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I have tentatively agreed to debate an ultra-conservative, extremely religious anti-separationist on another forum. While details are still being worked out, the resolution -- which appears set -- reads:

Resolved: All basic principles in the U.S. Constitution are Christian in nature.

marc9000 will affirm, and I will oppose.

Which principles are "basic" and the meaning of "Christian in nature," against my requests and much to my disappointment, are to be determined by debate, during the debate.

The debate challenge thread can be found here. Once the debate begins, I will post a link here. I have lobbied to have a special forum for comments for all debates on that site, so I will post a link to that thread as well to allow you to comment on that site.

In the meantime, any words of wisdom, comments, or suggestions are welcome here. I find myself having a hard time figuring out what I want the meaning of "Christian in nature" to mean in this context. While my opponent will not be arguing that the principles were included in the Constitution because the principles are Christian, I do not yet know how he will be arguing for the "Christianity" of principles.

DAR
This should be a slam dunk, however, as you anticipate, because of the vagueness of "basic principles" and "Christian in nature" I predict this will allow enough wiggle room to make the dunk something less than slamable. I guess they probably wouldn't agree to anything less wishy washy knowing they would be stuck. Christians can talk for centuries about their varying vague "basic principles" and have. Since Christian "basic principles" can be found on every side of every moral issue the phrase is precisely 100% jello. Should be interesting though. A good opportunity to teach people about the Constitution and the Bible.

D.
---------------------
I am going to insert "Christian basic principles" for "Christian absolute morals" in the beginning of this quote. One of my favorite quotes:

“[Christian basic principles] have both
opposed and defended war, slavery, communism,
capitalism, socialism, racism, egalitarianism,
democracy, monarchy, aristocracy, irrationality,
rationality, witch burning, killing heretics,
child baptism, divorce, killing, anesthesia,
vaccination, scientific medicine, free scientific
enquiry, artistic freedom and many other issues.
In each case, at which moment in time, was
the One True Unchanging Version of Christianity
exactly right in opposing or defending each of
the above issues?
By examining the consequences of an act, we
can guess as to what will happen if we do it
again. By observing what mistakes our neighbours
make, we can avoid them. Having observed the
hell on earth that was created by the Christian
state churches of Europe during the time of the
religious wars, the Inquisition and the witch
mania, the founders of the US determined that the
absolute morality of the differing versions of
Christianity leads only to strife, murder, and
hatred, so they did their best to make sure that
state churches could not be established here.”
-- Greg Ewin, former VP, Humanist Association of
Canada

Darrel wrote:I guess they probably wouldn't agree to anything less wishy washy knowing they would be stuck.

Funny you should use that wording. And by "funny" I mean "telling." When I described the resolution as wishy-washy, my opponent insisted it wasn't.

Darrel wrote:A good opportunity to teach people about the Constitution and the Bible.

The problem, of course, being that I know quite little about the Bible.

Savonarola wrote:The problem, of course, being that I know quite little about the Bible.

DAR
We got your back. You'll know more when you're done. Let the fundie talk about the Bible, all you'll need is your common sense and a little help seeing when the fellow is making stuff up.

This should be interesting, since the most "christian" of governmental programs are the ones RWs usually damn - social security, food stamps, etc. And those are only part of the Constitution as a liberal (pun intended) reading of "promote the general welfare" part of the preamble.

What little political stuff is in the Gospels runs along the line of, don't argue, don't fight, pay the taxes - in fact do more and give more than you are asked for - total non-violence and nothing about protest violent or otherwise (that was Ghandi). Nothing at all about governance, except the early communistic communities of the pre-first century Christians. (Totally a "cakes in the heavens and crumbs in the street" approach - Marx had a point.) Whereas the Constitution says nothing about religion except that no religious tests are required to hold office, and the first amendment to same only says congress shall make no laws respecting establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

I trust Sav implicitly to take marc9000 to the cleaners.

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:I trust Sav implicitly to take marc9000 to the cleaners.

Now if only fundies were at least smart enough to know when they are at the cleaners...

You may wish to to do some quick research for correlating that "All basic principles in the U.S. Constitution" are found in other cultures than just what may be found in christianity. Specifically the Iroquois Confederations-who were native-allegedly impressed many founders.

Also, I don't recall any form of government being specified in any part of the bible. The one principle that emerged from the Old Testament was very close to Theocracy.

The earlier parts of the OT government WAS theocrasy. Starting with Kings, it was - you guessed it - a monarchy. NT government was Roman governors, the 'Holy Land" was a(?) conquered nation(s). That may be what BushCo are trying to bring us to, but it doesn't have much to do with what the Founders had in mind with either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.

marc9000 has posted his opening statement. The debate thread can be found here.
Non-participants may comment on the proceedings in the "Ringside" thread here. Registration is required to post.

