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Title: Obama Rips Bible, Praises Koran
Source:
Breitbart
URL Source: http://www.breitbart.com/national-s ... bama-rips-bible-praises-koran/
Published: Feb 7, 2015
Author: Ben Shapiro
Post Date: 2015-02-07 06:32:22 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 205541
Comments: 433
Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. So it is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a simple tendency that can pervert and distort our faith. This is historically and philosophically illiterate. Historically speaking, the Crusades were a response to Islamic aggression in Europe and the Middle East; the Inquisition, as Jonah Goldberg points out while quoting historian Thomas Madden, director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University, was designed to regularize executions rather than leaving them to the will of the masses. Christians undoubtedly pursued horrible brutalities against people, including innocent Jews. However, as Goldberg points out, “Christianity, even in its most terrible days, even under the most corrupt popes, even during the most unjustifiable wars, was indisputably a force for the improvement of man.” Nowhere is that clearer than in Obama’s second example, slavery. Virtually all of the most ardent abolitionists were deeply religious Christians. Hundreds of thousands of American men marched to their deaths singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”: “In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea / With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me / As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free / While God is marching on.” That was 150 years ago. It’s not exactly the modern Islamic slogan, “Death to the Jews.” Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was, as his name suggests, a reverend. He quoted old black Christian spirituals and the Biblical story of the exodus from Egypt. Christians obliterated slavery. Christians obliterated Jim Crow. Modern slavery is largely perpetrated by Muslims. Modern Jim Crow is certainly perpetrated by Muslims under shariah law. There is a larger point, here, too: President Obama’s foolish argument suggests that because Christians were brutal a millennium ago, they should shut up about brutalities today. This is somewhat like saying that because someone’s great-great-grandfather held slaves in rural Alabama, that person should shut up about human trafficking in 2015. It’s asinine. But Obama has a history of insulting Christianity and Judaism while upholding Islam. In 2006, Obama bashed the Bible and religious Christians and Jews in particular: Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our bibles. Folks haven’t been reading their bibles. He then concluded that religious leaders should not speak out against publicly-funded contraception or gay marriage. We can get into President Obama’s pathetic Biblical commentary here – his interpretation of Leviticus on slavery is incorrect, Jews still avoid shellfish, the Talmud explains that no child has ever been stoned for rebelliousness, and the Sermon on the Mount is not a pacifist document. Obama’s not Biblically literate – he’s the same fellow who says, “I think the good book says don’t throw stones in glass houses.” He said in The Audacity of Hope that he would define Biblical values however he chose, stating that he is not willing “to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.” Both are, in fact, parts of the Bible. Citing the Sermon on the Mount to justify civil unions for homosexuals, as Obama has done, is not in fact Biblical. But more importantly, Obama’s scorn for the old-fashioned Bible is obvious. That became more obvious in 2008, when Obama told some of his buddies in San Francisco that unemployed idiots “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” The Obama administration has routinely attacked religious organizations and people who violate Obama’s personal political predilections. They’ve attacked all trappings of Christianity as well. Whether they’re using Obamacare to force religious individuals to pay for others’ contraception or toning down the National Day of Prayer instead of holding a public ceremony, whether they’re covering a monogram of Jesus at Georgetown University during a presidential speech or objecting to adding FDR’s D-Day prayer to the WWII memorial, the Obama administration clearly isn’t fond of Christianity. This contrasts strongly with President Obama’s romantic vision of Islam. He famously called the Muslim call to prayer “the sweetest sound I know.” He said in his first presidential interview, with Al-Arabiya, that his job was “to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives.” Weeks later, he said in Turkey, “We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world — including in my own country.” A few months later, in a speech in Cairo to which he invited the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama said: I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. He added that Islam has a “proud tradition of tolerance,” explained, ‘Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace,” and said, “America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” He said in his Ramadan message in 2009 that Islam has played a key “role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings.” ISIS, Obama has said over and over again, is not Islamic. His administration maintains that America is not at war with radical Islam. He stated before the United Nations in 2012, just weeks after the murder of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya at the hands of Muslim terrorists, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Hillary Clinton allegedly promised Charles Woods, father of one of the slain in Benghazi, that the administration would achieve the arrest of the YouTube filmmaker behind The Innocence of Muslims. The State Department issued taxpayer-funded commercials denouncing that YouTube video. President Obama variously called the video “crude and disgusting” and stated that “its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.” At the UN in 2014, Obama lauded a Muslim cleric who backs Hamas. And, of course, Obama uses Islamic theology to promote his vision of world peace: All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer. All three religions do have access to holy sites now, in Jewish-run Jerusalem. They did not when Muslims ruled Jerusalem. But facts have no bearing in the fantasy world of the president. Perhaps one final contrast tells the tale. In 2012, according to the Washington Post. “U.S. troops tried to burn about 500 copies of the Koran as part of a badly bungled security sweep at an Afghan prison in February.” Two American soldiers were shot in the aftermath. This prompted President Obama to apologize profusely to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, writing him a letter stating, “We will take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, including holding accountable those responsible.” Three years earlier, members of the military burned Bibles printed in Pashto and Dari. CNN reported that they had been discarded “amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans.” The Bibles were burned rather than sent back to their source organization because the military worried they might be re-sent to another outlet in Afghanistan. There was no apology to the church that printed the Bibles, or to Christians more broadly. Sure, radical Muslims around the world, supported by millions of their compatriots and friendly governments, are murdering innocents. But it’s Christian aggression that forces Muslims to burn other Muslims alive in Muslim countries.
