I think not. This conclusion comes from may years of reading
and writing, of researching other topics and stumbling across bits and pieces
of early American history. Our Founding Fathers were an interesting lot. They
were not what we latter day Americans think they were.
Reading their writings, studying historians who focused on
just one founding father at a time, unearth many interesting things, some of
which I share with you in this blog posting.
First of all, our nation was settled by immigrants from
lands were the were not particularly happy. In England they were persecuted for
holding religious beliefs different from the state prescribe religion.
Persecution was variable but painful. Property was taken. Jail time was
endured. Ridicule and bullying, too. Financial reversals were a natural part of
it all. And so also the conclusion to remove oneself from such surroundings.
The emigrated to the New World to build a new
life, to think freely, to worship in their own way, and to seek hope for a
better future.
So did inmates in penal institutions who were given a choice
to remain in prison or take asylum in the colonies. Many took the latter
option. So too bankrupts looking for a fresh start.
Once in the New World these
stalwarts – ruffians and pietists together! – joined an unnamed movement that
build a nation of freedom seekers.
They were not religious nuts or purists. They were
individualists. They sought freedom to explore and to be. Simply be. Along that
journey they adopted rules allowing people of great differences to get along.
Religious folk stuck with their own kind, even building up villages where they
could rely on daily routines consistent with their beliefs. But other villages
were home to people of different beliefs and religious traditions. Over the
years populations blended and religious pluralism grew.
A national religion was definitely not desired. That would
be the antithesis of religious freedom.
Lest you not believe me, here is a direct quote from Thomas
Jefferson:
“Christianity
is the most perverted system tat ever shone on man.”
Don’t believe he said this? Here’s another Jefferson
quote to ponder:
“The hocus-pocus phantasm of a
God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and
growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs.”
Still not convinced?
Here’s another Jefferson quote:
“It is too late in the day for
men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticism that three
are one, and one is three; and yet the one is not three, and the three are not
one.”
“And the day will come when the
mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of
a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the
brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of
thought in these United
States
Scandalous? It must be to conservatives and fundamentalist
Christians! But wait! Jefferson proceeded to
make this statement:
“There is not one redeeming
feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world
fools, and the other half hypocrites.”
A Christian nation?
Only in the eyes of those who wish it. But that doesn’t make it so. Our
founding fathers specifically set out to not make this a nation of religion,
but rather a nation in which freedom of religious thought and practice could
and would thrive. But that also supposes the religion will not attempt to
control the mechanism of government.
More on this later. To whet your appetite, consider these
words of Ben Franklin:
“Lighthouses
are more useful than churches.”
November 26, 2013
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