By popular demand

[GC]

This was originaly written as a response to the quoted comment in the other thread but since that one is long in the tooth and has several tangents, I decided to use it to kick off another one.

Since the hue and cry has went up for me to engage the debate, I'll try it.

Lets see how many real answers I get, and how many snide remarks about "not knowing about logic" or spelling errors or some such.
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I thought we were debating over about the religious leanings of the founders? When did placing God in the Constitution come into this?

Ask GC. He came in here claiming that the nation is based upon the Christian religion, and even tried to present various authorities in order to bolster this position. Only after having it soundly defeated did he suddenly start pretending that he was talking about something else.

And when did the influence of the Church come into this? I know I haven't and I haven't seen someone talk about what an influence the organized religions of the time had on the founders, so i really don't see the point of your responce. Feel free to clarify.

The lack of influence of the Church means that the Founding Fathers were either irreligious or were able to keep religious influences completely out of the Constitution. Either scenario means that the Founding Fathers were secularists, which is the only fact under dispute.

100% of these "founding fathers" arguments stem from the widespread claim that they did not really support separation of church and state, and if you concede that they DID, in fact, fully support separation of church and state, then I don't give a damn what they believed.

Ahhhhhh.....

NOW we get some MEAT to chew on, after all the silly finger pointing:

YOU list of quotes (not your's personnaly, but on your board) have the express purpose of demonstrating that the seperation of church and state is proveable by looking at the words of the men who wrote them. If that is not the purpose for it, then there is no reason to quote them.
That particualr post reads, in part:

As the quotes on this page illustrate, the claim that America was founded on Christianity is a myth...Many of the Founding Fathers and Revolutionary War leaders were Deists, and upheld a firm separation of church and state.

So, in the first paragraph, he makes the claim that his quotes illustrate his claim that they upheld the Seperation of Church and state.

So your own boardie is doing what you accused me of doing, trying to prove his point with private quotes.

I completely agree that private quotes - his or mine - do not prove by themselves either that they did or did not support seperation. I further agree that they DID - and I do support seperation.

But see, you proceed from a false assumption...that I CLAIMED in my post that the U.S. government was founded on christianity or any other religion.

Here's the complete text of MY WORDS in my original post:

Absolutly!

Here's some more!
<snip>
And, for a more exaustivly researched and throughly documented opinion than either yours or mine, consider this Supreme Court decision which was based on YEARS of research:

SCOTUS Decision in 1892:
<snip>
What?

Not what you had in mind?

Aw, shucks....

kindly direct me to which of those statemtns made the claim that the U.S. government was founded on Christianity.

Riiiiight.

Now, here's my next comment (on the subject):

But that, you see, is what demonstrates an actual concept of history...the Supreme Court put there staff to work researching every extant public and privte utterance on the subject made for well over 300 years - and they took YEARS to do it to make sure they got it all - and reached a conclusion.

you, OTOH, read what someother skeptic wrote on a web site.

Who's credibilty should really be doubted here?

And the next:

The most popular thread here (that you all begged to have stuck at the top) is:
a list of various quote.

THIS, you find very informative and can't wait to use on unsuspecting opponents.

SO, your list of various quotes is refuted by a list of various quotes, and all of a suden "various quotes" isn't athoritative?

And the next:

You will note my quotes are from both public and privte sources, ofen from letters exchanged between two of these fellows. No reason for a facade in those situations.

and the next:

You were perfectly willing to accept, and even praise, a list of non-governmental privte quotes when they supported your position.

Oh, and for the record, I'm not arguing that America is OFFICIALY a Christian nation, or that it ever was.

My point are two:

1. That you can prove either side with a list of quotes. My list was no more conclusive than the one which started this thread - and no LESS so.

2. America WAS, and largely is though at an ever declining rate, a Christian nation - not governmentally or officially but CULTURALY.

The official position of the First amendment has no bearing on the nature of the overwhelming cultural reality.

and the next:

But why oh why would two athiest, communicating in private corispondence maintain this facade you aledge to each other?

And the next:

It is possible to be antagonistic to the trappings and results of orginized religion - especially the track record of said religion through Jefferson's day - and not be opposed to the Book and it's contents. Jefferson clearly respected the later and hated the former. It's a not uncommon position

Still not seeing the post where I claimed the U.S. government was based on religion.

the ONLY way you can come to that conclusion is if, having assumned YOUR quotes about their religious beliefs proved that it wasn't, you PRESUMED my quotes about their beliefs was an attempt to prove it WAS.

But I did not make that claim.
I do not in fact think it was "based on Christianity."
I believe it is clear that is was framed bty Christians - strong believing Christians - who could not help but have framed it in light of their worldview. The presumptions upon which they based their lives and actions were those of Christians and they would have found it impossible to think in any other way.
It is also blatantly clear that THEIR meaning of "seperation of church and state" is not the modern definition given the many overtly Christian acts that took place as official government policy authorized by those who wrote the First Amendment.

My qoutes, as I've said, were designed to refute the notion that those men who signed the Constitution whose words we have available to us were hostile to Christianity. Any serious consideration of their writings and words must conclude that they were not. Jefferson was but he was no party to the Constitution.
(Franklin too was not a Christian but found it an agreeable desireable thing to have around - even to the point of moving for prayer at the ConConvention).

Proving those men were Christians does not and was never intended to prove they set up a Christian Government.

And I never said that.
You've been tilting at windmills of your own imagination for 3 days now.
And condeming me for reasoning which I did not put forth but which your own heroic provider of quotes did put forth.

Oh, BTW, Raul did not share with you these facts so allow me:

Your list of quotes contained 29 references to remarks made by early Americans.
20 of those were by Jefferson, Paine, and Allen none of whom had a hand in the framing of the Constitution.

Mine contained 75 quotes, over 50 of which were by men why had a hand in framing the Constitution.

Your 9 had 2 which were sourced to private communication (i.e. your claim that they were different in private from the false facade of Christianity they had to maintain in public)

My 50+ relevant quotes contained fourteen such private references.

Now, concerning your 10:
------------------
RE: "These 20 times..."
Here's the entire quote which gives proper context:

[Adams is telling Jefferson about an arguement between Joseph Cleverly and Lemuel Bryant]:

Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not ft to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell.

John Adams, Works of John Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1856), Vol. X, p. 254

So, you guys have been decived by a person with an agenda who took half of a quote and turned the obvious meaning on it's head.
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RE: "carloads of trumpery"

It has been demonstrated that M-Webster reports that the first "recorded English useage" was some 60 years after the quote. Whether you take those words to mean "the first reference found on record in English" or "the first apperance in the dictionary" is mostly irrelevant since words in common useage (as they would have had to have been for Adams' useage to not be suspact) do not take 60 years to be listed in the athoritative dictionaires of the day.
And people in Adams position considered it beneath then to use common slang - many of them avoided even contractions - and so even common useage would not be conclusive proof.
Also, why was someone bemoaning a great deal of something say "carriage-loads" instead of "wagon-loads" or "shiploads" or "mountains" or any of a thousand other words which would have better conveyed his meaning?

Now, beyond that, if I were to GIVE you "carloads" and not dispute the useage, there is still not one whisper in that quote dealing with religions relationship to government. Furthermore, why would a man why has no use for Biblical religion expend such great effort to decry the misapplication of the Bible to religious practice?

The CLEAR context of the quote is a bemoaning of the practices of Christian ceremony (creeds, oaths et al) being divergent from the Bible.
Do you, as an athiest, routenly defend the Bible from misaplication?

The quote is:
A. likely bogus
B. Irrelevant to Adams' opinion of the relationship between government and religion
C. a pretty clear indication he respected Biblical religion.
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RE:
“The Doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.”

As a Fundie Christian, I'd like to say: He's right.
Note he did not say that the doctrine itself was absurd. He had a perfect oppertunity to say so but he didn't. He said it was misapplied to cover something it had nothing to do with.
Similarly, if I said of Benny Hinn "The Doctrine of Divine healing is made a cover for greed" I have not denounced the concept of miraculus healings, I have denounced it's misaplication.

Again, this is not likely to be done by one who dismisses the entire religion.
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RE: "without a pretence of miracle or mystery"

This is the closest you get on the whole list.
But what does he say?
"founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery"

So, we are speaking of athority...who was the "athority" in the Old World?
The King. Who was supposedly there by "Divine Right."
Clearly the "miracle or mystery" to which Adams refered.

Obviously he says that these governments have made no pretense of Divinly appointed leadership.
And, of course, he's right.
But that implies only his opinion of the current state of the government of the 13, NOT that he himself is hostile to religion.
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RE: the MRARA:
Madison reflects on the problems of officialy established Christian churches (almost entirely the Catholic Church, BTW, since most of those 15 centuries was their exclusive province)
In this opinion I FULLY AGREE.
Yet I'm not "hostile to religion."
All one need to do is look at the Pre-Reformation track record of the CC to know that the #1 worst thing to ever happen to Christianity is that it became the official church.
Why do I say this?
Because under official religion, everyone is required to be a member and ogviously requiring a public "conversion" does nothing to affect behavior. So what you have is an entire continent of people soiling the name "Christian" while very few of them actually had a faith-relationship with Christ.
But I digress a bit.
So, was Madison "hostile to religion in this document?
From the same document we read:

"Before any man can be considered a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe."

