5 Founding Fathers Whose Skepticism About Christianity Would Make Them Unelectable Today

January 12, 2012

Alter Net

By

“Isn’t is odd that every presidential contender is a Christian? Wouldn’t you rather elect someone who questions what they’ve been told instead of believing it in blindly?  An atheist or agnostic president would be an interesting change.” –KTRN

To hear the Religious Right tell it, men like George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were 18th-century versions of Jerry Falwell in powdered wigs and stockings. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Unlike many of today’s candidates, the founders didn’t find it necessary to constantly wear religion on their sleeves. They considered faith a private affair. Contrast them to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (who says he wouldn’t vote for an atheist for president because non-believers lack the proper moral grounding to guide the American ship of state), Texas Gov. Rick Perry (who hosted a prayer rally and issued an infamous ad accusing President Barack Obama of waging a “war on religion”) and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum (whose uber-Catholicism leads him to oppose not just abortion but birth control).

There was a time when Americans voted for candidates who were skeptical of core concepts of Christianity like the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus and the virgin birth. The question is, could any of them get elected today? The sad answer is probably not.

Here are five founding fathers whose views on religion would most likely doom them to defeat today:

1. George Washington. The father of our country was nominally an Anglican but seemed more at home with Deism. The language of the Deists sounds odd to today’s ears because it’s a theological system of thought that has fallen out of favor. Desists believed in God but didn’t necessarily see him as active in human affairs. The god of the Deists was a god of first cause. He set things in motion and then stepped back.

Washington often employed Deistic terms. His god was a “supreme architect” of the universe. Washington saw religion as necessary for good moral behavior but didn’t necessarily accept all Christian dogma. He seemed to have a special gripe against communion and would usually leave services before it was offered.

Washington was widely tolerant of other beliefs. He is the author of one of the great classics of religious liberty – the letter to Touro Synagogue (1790). In this letter, Washington assured America’s Jews that they would enjoy complete religious liberty in America; not mere toleration in an officially “Christian” nation. He outlines a vision of a multi-faith society where all are free.

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40 Signs That America Is Rotting From The Inside Out

October 7th, 2011

InfoWars.com

It would be easy to know how to defend America if enemy forces were invading our shores. But how do you defend a nation that is rotting from the inside out? How do you eradicate the internal decay that is eating away at the heart and soul of this nation a little bit more every single day?

Just like we saw happen with the Roman Empire, the internal rot that is eating its way to the surface threatens to bring us down as a nation. Greed, corruption, gluttony, lust and pride have become national pastimes. We are addicted to debt, food, entertainment and pleasure. We have been taught to hate those that look different from us or that believe different things than we do. Society is literally coming apart at the seams and the federal government is increasingly implementing “Big Brother” security measures in an attempt to maintain control and keep us “safe”. We have far more people in prison than any other nation on the planet and yet things just keep getting worse and worse. So how can we fix America? How do we rescue a nation that is rotting from the inside?

It is absolutely crucial that we acknowledge just how bad things have gotten. Simply getting the right political party into power will not save America. Neither will implementing a new political system or a new economic system. America’s problems are deeper than that. The very core of America is deeply sick, and once we admit that, then perhaps we will start focusing on some real solutions.

The following are 40 signs that America is rotting from the inside out….

#1 A secret panel of government officials can now put American citizens on a “kill list”. A recent Reuters article explained that no law established this secret panel and that there are no laws which govern it….

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council, several current and former
officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

#2 It is on record that the federal government facilitated the sale of thousands upon thousands of very powerful guns to Mexican drug cartels. The Mexican government was never told about this operation. U.S. border agents have been shot with these guns, and these guns have been involved in dozens of murders already in Mexico. Mexican drug cartels will continue to kill people with these guns for many years to come. The Obama administration is working incredibly hard to cover up this scandal and the mainstream media is mostly ignoring the story.

#3 The other day, CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson shared with radio show host Laura Ingraham that Obama administration officials have yelled at her and cussed at her for aggressively investigating Operation Fast and Furious. This must have created a lot of waves, because now CBS News has now put her on lockdown and has made her unavailable for interviews.

#4 A host of other recent examples show that if you are associated with the mainstream media in any way and you make a “politically incorrect” comment, you will be given the boot so fast that it will make your head swim. For example, Hank Williams Jr. was recently booted off Monday Night Football simply because he compared Barack Obama to Hitler.

#5 At the current protests in New York City, police are beating people with clubs and shooting pepper spray in their faces. As the economic crisis gets even worse and protests spread and become more intense in future years, will all of America soon look like this?

#6 The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and thelargest total prison population on the entire globe.

#7 The other day, a group of thieves stole a 50 foot long bridge in Pennsylvania. Yes, you read that correctly. They stole the entire bridge.

#8 Criminals seem willing to steal just about anything that is not bolted down these days. For example, a group of thieves has stolen more than 1,000 pigsfrom farms in Minnesota and Iowa in recent months.

#9 Class warfare is certainly rising to a new level in this nation. Recently, Roseanne Barr said that it would be a good idea for some bankers to “go to the reeducation camps“.

#10 Michael Moore is warning that the economic riots that we are starting to see around the country could potentially become violent in the future….
“The smart rich know they can only build the gate so high. And, and, sooner or later history proves that people when they’ve had enough aren’t going to take it anymore. And much better to deal with it nonviolently now, through the political system, than what could possibly happen in the future, which nobody wants to see”

#11 Have we become a socialist nation? At this point, nearly half of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits.

