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To: hadit2here
Sorry friend but you are ill informed.

Of the 13 original states 6, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, had established religions.

But don't take my word for it, let your fingers do the walking.

42 posted on 11/08/2004 6:26:11 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: jwalsh07

I like David Barton. He tells it like it is.


43 posted on 11/08/2004 6:29:47 PM PST by cyborg
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To: All
This has been a lively discussion indeed. Allow me to say that although my research of the writings of Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Henry and others has provided copious proof that most of the founding fathers did not personally embrace the Christian faith most were friendly toward it.

In addition to the earlier quote from Jefferson I add this one from John Adams:

The clergy of this province are a virtuous, sensible, and learned set of men and they do not take their sermons from newspapers, but the Bible; unless it be a few, who preach passive obedience. These are not generally curious enough to read Hobbes. It is the duty of the clergy to accommodate their discourses to the times.

To Adams, a good preacher would be in touch with the Enlightenment and will have read Hobbes. Certainly any indifferent and unlearned minister who preached passive obedience could not have been expounding the Biblical text; such a man (in Adams'eyes) must have gathered his sermon material from the newspapers.

The evidence against Adams and Jefferson in their own words irrefutably demonstrates that they rejected orthodox Christianity. The evidence against Madison and Henry, though less conclusive than that against Adams and Jefferson, is compelling.

None of this is intended to disparage any of these men in regard to their usefulness in the founding of our nation. But again, we must deal with the facts;

their embrace of Christianity on a personal level was comparable to that of John Kerry.

46 posted on 11/08/2004 7:03:40 PM PST by Credo_ut_intelligam
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To: jwalsh07
Of the 13 original states 6, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, had established religions.

I think that you are mis-informed. You seem to not understand the concept of the Colonies vs the States. If you read back through the history, there were indeed Puritans in Mass., and others in the other states. They did indeed have established religions in some colonies throughout the 1600's and part of the 1700's. In fact, it is during that time period that my forebears raised the rabble and splintered off from the "established doctrine" and began their frontier ministries, establishing the first churches in many eastern colonies- what were to become states.

However, after the Revolution, when the states began writing and passing their state Constitutions - which by definition changed them from Colonies to States - I find no evidence of "state religions". There were some religious taxes - "general assessment schemes" - and states exclaimed the need for "piety, religion and morality" as the basis for "the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government", and other strong rhetorical support for religion, but I can see no history of any actual state established religions. Certainly after the First Amendment to the US Constitution was passed in 1789 and ratified in 1791, such establishment of religion was barred by the First Amendment.

By the time of the establishment of the Colonies as States, there had been major schisms in the various sanctioned religions, and the frontier ministers had already carried the "Great Awakening" throughout the southern Colonies.

If you have some accurate source - other than an evangelical website stating "Educated Americans know that some of the original states did, in fact, have established religions when they ratified the Constitution, I'd certainly like to see it.

47 posted on 11/08/2004 7:43:35 PM PST by hadit2here ("The way to see by Faith is to shut the eye of Reason." --Benjamin Franklin)
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