If your area is predominantly Islamic and the school with your religion is 1,000 miles away then it's not up to the govt. to make sure you have a short commute.
If you area is predominantly Islamic then, almost certainly, the persons paying for that school are Islamic and they should be able to have the courses taught that they want. It appears not only do liberals want a separation of church and state but a separation of community from the government.
No, sorry I should have clairified it better. You asked hw do you distribute the money fairly between Buddhists, Christians etc etc. If we are talking about how to fund private relgious schools without making one more advantaged I say use the same per pupil funding per student. So lets say you have P.S #31 and Our Lady of Guadelupe grade school. And say The Jesuit center for learning etc etc. If the per pupil funding in the district the school resides in is say 8,000 per kid that's what the private schools get or a portion or percentage of that number, say half as an example. That way reguardless of the religious affiliation of the private school it's equal.
"It appears not only do liberals want a separation of church and state but a separation of community from the government."
Seperation of community from the Govt.? That is not possible.. Here the Govt is the Community.. I mean look.. President Bush was screwing drunk in Texas one day.. and today he the President...
". Give the money to the parents so they can the education for their child that they want. "
I have a better Idea.. Why take the money from Parents and try to distrubte the funds and get into all these hazzles... Why not NOT collect these funds in the first place and leave it to the parents.
I have a buddy who works with me.. He must make around $140K a year.. He told me he pays about 5K for taxes every year.. The sneeky SOB pays less than 3% of his income for Federal Taxes.. He has 5 kids...
There is another single dude who pays around 30K as taxes making less money than that... I mean if that is not robbing Paul to pay peter.. come on what is. These dang socialists.. I tell you...
Get rid of the Public school system alltogether than you can have all the choises you want.
Otherwise.. No dice.
I don't want a single dime of mine going to an Islamic or a black Buddist school.
If your co-worker is making that much and paying that little in federal taxes even with 5 kids he's breaking the law. The child tax credit is only 500 per child. That means his income after deductions would have to be reported at around $4,200.oo
I don't want a single dime of mine going to an Islamic or a black Buddist school.
What if there are a 1000 Islamic schools and only 5 Buddist schools in the state?
Wouldn't the religion of Islam get the predominant amount... as it is, these Predominant relgion is rich enough for them to go to other countries and create mischief....
What primitive idea this evangalism is.. Even the Buddist have given up on Evangalism. Only the two most Primitive religion does that still.. Islam and Christianity. ( BTW.. Sorry for that interruption)
Now both of them are trying in multitude of ways to bring in their religion to the govt.. wherever they are the majority.. Whereever they are a minority.. they are all for Secular Liberal Ideas. cheeky bastards. ;).
What if there are a 1000 Islamic schools and only 5 Buddist schools in the state?
Then it's up to the buddist's to open more schools if they want.
Wouldn't the religion of Islam get the predominant amount... as it is, these Predominant relgion is rich enough for them to go to other countries and create mischief....
No they'd get an equal amount based on the students they have enrolled in their schools, as I said if they want more buddist schools they are free to open them.
If schools were completly nuetral when it comes to moral values or whose are being taught then it wouldn't be nessecary. They're not nuetral, that's the problem. Stick to actual learning instead of trying to indoctrinate kids.
"If schools were completly nuetral when it comes to moral values or whose are being taught then it wouldn't be nessecary. They're not nuetral, that's the problem. Stick to actual learning instead of trying to indoctrinate kids. "
Thats something I can agree one...
But wouldn't you think that if there were any aberations, it would be much easier to fix that.. than the other option that we have been talking about?
You very well know the Predominant religion here... and which religion will come out on top.. The Founding fathers also knew what religion was predominant and they could have very easily settled it by mentioning something to that affect in the Consitution.. I mean , come on.. There were plent of states that allready had this in their State Constiution.
The founding fathers were dang Liberals... Who followed Liberal Philosephers like Thomas Paine ande John Locke instead of the Conservative Philosphers like Edmound Burke.. and made this country a SECULAR COUNTRY.
That has been etched in the Constitution.... Well , I do admit , its not etched in stone... But the conservatives would have to tear up the Constitution slowly over a period of time.... It can happen.. There is always Hope.
Seperation of community from the Govt.? That is not possible.. Oh it is possible. And the march toward that liberal goal goes on. All you have to do is lok at a few Supreme Court decisons.
The founding fathers were dang Liberals... Who followed Liberal Philosephers like Thomas Paine ande John Locke instead of the Conservative Philosphers like Edmound Burke.. and made this country a SECULAR COUNTRY.
No. At most, and that is giving the idea all the benefit of any doubt, they intended a secular federal government.
"Oh it is possible. And the march toward that liberal goal goes on. All you have to do is lok at a few Supreme Court decisons. "
I am afraid that debate is about 235 years too late...(That has been accomplished allready. Read the constitution) for that...
