God Bless America?

Originally posted by Suzianne
I really wish I could see Rowan Atkinson in another venue than just "Mr. Bean". I know he's not like that in RL, but it's hard not to see him as "just some dork" after seeing that show. I mean it's funny as hell, but I'd like to see him in another context.

just for you Suzi
Rowan Atkinson at his best
YouTube

Originally posted by Suzianne
I really wish I could see Rowan Atkinson in another venue than just "Mr. Bean". I know he's not like that in RL, but it's hard not to see him as "just some dork" after seeing that show. I mean it's funny as hell, but I'd like to see him in another context.

if you havent seen it, you should watch him in blackadder (especially series 2 and 4).

if we can measure gods blessings in how good a country is at stuff, god must love our comedy............and music..............and literature........and.......oops bragging again sorry!!!

Originally posted by Suzianne
I really wish I could see Rowan Atkinson in another venue than just "Mr. Bean". I know he's not like that in RL, but it's hard not to see him as "just some dork" after seeing that show. I mean it's funny as hell, but I'd like to see him in another context.

The following are not his best, but I enjoyed them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=pOMQLhf7N4Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=L5e-1sBM9FE

Originally posted by Suzianne
In just 200 (plus a little) years, we've gone from practically nothing to the leading world superpower. Inventions made in this country by Americans and others have raised the quality of life worldwide. We now enjoy a technology unequaled in world history.

Of course the US was blessed.

If you say you can't see it, I would guess you're playing the troll role (a bit).

The Soviet Union went from nothing to a superpower in about a generation, despite suffering the onslaught of the largest land invasion in human history. I've always regarded that as a somewhat greater accomplishment.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I love the PBS series "The American Experience". It really delves into American History in such a way as to bring it alive. I have seen part of this series on "The Abolitionists".

What I did originally hold in mind as the concept of being "blessed by God" was especially the founding of America, the bringing about on the land of North America "a new nat ow America stands to lose this blessing altogether. This really was my original point.

"American Experience" is a favorite of mine as well. You should take the time to watch all of it. I suspect that it can't help but alter your views on slavery, Lincoln and the Civil War.

What I did originally hold in mind as the concept of being "blessed by God" was especially the founding of America, the bringing about on the land of North America "a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal".

I understand this. That is part of the reason that I placed the following sentence in bold in what I quoted from the overview of "The Abolitionists":

The documentary reveals how the movement shaped history by exposing the fatal flaw of a republic founded on liberty for some and bondage for others, setting the nation on a collision course.

The point being, of course, that the founding of America was NOT based on "the proposition of all men are created equal". That at its founding that proposition was merely whitewash on the tomb.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Britain did not, on the eve of its creation, dedicate itself to God. God was nowhere to be found in Britain's founding. Oh there may have been lip service (God Save the Queen and all that) but no thanks to God for giving them the land of England. We've seen a decline worldwide in the influence of Great Britain for the past 200 years. Is th ...[text shortened]... m other countries with some sort of axe to grind that deny the concept on the face of it.

QUOTES BY THE FOUNDING FATHERS
(Submitted for the Inconvenience of Latter-Day Religious Zealots and Assorted Other Right-Wing Demagogues Who Would Distort the Truth About What the United States Is All About.)

"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." -- Thomas Jefferson

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

"It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentence toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy, absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches." -- Benjamin Franklin

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." -- Benjamin Franklin

"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst." -- Thomas Paine

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind." -- Thomas Paine

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all." -- Thomas Paine

"The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar." -- Thomas Paine

"Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law." -- Thomas Jefferson

"God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there will never be any liberal science in the world." -- John Adams

"Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years?" -- John Adams

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." -- John Adams

"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." -- James Madison

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." -- James Madison

"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on a man." -- Thomas Jefferson


NOT A FOUNDER, BUT STILL WORTH INCLUSION:


"The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession." -- Abraham Lincoln

Originally posted by Soothfast
QUOTES BY THE FOUNDING FATHERS
(Submitted for the Inconvenience of Latter-Day Religious Zealots and Assorted Other Right-Wing Demagogues Who Would Distort the Truth About What the United States Is All About.)

