The absence of "God" from the democratic party platform
 

A Godless Party Expels the Creator

I'm not a huge Pat Buchanan fan, but boy did he nail it with this line...

"The howlers had it right. God doesn’t belong in that platform. "

Maybe God is a Republican.
Obama has that effect on everybody.

The separation of Church and State was a founding principle of our nation.
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"Church" meant the powers of the various religions that frequently interviened in state affairs for most of Europes development. The separation meant, for example, that if the Pope decrees we should go to war, he has no power in the US government. religious leaders cannot define our laws.

This principle has been bastardized to mean that religious beliefs, morals or philosophies have no place in our government. Our entire political foundation was based on religious belief - the constitution, declaration of independce all reference a "god". The beauty is you're free to believe what you want. I am not religious but do not get offended by other religions influence on this country. In fact this bastardization is leading to people losing their freedom as religion gets demonized, mostly by liberals.

RIJIMMY is correct. "Seperation of church and state" was meant to make it clear that we are not a theocracy, that there is no government-sponsored, official religion. "Seperation of church and state" was not meant to express the idea that we should go out of our way to be atheistic. The founding fathers made it very clear that our founding principles are rooted in Judeo-Christian beliefs. They did not try to hide that.

It meant that religion has no place in the decision making of our government. Thus, it has no place in our decision making for president.
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"It meant that religion has no place in the decision making of our government"

I beg to differ...I suggest you read the Declaration Of Independence. Several references to God and government. No one ever told our elected officials that they are required to leave their religious beliefs outside of their offices.

incorrect.
IF so, we do why swear our presidents in with a bible?
Federal courts - swear in witnesses with a bible
Label our currency and motto - In God We Trust?

last line of Gettysburg address -
"that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".

Eisenhowers D-day address
"Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking" (OH MY GOD SOUNDS LIKE A CRAZY SARA PALIN!!!)

Roosevelt on Pearl Harbor -
With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounding determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

JFK at Cuban Missle crisis -
Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right- -not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.

I guess we have a lot of violations of church and state!

The word God only appears once in the Declaration of Independence..

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

Declaration of Independence - Text Transcript

"The word God only appears once in the Declaration of Independence.."

you left out the very next sentence...

"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"

Safe to say that by man's "creator", they meant God?

So the first 2 sentences of the Declaration each make reference to God. We've come a long way from that, to the DNC platform...

Same can be said about the GOP platform....Unfortunately both sides seem to have lost their way when it comes to the Declaration of Independence

Ding, ding, ding.

Ding, ding, ding.

And the Constitution

today, Barak Obama

As painful as this day is and always will be, it leaves us with a lesson that no single event can ever destroy who we are. No act of terrorism can ever change what we stand for. Instead, we recommit ourselves to the values that we believe in, holding firmly without wavering, to the hope that we confess," he said. "God bless the memories of those we lost. And God bless these United States of America."

I guess the big question is, which religions do you allow to influence policy.

Chritianity, Judaism, and Islam all pretty much recognize the same God....but their religions are definitely different in their teachings and beliefs.

Just thinking out loud...

"I guess the big question is, which religions do you allow to influence policy."

That is one big question.

I hope the answer is...any religion based on love, tolerance, charity, and the sanctity and preciousness of all life.

They all Claim it...in there own words. Still Different views.

and everyone has individuals that have there own interpretation which doesn't jive with the religion.

All religions are practiced by folks who are far from perfect. However, only one religion currently has hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of followers who support the notion of slaughtering innocent women and children.

Our country was founded upon Judeo-Christian principles. In my opinion, those principles are a pretty sure-fire way (though not the only way) to lead a good life, and to help others to lead a good life. If we stick to those principles, we will be OK. If we stray from those principles, we are at risk.

Unions = Organized crime
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But should our Country's Laws and Policies be driven by a religious principle...or should they be driven by the Contitution, And whether they interfere with the 3 core values of the declaration of Independence........Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

That's a great, deep, profound question. And I'd say, if the constitution and a religious doctrine are at odds, we have to use the constitution as a guide. I'd hate to see a law that says you have to say the rosary, for example.

Although...there was a time when our laws allowed for slavery and segregation...the people leading the charge against those evil institutions, were motivated by Christianity.

