How on Earth does K-Lo find a market for this sort of fertilizer? The National Review truly deserves that old tag line of MAD Magazine -- suitable for the lining of bird cages.

I don't understand why they are so insecure in their beliefs that they need to lie like this.

http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html

with all due respect, the issue is more complicated. The national government had a first amendment, but not the states until the doctrine of incorporation through the 14th Amendment.

Moreover, the States did not practice the "separation of church and state" at the founding, and the fact that the national government did is more likely tied to factional fears than to secular ideals.

orange

eric

The word "Christian" does not appear once in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.

It's not only wrong, it's dangerous.

Anyone remember William Penn's Holy Experiment?

Try Philadelphia.

I grew up in Philly.

Penn's experiment began in 1683.

Our country evolved out of Philadelphia.

Penn's experiment was basically ...well you do the research.

Reasonable people can debate constitutional interpretation,

Well yes, reasonable people can. But then what's K-Lo supposed to do while the reasonable people are busy? What can the unreasonable people like her do?

I think you're being unfair to K-Lo. If you're a religious Catholic, you're undoubtedly assuming divine guidance in the creation of what you see to be a "good state." K-Lo never says that the political founding of the country was religious - in this article, at least. I believe she's making a much broader argument about the hand of God in mortal affairs.

For all those "America is a Christian Nation" folks, show them this:

Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.

Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli:

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

for a Catholic to take this position is absurd give the anti-catholicism that festered in the US until the 20th century. Catholics started catholic schools becuase of releigious prejudice by protestants in public schools.

I'm what most would consider a fairly conservative Evangelical, yet I happen to agree with Steve Benen on this point.

What's interesting to me, though, is to ponder the Religious Right's need to make this particular wrong-headed point. Most Christian traditions, with the exception of hyper-Calvinism (but not really more balanced Calvinism), are OK with the notion that God gave humankind some sort of free will with which to make moral decisions. It's perplexing to me that the Religious Right doesn't appear comfortable with a secular government extending the same freedom to its citizens.

While our nation was founded on freedom of religion, the people who settled here didn't come to settle a place where 'everyone could worship as they see fit' - they came to establish a place where their own particular brand of religion could predominate and oppress other religions. Remember, in the early years, people would be fined or put in the stocks for failing to attend church, and it was the colony's government doing that. Rhode Island was founded by religious dissenters, not dissenting from England, but dissenting from Massachusetts.

Eric,

All of that may be true, but what relevance does it have to the founding of the national (i.e., federal) government? Lopez is making a claim at the national level-- that the government of the United States of America was founded on sectarian principles. That, for the reasons Steve summarizes, is clearly false. It is true that some state governments went further in establishing local religions, and they were not prohibited from doing so by the First Amendment until the Fourteenth was passed, but the national government, the one created by the Constitution of the United States, is clearly and consciously secular.

JRD....the national government employs secular principles, yes. They were not univerally chosen because they were secular. They were chosen by some to all sectarian governments to flourish at the state level. JoycsH is exactly right: many of the "pilgrims" left a corrupt Church of England and came here to "establish" a more godly governmental arrangment.

Thus, the Consitutution is no doubt secular, but the justification for why it is secular is more complicated than simply asserting love of secular governing principles.

eric

"The word "Christian" does not appear once in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence."
While this is true there are hints of a Christian belief in both documents. The Founders weren't stupid they knew their constituents and an overwhelming number of them were Protestants even if the Founders were not. And I don't want to come off as some sort of Christian Conservative, on the contrary I am a strong advocate of separation of church and state. However, to assume that we know what the Founders were thinking over 200 years ago is presumptuous. And even though I didn't work for Americans United for.... like our fine moderator did, I have a strong interest in this topic and have done my own share of research. I am not saying that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation but the nation was definitely founded by those who knew the role that religion played in the lives of most colonial Americans.

But to argue that the United States was founded "for Him" (emphasis in the original) just isn't supported by the facts.

