Fundamentalists want what was NEVER theirs

[Avalux]

Revisionist history. Fundamentalists shouting and barking that this country was founded on Christian principles; going to great lengths to 'prove' this country must return to what was originally intended - laws based on the bible.

Those driving this current movement know our history and the Constitution. They know what the founding fathers intended for this country, and that their past attempts to 'take over'have failed. But now, through fear and manipulation and the assistance of the media, they are twisting the past into a pretzel and hoping the American people are too stupid to know any better. Considering our public school systems, they may very well be.

The fundamentalists were never in charge and they know it. They want something that was never theirs to begin with. They are have no respect or honor for this country and in my opinion, are anti-American.

[Avalux]

1. Can someone at least

reply that I'm an idiot or something? Thanks!!:hi:

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Ohbelieve me, I hear this at hubby's church all the time *rolling eyes*

Drives me nuts.

[rniel]

3. Sounds like

What they were talking about on NPR this morning.

They said the framers had the chance to make this a christian nation and chose NOT to!!

[Avalux]

6. Really?

They said that on NPR? I would have liked to have heard it and surprised they'd express such a liberal viewpoint.

[phaseolus]

8. that was given as an alternate viewpoint to the fundies

I think it was a PfAW spokesperson if memory serves. He had three or four sentences compared to 2 or 3 minutes of the fundies' arguments in favor of theocracy, but it was well stated and was the final word.

[Avalux]

9. Well I guess that's something -

and the final word is always good. Thanks.

[mcscajun]

4. Very well said!

:applause:

[Avalux]

7. Thanks! n/t

[Gildor Inglorion]

5. You're exactly right...

as far as the country at large goes. I was brought up in a theocracy, though...rural north Georgia in the early 1950's. Every school day started with a long prayer by the teacher and it was not uncommon for us to sing hymns in school. Everything was against the law, but nothing was enforced. Those who want this for the whole country should be careful what they wish for!

[Tux]

10. Like they'd care

Most Americans are less educated than their pets. Dumbasses go to church, told that the Deists who started this nation were Christian theocrats, then tell them we have to return to a time that never existed.

I swear Christianity is what will lead to our exstinction. ALL OVER A DAMNED BOOK!

[Avalux]

11. Apathy will lead to our extinction

Americans are too fat dumb and happy to care about learning and thinking; we will stagnate and die in the name of Jesus.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Other myths

1. That school prayer was once the rule in every part of the U.S.
False: It was practiced in the South, where the religious spectrum ran from Methodist to Baptist, and in the Northeast, where Protestant-dominated schoolboards were trying to convert Catholic and Jewish immigrant children. It was never the rule in most of the Midwest or West, not even in towns, like many in rural Minnesota, where everyone was the same religion.

2. That America has always been a deeply religious evangelical nation.
False: Between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, the North was actually quite secular, partly as a result of burnout from the Great Awakening. The Unitarians and Universalists split off from the Congregationalists (Puritans) during that era, and the Congregationalists were starting to evolve into what later became the UCC. According to a PBS American Experience program on the spiritualism craze of the 1840s, the most influential institution in the typical Northeastern town in that era was the Masonic temple, not the church.

The historical ignorance of the fundamentalists leaves them open to all kinds of lies. This is why so many of them believed Pat Robertson when he said ca. 1993 that "Christians in America are as persecuted as Jews were in Nazi Germany."

[ComerPerro]

13. I am right there with you

You are exactly right. Spot on. They say this country was founded upon Christian beliefs. Well, why is it that many of our founders were Deists? Why is it that whenever "god" is mentioned, it is "the god of nature" or "the creator" (which are meant to be more abstract concepts).

If its a Christian society and our founding fathers intended this to be a Christian society, why aren't there any mentions of Jesus Christ in our Constitution or Declaration of Independence?

[InfoMinister]

14. And How About All of the Quotes From Our Founding Fathers?

"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not." - James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance", 1785

"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." - James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance", 1785

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved--the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" - John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson

"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot ... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose." - Thomas Jefferson, to Horatio Spafford, March 17, 1814

"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth." - Thomas Jefferson, from "Notes on Virginia"

"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it." - Benjamin Franklin from "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion", Nov. 20, 1728

[ComerPerro]

15. Great list

[Malva Zebrina]

16. well, they did enjoy their fundamentalist position

for a hundred years or so beginning when they landed on these shores.

After that--err--well, living the good life as the economy prospered, took precidence over the Calvinism of the original Puritans. Besides that, they killed witches and killed Quakers in their religious zeal to found a new Zion--a church on a hill and etc.

This is ignored by the fundamentalists of today, who, incredibly, think these Puritans were the founders of this country and therefore this is a Christian nation, as they like to say.

In the following generations from the original pilgrims, having been exposed to the bigger world, due to the exposure that trade brought them , because there was nothing else in the northeast that could sustain them except to trade fish or lumber, migrated in their beliefs because their survival depended upon it, toward a more tolerant and liberal religion because, well because they had the wide exposure, prospered because of it, were not spread out over acres and acres of plantations as those bretheran in the south, but were concentrated in vibrant city communities, and had come to enjoy more luxuries and more things, and were having more fun because of it.