looked at trillions of cells, only the original population re-evolved Cit+ - and only when he started the replay from generation 20,000 or greater. Something, he concluded, must have happened around generation 20,000 that laid the groundwork for Cit+ to later evolve.

Lenski and his colleagues are now working to identify just what that earlier change was, and how it made the Cit+ mutation possible more than 10,000 generations later.

In the meantime, the experiment stands as proof that evolution does not always lead to the best possible outcome. Instead, a chance event can sometimes open evolutionary doors for one population that remain forever closed to other populations with different histories.

Lenski's experiment is also yet another poke in the eye for anti-evolutionists, notes Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. "The thing I like most is it says you can get these complex traits evolving by a combination of unlikely events," he says. "That's just what creationists say can't happen."

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803151105)http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html

bacterium evolve into better bacteria... just as humans are a better form of ape.

 

[daws101]

Yeah because I want to get arrested and tarnish my perfect law enforcement career over a curmudgeon with small mans complex.

I just thought it would be interesting to have a civil conversation without your tough guy, inflated internet personality.

really? I'm not small in any sense of the word.
height 6'4'' weight 272 lbs.
their you go again over playing your role, "perfect" career my ass, and you say my personality is inflated.

I picture you as a 5"6 145 weakling,sorry.

that's just more proof of your willful ignorance, denial of fact and why you make fact less assumptions based on fairy tales.

 

[Underhill]

You sound like a Jew in Nazi Germany, totally in denial of what was to come. You kids these days, our dumbed down education system has failed you. You believe the horrors of the past can never happen again. But they can, and they will. Humans are inherently evil.

Where did I say any of that? But if it will happen, it will be by demonizing the opposition. Something you are guilty of with your bullshit claims that we want violence.

Hitler did not kill the jews by telling them they were wrong. He didn't bother talking to them about their faults.

He did it by claiming they were conspiring against the german people. By making up lies about them. By demonizing them and then destroying them.

As you are doing here with us...

So if I sound like a Jew, it's because you sound like a Nazi.

You need to take a long hard look in the mirror. It is you who is the Christian-hating Bigot. Might I remind you that you are in the Creationist thread making attacks. Hawly has made it clear she believes all Christians should be persecuted and wiped out. So if your comments here aren't persecuting me for my religious beliefs, then what is your motivation for being here? You, my friend, are the Nazi. Your hate has blinded you and you just can't see it.

My parents are christian missionaries. My best man at my wedding is a pastor. I discuss these issues with them on a weekly basis, sometimes more. And no, I do not hate them.

I think they are deluding themselves. That is not hatred.

If I have any angst it is toward the religion itself. The hatred it all too often espouses. And yes, I have a serious problem with anyone who calls themselves a christian but believes being rich is a good thing and the poor are a drag on society.

I can respect someone who believes and teaches the words of jesus. Even if he didn't exist (debatable), the words professed to come from him are generally wholesome. But an awful lot of what comes out of churches is old testament style hatred and bigotry.

 

[daws101]

The Founding Fathers

Rather than address explicit constitutional provisions, American fundamentalists often like to quote-mine the Founding Fathers in order to divine their intentions and "prove" that they actually envisioned the new state as a Christian nation. They primarily target George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the first three Presidents of the United States, and claim that they were deeply devout Christians whose actions were to a large degree inspired by their faith.[2][3]

This notion is patently false: Jefferson's Deistic convictions are evident from his writings, and he was a high-profile critic of established Christian dogma; he even wrote his own version of the New Testament, the Jefferson Bible, expunging the Gospels of all references to the supernatural. Washington never attended communion services at his church and took great pains to refer to his god by Deistic terms like "Great Author" and "Almighty Being" in his inaugural address. While Adams credited religion in general with bolstering public morality, he consistently argued that the United States had been founded on rationalist and Enlightenment principles and rejected the notion of divine legitimation for political leadership.[4][5]

It is also interesting that these eminent figures were heavily criticized for their lack of religious devotion in times past. Rev. Bird Wilson had this to say about them in a 1831 sermon:


