Thanks for tread notice legislature is key here, do you notice how courts are not mentioned, because it is not their job to create laws, but look at validity of laws.

My dad is a good example of a very conservative, fundamentalist Christian who thinks that politics and government should not be mixed together. He does NOT want prayer in public schools, because of the fear of which prayers would be allowed! His particular church (which I left the second I was no longer his dependent) feels so strongly about the subject that they ask their members not to vote! So Dad never voted until a few years ago, when a certain local issue came up that he felt strongly about. He registered to vote, and then discovered that since he lives outside the Austin city limits (oops, unintended reference to a TV show), he couldn't vote on the issue! And then less than a month later, he got called for jury duty! It cracked me up, because I haven't been called for duty in 27 years.

I think Lou’s come up with a good idea for this thread as a way to continue a respectful discussion without imposing it on people in the daily thread. Let me jump in. Joey and I are fellow Virginians. We have met, shared a beer, run in the same marathon, and I hope we meet again! He’s a nice guy and someone I’m happy to have as a virtual friend. On these issues, we apparently disagree but I don’t take that personally; I see it as an opportunity for discussion. This is ridiculously long, so here are my four basic points; you can skip the rest and still get the gist: 1. For the most part, the Founding Fathers were not active Christians in the way that is often assumed today. Jefferson, whose writings were key to protecting religious freedom and laying the foundation for American democracy, explicitly rejected any Christian affiliation, did not believe that Jesus was divine, and did not see the Bible as in any way being divinely inspired. Other founders of the nation had similar beliefs. 2. The US was not founded as a “Christian nation.” Quite the contrary, the Founding Fathers were specifically working to limit the role of religion in government, while simultaneously limiting the ability of government to restrict religion. 3. Generations after the Founding Fathers, conservative Christian believers re-interpreted early US history in religious terms and succeeded in inserting religious references into US civic life, thereby creating the “Christian nation” myth. 4.Today, the most vocal advocates of linking Christian faith to political ideology represent a relatively small portion of Americans. Most Americans are much more tolerant of varying religious belief (and non-belief) and respect the right of individuals to believe whatever they’d like, as long as these beliefs are not imposed upon others. What unites us most as Americans is tolerance and diversity. I take it for granted that Joey was simply saying what he thought was obvious and had no ill intent. My point is that many of the things Joey was treating as self-evident are either not true or not as simple as he suggests. Let me take a couple of examples. Perhaps the line that could most easily be seen as offensive (and inaccurate) was the one in which he says “…it appears that church going people are more passionate about freedom and the direction of the country.” He later clarified this by saying it was based on the fact that those who attend church (by which I think he actually means any religious services—including temple, mosque, etc) are more likely to vote than others. If Joey had simply said, “Those who attend religious services are more likely to vote than those who do not” there would be no problem. This is a true statement with considerable evidence. But he went on to conflate voting with being “more passionate about freedom and the direction of the country.” That’s where the problem starts. There are lots of reasons why people vote or don’t vote, most of which have nothing to do with their level of patriotism or love of freedom. And most of the people who vote—like most Americans overall—don’t regularly attend religions services, so linking the two is dubious at best. Finally, there are also other sociological patterns to voting. Those who belong to any civic organization or club are more likely to vote than those who don’t. Older people vote at a higher rate than younger people, those with higher incomes vote more than low-income Americans, those with a college degree vote more than those without, etc, etc. Do we say then, that older, wealthier, and college-educated people are “more passionate about freedom and the direction of the country” than young people, working class and poor people? On its face that seems absurd to me, and I suspect Joey would agree. So on this issue, I attribute our differences mostly to a lack of clarity and precision in language. On other issues, though, I think the historical record contradicts much of Joey’s arguments. He believes, for example, that “The foundation of our country as a Christian nation is not hard to verify.” Actually, as I was trying to point out in my post, this is not at all self-evident. In fact, the founding fathers went out of their way to ensure the US was not established as a Christian nation. They had already experienced the tyranny of nations with official religions and the last thing they wanted to do was to establish a country based on any particular religion. The separation of church and state was as much to keep religion out of civil affairs as it was to keep the state out of religion. More than any other single individual, Jefferson is the classic example since he was responsible for drafting the nation’s founding documents. (But Madison, Adams, Hamilton, and others—were similarly oriented.) For example, well before the Bill of Rights was passed, Jefferson drafted the “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom” which equally attends to freedom from religion as it does freedom of religion: “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever […] all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.” Jefferson and his colleagues were explicit about their intention that this not be a statement endorsing Christianity. In later reflecting upon its passage by the Virginia legislature he wrote, “Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.” One historical footnote