"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured ...[text shortened]... ook, nor Christianity my profession." -- Abraham Lincoln

You live and learn,I did not know your founding fathers were such wise men,no wonder we got our arses kicked in the war of independence.

Originally posted by OdBod
You live and learn,I did not know your founding fathers were such wise men,no wonder we got our arses kicked in the war of independence.

Those men had nothing to do with kicking the British red coats arses. That honor is given to our ragtag army and George Washington, our first President. 😏

Originally posted by Soothfast
QUOTES BY THE FOUNDING FATHERS
(Submitted for the Inconvenience of Latter-Day Religious Zealots and Assorted Other Right-Wing Demagogues Who Would Distort the Truth About What the United States Is All About.)

"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured ook, nor Christianity my profession." -- Abraham Lincoln

Yeah, I've read these quotes before. They are usually trotted out by the atheists to support their notion that America was not founded by Deists at all. It's not even the first time I've seen them in this forum.

Actually, these quotes might have been spoken by actual Deists. They believe in God over Christ, I do not believe they are Christians per se. I also have no clue how far out of context these quotes have been taken, either.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
The point being, of course, that the founding of America was NOT based on "the proposition of all men are created equal". That at its founding that proposition was merely whitewash on the tomb.

Right, but the man who said the quote I referenced was Abraham Lincoln, and I suspect he was just taking the Declaration of Independence at face value.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Those men had nothing to do with kicking the British red coats arses. That honor is given to our ragtag army and George Washington, our first President. 😏

And the only man to receive a 100% vote in the Electoral College.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Right, but the man who said the quote I referenced was Abraham Lincoln, and I suspect he was just taking the Declaration of Independence at face value.

You seem to have missed the point which is that the following concept you had in mind is just flat-out wrong:

What I did originally hold in mind as the concept of being "blessed by God" was especially the founding of America, the bringing about on the land of North America "a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal".

Originally posted by Suzianne
I also have no clue how far out of context these quotes have been taken, either.

Seeing as you have "no clue" about what those who founded the nation truly said and believed, maybe you should bone up on history a mite more before saying such things as follows:

Britain did not, on the eve of its creation, dedicate itself to God. God was nowhere to be found in Britain's founding. Oh there may have been lip service (God Save the Queen and all that) but no thanks to God for giving them the land of England. We've seen a decline worldwide in the influence of Great Britain for the past 200 years. Is this the hallmark of a nation blessed by God? Probably not.

America, on the other hand, has as its motto "In God We Trust" and to this day this motto appears on every US coin. America also believed in Manifest Destiny, or the idea that God gave America full right to all land clear to the Pacific Ocean. In America, we've been fortunate. I believe this fortune is because we've been blessed by God. In fact, most Americans think so. It's only people from other countries with some sort of axe to grind that deny the concept on the face of it.

I guess your point is that the U.S. is "blessed by God" because it had "dedicated itself to God" at its inception. When you speak of a god you doubtless mean the one presented in the bible, but while most of the Founders likely believed in a god of some sort, quite a few thought the biblical version was absolute rubbish and the divine origin of Jesus a fairy tale.

The U.S. stands out for having relatively nonreligious origins, not the other way around. No national religion was proclaimed, and separation of church and state is intimately woven into the (prolific) writings and documents of the Founders. "In God we trust" was not put on coins and currency until almost 100 years after the founding of the nation (1864), and "One nation under God" only wormed its way into the pledge of allegiance during the height of the McCarthy era of the 1950s. "Manifest destiny" was a nationalist slogan and little more.

Originally posted by RJHinds
... and George Washington, our first President. 😏

Do you know what year you got independance?

And what year Washington became President?

Want to rethink who was the first President?