http://www.livejournal.com/users/gpv/1281.htmlI wish I had sent along a link to the Snopes article about this, but I didn't:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/capital.aspAnyway, here is what I did say in my response:
While I am all for living by Christian principles I
just want to point out that we don't have to be a
theocracy to be led by those principles. :^) The
Separation of church and state is still of the utmost
importance. We'd never want to live under a Christian
Taliban that hands out forms such as these:
http://www.whitehouse.org/dof/faith-funding.asp , nor
would we want our beautiful and spirit-sustaining
churches stamped out as they have been in Communist
states. This separation therefore protects _both_ our
churches and our government.
This was just what I was talking about when I sent you
the link to the church that booted out all its
Democrats. Now the IRS is investigating them because
they broke the rules that protect their tax-exempt
status and the Pastor has felt the need to step down
followng the brouhaha. :^( This is why I like the way
Reg handles things. He never makes me feel that he is
imposing his own political beliefs on me from the
pulpit or that I am unwelcome in the church for being
liberal both politically and theologically. In fact,
I know that he has very strong beliefs but he is also
an excellent teacher in that he asks only that his
congregation learn to think for themselves. No spoon
feeding there. ;^)
Oh, and as to the bit in the forwarded letter about
telling the other 14% to sit down and shut up, let us
first ascertain that the other 86% are all actually
agreed upon which version of God? ;^D
P.S.: Why Separate Church and State?
From Americans United for Separation of Church and
State, which is headed up by a church Pastor.
http://www.au.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issuesSeparation of church and state is the only principle
that can ensure religious and philosophical freedom
for all Americans. Church-state separation does not
mean hostility toward religion. Rather, it means that
the government will remain neutral on religious
questions, leaving decisions about God, faith and
house of worship attendance in the hands of its
citizens.
The results of America’s policy of church-state
separation can be seen all around us: Thanks to
separation of church and state, Americans enjoy an
unparalleled amount of religious freedom. In some
nations, churches remain dependent upon government for
support and aid. Religious life in these nations is
often devitalized, and many churches are near empty on
Sundays. Other countries merge religion and government
into theocracies. Religious liberty cannot flourish
under that system either; attempt by the government to
enforce a version of religious orthodoxy foster only
repression. By contrast, religious liberty has
flourished in America and separation of church and
state can take the credit.
Our Founding Fathers understood that efforts by
government to “help” religion usually end up hurting
it in the long run. Thanks to their vision, America
has struck the right balance. Religious groups are
supported with voluntary contributions, not tax
dollars. Houses of worship are free to seek new
members and spread their religious messages but they
must use their own resources to do so. Institutions
that serve Americans of many religious faiths and
none, such as public schools, are free from sectarian
control. The government cannot force or coerce anyone
to take part in religious worship or prayer services.
Americans have the right to join whatever religious
group they like or refrain from taking part in
religion at all. No one can be forced to support, aid
or fund religious groups.
This grand tradition of religious liberty has made
America the envy of the world. In countries where
religion is mandated or supported by the state, people
look to the American model of church-state separation
with longing. Church-state separation, a policy forged
by great leaders like Thomas Jefferson and James
Madison, is the expression of a mature and confident
republic. It represents a promise of freedom that few
countries have had the courage to fully embrace.
But America had that courage, and the results of that
embrace have been nothing short of remarkable. Today
we are an open and free society of nearly 300 million
Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists
and others. All live side by side in harmony. All have
the freedom to proclaim their views. All enjoy the
right to worship or not worship unmolested by
government officials or state-appointed religious
leaders. All are equal in the eyes of the government.
That is the legacy of our Founders’ grand experiment
with separation of church and state. That is the
result of keeping an official distance between
religion and government. That is the principle
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
upholds every day boldly, proudly and without apology.
P.P.S. I am adding these quotes because many of our
founding fathers were in fact deists and not
Christians in the sense that we understand the word
today.
Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer whose manifestos
encouraged the faltering spirits of the country and
aided materially in winning the war of Independence:
"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...Each of those churches
accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I
disbelieve them all."
From:
The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, pp. 8,9
(Republished 1984, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY)
George Washington, the first president of the United
States, never declared himself a Christian according
to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous
correspondence. Washington Championed the cause of
freedom from religious intolerance and compulsion.
When John Murray (a universalist who denied the
existence of hell) was invited to become an army
chaplain, the other chaplains petitioned Washington
for his dismissal. Instead, Washington gave him the
appointment. On his deathbed, Washinton uttered no
words of a religious nature and did not call for a
clergyman to be in attendance.
From:
George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr.,
pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127 (1963, Southern
Methodist University Press, Dallas, TX)
John Adams, the country's second president, was drawn
to the study of law but faced pressure from his father
to become a clergyman. He wrote that he found among
the lawyers 'noble and gallant achievments" but among
the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute
dunces". Late in life he wrote: "Twenty times in the
course of my late reading, have I been upon the point
of breaking out, "This would be the best of all
possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!"