{which I inadvertantly listed under Jefferson}
OBVIOUSLY not.
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RE: "Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

Agreed.
Again, it is not necessary to be a non-Christian or in any way antagonistic towards religion to hold this position.
----------------
RE: Two references from Franklin's autobiography:

Public declerations of his Deism which in no way reflect his views on church/state seperation.

If one wishes to prove he was a Diest, that is generally accepted (although he and Jefferson both made many remarks which implied the expected God's intervention in human affairs which is a belief contrary to classic Deism).
If one wishes to indicate by this that Franklin disaproved of religious influance on government, one is misrepresenting facts.

Especially in light of these remarks made AT THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION:

"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God Governs the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?

"We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that "except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel

THIS is a Diest?
Not by the dictionary definition it's not.
I doubt he was a orthodox Christian but he was far closer to that than anything else - especially an athies or one hostile to religion.
THIS man who believed that the nation could not even get off the ground without God's assistance was in favor of banning all aknowledgement of god from the public square?

The very idea is nonsensical.
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Finally, since I know it is coming, the Famous Treaty of Tipoli.
Signed into Law by John Adams and passed by largely the same Congress that passed the First Amendment.
Would you like to know what else was passed by the EXACT same Congress which passed the First?
The Northwest Ordinences, which specificly stated that religion and morality being necessary...schools shall be encourged"
They authorized Chaplins for the military and the Congress.
They authorized the prnting of bibles at government expense repeatedly.
They held Sunday worship service IN THE HOUSE CHAMBERS.
Jefferson was, as president, also in charge of the DC schools for which he authorized two texts: Watt's Hymnal, and the BIBLE.

THESE are men who had the same opinion of Seperation as do the ACLU, the PAW, and AUSCS?
OBVIOUSLY not.

As far as the treaty goes, if you want to argue that this one line is a representation of their thinking over against all the masses of acts which they took which had the purpose of advancing the Christian religion, be my guest. But the position isn't tenable.
1. It is possible to honestly say that "the government is not in any sense based on Christianity" and not deny that it was a government constructed by men with a Christian worldview, populated by almost exclusivly Christians, and one which acted repeatedly in the intrest of the Christian religion.
2. It is possible, and in fact happens all the time, that when a treaty is signed, the party most anxious for peace agrees to "fuzzy" language which get's the treaty signed. Israel and the PLO are constantly signing treaties that both can be accused of not following or ever having had any intention of following.
If that Congress - and Adams - thought that this fledgling nation less than a decade old with no real warships in it's possesion needed to let the Deys of Tripoli and Algiers THINK they were not a Christian nation...especially with the promise of millions of dollars in "gifts" (read: tribute) already having been extorted, then any thinking man would not hesitate to allow this bit of weasel wording.
3. Since the common understanding of a government being founded on religion in the 18th century was a nation which had an official state religion (i.e. Mohanadism in Tripoli, Catholicism in Italy, or Anglicanism in England) it was, in THAT context, a perfectly valid statement.
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Was the U.S. Government founded on Christianity?
Absolutely positivly NOT.

Were the framers of our system of Government Christians?
Almost to a man, YES.

Was their worldview and understanding of the world Christian?
Yep.

Did they intend to found a government which involved itself not at all in religion and which was not influanced at all by Christianity?

How could anyone examine their official acts and conclude this to be so?

If one examines prime source historical documents from the charter granted to Columbus the the Constitutions of all the states you find over and over again expressions of a Christian purpose in their actions.

It is an inarguable historical fact that these things are so.

This does NOT make the government "founded on Christianity" but it does make the country a "Christian nation" in many, many ways.
The cultural assumptions of the vast majority of men who had any influance at all in the forming of the government or the operation of it for at least the first century were those of christians.

NOW, if you wish to argue that these were primitive men and we have moved beyond their quaint respect for Christianity into a more mature country which no longer ought dirty its hands with any trappings of religion, well, that is certainly a valid case to make. You can probably support that contention with whole "carloads" of evidence.

But to claim that the Foiunders were not on record in their own words both publicly and privately - with VERY few exceptions and only two prominent ones - as being proffesing Christians is simply an untenable position.
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To reiterate one last time in summery:

You CANNOT demonstrate where I claimed on this board or any other that the U.S. Government is founded on christianity which you speriously claim I have.

I did and do claim that those who had a hand n founding our country were almost universaly Christians and only two prominent ones were openly hostile to the Bible (Allen and Paine) and only one prominent one to the Christian church (Jefferson).

Your poster with the cribbed list of quotes did and does claim the demonstrate hsotility towards Christianity (which they don't in most cases) that they are relevant (which 2/3 of them are not) and that they infer that they were seperationist (which is a fallicy for all the relevant quotes except Madison's)

Your claim of a public facade of Christianity and a private attitude of skepticism is discredited by repeated private expressions of faith including but not limited diary entries and the fact that none of the private quotes provided bear up under scrutiny as being authentic beyond question and in context for those men quoted who had any hand in framing the Constitution.

Now, since you have been crying for three days for me to come back and debate you rationaly, here's your chance:

1. Prove I SAID (not "implied" which is just a short way of saying "I read it into your words") that the U.S. Government was founded on the Christian religion.

2. Prove that your poster was not trying to use a similar tactic (though far more poorly executed) to prove that it was not (which according to your comments about me post is a falliacy).

3. Explain how people hostile to religion could provide me with, 200 or more years later, over 50 quotes obtainable in one evening of research which shows them to be highly enamored of it, both in public and in private (including even in their diaries).

4. Explain how these same people who wanted,according to the popular myth, no connection at all between Christianity and the government acted so often in the furtherance of Christianity.

5. Prove with credible scources that there was a dicotomy between any of these men's public and private professions. Those who disbelieved - Paine, Allen (neither important founders BTW), Franklin and Jefferson - were quite public with their disbelief. No evidence has been provided that any others were unbelivers either in public or in private.

6. Discredit any of my quotes either in terms of context or autenticity or dispute with sound reasoning that they endorse the Christian religion.

Here's your chance.
Impress us all.

[SirNitram]

How amusing. I suggest you look at the thread that is 'long in tooth', and examine my last post in it, where I clearly show that the carload quote is a small misquote(A letter was, at some unknown point, dropped), and I even provide the book reference. Your silly claims that 'carload' invalidate the quote evaporate as quickly as morning dew as soon as you actually do ten seconds of work looking.

But do enjoy yourself GC. I'm sure you'll be very amusing to watch.

[GC]

How amusing. I suggest you look at the thread that is 'long in tooth', and examine my last post in it, where I clearly show that the carload quote is a small misquote(A letter was, at some unknown point, dropped), and I even provide the book reference. Your silly claims that 'carload' invalidate the quote evaporate as quickly as morning dew as soon as you actually do ten seconds of work looking.

But do enjoy yourself GC. I'm sure you'll be very amusing to watch.

Soooo....
We're not of to an auspicious start, are we?
I read your post and my post above provides a refutation of the quote which is not dependent on the car/cart issue.

So right off the bat you challange me on shaky ground.

I await a vaild compaint.

[SirNitram]

How amusing. I suggest you look at the thread that is 'long in tooth', and examine my last post in it, where I clearly show that the carload quote is a small misquote(A letter was, at some unknown point, dropped), and I even provide the book reference. Your silly claims that 'carload' invalidate the quote evaporate as quickly as morning dew as soon as you actually do ten seconds of work looking.

But do enjoy yourself GC. I'm sure you'll be very amusing to watch.

Soooo....
We're not of to an auspicious start, are we?

People as arrogant as you generally don't start well, no. I'm afraid you'll have to get used to it.

I read your post and my post above provides a refutation of the quote which is not dependent on the car/cart issue.

That's an interesting interpretation. Sadly, compared to other Adams' quotes listed here and in a dozen places on the 'net and in a vast selection of books, there is no compelling evidence he was a Christian as you suggest. If there is, I'd love to see it. With bibliographical references, of course.

So right off the bat you challange me on shaky ground.

Obliterating half your complaint because I did a ten second web search is hardly 'shaky', unless you mean the ground around your argument is shaky.

I await a vaild compaint.

I can see this will be used whenever you can dance around the guts of a complaint.

[GC]

Arrogant? Okay. You be the judge.

That's an interesting interpretation. Sadly, compared to other Adams' quotes listed here and in a dozen places on the 'net and in a vast selection of books, there is no compelling evidence he was a Christian as you suggest. If there is, I'd love to see it. With bibliographical references, of course.

Hmm.
1. Comapred to the 10 quotes from Adams on my quote list which are complimentary of religion, from before, during and after his presidency, all in the commonly available places, none of which you have disproven?
2. Bibliographical references like the one's you demanded from the quotes which support your position?

unless you mean the ground around your argument is shaky.

No.
By "shaky" I mean that accounting for the word "carload" does not change the fact that the quote does not prove Adams was hostile to authintic biblical Christianity. Mearly to meaningless religious ceremony - as am I.


