A Little Knowledge, etc.

        A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, (but humorous at times)  especially when the offending party  uses quotes out of context to justify a concept or principle diametrically opposed to those of the original speaker.  In very few, if any, instances or applications is this more evident than  in the all too frequent and too desperate attempts those of the religious right in their attempts to reinterpret the First Amendment  of the US Constitution.

       A friend recently sent (forwarded, actually)  one such polemic,  which the originator justified  by the fact that he claimed that all the citations were part of  "The Avalon Project" It was implied by the phrasing that said "Project" was somehow related to the subject of the  broadside in question. In truth, the Avalon Project is simply Yale University's document repository.

        As with many of these things, the writers' viewpoint was that there is no intended "Wall of Separation" between church and state  and of course this is followed by the same old tired "Christian nation" bullshit. I was stunned to see a quote in defense of this position attributed to Thomas  Paine. The writer obviously knew the name, but just as many Americans revere Patrick Henry with zero knowledge of the man and the scope of his true leanings, such is clearly this writer's case with Paine.   

        While the quote is forgettable and not truly pertinent or germane to religion, it could be misconstrued to that use. What the writer obviously doesn't know is that Paine was openly hostile to organized religion, especially state sponsored,  left America for France during the 1789 revolution, and published scathing denunciations of Christianity in general, and The Bible and the Catholic Church in particular. One of Paine's magnum opuses in fact is a systematic analysis of the Torah and why he finds it riddled with error to the point of being false doctrine.  There is isn't room for anything near all that Tom Paine said re: religion, but here is just a smattering:

        "Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange believe that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies." [Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason] ( ed: it should be understood that this would, of course  include the Ten Commandments!)

        "Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter."

        "Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in; but this attempts to stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity."

         "The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion."

        As the above should make clear to even the thickest dullard, Paine had less than no use for religion. which leads to the alternate point of my essay,  said point being that  that the vast bulk of those who, like the Billy Grahams, The Ted Cruzs, Pat Robertsons,  Palins, Huckabees, etc, who persist in  their "America is a Christian nation and the Founders believed it should be" tripe, are abysmally ignorant of one key point. While it is true that most of the founders believed in some form of deity, many of them, as did Paine, had little use for any formalized religion. "Church" to these sycophants, mostly of the Far Right really means "Our Church and our rituals."  So having said that, let's actually look at what those men in 1786 meant.

        First note the words of the First Amendment: in part  ...." Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof......."  This isn't about belief in God. Never was intended to be. It is about  system of worship, i.e. the external indicators of an individual's belief. To understand why this is so important consider that into the very early 1800s, some states, like Connecticut, for over a century, collected mandatory tithes from all citizens, even Jews paid tithes to the Congregational Church. Germany does it yet today , in fact Germany in 2016 still levied a church tax, on all persons declaring themselves to be Christians, of roughly 8–9% of their income tax, which is effectively (depending on the social and financial situation) typically between 0.2% and 1.5% of the total income. The proceeds are shared amongst Catholic, Lutheran, and other Protestant Churches. It should be noted that this is at least restricted to Christian professors, but it also means that part of a Protestant's tax bill goes to Catholic churches!  

        So, while many of the founders were Deists, believing in some supernatural power , to greater or lesser degrees, many, including Madison, Jefferson, Washington  and Adams,  had little or no regard for "religion" - the structural or formal ritualized fawning over an alleged almighty spirit. Of course, the writer alluded to in my opening says "there is no mention of a "wall between Church and State". Note yet again:              "religion" does not mean "Church", at least not to the writers of the Constitution, a distinction which today's would be Pharisees have long ignored.  So, what exactly DID those guys think of "religion" as properly defined, y'know, priests, rituals, etc?

  

      "This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it" [John Adams]  ed: It should be noted that while Adams did often allude to religion, the context was actually "morality", which while possibly synonymous to Adams, certainly has a different flavor today, right, Duggars?

        "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize." -James Madison to William Bradford, April 1, 1774 

        "The settled opinion here is, that religion is essentially distinct from civil Government, and exempt from its cognizance; that a connection between them is injurious to both; that there are causes in the human breast which ensure the perpetuity of religion without the aid of the law; that rival sects, with equal rights, exercise mutual censorships in favor of good morals; that if new sects arise with absurd opinions or over-heated imaginations, the proper remedies lie in time, forbearance, and example; that a legal establishment of religion without a toleration could not be thought of, and with a toleration, is no security for and animosity........."  Madison, 1821 

       Recent books exploring Washington's religious beliefs—Realistic Visionary by Peter Henriques, and Faith and the Presidency by Gary Scott Smith—both categorize Washington as a theistic rationalist which is described as a hybrid belief system somewhere between strict deism and orthodox Christianity, with rationalism as the predominant element.  Washington was known to attend numerous sects' worship services, if so moved, but never took communion, even at his "home" church, always leaving before the sacrament was offered. There have been some modern attempts to go back and label Washington a "Christian" by those desperate for it to be so, but these are more analogous to the same sort of attempts to  declare that Darwin and/or Chris Hitchens recanted their views and  theories on their death bed. These are desperate attempts by charlatans keen to inject their own dogmatic spiritual pathology into the lives of the dead.

Now for the fun stuff: I'll post a series of outrageous statements and you figure out who said them:

         “Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God.”  The writers of the New Testament are  “ignorant, unlettered men” who produced “superstitions, fanaticisms, and fabrications.” The Apostle Paul was  the “first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.” The concept of the Trinity is “mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.” The clergy use religion as a “mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves” and  “in every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.” This person also wrote that,  “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”

        Of course it was Thomas Jefferson who wrote all the above. As for the "Wall of separation"', also Jefferson,  forget the contexts, criticisms or discussions  of those who would minimize or even deny its existence.

         The important issue here is that the word "religion" as interpreted by these men in many of their writings, meant something different than it means today. The belief in a deity, regardless of personal concept, is a far cry from believing that any individual's belief in that deity should be imposed  against any other citizen who believes differently. The belief in any writing considered scriptural is the subjective  property of the believer and while it may be comforting to share in that  belief with like-minded individuals, its enforced adoption across the body politic is exactly what the First Amendment means.  And finally, with Antonin Scalia dead, can we please, once again view the Constitution as it was intended, a living framework for reasonable  people to use and adapt as conditions  warrant?

        There is a reason that some provisions of the Constitution are unspecific:  examples include  the number of Federal courts, the number of USSC Justices, or the number of Executive Branch heads (Cabinet posts). Why?  Because Messrs. Madison and Hamilton realized that America would grow and change. If the Constitution had been written with specifics down to the last detail based on conditions as they existed in 1786, it would have to have been amended  thousands of times by now, vice only 27 times.