The European Left’s War On Christianity

[rangerrebew]

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The European Left’s War On Christianity

Posted By Stephen Brown On January 5, 2015 @ 12:45 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 1 Comment


It was an attack of unreasoning rage and unrelenting hatred on one of the world’s greatest symbols of love and peace, life and hope.

On Christmas Day in the heart of Catholic Christianity, St. Peter’s Square in Rome, the leftist radical and militant feminist group, Femen, staged another of its outrageous “happenings” against its favourite target, the Catholic Church. On one of Christianity’s holiest days, a Femen member, Iana Aleksandrovna Azhdanova, a Ukrainian citizen, invaded the square’s famous nativity scene and seized the statuette of the Baby Jesus. The scandalous act occurred shortly after Pope Francis had given his traditional Christmas greeting to the crowd of faithful when many people were still present on the square.

“Femen’s website says the woman was protesting as part of its anti-clerical ‘Massacre of the Innocents’ campaign contesting religions’ “maniacal desire to control women’s fertility’,” reported Reuters.

Femen originated in Ukraine in 2008 where it opposed Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Orthodox Church, which it regards as Putin’s ally. The women’s rights group, international in membership, is perhaps most famously known for performing their protests, or “happenings,” as it calls them, bare-breasted.

Azhdanova was no exception. After removing her shirt, she appeared topless in the creche with the words “God is woman” written in English on her exposed chest. At other ‘happenings’, onlookers have been treated to such aggressive slogans as ‘my body is my weapon’, ‘religion is slavery’, ‘God is dead’, ‘f**k church’, and ‘women’s rights first’.

Fortunately, a Vatican policeman was able to stop Azhdanova and recover the statuette before she could carry it off. He led her away, covering her nakedness with his policeman’s cloak. Azhdanova was arrested by Vatican authorities and accused her of “vilification of religion, obscene acts in public and theft,” was later released freed.

“[The group has] intentionally, repeatedly and gravely violated the right of the faithful to see their legitimate religious convictions respected,” said Father Frederico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman.

While much attention has been paid to the danger creeping Islamisation presents to European societies, the threat militant secular humanism poses to Western civilization is sometimes overlooked. It is largely this leftist secularism, however, that is responsible for having pushed Christianity in Western Europe out of the public space and the marketplace of ideas to society’s fringes, by such measures as banning Christian symbols in the classrooms and nativity scenes in public buildings, among others.

This impulse to de-Christianise Europe is so strong and has enjoyed such success over the past decades that the European Union’s constitution does not even recognise the continent’s Christian roots. As a result, exposure to Christianity is now confined primarily to the churches, where, the left hopes, it will atrophy.

But even in its holy sanctuaries, Christianity is not safe from the radical left. Militant atheists are violating, even physically invading, churches and other sacred Christian places to erase Europe’s last ties to the religion that formed it. And the Femen are the best known storm troopers of this sacrilegious movement.

Nowhere in Europe has Femen conducted its anti-Catholic campaign more vigorously and “gravely and repeatedly violated” the rights and “legitimate religious convictions” of the Catholic faithful than in France, where it is now based. The reason for this is that there exists among the French left a greater tolerance than in other European countries for anti-Christian acts that dates back to the French Revolution. During that great upheaval, churches and cathedrals, such as Paris’s famous Notre Dame, were turned into ‘Temples of Reason’ to reflect the new atheistic thinking. And ceremonies celebrating the revolutionaries’ new goddess, Reason, replaced the traditional mass.

This long, two hundred-year history of anti-Catholicism and anti-clericalism is responsible for producing in France the current environment of intolerance towards Christianity. This intolerance, found especially among leftist and liberal political politicians and media elites, in turn, has been conducive to Femen’s anti-Christian activities.

“The Femen thus know that they are able to count on the support of a certain number of opinion leaders, media outlets and intellectual backing,” wrote Julie Graziani, a spokesperson for an association of young French Catholics, in Le Figaro.

