In every political/economic system

But, again, in America's case we did not steal the land from anyone. [/QUOTE]Tell that to the Iriquois, the Cherokee, the Apache, the Sioux, etc. etc.

Bet they would give you a different opinion.

 

NO! I couldn't be, if I said I didn;t trust any of the systems, as you answered below. But it seems like "socialist" to you is anyone who does not think Capitalism is from God. Now are you a fascist?

Because I live here with it, on the lower end of it, and see its flaws, and then see a buch of people who think it is virutally perfect, yet blame all of its problems on socialism (in the form of "the government"). The auto bailout was Obama's fault. High prices are all because of taxes, wasted on "social programs". It's never corporate greed, because they "deserve" everything, and more (i.e. they're the true "victims" of this "socialist" government).

Your tactic of throwing out this "socialist" label is an attempt to "win" in a way. That's the ultimate proof that the other person is just evil, unAmerican, and ungodly/on Satan's side, and then there, you can rest your case, and walk away feeling vindicated.

So I have to believe that there was some special act of God in founding this nation, then, in order to not offend you. It seems to be like part of the Gospel, and faith in God itself. Here grilling me on whether I'm a socialist, like some trial, or a McCarthy witch hunt or heresy trial or something. You want that much control over what someone else believes!

Yet is this in the Bible? There is way too much speculation about "what God is doing". Just like the charismatics, who claim all those tongues and healings and other forms of "revival" they do is some special work of God, you're doing the same thing in political history. The problem is, every man selects whatever events he likes, and then claims they are God's works we should ALL just accept as such. Yet there is no proof of any of it after the Bible record ends. God is believed by faith, and yet, men try to get their own agendas into this, and it becomes what one says versus what another says. People over the ages thought some world event was finally "the end", (i.e. God's final work in this age), and it always turned out not to be.

So no one is really tearing down anything. You have bult it up into something you it is not, and there is no scriptural warrant for claiming (whether it "seems" like it in the world or not). So to level it back to its rightful height seems to you like tearing down.

I had even gone back over the comment to check the context, and the way you threw that in there still did look like a justification. Saying you're glad they later overcame slavery is one thing, but one still has to justify it in the earlier period to maintain your stance of it being guided by God's providence. That's what the argument is about. If that was God's providence, then He must have favored the slavery. And many arguing that do appeal to the Old Testament where He once did.

No, it started with you demonizing the government and blaming it for everything (including stuff like the auto bailouts, which is clearly a case stemming from corporate greed), and then becoming defensive when the sin of that side is pointed out. Yet you (and others) keep throwing up this term "Anti-American", or "hating America" like the whole definition of an American is someone who favors whatever corporations do, uncritically (corporations who themselves care little about the country, ironically, as they will milk it dry and then move on elsewhere, while all the dittohead sheep blame "the liberals" only). So you can't even know what "wickedness" to pray that God will forbear. You're looking for it all in one direction, and apparently denying that one whole side of it is even wickedness; calling anyone who says it is, "unAmerican".

So I'm tired of your little villifying catch phrases; as if God Himself declared that anyone who criticizes capitalism is unAmerican. You find a scripture that obligates us to favor capitalism, or just cut it out already! (It's also pointed out that the "Democracy" taught by the founders is not necessarily capitalism, anyway, and that capitalism as it is being practiced today, is really a corruption of it).
It seems your entire egos are hooked up in this, and I could well accuse you of making a god out of capitalism, if I were to take your route.
Just look at the quotes. It's all about us, and our goodness (and others' wickedness), and them trying to get us by replacing our sacred system with somethign else. Who do we really think we are? Once again; show me this stuff in the Bible! Are we really praising God, when we seem to be exalting ourselves to His level so much?
Again, why don't you two be thankful when you feel like blaming liberals for everything. You sure don't sound thankful then. But you try to dictate how others think, though.

 

Don't scrap them. Just realize that that is their fallible interpretation of the history they were making. Unless you're going to levate their words to that of inspired scripture.