National Review Online "editor" K. J. Lopez make an argument not supported by the facts? You don't say...

Jim @ 3:53 beat me to the punch. Here's a link to the full text of the treaty. Article 11 is about 1/2 way down the page.

The Treaty of Tripoli, 1796

I think one of the founding fathers would know if this were a xtian nation or not.

Michael W -- prolem with that line of argument

In a letter addressed to Pennsylvania House of Representatives member John Murray, dated October 12, 1816, John Jay wrote, "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest, of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."

John Jay (December 12, 1745 – May 17,1829) was an American politician, statesman, revolutionary, diplomat, a Founding Father of the United States, President of the Continental Congress from 1778 to 1779 and, from 1789 to 1795, the first Chief Justice of the United States. During and after the American Revolution, he was a minister (ambassador) to Spain and France, helping to fashion American foreign policy and to secure favorable peace terms from the British (the Jay Treaty) and French. He co-wrote the Federalist Papers with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.

I don't know if I would put much faith in the Treaty of Tripoli, 1796. Its been noted by several American history scholars that the translation from Arabic to English may be faulty.

If you think merely being wrong is going to stop them, please review the last hundred years or so.

This is a point I make periodically: The majority of the men who gathered in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution were attorneys. Those who were not had extensive experience in their state legislatures. They were thus grounded in the language and thinking of law. They drafted a legal document. And they employed the precision of language that such a document requires. Even their ambiguities were very carefully crafted.

All of which means that if they wanted the United States of America to be a Christian Nation (or "for him" in the language of the piece at hand) they damn well would have said so. Instead, the only times religion is mentioned, it is for the express purpose of keeping it out of the workings of government.

The Founders couldn't have made it any clearer than they did, unless they added the word "schmuck" at the end of the relevant clauses. ("There shall be no religious qualification for public office, schmuck!")

Eric (@ 4:07), I was referring to John Adams, not John Jay. Quote:

Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.

(emphasis added)

Like I said, it all began in Philadelphia.

What a complete asshole this woman is.

But then what's K-Lo supposed to do while the reasonable people are busy?

Continue to slam pints of Chunky Monkey and tot up the number of times she needs to cop to self-abuse in the confession booth (you just know she seeks out a parish that still has one), I guess. Does it count if you only do it when half asleep and thinking about Rich Lowry thinking about Sarah Palin?

Have you noticed that at moments like this one, all Christians are alike?

And yet, before the Bill of Rights was it safe to be a Catholic and live in Massachusetts? Or was it safe to not be a Catholic and live in Maryland?

Was it safe to be a Baptist and live in either state?

We separated church and state for a very good reason. Our founding fathers had seen the kind of mess that happens when you don't.

"Catholics started catholic schools becuase of releigious prejudice by protestants in public schools."

Damn right. In my hometown, we had Protestant schools and Catholic schools. The Protestant ones were the public schools. I was raised atheist, but I knew the full history of Jesus and could sing from memory any Christian song. How would I have learned such things? From public schools, of course. I certainly didn't learn it in church, I never went there. So how did I learn about Islam? Well, I had to buy my own Quran and read it on my own time. Protestants view the public education system as a means to indoctrinate children. That needs to stop.

Well this has certainly turned into a lively discussion.

The truth is the Founding Fathers had more than ample opportunity -- 1st Continental Congress, 2nd Continental Congress, Articles of Conferation, Constitutional Convenntion of 1787, legislative/constitutional conventions of their respective colonies/states -- to "found" any type of worship they wanted, but they did no such thing.

So, their intent and objective was crystal clear -- a secular nation.

Michael W, I think Eric was making the point that even back then, the notion of whether the US should be a "Christian Nation" was in dispute, even among the founders, one of which was John Jay. However, I think Roddy makes a damn good point.

A few points to consider...

