I think that the ‘wall of separation’ between Church and State is critical to maintaining the democratic foundations of this nation. If 100% of all people who vote and pay taxes in the nation were of the same religious beliefs, then it might not be critical, then a theocracy might be workable. But in this […]
The Right To Be You — Filosofa’s Word
Jill’s post is both excellent, and serves as a warning. Theocracies tend to be suppressive regimes, and to safeguard against this, religion and state must be kept separate.
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Many thanks for the re-blog, my friend! Yes, theocracies are by nature limiting and domineering … let’s do everything we can not to go there! Thanks again!
You are welcome Jill 🙂
She is wrong of course as Christians are part of the public, pay taxes and they have a right to have a say in how their country is governed. Secular government has failed everyone for thousands of years
No one says Christians don’t get a say. Jill is however right to point out that it is not *only* Christians that get to have a say. Trust you to dishonestly misrepresent the argument.
As I said in my response on my website, her logic is wrong, contorted and she doesn’t prove one thing with real evidence. There is also no coherent thought to her content. It is one giant rant against Christianity.
She does not know history nor does she know religion so she really shouldn’t say anything. But like you and BG, she does a lot of insulting. (I took a second look at her article and guess what, she is still wrong, just like you and BG)
Given your tendency to lie and deceive (and let’s be real Derrick, you are as rude and insulting as can be, as demonstrated by recent, vile comments you left for Bruce), you would be wise to remember what the Bible says about throwing stones.
One ‘Professor Taboo’ left a comment on Jill’s original post, and you ought to read it Derrick.
[QUOTE]First, Jill… please excuse the length of my comment-reply to Seek-Truth. Bear with me please, as I think it quite important to share and what it portends for our U.S. democracy. Thank you Ma’am.
To Seek-Truth…
A lack of religion today seems to me to [be] the bigger problem than too much religion.
Correction! The full contextual history of this personal opinion is unfounded and does NOT reflect our Founding Father’s intent in the birth of this nation.
Any significant, toxic amount of mythical, unfounded, religious ideologies or superstitions wrongly forced into the U.S. federal government, its legislation, and the civic-social fabric of Americans, publicly or privately is unequivocally UN-Constitutional according to our Charters of Freedom and the intended “spirit” of this nation’s laws and governing by our six (6) Core Founding Fathers and framers of said charters. Period.
ON DECLARING INDEPENDENCE FROM JUDEO-CHRISTIANITY BY OUR CORE FOUNDING FATHERS:
“This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.” — John Adams, letter to Hezekiah Niles, February 13, 1818
Our Declaration of Independence’s 18th-century verbiage and historical-political context is too often misunderstood and maligned by modern-day Christians and Christian Nationalists. Thomas Jefferson wanted his DoI to be…
“the signal… to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded [men] to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.” — Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826, in Works of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 12, 477.
All throughout human civilization’s history the “Divine Right” of monarchs has been in many cases grossly abused by men in power and birth-right. Even Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Algernon Sidney—all exceptional 17th-century English political philosophers—all wrote extensive, damning critiques of divine right abuses. All three agreed that the more religious a monarch or nation, the more likely he would act and think like a god who had assigned him special revelations as supreme ruler. The same can be said about an oligarchy or sociopolitical zealous minority.
The idea that all people are created equal is not a religious idea; the idea that some people are special or chosen is one that various religious groups have embraced throughout history. The entire Hebrew Bible is about the Chosen people. Religion promotes elitism, not equality.
In Jefferson’s DoI, he wrote that when a government or monarch becomes tyrannical (e.g. D. tRump & Jan. 6th):
< blockquote>“…it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” — Preamble, Declaration of Independence, July 1776
But unfortunately and despite modern-day Christian Nationalists’ erroneous propaganda for a Christian nation, IRONICALLY self-government and revolution against such tyranny are NOT principles derived from Christianity or its Bible. Period. As a matter of fact, Saul of Tarsus (Paul) is directly opposed to our DoI:
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. (Romans 13:1-2 NIV)
Bringing this into the context of the founding of the U.S., Saul/Paul could not have been more clear. Rulers and Kings, like King George III of Great Britain, are to be obeyed as a matter of Godly Judeo-Christian conscience and faith. No ifs, ands, or buts. Why?
“By me [God] kings reign, and rulers decree what is just; by me rulers rule, and nobles, all who govern rightly.” (Proverbs 8:15-16)
But our six (6) Core Founding Fathers and Jefferson were not and did not create a strictly “Divine Right” Judeo-Christian nation. If our Founding Fathers had been Christian Nationalists in the sense of the American 21st-century versions, there would be no United States of America independent from Great Britain today. This is certain.
