Juan Cole makes a good find in his rebuttal of Sarah Palin’s ‘refudiate’ tweet in opposition to the building of a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center. He pulled up language from the Treaty of Tripoli which was unanimously ratified by the Senate in 1797 and signed by President John Adams.
“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 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.”
So, in 1797, the U.S. Senate was unanimous in its opinion that the “United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” I think that’s a remarkable thing. For proponents of ‘original intent’ it’s hard to do better than to get the unanimous opinion of U.S. Senate of the 5th Congress. Sen. Richard Stockton of New Jersey served in the 5th Congress and also signed the Declaration of Independence, as did President John Adams. Several more of the twenty-six member Senate
had served in the 1st Congress. I think they knew whereof they spoke.
Of course, most Americans of the time were either Christians or had been brought up in a Christian context. Many of the elites rejected the doctrines of the trinity (essentially, the idea that Jesus was more than a mere mortal) and many of the lower classes and the settlers of the frontier had no use for doctrine of any kind. But there were very few people who professed a religion other than Christianity or some offshoot like Deism or Unitarianism. Despite this, the early government did not place Christianity on a higher pedestal than Islam or Judaism or any other world religion. None of the first six presidents of the United States (Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, or John Quincy Adams) were communicants of any Christian Church. And the seventh, Andrew Jackson, didn’t become a communicant until a year after his presidency was over. It’s hard to say what the people believed, but their willingness to elect leaders who did not take communion is a sure sign that they had more religious tolerance than we do today and did not believe that the country was founded on Christian principles.
Try telling that to a Republican. See how Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin responds.
The USA was founded on the principle of religious freedom, but that has been contorted to being merely the freedom to be religious and to inflict your religion on others in the form of so called ethical or moral issues – like sexual morality, abortion, and willingness to allow the state to take on the Good Samaritan role.
The teabaggers are a regression, a looking inward to a past that never was and a future that never will be – no matter how many people they kill in trying to get their way. They are a measure of how far the USA has declined from its founding ideals.
I’ve given up telling people things they refuse to listen to.
They know better, they don’t believe me, I’m biased, they’ve done the research which shows I’m wrong (though if you ask them for it they tell you they’re too busy to show you where to look), ad nauseum.
They tell me, “Why don’t you Google it for yourself?”
That’s a common tactic:
Me: “Define socialism.”
Them: “I know what it means, why don’t you Google it yourself LOL!”
what researchers have recently discovered: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/?page=full
Blame the Whigs. They rode into politics on the back of the Second Great Awakening, bringing not just Henry Clay’s American System — federal infrastructure spending, encouragement of manufactures, banking and currency reform — but also a lot of religion-based social engineering, some good (Abolition), some bad (Prohibition), some with us till this day (moral panics, immigrant bashing.)
Like in the case of the NRA and the Second Amendment, the “Christian Nation” folks like to skip the first clause completely: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”
Seems pretty clear to me when you consider that the “establishment of religion” the founders had in mind was the Church of England, which was supported by tax money.
Of course, we support churches with tax money in a backhanded sort of way by classing them as tax-exempt non-profit institutions, which has resulted in lavish church buildings and highly paid preachers.
Really Excellent! I now have some ammunition to counter the guys at work who keep asserting that this country was founded as a Christian nation and the founding fathers were all church goers. I knew this wasn’t true of Thomas Jefferson and Ethan Allen, but this is a lot better.
BTW, I gave one of them Thom Hartmann’s, “What would Jefferson Do?” for Christmas a few years ago. He was surprised to get a present but never mentioned the book thereafter. Maybe I should buy a copy for myself.
Just ask to borrow it.