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DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 106 of 244 (556853)
04-21-2010 11:59 AM
Reply to: Message 105 by ZenMonkey
04-21-2010 10:12 AM


Re: Endorsement Not Establishment
ZenMonkey writes:
But you do realize that the only Religion is Christianity? If it's not Christianity, then it's not Religion at all but a trap of Satan. Thus the First Ammendment is only about protecting Christianity.
That's funny. Most fundamentalists say Christianity is not a religion:
Ray Comfort writes:
The Bible only mentions "religion" five times. Three times the Apostle Paul uses the word in reference to his pre-Christian life. The other references are in the context of religious hypocrisy (see James 1:26-27). I try and distance myself as far as possible from those religious folks who insist that salvation comes from religious works. I don’t believe that, I don’t practice that, and I don’t want to have anything to do with that.
Man has always used religion for his own political or economic gain. Hitler did it. America does it. Iran does it. The Pharisees in the time of Christ did it.
Religion is very grimy and murky bathwater, and those who don’t look carefully can easily miss the baby. A world without religionhow wonderful that would be. May God hasten the day.
also
James A. Fowler, Christ in You Ministries writes:
Christianity is NOT Religion
The Latin word from which the English word "religion" is derived means "to bind up." Jesus did not come to bind us up in rules and regulations or rituals of devotion, but to set us free to be man as God inended.
I guess they can't make up their minds?

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by ZenMonkey, posted 04-21-2010 10:12 AM ZenMonkey has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 108 by Faith, posted 04-21-2010 1:08 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 107 of 244 (556860)
04-21-2010 12:45 PM
Reply to: Message 104 by DevilsAdvocate
04-21-2010 5:52 AM


How America is/was Christian and how it is not
The bottom line is that it is unfair to all Americans to promote one religion in the schools, government, etc at the expense of those who practice other religions.
Christopher Columbus came to America with the strong conviction that God was sending him to bring Christ to the new world. The first pilgrims came with the strong conviction that it was their mission to establish a new order under Christ's rule.
The fiirst schools in America taught first graders from a book that rehearsed the teachings of the Bible on morality and the nature of God through the Westminster Catechism.
Most of the founding fathers are on record saying that the kind of government they gave us depends for its functioning on a religious and moral people and their context was clearly Christianity. Over and over you can find quotes from such as Washington, Adams, Noah Webster all I can remember but the list is much longer -- on how FREEDOM for a people can ONLY work based on the principles of the CHRISTIAN religion.
ALL our universities, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Rutgers, a dozen or more others, were originally founded in the name of Christ and for the propagation of His truths. Harvard's motto has been truncated to Veritas but it originaly referred to the Truth of Christ.
Alexis de Toqueville wrote that the most salient thing he observed about America was its religious nature, that it was religious through and through, and that Americans always based their claim to freedom on their allegiance to Christ. He pointed out the contrast between that belief and the view in France that freedom and Christianity were separate and even mutually exclusive ideas. Funny how so many now have the French view and we've lost the original American understanding.
Law in America was originally based on Christian principles. The reason the colonies had a religious oath test was that they wanted to insure that public servants would be true to the sort of principles that would at least work on their consciences to keep them from misusing their power.
It was Benjamin Franklin, who was not himself really a Christian but clearly believed in God, who admonished the first Congress that they should open in prayer, as it is God who would either make or break the new nation.
Examples like this can be multiplied many times over. Now THAT is the sense in which America was originally a Christian nation, that it was intended to be Christian principles that guided its formation and institutions.
It was NOT to be a Christian nation in the sense that everyone had to belong to a particular denomination or even to a Christian church. The very concept of FREEDOM OF RELIGION derives from Christian principles. It was the Puritan John Owen, at Oxford or Cambridge, I forget, who first taught on freedom of conscience, that nobody should ever be compelled to accept a belief his own conscience doesn't accept -- a strongly Christian view that he gave in answer to the many religious wars that had been trying to compel such allegiances. This view reached the American founders through John Locke, who had sat under Owens' teaching.
When Washington wrote to the pirates of Tripoli that America was not a Christian nation he could only have meant that Christian beliefs are not forced on the citizens and there is no officially established religion, he could not have meant that the nation itself did not have Christian foundations because he'd have then been contradicting himself as he'd clearly written on the necessity for a Christian mindset to govern this nation if it was to succeed.
The odd fact is that people of other beliefs can be free to practice them only under a Christian government.
Now we are way past that era and hardly anyone even remembers it any more.
All we ever hear are about the failures of people to live up to it, people being fallible, including the founders, about the Deism of the founders (many were but that Deism was based on a Biblical view and the law they practiced was based on a Biblical view and they were all steeped in Christian principles in general and when they wrote of the importance of "religion" in the life of the nation they always used the term to refer to Christianity), about the terrible mistake of slavery (no, that was NOT written in the Consitution, the practice of slavery violated the true meaning of the Constitution and that eventually came out). It was Wilberforce in England who was the very first to stand against the slave trade and then slavery itself, year after year preaching against it to Parliament to hoots and jeers until after 46 years of this just before his death they passed a law outlawing it. The English were the first. America lagged but there were always voices against it. And not all Christians are really Christians. You focus on the practices of fallible men and forget that the whole work to free the slaves was a Christian work and it had never happened in any other context on earth where slavery has always been common everywhere.
Freedom to practice any religion is only guaranteed BECAUSE this nation was originally Christian in principle and law and government.
This isn't really about individual beliefs, it's about PRINCIPLES that run a government. But those principles are meant to protect individual beliefs in all contexts.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 104 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 04-21-2010 5:52 AM DevilsAdvocate has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 109 by Taq, posted 04-21-2010 1:11 PM Faith has replied
 Message 110 by Rahvin, posted 04-21-2010 1:17 PM Faith has replied
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 Message 124 by Meldinoor, posted 04-21-2010 5:39 PM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 108 of 244 (556866)
04-21-2010 1:08 PM
Reply to: Message 106 by DevilsAdvocate
04-21-2010 11:59 AM