I believe Christianity has also been used to defend both those institutions as well.
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beginning-

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,

end-

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.




our country's laws and policies are created through government, our rights are natural "self-evident" rights endowed by our Creator .. the Constitution was written to protect the individual from governement's inevitable infringement on those rights through it's laws and policies...we instituted a govenrment to secure our Constitutional rights and that government is supposed to be limited to and by the enumerated powers ...our country's laws and policies are only "religeously driven" to the extent that those creating laws and policies are "religeously guided"...whether or not they are religeously guided or driven or otherwise, they should not infringe on the rights endowed by our Creator and secured through our Constitution and protected by our government

Yes, Christianity, as you say, has been USED to defend both institutions. Which is why fundamentals, foundations, principles, especially original ones, must be adhered to, otherwise religions and governments will be "USED" to achieve ends which oppose the original intentions and subvert those original foundations and principles into the very thing that destroys them from within.

This is what progressives, similar to those who bastardized Christianity, have done to the constitution. They have illegitimately "interpreted" it and USED the bastard version to fundamentally transform a federal system of sovereign States beholden to sovereign individuals who agreed to "a more perfect union" with one another for mutual protection and a common commercial market and consented to a limited central government to bind that union and wrote a Constitution that laid out the foundations and principles by which that central government would be constrained against violating the unalienable rights of the people . . . have illegitimately "interpreted" that Constitution so that individual rights are no longer unalienable, but exist only as granted by government. They have transformed the fundamental relation between the government and the people. The government is now sovereign and basically unconstrained. The people are limited by government regulation and consent to less and less of that regulation. The people are divided into conflicting classes that require government to define what must be consented to.

Our country's laws and principles should be driven by the people. The constitution sets a framework, but doesn't dictate. We have the right to make laws. Those laws could conform with a religion or go against, it's irrelevant. Many peoples moral code is influenced by religion, so it would follow that our laws are. But it doesn't have to be and we shouldn't have a problem if it is or isnt.
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There are certainly extremists in all religions. Although they claim to have good intentions, they make me nervous regardless of their origins.It is great to have religious freedoms in this country but some choose this platform to assault the rights of others whom they disagree with.

there are extremists in every area of belief, as Detbuch pointed out, extremists pervert or bastardize the belief that they claim to represent on order to attain goals that have nothing to do with the fundamentals, foundations and principles of the original beliefs, the founders secured religeous liberty because the felt that government imposed "established" religeous belief leads to extemism and perversion of religeous belief by those in power in government for purposes that have nothing to do with the fundamentals of religeous belief...they were right, which is why "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religeon, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"....it follows that those who do not necessarily have "religeous" beliefs do believe in something, that something is generally some form of government or organization that replaces "religeon" or in essence becomes a religeon of sorts, unions, political organizations and "cause" oriented organizations with charismatic leaders (these are the people that can wax eloquent and ad nausaeum with talking points and soundbites and twisted logic to sway sentiment but can barely muster a coherent thought when it comes to the fundamentals) or binding messages tend to follow similar paths and similar consequences when perverted or bastardized or when "some choose their platform to assault the rights of others whom they disagree with." ....:)

"rights of others" is an interesting phrase because "rights" seem to multiply as politicians bastardize and pervert the original intent, many "rights" that are assumed today are nothing more than promises made by people in government for their own benefit and have nothing to do with the original intent of the government that they represent...the progressives have turned this concept upside down, bastardized it to the point that many now believe that their various assumed rights are to be guaranteed and delivered by government, each group "pseudo-religeon" battling for previously non-existent government created rights used as wedges to divide us

You need "magic goggles" to see god..

And what goggles would you need to see in the Constitution those non-existent federal powers that progressives, and those who "believe" in progressivism, see?

Perhaps there are different types of "magic." There is the magic of the unseen that moves the human spirit, and there is the flim-flam slight of hand "magic" that tricks us into seeing what is not there.

I meant Urim and Thummim.
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And that, sirs, is as good an explanation of how religion works as you are going to see.

