If the American form of democratic representation was the preferred government of God, then why does it not mention that in the bible? Also why did Christians think for 17 centuries that the preferred form of government was autocratic monarchy based on the divine right of kings? Why does Paul write to submit to the governing authorities because they are appointed by God instead of rebelling against them because they do not have the consent of the governed?
Why was it only after the Enlightenment began that people started to realize that monarchy and the divine right of kings was a poor way to build a government?
Now, now, now... intellectual honesty is literally hard work as any real historian will tell you. That would interfere with the efficiency of their grift. But, christian nationalism is dependent on intellectual laziness which is deeply seated on both sides of the pulpit.
Their marks... er, um - the faithful - go there to be told what to believe and be told that they, the Good People - will be rewarded in Heaven by Jeebus himself - and oh, by the way, please put a generous contribution to Jeebus' cause in the collection plate.
Fundie churches don’t rely on collection plates. They charge a “tithe” — typically 10% of your income. These are not charitable gifts; they’re the charge for membership in a club/cult for authoritarian followers.
Speaking of churches and money, does anyone have any stats or anecdata on how much (if any) of their wealth fundie churches spend on actual charity? (Proselytising doesn’t count; advertising isn’t charity. Nor do special “member services,” since church members have to pay that extremely high fee for membership.)
It's the constitution of the Confederate States of America that stuck their deity in their version of the document. It was basically plagiarized from the real US Constitution, but with lots of stuff about states' rights, slavery and godbothering thrown in. Here is their preamble:
"We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America."
With respect to “ If the American form of democratic representation was the preferred government of God, then why does it not mention that in the bible?”, I’ve seen an extremely belabored attempt to “demonstrate” the bible does exactly that. Too belabored to attempt to repeat here. It was laughable.
I think that too many Christians try to "baptize" institutions and claim them for their own. There's no mention of republics in the Bible or even voting for that matter.
What's truly unfortunate is that these sorts of questions are dismissed out-of-hand by religious types as proof of Christian persecution. Anything that doesn't stand up to scrutiny doesn't deserve your consideration. To these people, though, it's evidence that the world is out to get them.
These types of Christians (and this can be applied to other religious groups as well!) usually end up hurting their own cause in doing so. If EVERYTHING in the world is persecuting them for some reason or another, then what is not?
How unfortunate it is to be Yemeni Christian right now... and see your Christian brothers and sisters cry persecution in America! So much for loving your fellow man through philia!
Whenever I think about American Christianity, I find myself greatly disappointed. I find that both Progressive and Conservative Christians (as well as other Christians of various political stripes although it is Conservative Christians who do this the most, from what I notice as a frequent pattern in their behavior) avoid accountability in the harms of their movement. They give more importance to whatever gospel they hear from their preferred pulpit and have an all-or-nothing mindset, which makes me rather sad as they seem to be really decent, good people to their neighbors. Just not to those who fully agree with them on everything.
That being said, I greatly admire those 'Christians' (really Christ-followers in the truest sense of the word, when stripping Christ's message to its most basic roots!). They don't put their comfort of being 'Christian' over being a good person. They really do help everyone, no matter what path they may walk! These people also typically have a good sense of Self and have a steady mind, whether it is good or bad times so, they can recognize whenever they are in danger.
Unfortunately, American Christianity, as a whole (although this can be applied to other 'Christian religions' and other religions as well!), seems to be going down a dark path. While I am pessimistic about Christianity overall (especially American Christianity), I hope individual Christ-followers can truly follow Jesus Christ's message.
The term Creator is a Deist one, not a Christian one. Of the 7 Key Founders, 5 were Deists and they didn't follow Christian concepts.
Besides this, the quote clearly says THEIR Creator and not OUR Creator. Those are two very different things (especially as Deists didn't hold to the idea of the god found in Christianity.
Shall we also mention that the inclusion of "nature's god" and "creator" were objected to by Jefferson and maintained in the DoI despite his disapproval?
Such is the nature of the democratic process. We don't always get what we want. But getting everyone else on board was ONE of the things we wanted, and this was one of the prices to pay that compromise always involves.
