What we think when we think about God

Results of Associated Press polls in ten countries on public attitudes about religion in politics and religious beliefs generally.

The AP polls were conducted by Ipsos, an international polling firm, in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Mexico, South Korea, Spain and the United States.

The AP-Ipsos polls of about 1,000 adults in each of the countries were taken between May 12–26 and each has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Summaries of public attitudes about religion in politics and religious beliefs generally.

AUSTRALIA: Three-fourths of Australians say religious leaders should not try to influence government decisions. Just over half of them say that religion is important in their lives. Just under half say they definitely believe in God, though some of them have occasional doubts. Australians are not closely aligned with one religion, but describe themselves as followers of various religions with the Catholic church claiming the largest share at 27 percent.

CANADA: Almost two-thirds of Canadians say religion is important to them, but most seem to prefer that religion and politics not mix too closely. Seven in 10 Canadians say that religious leaders should not try to influence government decisions. A majority of Canadians say they believe in God, though some of those believers admit to occasional doubts. Four in 10 Canadians described themselves as Catholic and 14 percent said Protestant with others saying they had other religions or no religion.

BRITAIN: A majority of Britons, 57 percent, say religion is not that important for them. Three fourths think religious leaders should not try to influence government decisions. Only about a third say they definitely believe in God, though some admit to occasional doubts. Almost six in 10 Britons describe themselves as Protestant, with 14 percent saying they are Catholic and 19 percent saying “no religion.”

FRANCE: Though many of the French describe themselves as Roman Catholics, nearly half of the French say they do not believe in God or are agnostic. They overwhelmingly believe that religious leaders should not try to influence government decisions, with 85 percent taking that view.

GERMANY: Most Germans say they do not think religious leaders should try to influence government decisions, and about half say they don’t believe in God, though many in that group say they do believe in some kind of higher power. Just over half say religion is important in their own lives. More than a third, 36 percent, said they were Protestant, while about a fourth said they were Catholic.

ITALY: Italians are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic and most, 80 percent, say religion is important to them. Yet almost two-thirds say they do not think religious leaders should try to influence government decisions. More than two-thirds said they definitely believe in God.

MEXICO: Mexico was one of the few countries polled where people were as devoutly religious as they are in the United States. Eight in 10 in the heavily Catholic country said they definitely believe in God, while slightly more said religion is important in their own lives. But three-fourths of Mexicans oppose religious leaders getting involved in politics.

SOUTH KOREA: Two-thirds of South Koreans say religion is important in their own personal lives, though only half of those polled said they definitely believe in God. Two-thirds said religious leaders should not try to influence government decisions. About a third in South Korea identified themselves as Christians — either Catholic or Protestant — and a fourth identified themselves as Buddhist. Four in 10 said they have no religion.

SPAIN: More than half of Spaniards say that religion is not important to them in their personal lives. About half of Spaniards say they definitely believe in God and three-fourths say religious leaders should not try to influence government decisions. The lukewarm enthusiasm for religion comes even though Spain is heavily Roman Catholic, with eight in 10 describing themselves as Catholic.

UNITED STATES: People in the United States have some of the strongest religious sentiments of all the countries polled. Eight in 10 say they definitely believe in God, and most in that group say they believe it without doubt. Almost nine in 10 say religion is important in their own personal lives. Almost four in 10, 37 percent, said they believe religious leaders should try to influence government decisions — the highest rate of any country to want religious leaders involved in influencing government

BIBLES and GUNPOWDER: The foundations of the American Revolution
excerpts from Van Jenerette's comments at the FREE REPUBLIC Annual Conference 2001 at Seabrook Island S.C. on "The US Constitution and the Rule of Law." and his treatise on "Bibles & Gunpowder: The foundations of the American Revolution."
the CONSTITUTION of THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA - the most dangerous document ever written
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Why did it take until July 1776 for a nation based on the principle of God given Individual Rights; Individual self Government by the people and governors who could only govern with the consent of the governed to happen?
The answer is actually simple - there are three basic reasons:

#1) The printing of the CHRISTIAN BIBLE - the most dangerous book ever printed
#2) The 'invention' of GUNPOWDER - the great equalizer between peasants and tyrants
#3) A very big OCEAN - between the OLD WORLD and the NEW WORLD

...theses three things directly set the field for the construction of:
the CONSTITUTION of THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA - the most dangerous document ever written

GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE - The Constitution provides the legitimate foundations of this country as a nation that is of the people and by the people.

