In addition, merely saying “we are a free country now!” does not make you a free country any more than me saying I am a potato makes me one. This country had to fight for its independence. After that, we were a free country. Before that we were rebels. The DoI was us saying “Give us ours”. The Bill of Rights was us saying “Here’s what we’re going to do with ours now that we have it.”
That the country’s independence was stated in the Declaration of Independence is what’s commemorated on Independence Day–kind of obvious, don’t you think–but that’s got naught to do with what the current form of the country’s government is. The current form of the country’s government is based on the Constitution. Therefore, July 4th is called “Independence Day” and not “Constitution Day.”
Nobody’s arguing that the country wasn’t founded on the aforementioned principles. What they’re arguing is that it’s misleading to state as the bilgers/glurgers/liars are wont to do, “The country was founded on Christian principles and therefore it’s a Christian country.” The principles very well may be described as Christian principles using sense #3 of the definition I quoted earlier, but that by no means makes it a religiously Christian principle.
Also, the country was definitely founded with the Declaration of Independence, not partially founded. Well, you could say partially founded with the document itself and the rest of the founding done by those who fought to make it stick.
BTW, it’s pursuit.
Actually, Monty, I don’t think I would be upset if a LDS president said, “God”. I think the only way I would be upset is if he went around saying negative things about my beliefs, being a political leader and all.
I think he would be entitled to believe whatever he wants to believe.
I guess It’s kind of hard to answer that question because:
A) I have never been in that situation
and
B) I don’t let what other people believe disrupt my life.
I think the key is being grounded in what you believe, and having a strong hold on your family and what you teach them. Anything anyone else has to say should not effect you or your family.
Iampunha, I don not know the exact numbers, that is why I used the words (just an example).
In all the things I have read and heard so far, there are many more instances of bashing than their are supporting.
It’s late, but I am sure I’ll be back
nite
I was talking with Kal the other day and he sent me a link to this article which talks about the role religion has played in American life. I thought it might be relevant to this debate.
CJ
LDS is too easy. How would you like a president who constantly talked about the Earth Mother or prayed loudly to Vishnu and asked you to pray to Vishnu too? How about a president who cast Wiccan spells during the State of the Union Address to protect us from terrorism? How about a president who constantly said “there is no God, so don’t waste your time on prayer?” What GWB does with his smug religious grandstanding is no more appropriate than those things.
Jersey & Diogenese:
The reason why I stipulated an LDS candidate is because it’s happened (well, almost) in very recent memory–the governor (IIRC) of Michigan was considering running for the Presidency & because the extreme Fundamentalists deny that the deity of the LDS is the deity of Christianity.
BTW, not the current governor.
The only Michigan Governor-LDS connection that I can recall was George Romney who shot himself in the foot so early in the campaign by claiming he’d been “brainwashed” about Vietnam, that his faith never became an issue.
OTOH, there was no “Christian” backlash in Michigan at that time and (with hoopla over that papist Kennedy only five years gone) I do not recall any complaints from other parts of the country at that time about Romney’s faith. Of course, that was a bit more than ten years prior to the ascendancy of the Religious Right, so he might have faced more calumny had he run in the 1980 campaign than he did in the 1968 campaign.
**Jersey_Diamond wrote:
Freyr, I don’t have a need to label this country as a Christian nation. I have a problem with people labeling it as a non Christian nation. Why is there a need for either?
What makes me upset is the need people have for taking away things that have always been, because all of a sudden someone is “enlighened”. **
It sounds more like some Christians are afraid of losing their hegemony and realizing they have to share their position in society.
I think the real issue here is not so much that the US is a Christian nation or not but the ignorance being used to substantiate that claim.
All of the cites quoted [to show that the US is a Christian nation]have been shown to be distortions of the actual situation or out and out fabrications.
Nowhere does this say that slavery is good. It simply gives advice. It’s a comment on what to do in a situation one finds one’s self in. It is not a condemnation or commendation of that situation.
