Posted on 01/12/2005 8:35:48 AM PST by Miami Vice
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, mythologies that the Founders were irreligious or wanted to ban religion are considered fact.
According to the Washington Times, “The California lawyer who tried to have the phrase 'under God' removed from the Pledge of Allegiance now wants to legally prevent President Bush from placing his hand on a Bible while being sworn in at his inauguration.”
This is just the latest part of the theophobic campaign to eliminate religion from American society.
Theophobes like to claim that the Founding Fathers were deists who never wanted a religious society. They maintain that there are numerous quotes and examples of their contempt for religion.
One thing referenced is the Treaty of Tripoli of 1797. This is proffered as absolute proof that the Founding Fathers did not want the United States to be a religious nation.
Alan Colmes referenced this treaty during Hannity and Colmes one evening and so has the ACLU. This treaty ranks next to Jefferson’s "wall of separation between church and state" phrase as the core of their argument to prohibit the expression of religion in public.
This is sheer sophistry.
If all the evidence the theophobes have that the Founders wanted to bowdlerize religion from America is a meaningless symbolic phrase, fraudulently inserted into an obscure unconscionable treaty that was revoked three years later, and, ratified so that the lives of American hostages could be saved, then they have no evidence at all.
There are several problems with using this treaty as an example that the Founders disdained religion.
Theophobes like to state that John Adams signed this treaty and it was ratified by the Senate even though it included this clause: “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion…”
However, they omit several things about this treaty:
· The treaty was revoked a few years later anyway
· The clause was not included in the original version of the treaty. It was mysteriously, perhaps fraudulently, inserted by Joel Barlow, the Algerian Consul who was a condemner of Christianity.
· The original Arabic version is on file at the State Department, although it is Barlow’s English version that was ratified by the Senate and signed by Adams.
· The treaty states several times the phrase, “Praise be to God.”
· The treaty was made primarily to save the lives of American hostages. One can conclude that if the treaty said the moon were made of green cheese it would have been ratified by the Senate and signed by Adams.
· A Spanish translation of this treaty references treaties with Christian nations -- meaning in this case the US.
When one considers these facts about the treaty, the assertion that it is evidence of the Founders' intent to prohibit religious expression or that there is no relevance to religion or for that matter Judeo-Christian history is not true.
Theophobes like to ignore legal documents claiming that America is a religious nation. There are several -- including at least one Supreme Court case.
One such document is the opinion in the 1811 case of People v. Ruggles. This is a ruling by the New York Supreme Court.
The Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court was James Kent, author of Commentaries on American Law. He wrote in his opinion, “We are a Christian people…. Christianity, in its enlarged sense, as a religion revealed and taught in the Bible, is not unknown to our law.”
Another court case is the 1892 United States Supreme Court opinion in Holy Trinity Church v. US. This case involved the hiring of an English pastor, which was prevented by immigration officials, because of a prohibition on foreign laborers. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the prohibition did not apply to pastors because “this is a Christian nation.” The justices cite People v. Ruggles.
Theophobes have a catalog of quotes to indicate that the Founders were either deists or atheists or hated Christianity. This is to prove that the Founders wanted a completely secular nation.
As is usually the case, the theophobes only marshal those quotes that advocate their cause and do not provide others by the same people that would make their cause illegitimate.
For example, it is often said that George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were deists. This is not true.
There is a church in Philadelphia, Saint Peter’s Episcopal, which indicates the pew used by Washington when he attended services there.
(Ironically, Stephen Decatur, the hero of the Battle of Tripoli is buried in this same churchyard.)
Benjamin Franklin is buried in the Old Christ’s Church burial ground. This would be an odd place if he were the irreligious person theophobes claim.
Theophobes like to refer to various quotes from Thomas Jefferson to deny his religiosity, including the separation of church and state quote. However, they ignore his 1816 letter to Charles Thomson in which he said, “I am a real Christian."
Theophobes like this quote of Adams, “I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" Yet, they ignore Adams’ 1797 Inaugural speech (same year as the treaty) during which he said, “ consider….Christianity among the best recommendations for the public service…”
There are too many religious practices and symbols associated with the United States to claim that the Founders were not religious or wanted to exclude religion from America. Indeed, at least one signer of the Constitution was an ordained minister.
It is unfortunate that despite the evidence, mythologies that the Founders were irreligious or wanted to ban religion are considered fact. This is a function of the erroneous revisionist history taught by schools and colleges.
A benefit of living and working for two decades near Independence Hall is that history is right here and does not depend on the prejudicial prism of a tendentious scholar.
A former police officer, Michael Tremoglie's work has appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Human Events, FrontPage Magazine, and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Actually, the treaty was entirely correct if you look at what "Christian nation" means in context. For example, Iran is an "Islamic nation"; Islam is the official established State church. You have to belong to it or you are penalized, and the state supports it and it's institutions. Whereas here in the U.S., while Christianity is the dominant religion and Christian ideals have been used to create our laws, we are not a "Christian nation" in the context that the Barbary Pirates would have understood it, as no Christian denomination was or is an established Church, receiving State support and a priority of place in government, etc.
Moral Absolutes Ping.
Some background about the Tripoli treaty quote that theophobes [good word] like to use. They really like it since that and Jefferson's quote from the letter to the Baptists about the "wall of separation" are pretty much the only ones they have to support their fallacy that the United States is not founded upon religious values.
Let me know if anyone wants on/off this pinglist.
They fear Him in the wrong way - in anger, not in reverence.
Not even the present notion of deists. Deists rejected revelation but throught that Christian morality was the same as natural morality and so its precepts were dictated by reason. Washington invoked on many occasions Divine Providence, which is something that the "theophobes" categorically reject. Even "infidels" like Jefferson were far more "Christian" than the "Theophobes" are willing to concede. In short, there was a moral consensus among Americans , as any reader of Tocqueville knows, which was the foundation of its laws. During the past forty years, our national elites have abandoined that consensus and have done everything within their power to pure the laws and government of Christians symbols and sentiments and to impose their own infidelity on the people as a whole.
Any links to part One?
SPOTREP - History - Founders
SPOTREP - History - Founders
I'm sorry I'm not sure what SPOTREP History Founders means
bttt
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