ABC News: Panelists Decry Bush Science PoliciesBy PAUL RECER | WASHINGTON Feb 20, 2005 —
The voice of science is being stifled in the Bush administration, with fewer scientists heard in policy discussions and money for research and advanced training being cut, according to panelists at a national science meeting.
Speakers at the national meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science expressed concern Sunday that some scientists in key federal agencies are being ignored or even pressured to change study conclusions that don't support policy positions.
The speakers also said that Bush's proposed 2005 federal budget is slashing spending for basic research and reducing investments in education designed to produce the nation's future scientists.
And there also was concern that increased restrictions and requirements for obtaining visas is diminishing the flow to the U.S. of foreign-born science students who have long been a major part of the American research community. ...
Monday, February 21, 2005
ABC News: Panelists Decry Bush Science Policies:
ABC News: Panelists Decry Bush Science PoliciesBy PAUL RECER | WASHINGTON Feb 20, 2005 —
The voice of science is being stifled in the Bush administration, with fewer scientists heard in policy discussions and money for research and advanced training being cut, according to panelists at a national science meeting.
Speakers at the national meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science expressed concern Sunday that some scientists in key federal agencies are being ignored or even pressured to change study conclusions that don't support policy positions.
The speakers also said that Bush's proposed 2005 federal budget is slashing spending for basic research and reducing investments in education designed to produce the nation's future scientists.
And there also was concern that increased restrictions and requirements for obtaining visas is diminishing the flow to the U.S. of foreign-born science students who have long been a major part of the American research community. ...
The voice of science is being stifled in the Bush administration, with fewer scientists heard in policy discussions and money for research and advanced training being cut, according to panelists at a national science meeting.
Speakers at the national meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science expressed concern Sunday that some scientists in key federal agencies are being ignored or even pressured to change study conclusions that don't support policy positions.
The speakers also said that Bush's proposed 2005 federal budget is slashing spending for basic research and reducing investments in education designed to produce the nation's future scientists.
And there also was concern that increased restrictions and requirements for obtaining visas is diminishing the flow to the U.S. of foreign-born science students who have long been a major part of the American research community. ...
Friday, February 11, 2005
(DV) Baker: Dominionist Dementia
(DV) Baker: Dominionist Dementia: "What's Jesus Got to Do With It? | by Carolyn Baker | www.dissidentvoice.org | December 20, 2004
... I thought it might be appropriate to examine this fellow Jesus whom the Dominionists of the religious right claim to follow. In doing so, one will notice that the historical Jesus bears almost no resemblance to the Jesus of Dominionism. For a thorough examination of the Dominionist ideology see Kathleen Yurica’s expose.
... even a superficial understanding of the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ time reveals stunning similarities between first-century Pharisees and twenty-first century Domionionists.
...
Were Jesus with us today, he would be an enormous problem for the Dominionists, and we can be certain that he would be perceived by them not unlike a homeless street person or an antiwar protestor. Jesus and his followers would be marginalized, arrested, and imprisoned. Contrary to the Jesus contrived by the Dominionists, the historical Jesus did not perceive himself as a savior of anyone. Whereas today’s fundamentalist Christian insists that one must accept Jesus as one’s “personal savior,” Jesus never taught this concept. Rather, he was a spiritual mystic and an activist on behalf of human rights and social justice.
...
Christian fundamentalism, a byproduct of Western industrialism and free market capitalism, offers a “product.” Not unlike the promotion of term life insurance or membership in an exclusive club, it “sells” eternal salvation in heaven and a “guarantee” that all sins prior to being born again are forgiven and that one becomes privy to its “infallible” interpretation of the bible and Christian doctrine. Thus, Dominionists assert that they possess the ultimate truths of the universe and on the basis of their “personal relationship with Christ” have every right to establish a Christian theocracy in the United States. After all, those stuffy intellectual founding fathers were Deists who essentially believed that a Supreme Being had created the universe, walked away and left it to humankind to manage. The principles on which they founded the American republic need to be reworked, say the Dominionists, so that the United States can be a fundamentalist Christian theocracy ruled by the born-again elite. And, it is crucial to understand that if one is “born again,” one is “in”, and if one is not “born again”, one will remain “out” until one has the born-again experience.