It is also this negative tolerance that has allowed Femen activists to escape almost unscathed any legal punishment in French courts. The most recent example occurred only days before the Saint Peter Square incident. A Femen siren, Eloise Bouton, received a one-month suspended sentence from a French judge for a “happening” she staged in Paris’s St. Madeleine church in December, 2013.

Using the customary Femen tactics of “caricature, provocation, blasphemy, and intolerance” to garner media attention, Bouton had invaded St. Madeleine several days before Christmas (these women must really have something against the birth of Jesus) and took up a position (bare-breasted, of course) before the altar and the astonished eyes of about a dozen parishioners and choir members present.

Wearing a biblical-like head-covering to appear like the Holy Mother Mary, Bouton proceeded to mimic an abortion, leaving pieces of bloody calf liver on the altar steps to symbolise the aborted foetus of Jesus. Bouton concluded her act of profanation “`a la sauce Femen,” as one French journalist called it, by urinating on the floor. (A similar, blasphemous “happening” occurred only days later during Christmas mass in Germany’s ancient Cologne cathedral. A Femen sitting in a front row pew suddenly disrobed and jumped, bare-breasted and screaming, on to the altar with “I am God” emblazoned on her chest).

As per Femen custom, Bouton’s bare chest and stomach were also not left bare. This time, they displayed the message “343 salopes” (sluts). This lovely communication refers to a manifesto by 343 women calling for the decriminalisation of abortion. On her back, in English, was written the anti-Christian message: “Christmas is annulled. Jesus is aborted.” Bouton was convicted on the charge of “sexual exhibition.”

Unsurprisingly, Bouton believes she did nothing wrong. Her defense was that she was carrying out a political act and not a sexual one. Femen’s politics uses the nude female body as a placard “to convey a message” and “not to seduce.” Bouton said she had wanted less “to shock” with her nudity than to provoke a realization about abortion rights, not “to create an emotional reaction but a reflection.”

It is, however, difficult to comprehend Bouton’s thinking. How is going into a church a few days before Christmas and standing bare-breasted before the altar while simulating an abortion of the infant Jesus not going to shock and create “an emotional reaction” among Christians and not cause them to feel their private, spiritual sphere and sense of sacredness have been violated? The same could be said about the attempted theft of the Jesus statuette in Rome.

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URL to article: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/stephenbrown/the-european-lefts-war-on-christianity/

[Fishrrman]

The left is eventually going to achieve its goal -- that being if not the complete elimination of Christianity from public life, at least to drive it into the shadows and marginalize it into near-nothingness.

But what the left cannot comprehend -- I don't believe it's even on their psychological radar -- is that the "religious vacuum" they create won't remain empty for very long.

islam will soon rush in to fill that vacuum.

And when it does, islam will see the left for what they are -- nonbelievers, infidels.

The new islamic majority will slaughter the leftist heathens with more ardor than they currently use against the Christians and Jews. At least the latter were people of the book who believed in something...

[Oceander]

Interestingly, one of the factors that seems to correlate with the de-religioning of some European countries is the degree to which religion is a state-sponsored, state-funded affair, what are known as established religions.  In countries with established religions, the numbers falling away from religion tend to be greater than in countries without established religions.

Perhaps there is something in a religion that is wholly voluntary - thus largely a conversation between each soul and God, without the interference of third parties - that maintains the vitality, and thus the meaning, of religion and the religious experience.

If so, therein lies somewhat of an irony:  the more compulsory is nominal belief in God, the less is actual belief in God.  Separation of Church and State may be good for the secular polity, but it is even better for the religious.

[truth_seeker]

Shouldn't the Ukranian woman be protesting the Eastern Orthodox church, instead of Rome?

The article posits opposition all over Europe to Christianity, yet cites only examples in two countries against the Vatican, and mentions it is a 200 year old conflict in France.

[musiclady]

Interestingly, one of the factors that seems to correlate with the de-religioning of some European countries is the degree to which religion is a state-sponsored, state-funded affair, what are known as established religions.  In countries with established religions, the numbers falling away from religion tend to be greater than in countries without established religions.

Perhaps there is something in a religion that is wholly voluntary - thus largely a conversation between each soul and God, without the interference of third parties - that maintains the vitality, and thus the meaning, of religion and the religious experience.