Moreover, Isn't the court dominated by the Conservatives? .. See.. even if you have 9 conservatives like Robert Bork on the Supremet court (the fool IMO). They can bend it a little for a while but they can't take away the Liberal Constiution.
"No. At most, and that is giving the idea all the benefit of any doubt, they intended a secular federal government. "
So, why bitch and harp about the relgion being kept out of school and bring prayer back to school.... give it up.. Its no use.. even if you sneek in some conservative Justices to the bench...
ain't gonna happen..
I also don't understand the Paranoia of the Left... Dang.. Let the Conservetives be...
I do realize the Majority of the Populous in this country are conservatives in General... atleast compared to the Europeans. But the Constitution is pretty Liberal... It doesn't distinguish between Gays and Hetrosexual.. It does not favor Islam at the expense of the other poor minority religion like the Luthren... It says all are created equal.... and all such liberal ideas are in it......
He got you there pretty good you know...and you knew it.
You seem to restort to Ad Hominem whenever you seem to lose an arguement.
Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."
An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:
Person A makes claim X. Person B makes an attack on person A. Therefore A's claim is false. The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).
Example of Ad Hominem
Bill: "I believe that abortion is morally wrong." Dave: "Of course you would say that, you're a priest." Bill: "What about the arguments I gave to support my position?" Dave: "Those don't count. Like I said, you're a priest, so you have to say that abortion is wrong. Further, you are just a lackey to the Pope, so I can't believe what you say."
I haven't lost anything M&M. The fact is the US Supreme Court didn't decide the election of 2000. The voters did. What the Supreme Court did was stop fraud. The "recount" was not a recount at all. What it was was several people attempting to determine the intent of voters who f****** up their ballots. What was eally happening was that the viewers were voting in the place of those ignorant souls that couldn't cast a ballot.
But if they were really leftist liberals, they would have helped Al Gore there.. No? Its either that or the Liberals are fair.. Tell me, which one is it.
PS: BTW. That Ad Hominem thingi.. Just to set the record straight, I resort to that occasionally too...
But if they were really leftist liberals, they would have helped Al Gore there.. No? Its either that or the Liberals are fair.. Tell me, which one is it.
As you can the extreme liberals on the Court Stevens, Breyer and Ginsburg thought that vote fraud was okay. They did their best to help Al Gore as did Souter who believed, apparently, that there was a way to resolve the problem. I am not exactly how that would have been done. M&M you appear to mixing my posts and attempting to attribute things to me that I have never written. My previous posts were directed at past liberal courts from predating Warren and proceeding through the Burger Courts. The current Court, while not conservative, leans slightly towards the right. It is the prior Courts that did the real damage.
I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow; I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment; but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor. (Thomas Jefferson, notes for a speech, c. 1776. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 498.)
Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible to restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; ... that our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; ... that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy [sic], which at once destroys all religious liberty ... ; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities ... (Thomas Jefferson, "Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia," 1779; those parts shown above in italics were, according to Edwin S. Gaustad, written by Jefferson but not included in the statute as passed by the General Assembly of Virginia. The bill became law on January 16, 1786. From Edwin S. Gaustad, ed., A Documentary History of Religion in America, Vol. I (To the Civil War), Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982, pp. 259-261. Jefferson was prouder of having written this bill than of being the third President or of such history-making accomplishments as the Louisiana Purchase. He wrote, as his own full epitaph, "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, And Father of the University of Virginia.")
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.
(Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 363.)
No man complains of his neighbor for ill management of his affairs, for an error in sowing his land, or marrying his daughter, for consuming his substance in taverns ... in all these he has liberty; but if he does not frequent the church, or then conform in ceremonies, there is an immediate uproar. - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 364.)
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression. (Thomas Jefferson, "First Inaugural Address," March 4, 1801; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 364.)
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state"- (Thomas Jefferson, as President, in a letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 369)
In every country and 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. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes. (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio Spofford, 1814; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 371)
... If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814. From Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 358.)
He [Jefferson] rejoiced with John Adams when the Congregational church was finally disestablished in Connecticut in 1818; welcoming "the resurrection of Connecticut to light and liberty, Jefferson congratulated Adams "that this den of priesthood is at length broken up, and that a protestant popedom is no longer to disgrace American history and character." (Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 49.)
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a Virgin Mary, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.... But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away [with] all this artificial scaffolding. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 11 April 1823, as quoted by E. S. Gaustad, "Religion," in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986, p. 287.)