When I read the Gospels, I see a Jesus irreconcilable with the one portrayed by the Dominionists. That Jesus knows no “in” or “out” in terms of divine acceptance of human beings.
...
Living the compassion Jesus taught would preclude the mean-spiritedness of the Dominionist who champions the so-called self-made man pulling himself up by the bootstraps, and Dominionism’s vicious crusade to eliminate funding for services for children, the poor, the marginalized and all who cannot advocate for themselves. The compassion Jesus lived deplores the intentional bankrupting of public services so that individuals and corporations can wax fat and powerful from their privatization. Against this kind of abuse of the common good, Jesus railed vehemently. ...
...
Contrary to Dominionist designs, Jesus would not promote the establishment of a theocracy. He was born into an empire and spoke unambiguously against it. Railing against abuses of religion, he brashly threw the religious elite out of the temple because they were charging the poor for worshipping there. Constantly throwing the plight of the poor in the faces of the exploitative Pharisees, he blatantly argued that in God’s eyes, the poor were more valued than the rich—a spectacular inversion of Dominionist ideology which like the dogma of seventeenth-century American Puritanism holds that wealth is an indication of God’s blessing. ...
... I thought it might be appropriate to examine this fellow Jesus whom the Dominionists of the religious right claim to follow. In doing so, one will notice that the historical Jesus bears almost no resemblance to the Jesus of Dominionism. For a thorough examination of the Dominionist ideology see Kathleen Yurica’s expose.
... even a superficial understanding of the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ time reveals stunning similarities between first-century Pharisees and twenty-first century Domionionists.
...
Were Jesus with us today, he would be an enormous problem for the Dominionists, and we can be certain that he would be perceived by them not unlike a homeless street person or an antiwar protestor. Jesus and his followers would be marginalized, arrested, and imprisoned. Contrary to the Jesus contrived by the Dominionists, the historical Jesus did not perceive himself as a savior of anyone. Whereas today’s fundamentalist Christian insists that one must accept Jesus as one’s “personal savior,” Jesus never taught this concept. Rather, he was a spiritual mystic and an activist on behalf of human rights and social justice.
...
Christian fundamentalism, a byproduct of Western industrialism and free market capitalism, offers a “product.” Not unlike the promotion of term life insurance or membership in an exclusive club, it “sells” eternal salvation in heaven and a “guarantee” that all sins prior to being born again are forgiven and that one becomes privy to its “infallible” interpretation of the bible and Christian doctrine. Thus, Dominionists assert that they possess the ultimate truths of the universe and on the basis of their “personal relationship with Christ” have every right to establish a Christian theocracy in the United States. After all, those stuffy intellectual founding fathers were Deists who essentially believed that a Supreme Being had created the universe, walked away and left it to humankind to manage. The principles on which they founded the American republic need to be reworked, say the Dominionists, so that the United States can be a fundamentalist Christian theocracy ruled by the born-again elite. And, it is crucial to understand that if one is “born again,” one is “in”, and if one is not “born again”, one will remain “out” until one has the born-again experience.
When I read the Gospels, I see a Jesus irreconcilable with the one portrayed by the Dominionists. That Jesus knows no “in” or “out” in terms of divine acceptance of human beings.
...
Living the compassion Jesus taught would preclude the mean-spiritedness of the Dominionist who champions the so-called self-made man pulling himself up by the bootstraps, and Dominionism’s vicious crusade to eliminate funding for services for children, the poor, the marginalized and all who cannot advocate for themselves. The compassion Jesus lived deplores the intentional bankrupting of public services so that individuals and corporations can wax fat and powerful from their privatization. Against this kind of abuse of the common good, Jesus railed vehemently. ...
...