If so, therein lies somewhat of an irony:  the more compulsory is nominal belief in God, the less is actual belief in God.  Separation of Church and State may be good for the secular polity, but it is even better for the religious.

The separation of the Government from the Church and the freedom to worship as one chose, was a direct response to the misdirected, political power motivation of European countries' demanding allegiance to a national church.

The left has warped freedom of religion into their concept of "separation of Church and State"......meaning that religious people should stay out of government and people with God-centered values should keep their mouths shut.  IMO, that is precisely the opposite of what the Founders intended.

They knew that religious principles and a reliance on God's moral law was a basic necessity of a functioning democracy, but the left has distorted that into what we now know as "separation of Church and State."

For the first several centuries of Christianity, it was true to the following of Jesus Christ.  When Christians (i.e. sinners) began to entangle Christianity with government and politics, things started going south.  It was the political/power angle of the "church" that caused "Christians" to start slaughtering each other all throughout Europe, and caused an enormous emigration to America where there was no state church, and freedom of religion.  (My own grandparents came to America because they were Baptists in Lutheran Sweden, and were persecuted for it).

I agree that it's best for governments to stay out of religion, but the European goal (and the American left as well) to silence Christians is a very, very bad idea.

[Oceander]

The separation of the Government from the Church and the freedom to worship as one chose, was a direct response to the misdirected, political power motivation of European countries' demanding allegiance to a national church.

The left has warped freedom of religion into their concept of "separation of Church and State"......meaning that religious people should stay out of government and people with God-centered values should keep their mouths shut.  IMO, that is precisely the opposite of what the Founders intended.

They knew that religious principles and a reliance on God's moral law was a basic necessity of a functioning democracy, but the left has distorted that into what we now know as "separation of Church and State."

For the first several centuries of Christianity, it was true to the following of Jesus Christ.  When Christians (i.e. sinners) began to entangle Christianity with government and politics, things started going south.  It was the political/power angle of the "church" that caused "Christians" to start slaughtering each other all throughout Europe, and caused an enormous emigration to America where there was no state church, and freedom of religion.  (My own grandparents came to America because they were Baptists in Lutheran Sweden, and were persecuted for it).

I agree that it's best for governments to stay out of religion, but the European goal (and the American left as well) to silence Christians is a very, very bad idea.

With all due respect, the Constitution is fairly straightforward on this one:  Church and State are to be kept separate.  There is nothing preventing any one from acting on their personal religious beliefs, either as a voter, candidate, or politician, but there is also nothing stopping the electorate from deciding that they don't care for that particular politician, and they can do so on whatever basis they desire, including being inimical to religiosity.

Whatever the personal religious beliefs of each individual Founder, they collectively crafted - carefully crafted - a government intentionally designed to separate the religious from the political.  The United States of America, as originally conceived and implemented by the Founders was not, and was intended to not be, a "christian nation".  It was intended to be a nation with a secular government under which the private religious beliefs of each individual, particularly of those who adhered to a minority religion, would be protected from government interference.

The Separation of Church and State was, by and large, intended to perform two main purposes:  to prohibit the use of religious tests for office or the imposition of religious requirements by force of government, and to protect purely private religious worship from interference by the government.  With respect to the former, it is not entirely unreasonable to take the position that any overt government support, voluntary or not, of the tenets or celebrations of a particular religion constitutes a form of "establishing" that religion ("establishing" in its accepted meaning as adopting a State-sponsored religious creed).  Is outright banning of nativity scenes on town hall lawns at Christmas time staking out a sufficiently overt preference for one religion over another justified under this perspective?  Reasonable minds can disagree, but that disagreement does not vitiate the stronger position that allowing, say, the local Catholic parish to regularly hold Sunday mass in town hall, would cross over the line into "establishment" territory, even if it was only done as a convenience because the parish had no place else to go.

