Interesting American History

[crowMAW]

To help understand some of the ideas that the Framers were discussing while crafting the Bill of Rights, I suggest picking up a copy of "The Complete Bill of Rights: The Drafts, Debates, Sources, and Origins" by Neil Cogan.  

To give you some flavor of the thoughts regarding the 1st Amendment see the link:

The Complete Bill of Rights

I think it is clear that the intent was to keep any one religous group or alliance of groups from dictating how or what people worship.  In other words, government should stay out of religon...government should not be used to proselytize or force beliefs on its constituents.

Saying that the 1st Amendment only means that there should not be an official "Church of America" falls a little short when you read the minutes of the Founders debates.  A little closer would be that there should not be an official religon of the US...Christian or otherwise.

[StarOfAfrica2]

Originally posted by DREDIOCK
They didnt guarantee slavery in the constitution either.

your talking apples and oranges

Yes, they did guarantee slavery in the Constitution.  As a matter of fact, the Fugitive Slave Law enacted in 1793 was passed to enforce the Constitutional provision that slaves escaping from their masters would be returned.  This was part of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 which Constitutionally recognized the rights of slaveowners, and set limits on slavery as well.  It also (as previously noted) allowed slaves to be counted as 3/5ths of a person for reasons of representation in Congress.  

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 became a rallying point during the 1850s for abolitionists, and was held by men like Abraham Lincoln to be as much an indicator of the thoughts and intentions of the founding fathers as the Declaration of Independence, greatly influencing them in the times leading up to the Civil War and the eventual Emancipation Proclamation.

[crowMAW]

Religion of George Washington:

Washington attended the Episcopal church where the Rev. William White and the Rev. James Abercrombie were rectors.  There were many rumors relating to Washington's religous views (or lack of them) and on several occasions the rectors were sent letters asking about those views:

"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." - William White

"With respect to the inquiry you make I can only state the following facts; that, as pastor of the Episcopal church, observing that, on sacramental Sundays, Gen. Washington, immediately after the desk and pulpit services, went out with the greater part of the congregation -- always leaving Mrs. Washington with the other communicants -- she invariably being one -- I considered it my duty in a sermon on Public Worship, to state the unhappy tendency of example, particularly of those in elevated stations who uniformly turned their backs upon the celebration of the Lord's Supper. I acknowledge the remark was intended for the President; and as such he received it. A few days after, in conversation with, I believe, a senator of the United States, he told me he had dined the day before with the President, who in the course of conversation at table said that on the preceding Sunday he had received a very just reproof from the pulpit for always leaving the church before the administration of the Sacrament; that he honored the preacher for his integrity and candor; that he had never sufficiently considered the influence of his example, and that he would not again give cause for the repetition of the reproof...Accordingly, he never afterwards came on the morning of sacramental Sunday, though at other times he was a constant attendant in the morning" - James Abercrombie

"His behavior [in church] was always serious and attentive, but as your letter seems to intend an inquiry on the point of kneeling during the service, I owe it to the truth to declare that I never saw him in the said attitude." - William White

"I do not believe that any degree of recollection will bring to my mind any fact which would prove General Washington to have been a believer in the Christian revelation further than as may be hoped from his constant attendance upon Christian worship." - William White

"Sir, Washington was a Deist." - James Abercrombie

[crowMAW]

In 1831, the Rev. Dr. Bird Wilson gave the following sermon:

"When the war was over and the victory over our enemies won, and the blessings and happiness of liberty and peace were secured, the Constitution was framed and God was neglected. He was not merely forgotten. He was absolutely voted out of the Constitution. The proceedings, as published by Thompson, the secretary, and the history of the day, show that the question was gravely debated whether God should be in the Constitution or not, and, after a solemn debate he was deliberately voted out of it. ... There is not only in the theory of our government no recognition of God's laws and sovereignty, but its practical operation, its administration, has been conformable to its theory. Those who have been called to administer the government have not been men making any public profession of Christianity."

[crowMAW]

“How has it happened that millions of myths, fables, legends and tales have been blended with Jewish and Christian fables and myths and have made them the most bloody religion that has ever existed? Filled with the sordid and detestable purposes of superstition and fraud?” - John Adams

[crowMAW]

“I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies.” - Thomas Jefferson

If anyone believes that Jefferson was really a "true" Christian, then they need to read his revised Bible and see if it meets with Christian dogma.  It is available at:

Jefferson Bible

I think most Christians will notice some "important" ommisions.  There are no miracles...no virgin birth, no walking on water, no feeding masses, no water to wine, no rise from the grave...if all that is OK for a Christian, then he's a Christian.

[crowMAW]

James Madison quotes:

“Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their shorty history.”

“Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U.S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taqxes.”

“The establishment of the chaplainship to Cong[res]s is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship agst the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority.”

