I know I promised you another exciting edition of this post. However, I wasn't expecting to spend a long hot miserable day in Huston today, so this will have to be abbreviated from my original voluminous diatribe. I lost that passionate ire that originally drove me write.
None-the-less I owe you a little something.
Back to the subject at hand. The issue of separation of church and state, as well as the religiosity of the founder fathers and subsequent patriots is often contested. As discussed in my previous post, the religious right and the extreme conspiracy elements seem to champion the idea that all great American heroes were "passionately religious" in the Christian sense and committed to bringing that old time religion into the way we govern. This painting is picture perfect propaganda for that kind of idea.
The fact is many of these men and women were both believers in unorthodox senses ( like deism or pantheism) or were flat out non-believers.
I already talked about Thomas Jefferson's deistic beliefs. I could continue with Washington, Franklin, Lincoln and Grant, but John E Remsburg has written such an enlightening work, entitled Six Historic Americans, I find that I haven't much to contribute. Lets just say calling them Christians is misleading, so is calling them atheists.
I will comment that seeing Thomas Paine behind Jesus among the righteous in the painting made me fall on the ground writhing with riotous laughter. Paine as we all know wrote Common Sense. He also wrote something called the Age of Reason, which was a vitriolic attack on organized religion and Christianity in particular.
Here are a few fun Paine quotes:
As for our Women Patriots
Susan B. Anthony was also known as a Unitarian. At the 1893 Chicago worlds' fair she shocked the Sabatarians when she said that her son would "learn more" at Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, than by attending church. The whole platform of her efforts to gain women's rights came under very heavy attack by, you guessed it, ministers and bible thumping preachers. She was committed to bringing about rights regardless of their beliefs or lack thereof.
tell them I have worked 40 years to make the Women's Suffrage platform broad enough for Atheists and Agnostics to stand upon, and now if need be I will fight the next 40 to keep it Catholic enough to permit the straightest Orthodox religionist to speak or pray and count her beads upon.
How refreshingly balanced for the 19th century. I wish we were so enlightened
If I had more time and energy I'd go and on, but It's hard to write all of American History in a simple blog post, so I'll let you investigate somethings that I've read that might illuminate you. Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers, a History of American Secularism is a great over all resource. Might I also refer you to any objective biography written about Franklin, Jefferson, Washington or Lincoln. You won't find any evidence of a transparent Christian faith as we see it today.
Efforts to rewrite history though rumor and propaganda always amuse me. Like I said before, fiction is fun, but fact is so much more refreshing.
None-the-less I owe you a little something.
Back to the subject at hand. The issue of separation of church and state, as well as the religiosity of the founder fathers and subsequent patriots is often contested. As discussed in my previous post, the religious right and the extreme conspiracy elements seem to champion the idea that all great American heroes were "passionately religious" in the Christian sense and committed to bringing that old time religion into the way we govern. This painting is picture perfect propaganda for that kind of idea.
The fact is many of these men and women were both believers in unorthodox senses ( like deism or pantheism) or were flat out non-believers.
I already talked about Thomas Jefferson's deistic beliefs. I could continue with Washington, Franklin, Lincoln and Grant, but John E Remsburg has written such an enlightening work, entitled Six Historic Americans, I find that I haven't much to contribute. Lets just say calling them Christians is misleading, so is calling them atheists.
I will comment that seeing Thomas Paine behind Jesus among the righteous in the painting made me fall on the ground writhing with riotous laughter. Paine as we all know wrote Common Sense. He also wrote something called the Age of Reason, which was a vitriolic attack on organized religion and Christianity in particular.
Here are a few fun Paine quotes:
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on nothing; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing and admits of no conclusion.
The Bible: a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind.
The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense.
So much for passionately religious.As for our Women Patriots
Susan B. Anthony was also known as a Unitarian. At the 1893 Chicago worlds' fair she shocked the Sabatarians when she said that her son would "learn more" at Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, than by attending church. The whole platform of her efforts to gain women's rights came under very heavy attack by, you guessed it, ministers and bible thumping preachers. She was committed to bringing about rights regardless of their beliefs or lack thereof.
tell them I have worked 40 years to make the Women's Suffrage platform broad enough for Atheists and Agnostics to stand upon, and now if need be I will fight the next 40 to keep it Catholic enough to permit the straightest Orthodox religionist to speak or pray and count her beads upon.
How refreshingly balanced for the 19th century. I wish we were so enlightened
If I had more time and energy I'd go and on, but It's hard to write all of American History in a simple blog post, so I'll let you investigate somethings that I've read that might illuminate you. Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers, a History of American Secularism is a great over all resource. Might I also refer you to any objective biography written about Franklin, Jefferson, Washington or Lincoln. You won't find any evidence of a transparent Christian faith as we see it today.
Efforts to rewrite history though rumor and propaganda always amuse me. Like I said before, fiction is fun, but fact is so much more refreshing.
