“Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever."
Our forefathers were not, I repeat, NOT pious orthodox Christians.
Tom Paine, virulently disliked Christianity, and The Priestly Class. The GOD Jefferson appealed to in the Declaration of Independence was the God of the first cause. Most of these original six presidents were either High Degree Masons or Deists. They didn’t think it was necessary to wear religion on their sleeves, whatever their personal relationship with ‘God”, they were immersed in a secular world of the Enlightenment. These guys solved problems with rational logic.
Scouring ancient texts written for the wandering tribes of Israel to find solutions to the times they lived in was not on the Enlightenment’s menu. They were going where no man had gone before. In their time, in their collective experience, religion was the great divider of People. It is not the punitive Christian God of the puritans. It is not The God of original sin or vicarious atonement. Our founders really hated that stuff.
Back in the days after the Boats unloaded the puritans in New England, the
puritans became enamored of killing women as witches or their other favorite activity: hanging Quakers, mostly women. The Puritans were a hard-hearted bunch of lunatics and Christian crackpots. Their collective understanding of GOD was primitive and harsh. Punishments were ordered from ‘GOD’ and applied with ferocity by the elders. Cotton Mather was particularly sadistic.
The second King Charlie sent emissaries to New England to tell them to stop
killing Quakers. This history of religious exclusion existed in all the colonies. Jefferson and
Madison especially disliked the tradition of a PRIESTLY CLASS telling the rest of us how to live, pray and die.
They pushed through religious freedom Bills in Virginia in the years before The
U.S. Constitution was signed. Their work was a prelude to the Establishment Clause in our
Constitution. Separation of Church and State was accepted by darn near everybody. It was
cooked into the constitution at its birth. The founders believed religion was a divider of The
People.
It Was Truly About Freedom of Thought
They were skeptical of orthodoxy. They were all in on the Enlightenment. Washington would excuse himself before communion, Jefferson cut and pasted his own version of the BIBLE, twice. Franklin wrote his own version of the Lord’s prayer. Madison vetoed a bill giving money to a Church for Charity Works.
Franklin invented the Post Office and the Lighting Rod. He wooed the courtesans of Europe. These weren’t the sort of pious guys who went easily to their knees. Franklin moved from New England to Philadelphia for intellectual and religious FREEDOM.
Franklin's Our Father
Ben Franklin’s New Lord’s Prayer 1768
Heavenly Father
May all revere thee,
And become thy dutiful Children and faithful Subjects.
May thy Laws be obeyed on Earth as perfectly as they are in Heaven.
Provide for us this Day as thou has hitherto daily done.
Forgive us our trespasses and enable us likewise to forgive those that offend us.
Keep us out of temptation and deliver us from Evil.
George Washington's Letter to Newport, RI, Hebrew Congregation
President Washington visited Rhode Island on August 18, 1790. His letter to The Touro Synagogue was a model of enlightenment religious tolerance.
To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island
[Newport, R.I., 18 August 1790]
Gentlemen.
While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport, from all classes of Citizens.
The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the sweeter, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and a happy people.
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and Figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.
George Washington
1769 Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli
Ratified by the United States Senate unanimously without debate on June 7, 1797, taking effect June 10, 1797, with the signature of President John Adams.
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen (Muslims); and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Commentaires