Revisiting Some Of Jefferson's Famous Sayings

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On this Fourth of July, it's well to recall again some of the most famous sayings of Thomas Jefferson, who - after all- is responsible for the famous "Wall of Separation" between Church and State. While many evangelicals have continued to try and obscure the facts governing this nation's founding, the true fact is that the Founders were chiefly DEISTS and not bible punching Theocrats. (Indeed it would be nearly another 100 years before any evangelicals would emerge).

To Deists, the word "Creator"  meant an impersonal principle providing the putative basis for origin. It did not and never has meant a "personal god". That was a later confection. So long as people keep making believe that the Founders were anything other than Deists, the myth will persist that this is a "Christian nation" when it is emphatically not. Indeed, even Article 11:

"As the Government of the United States of America 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 Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan 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"

The Treaty of Tripoli makes this clear:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli

Now, as to some of Jefferson's most famous quotes:

"We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Virginia Baptists, 1808. ME 16:320

"I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to Him, and not to the priests." --Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. M. Harrison Smith, 1816. ME 15:60

"From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:545

"Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1813.

"I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Dowse, 1803. ME 10:378

"Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to God alone. I inquire after no man's, and trouble none with mine." --Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, 1814. ME 14:198

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428


"I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies, that the General Government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them, an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises and the objects proper for them according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands where the Constitution has deposited it... Everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:429


"It is... proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe, a day of fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant, too, that this recommendation is to carry some authority and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription, perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed?... Civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428

"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science." --Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:281

"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary School Act, 1817. ME 17:425

"I do not know that it is a duty to disturb by missionaries the religion and peace of other countries, who may think themselves bound to extinguish by fire and fagot the heresies to which we give the name of conversions, and quote our own example for it. Were the Pope, or his holy allies, to send in mission to us some thousands of Jesuit priests to convert us to their orthodoxy, I suspect that we should deem and treat it as a national aggression on our peace and faith." --Thomas Jefferson to Michael Megear, 1823. ME 15:434

"The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind." --Thomas Jefferson to Moses Robinson, 1801. ME 10:237


"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78


"Believing... that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State." --Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802. ME 16:281

Incidentally, Jefferson- on becoming disillusioned with so much in the KJV Bible - undertook to write his own version - divested of the humbug and what he took to be ahistorical additions. That version is available here:

http://www.amazon.com/Jefferson-Bible-Thomas/dp/0807077143

Have a happy and safe Fourth!

See Also:

Social Justice and Activism

The Right Wraps Itself in the Flag, but This Year the Left Are the Fourth of July Patriots

Scalia Blabs Nonsense Again on Religious Neutrality

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's notoriety for making absurd remarks in public forums is well known. Recall  his daffy pronouncements on the existence of the Devil. from an October 6, 2012 remark:

"In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He's making pigs run off cliffs, he's possessing people and what not. And that doesn't happen much anymore. He used to be all over the New Testament...What happened to him? He got wilier!"

 Bill Maher's take on this idiocy on his Real Time show days later was exactly correct:

"I don't care why someone acts like a fool, only that when they do we keep them away from decision making. It would be one thing if Mr. Scalia sold pizza for a living. But this is a man we go to to interpret our laws. It's like smelling a gas leak and calling an exorcist.  Antonin Scalia helped put George Bush in the White House and he believes the Devil went down to Georgia. He gets to decide when life begins and he thinks evil is a person."

Maher went on to aptly point out the problem in believing in the Devil, is that you then see the world divided into two camps, one of 'good', the other of 'evil' and will then be inclined to see the "Evil One" on the side of 'them'- i.e. the others, who don't share your views .(More on this in a future post on the brain's tendency for social reduction).  It then is merely one step more to see compromising with your  opponents as compromising with evil. Then, Voila! You have the Tea Party.

In his latest demonstration that he is better fitted to be a pizza maker than Supreme Court Justice, he was speechifying at Catholic High School in the New Orleans' suburb of Metairie ('Justice Scalia Against Religious Neutrality', Denver Post, Jan. 3, p. 12A). He claimed there was "no place" in the country's constitutional traditions for the idea that the state (government) must be neutral between religion and its absence.

Making the rational person wonder if the constitution he's referring to is actually that of the Mullahs in Iran. Because the traditions I see show that there is no basis for a constitutional preference for any religion, or condemnation of its absence.

Also, Scalia's claim the country is a "Christian nation" is disproven by the simple expedient of examining the backgrounds of the Founders and what they wrote.