A final example of Jefferson's separationism may be drawn from his founding of the University of Virginia in the last years of his life. Prepared to transform the College of William and Mary into the principal university of the state, Jefferson would do so only if the college divested itself of all ties with sectarian religion--that is, with its old Anglicanism now represented by the Protestant Episcopal Church. The college declined to make that break with its past, and Jefferson proceeded with plans for his own university well to the west of Anglican-dominated tidewater Virginia. In Charlottesville this new school ("broad & liberal & modern," as Jefferson envisioned it in a letter to [Joseph] Priestly of 18 January 1800) opened in 1825 with professorships in languages and law, natural and moral philosophy, history and mathematics, but not in divinity. In Jefferson's view, as reported in Robert Healey's Jefferson on Religion in Public Education, not only did Virginia's laws prohibit such favoritism (for divinity or theology was inevitably sectarian), but high-quality education was not well served by those who preferred mystery to morals and divisive dogma to the unities of science. Too great a devotion to doctrine can drive men mad; if it does not have that tragic effect, it at least guarantees that a man's education will be mediocre. What is really significant in religion, its moral content, would be taught at the University of Virginia, but in philosophy, not divinity. If Almighty God has made the mind free, one of the ways to keep it free is to protect young minds from the clouded convolutions of theologians. Jefferson wanted education separated from religion because of his own conclusions concerning the nature of religion, its strengths and its weaknesses, its dark past and its possibly brighter future. (E. S. Gaustad, "Religion," in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986, pp. 282-283.)
Moving well beyond the traditional deistic triad of God, freedom, and immortality, Jefferson revealed his strongest feelings and convictions with regard to the ecclesiastics. On two counts he found them critically deficient. In the realm of politics and power, they were tyrannical; in the realm of theology and truth, they were perverse. Jefferson's strongest language is reserved for those clergy who, as he said in a letter to Moses Robinson of 23 March 1801, "had got a smell of union between church and state" and would impede the advance of liberty and science. Such clergy, whether in America or abroad, have so adulterated religion that it has become "a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves" and a means of grasping "impious heresies, in order to force them down [men's] throats" (letter to Samuel Kercheval, 19 January 1810). In his old age, Jefferson softened his invective not one whit: "The Presbyterian clergy are the loudest, the most intolerant of all sects, the most tyrannical and ambitious, ready at the word of the lawgiver, if such a word could be obtained, to put the torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere, the flames in which their oracle Calvin consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not find in his Euclid the proposition which has demonstrated that three are one, and one is three." And if they cannot revive the holy inquisition of the Middle Ages, they will seek to mobilize the inquisition of public opinion, "that lord of the Universe" (letter to William Short, 13 April 1820). Jefferson, the enemy of all arbitrary and capricious power, found that which was clothed in the ceremonial garb of religion to be particularly despicable. Even more disturbing to Jefferson was the priestly perversion of simple truths. If "in this virgin hemisphere" it was no longer possible to burn men's bodies, it was still possible to stunt their minds. In the "revolution of 1800" that saw Jefferson's election to the presidency, the candidate wrote to his good friend Rush that while his views would please deists and rational Christians, they would never please that "irritable tribe of priests" who still hoped for government sanction and support. Nor would his election please them, "especially the Episcopalians and the Congregationalists." They fear that I will oppose their schemes of establishment. "And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" (23 September 1800). It was this aspect of establishment that Jefferson most dreaded and most relentlessly opposed--not just the power, profit, and corruption that invariably accompanied state-sanctioned ecclesiasticism but the theological distortion and intellectual absurdity that passed for reason and good sense. We must not be held captive to "the Platonic mysticisms" or to the "gossamer fabrics of factitious religion." Nor must we ever again be required to confess that which mankind did not and could not comprehend, "for I suppose belief to be the assent of the mind to an intelligible proposition" (letter to John Adams, 22 August 1813). (E. S. Gaustad, "Religion," in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986, p. 291.)
To conclude this discussion of the religious clauses of the First Amendment, let's talk some more about Thomas Jefferson and his "wall." Some TV preachers, as well as writers, politicians, and, worst of all, Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, have sought to pull down the wall by disparaging Jefferson's influence on the First Amendment. A popular bit of historical revisionism that floats around these days goes something like this: Jefferson served as ambassador to France during the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He had no hand in their preparation and passage because he was out of the country. Therefore, his metaphor about the "wall of separation" is misplaced and ill-informed because he was living in France and was out of touch. Tommyrot! Thomas Jefferson was James Madison's mentor. Madison as the chief architect of both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights drew heavily from Jefferson's ideas and kept in regular contact with his fellow Virginian even though the latter lived in France. Volumes of correspondence exist between the two men as they discussed the day's crucial events. Jefferson understood that the First Amendment created a separation between church and state because he, more than most of the Founders, gave form and substance to the nation's understanding of how the two institutions should best relate in the new nation. Some politicians, lawyers, and preachers subject us to mental cruelty when they disparage Jefferson's interpretation simply because he lived in France during the years of the Constitution's framing. (Robert L. Maddox, Baptist minister and speech writer and religious liaison for President Jimmy Carter, Separation of Church and State: Guarantor of Religious Freedom, New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1987, pp. 67-68.)
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize [sic], every expanded prospect. (James Madison, in a letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774, as quoted by Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 37.)
Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions may establish, with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute threepence only of his property for the support of any one establishment may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever? (James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance," addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: The Citadel Press, pp. 459-460. According to Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, pp. 39 ff., Madison's "Remonstrance" was instrumental in blocking the multiple establishment of all denominations of Christianity in Virginia.)
