American founded to be free, not secular

This is a great article - very well written
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America founded to be free, not secular
By Dennis Prager
Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Contrary to what you learned at college, America from its inception has been a religious country, and was designed to be one.

As the greatest foreign observer of America, the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, noted in his "Democracy in America," "Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power." Or, as the great British historian Paul Johnson has just written: "In [George] Washington's eyes, at least, America was in no sense a secular state," and "the American Revolution was in essence the political and military expression of a religious movement."

In fact, the Founders regarded America as a Second Israel, in Abraham Lincoln's words, the "Almost Chosen" People. This self-identification was so deep that Thomas Jefferson, today often described as not even a Christian, wanted the seal of the United States to depict the Jews leaving Egypt at the splitting of the sea. Just as the Jews left Egypt, Americans left Europe.

There has been a concerted, and successful, attempt over the last generations to depict America as always having been a secular country and many of its Founders as deists, a term misleadingly defined as irreligious people who believed in an impersonal god.

It is also argued that the values that animated the founding of America were the values of the secular Enlightenment, not those of the Bible -- even for most of the Founders who were religious Christians.

This new version of American history reminds me of the old Soviet dissident joke: "In the Soviet Union, the future is known; it's the past that is always changing."

Once almost universally acknowledged to be founded by religious men whose values were grounded in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, the average college graduate is now ignorant of the religious bases of this society, and certain that it was founded to be, and has always been, a secular society that happens to have many individual Christians living in it.

That explains the attempts by activists to erase whatever public vestiges of religiosity remain -- any cross on a county or city seal, the replacement of "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays," the Supreme Court's rulings against school prayer even of the most non-denominational type, etc.

This country was founded overwhelmingly by men and women steeped in the Bible. Their moral values emanated from the Bible, and they regarded liberty as possible only if understood as given by God. That is why the Liberty Bell's inscription is from the Old Testament, and why Thomas Jefferson, the allegedly non-religious deist, wrote (as carved into the Jefferson Memorial): "God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?"

The evidence is overwhelming that the Founders were religious people who wanted a religious country that enshrined liberty for all its citizens, including those of different religions and those of no faith. But our educational institutions, especially the universities, are populated almost exclusively by secular individuals and books who seek to cast America's past and present in their image.

Are we a Judeo-Christian country with liberty for people of every, and of no, faith? Or are we a secular country that happens to have within it a large number of individuals who hold Judeo-Christian values?

If you are undecided which side to fight for, perhaps this will help: Western Europe has already become a secular society with secular values. If you think Western Europe is a better place than America and that it has a robust future, you should be working to remove Judeo-Christian influence from American life. On the other hand, if you look at Europe and see a continent adrift, with no identity and no strong values beyond economic equality and possessing little capacity to identify evil, let alone a will to fight it, then you need to start fighting against the secularization of America.

Or, if you think that the university, the most secular American institution, is largely a place where wisdom, character and a discerning ability to distinguish between right and wrong prevail, you should be working to remove Judeo-Christian values from American life. But if you believe that the university is largely a place of moral foolishness, then you need to start worrying about the secularization of America.

If America abandons its Judeo-Christian values basis and the central role of the Jewish and Christian Bibles, its founders' guiding text, we are all in big trouble, including, most especially, America's non-Christians. Just ask the Jews of secular Europe.

I hear Croutons typing up his retort. Sit tight.

A great article and so true. In God We Trust. Always have from the beginning.

:lol

If you like evil, be European.

Once again Chump, you are one. They are converting churches in Europe to
apartments and selling them because no one supports them anymore.

Is that what you want over here?

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

:lol

If you like evil, be European.

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How did you get that out of the article?

Well, it's hard to argue with such a well-sourced column from a writer as reputable as this one.

So what does this really mean?

What legislation is this calling for?

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

So what does this really mean?

What legislation is this calling for?

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None, it's an opinion piece.

