which brings me to another point. If the electric company in DE is doing heinous things, how quickly will kathy make a trajectory to TX?

I think Kathy drinks something that stores reallllly well-

Cakebread Chard. I do so miss it where I am-

Woooooooo!!! I'm buying you a bottle of something good and sending it to you. What'll you have?

right on

Sick, yes. It is like watching a tornado tear down an entire country and so many are standing by waiting for the free ride to hell ! Oops. I added religion...

No apology necessary, am enjoying the info... I do agree with you and your rational explanations.. People choose to be good or evil, and I do not agree that you have to be a Christian or religious to be moral. I practice no religion, but understand that people believe in what they personally need in their own lives. Their choices are theirs and mine are mine. In the end, your life is what you make of it and your accomplishments or failures are from choices that YOU made along that road. "You didn't build this," comes to mind right now...

Ditto that.

"If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."
I agree with this. I do not deny tht Christianity had strong influence. But rationally, I can take under dicernment important tenents of Christianity which are not included. I take it one step further, and say that was done on purpose.
Finally, going back to the original post, (sorry Kathy-guess I owe you a post), the idea that morality is revealed to a rational man outside of his own reason is absurd to me. For those who believe that, what does that say about moral individuals who do not practice a religion or have faith in a God? They are just picking up their morals from a Christian (or any other religious) culture? Intelligent, rational people are drawn to other intelligent, rational people. They foster relationships, they learn and so grow through learning, disapline, endeavor and also through trial and error. This maturation does not need a religious environment in order to thrive. But I acknowledge that other intelligent people have faith and I am respectful of that as long as it does not encroach on the laws of any land in the world.
We "allowed" and "acknowledged" Iraq and Afganistan to draw up their own Constitutions that incorporate many laws and rules we in this country would rationally say is not a free nation, in fact a theocracy. We did so because we wanted to respect the culture dominant in those places. It was a huge mistake. Just huge. That's why Im pressing here. thanks for the discussion

Thanks for the article. I am Mormon and I do believe the constitution to be an inspired document through revelation combined with a lot of deep thought, analysis, study and reasoning. You cannot get the revelation without doing the thinking and reasoning parts.

I think one of the critical things missing from our society that we had back in the founders days is best summed up by the last sentence of the 13th article of faith from the Mormon church. "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."

Our founders could see things in both Deism and Christianity that were praiseworthy and they pulled from both. They also pulled from the work of Blackstone on natural law, Works of Cicero and Montesquieu on governments and a wide range of philosophies that had developed over the years. They looks to any source that looked to be praiseworthy or of good report. Today to many are unwilling to get out of there religion, there political party, there <insert collective organization here> and see what others have learned that they can incorporate into themselves. Most people just no longer seem capable of that.

To attempted to separate Christianity, Deism or Natural Law out of the creation of our country is not rational. They were all large factors on how the country was formed. It would also be irrational to attempt to give Christians some special place in civil society, just as it is irrational that Muslim countries give special privileges to Muslims. That is not praiseworthy but rather condemnable. The god whom I believe helped men to think and rationally come to the design of the constitution would not want a favoritism towards the believers over the non-believers.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I think we largely agree, but we do approach from different angles. its a big topic and cannot be fully addressed here in a text based communication. It would be great to have a voice to voice discussion on the subject as I think you are well read and I would learn a great deal from the discussion.

Thank you for your responses, and the article.

Xenok,
I agree with your last statement. I did read the article and checked out the book the article cites mostly. But it is not a blalanced article. The author picks and chooses quotations from individuals who wrote ALOT over many years. And makes broad statements regarding intentions without citing in all cases.
1. the article ignores Natural Rights, which are the fundemental basis of the Declaration.
2. Thomas Paine was a main contributor/thinker to the beginning of our nation. He wrote a book on Deism as did Franklin. That's not Christian.
3. http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=312
this is my article, which I grant is also biased. but may provide more contect to the argument.

It is as obvious to those of us paying attention, as it isn't to those who think BO is the second coming. How many more infringements will get tacked on, how many more words twisted to fit the greedy grabbers entitlement agenda? It makes me sick.

Yes.

Ha! :)

Much like how unaware people are right now... "Oh...THAT couldn't happen..."

Perhaps I was not clear in what I was attempting to communicate.

Those 5 points are not mine, they came from Ben Franklin. I linked to an article and that article is referenced. I also referenced a book which talks about it in greater detail.

I am also stating that while Christianity was a huge influence on our country it was the founders who decided to separate it from government. They did discuss the 10 commandments, and decided not to include them in government documents. It was not by chance, but a conscious decision on there part. One I consider very appropriate.

The only thing I want government to do is insure that I can worship how where and what I want, and that you can do the same.

Xenok,
1. Worship Creator 2. Creator revealed a moral code
Both of these tenants are the antithesis of the Declaration of Independence. I challenge you to show me where these are in there. I do not deny the influence of Christianity culturally, but I see the framers (read Thomas Paine on point, but they ALL said it, with the exception of Hamilton) that they were very skeptical off all organized religion; they felt it to be harmful especially combined with government. That's why we have the 1st Amendment. I find it a huge shout out tht they did NOT include references to the 10 Commandments, your second tenet, the word God is not included-Creator is a broad term that could mean most anything. The whole idea behind natural rights is that morality CAN be determined by Reason and is the fundamental basis of our government.
We are not a theocracy. Every theocracy ends up in mass genocide.

