From: dxc4@po.CWRU.Edu (David Condon)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Anti-religious fanatics (Was Re: School Choice )
Date: 22 Aug 92 00:07:02 GMT
Reply-To: dxc4@po.CWRU.Edu (David Condon)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)


In a previous article, steeg@cs.toronto.edu ("Evan W. Steeg") says:

>In article <1992Aug18.143255.25678@anasazi.com> john@anasazi.com writes:
>>....
>>I also do believe that the founders wanted a Christian America, but
>>were reasonable enough to make that the choice of each individual
>>rather than to allow laws to enforce it. The Constitution was, after
>>all, crafted by a highly christian group of people, and yet they
>>were able to keep their religion out of it.
>
>  You might be interested in some quotations (appended).  Also, if you get a 
>chance to read some of Ben Franklin's memoirs, you'll be quite shocked at 
>some of his ideas, stances, and activities regarding the Judeo-Christian
>heritage.
>
>  Basically, the US was founded by *thinkers*, not people who mindlessly
>accept whatever prevailing beliefs (about kings and nations *or* about
>God and Man) were handed down by their parents or drilled into them
>by their preachers or communities.

Thanks, Evan -- here's a couple more from Thomas Paine:

@  From The Rights of Man (1791):

The French Constitution hath abolished or renounced _toleration_, and
_intolerance_ also, and hath established UNIVERSAL RIGHT OF CONSCIENCE.

Toleration is not the _opposite_ of intoleration, but is the _counterfeit_
of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of
withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it. The one
is the Pope, armed with fire and faggot, and the other is the Pope selling
or granting indulgences. The former is church and state, and the latter
is church and traffic.

But toleration may be viewed in a much stronger light. Man worships not 
himself, but his Maker: and the liberty of conscience which he claims, is 
not for the service of himself, but of his God. In this case, therefore,
we must necessarily have the associated idea of two beings; the _mortal_
who renders the worship, and the _immortal being_ who is worshipped.

Toleration therefore, places itself not between man and man, nor between 
church and church, nor between one denomination of religion and another,
but between God and man; between the being who worships, and _being_ who
is worshipped; and byt the same act of assumed authority by which it
tolerates man to pay his worship, it presumptuously and blasphemously
sets up itself to tolerate the Almighty to receive it.

Were a bill brought into Parliament, entitled, "An act to tolerate or
grant liberty to the Almighty to receive the worship of a Jew or Turk,"
or "to prohibit the Almighty from receiving it," all men would startle,
and call it blasphemy. There would be an uproar. The presumption of
toleration in religious matters would then, present itself unmasked; but
the presumption is not the less because the name of "Man" only appears
to these laws, for the associated idea of the _worshipper_ and the
_worshipped_ cannot be separated.

@  From The Age of Reason (1794):

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond
this life.

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties
consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our
fellow-creatures happy.

But, lest it be supposed that I believe many other things in addition
to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I
do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the 
Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the 
Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind
is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or
Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify
and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise;
they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is
necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to
himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving;
it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.
-- 

              "You got the right ta-ta, but the wrong ho-ho"

                              -- New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews     
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