Kevin Kessler:
First, Bravo in completely ignoring what I actually said, and going right for things that were completely oblique from what was being discussed. You have a bright future in politcal punditry.
Now...
I'm sorry, but you are wrong. Christianity and God had very much to do with the founding of this country. You have chosen only a few examples that fit your hatred for George W. Bush.[/QUOTE]
What? other than offering up George W as an example of someone who was almost scary-religious, exaclty how did he come into this? Do you know what my political affiliation is or how I voted lately is? no? Yeah, didn't think so. Just because I'm not a card-carrying member and am an avowed Independent, don't go assuming who I do or don't like.
Try to not be such the defensive party-member next time... you could go far.
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Now on to the rebuttal. this is basically going to be a repost of what I used in my arguments way back when. I picked three Founding Fathers at random, found quotes uttered by them as well as supporting arguments by their contemporaries, as well as some info from modern historians as well.
I'm going to try and trim it down, but this is gonna be a VERY large post, I'd imagine. Sorry in advance, and all emphasis mine unless otherwise noted:
The founders were NOT Christians, and would not have founded the nation as a Christian ideal. Or to let one of their contemporaries tell it:
"The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [Washington; Adams; Jefferson; Madison; Monroe; Adams; Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity....
"Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism."
-- The Reverend Doctor Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, in a sermon preached in October, 1831, quoted in John E. Remsberg, "Six Historic Americans."
or perhaps a quote by one of the founding fathers themselves?
"As the government of the United States 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 [Muslims] ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries....
"The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation."
-- Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams
But hey, let's not take one man's first-hand knowledge, or one of the founding fathers themselves for that matter at face value... let's look at three of the Founders, and not just random ones, but say, three of the most famous of them, all of whom were Presidents, shall we?
Regarding Thomas Jefferson: It spite of Christian right attempts to rewrite history to make Jefferson into a Christian, little about his philosophy resembles that of Christianity. Although Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence wrote of the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, there exists nothing in the Declaration about Christianity.
Although Jefferson believed in a Creator, his concept of it resembled that of the god of deism (the term "Nature's God" was resoundingly used by deists of the time). With his scientific bent, Jefferson sought to organize his thoughts on religion. He rejected the superstitions and mysticism of Christianity and even went so far as to edit the gospels, removing the miracles and mysticism of Jesus (see
The Jefferson Bible) leaving only what he deemed the correct moral philosophy of Jesus.
(From
http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm)
Quotes from Thomas Jefferson:
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 concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?")
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.
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination."
--Thomas Jefferson: Elementary School Act, 1817. ME 17:425
"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man."
--Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moor, 1800.
"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another."
--Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78
Moving on...
Regarding John Adams:
Adams, quite succinctly, was an avowed Atheist, who had a rather pronounced aversion to religion, particularly that of Christianity and Catholicism. Want proof? Let's go to the quotes!
"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815
"The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses."
-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88), from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"
"Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."
-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88), from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"
"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
-- John Adams, letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816
"I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits.... Shall we not have regular swarms of them here, in as many disguises as only a king of the gipsies can assume, dressed as printers, publishers, writers and schoolmasters? If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell, it is this society of Loyola's. Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum."
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 5, 1816
"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes."
-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814, quoted in Norman Cousins, In God We Trust: The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers (1958), p. 108, quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief
"God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world."
-- John Adams, "this awful blashpemy" that he refers to is the myth of the Incarnation of Christ. From Ira D. Cardiff, What Great Men Think of Religion, quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief
"Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude....
Of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve ... the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from episcopal fingers."
-- John Adams, "A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law," printed in the Boston Gazette, August 1765
And finally...
Regarding George Washington:
Before I go into Washington directly, I will first address what I find to be a nauseatingly blatant attempt by the Christian "Right" to try and manipulate and undermine Washington's words to match what they want. I don't mean just taking quotes out of context, but actually, intentionally, misquoting and putting words in his mouth. I speak primarily of what is referred to as "Washington's Prayer".