* Contrary to the exhortations of many in the Christian right, the majority of the Founding Fathers were decidedly *not* Christians. They were, rather, Deists, described by Wikipedia as holders of "the belief that a supreme natural God exists and created the physical universe, and that religious truths can be arrived at by the application of reason and observation of the natural world." Indeed, noted Deists among the Founding Fathers are Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Cornelius Harnett, Gouverneur Morris, Hugh Williamson, James Madison, John Adams, possibly Alexander Hamilton, Ethan Allen, and Thomas Paine. Clearly, Deists had little enthusiasm for making the country an explicitly Christian nation.

* Much of the motivation for making the United States an explicitly secular nation was due to the experience of people such as the Puritans and Quakers with the Established (Anglican) Church in Britain. Given the influence of groups which had been oppressed by an established church, it is highly unlikely that these same groups would choose to establish another church.

* As has been noted elsewhere, Pennsylvania was explicitly established as being a secular colony (in contrast to Massachusetts). Given the extreme influence of such Pennsylvanians as Franklin, Morris, and others in crafting the Constitution, it is unlikely that the resulting document would have contradicted their no-doubt strongly-held beliefs.

* Finally, among his many other achievements, Benjamin Franklin founded the University of Pennsylvania as a non-sectarian institution, in contrast to Harvard, William and Mary, and Yale. It is, again, unlikely that Franklin would lend his imprimatur to a Constitution which was not non-sectarian.

As a final note, I find it rather ironic to see professing Christians press so heartily to make the United States an official Christian nation, when part of the genius of the Founding Father was not only in keeping religion out of government, but in keeping government out of religion. Note that, in comparison to European nations which have established Churches, the United States has a *far* higher degree of religious observance. One can only surmise that the goal of people who wish to see the United States as an officially-Christian nation must be to deal a mortal blow to religious observance here.

-Z

dros is correct, michael.

The situation is more nuanced. Many of the "founders" ensured their economic prosperity by estabishing religuous tests for office in their home states. By allowing for a state by state establishment, competition within each state was minimized and regulated. I beleive the "liberal" Mass was the last state to end religious tests for office in 1835, but my meory is not that good.

What's particularly amusing about this all is that the religious persecution the Puritans were running away from was a limit on their ability to hate Catholics. More to the point, the name "puritan" was derisively attached to the group based on their desire to purge, or purify, the Church of England of any similiarities to Catholic tradition, ceremony, etc.

So even if K-Lo's point were sound, which it obviously isn't, it would still be the case that, as a Catholic, the nation was decidedly NOT founded on HER conception of religion.

The Founders couldn't have made it any clearer than they did, unless they added the word "schmuck" at the end of the relevant clauses. ("There shall be no religious qualification for public office, schmuck!")

But "schmuck" is Yiddish, is it not? So the founding fathers leaving that out and choosing instead to write in Jesus's own language*, English, surely proves something about their Christian intent?

*I'm kidding! Get off me!

Let me save you some time. Kathryn Jean Lopez is always simply wrong.

So His will was for us to destroy the sovereign nation of Iraq for no reason?

Steve's absolutely right. Most of the other political principles used by the founders (checks and balances, separation of powers, contract theory of government) were borrowed from others. But deliberately separating the state from any ecclesiastical authority or establishment while leaving religion free from state control was the single original contribution the founders made to western political thought.

I expect K-Lo is completely unread in history.

The Founders were well-aware of just English history alone, which was in their time chock-full of 1000 years of religious bigotry causing enormous pain and slaughter. They sought to avoid all that in the America, and, interestingly, they succeeded, and so have we.

We haven't yet choked a river with bodies of the dead, killed over religious differences (as the catholics did the huguenots in France), and hopefully we never will, but I can't help the notion that some on the Right would be happy to do so. THEY are the anti-americans.

eric -

"many of the "pilgrims" left a corrupt Church of England and came here to "establish" a more godly governmental arrangment."