Too bad the current bunch of assholes running the country can't seem to figure that out. For them it's always "our way or the highway".
"This is also where they got the idea that he taught that God's preferred form of government was the consent of the governed."
*spit take*
Dude, have you MET your tyrannical eye in the sky? Where in the bible does it say that your deity is anything but a brute dictator who will smite people at the first sign of free thought/action?
If you look back (I mean look back properly, not the kind of look into history those two dudes ae doing) then, then we have some knowledge of the last 10k years. There have been a number of forms of government during that time and some of them were democracies. (If we equate 'consent of the governed' with a democracy). There were forms of democracy in Greece, in Iceland, in Switzerland and yes, the USA established a form of democracy in the 18th century.
The vast majority of places for the vast majority of time did not have democratic structures, so if this was God's preferred form of government, he's been very sparing with it!!
Conservatives, both religious and political, have an enormous appetite for being told what they want to hear. They equate that phony validation with truth. Fortunately for the Barton’s there is no legal definition for a historian, because they may as well be calling themselves astronauts. It’s a safe bet no legitimate university with a desire to hold on to their accreditation would hire either of them to teach history. They’re grifters pure and simple.
To be fair to them, everyone has that enormous appetite for being told what they want to hear. But good people with integrity will question themselves and what they want to hear, as as well as what they do and want.
Well christian nationalists (and most other christians) are totally incapable of introspection and critical thinking... The whole thing is founded on a fact-free and preconceived notion and if you deviate from it, you are gonna go to Hell! By the way heaven and hell are just as undetectable as Jeebus, himself...
I wrote elsewhere, that real historians, proper historians start with the sources and examine them. And then they get to an opinion. Not the other way around.
Something to consider - real historians look at the sources, examining the original texts, analyse the materials of that time and then come to an opinion. Messrs Burton seem to work the other way around.
Lying liars listing licentiousness liberally. It's the same old pattern ... AGAIN. Making assertions and claims that they either don't back up or assume will be taken at face value, because who's going to check up on them? Answer: US. We care about the accuracy of our history and willing to note the problems with the founders, but this is BS.
Conservatives can’t stand to feel slightly uncomfortable for one second which is why they wish to rewrite history. Should we point out that Manifest Destiny, the KKK, Jim Crow were all based on so-called “Christian principles”. Something to be proud of…?
They claim it’s to protect children’s feelings, but that’s an excuse. I’m certain that children already possess more emotional intelligence than most of these conservative adults and their fragile egos.
Key words: 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘸. It doesn't matter to them what Christian principles were then. It doesn't matter what complex principles actually inspired the nation at the time of the founders. They want to rule (not govern) according to their interpretation of what they want Christianity to mean, even when it directly contradicts the understanding of Christianity held by millions of their current coreligionists.
All of this is in service to their desire for power and control.
I don't care too much about what the founding fathers thought 250 years ago. I care much more about how far we've come since then. The smartest among them didn't understand evolution, aeronautics or biology and they founded the nation on what they knew then. They also founded the nation on the idea that rich white men should rule, not because their parents ruled but because they had the power.
Today a (hopefully) majority of us believe that all people are created equal and we should be the rulers of our own destiny. Going back to what the founding fathers believed is a fool's errand. Anyone who wants to go back to that time and way of thinking should just volunteer to be a slave.
In another document that, unlike the Declaration of Independence, is actually the law of the land like the Constitution, it quite explicitly states that the government of the United States is not, in ANY sense, based of the Christian religion.
That document (the Treaty of Tripoli) was ratified UNANIMOUSLY and WITHOUT dissent and signed into law by President John Adams, a Deist. Christian nation? I think not.
It's FAR MORE likely that Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, was quoting fellow Virginian George Mason, who wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights which was ratified on June 12, 1776, and says, in Section 1: "That all men are by nature free and independent and have certain inherent rights...... namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety." [NB: Mason didn't say those 'inherent rights' came from any god; they're simply inherent.]