Never having participated in a formal debate before, I find myself with a number of conundrums (conundra?).

1. marc has (predictably, but less so than his previous debate) taken this opportunity to simply shout from a soapbox. "Founders were Christian(ish), ideas are Christian, separation of church and state is a myth (and a commie trick)," etc. Frankly, these things are neither here nor there in this debate. Should I "bite" and keep him off track, or should I simply point out to the judges that he's making no progress, hence there is no need for me to rebut those aspects until he makes some logical connection?
2. I had originally planned to post a smattering of topics that should be considered "basic," but I suppose that doing so gives marc warning for what is coming, which essentially allows him more time to come up with responses that are more convincing, or at least a larger number of responses. Given a choice of (a) posting a list and a short blurb explaining why the principle shouldn't be considered Christian or (b) springing out new ones each post (which I think is a bit underhanded), which is more likely to result in a convincing debate?
3. 3. marc seems to be arguing that "Christian principles are represented in the Consitution," rather than the actual resolution, "All principles in the Constitution are Christian in nature." Again, should I point this out early, or play along until the end and spring this point on him?

I found it difficult to determine where marc9000 was quoting the bible and where he was quoting the founders quoting the bible. He seems to like to include "judeo" when it suits his purpose, which of course isn't christian.

The real "slight of hand" (item 3-ish) he seems to be using is his apparent contension that if something is a christian value it isn't also a whole lot of other people's value as well. I remember my mother showing me - I wish I still had it - a list of social and religous tradtions that had some variation of "do unto others as you would have others do unto you" as the basic tenet. That and the "communism" red herring. Marc seems to also be mistaking respect for the majority faith's symbols - "sabbath" for example - as a sign of acceptance of that faith.

As to what to do about it - marc will not be convinced, and neither will the rest of the hardcore christians. On item 1 - point out the "no progress" to the judges with an extremely short explanation - and don't let marc waste your space. As to item 2, I think choice (b) is the best in reaching those who can be reached. If you were doing this as a single, uninterrupted post/paper (a) would be fine, but divided as this format is, do a thorough job on each topic at one time, but only go back to it the next time as needed to refute marc's rebuttal.

Savonarola wrote:Never having participated in a formal debate before, I find myself with a number of conundrums (conundra?).

1. marc has (predictably, but less so than his previous debate) taken this opportunity to simply shout from a soapbox. "Founders were Christian(ish), ideas are Christian, separation of church and state is a myth (and a commie trick)," etc. Frankly, these things are neither here nor there in this debate. Should I "bite" and keep him off track, or should I simply point out to the judges that he's making no progress, hence there is no need for me to rebut those aspects until he makes some logical connection?
2. I had originally planned to post a smattering of topics that should be considered "basic," but I suppose that doing so gives marc warning for what is coming, which essentially allows him more time to come up with responses that are more convincing, or at least a larger number of responses.

DAR
I say hammer him from beginning to end. There is no time to save your best stuff and dribble it out. When he says something wrong, roast it. For instance, I started at the top and hit bullshit at the beginning. His Patrick Henry quote is bogus. Hammer him on this. Snopes says this quote appears no where in any of Patrick Henry's utterances:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/capital.asp

Given a choice of (a) posting a list and a short blurb explaining why the principle shouldn't be considered Christian or (b) springing out new ones each post (which I think is a bit underhanded), which is more likely to result in a convincing debate?[*]

DAR
Emphasis through repetition. He is dense and anyone believing his material is a little dim too. They need to hear the roast over and over. Underhanded? Good heavens. Roast the boy!

3. marc seems to be arguing that "Christian principles are represented in the Consitution," rather than the actual resolution, "All principles in the Constitution are Christian in nature." Again, should I point this out early, or play along until the end and spring this point on him?[/list]

DAR
Absolutely point it out. Every time he says something stupid or shows he isn't even cognizant of the proposition he is defending, hammer him with it. You get a point each time.

Now I will go and read the stuff after his first bogus quote.

D.

DAR
Couple of points. His sources and references are garbage and completely unacceptable. Do not even waste time rebutting junk. Most of his post boils down to mere assertion. He gives this as a source:

http://home.flash.net/~gregball/godly_am.htm

Which is just completely unreferenced junk some fundie slapped together and it is filled with howlers. I get spam that is more truthful than this.

For instance, the above source passes along this unreferenced bogus quote (see snopes at the link I gave earlier):

"We have stacked the whole future of American civilization, not on the power of the government, far from it. We have stacked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to The ten Commandments." James Madison"

It garbles Jefferson's letter to the Baptists:

"In 1801, the Danburry Baptist Association of Danburry, CT, issued a petition to government voicing their concern. On January 1st, 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to DBA, stating that the 1st amendment has erected a wall of separation between Church and state, but that the wall is a one-directional wall. It keeps the government from running the Church, but makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government."