This is simply absurd. Those who left England for religious reasons did so a century and a half before the Revolution. They remained subjects of the Crown and English law for years and years. This "nation" was not at all founded because of the religious persecution that these settlers suffered. It was founded much later and for much more earth-bound reasons. I really don't see how that is in dispute.

Thank you Zorro!

Know your history people, or surely you will be condemned as more powerful people choose to repeat it!

Most of our founding framers, you know the dudes who noticed the Articles of Confederation wasn't working too well, were Christians by lip service, but Deists by intellect, and as such, did not want anyone's sole God taking precedence over another's God!

Any proported intellect who gets paid to write for publication and puts forth such erroneous imagery is a propagandist, and should have to make such a disclaimer before she expects us to even read her drivel! -Kevo

K-Lo is one of the dumbest bloggers that we have the misfortune to hear about on a regular basis. I really see no reasons why we have to bother taking her arguments seriously or taking the time to see if we can calmly correct any misperceptions she may have generated. Instead, she's worthy of nothing other than a lot of mockery and derision.

I don't know if I would put much faith in the Treaty of Tripoli, 1796. Its been noted by several American history scholars that the translation from Arabic to English may be faulty.

What translation??? The US Congress did not pass a treaty written in Arabic. The US Congress passed a treaty written in English.

Responding to eric at 4:07 on John Jay's letter to the Pennsylvania House, as opposed to the language of the Treaty of Tripoli; and with respect to ATXDem at 4:07 on possible mistranslation in the English version of the Treaty.

It is certainly true that many of the Founders were Christians and espoused Christian views, even in quasi-governing documents such as the one to which you refer. The difference, I would submit, is that the Treaty of Tripoli bound the U.S. government to a particular set of stipulations and, in that sense, trumps a document at the state level.

As to possible mis-translation; while it may be true that the Arabic-English translated was botched, it remains the case that Article 11 in the version of the Treaty of Tripoli that was engrossed in the Senate reads,

"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

This is certainly doesn't dispose of the question, but it does suggest that the IDEA of calling the U.S. a secular nation did not offend those who would have known better than us what they meant.

Unfortunately, the world will always have within its inventory of bipedal critters a smattering of "holy jackelopes" who, regardless of the facts, will insist that "this or that" was created specifically for their invisible graven image---the purpose of which is to separate "them" as being "good Americans", from "the rest of us" as being "bad Americans." I would have thought that the rest of you would still remember that, as they tried it quite unsuccessfully just a few months ago during the election cycle.

This particular holy jacKeLOpe's diatribe, however, should---if nothing else---serve as an example as to why the tax-exempt status of corporate religious institutions should not only be terminated, but replaced with the same institutional tax rates as should be levied against all other corporate entities

"What translation??? The US Congress did not pass a treaty written in Arabic. The US Congress passed a treaty written in English."
Really? Thanks for clearing that up. And all this time I thought they passed a treaty written in Arabic.
No doubt it was in English, but it had to be translated from Arabic to English at some point.

Nice point(s)Hemlock.

Well, people who want a theocracy, instead of a secular government, will grasp at straws. Many examples of same in comments above.

Anon on January 27, 2009 at 4:44 PM: the pilgrims came to start smaller societies that would not have the corruptions of the English Church. I noticably did not say that they came here to establish a "nation."

Case in point re my comment at 5:11:

No doubt [the treaty of Tripoli] was in English, but it had to be translated from Arabic to English at some point.

WTF??? Grasping at straws indeed. The phrase "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion" seems pretty clear to me, in any event.

We haven't yet choked a river with bodies of the dead, killed over religious differences

I take it you've never seen some of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America versus Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pogroms in Minnesota, or you'd never have written that.

Really? Thanks for clearing that up. And all this time I thought they passed a treaty written in Arabic.
No doubt it was in English, but it had to be translated from Arabic to English at some point.