So, in all that post the first challange you raise and have the most cofidence in is your dropped "t"

Seems to me that I answered that before you even asked it and it's not me who is dancing.

It's the one who ignores reems of information to concentrate on a point I conceeded as unimportant to my case.

[Darth Wong]

Look! The troll that came here, boasted about his superior skills, ran away like a mewling French baby, trashed us from afar in classic trollish fashion, and gleefully befriended a psychopathic libelous impersonator has come back to repeat himself! Oh goody!

Still not seeing the post where I claimed the U.S. government was based on religion.

Oh really! So when your little Queen posted the SCOTUS decision in 1892 saying, among other things, that "Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law" and you repeatedly appealed to its authority and ridiculed any refusal to bow meekly to its infallibility, you were just kidding around?

The fact of the matter is that you DID try to prove that America is a "Christian nation". Now, you've backpedalled to say that you claimed no such thing.

In any case, you are now trying to prove that most of the Founding Fathers were Christian, although by whose definition of Christianity one cannot say. As a self-professed fundamentalist, your version of Christianity is almost certainly not theirs; even the most pro-Christian analyses of their apparent beliefs lead inexorably to the conclusion that whatever brand of religion they practiced, it did not involve literal interpretation of the Bible. Most of them were contemptuous of "revealed truth", Biblical inerrancy, and many other tenets of your faith such as Original Sin etc.

So what makes them Christian, in the sense that YOU are? The fact that they said nice things about Christianity? Sorry, but you'll have to do better than that. My wife called herself Christian for a long time while her faith declined and withered and eventually died. Near the end, long after she no longer believed in the Bible as literal or even allegorical truth, and long after she had discarded the notion of Heaven and Hell, and long after she had thrown away the Christian scheme of salvation, she would still say that the Christian religion was very beneficial for society (interestingly enough, a similar sentiment to the one expressed in many of your quotes). However, she was most certainly not a Christian at the time. If you quoted her, would you have concluded otherwise?

What does it take to prove that someone is Christian? Logically, the hallmark of a good argument is that one admits upfront what would be required in order to disprove his case. It's easy to rant about what you can do to prove your case, but it takes more courage to state clearly what you would accept as DISPROOF of your case. After all, silence on this matter stems from fear: the fear that someone might come along, meet the demand, and force you to concede. Would you agree with this?

Since I doubt that you will readily define what would disprove your case, I will go first: I am willing to accept that any American founding father was a Christian (at some point in his life, anyway) if you can find a direct quote in which he states clearly that he believes Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that he can find "salvation" from Hell by accepting him as such. This is the basic, generalized definition of what it means to be a Christian, and if you can find such statements, then I will happily agree that the men who spoke them must be Christian. In fact, I'll make things easier by saying that any statement which requires that they MUST believe in Jesus' status and path of salvation is good enough (ie- it does not have to be a direct statement of faith).

Now, what would it take for you to accept that any given individual Founding Father was NOT a Christian?

[GC]

Look! The troll that came here, boasted about his superior skills, ran away like a mewling French baby, trashed us from afar in classic trollish fashion, and gleefully befriended a psychopathic libelous impersonator has come back to repeat himself! Oh goody!

So?
THIS is the highbrow, reasoned, logical debate everyone kept asking me to come back and participate in?

Why am I not suprised.

I'll answer this post and no more from anyone which includes schoolyard namecalling.

Still not seeing the post where I claimed the U.S. government was based on religion.

Oh really! So when your little Queen posted the SCOTUS decision in 1892 saying, among other things, that "Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law" and you repeatedly appealed to its authority and ridiculed any refusal to bow meekly to its infallibility, you were just kidding around?
[/quote]
Almost all the common law in the western world in those days was based on Christian precepts and worldviews. Almost all American law was based on European law.
It's an inescapable fact.
Oh, and BTW, what the Queen may or may not have said is not what I ask you. You quite specificly said that I made the claim, not that I was a friend of one who did.

As to appealing to it's athority, despite your twisted interpretation and aplication of the rules of logic you lean on, the rules (on your own site) specificly state that the "Appeal to Athority" falliacy does not include using the athority to cak up that point which you have already made. That point does not have to be made well or even be correct. The A2A fallicy occurs when the Appeal is standing alone to make the case (according to YOUR rules)
That said, by the REAL rules of logic :

An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:

Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
Person A makes claim C about subject S.
Therefore, C is true.
This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.

There is even less of a fallicy here since the SCOTUS IS a qualified athority on the legal history of the nations government.

So, in light of this information, the SCOTUS opinion stands unrefuted to this point since it is neither a logical fallicy nor has it been found to be in error by a similarly qualified and extensive study.

The fact of the matter is that you DID try to prove that America is a "Christian nation". Now, you've backpedalled to say that you claimed no such thing.

I reiterate: Show me the quote.
Proclaiming something a fact just because you say "The fact is..." is not the high level of reasoning and logic I was led to beliee awaited me here.

In any case, you are now trying to prove that most of the Founding Fathers were Christian, although by whose definition of Christianity one cannot say.

Since you claim they were not at all Christians, what sort of Christians they were is irrelevant to your point.

As a self-professed fundamentalist, your version of Christianity is almost certainly not theirs; even the most pro-Christian analyses of their apparent beliefs lead inexorably to the conclusion that whatever brand of religion they practiced, it did not involve literal interpretation of the Bible. Most of them were contemptuous of "revealed truth", Biblical inerrancy, and many other tenets of your faith such as Original Sin etc.

You'll excuse me if I ask you to back your assertions with evidence.
You would ask no less of me.
And don't bother with Jefferson or Franklin or Paine. Ive already conceded those.

So what makes them Christian, in the sense that YOU are?

Never said they were, thus I have no assertion here to prove.
You, on the other hand have made an assertion for which you offer nothing - yet - more than your opinion.

The fact that they said nice things about Christianity? Sorry, but you'll have to do better than that. My wife called herself Christian for a long time while her faith declined and withered and eventually died. Near the end, long after she no longer believed in the Bible as literal or even allegorical truth, and long after she had discarded the notion of Heaven and Hell, and long after she had thrown away the Christian scheme of salvation, she would still say that the Christian religion was very beneficial for society (interestingly enough, a similar sentiment to the one expressed in many of your quotes). However, she was most certainly not a Christian at the time. If you quoted her, would you have concluded otherwise?

Think is, this is highly conveluted reasoning on many levels.
1. Her subjective experience cannot be extrapolated to anyone else.
2. One could not PROVE from quoting her on those matters that she was NOT a Christian. You'd have to know something more. You and your friends have made the claim that runs counter to accepted beliefs that these men were NOT, thus you need to PROVE the assertion. Your speculation that just because you know people who are not Christians yet speak well of christianity therefore the same thing is hapining with the FF is another falliacy.
If a person is presumed a Christian, as these men are based on public proffesions by themselves and those who knew then, and you wish to challange that, you must offer PROOF, not "well, it's POSSIBLE..." type speculation.

What does it take to prove that someone is Christian? Logically, the hallmark of a good argument is that one admits upfront what would be required in order to disprove his case. It's easy to rant about what you can do to prove your case, but it takes more courage to state clearly what you would accept as DISPROOF of your case. After all, silence on this matter stems from fear: the fear that someone might come along, meet the demand, and force you to concede. Would you agree with this?

Since I doubt that you will readily define what would disprove your case, I will go first: I am willing to accept that any American founding father was a Christian (at some point in his life, anyway) if you can find a direct quote in which he states clearly that he believes Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that he can find "salvation" from Hell by accepting him as such. This is the basic, generalized definition of what it means to be a Christian, and if you can find such statements, then I will happily agree that the men who spoke them must be Christian. In fact, I'll make things easier by saying that any statement which requires that they MUST believe in Jesus' status and path of salvation is good enough (ie- it does not have to be a direct statement of faith).

Now, what would it take for you to accept that any given individual Founding Father was NOT a Christian?

What would DISPROVE my position?
Simple.
A clear strightforward denial of salvation by faith in the sacrifice of Christ.
Feel free to provide all those you can come up with.


I have provided you 50+ examples of positive affermations of Christanity by FFs. Few if any of them touch directly on the subject of salvation, but all confirm a high opinion of it.
Furthermore, since each and every one who was a member of a church made a public proffesion of faith (and contrary to your assertion elsewhere, NO ONE was just "slapped on the rolls" in those days. Some people in Puritan communities went their whole lives trying to prove they were worthy to be church members.

NO ONE joined ANY Christian church in the 18th century without publicly appearing before the congregation to specificly petition membership and in many cases one was "examined" to see if his faith was authentic before being allowed to join.
The fact that they are church members ind of itself a statement of their belief in the doctrine of salvation.

You, on the other hand, have yet to provide even one quote specificly denying those terms of salvation by anyone (besides the noted exceptions I have conceded). Yet it is you who make a claim contrary to generally acepted fact.
The burdun is on you to prove they were not Christans, of whatever sort, not on me.

[Darth Wong]

THIS is the highbrow, reasoned, logical debate everyone kept asking me to come back and participate in?

Why am I not suprised.

I'll answer this post and no more from anyone which includes schoolyard namecalling.

Funny how you cannot refute the actual charges, so you simply lambast the person for making them.