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents. (James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, October 17, 1788; from Michael Kammen, The Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History, 1986, pp. 369-370. )
The following year [1784], when asking Tench Tilghman to secure a carpenter and a bricklayer for his Mount Vernon estate, he [Washington] remarked: "If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mohometans, Jews or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists." As he told a Mennonite minister who sought refuge in the United States after the Revolution: "I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong...." He was, as John Bell pointed out in 1779, "a total stranger to religious prejudices, which have so often excited Christians of one denomination to cut the throats of those of another." (Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion, Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, p. 118. According to Boller, Washington wrote his remarks to Tilghman in a letter dated March 24, 1784; his remarks to the Mennonite--Francis Adrian Van der Kemp--were in a letter dated May 28, 1788.)
In the 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. (George Washington, letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793. Quoted in Richard B. Morris, Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries, Harper & Row, 1973, p. 269.)
Unlike Thomas Jefferson--and Thomas Paine, for that matter--Washington never even got around to recording his belief that Christ was a great ethical teacher. His reticence on the subject was truly remarkable. Washington frequently alluded to Providence in his private correspondence. But the name of Christ, in any correspondence whatsoever, does not appear anywhere in his many letters to friends and associates throughout his life. (Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion, Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, pp. 74-75.)
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.... (John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" [1787-1788]; from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 258.)
Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind. (John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" [1787-1788]; from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 258.)
Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and Dogmatism cannot confine it. (John Adams, letter to John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816. From Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 88.)
I am fully of your Opinion respecting religious Tests; but, tho' the People of Massachusetts have not in their new Constitution kept quite clear of them, yet, if we consider what that People were 100 Years ago, we must allow they have gone great Lengths in Liberality of Sentiment on religious Subjects; and we may hope for greater Degrees of Perfection, when their Constitution, some years hence, shall be revised. If Christian Preachers had continued to teach as Christ and his Apostles did, without Salaries, and as the Quakers now do, I imagine Tests would never have existed; for I think they were invented, not so much to secure Religion itself, as the Emoluments of it. 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, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one. (Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American statesman, diplomat, scientist, and printer, from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780; from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 93.)
[Benjamin] Franklin drank deep of the Protestant ethic and then, discomforted by church constraints, became a freethinker. All his life he kept Sundays free for reading, but would visit any church to hear a great speaker, no doubt recognizing a talent he himself did not possess. With typical honesty and humor he wrote out his creed in 1790, the year he died: "I believe in one God, Creator of the universe.... That the most acceptable service we can render Him is doing good to His other children.... As to Jesus ... I have ... some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble." (Alice J. Hall, "Philosopher of Dissent: Benj. Franklin," National Geographic, Vol. 148, No. 1, July, 1975, p. 94.)
is the Latin motto on the face of the Great Seal of the United States; .... This phrase means one out of the many. It refers to the creation of one nation, the United States, out of 13 colonies. It is equally appropriate to today's federal system. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, members of the first committee for the selection of the seal, suggested the motto in 1776. It can be traced back to Horace's Epistles [65-8 BCE]. Since 1873, the law requires that this motto appear on one side of every United States coin that is minted. (Donald H. Mugridge,World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 6 (E), Chicago: Field Enterprises Educational Corporation, 1976, p.2. "E Pluribus Unum" has appeared on most U. S. coins, beginning in the late 1790s. The motto "In God We Trust" did not appear on any U. S. coin until 1864, when "Its presence on the new coin was due largely to the increased religious sentiment during the Civil War Crisis," according to R. S. Yeoman, A Guide Book of United States Coins, 38th ed., Racine, Wisc.: Western Publishing Co., p. 89. The religious motto did not appear regularly on U. S. paper money until the 1950s.)
One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian. (Mortimer Adler, 1902- , American philosopher and educator, ed. "Chapter 22: Religion and Religious Groups in America," The Annals of America: Great Issues in American Life, Vol. II, Chicago: Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1968, p. 420.)
If we're talking schools it's easy, give them the same per-student funding you do in their local district. That way it's the same for everyone.
Luv2Fly 1/22/03 9:40am
give to whom?
If you mean like the school district.. Isn't that what they have been doing.. The Public school System? ...
All kids going to Public shool gets the money... without regards to Relgion...
If your area is predominantly Islamic and the school with your religion is 1,000 miles away then it's not up to the govt. to make sure you have a short commute.
If you area is predominantly Islamic then, almost certainly, the persons paying for that school are Islamic and they should be able to have the courses taught that they want. It appears not only do liberals want a separation of church and state but a separation of community from the government.
Leave the Public school alone.
No dismatle them. Give the money to the parents so they can the education for their child that they want.