the term "religion"
There is definitely a confusion about the meaning of the term "religion" among Christians. The term is rejected these days because it is understood to refer to a ritualistic set of practices or a list of do's and don't's, which is the case in most of the world's religions and much of Christianity as well, in contrast to a living relationship with the living God which is the true form of Christianity.
However, this can be confusing when you see how the term is used in general, and particularly how it was used just a couple of centuries ago among Christians to refer specifically to Christianity itself, as among the American founders for instance. Christians who have no sense of history simply use the term in its most recent evangelical sense and this confuses people who know it in more than one sense.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 106 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 04-21-2010 11:59 AM DevilsAdvocate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 133 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 04-21-2010 6:48 PM Faith has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 109 of 244 (556867)
04-21-2010 1:11 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by Faith
04-21-2010 12:45 PM


Re: How America is/was Christian and how it is not
Freedom to practice any religion is only guaranteed BECAUSE this nation was originally Christian in principle and law and government.
Since when? The Pilgrims fled a country based on Christian principle and law because of religious persecution. Christianity has had a long history of persecuting other religions, as well as establishing theocracies that outlaw differing religious beliefs. Have you not heard of the Inquisition? Did you know that people were even burned at the stake by the Catholic church for simply owning a Bible (only the clerics wer allowed to read from the Bible)? You really need to read up on your history. One of the earliest christian governments was the Holy Roman Empire and they converted people at sword point. It was either convert or die.
The religious freedoms we enjoy today are based on secularism which is not a christian principle or law. Even atheists such as Locke and Voltaire factored in heavily in the writing of the Constitution.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by Faith, posted 04-21-2010 12:45 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 111 by Faith, posted 04-21-2010 1:19 PM Taq has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 110 of 244 (556869)
04-21-2010 1:17 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by Faith
04-21-2010 12:45 PM