What the 'America is a christian nation' types ALWAYS elide is that the Declaration isn't a governing document of the U.S., but the document which does govern this country, The Constitution, makes no reference to god, Jesus, christianity, and never calls this country 'a christian nation.' The power of government, instead, derives from the consent of the governed, not from any god. They also fail to explain why, if the Founders were so intent on forming a christian nation, they DIDN'T say so in our supreme law. They had every opportunity to do so. They didn't.
The key founders looked at both the blood shed because of Christianity in Europe and Christian rule in the British colonies here a century previous and wanted no part of it.
Indeed. Both Jefferson and Madison worked to get Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom passed through the Virginia legislature for exactly that reason. Madison makes that position even clearer in his remarkable Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments.
Just for fun, I did a search on "George Mason" quotes, and finding the "all men by their nature" quote was easy as 3.14159... One wonders if the Bartons could be bothered to do something similar.
This, exactly. The DOI was simply that: a declaration of INDEPENDENCE from the ruling British Empire. It was not a governing document nor was it meant to define the laws and rules that would form the basis of the Constitution. That came later. And those very same Founders were so opposed to founding a state religion that they wrote in the FIRST Amendment that there should be NO state religion whatsoever. NONE. America was to be a SECULAR NATION where anybody could worship ANY religion, or none at all.
But Christian Nationalists don't want to hear that, do they?
However, the first amendment was not the first item in the bill of rights. In the version of the Bill of Rights that were passed by the House of Representatives there were seventeen separate articles. The first article determined the apportionment of members of the House of Representatives; the second article was about pay raises to members of congress (it was finally ratified as the 27th amendment in 1992), freedom of religion was in the third article and freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right of assembly and the right to petition the government were in the fourth article.
The senate combined some of the articles and deleted one. the third and fourth were combined as article three, the tenth article was combined with the seventh, the twelfth artical became part of the ninth and fourteenth article was split between the third and the ninth articles. Article sixteen was deleted altogether, and it was a great loss, because it forbade the three branches of government from exercising the ppowers reserved to a different branch, something that would keep Hair Füror from usurping the powers of the legislative branch or the courts from reassigning powers to the executive branch.
The senate's version of the Bill of Rights was passed on to the states with twelve articles. The first two articles failed to be ratified by the states, leaving articles three through twelve to become the first ten amendments. Had all twelve been passed in 1791, we'd be speaking of the freedom of religion, speech, the press and so on as our third amendment rights.
So I'm sorry to inform you that the first amendment is not the first because it was considered the most important; it became the first because the two items ahead of it on the list didn't pass muster by the states. As I mentioned above, the second article was passed in 1992 as the twenty-seventh amendment, and the first article, which is still pending and could be approved, would become the twenty-eighth amendment and the House of Representatives would go from 435 members to somewhere around 6,300.
If you go to the Wikipedia article on the US Bill of Rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights), you can see the original seventeen articles that were approved by the House of Representatives, the Senate version that was pared down to twelve articles, which were then passed on to the states for ratification. It was just a matter of circumstance that the third article became the first amendment, and I get a bit annoyed when people assume that its position in the list is a measure of its importance. There are people who make the same claim about the second amendment. The real loss, though, was the deletion of article sixteen:
"The powers delegated by the Constitution to the government of the United States, shall be exercised as therein appropriated, so that the Legislative shall never exercise the powers vested in the Executive or Judicial; nor the Executive the powers vested in the Legislative or Judicial; nor the Judicial the powers vested in the Legislative or Executive."
No surprise here. When you consider that all religions are based on man-made bullshit, and that all gods are imaginary and only exist in the heads of the delusional, and that they have been lied to for centuries. What’s one more lie? To them? It’s acceptable if they can impose their own beliefs on the rest of us because they (wrongly) believe that by being a Christian, it gives them special rights and power to force their buy-bull bullshit on everyone.
I will not tolerate their lies and propaganda and continue to speak the truth, the truth that all religions are scams.
"Confident lies are way more persuasive than verifiable truths. It’s what they’ve built their careers on."
