American Theocracy and Decline

[seer]

p.s. The last bit of this video starting at 3:15 is amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBqa-...OHfIUXwIejK7xA

How childish.

[firstfloor]

Why is it you blockheads ALWAYS refer to the "establishment clause", and totally ignore the "prohibition clause"? I bolded the part you ignore.

Source: First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

© Copyright Original Source

You will only have free exercise of religion so long as you maintain strict church/state separation because free exercise applies to everybody and all religions. Governments have the power to coerce which is why you must keep religion out of government. Only a strictly secular government can guarantee freedom for everybody. In a theocracy you are either with us or against us and that is not freedom.

[firstfloor]

How childish.

It made my heart skip a beat.

[JonathanL]

Only a strictly secular government can guarantee freedom for everybody.

Yeah right, like a secular government doesn't have the potential to be just as oppressive as a theocratic one when it comes to stifling religious freedom.

[seer]

It made my heart skip a beat.

I like it up to the point it got political. So unnecessary, so false.

[Cerebrum123]

You will only have free exercise of religion so long as you maintain strict church/state separation because free exercise applies to everybody and all religions. Governments have the power to coerce which is why you must keep religion out of government. Only a strictly secular government can guarantee freedom for everybody. In a theocracy you are either with us or against us and that is not freedom.

Yeah, so that's why our founders said things like these.

Source: Founding Fathers

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

- John Adams

“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

- John Adams

“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

- George Washington

“It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.”

- George Washington

“The name of the Lord (says the Scripture) is a strong tower; thither the righteous flee and are safe (Proverbs 18:10). Let us secure His favor and He will lead us through the journey of this life and at length receive us to a better.”

- Samuel Adams

© Copyright Original Source

Oh wait, that doesn't support you at all.

Then you have things like this.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great Nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.- Patrick Henry

Source.

[firstfloor]

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great Nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.- Patrick Henry.

The Treaty of Tripoli:
"As 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 tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm

[firstfloor]

Yeah right, like a secular government doesn't have the potential to be just as oppressive as a theocratic one when it comes to stifling religious freedom.

The constitution (secular) guarantees religious freedom. A theocracy would revoke it. It might try to create a monolithic Christian state under Biblical law (similar to Sharia).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1r1hsrQMj8

[seer]

The constitution (secular) guarantees religious freedom. A theocracy would revoke it. It might try to create a monolithic Christian state under Biblical law (similar to Sharia).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1r1hsrQMj8

In case you missed it FF, our founders modeled a lot of what they believed on the works of John Locke - a Christian who made much of His case based on scripture. Then go back to Samuel Rutherford and his work Lex Rex, again biblically based. Then back to English common law and the influence of Alfred the Great and his Biblical influence. You can not divorce the Constitution from the cultural Christian influence. Especially on the state level with state laws. Many early states like mine, had tax supported churches, this practice died off in the 1830s, but no one thought it was unconstitutional. Most states had laws against working on the Sabbath (blue laws) that practice lasted into the 1960s. Never mind early laws against blasphemy, adultery, fornication and such. All biblically based.


http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel04.html

The Continental-Confederation Congress, a legislative body that governed the United States from 1774 to 1789, contained an extraordinary number of deeply religious men. The amount of energy that Congress invested in encouraging the practice of religion in the new nation exceeded that expended by any subsequent American national government. Although the Articles of Confederation did not officially authorize Congress to concern itself with religion, the citizenry did not object to such activities. This lack of objection suggests that both the legislators and the public considered it appropriate for the national government to promote a nondenominational, nonpolemical Christianity.

Congress appointed chaplains for itself and the armed forces, sponsored the publication of a Bible, imposed Christian morality on the armed forces, and granted public lands to promote Christianity among the Indians. National days of thanksgiving and of "humiliation, fasting, and prayer" were proclaimed by Congress at least twice a year throughout the war. Congress was guided by "covenant theology," a Reformation doctrine especially dear to New England Puritans, which held that God bound himself in an agreement with a nation and its people. This agreement stipulated that they "should be prosperous or afflicted, according as their general Obedience or Disobedience thereto appears." Wars and revolutions were, accordingly, considered afflictions, as divine punishments for sin, from which a nation could rescue itself by repentance and reformation.

The first national government of the United States, was convinced that the "public prosperity" of a society depended on the vitality of its religion. Nothing less than a "spirit of universal reformation among all ranks and degrees of our citizens," Congress declared to the American people, would "make us a holy, that so we may be a happy people."

[Cerebrum123]

The Treaty of Tripoli:
"As 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 tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm

http://politicaloutcast.com/2013/06/...tian-religion/
It was a political tactic to assure the Muslims that this was not a religion to religion treaty, but a government to government treaty. Read the whole thing before responding please.

At most the Treaty of Tripoli would show that certain founders were inconsistent in their language, not that they never believed/made the statements I quoted. Two very different things to be sure.

[Cerebrum123]

The constitution (secular) guarantees religious freedom. A theocracy would revoke it. It might try to create a monolithic Christian state under Biblical law (similar to Sharia).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1r1hsrQMj8

You've never looked at history at all have you?

[Carrikature]

Yeah, so that's why our founders said things like these.

Source: Founding Fathers

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

- John Adams

“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

- John Adams

“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

- George Washington

“It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.”

- George Washington

“The name of the Lord (says the Scripture) is a strong tower; thither the righteous flee and are safe (Proverbs 18:10). Let us secure His favor and He will lead us through the journey of this life and at length receive us to a better.”

- Samuel Adams

© Copyright Original Source

Oh wait, that doesn't support you at all.

Then you have things like this.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great Nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.- Patrick Henry

Source.

Er, the majority of the quotes on that site aren't about the constitution. You might want to try a different source if you're aiming to accurately portray what they thought and felt in terms of what the constitution was created to do. They're not the same thing.

Perhaps more importantly, just because you can show that certain people believed a certain (different) way, that doesn't establish either side's accuracy. Granting that the founding fathers felt as you suggest does not automatically grant that firstfloor is wrong in this case.

[Cow Poke]

You will only have free exercise of religion so long as you maintain strict church/state separation because free exercise applies to everybody and all religions. Governments have the power to coerce which is why you must keep religion out of government. Only a strictly secular government can guarantee freedom for everybody. In a theocracy you are either with us or against us and that is not freedom.

I actually started to answer this with a serious response, but I'm thinking you're just a nutter.

[Carrikature]

Yeah right, like a secular government doesn't have the potential to be just as oppressive as a theocratic one when it comes to stifling religious freedom.

It does, but I'm not sure that's the point. It would be a pretty neat trick for a government to uphold a single religion as foundational while also managing to preserve equality and fairness to everyone else.

Of course, insinuating that the U.S. government is theocratic (as firstfloor does) is laughable.

[Cow Poke]

A theocracy would revoke it.

Are you even REMOTELY familiar with what's going on in the US? How can you even IMAGINE the US becoming a theocracy?