FREEDOM FROM RELIGION

                Last week, CNN reported on the edict just announced by President Joe Biden that schools which received federal funding, and were bound by Title Nine rules to provide equal opportunity for all students with those funds, would be also required to show that those rules of equal opportunity applied equally to gay, lesbian and transgender students. CNN showed the rabid reaction of religious conservatives to that edict, using as an example a shot of Kari Lake, speaking at a political rally. Kari Lake is a former anchor newscaster, who previously supported Barak Obama, but then had a religious conversion. She became a true Trump believer, espoused the blatant lie that the last election had been stolen, and has made it clear that she will only accept winning the vote in her race for governor of Arizona. She will claim victory and cry voter fraud, if the voters elect her opponent. Kari Lake was holding a microphone in one hand, pumping her other fist in the air, yelling into the microphone with fire in her eyes, raw emotion in her voice, and fervor in her body motions: “This is a Christian nation, founded on Christian values, and the laws of this country should show those Christian values! The church should be telling the government what the laws of our country are, rather than the other way around!”  She obviously completely believed in what she was saying.

                Well, Ms. Lake, you are not only wrong, you are dead wrong. In fact, exactly the opposite happened. Our founders had intermittent intense pressure from religious conservatives such as you, when they were writing our constitution. They fought off all those attempted insertions of exclusion and prejudice which would require only certain religious beliefs. They followed the prescient concepts of John Locke: for one, that the power of government does not come from divine right; it comes from the consent of the governed; and second, that the only stable society, is one which tolerates all religions equally. To those two grand concepts, our founders added one more: all citizens deserve equal opportunity to maintain life, have the freedom to pursue their goals, and seek happiness. Our founders made sure that there was no tie of any kind to any religion, in our government. That is why the first article of the Bill of Rights says this: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

                No, Ms. Lake, the church does not, and must not ever, tell the government what are the laws of the land; the government sets those laws, without religious meddling; and if you want federal funds, you will follow those laws of equal opportunity for all our citizens, regardless of color, appearance, economic status, or sexual orientation.

                Want proof? Here it is.

Thomas Paine, the firebrand who stoked the flames of the American Revolution with fiery words, sustaining the revolutionary soldiers in their times of greatest suffering, asking them to cherish the right to govern themselves, had these things to say about religion and Christianity.

 “The Christian religion is an outrage on common sense.” “The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on nothing; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing.”

 “Accustom a people to believe that priests and clergy can forgive sins…and you will have sins in abundance.”

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

Benjamin Franklin was not a religious man. He did not attend church or worship on a regular basis. Christian dogma and mythology had no meaning for him. He had this to say about that religion.

 “I have found Christian dogma unintelligible.”

”Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies.”

Alexander Hamilton was a dynamo of ideas, words and energy. He was the primary adjutant for George Washington during the revolutionary war and the first presidency. Through the concepts promoted in the Federalist Papers, he and James Madison were responsible for the proceedings of the  Constitutional Convention,  and structure of the new constitution for the United States of America. His concept of the new government was a strong federal state, with the states subservient to that federal government. He promoted a central bank, an advanced financial system, a strong military, an independent judiciary, and was a strong abolitionist. He is the one person primarily responsible for the form of our government today.

As a college student, Hamilton was a devout worshiper, kneeling in prayer twice a day. As an adult, he developed a deist philosophy, the same as Franklin, Adams and Jefferson. He believed that there was a Deity, who did not interfere with human lives after creation occurred. He did not join any church, and associated organized religions with fanaticism.

“The world has been scourged with many fanatical sects in religion who, inflamed by a sincere but mistaken zeal, have perpetrated under the idea of serving God the most atrocious crimes.”  

John Adams wrote the Constitution for the State of Massachusetts. This remarkable document specified a government consisting of a Senate, a House of Representatives, an Executive, and an independent judiciary. This formulation was in itself revolutionary, and served as the format for the later development of the Constitution of the United States of America. According to David McCullough, “…he had written one of the great, enduring documents of the American Revolution. The constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the oldest functioning constitution in the world.”

John Adams had Puritan ancestors, and strongly believed in a Supreme Being. He also believed that Supreme Being had created all humans equally, so that no human had any divine right of office. He believed that there should be freedom of speech, and complete freedom of religions, for each to worship as they saw fit. The Massachusetts constitution reflected those values. Adams did not accept the divinity of Jesus, or believe in the rituals of the Christian Church.