Re: How America is/was Christian and how it is not
Who wants to count the historical inaccuracies, distortions, and lies in this post?
1:
Christopher Columbus came to America with the strong conviction that God was sending him to bring Christ to the new world.
Columbus didn't land in the United States. He landed in the Caribbean. In freaking 1492, long before the United States was even a figment of anyone's imagination.
2:
The first pilgrims came with the strong conviction that it was their mission to establish a new order under Christ's rule.
In one of the most supremely ironic events in history, the Pilgrims of Massachusetts set out to avoid religious persecution and to establish a colony where they would be free to practice their own religious beliefs. This, of course, turned out to be a theocratic hellhole that itself denied the Freedom of Religion...and they created their colony in the 1600s, again long before the founding of the United States. Their form of theocracy was expressly denied by the Constitution.
3:
Law in America was originally based on Christian principles. The reason the colonies had a religious oath test was that they wanted to insure that public servants would be true to the sort of principles that would at least work on their consciences to keep them from misusing their power.
And yet the Constitution, the document that actually founded the US as opposed to the foreign colonies that preceded it, expressly forbids the use of a religious test as a requirement to hold public office.
4:
When Washington wrote to the pirates of Tripoli that America was not a Christian nation he could only have meant that Christian beliefs are not forced on the citizens and there is no officially established religion, he could not have meant that the nation itself did not have Christian foundations because he'd have then been contradicting himself as he'd clearly written on the necessity for a Christian mindset to govern this nation if it was to succeed.
Washington wasn't President when the Treaty of Tripoli was signed. That was John Adams, in 1797. And of course, as a treaty, it was ratified by the entire congress.
The actual words of the treaty, of course, disagree with your silly interpretation:
quote:
Art. 11. 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 Mussulmen,
You can't get any more clear than that. The US Government is NOT based in any sense on the Christian religion.
ABE: It's rather amusing that Christianity supports a Theocratic Monarchy, not Democracy. Not once in any part of the Bible is the concept of rule by the people supported or even mentioned - always it's a claim of a LORD and a KING and a Kingdom. Nothing at all about our system of government is derived from the Bible, and to assert such is quite simply absurd.
Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by Faith, posted 04-21-2010 12:45 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 112 by Faith, posted 04-21-2010 1:29 PM Rahvin has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 111 of 244 (556871)
04-21-2010 1:19 PM
Reply to: Message 109 by Taq
04-21-2010 1:11 PM


Re: How America is/was Christian and how it is not
Catholicism had long since stopped being a Christian institution and the people the Inquisition most severely persecuted were the true Christians. If you read the writings of the first pilgrims you will see that it wasn't just to escape persecution but to actively obey Christ in establishing a new world based on His teachings that they came to America.
No, if you read any of writings of leaders of the founding generation of America -- read them, letters, documents, etc., or if you're going to read only cherry-picked quotes which is the situation most of us are in by necessity, then read those that show their Christian mindset, rather than the few that seem to support this false idea of secularism, you will see how wrong you are about this ever having been a "secular" nation in the sense you all mean it today.
I can assure you that Voltaire had nothing to do with the American founding, and Locke, although he was not a Christian, was steeped in Christian teaching through the Christianity-saturated universities in England and specifically the Puritan John Owen.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 109 by Taq, posted 04-21-2010 1:11 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 115 by Taq, posted 04-21-2010 2:24 PM Faith has not replied
 Message 116 by Huntard, posted 04-21-2010 2:36 PM Faith has replied
 Message 119 by dwise1, posted 04-21-2010 2:49 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 112 of 244 (556874)
04-21-2010 1:29 PM
Reply to: Message 110 by Rahvin
04-21-2010 1:17 PM


