Re: Re[2]: [Biofuel] Our Godless Constitution
If you'll notice, the exception that I took was to the absolutism that you expressed. The Founding Fathers were not religious men, This bit is absolutely false. The problem I have with your reply is not with you, but with letting others, whether those others be contemporary society or Webster's dictionary for that matter, control my world and conception of reality by controlling the language. Well? Just exactly how do you propose that humans communicate if there aren't some ground rules and consistencies, such as definitions? Websters isn't exactly the same fount of mis-understanding as Rush Limbrain, Tom Reed, Bill O'Really, Haley Barber, Donald Rumsfeld, et al, who conveniently alter their definitions on the turn of a dime to suit their ends. Surely the proposal wouldn't be to discontinue the use of relatively static definitions and throw the doors open to whatever interpretation anyone wants to offer at any given second. Would it? From Websters New World, Third College Edition: religious - adjective - 1) characterized by adherence to religion or a religion; devout; pious; godly. 2) of, concerned with, appropriate to, or teaching religion. 3) belonging to a community of monk, nuns, etc. 4) conscientiously exact; careful; scrupulous Only line item one of these definitions is applicable relative to the founding fathers' personal dispositions toward religion(s), with the operable words being adherence. and religion. While most of these gentlemen acknowledged that there was almost surely something bigger than they, and by and large held to the principal tenants of healthy human behavior found in the doctrines of many religions, none of them appear to have exhibited adherance to religion in any other fashion than it held occassionally (or perhaps more frequently) to be constructive in societal stability and the development of individual character. adhere - intransitive verb - 1) to stick fast; stay attached. 2) to stay firm in supporting or approving Take a look again at the definitions. Then take a look at Brooke Allen's statement. The founding fathers certainly valued the rights of others to adhere to their doctrine/dogma of choice. They were firm in a belief that religions held value in society. They were equally as adherant to the belief that no people or person of any religion(s) should ever possess the right from a podium of national influence to disenfranchise others of their right to pursue differing spiritual beliefs, or any lack of spiritual belifs for that matter. That's not to say that anyone of any religious persuasion should not hold office, only that the office should not be used to pillory and/or subjugate any person or people. These were not pious, necessarily devout or godly men. Certainly they were reasonably intelligent, well aware of the inevitable chaos of permitting either church or state to achieve authority or superiority over the other. Couple that with their personal biographies and you have a collective of men who certainly weren't thrilled in the slightest with religion from the sectarian perspective, nor what the zeal of sectarian pursuit can do to the offense of human kind. And while they appeared to hold respect for the better principles of religions in general, none of them appear to have adhered to any religion in specific - unless, perhaps, attending Sunday service at the same church two weekends in a row constitutes adherance. What could be said is that these men may have been spiritually inclined or perhaps adherant, but by definition it's a far reach to declare that they were religious. Todd Swearingen - Original Message - From: Gustl Steiner-Zehender [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Appal Energy [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 6:56 AM Subject: Re[2]: [Biofuel] Our Godless Constitution Hallo Todd, (Sorry this is so late. I have been out of town and unwell.) Tuesday, 15 February, 2005, 10:56:35, you wrote: If you will notice you will see that I took no exception with the essay aside from this: The Founding Fathers were not religious men, This bit is absolutely false. The problem I have with your reply is not with you, but with letting others, whether those others be contemporary society or Webster's dictionary for that matter, control my world and conception of reality by controlling the language. We give up enough control of our own lives as it is without allowing the few to mainpulate the many through our respective languages whether the few happen to be political, economic, religious or any other kind of authorities. What you are describing below is organized religion not religion itself. A deist is still a religious person whether they are part of an organized group or sit alone in a cave in a mountain. The concern of the founding fathers was with ones personal liberty and freedom and that folks not be required
RE: Re[2]: [Biofuel] Our Godless Constitution
So, based on these sources, a christian is one who believes in christ. One is technically not a christian if they don't believe in jesus. Thats not ment to be offensive, just a definition. To be technically correct a Christian is one who believes Christ was the son of God. Muslims believe in Christ but only as a Christian prophet. Chris. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 14/02/2005 ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
RE: Re[2]: [Biofuel] Our Godless Constitution