So what? What is your point then? Who cares what it did or didn't say in Arabic? The only version that has any constitutional validity is the one passed by the US Congress, and that version was written in English. The version written in Arabic could have been the lyrics to, ahem, "Funky Hot Medinah", and it wouldn't matter one bit how it was or was not mistranslated.

as for the "there were lots of Deists," take a look at how thomas paine lived out the rest of his days after The Age Reason. He died a pauper and i think his body may have been stolen. He was a pariah even thou he was one of the truly monumental figures of the revolution.

Stefan once again you prove to be the voice of reason. Its like arguing with a 2 year old.

First K-Lo reflecting that the inauguration is to honor "him", and if the Cardinals win this Sunday we will have Kurt Warner claiming they won the Super Bowl to honor "him". Can't these people do anything without bringing their religion into it? Guess not.

Its like arguing with a 2 year old.

Is not.

"Thus, the Consitutution is no doubt secular, but the justification for why it is secular is more complicated than simply asserting love of secular governing principles."

That's certainly true; there's no question that the principle of separation was viewed at the time as benefiting sectarian institutions as much as, if not more than, the state itself by prohibiting state interference with religious matters. (See, e.g., Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists). And you make good points in other posts that certainly some of the founding generation made statements in other contexts to the effect that the nation was founded on Christian principles-- just as statements to the contrary exist. But I think that's why we have to rely largely on the official pronouncement of the Constitutional Congress as an institution, rather than the views of its constituent members or their contemporaries.

"They were chosen by some to all sectarian governments to flourish at the state level. JoycsH is exactly right: many of the "pilgrims" left a corrupt Church of England and came here to "establish" a more godly governmental arrangment."

I think you rely a bit too heavily on New England here. The pilgrims may have been the first colonists but Massachusetts and Rhode Island were certainly not the only states in 1789. Most of the 13 were not founded by religious dissidents, and at least some of them-- I concededly do not know how many-- didn't have established churches. Virginia certainly did not, and as you're no doubt aware the Establishment Clause was modeled on Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom, as drafted by Thomas Jefferson.
So I don't see how the fact that some states had established churches, and that this was not at the time inconsistent with the federal Constitution, supports Lopez's contention that the United States was founded as a Christian nation.

as for the "there were lots of Deists," take a look at how thomas paine lived out the rest of his days after The Age Reason. He died a pauper and i think his body may have been stolen. He was a pariah even thou he was one of the truly monumental figures of the revolution.

You're glossing over the whole part of his life where Paine moved to France, participated in the French Revolution, and was only able to return to the United States when Jefferson invited him back.

He was the Che Guevara of his day, always looking for a better revolution.

Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence had the second paragraph starting out: "We hold these truths to be God given . . ..".

It is widely believed it was Ben Franklin who edited it to read "We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .", replacing a religious attribution with one more attuned to the values of the enlightenment.

Anyway Stefan, I do enjoy some good back and forth. I never doubted that the Founders wanted the nation to have a distinct separation between church and state. All I am saying is that it is difficult to examine such documents as the Treaty of Tripoli and emphatically(sp) say that the Founders believed Christianity should be omitted entirely. It should be noted that this Article 11 is only in the English version and in the Arabic version contains only gibberish, which is what Christianity basically is.

JRD: please do nto misunderstand me. She is as wrong as David Barton, who I first saw on TV almost 15 years ago.

The right blurs nuance. It always has and always will.

My concern has always been truly understanding the religious history of the US. There was also a large class bias that gives birth to the Second Great Awakening with a maniacal focus on ecstatic experience over the reasoned theologies of Harvard and the like which effectivly disenfranchised the poor (and thus illiterate) from religous leadership.

As for Nnemosyne

Eric,

You're right-- I don't think we're really disagreeing about much.

