<p>Actually, Thomas Jefferson had a copy of the Koran and was very familiar with it. It's the same Koran that Keith Ellison was sworn in on.</p>
<p>^ can we confirm that statement as true sounds made up</p>
<p>That's true.</p>
<p>Here's what I found after a quick search:
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010300075.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010300075.html</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
what i mean sunshineyday, is that the founding fathers were pretty much all Christian...although it is by far not a Chrisitian nation, as it wasn't meant to be. My point lies in the fact that...they were not muslim, they were Christian! In context to the topic it seems they're forgetting about that.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Our founding fathers would appear to disagree...</p>
<hr>
<p>"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. "</p>
<p>-George Washington</p>
<hr>
<p>"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"</p>
<p>-John Adams</p>
<hr>
<p>During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. </p>
<p>-James Madison</p>
<hr>
<p>Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.</p>
<p>Original sin is as ridiculous as imputed righteousness.</p>
<p>As to Jesus, I have some doubt as to his divinity.</p>
<p>-Benjamin Franklin</p>
<hr>
<p>Christianity neither is, nor ever was apart of the common law.</p>
<p>Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy's own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and divided it into sects of inextinguishable hatred for one another.</p>
<p>Religions are alike -- founded upon fables and mythologies."</p>
<p>"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man."</p>
<p>"The Christian God is a being of terrific character - cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust."</p>
<p>"The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and unintelligible."</p>
<p>-Thomas Jefferson</p>
<hr>
<p>"Each of those churches show certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say, that their word of God came by divine inspiration: and the Turks say, that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."</p>
<p>"As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of Atheism a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up chiefly of Manism with but little Deism, and is as near to Atheism as twilight is to darkness. It introduces between man and his Maker an opaque body, which it calls a Redeemer, as the moon introduces her opaque self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this means a religious, or an irreligious, eclipse of light. It has put the whole orbit of reason into shade."</p>
<p>-Thomas Paine</p>
<hr>
<p>"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"</p>
<p>-Constitution of the United States of America</p>
<p>^ Hmm... Interesting. It makes sense that the founding fathers would antagonize religion because their Enlightenment age philosophy that triumphed human reason over all else.</p>
<p>Exactly, Gryffon. It fits perfectly into the times. Enlightenment thinking was all about glorifying man and Enlightenment thinking led directly to the Revolution. It would actually be surprising if the Founding Fathers were devout Christians, rather than the other way around.</p>
<p>All that is required is a bit of history.</p>
<p>In addition, most of the people agreeing with the statement seem to be expressing the opinion that "since Christianity is no longer held sacred above all others but, rather, put on an equal footing, it's obviously Christians being hated", such as the person who was aghast over the fact that Muslims can actually wear their headscarves: "Oh my God. Yes. My school is an all-girl's prep school, but they LOVE LOVE LOVE all the muslims who come to our school. We have mass 5 x a year (start of year, thanksgiving, christmas, easter, end of year) but the few Muslims in school are daily encouraged to "talk about their faith" and allowed to wear headscarves."</p>
<p>So, let me get this straight. The Muslims have to attend Mass and yet if they wear their scarves it's loving the Muslims? Sounds more like equality, to me.</p>
<p>Ok I'm going to argue that Christians aren't on equal footing here. I am NOT Christian, but it bothers me when sales people can't say Merry Christmas but they are encouraged to wish you Happy Kwanzaa or Happy Hanukkah. It bothers me when a nativity scene is required to be taken down but other religious holidays are encouraged to display their symbols. It bothers me when Christmas songs are banned but other religious songs are promoted. It bothers me when my school sponsors a Muslim American Club and a Jewish Club but they decided a Bible Club wasn't worthy of their sponsorship. </p>
<p>So do I believe that religious discrimination occurs? YES. Do I believe that Muslims and Jewish people have the advantage in free religious expression? You betcha. </p>
<p>If you ban one religious observation then BAN THEM ALL. I should be able to be allowed to display a pentacle and be allowed to publicly celebrated Yule as much as a Christian is allowed to celebrate Christmas and Jews are allowed to celebrate Hanukkah and Muslims are allowed to celebrate their holidays. </p>
<p>We have FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION. It isn't everybody is allowed to have freedom of religious expression EXCEPT Christians.</p>
<p>Roman, those don't happen. Businesses aren't encouraged to wish any holidays. They don't say "Happy Kwanzaa", "Happy Hanukkah", or "Merry Christmas" - they say "Happy Holidays".</p>
<p>Nativity scenes don't get taken down while others display their symbols; nativity scenes get taken down when other religions have nothing.</p>
<p>Christmas songs aren't banned while others are promoted, or at least not by law - if schools choose to, they're breaking the law, and I SERIOUSLY doubt they do that.</p>
<p>As for your school not sponsoring a Bible Club, did anyone ASK for it? Did they fill out all the forms required to have a club? Did they have enough members? I would almost guarantee that one of the conditions was not met. Are the other two clubs actually school sponsored or do they just meet at the school? I know the book club I'm in just meets there but we have nothing to do with the school because the creator didn't want to write the 6-page essay on why it's an important club.</p>
<p>^^ I agree with the disagreements with romanigypsyeyes.
