IAP Political Forum

I quote the Wikipedia as an introduction:

Well, i was just reading (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=35027&pageno=43) the pamphlet Common Sense, when i read this:


Yet you have your president Bush saying that god speaks with him and so on.

Boy, are you in trouble!

Thomaas Paine, as well as all the other colonists fought to seperate from England in just about every way possible...one way was to disavow a relationship of Church and State like the Church of England had with Britain.

Every President in modern times has professed a faith in God...to go out of your way to bash Bush is a pathetic cheap shot....why not bash ALL Presidents who have professed faith?

Thomas Paine is a champion for civil rights and most notably a deist.

President Bush is the current president of the United States who pays no attention to civil rights and has probably never read a book by Thomas Paine. Furthermore you said "your" Bush. I didn't vote for him and many of those who did I know wish they hadn't.

Furthermore it doesn't violate any seperation of Church and State for any figure in public office to say that God talks to them. It can also be noted that Thomas Paine in his work the Age of Reason said that it may have been possible that God can reveal things to men.

Oh really?

You may want to re-read what I ACTUALLY said.

"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job."

"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act"

Is this the kind of thing most presidents say?




Unfortunatly yes, I agree with Findeton and would extend a similar disrespect for all leaders like this. Althought Bush is notorious for being "overly" religious.

Indeed most have.

Oh please, give me a break. You know damn well that Bush is a religious wacko.

You might want to look into the statements of Roosevelt, Johnson, Kennedy and Carter.  Do you recall how Clinton says he came to his conclusion regarding abortion?  You might be surprised.

I wasn't referring to your post Mr.Patton. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

I was refering to the initial post by findeton.

Well, i meant your Bush because i'm not american, i live in Spain.


Everyone have the right to follow the religion they want, even the president. It's mixing your religion and politics, acknowledging that your judgement and political actions are influenced by your religion believes what's wrong and immoral.

As a matter of facts, our spanish president is christian, but he doesn't mix, in no case, religion and politics.

My apologies.

If ones faith forms the foundation for every belief in ones life...and all judgements, decisions and ways to resolve issues have developed and grown from this...and one makes no apologies or attempts to hide his faith from the electorate...and he is voted into office with this knowledge, then perhaps you can explain a few things:

1. If the electorate knows of his faith and elected him anyway, why should he not rely on it to govern?

2. How does one extricate the core fiber of his being from all decisions he is to make?

3. Would you want someone in office who is not true to himself?  If he is not true to himself, why should he be true to you?

I would vote for a Muslim or Hindu or Mormon if I felt they had the country's best interest in mind.  All three have good points in their religion and all three have excellent examples of leadership in their histories.

Paine was a radical.  His attacks on Washington destroyed him.  Paine also took great delight in the French revolution, until it almost got him killed.  I find Paine to be a kind of Che Guevera of the American revolution, pushed around by the revolutions after they happen and then having to find some other pile to light upon.

That said, its doubtful the American Revolution would have been sucessful without Thomas Paine and his pamphlett "Commone Sense".

Exactly, and to judge him after the fact is like critisizing Jefferson for owning slaves.

America would not have existed without Paine and his secular ideas. He and Franklin were chief among the FF that, for the first time in history, formed a Nation without an appeal to a supernatural being. The Consitution is notable, among other things, because of what it excludes: a god hypothesis.

Paine risked his life for the formation of America and the people who owed him, turned their back on him. He is one of the true luminaries in America history.

His writings are directly linked to creating a fervor in the American people to resist British rule. Baldar calls him Che, but Che was not the writer, statesman or major figure of the revolution that Paine was, and Paine was not the military man that Che was.

I will remind everyone that during the dark days when Britain was pressing and the Pre-Americans were wavering, Paine wrote this:

"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God."

He, virtually, single-handedly roused the Pre-Americans from their woe and slumber to fight for Freedom.

Well articulated and I fully agree. Paine is one of my personal heroes for many of his ideals which were ahead of his time and for his book "The Age of Reason" which supports deism instead of theism.

Well, I didn't say he was perfect.... ;) ;D

I judge him based on the times and who he was at the times.  I don't do it after the fact, but in the context of the society he lived.  In fact, you are judging him "after the fact" wihtout understanding much about him beyond the quick read you do in wikipedia or some other such weak reference.


In fact he didn't, and assiduously avoided any kind of military action (though he was a soldier of a sort).  He wasn't a revolutionary leader, his first pamphlet was written anonymously (only after it was wildly popular and he thought it was safe did he reveal he was the author ).  By most of the revolutionary leaders, including Jefferson, he was seen as a dangerous hot head and a bit of a coward.



That is true.  Maybe it would be better to put him in the pantheon with Goebbels.


In truth, he roused the less educated the way you do a lynch mob.  It worked great.  It got the colonists talking.

But judging by what his peers thought of him, I don't think there is much that is admirable about him personally.  He had that one incredible pamphlet that he wrote, a converging of the forces of the universe, time and place and that sort of thing, but if you judge him by the context of the times, and not through the middle school mythos of history, you would find the man extremely wanting.


By the way, I do like his writings and find them insightful, but I also don't entertain the myths of who he was.  So my point is for someone who constantly goes against myths or so called myths of religion, you in effect engage in the same thing you accuse others of doing.

A double standard?

You know... I vote public officials to serve me, not to listen to God in their wakefulness, if you know what I mean. ;)

Maybe "you" do.  And I am sure you believe its all about "you" and that "your" vote is the "standard" all voters should adhere to.

But then often people vote based on moral codes, belief systems, cultural connections, things that help them feel that the person they are voting for actually has the same idea when it comes to service, that they do.

Oh pooh, does that mean that those who elect officials in part because their moral codes are similar are not voting for officials to serve them?

I guess this means you don't know what I meant... :angel:

Or that you didn't explain what you meant very well.  :sleepy: