Saturday, December 14, 2013

Jefferson, Washington and Separation of Church and State

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

There may be millions of people in the United States who do not share our founders' reverance for what Thomas Jefferson called the "wall of seperation" between church and state. Many throughout the ranks of the religious right wing, for example, are eager to court bigots and fanatics, promising them a "theocracy" in exhange for their "souls". The following excerpt is typical of a "movement" to create an American Theocracy:
If conservatives are smart, we will make the GOP a relic of the past, and will go to the polls and vote the "Jesus Christ" line...Search out the spiritual life of every candidate, and eliminate those who do not follow the one true God.Long before November, we should have all of the members of our churches and their families commit to EVERYONE voting... Done properly, the turnout should be about 10% liberal and 90% conservative/Christian/ Tea-Party/etc. It would speak very loudly to have this kind of turnout.

--John Stone, comment left on "The Batavian"

Now George Washington is reputed to have been a "man of faith". But many others were not. As many if not more are described as "deists", better described as a philosophical view of a supreme being as opposed to an organized religion.

The bottom line is this: nowhere may be found any reference to "God" or deities of any sort in the Constitution. The fact of the matter is that our founders were prominently and most often not very religious. Some were Deists, some may have been atheists, and some probably did not care. That there is no clause in the Constitution that bases our nation on an "establishment of religion" is to be expected.

The single most effective challenge to would be theocrats is Thomas Jefferson's famous letter to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptists:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Danbury Baptists


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

when Jefferson used the word Israel in his eulogy of Washington...

to whom was he referring ?
http://adask.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/natural-law-vs-national-emergency/
it most certainly was not
the turko Mongolian - Asiatic
Khazar - Ashkenazim "Proselytes" to Talmudic Judaism....
http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/cia-claims-release-of-its-history-of-the-bay-of-pigs-debacle-would-confuse-the-public/
Right ?

Feilz Navidad

Davy

Unknown said...

What is the implication? Is it said that because a nation is not founded on the Christian religion, that one Thomas Jefferson (NOT a founder, by the way) cannot use the word "God" or --for that matter --the words "moogah moogah" in his various conversations and those various letters NOT having the effect of creating a "nation"??

The RELEVANT facts are these: 1) the U.S. Constitution (and it's amendedments) as it was eventually ratified is the ONLY document that need be consulted with respect to whether or not it was created upon Christian principles or Muslim principles or the principles of "moogahmoogahism"; 2) Nothing said/written by Thomas Jefferson (or any number of prominent people) in conversation (private or otherwise) with respect to religion or religious convictions has the force of law; 3) it was not the Declaration of Independence that created the United States; it was, rather, the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. AGAIN: there is simply NO LANGUAGE in the U.S. Constitution that makes of the the U.S. a Christian nation; there is simply NO LANGUAGE in the U.S. Constitution that makes of the U.S. a Muslim nation, a moogahmoogah nation, or --in fact --the principles of ANY RELIGION WHATSOEVER!

Anonymous said...

mainly the implication is in the historical context of the use of the word...{Israel}

simply put...

what percentage of the inabitants of the so-called "Jewish" state are actually from the tribe of Judah...or any other tribe of the "Kingdom of Israel"...

http://buelahman.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/and-you-dont-think-the-media-is-run-by-jews/

and how much does that cost the braindeadgoy so-called TAXPAYERS in the "JEW" worshipping so-called United States ?

personally it is my opinion that the "Jew" worshipping religion is just too costly...given my handicap of actually having done real work, and studied and learned the actual definitions of words...like "Justice" & Truth.

didn't mean to step on anybody's sacred frogs...with actual malice.

Davy