Frank Abagnale M&M 1/22/03 9:45am
No, sorry I should have clairified it better. You asked hw do you distribute the money fairly between Buddhists, Christians etc etc. If we are talking about how to fund private relgious schools without making one more advantaged I say use the same per pupil funding per student. So lets say you have P.S #31 and Our Lady of Guadelupe grade school. And say The Jesuit center for learning etc etc. If the per pupil funding in the district the school resides in is say 8,000 per kid that's what the private schools get or a portion or percentage of that number, say half as an example. That way reguardless of the religious affiliation of the private school it's equal.
"It appears not only do liberals want a separation of church and state but a separation of community from the government."
Seperation of community from the Govt.? That is not possible.. Here the Govt is the Community.. I mean look.. President Bush was screwing drunk in Texas one day.. and today he the President...
". Give the money to the parents so they can the education for their child that they want. "
I have a better Idea.. Why take the money from Parents and try to distrubte the funds and get into all these hazzles... Why not NOT collect these funds in the first place and leave it to the parents.
I have a buddy who works with me.. He must make around $140K a year.. He told me he pays about 5K for taxes every year.. The sneeky SOB pays less than 3% of his income for Federal Taxes.. He has 5 kids...
There is another single dude who pays around 30K as taxes making less money than that... I mean if that is not robbing Paul to pay peter.. come on what is. These dang socialists.. I tell you...
Get rid of the Public school system alltogether than you can have all the choises you want.
Otherwise.. No dice.
I don't want a single dime of mine going to an Islamic or a black Buddist school.
No Freakin way.
If your co-worker is making that much and paying that little in federal taxes even with 5 kids he's breaking the law. The child tax credit is only 500 per child. That means his income after deductions would have to be reported at around $4,200.oo
Hmmm, interesting.
Luv2Fly 1/22/03 9:57am
What if there are a 1000 Islamic schools and only 5 Buddist schools in the state?
Wouldn't the religion of Islam get the predominant amount... as it is, these Predominant relgion is rich enough for them to go to other countries and create mischief....
What primitive idea this evangalism is.. Even the Buddist have given up on Evangalism. Only the two most Primitive religion does that still.. Islam and Christianity. ( BTW.. Sorry for that interruption)
Now both of them are trying in multitude of ways to bring in their religion to the govt.. wherever they are the majority.. Whereever they are a minority.. they are all for Secular Liberal Ideas. cheeky bastards. ;).
Luv2Fly 1/22/03 10:10am
thats what I thought too.. I pressed him on it.. He is a pretty clean dude.. but a Sharp MBA Finance. He must have something up his sleeve...
I wish I could see his tax returns and learn from it..
LOL :)
Then it's up to the buddist's to open more schools if they want.
No they'd get an equal amount based on the students they have
enrolled in their schools, as I said if they want more buddist schools they are free to open them.
If schools were completly nuetral when it comes to moral values or whose are being taught then it wouldn't be nessecary. They're not nuetral, that's the problem. Stick to actual learning instead of trying to indoctrinate kids.
"If schools were completly nuetral when it comes to moral values or whose are being taught then it wouldn't be nessecary. They're not nuetral, that's the problem. Stick to actual learning instead of trying to indoctrinate kids. "
Thats something I can agree one...
But wouldn't you think that if there were any aberations, it would be much easier to fix that.. than the other option that we have been talking about?
You very well know the Predominant religion here... and which religion will come out on top.. The Founding fathers also knew what religion was predominant and they could have very easily settled it by mentioning something to that affect in the Consitution.. I mean , come on.. There were plent of states that allready had this in their State Constiution.
The founding fathers were dang Liberals... Who followed Liberal Philosephers like Thomas Paine ande John Locke instead of the Conservative Philosphers like Edmound Burke.. and made this country a SECULAR COUNTRY.
That has been etched in the Constitution.... Well , I do admit , its not etched in stone... But the conservatives would have to tear up the Constitution slowly over a period of time.... It can happen.. There is always Hope.
:)
Seperation of community from the Govt.? That is not possible.. Oh it is possible. And the march toward that liberal goal goes on. All you have to do is lok at a few Supreme Court decisons.
The founding fathers were dang Liberals... Who followed Liberal Philosephers like Thomas Paine ande John Locke instead of the Conservative Philosphers like Edmound Burke.. and made this country a SECULAR COUNTRY.
No. At most, and that is giving the idea all the benefit of any doubt, they intended a secular federal government.
"Oh it is possible. And the march toward that liberal goal goes on. All you have to do is lok at a few Supreme Court decisons. "
I am afraid that debate is about 235 years too late...(That has been accomplished allready. Read the constitution) for that...
Moreover, Isn't the court dominated by the Conservatives? .. See.. even if you have 9 conservatives like Robert Bork on the Supremet court (the fool IMO). They can bend it a little for a while but they can't take away the Liberal Constiution.
"No. At most, and that is giving the idea all the benefit of any doubt, they intended a secular federal government. "
So, why bitch and harp about the relgion being kept out of school and bring prayer back to school.... give it up.. Its no use.. even if you sneek in some conservative Justices to the bench...
ain't gonna happen..
I also don't understand the Paranoia of the Left... Dang.. Let the Conservetives be...
I do realize the Majority of the Populous in this country are conservatives in General... atleast compared to the Europeans. But the Constitution is pretty Liberal... It doesn't distinguish between Gays and Hetrosexual.. It does not favor Islam at the expense of the other poor minority religion like the Luthren... It says all are created equal.... and all such liberal ideas are in it......
Because it was never supposed to be the federal government's concern.
Because it was never supposed to be the federal government's concern.
True.. But is the govt's job to protect the minority relgious folks from being over run by the Majority relgious folks.. Tyranny.
Thats what you want isn't it.. come out and say it.
You want the Islamic Hadiths displayed in most of the schools and courts and other public offices.
You want Islamic prayers in schools.. So your children can feel in public places as comfortable as they are in their own private life.
All because "we Islamists" are more in numbers... than the black buddists....or the Chritian minorities...
Man, when you Islamists have a majority in a country, you sure want to assert your religious views on everyone else...
Thank God and his son Jesus of Nazerath (sp?) for our "LIBERAL" Constitution.
;)
You don't have a clue what I want.
fold, it is obvious with almost every one of your posts that you can not deal with reality and intentionally believe things that are not true.
'Bill - Fold' 1/23/03 5:38am
ROFLMAO...
:)
jethro bodine 1/23/03 7:06am
He got you there pretty good you know...and you knew it.
You seem to restort to Ad Hominem whenever you seem to lose an arguement.
Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."
An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:
Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on person A.
Therefore A's claim is false.
The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).
Example of Ad Hominem
Bill: "I believe that abortion is morally wrong."
Dave: "Of course you would say that, you're a priest."
Bill: "What about the arguments I gave to support my position?"
Dave: "Those don't count. Like I said, you're a priest, so you have to say that abortion is wrong. Further, you are just a lackey to the Pope, so I can't believe what you say."
I haven't lost anything M&M. The fact is the US Supreme Court didn't decide the election of 2000. The voters did. What the Supreme Court did was stop fraud. The "recount" was not a recount at all. What it was was several people attempting to determine the intent of voters who f****** up their ballots. What was eally happening was that the viewers were voting in the place of those ignorant souls that couldn't cast a ballot.
jethro bodine 1/23/03 7:49am
But if they were really leftist liberals, they would have helped Al Gore there.. No? Its either that or the Liberals are fair.. Tell me, which one is it.
PS: BTW. That Ad Hominem thingi.. Just to set the record straight, I resort to that occasionally too...
But if they were really leftist liberals, they would have helped Al Gore there.. No? Its either that or the Liberals are fair.. Tell me, which one is it.
The liberals did try to help out. Here it is: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=00-949
As you can the extreme liberals on the Court Stevens, Breyer and Ginsburg thought that vote fraud was okay. They did their best to help Al Gore as did Souter who believed, apparently, that there was a way to resolve the problem. I am not exactly how that would have been done. M&M you appear to mixing my posts and attempting to attribute things to me that I have never written. My previous posts were directed at past liberal courts from predating Warren and proceeding through the Burger Courts. The current Court, while not conservative, leans slightly towards the right. It is the prior Courts that did the real damage.
One thing that you are not is funny, fold.
Such an interesting discussion...wish I knew about it before..
I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow; I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment; but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor. (Thomas Jefferson, notes for a speech, c. 1776. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 498.)
Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible to restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; ... that our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; ... that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy [sic], which at once destroys all religious liberty ... ; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities ... (Thomas Jefferson, "Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia," 1779; those parts shown above in italics were, according to Edwin S. Gaustad, written by Jefferson but not included in the statute as passed by the General Assembly of Virginia. The bill became law on January 16, 1786. From Edwin S. Gaustad, ed., A Documentary History of Religion in America, Vol. I (To the Civil War), Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982, pp. 259-261. Jefferson was prouder of having written this bill than of being the third President or of such history-making accomplishments as the Louisiana Purchase. He wrote, as his own full epitaph, "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, And Father of the University of Virginia.")
(Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 363)
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.
(Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 363.)
No man complains of his neighbor for ill management of his affairs, for an error in sowing his land, or marrying his daughter, for consuming his substance in taverns ... in all these he has liberty; but if he does not frequent the church, or then conform in ceremonies, there is an immediate uproar. - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 364.)
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression. (Thomas Jefferson, "First Inaugural Address," March 4, 1801; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 364.)
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state"- (Thomas Jefferson, as President, in a letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 369)
In every country and 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. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes. (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio Spofford, 1814; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 371)
... If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814. From Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 358.)
He [Jefferson] rejoiced with John Adams when the Congregational church was finally disestablished in Connecticut in 1818; welcoming "the resurrection of Connecticut to light and liberty, Jefferson congratulated Adams "that this den of priesthood is at length broken up, and that a protestant popedom is no longer to disgrace American history and character." (Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 49.)