Chris, On Friday, February 18, 2005 6:28 AM, Chris Lloyd wrote: So, based on these sources, a christian is one who believes in christ. From: Chris Lloyd One is technically not a christian if they don't believe in jesus. Thats not ment to be offensive, just a definition. To be technically correct a Christian is one who believes Christ was the son of God. Muslims believe in Christ but only as a Christian prophet. Chris, I believe that jesus christ existed. But I don't believe in the miracle of resurrection or that he was the son of god (or even that he was a profit). Therefore, I'm not a christian just as muslims are not christians. I think its presumed that to say that if one believes in jesus one generally believes in the teachings of the new testament. But, I'm not clear on what you are saying. So, the question to you is, do muslims believe jesus was the son of god? (I'm guessing no... just a profit... but I have no idea). ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
RE: Re[2]: [Biofuel] Our Godless Constitution
So, the question to you is, do muslims believe jesus was the son of god? No just another Jewish prophet, I should not have written Christian prophet. Chris. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 14/02/2005 ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re[2]: [Biofuel] Our Godless Constitution
Hallo Todd, (Sorry this is so late. I have been out of town and unwell.) Tuesday, 15 February, 2005, 10:56:35, you wrote: If you will notice you will see that I took no exception with the essay aside from this: The Founding Fathers were not religious men, This bit is absolutely false. The problem I have with your reply is not with you, but with letting others, whether those others be contemporary society or Webster's dictionary for that matter, control my world and conception of reality by controlling the language. We give up enough control of our own lives as it is without allowing the few to mainpulate the many through our respective languages whether the few happen to be political, economic, religious or any other kind of authorities. What you are describing below is organized religion not religion itself. A deist is still a religious person whether they are part of an organized group or sit alone in a cave in a mountain. The concern of the founding fathers was with ones personal liberty and freedom and that folks not be required by the state to believe or disbelieve one way or the other by anyone particularly the state. They didn't want a state church established. Their intent was very clear and and obvious and was clearly stated. We have allowed partisan interests with what I would consider extreme and unreasonable views to manipulate us into this situation to further their own agendas and to assert their will in order to control the rest of us. If we are going to allow others who are unreasonable to define and control us then we are going to have to accept that a blowjob isn't sex, an outright lie is a failure of intel, that allowing private banks to collect interest called the nationl debt on money that neither exists nor has anything of worth to back it is in the best interests of people (fractional banking), and that there is such a thing as a good war. Religion comes from the inside out and although worship may be corporate and beliefs shared, religion is personal and subjective. Anything else may have name and form but it lacks substance. Creed and sectarianism not religion. They don't teach religion in the seminaries and theological schools they teach their own partisan apprehension of religion. That doesn't make it genuine or valid. But anyway, to say that the founding fathers were not religious men is just patently absurd. Some were some weren't. What they definitely were is not willing to have what the believed or didn't believe shoved down their throats and they weren't willing to shove it down others throats either. Seems to me they were relatively reasonable men unlike today. We don't seem to have evolved enough to be reasonable folks. I would imagine that suits Big Brother just fine because then he can step in and make the rules and define our words and lives for us because we are too stupid to learn to get along with one another and resolve our differences reasonably and peacefully. Leben und leben lassen. Jeder spinnt anders. Happy Happy, Gustl AE Gustl, AE I don't think you'd find it as false a claim as you might think if you apply AE the generally accepted, contemporary, rough translation of religion and AE religious to the matter. Even if you strictly applied the definitions AE found in Websters, you would quickly see that they don't stick very well to AE those who don't adhere to the extremes of worship and systemized ritual. AE Their beliefs were by-and-large all encompassing, incorporating AE fundamental tenants found in almost all religions, not specifically the AE tenants and doctrines of any one religion. AE When you combine their almost unanimous acknowledgements of diety with their AE discord for organized religion, its constructs and decripitudes, you would AE probably come up with a more precise akin to 'The founding fathers were AE deists, not men of religion,' which the author does go to great lengths to AE verify. AE All in all his statement is to a very large degree correct. And, as you may AE have noticed, it certainly gets the dander up for some, eh? AE :-) AE Quite the nicely written and well thought out piece of work - far more AE accurate than the habitual abuse of historic fact for the purpose of AE idealogical gain being rendered by the self-appointed elitists of the day. AE Todd Swearingen AE - Original Message - AE From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AE To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AE Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 10:17 AM AE Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Our Godless Constitution On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 18:38:52 -0800 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (knoton) wrote: Our Godless Constitution by BROOKE ALLEN [from the February 21, 2005 issue] The Founding Fathers were not religious men, This bit is absolutely false. What our founding fathers were were religious men who knew the importance of