On Thursday, at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., President Obama blithely informed his audience that Christians ought not get on their “high horse” about the problem of radical Islam:
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#71. To: SOSO, Pridie.Nones, Liberator, pericles, Murron, cranky, GarySpFc, Stoner, All (#67)
(Edited)
Why Obama Is Right to Avoid a Double Standard on Modern Christian Atrocities. President Obama, speaking on Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast, condemned religious extremism in the Muslim world, noting that it is the work of twisted individuals rather than being intrinsic to the religion. He then added, “And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.” It is actually amazing that Southern Christianity does not get called out more often for its role in slavery and racial discrimination in the United States, especially since its churches are still for the most part segregated! I mean, don’t people know why there is a Southern Baptist denomination in the first place? Why not just “Baptist?” The US History website notes: The southern Christian churches conducted something like a genocide against the slaves. British North America and then the USA kidnapped and enslaved about 500,000 persons from 1600 to 1808. In addition, the North American slavers killed off about 200,000 Africans trying to capture people in Africa or let them die in the unsanitary holds of the Middle Passage across the Atlantic. Once they were on the plantations, the slaves were often worked to death; in 1830-1860 only 10 percent were over 50 years old. Their children were kidnapped from them and sold. Women and men who formed common law unions were separated and sold. Ten to 20 percent of what became over time 4 million slaves had been Muslim but their religion was stolen from them and they were forcibly converted to Christianity. Southern Christian seminaries produced an endless stream of theological writing upholding all these criminal acts. It was done very much in the name of the Bible. Other Christians worked for abolition, so all this support for enslavement was not intrinsic to Christianity; it was a matter of a particular interpretation of Christianity. Slavery was widespread in the world, but Southern American plantation slavery was called the ‘peculiar institution’ for a reason– much slavery elsewhere was household slavery, as in most of the Muslim world. It was no fun to be someone’s property in a household either, but plantations (and this was true of Brazilian plantations as well) were particularly deadly, often killing the workers by age 40. As for Jim Crow, the American version of South Africa’s Apartheid wherein African-Americans could not so much as drink from the same fountain as whites, Colin Chapell writes of Carolyn Renée Dupont’s Mississippi Praying: “Dupont demonstrates that defenders of Mississippi’s segregated society turned early and often to evangelical theology in order to justify their views on race . . . her work unequivocally shows the religious commitment to segregation among white evangelicals. The white evangelical commitment to individualistic theology also led the way for an understanding of the world in which the disadvantages facing African Americans in the South were a result of their own failings rather than any structural stumbling blocks.” On the order of 2 to 3 African-Americans were lynched every week under Jim Crow segregation, or up to 12,000 or so wantonly murdered by Christians during these 80 years. But Obama could have mentioned other modern Christian atrocities. Christians often blame Christian violence on secular nationalism so as to dissociate themselves from the some 100 million persons mown down by those of white Christian heritage from Europe and the US in the 20th century. But many of those millions were killed by believing Christians on behalf of explicitly Christian states. I figure that Muslims killed about 2-3 million in the same period, though again, many of those were killed for secular nationalist purposes, not Islam per se. Take Croatian Catholic nationalism in the 1930s and 1940s. It gave rise to the Ustashe movement. . (In the former Yugoslavia, Croats are largely Catholic, Bosnians mostly Muslim and Serbs for the most part Eastern Orthodox). If Ustashe had merely been a form of secular nationalism, it would not have demanded that Serbs convert to Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy, which it did. It was a sectarian Christian movement, not a secular one. Catholicism was just deeply intertwined with Croation identity. Ustashe killed 30,000 Jews, 40,000 Roma and about 500,000 Serbs (hint: Yugoslavia was not very populous– these are massive numbers). While the Catholic Church in Croatia was deeply divided on the movement, many in the lower level clergy actively supported it, and [pdf] and Franciscans provided some of the more enthusiastic executioners in the camps. Or in Spain in the 1930s, the Catholic Church was closely allied with Gen. Francisco Franco and declared the struggle against the Spanish left in the civil war a “Crusade.” Franco’s Crusade against the Left probably left on the order of 200,000 dead (some historians say twice that). These 200,000 individuals were killed (yes, Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin) in the name of Christ. I don’t mean to pick on the poor Catholics. The Dutch Reformed Church was not innocent in the imperial wars in what is now Indonesia nor in the Afrikaners’ Apartheid. There is plenty of killing in the name of Christ to go around. The outrage on the right about Obama’s entirely correct observations derives from a kind of Christian nationalism, in which Christians can do no wrong or are not responsible for the wrongs done by other Christians. The point is, that may be so, but neither are Muslims responsible for the loonier of their coreligionists. Those complaining about a “false equivalency” are just using a meaningless buzzword. Here’s a better one: what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Yeah,if you can't trust the Tan Klan to tell the truth about race issues,who can you trust,right?
Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
You mistake Bush for Carter.
“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”
Did George Bush Lie About America Being Founded on Christian Principles? “The lesson the President has learned best—and certainly the one that has been the most useful to him—is the axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. One of his Administration’s current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the picture as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent.” Thus begins an article by Brooke Allen that was posted on the website of “The Nation” on February 3, 2005.1 It’s obvious that Allen has not done a thorough study of American history as it relates to its founding documents. There is much more to America’s founding than the Constitution. America was not born in 1877 or even in 1776. The Constitution did not create America, America created the Constitution. More specifically, the states created the national government. The states (colonial governments) were a reality long before the Constitution was conceived, and there is no question about their being founded on Christian principles. Here is Allen’s first assertion: “Our Constitution makes no mention whatever of God.” “No mention whatever” is pretty absolute. Given this bold claim, then how does she explain that the Constitution ends with “DONE in the year of our Lord”? “Our Lord” is a reference to Jesus Christ. This phrase appears just above the signature of George Washington, the same George Washington who took the presidential oath of office with his hand on an open Bible, the same George Washington who was called upon by Congress, after the drafting of the First Amendment, to proclaim a national day of prayer and thanksgiving. The resolution read as follows: That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution for their safety and happiness. * Pennsylvania’s 1790 constitution declared, “That no person, who acknowledges the being of God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this commonwealth.” * The Constitution of Massachusetts stated that “no person shall be eligible to this office, unless . . . he shall declare himself to be of the Christian religion.” The following oath was also required: “I do declare, that I believe the Christian religion, and have firm persuasion of its truth.” * North Carolina’s 1868 stated that “all persons who shall deny the being of Almighty God” “shall be disqualified for office.”5 The 1776 constitution, that remained in effect until 1868, included the following (XXXII): “That no person, who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.”6 North Carolina describes itself as a “Christian State” in the 1868 constitution (Art. XI, sec. 7). If, as Allen maintains, “God only entered the picture as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent,” how does she explain these state constitutional provisions? If the federal Constitution nullified these state constitutional mandates, then her point would be valid. The thing is, God was a major player in the founding of America for more than 150 years before the Constitution was drafted. The statement in question was to assure a radically religious (Muslim) government that America would not depose that government and impose Christianity by force. A single phrase ripped from its historical context does nothing to nullify the volumes of historical evidence that Christianity was foundational to the building and maintenance of this nation. The 1797 treaty constantly contrasts “Christian nations” (e.g., Article VI) and “Tripoli,” a Muslim stronghold that was used as a base of operations for Barbary pirates. Muslim nations were hostile to “Christian nations.” The Barbary pirates habitually preyed on ships from “Christian nations,” enslaving “Christian” seamen. “Barbary was Christendom’s Gulag Archipelago.”10 In Joseph Wheelan’s Jefferson’s War, detailing America’s first war on terror with radical Muslims, we learn that Thomas “Jefferson’s war pitted a modern republic with a free- trade, entrepreneurial creed against a medieval autocracy whose credo was piracy and terror. It matched an ostensibly Christian nation against an avowed Islamic one that professed to despise Christians.”11 Wheelan’s historical assessment of the time is on target: “Except for its Native American population and a small percentage of Jews, the United States was solidly Christian, while the North African regencies were just as solidly Muslim—openly hostile toward Christians.”12 In 1822, the United States, along with Great Britain and Ireland, ratified a “Convention for Indemnity Under Award of Emperor of Russia as to the True Construction of the First Article of the Treaty of December 24, 1814.” It begins with the same words found in the Preamble to the 1783 treaty: “In the name of the Most Holy and Indivisible Trinity.” Only Christianity teaches a Trinitarian view of God. The 1848 Treaty with Mexico begins with “In the name of Almighty God.” The treaty also states that both countries are “under the protection of Almighty God, the author of peace. . . .” 1 Brooke Allen, “Our Godless Constitution,” The Nation website (February 3, 2005). www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050221&c=1&s=allen “Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org
Did you plagerize the contents of your post? If not, how long did it take you to type all of that stuff? If so, where is the source weblink?
The post came from my Logos Bible Software, and permission for me to use the material is contained therein. For your information I have 7,515 resources in the program.
“Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org
Instead of challenging his source, why can't you tell us what you agree with or disagree with in his post? Is anything included that is untrue?