We can go first to the Treaty of Tripoli :

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html
Where we find written, in Article 11:

"As the Government of the United States of America 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 Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan 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"

Did the authors just make that first line up to appease the "Mahometans"? I don't believe so. It was in fact an underlying tenet of their general Deist beliefs. Recall Deism isn't the same as Christianity.  For example, in the Deist view an innominate, impersonal Intelligence created the cosmos - but then detached from it - so there's no further involvement.

The Deist God, to give an analogy, is analogous to an intelligent child who makes a toy with a gear wheel, and the toy has the ability to move after being wound up and released. Thus, the child makes the toy, winds it up, releases it down the sidewalk, then walks away never to glance at it or its final outcome, destination. In this case, the child plays an analogous role to the ambiguous first cause of deism and the toy is analogous to the universe.

Strictly speaking, therefore, Deism treated in its orthodox and traditional manner is not Theism. Deism is, in fact, only one step removed from atheism. The atheist avers there is no one or nothing "minding the store" and so does the deist.  We know nearly all the Founders, the actual authors of the Constitution were hard core Deists, not Theists.

Thus, Scalia misled the Catholic students he addressed by trying to tell them the U.S. is a Christian nation. And as Deists, those Founders would never have claimed as Scalia has that "God has been very good to very good to us. That we won the Revolution was extraordinary and the Battle of Midway ..."   But the Deist god does not involve itself in human events, so he's overextending the role of his deity beyond what the authors intended.

Scalia would have done better to quote the words of one of the primary Deists and Constitution authors, Thomas Jefferson:

"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78
The above is particularly apropos as it dispenses with Scalia's nonsense that the Christian religion in the U.S. is superior or "ascendant" with respect to all others. Or enjoys any advantages over others, each of which Jefferson calls "sects".

Then we have one of the most important:

"Believing... that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State." --Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802. ME 16:281

This paved the way for the well known principle of the wall of separation between church and state. In effect, there can be NO state religion or preference for such, i.e. such as existed at the time in England with the King reigning not only as monarch but as head of the Anglican faith. Hence, it is bollocks for Scalia to talk to these students as if Christianity in general is a state religion for the U.S.

Other statements by Jefferson:

"Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1813.

"I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Dowse, 1803. ME 10:378

"Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to God alone. I inquire after no man's, and trouble none with mine." --Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, 1814. ME 14:198

Incidentally, Jefferson- on becoming disillusioned with so much in the KJV Bible - undertook to write his own version - divested of the humbug and what he took to be ahistorical additions. That version is available here:

http://www.amazon.com/Jefferson-Bible-Thomas/dp/0807077143

The Catholic high school kids Scalia addressed would be better served ordering a copy of this book and reading it, than attending to Scalia's idiocy and ahistorical claptrap.

More Proof Americans Are Among The Biggest Dopes On The Planet

And, when I use the term "dopes" it doesn't necessarily mean only those with sub-par IQs. After all, the cartoon image shown actually refers to one "research engineer" - Evan Jon Wright - who is a Mensa member, and incredibly believes that if CO2 was absorbed by the oceans they'd have turned to soda pop!

But the range and level of ignorance extends far beyond that example, to even more basic nonsensical beliefs which helps to keep this country the laughing stock of the world.

Among some of the finds from a recent poll and survey:

1) Roughly 73 percent of Americans believe Jesus was born of a virgin, while only 61 percent believe the Earth’s temperature has been warming. Even worse, only 40 percent of the Americans who concede that climate change is happening will admit that it’s primarily due to man-made activity.

This simply boggles the mind given the only examples of virgin birth ever documented have been mainly confined to some species of reptiles, never mammals. Yet people willingly buy into that hogswill. And yet anthropogenic global warming which has been firmly documented, is dismissed by nearly two fifths of 'Muricans. Something is seriously wrong with American brains here or their education - maybe both!

2) 77 percent of Americans believe in angels.

Incredibly, an AP/GFK poll in 2011 found that more than three out of four Americans believed angels literally exist, but also found that more than four out of 10 of those who never attend religious services believe it.  A poll taken five years earlier found that 81 percent of Americans believe in angels, essentially meaning the number had gone unchanged.

Let us grasp here that angels are defined as supernatural beings which means they are invisible as well as immaterial. When asked for evidence of the existence of angels people often cite some unusual or exceptional remembrance or personal anecdote - but never hard direct evidence. 

3) 55 percent of Americans believe that the Founding Fathers established this country as a Christian nation in the Constitution.

