KFC POSTS: While I agree with your title, I believe it's for today.

I totally agree KFC.


Good article SC. I enjoyed reading it. You brought up some great points. I grinned and nodded in agreement when I read, "But of course, everyone wants to disect those words for their own purpose or side of the argument." This of course is true.
Yes, you’re title is right, we are secular nation...and that’s because we ‘ve democratized the constitutional republic that our Founders originally set up.

There’s no doubt that today we’re not a Christian nation. America was set up as a constitutional republic in that the general population elects representatives who then pass laws which govern the nation. A constitutional republic is rule by law and if we were a Christian nation, then we would be ruled by laws which would be in harmony with God's laws and today, clearly they are not. A constititional republic is the highest form of government and one in which the rulers as well as the ruled obey the laws. It is one that requires a great amount of participation and maintainence. If neglected, it can deterooiorate into a democracry, anarchy, oligarchy, monarchy, or dictatorship....and that’s exactly what has happened. We’ve been off course for some time now and our great constitutional republic has collapsed.

i don't deny that many had personal religious convictions. but both of you ignore the 2 most important things up there, which aren't teh personal statements of any of them.

it is when acting as a government, we acted secularly. look again at the
treaty of tripoli...



not in any sense.

and President Adams said...



that is speaking as President, not as a person.

same with the ohio v minor case.

this has nothing to do with how people feel as individuals. 90% of this country today would consider themselves religious, in a way they personally define it. but that is irrelevant when acting as a nation, or a government.

you 2 have both confused a "secular society" with a "secular government." i'm just glad the founders didn't.

oh please...the language couldn't be more clear. they are not distinguishing between american and european christianity, as most of them shared faiths with at leat some european christians. it wasn't their religion itself that was at issue for teh founders, but religion's relationship with the government. that is what distinguished us. our church and our state were speperate. they could be assured that our church would not influence our government.

eaton's book is about how he personally felt. his accounts. but our government record of the treaty's language is clear.

i respectfully disagree with ya kfc.

i think the founders were thinking along similar lines. thanks for your comments.



exactly. it's easy to keep everyone else's religion out of government. in our own minds, after all, they are wrong anyway. but OUR religion is the right one, so why shouldn't that bleed into government? after all, you get the double self esteem bump of doing God's work and showing everyone just how righteous you and your religion are. a perception of pleasing God and showing off your righteousness is a tough temptation to resist.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise therof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
-First Ammendment of the US Constitution.  Emphasis added.

We can argue theorized intent of the founding fathers, what they personally believed, what later treaties said etc.  But none of that has any bearing when you look at the words on the page.  No law establishing religion OR prohibiting FREE exercise of said religion.  This means that any member of the government can have whatever beliefs they like, and govern in accordance with their conscience so long as they do not attempt to establish by law any officialized religion.

This means no policies stating that a holiday, or religious ceremony be observed.  No policies or laws regarding the requirement of prayer.  No government funding of any religion (unless it is equally applied to ANY religious group seeking such funding).

It also means that there can be no laws or policies prohibiting people from acting in accordance to their beliefs.  There is no requirement that you be an athiest to hold a government position, or work for the state in any way.  You can be a staunch Roman Catholic, and vote the way of your conscience on social and legal issues so long as you are not trying to codify your religious beliefs into law.  It also means you can have any set of morals you like, and vote with them regardless of your religion.  There is no requirement that you be morally blank to be in the government.

It is freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion that was codified in the first ammendment.  I think people forget that a lot.  And a statement prohibiting us from governing according to religion is NOT the same as saying we can't govern from morals or ethics.  Morals and ethics exist independent of faith for many, yet anyone who takes a moral stance on any issue, or makes a judgement on a right/wrong matter, is often lumped in with those preaching from their bibles.

Any rule or law eliminating religion from government is just as much a violation of the 1st ammendment as any law or rule establishing religion.  It was meant to protect both the the religious and the athiest, neither is greater than the other by means literal or implied by the constitution.

SEAN CONNERS POSTS:




I’ve taken much of the following info concerning the Treaty and what was going on at the time from Barton’s book Original Intent.

Tunis, Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli and Turkey were the 5 Muslim Barbary Powers that were warring against who they claimed to be the “Christian” nations of England, France, Spain, Denmark and the US. Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline attacking undefended American merchant ships for their cargoes, pillaged villages, enslaving men, women and children as well as “Christian” seamen---now get this---in retaliation for what had been done to them by the “Christians of previous centuries e.g. the Crusades, and Queen Isabella’s and Ferdinand’s expulsion of Muslim’s from Granada. The negotiations of the treaties required us to pay tribute, that is thousands of dollars for safe passage (official extortion) and for ransom of our seamen.

It’s true that by the 1797 Treaty with Tripoli, America denied being founded on a Christian religion. Barton writes Article 11 of was one of many in which “each country officially recognized the religion of the other in an attempt to prevent further escalation of a “Holy War” between Christians and Muslims.”

In the quote provided by KFC, Barton writes that this clause in its entirety (which I’ve added in caps above) fails to weaken the fact that America was considered a Christian nation. Barton explaining further what the clause meant, “Article XI simply distinguished America from those historical strains of European Christianity which held an inherent hatred of Muslims; it simply assured the Muslims that the United States was not a Christian nation like those of previous centuries (with whose practices the Muslims were very familiar) and thus would not undertake a religious holy war against them. This latter reading is, in fact, supported by the attitude prevalent among numerous American leaders. The Christianity practiced in America was described by John Jay as "wise and virtuous," by John Quincy Adams as "civilized," and by John Adams as "rational." A clear distinction was drawn between American Christianity and that of Europe in earlier centuries.

