6th
The Founding Fathers on the Cosmic Space Daddy
There is a ton of blather that comes out of the right wing of our country, and much of it drives me nuts, but nothing drives me crazier than hearing a Congressman from a district in the ass end of nowhere or some dick with a column in The Washington Times claim that “America is a Christian nation.”
They always point to that one line in the Declaration of Independence where Thomas Jefferson mentions the “Creator” as somehow proof that our whole national makeup is based on the New Testament. I always thought that the fact that he said “Creator” instead of “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Almighty, Forever and Ever Amen” simply underscored the point that religion is an aspect here in America rather than the only thing. It’s my opinion that TJ and the boys set it all up so that whatever your religion is, even if it’s none at all, you still have a say in what goes on.
Sure, there are a lot of Christians in America, but that doesn’t make America a “Christian Nation” anymore than Coca-Cola is a “Christian Beverage” or basketball is a “Christian Game.”
Seeing that this is the Fourth of July weekend, I thought I would produce some quotations from the Founding Fathers (you know, the guys on the money) regarding the Great Cosmic Space Daddy and his role in the day to day running of our nation.
George Washington, General of the Continental Army, 1st President of the United States:
“If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.”
-letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789
(It should be mentioned here that when he says “spiritual tyranny,” he’s talking about overzealous Christians. It wasn’t like America was under threat from the Islamic hordes in 1789.)
“We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition … In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.”
-letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793
“Among many other weighty objections to the Measure, it has been suggested, that it has a tendency to introduce religious disputes into the Army, which above all things should be avoided, and in many instances would compel men to a mode of Worship which they do not profess.”
-letter to John Hancock dated 1777, objecting to a motion in Congress that would appoint Chaplains to the Continental Army.
John Adams, 1st Vice President, 2nd President of the United States:
“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. 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, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”
-A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787
“God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.”
- What Great Men Think of Religion, Ira D. Cardiff
“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!”
-letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1816
Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence, 3rd President of the United States:
“But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
-Notes on Virginia, 1782
“Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.”
-letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”
-letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813
“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”
-letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”
-letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.”
-letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, July 30, 1816
Benjamin Franklin, Delegate from Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress, Co-Author of the Declaration of Independence:
“I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it.”
Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion, 1728
“Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.”
I could go on and on, but in the interest of saving space I can tell you that the Founding Fathers would have been start to finish HORRIFIED at the idea of politicians working on “claiming the culture for Christ.” They probably would have been equally pissed off about the insertion of “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Come to think it, they would have probably been horrified about the idea of a Pledge of Allegiance at all.
Where you spend your Sundays does not and should not matter. We are a nation of men and a nation of laws. These laws were created by men using reason and intellect. We are not a nation of divine truths handed down from the Cosmic Space Daddy. The fact that so many Americans claim to be Christians has a bit less than fuck all to do with what our country is supposed to be about.
Happy Fourth of July, y’all.
