Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Like Jon Rowe, I find much to agree with in this post about the religion of the founding fathers by Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost. It's rather refreshing to see an evangelical Christian recognize the distinctions that he identifies among the founders. He produces the following list, which accurately conveys the three primary divisions:
Non-Christian Deists: Thomas Paine, Ethan AllenDeistic Christians/Unitarians: Ben Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe
Orthodox Christians: Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, John Jay, Elias Boudinot, John Witherspoon
My only quibble is that I think it is better to identify the second group with Gregg Frazer's useful phrase theistic rationalists. I say that for two reasons. First, because "deist" is generally taken to denote someone who believes in an aloof, non-interventionist god, which none of the men in that category believed. Second, because for several of the men list in that category, their rejection of Christian doctrine was not limited to the trinity. Jefferson and Adams, for example, rejected not only the trinity but also the resurrection, the atonement, the miracles, Jesus' claims of divinity, and so forth.
Third, because the key component to their thinking was that all matters, including matters of religious faith, must meet the test of reason in order to be believed. "Fix reason firmly in her seat," Jefferson wrote, "and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." Adams, likewise, wrote that if God himself revealed the trinity to him, he would reject it because it was contrary to reason.
I would also quibble slightly with this statement:
While we Christians can claim few founding fathers as fellow believers, the atheistic secularist can claim none. Not one of the significant leaders was an atheist, much less subscribed to the modern idea of secularism.
I certainly agree with him that none of the founders were atheists, but i think there is some equivocation here with the phrase "atheistic secularist." The truth of the second sentence depends entirely on what he means by "secularist." If secularist means one who believes that the government should take no cognizance of religion at all and should maintain a strict separation of church and state, then Madison, at least, certainly qualifies.
As a strict separationist, Madison went beyond even what most of today's secularists in arguing that even Congressional and military chaplaincies were unconstitutional. Jefferson was not quite so consistent on that question, but he was still very much a separationist. Washington and Adams were what one might call "liberal accomodationists"; they believed that the government should support a sort of broad civil religion as a source of virtue and morality, primarily through declarations of thanksgiving and supplications for prayer, as long as that support was entirely non-coercive. So I think it's reasonable to call Jefferson and Madison secularists (though certainly not "atheistic" secularists), but not Washington and Adams.
Overall, though, Joe's post is refreshing to read. On an issue where so many conservative Christians take their views from the propaganda pumped out by David Barton and his ilk (and where, to be fair, far too many of the folks on my side tend to fall for vastly oversimplified claims - "they were all deists!" - as well) It's nice to see a Christian take a moderate, reasonable stand on the matter.
Comments
"While we Christians can claim few founding fathers as fellow believers, the atheistic secularist can claim none. Not one of the significant leaders was an atheist, much less subscribed to the modern idea of secularism."
This is - slightly bogus. It would have made no rational sense at all for a person in the late 1700s to be an atheist in the manner of today's atheists - there was just too much that couldn't be explained without at a minimum the "cosmic watchmaker" setting things in motion. An "atheist" at the time would have had to defend questions of "where did life come from if there was no God" and wouldn't have anything to hang an answer on - making it an irrational decision to be atheist. So of course you wouldn't find atheists among a group of men who prized rational thought above just about everything else. Men like Tom Paine could likely have been as atheistic as, say, P.Z. Meyers is today if the biology and physics to back up those types of questions had been around back in the day.
And as for the second part - those men CREATED modern secularism. Of course they couldn't "subscribe" fully to it - the notion barely existed in a proto-form back then. But their work certainly laid the foundation for modern secularism as it is today.
Posted by: NonyNony | January 7, 2007 10:59 AM
Nitpick:
I would be leery of using the phrase "Orthodox Christians" to mean "traditional Christians". "Orthodox Christian" usually is taken to mean an adherent of one of the Eastern Orthodox churches.
Posted by: RickD | January 7, 2007 11:21 AM
Orthodox Christians
The scholarly community generally uses the term "orthodox Christian" to denote those Christians who adhere to traditional doctrines of "orthodoxy" on such issues like the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement (basically what comes from the key Christian creeds, like the Nicene Creed).
Posted by: Jon Rowe | January 7, 2007 11:33 AM
I thought Allen denied being a deist too.
