this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
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The country is not supposed to be your church. (lemmy.world)
submitted 6 days ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/atheistmemes@lemmy.world
39 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

We'll see what happens in 2025, of course.

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[–] NateNate60@lemmy.world 47 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

The story is much more enlightening, and frankly, more educational than this meme projects. Yes, it's correct, at least on a surface level, but there's also the reason they decided to create a secular state. Namely, even though they were all, broadly speaking, Christians or Christian-inspired deists, they also recognised that Christianity came in hundreds of different flavours, not all of which are agreeable. They recognised that a religious state would have to pick a side in all of the hundreds of different spats that Christians have gone through over the most minute details of their dogma. Furthermore, they also realised that a state is most fragile when it is just founded, and thus, to survive, the state would have to have as much support as possible. Pretty much everyone was at least begrudgingly satisfied with a secular state.

You see, if they had created a religious country, they could not guarantee that it would stay loyal to whatever interpretation they had settled on. Future governments could, if they were able to, could easily "reinterpret" the state dogma to whatever they wanted. They understood that if the Government had the power to meddle in religious affairs, it was only a matter of time before someone whose religion was not agreeable to take over and start doing things that you don't like, justifying it with their religion.

[–] ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Namely, even though they were all, broadly speaking, Christians

The majority of the founders were deists.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Founding-Fathers-Deism-and-Christianity-1272214

Although orthodox Christians participated at every stage of the new republic, Deism influenced a majority of the Founders. The movement opposed barriers to moral improvement and to social justice. It stood for rational inquiry, for skepticism about dogma and mystery, and for religious toleration. Many of its adherents advocated universal education, freedom of the press, and separation of church and state. If the nation owes much to the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is also indebted to Deism, a movement of reason and equality that influenced the Founding Fathers to embrace liberal political ideals remarkable for their time.

it was only a matter of time before someone whose religion was not agreeable to take over and start doing things that you don’t like

Not just a disagreeable religion, but any religion.

https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/establishment-clause-separation-of-church-and-state/

Both Jefferson and fellow Virginian James Madison felt that state support for a particular religion or for any religion was improper. They argued that compelling citizens to support through taxation a faith they did not follow violated their natural right to religious liberty. The two were aided in their fight for disestablishment by the Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and other “dissenting” faiths of Anglican Virginia.

The christo-fascist MAGA movement is not consistent with the origins of our nation and the Constitution despite originalists claims to the contrary. We are not a christian nation, but a secular nation. All religions, including Christianity, were deemed dangerous to mix with the government.

I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it in your argument, but these misconceptions are what the MAGA movement will use to push christian nationalism on all of us and to exclude people based on their faith or lack of faith.

[–] NateNate60@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

In the context of the Government subscribing to a particular religion, I use the word "religion", but I guess I really mean "religious belief", i.e. a belief about religion, in the broadest sense. I would consider deism to be a religious belief under that definition.

So to reiterate my point, if you, the designer of a system of government, allow the state to hold and enforce a religious belief of any kind, eventually a government will take power which holds a different religious belief, and use the state"s ability to deal with religious matters to enforce their different belief upon the people. And this will inevitably happen. So the best protection you can design against this is to withhold this power from the state by explicitly declaring it to be secular.

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world 17 points 6 days ago (1 children)

These dumbasses. Can they read the first fucking sentence? They quote it all the time, maybe try reading it. It says

"We the people...."

Not

"We the people and invisible dieties...."

Nobody is coming down from on high to save us. It's only us to solve every problem.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

They like to point out the religious language in the Declaration of Independence as if it's a legal document, which it is not.

[–] EleventhHour@lemmy.world 21 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Over 250 years ago, when the country was founded, the founders knew better than to believe the hucksterism of religion.

It’s very frustrating that most people, even today, cannot get past the hucksterism of religion.

[–] luciferofastora@lemmy.zip -3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

No, the founders were mostly ~~Christians~~ religious too. They just knew better than to trust ~~Christian~~ dogmatic spats not to endanger the stability of their infant country.

Edit to correct my mistake about them being Christian and to clarify: I'm not claiming the US is Christian in origin. It explicitly isn't, but not because the founding fathers "didn't believe". Deism is still the believe in some supernatural force, even if it presents itself as a more rational form, and not all of them even were deists. They just believed it would be better to separate their individual religious convictions from the mutual political ambition.

