AMERICA: A Christian Nation?

[AiliailiA]

*** Warned for flaming ***

I understand why he flamed this guy.
I seriously hope the Mississippi guy is not serious

There's always User Control Panel -> Friends and Foes -> Add Foe -> [Christian State of Mississippi]. Colloquially: the Ignore function.

Or you could exercise mental discipline and disengage your attention to the meaning when reading posts from Christian State of Mississippi. Think of them for ads for some shit you so much don't-want that you'd pay postage to send it back.

[The Creepoc Infinite]

I understand why he flamed this guy.
I seriously hope the Mississippi guy is not serious

There's always User Control Panel -> Friends and Foes -> Add Foe -> [Christian State of Mississippi]. Colloquially: the Ignore function.

Or you could exercise mental discipline and disengage your attention to the meaning when reading posts from Christian State of Mississippi. Think of them for ads for some shit you so much don't-want that you'd pay postage to send it back.

I'm well aware of internet privacy settings and safety features (unlike the bullshit movie: Cyberbully) ((just because I felt like saying something provocative))

But I don't want to ignore this guy, I don't block people, I see that as censoring.
And I see censorship as a punk bitch move so I'm not gonna ignore anyone.

[AiliailiA]

Example? Scotland, Catalonia, anywhere-that-has-a-region, etc.

Regionalism is unique to the United States.

Nothing is unique to the United States.

Exceptionalism is one thing. Exceptionalism is possible: the combination of things found mostly in the US might makes a whole which is unique. But to say "regionalism is unique to the United States" is so stupidly wrong, it immediately invokes some other things the US is outstanding in. Like parochialism, arrogance, and voluble ignorance.

[AiliailiA]

There's always User Control Panel -> Friends and Foes -> Add Foe -> [Christian State of Mississippi]. Colloquially: the Ignore function.

Or you could exercise mental discipline and disengage your attention to the meaning when reading posts from Christian State of Mississippi. Think of them for ads for some shit you so much don't-want that you'd pay postage to send it back.

I'm well aware of internet privacy settings and safety features (unlike the bullshit movie: Cyberbully) ((just because I felt like saying something provocative))

But I don't want to ignore this guy, I don't block people, I see that as censoring.
And I see censorship as a punk bitch move so I'm not gonna ignore anyone.

If "this guy" isn't serious, they are trolling.

(See what I did there? I respected men, by not assuming that someone I disagree with is a man. BTW I am a man.)

Censorship is what happens if CSoM gets banned or deleted for their posts. If that happens, neither you nor I can read their posts even if we wanted to.

The Ignore function isn't censorship. Choosing not to read something -- using a computer function to filter something you previously chose not to see -- is not censorship.

I'm not Ignoring CSoM, myself. I'm just saying that's an option. Probably a better option than ... um, what I'm doing now. Talking about them instead of talking to them.

That's all. Not another word from me.

[AiliailiA]

People who like citing the Treaty of Tripoli in their answers to this question are unable to wrap their minds around cultural context-- the treaty was signed at a time when the modern concept of a nation-state was incipient, and in many cases the rule of law and the rule of [that nation's dominant concept of God] were interchangeable-- the treaty's statement that the U.S. was not "founded on the Christian religion" is in reference to this prevailing tendency throughout Europe, and is mentioned specifically to outline the then-innovative concept of a secular state which could develop and maintain relations with a Mahometan nation without the fundamental theological odds with which the Bey might've found himself at with say, the Papal States.

Religiosity in the late 18th-early 19th century was a very different beast than it is today-- when people ask whether "America is a Christian nation," they seldom mean it in the context of "is America a quasitheocracy a la Saudi Arabia or pre-Revolutionary France?," they're asking whether America is a nation whose cultural narrative is rooted in and has evolved very much in tandem with the Christian faith, a question to which only a paste-eater could answer anything but 'yes.'

I quote this, in the hope of getting the thread back on-topic.

I don't agree, though Madiganistan's post is too strong for me to outright refute.

