Air Force Academy creates worship area for Pagans, Druids, and Wiccans

Sorry, freedom of religion IS derived from Christianity whether you can see it or not. It has to do with the recognition of the individual's conscience in determining his own private relationship with God. That did come through Locke from Owen as I understand it but I don't do a good job of keeping my references, and if I have a computer blowout which I do from time to time, they're all gone, and anyway I can't find this right now.Here's an article about the principles embodied in Blackstone's Commentaries, the main legal commentaries used at the time of the founding, well known by the founders, showing the lineage of some of the main ideas in the founding documents:Blackstone's View of Natural Law and American Law Blackstone embodies a Christian perspective on the law and Blackstone strongly influenced the American founders. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Proof please. Prove that the words written in the document do not mean what they say. Go ahead. Personal opinion on the subject, even from those who signed it, mean nothing. As was said before in this thread, why would they all have signed a document that they didn't believe in? Were they being pressured by Communist Socialist Liberals even then?! I can easily say I despise organized religion (which is true) and at the same time recognize that it would be harmful to completely remove it from society (which I also believe to be true). Are you willing to give these great men the same benefit? Yep, even that bastion of Christian glory The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth: The Jefferson Bible. Jefferson loved the Bible so much that he thought to.... *gasp* rewrite it! His faith in the Bible must have been staggering! Face it Faith. No matter how much you try to stretch the truth or outright lie, the founding fathers were not the Christians you want them to be. In fact, I would wager that if you didn't actually know who they were you would never include them in the True Christian category. They would just be some other misguided fools being led by the agents of Satan on a mission to give True Christians a bad name. So.. he didn't believe that the government of the United States should be based on the Christian religion. You should really make up your mind about where you stand on this issue. Just Christian principles. I bet those principles you are talking about aren't in any way strictly Christian. Gotcha. It isn't REALLY based on Christianity, it just has some stuff in common with it. Do you know how much Christianity has in common with older traditions and forms of worship? Does that mean Christianity is based on those traditions and forms of worship? Or maybe it just means that some things are pretty good ideas no matter WHO comes up with them or WHERE they came from. I do understand the historical context of the time. I have studied it quite intensely thank you. You are correct tho, you don't know much about it, and it certainly does you no good to act like you are superior. And? That doesn't prove anything Faith. True Or False. A man who prays is a Christian. It is a sad fact that in this country it is nearly impossible to be elected to high office without professing your faith as a Christian. You of all people should know that doesn't make it so. And for every one of their speeches and prayers before congress, there are those IMPORTANT times when they came right out and SAID it isn't a Christian nation. They sure did put a bunch of foolish shit into (or left out of for that matter) the Constitution for such strict religious folks. You then agree that those days were more "Christian" and so more pure correct? Because it is my understanding of the times that they were anything but the sunny rose garden you seem to think it was.. But I digress. Doesn't matter. The Treaty of Tripoli clearly states that you are incorrect. I know you don't want it to be so, but you are. It may be.. it may be.. yadda yadda yadda. Documents written by the very hands of the men you claim to admire say the exact opposite of what you are saying. Period. It doesn't take special Christian reading powers to understand that. I know you are but what am I. I know you are but what am I. I know you are but what am I. Infinity.The Treaty of Tripoli clearly states that the United States is not founded on Christianity. Period. You keep saying that it does. You are wrong. You keep saying we need special reading powers to understand that. We don't. You want us to refer to private personal letters as proof that they really meant for the country to be Christian instead of an ACTUAL government document signed by them and ratified by congress saying the exact opposite. Perhaps that kind of thinking is what you are used to, but I prefer to deal with facts. They could have very well been the most Christian men in existence and that would not change the fact that they did not want this country to be a Christian nation, as you so desire. It may weaken your faith in those men, but it makes them that much greater in my eyes.

Well, if you've eliminated the grounds on which I might make my case, the views of the founders, obviously there's no point in trying to answer you. You will always be right about what their words mean if their opinions are unimportant to you.

I suspect that freedom of religion came more from the Enlightenment than the Restoration.The Enlightenment showed us that we no longer have to kowtow to religion, and that, in western society at least, religion was no longer allowed to rule secular society.Stripped of their ability to rule and establish a theocracy, various religions (and sects, denominations, etc.) were forced to fight it out among themselves. None was able to dominate as had been the case in the past.That said, let me ask you a question: If you could, would you prohibit the Air Force Academy from setting aside that area for the wiccans, pagans, etc.?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Hi Faith. I'm sorry I wasn't clearer before. It's a pretty simple question:

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What principles that are strictly Christian and not also secular in nature do you believe the founders used in designing the United States government?

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Edited by ZenMonkey, : Absurd grammar.