Re: Re[2]: [Biofuel] Our Godless Constitution
Hi Gustl, There is a little known fact about the founding fathers that might shed some additional light as to whether or not they were religious. Thirteen signers of the constitution were Freemasons. In order to be a member of the fraternity, you need to declare your faith in God. You do not have to subscribe to a particular religion. But, you must be monotheistic. http://www.freemasonry.org/psoc/masonicmyths.htm Mike P.S. Maybe we're related. My Grandmother's last name is Rombach-Steiner. She's an Emmentaler. ...any relatives in Switzerland? :-) Gustl Steiner-Zehender [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hallo Todd, (Sorry this is so late. I have been out of town and unwell.) Tuesday, 15 February, 2005, 10:56:35, you wrote: If you will notice you will see that I took no exception with the essay aside from this: The Founding Fathers were not religious men, This bit is absolutely false. The problem I have with your reply is not with you, but with letting others, whether those others be contemporary society or Webster's dictionary for that matter, control my world and conception of reality by controlling the language. We give up enough control of our own lives as it is without allowing the few to mainpulate the many through our respective languages whether the few happen to be political, economic, religious or any other kind of authorities. What you are describing below is organized religion not religion itself. A deist is still a religious person whether they are part of an organized group or sit alone in a cave in a mountain. The concern of the founding fathers was with ones personal liberty and freedom and that folks not be required by the state to believe or disbelieve one way or the other by anyone particularly the state. They didn't want a state church established. Their intent was very clear and and obvious and was clearly stated. We have allowed partisan interests with what I would consider extreme and unreasonable views to manipulate us into this situation to further their own agendas and to assert their will in order to control the rest of us. If we are going to allow others who are unreasonable to define and control us then we are going to have to accept that a blowjob isn't sex, an outright lie is a failure of intel, that allowing private banks to collect interest called the nationl debt on money that neither exists nor has anything of worth to back it is in the best interests of people (fractional banking), and that there is such a thing as a good war. Religion comes from the inside out and although worship may be corporate and beliefs shared, religion is personal and subjective. Anything else may have name and form but it lacks substance. Creed and sectarianism not religion. They don't teach religion in the seminaries and theological schools they teach their own partisan apprehension of religion. That doesn't make it genuine or valid. But anyway, to say that the founding fathers were not religious men is just patently absurd. Some were some weren't. What they definitely were is not willing to have what the believed or didn't believe shoved down their throats and they weren't willing to shove it down others throats either. Seems to me they were relatively reasonable men unlike today. We don't seem to have evolved enough to be reasonable folks. I would imagine that suits Big Brother just fine because then he can step in and make the rules and define our words and lives for us because we are too stupid to learn to get along with one another and resolve our differences reasonably and peacefully. Leben und leben lassen. Jeder spinnt anders. Happy Happy, Gustl AE Gustl, AE I don't think you'd find it as false a claim as you might think if you apply AE the generally accepted, contemporary, rough translation of religion and AE religious to the matter. Even if you strictly applied the definitions AE found in Websters, you would quickly see that they don't stick very well to AE those who don't adhere to the extremes of worship and systemized ritual. AE Their beliefs were by-and-large all encompassing, incorporating AE fundamental tenants found in almost all religions, not specifically the AE tenants and doctrines of any one religion. AE When you combine their almost unanimous acknowledgements of diety with their AE discord for organized religion, its constructs and decripitudes, you would AE probably come up with a more precise akin to 'The founding fathers were AE deists, not men of religion,' which the author does go to great lengths to AE verify. AE All in all his statement is to a very large degree correct. And, as you may AE have noticed, it certainly gets the dander up for some, eh? AE :-) AE Quite the nicely written and well thought out piece of work - far more AE accurate than the habitual abuse of historic fact for the purpose of AE idealogical gain being rendered by the self-appointed elitists of the day. AE Todd Swearingen AE - Original
Re: Re[2]: [Biofuel] Our Godless Constitution