And that first sentence was true for many in the early US and its "discovery" and founding as well, (including by some of the same people initially fleeing persecution themselves). So nobody ever said you should not praise god for His blessings. But you do more than that. You say everyone (not just yourself) should uncritically view all of the means some of these blessings were gained, as from God. God uses evil to accomplish good. You seem to be denying that anything God used was evil.

Still, why does God choose America? Where is this in scripture? You denied before equating it with Israel, yet, you all are so insistent that God is doing something special through this nation, and apparently this nation alone. Your proof is that its system works so well, bit then you are complaining about it alot, only blaming this on some "unAmerican" element, supposedly embodied in the "liberal" government. So it's like we have some Biblical, prophetic battle going on, like Israel versus the pagans.

Of course, as you touched upon, we cannot explain "God's soverignty". Which is what the Calvinists always run to when they cannot answer the questions their positions naturally lead to.
So you just "know" this is God's special political system, despite the fact that it is millennia after the end of the scriptural canon, and we're all supposed to just believe that, or be considered unAmerican (which seems to be as bad as being anti-God). This reminds me of the debate with the Catholics/EOC about how all of their practices are "oral apostolic tradition".

Because I see people taking hard sides, as if one side is perfect, and the other is all the blame, while I see both sides as the problem, and public opinion affects us all, and someone needs to point out the real truth. for the extremes on both sides are no good. Like if you all had your way and abolished most government, and let private business do whatever they want (arguing that they "earned" all that power), and they use their power to raise prices ridiculously while lowering quality to a point where it becomes even more difficult to live, then that to me is no better than any socialist system. You're still suffering under someone else's power, whether it is legal/military, or economic. What I started off saying in the other thread was that there is no difference in the people who head either government or private business. The organizations might function differently, but it is the same species and class of being running both, so one has no way of being "better" than the other. They are fundamentally the same. Neither side can claim any divine charter, unless you can find the scripture naming them. Government might have an "official" legal edge, but economic power can be just as influential as government power, and even influence government itself.
Ad nd part of this influence is blaming the other side, so they can gain more power through symathy. so even when they get caught in their own folly, it still ends up being all the government's fault somehow. This is one sided and unrealistic, and needs to be pointed out.

 

Can't teach a fool.
A sign post never changes its message no matter how much the argument.
Lead a horse to water but can't make him drink.

Dragoon68,
Some people..... it doesn't matter what is their pov as much as it matters to them that they think they already know yours and are determined to oppose you, based more on their opinion of your side than the content of what you actually say. They are oppostitional, period. If you're the critic, they'll find reason to oppose your criticism. If you attempt to affirm a point of theirs, they'll twist your meaning and turn and attack you. If you mention thankfulness to God for anything, they'll pont out the faults which come from the acts of men and blame you and your concept of God as a permissiveness on God's part and an excuse on your part . You will seldom see them post anything of depth in other areas on a board such as this which address knowledge of scripture or application of knowledge and understanding, yet they have their favorite repeated verses and limited interpretation, and will use these in their attacks. Their knowledge of history has peaked with their having mastered the indoctrination points, either delivered in our educational system or gathered from mixtures of talking points, movies, aand espressed opinions of others: their mind was sealed when the grade was made and they concluded their position. They make a pretense of discussion for the purpose of argument not for genuine interest or thirst for truth and knowledge. I hope I am not speaking of anyone here...... but even if you hold up a mirror, they've been taught to see their own reflection and think it is you..... hence the things they accuse you of and the characteristics they identify with you is actually their own reflection. Hang in there Dagoon68, there may be someone who is hungry, which you feed, and thirsty, and find you to be a well. One truth pointed out within this thread.... that about the precious resources of your time, mine, and that of others.....is true....amazing that one who consumes it upon the altar of oposition and apathy can recognize his consumption of others energy and resources.