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a Virgin Mary, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.... But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away [with] all this artificial scaffolding. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 11 April 1823, as quoted by E. S. Gaustad, "Religion," in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986, p. 287.)
A final example of Jefferson's separationism may be drawn from his founding of the University of Virginia in the last years of his life. Prepared to transform the College of William and Mary into the principal university of the state, Jefferson would do so only if the college divested itself of all ties with sectarian religion--that is, with its old Anglicanism now represented by the Protestant Episcopal Church. The college declined to make that break with its past, and Jefferson proceeded with plans for his own university well to the west of Anglican-dominated tidewater Virginia. In Charlottesville this new school ("broad & liberal & modern," as Jefferson envisioned it in a letter to [Joseph] Priestly of 18 January 1800) opened in 1825 with professorships in languages and law, natural and moral philosophy, history and mathematics, but not in divinity. In Jefferson's view, as reported in Robert Healey's Jefferson on Religion in Public Education, not only did Virginia's laws prohibit such favoritism (for divinity or theology was inevitably sectarian), but high-quality education was not well served by those who preferred mystery to morals and divisive dogma to the unities of science. Too great a devotion to doctrine can drive men mad; if it does not have that tragic effect, it at least guarantees that a man's education will be mediocre. What is really significant in religion, its moral content, would be taught at the University of Virginia, but in philosophy, not divinity. If Almighty God has made the mind free, one of the ways to keep it free is to protect young minds from the clouded convolutions of theologians. Jefferson wanted education separated from religion because of his own conclusions concerning the nature of religion, its strengths and its weaknesses, its dark past and its possibly brighter future. (E. S. Gaustad, "Religion," in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986, pp. 282-283.)
Moving well beyond the traditional deistic triad of God, freedom, and immortality, Jefferson revealed his strongest feelings and convictions with regard to the ecclesiastics. On two counts he found them critically deficient. In the realm of politics and power, they were tyrannical; in the realm of theology and truth, they were perverse. Jefferson's strongest language is reserved for those clergy who, as he said in a letter to Moses Robinson of 23 March 1801, "had got a smell of union between church and state" and would impede the advance of liberty and science. Such clergy, whether in America or abroad, have so adulterated religion that it has become "a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves" and a means of grasping "impious heresies, in order to force them down [men's] throats" (letter to Samuel Kercheval, 19 January 1810). In his old age, Jefferson softened his invective not one whit: "The Presbyterian clergy are the loudest, the most intolerant of all sects, the most tyrannical and ambitious, ready at the word of the lawgiver, if such a word could be obtained, to put the torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere, the flames in which their oracle Calvin consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not find in his Euclid the proposition which has demonstrated that three are one, and one is three." And if they cannot revive the holy inquisition of the Middle Ages, they will seek to mobilize the inquisition of public opinion, "that lord of the Universe" (letter to William Short, 13 April 1820). Jefferson, the enemy of all arbitrary and capricious power, found that which was clothed in the ceremonial garb of religion to be particularly despicable. Even more disturbing to Jefferson was the priestly perversion of simple truths. If "in this virgin hemisphere" it was no longer possible to burn men's bodies, it was still possible to stunt their minds. In the "revolution of 1800" that saw Jefferson's election to the presidency, the candidate wrote to his good friend Rush that while his views would please deists and rational Christians, they would never please that "irritable tribe of priests" who still hoped for government sanction and support. Nor would his election please them, "especially the Episcopalians and the Congregationalists." They fear that I will oppose their schemes of establishment. "And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" (23 September 1800). It was this aspect of establishment that Jefferson most dreaded and most relentlessly opposed--not just the power, profit, and corruption that invariably accompanied state-sanctioned ecclesiasticism but the theological distortion and intellectual absurdity that passed for reason and good sense. We must not be held captive to "the Platonic mysticisms" or to the "gossamer fabrics of factitious religion." Nor must we ever again be required to confess that which mankind did not and could not comprehend, "for I suppose belief to be the assent of the mind to an intelligible proposition" (letter to John Adams, 22 August 1813). (E. S. Gaustad, "Religion," in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986, p. 291.)
To conclude this discussion of the religious clauses of the First Amendment, let's talk some more about Thomas Jefferson and his "wall." Some TV preachers, as well as writers, politicians, and, worst of all, Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, have sought to pull down the wall by disparaging Jefferson's influence on the First Amendment. A popular bit of historical revisionism that floats around these days goes something like this: Jefferson served as ambassador to France during the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He had no hand in their preparation and passage because he was out of the country. Therefore, his metaphor about the "wall of separation" is misplaced and ill-informed because he was living in France and was out of touch. Tommyrot! Thomas Jefferson was James Madison's mentor. Madison as the chief architect of both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights drew heavily from Jefferson's ideas and kept in regular contact with his fellow Virginian even though the latter lived in France. Volumes of correspondence exist between the two men as they discussed the day's crucial events. Jefferson understood that the First Amendment created a separation between church and state because he, more than most of the Founders, gave form and substance to the nation's understanding of how the two institutions should best relate in the new nation. Some politicians, lawyers, and preachers subject us to mental cruelty when they disparage Jefferson's interpretation simply because he lived in France during the years of the Constitution's framing. (Robert L. Maddox, Baptist minister and speech writer and religious liaison for President Jimmy Carter, Separation of Church and State: Guarantor of Religious Freedom, New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1987, pp. 67-68.)