Just like creationists who confidently lie persuasively about science in all areas, knowing their gullible audience will lap it up without question, protest, or fact check their claims.
And just like that Stupid Idiot Dump who lies continuously and persuasively knowing that his stupid followers will believe everything he pull out from his smelly, dirty you-know-where without a second thought.
If the American form of democratic representation was the preferred government of God, then why does it not mention that in the bible? Also why did Christians think for 17 centuries that the preferred form of government was autocratic monarchy based on the divine right of kings? Why does Paul write to submit to the governing authorities because they are appointed by God instead of rebelling against them because they do not have the consent of the governed?
Why was it only after the Enlightenment began that people started to realize that monarchy and the divine right of kings was a poor way to build a government?
Hmm?
Indeed. Why are the first three words of the Preamble: "We the People" and not "In the Name of Jesus Christ..."
Because it's a SECULAR document, dumb-ass!*
* "dumb-ass" is aimed at the Bartons, sure as hell not YOU!
Now, now, now... intellectual honesty is literally hard work as any real historian will tell you. That would interfere with the efficiency of their grift. But, christian nationalism is dependent on intellectual laziness which is deeply seated on both sides of the pulpit.
Their marks... er, um - the faithful - go there to be told what to believe and be told that they, the Good People - will be rewarded in Heaven by Jeebus himself - and oh, by the way, please put a generous contribution to Jeebus' cause in the collection plate.
Of course, "intellectual honesty is literally hard work." Sadly, the Bartons and hard work don't appear to be well acquainted, if acquainted at all.
They met intellectual honesty once. Afterwards she was found with multiple blunt force injuries and rushed to the ER.
Fundie churches don’t rely on collection plates. They charge a “tithe” — typically 10% of your income. These are not charitable gifts; they’re the charge for membership in a club/cult for authoritarian followers.
Speaking of churches and money, does anyone have any stats or anecdata on how much (if any) of their wealth fundie churches spend on actual charity? (Proselytising doesn’t count; advertising isn’t charity. Nor do special “member services,” since church members have to pay that extremely high fee for membership.)
Authoritarian tithes are also the price of Mormonism. The church parking lots are pretty empty here deep in the Bible Belt where I live…
It's the constitution of the Confederate States of America that stuck their deity in their version of the document. It was basically plagiarized from the real US Constitution, but with lots of stuff about states' rights, slavery and godbothering thrown in. Here is their preamble:
"We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America."
There's a side-by-side comparison of the two constitutions at https://civildiscourse-historyblog.com/blog/2019/7/31/constitutions-of-the-united-states-and-confederate-states-a-comparison
Outstanding set of questions!
With respect to “ If the American form of democratic representation was the preferred government of God, then why does it not mention that in the bible?”, I’ve seen an extremely belabored attempt to “demonstrate” the bible does exactly that. Too belabored to attempt to repeat here. It was laughable.
I think that too many Christians try to "baptize" institutions and claim them for their own. There's no mention of republics in the Bible or even voting for that matter.
What's truly unfortunate is that these sorts of questions are dismissed out-of-hand by religious types as proof of Christian persecution. Anything that doesn't stand up to scrutiny doesn't deserve your consideration. To these people, though, it's evidence that the world is out to get them.
These types of Christians (and this can be applied to other religious groups as well!) usually end up hurting their own cause in doing so. If EVERYTHING in the world is persecuting them for some reason or another, then what is not?
How unfortunate it is to be Yemeni Christian right now... and see your Christian brothers and sisters cry persecution in America! So much for loving your fellow man through philia!
Yes. When you consider that many Christians overseas are facing harm including prison time and even death, it puts American Christianity to shame.
Hello David! Much thanks for your comment.
Whenever I think about American Christianity, I find myself greatly disappointed. I find that both Progressive and Conservative Christians (as well as other Christians of various political stripes although it is Conservative Christians who do this the most, from what I notice as a frequent pattern in their behavior) avoid accountability in the harms of their movement. They give more importance to whatever gospel they hear from their preferred pulpit and have an all-or-nothing mindset, which makes me rather sad as they seem to be really decent, good people to their neighbors. Just not to those who fully agree with them on everything.