I think you’re possibly missing the point of Bush’s religious remarks. I don’t believe that they’re strictly an invocation of personal religious feelings. Rather, they are more a way of giving comfort to much of the nation. As it is currently, a vast number of Americans find comfort in prayer. If it is the president’s job to provide comfort to the nation after a tragedy, why shouldn’t he talk about prayer? To cast Wiccan spells or to deny God’s existence in a time of tragedy would not only not be politically expedient, but would end up not comforting much of the population, which is what such comments are supposed to do. If I were president, and the rest of the country were Buddhist, I would probably tell folks to meditate in my national addresses. It wouldn’t be an expression of my personal beliefs, but it sure might provide comfort, which is what I would set out to do.
Don’t blame Bush for trying to comfort the nation the best he knows how. It’s not smug religious grandstanding. He sincerely believes that this is the best way for him to do his job.
Fair enough. We agree then. This country was founded on Christian/Buddhist/Muslim/Jewish/Any-Philosophy-Worth-Its-Weight-In-Salt principles, but is decidedly not a “Christian Nation” as such.
I thought that this word came from the Latin per, meaning “through,” that it would be spelled differently. I never was a good speller.
—Actually, Monty, I don’t think I would be upset if a LDS president said, “God”.—
That’s never the tricky issue. The tricky issue is the President saying something that is expressly denied by your own theology: for instance, God interceding when your religion doesn’t believe that God intercedes. The problem with Bush’s comments is not just that they invoke God, but that they ask Americans to invoke God in a particular way with a particular implicit theology. It’s the same problem with officially led prayer in schools. Many “non-denominational” prayers that were used still reference theological concepts, like the Trinity, that not everyone believes.
Let me use the most difficult example imaginable, so you can see the extremes to which this idea must go: the Reverend Phelps, who recently had a rant about how Bush’s religious statements on the fate of the Columbia astronauts deny the truth, and are “fagjunk” lies. We all, I’m sure, despise his theology, his belief that the Bible is a book of hate. But why is he due any less religious liberty than the rest of us? Who gave the President the authority to tell the country what God thinks and does, even when Phelps’ beliefs are a tiny minority?
—If it is the president’s job to provide comfort to the nation after a tragedy, why shouldn’t he talk about prayer?—
Because no one elected him pope. We have our own religious sources to comfort and advise us, freely chosen by ourselves rather than foisted upon us by electoral politics. The whole point of separation is not that religion is wrong, but that government and government officials have absolutely no more authority over it than a bum on a street corner.
—To cast Wiccan spells or to deny God’s existence in a time of tragedy would not only not be politically expedient, but would end up not comforting much of the population, which is what such comments are supposed to do.—
So, the national religion is whatever the majority happens to be? Same problem, again, as official school prayer: I’m sure that sounds well and good when you are in the majority and get to tell everyone else what to think. But what if Jehovah’s witnesses migrate in en masse and start dictating prayers based on their beliefs? Muslims? Again, the whole point of separation is that the religious beliefs of individuals are not open to democratic vote.
Just to be a wordy loser, let me quote Madison again, from M & R., cited above:
"We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man’s right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority.
Because Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body [and presumably the Executive by the same measure -Apos]. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: it is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents.
The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to defend the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves."
This passage, obviously, is speaking of legislation, which is a different and more concrete example: but the same principles are still relevant here in a moral sense. The spirit here is that religious exempt from politics. The President is our political leader, not our religious leader.
What scares me is that, more and more, we have come to associate our lives with the state. Nothing is “real” unless it is approved of or acknowledged by the state. Nothing is exempt from its authority. The whole idea of explicitly derived and limited grants of power from the people to the government is being lost, in favor of a government that must claim authority over everything, must BE the nation, the only game in town.
—Don’t blame Bush for trying to comfort the nation the best he knows how. It’s not smug religious grandstanding.—
Do you know this? Do you know why a politician says the things they say? Might they not have an ulterior motive? Constituients to please? Can’t you think of reasons other than honest piety that, for instance, his administration arranged a quaint photo-op of Bush praying with his Cabinet, timed to be released ont he front page just before he made a decision on stem cells that enraged religious leaders?
This is exactly what Madison feared: not even the proven fact of it, but even just the hint of it.
