Does Freedom Flourish Under Religion?
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A Prager column...
Here is something any honest person must acknowledge: As America has become more secular, it has become less free.
Individuals can differ as to whether these two facts are correlated, but no honest person can deny they are facts.
It seems to me indisputable that they are correlated. To deny this, one would have to argue that it is merely coincidental that free speech, the greatest of all freedoms, is more seriously threatened than at any time in American history while a smaller-than-ever percentage of Americans believe in God or regularly attend church.
The United States became the freest country in the world, the sweet land of liberty, the recipient of the Statue of Liberty, the country whose flag freedom fighters around the world have often waved. This freedom was rooted in the deeply religious nature of its founding ideals. America was founded by God-centered individuals to be a God-centered country. The claims that America’s founders were mostly deists and that America was founded to be a godless secular society are not true.
@jolly said in Does Freedom Flourish Under Religion?:
The United States became the freest country in the world, the sweet land of liberty, the recipient of the Statue of Liberty, the country whose flag freedom fighters around the world have often waved.
That's not really true. You didn't abolish slavery until after a number of countries had already done so, and you didn't have universal suffrage until the 1940's.
No country that had slaves can seriously claim to be the sweet land of liberty.
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Oh, I think we can.
Read our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.
And look at our border.
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Oh, I think we can.
Read our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.
And look at our border.
@jolly said in Does Freedom Flourish Under Religion?:
Read our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.
Saying everybody is free isn't the same as everybody actually being free.
If you honestly believe that a significant number Americans had more liberty 200 years ago than they do now, or even 60 years ago, then I want some of what you're smoking.
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The only war talk I keep hearing about comes from Christians on this forum. I don't need to take this seriously.
Please love yourself.
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The only war talk I keep hearing about comes from Christians on this forum. I don't need to take this seriously.
@aqua-letifer said in Does Freedom Flourish Under Religion?:
The only war talk I keep hearing about comes from the supposed Christians on this forum. I don't need to take this seriously.
I've declared war on Christmas again this year. Rather than sitting around being really devout and sober like all those defending this holiest of celebrations do, I'm going to get eat a ton of food, get drunk and buy tons of shit as nature intended.
Who's with me?
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@aqua-letifer said in Does Freedom Flourish Under Religion?:
The only war talk I keep hearing about comes from the supposed Christians on this forum. I don't need to take this seriously.
I've declared war on Christmas again this year. Rather than sitting around being really devout and sober like all those defending this holiest of celebrations do, I'm going to get eat a ton of food, get drunk and buy tons of shit as nature intended.
Who's with me?
Not me, we gave up on Christmas years ago.
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The only war talk I keep hearing about comes from Christians on this forum. I don't need to take this seriously.
@aqua-letifer said in Does Freedom Flourish Under Religion?:
The only war talk I keep hearing about comes from Christians on this forum. I don't need to take this seriously.
I know. We're the only ones left with balls.
At least, the ones that are in use
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@aqua-letifer said in Does Freedom Flourish Under Religion?:
The only war talk I keep hearing about comes from Christians on this forum. I don't need to take this seriously.
I know. We're the only ones left with balls.
At least, the ones that are in use
@jolly said in Does Freedom Flourish Under Religion?:
I know. We're the only ones left with balls.
At least, the ones that are in useTalking bollocks isn't really the same thing as using your balls.
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@jolly said in Does Freedom Flourish Under Religion?:
I know. We're the only ones left with balls.
At least, the ones that are in useTalking bollocks isn't really the same thing as using your balls.
@doctor-phibes said in Does Freedom Flourish Under Religion?:
@jolly said in Does Freedom Flourish Under Religion?:
I know. We're the only ones left with balls.
At least, the ones that are in useTalking bollocks isn't really the same thing as using your balls.
Then bend over, sugar.
Would you like a towel?
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A Prager column...
Here is something any honest person must acknowledge: As America has become more secular, it has become less free.
Individuals can differ as to whether these two facts are correlated, but no honest person can deny they are facts.
It seems to me indisputable that they are correlated. To deny this, one would have to argue that it is merely coincidental that free speech, the greatest of all freedoms, is more seriously threatened than at any time in American history while a smaller-than-ever percentage of Americans believe in God or regularly attend church.
The United States became the freest country in the world, the sweet land of liberty, the recipient of the Statue of Liberty, the country whose flag freedom fighters around the world have often waved. This freedom was rooted in the deeply religious nature of its founding ideals. America was founded by God-centered individuals to be a God-centered country. The claims that America’s founders were mostly deists and that America was founded to be a godless secular society are not true.
@jolly said in Does Freedom Flourish Under Religion?:
The claims that America’s founders were mostly deists and that America was founded to be a godless secular society are not true.
Amusing to see someone alive in the 21st century still tilting at that old deist windmill. I thought that the deist credo no longer posed a threat to innocent Christian flocks and social morality. In any case, many if not most of the founders were deists and, God forbid, unitarians and assorted anti-trinitarians. None were godless as the epithet is used and thought of today. While they read and knew the Bible in its entirety they still based their republican thought on European political philosophers and Greece/Rome. Indeed, they actually had a pretty rock solid sense of history. I highly doubt they even thought of a secular society, wholly or in part - that sort of thinking would have to wait close to another century and an industrial revolution to occur.
I note that Prager really doesn't know what to do with Jefferson. The author therefore goes to some effort to sideline T.J.. Entertaining. I can't imagine what Prager would have to do if Thomas Paine had been a signatory founder. Most inconvenient.