[crowMAW]

Ben Franklin -

"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals, and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see. But I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England some doubts as to his divinity."

“Some volumes against Deism fell into my hands. They were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle’s Lecture. It happened that they produced on me an effect precisely the reverse of what was intended by the writers; for the arguments of the Deists, which were cited in order to be refuted, appealed to me much more forcibly than the refutation itself. In a word, I soon became a thorough Deist.”

[crowMAW]

Ethan Allen -

"That Jesus Christ was not God is evidence from his own words...denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian."

[crowMAW]

Thomas Paine -

"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.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

"Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."

“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 destructive to the peace of man since man began to exist. Among the most detestable villains in history, you could not find one worse than Moses, who gave an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers and then rape the daughters. One of the most horrible atrocities found in the literature of any nation. I would not dishonor my Creator's name by attaching it to this filthy book.”

"When also I am told that a woman called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not; such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it; but we have not even this — for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves; it is only reported by others that they said so — it is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not choose to rest my belief upon such evidence."

"The story [Bible], so far as relates to the supernatural part, has every mark of fraud and imposition stamped upon the face of it...It is upon this plain narrative of facts, together with another case I am going to mention, that the Christian Mythologists, calling themselves the Christian Church, have erected their fable, which, for absurdity and extravagance, is not exceeded by anything that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients."

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Hangtime
It's like talking to a brick wall.

One more time. Read his letter. What did he say? Did he not state precisely that there is a seperation between church and state? Was he not one of the principal framers of the constitution? And, was he not ALSO a religious man? If what you postulate as truth was truth then why did he NOT grant the disposition and special protection the Baptist Ministers sought?

Derd, yer off base, man.

What are you advocting.. or are you just flat refusing to consider that the right wing chriistian rehtoric you've been brainwashed with could be wide of the mark?

Nooo Im not.

I've read the letter. A bunch of times. But your misinterpreting what he meant by "Separation fo Church and state."
and the Term never once appears in the consitution itself. Only in that letter of which you misinterpret.

because Im no wide off the mark.
consider this. This arguement has only really seriously been going on for the last 50 years or so. For the better part of 150 years these things we argue about today were never really an issue as it was largly understood what they meant.
So now your saying that only over the last 50 years or so have we discovered that the way things have been since the very founding of the nation was wrong. that it was THEY who misinterpreted the constitution?

LMAO I dont think so

what your arguing is nothing short of revisionism because you dont like the way it was.
I am sorry but I just do not buy into revisionist history just because one segment of the population doesnt like that history.

As I said before. I once bought into your very arguement. It wasnt so long ago that I would very likely have made the same arguements you now make. Then I discovered I was wrong in my thinking.

And now in looking back over the last 50 or so years of change thats taken place in favor of your arguement. I do not see us as being better off for it as a nation but worse.

[DREDIOCK]

crowMAW,

And I can come up with more quotes by many of the same people that counter yours.
then you again mine. and Me again yours and so on and so forth
Thanks but I'd rather not.

BTW I got many of my quotes from the Library of congress and the original documents
Example

[Hangtime]

If you knew your history, Adams was locked in a struggle with the buisness (shipping/trade intrests) of the time that were doing virtually all their business with England. And, Adams was not getting much sympathy from the 'working folk' for a confrontation with England over English Navy ships pressing british born seaman out of American ships.

Read the first paragraph closely. It's a plea for moral support regarding infracftions by England on the high seas, pressing american seamen into RN Service. The rest is just pious head bobbing for the 'moral majority' of the time. It's a period piece propaganda broadsheet for the masses.

Egads.. what woman has filled your head with this BS? New girlfriend? Wife's mother's brother?

Jeeze... brainwashed, I tell yah.

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by crowMAW
“I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies.” - Thomas Jefferson

If anyone believes that Jefferson was really a "true" Christian, then they need to read his revised Bible and see if it meets with Christian dogma.  It is available at:

Jefferson Bible

I think most Christians will notice some "important" ommisions.  There are no miracles...no virgin birth, no walking on water, no feeding masses, no water to wine, no rise from the grave...if all that is OK for a Christian, then he's a Christian.

Thomas Jefferson also wrote this about Revelations:

"It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it, and I then considered it
as merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of
explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams... I cannot
so far respect [the extravagances of the composition] as to consider
them as an allegorical narrative of events, past or subsequent.  There is
not coherence enough in them to countenance any suite of rational
ideas... What has no meaning admits no explanation...  I do not consider
them as revelations of the Supreme being, whom I would not so far
blaspheme as to impute to Him a pretension of revelation, couched at
the same time in terms which, He would know, were never to be
understood by those to whom they were addressed." --Thomas Jefferson
to Alexander Smyth, 1825.  

[lazs2]

Just using the word "god" is not establishing a religion...  you can make god anything you like...it is the supreme bieng...

for athiests... it would be... themselves.

lazs