The End of Christian America?

You got much deeper into it than I, in your message.
The Taliban kept attacking our soldiers barracks and the WTC as well as other sites until we retaliated and said 'this is enough'.
Our country was founded by christian based religious groups. Our constitution was based on a Shawnee constitution. Shawnees did not have a central figure as a god or savior but a system of nature related 'keepers' of certain things.
Islam came after Jesus so it,too, is based on the Jewish faith(as you said Abraham). Somehow the leaders of Islam must get these radicals to understand this and see their common grounds. BUT I'm not holding my breath. It most likely will not happen in my lifetime and will not last for very long when it does. There will always be dissonance.

Atheism is not a religion. Causes are not a religion. To construe "religion" in such broad terms is to render the reference meaningless.

Religion invokes the supernatural.

Only the ignorant and frightened need cling to religious belief.

Well, the report that prompted this piece was regarding the fact that the number of Americans who identified as Christians was declining--not religion over all. Some are speculating that people are just turning to different religions.

I knew that! We were, at one time, but not anymore!! Probably Madalyn Murray O'Hair fired the first salvo....

Much as I like our president, he is not the determiner of something like this. Even if he said that, its irrelevant.

Though I agree nonetheless - I've been brought up with the idea that this is a nation free of religious oppression. That could include both an Athiest campaign against theism, or Christian oppression of minorities.
A slippery slope indeed.....

But who says a post-Christian America has to be one where Christianity is discriminated against or mocked? Can't it be one where all religious faiths--or lack thereof--are accepted and not seen as a sign of immorality or being unfit for, say, public office?

There can be freedom to believe in your faith without pushing that faith onto others--and I hope that's where we're heading.

I have no problem with a person of faith espousing what they believe but as long as they never assume to try and force me to live by THEIR belief system. The rights of any person end where the next person's begin and no religious authority has any right to tell me what I can or cannot do, think, feel so long as I am respectful of the rights of others.

Don't believe in abortion? That's your choice but the 15 year old who became pregnant by rape should not be mandated to carry a rapist's progeny just because of YOUR beliefs. What she does is none of your business and never will be.

Don't believe in gay rights or gay marriage? Too bad. Homosexuality is present in EVERY MAMMALIAN SPECIES ON EARTH! Get over it. If it was wrong and unnatural (or as some fools claim, a lifestyle choice) would it happen in non-reasoning animals? No. Repression of a group because someone's "god" says they are wrong is simply stupidity in the guise of arrogance.

Tolerance is not capitulation and should never be confused as such. Arrogant expectation of observance of someone else's beliefs shouldn't be tolerated.

Some people need to learn the difference.

You don't need a god to know the difference between what is right and what is wrong. Human respect transcends superstition in my books and always will.

I know, I'm a heretic, blasphemer and every other type of bad person. I don't care.

So, in other words, if a man rapes a woman, than the child who is conceived as a result of that rape deserves to die? Why? Why should an unborn child pay the price for the crime of another? I know of a few young women whose mothers were raped- and yet the mother decided to give birth, rather than abort the child. It goes without saying, these babies grew up into young women, and became outspoken pro life advocates- their mothers chose life, rather than death. A womb, not a tomb.....

by the same token if a woman is raped she must continue to endure that torment and emotional agony of that act by bring her attacker's child into the world and living with that for the rest of her life?

Just as a side note here, life in the womb does NOT begin at conception according to the bible but the spirit of god is in the BLOOD of the being. Human embryos don't have blood until they reach their 18th or 19th day.

There goes that old chestnut out the window.

Simply stated, it is NOT a child until it establishes some form of consciousness. In a spiritual sense, it is not one of god's children until it has blood of it's own.

Don't believe me, look it up then say the bible is wrong.

Creating someting good out of a tragedy. Not compounding a tragedy with another one......creating life out of death, if you will......re: your other comments "I knit you together in your mother's womb...." The embryo has its own DNA- thus it is human.....and re: the other things, no woman comes out stronger from an abortion, no matter what the pro abortion folks say- that is why we have "Project Rachel", etc. Re: the Bible, I would pay more attention to a catholic biblical scholar (like Dr.Scott Hahn) before I would consider some comments from a non christian biblical "authority"........

So on one hand you say that you know more of a woman's rights over her own person than she does because that's what a theological perspective says and on the other that you refuse to confirm that I may be right because another theologian hasn't said what I can tell you is a factual part of the belief structure you espouse?

Your religion is not a license to dictate to others. Grow up.

...and as for my position of being a "non-christian biblical authority" I'll have you know I was raised within a secular home by people of the Catholic, Jewish and Anglican faiths all of whom believed deeply in many of the things you claim to follow. The difference was that instead of trying to ram their beliefs down my throat I was given the RIGHT to learn all I could from each of them and then make my own choice.

That choice was accepted without question and respected by all of them because it was MY choice, not theirs.

I have read the old and new testaments many times over as well as the torah and quran. Can you say the same?

