Founding fathers and church/state separation

For anyone who wants an eye-opening look at a couple of the Founding Fathers and their private statements, I recommend this book of correspondence between Jefferson and Adams, focusing on religious matters.

Ye Will Say I Am No Christian
The Thomas Jefferson/John Adams Correspondence on Religion, Morals, And Values

The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere. ~ John Adams

hislegacy said:

George Washington (1907). “Washington's Prayers”​

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Tens of thousands of genuine Washington manuscripts have survived to the present, including many from the youthful Washington, and even a cursory comparison of the prayer book with a genuine Washington manuscript reveals that they are not the same handwriting. Nevertheless, the prayers continue to be disseminated under Washington’s name . . .

hislegacy said:

The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere. ~ John Adams

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What a remarkably bad basis for foreign policy.

essentialsaltes said:

Tens of thousands of genuine Washington manuscripts have survived to the present, including many from the youthful Washington, and even a cursory comparison of the prayer book with a genuine Washington manuscript reveals that they are not the same handwriting. Nevertheless, the prayers continue to be disseminated under Washington’s name . . .

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Just because he didn’t write it is no reason not to treat it as his true honest view of things.

essentialsaltes said:

Tens of thousands of genuine Washington manuscripts have survived to the present, including many from the youthful Washington, and even a cursory comparison of the prayer book with a genuine Washington manuscript reveals that they are not the same handwriting. Nevertheless, the prayers continue to be disseminated under Washington’s name . . .

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Opinions differ:

Got another question - why does this bother atheist so much? If God does not exist and Washington is long dead - what difference does it make?

Sometimes it seems it borders on Christophobic in nature.

hislegacy said:

Opinions differ:

Got another question - why does this bother atheist so much? If God does not exist and Washington is long dead - what difference does it make?

Sometimes it seems it borders on Christophobic in nature.

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Yeah, why would anyone care if a work attributed to someone was actually their work.

hislegacy said:

Got another question - why does this bother atheist so much?

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I like to believe true things and point out false things.

hislegacy said:

Opinions differ:

Got another question - why does this bother atheist so much? If God does not exist and Washington is long dead - what difference does it make?

Sometimes it seems it borders on Christophobic in nature.

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Truth matters. Revisionist history is harmful.

hislegacy said:

The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere. ~ John Adams

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hislegacy said:

Almighty and eternal Lord God, the great Creator of heaven and earth, and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; look down from heaven in pity and compassion upon me thy servant, who humbly prostrate myself before thee.

George Washington (1907). “Washington's Prayers”​

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hislegacy said:

Bless my family, kindred, friends and country, be our God and guide this day and forever for His sake, who lay down in the grave and arose again for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

George Washington (1907). “Washington's Prayers”​

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None are a prescription for Christianity having a special place in government.

(And thats before even exploring their veracity).

Meanwhile, the actual US constitution provides no role for Christianity specifically except as people might choose to take it up in their own lives.

durangodawood said:

None are a prescription for Christianity having a special place in government.

(And thats before even exploring their veracity).

Meanwhile, the actual US constitution provides no role for Christianity specifically except as people might choose to take it up in their own lives.

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Agreed

hislegacy said:

Opinions differ:

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Why should your opinion on the authorship of these prayers count more than experts at the Smithsonian? Where does your opinion on it even come from?

Got another question - why does this bother atheist so much? If God does not exist and Washington is long dead - what difference does it make?

Sometimes it seems it borders on Christophobic in nature.

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Truth matters, especially now when people seem less able to discern it than ever, with potentially disastrous consequences.

And just as a matter of personal honor, one should refrain from spreading falsehoods. "I didnt know" is a perfectly good excuse. But once you do know, the moral issue should be clear.

I know this sounds all high-horsey of me. But the question of truth/lies in public discourse really bothers me lately.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, 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 prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to the Danbury Baptists, 1 Jan. 1802

Pommer said:

Well it’s certainly nice to know that cynics

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This is you attacking me instead of addressing the argument.

are not easily impressed with how well our society functions at this late date.

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Late? You make it sound like we broke the 3 century mark long ago.

Enjoy lamenting our nation.

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Enjoy living in a fantasy world. This isn’t even a difficult analysis. Our educational system (for example) is created to do two things...

1. Give everyone a basic, we'll rounded education, and some understanding of the world around them. We don't seem to be hitting the this mark more than maybe half or 3/4ths the time.

2. Give people an opportunity to further their education, along specific areas of knowledge, for the purpose of furthering that knowledge and acquiring skill, understanding, ability to gain careers which benefit the individual's success, and thereby, the whole of society.

I know we don't come close to 50% on #2....because people are graduating college with worthless degrees, few to no critical thinking skills, very little actual understanding of the topics they study, and a mountain of debt and few to no career prospects. It's so bad, one of our two political parties wants to shift they debt of these worthless degrees to the general public.

Our educational institutions are fundamentally broken.

Ana the Ist said:

This is you attacking me instead of addressing the argument.



Late? You make it sound like we broke the 3 century mark long ago.



Enjoy living in a fantasy world. This isn’t even a difficult analysis. Our educational system (for example) is created to do two things...

1. Give everyone a basic, we'll rounded education, and some understanding of the world around them. We don't seem to be hitting the this mark more than maybe half or 3/4ths the time.

2. Give people an opportunity to further their education, along specific areas of knowledge, for the purpose of furthering that knowledge and acquiring skill, understanding, ability to gain careers which benefit the individual's success, and thereby, the whole of society.

I know we don't come close to 50% on #2....because people are graduating college with worthless degrees, few to no critical thinking skills, very little actual understanding of the topics they study, and a mountain of debt and few to no career prospects. It's so bad, one of our two political parties wants to shift they debt of these worthless degrees to the general public.

Our educational institutions are fundamentally broken.

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I love it when you hold forth, you ought to do it more often.
There are three main bugaboos in the history of our society:

1. “Is our children learning”?
2. “The immigrants are the wrong kind!”
3. “The ‘other side’ hates our country.”

Lately we have gone from “we really need to make sure that the children are getting a decent education” to “the public school system is broken, let’s privatize it as much as possible to ‘fix’ it.”
This is the exact policy we saw under Betsy DeVos and the “school vouchers” she pushed.
Education without the promise of a good functional economy in which to ply one’s learning into a lucrative life of good consumers of the Capitalist system we’ve tethered ourselves to is worthless.
As wages stagnate and opportunities are lost we face this end-stage of the capitalist market and will be left with the super-duper-rich and everyone else, an oligarchy.

The government in a capitalist system is largely there to make sure that the wealth doesn’t accumulate at the very tippy-top of the economy and when government fails in this function then the result is what we have been seeing in this present era, (1980 onwards).

Ana the Ist said:

I know we don't come close to 50% on #2....because people are graduating college with worthless degrees, few to no critical thinking skills, very little actual understanding of the topics they study, and a mountain of debt and few to no career prospects. It's so bad, one of our two political parties wants to shift they debt of these worthless degrees to the general public.

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I don't believe there is such a thing as a worthless degree. If you put two people up for a job and one has a BA in women's studies and one has a GED. the person with the degree will get the job every time. So their prospects aren't nil, they just might not be able to work in their chosen field for a while.

Desk trauma said:

What a remarkably bad basis for foreign policy.

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I don't think it's correct to interpret it as foreign policy....

It's destiny. It's going to happen without any free will effort or deliberate choice whatsoever.

One could just as easily argue that by calling it destiny....he's saying it shouldn't be policy.