Faithofchristian
Well-Known Member
Seriously I don't understand why it should bother you, sense it has nothing to do with you.
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The Need For Christian Symbolism on Government Property
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
Seriously I don't understand why it should bother you, sense it has nothing to do with you.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Your position doesn't make sense. Your claims remain unsupported. As usual.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
I mentioned it to someone else, in reference to a completely different point.
Because you twisted something I said into some strange claim that only white people had anything to do with slave-owning. Nobody made any such point. In fact, the point was about something else entirely.
Faithofchristian
Well-Known Member
Thats what I said it was entirely about something else. Why do keep going on about this. When it has nothing to do with what your trying to say it is
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
I had said this to David Firth:
"Well, that's your opinion. Slavery was okay back then too. And women couldn't vote. Just because you're good with that, doesn't mean other people don't want to progress and make things better for everyone.
The First Amendment was ratified on December 15, 1791. Did you miss history class?
To which you replied to ME:
"Have you any idea who was the first to have black slaves in this country.
The first to have black slaves in this country, Was a black man name Anthony Johnson back in 1662-70.
Way before any whites owned black slaves in this country."
Pages later, I'm still wondering what that has to do with my point or anything I've said.
EDIT: Due to a Quote error.
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Faithofchristian
Well-Known Member
What does that have to do with what's being talk about now.
Why do you keep going on something that's history now.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
leibowde84
Veteran Member
No one alive today should be blamed for slavery. But, that being said, it is an absolute fact that white people were the vast, vast majority of slave owners in the U.S. And, they committed treason in an attempt to keep slavery viable here.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
I'm not sure he did. There is no indication in the article you cited that it Obama tried to hide these grants.
And, your cited article specifically states that the grants from the Obama Admin. were not illegal:
"Mr. Netanyahu survived the election, and the U.S. spending was not deemed illegal because the State Department never put any conditions on the money. Investigators also said OneVoice didn’t turn explicitly political until days after the grant period ended."
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Well, you could just be honest and admit that you used the term incorrectly. But, you are right that it doesn't really matter.
Faithofchristian
Well-Known Member
Your right, now back during the Civil war of 1863, the democrates fought to keep blacks in Slavery and at this time the KKK joined in with the democrates to fight to keep blacks in Slavery and spread slavery into all the other States.
Then in 1923 the KKK joined the DNC.
And a Democrate senator was retireing, and Hillary Clinton was taken in a picture in 2010, with him who was at one time the grand wizard of the KKK.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
I suggest you do a bit of research (see link below), as what you are getting at here is grossly misinformed.
The "Dixicrats" were the Democrats of the south, descended from the Jim Crowe era and slave owners. They were responsible for much of segregation, racism, the KKK, etc. They were also the descendents of the confederacy and they were, for a long time, Democrats.
BUT, in 1964, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, fought for by LBJ, those "Dixicrats" moved to the Republican party, where they still reside today.
So, the racist Democrats you speak of moved to the Republican party during the 1960s because their racism made them so opposed to the Civil Rights Act. Now we see them in the White Nationalist movement and the Alt-Right, who both consider themselves Republicans and Conservatives.
From Southern Democrats - Wikipedia
"The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a significant event in converting the Deep South to the Republican Party; in that year most SenatorialRepublicans supported the Act (most of the opposition came from Southern Democrats), but the Republican Party nominated for the Presidency Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who had opposed it. From the end of the Civil War to 1960 Democrats had solid control over the southern states in presidential elections, hence the term “Solid South” to describe the states’ Democratic preference. After the passage of this Act, however, their willingness to support Republicans on a presidential level increased demonstrably. Goldwater won many of the “Solid South” states over Democratic candidate Lyndon Johnson, himself a Texan, and with many this Republican support continued and seeped down the ballot to congressional, state, and ultimately local levels. A further significant item of legislation was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which targeted for preclearance by the U.S. Department of Justice any election-law change in areas where African-American voting participation was lower than the norm (most but not all of these areas were in the South); the effect of the Voting Rights Act on southern elections was profound, including the by-product that some White Southerners perceived it as meddling while Black voters universally appreciated it. The trend toward acceptance of Republican identification among Southern White voters was bolstered in the next two elections by Richard Nixon."
leibowde84
Veteran Member
This is actually a clear example of dishonesty from Conservatives. They constantly claim that Democrats are the party of slavery, yet the democratic caucus that applies to switched to the Republican party in the mid-1960s. They conveniently leave that out.
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
Embarassment is the correct response.
It is proselytization for one - which is an insult to intelligence. Proselytization is, literally, someone informing you that you aren't smart enough or responsible enough to come to your own conclusions.
Secondly, as others have stated, it isn't at all inclusive of the diversity of people and beliefs that exist within the population of the U.S. Remember the old "freedom of religion" that the country professes to uphold? If you're allowed to put up your garbage, then everyone else who doesn't believe as you do should be able to do the same.
Lastly, it displays a level of naivete, in my opinion. Displaying an abject adherence or favoritism to one particular worldview when you proclaim that you accept and embrace all comers (as it should rightly be) is hypocrisy.
Faithofchristian
Well-Known Member
I guess you for got to mention the Statue of Liberty. What is the Statue of Liberty a symbol of?
The United States is the only Country in the world that says those that seek Liberty from oppression, give us your poor, and those who seek the pursuit of happiness.
