Writing in 1864, historian Benjamin Franklin Morris noted, “An examination of the present Constitutions of the various states, now existing, will show that the Christian religion and its institutions are recognized as the religion of the Government and the nation.”
Deism is now Christianity? LOL, how is Deism Christianity, when it rejects "divine intervention" in the affairs of Man? How is Deism Christianity when it rejects concept of Trinity? How is Deism Christianity when it rejects the divinity of Jesus, the Christ? How is Deism Christianity when it rejects all miracles as false? How is Deism Christianity when it rejects all revelations?
Based on the Deist positions on the above alone, the Deist god is closer to the one in the Gita, than the vengeful, interventionist Christian god.
You fail to acknowledge that several States endorsed Christianity
While some believe that state endorsement of religion ceased with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, a quick survey through American history shows this is not the case. Long after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution and well into the nineteenth century, some states had mandated particular denominations to be their official state religions.
Massachusetts and Connecticut, for example, had identified the Congregational Church as the state church. Most other states, however, opted to endorse Christianity as their state religion, rather than endorsing any particular church, sect, or denomination.
The South Carolina Constitution of 1778, which was still in effect at the time the U.S. Constitution was ratified, declared, “The Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed, and is hereby constituted and declared to be, the established religion of this State.”
Until 1968, the New Hampshire Constitution endorsed evangelical Christianity. The constitution explained that “morality and piety, rightly grounded on evangelical principles, will give the best and greatest security to government.” It declared, however, that “every denomination of Christians demeaning themselves quietly, and as good citizens of the state, shall be equally under the protection of the laws.”
This proclamation remained in the state constitution for nearly 180 years after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. In 1818, three decades after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, Connecticut adopted a new state constitution declaring, “Each and every society or denomination of Christians in this state, shall have and enjoy the same and equal powers, rights, and privileges; and shall have power and authority to support and maintain the ministers or teachers of their respective denominations….”
All of the above amounts to naught, when the United States government established suzerainty over the states, in the Civil War.
State laws permitted slavery, by the way, and the implied point being that the states could make absurd laws against the spirit of the Constitution, for as long as the United States government's attention was not attracted.
What part of, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." don't you understand?
Indeed, you fail to recognize the official State funding for Christian Education
Russia has "official" patronage stance towards the Orthodox Church, too. Strictly as per the US constitution, the above would be unconstitutional.
In early America, such declarations were not controversial, because the citizenry universally acknowledged that they lived in a Christian nation. Some state constitutions empowered the government to fund Christian education and worship.
"... the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..."
-- Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams.
Until 1833, the Massachusetts Constitution mandated its state legislature to “require the several towns … to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality.”
More than a century after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, Delaware approved language in its state constitution proclaiming, “[I]t is the duty of all men frequently to assemble together for the public worship of Almighty God; and piety and morality, on which the prosperity of communities depends, are hereby promoted.”
These are not aberrations from an otherwise secular system of government. America’s Founders believed that the Christian religion should receive encouragement from the states.
"We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact! There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red-hot poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemers upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated.
Adieu."
-- John Adams, one of his last letters to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825. Adams was 90, Jefferson 81 at the time; both died on July 4th of the following year, on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. From Adrienne Koch, ed, The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 234.
I don’t think they were referring to Hindu deities. Of course you take umbrage that Hindu worship encompasses incarnated deities as monkeys (hanuman); baboons; and even phallic symbols but this is not the fault of the writer if indeed Hindu literature and practice to this day and age is replete with such beliefs and rituals.
None of this in the Bhagavad-Gita, the principal Hindu text of religion.
This is a far cry from the veneration of holy relics that dates back to the early days of Christianity, which is no different from having a picture or painting of some loved on who is deceased.
LOL, kissing dead body parts, "invoking" the intervention of dead people, kissing and covering one's face with snakes in the hope of healing and reaping good harvests, all these are a FAR, FAR, FAR cry from having a picture or painting in remembrance.
"On the first Thursday of May, in the town of Cocullo, a very unique, albeit strange, ancient festival is held to honor the memory of Saint Dominic Abbot. Cocullo is a small town located near Abruzzo, which is less than an hour’s drive from Rome. The way the legend goes, Saint Dominic had his way with snakes- he was able to render every poisonous snake in the area harmless, much to the pleasure of the people. For this reason he became known as the patron saint of snakes. A processional is held on this day every year and the local residents come out in droves to honor his unique ability. What happens is the Saint’s statue is carried throughout the town. The parade is always held at midday and people participating in this unusual ritual cover the statue and- it’s hard to believe but true- themselves with hundreds of live, slithering snakes. Of course the snakes are all non poisonous. This is not a festival for the faint at heart or anyone who has a phobia about snakes. It is believed that the snakes, once draped over the statue, hold some type of mystical power to predict future happenings."
You write the hatred of the Framers for the Catholic Church was “not out of the blue” but this proves nothing. Hatred as many well-springs and has as much relevance as concluding that the hatred of the Muslims towards Hindus is “not out of the blue.”
There was willful, designed and deliberate hatred of the Catholic Church and establishments of the like, amongst the Founding Fathers.
"Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?"
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821, from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief.
"I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits.... Shall we not have regular swarms of them here, in as many disguises as only a king of the gipsies can assume, dressed as printers, publishers, writers and schoolmasters? If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell, it is this society of Loyola's. Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum."
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 5, 1816
"Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?"
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821, from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief
"I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio Gates Spafford, 1816.
Whatever modern India may have earned in its technological advances, it is apparent that the benefits of religious enlightenment and the renaissance were not part of the wave of intellectual awakening that lapped on its shores.
It is the continuing trend of Atheistic-leaning movements like Deism that founded America, that also lead to the establishment of modern India. Much of the essence of the Indian constitution is a direct import of the American one. As for before this, India and China together dominated global economy and influence, until the early 18th century, without as much as a hint of Western influence.
That said:
Research into 140,000 children over 30 years found immigrant families breaking through class barriers, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said. Lucinda Platt, of Essex University, the report's author, found Jews and Hindus had more chance of upward mobility than Christians. In contrast, Muslims and Sikhs had less chance of breaking through class barriers. Children born into professional and managerial families, regardless of their ethnicity, were less likely to find themselves in less qualified work than their parents.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4434146.stm
Whatever else one might say of Patrick Buchanan, his book “Death of the West” makes a compelling case why Hinduism and Moslem are anathema to the tenets of western civilization and why we must must end immigration to this nation and indeed all of western Europe from these communities.