Posted by: Matthew | January 7, 2007 12:21 PM
I tried clicking on the link, but my Mcafee browser blocked it, saying:
evangelicaloutpost.com may cause a breach of browser security.
Why were you redirected to this page? In our tests, this site attempted to make unauthorized changes to our test PC by exploiting a browser security vulnerability. This is a serious security threat which could lead to an infection of your PC.
"[evanglicaloutpost.com] attempted to make unauthorized changes to our test PC".....hmmmm
Posted by: steveroyale | January 7, 2007 1:57 PM
A deistic Christian seems to me to be an oxymoron. Perhaps leaving it at unitarian was enough. I do appreciate Joe's sentiments on this issue however. I'm not quite as convinced of the theistic rationalist position Ed embraces yet though. I also think in todays world(as a previous poster mentions) with the leap in knowledge we have had many in the second category would be agnostics or atheists.
As to the issue as a whole I find it troubling that outside of historical curiousity that people are so concerned with the superstitious leanings of the founders when it is clear that the document they produced is so abjectly free of religious thought. To me this is true barometer of how they felt about the government.
And on a second front it is similiarly amusing to watch a legitimate debate over what so and so believed a few hundred years ago from their own writings while so many embrace and say they run their lives off of writings 10 times as old as the 'truth' without any firsthand knowledge at all.
Posted by: GH | January 7, 2007 2:30 PM
GH:
That is very interesting. Care to speculate why of this: "that outside of historical curiousity that people are so concerned with the superstitious leanings of the founders".
I think that is good question and would like to offer my own answer. It goes like this:
Many Christians take the founding father intent theory of constitutional interpretation (Scalia, Thomas) as opposed to the living constitution model (Brennan). According to this theory, they feel that Roe v. Wade should be overturned.
However, they want to rationalize the founding father intent model with their views on the Establishment Clause, notably the evolution and school prayer cases. Thus, they would move heaven and earth to prove that the founding fathers agree with them on school prayer, evolution, and the Establishment Clause.
Hence, their obsession with the religion of the founding fathers.
Does that sound reasonable? Any other theories as to why people may obsess about the founding fathers' religion?
Posted by: royale | January 7, 2007 4:02 PM
I think that sounds reasonable to me. I must confess that I have always wondered what people hope to be gained from these discussions. If they where all proven atheist or Christian or Muslim I doubt it would influence how the constitution has been used over the last several hundred years.
But like I said I have never really understood outside of pure interest in history.
Posted by: GH | January 7, 2007 4:18 PM
GH wrote:
The issue here is what they believed, not what they hypothetically might believe today. That's interesting to speculate about but it's ultimately rather pointless and futile; we simply have no way of knowing. May I ask what you find unconvincing about using the phrase "theistic rationalist"? I think it nicely avoids the problems of a phrase like "deistic Christian" and accurately conveys the key fact that while they were all theists, they believed that because it was a reasoned conclusion, not because of claimed revelation.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 7, 2007 4:23 PM
I'm sure many people who believe in revelation consider it quite rational to do so. Is considering yourself committed to rationality sufficient to be properly called a rationalist?
Posted by: Gretchen | January 7, 2007 4:54 PM
I don't think it is just Constitutional interpretation that causes American evangelicals to want to claim the founding fathers as their own. Many hold to a political view whereby our nation's government is founded on Christian principles. Sometimes, even viewed as uniquely so among modern governments. Needless to say, this is not an easy claim to present, given most of the history of Christendom, much less to defend. If some of the founding father's owe more of their philosophical and political thoughts to classical education and the intellectual atmosphere of the Englightenment and to authors such as Monteseqieu, than to religion and the Bible, the claim falls apart from the get-go. So they have to paint Jefferson and Madison as Christians, to maintain this other part of their mythology.
Personally, I think it was an extreme bit of fortune that our Constitution was written prior to the second Great Awakening, else it never would have been approved in its current form. It would be an interesting bit of alternate history to imagine how things might have transpired, had the confederation lasted another decade or two.
Posted by: Russell | January 7, 2007 5:14 PM
Is considering yourself committed to rationality sufficient to be properly called a rationalist?
