I finally managed to take a look as well and found 8 Scriptures carved into the capitol, or other prominent Washington iconic buildings. I found "IN GOD WE TRUST" inscribed over the house of representatives and a carving of Moses in the same building plus the supreme court. My post above to skeptical thinker contains the details.
I will leave it here because I can't remember what the argument was. Were you denying that Christianity was a massive part of our foundation as a nation?
Nope. Not much into revisionist history. All I was suggesting is that your narrative of a secular revolution being kicked off in the 1950's, and leading to the degradation of society is not supported by the facts. I know we disagree on that (that's fine) but that's what my argument was. Christianity has definitely been a major player in the history of the United States, and continues to be, although I would agree the nature of this role has changed somewhat.
'IN GOD WE TRUST' is a great example of the facts not fitting a narrative of 'We were a Christian nation until the 1950's, and secularism has since denigrated this to the point of societal collapse'.
Church membership increased from 49% in 1950 to 69% in 1960.
The enlightenment as a much or more a Christian movement. It is thought by some to have been secular because it was the casting of the church's yoke, but it wasn't because faith was not cast off. No doubt secularism had a large rill in it but Christianity had as much of more of a roll.
I don't agree, but neither do I think we're arguing at completely cross-purposes. Christianity and faith can play a massive role in something, and yet it can remain secular. My take is that the Enlightenment encouraged an examination of Church and the role of the Church in relation to the State. Whether the people involved were Christians or not is simply not something I overly care about.
Its' funny you said this today as the whole morning all I heard on the radio was how the president was denigrating Christianity last night. I don't know who said that or when. The nation is still 80% Christian so your always going to find a few faith based quotes here and there but the avalanche of legislation, morality, legal theory, and public practice is heading the other way.
I'd need to know in what way the President was supposedly denigrating Christianity in order to respond. Suffice to say, I find it highly dubious that he would come out and make a statement about Christians in any way remotely similar to the one I offered up about atheists. The quote I offered was from George W Bush.
If you don't see the socialist/communist tendencies in Holder, Hillary, and Obama and the legions that have al but deified them I don't think I could convince you.
Well, obviously you don't need to convince me of anything. I'm not American, and don't have even a single vote to offer in American elections. But I think conflating socialism with communism is simply inaccurate. Do you consider Australia a communist country? As for the people who have deified them...meh...people are people. Thinking any are past criticism or beyond error is ridiculous. I'm sure there are those who do this, just as there are those who would see the Pope as infallible, or the Ayatollah, or Christopher Hitchins. However, this speaks to the person doing the deifying, not to the one being paid homage to, I believe.
For me, I don't see socialism as a dirty word. I don't see unfettered capitalism as a positive practice. But, if I were being put into a bucket, I'm pretty easily identifiable as a capitalist.
Congress no longer hires Chaplains but only uses volunteers from the local area and: The practice was challenged in federal court by American Atheists during the 1980s in the suit _Murray v. Buchanan_. First filed on June 13, 1980, as _Murray v. Morton,_ 505 F. Suppl. 144 (D.C. District Court, 1981), the final decision in the suit was in 1982 as _Murray v. Buchanan,_ 674 F.2d 14 (D.C. Cir. 1982). In its decision, the federal district court held that the matter was a political issue and was not ripe for adjudication by a federal court. The merits of the case were not reached.
Getting Rid Of The Congressional Chaplains
So there is no longer any official paid congressional chaplains and the entire idea of even allowing volunteers is being challenged in court these days. I think the trend I mention is fully justified.
Interesting. Thanks for the info, as I said I have a degree of ignorance in this area. At the risk of exposing said ignorance, I'd offer 3 quick points;
1) Challenges to the position have been offered as many as 170 years ago (approx). Far earlier than the secular revolution of your narrative.
2) I personally find American Atheists reactionary. I'm either of a different mind to most atheists, or they're not representative of most atheists. I am, admittedly, speaking from a distance.
3) If congressional chaplaincy continues, and a prayer is offered out loud at the start of congress, I am struggling to see that this is an imposition of secularism. I personally don't favour mandatory public prayer as part of any government hearing or process.
I served 9 years in the military. I did not have one mandatory prayer ever given. Even as far back as the civil wars prayers were not mandatory in general. The case I am talking about is one in which a chaplain spoke on in a suicide prevention briefing. The issue was over a handout which on one side had the army/slash humanistic argument against suicide and on the other he had included the theological argument against it. Only one atheist out of all those present had a problem and through official channels I think it went all the way to the White house and the Chaplain was told: During mandatory training briefings, it is imperative you are careful to avoid any perception you are advocating one system of beliefs
Army Chaplain Punished for Mentioning Faith | FrontPage Magazine
His only mention of God was to explain how he overcame his own bought with suicidal thoughts.
First off, I don't want to downplay your own military experiences. I'd only state that there have been clear and admitted instances of mandatory Christian prayer in the military. Perhaps it is not widespread. The Commander in Chief, at the time of the secular revolution you refer to (1954) offered the following though;
I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth that there are no atheists in the foxholes.
As to the particular issue you mention, I'd need to check the specifics. I'll attempt to do so. I've read a couple of articles in relation to it (one pro- the Chaplain, one not) but don't think I have my head around it enough to offer much of meaning. Let's say for a second we just assume the chaplain was unfairly treated.
I still don't see the evidence of widespread secularism of chaplaincy in the Military. I see attempts to do this, no doubt. I just see limited success.
97% of Military Chaplains in 2012 were Christian. 63% self-identified as Evangelists. This is a substantial over-representation when compared to the demographics of the soldiers. It also represents a substantial shift from the 19th century, when chaplains were overwhelmingly Protestant. I don't see that it represents any sort of shift to secularism.
I am not arguing here whether Christianity is true or not, but whether our society has changed since the secular revolution.
I know. It's something we can at least argue on, whereas the truth of Christianity would leave us with limited ground. But, to my way of thinking, society ALWAYS changes. Compare any period of time with a 50 year gap you like, and this holds true. Further, the secular revolution you speak of is nowhere near as cut and dried in terms of when it started, or how it's defined. There have ALWAYS been secularists in America (at least, since very early in it's Western settlement). Marking the start of a secular revolution in the way you seem to is one of the key things I find inaccurate, to be honest.
There is an old saying, the only thing necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing about it. I would add an ever worse factor. It is only necessary that men no longer call evil as evil. Chesterton once said "It is easy for man to agree on what is wrong, but we differ on which wrongs to excuse". We agree killing the innocent is wrong but some simply excuse it in the case of abortion.
Ignore the last sentence, and we're in concordance, which only goes to prove Chesterton's point. I understand your views on abortion, and there is little sense us arguing over those. If I were to suggest something that might make sense to you, it would only be that you should consider abortion rates for Christian women, and make sure you are certain it is secularism that is actually driving abortion rates. I think making an assumption that all the ills of modern society (as you see them) are due to secularism is simply a bridge too far.
I only know that the stats about drug use took a nose dive corresponding to the secular revolution.
You mean illegal drug use, I suspect. Various drugs have taken hold of sections of society at various times in American history. Tobacco itself is an interesting case in this. Alchohol use is at lower levels than in recent history. Marijuana was legal until around WW2, so amazingly, illegal use of the drug was non existent.
I'm not downplaying the role of illegal drugs. Honestly I am not. But a narrative of secularism driving drug use is too simplistic.
Actually that one might have been a force of habit. I had been talking to some folks about homosexuality and it's higher rates of sexual violence. Since the secular revolution homosexual behavior has been legitimized so I deduced sexual violence has increased but I did not verify it.
Look holistically. It's an interesting case in point, but a tricky area. Go back far enough, and there simply aren't readily available statistics. Heck, domestic violence wasn't even a term until the late 60's or 70's. Spousal rape is hard to get even current figures for, let alone historical. Look at rape convictions of white men in the 1650's, and you might conclude (at face value) that men of that period didn't rape (which would be a mistake).
The one thing I DON'T see is evidence that sexual violence has increased since the 1950's through to now.
I have more experience in terms of study with child abuse than sexual violence, but it's similar in some ways. Prior to the period you are demonizing at the beginning of the secular revolution, there was a lot of societal issues brushed under the carper, or seen as impolite to discuss, or simply not protected. I would rather be a child under the care of a Church facility now than in the 1920's. That is a fairly simple way of stating my view.
Yes and it has existed for a long time but it got significantly worse in the late 50's and is even worse now. School shooting, gang activity, and violent events are much worse these days.
At a bald-arsed guess, I would think there was a lot of violence at times in shools, but that the intensity of violence, and in particular, the weaponization of the combatants has increased dramatically. However, I haven't studied it. I'd simply concede the school violence is much worse now. I don't know when this trend commenced, and would not really see secularism as a likely culprit. Why do you tie these things together?
Well forget the impact, TV is a great indicator of the publics taste. In the 50's we wanted to see Goober tell white lie and have his conscience bother him so bad he came clean in the same episode, now we want zombies eating each other brains.
I wouldn't go too far holding up TV as a great indicator of much, other than prevailing censorship laws, to be honest.
My point was that even as depicting a squeaky clean family member, Stanley Fafara lived a very different life. TV was not reflective of reality. If you want to examine how many members of society were rendered invisible, based on TV programming, that might be interesting.
The zombie thing doesn't worry me at all, so I suspect we'd be on vastly different pages in terms of this whole area. What I would instead suggest is this;
Sex and violence within the confines of an intelligent narrative are fine. A degree of realism/grittiness are fine. I personally prefer my stories to have intelligence, and couldn't sit through a candy-sweet story line like 'Leave it to Beaver' if you paid me. Well...maybe if you paid me, but you get the point. I want moral conundrums. I was to feel actual emotion.
For much the same reason as I couldn't watch Leave it to Beaver, I couldn't watch Keeping up with the Kardashians. Nevermind it's a completely different show, it's a nonsense version of 'reality' which offers me nothing in the way of mental stimulation.
If forced to choose, I'd take Leave it to Beaver, every day of the week. But I'd prefer to write my own story than either. Or just take out the bins.
TV programming may be the most accurate indicator of what the public wants and desires to see. I don't see how anyone could disagree.
I get your point. What were 1950's Americans choosing between? And how much 'reality' do you think there was in 1950's programming? How close was 1950's tv to depictions of real life? Do you think swearing was invented in the 70's, for example? Do you think single parent families, homosexuals or successful black people were? Did mental illness exist? Domestic violence? If I look at 1950's tv, it could give me a false impression of the 1950's, and I do find myself wondering if this effect is at play with you.
