J_B wrote:Thomas wrote:... I mean, just look at Chai Tea, DrewDad, and the other Austinistas on A2K. Raving theocrats, all of them!
I don't know if any of them are Republicans.
Apparently, you also don't know I wasn't entirely seriousl.
Of course they're not Republicans.
J_B wrote: My main question then is whether Texan Republicans support thier party's platform.
As far as I could notice - scanning through a couple of blogs and Texas newspapers - yes, they do.
Interstestingly, the state<>church point has been covered more broadly outsite Texas - but nevertheless only a couple of weeks after it was published.
Like many other party programs, this one is a showbag of ideas as well, mostly, in my opinion.
Which is certainly biased because I can't believe that a lot of that could be even openly discussed here.
Quote:In our country, we recognize our fellow citizens are free to profess any faith they choose, or no faith at all. You are equally American if you're a Hebrew -- a Jew or a Christian or Muslim. You're equally American if you choose not to have faith. It is important America never forgets the great freedom to worship as you so choose.
I went through a coupla years of
these breakfast speeches, and he's been pretty consistent. Maybe he's not really from Texas?
(I did kind of wonder of Jew/Christian/Muslim as subsets of Hebrew, or maybe just bad speechwriting/reading)
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.
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.
Yes, it certainly SOUNDS like the Founding Fathers intended for America to be devoid of any mention of God or religion.
I don't know of anyone who has stated that the founders wanted the nation to be devoid of any mention of god or religion. The very specific point was to prevent religious particularism--the establishment of relgion.
At all events, your chronolgy is flawed. The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776. The amendments proposed to the Constitution were sent to the States by the First Congress in September, 1789. The First Amendment was ratified in December, 1791.
I have examined all the known superstitions of the World, 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 world . . . . The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind . . . to filch wealth and power to themselves. [They], in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.
Thomas Jefferson
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God.
Thomas Jefferson
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
Thomas Paine
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
Thomas Paine
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.
Thomas Paine
Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.
George Washington
. . . the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.
George Washington, 1789, responding to clergy complaints that the Constitution lacked mention of Jesus Christ
If they are good workmen, they may be from Asia, Africa or Europe; they may be Mahometans [Muslims, followers of the Prophet Mohammed], Jews, Christians of any sect, or they may be Atheists....
George Washington, to Tench Tighman, March 24, 1784, when asked what type of workman to get for Mount Vernon
. . . I beg you 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.
George Washington, to United Baptists Churches of Virginia, May, 1789
All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean [conduct] themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
George Washington
When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.
Benjamin Franklin
Some of the Founding Fathers were Christian, some Deists, some Unitarian, which at the time was still a Christian faith, possibly some atheists/agnostics. They most certainly did not prescribe to the premise of a Christian nation based on the laws of the Christian God. Even your preamble reference of Nature's God and their Creator gives more credence to a pantheistic philosophy than a Christian one.
J_B wrote:I have examined all the known superstitions of the World, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded on fables and mythology.
Thomas Jefferson
JB, sometime ago i exchanged email with the author of an article in American Atheist magazine that contained this quote. i asked him for a source, and he suggested "Franklin Steiner, Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents (1936)." (he hadn't actually read the book, he was citing another author who had cited the book.) anyway, i located Steiner's book but it did not provide any source for the quote, only that it was from a letter to Dr. Woods, but none of the letters to Dr. Woods from Jefferson i've looked over contain the quote. also, Steiner provided sources for other Jefferson quotes on religion, but not that one for some reason. so as far as i know, there's no evidence Jefferson actually wrote that.
still, he did write things like,
Quote:"The hocus pocus phantasm of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs."
Fedral wrote: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.
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.
Yes, it certainly SOUNDS like the Founding Fathers intended for America to be devoid of any mention of God or religion.
The quotation you have posted contains no specific statement about the role of religion in government, is not from the Constitution, and while it has immense cultural significance, has no legal status. The Constitution, on the other hand, explicitly orders that:
Quote:Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...
The law is clear. There shall be no government endorsement of religion. Whether the Founders were personally religious or not is irrelevant.
Hello, yitwail. I hope you are doing well.
The reference posted in a Wikipedia article for this quote
Quote:One of Jefferson's least well known writings is: "I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature.....Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make half the world fools and half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world"- Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia. [7]
Wiki source
7. ^ J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 533; see also Richard K. Matthews, The Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson, (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986), p. 17, 139n.16.
i'm good, j-b; thanks.
that quote is not in the Notes on the State of Virginia as wiki suggests. i searched the entire document here:
http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefVirg.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all
only the part following the ellipsis...
Quote: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.
is taken from the Notes.
i'll track down the works by Pocock & Matthews when i can, but for now i'm not convinced.
