Contributors

Friday, May 28, 2010

Operation: Brainwash (Part Two: The Deists)

At the opening of the Texas School Board meeting last Friday, the meeting was opened with a prayer on behalf "of a Christian land governed by Christian principles." The prayer was made"in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." The invocation continued.

"I believe no one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book and the Spirit of the Savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses," board member Cynthia Dunbar said.

"I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible and their belief in it... "I like to believe that we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion and as long as we do so no great harm can come to our country."

And so began the meeting to re-write history and commence the brainwashing of over 4 million students. I'm wondering why it's OK to open state meetings like this but not OK when it is done in Arabic...in Iran. More on that later.

One of the central tenets of the TSB's decision to change the curriculum is that our founding fathers were Christian and wanted our country to be a Christian nation. Sarah Palin has said as much in her recent appearances. As many of you know, I am a Christian so one would think that I would be happy with this.

I am not.

The founding fathers were Deists who loathed organized religion and its oppression combined with outright lies. So do I. They were products of the Age of Enlightenment which basically means they would have opened up a can on the Cult and those who proclaim themselves to be more "Christian" than everyone else. In short, they weren't evangelical Christians shepherding in a vision shared by James Dobson, Ralph Reed and the late Jerry Falwell. And this would be why the TSB has changed the curriculum to downplay people like Thomas Jefferson who had a lot of "kooky" thoughts on religion...like people should be free to choose their faith.

And that there should be a separation of church and state. TSB board members have said throughout these entire proceedings that they don't like this. “I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, one of the conservative board members. "I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

Send me my check, Mr. Bradley. Amendment #1:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Perhaps Ms. Dunbar needs to review the Bill of Rights as well.

Religion, not Christianity. And Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists is an example of why the TSB wanted him ejected in their new curriculum. There is only one religion and one way...the RIGHT way. The Cult's way.

I guess I'm wondering if this line, from the Treaty of Tripoli, will now be redacted as a result of the TSB's decision.

the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion

This was signed by President John Adams...a founding father.

The Cult wants our schools and our government to be Christian and Christian only. They are doing this because they see our nation changing and immediately assume, due to their hate filled paranoia and rage, that it means "the end." They want a theocracy that will inevitably lead to the same preaching we see today from the likes of Anwar al Alwaki...a man they have more in common with than they would care to admit. Essentially, this all comes down to the Cult ironically trying to make our nation more like the madrassas in the Muslim world.

Our country is not a Christian nation...it is a religious one. Our founding fathers believed that it was each person's right to choose their religion and practice it freely. Overall, they believed in a great architect of the universe who gave mankind the freedom to choose.They believed that the government should not interfere with this nor be a theocracy. The type of tyranny that the TSB is now legitimizing is the exact type of tyranny the founding fathers established this country against.

They want a theocracy, folks and they want to indoctrinate millions of children in their Cult. There is no freedom in indoctrination.

15 comments:

juris imprudent said...

Contra view about the Christian-ness of the tea party (aka the cult in M-speak).

Since I really don't care about your religion - as long as you aren't trying to shove it down my throat (as a very large segment of Christianity does) - I don't see the value in 'demonizing' religion. That is of course a rallying point for those who are offended by a particular point of view, or simply offended that other people believe in God.

Oh, and M, SOME of the Founders were Deists - Jefferson most obviously - but not all, not by any stretch.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't count on that check coming anytime soon. Dumbasses have been quoting that same passage for years now. I do give you credit for actually reading the constitution, so you might know that there is no "wall of separation" in there. The constitution guarantees freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion.

Rather than bore us all by trying to use the 1st amendment to prove your point, how about quoting Washington from a treaty negotiated with the Muslim Barbary States:

“As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion…it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of the Mussulmen [Muslims]...”

It may require some research and thought for you to pursue this line of reasoning, so I don't expect much to come from it.

Just go back to: Palin Is A Cunt! Cult Propaganda! Bush Lied Kids Died!

dw

johnny b. goode said...