There was no direct source to the material presented, other than some resources from the original author. Why is it that some posters don't summarize their thoughts and support their ideas with direct refernces so that any reader can evaluate the concepts in a more objective fashion? OOPPSS, I forgot (just briefly) that I posed a question to you, Gatlin aka spammin' man. Sure. I don't believe any of the "stuff" presented. It is basically hogwash.
I have ministered in the field of apologetics for over 40 years. I have a doctorate in theology, and those who know me on this and other sites are acquainted with my long posts.
“Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org
Despite your extensive "ministry," at the end of the day, all you can ever perform is to defend your belief system. I remain unconvinced about any of your belief system when all you can ever truthfully suggest is: it is mystery and a wonder.
United States Congress (June 4, 1805), during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, drafted a Treaty of Peace and Amity with Tripoli, ratified April 12, 1806, in order to prevent the pirates of the North African Barbary Coast from seizing American ships, confiscating their cargo, and selling the crews and passengers as slaves. The United States had made a previous treaty with Tripoli and paid large sums of extortion money, but it failed when war broke out in 1801. Lieutenant Stephen Decatur (1779–1820) won famed by stealing into the Tripoli harbor on the small vessel Intrepid, February 16, 1804, burning a captured ship and escaping unharmed amidst fierce enemy fire. British Admiral Horatio Nelson called it the “most bold and daring act of the age.” In April of 1805, the U.S. Marines seized the Barbary harbor of Derne, Tripoli, the daring act of which is remembered in the Marine Hymn “From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli.” The June 4, 1805, Treaty of Tripoli, did not include a phrase that had been questionably inserted into the previous Treaty with Tripoli, June 7, 1797, that the United States “is not, in any sense founded on the Christian Religion …,”2207 (an insertion intended to clarify that the American government was not like the Mohammedan, Buddhist, or Hindu governments which controlled the religious life of its citizens and “that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”) This phrase was not in the Arabic version of the 1797 treaty,2208 and appears to have been an insertion by Joel Barlow (1754–1812), the American consul at Algiers who oversaw the translation process from Arabic to English. ,(Joel Barlow’s position as American consul to Algiers was originally intended for the naval hero John Paul Jones, but he died before he could fill the appointment.) The original Arabic translation of the 1797 treaty stated: Glory be to God! Declaration of the third article. We have agreed that if American Christians are traveling with a nation that is at war with the well- preserved Tripoli, and [the Tripolitan] takes [prisoners] from the Christian enemies and from the American Christians with whom we are at peace, then sets them free; neither he nor his goods shall be taken.… Praise be to God! Declaration of the twelfth article. If there arises a disturbance between us both sides, and it becomes a serious dispute, and the American Consul is not able to make clear his affair, and the affair shall remain suspended between them both, between the Pashna of Tripoli, may God strengthen him, and the Americans, until Lord Hassan Pashna, may God strengthen him, in the well-protected Algiers, has taken cognizance of the matter. We shall accept whatever decision he enjoins on us, and we shall agree with his condition and his seal; May God make it all permanent love and a good conclusion between us in the beginning and in the end, by His grace and favor, amen!2209 William J. Federer, Great Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Quotations Influencing Early and Modern World History Referenced according to Their Sources in Literature, Memoirs, Letters, Governmental Documents, Speeches, Charters, Court Decisions and Constitutions (St. Louis, MO: AmeriSearch, 2001).
“Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org
It shouldn't be too hard for you to find the different treaties online, examine them, and see what is true.
“Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org
Reflecting on The Skeptics Demand for Proof by Gary Butner, Th.D. One day it occurred to me how to answer a skeptic's mocking demand for proof of the Life and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christians cannot present a mountain of evidence for every fact in the Bible they are certain is true. Additionally, they cannot prove to a closed mind the Gospel is true, and that is due to the distinction between proof and evidence. Proof is subjective, whereas evidence is objective. The skeptic has to decide if the evidence he has been presented with rises to a level he considers proof. Christians have already made that decision and walk by faith in Jesus Christ based on the preponderance of evidence they have examined and found to be true. Yes, at times Christians entertain doubts, and there are areas of the Bible of which they are ignorant; however as their faith grows based on accumulating more and more evidence; doubts fade and their faith transforms from ideas and opinions into beliefs, and finally into certitudes. The gatekeeper guarding the skeptic's mind blocks them from honestly examining the very same evidence Christians are certain is true, and that is why the skeptic remains blind, sitting in deep darkness, and shackled by his sins for lack of faith.
“Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org
For many of the nation's founders, they practiced Christianity not because of their convictions but because it was a method of communication to local towns folk; basically, attendance at a church was conveyance to say, "we are together." So, local politics were stimulated by not necessarily deep convictions of or about religious faith but nothing more than a sales card for political office. Don't get all enthused about TJ being mentioned in your article because it was offered on a Christian CD which you seem to enjoy.
And how are you so certain of the Founding Fathers motives?
“Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org
Your research doesn't seem to have much impact, does it? Similarly like all the research of historical evidence about various Constutional Amendments attempting to redress grievances or nullify the process. Within any nation, once a document is signed and accepted it is cast as a permanent boat anchor around your neck.
Most of the founders were Deists. They could give a "hoot" about Christianity primarily because of the many wars in Europe over the Catholicism/Protestant debate, which still rage, albeit not so violently. The founders probably enjoyed a Sunday church chicken dinner, though. And an apple pie desert besides finding a pretty young girl to enjoy a private moment with behind closed doors.
Is that true? Are you certain about that or is it rhetoric you have chosen to believe? http://www.evidenceforjesuschrist.org/Pages/christian-nation/declaration-of- independence-signers.htm There is more. http://www.evidenceforjesuschrist.org/Pages/christian-nation/america-menu.htm
“Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org
Well, Obama was stupid in mentioning the past. he should have mentioned the Christian Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), in Africa that is as brutal as Boko Haram and are fighting for religious reasons. But Obama has to dumb stuff down for Americans to get a point across and that is Obama's weakness because while Clinton was good at dumbing down his points so the yokels could get his message, Obama never understood Joe Blow Americans and how to talk to them.
Well, let us say that the American nation is imbued in Christianity. Yet, the founders made no direct excerpt about those same convictions forming the US Constitution or otherwise. You have to realize that Christianity in America was fairly strict about the human spirit, especially about the sexual nature of mankind. There were many kinds of codes for proper behavior. But, the founders (at that time) realized that the real issue were principles not beliefs that formed the US. In many cases, those principles were in alignment of Christian dogma no matter the local chusrch content.
To Dr. Thomas Cooper Monticello, February 10, 1814 For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences that of the statute law, or Lex Scripta. This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it. .............. If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians, and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are all able to find among them no such act of adoption, we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
It does not matter if it was in the original Arabic or not (I can't verify since this claim is found only in Fundie sources who are clearly freaked out this passage exists) because the Senate ratified and was read the English language version and the English language version is the law of the land. No one from that era of our Founding Fathers found any problem with the wording or concept either - it was unremarkable to them to consider the USA was NOT a founded on Christian principals. Including President Thomas Jefferson who in a private letter also stated he did not consider English Common Law was based on Christian principals either.
Substitute the word "religion" in the argument with the word "politics". Look at how many people have been murdered over the course of modern history for POLITICAL reasons! My goodness, this thing, politics, must be incredibly evil in and of itself, for it causes men to become mass murderers. Why any rational human being would want to believe in, support or participate in POLITICS, given the incredible record of evil and death that politics has caused is a real question: look at the body count! We cannot overlook it. Politics has driven virtually all of the genocides and all of the slavery of the past century. Rational, educated men should not become involved in violent superstitions such as politics. Politics in ever age have led to nothing but destruction. People need to move past politics and become apolitical, for whoever is devoted to a political cause may become a fanatic, and the next thing you know, the storm troopers are goose-stepping down the Champs- Elysees! Politics: just say no. The parallel is perfect.
You mistake Carter's Cubans for Bush's Muslims.
Until it's thrown off.
Vicomte13: Until it's thrown off. It is rare to have any outrage of or by the American People in the USA. Today, all the People do is watch TV, pay their taxes and thank God that they don't have to pay more. They are silly, spineless, docile idiots that vote for the same thing everytime.
Yes. That is the strangly absurd meme that's been promoted. Has anybody ever been able to discern an iota of documentation from the Kenyan's writings or evidence that supports "constitutional scholar"? Maybe Brian Williams has seen it.
They are silly, spineless, docile idiots that vote for the same thing everytime. Perhaps they are rationally apathetic. There are only so many things that people can worry about, and sensible people focus on those things they can change. Large numbers of Americans have observed over their lifetimes that the parties rotate, leaders come and go, but the song remains the same. Therefore, they have rationally concluded that the political system is broken, corrupt and a waste of time to engage with. In this, they may well be right. From their perspective, those people who take the time to become politically active, who study the issues and become passionate about things they cannot change, and who then become whipped into a frenzy of emotion over the outcome of rigged elections - those people are the fools. The ones who don't waste their time studying politics because they know that it's as real as Professional Wrestling: far from being silly, may be the wisest of all.
One can believe the truth or believe a lie. There is more at stake in this than what appears on the surface, because once a man chooses to believe a lie he has departed from reality. He thinks he can contain the lie in a dark corner of his mind, but in reality it infects the totality of his being.
“Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org
Where? Will you be performing next at the Big Top? (Don't forget your clown shoes) You're welcome, Hambone. But then you should thank A K A Stone for lending you a temporary platform from which to launch/spam your propaganda, red herrings and strawmen. (you get 2 red stars for your work here thus far. And a cookie.)
Yes. He has written at least one document that you should be able to identify: It is admired by all scholars and US Constitional lawers and governance as a whole.
