Separation of church and state

marc9000 writes:

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the quote mining thing is a problem for/from both sides.

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Logical error: False equivalency. There is no "quote mining problem" from one of the sides, only yours. Notice how we have all provided the full context for your quotes and shown, in at least one case, that it didn't actually mean anything like you tried to make it mean.

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But one of the worst quote mines of all is the Treaty of Tripoli. That was a negotiation process with a Moslem nation, it wasn’t a summary of US foundings.

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You have forgotten Article VI of the Constitution: You can complain about "negotiation processes" all you wish, but the document is a treaty that was ratified by the United States and thus is the supreme law of the land according to Article VI of the Constitution. You may not like it, but that is what the Constitution demands. And as it was ratified so early in our nation's history (by John Adams, for crying out loud), it would seem that its premise that "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion" was a significant point. Adams would not have made such a statement the supreme law of the land if he didn't mean it.

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That he felt he had to use those words to convince another nation that the US had no religious restrictions that would prevent secular trade was his choice as an imperfect human. It’s a political thing, and it goes on today as well. (understatement of the year)

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Ah, so your argument is that he didn't mean it. Screw Article VI of the Constitution. Never mind that it is part and parcel of US Law, because you think he didn't mean it, then it doesn't count.

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There are religious inscriptions all over original government buildings in Washington D.C.,

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Praising the Deist god. Are you sure that's the god you praise?

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and George Washington proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving within days of the vote on the Bill of Rights.

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Of which the religious ceremonies he would not partake in. You do realize that Washington didn't go to church to hear the hosannahs and proselytizing, yes?

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You and I probably disagree on what limits there should be on how much US founding should be permitted to evolve, probably the differences between originalism vs a living constitution

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Since the Constitution expressly prohibits an "originalist" interpretation of itself, one wonders why those who insist upon an "originalist" interpretation don't take the document at its own word: If you are so dead-set upon reading the document the way it was "intended," why are you ignoring the fact that the document tells you specifically and directly not to do that?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Just worth adding - Adams added his own commentary to the treaty. He had no need to do that. If he was a bit iffy about it, or wanted to keep it a bit quiet at home because it was mainly just a negotiating instrument, then all he had to do was sign and let it drop. Instead, his words were a ringing endorsement and were clearly aimed at the home audience, not the Muslims:

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Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed, and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.
  —"Adams"

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I never said that deists were Christians. I said the Framers of the Constitution were generally either Christian or Deists.

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"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

Not all of them, is what Subbie is saying, and he's right. John Adams (2nd President of the United States) was a lifelong abolitionist.Benjamin Franklin, for instance, started one of the first organized abolitionist movements in the US. Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States... I have, throughout my whole life, held the practice of slavery in... abhorrence. -- John Adams I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery -- George Washington Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils." -- Benjamin Franklin Well, he's tranparently wrong, which requires his immediate education on the matter.

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"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

First of all, I don't disagree with you. We're just arguing about very fine points... splitting hairs here. I never said all. I really really hate to invoke godwin's law, but I think it's appropriate in this instance.Not all nazis were evil. Some really truly tried to help the Jews. Some honest to goodness were kind-hearted people. And yet I've never seen a single person, not even you, say "not all nazis were evil bastards". Why? Because there were enough of them to be evil for the general rule to work.Correct me if I'm wrong, but even the hardcore framers who were lifelong abolitionists didn't believe in equal rights for everyone. They all made it abundantly clear that they believed the black race were inferior.But as I pointed out in another post, it's not the 3/5 compromise itself that I want direct attention to. It's the act of coming to the compromise that we should look at.Like I said, compromises in regard to human right issues never make sense. Human right issues are not up for debate and they certainly are not negotiable.Suppose I want to slice off a man's flesh one little piece at a time to make him confess to a crime. You come in all righteous and say I can't do that because it's a violation of his rights. I don't agree because I pointed out that he raped and murdered 4 kids. Ok, so let's compromise. I'll only cut off his fingers and ears and leave the rest of his body alone. What kind of a person would you be if you accepted this compromise?This is why I won't budge on the issues of gay rights.

Definitely. Some went the extra mile and carried out plots to assassinate high ranking Nazi officials to save Jews and Germany from a dangerous and fanatical ideology, knowing full well they would assuredly be put to death if caught. Well, you also have to appreciate the timeframe. Hindsight is 20/20. It is a luxury for us in this day and age to mock them, but the world was also a very different time with an entirely set of social mores. Even in spite of this, there were quite a few trailblazers who saw it as an egregious offense against humanity. We can't know exactly what they thought. All we have is their writings, and as best as I can tell, based upon the information, the one's I quoted did not believe that. I understand what you mean, but the fact of the matter is that it happened and no amount of piety is going to change it. I'm just not sure where this is tying in to the current discussion.

