IIRC - originally the idea was to use 'Providence"

Post #43,734 by Ashton 6/28/02 5:21:06 AM Reply	IIRC - originally the idea was to use 'Providence" instead of 'Creator'. Either one appears to me to have been "reasonable" at the time of inception of this now wayward experiment. But we were never meant to be "stuck" in some concrete of the times of origin - the remarkable aspect of it all. A quality of the entire undertaking, and topic for numerous academic courses since, is the anticipation for the future.. or one could as easily say: the intentional non-foreclosure of That (as by excessively didactic phraseology). IMhO they did a superb job of arfully interweaving certain principles stated boldy, with others more implied than stated - intentionally. This gave life to the plan - as well as creating endless excuses for cavilling about, dissecting the nuances of words beyond sanity: via the pedestrian lawyer mind. So like the even more-pedestrian bizness mind. (Who could have foreseen the Robber Barons - or the distillation of pure-Greed into a Billy or Bally, in 1775?) I can't doubt that the lawyer mindset was as well noticed then as now - but the 'plan' was that we should grow in wisdom; that was expected. That we haven't.. that there could ever come a time when (say) Dumbth would be on the ascent (?) I doubt that was ever anticipated. Finally, as to the God thing - there certainly was no unanimity about That: then as now. My final guess is: I rilly doubt that any of them imagined that "Fundamentalist Christians" (for one) would come to claim that: This whole ^#&# Place: belongs to Us. Screw the rest of you.* Or if such folk did hallucinate this - the great mass of the population would counter via 'policing that wall of separation'. Surely! Eisenhower slipped the "under God" in, fearfully of - and as political spin re the Godlesss Commies. We shall see if there's yet enough guts to take it back out of an otherwise harmless jingoistic piece of ~ Hey! It's a Great Country 'Cause It's Where I Happen to Live\ufffd Cha Cha Cha. (But if we're that wise - HTF could there be a Village Idiot selected to run things ??) Ashton
Post #43,738 by static 6/28/02 8:39:05 AM Reply	Something else you reminded me of. And putting aside the venom for your current elected leader :-), I also recall that the same author I quoted also commented that is only in the last one to two hundred years that [what passes for] Western society has had any real alternative to theism. A thousand years ago, a state not linked to the church was unthinkable. But a shift away had begun by the time the US Constitution was first written. IMHO, Fundamentalism wouldn't be so controversial if secularism didn't exist. Wade. "Ah. One of the difficult questions."
Post #43,846 by Ashton 6/28/02 6:33:23 PM Reply	I guess that, we might find that development to be ~ a certain progress, though that word itself implies to way too many, any 'change' must be an advance. (So much for our saving ourselves from ourselves - via any ana of homilies :( Ashton
Post #44,188 by CRConrad 7/2/02 12:35:28 AM Reply	Unthinkable ~700 years ago; 1000, quite thinkable, AFAICS. The Christian church hadn't yet conquered all of Europe at the turn of the first millennium; and if the Nordic kings at that time hadn't found it politically expedient to hitch their wagons to the horse of Christianity (or any religion), the situation you seem to thinking of -- which prevailed in, say, the fourteenth century -- might have been different, too. Christian R. Conrad Microsoft is a true reflection of Bill Gates' personality - the sleaziest, most unethical, ugliest little rat's ass the world has seen unto this time. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=42971\|Andrew Grygus]

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