LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY rechan)

Here is a list of over 500 contradictions in the Bible.

Thought folk might find this of interest.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nebris)

"Dating to Save People from Hell"

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Happy New Year to everyone here. I hope that it brings everyone some measure of peace, prosperity, and happiness.

It's hard to believe that we're headed into our fourth year, but here we are. All of you have helped to make this community the unique place it is. Thank you for your participation.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY morchades)

An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the founding fathers that says they did specifically debate the possibility of Pagan, Muslim, and Agnostic Congressmen.

The issue came up most directly in the North Carolina ratifying convention of 1788. One speaker asked whether the absence of religious tests might allow "Pagans, Deists, and Mahometans [to] come among us." To which James Iredell, a fervent supporter of the Constitution and later a Supreme Court justice, replied: "How is it possible to exclude any set of men" from office, "without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves so warmly contend for?"

Elsewhere, a newspaper article complained that the Constitution could lead to "Mahometans, who ridicule the doctrine of the Trinity" becoming our lawmakers - along with "Quakers, who... make the blacks saucy," and Jews, who might order Americans to rebuild Jerusalem. (One anti-constitutional pamphleteer raised the specter of the pope becoming president.)

The Constitution's defenders, including a number of Christian ministers, responded to such attacks by stressing how important it is that religion not derive its strength from temporal authority, as well as how dangerous it is for politics to call in the aid of religion. James Madison insisted that any law favoring one religious group over others "degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority."