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This phrase, which appears early in the thread, seems sufficiently off topic for the construction of strawmen. Is that what was being planned all along? Well done!</p>
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<p>This argument makes absolutely no sense. In it, you seem to assume that we both believe America IS a Judeo-Christian country, when that notion is the very one that we are debating. </p>
<p>You also contradict yourself, claiming first that you’re not crediting women’s progress to Judeo-Christian values then claiming that we should be thankful for the Judeo-Christian system that engendered such progress.</p>
<p>Back to topic: What are Judeo-Christian values? </p>
<p>You said equal rights for both genders. The Bible clearly shows that this is not the case.</p>
<p>Here are some other Judeo-Christian values: </p>
<p>Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)</p>
<p>Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)</p>
<p>**Please note that the above two passages are clearly from the New Testament and apply directly to Christians. </p>
<p>This next one is FULL of traditional family values. LMAO. God seems to be perfectly fine with selling your daughter to be somebody’s sex-slave. </p>
<p>When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)</p>
<p>Edit: Here’s one more, just for the heck of it:</p>
<p>However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)</p>
<p>So you can treat people (even children!) as your property to do with as you wish and you’re allowed to pass them down to your children! How wonderful.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the hypocrisy amongst Christians is ASTOUNDING when you really look at it. </p>
<p>Many evangelical Christians want there to be prayer in school. But the Bible forbids public displays of faith:
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room (or closet.) and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret…” (Matthew 6:5-6 RSV).</p>
<p>And you know how so many preachers just love to go on for hours on end? Well…
- Matthew 6:7. “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”*</p>
<p>How many christian women like to dress their best when going to church? Pretty much all of them and they’re all going to hell.
…that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire”–l Timothy 2:9 RSV; and “Let not yours be the outward adorning of braiding of hair, decoration of gold, and wearing of fine clothing”-- 1 Peter 3 :3
In fact, women are supposed to VEIL themselves, similar to how in many Middle Eastern countries women are supposed to wear veils: but any woman who prays or prophecies with her head unveiled dishonors her head… For if a woman will not veil herself, then we should cut off her hair: but if it be disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her wear a veil… Judge for yourself; is it proper for a woman to pray to God with head uncovered?” (1 Corinthians 11:5-13 RSV</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>This thread isn’t about evangelicals; it is about Judeo-Christian values and their place in our government. Quoting outliers doesn’t help; its sort of like using Stalin as an example of non-Christian values.</p>
<p>*Quoting outliers doesn’t help; its sort of like using Stalin as an example of non-Christian values.<br>
*</p>
<p>What are you talking about? Everything I’ve quoted has come directly from the Bible itself. Some of those passages were even spoken directly from the mouth of Jesus. And I only mentioned evangelicals once. The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of christians violate these basic commandments (such as not adorning oneself when going to church), not just evangelicals or catholics or w/e but pretty much all of them. My post is very pertinent to the discussion at hand. As I’ve shown, Judeo-Christian values include acceptance/promotion of slavery, veiling women, etc, etc.</p>
<p>An example of Judeo-Christian values is the concept of unalienable rights. It’s imbedded in our Declaration of Independence. God created man in his image, entitling him with rights that can’t be taken away by the State. This thinking was different from that of Greek and Roman and the European monarchies who believed rights were given by the State. During high tension of our Cold War with Communism, President Kennedy relected on this Judeo-Christian value in his famous Inauguration Address: </p>
<p>“And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe - the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution … and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed…”</p>
<p>Judeo-Christian values were important to the our Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Read the famous speech “I have a dream” by Rev. Martin Luther King who challenged America to live out the meaning of its Jude-Christian values. </p>
<p>Judeo-Christian values are also the basis for much of Western law. If you take a tour of the Supreme Court in Washington DC, they may show you the pictures on the front of the building showing Moses and the 10 Commandments. </p>
