News-Record.com

Interesting. I wonder what Mr. Long would say if he ever learned that the phrase "In God We Trust" wasn't even created until nearly 100 years had passed after the Declaration of Independence? It seems obvious that he has yet to encounter this salient fact.

I also wonder about his statements that God "gave" us this land and that we have a "will for peace." Studying my history books, it seems that this country was built by Americans working hard at killing hundreds of thousands (including innocent women and children) who dared to stand in their way.

I'm not saying that America is "bad" or "godless" in its origins -- only that a little historical research might give some balance to the views of the vehemently patriotic.

Oh come on Nemo.

The Pilgrims came to establish a colony in the "new world" for religious principals. At least it was an attempt to begin anew with eyes and hearts toward God. No, it wasnt a peaceful, non violent undertaking but it was and had as the main thought to be a country built on godly principals. All good ideas dont necessairly come at the advent of an event. The use of the words, "In God We Trust" came later when the idea surfaced.

The United States has fought for its independence ever since government was established. We have risen to rank as the most powerful nation in the world.

Our power does not come from our size but rather from our position in the world market, the value of the dollar, our military might and our technology.

I am proud to be an American.

I am proud to be an American.
I am lucky to be an American - so are you.

I am also fairly proud to be whom I have become, but getting here I've done a few things I am not proud of, and even done a few shameful things. That is a fair assessment of most people, as well as fair assessment of America.

The Pilgrims did not establish a country, they established only a colony. Other peoples, with different principals, religious and otherwise, establish other colonies.

While the reasons MCP states for "Our power" are generally correct - the reasons behind those reasons include seemingly unlimited natural resources, government intervention on the side of big business (let's start with canals then railroads then ... )

Now I don't know why the LTE writer mentions Budda, but The God of America is also The God of Jews as well as The God Islam, and according to the song, He's on everyone side!

Maybe that is why Bushie has said over and over this war will be Hard Work. By my count he said "Hard Work" 43 times during first pres' debate of 'o4.

MCP = NCP

People like William bring me great discomfort. A nationalistic religion is dangerous, ask the Puritans about that one!

nemo brings up excellent points. I say this even though nemo and I come at this issue from opposite ends. Yet, we find common ground with which to dialogue.

William needs to learn that America is NOT a Christian nation. As JDR noted, "...The God of America is also The God of Jews as well as The God Islam, and according to the song, He's on everyone side!"

Christianity does not have the "corner" on religion. Research what Christianity has done throughout history seeking to gain dominance. And remember, when a religion is supposedly "persecuted," it is then that it expands!

Shalom

"Our forefathers, many years ago, with great courage, brought forth a document declaring independence, freedom and a will for peace."

And as Americans we must redouble our efforts to defend and support that document against those who would tear it down and render it irrelevant.

It is the only thing that separates us from the jungle.

“As the July 4 holiday approaches, I would like to remind all Americans what the Independence Day holiday is all about.”

Taken straight from the Declaration:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

"Now I don't know why the LTE writer mentions Budda, but The God of America is also The God of Jews as well as The God Islam, and according to the song, He's on everyone side!"...........

Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?

The Quran states that Muslims, Jews and Christians worship the same God (Sura 29:46Off-site Link).

However, Islamic tradition teaches that only Muslims will be admitted to Paradise. Though they are considered "People of the Book" - a reference to Jewish and Christian scriptures - Jews and Christians are excluded.

Muslims claim - without providing irrefutable proof - that Christians and Jews have corrupted the Scriptures, and teach that everyone must instead accept the teachings of the Quran.

When compared with the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the teachings of Quran show that Allah is not the same God worshipped by Jews and Christians.

God � The Koran asserts that the god of Islam is the God of Christians and Jews (Sura 29:46Off-site Link). Nothing could be farther from the truth.7

The god of Islam, Allah, is most definitely not the God of the Bible. Allah is presented in the Koran as an autocratic ruler who is aloof and arbitrary (Sura 5:40Off-site Link). Allah is unknowable whereas the God of the Bible is knowable (2 Timothy 1:12Off-site Link). Allah is impersonal, unlike the personal God the Scriptures reveal (1 Peter 5:6-7). Allah is unitarian (Sura 4:48Off-site Link) whereas the God of the Bible is trinitarian (2 Corinthians 13:14Off-site Link). Here is what the Koran says about the God of the Bible (Sura 4:171Off-site Link): �Believe in Allah and say not �Trinity.� Cease! It is better for you! Allah is only One God. Far is it removed from his transcendent majesty that he should have a son.�

Allah is capricious (Sura 2:284Off-site Link), whereas the true God is trustworthy. And Allah is never anywhere presented as a god of love � which is the essence of the nature of the true God (1 John 4:7-16Off-site Link).

