SAV, in debate:
"One is not allowed to say, "the answer is somewhere on an incredibly long page that I've linked" and consider the matter sufficiently addressed. Shall the remainder of my posts consist solely of, "If you'll just search the internet, you'll find links to pages that say I'm right. The end."?
DAR
I am so glad you said that.
MARC says:
"Sixth amendment, witnesses (9th commandment) and fifth amendment, “taken without just compensation” – STEALING (8th commandment)
If you continue to claim that these aren’t Christian principles, surely you would have to admit that these principles came from somewhere. So far, you’ve made no attempt to show any alternatives to Christianity from where they could have arisen."
DAR
Really, this dim bulb is trying to pretend that no civilization had rules against stealing before Christianity? Amazing.
I believe that in order for you to prevent me from proving the resolution you’re going to have to show alternative sources for those principles. Sources that history proves that the founders were exposed to, and familiar with.
DAR
John Adams answers his question:
"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.
. . Thirteen governments [of the original states]
thus founded on the
natural authority of the people alone, without a
pretence of miracle or
mystery, and which are destined to spread over
the northern part of that
whole quarter of the globe, are a great point
gained in favor of the
rights of mankind."
--"A Defence of the Constitutions of Government
of the United States of America" [1787-1788], John
Adams
MARC says
"The time period before separation of church and state was established in 1947, which caused that distinction to largely become forgotten by those with your position – those unaware of Christian principles in the Constitution."
DAR
Separation established in 1947? Hilarious.
Madison, regarding separation, before 1947:
***
The only known references to separation in the writings of Madison are the following:
JUNE 3, 1811
To the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have other wise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself
Source of Information:
Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811. Letters And Other Writings of James Madison Fourth President Of The United States In Four Volumes Published By the Order Of Congress, Vol..II, J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, (1865), pp 511-512.
MARCH 2, 1819
The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State.
Source of Information:
Letter to Robert Walsh from James Madison. March 2, 1819 Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, in Four Volumes, Published by Order of Congress. Vol. III, J. B. Lippincott & Co. Philadelphia, (1865), pp 121-126. James Madison on Religious Liberty, Robert S.Alley, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, N.Y. (1985) pp 82-83)
1817-1833
Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and Gov't in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents' already furnished in their short history. . . .
Source of Information:
Madison's Detached Memoranda. This document was discovered in 1946 among the papers of William Cabell Rives, a biographer of Madison. Scholars date these observations in Madison's hand sometime between 1817 and 1832. The entire document was published by Elizabeth Fleet in the William and Mary Quarterly of October 1946.
JULY 10, 1822
Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together . . .
Source of Information:
Letter to Edward Livingston from James Madison, July 10, 1822. Letters and Other writings of James Madison, in Four Volumes, Published by Order of Congress. VOL. III, J. B. Lippincott & Co. Philadelphia, (1865), pp 273-276. James Madison on Religious Liberty, Robert S.Alley, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, N.Y. (1985) pp 82-83.
SEPTEMBER 1833
. . .I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others". . . .
Source of Information:
Letter to Rev. Jasper Adams from James Madison, September, 1833. Writings of James Madison, edited by Gaillard Hunt, [not sure what the volume number is but have enough information presented here to locate the letter] microform Z1236.L53, pp 484-488.
MARC
"It’s principles were based on the Deity described in the Declaration of Independence – the Christian one believed in by the vast majority of the 3,000,000 US population as shown above."
DAR
Rubbish. He doesn't get to go from deity to Christian God just because he wants to. If the founders wanted to specify Jesus they could have but did not.
Don't let him assume the Christianity of early America. Regarding the religiosity of the US in the early US days, consider:
***
Historian Richard Hofstadter claimed that "perhaps as many as ninety percent of the Americans were unchurched in 1790" (*Anti-Intellectualism in American
Life,* New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974, p. 82). On page 89, he said that
"mid-eighteenth century America had a smaller proportion of church members
than any other nation in Christendom," and he went on to say that "in 1800
[only] one of every fifteen Americans was a church member" (p. 89). In *The
American Experiment: Vineyard of Liberty,* James MacGregor Burns said that
"ninety percent of the people lay outside the churches" following the
revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1983, p. 493).
A small press book *They Haven't Got a Prayer* (Elgin, Illinois: David C.
Cook, publisher, 1982) quotes Lynn R. Buzzard, executive director of the
Christian Legal Society (a national organization of Christian lawyers) as
saying, "Not only were a good many of the revolutionary leaders more deist
than Christian, the actual number of church members was rather small.
Perhaps as few as five percent of the populace were church members in 1776"
(p. 81).
History is solidly against the present effort of Xian fundamentalists to
prove that the United States was founded as a "Christian nation."
--F. Till
"At the time of its Founding, the United States seemed to be an infertile ground for religion. Many of the nation's leaders - include George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin - were not Christians, did not accept the authority of the Bible, and were hostile to organized religion. The attitude of the general public was one of apathy: in 1776, only 5 percent of the population were participating members of churches."
[Ian Robertson, _Sociology_, 3rd editions, Worth
Publishing Inc.: New York, 1987, page 410]
D.