Posted on 11/12/2013 3:47:47 PM PST by NYer
All of the colonies had state religions, which were maintained, for the most part, into the 19th century. (Pennsylvania was the first state to disestablish, in 1790, New Hampshire the last in 1877). It was argued that the 14th amendment did away with state religions, but at that point they were only left in two states, so it wasn’t that big a deal. They were not against a state religion so long as it was their religion.
All 13 had state religions, though the degree to which they tolerated those who were not part of the religion varied. New England tended towards Calvinism. Maryland south tended towards Anglicanism.
I believe Rhode Island might have been the outlier who did not. Rhode Island whoever was the one state who seemed to teeter on civil war more than once in its history.
LOL
Have you heard the term’180* out of phase’?
Well, you are.
Who said the colonists have run off with the Presbyterian minister ?
Digging around a bit more—all 13 did support some preferred religion with public money. The extent that certain groups were favoured and others were discouraged varied. Rhode Island was certainly among the most tolerant. Even after independence, GA, NC, NJ and NH all prohibited Catholics from holding office.
I generally see most Catholics as loyal Rat voters. Sadly.
yeah - I can buy into that.
Allies we need to be.
While Jefferson clearly embraced the ideas which Bellarmine expressed in De Laicis, he obviously was not Catholic himself.
There are a number of quotes that show up along with the one you have posted from Jefferson’s letter to Baron Von Humboldt. I don’t have time to do the research to find all the letters pertaining to Jefferson’s discussion with Von Humboldt. The particular quote you have posted appears to pertain the necessity of separation/independence between the altar and the throne. Unfortunately, Jefferson’s writing style in many of his letters is often misunderstood without reading the whole letter as well as the letter or issue he was responding to when he wrote it. One must also keep in mind his continued actions..... this leads to the letter to the Danbury Baptists Association. Many atheists claim the wall of separation means there should be no expression of religious belief in the political arena. Which is not what he meant in either his word or actions. He did not want the government establish an official religion and have religious tests for employment by the government as was done with the Church of England. He clearly saw no issue with prayer in the public square or in public buildings as evidenced by the fact that he regularly attended Sunday religious services in the House Chambers of the Capital Building while he was President.
I am not particularity against Catholicism.
But I cannot help but notice, or at least this is my opinion, that most of the countries south of the Rio Grande down to the tip of South America are one or all of the following: very poor, very corrupt, socialists, full of drug cartels, very backwards. I believe the predominant religion south of the Rio Grande is Catholic.
I pointed out this coincidence to a devout Catholic a few years ago and was severely chastised. I expect no different here.
I disagree with your statements on the Church opposing religious freedom and forbidding the reading of Protestant Bibles. Unfortunately, peeling back all the layers of the “onion” to properly explain and discuss those issues with facts, and not hearsay, is probably beyond the levels of effort we are both willing to put into the discussion right now.
It did in New England. Those colonies were on the frontline in the wars with French Canada, where the priests not only opposed their protestantism but their aggression against the Indians.
Washington and Jefferson were members of the Episcopal Church, but were probably deists like the majority of the Founding Fathers, who didn’t ascribe to any particular religion. In all their writings they hardly ever refer to Jesus Christ, or God, but instead refer to a Supreme Being, Author of the Universe, Creator, etc. Washington would occasionally say Christian in his writings, but most scholars don’t think he was Christian. They all believed in God, no matter what they called Him.
It was not irrelevant to the English nobility when Mary was queen. She was smart enough not to remand reparations when she sought their approval for renewed relations with Rome, and this earned her their friendship. If she had lived another twenty years, English likely would have remained Catholic, because only in the City was she unpopular.
“Republican government” meant Jacobinism to the Church. Tocqueville was not the only European Catholic who didn’t “get” the American notion of religious liberty.
“very poor, very corrupt, socialists, full of drug cartels, very backwards. I believe the predominant religion south of the Rio Grande is Catholic”.
Most of these countries are ruled by athiest strongmen. Most socialist are athiest.
At one time all the countries of Europe were Catholic. Then the socialist took control and Catholics for all intents and purposes were ran out of the country. France and Spain are prime examples.
That's a strange claim to make. Anglicanism was unquestionably a state religion, down to bishops being appointed by Parliament. That's the "establishment of religion" most of the Protestant dissenters who founded the U.S. were rebelling against.
But Anglicanism was explicitly established by the state against Catholicism, which was viewed as a supranational religion hostile to the (English) state. And most of the medieval history of the Catholic church consists of fights of various kinds with secular rulers ... Canossa, Philip the Fair, the "lay investiture" controversy, etc.
Orthodoxy, too, was far more of a "state religion," after the schism, than Catholicism was before or since. In Tsarist Russia, the church was explicitly run by a state agency headed by a layman called the "Procurator of the Holy Synod".
Lutheranism in Scandinavia (Germany is a different and more complex case) was also more of a state religion than Catholicism has ever been, anywhere outside central Italy.
yeah - I can buy into that.
Allies we need to be.
***
Then allies we are!
Nice to meet you.
Correlation is not causality. Poland is very Catholic. Had she not been occupied by Orthodox Russians, destroyed by Nazi Germans and then had communism imposed upon her by atheist Russians, would she not be a relatively rich and prosperous nation today? (Keep in mind, in the 1680's, before Russia, Austria, and Prussia carved her up, she was rich enough and strong enough to save Europe from the Turks, which is probably why you aren't a Muslim today.)
Czechoslovakia was primarily Catholic in the 1930's, and had the highest standard of living in Europe.
Ireland was certainly very Catholic until recently. How free and prosperous might Ireland have been if it hadn't been under the boots of the English for the past 500 years?
Many people would argue that Latin America was never properly converted to the Catholic faith, but had the faith imposed on it by the sword while simultaneously being looted and enslaved by her Spanish conquerors.
Where we get that term "deist" in relation to our Founders is from historians over the last 75 years or so who have endeavored to minimize any connection to religion our Founders had in reality.
All of our Founders believed that it was not their job to preach religion, because they had tremendous respect for the individual human conscience. That is one reason why the Constitution begins with - "We the People."
They purposely minimized their own religions in order to present the religious freedom of "We the People."
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