That being said, I greatly admire those 'Christians' (really Christ-followers in the truest sense of the word, when stripping Christ's message to its most basic roots!). They don't put their comfort of being 'Christian' over being a good person. They really do help everyone, no matter what path they may walk! These people also typically have a good sense of Self and have a steady mind, whether it is good or bad times so, they can recognize whenever they are in danger.
Unfortunately, American Christianity, as a whole (although this can be applied to other 'Christian religions' and other religions as well!), seems to be going down a dark path. While I am pessimistic about Christianity overall (especially American Christianity), I hope individual Christ-followers can truly follow Jesus Christ's message.
I hope all is well on your side!
Oh, those pesky, pesky facts!!
Calling Margo Lane,Calling Margo Lane,,,,,(on my 2-way wrist communicator, lol)
Hey, Tim-o...
The term Creator is a Deist one, not a Christian one. Of the 7 Key Founders, 5 were Deists and they didn't follow Christian concepts.
Besides this, the quote clearly says THEIR Creator and not OUR Creator. Those are two very different things (especially as Deists didn't hold to the idea of the god found in Christianity.
Shall we also mention that the inclusion of "nature's god" and "creator" were objected to by Jefferson and maintained in the DoI despite his disapproval?
Once again, seems I just did.
In Jefferson's original draft, "creator" was mentioned only once (in lowercase c, to boot).
The capitalization and 3 other mentions were made afterward over his very strenuous objections.
Such is the nature of the democratic process. We don't always get what we want. But getting everyone else on board was ONE of the things we wanted, and this was one of the prices to pay that compromise always involves.
Too bad the current bunch of assholes running the country can't seem to figure that out. For them it's always "our way or the highway".
"This is also where they got the idea that he taught that God's preferred form of government was the consent of the governed."
*spit take*
Dude, have you MET your tyrannical eye in the sky? Where in the bible does it say that your deity is anything but a brute dictator who will smite people at the first sign of free thought/action?
If you look back (I mean look back properly, not the kind of look into history those two dudes ae doing) then, then we have some knowledge of the last 10k years. There have been a number of forms of government during that time and some of them were democracies. (If we equate 'consent of the governed' with a democracy). There were forms of democracy in Greece, in Iceland, in Switzerland and yes, the USA established a form of democracy in the 18th century.
The vast majority of places for the vast majority of time did not have democratic structures, so if this was God's preferred form of government, he's been very sparing with it!!
You see, god HAD to smite them because they didn't consent to be absolute slaves.
Conservatives, both religious and political, have an enormous appetite for being told what they want to hear. They equate that phony validation with truth. Fortunately for the Barton’s there is no legal definition for a historian, because they may as well be calling themselves astronauts. It’s a safe bet no legitimate university with a desire to hold on to their accreditation would hire either of them to teach history. They’re grifters pure and simple.
To be fair to them, everyone has that enormous appetite for being told what they want to hear. But good people with integrity will question themselves and what they want to hear, as as well as what they do and want.
And this is why the right hates education, especially when it includes critical thinking. And especially higher education.
Well christian nationalists (and most other christians) are totally incapable of introspection and critical thinking... The whole thing is founded on a fact-free and preconceived notion and if you deviate from it, you are gonna go to Hell! By the way heaven and hell are just as undetectable as Jeebus, himself...
I wrote elsewhere, that real historians, proper historians start with the sources and examine them. And then they get to an opinion. Not the other way around.
Trump University?
Rah rah Trump University
We're gonna fight like hell.
Rah rah Trump University
Our president is Mike Lindell.
From Trump University Fight Song (c) in Dictator for a Day. Rent now on YouTube or streaming on Apple TV, Tubi, YouTube TV and Google TV.
Trump U. was a scam, and never close to an accredited university.
And Pam Blondie, our AG, turned a blind eye towards it. Gee, how did she get a job in der kinderführer's administration? 🤔
Something to consider - real historians look at the sources, examining the original texts, analyse the materials of that time and then come to an opinion. Messrs Burton seem to work the other way around.
