Originally Posted by Jankinonya:
I ask you questions Dire. Where do you see a straw man argument?
I'm sure there are more than a few atheist in the Republican camp. However, I question their intelligence also in supporting a party that pushes a theocratic government. When was the last time you saw a Democrat organization or political leader call for a national religion?
What religious leaders are you talking about and what war for independence?
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I ask you questions Dire. Where do you see a straw man argument?
This straw man “Should Christianity be the national religion?” Where on any Republican national political platform is there a call for instituting any national religion? What candidate that won a primary has called for such. That one group of many who support the Republican party desires such does not make it policy.
Democrat supporting groups have called for military attending National Prayer Breakfasts to courts-martial. Is that a Democrat national policy?
I'm sure there are more than a few atheist in the Republican camp. However, I question their intelligence also in supporting a party that pushes a theocratic government. When was the last time you saw a Democrat organization or political leader call for a national religion?
Democrats, as creatures of the left, tend towards the cult of the personality. Remember the paper mache Greek columns in Germany, the spotlights, and Obama’s ascent to the speaker’s box? Man was treated like a demigod or faux fuehrer. Remember the hymns and hosannas to him by youth groups as if he were the messiah?
What religious leaders are you talking about and what war for independence?
Jank I know Democrats are a bit slow on their history, but really! American War of Independence (1775 to 1782). I guess you slept during this session. US broke away from the UK.
Impact of Great Awakening
Main article: First Great Awakening
Dissenting (i.e. Protestant, non-Church of England) churches of the day were the "school of democracy."[102] President John Witherspoon of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) wrote widely circulated sermons linking the American Revolution to the teachings of the Hebrew Bible. Throughout the colonies, dissenting Protestant ministers (Congregationalist, Baptist, and Presbyterian) preached Revolutionary themes in their sermons, while most Church of England clergymen preached loyalty to the King.[103] Religious motivation for fighting tyranny reached across socioeconomic lines to encompass rich and poor, men and women, frontiersmen and townsmen, farmers and merchants.[102]
Historian Bernard Bailyn argues that the evangelicalism of the era challenged traditional notions of natural hierarchy by preaching that the Bible taught all men are equal, so that the true value of a man lies in his moral behavior, not his class.[104] Kidd argues that religious disestablishment, belief in a God as the source of human rights, and shared convictions about sin, virtue, and divine providence worked together to unite rationalists and evangelicals and thus encouraged American defiance of the Empire, whereas Bailyn denied that religion played such a critical role.[105] Alan Heimert argued, however, that New Light antiauthoritarianism was essential to the further democratization of colonial American society, and set the stage for a confrontation with British monarchical and aristocratic rule.[106]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...t_of_Great_Awakening
