BecauseHeLives wrote:

Hence the Salem Witch Trials under the Puritan theocracy. Under Massachusetts Puritan Law your religion was dictated to you, if you were not a member of the Puritan Church you were not considered a freeman or permitted to vote. Even Quakers could not hold office.

One law forbade the wearing of lace, another of "slashed cloaths other than one slash in each sleeve and another in the back." The length and width of a lady's sleeve was solemnly decided by law. It was a penal offense for a man to wear long hair, or to smoke in the street, or for a youth to court a maid without the consent of her parents. A man was not permitted to kiss his wife in public. Captain Kimble, returning from a three-years' ocean voyage, kissed his wife on his own doorstep and spent two hours in the stocks for his "lewed and unseemly behavior."

Slavery was ensconced in law, Christmas outlawed, blasphemers and those who persisted in the wrong faith executed.

So - yes, the colonies were indeed founded on Christian principles.

Those atrocities were likely carried out by believers and NOT Christians. It's easy to point out the bad things that "Christians" have done in the name of their "faith". It would be just as easy to do the opposite. Or to point out the atrocities done by atheists is the past. You can make the "stats" look as good or as bad as you want to do. It doesn't change your first statement in your reply.

The COLONIES were founded upon religeous principles which were heavily Christianity in nature.

A Person wrote:
...

If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. [Matthew 21:21]

If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. [John 14:14]

Ask, and it will be given you. [Matthew 7:7]

Nothing will be impossible to you. [Matthew 17:20]

Believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. [Mark 11:24]

Nothing there about the afterlife.

Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

That's about as clear as the Bible gets. Ask for food, it will be given you. What use will fish or bread be in the afterlife?

Questioner wrote:
The truly weird thing is anybody claiming to be a Christian minister teaching that if people just live according to Christian principles, they will be successful in this world. Jesus explicitly taught the opposite. He taught that the reward for living a good life would come in the NEXT world. Yet another example of how they reject the teachings of the very God they profess to follow.

Questioner wrote:
The truly weird thing
is anybody claiming to be a Christian minister teaching that if people just live according to Christian principles, they will be successful in this world. Jesus explicitly taught the opposite. He taught that the reward for living a good life would come in the NEXT world. Yet another example of how they reject the teachings of the very God they profess to follow.

SouthernFriedInfidel wrote:
The myth that these people are working from -- that total compliance with God's wishes will result in "blessings from above" -- is one of the most insidious and ludicrous ideas around. It must be fought at every turn, because it erodes away at everything that we have gained as a nation and society from day one....the theocrat-in-waiting that I linked to considers the societies of Calvin and the New England Pilgrims to have been "true Christian societies."...The fact that they did not survive doesn't appear to have affected his judgment of their viability either. Yet he (and many others) are today urging America to try it out again.

No way will I stand idly aside and just say "I can't convince them, so let them be." Their aim is to spread a killing virus. I have a different plan in mind.

Questioner wrote:
Sorry, SFI, but it is sort of a waste of time to try to explain that the U.S. was explicitly founded as a secular country to people who are determined to revise history so as to favor their own personal religious beliefs. Facts, evidence, and truth are of no interest to zealots. No matter how much we try; no matter how excellent our evidence, we are wrong. They want the U.S. to have been founded as a Christian country so that they have some basis for discriminating against those who are not Christians. People will believe what they want to believe, regardless of how false it might be.

SouthernFriedInfidel wrote:

BecauseHeLives wrote:A document can NOT be considered secular when there are PROVISIONS allowing for and defending the free exercise of religion.

A document sure as heck CAN'T be "Christian" if it establishes freedom of religion. Christianity is a particular religion (or more accurately a Family of religions that have the same central figure). Freedom of religion means that ANY religion and ABSENCE of religion in individuals is supported. True freedom of religion for all individuals is necessary for a secular society. The problem is that having a secular society necessarily precludes the exercise of religions that aim to deny that freedom to those who don't follow them.

BecauseHeLives wrote:
A document can NOT be considered secular when there are PROVISIONS allowing for and defending the free exercise of religion.

Ben Franklin wrote:
Eight reasons that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones
1. Because they have more Knowledge of the World . . .
2. Because when Women cease to be handsome they study to be good . . . there is hardly such a Thing to be found as an Old Woman who is not a good Woman.
3. Because there is no Hazard of Children, which irregularly produc'd may be attended with much Inconvenience.
4. Because through more Experience they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion.
5. Because in every Animal that walks upright the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part. The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the Last as plump as ever; so that covering all above with a Basket [!], and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to tell an old one from a young one. And as in the Dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of Corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior; every Knack being by Practice, capable of Improvement.
6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin . . .
7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflection; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy.
8th and Lastly. They are so grateful!