Original questions or statements (some edited for length and from various participants) in red, my answers in black...
This nation was founded upon Christian principles. The Left want to ban God, but nowhere in the Constitution is there the statement "Separation of Church and State". The First Amndment says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The last paragraph of Article IV of the US Constitution:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
This article is want many of the Left use to promote "Separation of Church and State", but Article IV means that one does not have to be a certain religion or any religion at all to hold office or be in the public trust, and as the First Amendment says that there will not be a state religion. Nowhere does it say that the state and religion will be separate.
I hope you would not promote the idea that a non-Christian cannot be a patriot to this country, or that a non-Christian is in some way lacking in morality because they do not follow the Christian teachings..
I hope that you would not deny that a Deist or an Atheist can be a patriot, several of the founding fathers were Deists or Atheist by profession in their own writings.
While Thomas Jefferson did not write the Constitution he was instrumental in having the bill of rights passed in connection to attempt to control some of the Federalist abuses he could see from the implementation of the Constitution. Many documents such as the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the Declaration have strong direct influences from Thomas Paine an Atheist.
The very pillar of freedom OF religion is also the freedom FROM religion, many modern socialists and communists as evidenced in modern life seek to supplant religion with the "religion" of political correctness and the worship of the state, but the far right (of witch I am often identified with but I am more rightly a "l" libertarian Agrarianist) also can be tempted to wander into dangerous totalitarian territory using religion as a political tool.
I leave with quotes from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison...
An alliance or coalition between Government and religion cannot be too carefully guarded against... Every new and successful example therefore of a PERFECT SEPARATION between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance... religion and government will exist in greater purity, without (rather) than with the aid of government.
- James Madison in a letter to Livingston, 1822
Nothwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, & the full establishment of it, in some parts of our Country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Gov' & Religion neither can be duly supported: Such indeed is the tendency to
such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded agst.. And in a Gov' of opinion, like ours, the only effectual guard must be found in the soundness and stability of the general opinion on the subject. Every new
& successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Gov will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together;
- James Madison, Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802
It was the belief of all sects at one time that the establishment of Religion by law, was right & necessary; that the true religion ought to be established in exclusion of every other; and that the only question to be decided was which was the true religion. The example of Holland proved that a toleration of sects, dissenting from the established sect, was safe & even useful. The example of the Colonies, now States, which rejected religious establishments altogether, proved that all Sects might be safely & advantageously put on a footing of equal & entire freedom.... We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Gov.
- James Madison, Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
Freedom arises from the multiplicity of sects, which prevades America and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.
- James Madison, spoken at the Virginia convention on ratifying the Constitution, June 1778
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity.
- James Madison, Letter to F.L. Schaeffer, Dec 3, 1821]
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
I would never believe that a non-Christian could not be a patriot, or that they lack morality. The same feeling holds true of an Deist or atheist being a patriot. Christianity doesn't make a person moral. I think that any true Christian would believe that a non-Christian or atheist can be a patriot or be a moral person.
With this being said, it still doesn't change the fact of this nation being founded on Christian principles. Most of the Americans at that time had a strong faith and belief in God. Our Founding Fathers made sure though to protect the basic rights of the minority point of view in more than just religious matters....
What I see here in today's society and what I was posting on was the Left's wish to totally take God out of society.
I agree with your insistance that the Left (socialist/communists/neo-cons) are dangerous I would say that they want to replace God with worship of the state.
Would it not be more accurate to say that the US was founded on deistic principals or a more universal idea of the Masonic theme of "brotherhood of free men", freedom of religious choice and the prevention of oppression by the combination of the dangerous powerful forces of theocracy and governmental despotism?
The preponderance of Masonic adherents in the founding fathers cannot be ignore. Some of the founding fathers who espoused Deism as confirmed by their own writings were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and James
Monroe.