You are correct in that they were using broad language to have a religion that all could agree upon in general. This is well documented and intentional, even though most adhered to Christianity. You can see my post above for both an online article to read and a book.

Many of the founders had issues around the inconsistencies that existed in most religions. With the history of Christianity and the way in which it was hijacked at Nicene, merged with other religions and turned into the church of Rome what would one expect? Franklin did accept that there was a Christ, but not the whole thing as it was presented. He saw holes in it and could not separate the truth within it from the fiction. Jefferson also went through similar concerns and ultimately returned to Christianity more fully than did Franklin, though still with much reservation.

Both men were right, there is some truth there, but there is some falsehood as well.

The founders were religious, they believed in a creator, and most believed in a christian creator. There was much discussion in letters of the time period about the 10 commandments but our founders in there wisdom attempted to create a basis to work from that they called "The religion of America" and several used that term in correspondence. It was Ben Franklin who first put to pen the 5 points of this religion to paper.

1. Recognition and worship of a Creator who made all thing
2. That the Creator has revealed a moral code of behavior for happy living which distinguishes right from wrong.
3. That the Creator holds mankind responsible for the way they treat each other
4. That all mankind live beyond this life.
5. That in the next life individuals are judged for their conduct in this one.

Check out this article for more information http://www.latterdayconservative.com/art...

Also a great book to read "The making of America". It reads like a class text book but is by far the most complete book on the founders I have ever read or seen.

Even with all of this, much of what was put into the constitution, and discussed was from Sir William Blackstone's ideas on natural law (gods law) which started the idea of inalienable rights and lists out many, three of which were the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of property (note the founders changed this to happiness) which only has the religious connection in that they were refereed to as gods law, and later as natural law and the ideas that led to them had been carried down and nurtured by Christianity.

My point is while many of the founders accepted Christianity only in part, the 5 points above were nearly universal in there acceptance and a base line to which they attempted to base the philosophy for a free people to exist upon.

Virtually all religions (save atheism and Buddhism) that I am aware of accept these basic 5 tenants. Some core philosophy that the rule of law can be based on is required in order to have a civil, honest and ethical society. Perhaps the best thing the founders could have done that they did not do was expand this idea into a full philosophy, well documented and detailed to guide the judgements of society 200 years down the road.

Good morning khalling,
I think if he starts a new thread you will have more help digging in the trenches! Not that you need any. I enjoy the part of these discussions when the arguments are reduced to mysticism. That's when the fun begins.
Regards,
O.A.

Washington was a great man, but not a great philosophical thinker.
Morality and religion in the big scheme, by any objective measure, has not lived up.
Ayn Rand showed morality is not based on something we can't know, can't comprehend. Natural rights and morality are based on Reason. You can no more come up with a moral system that is good for humans WITHOUT reason, any more than you can discover physics by studying the Bible.
The reason this discussion is relevant in this post, is the authoress specifically talked about the lack of morality in her community after Hitler outlawed religion. I wanted to make a comment that regardless of religion, overall cultural morals slacking is due to individuals not exercising reason in their actions (which is admittedly more difficult under a dictatorship) rather than her cloistered raising by a convent. and that IS an overall theme in the story, she mentions it several times. IT is not the only theme and there were many interesting points about how Austria came under Hitler's rule, and then how the children were separated from their parents to be raised by the State as much as possible.

Good morning kathywiso,
History will once again repeat, and with that there is hope that once again freedom will re-emerge. The only questions are the time span of suffering and what it will take to once again ignite the passions of freedom and demonstrate to enough people the folly of statism.
Regards,
O.A.

The Hitlers of today are more insidious than they were back then. They have instilled totalitarianism in practice, but not completely. Through tax code, health care reform and other regulation.

We have the illusion that our government does not have total control, but in fact they can toss you in the clink without anything more than a suspicion of you being a terrorist or not have health care.

If you choose not to put a seat belt on they fine you for it.

If you exercise your first amendment right for freedom of speech you can go to jail if it offends a Muslim, or is reported to offend a Muslim.

After you buy your land you must pay a lease on that land to the government or they have the right to take it away.

Churches must provide birth control to there workers, even when there belief is that its wrong to use it. You cannot honor your dead with a cross on the side of the road because someone gets offended by it. Churches must marry gays or have the threat of lawsuits based on discrimination. Where did the first amendments freedom of religion go?

We live in a society that is becoming more and more bold in its totalitarianism, but it has been present for many years disguised as a form of taxation or security for us. Or more insidiously as a benefit for the common good such as imminent domain laws, anti-trust laws and others like this.

Yep, it is my reaction also !!!

What really surprised me was that the guns seem to be the LAST thing they took before the people realized, "all they had was a broomstick to defend themselves." Everything else here has already been fulfilled....