It's the only rubric that most self-proclaimed rationalists use. This is why I increasingly find the term "rationalist" of very little value :(
Posted by: Coin | January 7, 2007 5:14 PM
I don't think that's the point of the label. The point of the label is to identify an important distinction. In this case, the important distinction about this particular group is that they argued very firmly that all claims of revelation should be submitted to the test of reason and rejected if they fail. Thus, you have Jefferson's advice to his nephew, and Adams' statement that even if God himself told him the trinity was true he would reject it because it violates reason. We can argue over whether their beliefs actually were rational, but that's not the point of labeling them as theistic rationalists.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 7, 2007 5:21 PM
I suppose I just fail to see how that's any more a commitment to rationalism than saying you would reject the doctrine of hiding Easter eggs even if the bunny himself told you it was true. The term "theistic rationalist" strongly implies that theism is rational (even the kind in which gods talk to you), which I contest with the caveat that I am not saying that rational people can't be theistic. It's that I don't consider it rationalist to reject one point of doctrine on the grounds that it's irrational while hanging onto others about which the exact same criticism could be made.
Posted by: Gretchen | January 7, 2007 5:38 PM
I think it makes sense in its historical context, in distinguishing between different beliefs in this particular group. Whether those beliefs were rational or not given our state of knowledge at the time, I'm just not much interested in debating.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 7, 2007 5:58 PM
Sure, from my reading on your site and others I tend to think the 'theistic tationalist' approach has merit i'm just not totally convinced good ole deism is not equally as valid.
As previously mentioned I think 'deistic Christian' is rather odd. I don't have a horse in this race. I am commenting as a lay person who reads these types of discussions for sheer pleasure and personal education. As such I find the 'theistic ratioanlist'(perhaps as Gretchen mentions an oxymoron itself) position interesting but as of yet not more compelling than the founders having a deistic bent.
Posted by: GH | January 7, 2007 6:14 PM
Of course, Ed, your post completely refutes Judge John E. Jones III's infamous remarks (which happen to be a plagiarism) about the Founders' "true religion" in his commencement speech at Dickinson College:
-- from http://www.dickinson.edu/commencement/2006/address.html
Also, the above statement shows great hostility towards organized religion, particularly Christianity. What Jones was saying is that Christianity -- and, by implication, other organized religions -- are not "true religions." Also, ironically, the above statement essentially says that the original purpose of the Establishment Clause was to establish this "true religion" as the state religion of the USA. IMO this bias makes him unfit to decide any cases dealing with religion, including of course the Kitzmiller v. Dover case.
Also, I have nothing but disdain for the idea that we should just blindly follow all the thoughts of the founding fathers. The founding fathers would not have been happy living under all of our principles, so why should we be happy living under all of theirs? Also, the founding fathers bear some of the blame for the Civil War because the Constitution did not specifically address the issue of secession. So they were not all-wise and all-knowing after all.
Posted by: L. Breckinridge | January 7, 2007 6:42 PM
L. Breckinridge:
Nothing in the snippet you quoted suggests that. First, it gives only an interpretation of what "the founder believed," not necessarily an assent to that. Jones might believe that the founders believed X and Y, but Jones himself might hold only Y. Second, you misinterpret what Jones claims about the founders. Even if they believed that existing religions were incorrect, and even if that led them to "secure their idea of religious freedom by barring any alliance between church and state," that does not entail that they were thereby establishing a true religion, or any religion, by so doing.
Posted by: Russell | January 7, 2007 6:53 PM
Jesus, you are full of shit. Nothing I said refutes what Jones said. What he said was that the founders (at least the leading founders, as I've specified many times) believed that whether a religion was true or not should be decided solely by reason. And that statement is absolutely true. Jefferson and Adams, in particular, were very clear about that belief. And that is all his statement means; it distinguishes those who accepted claims of revelation wholesale and those who argued for the primacy of reason in evaluating the truth of claimed revelations.
Utter bullshit. All he is saying is that the founders believed in submitting claimed revelations to the tests of reason. There is no hostility in that statement at all. Are you really this stupid or is this an act? Is your last name Fafarman by any chance? You're acting a lot like him.