Jesus � The Koran denies point blank that Jesus was the Son of God (Sura 112:2-3Off-site Link). It also denies His atoning sacrifice by claiming that he never died (Sura 4:157Off-site Link). A substitute died for Him on the Cross. Jesus was translated to Heaven, like Enoch, where He will remain until He returns to kill all pigs, destroy all crosses, and convert the world to Islam. Jesus will marry, reign for 40 years and then die and be buried next to Muhammad in Medina.8 Jesus is characterized in the Koran as nothing more than �an apostle of Allah� (Sura 4:171Off-site Link).
Source: The Truth About IslamOff-site Link Dr. David R. Reagan

Buz - I sure do not want to argue with you about religion - but you confirm my statement "The Quran states that Muslims, Jews and Christians worship the same God (Sura 29:46 Off-site Link)" .. then go off on tangents about paths to heaven - well beyond the scope of my simple statement.

Buz – Dr. Reagan is nothing if not strident in his vilification of Islam. Experts in Islam seem to disagree with the many adjectives Reagan uses to insult their God. However, I guess this is the way of the intolerant of all religions. I notice all the comparative Christian scripture comes from the New Testament. The God described in the Old Testament was a good deal harsher than in the New.

The good Doctor is wrong in one thing. Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Mormons all worship the God of Abraham. Actually what he is arguing is the differences in the nature of this God and who is His Son or Prophet. This is stating the obvious – this is why they are different religions. Both Jews and Muslims do not believe Jesus is the son of God, although Reagan labels one Satanic and the other gets off with a; well they missed the boat. Reagan talks about intolerance but writes off Mormans, Masons, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Unitarian Church, and the World Wide Church of God as cults. The Church of Christ, United Pentecostals, and the Catholic Church make out better – they are only classified as sects. Then his intolerance goes on to include yoga, ACLU, gays, Harry Potter, Mickey Mouse and others far too long to list.

Back to the thread, America started with multiple religions (even if you discount the religions of the original owners). The first permanent settlements by the Spanish were Catholic, the first permanent English settlement was Jamestowne (established purely for profit, by the way) who followed the Church of England. Slaves were delivered to the settlement shortly after with their own beliefs, and were forced to convert. Several years later the Puritan Pilgrims landed to escape the Church of England. However, their belief in religious freedom only extended to themselves as they were also intolerant of other beliefs. Other settlements followed with religious intolerance to varying degrees. As to the founding of The United States, the Declaration states that our rights are endowed to us by the creator. However, the author Thomas Jefferson was a Deist and did not believe in the divinity of Jesus. I guess Dr. Reagan also doesn’t have much use for the Declaration of Independence or its author.

Thank you God, for giving the white man America.

Thank you God, also, for the raping of small children, for it must be your will.

Thank you god for the deaths of so many innocents, for it must be your will.

OK, I'm done with the sarcasm.

The Quran is just as stupid as the Bible in my opinion. Both are books of doctrine and principle created by man to divide humans.

LastVOR, thanks for stating what I was thinking when reading through the posts since I had last read through them.

I need not make any other comments currently.

Shalom

July 4th is about hot dogs, cole beer (pepsicola for the kids), and blowing stuff up.

All this stuff about independence and patriotism is just one big excuse to do the aforementioned stuff.

Where can I buy some "Cole Beer"? I bet Cold Cole Beer is even better. Just picking at ya nit!

When will this ignorance end?

Our 'founding fathers' were not all Christians, and even the ones that were were not a bit as closed minded as you are. It does help you to sleep at night though doesn't it? Awhhh...

Let me just remind you first that they did establish the separation of church and state, and while this is seen most aspects or their dealings the doctrine is degraded when religious beliefs guide one's decisions based on what could otherwise be defined as complete ignorance. The line is slowly being erased because of the ignorant evangelical crap that our founding fathers were talking about a christian god.

A quote from our first president, George Washington, "Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. I had hoped that liberal and enlightened thought would have reconciled the Christians so that their [not our?] religious fights would not endanger the peace of Society." (Letter to Sir Edward Newenham, June 22, 1792).

How about a quote from our Nation's second president John Adams written in the Treaty of Tripoli, ratified by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams on 10 June, 1797. "[T]he Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion?" Another from his letters to F.A. Vandercamp 1809-1816 , "How has it happened that millions of myths, fables, legends and tales have been blended with Jewish and Christian fables and myths and have made them the most bloody religion that has ever existed? Filled with the sordid and detestable purposes of superstition and fraud?" This is not the sentiment of a Christian..

I really want to make sure I get all of the fathers that we could possibly be talking about, so I'll move on to Thomas Jefferson, writer of our country's constitution. In Notes on the State of Virginia, he said of this religion, "There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites" (quoted by newspaper columnist William Edelen, "Politics and Religious Illiteracy," Truth Seeker, Vol. 121, No.3, p.33.) Fortunantly you have prooved Mr. Jefferson wrong by being both. Another quote from Jefferson in a letter to Thomas Whittemore on June 5, 1822, "Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy's own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and divided it into sects of inextinguishable hatred for one another." I might also note that Keith Ellison swore in on a Koran that was Thomas Jefferson's, Jefferson also owned Buddist and Hindu texts?what a closed minded guy (sarcasam implied).

James Madison, fourth president and father of the Constitution, was not religious in any conventional sense. "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." Also, in a letter to William Bradford April 1, 1774, "During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have 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."

None of these are from the internet, they are from archived documents in the library--LEARN SOMETHING B/C YOUR IGNORANCE IS THE PROBLEM WITH OUR COUNTRY--IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GOD!!!