“”The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity.[6]


[edit] First Amendment

A common argument is that the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was intended to mean different denominations instead of different religions, because the idea of non-Christians living in the United States would have been unthinkable at the time. (George Washington's 1790 letter to the Jewish Congregation of Newport notwithstanding.[7])

This is of course not paying attention to the fact that several of the founding fathers were deists, and the Christian ones were almost all secularists. There was generally a liberal feeling throughout the Christian establishment in the U.S. at that time. The New England Puritans had really lost their steam by that point (indeed, a great number of Congregational churches would become Unitarian over the course of the next half-century); the Anglicans were, well, Anglicans; the Quakers were quite a liberal bunch as usual; other groups had insufficient political clout to do anything but support a completely secular state under which they would not be persecuted.

There is positive documentation that mere non-sectarianism was not what was meant by "free exercise of religion." In his Detached Memoranda, James Madison recounted the following occurrence during the passage in 1786 of Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which was specifically intended to guarantee at the Virginia state level what the U.S. Constitution did at the federal level:


“”In the course of the opposition to the bill in the House of Delegates, which was warm & strenuous from some of the minority, an experiment was made on the reverence entertained for the name & sanctity of the Saviour, by proposing to insert the words "Jesus Christ" after the words "our lord" in the preamble, the object of which, would have been, to imply a restriction of the liberty defined in the Bill, to those professing his religion only. The amendment was discussed, and rejected by a vote of agst.

—James Madison, Detached Memoranda[8]

In the same document, Madison opined that it was an encroachment on separation of church and state to "exempt Houses of Worship from taxes," and in response to a proposed measure to provide state support to all Christian ministers, he warned against the very concept that was being put into his mouth:


“”Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?[9]


To showcase a prime example of how deeply the "Christian nation" mythographers stick their heads in the sand, Christine Millard, the owner of a Washington, D.C. touring outfit called "Christian Heritage Tours," actually quoted the above statement of Madison's and then, in a jaw-dropping non sequitur, concluded that Madison was talking only about freedom for Christian denominations.[10]

[edit] Treaty of Tripoli

The most obvious falsification of this myth is the Treaty of Tripoli, a peace treaty signed with the Ottoman possession of Tripoli in 1805. Tripoli being a Muslim state, and accustomed to the hostility shown to Muslims by the established Christian states of Europe, the U.S. wanted to demonstrate that its religious policy was not of a similar sort, and so inserted the following language in the treaty:


“”the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen.[11]


The text of the treaty was printed on the front page of many newspapers without any sort of public outcry.[12]

In the face of such a smoking-gun falsification, the best that the "Christian nation" mythographers have been able to do is assert that this was mere politics designed to keep the Ottomans happy and to harp on the point that the treaty no longer holds force of law, having been superseded by later treaties; the latter a neat example of moving the goalposts.


http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_United_States_as_a_Christian_nation

 

[Hollie]

You sound like a Jew in Nazi Germany, totally in denial of what was to come. You kids these days, our dumbed down education system has failed you. You believe the horrors of the past can never happen again. But they can, and they will. Humans are inherently evil.

Where did I say any of that? But if it will happen, it will be by demonizing the opposition. Something you are guilty of with your bullshit claims that we want violence.

Hitler did not kill the jews by telling them they were wrong. He didn't bother talking to them about their faults.

He did it by claiming they were conspiring against the german people. By making up lies about them. By demonizing them and then destroying them.

As you are doing here with us...

So if I sound like a Jew, it's because you sound like a Nazi.

You need to take a long hard look in the mirror. It is you who is the Christian-hating Bigot. Might I remind you that you are in the Creationist thread making attacks. Hawly has made it clear she believes all Christians should be persecuted and wiped out. So if your comments here aren't persecuting me for my religious beliefs, then what is your motivation for being here? You, my friend, are the Nazi. Your hate has blinded you and you just can't see it.

It appears that your paranoid delusions have supplanted any ability to compose a coherent comment.

Drink the Kool aid.