Contrary to Dominionist designs, Jesus would not promote the establishment of a theocracy. He was born into an empire and spoke unambiguously against it. Railing against abuses of religion, he brashly threw the religious elite out of the temple because they were charging the poor for worshipping there. Constantly throwing the plight of the poor in the faces of the exploitative Pharisees, he blatantly argued that in God’s eyes, the poor were more valued than the rich—a spectacular inversion of Dominionist ideology which like the dogma of seventeenth-century American Puritanism holds that wealth is an indication of God’s blessing. ...
What is dominion? Well, dominion is Lordship. He wants His people to reign and rule with Him
Conquering by Stealth and Deception: "How the Dominionists Are Succeeding in Their Quest for National Control and World Power | By Katherine Yurica | September 14, 2004
Since the writing and posting of my essay, The Despoiling of America in February 2004, there is more and more evidence that not only has a cultural war been launched, but that the plotters are winning it. “Dominionism” now looks more like a term that is applicable to both right-wing-religious believers and to the neo-cons who were created and born in an astonishing resurgence of an immoral Machiavellianism: both groups believe in domination and control. While religious adherents adopted a decidedly heretical Christian doctrine,[1] the neo-cons continue to use the American churches to help execute their cabal. ...
Americans and the main-stream media have been very slow in catching on to the fact that we are in a war—a war that is cultural, religious and political. One document not mentioned in The Despoiling of America is the closeted manual that reveals how the right wing in American politics can get and keep power. It was created under the tutelage of Paul Weyrich, the man who founded the Free Congress Foundation. Conservative leaders consider Weyrich to be the “most powerful man in American politics today.” There is no question of his immense influence in conservative circles. He is also considered the founder of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank made possible with funding from Joseph Coors and Richard Mellon-Scaife. Weyrich served as the Founding President from 1973-1974.
...
I have paraphrased the four immoral principles of the Dominionist movement as the following:
1) Falsehoods are not only acceptable, they are a necessity. The corollary is: The masses will accept any lie if it is spoken with vigor, energy and dedication.
2) It is necessary to be cast under the cloak of “goodness” whereas all opponents and their ideas must be cast as “evil.”
3) Complete destruction of every opponent must be accomplished through unrelenting personal attacks.
4) The creation of the appearance of overwhelming power and brutality is necessary in order to destroy the will of opponents to launch opposition of any kind.
.....................
[1] The doctrine that Christians should seek worldly power and use it to dominate the culture of any country they occupy was first expressed by Pat Robertson on his 700 Club show in the 1980’s. On his 700 Club television show (5-1-86) Robertson said: “God’s plan is for His people, ladies and gentlemen to take dominion…What is dominion? Well, dominion is Lordship. He wants His people to reign and rule with Him…but He’s waiting for us to…extend His dominion…And the Lord says, ‘I’m going to let you redeem society. There’ll be a reformation….We are not going to stand for those coercive utopians in the Supreme Court and in Washington ruling over us any more. We’re not gonna stand for it. We are going to say, ‘we want freedom in this country, and we want power…’” Robertson said on his program the 700 Club (5-13-86): “We’ve sat idly by long enough and said, ‘Well religion and politics don’t mix.’ Don’t you believe it. If we don’t have moral people in government then the only other people that can be in government are immoral. That’s the only way it goes. Either you have moral people in there or you have immoral people.”
Since the writing and posting of my essay, The Despoiling of America in February 2004, there is more and more evidence that not only has a cultural war been launched, but that the plotters are winning it. “Dominionism” now looks more like a term that is applicable to both right-wing-religious believers and to the neo-cons who were created and born in an astonishing resurgence of an immoral Machiavellianism: both groups believe in domination and control. While religious adherents adopted a decidedly heretical Christian doctrine,[1] the neo-cons continue to use the American churches to help execute their cabal. ...