I'm very wary of describing the US as a "christian nation" because I know that some Americans will take this as endorsement of "under God" in the pledge of allegiance, and "in God we trust" on the money, and of sessions of the House being opened with a prayer led by the Speaker. Things of which I do not approve.

I may have slipped up a few times, but I have tried to call nations like Iraq "majority Muslim nations" and nations like the US "majority Christian nations" -- whenever the religion of the citizens was relevant to the subject -- and I advise that terminology to anyone who wants to classify nations by their religion. Refer to the citizens, not the nation, unless the nation is explicitly defined as "Islamic" or "Christian" or "Buddhist" or whatever, in it's terms of constitution.

"Christian nation" very much implies an element of theocracy. If I can avoid that implication by addition of just one word, I will.

[Jute]

How can you be free if you deny people freedom?

Well non-Christians don't get no freedom. Why? Because if you ain't Christian, you ain't welcome in America. America for Christians. Freedom for Christians. In a godless world, America must be the last hope for Christians worldwide.

But the rest of the world isn't godless...

[AiliailiA]

Well non-Christians don't get no freedom. Why? Because if you ain't Christian, you ain't welcome in America. America for Christians. Freedom for Christians. In a godless world, America must be the last hope for Christians worldwide.

But the rest of the world isn't godless...

Most of Asia and all of Antarctica is.

[Norstal]

But the rest of the world isn't godless...

Most of Asia and all of Antarctica is.

Most of East Asia is irreligious, not necessarily godless, if that's what you're referring to.

[Jute]

But the rest of the world isn't godless...

Most of Asia and all of Antarctica is.

Asia is mostly very religious, actually...

Most of Asia and all of Antarctica is.

Most of East Asia is irreligious, not necessarily godless, if that's what you're referring to.

Not even all party members in China are irreligious, actually.

[AiliailiA]

Most of Asia and all of Antarctica is.

Most of East Asia is irreligious, not necessarily godless, if that's what you're referring to.

It was mostly a joke about Antarctica.

I can't get much polling data from Antarctica, but I guess that because almost all of the few hundred people who live there are scientists, it's mostly an atheist nation continent.

I'm curious about how someone can be irreligious but not be godless though?

[Jute]

Most of East Asia is irreligious, not necessarily godless, if that's what you're referring to.

It was mostly a joke about Antarctica.

I can't get much polling data from Antarctica, but I guess that because almost all of the few hundred people who live there are scientists, it's mostly an atheist nation continent.

I'm curious about how someone can be irreligious but not be godless though?

Easy, a lot of religions don't have gods. They're atheistic religions.
Also, among the scientists there still might be some religious ones.

[Sun Wukong]

Most of East Asia is irreligious, not necessarily godless, if that's what you're referring to.

It was mostly a joke about Antarctica.

I can't get much polling data from Antarctica, but I guess that because almost all of the few hundred people who live there are scientists, it's mostly an atheist nation continent.

I'm curious about how someone can be irreligious but not be godless though?

The gods are complete assholes. We should fight them.

[The Creepoc Infinite]

It was mostly a joke about Antarctica.

I can't get much polling data from Antarctica, but I guess that because almost all of the few hundred people who live there are scientists, it's mostly an atheist nation continent.

I'm curious about how someone can be irreligious but not be godless though?

The gods are complete assholes. We should fight them.

That certainly went well for the Titans and Cronos.

[Sun Wukong]

The gods are complete assholes. We should fight them.

That certainly went well for the Titans and Cronos.

You realize that the Titans are gods? Who people (well other gods... and cyclopses) fought? And defeated?

[The Creepoc Infinite]

That certainly went well for the Titans and Cronos.

You realize that the Titans are gods? Who people (well other gods... and cyclopses) fought? And defeated?

I always thought of them as proto-gods or meta-gods

[AiliailiA]

It was mostly a joke about Antarctica.

I can't get much polling data from Antarctica, but I guess that because almost all of the few hundred people who live there are scientists, it's mostly an atheist nation continent.

I'm curious about how someone can be irreligious but not be godless though?

The gods are complete assholes. We should fight them.

Better to fight them over there than fight them over here? That way lies madness.

