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I am just observing. The constitution never said, that country is theistic, but there were prayers and Bible prior to 1962. Why? The actual life was theistic, despite the supreme papers. The papers have prepared the country to enter the post 1962 world.
But if God is real then God has a real description, so that if you ever find a real suspect you can determine whether it's God or not. The point I'm making is that there's no such description.
It would also need, first, to establish the authenticity of the quotes themselves. and if that checked out, to determine the mental competence of the speaker at the time, and third, as you say, to attempt to find out what percentage of modern atheists undergo deathbed conversions. I suspect it's miniscule and all but always emotional. Atheist philosopher Anthony Flew drew the odd headline when, finding self-awareness and the universe really really amazing, he embraced religion not far from the end. I don't suppose it made any difference, and if he felt better, who'd begrudge him? Still, one of his philosophical friends should have tapped him on the shoulder and murmured, Non sequitur, Tony.
The name of God is part of His description, CV. From description follows, that other gods are not gods, but idols - false gods.
So what objective test will determine whether my keyboard is God or not?
Word God is the name, thus, the God is person.
And that's what's missing in the OP per the 1st Amendment. We are not a theocracy even though some would just love to make us one that would be based exclusively on their religion. Many of these same people spout "religious freedom!", but only when it applies to their own.
There was not a problem to have Bible and prayers in schools of the US prior to 1962. There was absolutely no problem with other religious groups. Why?
A large part of the problem is that the separation of church & state simply wasn't that often being enforced locally and in the states, especially since Christians had an overwhelming majority in both. But as time has gone on, Americans have become much more diversified when it comes to religion, plus the SCOTUS has ruled that people also have the right to freedom from religion, which should be clear by the wording of the 1st Amendment.
There definitely was.
Could be an interesting discussion topic, possibly. Of course you are being very brief here, so I have to fill in the blank some to try to get precisely all you are saying.
If there are no prayers and no Bibles in the US now, then what exactly are the millions of American Christians doing every day?
Wrong idea here! Because being fundamental means to know where you came from ("I know where I am from" Jesus Christ). I came from God, not from the Biggest Bang on Earth. Fundamentalism was never the sin of fanatism.
Actually what we call "fundamentalism" within Christianity largely came in the late 1800's as a counter to what was called "modernism", and this was done within Protestant circles to "get back to the fundamentals" of the Bible.
Earth came from the BB about 8,000,000,000+ years later by the evidence.
Not true, but that doesn't mean that all, or even most, fundamentalists are "fanatics".
They unconstitutionally favored Christianity back then, but the minorities were too few to rebel or get any headway. They were shushed up. Thankfully the rest of us can speak up and make the country as it should have been, one for everyone, not just Christians.
Then show [him] to me. A photo will do but a video would be better.
I'm hesitant to commit to categories, but I'd normally say I'm a materialist. Smart, with Armstrong agreeing, said materialism is the view that the only entities and processes that are real are those acknowledged by physics from time to time; and that seems about right.
That accords pretty well.
The basis of my view is three assumptions. They're assumptions because in each case I can't demonstrate their correctness without first assuming they're already correct. They are:
I don't claim it as 'common sense'. I say (a) it's consistent with my assumptions and (b) I haven't yet met anyone who doesn't share at the least the first two of those assumptions.
No, the consensus of the best informed and sharpest is an essential part of science. Analogies to that are found throughout human affairs,
If X isn't known to exist in nature then the only place it can otherwise be known to exist is in an individual working brain that contains the concept of it, or imagines it. The concept of the Higgs boson is half a century older than the Higgs boson itself. (That's to say, the statement 'The Higgs boson is real' wasn't true till then. Truth is retrospective, not absolute.)
No, there are a great many event which are internal to a brain. We've evolved to see the world in particular ways, one major part of which is seeing categories ─ the difference between 'this chair' (the particular) and 'a chair' (the category), for instance. A great deal of human thought uses such abstractions and generalizations ─ justice, love, indignation, history, car, burger, psychopathy, one, two, pi to the e+i, asteroid, doctor, medicine, life, on and on. The question is how they relate to reality ─ justice as the abstraction from distinct examples of fairness (for which we've evolved an instinctive feel), two from instantiations of twoness, remembering that each instantiation is actually brought about by a human judgment, the onlooker who says WHAT we'll count, and the FIELD in which we'll count it ─ how many beers left in the fridge?
The supernatural is by definition not natural, not real. Therefore the only thing it can be is conceptual / imaginary. If it's ever found in reality, at that point it will cease to be supernatural.
No, Got is a concept, an hypothesis, with no real counterpart ─ a very simple proposition that has remained unrefuted for thousands of years. That's why there have been thousands of different kinds of supernatural beings across those years, and why, since we find them in every culture, it's reasonable to suppose devising them is an evolved instinct of humans, probably as a support to tribal identity, that which makes the advantages of cooperation possible, along with having stories, customs, language and so on. (And perhaps also linked to explaining mysteries like what is thunder, why is drought, why does life appear to leave a person dying, and where does life then go?)