 

I don't know why you addressed that to him. You just described his whole approach. So you're holding up a mirror of him, looking at it at an angle, and saying it is someone else. Nobody's accusing him of being "anti-American"/"hating America" for criticizing the government (and an argument can certainly be made for that), but that is what he does to us, for criticizing the founders, or current capitalism. Yet we're twisting his words based on our opinion of his side? You've got to be kidding! [if you are happening to be describing people here, since we're just so indoctrinated by the old scapegoats of the education system and movies, etc]

If we're fools who can't be taught, and misuse "our favorite scriptures" and these claims you are making about the virtues and divine origin of this system are so certain, show us the scripture, properly interpreted, on this country or system.

 

I said I hoped I wasn't speaking of anyone here, but since I made an off topic comment to another poster, I can understand the confusion presented by the following post:

Eric, reflect on it. It could be you. It could be me. It could be anyone at sometime... and no one in particular....... Just a reflection. You are no fool; but you can think more clearly and try to develop focus instead of jumping to other tangents before you've completed one point.

Edited to add:
Decide what you know or believe and state it clearly as such, or decide what you don't know and ask questions or guidance. But don't ask a question as though you need an answer if your intention is to debate both ends and never declare your position or that you ever had a purpose in discussion.

 

What question did I ask with the intention to debate? Or are you referring to billwald? (Though I don't see where he did that in the OP either).

 

Fact: Charles Darwin wasn't born until 1809. He was about 30 when he conceived the idea of natural selection and published about 20 years later. In our country, the Emancipation Proclamation and the passage of the 13th Amendment ended the legal practice of slavery in the US (1863, 1865 respectively). So, it cannot be argued that Darwin had an impact on the practice of slavery in our country.

In fact, of the 3-4 million slaves which were estimated to be here before slavery ended.... about 2/3rds of a million were the result of slavery import trade which was tolerated and legal until shortly after the revolution of 1776, but internal trading of slaves continued until emancipation.... roughly 90 years after the birth of our nation.

Indentured servants, on the other hand, was not a form of slavery, but a contract to trade one's labor and service for a returned benefit. It might be an exchange of labor for food and board (and tutelage) while assisting another and learning a skill trade. Or it could be the trading of labor and service in exchange for payment of passage on a ship, or settlement in a new land, or for payment of debts. While it doesn't quite compare with 'indentured', still some of our early economies within our own country used a blended form of exchange of labor for mutual benefit for society: For example, many communities could not afford to pay the wages for a teacher to teach their children, so they built a house or a 'teacherage' for the teachers to room and board free of charge and near the school, while supplying them with a small stipend for their service and expenses to make up for wages. Sometimes, within the home (like my mother's family with many kids) arrangements might be made to room and board a piano teacher and provide the piano, so one's own children could have lessons, and allowing the teacher to use the home and piano for others in the community who could pay for lessons but who did not have the room or disposition to room and board the teacher.

This sets forth a good example of how the government, by legislating wages, and agencies like the IRS who will try to monetarize and tax as wage equivalent exchanges of value, as room and board for teaching, or a student's labor and service for training and room and board, has interfered with the natural processes of adapting to conditions of economic need and the mutual agreements of exchanges and innovations which people living free should have available.

Years ago, I worked during the last semester of college by exchanging my time to watch 4 children, ages 6 to 16, and dusting and light housekeeping and laundry, for room and board in a home where both parents worked teaching school. The small allowance given me (unasked for and unexpected, I might add) helped buy needed supplies for school, and I had advantage of being near campus where I could attend the study group in preparing for my national board exam. I had special permission to use the family Cadillac Station Wagon to transport and chaperone the children at their events... and then to use when an evening clinical didn't coincide with the commute of others in the home. It was an arrangement of mutual trust and benefit without a written contract. I seriously doubt that few would even consider such arrangements today, and even if they did, would be concerned if there might be legal ramifications should a person whether having interest in the arrangements or not... posed a complaint.

 

Well... that seems to be consistent with what you think anyway based on what you post here on the Board.