It's the usual deal: conclusions first, then either cherry-pick data to suit or just plain MAKE SOMETHING UP.
YECs have made it into an art form.
Lying liars listing licentiousness liberally. It's the same old pattern ... AGAIN. Making assertions and claims that they either don't back up or assume will be taken at face value, because who's going to check up on them? Answer: US. We care about the accuracy of our history and willing to note the problems with the founders, but this is BS.
I was tired of this crap about 10 squares back
When they start with their big book of lies it makes easier to continue with lies that that think(?) will support what they say.
Only 10? You are quite generous to them.
They're GENEROUS squares, I think ... [shrug]
Conservatives can’t stand to feel slightly uncomfortable for one second which is why they wish to rewrite history. Should we point out that Manifest Destiny, the KKK, Jim Crow were all based on so-called “Christian principles”. Something to be proud of…?
I can only assume they are proud of those things.
They claim it’s to protect children’s feelings, but that’s an excuse. I’m certain that children already possess more emotional intelligence than most of these conservative adults and their fragile egos.
𝐼𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑔𝑜𝑒𝑠, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑖𝑡 𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑟𝑢𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑠 (𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚) 𝑛𝑜𝑤.
Key words: 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘸. It doesn't matter to them what Christian principles were then. It doesn't matter what complex principles actually inspired the nation at the time of the founders. They want to rule (not govern) according to their interpretation of what they want Christianity to mean, even when it directly contradicts the understanding of Christianity held by millions of their current coreligionists.
All of this is in service to their desire for power and control.
Someone else described it (in a very different context) of making political points by using (or creating) a historical context.
I don't care too much about what the founding fathers thought 250 years ago. I care much more about how far we've come since then. The smartest among them didn't understand evolution, aeronautics or biology and they founded the nation on what they knew then. They also founded the nation on the idea that rich white men should rule, not because their parents ruled but because they had the power.
Today a (hopefully) majority of us believe that all people are created equal and we should be the rulers of our own destiny. Going back to what the founding fathers believed is a fool's errand. Anyone who wants to go back to that time and way of thinking should just volunteer to be a slave.
Lying liar for Jesus lying? Must be a day ending in "y".
In another document that, unlike the Declaration of Independence, is actually the law of the land like the Constitution, it quite explicitly states that the government of the United States is not, in ANY sense, based of the Christian religion.
That document (the Treaty of Tripoli) was ratified UNANIMOUSLY and WITHOUT dissent and signed into law by President John Adams, a Deist. Christian nation? I think not.
In my experience, the Treaty of Tripoli was never mentioned in classrooms. I never even saw it mentioned even in my high school history book.
Sure would've raised a ruckus among believers.
Why would they lie? Because that's what they do. Lying is baked into the religion.
Lying is the religion
It's FAR MORE likely that Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, was quoting fellow Virginian George Mason, who wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights which was ratified on June 12, 1776, and says, in Section 1: "That all men are by nature free and independent and have certain inherent rights...... namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety." [NB: Mason didn't say those 'inherent rights' came from any god; they're simply inherent.]
What the 'America is a christian nation' types ALWAYS elide is that the Declaration isn't a governing document of the U.S., but the document which does govern this country, The Constitution, makes no reference to god, Jesus, christianity, and never calls this country 'a christian nation.' The power of government, instead, derives from the consent of the governed, not from any god. They also fail to explain why, if the Founders were so intent on forming a christian nation, they DIDN'T say so in our supreme law. They had every opportunity to do so. They didn't.
The key founders looked at both the blood shed because of Christianity in Europe and Christian rule in the British colonies here a century previous and wanted no part of it.
Indeed. Both Jefferson and Madison worked to get Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom passed through the Virginia legislature for exactly that reason. Madison makes that position even clearer in his remarkable Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments.
Just for fun, I did a search on "George Mason" quotes, and finding the "all men by their nature" quote was easy as 3.14159... One wonders if the Bartons could be bothered to do something similar.
