Capitol Hill Blue Forums Life and Moral Issues Religion and Philosophy Is America a Christian Nation?

When I was a child we visited the Island where the Statue of Liberty was placed and we spent a day (my Grandfather and I) discussing the words written on that beautiful statue from our French friends.

The New Colossus
"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

This poem was written by Emma Lazarus as a tribute to the Russian Jews who were nearly exterminated at the time and this was how she interpreted “Libery” in America. This came to my mind after watching the History Channel show the history of our own Liberty Lady.

There is no cross anywhere near the statue. There is no Christian icon to be seen anywhere. This illusion that our founders were Christians is a folly as many of them knew no other God than Jesus Christ. I have often thought that our founders were bigots and felt they spoke for all Americans who would be entering the golden door; but did they really?

It took the masses entering America to square away the folly that slaves and women were excused from voting. Are we living in a nation today that far too many claim is a Christian nation? We can live in a free nation or a Christian nation, we cannot have both.

My ancestors were those wretched refuse who came to America to experience the first freedoms they ever knew in Scotland and England and it did not matter if they were Christians or heathens.

what does christian nation mean?

It means that our Federal laws should reflect the New Testament. It is the basis for repealing Roe v Wade and keeping same sex people from marrying. It is also the basis for prohibiting the final choice of how Americans can die. It means that only Christians need to apply as candidates for federal public offices. It means bringing Intelligent Design into the public schools. It also means one must be a Christian to belong to the Arizona Republican Party. If one is a Jew, the commitment to follow the new testament is a requirement.

You have read some of our debates on natural rights and for some reason Evangelicals cannot understand why everything we should not do is not a part of the Federal Consitution. Our candidates at one debate were asked if they believed in evolution? See where this leads? Many of our founders were Christians but it should not mean that only Christians should be respected. It is the reason our current President wants unlimited Mexicans to be brought in illegally if necessary as they are Catholics and will breed more Christians.

It makes it very uncomfortable for those of us who are not Christians and see our freedoms in a different light.

"christian nation" means laws based on the interpretations of biblical injunctions by a person or department, preferably cabinet level, whose entire purpose is to ensure that our nations laws and practices are in alignment with god's plans. This is not any different than Iran's system, but the top deciders will be christian rather than muslim.

"Christian Nation". You forgot the capital letters. Our Nation is special, just as Christ is special, and we as Christians living in our special Nation have to fulfill our Blessed destiny to keep it special.

When we pursue our Christian duties to love our fellow man and proclaim the Blessings of Christ to the world, we ensure the salvation of our individual souls. When we take those Blessed priorities into politics, and harness the power of the state to the Blessings of Christ, we ensure the salvation of our Christian Nation. When our Nation is saved, it will reign eternally here on earth just as Christ reigns eternally in heaven. For the sake of our Blessed American children, we do this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Beech, do you not recognize that America is a Constitutional Republic and not based on God's laws. If it did, we would have arguments as to whether the Sabbath is on a Saturday or Sunday. Do we then prohibit all blood transfusions as the Jehovah's Witnesses demand? Or do we stay out of the religious nonsense and and simply allow the individuals to celebrate their own God, on their own day, in any damn way they want? When Christians get some power in the government, all hell breaks loose. This okay with you? The whole thing comes down to the simply a question of when does life begin? The Christians say at conception and others say at birth.

Look at how our government currently looks at the unborn. They are not legal until they are born. They are not counted in the census and cannot inherit wealth until they are born. These laws were not written last week but have been on the books for 200 plus years. It has been a Christian force to divide up all Americans into color (which is now illegal) and sex (which is now illegal) and when life begins.

These questions have been in the religious scheme of things for many years. In reading "The Source" by Michener, some of the old senior Rabbis held a meeting to discuss these issues and after 400 years came up with only one law. No women were to be allowed in the Temples during certain ceremonies. Nowhere did indiviual freedoms even get debated. Are we heading there?

I can see America under men like Romney, Huckabee and Tancredo who all profess to be Christians who do not believe in evolution. Does this sound good to you? Do you want your women back in the kitchen without a vote or even a choice of family size? Sure some men like their women silent and stupid and I feel there are a few of them here. Should we end up aborting the girls before they are born? Or do we place them back where they are nothing but brood mares?

Should we test before birth of any homosexual changes im the fetus and abort before these gays are born? I guess the question is, how much government do you want?

I am clearly in the minority here and have been for yearly 10 years and maybe it is because I fear the power of Christian men.

