RE: Some Interesting Quotes

[ltrwritr@moscow.com (Mark Rounds)]

Gosh see what happens when you go away for a weekend!

I have listened to the quoting war where folks take things out of context
and try to prove things with them.   This is something kids or college
sophomores do.  I have listened all I am going to.  You are about to get a
lecture on history.  For those who choose not to listen or had enough of
this in school, you are free to delete this at any point.

There was no one voice in the Continental Congress or the Constitutional
Convention for that matter on Christianity or any other point.  America was
at war for almost a year before they actually wrote the Declaration of
Independence.  

The voice on religion was not a solidified voice.  Ben Franklin was a fire
breathing athiest who belonged to the Hellfire club when he was in England.
George Washington rarely went to church and when Martha did drag him, he
would not kneel saying in a loud voice that he was an American and Americans
did not kneel.  Thomas Jefferson thought that the New Testiment had been
perverted by the early Christians and so rewrote and edited it to a document
of approximately 40 pages.  You can still buy a copy of this document today
(check Amazon or Powell's).  There were also hard headed lawyers like John
Adams who were very pragmatic in their view of the church.  Their trademen
who didn't really care so long as they could keep thier business alive in
troubled times.  Their were doctors who were just learning who to be a help
and not a hinderance to their patients and probvably prayed a lot, that
being all they coud do.  There were clergy who would not allow the English
Throne to dictate to them.  I can go and on but the point is clear, the
breadth of opinion and sentiment was wide spread and diverse.

If you look at the voting blocks that were set up in the States, the
precoursers of the Civil War were already in place.  The Southern States
were absolutely against any group of the northern churches to be declared
"The Church of America" because many of the northern churches were
abolitionists and the foundation of their wealth and aristocractic society
was slavery.  The churches in the north squabbled constantly on every point
of doctrine and were deathly afraid that if any one of them achieved
ascendancy, they would drive out the others.  The Puritans had been driven
from England and then Holland for their religious views.  William Penn's
followers believed the same, having left England in a storm themselves.  

Then there was the Irish Diaspora, which was already beginning.  The English
government, after years of trying to crush the the Irish Catholic faith,
decided that they would instead use it as a device of control and so they
allowed the Catholics to be a legal church after many years of persecution
with one stipulation, the priest had to be OK'ed by the English  Government.
What happened was an Anglicanization of the Irish Catholic Faith.  To escape
that, many Irish left for American by any means possible, including the path
of the indetured servant.  When they graduated from this academy, they were
very decided that they and only they would decide how their church would be
formed.  

This sounds like a lot of detail but I am condensing this to make it
readable (really!).  The wonderful thing they did was to compromise tp the
point that no faith would have ascendancy and that all faiths, like all men
were equal.  They also decided that freedom of religion also meant freedom
from religion.  

But you don't have to believe me.  There is a plethora of original source
material available in the letters from these folks and they are available
right here in Moscow.  Check the libraries at both Universities and even our
own public Library and then come to your own conclusions.  I ask that you
read the original rather than some one else's condensation, because like
mine, they leave out great chunks of useful and interesting material.

As a side note, if you are going to look up those old letters and diaries,
take some time and read the letters from John and Abigail Adams.  Theirs was
a love story for the ages :-)

For those of you who think I am running down the founding fathers, I must
ask you to think about that a bit.  They were regular men and women with
feet of clay,  just like us.  Actually, that fact makes what they came up
with so much more grand.  It shows that all men and women have the seeds of
greatness in their hearts and in their souls.  It is up to each of us as to
how they are used.  

A goverment that is disinterested in religion is one that truly allows
religious freedom.  There are those who think that the goverment isn't very
friendly to religion and others who think it is way to friendly.  The
balancing act teeters back and forth but governmental disinterest in relgion
is a good thing.

As of the quote from Washington that has been bandied back and forth, the
context of that little sound byte makes more sense in context.  We were
engaged in one of our nations first wars at that time.  The Pasha's of the
Barbary Coast (modern day North Africa) were basically charging a toll to go
by their coasts.  For years, the Eurpean Powers just paid it and went on
with trade.  

The early Americans were a stiff necked lot however and the quote "millions
for defense but not one damned cent for tribute" came from this war.  We
fought them to a stand still and the discussion that is being quoted is part
of the negotiations leading up to a treaty.  The "Musslemen" were in fact
Muslims and  they were much afraid that because of the fervor with which the
new American nation fought, that we would declare a holy war against them
(that being the tool they used to whip their soldiers into a warlike frensy).  

Viewed in that context, it makes ever so much more sense.  

To those who say that even if we deny it, we have a religion begs the
question, how do you define religion?  I may have one and I may not
depending on that answer but it is completely up to me to decide if that
apellation belongs to me or not.  I am sick to death of the tactic used here
and is quite frankly taught to every high school debate student that the
first thing you must do is to define the terms of the argument to your
advantage, forcing your opponent to battle up hill accross ground you
choose.  It works well when they fall into it.  I am chosing to side step
that pitfall thank you and ask for your definition before a leap to one side
or the other of that fray and I may just decide to go outside and watch my
kids play in the sun if that be my choice.  I am also a stiff necked
American and I'll be damned if I'll let someone else tell me what I am and
what I beleive in.

There!  I am done!  Don't make me mad or so help me, I'll lecture again!!!!  ;-)

Mark Rounds



At 05:09 AM 7/29/2002 -0700, Tom Hansen wrote:
>Thank you, Mr. Rush, for supporting my argument.  This is a pleasant
>surprise.
>
>Yes, that quote re-"surfaced" in the document that you listed.  It simply
>restated what George Washington had already said (at least the first
>sentence).
>
>By the way, there was absolutely nothing irresponsible about the research I
>had conducted.
>
>Keep those quotes coming.  I enjoy reading them.
>
>Take care,
>
>Tom Hansen
>Moscow, Idaho
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mike Rush [mailto:mike.rush@cableaz.com]
>Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 7:44 PM
>To: thansen@moscow.com; Vision 2020
>Subject: RE: Some Interesting Quotes
>
>
>The following is ARTICLE 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, 1796, 1806
>
>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 Musselmen,-and as the
>said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any
>Mehomitan 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.
>
>
>The first sentence, as you referanced, was not a quote by Washington, but
>was signed in the last part of his presidency.
>
>Just some food for thought ( and responsible research )...
>
>MR
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Tom Hansen [mailto:thansen@moscow.com]
>Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 2:44 PM
>To: Vision 2020
>Subject: Some Interesting Quotes
>
>
>Greetings Visionaires -
>
>While browsing "Equality Quotes" on the internet
>(http://centre.telemanage.ca/quotes.nsf/QuotesByCat!ReadForm&Start=1&Count=1
>000&Expand=7), I came across some very fascinating ones.
>
>
>"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man
>and his God, I contemplate with solemn 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 and State."
>
>- Thomas Jefferson
>
>
>"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more
>than our opinions in physics or geometry."
>
>- Thomas Jefferson
>
>
>"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the
>Christian religion."
>
>- George Washington
>
>
>"The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall
>must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest
>breach."
>
>- Justice Hugo Black
>
>
>I came across many many more.  But, I think that you get the idea.
>
>Just some food for thought,
>
>Tom Hansen
>Moscow, Idaho
>
>***********************************
>Work like you don't need the money.
>Love like you've never been hurt.
>Dance like nobody's watching.
>
>- Author Unknown
>***********************************
>
>
>