 

Tit for tat arguments are very time consuming, difficult for other readers to follow, and eventually everyone, including the authors, can lose sight of the key points being made.

I've made my points very clear - perhaps not as eloquently as some might be able to do - but clear enough, I think, for the purposes of this forum.

So let me not waste more space with my menial words but, instead, call upon some voices from the past.

Let’s start with this one by Merle D'Aubigne for his History of the Reformation published in 1835:

“In history shall we not recognize the hand of God in those grand manifestations, those great men, those mighty nations which arise and start as it were from the dust of the earth, and communicate a new form and destiny to the human race? Shall we not acknowledge him in those great heroes who spring from society at appointed epochs - who display a strength and an activity beyond the ordinary limits of humanity, and around whom, as around a superior and mysterious power, nations and individuals gladly gather? And do not those great revolutions which hurl kings from their thrones and precipitate whole nations to the dust - do they not all declare aloud a God in history? Who, if not God? What a startling fact, that men brought up amid the elevated ideas of Christianity regard as mere superstition that divine intervention in human affairs which the very heathen have universally admitted!”

 

Now let's move on to just a very few of Daniel Webster comments as recorded in the several volumes of "The Works of Daniel Webster":

“The embarkation of the Pilgrims for Holland is deeply interesting from its circumstances, and also as a mark of the character of the times, independently of its connection with names now incorporated with the history of empires. Theirs was not the flight of guilt, but virtue. It was an humble and peaceable religionflying from causeless oppression. It was conscience attempting to escape from the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts. It was Robinson and Brewster leading off their little band from their native soil, at first to find a shelter on the shores of a neighboring continent, but ultimately to come hither, and, having surmounted all difficulties and braved a thousand dangers, to find here a place of refuge and rest. Thanks be to God that this spot was honored as the asylum of religious liberty! May its standard, reared here, remain forever! May it rise as high as heaven, till its banner shall fan the air of both continents, and wave as a glorious ensign of peace and prosperity to the nations!”

It is from England that they went to Holland and then to America in 1620.

“Our fathers had that religious sentiment, that trust in Providence, that determination to do right, and to seek, through every degree of toil and suffering, the honor of God, and the preservation of their liberties, which we shall do well to cherish, to imitate, to equal, to the utmost of our ability.”

"Thanks to Almighty God who, from that distressed early condition of our fathers, has raised us to a height of prosperity and of happiness which they neither enjoyed, nor could have foreseen little of us. Would to God, my friends, that, when we carry our affections and our recollections back to that period, we could arm ourselves with something of the stern virtures which supported them, in that hour of peril, and exposure, and suffering! Would to God that we possessed that unconquerable resolution, stronger than bars of brass or iron, which strengthened their hearts; that patience, 'sovereign o'er transmuted ill,' and, above all, that faith, that religious faith, which, with eyes fast fixed upon heaven, tramples all things earthly beneath her triumphant feet!"

 

Joseph Warren said the following in 1772 three years before he died in the revolution:

“If you with united zeal and fortitude oppose the torrent of oppression; if you feel the true fire of patriotism burning in your breasts; if you from your souls despise the most gaudy dress that slavery can wear; if you really prefer the lonely cottage (whilst blest with liberty) to gilded palaces surrounded with the ensigns of slavery — you may have the fullest assurances that tyranny, with her whole accursed train, will hide their hideous heads in confusion, shame, and despair. If you perform your part, you must have the strongest confidence that The Same Almighty Being who protected your venerable and pious forefathers, who enabled them to turn a barren wilderness into a fruitful field, who so often made bare his arm for their salvation, will be still mindful of you, their offspring.

May this Almighty Being graciously preside in all our councils. May he direct us to such measures as he himself will approve and be pleased to bless. May we ever be a people favored of God. May our land be a land of liberty, the seat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed, a name and a praise in the whole earth, until the last shock of time shall bury the empires of the world in one common undistinguished ruin.”