By Christ Jesus: Matthew 25: 32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: 33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. 41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: 43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. 44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? 45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. 46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. " (Romans 1:16-17)
LOL. THAT is precious. Thought the above line from the forum-spamming Carnival Barker ought to be isolated -- just for further S&G.
I am curious about your intent of the above post that I quote. Are you saying that "belief" is tied to "reality?" If so, how do you explain "animism" and the perpetual belief systems thereof? What about "luck" at a casino in Las Vegas?
(BOGUS BC) HA! Well then -- that's enough "scholarship" for me. Make 'em the Chief Justice of SCOTUS. Or Generalissimo. OR Burger KING.
Thanks. Another portion of world history Obola has no clue of.
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. " (Romans 1:16-17)
So you deny your own post that I quipped earlier. In the real world, you are a scoundrel, a "flip-flopper" a fish out of water. You have subdued your own argument by intent!
The person to whom you first addressed Matthew 25:23-46 is not so much interested in the actual definition of "Christian" as per Jesus' own quotes, but in cloaking His truth in the rags any counterfeit religion that bears His name. One may of course ask why Gatlin feels compelled to indirectly slander the Christianity of Jesus Christ. However, I'm afraid we know the answer.
Of course, the man is backed by his wife Michelle. I understand she actually wrote his community organizer leaflets that he handed out at Church on Sunday.
The only finger Gatlin is pointing is his middle finger. To EVERY poster and lurker here who knows the truth of the matter, and the carnival games Gatlin plays in defense of Islam which are in defense of the Great Pretender's warring words.
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#72. To: Pericles (#57)
NAACP: Thirty Years of Lynching in the U.S. 1889-1918 )
#73. To: Pericles, Murron (#56)
#74. To: Pericles, ALL (#63)
(Edited)
By Gary DeMar
Allen’s article is filled with so many half truths that it would take a book to deal with them adequately. For those of you who are new to the work of American Vision, there are numerous books on the subject that easily refute Allen’s assertions.
* America’s Christian History: The Untold Story by Gary DeMar (1995).
* America’s Christian Heritage by Gary DeMar (2003).
* The United States: A Christian Nation by Supreme Court Justice David J. Brewer (1905).
* The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States Developed in the Official and Historical Annals of the Republic by B. F. Morris (1864).
* Christianity and the American Commonwealth by Charles B. Galloway (1898).2
It seems rather odd that the constitutional framers would thank God for allowing them to draft a Constitution that excluded Him from the Constitution and the civil affairs of government.
Allen is correct that there were a number of Enlightenment principles floating around the colonies in the late eighteenth century as well as anti-clericalism. And there is no doubt that some of these principles made their way into the Constitution, although it’s hard to tell where when compared to the obvious Enlightenment principles inherent in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789). But we should be reminded of Allen’s absolutist claim of a complete dissolution of religion from political considerations in the Constitution. She has set the evaluative standard. If she is correct, then why didn’t the framers presage the French revolutionaries by starting the national calendar with a new Year One? Why did the Constitutional framers set aside Sunday—the Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue—as a day of rest for the President (Art. 1, sec. 7) if it was their desire to secularize the nation as Allen suggests? The French revolutionaries reconstructed the seven-day biblical week and turned it into a ten-day metric week in hopes of ridding the nation of every vestige of Christianity. Nothing like this was done in America.
Then there’s the issue of the state constitutions. One of the reasons some give for the absence of a more explicit declaration of God in the Constitution was the fact that the state constitutions made numerous references to God. The issue of religion was the domain of the states. Since the Federal Constitution was a document of enumerated powers, to mention religion in a more specific way would have given the national government jurisdiction over religious issues. The framers believed that such issues were best left to the states.
Constitutional scholar and First Amendment specialist, Daniel Dreisbach, writes: The U. S. Constitution’s lack of a Christian designation had little to do with a radical secular agenda. Indeed, it had little to do with religion at all. The Constitution was silent on the subject of God and religion because there was a consensus that, despite the framer’s personal beliefs, religion was a matter best left to the individual citizens and their respective state governments (and most states in the founding era retained some form of religious establishment). The Constitution, in short, can be fairly characterized as “godless” or secular only insofar as it deferred to the states on all matters regarding religion and devotion to God.3
Keep in mind that the national Constitution did not nullify the religious pronouncements of the state constitutions, and neither did it separate religion from civil government. The First Amendment is a direct prohibition on Congress, not the states, to stay out of religious issues: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This is a good indication that the states were to be unmolested on their religious requirements. As I’ve noted elsewhere,4 even today every state constitution makes reference to God. Here’s a sample of some of the state constitutions and their religious language during the time the Constitution was drafted:
The Constitutions says nothing about morality or values. There are no prohibitions against murder, theft, or rape. The word “law” is used numerous times, but it is never defined. The author of an 1838 tract entitled, An Inquiry into the Moral and religious Character of the American Government, makes an important observation: “The object of the Constitution [is to] distribute power, not favour; to frame a government, and not to forestall and clog the administration of it by words of preconceived partiality for this or that possible subject of its future action.”7 This is especially true when religion was an issue reserved to the states. States wrote educational provisions into their constitutions, while the Federal Constitution remained silent on the subject. The 1876 constitution of North Carolina includes 15 sections on education.
