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dimossi
Skeptic Friend
USA
141 Posts |
 Posted - 07/02/2002 : 13:39:46
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A guy at our work sent around this SPAM e-mail with statements and quotes regarding the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, & Christianity.
I suspect the integrity of this information is questionable, if not completely false. Please help me disect what is true from what is false. Thanks.
quote:
" Let...statesmen and patriots unite their endeavors to renovate the age by...educating their little boys and girls...and leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system." Samuel Adams
"History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion...and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern." Benjamin Franklin
"Only one adequate plan has ever appeared in the world, and that is the Christian dispensation." John Jay, ORIGINAL CHIEF-JUSTICE U.S. SUPREME COURT
"The United States of America were no longer Colonies. They were an independent nation of Christians." John Qunicy Adams
A page of history is worth a volume of logic. History shows the intent and purpose of our founding fathers. Contemporary logic is wrong whenever it contradicts the clear explanations of those men who wrote the Constitution.
97% of the founding fathers were practicing Christians and exercised their faith in public office, at work, at home, and had it taught to their children in their schools.
187 of the first 200 colleges in America were Christian, Bible teaching institutions. Entrance to Harvard required strong knowledge of the Bible.
Noah Webster wrote the dictionary with Bible verses explained so children could understand the words of God and know the truth of Jesus Christ. Webster even wrote a translation of the Bible for the American speaking people.
You could hardly find a school in America that wasn't Christian based with the Bible as its main text book until the 1830's. As a result of the attack upon children learning the truths of God and Salvation, the American Sunday School League was formed during that same decade so those children who were deprived could still get Bible knowledge.
Fewer and fewer people remembered the exhortations of those men who established this nation to follow Christ and give Christian teaching in the schools, as the backbone and main course of our schools. p>
The Declaration of Independence appeals to God no less than three times. Four to those who can see His Name in the phrase "protection of divine providence". Five to those who can admit the phrase "created equal" means created by God, not evolved from chaos.
Contrary to what is currently taught at most federal and state schools, Samuel Adams pointed out this strong lesson which is contradicted in courts today: "Before the formation of this Constitution...this Declaration of Independence was received and ratified by all the States in the Union and has NEVER been disannuled."
The men who wrote the Declaration of Independence declared within it their undying faith towards God for all generations to see and follow.
The Articles of Incorporation call the entity into existence and the By-laws then explain how it will be governed. Therefore the governing of the corporation under its by-laws must always be within the purposes and framework set forth in its Articles. The By-laws may neither nullify nor supersede the Articles. The Constitution neither abolished nor replaced what the Declaration had established; it only provided the specific details of how American government would operate under the principles set forth in the Declaration.
PROOF of the Declaration being attached to the Constitution is found in Article VII. The Constitution attaches itself to the Declaration by dating itself as being signed in the twelfth year of the independence of the United States of America! Now that proves the founding fathers considered themselves to have been living in the USA for twelve years under the government document of the Declaration of Independence. Not only was the Constitution dated in recognition of the Declaration of Independence, also the later government acts were dated from the Independence of the United States of America.
"The Jubilee of the Constitution" by John Quincy Adams explains the Constitution as dependent upon the virtues proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. That's why the Ten Commandments are inscribed in stone on the Supreme Court building. Those men saw the law of God as the basis of all law for all men always, never to be changed! How can we withhold God and His truth from our educational classrooms for children today? One Nation Under God. United we stand together with Christ.
They erected a beacon to guide their children, and their children's children: for all men who would pursue life, liberty, and happiness...they pointed us to God and to His Son Jesus Christ. They desired that their posterity might look again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew that battle which their fathers began, so that truth, justice, mercy, and all Christian virtue not be extinguished from the schools of this land.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." [Philip K. Dick, science-fiction author]
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
 Posted - 07/02/2002 : 14:51:24 [Permalink]
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I notice that a lot of those quotations are not credited. It wouldn't matter if these were all true. The Declaration is important but is was never intended to be law. The Constitution was intended to be and is the law of the land and it deals with religion reasonably clearly.