Re: How America is/was Christian and how it is not
You can't get any more clear than that. The US Government is NOT based in any sense on the Christian religion.
Sorry, yes it wasn't Washington.
But what that quote means has to be understood in the context of the other actions and writings of all the founders and Adams himself which are full of admonitions about the necessity of Christian morality and principles for the success of the nation. Either he was contradicting himself or he didn't mean what you think he meant by the way America was not a Christian nation.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 110 by Rahvin, posted 04-21-2010 1:17 PM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 113 by Rahvin, posted 04-21-2010 1:34 PM Faith has replied
 Message 114 by Apothecus, posted 04-21-2010 2:22 PM Faith has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 113 of 244 (556875)
04-21-2010 1:34 PM
Reply to: Message 112 by Faith
04-21-2010 1:29 PM


Re: How America is/was Christian and how it is not
But what that quote means has to be understood in the context of the other actions and writings of all the founders and Adams himself which are full of admonitions about the necessity of Christian morality and principles for the success of the nation. Either he was contradicting himself or he didn't mean what you think he meant by the way America was not a Christian nation.
Be specific. What, precisely, do you think Adams wrote that actually overrides a direct and clear statement in a treaty that is in fact the law of the land?
Anything Adams wrote personally is his opinion.
The Treaty of Tripoli is an official government document with the force of law.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 112 by Faith, posted 04-21-2010 1:29 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 117 by ZephyrWiccan, posted 04-21-2010 2:42 PM Rahvin has not replied
 Message 121 by Faith, posted 04-21-2010 3:25 PM Rahvin has replied

  
Apothecus
Member (Idle past 2410 days)
Posts: 275
From: CA USA
Joined: 01-05-2010


Message 114 of 244 (556884)
04-21-2010 2:22 PM
Reply to: Message 112 by Faith
04-21-2010 1:29 PM


Re: How America is/was Christian and how it is not
Hi Faith.
Either he was contradicting himself or he didn't mean what you think he meant by the way America was not a Christian nation.
Please elaborate for us what, exactly, was happening in 'ol Prez. Adams's head while penning the words which eventually ended up in the Treaty of Tripoli.
Maybe he was just having a bad harvest. He was a farmer, you know. Perhaps Abigail had been getting on him again about that addition to Peacefield or that broken fence out back. Maybe he was mad at God for an unanswered prayer or two. (Little did he know that sometimes God brings us closer to him by refusing to grant a request, however benign it may seem)
Or...
Maybe regardless of what role John Adams's deism played in his personal life, he was a reasonable and practical enough man to realize that spiritual leanings would have, necessarily, had absolutely no bearing on matters of state. Whew! What a stretch for my 21st-century mind to come to that conclusion versus:
Either he was contradicting himself or he didn't mean what you think he meant by the way America was not a Christian nation.
Have a good one.

"My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. J.B.S Haldane 1892-1964

This message is a reply to:
 Message 112 by Faith, posted 04-21-2010 1:29 PM Faith has not replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 115 of 244 (556885)
04-21-2010 2:24 PM
Reply to: Message 111 by Faith
04-21-2010 1:19 PM


Re: How America is/was Christian and how it is not
Catholicism had long since stopped being a Christian institution and the people the Inquisition most severely persecuted were the true Christians.
Yes, christians persecuting christians in a country ruled by christian principles and law. Go figure.
No, if you read any of writings of leaders of the founding generation of America -- read them, letters, documents, etc., or if you're going to read only cherry-picked quotes which is the situation most of us are in by necessity, then read those that show their Christian mindset, rather than the few that seem to support this false idea of secularism, you will see how wrong you are about this ever having been a "secular" nation in the sense you all mean it today.
I said that the constitution was based on secularism, as is our government. It is a government based on common ground exclusive of religious beliefs, the very basis of secularism. If you read the writings of the Founding Fathers they based the government on Reason, not on scripture. Many of the Founding Fathers were deists and did not believe in the divinity of Jesus, including Thomas Jefferson. How can you be a christian and not believe that Jesus is the son of God?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 111 by Faith, posted 04-21-2010 1:19 PM Faith has not replied

  
Huntard
Member (Idle past 2295 days)
Posts: 2870
From: Limburg, The Netherlands
Joined: 09-02-2008


Message 116 of 244 (556888)
04-21-2010 2:36 PM
Reply to: Message 111 by Faith
04-21-2010 1:19 PM


Re: How America is/was Christian and how it is not
Faith writes:
Catholicism had long since stopped being a Christian institution and the people the Inquisition most severely persecuted were the true Christians.
Of course those "true Christians" never prosecuted anyone did they....