Sure. Absolutely. However, should he be mentioning his faith and emphasizing that others use their same J-C religious beliefs (and mentioning no other possible ones) as incessantly as he is? “God bless us, and God bless America … pray for them, pray for their families” etc. He isn’t the nation’s caregiver. He’s their CEO, of sorts (or something). When was the last time you heard of a CEO or other high-ranking corporate exec emphasizing religious beliefs at a meeting, especially a televised one?
Believe what you want? Sure. Push it on everyone else? Not so much, IMHO. If I were president (which I really doubt will ever happen), you can bloody well bet I wouldn’t be talking so much about my religion because … wait for it … it’s a personal issue either between me and the deity/ies of my beliefs or between me and myself (in the case of an atheist or agnostic). There is absolutely no need to mention it in a govt-sanctioned event.
Here’s another question for you. Let us suppose that a government leader of some sort (senate, congress, whatever) publicly stated a belief that the Bible did not prove God/Jesus’ existence? Would that anger/offend you, or what? Because our current leader says thing, religiously that I don’t necessarily agree with, and I know I am not the only one who feels that way.
Do you let what others believe, if it is put forth in a rational, straightforward matter, influence what you believe? Reason I ask is that your B) statement looks a bit like “I don’t accept what someone else says if I disagree with it, no matter how well it’s presented”.0
Right, but here’s the thing. If you’re going to use that as anything like a valid figure, you need to either show evidence for it or say “this is just a hypothetical number I picked at random”, rather than “just an example”, which intimates that it is based at least partially in fact, rather than your opinion.
Would you like to back that up with a cite or two? Given the information you’ve brought in about ACLU cases and how others have responded to the untruths therein (not saying they are your fault … different agencies cast different spins on things, as you have certainly seen before:)), it is possible that your view is at least partially biased in favcor of those sources you most frequent.
Jersey Diamond, His4Ever (if you’re reading this), just to give you an example of how our perceptions can differ from reality based on what we’re told, in my first post in this thread, I was prepared to throw in how Wiccanss have lost custody of their children simply because they are Wiccan. As I mentioned, I’ve got some ties to the local Pagan community, and a few months ago, there was quite a lot of talk about at least one person that had happened to. This being GD, I went looking for cites. I couldn’t find any, at least not from any respectable Wiccan websites, and that’s what I limited my search to. I saw several good sites about how child custody affects Wiccans, and several pages with state laws and rulings. The problem was, none of those rulings went against the Wiccan parent. So much for that argument!
A few weeks ago, december started a thread asking why feminists were silent on the way women were treated in Afghanistan. He was rather soundly told they weren’t, but he hadn’t been seeing evidence of that in his sources, so he believed they were.
Hope this helps,
CJ
Considering that in most elections less than one-eighth of those eligible to vote actually do so, I’d call this a step forward!
Apos, I agree that Bush is using Christianity for “smug religious grandstanding.” Unfortunately, that isn’t against the law.
It also does not endear him to those who aren’t Christian. Given how close the last election is, that does not seem as intelligent as one might hope, especially as we are soon going to kick into re-election campaigns.
Monty, If he makes tea illegal, he’s outta there!
—Apos, I agree that Bush is using Christianity for “smug religious grandstanding.” Unfortunately, that isn’t against the law.—
I agree, it’s not in the slightest against the law. It’s not until he makes laws.
What surprises me is that many religious people don’t agree that there is a problem with such attitudes from Presidents. Many people DO seem to consider Bush as being someone who’s religious are, by position, more important than any ordinary citizen. And that’s scary.
Why did Bush I proudly recount how his first act AS PRESIDENT was to pray? Who gave that office that authority? No one. Bush, the man, has a DUTY to pray, a duty to his conscience and his god. But Bush, the President, exists only to serve a explicitly granted and limited function on behalf of the people. The function of prayer is the people’s function, exclusively. To voilate that harms no one in a substantive way, but it does belie a very dangerous attitude, a lack of concern for the limited nature of the authority of government offices: an attitude that is then often bourne out in proposed and passed legislation, both in religious and other matters.
But then, according to that particular President, I’m not really a citizen, so what does MY opinion matter? 
Or Madison’s opinion, for that matter?