Ten Commandments Disallowed in Courthouses

[Richardols]

Brad:

Thank God for those rebellious Protestants! We could all be in the Church of England today. Instead, we can be Catholics!

Read what I posted about the Quebec Act. It was the Crown who allowed Catholic to practice their faith freely. Protestant colonists were almost wholly anti-Catholic!

 

[Brad]

patg:

We stood up to them because we were “Christian”? What nonsense! We stood up to them because they were trying to kill us. Basic survival is what drove us, not the notion that we were a nation with a specific religion.

I said it gave us the fortitude to win the war over evil. I did not say it was the only reason we fought.

Basic survival doesn’t stand a chance if those surviving have weak character and fortitude when they are facing a mechanized system of humiliation, terror, murder, and systematic oppression.

Ask the people that lived through the holocaust and the Soviet empire. God, Judaism, and Christianity were primary targets of the state because they gave the people the will to survive and possible thrive against their godless propaganda.

We won the war overseas and lost countless men overseas because we believed in the Christian principle of dignity and freedom for everyone.

Chamberlain’s appeasment stragegy and unwillingness to stand up to Nazi agression almost cost the British their country. It took Churchill’s will to stand up against evil to spark a redirection in the war.

Nonsense? Common sense. Learn the basics of Christianity - good and evil.

 

[Brad]

Richardols:

Okay, you tell me where God and Christianity are mentioned in the Constitution and I’ll apologize. They did understand their own Constitution and they deliberately kept God out of it.

I never want to see a “Christian” America because history has shown us what it would be perverted to be.

So they kept the word “God” out of the Constitution but promoted God and religion all throughout the government.

The issue here isn’t whether God is in the Constitution or not. It is whether God and religion can be acknowledged by the government and/or in public.

Stay on topic please.

 

[Richardols]

Brad:

Ok. When you produce evidence that any Protestant has a gameplan to establish a Christian nation that will jail, torture, and kill Catholics then I will have some concern.

Right. You’re the guy who doesn’t want to call out the troops until you see the Chinese landing boats off-shore.

If you wait until the most extreme form of proof is available, it’ll be too late by then.

 

[Brad]

Richardols:

Okay, I was wrong to mention that incidental fact. The country was not founded as a Christian nation. Thank God and thanks to the wisdom of the founding fathers.

On the contrary, I think you mentioning that fact is revealing to your true concern - perhaps you disagree with the Founding Fathers and all their promotion of God and religion.

 

[Brad]

Thekla:

I hardly need to be lectured by you about my need to learn history. Actually, I’ll just suggest that you do the same. Being a German American who minored in history, my family and I are keenly aware of Hitler’s rise to power. My grandfather and his brothers weren’t long American citizens before they were called to serve in WWII to fight against former friends and relatives.

Hitler was no tyrant; he ruled with the support of the German people. He exploited fear and used propaganda to curtail freedoms and they let him. Hitler used religion to his own advantage in order to strengthen his government.

Just another reason why I am incredible put off by the mixing of government and religion.

He exploited the German religious people’s unwillingness to allow their religous beliefs to effect public or government actions.

How you can not see similar developments progressing in the U.S. is highly concerning.

Hitler was NOT a tyant? Nobody is a perceived tyrant in their rise to power. Only after they gain power do they become a noticeable tyrant. I’d say those Germans that suffered under Hitler would consider him a tyrant, if they were being nice.

 

[Brad]

Richardols:

Right. You’re the guy who doesn’t want to call out the troops until you see the Chinese landing boats off-shore.

If you wait until the most extreme form of proof is available, it’ll be too late by then.

You stack your pile of anti-Catholic government material against my stack of anti-God government material and see what we have more to be concerned about.

I refer you also to post #87. We have to live in reality, not in paranoia.

 

[Richardols]

Brad:

perhaps you disagree with the Founding Fathers and all their promotion of God and religion.

Their mentioning God, promoting God as good force in the lives of men, etc. was a good thing. They were speaking as private citizens and some as Christians. I certainly do not disagree with them.

They had the wisdom not to establish the United States as a Christian nation.

 

[Richardols]

Brad:

You stack your pile of anti-Catholic government material against my stack of anti-God government material and see what we have more to be concerned about…

Are you an Evangelical by chance or a Catholic-formerly-an-Evangelical? I know that there’s a tendency some of them have to count all the Scriptural verses in support of a position and all the verses in support of the opposite position and to go with the one with more verses. Truth-By-Balance-Scale as it were. They do the same thing sometimes when arguing with Catholics. Just wondering.

