"There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a flagrant ursupation." - James Madison
Has not everyone heard of the phrase about the phrase about the separation of government and religion? It's actually not law but is from a letter by Thomas Jefferson, written I think in 1802. Many people think it's in Constitution.
The Founding Fathers knew their history. I can't emphasize that enough. They, and the religious leaders of their time, just didn't want religion to stay out of government, but for government to stay out of religion. Because they knew that each corrupted the other.
They had the whole of European - indeed world - history before them and were very familiar with bloody religious wars. They wanted to avoid all that.
It was only religious fanatics who started wars and then the sheeple went along with it. Who today has not heard some lunatic preacher claim HIV or 9-11 was God's judgment on us? Or that Jesus is going to come back with blood and iron and genocide? Think of those nutty "Left Behind" novels. These people are insane.
Hardly any of the Founding Fathers were religious in the conventional sense. Most were Deists, which doesn't even exist anymore. Thomas Jefferson thought the history of Christianity had been nothing fanaticism and mass murder and corruption and bloodshed and was not a fan of it at all.
Fortunately religious fanaticism has bypassed the United States. I almost never meet any fanatics. The last one, whom by father hired as a carpenter, thought the Pope had sent assassins to kill him because he was exposing "the truth" about the Catholic church - and he used to call Catholic churches and get the priests to admit they trying to kill him. And he wouldn't shut up at work until my father yelled at him.
I haven't seen him for decades. I don't even know if the loon is still alive. If he is I hope he never has children.
Now that I think about it, the first fanatic I met was in college when I was 20. Everyone called him Mad Max, because he ranted and raved in the commons, called women whores, referred to himself as a "living saint," and was fired as a college instructor in mathematics because he wouldn't stop preaching in class.
Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote the essential Democracy in America, was quite impressed by the religious feelings of Americans and how they wanted government to stay out of religion.
We're actually involved in some religious wars with our support of the blasphemous anti-Christian, anti-American state of Israel, and our meddling in the Islamic world. There has been war in that region of the world for 4000 years and we're not going to put an end to it no matter what we do.
This is what happens when you mix politics and religion, and ignoring what the Founding Fathers advised us.
4 comments:
Errrr... ya shat the bed, Bob.
You don't think ideology doesn't produce its share of loons? Associating lunacy with religion is mighty progressive of you, as is the idea that being nice to moslems will make them our friends. As far as those sand niggers are concerned, we're ALL evil joos and fair game. 911 shoulda taught ya that.
Today's loons manifest themselves as fat, ugly feminists, sexual degenerates, socialists and environmentalists. In fact, you are so far off base with that, that you couldn't see that Christianity has actually done quite a bit to keep the gov't of your founding fathers honest. Consider: the founding fathers ran their gov't at a time when almost everyone was some form of Christian. Contrast that with today, where the Oval Office is occupied by a black moslem baboon, whose chosen successor was the hopelessly corrupt and incompetent Hildebeest.
Christian values built America and reformed Europe. You might consider some remedial work with a history book.
Mad Max is another example of what self-righetous pride does to a person. Turns them into a nut.
'Thomas Jefferson thought the history of Christianity had been nothing fanaticism and mass murder and corruption and bloodshed and was not a fan of it at all.'
Too bad he didn't live long enough to see what Communism and Fascism was. Because that is basically the atheist version of religious fanaticism. They put religious wars to shame when it came to death and oppression.
They wanted the federal government out of religion partly for the reasons you mention, but also because many states still had their own established official churches in 1789, usually either Anglican or Congregationalist. The idea of an official national church had substantial (if definitely waning) support in late 18th century America, but Americans never would have agreed on which denomination. Most states eventually got rid of their established churches because they were sick of theological arguments clogging up the court system.
"They had the whole of European - indeed world - history before them and were very familiar with bloody religious wars."
Most of the English Civil War was actually motivated by doctrinal disputes between Arminians and Puritans in the Church of England, rather than the abstract Constitutional Law questions they teach in history class. On the other hand, the protracted religious wars of the Reformation during 16th and 17th century were very, very unusual for a lot of reasons, and drawing broad general conclusions from them can be misleading. Most "religious wars" are actually tribal conflicts where two tribes happen to practice different religions; genuine wars over points of theology are much rarer.
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