is the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by John Adams and intended to make clear to Muslims that the US was not hostile to their religion. In a telling clause it notes, "As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion… 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.” Hard to think of anything more relevant today. Part of the problem arises from a mis-reading of the Founding Fathers who often referred to “god” or the “Creator” etc. Contemporary believers often automatically assume that such references from this era means belief in a Christian god. This is clearly not true. Jefferson and most other leading figures of the time were influenced by various forms of Deism that reasoned there was some sort of “Creator” (e.g “god”) but that god did not intervene in human affairs. Deists rejected the teachings of any particular religion and saw god’s greatest gift to humans as being the ability to reason; they were men of science who favored evidence and logic over belief and faith, which they saw as little more than superstition. Deists were definitely not Christians and most, like Jefferson, actively rejected the idea that Jesus was anything more than an historical figure with good ethical teachings—as were figures from other religions. Jefferson quoted favorite passages from the Bible but rejected the Bible as being divinely inspired and was critical of it in ways that would be shocking to today’s Christians (“The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it.”) Similarly, he was critical of established religion and clergy (“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.”) The closest thing we have today to such Deist beliefs can be found in the more liberal forms of Unitarian Universalism, which preaches no particular faith or set of beliefs (and indeed welcomes non-believers). What happened, though, is that in later generations Christian religious believers began to reinterpret the writings of the Founding Fathers and project onto them their own contemporary ideas about religion, turning the colonial Deists into supposed Christians. The first major wave of this occurred during the Civil War when both sides claimed “god” was on their side and when religion and the Bible were used to support both slavery and abolition. The second wave of religious reinterpretation occurred during the Cold War when the supposed religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers and the “Christian foundation” of the nation were held up in stark contrast to “godless Communism.” In both cases, religion was being invoked inaccurately to advance political causes. More recently, of course, parts of the religious Right have again invoked god and Christianity in their opposition to abortion rights, gay rights, the teaching of evolution and other issues. In doing so, they’ve often misused history. For example, the quote Joey notes from Jefferson is inaccurate. It is famously pieced together from multiple sources by people advancing the idea of the nation’s supposed Christian foundation. In reality, the line saying “I tremble…” referred to Jefferson’s deep doubts (correct, as it turns out) about the existence of slavery in the US, fearing that this injustice would come back to haunt us. (Here’s a summary of some of this: http://candst.tripod.com/studygd7d.htm ) And again, his mention of “god” here is only in the broadest Deist sense of the term, not the Christian one. These later political efforts are what led to things like the adoption of the “In god we trust” motto—first introduced nearly a century after the Founding Fathers—and the insertion of “under God” into the pledge of allegiance during the 1950s. Conservative political causes were effectively inserting Christian religious belief into the reinterpretation of US history—and then pointing to these very insertions as proof of the nation’s Christian foundation. (Here’s one discussion of this history: http://www.religioustolerance.org/nat_mott.htm ) So I would argue the US does not have a Christian foundation but instead has a foundation of religious diversity and tolerance, which makes it particularly relevant in contemporary times. More than 2/3 of the world’s population is not Christian and globalization and increased immigration will mean more and more intermingling of religious faiths, as well as the continued increase in non-believers. During the last 50 years, actual attendance at religious services in the US has declined significantly and the actual religious beliefs of the vast majority of Americans have become more fluid and more diverse than ever. About 45% of Americans leave the religion or denomination they were raised in. Protestantism—historically the dominant religion in the US—is about to become a minority in the US since barely half of Americans now identify as such. The fastest-growing segment of Americans are those who self-identify as “unaffiliated”—which can mean atheist, agnostic, or most often simply having “no particular religion.” Typically, as education and income levels go up in a society, religiosity declines—the US being the exception. Indeed, the US is unique among advanced industrialized countries for its level of continued religious belief. Most sociologists attribute this to what is called the unique “religious marketplace” in the US. Because it never had an official state religion, the US was especially fertile ground for the development and growth of a wide variety of religions—hundreds of them in the US—enabling people to shop around and find something they were comfortable with. In other countries, there typically was the state-sponsored Church (e.g. Catholics in France, Anglicans in England, etc) and when people rejected that faith, they tended to simply stop relating to organized religion. The percentage of people who attend weekly religious services in most of Europe is in the single digits. In the US, about 40% of Americans say they attend a service weekly but attendance figures suggest more like 25% actually do. So, ironically, it is precisely the separation of church and state which has enabled a robust and diverse religious environment to flourish in the US. Given the rapidly changing demographics and religious beliefs (and non-beliefs) accurately remembering our history of religious diversity and tolerance is more important than ever.