This figure comes from a First Amendment Center survey taken in 2007. These Americans really need to read Thomas Jefferson’s rewriting of the New Testament, which he felt perfected Jesus Christ’s teachings by removing all theological and supernatural elements from his life story. They may also wish to read the Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11:

Article 11 of Treaty of Tripoli :

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan 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"

(http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html)

4) 1 in 4 Americans believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

This incredible finding comes from a National Science Foundation (NSF)  study conducted earlier last year. Oddly, or maybe not,  this statistic and the figure for non-acceptance of man-made climate change are, sadly, about the same—bear in mind that, whereas evolution and the Big Bang theory are relatively new to our collective consciousness, Copernicus and Galileo cracked our solar system’s biggest secret roughly five centuries ago. It would be no less ludicrous for one in four Americans to believe that the Earth is flat.  Again, this shows a major deficiency in Americans' science education, and explains why they do much worse than other nations on mathematics and physics tests administered over the years.

5 ) Only 60 percent of Americans believe in evolution.

According to a 2013 Pew Research poll, 33 percent of Americans believe that “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” Among those who believe in evolution, 32 percent believe that modern organisms evolved through natural selection, while 24 percent believe that evolution occurred through the direct intervention of God. By comparison, 97 percent of scientists believe in evolution.

Let us also understand that there is no such thing as "God -directed evolution". Asserting such in order to try to render faith compatible with science is like trying to square the circle. The key point is that evolution requires no outside, external agent in order to enable speciation, diversity. Natural selection and mutation are sufficient drivers for the process. 

6) 51 percent of Americans don’t trust the Big Bang theory.

This refers to the scientific theory explaining the origin of the universe, namely its original rapid and violent expansion. .According to an AP/GFK poll from earlier last year, slightly more than half of all Americans were either “not too confident” or “not at all confident” that the Big Bang happened. This same survey also found that only 27 percent believe the Earth to be 4.5 billion years old, which is the consensus figure among scientists.

The Big Bang finding is actually not that surprising given the basis of the theory inheres in thermal physics, kinematics and most Americans haven't even taken a course in basic high school physics. So their "lack of confidence" is actually a justified lack of confidence in their own knowledge of physics with the ability to apply principles to unfamiliar theories or conditions. 

7) Only 44 percent of Americans are confident that vaccines don’t cause autism.

According to a University of Chicago study taken last year, 20 percent of Americans believe “vaccines cause autism and other psychological disorders,” while another 36 percent weren’t sure enough to agree or disagree with that statement.  If Americans knew more, of course, they'd be aware that autism is more plausibly traced to toxins in the environment, such as present in pesticides - than in any vaccine component. (The main suspect in vaccines, thimerosal, is no longer present. 

8) 48 percent of Americans think the Civil War was about states’ rights, while only 38 percent of Americans believe it was over slavery.

While the 2011 Pew Research survey that yielded this statistic might lead you to believe that there is legitimate debate over the cause of the Civil War, there really isn’t: Over 90 percent of historians with graduate degrees accept that it was prompted by opposition to the election of Abraham Lincoln on the grounds that he would prohibit the expansion of slavery into the Western territories. Although the Southern states argued that they had a legal right to secede because of their sovereignty as states in a federal union, it was their opposition to Lincoln’s policies on slavery that incited them to leave the Union.

Apart from that there really is no such thing as 'States' rights".  States have prerogatives, not rights, because states exist as governmental entities not as persons-individuals. Prof. Garry Wills (‘A Necessary Evil: A History Of American Distrust of Government’, Simon & Schuster, 1999) further reinforces this point in his chapter ‘Constitutional Myths’(p. 108). He notes that citizens alone possess rights, which neither the states nor the federal government share. Both the latter retain powers and prerogatives, but not rights. Hence, the subtext is that rights can only accrue to human individuals.  As he puts it (ibid.)

“The states have no natural rights. Their powers are artificial, not natural – they are things made by contract.”

Can we possibly reduce the level of American dopiness?  One would like to believe so, but so long as a fractured, fragmented media exists - what many have called "media Balkanization"- it is not likely to happen. The chronically ignorant will still gravitate to those media outlets that merely confirm their already skewed, unfounded beliefs and unless we return to the Fairness Doctrine (eliminated during the Reagan era) there is no chance of a corrective. They will remain ensconced in those bastardized niches and the rest of us - in the fact-based realm - will have to contend with them and do our best to educate them when and where possible.

This divergence might be tolerable except that the entrenched ignorance and misconceptions (such as #8 above) also translates into voting. This means the more ignorance -based voters we have the worse this country will become . This was only recently manifested in the atrocious finding that 59% of Americans support some form of torture and a large bunch actually believed they were defending freedom by going to see (or buy online) the god-awful muck 'The Interview'.

