Thread: MSNBC Messes Up... Admits their King just another Muslim

GeorgiaPeach, allow me to post my own links.

"Our Founders Were NOT Fundamentalists"
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/26756

Tomorrow's New York Times Sunday Magazine highlights yet another mob of extremists using the Texas School Board to baptize our children's textbooks.

This endless, ever-angry escalating assault on our Constitution by crusading theocrats could be obliterated with the effective incantation of two names: Benjamin Franklin, and Deganawidah.

But first, let's do some history:

1) Actual Founder-Presidents #2 through #6 -- John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams -- were all freethinking Deists and Unitarians; what Christian precepts they embraced were moderate, tolerant and open-minded.

2) Actual Founder-President #1, George Washington, became an Anglican as required for original military service under the British, and occasionally quoted scripture. But he vehemently opposed any church-state union. In a 1790 letter to the Jews of Truro, he wrote: The "Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistances, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens." A 1796 treaty he signed says "the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." Washington rarely went to church and by some accounts refused last religious rites.

3) Washington was also the nation's leading brewer, and since most Americans drank much beer (water could be lethal in the cities) they regularly trembled before the keg, not the altar. Like Washington, Jefferson and Madison, virtually all American farmers raised hemp and its variations.

4) Jefferson produced a personal Bible from which he edited out all reference to the "miraculous" from the life of Jesus, whom he considered both an activist and a mortal.

5) Tom Paine's COMMON SENSE sparked the Revolution with nary a mention of Jesus or Christianity. His Deist Creator established the laws of Nature, endowed humans with Free Will, then left.

6) The Constitution never mentions the words "Christian" or "Jesus" or "Christ."

7) Revolutionary America was filled with Christians whose commitment to toleration and diversity was completely adverse to the violent, racist, misogynist, anti-sex theocratic Puritans whose "City on the Hill" meant a totalitarian state. Inspirational preachers like Rhode Island's Roger Williams and religious groups like the Quakers envisioned a nation built on tolerance and love for all.

The US was founded less on Judeo-Christian beliefs than on the Greco-Roman love for dialog and reason. There are no contemporary portraits of any Founder wearing a crucifix or church garb. But Washington was famously painted half-naked in the buff toga of the Roman Republic, which continues to inspire much of our official architecture.

9) The great guerilla fighter (and furniture maker) Ethan Allen was an aggressive atheist; his beliefs were common among the farmers, sailors and artisans who were the backbone of Revolutionary America.

10) America's most influential statesman, thinker, writer, agitator, publisher, citizen-scientist and proud liberal libertine was -- and remains -- Benjamin Franklin. He was at the heart of the Declaration, Constitution and Treaty of Paris ending the Revolution. The ultimate Enlightenment icon, Franklin's Deism embraced a pragmatic love of diversity. As early America's dominant publisher he, Paine and Jefferson printed the intellectual soul of the new nation.

11) Franklin deeply admired the Ho-de-no-sau-nee (Iroquois) Confederacy of what's now upstate New York. Inspired by the legendary peacemaker Deganawidah, this democratic congress of five tribes had worked "better than the British Parliament" for more than two centuries. It gave us the model for our federal structure and the images of freedom and equality that inspired both the French and American Revolutions.

It's no accident today's fundamentalist crusaders and media bloviators (Rev. Limbaugh, St. Beck) seek to purge our children's texts of all native images except as they are being forceably converted or killed.

Today's fundamentalists would have DESPISED the actual Founders. Franklin's joyous, amply reciprocated love of women would evoke their limitless rage. Jefferson's paternities with his slave mistress Sally Hemings, Paine's attacks on the priesthood, Hamilton's bastardly philandering, the grassroots scorn for organized religion -- all would draw howls of righteous right-wing rage.

Which may be why theocratic fundamentalists are so desperate to sanitize and fictionalize what's real about our history.

God forbid our children should know of American Christians who embraced the Sermon on the Mount and renounced the Book of Revelations...or natives who established democracy on American soil long before they saw the first European...or actual Founders who got drunk, high and laid on their way to writing the Constitution.

Faith-based tyranny is anti-American. So are dishonest textbooks. It's time to fight them both.

It all comes down to whether you believe the founders were more influenced solely by the Enlightment principles or Jeudo-Christian values. It's all opinion at this point. We'd need to go back in history to know for sure. Times have changed and neither side should look back to the founders for strict guidance on how to continue running this nation.

We are not a Christian nation and we were NOT founded on Chrisitianity.

Check out the Treaty of Tripoli (signed by Adams) that says so.

Lincoln proclamed clearly that " The Bible is NOT my book".

Christians are rewriting history.

Many of our founding fathers were not Christian, but either atheists or deists( there is a force in the universe but not one that judges conduct etc).

If people want to follow a given religion, let them... as long as they do no harm.

But keep religion out of the public square. It is a personal matter. Otherwise you have people trying to shove their religious beliefs down others throats.

I could care less what religion Obama is... it is his attitudes and actions that count.

I'll dig out my old history book about our Republic. Not our Democracy, for over the last 100 years and especially the last 60 to 70, the education system has been skewed by those who wish to change America by changing our understanding of our history. But according to this old history from 1921, that was my grandfathers, it listed only 3 deists, and 1 unknown. The rest were a part of a specific christian based religion. And if memory serves, I think the largest were Episcopalians, at 28 of them.

You may wish to look into Cultural Marxism: http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of- ... rrectness/

And Gramsci's The Prison Notebook.

Remember what Kruschev said? I will destroy your nation without firing a shot. Because it will be done from within, by first destroying the values of religion. Divide and conquer with propaganda. And in the 1960s the church, backed down without even a whimper.

