What is Liberal?

If secularism doesn't stay secularism then it is no longer secularism and so your problem should not be with secularism. So why do you care about abortion?

I have allways been curious about that. I mean, a dead baby goes straight to heaven!Christians should be killing babys left and right. It seems to me like a very economical, efficient, and quick way to win souls for god. You can skip all that sinful life crap.Hell, why reproduce at all? I mean seriously, who would wanna risk hell. It seems to me the best thing you could do as a christian is not have chilldren at all lest they be swayed by the eeeevil one.

It's true I've been sloppy about the fact that the Puritans weren't the ONLY Christians in America and not a majority. I blurred the Christian sentiments of all the sects together, as they were similar in many ways. The Puritans settled in New England, while the South had Anglicans mostly. Thomas Jefferson was not only not a Calvinist he wasn't anything remotely Christian. But the Puritan groups did have a strong influence on the shaping of the new government.But Calvinists don't keep to themselves like the Amish. I don't know where you're getting your ideas. The Puritans founded the first American universities, beginning with Harvard, http://www.hno.harvard.edu/guide/intro/ and staffed them and turned out Puritan scholars and clergymen. In a sense they were very worldly people.

There is no promise that all babies go to heaven at all.

Where do they go?

which explains why he went to church, naturally. i don't care many times you want to distort this, and how many ways. jefferson was not a christian. jeffereson was not an atheist. he was deist. check your sources.

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Founded 16 years after the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth,

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notice the abscence of "by the pilgrims"

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During its early years, the College offered a classic academic course based on the English university model but consistent with the prevailing Puritan philosophy of the first colonists. Although many of its early graduates became ministers in Puritan congregations throughout New England, the College was never formally affiliated with a specific religious denomination. An early brochure, published in 1643, justified the College's existence: "To advance Learning and perpetuate it to Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches."

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from your source.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 07-22-2005 12:07 AM

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אָרַח

the goal of secularism in government is not to keep down religions -- but to allow them to coexist peacefully. a secular government is what ensures religious freedom.i'll let you in on another secret: democracy doesn't stay democratic, either. many of the world's worst tyrants, such as hitles, were democratically elected. what, do you suppose, make america's model better? and i'm not being rhetorical here -- i do think america's model is better. but i want you to tell me why. i'm quite secure in the knowledge that a secular government protects my right to my faith. what i am worried about is a religious government, even a so-called christian one.

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i dunno, paul seems in favor of celibacy:

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1Cr 7:8 I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.

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that sure be a solution to this abortion problem. let's just have laws against this nasty thing called sex.

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faith, you still haven't expressed an exact definition of abortion for me, or explained why my definition was lacking.

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I've read through some of this, not all.But the more I read these early American texts, the more I appreciate the Deist ideal. I am so glad that Deists established our country--and not Christians.Quote from Franklin's Autobiography:"Tho' I seldon attended any Public Worship, I had still an Opinion of its propriety, and of its utility, when rightly conducted, and I regularly paid my annual subscription for the Support of the only Presbyterian minister or Meeting we had in Philadelphia. He used to visit me sometimes as a friend, and admonish me to attend his Administrations, and I was now and then prevailed upon to do so, once for 5 Sundays successively. Had he been, in my opinion, a good preacher perhaps I would have continued, nothwithstanding the occasion I had for the Sunday's leisure in my Course of Study: but his Discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments, or explications of the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry, uninteresting and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforced, their Aim seeming to be rather to make us Presbyterians rather than good Citizens.At length he took for his text that verse of the 4th chapter of Phillippians, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there be any virtue, or any praise, think on these things," and I imagined in a sermon on such a text, we could not miss of having some Morality. But he confined himself to five points only as meant by the Apostle, vis., 1. keeping holy the Sabbath day. 2. being dillgent in Reading the Holy Scriptures. 3. attending duly the public worship. 4. partaking of the Sacrament. 5. Paying a due respect to God's ministers.These might be all good things, but as they were not the kind of good Things that I expected from that Text, I despaired of ever meeting with them from any other, was disgusted, and attended his preaching no more."This message has been edited by robinrohan, 07-21-2005 11:26 PMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 07-21-2005 11:28 PMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 07-21-2005 11:30 PM

Reading through this topic I am glad that my topic did not get off the ground. Thanks to Faith and the other conservatives for making me realise that I am a control freak, wanting to legislate in everybody's personal life, controlling business and generally bossing people about.I am heartily sick of the right wing telling me what my agenda is. I certainly will not try to second-guess what the right's agenda is, probably due to my guessing being far too liberal for a mainly US debate.Being liberal to me suggests steering a moderate course between left and right and not ascribing to a specific political dogma, rather a pragmatic approach that tries to balance the needs and wants of the individual with the needs and wants of the society in which the individual resides. Whether legislation is required or not required is not part of any doctrine, rather a needs must situation.

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Apophenia:seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.
Pareidolia:vague or random stimulus being perceived (mistakenly) as recognisable.Ramsey Theoryatterns may exist.Whoops!

I'm so glad that our country is secular (legally, if not culturally), and not Christian.That is why the US has succeeded.

sign me up! that's the country i THOUGHT i lived in!

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So many have a very weird idea of what the Puritans were all about. WHAT "sexual taboos?" --other than the usual biblical requirement to keep it in marriage that all Christians are to obey?The LUTHERANS? Huh? I thought they were pretty much confined to MINNESOTA, but in any case they were from a much later immigration. Calvinism is THE theology of the New England area up until the 20th Century, when it was a major player in the conflict against liberalism, and it's recently going through a revival in the country too.This message has been edited by Faith, 07-22-2005 06:54 AM

You seem to be confusing some European history with American history and in fact confusing European history, period. Lutheranism was the German Reformation; the English Reformation resulted in the Church of England and Puritanism was a later reaction against remnants of Catholicism in the Church of England. It was the Church of England's oppression of the Puritans that finally drove them to America. Lutherans had nothing to do with any of that and had nothing to do with the original American colonies either, settling in America much much later, and farther West.And that's almost FUNNY, to say that the Quakers are CALVINIST!!! The Calvinists regarded them as HERETICS.Calvinism today is represented in a very large movement of Reformation-based churches in America. I go to a Reformed/Calvinist church. It's in sympathy with conservative Lutheranism (yes there is a liberal Lutheranism too) but otherwise they are completely different churches.This message has been edited by Faith, 07-22-2005 04:44 AM