Your comments are without substantiation.

Christianity did not destroy Rome, hedonistic rot and collectivism did. If anything, Christianity was a repository that stored ancient ethics and morality through the dark ages.

Yes, there were those in the Christian hierarchy that subverted scientific advancement. But that has been the case for many rulers - as a means of maintaining power. That is a failing of humans, not of faith.

You want to overlay your values on those of the founding fathers. Why is it you cannot accept their values for what they were? You might question whether those values are valid, but you cannot dismiss them - that is not historically accurate nor valid.

Well, I lived a couple years in Monterrey, so I know about heat, and humidity (and there it is both at the same time).

Actually this summer has been perfect. I'll take every one just like this one.

I like fish (and crab, lobster, scallops, and shrimp) but at the core, I'm a carnivore - always been. Ever had a Culvers Butter burger? Or a Portillo's Italian beef with hot peppers? If not, your life has not been complete.

If you're able to keep track and plot that pattern, then you need to get a life ;-)

Hmmm. Not sure. Can't think of any specific reason. Would you rather I be cranky the other 6 days? Just so there's no discernible difference?

You are just wrong.

To whit: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator" Just who is the creator?

Let us consider some of the ways in which the authors of the Federalist Papers display faith-based beliefs:

Essay 20, Topic 21, urges Americans to let their praise of gratitude for auspicious amity distinguishing political counsels rise to heaven.

Essay 37, Topic 14, tells us that any person of pious reflection must perceive that in drafting the Constitution there is to be found in it a finger of that Almighty hand that has so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.

Essay 43, Topic 30, asserts that nothing is more repugnant than intolerance in political parties, stressing the importance of moderation the essay concludes that one cannot avoid a belief that the great principle of self-preservation is a transcendent law of both nature and God...

Essay 1, Topic 4, concludes that in politics, as in religion, it's absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecutions.

Essay 2, Topic 4, refers to God in three separate instances, referring to the country they wrote that God blessed it with a variety of soils, watered with innumerable streams, for the delight and accommodation of its inhabitants. In other instance the author makes note with equal pleasure that God gave this one connected country to one united people. And in a third instance wrote that it appears like this inheritance was designed by God for a band of brethren united by the strongest ties.

Essay 31, Topic 2, informs us that theorems may conflict with common sense. Mathematicians agree on the infinite divisibility of matter, the infinite divisibility of a finite thing, but that this is no more comprehensible to common sense than religious mysteries that non-believers have worked so hard to debunk.

Essay 37, Topic 10, addresses how difficult it is to express ideas and words clearly, without ambiguity. The task of clear writing is lamented, for when the Almighty himself condescends to address mankind in their own language, his meaning, luminous as it must be, is rendered dim and doubtful by the cloudy medium through which it is communicated.

Essay 44, Topic 24, sets forward the idea that there must be safeguards against the misuse of religion, in that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Essay 51, lets us know that in a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.

Essay 57, Topic 6, briefly elaborates that no qualification of wealth, birth, religious faith, or civil profession is permitted to fetter the judgment or disappoint the inclination of the people.

The importance of the Federalist Papers in helping lay the foundation of the United States cannot be overestimated.

Ignoring this is not the sign of a learned person. It is at best intellectually dishonest, and at worst an intentional attempt to rewrite history.

At no time have I, nor others to the best of my recollection, argued that our nation is a Christian nation. But to attempt to whitewash the fact that our founding fathers did not have as a fundamental basis a Judeo/Christian ethic and assumed that such would be the underlying ethos of the nation, is disingenuous.

Well, the church actually only enforces meatless Fridays during Lent, so I can have meat on Fridays all the way until next February, '15. If that was meant to be some sort of shot, swing and a miss.

The flaw was not on your part, but Dale's. A more complete understanding of the founding fathers and their foundational perspective of the nation and ethos is in order. That is not conjecture, it is historical fact. You don't have to accept my word for it, and if you insist on citations, I could provide innumerable, but it's not worth my time to do so for such an obvious fact.

I had a cigar myself - #59 sweet factory reject (no, I'm not proud).

The analysis is flawed and not worthy of a learned person. If shame isn't sufficient to chastise, then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ueacC_X...

db: Quit smoking dope. Of course the founding fathers has an underlying foundation of Judeo/Christian morality and assumed such would pervade the society as long as necessary. To state otherwise is to be ignorant of historical fact, or worse, to intentionally seek to subvert same. Shame on you.

You are correct, it was not created as a Christian nation. It was crafted with an expectation that those basic Judeo/Christian values were the fundamental morality of the populace of the nation. As this has changed, some of the fundamental basis of the nation has been lost and without such, much of the rest of the structure has been significantly weakened.