Show me why Christians can't have God in their homes, churches and private schools? No one wants to close a church but give a Christian a dime's worth of power and look out! It speads like wildfire in the community. Remember the prohibitions that the religous right tried to instill on the American people. Would you feel safer if abortions were done in Mexico, or gays could marry in Mexico or people going to Mexico to die with dignity? If this keep growing, Mexico will be the free state for all of us to move to. I'm so disgusted with America and the hypocrisy I would move their in a minute. I fought for women's rights for years in America only to see the Christians try to remove them. I fought for Gay rights in America only to see the Christian try to make them all second class citizens. I'm on the Board of Directors of Death with Dignity fighting for the right to allow people to die as they wish. Christians tell us "Put a bullet in your mouth" but many do not want to be remembered with half our faces missing. Dat aint dignified!!!

If I simply packed up and moved to Mexico I would feel that I let down my sisters and my gay friends. I will probably continue fighting for these natural rights until I take my last breath.

I warned hundreds of people here at CHB not to vote for Bush as his agenda is to take us all into the end of times so we can die as Christians. He isn't finished yet. What better way to kill us all together by nuking Iran and waiting for the return action. That's because he is a devout Christian with only one item on his plate. Are you with him Beech? I have only a few days left here before I take off on a new adventure. I've been offered a writing job but I have to fight for my subjects.

If my articles fail, I probably will come back here to see how everyone is voting on the issues. I'm hoping to be out of politics as soon as possible because I live in a different world than others. I live where natural rights are all there is to life. I'm hoping this new assignment will envelope me and I can find others who think as I do and can teach me the many things I have not yet understood.

Remember Beech, I'm an old lady and need time to think before the brain dissolves. Do I know you from another forum? I get the impression this is not our first encounter.

Is Irked channeling again?

Beechhouse please. I am not a tree. Similarity is not identity, although you might remember me as "Five" from this forum in the past. Lost the password, easier to start over.

I do not personally believe that america is a Christian Nation, but I think that those who espouse that cause see it in the terms I stated.

On the unborn, I think that birth is the best division point for legal determination of existence. Color is a silly thing to obsess over. Sex has some utility to have on record.

Whatever made you think I owned any women? I am related to some, married to another, and know many. They are all fully existent human beings deserving of and having equal human rights where social norms and the legal system permit.

When THE GAY GENE is identified, that whole orientation selection question will become worth considering. Not yet.

I cannot control the Christians' desires to remake the world to their specifications. I do not agree with that desire, and oppose it where it impinges too greatly to ignore. It appears they impinge more on you than on me. Death with dignity is a worthy cause that I have much sympathy for.

I wish I could tell you with certainty that I did not vote for the current occupant of the whitehouse, but I cannot. We have electronic voting machines here, and there is simply no way to know who my vote was recorded for.

Enjoy your next adventure. Mine is to visit TN, MN, and ND next week. Wish me luck finding excitement on the high plains.

I believe that he was indulging in a bit of satire.

AFAIK, there is nothing in law that prevents a testator from including as heirs those not yet born. Do you have a specific state/federal legal citation saying that you cannot?

Michener's The Source (1965) is an historical novel, not a scholarly work of religion or religious history. The scenario you refer to is from Chapter 14, "The Saintly Men of Safed", and describes how rabbis and students gathered to debate the points of Levitic law and how they applied to daily life and new events; Note: After their expulsion from Europe, many Jews indeed gathered at Safed and conducted these inquiries that covered several centuries.

The question of women in the Temple would have been moot at both the time in the novel and in the real world - the 15th and 16th centuries - because the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in the 1st century. Additionally, the secondary status of women had already been long established in Levitic law.

Individual freedoms would hardly have been the subject of inquiry of a rabbinical court or schule except where religious matters impacted on an individuals duties and responsibilities toward the community.

That practice has been prevalent in the PRC for some years now, and it has resulted in a tremendous shortage of women in certain age groups - making it difficult for men in the linked marriageable age group to find wives and setting the scence for further tension in that society.

Should an individual be able to perform genetic screening at her own discretion, for any rerason, and then decide to abort, for any reason?

Ron's Quote:

"Should an individual be able to perform genetic screening at her own discretion, for any rerason, and then decide to abort, for any reason? "
_________________________

Yes if the woman discovers she is married to a homophobe. Those guys at R.M. would probably kill any child of theirs who was gay. Ron, it would not bother me in the least. But a woman is only the carton a baby comes in and the rest of the family must be considered. In America we see many men who have walked out on their families leaving who knows what in their wake. Sadly women of America are raising the family. We must respect their choices.

When every American citizen has equal rights, I will shut up and stay home. Who would you fight with if I did that?

I wrote nothing you could criticize above. I know about testators speaking for the unborn but that is not what I wrote. My point was and is that the Federal Government has no business in our social lives and certainly not get involved if we smoke. I figured you would not want the government interfering in our social issues but I am never certain. I don't even know how Christian you are. I assumed you would respect the Separation of Church and State....But I have been wrong before and you will always point it out.

I've been battling with the Senator for years over whether America is a Christian Nation and thought it would be a good idea to get other's opinions. Do you have one?