In attempt to drive a stake in the belief that America had “been founded on Christian principles,” she resurrects the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli and its statement that “the Government of the United States . . . is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”8 I’ve dealt with this treaty elsewhere,9 but let me summarize the argument here.
In drafting the treaty, the United States had to assure the ruler of Tripoli that in its struggle with the pirates “it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,” that “the said states never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan [Muslim] nation” due to religious considerations.
A survey of the state constitutions, charters, national pronouncements, and official declarations of the thirteen state governments would convince any representative from Tripoli that America was a Christian nation by law. The Constitution itself states that it was drafted, as noted above, “In the year of our Lord.” The American consul in Algiers had to construct a treaty that would assure the ruler of Tripoli that troops would not be used to impose Christianity on a Muslim people. A study of later treaties with Muslim nations seems to support this conclusion. The 1816 “Treaty of Peace and Amity with Algiers” is a case in point: “It is declared by the contracting parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony between the two nations; and the Consuls and the Agents of both nations shall have liberty to celebrate the rights of their prospective religions in their own houses.”13
Piracy, kidnapping, and enslaving Christian seamen remained a problem despite the 1797 Treaty. In addition, Tripoli demanded increased tribute payments in 1801. When President Jefferson refused to increase the tribute, Tripoli declared war on the United States. A United States navy squadron, under Commander Edward Preble, blockaded Tripoli from 1803 to 1805. After rebel soldiers from Tripoli, led by United States Marines, captured the city of Derna, the Pasha of Tripoli signed a treaty promising to exact no more tribute.
It is important to note that the 1805 treaty with Tripoli differs from the 1797 Treaty in that the phrase “as the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion” is conspicuously absent. Article 14 of the new treaty corresponds to Article 11 of the first treaty. It reads in part: “[T]he government of the United States of America has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Musselmen.” Assurances are still offered that the United States will not interfere with Tripoli’s religion or laws.
It’s obvious that by 1805 the United States had greater bargaining power and did not have to bow to the demands of this Muslim stronghold. A strong navy and a contingent of Marines also helped. But it wasn’t until Madison’s presidency that hostilities finally stopped when he declared war against Algiers.14
Those who use the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli as a defense against the Christian America thesis are silent on the 1805 treaty. For example, Alan Dershowitz cites the 1797 Treaty as “the best contemporaneous evidence” against claims that the United States was founded as a Christian nation,15 but he makes no mention of the 1805 treaty and other treaties that are specifically Trinitarian.
If treaties are going to be used to establish the religious foundation of America, then it’s essential that we look at more than one treaty. In 1783, at the close of the war with Great Britain, a peace treaty was ratified that began with these words: “In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity. It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain. . . .”16 The treaty was signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay. Keep in mind that it was Adams who signed the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli.
If one line in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli turns America into a secular State (which it does not), then how does Allen deal with the treaties of 1783, 1822, 1805, and 1848 and the state constitutions? She doesn’t, because she can’t. Allen needs to go back and do a bit more research and look at resources beyond the typical college professor’s bag of tricks and sleight of hand.
2 To be republished by American Vision in 2005.
3 Daniel L. Dreisbach, “A Godless Constitution?: A Response to Kramnick and Moore” (1997): www.leaderu.com/common/godlessconstitution.html. Dreisbach is a Professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Society at American University, Washington, D.C.
4 Gary DeMar, The Christian Foundation of America (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2005), 14–19.
5 Francis Newton Thorpe, The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies, 7 vols. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909), 5:2815.
6 Thorpe, The Federal and State Constitutions, 5:2793. The same 1776 constitution stated that “no clergyman, or preacher of the gospel, of any denomination, shall be capable of being a member of either the Senate, House of Commons, or Council of State, while he continues in the exercise of the pastoral function” (5:2793). This provision demonstrates the true meaning of “separation of church and state.”
7 Quoted in Daniel L. Dreisbach, “God and the Constitution: Reflections on Selected Nineteenth Century Commentaries on References to the Deity and the Christian Religion in the United States Constitution” (1993), 24, note 85.
8 The entire treaty can be found in William M. Malloy, Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776–1909, 4 vols. (New York: Greenwood Press, [1910] 1968), 2:1786.
9 Gary DeMar, America’s Christian History: The Untold Story (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 1995), chap. 8.
10 Stephen Clissold, The Barbary Slaves (New York: Barnes & Noble, [1977] 1992), 4. The 1815 Treaty of Peace and Amity with Algiers includes the following in Article XV: “On a vessel or vessels of war belonging to the United States anchoring before the city of Algiers, the Consul is to inform the Dey of her arrival, when she shall receive the salutes which are, by treat or custom, given to the ships of war of the most favored nations on similar occasions, and which shall be returned gun for gun; and if, after such arrival, so announced, any Christians whatsoever, captives in Algiers, make their escape and take refuge on board any of the ships of war, they shall not be required back again, nor shall the Consul of the United States or commanders of said ships be required to pay anything for the said Christians.” (Malloy, Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1:7).
