Blog Against Theocracy Day 1
I’ve been goin’ a little crazy with this whole idea ever since I first came across it. Not that these kinds of issues aren’t in my fucking face and life every day... they are. As a woman, a lesbian, a witch - as an American, that’s right, I said it - an American, I’m constantly blown away by how much and how completely the intent if not the letter of our Constitution has been undermined by religion. And worse, how we seem to be going backward under the current administration of the Georgie Puppet, ventriloquism dummy for the Radical Right Christian Fundimaentalists, (and big money and oil and special interests in general. But that’s a-whole-nother rant!!).
So here’s my chance to speak out. Not just by signing petitions and supporting causes or wearing T-shirts... to really make a difference. Well, I don’t know about that, but at least I have the opportunity to write about something that matters. Sorry kids, no sandbox today.
I’ve had several ideas (among the myriad to choose from) for topics and I’m going to elaborate on a couple of them in the next two days, but for today I’m just going to post some quotes from a couple of our Founding Fathers on the topic of separation of Church and State, (snagged from AltLiberal’s Comments at Clipmarks), and take it from there.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?")
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
On the Bible:
Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820
Let’s not forget that pesky letter to the Danbury Baptist Church:
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.
- James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822, in Saul K Padover, ed., The Complete Madison: His Basic Writings (1953), also; from Jack N Rakove, ed., James Madison: Writings, (1999), p. 789, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"
The civil government ... functions with complete success ... by the total separation of the Church from the State.
- James Madison, 1819, Writings, 8:432, quoted from Gene Garman, "Essays In Addition to America's Real Religion"
The only ultimate protection for religious liberty in a country like ours, Madison pointed out--echoing Jefferson;--is public opinion: a firm and pervading opinion that the First Amendment works. "Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance."
(Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 56. Madison's words, according to Gaustad, are from his letter of 10 July 1822 to Edward Livingston.)
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize [sic], every expanded prospect.
(James Madison, in a letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774, as quoted by Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 37.)
'Nuff said!!
PS
Be sure to stop by Blog Against Theocracy to check out all the great bloggers that are participating in this event and speaking out about the separation of Church and State, and don't forget after the event is over to get continuing info and updates on the struggle at Freedom First
So here’s my chance to speak out. Not just by signing petitions and supporting causes or wearing T-shirts... to really make a difference. Well, I don’t know about that, but at least I have the opportunity to write about something that matters. Sorry kids, no sandbox today.
I’ve had several ideas (among the myriad to choose from) for topics and I’m going to elaborate on a couple of them in the next two days, but for today I’m just going to post some quotes from a couple of our Founding Fathers on the topic of separation of Church and State, (snagged from AltLiberal’s Comments at Clipmarks), and take it from there.
Thomas Jefferson
I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?")
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
On the Bible:
Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820
Let’s not forget that pesky letter to the Danbury Baptist Church:
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.
James Madison
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.- James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822, in Saul K Padover, ed., The Complete Madison: His Basic Writings (1953), also; from Jack N Rakove, ed., James Madison: Writings, (1999), p. 789, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"
The civil government ... functions with complete success ... by the total separation of the Church from the State.
- James Madison, 1819, Writings, 8:432, quoted from Gene Garman, "Essays In Addition to America's Real Religion"
The only ultimate protection for religious liberty in a country like ours, Madison pointed out--echoing Jefferson;--is public opinion: a firm and pervading opinion that the First Amendment works. "Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance."
(Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 56. Madison's words, according to Gaustad, are from his letter of 10 July 1822 to Edward Livingston.)
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize [sic], every expanded prospect.
(James Madison, in a letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774, as quoted by Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 37.)
'Nuff said!!
PS
Be sure to stop by Blog Against Theocracy to check out all the great bloggers that are participating in this event and speaking out about the separation of Church and State, and don't forget after the event is over to get continuing info and updates on the struggle at Freedom First
Labels: Blog Against Theocracy, James Madison, separation of church and state, Thomas Jefferson