Benjamin Franklin wanted prayer introduced to government assemblies in those days but he had little support.
All in all those quotes don't build much of a case. The important founding fathers have no mention in here do they? We know how Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine felt about religion. It's no wonder they don't appear here! It's also quite obvious what the founding father's intended and it is protection from the sort of people that want the USA to be a Christian nation and that is the big truth they leave out.
 @tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2002 : 15:32:44 [Permalink]
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The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.
-- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758
I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies.
-- Benjamin Franklin, quoted from Victor J. Stenger, Has Science Found God? (2001)
If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England.
-- Benjamin Franklin, An Essay on Toleration
Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.
-- Benjamin Franklin (source unknown)
He [the Rev. Mr. Whitefield] used, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard.
-- Benjamin Franklin, from Franklin's Autobiography
Indeed, when religious people quarrel about religion, or hungry people quarrel about victuals, it looks as if they had not much of either among them.
-- Benjamin Franklin quoted joseph Joseph Lewis, "Benjamin Franklin -- Freethinker"
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
-- Benjamin Franklin (source unknown
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My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ---Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860 |
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ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2002 : 15:38:48 [Permalink]
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Well, for starters we have this:
quote:
The Declaration of Independence appeals to God no less than three times. Four to those who can see His Name in the phrase "protection of divine providence". Five to those who can admit the phrase "created equal" means created by God, not evolved from chaos.
Funny, but neither my tired old eyes nor my word processor can find their five "appeals to God". What I can find are these:
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
Notice who gets top billing: the Laws of Nature. Jefferson is claiming that the right of the American people to a "separate and equal station" is supported by natural logic, and the reference to God is based on nature, not xtianity.
There's also this:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Inferring that this means that Jefferson meant "created by God, not evolved from chaos" demands a giant leap of logic that isn't supported by evidence. Jefferson declared himself Epicurean in philosophy and, in his edition of the Gospels, rejected miracles and mysticism in favor of Jesus as a moral philosopher. As to the views of the writer of the Declaration on supernaturalism, we have these:
"And 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 Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors."
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
"To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820
Obviously, he must have been a believer in the xtian creation myth.
If we count the boilerplate references in the final sentence of the Declaration, as your email does, we still come up short of the purported five appeals to God.
The bit about 97% of the founders being practicing xtians also smells mighty funny. I'd love to see proof of that statistic lest I classify it with the one about "9 out of 10 doctors" smoking Camels.
Confusing a cultural milieu in which the Bible, by virtue of its wide distribution and familiarity, was a handy teaching tool is like concluding that because Mark Twain used the image of "a roasting heat, a heat that would have pulled a remark of the Hebrew children" in Europe and Elsewhere he was necessarily a believer in a particular brand of xtianity.
Finally, the claims about the Declaration of Independence being attached to the Constitution look like low-grade sophistry. The Declaration is exactly what it appears to be- an explanation of why the Congress is declaring the colonies politically independent of England. The result was a collection of 13 sovereign, independent states, subsequently loosely bound by the Articles of Confederation. The true founding document of the USA as a single nation is the Constitution, which makes no reference whatsoever to God or Christianity. What it has to say about the place of religion in governance isn't calculated to warm the heart of a fundie theocracy buff:
"Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..."
A few links I've turned up about Jefferson's views on religion and politics:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7842/
This is worth exploring. A big site with a lot of material and some interesting discussions.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/alley_18_4.html
http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm
The last three relate specifically to the question of the USA as a "Christian" nation.
Hope that's helpful; I reckon that the more historically knowledgeable here will probably be adding sources about the views of other important founders.
Edit- someday I'll get the hang of forum code.
Ford, there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out.
Edited by - ktesibios on 07/02/2002 15:41:33 |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2002 : 15:50:17 [Permalink]
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And from the Adams Family we have...
"The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [Washington; Adams; Jefferson; Madison; Monroe; Adams; Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity....
Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism."
The Reverend Doctor Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, in a sermon preached in October, 1831
The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature.... [In] the formation of the American governments ... 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.... These governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.
John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1788,
When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.
-- John Adams, from Rufus K. Noyes, Views of Religion, quoted from from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief
There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel.... Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating the divine authority of those books?
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief
I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!
John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson,
The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.
-- Treaty of Tripoli (1797), the English version of which was carried unanimously by the Senate, signed into law by John Adams, and translated into Arabic (the original language is by Joel Barlow, U.S. Consul)
Like father like son.
"Some members of the organized church branded [John Quincy Adams] as an atheist."
-- John McCollister, like his father, J. Q. was a Unitarian, which, back then, meant the same thing as "Deist," quoted from the Joint Baptist Committee's pamphlet, "Critique of David Barton's 'America's Godly Heritage'"
Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right to religious freedom ... The tendency of the spirit of the age is strong toward religious liberty.
-- John Quincy Adams, letter to Richard Anderson, May 27, 1823
There is in the clergy of all Christian denominations a time-serving, cringing, subservient morality, as wide from the spirit of the gospel as it is from the intrepid assertion and vindication of truth.
-- John Quincy Adams, diary entry for May 27, 1838
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My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ---Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860 |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2002 : 20:39:31 [Permalink]
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quote:
Inferring that this means that Jefferson meant "created by God, not evolved from chaos" demands a giant leap of logic that isn't supported by evidence.
I was listening to a talk radio show the other day (Sean Hanity I think-that man is the biggest jerk in the world), anyway, a caller besides the 'endowed by their Creator' phrase also brought up 'on this day of our lord', saying if they didn't want religion in the government why did they have that.
I say, it's just the way they talked in those days and they didn't have a strong conection to a faith as some people want to make it sound.
For anyone who has not been to the AA web site or not on the God Buster group this was just posted there, if you're interested in signing a petition in support of Dr. Newdow:
http://www.atheists.org/action/newdowpetition.html
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*Carabao forever.
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Bye, bye Los Angeles. SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES.
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ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2002 : 23:23:01 [Permalink]
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Here's more on the religious attitudes of the founders:
"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because if there be one, He must approve the homage of Reason rather than that of blindfolded Fear." -- Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787
"I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth." -- Thomas Jefferson to William Short
"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has 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....
Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?...
What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy."
James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, To the Honorable Assembly of Virginia
Another couple of useful links:
http://www.monticello.org/resources/interests/religion.html
http://atheismawareness.home.att.net/questions/xian_nation.htm
Since I'm rambling, I might as well point out that the bit about ""created equal" means created by God, not evolved from chaos." is a marvelous example of false dilemma, as in 1776 the Beagle wasn't due to set sail for another 55 years and "On the Origin of Species" would not be published until 18 years after the voyage. Consequently there was no developed evolutionary theory for the writer of the Declaration to consider; consequent upon that the "created equal" phrase can't possibly be either a denigration of evolutionary theory nor an endorsement of the xtian creation myth.
By Revolutionary times science had begun considering the possibility of deducing the age of the Earth from physical principles. It's highly likely that at least the scientifically inclined Jefferson and the influential scientist Franklin were aware of Buffon's estimate based on the rate of cooling of heated iron spheres, which, although too small by several orders of magnitude, pushed the antiquity of the Earth far beyond the Biblically-based model. So far I haven't found anything about their opinions on this issue, but we have plenty of evidence that they weren't enamored of myth.
In "The Churching of America", professors Rodney Stark and Roger Fiske made the following estimate of church membership in America based on census data from colonial times to the present:
Church Membership in America:
1776......17% 1906......51%
1850......34% 1916......53%
1860......37% 1926......56%
1870......35% 1952......59%
1890......45% 1980......62%
1995......65%
That sure does make that "97% of the founding fathers were practicing Christians " bit look awfully fishy.
