Religion and the Founding Fathers
POSTED BY: misbehaven
UPDATED: Sunday, October 1, 2006 00:54
VIEWED: 7627
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With elections quickly approaching, conservatives are already beginning to ratchet up the God rhetoric. Yet again, there's talk of banning gay marriage, as Republicans seek to use religion to galvanize their base. Already we're hearing talk about how this country was founded as a Christian nation, and how liberals are misinterpreting the separation of church and state. Here's some of the facts concerning the religious beliefs of the founding fathers.
The Founding Fathers Were Not Christians
by Steven Morris, in Free Inquiry
"The Christian right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of its campaign to force its religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity.
This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New testaments.
Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer whose manifestos encouraged the faltering spirits of the country and aided materially in winning the war of Independence: "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
From: The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, pp. 8,9 (Republished 1984, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY)
George Washington, the first president of the United States, never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. Washington Championed the cause of freedom from religious intolerance and compulsion. When John Murray (a universalist who denied the existence of hell) was invited to become an army chaplain, the other chaplains petitioned Washington for his dismissal. Instead, Washington gave him the appointment. On his deathbed, Washinton uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance.
From: George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127 (1963, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, TX)
John Adams, the country's second president, was drawn to the study of law but faced pressure from his father to become a clergyman. He wrote that he found among the lawyers 'noble and gallant achievments" but among the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces". Late in life he wrote: "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!"
It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."
From: The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw, pp. 17 (1976, North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC) Quoting a letter by JA to Charles Cushing Oct 19, 1756, and John Adams, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by James Peabody, p. 403 (1973, Newsweek, New York NY) Quoting letter by JA to Jefferson April 19, 1817, and in reference to the treaty, Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 311 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June, 1814.
Thomas Jefferson, third president and author of the Declaration of Independence, said:"I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian." He referred to the Revelation of St. John as "the ravings of a maniac" and wrote: "The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial syst
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Quote:
The words "In God We Trust" were not consistently on all U.S. currency until 1956, during the McCarthy Hysteria.
Correction, until 1955 on PAPER* money, it was present on US coinage from 1864 in spite of it being blatantly unlawful.
The proper motto belonging on US currency is "E Pluribus Unum" literally "Out of many, One."
Prior to the 1955 act of congress(HR619,06-07-55)which allowed the defacement of our currency with this slogan, other slogans and phrases were occasionally printed on US paper money, of these, only one was sanctioned by congress.
"Mind your own business"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_your_own_business
Imagine what the folks who wrote that would think of the Dept of Homeland Security.
-Frem
*Since I dispute paper money in the first place, there's no sense in substantially debating the slogans ON it, for me, so I won't.
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I found it ammusing when I was out there that for a supposedly secular nation from conception to birth all your money had "In God We Trust" printed on it.
Isn't that kind of forcing people to carry Christian symbols even if they are not Christian... 
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Misbehaven, using facts to support your argument is really unfair to Republicans. It's a "faith based" party.
But, even if we falsely concede that the USA is some holy Christian nation, what has the Republican party done to deserve Christian votes?
The Republicans have been in total control of the US federal government for almost 6 years and have done nothing that they promised the Religious Right (Thank God).
Abortion: still legal
Gay marriage amendment: not passed
TV: more profane, more sexual content, more violence than ever before
Prayer in schoools: still not allowed
creationism: still not taught in public schools
Separation of Church and State: going strong
This is what magicians call "misdirection". The Republicans keep your attention over here while thay are robbing you blind. Your faith is being used to manipulate you into voting against your own economic interests. The Republicans will never fulfill their end of this covenant. By doing so, they would lose the ability to get Christians all riled up every two years over wedge social issues. What interest do Republicans have in losing this very effective campaign tool?
Christians, you've been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok...
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a tiny addition to the article:
I did a paper on Thomas Paine once-- he was raised a Quaker, a pacifist.
Not only did he write Common Sense, the pamphlet advocating the Revolution; and The Age of Reason,an attack of literal Christianity and the literal truth of the Bible still relevant today, he also served , for a time, as a private soldier in the Revolutionary Army.
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"The Christian right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of its campaign to force its religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity.
If that is true or not is irrelevant . We are not a christian nation. And didn't they come up with that separation thingy.
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
I found it ammusing when I was out there that for a supposedly secular nation from conception to birth all your money had "In God We Trust" printed on it.
Isn't that kind of forcing people to carry Christian symbols even if they are not Christian...
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
Since when is "God" a christian only concept?
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Quote:Come now, we both know which God it's talking about. Besides there's still people who don't believe in God of any denomination.
Originally posted by kaneman:
Since when is "God" a christian only concept?
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Anyone notice how Christians and right-wing Republicans are being uncharacteristically quiet about this post? It must have something to do with the irrefutable evidence.
"The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation."
-Bertrand Russell
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Quote:
Anyone notice how Christians and right-wing Republicans are being uncharacteristically quiet about this post? It must have something to do with the irrefutable evidence.
Come on, now - don't jinx it!
---
"What the world needs now is love, sweet love - it's the only thing that there's just too little of. What the world needs now is love, sweet love. No, not just for some, but for everyone."
Trouble-Maker in the House!
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