It was during Adam's administration that the Senate
ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which
states in Article XI that "the government of the
United States of America is not in any sense founded
on the Christian Religion."
From:
The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw, pp. 17
(1976, North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC) Quoting
a letter by JA to Charles Cushing Oct 19, 1756, and
John Adams, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by
James Peabody, p. 403 (1973, Newsweek, New York NY)
Quoting letter by JA to Jefferson April 19, 1817, and
in reference to the treaty, Thomas Jefferson,
Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 311 (1991,
Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to Dr.
Benjamin Waterhouse, June, 1814.
Thomas Jefferson, third president and author of the
Declaration of Independence, said:"I trust that there
is not a young man now living in the United States who
will not die a Unitarian." He referred to the
Revelation of St. John as "the ravings of a maniac"
and wrote:
The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of
Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain
to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato,
materials with which they might build up an artificial
system which might, from its indistinctness, admit
everlasting controversy, give employment for their
order, and introduce it to profit, power, and
pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips
of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a
child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained
the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious
reason that nonsense can never be explained."
From:
Thomas Jefferson, an Intimate History by Fawn M.
Brodie, p. 453 (1974, W.W) Norton and Co. Inc. New
York, NY) Quoting a letter by TJ to Alexander Smyth
Jan 17, 1825, and Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim
by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 246 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham,
MD) quoting letter by TJ to John Adams, July 5, 1814.
"The day will come when the mystical generation of
Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb
of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the
generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." --
Thomas Jefferson (letter to J. Adams April 11,1823)
James Madison, fourth president and father of the
Constitution, was not religious in any conventional
sense. "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the
mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
"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."
From:
The Madisons by Virginia Moore, P. 43 (1979,
McGraw-Hill Co. New York, NY) quoting a letter by JM
to William Bradford April 1, 1774, and James Madison,
A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Joseph
Gardner, p. 93, (1974, Newsweek, New York, NY) Quoting
Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious
Assessments by JM, June 1785.
Ethan Allen, whose capture of Fort Ticonderoga while
commanding the Green Mountain Boys helped inspire
Congress and the country to pursue the War of
Independence, said, "That Jesus Christ was not God is
evidence from his own words." In the same book, Allen
noted that he was generally "denominated a Deist, the
reality of which I never disputed, being conscious
that I am no Christian." When Allen married Fanny
Buchanan, he stopped his own wedding ceremony when the
judge asked him if he promised "to live with Fanny
Buchanan agreeable to the laws of God." Allen refused
to answer until the judge agreed that the God referred
to was the God of Nature, and the laws those "written
in the great book of nature."
From:
Religion of the American Enlightenment by G. Adolph
Koch, p. 40 (1968, Thomas Crowell Co., New York, NY.)
quoting preface and p. 352 of Reason, the Only Oracle
of Man and A Sense of History compiled by American
Heritage Press Inc., p. 103 (1985, American Heritage
Press, Inc., New York, NY.)
Benjamin Franklin, delegate to the Continental
Congress and the Constitutional Convention, said:
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you
particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and
his Religion...has received various corrupting
Changes, and I have, with most of the present
dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity;
tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having
never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself
with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of
knowing the Truth with less trouble." He died a month
later, and historians consider him, like so many great
Americans of his time, to be a Deist, not a Christian.
From:
Benjamin Franklin, A Biography in his Own Words,
edited by Thomas Fleming, p. 404, (1972, Newsweek, New
York, NY) quoting letter by BF to Exra Stiles March 9,
1790.
Speaking of the independence of the first 13 States,
H.G. Wells in his Outline of History, says:
"It was a Western European civilization that had
broken free from the last traces of Empire and
Christendom; and it had not a vestige of monarchy
left, and no State Religion... The absence of any
binding religious tie is especially noteworthy. It had
a number of forms of Christianity, its spirit was
indubitably Christian; but, as a State document of
1796 expicity declared: 'The government of the United
States is not in any sense founded on the Christian
religion.'"
The words "In God We Trust" were not consistently on
all U.S. currency until 1956, during the McCarthy
Hysteria.
The Treaty of Tripoli, passed by the U.S. Senate in
1797, read in part: "The government of the United
States is not in any sense founded on the Christian
religion." The treaty was written during the
Washington administration, and sent to the Senate
during the Adams administration. It was read aloud to
the Senate, and each Senator received a printed copy.
This was the 339th time that a recorded vote was
required by the Senate, but only the third time a vote
was unanimous (the next time was to honor George
Washington). There is no record of any debate or
dissension on the treaty. It was reprinted in full in
three newspapers - two in Philadelphia, one in New
York City. There is no record of public outcry or
complaint in subsequent editions of the papers.
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