Another way of reading this is Adams was saying that our nation was founded not on the Catholic religion, but on Enlightenment ones. In 1776, only a small number of Catholics lived in America and not that many Jews. The US was a Protestant nation and it remained such throughout the 1800s.

There is something else that goes along with this that I find very interesting as well. This story from Ted Sampley a US Veteran Dispatch, came out earlier this year when Keith Ellison was the first Muslim Congressman ceremonially sworn in on the Koran. Evidently he used the Koran that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson. There were a few blogs written and this may have already been mentioned. The story is that in 1786, Jefferson then the Ambassador to France, and Adams then the Amb. to England, met with the Muslim ambassador in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty. During the meeting they asked why Muslims held so much hostility toward America. The ambassador answered that Islam was founded on the laws of their prophet and that it was written in their Quran that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners and the every Muslim who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise. Jefferson got a copy of the Koran.

For the following 15 years, the American gov. paid Muslims tribute amounting to 20% of the US gov. annual revenues in 1800. In 1801, Tripoli declared war against us and this was the first official war as an established nation. That year, Jefferson became President and declared that America wasn’t going to spend one cent for tribute, and dispatched Marines and warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast. IN 1805, American Marines marched across the dessert from Egypt into Tripoli forcing the surrender of Tripoli and freeing all American slaves.

hahahah that's quite fine SC...it's what makes the world go round.



Did you get the book Lula? I tried to when I saw him in person but his table was so crowded I couldn't get within 15 feet of it.

While I do believe the pilgrims came here in the first place for Christian freedom and the founders put this same freedom into writing in many ways, forms and means, I also believe they had every intent on us being a Christian Nation but not one founded on any particular religious denomination. We were to worship God freely and without dictatorship as it was in England and many other parts of the world.

Even Jefferson, who was a deist, believed strongly the bible be taught in the school system for it's very values, morals and goodness it expouses. He felt when or if we took that out, we'd certainly go into moral freefall.

I took a look at the Star Spangeled Banner written by Francis Scott Key who was a lawyer BTW. It was written in 1814 not too far removed from the writing of our constitituion and thought the last stanza was interesting. This was the prevalent thought I see throughout all the founders writings. Most would not know this last stanza.

O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Jefferson knew of what he was talking in this instance. We can document the deterioration that has happened in schools ever since they took prayer and GOd out in 1963. God out, contraception, condom pushing sex-ed in....that's the way the secularists want it...oh wait a minute..the Muslims can have their private prayer time in schools though. As Gilda would say, Never mind.

I like that Jefferson got hold of a Koran; read it, understood what was needed (and it wasn't appeasement) and took care of business in Tripoli.

oh, that it were as simple as that!

No, seriously, in some respect, I understand that for some those were the good ol' days...."She loves me, yeh, yeh, yeh..."

Rightwinger, in general, you've made some good points however, your mention of the Pilgrims (devout Protestants) gives me pause.

I'll throw into the mix this can of worms. Ever since the US Civil War and the Northern victory, the Puritan heritage has become evasive for many people today, which may be due to revisionism in history books. I've heard American ideology defined as "secularized Puritanism". Anyone who has read Nathaniel Hawthorne, a descendant of the New England Puritans, knows the so-called Pilgrim fathers were Puritans. They had suffered persecution in England, left there and first went to the Netherlands where they were "tolerated". From there, they sailed for the New World.

Like you, most people say they came here for religious freedom...they wanted religious freedom to worship God all right...but only for themselves. They brutily attacked the mildest of religious sects, the Quakers. An eminent Baptist clergymen, Roger Williams, founder of the state of Rhode Island, and Anne Hutchinson, among a multitude who suffered from the vicious intolerance of the New England Puritans.

These were not the only non-conformists whom the "defenders of the freedom to worship GOd" persecuted. They were fanatically 'intolerant' of Catholicism and gave no liberty whatsoever to Catholics. The colony of Maryland had been founded as a refuge for Catholics with religious freedom for ALL people. Maryland Puritans resented having Catholic Charles Calvert as the colony leader. In 1689, they took over Maryland and passed anti-Catholic legislation. The laws required Catholic children to be raised as Protestants and those who refused were whipped and fined.

In the early 1700s, the Jesuits had instituted an excellent school system in New England. One of the victims in this reputed "land of the free" was Fr. John Bapst, a missionary who had served among the Abnakis and Narantsouac Indians. The Mass. Puritans who coveted their land sought to exterminate them, with the priest and all the Catholic settlement as well. He was tortured by tar and feathering, and the Puritans took place of the Jews in mocking him with blasphemies and laughing as they told him to call upon the Virgin Mary for help. The Jesuit order to which Fr. Bapst served at College of the Holy Cross and later established Boston College.

Besides that, the Puritans lost little time in making Massachusetts the first british colony to officially legalize slavery.

good point. It's true. We, as Christians, are now the intolerable, that the left can't tolerate. So much for tolerance!   

You'll have to forgive Lula RW....she's got Catholicism on the brain. Otherwise....she's a pretty good egg!   

You can say all you want about those founding fathers there, but they were all just elected officials. And who was the first person they chose, appointed, to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?

John Jay. And he was NOT a deist, like the others are claimed to be. He was a Christian. They put him in as the lifelong appointed Justice, because they knew that Christians should be interpretting the law. Not just because Christians are fair and just, but because a Christian slant on the law is what makes it what it is. Without that Christian slant, the Constitution is now being used for evil as the interpretation is changing towards something it was not originally intended to be. They chose a Christian to orginally interpret the law, and if it had remainded so, the United States would be a better place for it.