Rational BAC

Going back to a previous post-----Have forgotten already how to do the "view" thing---so bear with me.

Yep----------The earthquake and subsequent tidal wave that struck Lisbon, Portugal (and don't make me state the year--I think it was 1755 or so?) was the MAJOR cause of a massive transformation of theological, philosophical thought in the latter part of the 18th century. It permeated everything intellectual at the time.

Very strange happening too. One of those very unusual "Acts of God".

Best estimates------maybe 30,000 died. And the reason that almost all of those 30,000 died was because they were believers, very good Christians, sitting happily in Church, celebrating Mass, and seeking their salvation------------When BOOM --the walls came tumbling down.

And almost all of the pimps, prostitutes, general ne'er do wells and definitely those going straight to hell for their improprities and lack of belief-----------Well they all survived--simply because they were not indoors in a big structure like a Church. They could easily get outside.

I mean this was a BIGGY in the latter part of the 18th century. Everyone puzzled about this very strange 1 in a million occurrence.

And again----------Even if our founders were not all technically deists, they did want to be part of the predominate intellectual and philosophical movement of the time-----------DEISM -------And that is why again --our Constitution is a humanist and secular document. ---with very vaque allusions to a Deist type of God.

And that is what we have today in the Constitution. Fundies can try to spin all they want to about the USA being a Christian nation. It is not.
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PS ---------Darn it all anyway---You are going to make me look something up aren't you? I think the deist reference is in the preamble.

DamagedGoods

Thanks, lpetrich. Now I know why I never heard of it - it happened in another country. As best I can remember, the history courses I took in middle and high schools only covered other countries when they were somehow directly involved with American history.

Rational BAC

Whoops---

Sorry for the duplicate. Not sure how I did that. Not sure how to get rid of one of them. (It does seem a lot more difficult to get rid of duplicates on this forum than on other forums.)

Anyway, as long as I am here, I am not even sure from memory about the deist reference in the preamble. If wrong about that, sorry--------I never claim to be completely inerrant and I do just about everything off the top of my head from my very imperfect memory.

Anyway -------if no reference to any type of Deism in the Constitution-----------that just makes my case stronger that our Constitution was designed and expected to be a secular humanist document by our Founders (even though not all were Deists, and some were devout Christians)

DamagedGoods

Thanks to Schoolhouse Rock the preamble is still stuck in my head (probably in an incorrect form):

We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this constitution for the united States of America.

Maybe you're thinking of the Declaration of Independence? It does mention a "Creator." But the Declaration doesn't set forth the structure of our government.

Rational BAC

You are right----

I did have that mixed up with the Declaration of Independence.

RufusAtticus

Oh great, my wife is cheating on me!

Calzaer

No, but a whole buch of allegedly-non-fundy US Christians voted for him anyway.

Fundy = Liberal Christian who doesn't "keep up appearances".

Sabine Grant

Maybe you are not familiar with Americans United? they are quite popular and known to those who do pay attention to the reactive christians againts the shananigans of the present administration, I think if one does not want to aknowledge any positive action in a group, one will ignore whatever they attempt to do.