Almost all the common law in the western world in those days was based on Christian precepts and worldviews. Almost all American law was based on European law.
It's an inescapable fact.

Really! OK, use the Bible to derive common law. I would be quite pleased to see how you derive the basic human rights outlined in the declaration of independence, for example.

Oh, and BTW, what the Queen may or may not have said is not what I ask you. You quite specificly said that I made the claim, not that I was a friend of one who did.

Mere sophistry. By defending the claim, you effectively made it your claim.

That said, by the REAL rules of logic :

An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:

Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
Person A makes claim C about subject S.
Therefore, C is true.
This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.

There is even less of a fallicy here since the SCOTUS IS a qualified athority on the legal history of the nations government.

That is the loose form of the appeal to authority. Strictly speaking, the appeal to authority is a fallacy even if the person speaking is a recognized authority. The simple fact is that even an authority can be wrong, and unless the authority is infallible, you cannot prove something simply by showing that the authority says so. Albert Einstein is an authority on physics; does this mean that he must have been correct when he dismissed quantum physics?

So, in light of this information, the SCOTUS opinion stands unrefuted to this point since it is neither a logical fallicy nor has it been found to be in error by a similarly qualified and extensive study.

Unfortunately for you, your web-based study of logic comes up short once again. Better luck next time.

I reiterate: Show me the quote.
Proclaiming something a fact just because you say "The fact is..." is not the high level of reasoning and logic I was led to beliee awaited me here.

Mere sophistry, once again. If you defend an argument, regardless of who originally proposed it, then you are implicitly agreeing with it, hence it becomes your argument.

Since you claim they were not at all Christians, what sort of Christians they were is irrelevant to your point.

Where did I claim that none of the founding fathers were Christians at all? Personally, I don't even care if they were Christians; the point is that the society they created was based on influences other than Christianity: native American democracy, Voltaire, Athens, etc. All attempts to show genuine Christian influence on the structure of the society they created have failed. If they were Christian, they did not show it in their single greatest and most important work.

You'll excuse me if I ask you to back your assertions with evidence.
You would ask no less of me. And don't bother with Jefferson or Franklin or Paine. Ive already conceded those.

A belief is not a default state. Every baby is born atheist, and must be taught to believe specific doctrines. In short, you must establish that they DO believe in something.

Never said they were, thus I have no assertion here to prove.
You, on the other hand have made an assertion for which you offer nothing - yet - more than your opinion.

I state that no proof has been offered to show that they believe in the Christian scheme of salvation from Original Sin, yadda yadda yadda. That remains true, your use of the burden of proof fallacy notwithstanding.

Think is, this is highly conveluted reasoning on many levels.
1. Her subjective experience cannot be extrapolated to anyone else.

Wrong. As a matter of basic logic (you know, that stuff you keep mocking, as if you think it has no place in a debate), A does not prove B if you can show cases where B but not A. I have presented just such a case. Therefore, you cannot use A to prove B. It is not a matter of "extrapolation"; it is a matter of revealing a problem in your logic (a non sequitur, to be more specific).

2. One could not PROVE from quoting her on those matters that she was NOT a Christian. You'd have to know something more.

One does not have to. A belief is a positive state, meaning that it is NOT default and you must establish its presence.

You and your friends have made the claim that runs counter to accepted beliefs that these men were NOT, thus you need to PROVE the assertion.

Appeal to popular belief, eh? Yet another fallacy on your part, I'm afraid.

Your speculation that just because you know people who are not Christians yet speak well of christianity therefore the same thing is hapining with the FF is another falliacy.

Wrong. I only use that example to show how A (positive statements about Christianity) does not necessarily prove B (that the person is a Christian). Therefore, your use of such quotes and such logic is clearly wrong. I do not need to prove that it CANNOT POSSIBLY COEXIST with B; I need only prove that it is not necessarily the case. It's amusing watching you flounder as you attempt to construct arguments with this unfamiliar tool called "logic".

If a person is presumed a Christian, as these men are based on public proffesions by themselves and those who knew then, and you wish to challange that, you must offer PROOF, not "well, it's POSSIBLE..." type speculation.

"presumed a Christian?" Well, I had no idea that presumption is proof! Let me get out my textbooks ... hmmm ... no, it turns out that presumption is not proof. Sorry, try again.

Now, what would it take for you to accept that any given individual Founding Father was NOT a Christian?

What would DISPROVE my position?
Simple.
A clear strightforward denial of salvation by faith in the sacrifice of Christ.
Feel free to provide all those you can come up with.

As expected, you deliberately ask for a more stringent form of proof than I did. Can I say I'm surprised? I asked for either a straightforward statement of faith or any other statement which would imply such faith. You demanded a straightforward DENIAL of faith, with no other possibilities. How typical

The fact that these men all constructed an entire Constitution in concert without even mentioning God, Jesus, Heaven, Hell, salvation, or divine commandments once would, of course, raise eyebrows if one did not demand a deliberately narrow form of evidence. Actions speak louder than words. But as expected, you rose to the challenge by demonstrating your cowardice again, and trying to find a way to answer it in the narrowest possible way.

No construct should be assumed to exist without evidence (that is another logic principle, in case you hadn't guessed, and it even has a formal name). In this case, you claim that almost all of the American founding fathers believe in the entire Christian scheme of salvation through Christ. Moreover, you claim that the common law of the nation is based upon Christianity, and you also claim that it's OK to appeal to authority as evidence rather than making your own case.

I have provided you 50+ examples of positive affermations of Christanity by FFs.

None of which prove your point, due to your faulty logic.

Few if any of them touch directly on the subject of salvation, but all confirm a high opinion of it.

"High opinion of" does not necessarily equal "subscribe to".

Furthermore, since each and every one who was a member of a church made a public proffesion of faith (and contrary to your assertion elsewhere, NO ONE was just "slapped on the rolls" in those days. Some people in Puritan communities went their whole lives trying to prove they were worthy to be church members.

Thanks for proving my point; there was great pressure to conform to societal expectations. All the more reason to kiss the Christian community's butt. However, actions do speak louder than words, and when they made the Constitution, there was no Biblical influence in it. If there is, then feel free to point out which tenets of the Constitution are uniquely Christian.

NO ONE joined ANY Christian church in the 18th century without publicly appearing before the congregation to specificly petition membership and in many cases one was "examined" to see if his faith was authentic before being allowed to join.

The fact that they are church members ind of itself a statement of their belief in the doctrine of salvation.

Abraham Lincoln was a church member, yet he clearly repudiated the Christian faith. Even I am a church member. Try again.

You, on the other hand, have yet to provide even one quote specificly denying those terms of salvation by anyone (besides the noted exceptions I have conceded).

And yet, interestingly enough, by your logic, Thomas Jefferson would be a Christian since he said good things about Christianity on occasion. But since he was one of the few who openly despised Christianity, particularly as he got older, you had no choice but to concede in his case, even though you still turn around and use the same logic to "prove" that other founders were Christian.

Yet it is you who make a claim contrary to generally acepted fact.

Appealing to "common belief" again, eh? I have provided the Constitution as evidence, which is entirely based on human rights. Human rights are not a Christian concept. Look to Voltaire and Locke, not Jesus, if you want to find writings about human rights. Where is the Biblical influence in the Constitution? Why is it based on human rights, not commandments? Were they the sort of Christians who do not allow their beliefs to influence anything they do? I said earlier that any other writing (obviously, one would prefer a prominent writing) which implied Christian salvation would serve the function of evidence.

The Constitution would have performed admirably in this regard ... if there were anything distinctly Christian about it. Public or private statements of faith would do fine as well, particularly since those were not uncommon in that era (or indeed, today among believers). But neither can be found in most cases. And of course, you carefully defined your burden of proof so that failure to demonstrate a belief is not enough; they had to come out and basically say "I DON'T BELIEVE IN THE BIBLE!" in public. I suppose you don't even realize how obviously unreasonable this makes you look. Even today, it is rare for an atheist to publicly state his disbelief.

The burdun is on you to prove they were not Christans, of whatever sort, not on me.

I was waiting to see if you would commit the common mistake of deliberately demanding a very narrowly defined form of evidence, in a blatantly transparent attempt to grant yourself a nigh-unfalsifiable position. Luckily, you did not disappoint, and performed exactly as expected. I guess you never learned about that whole "parsimony" thing, eh?

PS. Nice dodge on the Christian law bit. You defended it from the beginning, you continue to defend it even now, but you didn't START it, so as far as you're concerned, you never said it and we're all liars for saying you did. Do you really think that will fool anybody? I'm curious just how far your propensity for self-delusion goes.

[GC]

Well, at least you've demonstrated a remarkable tendency to repeat yourself:

1. I will not go into a completely academic subject on the Bible and common law. It's as obvious as the clock on the wall. If I ask you to define the Influance "Native American Democracy" (*snicker*) had on American common law i'm sure you'd either say that you don't have to prove it or would trot out a souece I find untrustworthy. Likewise, I'm sure that if i quoted Blackstone or Locke or any other "athority" you'd dispute the scource. So asking for evidence you've already decided to reject just wastes both our time.

