Originally posted by JesusIsAlive
The Treaty of Paris—which formally ended the American Revolutionary War—mentions the holy Trinity in its preface?“In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity....”
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=008/llsl008.db&recNum=93
Treaty of Tripoli.
Do you also think that "under god" was in the pledge of allegiance when it was first written?
Originally posted by JesusIsAlive
http://christianity.about.com/od/independenceday/a/foundingfathers.htm
1. The Bible is the word of God.
2. Jesus is God or the son of God.
That's because both of them were deists, who believed in one god but placed zero value on the bible. The fact that the webpage needed to blantantly lie about that shows what an invalid source it is when I have already shown a quote proving Ben was not a Christian. As for Thomas Jefferson:
"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and imposters led by Paul, the first great corruptor of the teachings of Jesus. "
Yup, that certainly is a man who puts great faith in the bible... so much that he WROTE HIS OWN VERSION where Jesus isn't God.
Meanwhile, let's look at good'ol John Adams, who that page also lies about him being christian:
"The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. "
"The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. "
Particularly the last quote. Yup, these are certainly strongly christian founders basing the US on strongly christian principals.
I'm hardly an expert on this; I'd just been watching a documentary about the founding fathers on the history channel. Accordingly, Freemasonry was the dominant mindset, with its basic tenets being charity, moral uprightness, and belief in a Supreme Being, however one chose to define it. The FFrs may've been Christian by birth and upbringing, but this show gave the definite impression that Christianity, per se, was not what was brought to the table (so you're saying this is a modern and incorrect interpretation?). Deism may've been the preferred definition for a Supreme Being, though this was not specifically mentioned.
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0093/0093_01.asp
Freemasonry exposed.
Originally posted by JesusIsAliveNice tidbit of knowledge.
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0093/0093_01.aspFreemasonry exposed.
Originally posted by Mindship
I'm hardly an expert on this; I'd just been watching a documentary about the founding fathers on the history channel. Accordingly, Freemasonry was the dominant mindset, with its basic tenets being charity, moral uprightness, and belief in a Supreme Being, however one chose to define it. The FFrs may've been Christian by birth and upbringing, but this show gave the definite impression that Christianity, per se, was not what was brought to the table (so you're saying this is a modern and incorrect interpretation?). Deism may've been the preferred definition for a Supreme Being, though this was not specifically mentioned.
Christianity was a minority imo. The important FFs (minus Washington) were deists. A lot of them spoke out really strongly against christianity. And they certainly made it clear they had no intention of basing the US on christianity.
Originally posted by JesusIsAlive
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0093/0093_01.aspFreemasonry exposed.
Anyway, there are problems w/ that chick track.
1. There are so many inaccuracies... though I do believe masonry is highly unchristian and pagan-influenced, to base it on that site would be madness.
2. We're talking about how masonry was 200+ years ago so that site is moot..
Originally posted by King KandyNot looking for debate, just some clarification.
They were freemasons. They were deists as well. This is not a hard concept to grasp. Freemasonry was not considered religious at the time. Franklin, Payne, Adams, Hamilton all said straight out that they were deists. This is not up for debate as they have explicitly stated it in several quotes of theirs.
And they certainly made it clear they had no intention of basing the US on christianity.That was always my understanding.
Originally posted by Digi
Who the hell is a freemason these days anyway? What demographic is that trying to reach by "exposing" it?
Also upon further research I can actually find no legit evidence that masonry is anti-christian (though it's not pro-christian either) and hereby retract my earlier statements that it was pagan-influenced.
this is the question that all religious people ask to push us away from eachother even further. god said clearly that there is no way of knowing or understanding him...and here we are talking about truth in his name
there are sects in a religion itself: how does "truth" fit there then? how does a protestant or a catholic or a sunni or a shia speak of truth when they have such wide differences between then DESPITE following the same god and the same books?
Originally posted by King KandyI always figured that our FFrs -- having come from societies of religious persecution or MGIBTYG mindsets -- founded the new country on noble principles first brought to humanity's attention through religion but then "justified" through reason, in this way eliminating the destructive elements of religionism (or so was the hope).
Also upon further research I can actually find no legit evidence that masonry is anti-christian (though it's not pro-christian either) and hereby retract my earlier statements that it was pagan-influenced.
That is, "truth" through reason was a surer bet than "truth" through so-called revelation.
Originally posted by Mindship
I always figured that our FFrs -- having come from societies of religious persecution or MGIBTYG mindsets -- founded the new country on noble principles first brought to humanity's attention through religion but then "justified" through reason, in this way eliminating the destructive elements of religionism (or so was the hope).That is, "truth" through reason was a surer bet than "truth" through so-called revelation.
http://buzz.yahoo.com/article/1:y_news:b7753eb80d31cd79751874002e88f3fb/Fossils-hold-a-surprise
"It remains possible, Kennedy noted, that animal fossils of similar or older age exist that remain to be found that are marine in origin. However, at the very least, this work suggests "that animals had already taken on the ability to deal with the environmental fluctuations one sees in lake environments," he said. "That suggests that their evolutionary response is much more rapid that I would have supposed, and that the earliest animals were far more diverse than imagined."
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070822_gm_life_origins.html
posted 15 June 2008, 11:54 am ET
critical wrote:
"One problem I have is that RNA and DNA encode information. A random collection of these building blocks may only encode gibberish but life doesn't exist based on gibberish. You have to have them in a certain sequence in order for them to accomplish any sort of purpose even accouting for the filler pieces that don't do anything but mark and fill. And this encoding of information increases the probabilities to even greater odds AND implies intelligence. These letters don't assemble themselves randomly. Someone or somthing has to put them in sequence. Even if you are able to demonstrate that life originated somewhere else, you have simply moved the location of the problem of how life originated to another planet or universe. If it didn't originate on this planet that doesn't answer the original question. And the final question then becomes, where did the matter come from in the first place from which life is based. If every action has a cause, they what was the 'cause' of matter in the first place? If matter has an age, then when was the matter 'born' and how?
Another problem is one that Darwin called 'irreducible complexity'. If proteins are the machinery of cells, the machinery of DNA replication, untwisting, proofreading, etc; then proteins would need to exist to 'manage' the DNA. But DNA is what proteins are assembled from (via RNA templates, and other proteins that work to build the new protein being transcribed, carry the amino acids, catalyse the reactions, etc). It is a catch-22 even at that simple level of understanding. And when you take into account ALL the pieces and parts of a simple cell. The myriad reactions taking place, the compartmentalization, the waste products that have to be removed, it becomes more than something you can explain with a simple roll of the dice.
I will leave any conclusions up to the individual reader but for me it is nothing short of miraculous. And that is something that science can never conclude anything about one."