I disagree with your argument that Christians of this nation are as bad as Iran or Al Qaeda. They aren't going to start bombing people who don't believe like they do. However, our school board is wrong about our nation being a Christian one. I was going to pull out that Washington quote but it looks like dw beat me to it. Nice mention of Adams, though.

juris imprudent said...

M, since you profess to be a Christian, you have more in common with Ms. Dunbar than I do. And yes, she is a certifiable dumb-ass.

Now tell me, since I followed the CSM link to the Dallas Morning News article, does Christmas not deserve mention as a religious holiday in the context of a course on world cultures? The experts wanted to remove that and the board over-ruled them. Are you in accord with the "experts"? [Of course I'm sure both the experts and the board over-looked the pagan tradition from which Christmas was adopted.]

Ed "What the" Heckman said...

Three of the Founding Fathers (those who signed the Constitution) were deists. One of them was Ben Franklin, who had this to say during the Constitutional Convention:

"Mr. President:

The small progress we have made after 4 or five weeks close attendance & continual reasonings with each other -- our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ays, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own wont of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.

In this situation of this Assembly groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine Protection. -- Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance.

I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that "except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall be become a reproach and a bye word down to future age. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move -- that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that service.
"

The Deism of the time was not even the "absent God" deism claimed by revisionists like Marxaphasia.

juris imprudent said...

More from John Adams...

"I have thought proper to recommend, and I do hereby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the 25th day of April next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain as far as may be from their secular occupations, devote the time to the sacred duties of religion in public and in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the Most High God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore His pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to His righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that "righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach' to any people;" that He would turn us from our transgressions and turn His displeasure from us; that He would withhold us from unreasonable discontent, from disunion, faction, sedition, and insurrection; that He would preserve our country from the desolating sword; that He would save our cities and towns from a repetition of those awful pestilential visitations under which they have lately suffered so severely, and that the health of our inhabitants generally may be precious in His sight; that He would favor us with fruitful seasons and so bless the labors of the husbandman as that there may be food in abundance for man and beast; that He would prosper our commerce, manufactures, and fisheries, and give success to the people in all their lawful industry and enterprise; that He would smile on our colleges, academies, schools, and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of sound science, morals, and religion; that He would bless all magistrates, from the highest to the lowest, give them the true spirit of their station, make them a terror to evil doers and a praise to them that do well; that He would preside over the councils of the nation at this critical period, enlighten them to a just discernment of the public interest, and save them from mistake, division, and discord; that He would make succeed our preparations for defense and bless our armaments by land and by sea; that He would put an end to the effusion of human blood and the accumulation of human misery among the contending nations of the earth by disposing them to justice, to equity, to benevolence, and to peace; and that he would extend the blessings of knowledge, of true liberty, and of pure and undefiled religion throughout the world."

from his Presidential proclamation of a national day of fasting and prayer (6 March 1789)

Please tell me how this pulpit-pounding is so different in kind from the babbling of your fellow Christian, Ms. Dunbar? [Hint: he hit all three of the Trinity - which is one better than the daffy Texan did.] I'll admit, I could certainly live without any of this religifying on the part of the president - from Adams right on through to Bush and Obama. But unlike so many atheists (the kind that actually make me hope for a hell), I don't need to pitch a fit about it.

Anonymous said...

In a desire to learn more, and assuming that whatever Mark says is wrong, I decided to learn more about the Barbary Treaties. It turns out I was probably wrong in ascribing that quote to Washington. The upside to this, is that Mark is as wrong as usual as well. The "quote" of either Adams or Washington was spoken by neither. It is from article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli. (I had to re-learn Arabic in order to read the original, but article 11 wasn't there)

Additionally, I learned that this "quote" is often used by 'wall-of-separation' believers, to show how all the Founding Fathers were against religion. Although I don't really give a shit about Christianity, I'm guessing that the wording of the Treaty of Paris cancels the Treaty of Tripoli out regarding the 'Christian Founding' of these United States.