Oh, who am I kidding??? OF COURSE NOT!!!
But, but.....that doesn't support their narrative, Trouble!
Oh, darn! 😝
This, exactly. The DOI was simply that: a declaration of INDEPENDENCE from the ruling British Empire. It was not a governing document nor was it meant to define the laws and rules that would form the basis of the Constitution. That came later. And those very same Founders were so opposed to founding a state religion that they wrote in the FIRST Amendment that there should be NO state religion whatsoever. NONE. America was to be a SECULAR NATION where anybody could worship ANY religion, or none at all.
But Christian Nationalists don't want to hear that, do they?
No, they do NOT! Well said, Brianna!
"America was to be" The MAGAs love it.
https://www.thecollector.com/united-states-america-understanding-name-debate/
God Bless America🤔
However, the first amendment was not the first item in the bill of rights. In the version of the Bill of Rights that were passed by the House of Representatives there were seventeen separate articles. The first article determined the apportionment of members of the House of Representatives; the second article was about pay raises to members of congress (it was finally ratified as the 27th amendment in 1992), freedom of religion was in the third article and freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right of assembly and the right to petition the government were in the fourth article.
The senate combined some of the articles and deleted one. the third and fourth were combined as article three, the tenth article was combined with the seventh, the twelfth artical became part of the ninth and fourteenth article was split between the third and the ninth articles. Article sixteen was deleted altogether, and it was a great loss, because it forbade the three branches of government from exercising the ppowers reserved to a different branch, something that would keep Hair Füror from usurping the powers of the legislative branch or the courts from reassigning powers to the executive branch.
The senate's version of the Bill of Rights was passed on to the states with twelve articles. The first two articles failed to be ratified by the states, leaving articles three through twelve to become the first ten amendments. Had all twelve been passed in 1791, we'd be speaking of the freedom of religion, speech, the press and so on as our third amendment rights.
So I'm sorry to inform you that the first amendment is not the first because it was considered the most important; it became the first because the two items ahead of it on the list didn't pass muster by the states. As I mentioned above, the second article was passed in 1992 as the twenty-seventh amendment, and the first article, which is still pending and could be approved, would become the twenty-eighth amendment and the House of Representatives would go from 435 members to somewhere around 6,300.
Well I didn't really want to get into the nitty gritty of the entire Constitutional process but thanks?
If you go to the Wikipedia article on the US Bill of Rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights), you can see the original seventeen articles that were approved by the House of Representatives, the Senate version that was pared down to twelve articles, which were then passed on to the states for ratification. It was just a matter of circumstance that the third article became the first amendment, and I get a bit annoyed when people assume that its position in the list is a measure of its importance. There are people who make the same claim about the second amendment. The real loss, though, was the deletion of article sixteen:
"The powers delegated by the Constitution to the government of the United States, shall be exercised as therein appropriated, so that the Legislative shall never exercise the powers vested in the Executive or Judicial; nor the Executive the powers vested in the Legislative or Judicial; nor the Judicial the powers vested in the Legislative or Executive."
Ugh. Why did they throw that out? It could have saved us a TON of headache.
No surprise here. When you consider that all religions are based on man-made bullshit, and that all gods are imaginary and only exist in the heads of the delusional, and that they have been lied to for centuries. What’s one more lie? To them? It’s acceptable if they can impose their own beliefs on the rest of us because they (wrongly) believe that by being a Christian, it gives them special rights and power to force their buy-bull bullshit on everyone.
I will not tolerate their lies and propaganda and continue to speak the truth, the truth that all religions are scams.
They cite a quote that doesn't exist. Par for the course, as they cite a lot of things that don't exist and never did.
"Confident lies are way more persuasive than verifiable truths. It’s what they’ve built their careers on."
Just like creationists who confidently lie persuasively about science in all areas, knowing their gullible audience will lap it up without question, protest, or fact check their claims.
And just like that Stupid Idiot Dump who lies continuously and persuasively knowing that his stupid followers will believe everything he pull out from his smelly, dirty you-know-where without a second thought.