#12 From the time George Washington became president until January 1993, the United States government accumulated a national debt of $4.16 trillion. Since Barack Obama entered the White House, more than $4.2 trillion has been added to the national debt.

#13 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently warned Congress not to cut “too much” from the federal budget right now.

#14 According to one recent report, the EPA wants to hire 230,000 more bureaucrats that will help enforce all of the new greenhouse gas regulations that the EPA plans to implement.

#15 There are more than 3 million reports of child abuse in the United States every single year.

#16 Horrifying brawls involving groups of young people are breaking out all over the nation. For example, check out this disturbing footage of a brawl that recently broke out during a football game in California.

#17 All over the nation, little children are being publicly arrested by police in their own classrooms and are being marched out of their schools in handcuffs.

#18 In some areas of the country, law enforcement officials are now using “extraction devices” to download data from the cellphones of motorists that they pull over.

#19 In the United States today, it is estimated that one out of every four girls is sexually abused before they become adults.

#20 Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson recently declared that it if your spouse develops Alzheimer’s disease, it is okay to divorce them.

#21 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.

#22 Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants as children in Europe are.

#23 Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently stated that “extremism in Christianity” is a significant danger to the United States.

#24 More pornography is created in the United States than anywhere else on the entire globe. 89 percent is made in the U.S.A. and only 11 percent is made in the rest of the world.

#25 Vanderbilt University has ruled that five on-campus Christian groups have violated Vanderbilt’s non-discrimination policy because they will not allow people that do not believe in Christianity to become leaders in the groups.

#26 Globally, the United States is tied with the U.K. for the most hours of television watched per person each week.

#27 According to NationMaster.com, the United States has the highest percentage of obese people in the world.

#28 The federal government recently sued a company down in Texas for firing a 600 pound worker.

#29 Are American students getting dumber? This year, the average score on the verbal portion of the SAT was the lowest ever recorded.

#30 The United States has more people on pharmaceutical drugs than any other country on the planet.

#31 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.

#32 One out of every four teen girls in the United States now has an STD.

#33 Law enforcement officials estimate that about 600,000 Americans and about 65,000 Canadians are trading dirty child pictures online.

#34 There are more reported rapes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.

#35 Totalitarian police states used to be ridiculed in this country, but now that has all changed. In fact, the “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign looks like it could have been pulled right out of an East German security handbook.

#36 According to a shocking FBI document obtained by Oath Keepers, the FBI definition of “suspicious activity” now includes making “extreme religious statements” and believing in “radical theology“.

#37 It is estimated that 500,000 babies that will be born this year will be sexually abused before they turn 18.

#38 In airports all over the country, the federal government is forcing large numbers of women and children to endure very offensive “enhanced pat-downs” during which their private parts are touched before they are allowed to get on to their flights.

#39 It was bad enough when the TSA was just abusing our families at the airports. Now, TSA “VIPR teams” are conducting approximately 8,000 “unannounced security screenings” a year at subway stations, bus terminals, ports and highway rest stops.

#40 Since 1973, approximately 50 million babies have been slaughtered in the United States before they were even born.

Some of the examples above may seem unrelated at first glance, but they really are not. The truth is that all of those examples illustrate the deep decay that has taken hold in this nation.

Sadly, hundreds more examples could easily be listed. This country is deeply sick, and “tweaking” a couple of things or electing the right politician is not going to cure us.

America is dying and time is running out.

So what do all of you think? Do you believe that America is rotting from the inside out? Please feel free to leave your thoughts below….

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Obama Has Now Increased Debt More than All Presidents from George Washington Through George H.W. Bush Combined

October 6, 2011

CNSNews.com

By: Terence P. Jeffrey

The Obama administration passed another fiscal milestone this week, according to new data released by the Treasury Department. As of the close of business on Oct. 3, the total national debt was $14,837,099,271,196.71—up about $44.8 billion from Sept. 30.

That means that in the less-than-three-years Obama has been in office, the federal debt has increased by $4.212 trillion–more than the total national debt of about $4.1672 trillion accumulated by all 41 U.S. presidents from George Washington through George H.W. Bush combined.

This $4.212-trillion increase in the national debt means that during Obama’s term the federal government has already borrowed about an additional $35,835 for every American household–or $44,980 for every full-time private-sector worker. (According to the Census Bureau there were about 117,538,000 households in the country in 2010, and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were about 93,641,000 full-time private-sector workers.)

When Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, according to the Treasury Department, the total national debt stood at $10,626,877,048,913.08.

At the end of January 1993, the month that President George H. W. Bush left office, the total national debt was $4.1672 trillion, according to the Treasury. Thus, the total national debt accumulated by the first 41 presidents combined was about $44.8 billion less than the approximately $4.212 trillion in new debt added during Obama’s term.

As of Monday, Obama had been in office 986 days—or about 32 and a half months. During that time, the debt increased at an average pace of $4.27 billion per day. Were that rate to continue until Obama’s term ends on Jan. 20, 2013, the debt would then stand at about $16.86534 trillion—an increase of more than $6.2 trillion for Obama’s four years.

That would equal nearly $53,000 for each American household or more than $66,00 for each full-time private-sector worker.

That total national debt did not exceed $6.2 trillion until 2002, when George W. Bush was president.

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