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Vizio has a valid point regarding the religious identity of the men who authored the US Constitution. However, that many of the men were Christians is subordinate to the type of nation which they crafted. It was a nation made by Christians, but it was not to be a Christian government. The First Amendment took the US government out of the religion business, the government was not to have an official religion, nor was it to try and influence or prohibit the private practice of religion by citizens.
In sum, it could be a nation full of Christians, or of any other religion, but the government was to be neutral on religious questions. It is the difference between "The president is a Christian" and "the presidency is Christian." The former was allowed, the latter was not.
what you said in the bolded.
the founders were ALL about religious tolerance, and tolerance had an extreme meaning. as in radical. as in I hate you but I will die defending you.
the founders were ALL about religious tolerance, and tolerance had an extreme meaning. as in radical. as in I hate you but I will die defending you.
something lost in the modern translation
The issue which concerned the Constitutional authors was avoiding the bloody chaos which had marked the previous century in Europe. The Thirty Years War and the English Revolution were Catholic vs Protestant conflicts. (though not exclusively) They were what happens when rival religious groups insist on controlling the government.
America had spawned great religious variety. Puritans in New England, Quakers in Pennsylvania, Lutherans in the middle colonies, Catholics in Maryland, Anglicans and Baptists in the South...and an enormous array of splinter groups which had broken away from the larger faiths. Shakers, Seventh Day Adventists, and numerous tiny groups which had formed in the aftermath of the Great Awakening of the 1740's and '50's. There were Jews, Deists and Atheists as well.
The Constitutional authors recognized the problems which would arise if any one group was promoted and protected by the government at the expense of the others. Their solution was the First Amendment.
Not true...that's bunk that some Atheists put forth to try to soothe their angst over those guys making the land they stole from the Native Inhabitants (mostly by genocidal force and partly by swindle) heavily Christian (and it still is). Most were Christian...Very few Deist.
I challenge you to prove your claim "most were Deists".
Since this question often comes up, it is interesting to consider it. That these people talked about God and their Creator and even attended church does not prove that they were Christians before they were deists.
"he main thesis of the book, found on page 134, is that the U.S. Founding Fathers fell into three religious categories:
the largest group consisted of founders who retained Christian loyalties and practice but were influenced by Deism. They believed in little or none of the miracles and supernaturalism inherent in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Holmes finds a spectrum of such Deistic Christians among the founders,[citation needed] ranging from John Adams and George Washington on the conservative right to Benjamin Franklin and James Monroe on the skeptical left.["
(Wiki)
This is not the final word of course, but the influence of Deism and the very pertinent suggestion that many of these bods would have gone even further towards irreligion today, with the information we have, can certainly not be dismissed out of hand.
Can you cite anything in the Constitution that you can trace to a Bible verse?
It's fairly easy to trace certain features in the Constitution to the Iroquois Confederacy, the Landmarks of Freemasonry, and to English common law.
I see this over, and over, and over again about this subject..."BUT LOOK AT WHAT THE DOCUMENTS SAY (or don't say)!"
So?!!!!! That "the documents say it" (or didn't say it)...is inconsequential to what WAS/IS!
Those who argue this issue from that position are being like the Bible Literalists: "See? It's written (or isn't written) right here...that makes it so!"
So, the argument isn't valid for the Bible...but it is for the Constitution?
Get a clue: What they wrote was nothing more than typical political deception and diversion. Shill statements and proclamations put out as a cover. Write one thing to get support...then do the exact opposite--A, "Read my lips: No new taxes!", kinda game.
First off, I have a problem lending credence to people that were slave owners, oppressed females, and had no problem authorizing a genocide to take over more land...but that's just me, others can feel differently and let that slide.
BUT! HERE'S THE REAL DEAL: Those so-called "Founding Fathers" promoted their brand of religion harder than McDonalds pushes their hamburgers. They did everything they could to inculcate the people...including the few Native People they hadn't killed...REGARDLESS of what they did or didn't write!
Not only did they TRY to instill their religion into the fabric of the new society that was being developed---they SUCCEEDED. MOF, they did it SO good...it's STILL the main game.
And anyone denying the reality because they don't like it, doesn't change it.
You do notice what goes on around you, don't you?
4 out of every 5 people-Christian...Christian church on every corner...Christian television stations...Christian Radio Stations...an entire genre (Gospel) of music devoted to Christianity...Federally recognized Christian Holidays...Christian EVERYTHING!!