Thomas Jefferson of course was fiercely anti-cleric. he was so suspicious of the traditional belief that the Bible is the inspired word of God, that he rewrote the story of Jesus as told in the New Testament and compiled his own gospel version known as The Jefferson Bible eliminating the Old Testament.
In fact Jefferson at the time was opposed by a large portion of the organized religious community. William Linn, (Dutch Reformed) went so far as to publish attacks on Jefferson's character. All of his attacks were on religious issues. Linn published the "Serious Considerations on the Election of a President" where he accused Jefferson of the "crimes" of not recognizing divine revelation and a plan to destroy religion forcing an era of "immorality'". He called Jefferson as an "infidel" and postulated that God would hate an infidel like Jefferson and God would never want him elected. "Serious considerations" has the last line- Christians to defeat the infidel from Virginia.
"The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence; whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks [Muslims], Pagans and Christians. Test oaths and established creeds should be avoided as the worst of evils."
-Baptist preacher John Leland, among those pressing the hardest with anti-federalists for a First Amendment and for complete separation of church and state.
Clearly, the founders of our nation intended government to maintain a neutral posture in matters of religion. Anyone who would still insist that the intention of the founding fathers was to establish a Christian nation should review a document written during the administration of George Washington. Article 11 of the Treaty with Tripoli declared in part that "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion...”
(Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States, ed. Hunter Miller, Vol. 2, U. S. Government Printing Office, 1931, p. 365).
This treaty was negotiated by the American diplomat Joel Barlow during the administration of George Washington. Washington read it and approved it, although it was not ratified by the senate until John Adams had become president. When Adams signed it, he added this statement to his signature "Now, be it known, that I, John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said treaty, do, by and within the consent of the Senate, accept, ratify and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof." This document and the approval that it received from our nation's first and second presidents and the U. S. Senate as constituted in 1797 do very little to support the popular notion that the founding fathers established our country as a Christian nation.
-Farrell Till
Lynn R. Buzzard, (director, Christian Legal Society) wrote.-
"Not only were a good many of the revolutionary leaders more deist than Christian, but the actual number of church members was rather small. Perhaps as few as five percent of the populace were church members in 1776"
- Schools They Haven't Got a Prayer, Elgin, Illinois David C. Cook Publishing, 1982, p. 81
"perhaps as many as ninety percent of the Americans were unchurched in 1790" (Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, New York Alfred A. Knopf, 1974, p. 82) and goes on to say that "mid-eighteenth century America had a smaller proportion of church members than any other nation in Christendom," noting that "in 1800 [only] about one of every fifteen
Americans was a church member" (p. 89).
- Historian Richard Hofstadter
At the constitutional convention, Luther Martin a representative of Maryland pushed for the recognition of Christianity constitutionally -"it would be at least decent to hold out some distinction between the professors of Christianity and downright infidelity or paganism." by vote the recognition was rejected leaving the constitution a secular document.
At the constitutional convention the only mentioned of religion in the final version was Article VI, Section 3, - no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.- If the delegates had intended to establish a Christian nation, odd it contains this and nowhere else refers to religion?
I am just stating that I live in an area that is primarily ______church and we all have guns.
I am not against non-christians, and anyone in my book can be a patriot. No matter what you may call God or your beliefs, this is the land of the Free, because of the Brave
I'm afraid that far too many recognize the very real threat by the encroachment of the statist left and fail to see the threat of the theocratic right.
The left is clearly attempting to supplant "religion" with the worship of the state - a dangerous proposition in light of the rise of the communist supplanting of religion in Russia and the more recent example of Pol Pot.
Then we should also think about the dangers of allowing to heavy a power to the Fundamentalist right while we all have freedom of religion too much power to ANY religion is dangerous - we all hear and see the abuses by Fundamentalist Islamic sects, the same danger is apparent in the Christian Fundamentalist movement.
I grew up in the south I know that denominational hatred and conflict is possible, I have seen several city wide conflicts cumulating into physical fighting over even fractional denominational differences.