Americans and the main-stream media have been very slow in catching on to the fact that we are in a war—a war that is cultural, religious and political. One document not mentioned in The Despoiling of America is the closeted manual that reveals how the right wing in American politics can get and keep power. It was created under the tutelage of Paul Weyrich, the man who founded the Free Congress Foundation. Conservative leaders consider Weyrich to be the “most powerful man in American politics today.” There is no question of his immense influence in conservative circles. He is also considered the founder of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank made possible with funding from Joseph Coors and Richard Mellon-Scaife. Weyrich served as the Founding President from 1973-1974.
...
I have paraphrased the four immoral principles of the Dominionist movement as the following:
1) Falsehoods are not only acceptable, they are a necessity. The corollary is: The masses will accept any lie if it is spoken with vigor, energy and dedication.
2) It is necessary to be cast under the cloak of “goodness” whereas all opponents and their ideas must be cast as “evil.”
3) Complete destruction of every opponent must be accomplished through unrelenting personal attacks.
4) The creation of the appearance of overwhelming power and brutality is necessary in order to destroy the will of opponents to launch opposition of any kind.
.....................
[1] The doctrine that Christians should seek worldly power and use it to dominate the culture of any country they occupy was first expressed by Pat Robertson on his 700 Club show in the 1980’s. On his 700 Club television show (5-1-86) Robertson said: “God’s plan is for His people, ladies and gentlemen to take dominion…What is dominion? Well, dominion is Lordship. He wants His people to reign and rule with Him…but He’s waiting for us to…extend His dominion…And the Lord says, ‘I’m going to let you redeem society. There’ll be a reformation….We are not going to stand for those coercive utopians in the Supreme Court and in Washington ruling over us any more. We’re not gonna stand for it. We are going to say, ‘we want freedom in this country, and we want power…’” Robertson said on his program the 700 Club (5-13-86): “We’ve sat idly by long enough and said, ‘Well religion and politics don’t mix.’ Don’t you believe it. If we don’t have moral people in government then the only other people that can be in government are immoral. That’s the only way it goes. Either you have moral people in there or you have immoral people.”
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Separation of Church and State [... aka Freedom of Religion is Freedom from Religion ]
Separation of Church and State: "
...
Wedding Church And State, Susan Jacoby, director of the Center for Inquiry-Metro New York, writes:
In 1773, the Rev. Isaac Backus , the most prominent Baptist minister in New England, observed that when "church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued."
If only that reverend manqué, President George W. Bush, had consulted the Reverend Backus' "An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty" before endorsing the mischief implicit in a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman and "prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever."
One of the most ironic aspects of the current assault on separation of church and state is that the apostles of religious correctness have managed to obscure the broad and tolerant origins of the godless Constitution, which was written and ratified by a coalition of Enlightenment rationalists and evangelical Christians equally fearful of entanglements between religion and government.
...
Foes of Church-State Separation
The Texas Republican Party Platform, 2002:
"Our Party pledges to do everything within its power to dispel the mythof separation of church and state."
Christian Coalition: Speakers at the Road To Victory rally sponsored by Christian Coalition just before the 2002 elections,
"seemed to compete with each other to say the worst things they could about this concept." Coalition founder Pat Robertson who described church-state separation as "a lie" and "a distortion foisted on us over the past few years by left- wingers." Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore termed separation "a fable" and insisted that the phrase "has so warped our society it's unbelievable." Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) upped the ante, calling concerns about church and state "the phoniest argument there is."
But the award for the most vicious attack goes to Joyce Meyer, the TV preacher who cosponsored the Coalition's national meeting. Meyer lambasted the constitutional concept as "really a deception from "Satan."
William Pryor, President Bush's stealth appointment for the 11th circuit court of appeals said in a speech that the First Amendment does not mandate "a strict separation of church and state."
Tom DeLay, House Majority leader, speaking at a luncheon for Congressional staff in July, 2001 called the Faith Based Initiative a way of:
"standing up and rebuking this notion of separation of church and state that has been imposed upon us over the last 40 or 50 years."
...
Wedding Church And State, Susan Jacoby, director of the Center for Inquiry-Metro New York, writes:
In 1773, the Rev. Isaac Backus , the most prominent Baptist minister in New England, observed that when "church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued."