 

Samuel Adams said in 1776:

“The time at which this attempt on our liberties was made, when we were ripened into maturity, had acquired a knowledge of war, and were free from intestine enemies—the gradual advances of our oppressors, enabling us to prepare for our defence—the unusual fertility of our lands—the success which at first attends our feeble arms, producing unanimity among our friends and reducing our internal foes to acquiescence - these are strong and palpable assurances that Providence is yet gracious unto our Zion, that it will turn away our captivity.

These are instances of, I would say, an almost astonishing providence in our favor; so that we may truly say that it is not our arm that has saved us. The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the great providential dispensation which is completing. Brethren and fellow-countrymen, if it was ever granted to mortals to trace the designs of Providence and interpret its manifestations in favor of its cause, we may, with humility of soul, cry out, ‘Not unto us, not unto us, but to thy name be the praise.’

My countrymen, from the day on which an accommodation takes place between England and America on any other terms than as independent states, I shall date the ruin of this country. We are now, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of souls united in one common cause. This day we are called on to give a glorious example of what the wisest and best of men were rejoiced to view only in speculation. This day presents the world with the most August spectacle that its annals ever unfolded—millions of freemen voluntarily and deliberately forming themselves into a society for the common defence and common happiness. Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, and Sidney! will it not add to your benevolent joys to behold your posterity rising to the dignity of men, and evincing to the world the reality and expediency of your systems, and in the actual enjoyment of that equal liberty which you were happy, when on earth, in delineating and recommending to mankind!”

I've heard there's a good beer named after this statesman!

 

John Witherspoon communicated his understand of the true power behind our liberty and the danger of forgetting as follows:

“While we give praise to God, the supreme disposer of all events, for his interposition in our behalf, let us guard against the dangerous error of trusting in or boasting of an arm of flesh. I could earnestly wish that, while our arms are crowned with success, we might content ourselves with a modest ascription of it to the power of the Highest. The Holy Scriptures in general, and the truths of the glorious gospel in particular, and the whole course of Providence, seem intended to abase the pride of man and lay the vain-glorious in the dust. The truth is, that, through the whole frame of nature and the whole system of human life, that which promises most performs the least. The flowers of finest colors seldom have the sweetest fragrance. The trees of greatest growth or fairest form are seldom of the greatest value or duration. Deep waters run with the least noise. Men who think most are seldom talkative. And I think it holds as much in war as in any thing, that every boaster is a coward. I look upon ostentation and confidence to be a sort of outrage upon Providence; and when it becomes general and infuses itself into the spirit of a people, it is the forerunner of destruction.

From what has been said you may learn what encouragement you have to put your trust in God, and hope for his assistance in the present important conflict. He is the Lord of Hosts, great in might and strong in battle. Whoever has his countenance and approbation shall have the best at last. If your cause is just, you may look with confidence to the Lord and entreat him to plead it as his own. I would neither have you to trust in an arm of flesh, nor to sit with folded hands and expect that miracles shall be wrought in your defence. In opposition to it, I would exhort as Joab did the host of Israel, who in this instance spoke like a prudent general and a pious man—‘Be of good courage, and let us behave ourselves valiantly for our people, and for the cities of our God; and the Lord do that which is good in his sight.’”

More later, the Lord willing, because I need some rest - not from this but from my day job!

 

Continuing with support for the truth that God's providence was involved in America's beginnings I offer what William Livingston had this to say about America's beginnings:

"Courage, Americans! liberty, religion, and science are on the wing to these shores. The finger of God points out a mighty empire to your sons. The savages of the wilderness were never expelled to make room for idolaters and slaves. The land we possess is the gift of Heaven to our fathers, and Divine Providence seems to have decreed it to our latest posterity. So legible is this munificent and celestial deed in past events, that we need not be discouraged by the bickerings between us and the parent country. The angry cloud will soon be dispersed, and America advance to felicity and glory with redoubled activity and vigor. The day dawns in which the foundation of this mighty empire is to be laid by the establishment of a regular American Constitution.