2. I defend the claim that common law in 18th century Europe and by extension America was based largely if not almost entirely on Biblical principles. I defend the fact that these men were almost exclusivly Christians, I defend the fact that a recognized athority, applying valid and extensive methodology arrive at a different conclusion than you less recognized, less athoritative, more biased, source did. I defend the principle that it is better to accept a recognized, qualified, athority in the field at hand than an opinion group with an ax to grind.
I do not defend the idea that this country was founded with any theocratic tendencies or state religion. Or any other strawmen you might construct along the way.

3. I note you completely avoided the fact that the definition of "Appeal to Athority" which appears on your board specificly denies that my use of that Decision as a backup to my case is such a falliacy. Are your own rules also wrong?
Further, it is OF COURSE true that an athority might be wrong - the question is, who is MORE LIKELY to be wrong?
Group A: Who's sworn obligation is to render an unbiased judegment on the facts and who, in the intrest of keeping this oath commisioned 5 years of intensive research on ever available extant source to arrive at it and who are recognized as THE preiminent athority on american law by the Constitution itself;
or
Group B: Who has an obvious bias towards reaching a particular conclusion, is not recognized by any except those who hold a similar bias as athoritative, who is selctive in their examination of scources and employs retroactive pscyanalysis to persons dead for almost 200 years to assign motives and thoughts to men in place of evidence and, suprise suprise, reached the conclusion they were seeking.

Since YOUR opinions on the subject are informed by Group B, whether you cite them or not (and they WERE cited in the origninal list of quotes since that material was lifted whole from a web site and was not original in thought or content), we stand on equal footing in regards to having a source beyond our own handywork for our conclusion.
It is not illogical to compare sources and decide reliability. If I want to know who Deep throat is and Bob Woodward gives me one answer and a high school teacher gives me another answer, is it illogical for me to presume the former is a more reliable athority than the latter?

4. Okay:

churches tend to count people as members even if they haven't seen them in ages?

Did you know that there are several churches out there which count ME as a member? I never believed, and I only attended to accompany my wife, but that was enough to put me on the list. And once you get on the list, they never take you off, unless you go there and make a big fuss asking them to take you off (and who's going to bother doing that, since it doesn't cost you anything to be on their list?)

the only reason to say this is to cast doubt that they were Christians. Not specific enough? try this:

if someone professes Christian faith in the presence of bigots and quietly professes contempt for Christianity elsewhere, it means he's not really a Christian.

5. "Default state". Bleh. Sophistry. We are not talking about children here. Each and every one made a public proffesion of belief in Salvation by Christ as a requirement of entrence into the Churchs of which they were members. You can try to make a case that they were lieing, but you cannot say I have shown no evidence that the proffesed that doctrine. It is an accomplished fact.

6. Just to make it simple. In the 18th century, church membership REQUIRED a PUBLIC aknowledgement and acceptance of the Doctirne of Salvation. The fact that t hey were church members is a defacto evidence that they made said proffesion. Thus, my point is backed with evidence. If you wish to claim these were dishonest proffesion then you should provide evidence they reputiated this Doctrine. It's really quite simple.

7. I'm not mocking basic logic at all. It has a highly important place in debate. I am mocking your sloppy misuse of and misunderstanding of it as a feeble crutch for your weak arguments. When you have no answer, you distort a rule of logic to get you off the hook. THAT is what I am mocking.

8. A does not prove B is you can show cases where B but not A. Okay
A= Your wife is a non-Christian who speaks well of Christianity
implied B = FFs were non-Christians who speak well of Christianity

However, I am a Christian who speaks well of Christianity - B without A
Thus it is a baseless assertion - a gross generalization to say that bcause you know someone who is a nonChristian complimentary of Christianity then that must be what the founders were. You can only assert that it is POSSIBLE. And POSSIBLE isn't PROOF.

9. Again, I am not appealing to "default" I am pointing to positive proffesions necessary to be church members. It is now incumbent upon you, if you wish to challange thse public proffesions which are a matter of public record, to provide contrary evidence.

10. You conveniently ignore that many of those quotes which you have still yet to answer also speak of personal private devotion, not just "speaking well of".
Further, I do not assert these "speaking well of" quotes as conclusive proof, mearly as supporting arguments. The church membership constitutes a proof, the quotes are supporting evidence since they reinforce an obvious approval of the religion.
you made the claim in other places that these men lived a double life (which I refuted above and which point you have also ignored) You make this claim based on what you say was fear of Christian bigotry.
YET, Thomas Jefferson was widely know to be a skeptic who denyied much of what was then called Christian and he enjoyed positions of influance and power his entire adult life and suffered no real reprucusions for his unbelief. Ditto Frankiln and the others.
You have established not one valid reason through even the most tenious of circumstantial evidence that the "facade" theory holds any water at all.
You further assert repeatedly, as does RDJ, that a Christian would never "talk shit about the Bible" yet you have not shown any of the men whom I call Christians ever did so. You have only shown them doing so about Christian practices.
This holds absolutly no weight since I can flood you with quotes from Christians decrying Christian practices. One need only look into the extreme fundy (think bob Jones) opinion of the Catholic Church to be overwhelmed.

So what has evidence shown?
That non-Christians can speak well of Christianity.
That Christians can and do speak ill of Christianity.

Thus all the quotes which speak ill of Christianity do not advance your argument one centemeter. since you contend for a position contrary to there public, matter of record, position.
Mine on the other hand are secondary supporting evidence for those public, matter of record, proffesions of faith.

11. "Presumed" a Christian in the spiritual sense. Biblicaly, there is no such thing as being proved a Christian because no man can know another man's heart. The public proffesion IS proof, in absence of conclusive contrary evidence, that they were Christians.

12. "OH! MY! He asked for more proof than I wanted to give!"
Geez. Maybe you should have put some pre-conditions on your request if it was going to be too much for you. In any case, your spurious claim that your conditions were easier to fullfill is just trying to take the high ground. It was not.
Still, you ask for

a direct quote in which he states clearly that he believes Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that he can find "salvation" from Hell by accepting him as such.

Such statement was a requirement of entrence into Church membership in the 18th century and earler - well into the 19th in fact - as any FF listed as a Church member [with the EXCEPTION of Unitarians] has made such a public proffesion. In this case B does naturally follow A.
whether or not you accept this in absence of direct quotes is irrelevant to me since it is logically and intellectualy airtight. Your denial of it mearly reveals your bias.
You on the other hand, want a softer standard. Okay, I'll give you one:
Provide a contemperanious source of a comperable leve lof credibility which demonstrates, to use your exact phrase, that "they MUSTNot{/i] believe in Jesus' status and path of salvation.

Oh, and I made many points you did not address, do you concede those points?

[Andrew J.]

6. Just to make it simple. In the 18th century, church membership REQUIRED a PUBLIC aknowledgement and acceptance of the Doctirne of Salvation. The fact that t hey were church members is a defacto evidence that they made said proffesion. Thus, my point is backed with evidence. If you wish to claim these were dishonest proffesion then you should provide evidence they reputiated this Doctrine. It's really quite simple.

Havent't you read any of the provided quotes? Don't those count as repudiation?

That Christians can and do speak ill of Christianity.

Do Christians deny basically every precept of the Christian religion, compare it to ancient Greek myths, and hope that one day no one will believe in it?

[Darth Wong]

Well, at least you've demonstrated a remarkable tendency to repeat yourself:

1. I will not go into a completely academic subject on the Bible and common law. It's as obvious as the clock on the wall. If I ask you to define the Influance "Native American Democracy" (*snicker*) had on American common law i'm sure you'd either say that you don't have to prove it or would trot out a souece I find untrustworthy. Likewise, I'm sure that if i quoted Blackstone or Locke or any other "athority" you'd dispute the scource. So asking for evidence you've already decided to reject just wastes both our time.

In other words, you have no evidence to give. Again, you flaunt your burden-of-proof fallacy by pretending that I must somehow disprove the connection that you are trying to establish. Sorry, but if you say that A is connected to B, the burden of proof is upon you to show it, just as scientists had to prove that tobacco is related to lung cancer. You can't just say it and declare that it's "obvious", hence no evidence is necessary.

So I say again: show what parts of the Constitution or the common law are derived from the Bible. Otherwise, concede that you have no evidence whatsoever that either are based upon it.

2. I defend the claim that common law in 18th century Europe and by extension America was based largely if not almost entirely on Biblical principles. I defend the fact that these men were almost exclusivly Christians, I defend the fact that a recognized athority, applying valid and extensive methodology arrive at a different conclusion than you less recognized, less athoritative, more biased, source did.

Wow, I had no idea that you could logically defend an argument by simply declaring your belief in it

I defend the principle that it is better to accept a recognized, qualified, athority in the field at hand than an opinion group with an ax to grind.

I have already shown how authorities can be wrong. Therefore, you cannot PROVE anything by simply citing an authority. Sorry, but you lose again. Or are you seriously trying to claim that the US Supreme Court is INFALLIBLE? As for having an "axe to grind", that is an ad-hominem fallacy. You're just full of those, aren't you?

I do not defend the idea that this country was founded with any theocratic tendencies or state religion. Or any other strawmen you might construct along the way.

You are claiming that the law is based on the Bible. You have failed to support that claim.

