my jewish friend puts up a christmas tree every year. is he no longer jewish? ugh.. just stop it already.

 

If he's celebrating Christmas... umm... yeah, he is no longer Jewish. Isn't that the salient difference between Judaism and Christianity? The former group believes the messiah has not yet come, and the latter celebrates Jesus Christ as the messiah. No?

 

he has the Christmas tree up because his wife is Christian. although it's not of his belief, he accepts it in his home, much like many Christians are forced to accept that abortion is legal in their home.

and, of course, there's the huge pro-life movement in this country, which debases your argument that this society (as a whole) accepts abortion, but that's a whole other can of worms.

i suppose by your logic, everyone loves paying taxes, or at least is ok with it.

 

If your friend has a Christmas tree in order to honor his wife's beliefs, then he isn't really celebrating Christmas - he's just hanging out while other people celebrate it.

Saudi Arabia is a Muslim society. The religion defines life in that country, and violations of Muslim law are punishable by the state. Violations of Christian law are not punishable by the state in America. Christianity does not define life for every American, ergo this is not a Christian society.

Nope. That isn't my argument at all.

 

and just because abortion is legal in this society, doesnt mean Christians are "celebrating" it, they're just "hanging out while other people celebrate it"

 

Nobody celebrates abortion, dude. I celebrate freedom and the right to control one's own health and life. That doesn't mean I take abortion lightly.

I'm also not sure how you jumped from my comment about celebrating Christmas to... whatever your argument is.

 

Desparate Houswives=stupid. 90+% of writers in Hollywood have no church affiliation. What would anyone expect besides overtly un-Christian, or for that matter, just morally devoid themes? Sadly, it even appeals to the dark side of those who'd consider themselves Christians, and that's why the stuff sells. Of couse, some self-proclaimed Christians have no idea what the word even means, but worse many are too lazy to care. I think that's one reason for the gap in the numbers; why 75% of the nation says, "I'm Christian", but why some of the things mentioned before exist in this country.

Abortion is a convoluted issue that not all agree on, but I think anyone with a little sanity would agree that it's a sad occasion when one happens. The fact is, most Americans agree on banning the extreme cases, such as "partial-birth", and after the 2nd trimester.

Benjamin you wrote,
I was being a little facetious, I thought you'd get a chuckle out of that. We are not born with the inherent knowledge that stealing or hurting another is wrong, but scream, kick and cry until someone teaches us differently. I'm sure you have had many influences and "teachers" who have taught you a moral code of sorts, even if not an official one. Where did they get their knowledge? Man didn't just wake up one day and have an epiphany. Granted, logic plays some role in this, but also conscience driven by ? plays a bigger one.

I see you're quoting Jesus. He does have tremendous influence on society doesn't He?

If you guys want call America "Judeo-Christian", then fine. Christianity has its roots in the Jewish faith. I won't lose sleep over that.

We didn't make it to page 2 before the name-calling started. Heh heh, in true HAN fashion.

 

Christianity, or even Judiasm, weren't the first religions to come up with a set of inherent morals... To my knowledge, Taoist teachings were saying the same thing, but preceeded Christ by about a thousand years.

 

Here's an analogy: in a Muslim society, Muslim law pervades and controls all facets of society. The government aheres to the religious laws and enforces them. Thats a society defined by religion.

The United States is NOT defined by Christianity that way. There is a strong Christian culture alive and well in the United States, but we do not both live in a Christian society. Do you see the difference?

I do agree that abortion is sad. I also agree that there is a threshold after which it is not longer aborting a fetus as much as it is ending a human life. We can discuss it further, but if you want to, lets start a new thread.

If you believe the new and old testament, humanity is what, 6,000 years old? I think that science has proven that there was a time that humans existed long before Judaism, and I must logically conclude that there was a time that humans existed before organized religion existed. Do you think that humans didn't know that indiscriminately killing one another was wrong before the ten commandments were etched?

You're going to have a hard time proving to me that Jesus was the first person to come up with "treat others the way you'd like to be treated."

America is not exclusively Judeo-Christian.

 

Not really, The US was founded on Judeo Christian value system, and its basis has not changed. Just because everything does not have a cross or six pointed star stamped on it, does not change how the country was founded or run for the last 230 years.