We will give you Liberty.
Where do you suppose this all comes from?
leibowde84
Veteran Member
The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of liberty.
lib·er·ty
ˈlibərdē/
noun
- the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.
So this is one of the two things that doesn't really fit with the others.
The Washington monument was built with money raised from private citizens, to honor a Freemason, and was thus built in Masnoic tradition with the whole bible-cornerstone thing.
It is now government-owned, but wasn't originally, so this whole thing is a non-issue. It's just a monument built by private citizens with Masonic traditions to further honor the Mason the memorial honors. There's nothing wrong with private citizens wishing to do such a thing.
And here is the second thing that doesn't really fit with the others.
It's a library. Of course they have books. They also have the Quran. Secularism doesn't mean we have to remove any book that mentions religious topics from public society.
Complaining "OMG a library has the BIBLE!!" is a ridiculous complaint.
As a non-Christian, I don't really care.
They were built at a time when Christianity was everywhere and their inclusion is mostly symbolic of other things rather than a promotion of any one religion.
Don't forget there are capital buildings with images depicting the Greek Gods as well. The artists who made that did not mean to promote Hellenism!!
Basically you get Moses and the Commandments and stuff because the original persons building it lived in an age where Christianity was so prevalent that when they thought about different things symbolic of "Laws" through their understanding of history, Moses came to mind since he presented a Rule of Law to the Hebrew people, from their own Christian-centric understanding of history.
When it comes to Moses and the Commandments, they weren't seeking to promote their religion so much as they were seeking to adorn their buildings with symbolism of Law and Order, which from their Christian perspective, they saw Moses as an incarnation of.
Now the nation has changed and there's a whole lot of more non-Christians so I don't think it would be appropriate to adorn a public building in such a way now, but I'm not so much of a frothing Iconoclast that I would demand these things be removed from these buildings, even if my own Faith considers it inappropriate to depict Moses at all. The buildings are what they are, and were built in a Christian-centric society. Defacing the old art in the name of modern sensibilities seems disgusting to me.
Yeah, it's been on the currency since we even had fiat currency.
You ask why, and the answer is interesting (at least to a history nerd like me).
It was about framing. The Government started printing money during the Civil War, and it was an attempt to show the people that God Himself sided with the Union, and that the Confederates were thus blasphemous heathens for opposing the Will of God.
It's purpose was to install a religious fervor in the war effort.
Which is something I strictly oppose for numerous reasons. We should probably stop designing our currency in such a way but people get locked in traditions and don't really care about the reasons why we did things in the past, they just keep doing it. The Civil War is long over, so the purpose of the mantra on the money is pretty much defunct.Christmas is awesome and even as a non-Christian I think this is an excellent thing. Christmas trees are awesome. If you disagree you lack Christmas Spirit and are a no-good humbugger. And they were originally a pagan tradition anyways, so it's not like it's a strictly religious thing.
Hell, extremely atheistic and secular Japan has adopted Christmas celebrations and the trappings of trees. And there are non-Christians like myself who love Christmas. The trees are cool, and are used by many non-Christians and were originally used by pagans. Leave the trees alone.
Yeah that's dumb and tax moneys should not go towards it. More inter-religious decoration things like the trees are one thing, specific religious icons are a wholly different issue.
Basically that one boils down, in older times, to Christian-centric cultures using them as a symbolism of the "history of law" through their own Christian-centric perspective. That's why they put them on buildings that had to do with law and order. No one puts Moses on, say, the Department of Energy buildings.
I don't advocate removing old ones that were built that way, but new ones should not be created, especially since nowadays the ones people propose to build have a specific goal of promoting a religion.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
It certainly doesn't come from the Bible. That's for sure.
Skwim
Veteran Member
"The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the United States. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886.
The Statue of Liberty is a figure of a robed woman representing Libertas, a Roman goddess. She holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries a tabula ansata inscribed in Roman numerals with "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" (July 4, 1776), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, and was a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad.
According to the National Park Service, the idea for the Statue of Liberty was first proposed by Édouard René de Laboulaye the president of the French Anti-Slavery Society and a prominent and important political thinker of his time. The project is traced to a mid-1865 conversation between de Laboulaye, a staunch abolitionist and Frédéric Bartholdi, a sculptor. In after-dinner conversation at his home near Versailles, Laboulaye, an ardent supporter of the Union in the American Civil War, is supposed to have said: "If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united effort—a common work of both our nations."
Source:Wikipedia
The Statue of Liberty is a figure of a robed woman representing Libertas, a Roman goddess. She holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries a tabula ansata inscribed in Roman numerals with "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" (July 4, 1776), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, and was a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad.
According to the National Park Service, the idea for the Statue of Liberty was first proposed by Édouard René de Laboulaye the president of the French Anti-Slavery Society and a prominent and important political thinker of his time. The project is traced to a mid-1865 conversation between de Laboulaye, a staunch abolitionist and Frédéric Bartholdi, a sculptor. In after-dinner conversation at his home near Versailles, Laboulaye, an ardent supporter of the Union in the American Civil War, is supposed to have said: "If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united effort—a common work of both our nations."
Source:Wikipedia
So what is the point you're trying to make, that liberty is a Christian concept?
.
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Faithofchristian
Well-Known Member
Ok, what ever.so you say