Re: Was the US founded as a Christian Nation?

Some thoughts:

My original post had to do with whether as a nation, (USA), we are
founded on Christianity.
The Declaration of Independence attributes our rights to an endowment
by God, not by government.
Then someone challenged whether there even IS a Creator.
But my reply is that, it is the idea of a Creator upon which our
nation is founded.
I still think that is true.

One cannot proceed from the known to arrive at God.
It works the other way.
God is the explanation for what we already know.
The natural/materialist view leads, if you follow its logic to the
end,
to absurdity every time. Such as a universe based on randomness.

As I said in an earlier post in this thread, you either have communion
with God, or you do not.
We cannot prove God. He does that Himself.
After their sin, Adam and Eve hid from God.
It was God who came seeking them, not the other way round.
We hide from God, from truth, from reality.
But God is persistent.

=*=*=

On Dec 23, 10:02 pm, Joe Mion <joe_m...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2008-12-23 09:00:53 -0800, Lute <lutelat...@xxxxxxx> said:

My main argument with atheism is that it leaves us with no rational
underpinning of reality.  All is reduced to chance, and to the
operation of blind, indifferent natural forces, with no underlying
purpose.  The end result of all life, in that view, is ultimate
oblivion, and therefore, futility.

Well, I figure you have to be a little bit clearer on what you mean by
"no rational underpinning of reality." particularly the underpinning
and reality part.  The rest of your post doesn't really address that
assertion.  Atheism tends toward a rational understanding of our world.
 We don't adhere dogmatically to a belief system, we simply ebb and
flow with where the evidence takes us, which is all that can be
expected of a rational being.

If you consider the pure nature of science, what is it other than a
mere extension of our own senses?  We perceive the world through our
five senses, and, through a rational process, are able to interpret
those signals and act upon them.  Modern scientific exploration is
merely an amplification of that simple biological process of perceiving
our surroundings.  Consider that a microscope or telescope extends the
power of our eyes, for example.

The trouble is that we're trapped in a world where our five senses are
all that we have to interpret our surroundings.  If we suspect there's
a fire behind a door, we touch that door to see if it's hot.  We
interact with our reality and take action based on what we observe.

Similarly, we are only able to grasp the basic 3-spatial dimensions
(plus the dimension normally ascribed to time), even though physicists
debate that there may be many more.  But, really, what about those
dimensions?  What's in them?  Where do they exist?  How do they alter
my reality?  Can we ever truly grasp them?  Can we ever see them?  
Science may one day be able to harness the power of those dimensions,
but for the moment, they're basically undetectable.

Pondering such questions, such unknowns, is about as close to a
religious experience I could ever imagine.  It doesn't make my life
futile, it makes my life valuable.  But I don't guide my life on the
basis of unknowns such as those.  I merely ponder their nature and am
content.

We don't know the beginning of the universe, as in "how" it got here,
and at this time can only consider how it may end, if it ends at all,
but whatever course it may take, it's simply a wonder that we're here
at all.  What we do know is that about 5-billion years from now, our
sun will gasp it's last breath and if it doesn't engulf our planet,
then our world will surely be barren of life.  And the various
understandable and observable calamities of the natural universe, such
as NEOs and GRBs, exist to remind us that we're a mere speck of dust
floating in a very, very large universe that is full of violence and
chance, but nonetheless driven by mechanical forces, such as the big
four, that we can understand (almost), and others that we haven't yet
mastered but suspect that they are at work.  So much for futility, eh?  
That's just reality.  It's not a purposeless existence; it's a simple
matter to just acknowledge that we exist and leave it at that and do
our best to make the most of it.

And, personally, I like being in touch with reality on that level.  My
feeling about god and religion is why do I need to stick some god, some
deity, some omniscient "being," some supernatural something that can't
be detected, in between me and my universe?  Why should I consider the
mechanisms that surround us to be somehow sentient, as if the universe
is an intelligent force?  And, especially, why all this worship and
ritual and communal strange behavior?  It's a lot like stroking a
woman's thigh through blue jeans---you're never really touching the
real thing.

That's really all atheism is about.  We touch the door to see if it's
hot before entering.  Religious people tend to barge right in and hope
the room's not not on fire.

Overall, I think you make some false assumptions about atheists, the
same common mistakes I see over and over again.  You try to rationally
argue in favor of irrationality, or, in this case, rationally argue
against rationality.  When are you actually going to settle in and
really listen to what it is that we think and what it is that we are
saying, and most importantly, pay some attention to what it is that
we're actually doing in this world?

---Joseph

.

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