Congress Drops Bill Expanding 'Hate Crime' Protection to Gays

paine »

Sat Jan 05, 2008 6:09 am Agree: 2   Disagree: 2

jc4me wrote: "The overwhelming fact remains ifeelfine, the country was founded on Christian Principles, and nothing will ever erase that from historical facts."

That there are those who still believe this is absurd. I realize it's very popular Religious Reich propaganda still left over from the late 70s/early 80s, but it's categorically false to anyone who has actually studied history and politics. At best, the majority of the "Founding Fathers" were Deists. This is a far cry, philosophically, from Christian. They might as well have been Muslim for all the similarities Deists have with Christians. Isolated, pulled out of context quotes from letters and journals are not evidence of "Christian principles."

As far as Benjamin Rush: he believed in forced psychiatric treatment and that being black was a hereditary disease. He might be considered one of the first openly white supremacy theorists of the United States. He is also the father of the "disease model" for addiction—specifically for alcoholism—that gave rise to whole generations of "It's not my fault, it's the disease" excuses for addiction. And, finally, his religious views were more of a Universalist bent; meaning that he believed in the pluralism of religion even if he did have a personal preference for "a religion of the New Testament."

Great role model there ya picked as a counterbalance. If I were making suggestions here it would be that you actually stop picking fights with information that is outside your knowledge base and obviously gleaned from propaganda sources.