So, you don't want Huckabee to have a passion to love his neighbor and provide for those who are "least" as the Bible and Christ mandates?

 

Or you just don't want him to use his faith in the areas that you disagree with Christians?

 

Cause I see a Bible that calls on Christians to "love our neighbor" and "pray for our enemies." I think that is a pretty good foundation for a politician. Sorry, you don't.

 

I said I didn't want him basing policy on a certain interpretation of prophesy. Loving your neighbor and praying for your enemies is fine. But when you have the religious right in this country actively trying to bring about the "rapture" by trying in influence prophesy then that's a problem. I grew up in a southern baptist church. I was a youth leader and my dad is a deacon. I know first hand that many southern baptists have a certain belief about the end-times, and I want to be sure that if Huckabee has those beliefs, he isn't going to use them as a guide to policy.

I said I didn't want him basing policy on a certain interpretation of prophesy. Loving your neighbor and praying for your enemies is fine. But when you have the religious right in this country actively trying to bring about the "rapture" by trying in influence prophesy then that's a problem. I grew up in a southern baptist church. I was a youth leader and my dad is a deacon. I know first hand that many southern baptists have a certain belief about the end-times, and I want to be sure that if Huckabee has those beliefs, he isn't going to use them as a guide to policy.

 

The religious right is not and CANNOT bring about the rapture. God will do that, if there is such a thing as a rapture, when God wants to do it.

Yes, I know that. But do you know what some on the religious right are wanting to do? How's the idea of tearing down the dome of the rock sound? Great if you want a huge war. I want to know that our country and its leaders will not be swayed by crackpots anymore than it already has.

Perhaps a closer re-reading of the Declaration of Independence is in order; particularly that part about how men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights or the part about Nature's God. While it was a radical departure from history to establish a government that derived its power from the people, the Declaration of Independence clearly establishes the power of the people as being subordinate to God. Otherwise those rights would not be "inalienable rights". The rights of men do not come from goverment, but from their very nature as men, a creation of God. Your comments seem to imply that by establishing the goverment that they did they were rejecting or atleast ignoring Christian heritage. It is quite the contrary. It was their Christian heritage that made them place such a high value on the individual and that men had rights derived from God.

 

I do agree with you that they did not mention Jesus, Christianity or the Bible. However, you are wrong when you state that they do not mention God. In fact, they mention God in the very first sentence. What is also very clear in reading the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Father refer to God using the most generic terms. They used these terms to be as inclusive as possible and is clearly an indication of the value they placed in religious toleration. IMHO, the Founding Fathers were clearly allowing for a range religious beliefs, not just Christian religous beliefs but it was their Christian beliefs that led them to be so tolerant.

 

The bolded is the point of my previous post. At that point in time, allowing for various religious belifs would not be allowed in a Christian nation. Now that does not mean that Christanity, or being a Christian meant nothing. The Constitution guarentees that if you would like to be a Christian, or the opposite of a Christian, it holds no weight on you according to Constitutional law.

 

DISCLAMER: The following in no way means to diminish or insult the Decleration of Independence or the Fourth of July.

 

The Constitution is vastly more important to our foundations of a Country now. In fact, the Decleration of Independence and the Constitution encompass two different American Spirits. The Decleration- Spirit of 1776, or a Spirit of Liberty. The Constitution- Spirit of 1787, or a Spirit of Order. No one can be sent to prison based on any law, nor be guarenteed any right written in the Decleration of Independence. Only those laws or rights that have force are of the Constitution.

Yes, I know that. But do you know what some on the religious right are wanting to do? How's the idea of tearing down the dome of the rock sound? Great if you want a huge war. I want to know that our country and its leaders will not be swayed by crackpots anymore than it already has.

 

There are a whole litany of crackpots on the other end of the spectrum too. Equally worried about them?

 

 

And again, I state confidently that Mike Huckabee will not have any say in the matter of when God decides to bring us to the end of times.

Just curious: Where does is the phrase "seperation of church and state" found in the constition?

Just curious: Where does is the phrase "seperation of church and state" found in the constition?

 

It ain't. I think Jefferson mentioned it in a letter to someone or something.

Just curious: Where does is the phrase "seperation of church and state" found in the constition?