This message is a reply to:
 Message 111 by Faith, posted 04-21-2010 1:19 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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ZephyrWiccan
Junior Member (Idle past 5087 days)
Posts: 9
Joined: 04-18-2010


Message 117 of 244 (556890)
04-21-2010 2:42 PM
Reply to: Message 113 by Rahvin
04-21-2010 1:34 PM


Re: How America is/was Christian and how it is not
And note that this treaty was fully ratified by the members of Congress. So obviously they agreed with it as well - not just Adams. Faith has a bigger problem than he/she realises.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Rahvin, posted 04-21-2010 1:34 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 118 of 244 (556891)
04-21-2010 2:44 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by Faith
04-21-2010 12:45 PM


Re: How America is/was Christian and how it is not
Faith writes:
Christopher Columbus came to America with the strong conviction that God was sending him to bring Christ to the new world. The first pilgrims came with the strong conviction that it was their mission to establish a new order under Christ's rule.
So what?
Believe me, Columbus was out to make money. Regardless, whatever he was thinking, I can't see how that has any bearing on a country on a different continent that wasn't founded for almost another 300 years.
Faith writes:
The fiirst schools in America taught first graders from a book that rehearsed the teachings of the Bible on morality and the nature of God through the Westminster Catechism.
So what?
It's also true that up until the 19th century girls almost never got more than the most rudimentary 3 R's education and blacks commonly didn't get even that much. You want to hold that ups as your standard as well?
Faith writes:
Most of the founding fathers are on record saying that the kind of government they gave us depends for its functioning on a religious and moral people and their context was clearly Christianity.
Not true, and so what if it was?
They could have all been snake worshipers, bigamists and coke addicts, too. If they didn't put it in the Constitution, it has no bearing on the working principles of this country.
Faith writes:
ALL our universities, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Rutgers, a dozen or more others, were originally founded in the name of Christ and for the propagation of His truths. Harvard's motto has been truncated to Veritas but it originaly referred to the Truth of Christ.
So what?
Faith writes:
Alexis de Toqueville wrote that the most salient thing he observed about America was its religious nature, that it was religious through and through, and that Americans always based their claim to freedom on their allegiance to Christ. He pointed out the contrast between that belief and the view in France that freedom and Christianity were separate and even mutually exclusive ideas. Funny how so many now have the French view and we've lost the original American understanding.
So what?
Faith writes:
Law in America was originally based on Christian principles. The reason the colonies had a religious oath test was that they wanted to insure that public servants would be true to the sort of principles that would at least work on their consciences to keep them from misusing their power.
A debatable point, and so what if it were true?
Faith writes:
It was Benjamin Franklin, who was not himself really a Christian but clearly believed in God, who admonished the first Congress that they should open in prayer, as it is God who would either make or break the new nation.
So what?
Even if you could find a verifiable source for this claim, which I doubt, Franklin's advice hardly goes as far as urging that Congress incorporate Christian principles (whatever those are) in their legislation.
Faith writes:
Examples like this can be multiplied many times over. Now THAT is the sense in which America was originally a Christian nation, that it was intended to be Christian principles that guided its formation and institutions.
What that shows me is that most people in Europe and the colonies in the 18th century was predominantly Christian. That's the sense in which the United States was and primarily still is a Christian nation - that a majority of people who live here account themselves as Christians. And since it's often a fundie trope that most so-called Christians aren't really Christians in their hearts, making True Christians a decided minority, you might not even be able to claim that by those standards we're a Christian Nation at all.
Faith writes:
It was NOT to be a Christian nation in the sense that everyone had to belong to a particular denomination or even to a Christian church. The very concept of FREEDOM OF RELIGION derives from Christian principles.
I have to laugh. Freedom of religion is decidedly NOT a Christian concept, unless you want to assert that freedom of religion consists of either being a follower of the One True Religion or deciding to be damned by following a False Path.
Faith writes:
When Washington wrote to the pirates of Tripoli that America was not a Christian nation he could only have meant that Christian beliefs are not forced on the citizens and there is no officially established religion...
Or maybe Adams actually meant what he said. Again, the fact that the majority of its citizens claim to be Christians doesn't make the government Christian.
Faith writes:
The odd fact is that people of other beliefs can be free to practice them only under a Christian government.
No, the fact is that it's only in a secular society that individuals are free to follow whatever religious path they wish.
Faith writes:
All we ever hear are about the failures of people to live up to it, people being fallible, including the founders, about the Deism of the founders (many were but that Deism was based on a Biblical view...
This only makes sense if you want to assert that a belief in God as an impersonal force with little or no interest in human affairs is the same thing as a belief in the necessity of a personal relationship with a God who knows every detail of your life.
Faith writes:
...about the terrible mistake of slavery (no, that was NOT written in the Consitution, the practice of slavery violated the true meaning of the Constitution and that eventually came out).
Um, let's take a look at Article IV Section 2:
quote:
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Hmmm, involuntary servitude. Just who do you think they were referring to? Nope, they're not using the S word, but there's no argument that this clause was explicitly meant to assure the slave-holding states that the free states weren't going to be safe havens. In fact, I believe that even in the North, the law was that if you were black, even if you had never been a slave, any white man could claim that he was your master and demand the return of his property. You couldn't contest this, since blacks weren't allowed to testify in court, so unless you had a white friend to vouch for you, off you went to the plantation. All perfectly constitutional.
America's success is profoundly dependent on its secular nature. Sorry if you'd like it otherwise. However, it would be an interesting thought experiment to figure out what the United States would be like if it were a Christian Nation with religious principles incorporated in its constitution. Just the blasphemy laws alone would have quite an effect.