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

Well, then you produce that evidence.I say it came through Locke and I know he was taught by John Owen and I know that John Owen had suffered as a Puritan the intolerance of his beliefs by the established English church, and he wrote prodigiously about the necessity of honoring freedom of conscience, which is the main basis for freedom of religion as it says belief cannot be compelled and must be kept free of coercion. So all the quotations I've given from the American founders mean nothing at all then, where I showed that they disagree with you in that they believed only a moral and religious people could support a government based on freedom. You can just rewrite their words to mean whatever you think they should mean from a context that wasn't their own. Nobody was fighting in Constitutional America. DeToqueville reported on a peaceful society saturated in a spirit of religion that the people held to be indistinguishable from their political life. No, this is no longer a Christian nation and that would be forcing a Christian view on people who don't accept it. Such a decision should have a clear consensus behind it.But I will agree with Buz as I originally did on this thread that it threatens the security of the nation to officially support or endorse pagan religions in any way. But this is being done in so many ways these days making an issue of Wicca is probably superfluous. The AF already made provision for other pagan religions, and pagan religions are already hosted in the nation's National Cathedral too, and all that already threatens the security of the nation.So no, there's no point in objecting, but there may at least be a point in warning that there will eventually be consequences as God does not tolerate idolatrous religions for long, and America is more vulnerable to His judgment than most because we were originally a Christian nation.Although there's probably not even much point to that in the end either. If our Christian roots are that far gone nobody's going to listen anyway.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Various clips from Wiki:The Enlightenment is held to be the source of critical ideas, such as the centrality of freedom, democracy, and reason as primary values of society. This view argues that the establishment of a contractual basis of rights would lead to the market mechanism and capitalism, the scientific method, religious tolerance, and the organization of states into self-governing republics through democratic means. ...Dorinda Outram provides a good example of a standard, intellectual definition of the Enlightenment:

Enlightenment was a desire for human affairs to be guided by rationality rather than by faith, superstition, or revelation; a belief in the power of human reason to change society and liberate the individual from the restraints of custom or arbitrary authority; all backed up by a world view increasingly validated by science rather than by religion or tradition.

It would seem that you are more comfortable with pre-Enlightenment thought.How do you feel about a theocracy (with your guys in charge, of course)?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Really? So why were some of the first laws guaranteeing freedom of religion written in antiquity, before Christianity even existed? Respectfully,-MeldinoorABE:

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From Wiki
encapsulated in an inscription of Asoka:

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King Piyadasi (Ashok) dear to the Gods, honours all sects, the ascetics (hermits) or those who dwell at home, he honours them with charity and in other ways. But the King, dear to the Gods, attributes less importance to this charity and these honours than to the vow of seeing the reign of virtues, which constitutes the essential part of them. For all these virtues there is a common source, modesty of speech. That is to say, One must not exalt one’s creed discrediting all others, nor must one degrade these others Without legitimate reasons. One must, on the contrary, render to other creeds the honour befitting them.

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Edited by Meldinoor, : ABE

So I'll amend it to say that freedom of religion in the West is derived from Christianity.And I'd also like to point out that in other cultures where there is supposedly freedom of religion when Christianity joins in it's not accepted. The Romans were quite happy with all their religions and would have accepted Christianity too except that Christians wouldn't worship Caesar or any other god. That made them "atheists" and targets for persecution.Hinduism is also supposedly tolerant of other religions because of their own huge collection of gods, but Hindus are persecuting native Christians in India.The Biblical God is not much tolerated by the pagan religions anywhere really. When the Jews were in Babylon there was also a decree that they were to worship the Emperor and the prophet Daniel refused because they weren't to worship anyone but God, and was thrown in the lion's den for that.It's always the Biblical God who is at odds with all the other religions on the planet. You can have them or Him but you can't have both.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Even if you're right, it shows that freedom of religion is not an exclusively Christian principle, but a principle that has cropped up in places that were not influenced by Christianity. In other words, you don't need a Christian nation in order to respect freedom of religion. I'm not aware that Rome had a constitution guaranteeing religious freedom at that time. Not legally. Hindu nationalist groups are persecuting Christians, but that's not because Indian law allows persecution of Christians. The KKK claim to be Christians, but that doesn't make all Christians violent racist bigots. They don't reflect the American constitution either. Fact is that the Indians had true legal freedom of religion long before Christians came around.Respectfully,-MeldinoorABE: Edited by Meldinoor, : No reason given.

Yes, a perfect statement of the pagan version of freedom of religion.The Christian version certainly doesn't require HONORING other religions, merely respecting the conscience of individual human beings. That's what tolerance is, it's not honoring, it's respectfully tolerating, but if honoring, then honoring human choice, because human beings are made in the image of God and their conscience is to be respected, but not the religions they choose. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It seems to me that what the king wants is a religious and moral people, just like our founding fathers. Charity toward any religion is less important than the reign of virtue.I think you're reading it wrong. You think by "honouring" one was required to worship all religions. But from the context, it seems obvious that what they're really talking about is being virtuous, and not to be disrespectful to people of other faiths.Respectfully,-Meldinoor

So then why don't they do this. From what I have seen, the Christians don't follow this just condemn the others.Edited by bluescat48, : stuck key

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Well, but you do need the Christian version of religious freedom for the kind of religious freedom that we have. What they have is not the same freedom of religion, it's simply one pagan god honoring another, but not the true God. But the true God respects His human creation and their choices and honors them despite their religions. Surely the will of Caesar counts in the place of a Constitution as far as Roman law goes. The Caesars would quite happily have tolerated all religions but not one that refused to worship Caesar. Well, Indian law isn't doing anything to stop it. And don't be misled, it's a religious motivation behind it, not nationalism though they mix the two. And it's other INDIANS they are persecuting. And the KKK is outlawed and subject to legal action against their criminal behavior. Well, among themselves, sure that's possible. All pagan religions have a lot in common with each other.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Don't confuse evangelism with the law guaranteeing religious freedom. You have every right to your beliefs but we may also tell you why your beliefs are wrong.