Sunday Roast: Christian nation? No!

Examiner.com

Christian conservatives — I’m looking at you Michele Bachmann — insist that the United States was created as a “Christian nation,” which would really surprise the Founding Fathers.

The following quotes are strong evidence — along with the First Amendment — that the Founding Fathers wanted no part of religion in our government.

1. “Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man”- Thomas Jefferson

2. “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.” -Thomas Jefferson

3. “It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet the one is not three, and the three are not one- Thomas Jefferson

4. “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 will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors.”- Thomas Jefferson

5. “There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.”-Thomas Jefferson

6. “Lighthouses are more useful than churches.”- Ben Franklin

7. “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.”- Ben Franklin

8. “I looked around for God’s judgments, but saw no signs of them.”- Ben Franklin

9. “In the affairs of the world, men are saved not by faith, but by the lack of it.”- Ben Franklin

10. “This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it”- John Adams

If that’s not clear enough, go to the original article at Examiner.com for ten more quotes!

I know some people will never be convinced that we are a secular nation, and they are actually horrified at the prospect, but being such protects their ability to worship as they choose.

We have freedom of religion as well as freedom from religion, and it really is best that way.  Declaring the U.S. a “Christian nation” opens up a nasty can of worms.  What kind of Christianity?  Catholic, Protestant, Jehovah Witness, Mormon, Evangelical, etc?

Let’s settle on Protestant for a moment.  What kind of Protestantism?  Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, snake handling?  See what I’m getting at here?  It’s a friggin’ nightmare.

Better to go with the Founding Fathers’ wisdom, and leave religion out of government.  That way, government can work of, by, and for all the People, and those same people can worship — or not — on their own.

It’s really not a difficult concept.  Separation of church and state is a great idea.  Really, it is.  Do you need examples?

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Revoke Bush-Era ‘Conscience’ Rules

CommonDreams

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to rescind a regulation put in place by former President George W. Bush dealing with religious objections to medical procedures, saying the rule could violate patients’ rights.

The sweeping regulation, implemented by Bush in December, essentially gives health-care workers a right to refuse to take part in any procedure that they say violates their religious beliefs.

“This regulation was a parting gift from President Bush to the Religious Right, and it ought to be returned to sender,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “The last thing this country needs is more Religious Right meddling in our health care.”

President Barack Obama has proposed rescinding the Bush regulation, and today is the deadline for public comment on the matter.

Asking the wrong questions

Unless you have been floating in the middle of an ocean somewhere on this – or another – planet, you are aware of the controversy over Pastor Rick Warren giving the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration. If you are not familiar with the issue, you can read up on it here, here, here, and most definitely here (the last link is John Avarosis’s first foray into blogging at the Huffington Post and it is very funny).

There is great unhappiness over this, coming from both sides of the political spectrum.  Neither social conservatives or those who support the LGBT community are happy about the choice of and acceptance by Warren; most are rabidly unhappy, actually.  But I think everyone is looking at this the wrong way and asking the wrong questions.

The questions which should be asked are not why Warren (someone who goes against everything Obama has said he stands for) was selected, but:

• Why is ANY pastor giving an invocation at a presidential inauguration?
• Why is, yet another religious leader, giving a benediction?
• What happened to the separation of church and state?

Someone needs, to borrow a phrase from Rachel, Talk Me Down.

Dole Gets Desperate

Elizabeth Dole, the incumbent senator from North Carolina, who is  close to losing her seat,  garnered herself a second place Worst Person In The World award on last night’s Countdown.  Dole created an ad stating her opponent, Kay Hagan, a Sunday school teacher and a member of the leadership of her church, was being supported by them godless heathens – including a voiceover of Hagan saying “There is no God!”  Only problem?  It wasn’t Hagan.  Here’s Keith.

I was surprised to see Kagan’s rapid response to this attack on her faith.

While I firmly believe in the separation of church and state, there is something that is almost blasphemous here.  I find it amusing when a “good” Christian lies about a good Christian.  False witness indeed.

Why do I think that God would not be happy about Elizabeth Dole’s lying?  Classic case of IOKIYAR.  But lying about GOD?  I’d be watching those lightening storms if I were you, Ms. Dole.

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Fear and Loathing in Jesus Camp land

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In the last two days, I saw two amazing rants from the Religious Right, should, God forbid, Obama be elected.

First up, is a letter, sent out but Focus on the Family, entitled Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America. This 16 page missive starts by asking “What will the United States be like if Senator Obama is elected?” It then goes on to postulate what the year 2012 will look like. What do they think 2012 will look like?

First, it posits that, after Obama is inaugurated, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens would announce that they were stepping down. Obama would immediately replace them with “two far-Left, American Civil Liberties Union-oriented judges.” (We should be so lucky!) And then (cue the “da-da-da-duuuum” scary music):

The decisive changes on the Supreme Court started in June, when Justice Kennedy resigned – he was 72 and had grown weary of the unrelenting responsibility. His replacement – another young liberal Obama appointment – gave a 5-4 majority to justices who were eager to create laws from the bench. The four conservative justices who remained — John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — were suddenly in the minority.

Then in August 2009, two months after Kennedy resigned, Justice Scalia  unexpectedly announced his resignation due to health reasons and by October 2009 another Obama appointment took his oath and joined the court.

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Finally the far-Left had the highest prize: complete control of the Supreme Court. And they set about quickly to expedite cases by which they would enact the entire agenda of the far Left in American politics – everything they had hoped for and more took just a few key decisions.

Scared yet?

And, what are these cases that were the entire agenda of the far Left in American politics? Let’s look at them. It’s fun, really. Grab a beer (yes, this is long), click that link and read the massive freak-out taking place in Jesus Camp land.

Palin’s Assemblies of God

As we reported the other day, Sarah Palin has her own pastor problems. But what of her Assemblies of God church? Here is more information about that church (not the most professional production, but the point is well made).

Why is the media not all over that? We heard nothing but 24/7 for how many weeks concerning Reverand Wright. Yet, there is nothing about this church that has radical, to say the least, ideas of God and state.

Steve Benen, The Political Animal at Washington Monthly wrote a post about how Palin was elected as Mayor of Wasilla in 1996:

“Sarah comes in with all this ideological stuff, and I was like, ‘Whoa,’ ” said Mr. Stein, who lost the election. “But that got her elected: abortion, gun rights, term limits and the religious born-again thing. I’m not a churchgoing guy, and that was another issue: ‘We will have our first Christian mayor.’ “

“I thought: ‘Holy cow, what’s happening here? Does that mean she thinks I’m Jewish or Islamic?’ ” recalled Mr. Stein, who was raised Lutheran, and later went to work as the administrator for the city of Sitka in southeast Alaska. “The point was that she was a born-again Christian.”

She tried to ban books from the library which didn’t sit well with her ideological and religious beliefs, a flap which led to her almost being recalled as Wasilla mayor.

And what do we hear of this? **CRICKETS**

Way to go, media. Nothing like some substance to your reporting. Baby-gate has all the salaciousness the mass media desires, but when it comes to real issues, they are still. Keep keeping is ill-informed. Heck of a job.

Let me ask you:

Is this what YOU want in your political discourse?

Is this the America YOU envision?

Are these YOUR values?

I can honestly say, they are not MINE.