Paine's treatment is a black mark on our history. There's a tiny park in lower Manhattan named after him, while Jefferson gets a marble palace in Washington and Franklin is on the $100 bill. Though in fairness, Paine wasn't merely a Deist-- he had the testicular fortitude to publish a pamphlet quite persuasively condemning the Bible as internally inconsistent and morally abhorrent. Even Hume had the sense to publish Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion posthumously, and to include a (literal) deus ex machina to save theism at the end of it.

and Jefferson was VERY secretive about dicing up the Bible.

It's an interesting piece:

1) "In a town of doers, it’s easy to forget Him, especially when your daily schedule is all about you — your campaign, your vote, your speech, your award."

And don't forget, full of people sleeping on heating grates, scrounging around for food. "It's all about me! Me and my vote!"

2) "During his final press conference, President George W. Bush, reflecting on his time in office said: “The phrase ‘burdens of the office’ is overstated. “Oh, the burdens,� he mocked. “Why did the financial collapse have to happen on my watch?� He dismissed the “Why me?� question. Bush dismissed that question as “self pity.� “It’s just — it’s pathetic, isn’t it?� Such a manly statement of responsibility and gratitude —"should be an admonishment and a warning to a city of people who stand proud, but should also be willing to drop to their knees asking for forgiveness and, always, humility."

Nothing says manly quite as well as having a financial crisis just happen..ON YOUR WATCH!!!Ouch! Get down on your knees, everybody!

3) "a Republican, with a reputation for flawlessness, and the new president, a Democrat who is rarely called on flaws, in the midst of the most regal ceremony we have as a nation, stood before us as two men, just like the rest of us, imperfect, and perfectly capable of messing up line"

Ahem. Psssttt. People can't have a rep for flawlessness--that's reserved for HIM.

Thank you Steve for supporting the separation of Church and State. We have many confused fanatics in this country who think their way is the only way.

Anytime someone starts saying they know the "will" of God I get paranoid. If they were to say they know the "nature" of God, that his nature is love and by aligning with the nature of God his will becomes evident then there would be no question of the separation issue as it would be sharing principles but not dogma. All religions share principles with government and it has nothing to do with "Gods". These are moral principles that work for the benefit of all the people.

We are an inclusive country not an exclusive country and tolerance is one of our guiding principles. Some of these people are only on one side of this equation thinking they know what is right for everyone because 'they' believe it.

Just a note in regards to the Treaty of Tripoli. It was approved (in English) by President John Adams and his Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, and was then ratified by the entire U.S. Senate without objection.

Keep in mind, this action was taken just SIX SHORT YEARS after the adoption of the Bill of Rights by our Founding Fathers, and clearly states that our nation was NOT founded on the Christian religion and is therefore NOT a "Christian nation".

eric, Jefferson published his own bible during his lifetime. I believe it is simply titled Jefferson's Bible. It is a culling of what he believed to be some of man's greatest musings. It contains Cicero, Senaca, Plato and others. -Kevo

I'm truly surprised that no one on this thread is heavily quoting Madison. Not only did he write the rough draft of what became the first amendment, he chaired the conference committee that worked out the final wording. If you are looking for an interpretation of what the Establishment Clause was meant to mean by the people who wrote it, Madison is the writer to study, not Jay. The fact that it didn't originally apply to states simply speaks to the writers' naivete- they didn't intend that states would defy the Constitution on this issue, any more than they thought a state would outlaw a free press or free speach.

The idea that the United States was "founded for Him [Jesus Christ]" is absolute nonsense. The only respect in which it could even be argued to be true would be to state that all social constructs have been "founded for Him", including those founded by non-believers and those founded by believers who were self-consciously acting for a separate purpose. Without getting Godwin's Law invoked, it should suffice to say that any argument that ends with "all societies and governments are founded for Him" is not likely to be persuasive.

I think much of the pro-God sentiment here fails to address what ms. lo said: "we're a nation founded for Him -- so we could praise Him, so we could do His will". Now, it's clear that the "nation," that is, the United States, not Mass. or RI, would permit people to do these things, but there is absolutely no evidence that the purpose or the reason for its founding was religious. The purposes of the government in the constitution were entirely non-religious (see Arts I & II & III -- no powers of any branch have anything to do with religion); indeed, the only mention of religion in the main body of the constitution itself was to exclude it from consideration.

I think I'll throw the G-d stuff back at K-Lo, etc., by pointing our that to refer to G-d as 'Him' is to imply that G-d has a sex. And, given that the only reason that mortal beings have sexes is to reproduce, and that we need to reproduce because we'rem well, mortal, to call G-d 'Him' is to to imply that G-d is also mortal.

They're all a bunch of blasphemers, I say. Let's build a bridge out of 'em! Or is that what you do to witches...

-Z

kevo: actually Jefferson took a number of bibles in different languages and used a knif to cut the non-miraculous passages -- the only passages that he thought mattered

as a final thought: google "franklin" and "all cats are grey" :)

to argue that the country was formed specifically as a celebration of and testament to one faith tradition's deity is simply wrong.

Not just wrong, actively corrupt.

There is more to corruption than money.

K-Lo is such a miserable theocrat, and since she must be talking from a Christian perspective: the irony of the religious right promoting a religion that defines Jews as apostates and lost, yet supports and pushes those Jews' worst aggression and obstinacy. Revolting.

As a Catholic, I take extreme exception to K-Lo's "for him." Catholics believe in a trinity, so she's limiting the nature of God. She should have said "for them." Or she could have taken her lead from John McCain and said "those three over there."

The trouble with most of the Fathers quoted is that they were politicians for most of their lives, and as such could be expected to say most anything at one time or another to placate one constituency or another.

Their private papers and words can be trusted, and their actions can be trusted. AT NO TIME did any of them attempt to "establish" a church--to make non-believers pay tithes to a church they did not believe in.

And I'd like to see Warren explain the simple fact that in 22 volumes of George Washington's papers, public and private, the name "Jesus Christ" never appears.

Part of the problem is that a lot of the ways Christianity is practiced today wouldn't be familiar to the Founding Fathers. The whole concept of being "born again" wasn't a part of Christianity until John Wesley. Fundamentalism was a development of the late 19th century.

So even when they say the United States was founded on "Christian" principles, the religious principles they're claiming didn't even exist when the country was founded.

Which him again?! Krishna, Zeus, Apollo, Shiva, Abraham, Lucifer, Yahweh, Apollo, Allah?! All of these people are fools and liars! That's all anybody needs to know. Oh, and the christians are at the tippy-top of the list of delusional, self aggrandizing (dare I say spiritually self-fellating?) morons. Where are the lions again?

Anyone who can't get enough of this discussion needs to visit American Creation, where there are fresh posts daily thrashing over the early American religious experience.

I seem to remember that the 1st amendment was actually a copy, more or less, of a guarantee written into the Virginia Constitution. Other states also had the same idea written into their charters. I can't think of any state that established its own religion after the Constitution was written.

Sapeaking as someone born and raised Catholic, but of course, our nation was founded for Him, so we could praise Him, so we could do His will -- just as acolytes are there at Mass to provide priests with eye candy.

In their own words:

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." -- Thomas Jefferson

~

"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. My own mind is my own church." -- Thomas Paine

~

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson

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"Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments... But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?" - Thomas Jefferson

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"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.

Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not." - James Madison

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I know the Federalist Papers in their entirety are pretty laborious reading, as are the essays these men wrote throughout the period, but if you wish to truly understand their thinking, it is essential reading.

Further: Let's remember; Deists don't deny "God" (in some form or flavour) exists, they just aren't impressed with "organized religion," and see it for the political tool it truly is.

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"I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson

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The colonies were rife with religious tyranny posing as "governance" at the time of the founding, and these men wanted no part of it. Therefore their specific, and careful, singular reference to it is (in essence) "shall not do it."

(If any of this is a repeat of above comments, my apologies. I simply don't have time to read them all.)

Cheers