Bottom line: some good history and worth reading. Using this one paragraph to detract from the roughly three kajillion references to 'God' by the architects of this country is either willing ignorance or unwilling stupidity.

dw

Mark Ward said...

I never said it was an Adams quote just that he signed the treaty.

Ed, I don't think our founding fathers were the absent God deists. They most certainly had faith but it was not within the strict confines and constraints of organized religion. They refused, as I do, to allow someone else...a human someone else...to tell them what the Bible "really means." Or what God really wants....as if "they" know.

Benjamin Franklin was an enlightened man and it is my view that he would've looked at the likes of James Dobson and similar ilk as being akin to the COE or the Catholic church of his time....oppressive and without honesty.

Anonymous said...

oppressive and without honesty.

And this is unlike Nancy Pelosi, or the AGW promoters, how?

brandon said...

Ed,

"A lighthouse is more useful than a church." (Benjamin Franklin)

Ed "What the" Heckman said...

"They most certainly had faith but it was not within the strict confines and constraints of organized religion. They refused, as I do, to allow someone else...a human someone else...to tell them what the Bible "really means." Or what God really wants....as if "they" know."

That's unbiblical.

And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, not staying away from our worship meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
(Hebrews 10:24–25 HCSB)

Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.
(Romans 12:4–5 HCSB)

Ed "What the" Heckman said...

brandon,

I found exactly one source for that "quote". Richard Dawkins listed that as a quotation from Ben Franklin in his book "The God Delusion", on page 43.

Here's the odd thing. There's no footnote on where this "quote" came from. Nor could I find it in any online searches in sources that include Franklin's writings, including books.google.com, where I've found such things as Franklin's letters. Perhaps you have the original source for this claimed quotation?

I did find a statement about lighthouses from Ben Franklin that sort of parallels your (apparently fake) quote. It's in a book called "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life" by Walter Isaacson. (I found it at books.google.com.)

The circumstance of that statement was that he had just escaped a shipwreck in 1757. Here's what he actually said:

"Were I a Roman Catholic, perhaps I should on this occasion vow to build a chapel to some saint; but as I am not, if I were to vow at all, it should be to build a lighthouse."

I agree with him. You build lighthouses to mark shorelines. Church buildings are built for churches to meet in, not as place to worship a dead person who had nothing to do with surviving a shipwreck. (BTW, if Dawkins was paraphrasing Franklin's statement, it was not a faithful paraphrase, because it changed Franklin's meaning.)

BTW, the book goes on to say this in the next paragraph:

"As he grew older, Franklin's amorphous faith in a benevolent God seemed to become more firm. "If it had not been for the justice of our cause and the consequent interposition of Providence, in which we had faith, we must have been ruined," he wrote Strahan after the war. "If I had ever before been an atheist, I should now have been convinced of the Being and government of a Deity!""

Ed "What the" Heckman said...

"They most certainly had faith but it was not within the strict confines and constraints of organized religion. They refused, as I do, to allow someone else...a human someone else...to tell them what the Bible "really means." Or what God really wants....as if "they" know."

BTW, you brought up Matthew 7:1 over at TSM. Perhaps you should read the context again:

“Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For with the judgment you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a log in your eye? Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
(Matthew 7:1–5 HCSB)

We are to make sure we see clearly SO WE CAN HELP OTHER CHRISTIANS SEE CLEARLY!

And one more, for good measure:

"Without guidance, people fall,
but with many counselors there is deliverance.
"
(Proverbs 11:14 HCSB)

Ed "What the" Heckman said...

"They want a theocracy,"

You are completely and totally full of it, pressed down and running over.

Read James Madison's* argument against establishing an official religion. Read the entire thing. If you don't understand it the first time, keep rereading it until you do. Don't cherry pick certain parts like the atheists do when they rip sentences out of context to make it seem like Madison was saying the opposite of what he was actually saying. His purpose was to defend Christianity from the damage historically caused by making it the "state" religion, not to suppress Christianity as the atheists claim.

(* James Madison is considered to be the architect of the Constitution.)

Anonymous said...

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/66208

Your silence is deafening.