With respect to the latter, that bulwark has, sadly, been seriously weakened over the last 20 to 30 years.  Sadder still is the fact that the religious right has collaborated in that weakening by presenting themselves as hell-bent (pardon the pun) on imposing their beliefs on everyone else qua their beliefs (e.g., demanding that abortion be outlawed because it is the killing of an innocent soul is a position grounded in religious belief, not in some non-religious objective view of reality), thereby playing into the hands of the anti-religious left and leaving the general public with a binary choice between two evils, the lesser of which, unfortunately, is the vision propounded by the left.  The reason why this has contributed to weakening the protection afforded private religious belief under the Constitution is because it totally forgoes any reliance or insistence on the primacy and political sanctity (pardon the pun, again) of private religious belief.  Put briefly, nobody has been putting any effort into preserving that protection; the right has presented itself as wishing to impose its private beliefs - qua beliefs - on everyone else, and the left has presented itself as protecting everyone else from the supposed depredations of the religious right, allowing it to enact anti-religious laws intended to undermine the protection afforded private religious belief under the guise of reining in and preventing the putative religious tyranny of the right.

It has only been very recently that the religious right, finally slapped into reality by the left's latest moves under Obamacare, has finally started trying to argue for the protection of private religious belief as against the majority's desire to impose its will on, and regulate, most private life - Hobby Lobby being an example, as well as the cases of the bakers being forced against their private beliefs to bake "wedding" cakes for gay couples - but that is, I am afraid, too little, too late; by trying for so long to impose their beliefs, qua beliefs, on others, they have ceded the battlefield to the left and every belated move to invoke the protection of private religious belief is now too easily portrayed by the left as just another attempt of the believers to impose their will on the unbelievers.

It would have profited the religious right - and most religious believers of whatever stripe - if they had focused first and foremost on the fundamental tenet of much of the Constitution of affording private life a high degree of protection from the interference of the majority through the organs of the State.  Had they done that, they would have been in a much better place to persuasively make the argument in, e.g., the bakery cases, that the proper, Constitutional, solution is for gay couples to simply take their business elsewhere.  It is a simple fact of free market economics that if you have two otherwise equally matched competitors - Baker A and Baker B - with the lone exception that Baker A refuses to do business with a certain portion of the buyers in the market because of non-economic factors, that Baker B will ultimately prevail over Baker A and, quite possibly, put Baker A out of business.

But they didn't.  And, sadly, lacking any real defenders of the Constitutional protections afforded to the private beliefs of a minority as against the collective force of the majority, those protections have begun to wither, possibly to the point of no return.

[musiclady]

The Constitutional separation is to keep the State from interfering with religion, and not to keep, as you would wish, religious people from participating in the political process, either individually or collectively.

You're clearly angered by the "religious right" and the pro-life movement, but you didn't mention that it was the left who brought abortion into the political world, and not the anyone on the right, by passing a very bad 'law' with Roe v. Wade.  And it is the left forcing the corruption of the very definition of marriage to suit their political fancies. I believe many on the hated "religious right" reacted strongly to legalized murder of the unborn, and some may have overreacted, or behaved badly in the process, but again, it was the left who caused the problem, not moral conservatives.  The same is true with those advocating traditional marriage and its importance to a successful society.  We did not create the problem.  It began with the leftist agenda, now seen fully at work in the Obama administration.

There are many quotes from the Founders in which they state clearly that democracy without morality will not work.  And they were right.

Even the very secular Ben Franklin in his address to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 said these words:

I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that "except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel

Again...... the Founders, though clearly creating a secular state without a State Religion, understood that God was behind this great Republic, and that forgetting that point would be deadly.

We are seeing that come to full fruition now in the Obama administration, and in the nation so apathetic and ungodly, that elected him twice.

[Oceander]

The Constitutional separation is to keep the State from interfering with religion, and not to keep, as you would wish, religious people from participating in the political process, either individually or collectively.

You're clearly angered by the "religious right" and the pro-life movement, but you didn't mention that it was the left who brought abortion into the political world, and not the anyone on the right, by passing a very bad 'law' with Roe v. Wade.  And it is the left forcing the corruption of the very definition of marriage to suit their political fancies. I believe many on the hated "religious right" reacted strongly to legalized murder of the unborn, and some may have overreacted, or behaved badly in the process, but again, it was the left who caused the problem, not moral conservatives.  The same is true with those advocating traditional marriage and its importance to a successful society.  We did not create the problem.  It began with the leftist agenda, now seen fully at work in the Obama administration.