The alleged Prayer goes thusly:
"Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep these United States in Thy holy protection, that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, and for their fellow citizens of the United States at large. And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of Whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
-- Engraved on a bronze tablet in St. Paul's Chapel, Broadway and Vesey Streets, New York City, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 19-20
Washington never uttered those words... they are, essentially a lie.
The ACTUAL Statement Washington made in a dispatch of official business (Please note -- it WAS NOT a prayer):
"I now make it my earnest prayer, that Nature's God would have you, and the state over which you preside, in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow-citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field; and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose examples in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.
I have the honor to be, with much esteem and respect, sir, your Excellency's most obedient and most humble servant. -- G. Washington."
-- George Washington, letter sent to the governors in 1783, urging them to quell anarchy and riots by alleviating distress and discontent, quoted from Ford's Writings of Washington, vol. x, p. 265, also quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 19-20
No mention of Jesus Christ in here at all. And the reference to God is in reference tothat as a Deist, not as a Christian... his status as a Deist is backed up by many of his contemporaries and biographers of the time, before the Religious Right tried to take him as their own.
Now that that is out of the way:
Although raised in the church of England, by the time Washington became his famous role of leader, general, and President, he was far less a Christian and more a Deist.
Washington was not a communicant. This fact can be easily demonstrated. A century ago it was the custom of all classes, irrespective of their religious beliefs, to attend church. Washington, adhering to the custom, attended. But when the administration of the sacrament took place, instead of remaining and partaking of the Lord's Supper as a communicant would have done, he invariably arose and retired from the church.
The closing years of his life, save the last two, were passed in Philadelphia, he being then President of the United States. In addition to his eight years' incumbency of the presidency, he was, during the eight years of the Revolutionary war, and also during the six years that elapsed between the Revolution and the establishment of the Federal government, not only a frequent visitor in Philadelphia, but during a considerable portion of the time a resident of that city. While there he attended the Episcopal churches of which the Rev. William White and the Rev. James Abercromble were rectors. In regard to his being a communicant, no evidence can be so pertinent or so decisive as that of his pastors.
Bishop White, the father of the Protestant Episcopal church of America, is one of the most eminent names in church history. During a large portion of the period covering nearly a quarter of a century, Washington, with his wife, attended the churches in which Bishop White officiated. In a letter dated Fredericksburg, Aug. 13, 1835, Colonel Mercer sent Bishop White the following inquiry relative to this question:
"I have a desire, my dear Sir, to know whether Gen. Washington was a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal church, or whether he occasionally went to the communion only, or if ever he did so at all. ... No authority can be so authentic and complete as yours on this point."
To this inquiry Bishop White replied as follows:
"Philadelphia, Aug. 15, 1835.
"Dear Sir: In regard to the subject of your inquiry, truth requires me to say that Gen. Washington never received the communion in the churches of which I am the parochial minister. Mrs. Washington was an habitual communicant.
... I have been written to by many on that point, and have been obliged to answer them as I now do you. I am respectfully.
"Your humble servant,
"WILLIAM WHITE."
(Memoir of Bishop White, pp. 196, 197).
In the political documents, correspondence, and other writings of Washington, few references to the prevailing religion of his day are found. In no instance has he expressed a disbelief in the Christian religion, neither can there be found in all his writings a single sentence that can with propriety be construed into an acknowledgment of its claims. Once or twice he refers to it in complimentary terms, but in these compliments there is nothing inconsistent with the conduct of a conscientious Deist. Religions, like their adherents, possess both good and bad qualities, and Christianity is no exception. While there is much in it deserving the strongest condemnation, there is also much that commands the respect and even challenges the admiration of Infidels. Occupying the position that Washington did, enjoying as he did the confidence and support of Christians, it was not unnatural that he should indulge in a few friendly allusions to their religious faith.
In his "Farewell Address," the last and best political paper he gave to the Christian religion is not once named. In this work he manifests the fondest solicitude for the future of his country. His sentences are crowded with words of warning and fatherly advice.
But he does not seem to be impressed with the idea that the safety of the government or the happiness of the people depends upon Christianity. He recommends a cultivation of the religious sentiment, but evinces no partiality for the popular faith.
"I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. To this consideration we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna-Charta of our country."