DAR
This is crap. Here is Jefferson's letter:

To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html
***

DAR
It doesn't have anything about a one way wall.

He then quotes the federalist papers. Consider this:

" Nevertheless, the "Christian America" myth lives on. We again return
to the previous question: If America was truly founded as an explicitly
Christian nation (as is continually proclaimed by "Christian" activists
such as James Dobson, Pat Robertson, D. James Kennedy, Chuck Colson, Tim
and Beverly LaHaye, Jerry Falwell, Bill Gothard, etc.), then why do we
find no mention whatsoever of Jesus Christ in America's founding
documents? -- not in the Declaration of Independence nor in the
Constitution of the United States! In fact, the Constitution does not
even make a single reference to God! (When Alexander Hamilton was asked
why the Constitution fails to mention God, he allegedly replied, "We
forgot.") And the reference to God in the Declaration of Independence is
merely "Nature's God," a God that is vague and subordinated to natural
laws that everyone should know through common sense, i.e.,
"self-evident" truths. Moreover, the Bible is never mentioned nor
alluded to in either document! Nor is God or Jesus Christ mentioned in
the hundreds of pages of the Federalist Papers (the "working documents"
of the founding fathers). In fact, the United States was the first
Western Nation to omit explicitly Christian symbolism, such as the
cross, from its flag and other national symbols"

http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psy ... /amerc.htm

Marc says:

"When it comes to human activity, Christianity is about two things
A) Love the Lord thy God
B) Love thy neighbor as thyself"

If that is what Christianity is about, then how does this have anything to do with founding America? The idea that we should do or enforce "a" is completely unamerican.

Marc says:

"Thomas Jefferson edited his own Bible, cutting out subjects and references to faith, enough to convince many that he was not a Christian. If he didn’t believe strongly in the parts of the Bible that he left in, the virtue and morality of Christianity, he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble to do this editing job of his."

DAR
Oh, poor Marc wants to claim Jefferson is a Christian based upon him hacking a great deal out of the New Testament? Does Marc know any "Christians" who say things like this?

"The Christian god can be easily pictured as virtually the same as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious." --Thomas Jefferson, Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr

Marc clearly hasn't read Jefferson's Bible. Here is a bunch more from Jefferson:

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies." --Jefferson, The Jefferson Bible

"It is between fifty and sixty years since I read the Apocalypse, and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac." --Jefferson, The Jefferson Bible

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors."
--Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, 1787. This is almost identical to a letter to John Adams, 11, April 1823, as quoted by E.S. Gaustad, "Religion," in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography, New Yourk: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986, p. 287)

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." --Thomas Jefferson

"Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being." -Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13 1820

"The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills."
--Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814

I have lots more.

Marc says:

"...the separation of powers, that are much of what the Constitution is about, is patterned after the Christian doctrine that men are sinners, and that the only possibility of good government lay in mans capacity to devise several political institutions that would police each other."

Mere assertion, pulled from his bum.

Marc says: "Thomas Jeffersons immortal words about unalienable rights coming from our creator as written in the Declaration of Independence were a common bond among them..."

Small nit, note:

"All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable."
-- Thomas Jefferson's original wording in the Declaration of
Independence

"They are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights."
-- Wording as revised by Congress

Marc says: "George Washington was considered a “Christian deist” by many historians..."

Name them. The term "Christian deist" is horseshit. Deists aren't Christians and Christians aren't deists. Don't let him get away with this.

Washington was a Deist. Note:

“The entry "Deism" in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Paul Edwards, editor) lists Washington as a deist. Since this is a standard and highly respected reference work, it creates at least a strong prima facie case that he is correctly so classified.” --Greg Klebanoff, Ph.D

I have lots of documentation showing the following:

George Washington was not a Christian.
Thomas Paine was not a Christian.
John Quincy Adams was not a Christian.
Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian.
Abraham Lincoln was not a Christian.
Benjamin Franklin was not a Christian.
James Madison was not a Christian.

Also:

"One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century
champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six
Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian."
--The Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1968, p. 420.

That's all the time I have tonight. See the article posted next.

D.

The following is taken from the book Toward The Mystery by Rev. William Edelen:

Founding Fathers Would Howl If Called Christian

In few other areas of American history is there such a distortion of facts as there is regarding the religious orientation of our Founding Fathers.

A recent Guest Opinion columnist wrote in The Idaho Statesman that: "200 years ago, having religion meant one's life had been drastically altered by the saving lordship of Jesus Christ. Our country was founded by 'born again' men of heart and mind." Those statements are absurd.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin (and even Abraham Lincoln, another of our most admired Presidents) must be turning over in their graves and weeping at such a perversion of their beliefs.