[–] EleventhHour@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

No, they weren’t. Many of the founding fathers practiced deism, and were barely even religious at all. Only some of the founding fathers were Christians, and not a majority of them.

Thomas Jefferson even has his own “version”of the Bible where any mention of supernaturality has been removed.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-founding-fathers-religious-wisdom/

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world -2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Not correct and that article doesn't say what you said it does. It says of the 56 founders only one was ordained clergy. Okay.

Whatever their beliefs, the Founders came from similar religious backgrounds. Most were Protestants. The largest number were raised in the three largest Christian traditions of colonial America—Anglicanism (as in the cases of John Jay, George Washington, and Edward Rutledge), Presbyterianism (as in the cases of Richard Stockton and the Rev. John Witherspoon), and Congregationalism (as in the cases of John Adams and Samuel Adams). Other Protestant groups included the Society of Friends (Quakers), the Lutherans, and the Dutch Reformed. Three Founders—Charles Carroll and Daniel Carroll of Maryland and Thomas Fitzsimmons of Pennsylvania—were of Roman Catholic heritage.

The sweeping disagreement over the religious faiths of the Founders arises from a question of discrepancy. Did their private beliefs differ from the orthodox teachings of their churches? On the surface, most Founders appear to have been orthodox (or “right-believing”) Christians. Most were baptized, listed on church rolls, married to practicing Christians, and frequent or at least sporadic attenders of services of Christian worship. In public statements, most invoked divine assistance.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Founding-Fathers-Deism-and-Christianity-1272214

You can argue about how devout they were and we can never know their sincere inner belief, but you cannot say they were not majority Christian. Even the ones people point to as deists were largely raised Christian. I'm glad they were not so deranged as to make religion a part of the new government, and that they had the wisdom to write the First Amendment, the one through which all others flow, in such a way as to prohibit establishment and grant free exercise. They definitely didn't want religious dogma to play any role in governing and rightly so but it is simply not correct to say that they were other than mostly Christian in their private religious lives.

None of them were Jewish. Three of them were Catholic. What else do you think they were if not Christian?

You cite Thomas Jefferson as an example, but actually he was Christian too. The actual title of "The Jefferson Bible" you cited as evidence of his non-christianity is "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth."

About it, he wrote "A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus."

[–] EleventhHour@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

This is, of course, bullshit.

Take your superstitious make believe somewhere else.

Blocked

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Wtf are you talking about now. You got called out and proven to have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah block me and retreat into your little safe bubble.

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world -2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Why is this being downvoted? It's mostly true. Perhaps it understates the reasoning, but it's largely accurate.

[–] EleventhHour@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Not even a little bit. This is being downvoted for being bullshit. Bullshit, which you apparently believe, too, you know because of how effective the people who lie about this are at lying.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-founding-fathers-religious-wisdom/

[–] luciferofastora@lemmy.zip 0 points 5 days ago

That's not what I said though. I said they were Christian, which your link suggests would be an error, but more on the order of a misunderstanding than bullshit. But I didn't say it was a Christian nation, nor do I think so. I'm aware they intentionally separated church and state, I'm just saying it wasn't some enlightenend act of atheistic disdain for religion. They weren't atheists. They just weren't theocrats either.

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world -2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I replied to your other post conclusively showing that you are not correct. You have more reading to do on this.

[–] EleventhHour@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I’m sorry you insist on ignoring the fact. Therefore, I’m disregarding everything you ever will say.

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world 0 points 5 days ago

I literally quoted and put in bold language that proves you are wrong, you absolute donkey.

[–] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They did however include 30 years of protected slave trade as an unamendable right.

So they still have that in common.

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This wasn't beneficial at the time, and isn't to this day. Name one time when pointing out hypocrisy has changed a single mind.

[–] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Hypocrisy? Instructions on how to properly conduct slave trade are detailed in Leviticus.

[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 13 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I read a lot of Goosebumps and Stephen King when I was a kid. You don't see me trying to start a government by gluing masks on people and feeding blood to cars. Some people appear capable of reading things without acting upon it and punishing their constituents.

[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Jefferson wrote/cut/paste his own Bible removing the magic-y stuff attributed to Jesus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

I read the Constitution in my Bible, so obviously the founding fathers intended this country to be Christian, modeled after the godly mega churches.