Jesus H. Christ, you really are this stupid. The statement is a description of the religious beliefs of the leading founders. It says nothing at all about what should be established by the government, nor does it say anything about any state religion. I think you're unfit to think, period. Go away, you're only making yourself look more and more stupid with each comment.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 7, 2007 6:55 PM
GH wrote:
The reason deism does not apply is that all of these men believed in an active, interventionist, benevolent God rather than an aloof, watchmaker type of creator. They certainly were influenced highly by deistic principles, but belief in an active and interventionist God takes them out of the realm of deism and into theism. Of course, that's part of the point of all this, that their beliefs were a mixture of several different categories, not easily categorized.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 7, 2007 6:59 PM
Thank you Ed. That has been my understanding of it as well. The primary reason I'm not sold on it as an idea is simply that I'm not convinced on the belief in an interventionist God for people like Jefferson.
Like I said I don't really have a horse here and am very open to being convinced.
Posted by: GH | January 7, 2007 8:07 PM
GH -
I think it is because these men (theistic rationalists) didn't have a central belief structure that makes it so hard to peg them. I only refer to myself as a Christian because it is an easy out from describing my personal beliefs. But as a rather unpleasant lady pointed out in another thread, most Christians take exception to my use of that label. My beliefs are probably not all that common - I don't really know beyond people occasional telling me they make sense to them. But even there, they are taking something of my beliefs and building their own from there.
I tend to think that many of the founding fathers had their own beliefs, that while similar in this or that regard, to those of others, were still very much their own - reflecting their own life expierience and knowledge of the natural world.
And I think theistic rationalist, is an apt label for this group. Probably in no small part, because I think that it is an accurate label for my own beliefs. But I think that the rational approach to the question of religion is to take a path similar to these men and many others (myself included). To gauge not by revalations from a God, to men - or by supernatural explanations for well documented, well mapped natural systems. But to use one's own life, own expierience and understanding of the natural world. To read about different ideas and religious notions - communicate with knowlegeable people in and around religion. And cap it off with figuring out what you actually believe - taking it where it wants to go, until you find peace with it.
For some people it's a really short journey, for others, (myself included) it is a long term, often lifelong, journey. I can imagine Franklin and Jefferson, both being the mroe long term, everevolving types. I think that what little I've read thus far, would also put Paine into a longerterm catagory as well, though he was definately far from theistic belief.
Ultimately, I think that it is quite interesting from a historical perspective and I like to learn about the brilliant men who gave us our constitution. But I think it has little relevance in todays culture. I tend to believe that the constitution is a living document. I also believe that the framers intended it that way. They were smart enough to realize that society would change and grow, that if they wanted to found a lasting republic, the constitution would have to reflect that. And it does.
Posted by: DuWayne | January 7, 2007 8:38 PM
Russell said,
In the context of his Dickinson College commencement speech, the only reasonable interpretation of that snippet is that Jones gave his "assent" to that view about "true religion." Jones' speech abjectly praised the founding fathers -- for example, he said of Washington and Jefferson,
-- from http://www.dickinson.edu/commencement/2006/address.html
And Jones was not even comparing himself to Washington and Jefferson in wisdom -- he was just comparing himself in voracity of reading!
Jones also indicated that his decision in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case was based on his speech's remarks about the Founders' "true religion" and the establishment clause.
So Jones said that the purpose of the Establishment Clause was to protect the Founders' "idea of religious freedom," i.e., their "true religion," and to hell with all those false religions out there.
Ed Brayton said,
There is hostility when he calls that belief "true religion."
Isn't it remarkable how easy it is to twist Jones' words around? Considering the sensitivity of Jones' position as a federal judge, he should not have said anything that could possibly be interpreted as hostile to organized religion.
I presume that Jones really got hell for those remarks in his Dickinson College speech because so far as I know he never repeated them.
Who in the hell is Fafarman? My name is Breckinridge -- always has been.
Posted by: L. Breckinridge | January 7, 2007 9:57 PM
L. Breckinridge:
You are fallaciously equating religious freedom and "true religion." So far, you have done nothing that shows that either the founders or Jones makes that equation.
Posted by: Russell | January 7, 2007 10:23 PM
Jesus Christ, you've got all the reading comprehension skills of a cabbage patch doll.