Our most distinguished Founding Fathers did not believe in a "personal" God ... they did not believe that the Bible was anything other than literature ... and they had an almost contempt for the Christian clergy and Christian doctrine. "God" was to them "nature's god"; an impersonal form, or "providence." Thomas Paine said it for all of them in these words: "Men and books lie. Only nature does not lie."

In the interest of truth and integrity, I will let these brilliant men speak for themselves:

George Washington refused to ever take communion (looking upon it as superstition), refused to recite liturgy and refused to kneel. Historians classify him as a deist, as did his contemporaries. He never, at any time, professed any "Christian" doctrine or dogma. Episcopalian Bishop Wilson declared Washington to be "only a Unitarian if anything." Historians say that Washington recommended and concurred with American Consul Joel Barlow's statement, written in the Treaty of Peace and Friendship that: "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

John Adams wrote "This is my religion ... joy and exaltation in my own existence ... so go ahead and snarl ... bite ... howl, you Calvinistic divines and all you who say I am no Christian. I say you are not Christian." Regarding the trinity, he wrote this to Jefferson, "Tom, had you and I been 40 days with Moses, and beheld the great God, and even if God himself had tried to tell us that three was one ... and one equals three, you and I would never have believed it. We would never fall victims to such lies."

Thomas Jefferson, the sole author of the Declaration of Independence (outside of minor word changes), called the Bible a "dunghill" and said that to remove a few of the teachings of Jesus was to "remove the few diamonds from the dunghill." Other quotes: "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man" and "The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and unintelligible."

Benjamin Franklin wrote: "I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies."

James Madison wrote: "During almost 15 centuries the legal establishment known as Christianity has been on trial, and what have been its fruits, more or less in all places? THESE ARE THE FRUITS: Pride, indolence, ignorance and arrogance in the clergy. Ignorance ... arrogance and servility in the laity and IN BOTH CLERGY AND LAITY superstition, bigotry, and persecution."

Thomas Paine, who inspired both James Madison and Abraham Lincoln, wrote: "When I see throughout this book, called the Bible, a history of the grossest vices and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible tales and stories, I could not so dishonor my Creator by calling it by His name."

Abraham Lincoln said: "I have never united myself to any church because I could not give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian doctrine and dogma which characterize their articles of belief and confession of faith. When any church will require only the Great Commandment (the Jewish Shema) for belief, then I will join that church." Lincoln would never be baptized ... he would never make any profession of "Christian" faith ... he would never affiliate with any church or denomination ... he never subscribed to any liturgy or ritual. His own wife said, "My husband is not a Christian but is a religious man, I think."

Perhaps the point is made for those who would care to pursue it further prior to making statements that will cause the enlightened to blush with embarrassment.

A show of hands on how many would like our Founding Fathers' religious orientation to have been different is not going to change the facts. In the interest of integrity, let us not be celebrating what never was, for there is much we can celebrate that was. The wells of significant, profound and enriching "religion" ran far deeper in most of these men than in a great many orthodox Christians ... of both yesterday and today.

Too many of us are like the priests in Galileo's day who refused to look through the telescope for fear of what they might see. And too many of us are like the lady who, when first told about evolution, responded with, "Well, let us pray to God that it is not true, but IF IT IS TRUE, then let us pray to God nobody ever hears about it."

---- William Edelen. An active ordained Presbyterian and Congregational minister for 30 years. Adjunct professor of Religious Studies and Anthropology, University of Puget Sound Tacoma, Washington

You can read more about him here: http://www.williamedelen.com/

My opening post is up. It is unorthodox and doesn't deliver the crushing blows that it really could, but I don't have time to rework it extensively. As long as nobody is expecting a Doug-caliber post, feedback is welcome.

DAR
Oh my goodness. You are slaughtering the boy. He's toast.

If he weren't a fundy, this is the point marc would be saying "oops, I should have picked another opponent". Since he is what he is, I expect an even more jumbled argument full of misquotations in response.

Darrel wrote:Oh my goodness. You are slaughtering the boy. He's toast.

He's no boy; he's twice my age.

His next post is up. It's more than I expected him to come up with, but it's still pretty silly.

This is a little off point, since I haven't gone to read the online debate yet, but last night on the news there was a story about how some Christian groups are trying to deter people from going to see a Nicole Kidman movie that's opening in a couple of weeks because "it might make children stop believing in god" and it was "made by an athiest."

The preacher interviewed said "All you have to do is read the Bible to find proof that God exists." You know, as long as people actually believe that the Bible proves God exists, you'll never be able to have a reasonable debate with them.

BTW, if they used even just half of their brains they would have figured out by now that protesting a movie only makes it a hundred times more popular.

It's not great, in part because I was extremely rushed, and in part because marc's post was so "flaily," but my second post is now up and can be found here.