<p>Our currency has the motto: “In God We Trust.” Freedom … for all people, of every race, religion, and gender.</p>
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<p>The concept of human rights arose out of the Enlightenment.</p>
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<p>True, the Civil Rights Movement was quite religious. But I doubt that the Civil Rights Movement is what conservatives mean when they talk about America being a Judeo-Christian nation. </p>
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<p>No it’s not. Western law has roots in Roman law, precedent law, the Napoleonic Code, etc. Most definitely NOT Biblical law. This is what makes Christianity so much cooler than Islam, according to conservatives. The 10 Commandments is just wishful window dressing by Christianists.</p>
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<p>It doesn’t have to be a Christian God.</p>
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<p>Cuse, </p>
<p>Unless you think the Bible is full of lies or shouldn’t be taken seriously, you can’t simply dismiss entire passages as “outliers”. Hippo and I are merely taking quotes as they are. It’s not unreasonable for us to assume that text from the holiest book in Christianity might actually be something akin to Judeo-Christian values.</p>
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<p>The Bible is Stalin to you?</p>
<p>So far, you have not provided one credible Judeo-Christian value. I’m still waiting.</p>
<p>most of the founders of this country were deists so the argument that US politics are somehow rooted “judeo-christian values” is invalid.</p>
<p>Humility, selflessness, charity</p>
<p>^Those values can be found across all cultures and across pretty much all religions. Judeo-christianity doesn’t claim the right to these.</p>
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<p>So before the world was “enlightened” with Christianity, every civilization was arrogant, selfish, and stingy? Give me a break.</p>
<p>Judeo-Christian values and “secular” (for lack of a better word) values aren’t mutually exclusive.</p>
<p>I never said that those values were exclusively Judeo-Christian and I never said they were enlightened.</p>
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<p>So what’s your basis for arguing that America is a Judeo-Christian nation (if that is your argument at all)? </p>
<p>This is a topic worth really delving into, because I suspect that when a lot of people say that America is a Judeo-Christian nation, they actually mean that America is a white Anglo-Saxon nation.</p>
<p>It is difficult to discern what common values were held by the Biblical authors and the cultures that bred those many legends. One of the undercurrents is perpetual violence, but its predominance is debatable.</p>
<p>Are we talking about the same Judeo-Christian “values” (which are laid out in the Bible) where the wife and children are regarded as chattel, where children are regularly offered up as sacrifice, where a rapist can “pay” for his crime merely by offering the father of the woman/girl (assuming she is unmarried and a virgin) 50 sheckels of silver and marrying the victim (after all, he took what was valuable, the woman/girl’s virginity), where multiple wives or concubines are fine in the name of getting a male heir, etc.?</p>
<p>Judeo-Christian values include the importance of truth, justice, charity, responsibility, the need for law, etc. but I think the cultural essence of Judeo-Christian is the belief in God-given life and liberty. A very radical value for its time, and even today. </p>
<p>Since the beginning, our nation has acknowledged God as the source of our freedom/liberty and rights. As Thomas Jefferson noted (written on the Jefferson Memorial in DC): “God who gave us life gave us liberty” Practically all of our state constitutions/preambles acknowledge God as the source of our freedom/liberty; I don’t see mention of being guided by aspirations of Greece or Rome or the Enlightment.</p>
<p>Contrary to some modern mythology that our Founding Fathers were not religious, and certainly not Christian, the record shows that half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence held seminary or Bible school degrees. Read their biographries and you’ll learn about the values that helped shape our nation.</p>
<p>i honestly don’t know if half these posters are ■■■■■■■■ or not.</p>
<p>^ Oh, please.</p>
<p>Judeo-Christian values of “truth, justice, charity, etc.” is no different from that of the other major religions.</p>
<p>And the Judeo-Christian God was the “rationale” behind the rule of Kings, much less the Pope.</p>
<p>As for Jefferson and many of the other “Founding Fathers” - they were deists.</p>
<p>Jefferson also created the “Jefferson Bible” where he did away w/ miracles, the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity and Jesus’ resurrection.</p>
<p>And for “Judeo-Christian values”, it’s more like Judeo-Christian-Muslim values since the latter two built on its predecessor(s).</p>