America's True History of Religious Tolerance (Congress, generation, accuses, Jesus)

[70Ford]

The idea that the United States has always been a bastion of religious freedom is reassuring—and utterly at odds with the historical record.

The problem is that this tidy narrative is an American myth. The real story of religion in America’s past is an often awkward, frequently embarrassing and occasionally bloody tale that most civics books and high-school texts either paper over or shunt to the side. And much of the recent conversation about America’s ideal of religious freedom has paid lip service to this comforting tableau.

From the earliest arrival of Europeans on America’s shores, religion has often been a cudgel, used to discriminate, suppress and even kill the foreign, the “heretic” and the “unbeliever”—including the “heathen” natives already here. Moreover, while it is true that the vast majority of early-generation Americans were Christian, the pitched battles between various Protestant sects and, more explosively, between Protestants and Catholics, present an unavoidable contradiction to the widely held notion that America is a “Christian nation.”


Read more: America's True History of Religious Tolerance | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine

[pknopp]

Nobody ever claimed that people have lived fully up to the ideas.

[70Ford]

Saw someone on another thread trying to say this county was founded by "Christians" and I died a little inside when I realized that they actually thought that the Founding Father's "Christianity" is the same as what they define Christianity as today. They probably couldn't understand what Deism was if it hit 'em in the face. Jefforson took a razor to the Bible and cut out the parts that he thought were wrong. He made his own Bible. Wait. That's what people do today, too. Keep the parts they like. Ignore the parts they don't.
Deism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Think4Yourself]

It will only be a matter of time before some conservative shows up and accuses you of hating America for daring to examine the historical record.

[saltine]

Consume all you wish Religion and the Founding of the American Republic (Library of Congress Exhibition)

[saltine]

Originally Posted by 70Ford

The idea that the United States has always been a bastion of religious freedom is reassuring—and utterly at odds with the historical record.

The problem is that this tidy narrative is an American myth. The real story of religion in America’s past is an often awkward, frequently embarrassing and occasionally bloody tale that most civics books and high-school texts either paper over or shunt to the side. And much of the recent conversation about America’s ideal of religious freedom has paid lip service to this comforting tableau.

From the earliest arrival of Europeans on America’s shores, religion has often been a cudgel, used to discriminate, suppress and even kill the foreign, the “heretic” and the “unbeliever”—including the “heathen” natives already here. Moreover, while it is true that the vast majority of early-generation Americans were Christian, the pitched battles between various Protestant sects and, more explosively, between Protestants and Catholics, present an unavoidable contradiction to the widely held notion that America is a “Christian nation.”


Read more: America's True History of Religious Tolerance | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine

I thought everyone knew about the inner denominational fighting. This is the reason "congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.

[pknopp]

Originally Posted by 70Ford

Saw someone on another thread trying to say this county was founded by "Christians" and I died a little inside when I realized that they actually thought that the Founding Father's "Christianity" is the same as what they define Christianity as today. They probably couldn't understand what Deism was if it hit 'em in the face. Jefforson took a razor to the Bible and cut out the parts that he thought were wrong. He made his own Bible. Wait. That's what people do today, too. Keep the parts they like. Ignore the parts they don't.
Deism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Deist of course does not disbelieve in God, just that he doesn't intervene in everyday life. That things like prayer doesn't really matter because what is going to happen will happen.

This is how Jefferson ended his letter to the Danbury Baptists.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and Creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect and esteem.

Was he simply being respectful of their beliefs? Maybe, maybe not. Jefferson was far more complicated in his beliefs than a simple label of any type.

[Bulldogdad]

Originally Posted by 70Ford

Saw someone on another thread trying to say this county was founded by "Christians" and I died a little inside when I realized that they actually thought that the Founding Father's "Christianity" is the same as what they define Christianity as today. They probably couldn't understand what Deism was if it hit 'em in the face. Jefforson took a razor to the Bible and cut out the parts that he thought were wrong. He made his own Bible. Wait. That's what people do today, too. Keep the parts they like. Ignore the parts they don't.
Deism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Again with this deism thing.

You do understand that but a small handful of the 55 delegates fall into the diest catagory.

ALL the rest would be considered practicing christians or some form or another.

Even Jefferson was not truely a diest, he would actually be a Christian disciple of Jesus, as he himself identifies in his own writtings. His "Jeffersonian Bible" was all about the moral teachings of Jesus.

This whole Diest thing about the founding fathers really only came about since the 1960's. Yeah go figure what the motivation of that era was all about.