Is The World Getting Better Or Worse?

Secret Societies tend to believe a lot of things that aren’t true.

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Your own post is nothing but opinion and some nastiness as well and since tou give no clue what exactly you are talking about as usual

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I am talking about your blog post, of course, if you choose to be stupid that is your problem.And no, my post is not simply opinion. It is a fact that your quotes of Burgon lack any real substantive argument. Most of them amount to mere name calling. It also should be quite clear why a consensus of experts has more value than the opinion of an outlier.

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You really are the master of empty namecalling though you seem to think you are actually saying something substantive.

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Indeed I am providing more substance - and far less namecalling -than your entire blog post.

I dont think that there is anything hard to understand.To repeat the main point, your post is mainly quoting opinion,with very little value. I go on to explain why that opinion has very little value. That is neither hard to understand, nor in any way unfair (in fact it’s generous).

Let’s see. What about the alleged anti-Christian quotes attribute to Adams and Washington ? Does Pinto produce the actual writings of either man to substantiate his accusation ? If so identify the writings.

Really ? Because I’ve heard that Pinto uses Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli for George Washington. Which isn’t anti-Christian and wasn’t written by George Washington.

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He quotes someone else on the subject of Washington's writing of that article. H

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Someone else says that Washington wrote it is hardly convincing evidence.

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He also addresses the fact that Christians try to pretend it doesn't mean what it says. He points out that nobody in the Congress objected to the statement at all.

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Well I haven’t seen anyone trying to pretend any such thing, and it would be absurd to say that there were no Christians in the Senate!

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The way such a statement is anti-Christian, however, is in the fact that God forbids the worship of any god but himself...

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And therefore Christians are required to go to war to suppress all other religions ? Is that it ? Because I don’t see any other connection between your assertion and the text.

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.... though the Founders Pinto focuses on and that treaty and other documents promote such syncretistic worship

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Article 11 says no such thing.

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The example that bugs me the most personally isn't from the founding era, it's the fact that our National Cathedral is used for all religions.

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That’s not syncretic worship, that’s just sharing a facility. And if Christians don’t want to share they can choose not to use it.

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This is a complete blasphemy according to the Bible

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I don’t think so. And please don’t introduce verses describing the Jewish Temple to prove it.

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Certainly underscores that we are not a Christian nation even if you think a more direct statement would bee needed to prove an ANTI-Christian bias.

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Not giving Christians special privileges is not anti-Christian bias

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AbE: Just remembered that I think Washington was quoted on how the First Amendment protected all religions, in such a way that it was clear that he personally put them all on an equal plane. Thanks to that amendment Islam can rise to power in this nation, install Sharia Law over the Constitution and persecute all other religions. Give it time, it's coming.

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Like I said, you want to destroy liberty. Thanks for admitting it. Again.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.Edited by PaulK, : Fixed quote

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Then you are utterly misled

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The Article is saying that there won’t be a religious war. If you object to that you must be in favour of a religious war.

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Promoting syncretistic worship, making all religions equal, is far more than the mere tolerance of all religions.

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And the Article does no such thing. Read it. I quoted it for you.

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Christianity does not go out to conquer and subdue anyone.

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Then you shouldn’t go around implying that it must.

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The point here is what point of view is going to be the foundation of a nation, nothing else, and unlike Islam, Christianity is tolerant of all other points of view, tolerant, not in agreement with them, in fact opposing them but tolerant, which is what tolerance means.

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Certainly not. The point at issue is whether Chris Pinto told the truth when he claimed that Washington made anti-Christian statements. And according to you, not only does he quote a text which cannot be attributed to Washington, he grossly misrepresents it, too.So much for Pinto’s research.

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You are a major pain

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Obviously the truth hurts.

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Saying we are a Christian nation should not foster war.

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Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli says that the USA will not launch a religious war against Muslims. You call Article 11 anti-Christian on the grounds that worship of other Gods is forbidden. Try putting two and two together.

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You keep misrepresenting everything I say...

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That’s untrue. How was I supposed to know that you have some ridiculous notion that Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli promotes syncretic worship ?

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I get tired of the lies here.

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Then stop lying, rather than running away.

So, let us note. According to you Pinto claims that Washington wrote Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli (because someone else said so).Also according to you, he claims that the Article somehow promotes syncretic religion.Here’s the Article again: I think we can all see that the claim you attribute to Pinto is completely false.So much for the claim that he quotes them all directly.

Pinto identifies Adams as a Unitarian. However Adams only became a Unitarian in retirement WikipediaCheck the dates on the quotes Pinto provides. They are all from 1813 or later.. How can they be trusted to convey the views Adams possessed more than 20 years earlier ?Pinto puts forward the Treaty of Tripoli as evidence that the US was not intended to be a theocratic state but no more. Your assertions that it promoted syncretism are your invention, not Pinto’s. (And you owe him an apology for suggesting that he told such an obvious lie)I do not find the idea that Christians would protest Article 11 of the Treaty at all convincing. Aside from the fact that Christianity does not require theocracy, the main point of the Article is that there would be no religious conflict. Why would people who wanted peace object to that ?As for Moncure, he does not seem to have been a historian. The text referred to dates from 1901. Moncure does not explicitly claim that Washington wrote Article 11 - he claims that the text of Article 11 is the opening of the Treaty. Which is obviously untrue since Articles 1-10 must precede it. More, so far as I can tell - based on the page number and contents of the book - it seems that the text came from an article arguing that exhibitions should be permitted to open on Sunday(!). I wonder why Pinto doesn’t mention that?As I have already argued that Washington was - at the least - not an orthodox Christian I don’t care about that. I care only about the assertion that his own statements prove that he was opposed to Christianity.

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So do you have any evidence that Adams professed orthodox Christian beliefs during the founding years?

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Do you have any evidence of Adams expressing any hostility to Christianity while - or before - the Constitution was being thrashed out. I’ll give you up to the ratification of the Bill of Rights (1791)

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There is only one statement by Washington himself that suggests his opposition to Christian belief and that was something he wrote to Lafayette about how he indulges the Christians in their beliefs but is "no bigot" himself. That's somewhere toward the end of the Washington section. 1:37 or so?

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That’s hardly anti-Christian as it stands.Indeed, if you look at the actual quote he says that he indulges the Christians because he is no bigot to any mode of worship. I.e. he is NOT prejudiced against Christian preachers. Your phrasing is a misrepresentation.Edited by PaulK, : Added final paragraph after viewing video.

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It is true I report what I hear from people I trust, and they do muster quite a bit of evidence for what they say

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More accurately, you trust people who say things you like, even if they are usually lying. And you usually manage to get what they say wrong, anyway.

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And comparing politics with creationism is not a legitimate comparison. There are facts that can be mustered for political issues that i'm just not always up on, but creationism is mostly a matter of interpretation, as is evolutionism. Different category of thought.

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The Right has turned into a Satanic cult and Creationism was likely one from the start. It’s not surprising that they are similar.