 

[wabrams]

Lizzie:

Wrong. The papers in the Library of Congress refute your supposition. The US rebelled against the laws of the English state which imposed one religion on their populace.

Oh, so they reverted back to a several hundred year old system of law? I’m not saying they copied it word for word, but it is a striking resemblence.

 

[David_Paul]

Richardols:

You’re right and you can also bet the farm that not one of those services (in the House of Representatives) were Catholic. . .

I don’t need to bet. I know. You are wrong. Priests began officiating at services in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1826. In 1806 the first female, Dorothy Ripley, led services in the House. She was a tent style evangelist. Thomas Jefferson was at her revivalist House service.

 

[Richardols]

David_Paul:

I don’t need to bet. I know. You are wrong. Priests began officiating at services in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1826. In 1806 the first female, Dorothy Ripley, led services in the House. She was a tent style evangelist. Thomas Jefferson was at her revivalist House service.

you are correct. I was referring to the earliest days. I should have been more precise.

 

[Richardols]

Brad:

I see it more as a prejudicial position against Protestants is skewing your understanding of what they are trying to do.

I have no prejudices versus Protestants at all. My beef is with the Fundamentalists, who will tell you, in no uncertain terms, that they are not Protestants.

Can you find any quote from anywhere by any Protestant that suggest they want to force Catholics to convert?

From Protestants, none. You presume that I think that the Fundies want forced conversions. Please, they are not so lacking in subtlety.

 

[patg]

Brad:

IWe won the war overseas and lost countless men overseas because we believed in the Christian principle of dignity and freedom for everyone.

And you think those principles are unique to Christians? That only Christians fought the Nazis? More nonsense…

I live in a small county dominated by a Christian mega-church. My family suffers in every aspect because we are Catholic - in the public schools, in sports programs, in local politics, and on and on… Even at the most personal level among fellow Americans it doesn’t work and history shows that it has never worked.

 

[Brad]

Richardols:

Their mentioning God, promoting God as good force in the lives of men, etc. was a good thing. They were speaking as private citizens and some as Christians. I certainly do not disagree with them.

They had the wisdom not to establish the United States as a Christian nation.

They clearly were NOT speaking as private ctizens but AS public officials. Please read Scalia’s history lesson in his dissent:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=62539

This was NOT private.

 

[Brad]

Richardols:

Are you an Evangelical by chance or a Catholic-formerly-an-Evangelical? I know that there’s a tendency some of them have to count all the Scriptural verses in support of a position and all the verses in support of the opposite position and to go with the one with more verses. Truth-By-Balance-Scale as it were. They do the same thing sometimes when arguing with Catholics. Just wondering.

Catholic my whole life. What is lacking among Catholics is some of the evangelical fervor, fellowship, and Scripture study of the Evangelicals.

 

[Brad]

Richardols:

I have no prejudices versus Protestants at all. My beef is with the Fundamentalists, who will tell you, in no uncertain terms, that they are not Protestants.

From Protestants, none. You presume that I think that the Fundies want forced conversions. Please, they are not so lacking in subtlety.

What a good politician you are. Ok. I ask the same question replacing the word Protestant with Fundamentalist.

Is this the vast-Fundamentalist conspiracy that you are worried about?

I’m more concerned about my kids having access to over the counter abortion pills and being exposed to pornography at school. Just seems more like the real world to me.

 

[Brad]

patg:

And you think those principles are unique to Christians? That only Christians fought the Nazis? More nonsense…

I live in a small county dominated by a Christian mega-church. My family suffers in every aspect because we are Catholic - in the public schools, in sports programs, in local politics, and on and on… Even at the most personal level among fellow Americans it doesn’t work and history shows that it has never worked.

Suffers? Give me a break. You know not what suffering is.

 

[wabrams]

Brad:

Suffers? Give me a break. You know not what suffering is.

Then why don’t you share with the group what suffering is?

 

[David_Paul]

Brad:

What is lacking among Catholics is some of the evangelical fervor, fellowship, and Scripture study of the Evangelicals.

You have EWTN which combines everything (as one would except from a catholic organization).

Some of it is correct. Not too much, please. That fervor and fellowship looks better from the outside then in. I was raised a very liberal Prot. Always felt closer to Catholics than the majority of Prot denominations. Experiential religion is shallow. Fellowship often turns into oneupmanship, cattyness and fragmentation. Unfortunately, the vast majority of my fellow liberal Prots felt closer to reform Judaism and the concept of Tikkum Olam. They are more marxist than Christian (I rarely accuse anyone of not being true to the faith but this was mine so I’m entitled).

I simply cannot take Prot TV. Neither Bill Moyers liberalism nor the other 98%. But ETWN is one of my home channels.