I have sooo much to say on this issue (but won't)....and LOVE you all very much as my RA buddies. But since " Christian Prayer" was taken out of Schools, look at what has happened to "our" Beloved Country....abortions higher than ever, divorce rates higher than ever, murder rates higher than ever, incest and perverted behavior higher than ever, drug usage higher than ever, Aids, and on and on. This Country was FOUNDED on Christian fundementals and that is a fact...but our wonderful Counrty welcomes all of differing belief's and values....I guess I stand for the "God" who established this great counrty of "ours" My son is in the Army and in Iraq right now. And Americans don't understand the deaths that have occured over there. But, my son tells me the Iraq people don't understand why there are 10 fold people murdered over here on a monthly basis...think about that one...he is so brave fighting for our Freedom....and their's...he said they "love" us being there...which you WON'T hear in the news. But did get a nice 17 mile run in today. Tim

1. For the most part, the Founding Fathers were not active Christians in the way that is often assumed today. 2. The US was not founded as a “Christian nation.” Typically, as education and income levels go up in a society, religiosity declines—the US being the exception.

Thanks for all that Tramps. I mostly agree with #'s 1 & 2, especially among the "big" names of the founders. But if you read some of the biographies of the the lesser know signers of the Declaration, there are some pretty strong Christian men among them. The US is not a Christian nation, but there was an assumption that our rights came from God (deists or not) and just mentioning that now always seems to offend someone. What I don't agree with is the applied causation between better education and less religion. Maybe you only meant there was an apparent correlation in some countries so I apologize if I read that wrong. There are countries where Christianity is increasing as people become better educated. China is one. There was a story on Frontline a couple weeks ago about the explosion of churches. South Korea and many countries in Africa are other examples. I think there is a whole lot of reasons for the decline of religion in Europe, but being "better" educated is not at the top of the list.

Tim, take heart, things may not be as bleak as you suggest! In reality, divorce rates have dropped significantly in the US—from 22.6 per 1000 married women in 1980 to 16.4 today. Murder rate is down from 10.2 per 100,000 population in 1980 to just 5.7 in 2006. Abortion rate is down, too, from a peak of 29.3 per 1000 women in 1981 to 19.4 per 1,000 women in 2006. (The Census Bureau tracks much of this: census.gov) Illegal drug use has also been down in recent years. But good news doesn’t make good media, so the mainstream media rarely cover such stories. Dave, religiosity is, in fact, inversely correlated with both education level and income across societies (see graph below using wealth--which is itself closely correlated with education). But correlation is not causation and I did not mean to imply that it was. My point was that the US is the exception to this pattern--as you can see in the graph. Source: http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/258.pdf There's considerable evidence showing that there's more common ground amongst most Americans on these issues than suggested by the inflammatory rhetoric that tends to come from both extremes. That's why I do think it's useful to talk these things out sometimes. By the way, some of the best data on these and related issues can be found at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which does a great job of treating these topics fairly and respectfully (pewforum.org)

religiosity is, in fact, inversely correlated with both education level and income across societies (see graph below using wealth--which is itself closely correlated with education). But correlation is not causation and I did not mean to imply that it was. My point was that the US is the exception to this pattern--as you can see in the graph.

It shows that along with some good that comes from increased income (like better medical care) there is the bad. More pollution would be another example.