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"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

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I said the Framers of the Constitution were generally either Christian or Deists.

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Well, you didn't, but I'm happy to read it that way if that was your meaning.On this issue - Jefferson's view of the blacks is well known and very well documented. He certainly had no notions of equality, and didn't really think of 'pure' backs as entirely human. In this he merely echoed much of the 'wisdom' of the time, but he was honest enough to ask 'what if' and to grant the possibility that the black had possibly been mischaracterised. Racist by today's standards without doubt, but for the time? Judge for yourself.....

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"They secrete less by the kidneys and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odor. They seem to require less sleep. . . . They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. In general their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labor. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to whites; in reason, much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless and anomalous. . . . The Indians will astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, and their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration. . . .

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"In music, they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time. . . . I believe that disposition to theft with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any depravity of the moral sense. The man, in whose favor no laws of property exist, probably feels himself less bound to respect those made in favor of others. . . Notwithstanding these considerations which must weaken their respect for the laws of property, we find among them numerous instances of the most rigid integrity, and as many as among their better instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, and unshaken fidelity. The opinion that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination must be hazarded with great diffidence. To justify a general conclusion, requires many observations . . . where our conclusion would degrade a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings which their Creator may perhaps have given them."

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What I don't see is what this has to do with any Christian motivation/intent?Edited by Bikerman, : No reason given.Edited by Bikerman, : No reason given.

Wow, what a cop-out.If they really believed everyone is equal, they wouldn't have compromised. Just like if you truly believe it is morally repugnant for me to slice people up to get them to confess, you wouldn't compromise for me to only cut off their fingers and ears and nothing else. The current discussion entails what the founding fathers did believe and did not believe. Some people are taking the strict documentary approach while I'm trying to convince some of you to also consider their actions.Going back to slicing someone up for a confession, if you're willing to compromise with me so that I'm just gonna cut off his ears and fingers and leave the rest of his body alone, no amount of biographies and essays you can publish to convince that you're really truly against torture. Just like there is amount of writing by the framers to convince me that they truly believed everyone was created equal. Hell, right off the bat they never even considered giving women the right to vote.Quoting poetry from 1700s is great, but reality tells a different story.

Utter nonsense Taz.The goal of the folk trying to write a Constitution that had a chance of being ratified by all the states required a whole bunch of compromises. They understood that the goal was not to create something perfect but rather to create a Constitution that was "Just Good Enough" to get by; a Constitution where everyone could say "I may not like it but I can live with that."The point is that opinions on the nature of Black people varied among the framers and their constituents. Some, likely a small minority may well have thought Blacks and Whites were equal, others did not. The goal was to find wording that everyone involved could live with, nothing more.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

If what I said is nonsense, then so is saying some of them believed in complete equality just because they wrote a couple of poetic verses.I'll settle with what I said earlier as nonsense. But the fact remains that the framers hammered out something that clearly did not give equal rights to a lot of people. You can't sit there and tell me they believed in equal rights for everyone.In fact, I'm pretty sure if I was in their shoes I would have settled for a compromise that everyone could live it. But I wouldn't expect people 300 years in the future to believe I was some kind of saint. Again, poetic verses from the 1700s are great to read, but don't expect me to believe that's what they really believed.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

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After reviewing an estimated fifteen thousand items, including newspaper articles, pamphlets, books, monographs, and so on, written between 1760 and 1805 by the fifty-five men who signed the Constitution, professors Donald S. Lutz and Charles S. Hyneman presented their findings in a 1984 American Political Science Review. Their article, "The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought," revealed that the Bible, especially the book of Deuteronomy, contributed 34 percent of all quotations used by our Founding Fathers.4 The other sources cited include;

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Baron Charles Montesquieu, 8.3 percent
Sir William Blackstone, 7.9 percent
John Locke, 2.9 percent
David Hume, 2.7 percent
Plutarch, 1.5 percent
Beccaria, 1.5 percent
Trenchard and Gordon, 1.4 percent
Delolme, 1.4 percent
Samuel von Pufendorf, 1.3 percent
Cicero, 1.2 percent
Hugo Grotius, 0.9 percent
Shakespeare, 0.8 percent
Vattel, 0.5 percent.
These additional sources also took 60 percent of their quotes from the Bible. Including both direct and indirect citations, the majority of all quotations referenced by the Founders come from Scripture.