We, the people, are the caretakers of the Constitution of the United States. Our charge is to pass on to future generations of Americans the rights and privileges that have been passed to us for over two centuries. It is a trust.
The notion that Supreme Court Justices, government officials or elite scholars are the only Americans who may offer worthwhile opinions on constitutional issues is far too narrow. At most, their years of study and review offer a snapshot view when put into perspective along side the centuries the document has existed.
The Constitution, and interpretations of it, belong as much to the proprietor of a small business, the homemaker, the college freshman, the taxi driver, and the newly naturalized immigrant as it does to any American.
We must guard this document and the Bill of Rights with vigilance.
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REF: Myths that this nation was founded with a design to separate govenment from religion and the people from their arms.

I wish that most of you could have seen what I have seen in my life about this world we live in - we all might gain an appreciation or how fragile this Republic by the People really is. And, we all might have a better appreciation for the entire Bill of Rights and REAL AMERICAN HISTORY vs. the POLITICALLY CORRECT AMERICAN HISTORY that is reflected in today's media, public schools and colleges across this nation.

Both my wife and I have served in our military in combat zones in Korea and Desert Storm and we do not take this country with its freedoms and its dangers lightly. Today, she is a Congressional aide and professor of History and I teach college Political Science and Sociology. There is no greater cause for either of us than to hand down to our 4 children the right of individual self government.

The notion that the founding fathers, in designing the Bill of Rights were correct in the importance of freedom of the press and freedom from an official 'state church' yet incorrect when it came to the necessity of armed citizens in the space of two paragraphs reflects ignorance or duplicity at best. Our constitution should not be trifled with.

Our forefathers knew well that kings made state churches to perpetuate their power and that tyrants understood guns are designed to kill. This is still very true. The founders never mentioned 'a wall of separation between church and state' until Jefferson was quoted out of context. Because the founding fathers knew that the experiment they were proposing was contingent upon a moral majority of Christian citizens armed with Bibles and Gunpowder!

They didn't mention hunters, or sportsmen, or home protection - they were well aware that guns were intended to equalize people - the wealthy or the poor - the powerful and the weak. Pity the person who actually believes that the powerful would negotiate the domain of governments, commerce, individual rights and liberties out of some sense of benevolence or righteousness.

They didn't mention Allah or Buddah or Darwin, or Krishna - they were well aware that it was the Christian God who intended to equalize the people - the wealthy or the poor - the powerful and the weak.

Even a foolish person who examines the line of time for 'civilization' will be presented with the cold clear fact that participatory power sharing between the rulers and the ruled did not occur until two events and one singular condition existed: Bibles - Gunpowder - and a New World separated from the old by geographical circumstance.

This concept of individual self government where the people are 'endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights' equal and unquestionable did not spring forth when it did without reason.

To assume that the people in all of the ages of this earth who lived prior to 1776 submitted to royalty or tyrants because of satisfaction or cowardice is intellectually naive. This new nation came into being because the means coincided with the concepts of the Enlightenment.

Even the most powerful king, chief, or dictator understands the usefulness of negotiation when confronted with an armed Christian citizenry that makes two things clear; #1) citizens are willing to kill to secure certain rights and #2) that they, the citizens, are willing to die in the process.

If this nation is to remain free for future generations, the rights of the people to arm themselves and to freely exercise their religion both privately and publicly, is much more than merely a right to be exercised. It is a necessity to freedom that the means of securing all the rights of individual man and self government be obvious and openly apparent to all who govern.