But I agree with romanigypsyeyes that all religious observations should be banned in places like public/private (non-religious) schools. </p>
<p>Those founding father quotations are really interesting. They should be made more well-known since in the Keith Ellison debate, the argument for him not to use the Quran was because the country was founded on Christianity and the Bible therefore everyone should follow it/respect it. I hate BS like that. In trying to be patriotic, it's completely against the fundamental ideas of the US.</p>
<p>I can tell you from experience that I've been to places where they are banned from saying Merry Christmas but other religious greetings are ok. I've done this by going with different religious friends to different stores. Most places do say Happy Holidays though. </p>
<p>Ann Arbor, MI: 2 or 3 years ago, they banned a Christmas tree on religious property but the giant dreidel was allowed to remain. </p>
<p>So many school districts have done this one in Wisconsin sticks in my mind. They banned Christmas songs but still left Jewish songs in their holiday pagent. </p>
<p>And yes, they asked! All of the conditions were met and they claimed that there wasn't enough funding but when there was the Bible Club would be allowed to be sponsored. 2 years later the Muslim American Club was sponsored when they claimed there was no founding. All of the clubs meet at the school and the other 2 ARE sponsored. </p>
<p>As I said before, either you include them all or ban them all.</p>
<p>sunshineyday:</p>
<p>It really is. For people to say that takes a complete lack of all knowledge of history. Something really interesting that I mean to get when I feel like I can afford it is this: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jeffersons-Bible-Morals-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0929205022/ref=sr_1_1/002-5744913-4704818?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179454564&sr=8-1%5B/url%5D">http://www.amazon.com/Jeffersons-Bible-Morals-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0929205022/ref=sr_1_1/002-5744913-4704818?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179454564&sr=8-1</a></p>
<p>Jefferson hacked up the New Testament to get rid of a lot of the spiritual stuff he didn't like and just keep the good messages that Jesus preached. And again, as Gryffon pointed out, it would be more surprising of the Founding Fathers were Christian than that they're not.</p>
<p>It's sort of like some of the stuff people say about illegal immigrants, about them not having rights and things like that. It's trying to be patriotic but it's completely against the fundamental ideas of the U.S. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it use the word "Citizen", and it does so for a very specific reason - because the Founding Fathers wanted rights to be for everyone. To think that Citizen was used in other portions of the Constitution but accidentally left out of the Bill of Rights is ludicrous, one can only assume that it was purposeful.</p>
<p>Roman:</p>
<p>On "religious property"? What do you mean by that? That Christians tried to put up a Christmas tree in a Jewish church or something? I see nothing wrong with that. Or do you mean they tried to put up a Christmas tree in their own church?</p>
<p>I'd like to see a news article on that about the pageant, it sounds like BS (no offense).</p>
<p>As far as the funding goes, funding CHANGES. Funding changes with schools. It's not uniform from year to year. Last year my school had enough money that some teachers got raises. This year we're over a MILLION DOLLARS over budget.</p>
<p>When did this thread turn into "hate Christianity" thread? Can you get back on topic like a mature human being? Thanks.</p>
<p>hye look what i found</p>
<p>No one in this thread has been hating on Christianity. There has been a LOT of hating on Islam, but nothing against Christianity.</p>
<p>Not all muslims act like that, I'm muslim although I'm starting to become a theist. But whatever, I don't care about other people's religions and I certainly don't ask anyone to stop showing pride for their religion and culture. You just happen to have a small statistical reading, that's all.</p>
<p>To Jarn: </p>
<p>I meant public property, I misspoke. </p>
<p>I have seen the article before and I did a report using the article as a reference a while back. </p>
<p>And as for the clubs, the Bible club was supposed to be the next to get funding if funding became available. The Muslim club hadn't even begun to form at the time that the Bible club asked for funding. </p>
<p>As I have said before many times, I am not attacking Muslims or anybody because I have many friends of all religions and a Muslim friend sitting next to me right now. I am not Christian either. However, I do think it's wrong that some religions are allowed to be fully expressed and others are not. In my personal observations that has been the case. </p>
<p>Again, one religion should not be limited unless all are limited.</p>
<p>Most of the founding fathers were either deist or UU.</p>
<p>Anyways, I agree with roman. I think that secularization is a very good thing. Discouraging things of x religion while encouraging things of y religion is wrong though.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Most of the founding fathers were either deist or UU.</p>
<p>Anyways, I agree with roman. I think that secularization is a very good thing. Discouraging things of x religion while encouraging things of y religion is wrong though.
[/quote]
They were not UU. The Unitarian Universalist Association was founded in 1961. Most of the Founding Fathers were either deist (i.e. Jefferson, Paine, Franklin etc.) or marginally religious (i.e. George Washington).</p>
<p>To anyone who believes that Muslims are idolized: I don't know what America you live in, but I see Muslims being wrongly accused of terrorism and apprehended by Homeland Security with no probable cause. I certainly don't see the same happening to Christians.</p>
<p>Oh. I thought I read somewhere that there was a sizable Unitarian minority.
My bad.</p>