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  • From: "Shea Tisdale" <shea AT sheatisdale.com>
  • To: "'Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/'" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [internetworkers] Marriage and religion
  • Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 14:15:03 -0500

Steven Champeon wrote:
> on Fri, Feb 06, 2004 at 11:27:14AM -0500, Shea Tisdale wrote:
> > Just some questions and thoughts on this. Your statement seems awfully
> > broad. Is it equally appalling to you that the country was founded
> under
> > the Christian belief that all men are created equal with Creator endowed
> > rights?
>
> Um, that's not a Christian belief. That's Deist, if anything (the belief
> in a Creator) and the idea of human equality is certainly not unique to
> Christianity (Islam actually comes closer to this democratic equality than
> Christianity, and the various Eastern religions, Buddhism, Taoism, etc. do
> an even better job of it).

It may be a deist belief or the belief of other religions, but it doesn't
exclude it from also being a Christian belief. The question then becomes
how many of the authors of those documents were Buddhist, Taoist, Islamic,
etc. I think the answer is none. And since all of the founding fathers
came from a Judeo/Christian background, I think the attribution of those
concepts is appropriate.

>And let's not forget that the same document
> that proudly proclaimed the eqaulity of all men spoke nothing of women,
> defined the natives as "merciless Savages", and the followup defined
> slaves> and natives as having the value of two-fifths of a person.
Granted, that
> was a convenient arrangement directed specifically at determining the
> population for election of representatives, but still.

I didn't say that the founding fathers were perfect. But at the time they
wrote the Declaration and Constitution, the rights of the people and the
limitations of the government expressed their in were a drastic improvement
compared to any other place on Earth.

> Sorry, it just irks me when people ignore that this country was founded
> by a group of highly educated men who, for the most part, were either
> Deist, atheist, or otherwise rightly considered religion a scourge and
> men's willingness to do battle over it a sad reflection of the ignorance
> of the common. Read some Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson sometime.

So in 1777 when the First Continental Congress called the Bible "the great
political textbook of the patriots" and appropriated funds to import 20,000
Bibles for the people, they were thinking of some Diest or atheist version I
haven't heard of?

And before they signed the Declaration of Independence when the Continental
Congress called for "a day of fasting and prayer within the colonies,
beseeching God to give guidance and direction as to whether they should
secede from England, which Eastern religion were they thinking of?

And as far as the founding fathers go, I think they were very intelligent
individuals of conscience who, like many, wrote many things which can be
construed any number of ways that someone might desire. So I'll offer some
of their writings for consideration.

Patrick Henry: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this
great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on
religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples
of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of
worship here."

John Adams: In a letter to Jefferson wrote, "The general principles on
which the Fathers achieved independence, were . . . the general principles
of Christianity."

George Washington said, "It is impossible to rightly govern the world
without God and the Bible."

Thomas Jefferson: "The reason that Christianity is the best friend of
government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the
heart."

Jefferson is even quoted as having said, "I am a Christian, that is to say,
a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ."

Jefferson was also uncomfortable with the concept of miracles and believed
them to be made up, so he created his own version of the Bible where he
excised all references to them. This book is known as The Jefferson Bible,
The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.

Benjamin Franklin: "He who shall introduce into the public affairs the
principles of a primitive Christianity, will change the face of the world."

James Madison as President wrote: "The future and success of America is not
in this Constitution but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is
founded."

> And that's true regardless of how many times you read that nonsense that
> Ashcroft spouts about how the Founders "had no King but Jesus". Bleah.
> Wishful thinking is lovely, but let's not confuse it with the facts.

Well since you mentioned the demon Ashcroft, I'll just quote the Bible
itself. "You say you believe in God. Good. The demons also believe and
tremble."


>
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