HELP: Response to those who believe the Founding Fathers wanted this to be a Christian nation...

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

I need help crafting a response to some folks that I know who believe that the Founding Fathers were so religious that they crafted the First Amendment! :sarcasm:

My understanding is that Madison, though religious, championed religious freedom. God is nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. Someone stated that 'The Creator' is the same thing as saying "God." I don't think so!!

Also, Thomas Jefferson was indeed a deist, but believed that religion is a very person subject.

I'm not so sure about Hamilton.

Franklin, I believe, was an Atheist, or at the very least, agnostic.

Need help crafting a response for those who have sources at the ready.

Thanks!!!

[caledesi]

1. they are wrong - tripoloi treaty, article 11...

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

[existentialist]

2. Franklin's autobiography is unclear on his religious persuasion

however, I believe that he was a deist also, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

What is very clear from his autobiography, is that he strongly believed that adherents of all religions had an equal right to participate in government, and in public discourse.

Among other items I remember reading was how proud he was that a person of any faith could rent what became Independence Hall from the city of Philadelphia, and speak to whoever chose to come to hear. He particularly made reference to how the City fathers would rent to the Sultan of Istanbul if the Sultan should come to Philadelphia and seek an audience. There may (or may not) be a tone of disparagement in Franklin's statement on the point, but there is clearly civic pride in the literal truth of the statement.



Hope thats some help, and I hope that more is on the way from other DUer's.

[Ineeda]

3. Here are some relevant quotes that may help

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind." - Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)

Every man "ought to be protected in worshipping (sic) the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience." - George Washington (Letter to the United Baptist Churches in Virginia in May, 1789)

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson (letter to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787)

"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;)

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."- Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)

"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth." - Thomas Jefferson (Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 363.)

"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." - James Madison (Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, 1785.)

"Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?" - John Adams

"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed." - James Madison (Original wording of the First Amendment; Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).)

"As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." - (Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 - signed by President John Adams.)

[Goblinmonger]

4. Madison, during the Constitutional Convention, argued

that ministers should not be allowed to serve in Congress because that would result in government paying someone from the church. Now, obviously, he didn't win that argument, but hardly sounds like someone who wanted this to be a Christian nation. And Madison pretty much wrote the Constitution.

Jefferson once made the argument that there needed to be separation of church and state as much to protect gov from religion as to protect religion from government

Both of those should be pretty easy to find through the Google.

Then, tell them to read some Thomas Paine Age of Reason and watch their heads explode.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

5. You guys rock so hard that it's just so great! Thank you very, very much for this.

I hope others chime in as well... :)

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Well, the first was Roger Williams, a Puritan, and later Baptist, minister...

who founded Rhode Island as a bastion of religious freedom. Quakers, Jews, and others escaped Massachussets and the gallows to Rhode Island back then. But, that was in the early 1600s.

The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom was written by Jefferson and Madison and pushed through the House of Burgesses by Madison. It was later used as the model for the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment.

http://www.vahistorical.org/sva2003/vsrf.htm

Many of the Founders did want an established church, but were eventually overruled by Madison, Hamilton and others who reminded them of the religious wars in England, and how the new country couldn't afford such nonsense.

Franklin?

I'm aware that he had few public religious beliefs, and wasn't big on church membership, but here's some more interesting background on him:

http://www.adherents.com/people/pf/Benjamin_Franklin.html

Hamilton?

He ended up as sort of an Episcopalian, and early in his life in the West Indies he had some religious revelations, but nowhere has he ever claimed "Christian Nation." Apparently, his parents were Jewish, and he was originally educated in Jewish schools, although he never seems to have talked much about it.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

7. The proof?

What isn't in the Consitution.

At the time, many of the colonies had official religions that required officials be members of that religion and forbade others like Catholics or Jews from governmental participation.

IIRC, there were some minor Founders who did throw about the idea of the new nation being a specfically protestant christian nation, but that was overruled by the more sane Founders.

So, they had every opportunity to put into the christianity directly in the Constitution and chose NOT to.

On edit: One of those colonies was Virginia, where the Anglican Church was the official church. I thnk it interesting that it was Virginian Thomas Jefferson who was one of those who most forcefully pushed freedom of religion as a basic right under our Constitution -- it makes sense, as he had personal experience with a State trying to enforce adherence to a single denomination.

[Qutzupalotl]

8. Franklin probably was not an atheist.

He was a Mason (along with Washington). Masons are asked in a ritual, "In whom do you put your trust?" Answer: "In God." So we can say at least that he was once required to profess a belief in God. The fact that he continued in this association leads me to assume he did not find the requirement objectionable.

There is a broad-minded quality to Franklin's thoughts on religion. I think he disliked the narrowness, hypocrisy and railing still found in many churches. Several sources say Franklin was a Quaker, but some others say he wasn't. I've heard he and most of the founders considered themselves Deists. Rosicrucians traditionally have claimed Franklin and Jefferson as their own, though that group is more of a mystical philosophy than a religion.

[jeepnstein]

11. If you remind...

your average "Christian Nation" activist of the fact that the Founding Fathers were Freemasons you can sometimes make their heads explode.

[dimbear]

9. The way I heard it..........

About 10% of the population of the colonies actually attended a church....

The largest sect was Church of England, and the Church of England naturally opposed the revolution and the formation of the US.....

At the end of the revolution nearly every church building of the Church of England had been burned or defaced in some way......

Christianity didn't catch on here in a really big way until the 19th century....

[WCGreen]

10. the fucking Puritans sure did...

But the rest of the balls to the wall capitalistic make a profit and fuck the prophets wanted no religion to get in the way of making money....

If anything it was about religious freedom and not about establishing a Christian Nation.

Hell they were all running away from the bullshit that fucked up Europe for two centuries...

[DirkGently]

12. James Madison, *author* of the First Amendment, had this to say:

Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform (Annals of Congress, Sat Aug 15th, 1789 pages 730 - 731).

<snip>

Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws , but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence

<snip>

To the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself (Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811).

<snip>

The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity (Letter to F.L. Schaeffer, Dec 3, 1821).

http://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/qmadison.htm

[hootinholler]

13. There should be some ammo in this thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1132240#1137668

-Hoot