If only that reverend manqué, President George W. Bush, had consulted the Reverend Backus' "An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty" before endorsing the mischief implicit in a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman and "prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever."
One of the most ironic aspects of the current assault on separation of church and state is that the apostles of religious correctness have managed to obscure the broad and tolerant origins of the godless Constitution, which was written and ratified by a coalition of Enlightenment rationalists and evangelical Christians equally fearful of entanglements between religion and government.
...
Foes of Church-State Separation
The Texas Republican Party Platform, 2002:
"Our Party pledges to do everything within its power to dispel the mythof separation of church and state."
Christian Coalition: Speakers at the Road To Victory rally sponsored by Christian Coalition just before the 2002 elections,
"seemed to compete with each other to say the worst things they could about this concept." Coalition founder Pat Robertson who described church-state separation as "a lie" and "a distortion foisted on us over the past few years by left- wingers." Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore termed separation "a fable" and insisted that the phrase "has so warped our society it's unbelievable." Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) upped the ante, calling concerns about church and state "the phoniest argument there is."
But the award for the most vicious attack goes to Joyce Meyer, the TV preacher who cosponsored the Coalition's national meeting. Meyer lambasted the constitutional concept as "really a deception from "Satan."
William Pryor, President Bush's stealth appointment for the 11th circuit court of appeals said in a speech that the First Amendment does not mandate "a strict separation of church and state."
Tom DeLay, House Majority leader, speaking at a luncheon for Congressional staff in July, 2001 called the Faith Based Initiative a way of:
"standing up and rebuking this notion of separation of church and state that has been imposed upon us over the last 40 or 50 years."
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
US founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones: [Bush's] current favorite ... whopper
The Nation | Article | Our Godless Constitution | Brooke Allen: "February 3, 2005
It is hard to believe that George Bush has ever read the works of George Orwell, but he seems, somehow, to have grasped a few Orwellian precepts. The lesson the President has learned best--and certainly the one that has been the most useful to him--is the axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. One of his Administration's current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the picture as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent.
Our Constitution makes no mention whatever of God. The omission was too obvious to have been anything but deliberate, in spite of Alexander Hamilton's flippant responses when asked about it: According to one account, he said that the new nation was not in need of "foreign aid"; according to another, he simply said "we forgot." But as Hamilton's biographer Ron Chernow points out, Hamilton never forgot anything important.
In the eighty-five essays that make up The Federalist, God is mentioned only twice (both times by Madison, who uses the word, as Gore Vidal has remarked, in the "only Heaven knows" sense). In the Declaration of Independence, He gets two brief nods: a reference to "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God," and the famous line about men being "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." ...
...
In 1797 our government concluded a "Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, or Barbary," now known simply as the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 of the treaty contains these words:
As the Government of the United States...is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion--as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity 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.
This document was endorsed by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and President John Adams. It was then sent to the Senate for ratification; the vote was unanimous. It is worth pointing out that although this was the 339th time a recorded vote had been required by the Senate, it was only the third unanimous vote in the Senate's history. There is no record of debate or dissent.
...
The Founding Fathers were not religious men, and they fought hard to erect, in Thomas Jefferson's words, "a wall of separation between church and state." John Adams opined that if they were not restrained by legal measures, Puritans--the fundamentalists of their day--would "whip and crop, and pillory and roast." ...
...
it is safe to say that some of the key Founding Fathers were not Christians at all. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine were deists--that is, they believed in one Supreme Being but rejected revelation and all the supernatural elements of the Christian Church; the word of the Creator, they believed, could best be read in Nature.
George Washington and James Madison also leaned toward deism, although neither took much interest in religious matters. Madison believed that "religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize." He spoke of the "almost fifteen centuries" during which Christianity had been on trial: "What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution." If Washington mentioned the Almighty in a public address, as he occasionally did, he was careful to refer to Him not as "God" but with some nondenominational moniker like "Great Author" or "Almighty Being." ....