How about the previous POTUS proclaiming he started a war because "God told him to"! You've even got the 3rd highest government official at the time saying this: Pelosi Says She Has a Duty to Pursue Policies in Keeping With The Values of Jesus, 'The Word Made Flesh' | CNS News.
Obamas' last inauguration was basically a full-blown religious ceremony...broadcast for the whole world to see.
What it does, or doesn't, HAVE TO BE based on the law...is inconsequential to WHAT IT IS...and HAS BEEN ever since the hostile takeover by the European Christians that overthrew the Native People.
And that's another thing to get straight--They only "founded" THE GOVERNMENT...NOT "the nation". The nation was already founded...they just took it by force and deception and put their own "game" in place--And you can't "found" something by stealing it.
First, there were the Native Americans with their (IMHO, just about ideal) culture, belief, and traditions, that were the inhabitants of this land. And, in a perfected world, the ones that should still be the rightful leaders--but that's another issue.
Then there were the European so-called "Founding Fathers" that stole the land (mostly by force, partly by swindle) from the Native People and put forth their con-job of a secular society...all the while they promoted, and inculcated, their version of Christianity better than a crew of modern TV Evangelists. An all out effort to make BibleGod and BibleRules the base concept, was the prime order of business. Which figures...since they left their homeland, mainly so they could have their theological way. They were soooooo slick, they even put some shills out front, with fake non-Christian diversion-talk (even putting some of that cover-talk in their initial documents), while they ran their ACTUAL game.
Politicians still use this tried-and-true technique of feinting policy and purporting false intentions, to mitigate opposition...this "deception and diversion" is a concept which has it birth as a military/fighting tactic.
The empirical evidence of this is as visible as the sun and moon, and their efforts were so successful it still has great power and influence to this day.
What the "founding fathers" and the "founding documents" said/wrote it was/would be...I do not believe they intended/wanted it to ACTUALLY be.
Actions speak way louder than words...and what they did flies in the face of them actually WANTING this country to be non-religious.
This may not go over too well, but...I don't think those so-called "founding fathers" were any different than most high level politicians that have ever existed. They say they will/won't do one thing...but then actually do the opposite...all the while giving speeches and writing up "documents" using shill words and statements. They can't be trusted, and their main objective is their personal agenda...and you will never know what that REALLY is based on what they say or write...because they will always "spin" things to avoid opposition, or appear to be fair.
Want to know how things REALLY were/are?...just take a look back/around!
I submit: The #1 way for the government to indirectly promote the growth of ANYTHING...is to exempt it from taxes!
No one is suggesting that Moses is a Founding Father of America, but it is true that the Founders WERE influenced by the Bible.
They were influenced by GREEK democracy and NATIVE AMERICAN society.
All ancient civilizations had an established form of government, from the Sumerians to the Romans, Greeks and Babylonians, and each form of government was based on certain principles and laws. Just as assuredly, philosophers were right there to contemplate and debate the political theories of those times.
It was from the writings and teachings of many of those philosophers that the founders of the Constitution derived many of the articles that form the backbone of that great work. Jean-Jacques Rousseau….Thomas Hobbes….John Locke….Voltaire….Montesquieu….giants in their time, forward thinkers of change…all influenced the collective work that we refer to as the Constitution.
#99 under The Constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy, it reads..... The rights and festivals of each nation shall remain undisturbed and shall continue as before because they were given by the people of old time's as useful and necessary for the good of men.
in 1988, the United States Congress passed a resolution to recognize the influence of the Iroquois League upon the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
I would think that if our own United States Congress has gone to the trouble to pass a resolution to recognize the influence of the Iroquois Constitution upon the U.S. Constitution, there should be no question of the influence.
100th Congress first session on S. Con. Res.76 to acknowledge the contribution of the Iroquois Confederacy of nations to the development of the U.S. Constitution and to reaffirm the continuing government to government relationship between Indian tribes in the United States established in the Constitution. December 2, 1987 Washington DC.
Concurrent Resolution: To acknowledge the contribution of the Iroquois Confederacy of nations to the development of the United States Constitution and to reaffirm the continuing government to government relationship between Indian tribes in the United States established in the Constitution.