I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John Lydon
What's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining.
-Steven Dutch

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by Faith, posted 04-21-2010 12:45 PM Faith has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 119 of 244 (556894)
04-21-2010 2:49 PM
Reply to: Message 111 by Faith
04-21-2010 1:19 PM


Re: How America is/was Christian and how it is not
Catholicism had long since stopped being a Christian institution and the people the Inquisition most severely persecuted were the true Christians.
Oh, so you mean to say that the true Christians are the Jews?
The Spanish Inquisition started in 1492. Spain had until then referred to as the Kingdom of Three Crowns, because it consisted of three major religious groups: Christians, Muslims, and Jews. It was in 1492 that the Christians succeeded in driving out the Muslims and then turned to eliminating the Jews with the Expulsion Act. Even though those Jews who converted were allowed to remain, the Christians did not trust the sincerity of such conversions and instituted the Inquisition as a way to verify it.
It wasn't until 1517, a couple decades later, that the Reformation began, so they later also turned their attention to Protestant heretics. One humorous story to come out of the Inquisition was that of a Dutch merchant who was arrested on suspicion of being a Jew. I forget whether he was imprisoned for several months or two years before somebody finally decided to perform a cursory physical examination which confirmed that he was in fact not a Jew, whereupon he was deported for being a Protestant.
BTW, the Spanish Inquisition finally ended in the mid-1830's.
One

This message is a reply to:
 Message 111 by Faith, posted 04-21-2010 1:19 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 120 of 244 (556897)
04-21-2010 3:16 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by dwise1
04-21-2010 2:49 PM


Re: How America is/was Christian and how it is not
The Catholic Church had been killing and persecuting Christians such as the Waldensians and Albigensians for centuries. If it wasn't officially under the title of the office of the Inquisition it was the same in spirit.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 119 by dwise1, posted 04-21-2010 2:49 PM dwise1 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 132 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 04-21-2010 6:40 PM Faith has replied

  
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