There are many quotes from the Founders in which they state clearly that democracy without morality will not work.  And they were right.

Even the very secular Ben Franklin in his address to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 said these words:

Again...... the Founders, though clearly creating a secular state without a State Religion, understood that God was behind this great Republic, and that forgetting that point would be deadly.

We are seeing that come to full fruition now in the Obama administration, and in the nation so apathetic and ungodly, that elected him twice.

I haven't said anything about preventing religious people from participating in politics.  I simply said that the Constitution doesn't guarantee them that anyone else will listen to them.

I don't deny in the least that the left has brought many idiocies into this world - in fact, I emphasized that point - what I do take issue with is the way in which the religious right have played into their hands and willingly adopted the mantle of the would-be theocratic dictator.

I quite agree that the left is engaged in a concerted effort to impose government control over the meaning of "marriage" as it is used within the confines of private religious groups, such as churches; what I take issue with is the fact that the religious right has forgotten about the importance of fighting to protect the right of the dissident minority to live its life as it sees fit free from government coercion, and by playing into the hands of the left have effectively undercut the protections the Constitution was designed to afford to the dissident minority.

Regarding that point, the foolish fight over gay so-called "marriage" exemplifies the religious right's inability to see the difference between private and public life, and their insistence on keeping "marriage" confined to a meaning that, at bottom, is only justified on a particular religious view.  The religious right have forgotten the necessary implications of rendering unto caesar that which is caesar's.  God has largely granted to Caesar control over the worldly affairs of the secular state, reserving to Himself governance of each individual soul.  In the context of the civil law's definition of "marriage" therefore, Caesar is free to define that term has he pleases for the purposes of secular worldly society; what Caesar is not to do is to impose his definition of "marriage" on the individual consciences of those who dissent.  As such, it should be of little concern to the religious if Caesar wishes to make it legal for humans to "marry" monkeys, so long as the religious are not forced to recognize those "marriages" within their own private religious communities.  Certainly, the religious can, and should, try to persuade others of the folly of, for example, defining "marriage" to include human/monkey couples, but what they should be first and foremost concerned with is protecting themselves from being forced to recognize as valid whatever the secular government ends up defining as "marriage" if such is inimical to their private religious beliefs.

The fact of the matter is, it was clear long, long ago that the fight to prevent any sort of secular recognition of gay couples was doomed to failure; that being so, the wiser amongst the religious right in this country should have turned their primary efforts toward directing and influencing the contours of the recognition that would ultimately be given to gay couples so that they would not be forced to recognize those couples as such within their own private religious communities.  For example, if more effort had gone into arguing for recognition under the label "civil partnerships" - to the extent that labels have any substantive meaning - then by protecting the meaning of the term "marriage" that might have made it much harder for the left to conflate the concepts of "marriage" under secular civil law and "marriage" within the meaning of a private religious community's beliefs.

But that did not happen.  Instead, the religious right chose to spit into the wind, with the result that they ceded the field to the left, who managed to win the fight to redefine the term "marriage" to include recognized gay couples.  It didn't have to be that way, but the misguided efforts of the religious right virtually guaranteed that it would happen.

[mountaineer]

The left is eventually going to achieve its goal -- that being if not the complete elimination of Christianity from public life, at least to drive it into the shadows and marginalize it into near-nothingness.

I disagree. The left won't prevail because God is greater.

[musiclady]

I haven't said anything about preventing religious people from participating in politics.  I simply said that the Constitution doesn't guarantee them that anyone else will listen to them.

I don't deny in the least that the left has brought many idiocies into this world - in fact, I emphasized that point - what I do take issue with is the way in which the religious right have played into their hands and willingly adopted the mantle of the would-be theocratic dictator.

