Monday, January 23, 2012

To Those Who Insist That We Were Founded as a "Christian Nation"...

...you MUST have been asleep during your history and/or civics classes. Seriously!

The first clue that we were not founded as such is the First Amendment. Second is the Free Exercise Clause, which was written to accompany the First Amendment. Oh, and then there is the little law referred to as Article 11, The Treaty of Tripoli. (And to those who feel that their argument against this being proof that it was the forefathers intent simply because in the Arabic version the "non-Christian" nation part, it is in the English version which is the ONE they all received copies of, read and voted unanimously for. The "Arabic" side could care less what type of county we say we are. The most important part of the treaty to them is the "we promise not to attack you because of your religion" part. So yeah, they didn't say anything about 1797's version of a "typo". Looking for the loophole to prove you side of things is so teenager high school-ish.) With the exception of The Free Exercise Cause, these are actual LAWS written by the Founding Fathers. These weren't written later on. These weren't written as interpretation of what people thought the were the intention of the original laws that were written.

(Side note: I find it amusing that the same people that will poo-poo the First Amendment as proof that we are not in fact founded under "their" religious believes are the first ones to trot it out when they feel someone is trying to "silence" them. Just ask the Westboro Baptist Church. The hypocrisy is staggering.)

Don't believe that the Founding Fathers were passionate about the separation of Church & State. Maybe you should then take a gander at the works of Thomas Jefferson, (Hell the man coined the phrase "separation of Church & State".) or Thomas Paine, or Patrick Henry. Even George Washington, who was devoutly Christian, always spoke of respect for other religions in his public speeches and private letters. Benjamin Franklin, who was raised Puritan and espoused their virtues throughout his life, willingly admitted that he was not a churchgoer and followed the ways of the deist more than traditional Christianity.

The Founding Fathers lived under the rule of Great Britain before they called themselves Americans. They were citizens of a country that was under the rule of a person whose qualification to rule was determined by the parents he/she was born to and documents stating this was so by the word of God. The term of their rule was from the death of said parent to their own death, and their power was to rule their country AS WELL as the Church of England. (Also of note: the Church of England was the ONLY accepted religion in England at the time.) Despite their personal religion believes, (or maybe because of them), they knew and understood the need of keeping religion out of politics, and politics out of religion. Combining the two has served throughout history to be toxic. We should follow our forefather's lead.

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