No, we are not a "Christian" nation......

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rlf

Trad climber

Josh, CA

May 27, 2014 - 07:54pm PT

God is black woman who is going get all medieval on the posers and hypocrites

Brilliant Rob!

HighTraverse

Trad climber

Bay Area

May 27, 2014 - 08:45pm PT

God is black woman who is going get all medieval on the posers and hypocrites

That's a god I might believe in! Got some proof?

go-B

climber

Cling to what is good!

May 27, 2014 - 08:47pm PT

dumb Americans!

pyro

Big Wall climber

Calabasas

May 27, 2014 - 09:19pm PT

Speration of church and state.

Get these radical Christians outta here....

rlf

Trad climber

Josh, CA

May 27, 2014 - 09:35pm PT

That's a god I might believe in! Got some proof?

Nope. And neither does anyone else.

It's all just one big fairy tale.

clinker

Trad climber

Santa Cruz, California

May 27, 2014 - 11:03pm PT

"Once Upon A Slime"

The story of the origin of life.

By Clink

Locker, don't steal it.

I do need an illustrator.

clinker

Trad climber

Santa Cruz, California

May 27, 2014 - 11:19pm PT

but I love that duck wearing the Jesus sandals

The sect of Vegetarian Christians maintains Jesus went barefoot.

anton karuza

Sport climber

bellingham, WA

May 27, 2014 - 11:21pm PT

And these attributes were contributed by the tenants of the Judeo-Christian faith and its teachings. Freeing individuals from slavery and combatting tyranny from dictators, mostly atheistic, are the results of this religious philosophy and its simple commandments that are the basis for decency throughout history. I don't see people braving shark infested waters, pirates, and threats of death to go to other countries that eschew these principles. I, and the majority of our founders, believe that our rights come from God not from the government. What the government gives you can easily be taken away. You are seeing this happen now and the course is unstoppable.

The failure to follow this guidance can be seen in the increasing chaos in our nation and around the world. This is certainly the course that this nation has embarked on and we will all have to live with the results.

clinker

Trad climber

Santa Cruz, California

May 27, 2014 - 11:25pm PT

How did you manage to pull both the shark and pirate cards in one post???

Tvash

climber

Seattle

May 27, 2014 - 11:30pm PT

Christians - the Quakers, were the first to petition the newly minted American government to end slavery.

Quakers are not biblical literalists, however.

No, the biblical literalists of the early 19th century strongly supported slavery. They offered the following rationale: 1) It was in the bible, so it must be OK (I'm actually not kidding, here) and 2) it existed, so it must be the will of God. Not a logical Blue Ribbon winner, perhaps, but they needed something to shout from the pulpit to Southerners who were, for the most part, already very much on board with the program.

Christians were also the chief opponents to women's suffrage, the abolishment of laws against miscegenation, and...of course - the fight against equal marital, commercial, and employment rights for all Americans, regardless of sexual preference.

The comment on 'most dictators being atheists' is, of course, as much bullshit as it is irrelevant. The comment undoubtedly refers to Stalin. History's cruelest dictators claimed religious beliefs. Why, Hitler himself believed in the Almighty, as did Mussolini, but religiosity or lack thereof did little to inform the behavior of these tyrants.

klk

Trad climber

cali

May 27, 2014 - 11:38pm PT

these attributes were contributed by the tenants of the Judeo-Christian faith

i'm a tenant of chinese immigrants who bought this house before i moved up north.

not sure about their church.

TYeary

Social climber

State of decay

May 27, 2014 - 11:40pm PT

Freeing individuals from slavery and combating tyranny from dictators, mostly atheistic, are the results of this religious philosophy and its simple commandments that are the basis for decency throughout history.

Only partially true and the reverse is far more common. Religion has enslaved and killed more people than it has ever freed from "tyranny". Despot leaders, like Pol Pot, Stalin and Hitler did what they did because of political tyranny, not because they might have been atheist. If fact most were not atheist. Organized religion is the basis for totalitarianism, in it's purest form; capable of convicting people of thought crimes while they sleep.

"Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead. A celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate? I've been to North Korea. It has a dead man as its president, Kim Jong-Il is only head of the party and head of the army. He's not head of the state. That office belongs to his deceased father, Kim Il-Sung. It's a necrocracy, a thanatocracy. It's one short of a trinity I might add. The son is the reincarnation of the father. It is the most revolting and utter and absolute and heartless tyranny the human species has ever evolved. But at least you can f*#king die and leave North Korea!"
Christopher Hitchens
TY

Tvash

climber

Seattle

May 27, 2014 - 11:49pm PT

It's safe to say that religious intolerance, usually in the form of fundamentalism (America, Iran, etc), or absolutist intolerance (Inquisition) has been the scourge of humanity.

Even as the Born Agains and other bigots decry our society's growing intolerance for their intolerance, they continue to carry this proud tradition forward, to Bear this Cross as my peeps used to say, into what will hopefully be a mercifully brief future for them. Their imminent removal from society has been long prophesized. Thy Will Be Done, Lord!(although I hope its just through the current high level of attrition).

In stark contrast, moderate religions - Quakers, Unitarians, today's Prezbies, MLK's Baptists, for example, have probably had the net effect of improving social justice, at least in the last couple of centuries or so.

Given that the US and many other nations with decent social justice track records (not perfect, but decent) have been secular democracies for some time, now, I'd say it simply cannot be argued that religion is necessary for right moral action. We have social welfare and social justice institutions now that arguably make religion largely superfluous as seats of education and promotion for same, although they remain a pretty good place to get a date for the true believer.

HighTraverse

Trad climber

Bay Area

May 27, 2014 - 11:49pm PT

Religion has enslaved and killed more people than it has ever freed from "tyranny"

The Spanish (Roman Catholic) conquest of South America and enslavement of the indigenous people for instance.
The South African christians who built and maintained apartheid.
The mostly Lutheran/Catholic Nazis and the Jews, homosexuals and mentally disabled.
All the christian Europeans who built empires and the US on the backs of slaves. And the Muslim traders who sold the slaves out of Africa.
The fundamentalist christian men who still hold their wives in second class status.
The Mormon polygamists ditto.
And that's just recent history.
The tyranny of the "religious" White Man's Burden.

7SacredPools

Trad climber

Guelph, Ontario, Canada

May 27, 2014 - 11:55pm PT

I've wondered where black people came from if God killed everyone except a white dude and his family. Perhaps they evolved?
No, that can't be right. Perhaps the bible holds the truth: Noah got drunk and passed out naked. His son Ham saw his genitals so God cursed Ham's descendants by turning them into slaves. This was another reason Christian slave owners gave to defend their barbaric and "un-freedomy" practice.

TYeary

Social climber

State of decay

May 28, 2014 - 12:03am PT

How about the historical and current subjugation of women by "religion? That's more than half the human race right there...
TY

Spider Savage

Mountain climber

The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles

May 28, 2014 - 12:05am PT

You guys raggin on religion are missing the target.

Religion is just another way azzoles ruin things for people.

If you go back to the basics of any religion there is plenty of good stuff there. Then someone comes along and turns it into something else, then uses it as a justification for injustice (to say the least).

Religion has at times been a great civilizing force.

At any rate religions is never going away, so figure out a way to live with the good of it and isolate the azzholes who use it to spread injustice.

Tvash

climber

Seattle

May 28, 2014 - 01:01am PT

As has been evidenced before on this very thread, neither humanism nor the scientific method sprung from religion. Both had entirely secular beginnings - starting with the Greeks, and probably much earlier, although historical evidence is scant in that regard.

Christianity preserved some of the ancient texts, even as it largely killed nearly all scientific progress for the better part of a thousand years (in Europe, that is).