As you are demonstrating perfectly. Judge Jones is hardly responsible for the misreading of blithering idiots like you.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 7, 2007 10:39 PM
Nonynony,
There were atheists in the 1700s, and indeed throughout history, with the term "deist" being the novelty (I think it was invented in the 1600s). The deists were a particular movement arising in the wake of the scientific, political, and philosophical revolutions of the seventeenth century, out of which the Enlightenment of the next century sprang. Atheism, and accusations of atheism, have existed as long as religion. Many philosophical schools of the classical world were arguably atheistic, such as those following Democritus and the later followers of Epicurus. The notion that the world was cyclical, infinite in time and space, and that the forms of matter called living things arose by chance and subject to change are at least as old as the Greeks. There just wasn't much rigorous science to back it up. Materialism and atheism are old, though. Deism was a particular movement by rationalists to make monotheism rational and to make it fit in Newton's universe. The notion that the argument from biological design made atheism irrational is tenuous at best. Just because Dawkins went through such a phase in his adolescence doesn't mean such a stage is necessary. Arguably, the argument from cosmological design was always far stronger than any argument from biological design. The latter smacks of the scandal of particularity.
Posted by: Chuck | January 7, 2007 10:44 PM
Duwayne,
Thanks for your comment. In many ways I think the way you see your beliefs is the actual reality of how the majority of humans think of theirs as well. I think you are likely correct about the founders and our constitution as well.
I enjoyed your post.
Posted by: GH | January 7, 2007 10:50 PM
Chuck:
I wouldn't say that natural selection is the one thing that makes theism irrational per se, its just that its another (big) nail in the coffin. Without it you need to come up with an explanation for the diversity of life, and while they could use a prototype of the anthropic principle many intellectually curious people find that argument unsatisfying.
Basically theism works ont he god of the gaps principle. Divine will (and whim) was created to explain the inexplicible. as science has progressed there are fewer and fewer things for the gods to do. Natural selection eliminated a large thing for gods to do, which is why groups like the Discovery Institute are so keen to roll back Darwin's discoveries - they know it would push atheism (and non-fundamentalist Christianity) back.
Posted by: James | January 7, 2007 11:37 PM
GH said: I'm not convinced on the belief in an interventionist God for people like Jefferson.
Me neither. My recollection of Jefferson in particular is sthat he seemed to function as a deist while referencing certian Christian moral teachings (e.g. the Jefferson Bible) for occaisional guidance.
Duwayne: I think that your approach to "faith" represents a far larger population than you may realize. Those "Christians" who object to your use of the term "Christian" appear to equate the word with an organized religion rather than with a set of beliefs. To me, your self-identification sounds more closely aligned to that of the Founders than the loud mouthed literalists want to acknowledge.
Posted by: MTran | January 7, 2007 11:49 PM
The fact that Jefferson believed in an interventionist, personal God is easily shown by numerous statements he made in his private letters. Most famous is the statement in his Notes on Virginia: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just (and) that his justice cannot sleep for ever." But there are innumerable places in his private writings where he speaks of our duty to God and to hoping to find favor with God. Unless we think that he lied in all of those private letters, there's just no other conclusion one can reasonably reach.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 8, 2007 12:22 AM
Ed,
I don't think Jefferson was lying in his personal correspondence. But I tend to see him speaking metaphorically and using phrases that would be understandable and meaningful to his correspondents.
I don't pretend to know Jefferson's heart or consider him an atheist. But I think that a metaphoric interpretation makes for a better fit in light of his frequent use of deistic phrasing in many public and private writings.
On the other hand, my last reading of Jefferson's writings was quite a number of years ago and my memory may be somewhat selective.
Posted by: MTran | January 8, 2007 1:21 AM
MTran wrote:
But many of those statements were made in letters to John Adams, who shared his views and who certainly didn't need to have Jefferson use a euphemism he would understand. Likewise, you can find the same kinds of statements in letters to Benjamin Rush, Joseph Priestley and many others who hardly would have required him to use some particular terminology. And it's really difficult to dismiss a statement like the one about slavery that I quoted; he is clearly saying that God will punish us for slavery. I just think your theory requires too much explaining away rather than explaining. The better explanation is simply that he was exactly what he appears to be, a theist who rejected most of revealed religion but believed that all religions, when stripped of mythology, were speaking of the same God who does, in his mind, take a clear interest in what we do.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 8, 2007 1:42 AM
Ed, you may very well be right. But I didn't claim Jefferson was using euphemisms. Your example regarding slavery does not convince me of anything other than it is the expression of a strong sentiment phrased in a style typical of the day. And whether he was speaking to a like minded friend doesn't make much difference in this instance. I'm not trying to explain away anything. I'm simply giving my own impression.