I quite agree that the left is engaged in a concerted effort to impose government control over the meaning of "marriage" as it is used within the confines of private religious groups, such as churches; what I take issue with is the fact that the religious right has forgotten about the importance of fighting to protect the right of the dissident minority to live its life as it sees fit free from government coercion, and by playing into the hands of the left have effectively undercut the protections the Constitution was designed to afford to the dissident minority.

Regarding that point, the foolish fight over gay so-called "marriage" exemplifies the religious right's inability to see the difference between private and public life, and their insistence on keeping "marriage" confined to a meaning that, at bottom, is only justified on a particular religious view.  The religious right have forgotten the necessary implications of rendering unto caesar that which is caesar's.  God has largely granted to Caesar control over the worldly affairs of the secular state, reserving to Himself governance of each individual soul.  In the context of the civil law's definition of "marriage" therefore, Caesar is free to define that term has he pleases for the purposes of secular worldly society; what Caesar is not to do is to impose his definition of "marriage" on the individual consciences of those who dissent.  As such, it should be of little concern to the religious if Caesar wishes to make it legal for humans to "marry" monkeys, so long as the religious are not forced to recognize those "marriages" within their own private religious communities.  Certainly, the religious can, and should, try to persuade others of the folly of, for example, defining "marriage" to include human/monkey couples, but what they should be first and foremost concerned with is protecting themselves from being forced to recognize as valid whatever the secular government ends up defining as "marriage" if such is inimical to their private religious beliefs.

The fact of the matter is, it was clear long, long ago that the fight to prevent any sort of secular recognition of gay couples was doomed to failure; that being so, the wiser amongst the religious right in this country should have turned their primary efforts toward directing and influencing the contours of the recognition that would ultimately be given to gay couples so that they would not be forced to recognize those couples as such within their own private religious communities.  For example, if more effort had gone into arguing for recognition under the label "civil partnerships" - to the extent that labels have any substantive meaning - then by protecting the meaning of the term "marriage" that might have made it much harder for the left to conflate the concepts of "marriage" under secular civil law and "marriage" within the meaning of a private religious community's beliefs.

But that did not happen.  Instead, the religious right chose to spit into the wind, with the result that they ceded the field to the left, who managed to win the fight to redefine the term "marriage" to include recognized gay couples.  It didn't have to be that way, but the misguided efforts of the religious right virtually guaranteed that it would happen.

In your effort to (continue to ) belittle the religious right and expound on your opinions about gay marriage (which you have done quite often before), you seem to be ignoring a clear refutation in my post of your claim that the Founders did not intend for God to be the builder of this nation.

I would like to see your argument against Ben Franklin's quote.  He was arguably the most 'secular' of the Founders, and yet his views clearly distinguish themselves from yours on the matter of the necessity of building America on the foundation of God's laws and His governing the affairs of men.

I'm curious as to how you deny the example given that refutes your secularist views.  There are many others from other Founders, but I chose Franklin's deliberately since he has never been considered an icon of the "religious right."

[Fishrrman]

From one of the men that was "there":

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

- John Adams

[musiclady]

From one of the men that was "there":

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

- John Adams

Removing the moral and religious nature of the founding of our country and making its intent wholly secular is revisionist history.

[olde north church]

Removing the moral and religious nature of the founding of our country and making its intent wholly secular is revisionist history.

That would depend upon which part of the colonies you were discussing.  New England maybe.  Maryland, until the protestants got their clutches on that one.  Pennsylvania, possibly.  The rest?  Mercantile baby, all about the cash.

[aligncare]

On Christmas Day in the heart of Catholic Christianity, St. Peter’s Square in Rome, the leftist radical and militant feminist group, Femen, staged another of its outrageous “happenings” against its favourite target, the Catholic Church.

Femen = Vermin

I'm a simple man, and in keeping with my personal philosophy that embraces the parsimony principal (choose the simplest explanation that fits the evidence):

It's the freedom of religion, not freedom from religion that made the first amendment to the constitution and America so wonderfully life affirming for the human spirit, and that had made America the greatest nation on earth. Notice my use of the past tense, had. For we have now clearly going off the rails.