The quotes in the email are also fishy, taken out of their context and edited. You can find the Franklin citation in its entirety at:
http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/biography/app03.htm
An essay on education which speaks of a public religion in terms of its usefulness is a very different thing from a profession of faith on Franklin's part.
The Adams quote, and the correspondence with Thomas Paine which surrounded it can be found at:
http://www.deism.com/paine_essay08.htm
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason_letters.html
Oddly, this little gem from Paine's end doesn't get SPAMmed around very much:
"As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case."
"All things foul and ugly, All creatures short and squat. Putrid, foul and gangrenous, the Lord God made the lot." -Monty Python |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2002 : 23:58:50 [Permalink]
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quote:
"I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth." -- Thomas Jefferson to William Short
I'm not doubting your sincerity ktesibios, so with all due respect, that sounds like a line out of a modren day period movie.
I'm not saying it's not really what he said, I don't know, it just seems like strange dialog for the time.
Call me a skeptic, sorry!
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*Carabao forever.
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Bye, bye Los Angeles. SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES.
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ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2002 : 01:02:46 [Permalink]
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quote:
quote:
"I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth." -- Thomas Jefferson to William Short
I'm not doubting your sincerity ktesibios, so with all due respect, that sounds like a line out of a modren day period movie.
I'm not saying it's not really what he said, I don't know, it just seems like strange dialog for the time.
Call me a skeptic, sorry!
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*Carabao forever.
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Bye, bye Los Angeles. SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES.
Good intuition, Snake. My bad- I should have chased it back further. The version of the quote I found online attributed it to "Six Historic Americans", by John E. Remsburg.
Looking over the chapter on Jefferson in Remsburg's work, it turns out that the "I have examined...mythology" passage is attributed to a letter to a Dr. Woods, and is cited directly above the "millions of innocent...error" quote, which is attributed to "Notes on Virginia".
Above these two items Remsburg used a number of citations from a letter to William Short, which must be the source of the misattribution.
Hunting through the chapter on religion in "Notes on the State of Virginia", the complete quote is this:
"Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. 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."
Obviously one got concatenated to the other in my secondhand source. Why Remsburg left a sentence out of the middle of the "Virginia" passage he cited I have no idea.
That'll learn me to be more patient about tracing things back to their origin. And to be wary of works of advocacy irrespective of the view advocated.
BTW, I have to wonder how you picked up on that. Jefferson could be kind of melodramatic and could string a sentence out into an entire paragraph (as in the last paragraph of the Declaration) so what I originally found didn't set off any out-of-character warning bells for me. You must have a Hell of an ear for language.
"All things foul and ugly, All creatures short and squat. Putrid, foul and gangrenous, the Lord God made the lot." -Monty Python |
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dimossi
Skeptic Friend
USA
141 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2002 : 07:33:52 [Permalink]
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Thank you everyone for all the great input. I will respond to this guy accordingly.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." [Philip K. Dick, science-fiction author] |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2002 : 09:32:26 [Permalink]
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quote:
I will respond to this guy accordingly.
Be careful of Xian frauds. They like to misrepresent James Madison for some reason. For instance they will tell you he said, "Religion is the foundation of government."-- derived from "Memorial and Remonstrance"
This misquotation is floating around the Christian Religious Right. It is part of an attempt to promote the (false) notion that the United States has always been a Christian nation and that Founding Fathers of the United States were all pious Christians.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The busiest culprit in this scheme of history revisionism is David Barton of WallBuilders, Inc. It appears that this is his handy work.
Here is where he got the quote from. I'll bold the words taken out of context.
"SECTION 15, Because finally, "the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his religion according to the dictates of conscience" is held by the same tenure with all his other rights. If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature; if we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us; if we consider the "Declaration of those rights which pertain to the good people of Virginia, as the basis and foundation of government," it is enumerated with equal solemnity, or rather studied emphasis."
---James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, addressed to the Virginia General Assemby, June 20, 1785
So, Barton actually had to do some work to construct his "quote." This couldn't be an "honest" mistake.
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My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ---Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860 |
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