Seriously though, it seemed like Norstal wasn't entirely joking and I'd like to hear how someone can be irreligious without being godless.

Also right back to Christian State of Mississippi who first used the term "godless". Are devout believers in Allah "godless"?

[Sun Wukong]

You realize that the Titans are gods? Who people (well other gods... and cyclopses) fought? And defeated?

I always thought of them as proto-gods or meta-gods

Nope. Just the previous gods. A lot of them (the ones who sided with Zeus) continued being gods after the Titanomachy.

The Titanomachy is a successful military campaign against gods. Pointing to it as an example of the futility of such gestures is actively stupid.

[The Creepoc Infinite]

The gods are complete assholes. We should fight them.

Better to fight them over there than fight them over here? That way lies madness.

Seriously though, it seemed like Norstal wasn't entirely joking and I'd like to hear how someone can be irreligious without being godless.

Also right back to Christian State of Mississippi who first used the term "godless". Are devout believers in Allah "godless"?

Irreligious people includes:
Deism
Spiritualism
Atheism
Agnosticism
Apatheism
Antitheism
And so on.

[The Confederated Armada]

1. No.
2. Don't bring up Christianity on the internet. Only bad things happen when you bring up Christianity on the internet.

As I agree with #2, Ialso agree with the person from the first post. Demographically speaking, the majority of the population may be Christian,but nothing beyond.

[Sun Wukong]

The gods are complete assholes. We should fight them.

Better to fight them over there than fight them over here? That way lies madness.

Seriously though, it seemed like Norstal wasn't entirely joking and I'd like to hear how someone can be irreligious without being godless.

Also right back to Christian State of Mississippi who first used the term "godless". Are devout believers in Allah "godless"?

I assume it must originally be an English phrase. Though it's a common enough accusation. The Romans accused Christians of being atheists, after all.

[The Austria-Hungary]

What is the treaty of Tripoli?

[New Jordslag]

What is the treaty of Tripoli?

Essentially where a bunch of fancy white gentlemen decided that we should have no official religion.

[Sun Wukong]

What is the treaty of Tripoli?

An early US treaty dealing with the Barbary corsairs in which the US declared itself to be "not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

It was signed by President Thomas Jefferson, and a congress consisting largely of founding fathers.

[AiliailiA]

Better to fight them over there than fight them over here? That way lies madness.

Seriously though, it seemed like Norstal wasn't entirely joking and I'd like to hear how someone can be irreligious without being godless.

Also right back to Christian State of Mississippi who first used the term "godless". Are devout believers in Allah "godless"?

Irreligious people includes:
Deism
Spiritualism
Atheism
Agnosticism
Apatheism
Antitheism
And so on.

Deism might be a belief in god by CSoM's terms. Probably not, but I'm asking.

None of the others would be by anyone's terms. Agnostics for instance, do not believe in God. And more relevantly, because there are many of them, most Buddhists don't believe in God.

I'm not trying to prove that most people on Earth don't believe in a god. I know better: most people on Earth believe in some kind of god when asked, and I'm not going to play the game of "they say that because it's socially expected of them". There just isn't any better way of knowing what private beliefs people hold than by asking them, so I go with the polls. There are huge numbers of Muslims and Christians, who believe in God, and we can count self-professed Hindus as "believing in god" too though they may believe in more than one.

My opinion of course, but anyone who believes in a god or in more than one god, can't be cast as "ungodly". It's ridiculous to describe [i]all of the world[i] besides the US as "ungodly" and I hope you agree that Christian States of Mississippi is wrong about that.

[Jute]

Better to fight them over there than fight them over here? That way lies madness.

Seriously though, it seemed like Norstal wasn't entirely joking and I'd like to hear how someone can be irreligious without being godless.

Also right back to Christian State of Mississippi who first used the term "godless". Are devout believers in Allah "godless"?

Irreligious people includes:
Deism
Spiritualism
Atheism
Agnosticism
Apatheism
Antitheism
And so on.

Spiritualism and Deism are irreligious? And what about agnostic Christians?