3. I note you completely avoided the fact that the definition of "Appeal to Athority" which appears on your board specificly denies that my use of that Decision as a backup to my case is such a falliacy. Are your own rules also wrong?

That is a loose definition, typically used to weed out the most flagrant types of appeal to authority. The strict definition does not allow even the most respected authority to be presumed infallible, something which should be obvious upon contemplation.

Further, it is OF COURSE true that an athority might be wrong - the question is, who is MORE LIKELY to be wrong?

Group A: Who's sworn obligation is to render an unbiased judegment on the facts and who, in the intrest of keeping this oath commisioned 5 years of intensive research on ever available extant source to arrive at it and who are recognized as THE preiminent athority on american law by the Constitution itself;
or
Group B: Who has an obvious bias towards reaching a particular conclusion, is not recognized by any except those who hold a similar bias as athoritative, who is selctive in their examination of scources and employs retroactive pscyanalysis to persons dead for almost 200 years to assign motives and thoughts to men in place of evidence and, suprise suprise, reached the conclusion they were seeking.

Ad-hominem fallacy yet again. Attacking the argument by attacking the man. How predictable of you. As if the US Supreme Court during one of the most evangelical periods in American history (the era of the Scopes trial, I remind you) should honestly be considered an unbiased source anyway.

So your whole argument boils down to "you trust the Supreme Court more than you trust me". Well, since I never asked you to trust me, that's irrelevant, isn't it? I have only asked for evidence that the law is based on the Bible: a request which you have repeatedly ignored in favour of attacks upon the man.

Since YOUR opinions on the subject are informed by Group B, whether you cite them or not (and they WERE cited in the origninal list of quotes since that material was lifted whole from a web site and was not original in thought or content), we stand on equal footing in regards to having a source beyond our own handywork for our conclusion.

My opinion on the subject is formed by my own examination of the situation and my own study of the Bible. There is nothing in the Bible which can be interpreted as a basis for the constitution in any way. Unlike you, I am capable of thinking for myself.

It is not illogical to compare sources and decide reliability. If I want to know who Deep throat is and Bob Woodward gives me one answer and a high school teacher gives me another answer, is it illogical for me to presume the former is a more reliable athority than the latter?

So if Albert Einstein says that quantum mechanics is no good and a 15 year old says that it IS good, who are you going to believe? Does it occur to you that truth and falsehood are determined by analysis, not choosing which authority to blindly follow? I suppose I'm asking too much by expecting you to think for yourself instead of choosing which leader to mindlessly parrot.

the only reason to say this is to cast doubt that they were Christians. Not specific enough? try this:

Wow, what a genius. You figured out that I was trying to cast doubt that they were Christians? Did you figure that out all by yourself? Or did Storm Rucker help you? Perhaps you could try to address the point rather than simply appealing to motive, eh?

5. "Default state". Bleh. Sophistry. We are not talking about children here. Each and every one made a public proffesion of belief in Salvation by Christ as a requirement of entrence into the Churchs of which they were members. You can try to make a case that they were lieing, but you cannot say I have shown no evidence that the proffesed that doctrine. It is an accomplished fact.

Fine, show me the public professions of belief, then.

6. Just to make it simple. In the 18th century, church membership REQUIRED a PUBLIC aknowledgement and acceptance of the Doctirne of Salvation. The fact that t hey were church members is a defacto evidence that they made said proffesion. Thus, my point is backed with evidence. If you wish to claim these were dishonest proffesion then you should provide evidence they reputiated this Doctrine. It's really quite simple.

Interesting. Could you show me the source for your claim that it's impossible to be a member of any 18th century denomination of Christianity anywhere in America without having made a public profession of belief as an adult (as opposed to the usual "son, just go to baptism and say this" routine)?

7. I'm not mocking basic logic at all. It has a highly important place in debate. I am mocking your sloppy misuse of and misunderstanding of it as a feeble crutch for your weak arguments. When you have no answer, you distort a rule of logic to get you off the hook. THAT is what I am mocking.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

8. A does not prove B is you can show cases where B but not A. Okay A= Your wife is a non-Christian who speaks well of Christianity
implied B = FFs were non-Christians who speak well of Christianity

However, I am a Christian who speaks well of Christianity - B without A
Thus it is a baseless assertion - a gross generalization to say that bcause you know someone who is a nonChristian complimentary of Christianity then that must be what the founders were. You can only assert that it is POSSIBLE. And POSSIBLE isn't PROOF.

It doesn't have to be. Since you are attempting to establish that certain men had SPECIFIC beliefs, the burden of proof is upon you to show that this is the case. And your overarching "proof" (that if they say nice things about Christians, they must be Christian) is clearly wrong.

9. Again, I am not appealing to "default" I am pointing to positive proffesions necessary to be church members. It is now incumbent upon you, if you wish to challange thse public proffesions which are a matter of public record, to provide contrary evidence.

If you would show me this "public record", I would be perfectly willing to concede that they were Christian. I said that in my last message. Perhaps you didn't notice?

10. You conveniently ignore that many of those quotes which you have still yet to answer also speak of personal private devotion, not just "speaking well of".

And in the last election, Bush, Lieberman, Cheney, and Gore, were competing to say who prayed the most. How do you know they all believed the same thing? (hint: one of them is definitely not Christian).

Further, I do not assert these "speaking well of" quotes as conclusive proof, mearly as supporting arguments. The church membership constitutes a proof, the quotes are supporting evidence since they reinforce an obvious approval of the religion.

So you say. Please provide the public statements, then. How many times must I ask for this, instead of your "look at how nice Christianity is" quotes?

you made the claim in other places that these men lived a double life (which I refuted above and which point you have also ignored)

How have you refuted it? By making reference to public professions of faith which you don't bother to show me?

You make this claim based on what you say was fear of Christian bigotry.

No, I say that nice public statements about Christians from politicians should be taken with a grain of salt. For that matter, ANYTHING spoken publicly by a politician should be taken with a grain ot salt. Actions speak louder than words, and private words are more sincere than public ones. Are you really so naive about the world that you don't see this?

YET, Thomas Jefferson was widely know to be a skeptic who denyied much of what was then called Christian and he enjoyed positions of influance and power his entire adult life and suffered no real reprucusions for his unbelief. Ditto Frankiln and the others.

Don't be ridiculous; there are numerous social repercussions of being an atheist even TODAY. Thomas Paine was despised by many people in the country and of the era for his position.

You have established not one valid reason through even the most tenious of circumstantial evidence that the "facade" theory holds any water at all.

When a man says one thing here, and another thing there, the double-life theory is quite frankly obvious.

You further assert repeatedly, as does RDJ, that a Christian would never "talk shit about the Bible" yet you have not shown any of the men whom I call Christians ever did so. You have only shown them doing so about Christian practices.

So they only trashed "Christian practices" but not Christianity itself? OK fine, let's interpret it your way. It still means that they defied the practices of the churches to which you claim they belonged, right off the bat. Immediately, we have evidence that membership in such churches is a sham, despite all of your hand-waving and claims that such membership represents proof of doctrine. I suppose that obvious ramification did not occur to you?

This holds absolutly no weight since I can flood you with quotes from Christians decrying Christian practices. One need only look into the extreme fundy (think bob Jones) opinion of the Catholic Church to be overwhelmed.

Very true. Christians have been heavily fratricidal throughout their history, because there are many different types of Christianity. In fact, many Christians today are Christian only in name, because they do not accept the doctrine that the only way to salvation is through Christ. In fact, MOST of the Christians I met when I was in university believed that other religions have just as legitimate a claim on salvation as Christianity does, which makes them what I call "liberal Christians", but it also makes them heretics. So anyway, ... oh, wait a minute, you thought that would bolster your position, didn't you? You amuse me.

So what has evidence shown?
That non-Christians can speak well of Christianity.
That Christians can and do speak ill of Christianity.

Therefore, speaking well of Christianity does NOT prove anything about your religious beliefs. Thank you, come again.

Thus all the quotes which speak ill of Christianity do not advance your argument one centemeter. since you contend for a position contrary to there public, matter of record, position. Mine on the other hand are secondary supporting evidence for those public, matter of record, proffesions of faith.

If you could provide that "public, matter of record, position" as I have repeatedly asked, you might have a point here.

11. "Presumed" a Christian in the spiritual sense. Biblicaly, there is no such thing as being proved a Christian because no man can know another man's heart. The public proffesion IS proof, in absence of conclusive contrary evidence, that they were Christians.

For the umpteenth time, show me these public professions.

12. "OH! MY! He asked for more proof than I wanted to give!"
Geez. Maybe you should have put some pre-conditions on your request if it was going to be too much for you. In any case, your spurious claim that your conditions were easier to fullfill is just trying to take the high ground. It was not.

OK, let me play your game. I demand a witnessed transcript of each founding father declaring the tenets of his faith as evidence, otherwise everything you say is nonsense. Is that better? Oh no, did I ask for more proof than you wanted to give? Do unto others as you would have them unto you, right?

Once again, deliberately asking for a higher standard of proof than I did WAS a blatant, transparent attempt to generate an unfalsifiable position, and you can squirm all you like, but you won't change that.