I regularly use phrases such as "God only knows" and I have said things such as "God will get you for that!" to friends who are believers and those who are atheists. The use of these and more involved comments don't make me a believer.
I don't care one way or the other what Jefferson's private thoughts were regarding god. What Jefferson and the other founders wrote into the US Constitution, however, matter a great deal as to how I understand US law. Which is, and should be, a separate matter.
Posted by: MTran | January 8, 2007 2:21 AM
Russell said ( January 7, 2007 10:23 PM ) --
OK, I misspoke. But Jones asserted that the Founders' "true religion" was what led them to "secure their idea of religious freedom," implying that the Founders were concerned only with protecting their "true religion" and not the "false" religions of others. Here again is what he said:
Jones' Dickinson College commencement speech should be seen for what it was -- a ridiculous self-serving attempt to defend his Dover decision.
Posted by: L. Breckinridge | January 8, 2007 3:03 AM
There is nothing in the statement 'any true religion is bounded by X' that implies that the speaker or writer a priori considers his own religion the true religion (or even a true religion).
It is plausible, in a sense, that the Establishment Clause is there to favour 'true religion,' since it was written by people who held that uncoercive public debate would unearth the truth and banish falsehood. Thus, by removing coercion one would further the progress of true anything - from true ideology to true religion.
It is, however, a failure of great magnitude to assume that furthering the cause of true religion would a priori exclude whatever brand of religion you hold. As I understand Enlightenment philosophy, the only ideas that were considered a priori untrue were those that were enforced by coercive force.
The views of the leading Enlightenment scholars appears to have been that any religion that requires the coercive force of the government to prop it up has, without even putting up a struggle, conceded its falsehood.
- JS
Posted by: JS | January 8, 2007 4:52 AM
I find John Hancock's absence from the list to be interesting, although I haven't read the Holmes book mentioned in the post so don't know to what he has to say about him.
But considering that Hancock financed a good portion of the revolution -and Paul Revere made his late night ride to save his life- I would think his ideas are equally valid for consideration.
I have always found Hancock one of the most interesting of the founding fathers because of his moral ambiguity as a rum runner/privateer and desire to be the first king of the Americas. A real scoundrel and/or dandy. Those things would I guess make him easily forgettable by both sides of this argument.
Although, I imagine that he went to church every sunday just so everyone would see him there.
Posted by: Andrew | January 8, 2007 7:18 AM
L. Breckinridge wrote:
You have twice quoted that passage, and twice managed to interpret it as if did not include specific reference to the connecting mechanism: "free, rational inquiry." It is crystal clear that Jones intended that to be the link between the Founders' views of true religion, obtained by that mechanism, and religious freedom, which protects that mechanism. Jones's amplifies his emphasis on "free, rational inquiry" by then stating the founders' practice of it, they "who constantly engaged and questioned things," were the ones who wanted it Constitutionally protected. No one who understands American English can read the passage you quote without taking those phrases as central to Jones's explanation.
Posted by: Russell | January 8, 2007 9:26 AM
James,
I agree with you completely - I'm not sure you actually read my comment. I wasn't discussing whether theism is irrational or not; I was saying that atheism wasn't irrational in the 1700s and that there were, actually, atheists during that time.
Posted by: Chuck | January 8, 2007 9:59 AM
Russell said,
You are making this much too complicated. Here again for the third time is what Jones said,
This belief in "free, rational inquiry" may be considered to be part of this alleged "true religion" of the Founders and not just a "connecting mechanism." Jones then said that this "true religion," i.e., this "core set of beliefs," led the Founders to bar any alliance between church and state. And even if this "free, rational inquiry" is regarded as a "connecting mechanism" that is not part of this "true religion," that does not change my interpretation of what Jones said.
So you are saying that Jones said that the original purpose of the separation of church and state was to protect this alleged "true religion" (or "free, rational inquiry," or whatever) of the Founders. That was my interpretation of Jones' statements -- thanks for supporting it.
You are also saying that people who were not adherents of the Founders' alleged "true religion" -- e.g., Catholics, Protestants, and Jews -- either did not want freedom of religion or did not care whether or not they had freedom of religion.
