Yes it is. I am glad the church's practice of killing heretics is no longer practiced. In the past there were many people who did not believe Jesus was God and they were killed as heretics.

I'm also glad the church no longer burns people they accuse of being witches, which is basically the same practice of killing heretics.

We still murder each other over religious beliefs today so we have not come far enough. It is time to stop this madness.

This is the new age of enlightenment. Religious conflict will come to an end. Religions will come to an end.

I believe a person's concept of "God" is a personal and private matter. It is time we stopped killing each other over our beliefs.

To kill in the name of God is insanity.

That's sad too.

Many of the zealots past and present have only given their allegiance to secular purposes
under the guise of Christianity.
they give their all for man and not for Christ.
Most have never even read the Word for themselves.

Abundant life is promised to those who keep God's Word.
In faith..

"But without faith it is impossible to please him:
for he that cometh to God must believe that he is,
and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
Hebrews 11:6

"When a man's ways please the LORD,
he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him."
Proverbs 16:7

This holds true for a nation as well.

I no longer have faith in any zealot or anyone who proposes to preach the "word of God." It is how you actually live your life that is your testament.

Poor Franklin, he is not his father. The difference is that Billy was a diamond and Franklin is a rhinestone, all surface shine and dull underneath. People give/hear a message but do not understand it. It is not that our nation must turn to g-d, that was/is never the message. The message is YOU must turn to g-d.

"Blessed is the nation
whose God is the LORD;
and the people whom he hath chosen
for his own inheritance."
Psalm 33:12

Really? That is not the message I read.

The USA has never been a theocracy.
So, it appears to me that the above-quoted verse is being quoted out of its cultural context.

Every Sunday, on TV, you can see a Xian preacher discussing something in the Old Testament and generally they get it wrong. Its not their fault, its not their book. Here is a secret- there are Jews who live among you and I bet that they would take time out of their very Jewy Jewy day to explain their book to you (with apologizes to Lewis Black). With all the priests and important people in the big learned modern city, who was chosen? An isolated sheep herder living out in the fields, sleeping under the night sky. Why?

"I heard that there's a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?
It goes like this the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah.."

tell that to the Mullahs!

Tell it to any zealot who is willing to die for their religious beliefs.


No need to be prejudice.

Documentally, yes it has been a theocracy!




IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton


...........................................

Culturally yes!

We have for years pledged ourselves to be "one nation" under God!



1892

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."



1892 to 1923

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands:
one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."



1923 to 1924

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."



1924 to 1954

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands;
one Nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."



1954 to Present

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one Nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all."



Culturally yes!

We have for years pledged ourselves to be "one nation" under God!

Documentally, yes it has been a theocracy!
civilly
socially
culturally
educationally
traditionally
intellectually

If you knew your history better, you'd know that "Endowed by their Creator" was put into the Declaration instead of "Granted by God." Franklin thought that the latter sounded to much "of the pulpit" and should be changed. He felt that it was more important that these right be shown as not granted by a king, lord or deity, but are part of the very fabric of human nature. So to say that the United States is founded on Christian principles is incorrect and can not be backed up by fact. In actuality it was founded on the Masonic principles of "one man, one vote" and that "all men are equal," as was shown in many Lodges of the day in England where royalty would sit in the same rooms, on the same level, and converse with their servants on equal footing.

Yes, I do realize that Franklin was a member of a church. Actually he was a member of several of them and a Synagogue. He did this for the social connections associated with attending services in those days. However, he did know when to check the church at the door and use rationality and logic as well.

seems a semantical argument

a creator , may be named God in some cultures, jehovah in others or allah in others

but it is still someones 'God' , in terms of being their creator

Apparently, someone wishes to stretch the definition of "theocracy" so that it fits the USA, when it really doesn't.

From the American Heritage Dictionary:

the·oc·ra·cy - A government ruled by or subject to religious authority.

No, it's not. As far as I'm concerned, my creators were Mom and Dad. No deity necessary. Though his name might have been mentioned at the time, it was purely coincidental. Even then, I wasn't really created until a little over eight months later. Up until that point I was just a parasite feeding off of a host body.

From this act of creation, I was endowed with all the rights inherent in the Constitution, even some that aren't in there if you ask me, which includes the freedom FROM religion.

so, 'endowed by their creator',, refers to our biological parents,,,thats kind of a stretch I t hink,,,,,

Yeah... The people that are responsible for bringing me into being is a stretch, but an invisible man in a white robe, wearing a beard and sitting in outer-space with a "naughty and nice" checklist is reasonable. I somehow don't think I'm one that's really having to stretch anything.

he stretch comment isnt about beliefs

its about the context of the decleration of independence

that this

'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'


is referring to 'all men' being created by your parents, is a stretch

it instead refers to a common creator of ALL MEN,,,,,

Art. 11.
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Treaty of Tripoli 1796