Still, you ask for

a direct quote in which he states clearly that he believes Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that he can find "salvation" from Hell by accepting him as such.

Or a document which implies such belief (I notice how you conveniently left that part out, because you refuse to reciprocate).

Such statement was a requirement of entrence into Church membership in the 18th century and earler - well into the 19th in fact - as any FF listed as a Church member [with the EXCEPTION of Unitarians] has made such a public proffesion. In this case B does naturally follow A.
whether or not you accept this in absence of direct quotes is irrelevant to me since it is logically and intellectualy airtight. Your denial of it mearly reveals your bias.

If you could find me a source showing how it is IMPOSSIBLE to become a church member in the 18th century without giving such a public statement as an adult, in addition to showing me the text of the public statement required, then I will concede.

You on the other hand, want a softer standard. Okay, I'll give you one: Provide a contemperanious source of a comperable leve lof credibility which demonstrates, to use your exact phrase, that "they MUST not believe in Jesus' status and path of salvation.

So, by your standard of proof, my entire family must be Christian?

BTW, they collaborated to create a Constitution based on human rights, not commandments. That's a fairly credible document, and it does not imply any sort of Christian origins.

Oh, and I made many points you did not address, do you concede those points?

Name them, since I quoted your entire post. And while you're at it, address my key leftover point from before, in which I challenged you to show which parts of American culture are uniquely Christian.

Summary

There are four portions of this argument:

1) You claim that the founding fathers were all Christian. I say that if they were, their attitudes and actions were downright heretical. Modern Christianity has been largely secularized, in large part because of social movements starting at that time and echoing today. The notion that Christianity is somehow the SOURCE of this change is unsupportable.

2) You claim that American culture is based on Christianity. I asked you to show which parts of American culture are uniquely Christian. You ignored me.

3) You claim that American law is based on Christianity. I asked you to show which parts of American law are uniquely Christian. You ignored me again, and appealed to authority in lieu of evidence.

4) You seem to think that the only form of the "appeal to authority" fallacy is the appeal to unqualified authority. In reality, qualifications are but one of the pieces of evidence necessary to show that a source should be considered an authority, and the extremely brief description of the fallacy on this webpage only scratches the surface. Other conditions are necessary (such as lack of contention in the authority's professional field, which is not the case here, and lack of bias, which is also not the case here). See http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... ority.html for more details (there are six conditions which must be met, and even in that case, "even a good Appeal to Authority is not an exceptionally strong argument. After all, in such cases a claim is being accepted as true simply because a person is asserting that it is true. The person may be an expert, but her expertise does not really bear on the truth of the claim. This is because the expertise of a person does not actually determine whether the claim is true or false. Hence, arguments that deal directly with evidence relating to the claim itself will tend to be stronger."

In short, your refusal to deal with the law, the culture, or the Constitution directly in your arguments in favour of appeals to authority makes it a weak argument even if we disregard the contentious nature of the issue, the existence of contrary qualified opinions, the societal situation in 1892, etc.

As usual, you have an inflated opinion of how well you are doing.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

6. Just to make it simple. In the 18th century, church membership REQUIRED a PUBLIC aknowledgement and acceptance of the Doctirne of Salvation. The fact that t hey were church members is a defacto evidence that they made said proffesion. Thus, my point is backed with evidence. If you wish to claim these were dishonest proffesion then you should provide evidence they reputiated this Doctrine. It's really quite simple.

So if they indeed committed this "de facto" evidence as you refer to it, they should have been more than willing to repeat those statements of direct affirmation, or something to their effect, at least once more in a public or private medium.

Do you mean to claim that these Christians said they believed in the salvation of Christ only once, just to get membership in the Church? That doesn't sound like belief to me; that sounds like doing whatever it takes to pass initiation.

And as far as the quotes which repudiate their faith -- those are what kicked off this debate in the first place.

It's really quite simple. As are you.

[Darth Wong]

Note: today, some churches require baptism to count you as a member. Most baptisms are performed on teenagers who are simply going along with whatever their parents are telling them to do. It does not necessarily have any bearing on what they might believe 15 years down the road. Not that this will dissuade GC, however. He has constructed an elaborate framework of excuses for shirking any and all demands to show direct evidence of his claims.

[GC]

6. Just to make it simple. In the 18th century, church membership REQUIRED a PUBLIC aknowledgement and acceptance of the Doctirne of Salvation. The fact that t hey were church members is a defacto evidence that they made said proffesion. Thus, my point is backed with evidence. If you wish to claim these were dishonest proffesion then you should provide evidence they reputiated this Doctrine. It's really quite simple.

Havent't you read any of the provided quotes? Don't those count as repudiation?

I answered all the quotes provided for those men who had a hand in the constitution. None of them make the points you mention below. None of them say one word for or aainst the basic doctrines of salvation. Perhaps you should read my replies for a fuller answer.

That Christians can and do speak ill of Christianity.

Do Christians deny basically every precept of the Christian religion, compare it to ancient Greek myths, and hope that one day no one will believe in it?

No.
Yet none of thsoe quoted WHO WERE INVOLVED IN THE CONSTITUTION make such statements.

The only people popularly propogated as making the statements you clain were Etahn Allen, who had no hand in any official act of the government or forming it, Thomas Paine who had no hand in any official act of the government or creating it but did write "The Age of Reason" for which he expressed publicy great regret for latter (both of these mean are less than irrelevant to the question at hand), Thomas Jefferson who was in Europe as the Constitution was being written but did write the Decleration which aknowledged God in several places and did authorize the Bible as a text in the public schools, and Ben Franklin who despite not actually being christian as far as we know, never expressed the sentiments you just did.

Your statemnets are spurious and not germain to this discussion. Feel free to do better next time.

[Darth Wong]

The only people popularly propogated as making the statements you clain were Etahn Allen, who had no hand in any official act of the government or forming it,

Fair enough, although I suppose one must ask what it means to be a "founding father" then. Are you suggesting that the lawyers who primarily contributed toward the writing of the constitution are the real "founding fathers", and not the most visible public leaders?

Thomas Paine who had no hand in any official act of the government or creating it but did write "The Age of Reason" for which he expressed publicy great regret for latter (both of these mean are less than irrelevant to the question at hand),

And yet, earlier you claimed that it was easy to get away with being anti-Christian in America at the time

Thomas Jefferson who was in Europe as the Constitution was being written but did write the Decleration which aknowledged God in several places and did authorize the Bible as a text in the public schools,

Thomas Jefferson acknowledged "Nature's God", and he was a deist. No incompatibility there.

and Ben Franklin who despite not actually being christian as far as we know, never expressed the sentiments you just did.

He didn't? So what does "I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies." mean? Or are you going to simply dismiss the source again?

PS. Was John Adams a "founding father" according to you? After all, he did say "The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses."- from "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88)"

[Darth Wong]

By the way, clergymen of the era complained bitterly that the Constitution lacked mention of God or Jesus. The notion that a happy obedient churchgoer would defy them to omit such mention for no reason is one that requires somewhat more justification than you have given.

PS. Was George Washington a founding father? The minister of the church he attended (James Abercrombie) said ""Sir, Washington was a Deist." Precisely who qualifies as a founding father?

[GC]

Summery of thread thus far:

I provide answers to your (collective "your") claims and make claims of my own backed with evedineary material.

Yousay "I don't beliee your evidence, and I don't agree with your conclusions, and you can prove them" without ever bother to prove your claims.

I rebut your statements, clarifying your (seemingly willfull) misdirection and misinterpretation, and again ask you to provide ANY proof of your ariginal conclusions.

You again say "You're wrong and I'm right because you haven't proved it"

And around and around it goes.
-------------------------------------
You presue this stratagy knowing full well that only complete idiots or no-life losers will devote the time and research necessary to provide you with original documentation - on a MESSAGE BOARD of all places - which you and I both know you will imediatly doubt. I could write a doctoral thesis and source all sorts of primary documents and you would weasel out of it because you don't WANT it to be true.

Meanwhile, you have provided nothing even remotely proving your claims -which were the original claims. The original claim is the one which should first be proved. And you dance around singing "You can't prove it, na-na-na-na-na-na!" because you know I have no intention of investing hours in providing evidence which you will by no means accept.

This is how you guys define winning - deny the obvious at all cost and sooner or later your oponent gives up on arguing with walls and goes away at which point you declare yourself the winner and you can make it through another day.

You have demonstrated no respect for proof actually offered, you just blow it off with a retorical "So what?"

You offer no substantial proof of your own and in fact deny you need to when the origninal assertion of the post on YOUR board was the claim that those quotes PROVED that "the claim that America was founded on Christianity is a myth." Clearly it does not, since only 9 of the quotes are relevant and only two of them speak to the seperation issue in any way. the very MOST that that original post proves is that Madison favored seperation which everyone already knew.
but did you rush into that thread and cry out "Wait a minute! These qwuotes don't logically prove what you say!"
Of course not.
Because YOU personnely AGREED with the conclusion. Therefore, no logical analysis is necessary. This is the same way you arrived at all the conclusions you've posted here. Go on the internet or *gasp* read a book which tells you what you want to hear and pat yourself on the back for having been right all along while not holding those who agree with you to the standards which you demand of those who disagree with you.