 “Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days.”

 “The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus has made a convenient cover for absurdity.”

George Washington was a member of two church congregations, and attended services regularly at those churches, actively participating in ceremonies and rituals. He did not, however, believe in the mysteries and miracles of the Bible, and did not profess belief in the divinity of Jesus. In particular, he was a convinced supporter of the separation of church and state, strongly supporting the right of each person to worship as had meaning to them.

“No man’s sentiments are more opposed to any kind of restraint upon religious principles than mine are.”

Thomas Jefferson was a supremely erudite, multitalented man who lived a lavish life style, way beyond his means, and was able to continue that lush level of living only by owning hundreds of slaves. He stated that slavery was an abomination, but was unwilling to give up his cushioned life to do anything about that evil. In that regard, he was a flaming hypocrite. He did, however, clearly see the Christian religion as a mythological beast, which posed grave threat to our citizens if allowed to in any way become part of our government.

 “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.” 

“I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies.”

 “Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on men. The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and unintelligible.” 

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”

Jefferson, in his autobiography, describes the attempt by religious conservatives to place an amendment in the Virginia Constitution referring to Jesus Christ as the source of religious liberty. He says this amendment was, “…rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”

James Madison was an unbeliever. He did not accept the dogma of any religion, and adamantly opposed any attachment of any religion, in any way, to the new United States government. He nevertheless, fiercely supported the right of anyone to worship as they saw fit. When six Baptists were jailed in the neighboring county in 1774, mainly at the hands of Anglican clergymen, Madison was furious. He did not agree with their proselytism, but vehemently supported their right to do so.

“That diabolical hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some, and to their eternal infamy the clergy can furnish their quota of imps for such purpose.”

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.”

 “Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?”

“…the religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right.”

James Madison was the author of the Bill of Rights. His views, as are here shown, are the reason why the first article of the Bill of Rights emphatically states that every citizen of the United States of America shall  not only have freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion.

James Monroe served in the revolutionary army, rode with Washington, and suffered with them through the brutal winter at Valley Forge. After the war, he served our new country for the next forty years in multiple capacities, as senator, congressman, ambassadorships, secretary of state, secretary of war, and two terms as President of the United States. He saved Thomas Paine’s life, getting him out of prison in France. He engineered the Louisiana Purchase from France, although Jefferson later got all the credit. He took Florida from Spain, adding it to the new nation. Throughout his presidency, he promoted naval and military power, guiding our fledgling nation into one of great growth and power.

James Monroe was friends with James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. He shared their political and religious views. Yet he was opposed to the adoption of the new Constitution of the United States of America, until he was assured that there would be an attached Bill of Rights, guaranteeing those freedoms of and from religion, freedoms of speech, assembly, petition, and the press.

Andrew Jackson was our first president to not come from an aristocratic family. As a child, he was subjected to four hours each Sunday listening to psalms, hymns, prayers, scripture and sermons. He fully accepted the mythology of the Presbyterian faith, and continued to read the Bible each day throughout the rest of his life. Yet he was anticlerical. He believed it was his duty, as President of the United States of America, to protect the rights of the people from the ecclesiastical establishment. He never joined any church.

“I am no sectarian, though a lover of the Christian religion. I do not believe that any who shall be so fortunate as to be received to heaven  though the atonement of our blessed Savior will be asked whether they belonged to the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Episcopalian, the Baptist, or the Roman Catholic.”

“In the spirit and structure of our Constitution, we have carefully separated sacred from civilian concerns. I deem it my duty to preserve this separation and to abstain from any act which may tend to an amalgamation perilous to both [church and state}.”

There you have it, Ms. Lake. You lied. All the founders of our new nation, in their wisdom, specifically and emphatically opposed the ability of any ecclesiastical authority to impose any rules on our new government. They knew that there must never be church rules in a democracy.

If we follow your advice, Ms. Lake, we can expect the inquisitions to soon follow, accompanied by false accusations, false imprisonments, rapacious seizure of property, unfair trials, a bloated, arrogant and cruel priesthood, torture and executions for religious purposes.

 If we follow your advice, Ms. Lake, it will destroy our democracy.