[musiclady]

That would depend upon which part of the colonies you were discussing.  New England maybe.  Maryland, until the protestants got their clutches on that one.  Pennsylvania, possibly.  The rest?  Mercantile baby, all about the cash.

You supported my point, onc.  The words I used were "wholly secular," and that is what the revisionist history is all about.  But when you talk about 'the rest' you are also including those from Virginia which included George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, BOTH of whom recognized the need for religious and moral principles to keep democracy afloat.

Again..... the argument that America's beginnings were secular is not accurate.  (Even in the greedy part.  ^-^)

[olde north church]

You supported my point, onc.  The words I used were "wholly secular," and that is what the revisionist history is all about.  But when you talk about 'the rest' you are also including those from Virginia which included George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, BOTH of whom recognized the need for religious and moral principles to keep democracy afloat.

Again..... the argument that America's beginnings were secular is not accurate.  (Even in the greedy part.  ^-^)

You can be moral without being religious.  You can also be religious and be quite amoral.

[truth_seeker]

You can be moral without being religious.  You can also be religious and be quite amoral.

I'm reminded of the futility of this discussion, when it comes to specifics.

For example, those who argue for and against capital punishment cite their mainstream religious doctrines.

By the time of writing our founding documents, they knew of the English Civil War, whereby Cromwell's puritans battled the monarchy's Anglican forces, and won.

And we had our own experiences in the colonies, with puritans, scarlett letters, witch trials, etc.

[musiclady]

You can be moral without being religious.  You can also be religious and be quite amoral.

Absolutely true on both counts.

And beside the point, I think..... 

[Bigun]

http://www.free2pray.info/5founderquotes.html

http://www.beliefnet.com/resourcelib/docs/115/Message_from_John_Adams_to_the_Officers_of_the_First_Brigade_1.html

[olde north church]

Absolutely true on both counts.

And beside the point, I think.....

Being of my background, I draw wisdom from "The Godfather" trilogy.  This reminded me of a scene:

The water surrounds the pebble in the stream but does not permeate.

[musiclady]

Being of my background, I draw wisdom from "The Godfather" trilogy.  This reminded me of a scene:

The water surrounds the pebble in the stream but does not permeate.

Is that anything like "go to the mattresses" or "Take the gun.  Leave the cannoli." ??

(Just teasing, onc, cause I really don't know what you mean by your quote, and I'm just stalling for time...   ^-^)

[olde north church]

Is that anything like "go to the mattresses" or "Take the gun.  Leave the cannoli." ??

(Just teasing, onc, cause I really don't know what you mean by your quote, and I'm just stalling for time...   ^-^)

Christianity, like the water, surrounded the kingdoms and people, like the pebble, but didn't permeate.  It had no effect.

[olde north church]

Is that anything like "go to the mattresses" or "Take the gun.  Leave the cannoli." ??

(Just teasing, onc, cause I really don't know what you mean by your quote, and I'm just stalling for time...   ^-^)

see if this makes sense:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCsGyOogC5E

[musiclady]

Christianity, like the water, surrounded the kingdoms and people, like the pebble, but didn't permeate.  It had no effect.

I see it as almost the polar opposite.  True Christianity is Christ IN the people, living in them, speaking to them, changing their behavior.  It is when real Christianity gets messed up with "kingdoms".....government and political power...... that it gets distorted and wrong-headed.

Christianity, as lived out by true Christ-followers, has to do with humility and service, not power.

It's been around since Christ lived on the earth, but it got buried when Governments used it as a weapon against each other.  That's part of what the Founders wanted to prevent.  So our government was based on the principles of Judeo-Christianity....it's laws, justice, equality, morality.... but took religious power out of the hands of the government and put it into the hands of the people (whom they knew had to be moral to make it work).

There are many examples of the principles of religion in our Constitution, but perhaps the most important is the balance of power.  Our Founders understood the human condition, and the problem of sin, so they safe-guarded the people against the government by spreading the power out through three branches of government.

And that principle......... separation of powers based on the problem of sin....... may be the only thing that saves us from the sins of Barack Obama.