All Comments (21)

Sheila, your right, God did tell Daniel to seal up the book (until the time of the end). At which time true knowledge would become abundant. Fulfilled prophecy indicates that we have been living in that time period for some time now. In fact, the evidence is that we are deep into that time period.

God commanded Daniel to seal the Word until the time of the end.

Isaiah said no man could understand the "Word". So, what doctrine has been floating around this world for the last 2000 years? Man's frugal attempts to understand the Word of God.

Is there an attempt to understand the Word of God? Yes. However, they fall short of the truth. Why? Because God said seal the book. What is man peddling then? Man (the family of man, including men and women)has been peddling the doctrine of men.

They tell you themselves, theology schools. Places where men go to grope with the Word. But, God said for Daniel to seal the book until the last days. so, I ask again what do men have?

For the last two thousand years, any doctrine born, is the doctrine of men. It is not the Word of God. God tells you how He delivers his truth to men in Revelations 1:1.

These truths have not entered institutions yet.
If you want to know the truth read the Bible, ask the Lord for one of His teachers and God will lead and guide you to a teacher.

Remember, the Ethiopian and Phillip?

The world is out of course, because the teachers are in captivity. However, God is not, ask, and the Lord will come and sup with you.

God has no special connection to America, nor the rest of the world. God speaks about common salvation for all who seek "The Gospel of the Coming of the Kingdom".

Blessed is He Who Cometh in the Name of the Father.

Language is no barrier, remember, God gave all men their languages at the Tower of Babel.

Antiluminous,
Is your faith so weak that you have to distort history to make yourself feel better?

I didn't mention Buddhism or Islam. Deism has nothing to do with Islam either, and Buddhists do not worship gods.

There is an excellent short essay about the founding fathers and Christian attempts to mislead people about their views on a Christian theology site:
http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume2/ushistor.htm

Other Christians are willing to be honest and face reality. Why aren't you?

actually i saw a show on pbs that said muslim exploreres landed on american shores in the 12th century- and we imported alot of muslim slaves in the early years of america- the founding fathers made reference to islam in their early papers
jonroweblogspot.com

how can anyone argue aBOUT ANYTHING ON THE rEVERENDS SITE? HE IS SO GENTLE

Realist, study early American history. Some founders bought bibles for public schools with money out of their own pockets because the schools could not afford them.

Now if what you say is true, why didn't the founders purchase and distribute a Koran for every student, or a Buddah statue? That's because Islam wasn't even acknowleged by the United States until we realised we needed their oil to survive in the late 20th Century.

Islam is not relative to Christianity, nor will it ever be so, as Republicans are not relative to Democrats.

Antiluminous,

"My comments: Yes, the "creator", as the founders understood him and as we understand him today, "created" mankind according to Christian religious philosophy."

The point I was making was that the founders did not equate the "Creator" with the Christian God, as you yourself admitted, so you are twisting their intentions by equating the two. You are talking nonsense. Who is a revisionist?

The point I was making was that Bible was not the source of the rights spoken of in the Declaration of Independence.

"The founders did not write that the rights were endowed based on the Bible [nor the Koran nor the Talmud] -- they indicated [as one would absolutely expect from a Deist] that the rights were endowed by 'the Creator'."

My comments: Yes, the "creator", as the founders understood him and as we understand him today, "created" mankind according to Christian religious philosophy.

Again, the founders did not draw that from Buddism, or the Koran, or any other source other than the Old Testament and the New Testament.

That means America was founded as a Christian nation. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

Realist, letters are unimportant. Letters have nothing to do with the USC and the DOI. The secular left has been attacking Christianity using letters written by individuals from early American government, private letters that should not be interpreted when laws are being considered against the people.

Why? Because people change. Their belief's change. So only the truly ignorant would take personal and private letters and then try to spin the meaning of the USC with them, but that is what is going on in this country. It's highly probable that Jefferson's mention of separation of church and state was just his way to get the Connecticut Baptists to stop bugging him, not to change the meaning of the USC. Either way we will never know because Jefferson is dead and we can't interview him for what he really meant when he wrote what he did privately to the Baptist group. A written constitution is very clear. Applying "personal letters" to the interpretation of the US Constitution is nothing more than perverting the founding document.

We have written letters and other documents from members of our government since this country was founded that express opinions that today would be regarded as very dangerous and perverse.

Using letters to "interpret" law is a copout. It is a derivative of the weak judiciary that doesn't have the guts to face secular pressure and interpret the Constitution with the very words of the Constitution itself. It is also systemic of the behavior of those that want to change the USC and want to do it in a dangerous way. The only acceptable way to change the USC is to hold a Constitutional Convention. The law in that regard is very clear, and guess what, the entire process is layed out in the Constitution so there can be no mistaking it.

Jefferson's letter means nothing and it never did.

In no section of the United States Constitution is there a "separation of church and state". If there is, show me where in the USC it says "separation of church and state". It doesn't exist. It is a fable created by the Christian-bashing secular left to transform the United States into a combative and abrasive disunified radical secularist nation-state system in search of Marxist utopia.