Let us, both by precept and example, encourage a spirit of economy, industry, and patriotism, and that public integrity which cannot fail to exalt a nation—setting our faces at the same time like a flint against that dissoluteness of manners and political corruption which will ever be the reproach of any people. May the foundation of our infant state be laid in virtue and the fear of God, and the superstructure will rise gloriously and endure for ages. Then we may humbly expect the blessing of the Most High, who divides to nations their inheritance and separates the sons of Adam. While we are applauded by the whole world for demolishing, the old fabric, rotten and ruinous as it was, let us unitedly strive to approve ourselves master-builders, by giving beauty, strength, and stability to the new. May we, in all our deliberations and proceedings, be influenced by the great Arbiter of the fate of nations, by whom empires rise and fall, and who will not always suffer the sceptre of the wicked to rest on the lot of the righteous, but in due time avenge an injured people on their unfeeling oppressor and his bloody instruments.”

 

Giddings in Continental Congress said:

“Thus our republic was founded on religious truth, and it was thus far emphatically a religious government. It has ever been sustained by the religious sentiment of the nation, and it will only fail when this element shall be discarded by the people. The Philadelphia Convention (the Continental Congress) will be remembered in coming time as the first, in the history of political parties of our nation, to make religious truths the basis of its political action, and first to proclaim the rights of mankind as universal, to be enjoyed equally by princes and people, by rulers and the most humble. It was the first to proclaim the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.”

 

Senator Frelinghuysen said in Congress, in 1830

“The colonies from which our present States originated were planted by decidedly Christian people, to be Christian communities, and with such views of the relations between civil government and religion as were then universal in Christendom. The experiment of a nation without an established religion had not then been tried, nor did they think of instituting it: Christianity, therefore, was made part of their civil institutions, as well in their minuter branches as in their essential foundations.

“In Massachusetts and other Northern colonies, a membership in the Church established by law was necessary to citizenship in the commonwealth. In Virginia and other Southern colonies, the Church of England was by law established.

“By-and-by, when the colonial character had ceased, and that of States been assumed, the legal establishment of any one form ofChristianity in preference to all other forms of the same was discontinued. In the adoption of the present Federal Constitution, it was declared, among the amendments of that instrument, that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ This article in the general Constitution, and the similar alterations in the laws of the several States above mentioned, by which the legal precedence of one form of Christianity over another was done away, are all the ground on which it can be asserted that either our General or State Governments have disowned all connection with the Christian religion as having any more countenance in their legislation than infidelity or Mohammedanism. But is this a warrantable conclusion? Is it not perfectly conceivable that Christianity may be the religion of the people and of the people’s overnment, so far as that her great principles shall be assumed as the basis of their institutions and the promotion of those principles distinctly countenanced in their laws and customs, at the same time that no eligion is, in the technical sense, ‘established,’ and no one form of hristianity is distinguished above another? To call religion into connection with the government, so far as to employ ministers of the gospel as chaplains, at the public charge, in Congress and other public departments, is decided by long-established practice to be not unconstitutional. And thus it is decided that it was not intended, by the article quoted above from the Constitution of the United States, to prevent the Government of the United States from being connected with religion, with some religion in preference to all others, or to have its institutions based upon the principles of Christianity instead of those of Deism or the Koran.

“How unlikely were the several States, in acceding to the present Constitution, to lay aside all connection with Christianity in the general institutions to which they gave birth, may be inferred from the consideration that in their own respective legislation a close relation between religion and the Government had always subsisted; that, though a strong aversion had arisen to the national establishment of any one form of Christianity, none had grown up against a distinct recognition of Christianity itself as the religion of the nation; and that the representatives of the States in the convention that formed the present Constitution were, for the most part, men of decided Christian principles.”

Can you imagine a Senator having the courage to say something even one tenth as much as this today and being able to do so with such eloquence? The wrath of the God haters would be upon him in short order would they not? Read it carefully, brothers and sisters, because it is the truth of our nation's history!