(07-23-2018 03:50 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Participation in Christianity in the United States is wildly over-reported.

During the Republican primaries pollsters were baffled by then candidate Trump's showing among "evangelicals". A pollster in South Carolina did something virtually no other poll did. Add questions about church attendance. Candidate Trump was through the roof on people who described themselves as evangelicals yet were Christmas/Easter Christians at most. Ted Cruz on the other hand was most supported by those evangelicals attending church regularly. Cruz finished third despite the support of regular church attenders.

The United States has entered what I can only describe as being "a weird place".

You have a significant segment of the population that clings to the labels of religion but reject the orthodox tenets of the faith.

There is a peculiar American jihadist movement that is not unlike the Islamic jihad movement in rejecting the orthodoxy.

Then you have an "enlightenment" movement that will depart from orthodoxy to use the "guidelines" of faith within the context of modern culture (think some of the most Westernized Muslim nations and progressive Christian denominations).

Then you have those who hold to the orthodoxy of their faith but see the secular government as something you might participate in while keeping your faith personal.

Many of the Founders fell in this category. Their distrust of political interference with church (the state declaring rituals and approving ministers/priests) was equally matched by the experience of their forebears when church used the government as a tool of religion. Mandatory baptisms, purges and oppression of churches that were not in power, including the stripping of civil rights from adherents of an out-of-favor church (history of Ireland as a UK colony for example).

Then of course the "nones"

The Founders didn't really have "nones" because science had no explanation for the existence of people or the planet. The nones of that era were generally called deists. A builder god created everything and then either died, moved on to the next project, or just sits back idly watching.

That's a fairly accurate but excessively over simplified model. There are many more religions here other than Judaism, Christianity, and Muslim branches. We have Sikh, Buddhists (with regional temples), Hindu, and more than a few adherents of Confucianism. Of course Buddhists and Confucianism are both introspective pathways more than a religion. And everywhere science and secularism have degraded each. It's why if you are going to relate them to GTS's OP of finding a new core morality as an organizing principal moving forward then focusing on the core beliefs and practices that are common to all is the best place to start. The 10 commandments, the Code of Hammurabi, Taoist teachings (very similar to the Hebrew proverbs in style, and certainly Trinitarian in structure with an anticipated great teacher (Tao in the flesh), all share a very close teaching of common morality.

I agree with the founding fathers and with Jefferson's rational for using Deism as a way of talking about things not yet fully understood, but utilizing the creator concept for the declaration of freedom attributed to the divine to offset the claims of divine selection that monarchs used to enslave the people were all necessary for setting up our right to exist free, express an open mindedness for our future, and to ground us in a common morality.

I remain confident in my argument above that they catalyst for our destruction was in not taking our pledges to be American first and sub culture second. As Lincoln noted a house divided against itself cannot stand. As a people we have to have 1 mind for our common defense, and one allegiance and that to the United States of America. My hat is off to the Japanese Americans in WWII who embodied that spirit in its fullest in the face of oppression by the country they fought and died to defend against its enemies which included their country of origin.

That's why I give no slack to Muslims, African Americans, Latinos or anyone else who want dual citizenship, including Anglo Americans living in Europe. If you want to be part of our country then you make that your top priority and embrace what it means to be an American.

What we have done is a lousy job of defining what up until Viet Nam was commonly accepted. And now we have 3 generations of people who believe otherwise and those on the Left who are working wittingly and unwittingly to destroy our core values treat as a shame to even discuss.

If we want to make America great again then we need a country filled with people dedicated to that proposition. Anyone actively seeking to undermine what is best for the citizens of this nation needs to be politely show the door. And that is progress. Sedition is still a crime.