Utopia failed in the former Soviet. It will fail again in America.

One final thing (I promise)

When I talk of America being a Christian nation, I do mean that in the cultural sense not the policical sense, as I firmly believe that the founding fathers intended for people to have the freedoms to believe whatever they chose - to be free of those who would impose dogmas on them.

If the discussion is whether the founding fathers wanted America to be founded on one religion, to be a "Christian nation" then I would say no - that was not their intention. But for the sake of building a bridge in a nation which is experiencing a cultural divide, I have argued that Christianity has influenced the American culture - be it for people who are religious or secular. That needs to be understood

CMKL

Intead of asking "which branch of religion influence the population", I should have said asked "Which aspect of the Christian Faith drives the behaviour of individuals in America - the dogma or the spiritual.

It also should be said that Secular and Religious Dogmatists have more in common with each other than they do with the spiritual members of their Christian or secular belief system. Similarly, Secular and Religious spiritual people have more in common with each other than they do with dogmatists of a religious or secular perspective. Both Christians and Secular thinkers have ideas whose roots are in Christianity. The only difference is whether they percieve the ideas they hold to be important to their personal spiritual well being, or a belief system that need be imposed on others.

cmkl

Rev Taylor:

You separated God and religion. I must wonder if you meant to do that. The problem, if there is one is the inability of the average person to make that separation.

Nature's God is obviously Lady Liberty. No Christian religion is even close to acknowledging a female God, (God like monarch being without gender per say).

Interpretation 1501 http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul gives us good cause to separate God and religion. Religion if faith expressed without saying what faith is in, God only being implied. Therefore faith can be in the Devil. To join religion and God into one eliminates the possibility of faith in God given that faith must first be in "the Bible is God's word." That's dangerous, don't you agree?

Anyone wanting to debate this issue should first consult Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, where he talks about the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter of each civilization. The spring begins with a big idea - a religion - the influence of which makes it ways through the culture and even its science.

Yes science - a branch of knowledge that concerns itself with the empirical - that which may be tested - has its roots in religion. Christianity's concern with the heavens gave birth to questions that led to the modern branch of physics. Its ten commandments made its ways in to our laws and social conventions. It is a Christian nation - but a Christian nation that has evolved to the point that the ideas generated from Christianity have evolved into how we look at the empirical world.

Those who seek justice for the poor but are not church members, are as equally influenced by Christ's teachings as those who attend church. Even Marxism was an attempt - by an atheist - to bring heaven to earth (but Communists - being polical pragmatists felt that they needed to impose it on people for their own good - and hence their dicatorship of the proletariate.)

People need to understand the roots of their ideas - that both secular and religious individuals have a common heritage of ideas. They also need to understand that any belief system (religious or secular) has zeolots who seek to impose their ideas on others - as well as spiritual people who seek to create a better world by the example of their lives. Instead of asking whether the U.S. is Christian or not, perhaps the question should be which branch of religion influences the population.

CMKL

"The "Representatives of the United States of America" agreed that God provides our unaliable rights, so America was, in fact, founded as a Christian nation. Our unaliable rights weren't derived from the Koran or other religions, were they? Absolutely not. They were derived from the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible."

Talk about muddled logic.

The founders did not write that the rights were endowed based on the Bible [nor the Koran nor the Talmud] -- they indicated [as one would absolutely expect from a Deist] that the rights were endowed by 'the Creator'.

Antiluminous:
Your pseudonym is very appropriate. You seem to want to spread darkness and ignorance.

You wrote:
"Is the Church today that intimidated by the secular left that it refuses to confront revisionist history?"

Read what the founders actually wrote, and then we can talk about who is a revisionist.

"It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism, he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it."

Thomas Jefferson - to Carey, 1816

This is just one of many examples of writings indicating that many of the founding fathers were not Christians. The "Creator" they spoke of was not the God of the Bible.

Reverend Taylor, Nature's God is what--God, right? It is He that created nature.

"all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."

Absolutely right. All men are "created" equal, not created by other men, in test tubes, or by other means, but "created" by Nature's God.

That is also the primary source of our unaliable rights--rights given to us by God, not humans, because humans cannot be gods.

The "Representatives of the United States of America" agreed that God provides our unaliable rights, so America was, in fact, founded as a Christian nation. Our unaliable rights weren't derived from the Koran or other religions, were they? Absolutely not. They were derived from the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible.

The same "Representatives of the United States of America" requested "reliance on the protection of divine Providence" so as to secure His blessings for our nation.

Is the Church today that intimidated by the secular left that it refuses to confront revisionist history?

Reverend, it is indeed refreshing to read that a minister has a complete awareness that this nation was NOT founded by "Christians," but mostly deists with a smattering of agnostics. You are too kind in your remarks as the gang that attempts to control this nation (Falwell, Dobson, Robertson, Kennedy, Parsley, et. al.,) would better serve the people by telling one and all that they are atheists, and help the cause of Christ in reverse! Enjoy your retirement, and Merry Christmas if it is in keeping with our PC situation!