 

Of corse the quote, "seperation of church and state" does not apper verbatum in the Constitution. It apperaed in a lettter to a Religious minority- The Danbury Baptists, Jefferson wrote later on. Remember that Jefferson did not write the Constitution as some people believe.

 

The Constitution contains the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment. Through time and Court interpretation, it means the something similar to "seperation of church and state" but in fact is much stronger that that IMO.

Jefferson:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

 

Madison used the term as well.

If low inflation, low interest rates, low unemployment, and steady GDP growth is a bad economy give me a bad economy!

 

Come down to the Mill towns and factory communities and I will show you the Bad Economy. Between NAFTA and Free Trade Act, we have decimated the small towns of America whose labor force was the sweat behind the industrial movement.

 

Of course I hold Clinton as much and in some ways more responsible than Bush because he signed the deals.

It ain't. I think Jefferson mentioned it in a letter to someone or something.

 

 

It was a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1806. He was applauding the leadership of Baptists as pioneers of Religious Liberty and together they had created a hedge or wall of seperation between the state and the church.

Perhaps a closer re-reading of the Declaration of Independence is in order; particularly that part about how men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights or the part about Nature's God. While it was a radical departure from history to establish a government that derived its power from the people, the Declaration of Independence clearly establishes the power of the people as being subordinate to God. Otherwise those rights would not be "inalienable rights". The rights of men do not come from goverment, but from their very nature as men, a creation of God. Your comments seem to imply that by establishing the goverment that they did they were rejecting or atleast ignoring Christian heritage. It is quite the contrary. It was their Christian heritage that made them place such a high value on the individual and that men had rights derived from God.

 

I do agree with you that they did not mention Jesus, Christianity or the Bible. However, you are wrong when you state that they do not mention God. In fact, they mention God in the very first sentence. What is also very clear in reading the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Father refer to God using the most generic terms. They used these terms to be as inclusive as possible and is clearly an indication of the value they placed in religious toleration. IMHO, the Founding Fathers were clearly allowing for a range religious beliefs, not just Christian religous beliefs but it was their Christian beliefs that led them to be so tolerant.

 

 

It is wrong to assume that the term God used by Jefferson in the Declaration is the same meaning as the term we would probably see and use today. Hear me out please. Jefferson and many were Deists. They might have believed in a God, even a creating God, but God was not a savior or one who intervened in the history of mankind once creation had occurred. Many of the Founding Fathers would be hard pressed to present evidence of a Christian Belief as Evangelicals now profess.

Here are some interesting quotes...

 

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." - George Washington

 

"It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." - Patrick Henry

 

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains." - Patrick Henry

 

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We've staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity...to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." - James Madison

 

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? They are not to be violated but with His wrath?" - Thomas Jefferson

 

"Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavours to renovate the age by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity...and leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system." - Samuel Adams

 

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

 

 

 

Enjoy! :thumb:

Here are some interesting quotes...

 

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." - George Washington

 

"It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." - Patrick Henry

 

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains." - Patrick Henry

 

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We've staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity...to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." - James Madison

 

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? They are not to be violated but with His wrath?" - Thomas Jefferson

 

"Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavours to renovate the age by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity...and leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system." - Samuel Adams

 

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

 

 

 

Enjoy! :thumb:

 

 

 

I'll respond more later (time crunch right now) but one thing to point out is the evangelical concept of God today versus then is different. Washington's quote, while true (I think) is from a President who openly refused communion in his post war years. Read the diaries of his Anglican Parish Minister. Washington would openly leave at communion (a saving event in Anglican theology) and did not attend with great regularity.

It was a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1806. He was applauding the leadership of Baptists as pioneers of Religious Liberty and together they had created a hedge or wall of seperation between the state and the church.

 

The founders of our country fled religious persecution from state/national churches. IMO, it's not a real stretch to think that what they wanted to prevent was not single individuals in government offices from being guided by their own religious convictions, but rather the establishment of a single church/denomination from becoming the "national" church, and thus putting them back in the same boat. It wasn't just the threat of a single religion, like Christianity, but the threat of a single denomination (Catholic, Baptist, or whatever) becoming the national church and thus persecuting not only non-Christian religions, but also Christian denominations different than themselves.

 

I think the context and primary meaning of this statement has been lost and twisted to fit a cause completely different from it's original intent. But, that's just my take and I could be wrong.