That passage can be interpreted in many different ways. I of course believe that my interpretation is the most obvious one.
Posted by: L. Breckinridge | January 8, 2007 11:17 AM
L. Breckinridge wrote:
For crying out loud, you are either a ridiculous troll or you really are this stupid, and I'm not sure which is worse. It is utter bullshit to claim that the founders sought to protect their "true religion" at the expense of "false religions", and that is not at all what the quote implies. The argument that the founders made consistently is that true religion does not need the support of the state, only false religion does. Their belief in the primacy of reason certainly plays a part in the notion of religious freedom, because religious establishments coerce people into belief rather than allowing them to reach a conclusion based upon their own reason. This is absolutely standard Enlightenment thinking. To claim that this amounts to the founders establishing their own religion is absolutely idiotic.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 8, 2007 11:20 AM
The point is that many people, including some influential Constitutional scholars, see the proper interpretation of the Constitution to be "what the Founding Fathers meant". If you don't accept that (and there is a whole school of legal interpretation which doesn't rely on the intentions of the authors at all), then it isn't of interest.
Posted by: Jonathan Badger | January 8, 2007 11:56 AM
Since this is Larry Fafarman (he has on numerous occasions posted as "L. Breckinridge" on blogs where he has been banned), the obvious conclusion is that he is both a ridiculous troll AND he is really this stupid. As further proof, this is boilerplate Larry material.
Besides which, Jones' "true religion" statement (which was not plagiarized, as he noted in his speech that it was taken from written material) was clearly in support of his contention that a liberal arts education was useful, not as a defense of his Kitzmiller decision.
Posted by: W. Kevin Vicklund | January 8, 2007 12:02 PM
It is astounding that anyone could read the passage in question and not understand that "true religion" for the Founders refers to a universal truth that they felt to be self-evident (and Jefferson explicitly says as much in the Declaration). This univeral truth entailed a creator for almost everyone at that time, but there were certainly atheists as well.
As it happens, that was the extent of their agreement, so they chose to leave things at a minimum. Since the only choice was to form a union based upon agreement, or else force belief on some portion of the population, they took what they considered the principled step. That this involved incredible courage should not be overlooked: Most nations in history had insisted upon religious conformity as a tool of unification. E Pluribus Unum is not just a motto; it is what has made the US what it is.
Posted by: kehrsam | January 8, 2007 12:06 PM
Jonathan Badger wrote:
I think this is an oversimplification on several counts. First, because the dominant school of originalist thought is more concerned with the original public meaning of the provisions of the Constitution than with the original intent of the framers (that was not always the case, but it surely is now). Second, because even legal realists would not say that the views of the founders are of no interest; that would be an absurd position. Words have meaning and the meaning of words is of critical importance in the rule of law; if the meaning of a law changes over time, how are we to know whether we are violating it or not at any given time? The result if arbitrariness, and on that count the conservative originalists are correct. No legal realist in the world would actually say that the meaning of those words at the time they were written and adopted is of no interest, and one of the primary ways that we determine that meaning, naturally, is to look at the words of those who wrote it and argued for its ratification. Rather, a legal realist would argue that originalism is one of many modes of interpretation that can and should be applied in different circumstances.
The real problem with the argument over the religious views of the founding fathers is the assumption that their religious view determines their view of church/state separation. That is the link that fails for reasons I've spelled out before. One could be a Christian and still advocate for strict separation (and many did) and one could be a non-Christian and still advocate accommodationism (and many did).
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 8, 2007 12:17 PM
It sounds like Mr. Breckinridge has the Dover decision really stuck in his craw and will say anything to try and damage the judge.
His repeated twisting of the Judge Jones' words is so tortured that it gave me a linguistic cramp.
Further reading of the judges comments on that occasion at Dickinson are worth anyone's time. A more careful review of the judges comments elsewhere will reveal very little attempt at justifying the Dover decision but rather more effort attempting to explain what judges do, and how.
I think Judge Jones deserves considerable credit for the effort. We need more people to understand that good judges do not make decisions based on polls or elections.
Posted by: Jim51 | January 8, 2007 12:20 PM
Of course its Larry. His posting style is so distinct it'd be hard to miss. Starting with the rabid obsession with criticising Judge Jones on any pretense.
