An Editorial Comment From the Godless Left
John Smithson needs a history lesson. Declaration of Independence does not represent any LAW of the United States. It came before the establishment of our lawful government - the Constitution. The Constitution forms a secular document, and nowhere does it appeal to God, Christianity, Jesus, or any supreme being. Nowhere in the Constitution does it mention religion, except in exclusionary terms.
The Declaration says nothing about our rights secured by Christianity. The Declaration states: "Governments are instituted among men." The mentioning of God in the Declaration does not describe the God of Christianity. Thomas Jefferson who held deist beliefs, wrote the majority of the Declaration. The Declaration describes "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."
Further, Thomas Jefferson wrote in Declaration of Independence that the power of the government is derived from the governed. Up until that time, it was claimed that kings ruled nations by the authority of God. The Declaration was a radical departure from the idea of divine authority. NOTE: Thomas Jefferson's original wording for the Declaration was: "All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable." Congress changed that phrase, increasing its religious overtones: "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights", thinking that would make a more convincing argument to the king.
Saying America is a 'Christian nation' is like saying America is a 'white nation.' That is bigotted. True in terms of majorities, but not in terms of principles. America is a changing nation with a diverse population, not the same America that was founded by white European men who commited genocide against Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and denied women the right to vote.
Our founders, like many great intellectuals knew the population of the colonies was religious and would carefully speak with religious overtones in public speeches but their writings showed what they really believed. John Adams wrote, "The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity." Or as George Washington wrote, "Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause." Or as Jefferson wrote, ""We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication ." and... "No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever." etc... (and I could give you dozens more).
Albert Einstein, one of the most intelligent scientist in human history made a public statements in a symposium in 1941, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Yet in his private letters he wrote to Eric Gutkind in 1954, "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."
The American public is a religious society and extremely backward in scientific literacy. A majority of Americans believe humans were created by god in their present form sometime within the last 10,000 years - a view unchanged from the Dark Ages when most people thought the world was flat. Astonishing ignorance. Because of this, politicians and great public figures are not free to show doubt in religion for fear of condemnation and the majority KKKristians are emboldened to further their biggotry against all those who don't look or pray as they do.
A response from the editor, John Smithson:
Let’s begin with the false, notion that we are not a Christian nation. I do not make this claim on the grounds that today’s America is borne of the Christian Faith. Nor do I much care about the argument over Jefferson’s faith, or lack thereof. Rather, we can say that this is a Christian nation because 85% of its population claims that moniker.
Secondly, Athanasiius and Calvin were both misunderstood by Jefferson. This editor does not deny, however, that Jefferson was Deist. That is not to say that he did not believe in a creator God. In fact, he most certainly did and that is why he signed on to the addition of “endowed by their Creator” in the Declaration of Independence. You see, Jefferson believed in these words and this concept, that all men were created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is what he believed. The Constitution cannot be properly understood outside the context of the Declaration for it is the passion and content of the Declaration that gave birth to the Constitution.
William deals with a number of straw men in his argument, above, Einstein is one. Who in the world claims Einstein was a Christian believer ? No one. But why did he spend much of his time trying to come up with a “theory of everything?” Understand that the mathematics for quantum dynamics (the microscopic world) and the theory of relativity (big things like the Cosmos) are not only not the same, there is no transition from one mathematical process to the other. Einstein believed in a creator force that was other than the “big bang” fantasy of today’s scientific practitioners. Because he believed that all that exists in a this material world came from a the same originating source, he was convinced that there had to be a unifying formula bring quantum mathematics and relative theory together. Stephen Hawkins, an avowed atheist, holds the same opinion. Most of the scientific community sees the overwhelming logic of this position but has given up on the search for the TOE.
This editor believes that the TOE (Theory of Everything) is the mediation of Christ.
What is most disturbing, with the words of William, is his notion that the Constitution and the Founders believed in the exclusion of religion from the American political scene (understand that “political scene” and “political process” are two very different things) .
The Founders understood the difference between “freedom of religion” and “freedom from religion.” Folks like William do not share the same insight. Jefferson made this statement, timely and to the point of this discussion: “I consider religion a supplement to law in the government of men” (written to a Mr. Woodward, in 1824 ) In a letter written in 1802, Jefferson wrote of a “wall of separation between church and state. Two days after he sent his letter to the Danbury Baptists, then President Jefferson attended a public worship service in the US Capitol building, something he did with frequency throughout his term a president. He even went so far as to authorize the use of the War Office and the Treasury building for church services in Washington, D.C.
The First Amendment was never intended to be used to exclude religion from the public square. Christians and other people of faith should reject the current trend and fight the advancement of secularism on every turn. The First Amendment was written to prevent the establishment of a national religion by Congress and nothing more. Period.
William’s claim above, that “Nowhere in the Constitution does it mention religion, except in exclusionary terms“ is simply too broad based a view. The Constitution does not exclude religion, but provides for its unfettered continuation, free from any persecution the State might have in mind. That was the point of the First Amendment. William seems to think the First Amendment is all about establishing the religion of Secularism and ridding the socio/political scene of any Christian compromise. None of the Founders promoted such a view.
The anti-American tone of William's polemic is common to the godless Left. Who among us would defend slavery, or the mistreatment of the native population or the disgraceful acrimony against the African slave population? Morality rises out of a religious passion, not from a secular rationale and it was the morality of the day that defeated these atrocities. In fact, it was the secular rationale that led this nation away from fairness and the humane treatment of its various populations. It is religious passion and its related moral truth that has inspired us to [eventually] reject the inequities of the past.
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