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

:lol

If you like evil, be European.

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Still though, how did you get this out of the "opinion piece"?

I read it.

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

I read it.

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Admit it, your statement has no validity.

You got it from the following and you read the article so quick you didn't take any time to think about it. You saw "evil" and "Europe" in the same sentence and you immediately jumped to a false conclusion. Nowhere in this article does it state that Europeans like evil. You tried to twist the author's writing into making it something it isn't. It's no big deal, just admit it.

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On the other hand, if you look at Europe and see a continent adrift, with no identity and no strong values beyond economic equality and possessing little capacity to identify evil, let alone a will to fight it

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Nah, it's the conclusion I drew. You are free to argue it, but why bother? You won't change my mind.

*yawn*

And you can't ID an exaggeration when you see one, js, and just want to start an internets fight.

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

Nah, it's the conclusion I drew. You are free to argue it, but why bother? You won't change my mind.

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I understand different people drawing different conclusions to arguments posted on this site (God knows many of us are living proof of this), but come on man, nowhere in the article does it even sort of say that Europeans like evil. That's just totally false and inaccurate.

Just admit that you didn't take the time to fully understand what the author is trying to say and you most likely skimmed the article.

For God's sake man, practice what you preach and take accountability for your actions.

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

And you can't ID an exaggeration when you see one, js, and just want to start an internets fight.

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Don't make this about something it's not. I'm pointing out that your comprehension of the article is totally off base. Something that you would certainly do to me as well.

:lmao

If you like evil, take everything deadly seriously.

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

:lmao

If you like evil, take everything deadly seriously.

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Having trouble admitting it? This is like when you catch a little kid in a lie and he just keeps lying to cover up the original lie.

I think a better summary of the article is:

"America was founded as a religious nation because I say so."

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Originally Posted by johnsmith

Having trouble admitting it? This is like when you catch a little kid in a lie and he just keeps lying to cover up the original lie.

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:lmao :lmao :lmao

I stand by my original statement as a ridiculous response to a ridiculous thread.

You are a superdouche for taking it all so seriously.

You really like evil, don't you?

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Originally Posted by Spurminator

I think a better summary of the article is:

"America was founded as a religious nation because I say so."

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I thought it was "Americans should be American."

http://www.bartcop.com/mission-accomplished.jpg

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

:lmao :lmao :lmao

I stand by my original statement as a ridiculous response to a ridiculous thread.

You are a superdouche for taking it all so seriously.

You really like evil, don't you?

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Bad news chief, inflection doesn't come across well via an internet chat board. When you type something stupid then it comes off as stupid, not sarcastic.

Having said that, I don't think you were joking, I think that's really what you got out of the article and it directly reflects your ability, or lack thereof, to comprehend what you read.

Or maybe you are now so far "left" that anything written that is slightly "right", you just immediately dismiss it.

You are no better then Boutons.

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Bad news chief, inflection doesn't come across well via an internet chat board.

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Hence the :lol emoticon.

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Having said that, I don't think you were joking

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Think whatever you want. You're wrong.

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Or maybe you are now so far "left" that anything written that is slightly "right", you just immediately dismiss it.

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I immediately dismiss anything Crookshanks posts because there is usually nothing to them. Just like this thread.

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You are no better then Boutons.

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Oh fucking whaaa. Stop your whining, superdouche.

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

Hence the :lol emoticon.

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First of all, you use the emoticon thing on 99% of your posts, so that's out.

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Think whatever you want. You're wrong.

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Second, no, I'm right and you hate admitting it.

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I immediately dismiss anything Crookshanks posts because there is usually nothing to them. Just like this thread.

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Third, so you did just dismiss the article and didn't read it well enough to come up with a valid point, therefore reinforcing my second point.

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Oh fucking whaaa. Stop your whining, superdouche.

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Fourth, "Stop your whining, superdouche".............good one :rolleyes

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See, that's how you properly use an emoticon.