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http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.phpHmm, fifteen thousand items — that’s about how many opponents I have in this thread! The concept of freedom and liberty are found throughout the Bible. Starting with Deuteronomy (mentioned above as the most referenced book of the Bible by the founders), we see the concept of settling new land, (chapter 1;8) not being afraid of any man, (chapter 1;17) and in chapter 4; 6 observing [decrees and laws] carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.From Leviticus 25; 10, Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.2nd Corinthians 3; 17 Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.Freedom not only to LIVE free, but to REJECT the word of the Lord. Jeremiah 6; 19 they have rejected, 8; 9 .since they have rejected the word of the Lord. Mark 7; 8 ..you have let go of the commands of GodHere is what Proverbs 18:17 says;The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.The judicial and political proceedings in the constitution reflect this type of Biblical thinking.The Federalist Papers were a collection of essays that explain the philosophy and defend the advantages of the U.S. Constitution. An overall summary of the Federalist Papers is that the primary political motive of man is selfish, and that men — whether acting individually or collectively — are selfish and only imperfectly rational. Isaiah 33; 22 says For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king The founders didn’t pull out of thin air the constitutional concept of three separate divisions for; judging (Supreme court and inferior courts), lawgiving (Congress) and king (president) The checks and balances, the separation of powers, that are much of what the Constitution is about, is patterned after the Christian doctrine that men are sinners, and that the only possibility of good government lay in mans capacity to devise several political institutions that would police each other.Article 1, section 7 says Sundays excepted, when referring to the amount of time the president has to return a bill. Sunday as a day of rest is not Deist, and it’s not even Jewish. It’s Christian.

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The treaty of Tripoli remained on the books for eight years, at which time the treaty was renegotiated, and Article 11 was dropped.

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Introduction The Intellectual Origins Of America-Bashing
(this is a pro separation of church and state webpage) It shows who was most closely involved in the process. Your dismissal of prominent founders as biggest politicians, and not knowing about the eight year life of Article 11 of the treaty of Tripoli, speaks volumes about your honesty and knowledge of this subject. Who is we? Atheists? Liberals? The scientific community? Please list your giants, and the criteria you use to compile that list. Because I have not made that claim. There is a big difference between the church and general Christian principles.

The Key word is LIBERTY. If there was one thing the founders seemed to be united on, that was it. Liberty and limited government. You don’t’ think he would have objected to the thought of liberty and limited government to be negotiated away in the future? If you believe all of what the framers intended is irrelevant, it’s something we have to agree to disagree on because a discussion of it would take this thread too far from it’s topic. I think it’s a bad thing, because it allows the religion of scientism free reign to combine with state. It partly was my point, and in my opening post I quoted Joseph Story — I’ll repeat one paragraph here;

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The promulgation of the great doctrines of religion; the being, and attributes, and providence of one Almighty God; the responsibility to him for all our actions, founded upon moral freedom and accountability; a future state of rewards and punishments; the cultivation of all the personal, social, and benevolent virtues; --- these never can be a matter of indifference in any well ordered community. It is, indeed, difficult to conceive, how any civilized society can well exist without them. And at all events, it is impossible for those, who believe in the truth of Christianity, as a divine revelation, to doubt, that it is the especial duty of government to foster, and encourage it among all the citizens and subjects. This is a point wholly distinct from that of the right of private judgment in matters of religion, and of the freedom of public worship according to the dictates of one's own conscience.

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When he said responsibility for actions — future state of rewards and punishments, he obviously wasn’t referring to a Deist god. But I think his main point was that if Christianity isn’t encouraged among citizens, something else is going to replace it. It won’t be neutrality, it may be something that society (with liberty and limited government) can’t exist with. If we let Obama keep spending, if we tax everyone to death to combat global warming, we won’t have liberty.

Actually, it looks like the checks and balance system evolved from British Common Law and Constitutional Monarchy and from the Iroquois Confederacy. Well I was wrong, it seems there is ONE thing in the Constitution that is based on Christianity.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Haha, neither do I — I’m just one poster that started a thread about US history. There’s a total of 55 messages here, after two of mine. Some are so agitated that they’re posting multiple replies to one message of mine, and some are using four-letter words.So maybe I’m the wrong one to ask about fuss. But liberty and limited government is relevant, separation of church and state is relevant. The framers never had to deal with the combination of atheism and state to the degree that we do today. You’d have to read my opening post again. Read the Woodrow Wilson quote. A knowledge of a country’s history by it’s own citizens is thought of to be important by many people. I, like many, believe that an ignorance of it can be a significant contributor to that country’s downfall. When I see history mis-represented on a scientific forum, I thought it could be worth some exploration. This is a discussion forum. Strange how some scientific posters see separation of church and state in the first amendment, but don’t see freedom of speech for conservatives there.