Too bad you can't see past your own nose which you can't seem to get into your own book of faith so as to confirm or deny your own points.

I pity you in many ways as you seem to be so sure of something you seem to know far too little about.

I'm sorry if this offends you but you need to be told that you do not have any right over anyone but yourself.

Think hard about that.

To "wirehedd":

Not sure what Bible it is that you're reading but unless you can prove where in the Bible it says that "the spirit of God is in the blood of the being" and explain how that is literal rather than symbolic and therefore not open to individual interpretation, I'm just going to have to say you pulled that one out of your butt. Even if you can cite book, chapter and verse you'll need to give some authoritative explanation that proves it means what you seem to think it means. Keyword here is "Authoritative".

Many people just hear things that others say are "in the Bible" but never bother to confirm it and then just go off spouting them as if it's just going to be agreed by a consensus of the uneducated masses that "eeyup, it's in there all right" and it somehow makes it true. It doesn't.

The Bible actually tells exactly at what point the soul of an individual is created and from what it is made but that explanation is not for this forum. It is found in parable and may only be revealed to the true seeker. You won't find it by simply reading the words of the Bible and most particularly if you attempt any understanding in the literal sense. It has been kept hidden from the eyes of those who would use it to twist and manipulate the truth of it to suit their own ends and so it remains.

Suffice it to say that the primal cell has blood in it so where you get the idea that there isn't any blood in the embryo for days or weeks is absolutely false in regard to scientific fact.

Leviticus 17:11

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood"

Now while I confess that the passage is in relation to atonement, is it only applicable "some of the time"?

I don't know. Do you?

To "wirehedd",
First, thank you for citing the passage.

The word used in that passage is not the word which refers to the human soul.

The word used in the passage you cited is the Hebrew word "Nephesh" which is used in a strictly physical sense in regard to breath in the form of physical air as in an inhalation or exhalation and most commonly used in reference to the breath of any animal other than man though also regarding the ordinary physical breath of a human.

The word which refers to the breath of The Creator which gives spiritual life to man are two other Hebrew words for "breath" or "breathe" which are "Ruwach" and "Neshamah". These words have a very different meaning and usage in the Bible which is used to convey the breath which carries an intelligible thought, inspiration or understanding among other related concepts. More deeply it is used to convey the concept of an abstract thought carried on the breath through human speech. The thought expressed in a word. The Logos, the thought of God. It is this Breath of Life which is said to be the animating spirit or soul in the human being which sets humankind apart from the rest of the animal kingdom.

The passage in Leviticus is about several things. Among them it is addressing the tradition at the time of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of animals sacrificed to idols which was a big issue for the Hebrews at the time since coming away from the culture which followed those traditions established by Nimrod. Moses was working to break the Hebrew people of the old Babylonian Pagan ways learned while being enslaved to the Egyptians who practiced that religion. At the time referenced in Leviticus, about 1490 BC, Moses was having the people sacrifice one of their best livestock as an offering to God as a way of teaching them that they weren't to worship animals anymore as the Babylonians and Egyptians did. The way the animals were bled allowed them to collect the blood into a container and use it in part of the ritual where the animals flesh was burnt on the altar and the blood was sprinkled around on it to purify the space to show that they knew that the best animal they could find was not God or a god and that it's blood had no spiritual (ruwach/nephesh) quality to it. In the traditions they had just been involved with over many generations in Egypt they took part in many of the same rituals the Egyptians of the time did and were prone to eating the flesh sacrificed on the altar and drinking the blood and a whole bunch of other rituals which were a very important part of those customs as to eat the flesh and blood of what they believed had been inhabited literally by their gods would impart the spirit and power of those gods to the eater of its flesh and drinker of it's blood. Sound familiar? This same bunch of religious practices from Babylon never died out and came back to haunt them at the time of Jesus so He had to do a similar thing with the Jews but He was the sacrifice to show them that a man wasn't God either. Think Eucharist. Explaining that one would take way too much space for this discussion forum. Among the other purposes for this teaching about not consuming the blood were certain physical survival issues which at the time of Moses were more important and immediate than they would be today but of far less importance in the understanding of what were on about here.

Anyway I hope this isn't too hard to follow and sorry if I came off a little rough earlier. Hope this helps.

Well, to be clear this article isn't referencing the end of Christianity--but rather the end of Christianity as a dominating force in culture in government.

Personally, I would hate to see all religions disappear, but would like to see a culture where all religious beliefs--including the lack of religion--are accepted, and where people are not vilified for their faith or lack of faith.

Mohammed's Alah is the same God as Abraham"s. In fact Islam believes Jesus was a prophet, not the savior.
People need a religion to follow.
Athiesm is a religion. Just as many "causes" are a religion.
religion: 4: a cause, principle, or belief held to with faith and ardor.
faith: 1: allegiance to duty or a person, LOYALTY. 3: complete trust.
ardor: 1: warmth of feeling,ZEAL.
(the MERRIAN-WEBSTER Dictionary 2004)