Tuesday, April 26, 2016

The historical lies of the religious right. Jesus would not be pleased.

An interesting article from a year ago. Reprinted from Religiousrightwatch

Alabama Chief Justice: The First Amendment Protects Only Christians

Tbdfjr72rlevhvz3a8s0“Buddha didn’t create us, Mohammed didn’t create us, it was the God of the Holy Scriptures. They didn’t bring the Koran over on the pilgrim ship,” he continued. “Let’s get real, let’s go back and learn our history. Let’s stop playing games.”
The chief justice was speaking at a Pastor for Life Luncheon, an event in Jackson Miss., sponsored by Pro-Life Mississippi, according to Raw Story.
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT talkingpointsmemo.com

This guy's comments are imbecilic. The Pilgrims didn't write the Constitution, their worldview was written out of the Constitution deliberately, excluded as a matter of principle. Our godless Constitution was tantamount to a stated objection to the Pilgrims' theocratic Calvinism.

The spirit of the age of the Constitution is revealed here in there words of Thomas Jefferson from his Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom:

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination."

Such examples abound and not just from Jefferson's quill but from others among the Founding Fathers. Chief Justice Moore's ignorance is menacing and worthy of official censure. The reason the world sat up and took note regarding our Constitution was that it was founded on reason, not divine right. It begins "We the people," not "In the Name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit." It was at the time the single most secular document ever created relating to a nation's governance.

Oh, any by the way, Mr. Moore, the Koran doesn't attest that Mohammed created humankind, Buddhists don't believe that Buddha created humankind, and the only scientific explanation that exists for the existence of humankind is the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Moore claims that Americans don't know their history. Bollocks. It's Moore who doesn't. He does what many members of the religious right do when they expound in a sophomoric manner on early American history: conflate the Pilgrims' adventure with the founding of the United States.

The Pilgrims arrived in 1620. The Constitution went into effect 169 years later in 1789. That's nearly seven generations, what 1845 is relative to 2014.

In 1845, James K. Polk was President, slavery flourished, women couldn't vote, state legislatures elected U.S. Senators, the western-most state was Missouri, most people thought the Earth was about 10,000 years old, Neptune had yet to be discovered, kerosene was unknown, and perhaps most importantly, Adolphe Sax was still a year away from patenting the saxophone. In 2014, are things a bit different in terms of not only technology but political principles and ideals, policy and worldview? Yes. One-hundred-sixty-nine years makes a difference. The Pilgrims came ashore in 1620, but by 1789 there was a republic on these shores that did not obviate or subsume but replaced religion-based colonial entities.

It's Moore who needs the history lesson. It's a nation by, of, and for not "the Christians" but "the People."

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