REVEREND- GENTLE AND INTELLIGENT, AS ALWAYS.

MR. WOLFE- The Reverend only said the founding peoples'(the reverend is so egalitarian he doesnt even say father)philosophy came closest to the "spirit of Jesus(ata) by not being dogmatic and intolerant. its a shame that the word "islamist" has crept into the public lexicon- it didnt exist a scant few years ago- there is no such people as islamists- and theres no secret conspiracy for world domination and a theocratic state

there is a story of the Prophet(swa)
He asked his companions who would be the most blessed--- someone who recited the Qur'an with perfect fluency and diction- or the person who recited imperfectly and incorrectly. It seemed obvious to the companions that it would be the perfectly annunciating person--and they said so.
He disavowed them of this opinion and surprised them by saying it was the person who did it with difficulty. The point is that they would have to put more effort into it because arabic isnt their native language.
there really is an omniscient and prescient God who foresaw that islam would be flung to the far corners, the diversity of language and culture
are not an impediment to be overcome- but as the Qur'an says-"ALLAH created us of many nations and hues so that we could make distinctions one between the other- if He wanted to He could have created us from a single nation but this is not His will." the first hospital in the world was conceived of by a muslim Mr. Wolfe- there has never been any antipathy towards science in islam- rather it is embraced as proof of the wisdom of ALLAH and a proof of the validity of the Qur'an.
Harun Yahya has a website that you should visit to further introduce yourself to the true history of islam-(its all science) peace

i make this reccomendation because your posts are so reasonable and your frustration is warranted

If I remember my history correctly, the most famous of our Presidents were not churchgoing men. Washington was a Mason, which is a cult but does not reject Christianity. Jefferson refused to belong to any Masonic group or any one church, editing the gospels for his own spiritual needs. Lincoln refused to join any church or profess adherence to any particular dogma, but talked of his spirituality when anyone pressed him on the subject.

Our country was founded on the knowledge that the destructive religious wars of Europe must not come here, if possible. We seem to have forgotten that.

Right on, Reverend Mr. Taylor!

Gardner:
    The only basis for an assertion that the "equality" espoused in the Declaration of Independence and later in the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was or is in any way related to "the spirit of Jesus Christ" is to relate it to the sharing guidelines of the original so-called "Christian" sect. I place "Christian" in quotation marks because nobody knows for certain what the original sect was called. There is some rather scant evidence that the sect or perhaps a combination of sects went by a name such as "The Way" or "The Children of Light." In any event, to get to the point, there are two sections of the New Testament scriptures as they exist in English today which might enable you to say that the sect or combination of sects promulgated in fact or fiction (take your choice) a "spirit of Jesus Christ" that exerted some influence on the Founding Fathers of America.
    The first section at issue is found in the synoptic gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark, and Luke - though those are just contrived names, preposterously Anglicised, and nobody knows who wrote the scriptures that are called "gospels" and that are attributed to those names. To be perfect, the gospels state, "sell what you possess and give it to the poor." Matthew 19:21, Mark 10:21, Luke 18:27. If you know of any present "Christian" who is striving to be "perfect" by following that advice, please advise all of the viewers visiting "On Faith."
    The second section is in The Acts of the Apostles, wherein "all [members of the original 'Christian' sect] who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need." Acts 2:44-45. If you know any present "Christians" who are following that characteristic of the original sect at the root of their self-professed religion, again please so advise us. You must understand, given your high level of intelligence, that the "Christian" of today engaged in that kind of life would have to be at minimum a communalist following a basically socialistic philosophy (though not necessarily of a kind based on total equality, since what little can be known of the original sect is that there was a pecking order to establish authority and rank of members), with strong elements of communism in its pure democratic form (which has no relation for what has passed for "communism" in the state socialist dictatorships of our era).
    Now, it may be that some of the Founding Fathers had read the scriptures and were moved by this spirit of sharing and basing a government or its society to a certain extent on a condition of equality. But that is as far as you can take this idea.
    In concluding this comment which is longer than I would like it to be, I want you and everybody else reading some of the anti-religious statements appearing on this web site to understand that most of us who are fed up with the leaders and followers of organized religions as they exist today would not be in an outraged mood pushing us to attack if those leaders and followers would confine their uninformed and unscientific beliefs to their own congregations and social and family lives. It is because self-professed "Christians" are demanding that their "values" (which have no relevance to the precepts attributed to "Jesus") be imposed on the entire nation, and it is because Islamists are striving for a universal theocratic state that recognizes only Islam as a valid religion and only Arabic as a language which should be spoken, that gradually individuals such as myself long quiescent on these matters and greatly tolerant of religious belief have begun to explode in attacks on the violence, hatred, and impediments to peace and medical and scientific progress which these increasingly divisive and destructive organized religions are generating. - Burton H. Wolfe

Very well articulated and thoughtful Christian position on the subject. Thank you.

Have a wonderful holiday.