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize [sic], every expanded prospect. (James Madison, in a letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774, as quoted by Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 37.)
Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions may establish, with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute threepence only of his property for the support of any one establishment may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever? (James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance," addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: The Citadel Press, pp. 459-460. According to Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, pp. 39 ff., Madison's "Remonstrance" was instrumental in blocking the multiple establishment of all denominations of Christianity in Virginia.)
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents. (James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, October 17, 1788; from Michael Kammen, The Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History, 1986, pp. 369-370. )
The following year [1784], when asking Tench Tilghman to secure a carpenter and a bricklayer for his Mount Vernon estate, he [Washington] remarked: "If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mohometans, Jews or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists." As he told a Mennonite minister who sought refuge in the United States after the Revolution: "I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong...." He was, as John Bell pointed out in 1779, "a total stranger to religious prejudices, which have so often excited Christians of one denomination to cut the throats of those of another." (Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion, Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, p. 118. According to Boller, Washington wrote his remarks to Tilghman in a letter dated March 24, 1784; his remarks to the Mennonite--Francis Adrian Van der Kemp--were in a letter dated May 28, 1788.)
In the 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. (George Washington, letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793. Quoted in Richard B. Morris, Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries, Harper & Row, 1973, p. 269.)
Unlike Thomas Jefferson--and Thomas Paine, for that matter--Washington never even got around to recording his belief that Christ was a great ethical teacher. His reticence on the subject was truly remarkable. Washington frequently alluded to Providence in his private correspondence. But the name of Christ, in any correspondence whatsoever, does not appear anywhere in his many letters to friends and associates throughout his life. (Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion, Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, pp. 74-75.)
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.... (John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" [1787-1788]; from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 258.)
Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind. (John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" [1787-1788]; from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 258.)
Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and Dogmatism cannot confine it. (John Adams, letter to John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816. From Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 88.)
I am fully of your Opinion respecting religious Tests; but, tho' the People of Massachusetts have not in their new Constitution kept quite clear of them, yet, if we consider what that People were 100 Years ago, we must allow they have gone great Lengths in Liberality of Sentiment on religious Subjects; and we may hope for greater Degrees of Perfection, when their Constitution, some years hence, shall be revised. If Christian Preachers had continued to teach as Christ and his Apostles did, without Salaries, and as the Quakers now do, I imagine Tests would never have existed; for I think they were invented, not so much to secure Religion itself, as the Emoluments of it. 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, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one. (Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American statesman, diplomat, scientist, and printer, from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780; from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 93.)
[Benjamin] Franklin drank deep of the Protestant ethic and then, discomforted by church constraints, became a freethinker. All his life he kept Sundays free for reading, but would visit any church to hear a great speaker, no doubt recognizing a talent he himself did not possess. With typical honesty and humor he wrote out his creed in 1790, the year he died: "I believe in one God, Creator of the universe.... That the most acceptable service we can render Him is doing good to His other children.... As to Jesus ... I have ... some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble." (Alice J. Hall, "Philosopher of Dissent: Benj. Franklin," National Geographic, Vol. 148, No. 1, July, 1975, p. 94.)
is the Latin motto on the face of the Great Seal of the United States; .... This phrase means one out of the many. It refers to the creation of one nation, the United States, out of 13 colonies. It is equally appropriate to today's federal system. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, members of the first committee for the selection of the seal, suggested the motto in 1776. It can be traced back to Horace's Epistles [65-8 BCE]. Since 1873, the law requires that this motto appear on one side of every United States coin that is minted. (Donald H. Mugridge,World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 6 (E), Chicago: Field Enterprises Educational Corporation, 1976, p.2. "E Pluribus Unum" has appeared on most U. S. coins, beginning in the late 1790s. The motto "In God We Trust" did not appear on any U. S. coin until 1864, when "Its presence on the new coin was due largely to the increased religious sentiment during the Civil War Crisis," according to R. S. Yeoman, A Guide Book of United States Coins, 38th ed., Racine, Wisc.: Western Publishing Co., p. 89. The religious motto did not appear regularly on U. S. paper money until the 1950s.)
One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian. (Mortimer Adler, 1902- , American philosopher and educator, ed. "Chapter 22: Religion and Religious Groups in America," The Annals of America: Great Issues in American Life, Vol. II, Chicago: Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1968, p. 420.)
Interesting stuff, M&M -- thanks for doing the research.