I do not trust that any religious leader with the convictions of God and congregation will not turn to despotism. I certainly would not want a combination of state power and religion in the hands of many Fundamentalists. While they may vehemently deny it, they are capable of using religion to justify burning "witches" and putting Catholics to the rack.
I watched in horror and shame when the guest of Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala was the first Hindu ever to give the House invocation - and was shouted down.
Prayer in congress?
After several statements like this one... "Our founders expected that Christianity - and no other religion - would receive support from the government as long as that support did not violate peoples' consciences and their right to worship,"
- Family Research Council
That is not only showing a massive ignorance of the founding of this country but frightening if they are promoting that ignorant and obviously wrong political and religious view.
In fact in my last post I noted the view from John Leland a preacher who pushed for the first amendment and separation of religion and state because of the fresh oppression that the anti-baptists had received, a bit of self interest because of the resistance from several royal european governments to the anti-baptist Protestant denomination
"The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence; whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks [Muslims], Pagans and Christians. Test oaths and established creeds should be avoided as the worst of evils."
-Baptist preacher John Leland
Have you ever heard of the inquisition? The Catholics put the protestants on the rack for several centuries... Did you ever hear of Torquemada, the inquisitor of Bardelona?
And... what if that religion is of an extremeist nature such as the muslim religion? Do we, as a people who tout freedom of religion, ignore the actions of these fanatics? Being politically correct is a luxury that we can no longer afford. With it being against the law to discriminate against religion, how does this fit our mould? If we can no longer 'profile' based on religion or ethinicity, it seems that we are destroying ourselves from the inside out.
In my reckoning, trying to be politically correct is how the far left is weakening our nation at an accelerated rate. Not to worry though, 'change' is coming!
Of course this adds to our problems, just what is an "extremist religion" certainly Christianity has and most likely will continue to have its own extremist members and sects.
The very real issue of Tomás de Torquemada, a Spanish Dominican "political climber" who is known for his fifteenth century abuse in the office of Grand Inquisitor of Spain. He strongly supported and made use of torture, yet strangely was regarded by even politically enemies as incorruptible, in other words he was able to justify his actions because of his religious convictions - in his mind he was forwarding the work of God on earth.
Of course witch burning torture was not only a Catholic past shame, Protestant abuses were also fresh on the minds of the Founding Fathers, they were very aware of the possible abuse when government joined with religion.
Far from politically correct I just like to point out that freedom is a two edged sword to gain freedom of religion we have to dispense it freely. Just as we know that the simple existence of the freedom of arms means that form time to time there will be abuse - but that is the price, yes some will be harmed and or killed but to be disarmed brings the despotism that kills thousands. I feel the same way with religion, I am willing to live amongst even the most repellent religious zealots as long as we can keep the zealots from forming a powerful alliance with government or the worship of the state become the requirement.
Being politically correct is a luxury that we can no longer afford.
True, and it has become very politically correct to refrain from criticism of religion, of BOTH spectrums. This will bode ill for us in the end with the neo-cons using the Fundamentalist as a shield to attack and devolve freedoms at home and the encroachment of eastern theocracy.
Do we, as a people who tout freedom of religion, ignore the actions of these fanatics?
Did we not arm the Mujahideen? Did we not contribute in the overthrow of Mossadegh? Did not the CIA organized coup successfully assassinate Qasim to bring CIA asset Hussein to power?
I would ask how have we avoided more trouble than we have had with angry religious fanatics?
It is Scylla and Charybdis and I am afraid that one or the other will cause the end of the Republic. I am not willing to concede freedom of others or myself for a small amount of temporary safety. Too many perceived threats have become excuses for empire, the results prove that the threats were only used as tools. An empire in its death-throws will make any perceived threats look inconsequential in comparison. I am not happy to be forced to "have my papers" just to "make us safer".
Scylla and Charybdis.
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