-- George Washington, responding to a group of clergymen who complained that the Constitution lacked mention of Jesus Christ, in 1789, Papers, Presidential Series, 4:274, the "Magna-Charta" here refers to the proposed United States Constitution
"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society."
-- George Washington, letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792, quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom, also James A. Haught, 2000 Years of Disbelief
"We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition ... In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States."
-- George Washington, letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793, in Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States, Vol 1. p. 497, quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom
"If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mohometans, Jews or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists."
-- George Washington, letter to Tench Tilghman asking him to secure a carpenter and a bricklayer for his Mount Vernon estate, March 24, 1784, in Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion (1963) p. 118, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"
Quotes About Washington and Religion/Christianity:
"[Washington was] a total stranger to religious prejudices, which have so often excited Christians of one denomination to cut the throats of those of another."
-- John Bell, in 1779, in Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion, Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, p. 118, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"
""Dr. Rush told me (he had it from Asa Green) that when the clergy addressed General Washington, on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to disclose publicly whether he was a Christian or not. However, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly, except that, which he passed over without notice."
-- Thomas Jefferson, quoted from Jefferson's Works, Vol. iv., p. 572. (Asa Green "was probably the Reverend Ashbel Green, who was chaplain to congress during Washington's administration." -- Farrell Till in "The Christian Nation Myth.")
"I know that Gouverneur Morris, who claimed to be in his secrets, and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more in that system [Christianity] than he did."
-- Thomas Jefferson, in his private journal, February, 1800, quoted from Jefferson's Works, Vol. iv., p. 572 ("Gouverneur Morris was the principal drafter of the Constitution of the United States; he was a member of the Continental Congress, a United States senator from New York, and minister to France. He accepted, to a considerable extent, the skeptical views of French Freethinkers." -- John E. Remsberg, Six Historic Americans.)
"Sir, Washington was a Deist."
-- The Reverend Doctor James Abercrombie, rector of the church Washington had attended with his wife, to The Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, upon Wilson's having inquired of Abercrombie regarding Washington's religious beliefs, quoted from John E. Remsberg, Six Historic Americans
"The pictures that represent him on his knees in the winter forest at Valley Forge are even silly caricatures. Washington was at least not sentimental, and he had nothing about him of the Pharisee that displays his religion at street corners or out in the woods in the sight of observers, or where his portrait could be taken by 'our special artist'!"
-- The Reverend M. J. Savage, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, p. 22
""I have diligently perused every line that Washington ever gave to the public, and I do not find one expression in which he pledges, himself as a believer in Christianity. I think anyone who will candidly do as I have done, will come to the conclusion that he was a Deist and nothing more."
-- The Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, in an interview with Mr. Robert Dale Owen written on November 13, 1831, which was publlshed in New York two weeks later, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 27
"[/b]On communion Sundays, he left the church with me after the blessing [before the sacrament], and returned home,[/b] and we sent the carriage back after my grandmother."
-- George Custis, letter to Mr. Sparks on February 26, 1833, in Sparks's Washington, p. 521, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 29
"Unlike Thomas Jefferson -- and Thomas Paine, for that matter -- Washington never even got around to recording his belief that Christ was a great ethical teacher. His reticence on the subject was truly remarkable. Washington frequently alluded to Providence in his private correspondence. But the name of Christ, in any correspondence whatsoever, does not appear anywhere in his many letters to friends and associates throughout his life."
-- Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion (1963) pp. 74-75, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church."
"George Washington's conduct convinced most Americans that he was a good Christian, but those possessing first-hand knowledge of his religious convictions had reasons for doubt."
-- Barry Schwartz, George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol (1987) p. 170, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"
So in closing, someone who asks something like "you mean to tell me a bunch of Christians who founded this country did not use a lot of Christianity influence to set up laws and governments?" is asking a fallacious question... because the country was not founded by Christians nor did it use Christian influence in the first place. This is just another myth being disseminated by the Religious Intolerants who wish to make this nation as fundamentalist as the Muslim ones they decry.
And one could argue, as it goes against the actual ideals and intentions of the Framers, to say it is could even be.... Un-American...
(Debating with the son of a Political Historian sucks, don't it?
)