AND MORE SECULARISM FROM OUR CORE FOUNDING FATHER’S PERSONAL VIEWS—
From Thomas Jefferson:
…And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. …error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. …I deem the essential principles of our government. ..[:]Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; …freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. (Thomas Jefferson, “First Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1801)
Jefferson wrote voluminously to prove that Christianity was not part of the law of the land and that religion or irreligion was purely a private matter, not cognizable by the state. (Leonard W. Levy, Treason Against God: A History of the Offense of Blasphemy, New York: Schocken Books, 1981, p. 335)
From John Adams:
Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated. Adieu. (John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825)
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” (1787-1788)
We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions … shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power … we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society. (John Adams, letter to Dr. Price, as quoted by Albert Menendez and Edd Doerr, compilers, The Great Quotations on Religious Liberty, Long Beach, CA: Centerline Press, 1991, p. 1.)
Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and Dogmatism cannot confine it. (John Adams, letter to John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816)
From and About James Madison:
“I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency of a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded by an entire abstinence of the Government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect against trespass on its legal rights by others.” (Robert L. Maddox, Separation of Church and State: Guarantor of Religious Freedom, New York: Crossroad, 1987, p. 39.)
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize [sic], every expanded prospect. (James Madison, in a letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774)
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents. (James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, October 17, 1788)
From and About George Washington:
Government being, among other purposes, instituted to protect the consciences of men from oppression, it is certainly the duty of Rulers, not only to abstain from it themselves, but according to their stations, to prevent it in others. (George Washington, letter to the Religious Society called the Quakers, September 28, 1789)
Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most 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)
As President, Washington regularly attended Christian services, and he was friendly in his attitude toward Christian values. However, he repeatedly declined the church’s sacraments. Never did he take communion, and when his wife, Martha, did, he waited for her outside the sanctuary…. Even on his deathbed, Washington asked for no ritual, uttered no prayer to Christ, and expressed no wish to be attended by His representative. George Washington’s practice of Christianity was limited and superficial because he was not himself a Christian. In the enlightened tradition of his day, he was a devout Deist — just as many of the clergymen who knew him suspected. (Barry Schwartz, George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol, New York: The Free Press, 1987, pp. 174-175)
From Benjamin Franklin:
I am fully of your Opinion respecting religious Tests; but, tho’ the People of Massachusetts have not in their new Constitution kept quite clear of them, yet, if we consider what that People were 100 Years ago, we must allow they have gone great Lengths in Liberality of Sentiment on religious Subjects; and we may hope for greater Degrees of Perfection, when their Constitution, some years hence, shall be revised. If Christian Preachers had continued to teach as Christ and his Apostles did, without Salaries, and as the Quakers now do, I imagine Tests would never have existed; for I think they were invented, not so much to secure Religion itself, as the Emoluments of it. When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one. (Benjamin Franklin, from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780)
From and About Thomas Paine:
As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of government to protect all conscientious protesters thereof, and I know of no other business government has to do therewith. (Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776. As quoted by Leo Pfeffer, “The Establishment Clause: The Never-Ending Conflict,” in Ronald C. White and Albright G. Zimmerman, An Unsettled Arena: Religion and the Bill of Rights, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990, p. 72)
Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance but the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms: the one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, the other of granting it. (Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, p. 58. As quoted by John M. Swomley, Religious Liberty and the Secular State: The Constitutional Context, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1987, p. 7. Swomley added, “Toleration is a concession; religious liberty is a right.”)
The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonorable belief against the character of the Divinity, the most destructive to morality and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-1795. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 494)
Furthermore, there have been at least fifteen (15) Landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions & positions over the last century and a half corroborating, supporting the above six Core Founding Fathers’ viewpoints of Church-State Separation and hence, Secular governing or neutral governing ‘of the People, for the People, and by the People.’
Therefore, to conclude S-t-T, obviously by our nation’s Charters of Freedom, our Core Founding Fathers public and private views, and past SCOTUS decisions, “too much religion” is indeed a bad thing for all peoples’ belief-systems, especially if only or too much Judeo-Christian. And a lack of it/them—within tolerance, as defined by Thomas Paine—is actually a very good and stable thing! So I am in full agreement with these three above bodies regarding the dire need for more secularism in the U.S. of A and our Core Founding Fathers intentions.
Regards
P.S. Should you like to read much more about these six Core Founding Fathers’ views about a Secular or Neutral U.S. government, then go to my May 2015 blog-post, found here:
The Mistaken Identity of the U.S.[/QUOTE]
Au contraire, Señor Tee … I have a good knowledge of history. I must question your intelligence, though, for you say you’ve read my post twice and you are still misunderstanding my words. It isn’t even a rant, as you claim it is. If I were ranting, you would KNOW it! I’m not going to waste my time arguing point-by-point with you, for I can see that you are a closed-minded individual who has already decided that you will disagree with whatever I say, but you can stop right now with the remarks that I am intellectually inferior and have no education, for neither of those things are true. And if they were … wouldn’t you feel horrible picking on someone without a brain?
Religions do not have the right to tell people what kind of medical help they get whether it be abortion or surgery to fix my broken ankle.