11 Joseph Wheelan, Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror, 1801-1805 (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003), xxiii.
12 Wheelan, Jefferson’s War, 7
13 Malloy, Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements Between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1:15.
14 Lewis Lord, “Pirates!,” U.S. News & World Report (February 25/March 4, 2002), 50.
15 Alan Dershowitz, America Declares Independence (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003), 64.
16 Malloy, Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776–1909, 1:586.
#75. To: GarySpFC (#74)
#76. To: Pridie.Nones (#75)
(Edited)
#77. To: Pridie.Nones, GarySpFC (#75)
Did you plagerize the contents of your post? If not, how long did it take you to type all of that stuff? If so, where is the source weblink?
#78. To: Gatlin, GarySpFC (#77)
Instead of challenging his source, why can't you tell us what you agree with or disagree with in his post?
Is anything included that is untrue?
#79. To: Pridie.Nones (#78)
#80. To: GarySpFC (#79)
I have ministered in the field of apologetics for over 40 years. I have a doctorate in theology, and those who know me on this and other sites are acquainted with my long posts.
#81. To: Pridie.Nones (#78)
#82. To: Pridie.Nones (#78)
Sure. I don't believe any of the "stuff" presented. It is basically hogwash.
#83. To: Pridie.Nones (#80)
(Edited)
#84. To: GarySpFC (#81)
#85. To: Pridie.Nones (#84)
So, local politics were stimulated by not necessarily deep convictions of or about religious faith but nothing more than a sales card for political office.
#86. To: GarySpFC (#82)
It shouldn't be too hard for you to find the different treaties online, examine them, and see what is true.
#87. To: GarySpFC (#85)
And how are you so certain of the Founding Fathers motives?
#88. To: Pridie.Nones (#87)
(Edited)
Most of the founders were Deists. They could give a "hoot" about Christianity primarily because of the many wars in Europe over the Catholicism/Protestant debate, which still rage, albeit not so violently.
#89. To: Gatlin (#71)
(Edited)
#90. To: GarySpFC (#88)
#91. To: GarySpFC (#74)
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl227.php
#92. To: GarySpFC, Pridie.Nones (#81)
(Edited)
This phrase was not in the Arabic version of the 1797 treaty,2208 and appears to have been an insertion by Joel Barlow (1754– 1812), the American consul at Algiers who oversaw the translation process from Arabic to English.
#93. To: Gatlin (#59)
#94. To: CZ82 (#73)
You mistake Bush for Carter.
#95. To: Pridie.Nones (#86)
Within any nation, once a document is signed and accepted it is cast as a permanent boat anchor around your neck.
#96. To: Vicomte13 (#95)
Pridie.Nones: Within any nation, once a document is signed and accepted it is cast as a permanent boat anchor around your neck.
#97. To: cranky (#3)
He's [the Muzzie President] a Constitutional scholar, doncha know?
#98. To: Pridie.Nones (#96)
It is rare to have any outrage of or by the American People in the USA. Today, all the People do is watch TV, pay their taxes and thank God that they don't have to pay more.
#99. To: Pridie.Nones (#86)
Your research doesn't seem to have much impact, does it? Similarly like all the research of historical evidence about various Constutional Amendments attempting to redress grievances or nullify the process.
#100. To: Gatlin, Carnival Barker, A K A Stone (#34)
Get lost, Punk.
"thanks for providing me a platform from which to launch articles you have not disputed as inaccurate."
#101. To: Liberator (#97)
Has anybody ever been able to discern an iota of documentation from the Kenyan's writings or evidence that supports "constitutional scholar"?
#102. To: Gatlin (#59)
So those who called themselves “Christians” and committed atrocities that solely occurred on “command of church authorities” or were committed in the name of “Christianity” were deemed NOT to be “Christians....by whom?
#103. To: Gatlin, Deckard, Pridie.Nones, The Big Top (#34)
You are doing nothing here except trying to cause disruption.
#104. To: GarySpFC (#99)
There is more at stake in this than what appears on the surface, because once a man chooses to believe a lie he has departed from reality. He thinks he can contain the lie in a dark corner of his mind, but in reality it infects the totality of his being.
#105. To: Pridie.Nones (#101)
Yes. He has written at least one document that you should be able to identify:
#106. To: GarySpFC (#62)
#107. To: Vicomte13 (#98)
#108. To: redleghunter, Gatlin (#102)
#109. To: Liberator (#105)
#110. To: Pridie.Nones, Gatlin, Carnival Barker (#35)
To Gatlin:
"You should take a few moments of your precious time and reflect upon yourself before pointing fingers."
.
.
.
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