...
Tom Paine, a polemicist rather than a politician, could afford to be perfectly honest about his religious beliefs, which were baldly deist in the tradition of Voltaire: "I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.... 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." This is how he opened The Age of Reason, his virulent attack on Christianity. In it he railed against the "obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness" of the Old Testament, "a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind." .... Paine was careful to contrast the tortuous twists of theology with the pure clarity of deism. "The true deist has but one Deity; and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in every thing moral, scientifical, and mechanical."
Paine's rhetoric was so fervent that he was inevitably branded an atheist. Men like Franklin, Adams and Jefferson could not risk being tarred with that brush, and in fact Jefferson got into a good deal of trouble for continuing his friendship with Paine and entertaining him at Monticello. ...
...
Franklin was the oldest of the Founding Fathers. He was also the most worldly and sophisticated, and was well aware of the Machiavellian principle that if one aspires to influence the masses, one must at least profess religious sentiments. ...
...
Franklin was the oldest of the Founding Fathers. He was also the most worldly and sophisticated, and was well aware of the Machiavellian principle that if one aspires to influence the masses, one must at least profess religious sentiments. ...
...
Here is Franklin's considered summary of his own beliefs, in response to a query by Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale. He wrote it just six weeks before his death at the age of 84.
Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
As for Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as it probably has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any particular marks of his displeasure. ...
Jefferson thoroughly agreed with Franklin on the corruptions the teachings of Jesus had undergone. "The metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius, and the maniacal ravings of Calvin, tinctured plentifully with the foggy dreams of Plato, have so loaded [Christianity] with absurdities and incomprehensibilities" that it was almost impossible to recapture "its native simplicity and purity." Like Paine, Jefferson felt that the miracles claimed by the New Testament put an intolerable strain on credulity. "The day will come," he predicted (wrongly, so far), "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." The Revelation of St. John he dismissed as "the ravings of a maniac."
Jefferson edited his own version of the New Testament, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," in which he carefully deleted all the miraculous passages from the works of the Evangelists. He intended it, he said, as "a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." ...
...
The three accomplishments Jefferson was proudest of--those that he requested be put on his tombstone--were the founding of the University of Virginia and the authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. The latter was a truly radical document that would eventually influence the separation of church and state in the US Constitution; when it was passed by the Virginia legislature in 1786, Jefferson rejoiced that there was finally "freedom for the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammeden, the Hindu and infidel of every denomination"--note his respect, still unusual today, for the sensibilities of the "infidel." The University of Virginia was notable among early-American seats of higher education in that it had no religious affiliation whatever. Jefferson even banned the teaching of theology at the school.
...
John Adams, though no more religious than Jefferson, had inherited the fatalistic mindset of the Puritan culture in which he had grown up. He personally endorsed the Enlightenment commitment to Reason ... As an old man he observed, "Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been upon the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!'" Speaking ex cathedra, as a relic of the founding generation, he expressed his admiration for the Roman system whereby every man could worship whom, what and how he pleased. When his young listeners objected that this was paganism, Adams replied that it was indeed, and laughed.
...
... Pressed by Jefferson to define his personal creed, Adams replied that it was "contained in four short words, 'Be just and good.'" Jefferson replied, "The result of our fifty or sixty years of religious reading, in the four words, 'Be just and good,' is that in which all our inquiries must end; as the riddles of all priesthoods end in four more, 'ubi panis, ibi deus.' What all agree in, is probably right. What no two agree in, most probably wrong."
...
It is hard to believe that George Bush has ever read the works of George Orwell, but he seems, somehow, to have grasped a few Orwellian precepts. The lesson the President has learned best--and certainly the one that has been the most useful to him--is the axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. One of his Administration's current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the picture as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent.
Our Constitution makes no mention whatever of God. The omission was too obvious to have been anything but deliberate, in spite of Alexander Hamilton's flippant responses when asked about it: According to one account, he said that the new nation was not in need of "foreign aid"; according to another, he simply said "we forgot." But as Hamilton's biographer Ron Chernow points out, Hamilton never forgot anything important.