Posted by: Dave S. | January 8, 2007 2:24 PM
Why doesn't Thomas Paine count as an "atheistic secularist" or whatever Joe Carter says he isn't?
Posted by: Andrew | January 8, 2007 4:12 PM
MTran and GH -
I am glad that my comment wasn't taken wrong. Rereading it I realised that I sounded a lot like the fundies who wish to co-opt the faith of the founding fathers. The reality is that the one of my big rolemodels, in faith among many other issues, is Ben Franklin. I have also been heavily influenced by Thomas Jefferson.
I actually tend to think that a majority of Americans, including some more dogmatic theists, have or do take a similar approach to mine. I do think that such an approach lends itself to disbelief or doubt about divine revelation, unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily preclude dogma. In many ways, fundies who have developed their own dogma are far more annoying than fundies who accept stock dogma, as it were.
Posted by: DuWayne | January 8, 2007 4:31 PM
Andrew -
I have read very little thus far, but I am getting into Paine right now. I have read a lot of biographical information about him and recently started The Age of Reason. But I think that a more accurate label would be secular deist, of the god as blind watchmaker, mold. I consider that he didn't call himself an atheist. While that might have been due to fear of repression, I have to doubt it. Consider, The Age of Reason, he never refers to himself as an atheist, even knowing he would likely be imprisoned and executed for writing it (a good example of non-theist morality).
Certainly, by most standards, Paine was an atheist. But considering that he didn't call himself such, even when there was no reason not to, I don't think it is inaccurate not to call him one.
Of course, I could also be missing something, I have only just begun to explore the life of Thomas Paine.
Posted by: DuWayne | January 8, 2007 4:48 PM
Andrew wrote:
Because he was not an atheist. I'm absolutely baffled by this incredibly common notion that Paine was an atheist; I can only surmise that those who think he was have never bothered to actually read anything he wrote. His famous book criticizing Christianity and revealed religion, The Age of Reason, made it quite clear that he was not an atheist. You can't get much clearer than what he calls his "profession of faith", which is how the book begins in Chapter 1, for crying out loud:
It doesn't get much more clear than "I believe in one God".
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 8, 2007 4:53 PM
DuWayne-
No, please read The Age of Reason. Paine was not an atheist by any reasonable definition, he made that very clear. He was not even by today's definition a deist because he believed not in an aloof, watchmaker type of creator but in a God to whom we had duties and obligations.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 8, 2007 4:55 PM
Chuck: Fair enough.
Posted by: James | January 8, 2007 11:39 PM
I think it's essential that we draw a distinction between the "anything can be equally claimed as rational" line of thinking and Jefferson's "question with boldness" approach. To "question with boldness" suggests a particular method of reasoning which was shared in varying degrees by all of the true "Enlightenment thinkers." Their "test of reason" was anchored in practical observation and experience, not only as drawn from their own faculties, but of anyone else who had come to their truth-claims through use of the same vigorously, honestly and "boldly questioning" method.
Boldly questioning was arguably the very heartbeat of the Enlightenment for it suggests, not only a passionate curiosity, but also a breadth and depth of disciplined study. I'm sure you've all heard about the size of some of the personal libraries of these "founders." It is from that standpoint of not only a hunger for more and more knowledge but also a willingness to look far and wide to get it--to compare and weigh differing perspectives--that I believe defined the "rationalism" of virtually all of the "Founding Fathers."
To me, there really is a clear and unmistakable distinction between the unquestioning "the Bible said it and therefore I believe it" approach to revelation and the "question with boldness" premise in which "revelation" comes from curiosity, critical analysis and discovery of the ways of "Nature and Nature's God." Isn't this the emphasis that I think Adams was describing when he said that if God himself revealed the trinity to him, he would reject it because it was contrary to reason?
Posted by: Ron | January 9, 2007 11:05 AM
Ron-
I think you're absolutely right here, this belief in the primacy of reason is the key distinction. That's why I think the term theistic rationalist is a good description of their views.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 9, 2007 11:09 AM
Wow, so I read the first few chapters last night, skipping over the rest of the Paine bio, that rather contradicts Paine's actual words. Even your long quote in a subsequent post aside, he is rather unambiguous about his beliefs.
I am ready to just about quit reading anything anyone has to say about historical figures who's own writing is easy to find.
Posted by: DuWayne | January 9, 2007 11:13 AM