Hi Gustl, ... Thirteen signers of the constitution were Freemasons. In order to be a member of the fraternity, you need to declare your faith in God. You do not have to subscribe to a particular religion. But, you must be monotheistic. http://www.freemasonry.org/psoc/masonicmyths.htm Mike Lets look at what the first article (Allen's article) stated: First, it implied that the founders were NOT religious (hook). Then, it pointed out that the bulk of them believed in god but didn't necessarily endorse christ to the extent that say, Pat Roberston does. Then, it detailed information regarding founders such as Franklyn and Paine. I think the author was trying, in earnest, to separate the concept of christianity from the documents used to define the creation of a sovereign nation. To presume god and jesus are the same is a christian belief. I think its difficult for many christians to comprehend that others don't hold this belief; just as its difficult for many to comprehend that god and Ala are also not the same. So it stands to reason that Bush claims to be a christian (albiet a hypocritical one) and as such he is giving his opinion that the cretion of the USA was based on christianity because he believes any mention of god is also a mention of jesus christ. And its my belief, like many, that Bush is trying to push his set of beliefs into the government in order to fit the agenda of his followers (not the least of which think they too can talk to god). Well, I can talk to god and I'm giving him an ear full of what I think of this nonsense. I'll report back as soon as I get a reply. regards, dave ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: Re[2]: [Biofuel] Our Godless Constitution
Mike Gustl I politely take exception to a couple of comments: I think its difficult for many Christians to comprehend that others don't hold this belief; just as its difficult for many to comprehend that god and Ala are also not the same. My first response to this was that you are referring to many Christians as ignorant without any way to justify the argument. I think that this is a bit presumptuous -- especially since many of the Christians I knew from church as a boy (Mom was into taking us to church sometimes) questioned the role of Jesus in the bible and had no faith whatsoever in the trinity. Mike first: Its hard to prove such statements. But its not an ignorant point of view... its based on perspective. I can say, with 100% accuracy that all of the christians I know personally believe that god and jesus are 3 entities (sorry, just had to do it ;). Check my email address if you think my exposure is limited. Further, it's a christian tenant that jesus and god are/were the same. My statement is to be taken at face value. I take the definition of christian to be one who believes in christ. The 2 links below sums it up well in talking about god and jesus. So, based on these sources, a christian is one who believes in christ. One is technically not a christian if they don't believe in jesus. Thats not ment to be offensive, just a definition. http://christianity.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID1000|CHID74|CIID1537642,00.html Christianity came to regard Jesus as in some sense God's presence in human form. This was unacceptable to most Jews. (http://geneva.rutgers.edu/src/christianity/major.html) Typically my proof is in a simple question, What if jesus isn't lord. If they answer something like, But he is lord, the bible says so then I know that this person does not have the ability to even consider that a reference to god isn't also a reference to jesus. Try it out on people you don't know and see if you get a better than 50% hit rate (provided they claim to be christian). If not I'll amend my claim to some christians (though, Pat Robertson and his followers are definitly on the list). Gustl, After re-reading the text I do see that Allen did indeed say they wern't religious. Though, I take it as a contridiction in her writing in that she (as we know know) says they are deists. I missed it, but she makes the claim that if your not christian your not religious... and I know a few jewish people who are very religious and definitly not christian. But her point still stands in that the documents and rhetoric for the founding of my country is not based on the teachings of jesus christ and the new testament. And we are all in agreement that Bush himself doesn't run the country as if its based on christiantiy (espically when you look at Bush's love of war and the death penalty and Matthew 5:38-48) -dave ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re[2]: [Biofuel] Our Godless Constitution
Hallo Robert, Thursday, 17 February, 2005, 15:46:06, you wrote: rlr Gustl Steiner-Zehender wrote: Hallo Dave, No, Allen specifically states that the founders were not religious men. I quoted that in my first mail to Todd and that was my only beef with the article. It is patently false. Where he is right he is right and where he is wrong he is wrong and he was wrong in that statement. rlr Sorry to butt into your discussion, Gustl, but the author was a rlr woman. Brooke Allen has an axe to grind, and you're right about her rlr errors. No, not at all. Mistakes need to be corrected and I appreciate you pointing out mine. rlr However, she does make some excellent points. The rlr contemporary tendency to view America's founding fathers as rlr evangelical, dispensationalist believing, born again Bible thumpers rlr is the perspective she tried to counter. Yes, she does make some excellent point which is why I confined my initial comment to her false assertion. And it should be countered, but with accuracy. No good in grinding on an axe where it doesn't need to be ground. Happy Happy, Gustl -- Je mehr wir haben, desto mehr fordert Gott von uns. Mitglied-Team AMIGA ICQ: 22211253-Gustli The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters Es gibt Wahrheiten, die so sehr auf der Stra§e liegen, da§ sie gerade deshalb von der gewhnlichen Welt nicht gesehen oder wenigstens nicht erkannt werden. Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music. George Carlin The best portion of a good man's life - His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. William Wordsworth ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
