Far too much emphasis is placed on what "the founding fathers" intended. So even if they intentionally mixed religion and government, I'd still believe that religion should be yeeted out of government because our government should be written to serve people living today and not elevate religion to special status.
Yeah, I really do not give a shit what a bunch of slave owners who didn't believe women should have the same rights as men intended.
I’m really curious whether your downvoter is butthurt about you pointing out the fact the FFs owned slaves or if they disagree that women should have equal rights.
No idea. People are weird.
My guess is that it was downvoted for being "presentist," as in judging the founders through the lens of contemporary morality, but that's just a guess.
Reading about France and their secular government, I prefer our system. With the caveat that many churches are abusing their tax exempt status. But overall the way the separation of church and state is elegant, in my eyes.
Pretty sure while many were devout… many were also only Christian in the sense, that, it was less annoying to just go along with it than tell their mom.
That's hilarious and I never considered that
Was trying to be mostly humorous about it, but there's good reason to think that a lot of the founding fathers were, if not athiest, then not-ardent-Christians. Some absolutely were devout christians. some were probably atheists. But it's bad politics- even today- to not be at least some form of christian.
that said originally, the amendment separating church and state was not inteded to protect the government from the church. it was intended to protect the church from the state. (I.E. many states had codified denominations with "others" being made... illegal.)
A bunch - Adams, Jefferson, Washington - were out Deists.
Which seems to be the enlightened / accepted version of "eh, let's keep religion to religion and out of the state"
What, why? About 40% of my country are christ (half/half reform./catholic). Yet i only saw a few old people the last time i was in church.
This isn't common sense?
Not a lot going on in the 1790s, might as well listen to some old blowhard scream how y'all going to hell for seeing an uncovered ankle.
Yeah in the year 2023. George Washington was alive hundreds of years ago..... When people were more conservative and more religious
I don't know about that. No one attended Thomas Paine's funeral and he's still the only one without a monument.
James Madison, father of the Constitution:
"Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
Misquote or was he that bad at commas?
Found it.
Looks like Madison enjoyed using commas, relevant quote from the original letter reads "...new example, will succeed, as every..."
Spelling and punctuation didn't really get standardized into their modern form until the 19 th century.
Idk, I got that from a transcription of a letter. All but one of the commas look appropriate to me, and even that one looks appropriate if it's thought of as a spoken declaration.
I'm interested though, I'll try to find out
well one of them also rewrote it to be 90% shorter and have no Magic in it
Jefferson literally took scissors to the Bible and cut out all the miracles and other nonsense to make it palatable.
In order to have freedom of religion, we need the government to not be beholden to one.
See, most people don't really get what they were trying to escape from when they founded the United States. I'm not even American, and I know this shit.
England, like many other empires and nations of the era, were religious to their core. The patriarchal/matriarchal foundation of the country predisposed that all is subjects, aka citizens, be aligned with the Royals for their religion. Hence, the church of England.
When the royalty played a bit of musical chairs after someone died, the incoming ruler could easily change the faith of the church of England; which they often did.
So the public was left in this state of hopping from one foot to the other, going from Catholic to Protestant to whatever, everytime the crown changed heads.
They intentionally left out any religion from the Constitution to avoid such idiotic policies. If you were Catholic, sweet, enjoy America. If you were Protestant, cool, enjoy America. Some other kind of Christian? Neato, welcome, enjoy America. I don't know that their thinking included such wild concepts as... IDK, Muslim, Buddhist, or Islam, but they didn't exclude it so what the hell, welcome to America.
They didn't want a central authority dictating their entire life. What they believe, how they conduct their life, what job to have, etc. Not a church. Not a king/queen. Nobody. That's the entire point of not having religion in the Constitution. The country will not obligate the citizens to believe in any specific thing.
All this idiotic rhetoric about America being a "Christian country" would make all the people who have their names at the bottom of the constitution, throw up in anger. The entire rhetoric of literally anyone saying that other people don't belong because their beliefs are different than "Christian", would make the founding fathers disgusted.
They realized that judging and convicting people of crimes because they had slightly different sky daddies, is stupid. Yet, there are WAY TOO MANY people who think that people who believe differently to them, are not fit to be an American. Anyone thinking that, is being un-American.
sure they did. What's more there was a guide they were given that had an overview of multiple types of government including the ancient Hebrew system.
And seeing this they decided to go forward not backwards. This sign is very damning when you think about it. It is one thing to not follow the Bible, it is another thing to not follow it after you have studied it.
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