In the eighty-five essays that make up The Federalist, God is mentioned only twice (both times by Madison, who uses the word, as Gore Vidal has remarked, in the "only Heaven knows" sense). In the Declaration of Independence, He gets two brief nods: a reference to "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God," and the famous line about men being "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." ...
...
In 1797 our government concluded a "Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, or Barbary," now known simply as the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 of the treaty contains these words:
As the Government of the United States...is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion--as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity 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.
This document was endorsed by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and President John Adams. It was then sent to the Senate for ratification; the vote was unanimous. It is worth pointing out that although this was the 339th time a recorded vote had been required by the Senate, it was only the third unanimous vote in the Senate's history. There is no record of debate or dissent.
...
The Founding Fathers were not religious men, and they fought hard to erect, in Thomas Jefferson's words, "a wall of separation between church and state." John Adams opined that if they were not restrained by legal measures, Puritans--the fundamentalists of their day--would "whip and crop, and pillory and roast." ...
...
it is safe to say that some of the key Founding Fathers were not Christians at all. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine were deists--that is, they believed in one Supreme Being but rejected revelation and all the supernatural elements of the Christian Church; the word of the Creator, they believed, could best be read in Nature.
George Washington and James Madison also leaned toward deism, although neither took much interest in religious matters. Madison believed that "religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize." He spoke of the "almost fifteen centuries" during which Christianity had been on trial: "What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution." If Washington mentioned the Almighty in a public address, as he occasionally did, he was careful to refer to Him not as "God" but with some nondenominational moniker like "Great Author" or "Almighty Being." ....
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Tom Paine, a polemicist rather than a politician, could afford to be perfectly honest about his religious beliefs, which were baldly deist in the tradition of Voltaire: "I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.... 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." This is how he opened The Age of Reason, his virulent attack on Christianity. In it he railed against the "obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness" of the Old Testament, "a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind." .... Paine was careful to contrast the tortuous twists of theology with the pure clarity of deism. "The true deist has but one Deity; and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in every thing moral, scientifical, and mechanical."
Paine's rhetoric was so fervent that he was inevitably branded an atheist. Men like Franklin, Adams and Jefferson could not risk being tarred with that brush, and in fact Jefferson got into a good deal of trouble for continuing his friendship with Paine and entertaining him at Monticello. ...
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Franklin was the oldest of the Founding Fathers. He was also the most worldly and sophisticated, and was well aware of the Machiavellian principle that if one aspires to influence the masses, one must at least profess religious sentiments. ...
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Franklin was the oldest of the Founding Fathers. He was also the most worldly and sophisticated, and was well aware of the Machiavellian principle that if one aspires to influence the masses, one must at least profess religious sentiments. ...
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Here is Franklin's considered summary of his own beliefs, in response to a query by Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale. He wrote it just six weeks before his death at the age of 84.
Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
As for Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as it probably has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any particular marks of his displeasure. ...
Jefferson thoroughly agreed with Franklin on the corruptions the teachings of Jesus had undergone. "The metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius, and the maniacal ravings of Calvin, tinctured plentifully with the foggy dreams of Plato, have so loaded [Christianity] with absurdities and incomprehensibilities" that it was almost impossible to recapture "its native simplicity and purity." Like Paine, Jefferson felt that the miracles claimed by the New Testament put an intolerable strain on credulity. "The day will come," he predicted (wrongly, so far), "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." The Revelation of St. John he dismissed as "the ravings of a maniac."
Jefferson edited his own version of the New Testament, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," in which he carefully deleted all the miraculous passages from the works of the Evangelists. He intended it, he said, as "a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." ...