Whereas the original framers of the Constitution, including most notably George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, are known to have greatly admired the concepts, principles and governmental practices of the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy;and
Whereas the Confederation of the original 13 colonies into one Republic was explicitly molded upon the Iroquois Confederacy as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the Constitution itself; and,
Whereas since the formation of the United States, the Congress has recognized the sovereign status of Indian tribes, and has, through the exercise of power reserved to the federal government in the commerce clause of the Constitution (art.I, s8, cl.3), dealt with Indian tribes on a government to government basis and has, through the treaty clause(art.II s2 cl.2) entered into 370 treaties with Indian tribal nations.
I really don't think that Christian religion, or any kind of religion for that matter have anything to do with the Constitution or Bill of Rights of the United States. Now some of the framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights may have been members of a particular religion or a fraternal organization,but that doesn't necessarily mean that those concepts were part of these important documents. I would say that they were smart enough not to incorporate any of those concepts into either one of those documents.
No one is suggesting that Moses is a Founding Father of America, but it is true that the Founders WERE influenced by the Bible.
I'm reading a biography of James Madison right now. He sure was influenced by the Bible. He had been accused of having a "demon" because of his epilepsy---you know, the story of Jesus healing the boy who was foaming at the mouth? Demon, hard to cast out. So Madison was years and years getting over the idea that he was possessed by a demon.
So the Bible impressed him enough that he wanted NONE of it in the Constitution of the United States!
Quote:
In 1783, James Madison was back in Virginia from a three-year term in Congress, and serving as a delegate in the General Assembly. Then, as now, Christian churches were worried they were under threat, with their numbers dropping dramatically during the Revolutionary War.
Virginia’s canny and opportunistic former governor, the Revolutionary hero Patrick Henry, saw a ripe political issue in the churches’ collapse. He proposed a new tax that would fund Christian churches. Madison was appalled by the breach of the church-state wall, and resolved to fight. He jotted down an outline of attacks on the tax, which he delivered, first in a speech, then in a letter several months later. In a sweeping series of assaults, he charged that states had fallen precisely where church and state were mixed. He challenged Henry’s assumption that moral decay was caused by the collapse in religious institutions; “war and bad laws,” he said, were instead at fault.
He declared that religion belonged to the realm of conscience, not government. Men, considering only the evidence “contemplated by their own minds,” could not be forced to follow the dictates of other men. Religion therefore was unreachable by politics, by the state. In other words, the state could not support religion, because religion’s strength depends on men’s minds, reason, and conscience.
Madison’s letter sparked a petition drive that ultimately generated over 10,000 signatures, swamping Henry’s bill. Madison’s speech against Patrick Henry’s religious tax went on to become his Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, perhaps the Western world’s most famous declaration of the doctrine of the separation of church and state.
The biography of Madison by Lynne Cheney is an excellent read. Madison's views are available today because he was a prolific letter writer, as was his wife. Thank God for good men like Madison, who were concerned enough to make sure the Federal Government would NOT be founded on the Christian religion--or any other.
I have a suspicion that the very attempt by the religious right to insert "religious" views into statutes is quite frankly BECAUSE those who hold such views no longer have strength of conscience and reason that would otherwise grant them the ability to stand for themselves--they need the government as their crutch!! For atheists reading this, who believe RELIGION is a crutch, that may sound strange. But look at it carefully. There is no strength in their character, so they need government.
Those who love freedom must oppose them.
Last edited by Wardendresden; 04-12-2015 at 04:35 AM..
Christian America: Corporate Invention or Founding Fathers' Vision
Here is a link to an address by Princeton historian Kevin Kruse at Emory University. He holds that founding fathers had not so much to do with a vision of a Christian America as did corporations in the early 1930's as an attack on FDR's New Deal program. The address gives details on this view.
From an article which also has a link to Mr. Kruse's address:
Quote:
I’m talking about the belief that the state itself, politically speaking, is officially and formally a “Christian nation.” Most of the markers that Americans invoke when they argue that we are one – the words “under God” in the pledge, the national motto of “In God We Trust,” the National Prayer Breakfast, the National Day of Prayer, etc. – are creations of the modern era and, more specifically, creations of corporate America.
Kruse's book, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America has just been released. It is a story of how companies like General Motors and Hilton Hotels partnered with clergymen and politicians to conflate patriotism and piety.
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Christian America: Corporate Invention or Founding Fathers' Vision