Thanks for the "revelation." Was unfamiliar with Urim and Thummim so I had to look it up. None of the explanations mention "seeing" God. Some religions create "images" of God or gods which other religions call false idols. So-called Judeo-Christian religions don't seem to purport an actual "seeing" of God, rather they require a belief in God, sort of a blind belief rather than a "seeing is believing" faith. On the other hand, there is a mystical aspect to Christianity, and to religions in general, that "sees" nature and the physical universe as the handiwork of God. So that everything you "see" is, in some pantheistic way, an identification of God, so, in a sense, you "see" God when you "see." So you don't need "magic goggles to see god." Your God-given eyes will do just fine.

Anyway, I was just using your statement as a comparison to the Houdini like magic of progressive transformation of the Constitution. Perhaps that is of less importance to you than seeing God. Quite understandable.

[Originally quoted by detbuch: "Perhaps there are different types of "magic." There is the magic of the unseen that moves the human spirit, and there is the flim-flam slight of hand magic that tricks us into seeing what is not there."]

Well . . . no. Different religions and different types of religions "work" in different ways. I am not "religious" in the sense of adhering to a dogmatic faith that celebrates the Creator with formal rituals or remembrances or artifacts or representations. I do have a growing sense, if not a belief, that there is something other than the material world that is "too much with us." My reference to the human spirit is a portion of that "something" or "Creator" which encompasses the mystery of existence and inspires so much beyond the flesh we are bound and heir to. I believe it is that human spirit that motivates us unwittingly to mimic that Creator by crafting our own minor creations, whether art, or technology, or civilizations, or the quest for "truth." I have a fuller understanding of Keats's "beauty is truth, truth beauty--That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know" which so mystified me as a young college freshman.

Though there are flim-flam clerics, there are also true believers. I see true believers in their religion as an expression of spirit and its connection to a Creator. The trappings of religion may seem silly to non-believers, but may be seen as a beautiful human creation to those who do not know how other to connect their spirit to their "unseen" Creator.

But there are other types of "religion." Secular "religions" which replace a supernatural Creator entirely with human creation. Various philosophies and systems of government, for instance. Progressivism is one such philosophical system of government, and one that has specialized in the slight of hand transformation of American government by tricking us into seeing things in our Constitution that are not there. That was the real point of my comments, certainly not about how religion works.

Well actually.....yes.

You grasp only part of it......the bit about religion being a means of connection to something greater, which clearly humans long for whether you call it God, and Creator, Love, or Common Humanity (in the case of secularists).

The trouble is that organized religion codifies that connection. This makes it easier for its members to find the connection, but it also serves to separate them from the remaining majority of humanity. History is full of examples of the inhumanity that results, and certainly Christianity is right up there with the worst offenders.

The means of codification entails creating a deterministic, anthropomorphic "God", who speaks to his priests and conveys his wishes to those who have created him. This empowers those who interpret God's wishes for the rest of us. When humans are empowered bad stuff results more often than good stuff. Flim-flammary at its worst, for sure.

An excellent read for anyone interested in the process of organized religion is the "History of God". It is a fascinating recounting of the history behind the major religions and how religious dogma evolved to reflect the hand (and agenda) of man far more than the hand of God.

This is not to bash religion. I go to church and get a lot out of it. Religion at its best is wonderful stuff, but religion at its most literal is not.

Took a Theology class in college that covered the three main religions (Judaism, Christianity & Muslim). Was very surprised at how close all 3 are and how they spun/evolved off each other.

Like i mentioned before, they all believe pretty much in the same God. They are all based on "Third Party"...... Abraham, Jesus, and Mohammed

All 3 also recognize Jerusalem as the Holy Land as well.

Sounds like the "middle man" is causing the problem :rotf2:

the Middle men are fine...

Its more of a Reading Comprehension/Active Listening Skills issue with some of the people who follow :hee:

Yup, its all in the INTERPRETATION

Ironic that I don't go to church and you do. I agree with most of what you have said here, and, it seems to me that your last sentence pertains to my comment that different religions work differently.

You, of all people, would very much enjoy the book, History of God. I have no agenda recommending it. The book has no agenda, either. It is a very well written intelligent exploration of all the major religions and the forces both good and bad that shaped them. One of the best non-fiction books I have read in my life. Consider it, you'll be glad you did.