The Blue Board

He ever said the US was founded on religion. He said "principles" and it most certainly was.

I don't think you can make that assumption about their beliefs and I don't think you should in this discussion. I think you're reaching with that one

I'm not reaching. Now, whether or not their beliefs were really given from a higher power is debatable in some eyes. But their basic values were derived from their beliefs and those had to have a lot of clout when they wrote the constitution. IMO of course.

"IMO of course" is all you needed to add and I would have responded

I think that saying you know what those men who wrote the constitution (225 years ago) were thinking and believed in is reaching to make your point. It should never be asserted that anyone knows what people from over 2 centuries ago were thinking or based their decisions off of.

We my friend are living in the proof... sit back and watch what happened to every other world empire (and thats what we were)... not to the extent of conquering land and people groups for the sole reason of expansion of course... but we are imploding... morally, financially, and relationally.... and the people on this board thinks a new President will change it? That is whats laughable.....

Exactly. I just basing this on m opinion of the men and what they've wrote. Here's a few examples.........

John Adams: "

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were. . . . the general principles of Christianity. . . . I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature."

Again, John Adams( the whole quote): letter to Thomas Jefferson

"Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion at all!!!" But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell."

Samuel Adams: this is from "rights of the colonist as Christians"......

"II. The Rights of the Colonists as Christians.

The right to freedom being the gift of the Almighty...The rights of the colonists as Christians...may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutions of The Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.

In his Last Will and Testament he wrote:

Principally, and first of all, I resign my soul to the Almighty Being who gave it, and my body I commit to the dust, relying on the merits of Jesus Christ for the pardon of my sins."

Ben Franklin. A self proclaimed deist wrote this 5 months before his death......"

I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe; that he governs it by his Providence; that be ought to be worshipped; that the. most acceptable service we can render to him is doing good to his other children; that the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points of all sound religion, and I regard them as you do, in whatever sect I meet with them. As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as be left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is like to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it."

This last one is the most surprising and I really think this proves that at the very least, Hamilton shaped all views on life through religion......

Alexander Hamilton......

"Alexander Hamilton

The Episcopalian authored many of the Federalist Papers, signed the Constitution, and became the first Secretary of the Treasury. In an April 1802 letter to James A. Bayard, Hamilton proposed The Christian Constitutional Society:

In my opinion, the present constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banner bona fide must we combat our political foes, rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provided for amendments. By these general views of the subject have my reflections been guided. I now offer you the outline of the plan they have suggested. Let an association be formed to be denominated "The Christian Constitutional Society," its object to be first: The support of the Christian religion. second: The support of the United States."

So, I certainly can't speak for these guys 250 years ago but I don't think it's a reach to say that their views of America, reflected them and what their views of a society should be. I think they all believed that everything decent about themselves came from a higher power and our country was beautifully shaped by what these men wrote. That's all I'm saying.

Look Mom, I can do this too!

James Madison

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." - letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774

"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects."

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries." - 1803 letter objecting use of gov. land for churches.

John Adams:

"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!" - letter to Thomas Jefferson

"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity."

". . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."

Thomas Jefferson:

"The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs." - Letter to James Smith, December 8, 1822

"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." - to Horatio Spafford, March 17, 1814

"We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication ."

Go find that in the old testament. I'm sure it was there in the instructions on how much you can beat your slaves in the new testament as well.

My vote will be for Mitt.
My main reason is I'm tired of everybody on welfare and Obama wants everybody on it.
It's modern day slavery
He wants people so dependent on government that they will be scared not to vote Dem
Laziness and being fat is not a handicap. Get off your ass & quit making 5 kids with no job or husband.
They need to take a drug test if your on welfare.

I rather have Mitt than Obama

Just saw this article and thought some people in this thread would like to read it

Why? Doesn't pertain in any way to the topic.

Good point. Post away, and God bless you.