However, founder John Adams added a warning to all of us today with regards to our ability to suststain our independence: ..."Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." October 11, 1798

I would suggest that anyone opposed to the BIBLE or GUNS in the hands of our citizens, review their early American history. If they do, they'll find that their rights to speak their minds freely owes much to the Christian Bible and the right to bear arms and the threat of death to tyrants provided only by a 'culture of guns' and the 'integration of Biblical scripture' in the hands of ordinary people who are free.

If a person truly loves liberty and freedom, the only thing that should be feared more than ordinary citizens who have the freedom to arm themselves is an armed government who is the only one who possesses arms, and a government who uses God to arm only themselves.

- Van Jenerette - www.jenerette.com

more thoughts...

"No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

"Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass."

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?"

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive."
- Thomas Jefferson

"Firearms stand next to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence."
- George Washington

"The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."
- Samuel Adams

"Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world."
- Daniel Webster

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion...Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
- John Adams

"Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not only of all free government, but of social felicity under all governments and in all the combinations of human society."
- John Adams

"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
- John Quincy Adams

"From the day of the Declaration...they (the American people) were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct."
- John Quincy Adams

"By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty."
- Samuel Chase

"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God Governs the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? "
- Benjamin Franklin

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
- Patrick Henry (...give me liberty or give me death!)

"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed."
- Patrick Henry (...give me liberty or give me death!)

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom."
- Patrick Henry (...give me liberty or give me death!)

"It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains."
- Patrick Henry (...give me liberty or give me death!)

"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."
- Patrick Henry (...give me liberty or give me death!)

finally, Thomas Jefferson also wrote:

"A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian; that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus."

"I have always said, I always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands."

Jefferson declared that religion is: "Deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support."

POST SCRIPT:

Clearly, it must be understood that the concept of 'individual-self-government' was a unique one in 1776.

It's basis, just as with anyother form of human 'government,' had to have a foundation of legitimacy.

In our American case, the legitimacy was founded on the Judeo-Christian idea of 'free will,' specific moral boundaries, and individual 'self-determinism' with the 'citizen' being the architect of their own destiny.

Now, had the founders - instead of being products of 'Western Civilization' and Judeo Christian civilization - been, say, Hindu or Muslim, or Atheists; could the concept of each individual having specific license to rights; granted by natures GOD, not other men; and the idea of construction rather than predestination - have taken root and grown as it has here in America?

Bottom line: Even if you don't believe in God or believe in Chritianity, you are better off living within a system where the majority of people - and the form of government - believes or even pretends the Judeo-Christain God exhists and is the origin of man's rights.

The American Revolution must continue today as a Resistance to those who advise to limit GUNPOWDER and BIBLES in todays American society or the constitution of our forefathers. Freedom will DIE if they succeed.

Our Republic...If we can keep it...
Van & Katherine Jenerette

It was not always so in America. Thomas Jefferson asserted that the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence (which he wrote) merely were a reflection of what he called "the American Mind."

President Washington's cautions in his Farewell Address are valid reminders of the underpinnings of our liberty, one of which included his sense and interpretation of what constituted the validity and significance of an oath.

"Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?"

General Washington wrote to his soldiers at Valley Forge on 2 May 1778, after the terrible winter had drawn to a close:

"While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of patriot it should be our highest glory to add to the more distinguished character of Christian. The signal instances of providential Goodness which we have experienced and which have now almost crowned our labors with complete success, demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of gratitude and piety to the Supreme Author of all Good." -John C. Fitzpatrick, editor, "The Writings of George Washington" (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1931-1944), vol. V, p. 245.

Earlier, in a Circular to the States, in June 1783, Washington wrote:

"It remains then to be my final and only request, that your Excellency will communicate these sentiments to your Legislature at their next meeting, and that they may be considered as the Legacy of One, who has ardently wished, on all occasions, to be useful to his Country, and who, even in the shade of Retirement, will not fail to implore the divine benediction upon it.

"I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation."- George Washington: A Collection, compiled and edited by W.B. Allen (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988).

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