The stench of hypocrasy is overpowering.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
It will take an incredible turn of events, in my estimation, for me to waste any more of my time in this matter or on this board. You evade, you obfuscate, you misdirect, you purposly misinterprete, you claim in one place I ignored something while ignoring my point addressing it just a paragraph later, your purpose here is to win the argumnet by werying your opponent in some sort of rope-a-dope dance.

Until and unless you take the 50+ references I've put on the table and address them with the same thoughtfulness and respect I gave your 9, I remain unconvinced of your sincerity in persuit of the truth and will not waste my time with you.

I was challanged to come here and state my case, and I have done so. I have consistantly ask you to back up your claims and you have only sparoticly done so at that with often questionable reasoning.

I an confident in the points I have made.
I aknowledge the suffer, in the strict academic sense, from not be backed by pages and pages of primary sources but since this is a message board where no minds will be changed AND sinceyour claims are similarly unsupported, I am not striving for that level of prefection.

I am not so naive or gullable as to not recognize the rope-a-dope stratagy, nor am I unaware that as soon as you read this you will imediatly deny that it is in fact what you are doing.
S'okay by me.

I can see that for most of you guys your self image seems to depend on "winning" so far be it for me to burst your bubble.

But, in parting, let me offer a word of advice:
(whcich you may chose to ignore or ridicule as you see fit)

People with your position (if I understand it correctly), that religion should have no remote connection to government, would be on FAR firmer ground to aknowledge the truth of the prevelance of Christianity in the 18th century and argue that we, as a people, have progressed beyond those men.
The claim that they allowed their pro-Christian bias to cloud their application of the First in much the same way that they allowed their concerns for harmony to cloud their definition of "all men being equal" in regards to the slaves would be a FAR more compeling case than engaging in revisionist history.
There is NO logical reason why, even if every last Founder wanted a theocracy, that we in the 21st century are bound to carry out that vision. the government of a healthy nation grows and adapts over the years.

You REALLY want to make a logical case?
Far better for your side to say "Sure, it was a bunch of ignorent Christians who founded this country, but they didn't know then what we know now and they didn't have to govern a land with millions of Buddist, Hindus, Muslums, athiest, etc under the law and THEREFORE what THEY said or thought about the First is not rlevant to the way we al\pply it today.

Whether I agree with it or not, THAT is a logical case.

trying to revise hsitroy because you have an anti-Christian bias...that it's not enough to silence Christianity today but we also have to remove its voice from history...that just makes you look weak. Like the only case you have depends on willful lies and distortions.

That image does not help your cause.

Anyway, no hard feelings. I understand the rational behind your position and why my claims don't sit well with you.

If I don't post again:

May you continue to enjoy the "blessings" of this country, from whatever source you think they arise.

I can't say it's been fun, but it has been informative on many levels.

I'm content to let my arguments stand as posted. They who truely want to know the truth, whichever of us is right, are well advised to do the primary research and get their conclusions from someplace more athoritative than a BBS.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

I do believe that's either the most long-winded, convoluted concession message I've ever seen, or something practically turning backflips not to look like one.

General Chang, you still haven't figured out yet that you can't win a debate by claiming you won the debate, have you?

A condition of falsifiability has been established for our position; you have yet to satisfy that condition.

Can you satisfy the condition for falsification or not?

[NapoleonGH]

wait a second here, so GC comes, makes claims that they of course made those salvation statements becuase you had to inorder to join a church, without presenting any evidence to support this claim, and we ask him to support said claim and HE gets offended, with the typical lazy assed response of "its too much work"

moreover, he then claims that common law is based on christianity, but refuses to offer proof.

furthermore none of the actual points brought up by Dr. Wong and everyone else have been addressed beyond the simple "i believe this and no its too much work to actually support my claims but hear is a highly biased secondary authority instead"(Darth, you do hold a Doctorate do you not?)

even though i have experienced such an extreme amount of incompetency in debate many times (i was a member of a high school debate league, 90% of all arguments made in such things are logical fallacies), i still am surprised by it, i guess I really am far too much of an optimist about the capacity of the average man to understand and use logic. Ahh well, i guess we wont actually get a real debate about this issue afterall.

[Hobot]

Napolean, Mike just* has a BA (http://www.stardestroyer.net/Mike/Degree1.jpg)

*heh, "just" makes it sound insignificant

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

Summery of thread thus far:

We don't need a summary, Will. And if we did, you're certainly not the best qualified poster to provide it.

I provide answers to your (collective "your") claims and make claims of my own backed with evedineary material.

Actually, so far all you've done is dodge the points and claim you have evidence which you still fail to provide.

Yousay "I don't beliee your evidence, and I don't agree with your conclusions, and you can prove them" without ever bother to prove your claims.

Actually, since we haven't seen any of your "evidence" it's a misrepresentation to say we don't believe your evidence. It is most accurate to say that I do not believe you have any evidence.

I rebut your statements, clarifying your (seemingly willfull) misdirection and misinterpretation, and again ask you to provide ANY proof of your ariginal conclusions.

You rebut our position with fallacies, you bitch and whine about the proper use of logic, then ask for proof you've already been shown but are either too dogmatically entrenched to accept or too stone-dead stupid to comprehend.

You again say "You're wrong and I'm right because you haven't proved it"

"Aside from the atrocious choice of words, that is our basic position. You haven't demonstrated evidence or logic with which to back up your claim.
More fallacies. I'm not sure what the one about the board is, but an argument's validity has jack shit to do with the medium in which the argument is presented. And the (by now standard) Appeal to Motive is thrown in just for good measure -- <whiny bitch mode>"You don't want it to be true!" *snivel-snivel*</whiny bitch mode>
How would you know? You have yet to present any evidence, so that claim remains totally untested.
No, here's how we debate -- and this debate is a classic example:

We bring evidence to the table. We apply logic to that evidence. We derive a conclusion based on evidence and logic.

Now, we already arrived at the conclusion. I presented that conclusion in an unrelated thread. You challenged the conclusion, so I presented the evidence. You refused to apply logic to that evidence. Eventually, the debate came here, where you challenged the conclusion again.

We presented our evidence, and our logic, thus reaffirming our conclusion. You, so far, have presented nothing. This is why our conclusion still stands, and your attempt to debate that conclusion has failed.
You question the reasoning because you do not comphrehend it.
Appeal to Motive again. By all means, Pastor, please -- "strive for prefection."
That was almost clever. Throw the Witch-Hunt clause in. If you deny being a Witch, it means you are a Witch! Where's my duck?
Oh, how kind of you. ROFLMAO!!!
The prevalence of Christianity in the 18th century is not the subject of this debate. No wonder you couldn't make any serious points -- you must have kept forgetting what argument you were having.
In other words, you not only think we're terrible people and poor debaters, you now want to dictate what position we should take? Your arrogance is fucking mind-boggling.
What the hell does this have to do with proving your position?
Coming from you, that's the funniest fucking question I've ever read. Actually, that's just the case you wish you had been arguing. Daydream much?
If we've somehow revised history, you should be able to locate evidence of that. Unless historical revisionism has been taking its toll on these quotes for over 200 years.
Look who's talking.
Your claims don't sit well with us because they remain, to this very post, unsupported by logic and evidence, you cretin.

Oh, gods, is it over? Can I finally release the buildup of vomit and laughter that threaten to rip me open at the seams?

[ecky]

*snip*
People as arrogant as you generally don't start well, no. I'm afraid you'll have to get used to it.

amazing you accuse other of arrogance wile displaying no small amount of it yourself. i see why visonrazor/raoul so likes this place - no true challengin of views, to true state of open mindedness.

GC apologized and has tried to have an actual debate and all you return is abuse... i see where visonrazor/raoul got his troll credentials from now.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

*snip*
People as arrogant as you generally don't start well, no. I'm afraid you'll have to get used to it.

amazing you accuse other of arrogance wile displaying no small amount of it yourself. i see why visonrazor/raoul so likes this place - no true challengin of views, to true state of open mindedness.

Maybe you missed the mention of this, but Nitram and I have had our contentions. Did you know that I held the title of Village Idiot for a good while when I first showed up here? I held that title for exactly the same reason you would undoubtedly have held it, had you come here for any reason other than pure trollshit -- for trying to argue positions without applying logic.

That's exactly why GC is being dinged here -- it's not reasonless, it's because he's not thinking rationally about the issue and his position in it. He's just spouting a rancid product combined of ego and dogma.

GC apologized and has tried to have an actual debate and all you return is abuse... i see where visonrazor/raoul got his troll credentials from now.

Coming from someone who posts at Troll fucking Kingdom, that's hysterical.

[NapoleonGH]

ahh how pleasant, another person who doesnt understand logical debate and says GC is being "abused" purely because we ask him to back up his claims with actual reason, logic, and evidence. Ohh the humanity, we are such terrible people to want someone to...OH MY GOD...actually back up their claims. People like us should burn in hell.

[Wicked Pilot]

Cming from someone who posts at Troll fucking Kingdom, that's hysterical.

You're kidding? There's an actual 'Troll Kingdom'?







EDIT: Well holy mustard gas! It does exist. Much this explains.