I came across a posting by an old friend today regarding the state of our nation and how God feels about it, or would feel about it if a supreme being truly cared that much about the affairs of the youngest empire on the planet. An interesting argument was made, and it's an argument that I grew up with, and an argument that since I grew up with it, had never realized that it is a very contemporary argument and is completely baseless. This lie, and it was in the posting I read, made a statement that this country had moved away from God some time ago. And that because this nation that was based on Christian principles had moved away from God, we're in big trouble. The problem with this thought is that our nation was never founded on Christian principles, our nation was founded on the principles of agnostics, atheists, deists, unitarians, and Christians of the enlightenment period who romanticized the beliefs of ancient Greece and Rome(pagans). Where or how we get Christian principles from that is beyond me. One man who did a great deal in helping to shape the foundations of our nation, Thomas Jefferson, made sure that God and religion did not make it into our governmental structure. Other founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison all have recorded statements of their opposition one way or another to the involvement of God in the state. Thomas Jefferson, it is worth noting was probably a Christian in the best sense of what a Christian should be. He actually focused on the teachings and moral value of what Christ had to say. Jefferson, famously now, wrote his own version of the New Testament in which he took out all of the superstitious, supernatural, and miraculous filler. Commonly referred to as the Jefferson Bible, it focuses on an aspect of Christianity that most Christians, I fear, miss out on. As a Christian, would I follow the teachings of Christ, or just focus on the supernatural feats and figure that since I can't do those things, I need to worship this guy? The point of the miraculous happenings in Jesus' ministry was not to awe people into believing in him, but rather to get people to listen to the things he came to teach. - Charity, pacifism, living a simple life, loving your enemies, giving up your riches - Find me a well off, right wing, fundamentalist, conservative Christian who believes in a strong military, eliminating the 'welfare state', supporting the state of Israel, and gun rights, and I'll show you someone who has lost the plot. This isn't a post to beat up on the religious right, as much pleasure as it may give me from time to time. My intention is to dispel the myth that the United States is somehow or ever was supposed to be a Christian nation. Simple fact is that it is not, and for that I am glad. If God cares at all about the mundane everyday politics in our era, I'm pretty sure he'd want government to function effectively without superstitious prejudices getting in the way of guaranteeing people's Liberty, or whatever we think government should do these days. If in fact religion or God were supposed to be a part of our state, clearly then, the framers of the Constitution would not have specifically banned religious tests for holding office. They would not have made sure that the First Amendment guaranteed that in no way would government establish any law that restricts the religious practices or beliefs of an individual. And most importantly, if the framers of the Constitution wanted God or religion to have anything to do with the business of governing men, they would not have very clearly and specifically guaranteed that our government would never act in a way to establish a specific religion or church. It is actually as good for religion in America as it is for the government that we generally try to keep them from too much involvement with one another. In many European nations with established churches, the numbers of citizens active in religious activities are shockingly low. America is an exceptional example of a thriving religious community. Funny then that a common complaint of the religious right is that this nation needs to 'come back to God'. An interesting fact that the religious right doesn't want us to know is that now, more than any time in our history, we have the largest percentage of people who engage in religious activity. Interesting then when we hear the argument that this nation that we are 'losing sight' of God, and that they need to 'reclaim' America for God. I don't know, but it sounds like someone isn't being honest with us. So with that, God bless the Secular State, if it weren't for such a thing, religion would undoubtedly be as dead in America as many Western European nations. Besides that, could anyone picture President Obama in a funny Papal type hat (of course the President would be the head of the state established church). Being a religious person myself, the last thing I want is some government, I don't care which one, but some government meddling with the everyday affairs of my religion. http://seanth1nks.blogspot.com/
Ugh, religion is a cluster-fuck. They CAN't mix church and state because, simply put, the STATE is mostly run by the Devil, and the church is SUPPOSED to be run by God. They hypocracy would be astoundingly obvious. I had a disagreement with someone of the 7th Day Adventist persuasion. It's all about what is the proper day of the week to worship. And a lot of hatred in regards to "pagans". STUPID. Who does he think invented the calendar, the names of the days of the week? Wasn't "Christians". I figure back in the day, religion was just as screwy as it is now, just less CAUTIOUS about appearances, and there were a FEW folks who had the sense to realize it was a bad idea to force anything as volatile as that down anyone's throats...
I thought current polls were showing far fewer people were religious in the US today. http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2.htm Scroll all the way to the bottom.
Polling information from the 18th and 19th century is obviously a little hard to find. But in looking at political and sociological trends, America between then to now, most historians would argue that today there is a larger portion of the American populous that are religious. Looking at a trend that goes from 1990 to 2001 and the number of people polled that are religious dropping from 90% to 77% might suggest that a peak was reached by the religious community and it is now declining, or (depending on how the poll was taken and how many people were polled) the two figures are not significantly different and in fact would represent the same trend within a margin of error. Nonetheless those figures from 1990 to 2001 have little to do with the trend which i mentioned, I was comparing the 18th and 19th centuries to now.