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The three accomplishments Jefferson was proudest of--those that he requested be put on his tombstone--were the founding of the University of Virginia and the authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. The latter was a truly radical document that would eventually influence the separation of church and state in the US Constitution; when it was passed by the Virginia legislature in 1786, Jefferson rejoiced that there was finally "freedom for the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammeden, the Hindu and infidel of every denomination"--note his respect, still unusual today, for the sensibilities of the "infidel." The University of Virginia was notable among early-American seats of higher education in that it had no religious affiliation whatever. Jefferson even banned the teaching of theology at the school.
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John Adams, though no more religious than Jefferson, had inherited the fatalistic mindset of the Puritan culture in which he had grown up. He personally endorsed the Enlightenment commitment to Reason ... As an old man he observed, "Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been upon the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!'" Speaking ex cathedra, as a relic of the founding generation, he expressed his admiration for the Roman system whereby every man could worship whom, what and how he pleased. When his young listeners objected that this was paganism, Adams replied that it was indeed, and laughed.
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... Pressed by Jefferson to define his personal creed, Adams replied that it was "contained in four short words, 'Be just and good.'" Jefferson replied, "The result of our fifty or sixty years of religious reading, in the four words, 'Be just and good,' is that in which all our inquiries must end; as the riddles of all priesthoods end in four more, 'ubi panis, ibi deus.' What all agree in, is probably right. What no two agree in, most probably wrong."
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A Cut for Schools, a First for Bush: "most antistudent, antieducation budget since the Republicans tried to abolish the Department of Education"
The New York Times > National > A Cut for Schools, a First for Bush: "A Cut for Schools, a First for Bush | ANNE E. KORNBLUT | Published: February 8, 2005
For the first time in his administration, President Bush is proposing a net reduction in financing for the Department of Education, seeking to reduce its budget by about 1 percent, to $56 billion, for the 2006 fiscal year.
About $4.7 billion would be redirected from 64 education programs to finance other initiatives, mainly aimed at high school students, special education and college loan financing, according to the budget summary issued yesterday.
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Democrats pounced on the spending plan, however, with a longstanding complaint that No Child Left Behind had been insufficiently financed. Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees education, called the proposal "the most antistudent, antieducation budget since the Republicans tried to abolish the Department of Education."
For the first time in his administration, President Bush is proposing a net reduction in financing for the Department of Education, seeking to reduce its budget by about 1 percent, to $56 billion, for the 2006 fiscal year.
About $4.7 billion would be redirected from 64 education programs to finance other initiatives, mainly aimed at high school students, special education and college loan financing, according to the budget summary issued yesterday.
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Democrats pounced on the spending plan, however, with a longstanding complaint that No Child Left Behind had been insufficiently financed. Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees education, called the proposal "the most antistudent, antieducation budget since the Republicans tried to abolish the Department of Education."
President Puts Faith in Religion-Based Social Services: Bush favors private aid with a moral dimension at the expense of more traditional programs.
President Puts Faith in Religion-Based Social Services: "February 8, 2005 | PRESIDENT BUSH'S BUDGET PLAN | President Puts Faith in Religion-Based Social Services | By Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON — In the latest sign of a philosophical change in how the government should deliver social services, President Bush's new budget would cut some traditional aid for the poor in such areas as housing and health coverage.
At the same time, some religion-based programs that promote such goals as sexual abstinence and marriage and provide mentors for at-risk children would enjoy increased federal aid.
Both the shift away from long-standing social welfare policies and the willingness to step up spending on programs tied to religious organizations reflect the fact, analysts said, that the administration is more comfortable than many of its predecessors in advocating social service strategies with a moral dimension. ...
WASHINGTON — In the latest sign of a philosophical change in how the government should deliver social services, President Bush's new budget would cut some traditional aid for the poor in such areas as housing and health coverage.
At the same time, some religion-based programs that promote such goals as sexual abstinence and marriage and provide mentors for at-risk children would enjoy increased federal aid.
Both the shift away from long-standing social welfare policies and the willingness to step up spending on programs tied to religious organizations reflect the fact, analysts said, that the administration is more comfortable than many of its predecessors in advocating social service strategies with a moral dimension. ...
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