And it was Benjamin Franklin who suggested when things were going very badly during the Constitutional Convention and many delegates were ready to walk out, and Franklin suggested they start each day with a prayer. But remember too, that they were asking for wisdom and perserverence from Divine Providence.

Samuel Adams quotes:
If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

And John Adams

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

And even Washington

“It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.â€

Hylander wrote,

I'll dig out my old history book about our Republic. Not our Democracy, for over the last 100 years and especially the last 60 to 70, the education system has been skewed by those who wish to change America by changing our understanding of our history. But according to this old history from 1921, that was my grandfathers, it listed only 3 deists, and 1 unknown. The rest were a part of a specific christian based religion. And if memory serves, I think the largest were Episcopalians, at 28 of them.

Here is just a part of speech by Gov. McKinley of Ohio concerning education. This speech was presented to the Members and Faculty, and students of Ohio University, Columbus, Ohio, June 12, 1895

"This age demands an education which, while not depreciating in any degree the inestimable advantages of high intellectual culture, shall best fit the man and woman for his or her calling, whatever it may be. In this the moral element must not be omitted. Character--Christian character---is the foundation upon which we must build if our institutions are to endure."

I wonder how just that portion of his speech would be accepted today at Ohio University?

Here is a dedication speech upon a new YMCA having been completed in Youngstown, OH while McKinley was still Gov.

"Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:---I am very glad to join with the citizens of Youngstown in celebrating the completion of this beautiful building, dedicated to the young men for physical, moral, and religious training. I congratulate the young men upon their good fortune and unite with them in gratitude to the generous, public-spirited people through whose efforts this Christian home has been established. It will stand monument to your city and an honor to those who shared in its erection. It will be an auxiliary to all moral and religious effort. It will be a vestibule to the Church, and a gateway to a higher and better Christian life. It will not take the place of the Church, and other agencies of good, but it will supplement and strengthen them all."

Another part of the same dedication speech.

"The men who established this government had faith in God and sublimely trusted in Him. They besought His counsel and advice every step of their progress. And so it has been ever since; American history abounds in instances of this trait of piety, this sincere reliance on a Higher Power in all great trials our national affairs."

People today would be jumping off bridges if today they had to endure the speeches that McKinley delivered during his service to country. Many speeches in this book and many references of respect to God.

Originally Posted by xfighter

Personally I would prefer our leaders didn't believe in any religion or much less make it a requirement of them. That being said, Obama's affiliation with Islam or Christianity is frankly of little importance to me SO LONG he doesn't force any of his beliefs down my throat. Like AmericanElizabeth mentioned, it just seems like nowadays politicians only make a big deal of their religious affiliations only to garner votes from the religious Americans who would otherwise not vote for an atheist such as myself. Given the choice between a Muslim and Atheist, I wouldn't be surprised if America voted for the Muslim only because he believed in a divine being.

I think religioun should be don't ask don't tell. But I will say that I want an American POTUS not a muslim.

I was looking for another thread, however this one will due. Having seen over the years, here and elsewhere references concerning this or that founder's faith, be they charged Christian, Deist, or atheist. Having come across a couple of history books with such comments I thought I would share.

Thomas Jefferson has been labeled by many on the internet as a Deist. As other founders have been as well.

The difference between Deist and Theist when labeling could be the difference between Latin interpretation versus Greek interpretation.

"I attempted to set the record straight for that young man, and through him for his pupils, pointing out that Jefferson was indeed a Deist but that this actually meant Theist, the difference being merely a matter of Latin versus Greek derivation," Charles Wesley Lowry

and,

"To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others;" a portion of a letter from Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush April 21, 1803

and,

I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials (i.e., the four Evangelists), which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their dogmas from what its author never said nor saw." Thomas Jefferson written in a letter to Charles Thomson, Jan. 9, 1816

and,

"I believe, with the Quaker preacher, that he who steadily observes those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates, as to the dogmas in which they all differ. That on entering there, all these are left behind us, and the Aristides and Catos, the Penns and Tillotsons, Presbyterians and Baptists, will find themselves united in all principles which are in concert with the reason of the supreme mind.

Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus." Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William Canby Sep. 18, 1813

and,

"The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time." Thomas Jefferson

and,

"Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." Thomas Jefferson

No comments towards Jefferson and his quotes? No comments on the interpretation of deist and theist when interpreted considering the differences between translation of Latin or Greek? No comment when it comes to the "seperation of church and state" even after when shown in complete context of the original letter and the interpretation is much different than what the bashers would like to twist it to mean something it NEVER meant! No comments on the quotes of a man that has been misrepresented due to the agendas of others and there sick and twisted desires!

When reading the Constitution do ALL words have precise meanings?

Is there a difference between Religion and Religions?

[quote="Hylander_1314"]I'll dig out my old history book about our Republic. Not our Democracy, for over the last 100 years and especially the last 60 to 70, the education system has been skewed by those who wish to change America by changing our understanding of our history. But according to this old history from 1921, that was my grandfathers, it listed only 3 deists, and 1 unknown. The rest were a part of a specific christian based religion. And if memory serves, I think the largest were Episcopalians, at 28 of them.

You may wish to look into Cultural Marxism: http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of- ... rrectness/

And Gramsci's The Prison Notebook.

Remember what Kruschev said? I will destroy your nation without firing a shot. Because it will be done from within, by first destroying the values of religion. Divide and conquer with propaganda. And in the 1960s the church, backed down without even a whimper.

And it was Benjamin Franklin who suggested when things were going very badly during the Constitutional Convention and many delegates were ready to walk out, and Franklin suggested they start each day with a prayer. But remember too, that they were asking for wisdom and perserverence from Divine Providence.

Samuel Adams quotes:
If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

And John Adams

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

And even Washington

“It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.â€