Thomas Jefferson once noted in his Notes on Virginia that the "people are the only safe depositories" of governance, truth and rectitude, but this is contingent on the "improvement of their minds."  If that mental improvement and acuity isn't evident in a populace  then their government is likely to degenerate and become corrupted since the people (as supposed guardians) have become so inept and uneducated as to leave their governance to the  power-hungry "rulers" alone.  Yet this is what appears to be happening in this country. Polls taken, such as after the series of Snowden data releases, and now after the CIA torture report, indicate that too many Americans have become sheep and ceased to be wary citizens. They have thereby left the fight to the rest of us who are 'on' 24/7 and perceive how the country is declining at a horrific rate. 

No one said citizenship was easy, or automatic. But, that just means one has to be aware that this honorable calling has - in the last 30 or so years- been driven to the sidelines by the "consumer". But consumers are not citizens, they are more akin to cattle - as noted by Erik Larson in his terrific book, The Naked Consumer.  Larson noted how consumer monitors in stores regularly referred to shoppers as "grazing like cattle"(p. 167).

One thing is clear: If you are like cattle, dumb, numb and not long for the meat grinder - you can't be doing your duty as a citizen. You are more an exploitable, brainwashable puppet. Sadly, the more such puppets are germinated the more rapid will be our nation's decline.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jaime-oneill/60302/american-schnooks-the-people-who-can-be-fooled-again-and-again-and-still-again-not-to-mention-a-time-o

Another Dumbo Supreme Court Decision - On Opening Meetings with Prayer

Two non-Christians (one Jewish) from Greece, NY had brought a case to the Supreme Court seeking to clarify whether or not decidedly Christian prayers - even invoking the name of Jesus - were appropriate for City Council meetings. Now, to be sure, this ought to have been the proverbial "no brainer".  Let us get it clear here, once and for all, that secular government confabs or meetings are NOT church meetings - hence no religion can justifiably be involved, or superstitious invocations. If one does invoke any kind of preliminary prayers it is therefore a violation of the Constitution.

Indeed, there is a precedent for this, though the conservo brigade amongst the Supreme Court appeared not to be able to find it as they ruled 5-4 that the allowance of prayer, even specifically Christian was no biggie. And any adults in Greece, NY were obliged to suck it up and stop bellyaching. C'mon, grow up! Just stand and pretend to pray! NOT!!

Anyway, the precedent against this travesty  transpired in April, 2010 when U.S. District Judge, Barbara B. Crabb of the Western District of Wisconsin-  rendered a decision which all atheists already know was too long in coming. That is, to rule that the insipid “National Day of Prayer” was unconstitutional. The decision asserted correctly that this national mockery violates the First Amendment prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion. (Note the definition of religion is generic here, and doesn’t have to apply to any specific religion.).

The decision was also a victory for the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The group had sued the Bush and later Obama administrations in an effort to block presidents from making their annual proclamations inviting Americans to set aside a day for prayer or meditation.Who do these presidents think they are, Mullahs, or maybe Ayatollahs? We don’t need any damned proclamations nor do Americans have to be "invited" to pray or meditate! If people want to petition or pray to some embolism emanating in their own temporal lobes, fine – but don’t make a national deal out of it! Sheesh!

Anne Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Fundation and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, heralded Crabb's decision as courageous, and further observed:

“It's an invasion of the freedom of conscience of Americans to have their president direct their prayer or tell them to pray".

 Logically, it follows that if a National Day of Prayer sponsored by federal  gov't honchos is unconstitutional then any local governments conducting their own prayers in any smaller venues must be so as well.

This is what we expect the Mullahs in Afghanistan or Iran to do. Crabb’s decision stands as courageous since most judicial districts and judges in any capacity remain cowed by the religious zealots and their political well wishers who still hold this country in their feverish, frenetic grip. Indeed, Jordan Sekulow of The American Center for Law and Justice (which filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of 31 members of Congress), said he was "confident the decision would be overturned on appeal."

He was correct. But the “consensus” or unified position of even all other federal or state justices – or even the Supreme Court- doesn’t make their appeals decision right or in concert with the Constitution. Very often, it is the voice crying in the judicial wilderness – like Judge Crabb’s – which embodies the true perception and ruling.  In an analogous fashion, when congress retroactively made the Bush wiretaps legal, they essentially perverted the existing law to an abomination. It is this abomination that has allowed the NSA mass surveillance and indiscriminate collection of personal data without specific warrants in violation of the 4th amendment.

But as Bush once said: "The Constitution is just a piece of paper".   Well, yeah! To a tyrant! Which apparently the five conservo Supremes aspire to as well.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, speaking on behalf of the majority stated that the use of prayer in the Greece, New York setting of local government was mainly done to confer "gravitas" as in all similar cases. This was despite the specific invocation of the leader of the Christian religion.  But if Kennedy had really been impartial he would've seen this take for the bollocks it is, and acknowledged that a silent moment was much more appropriate - if the town honchos required anything to bestow "gravitas."

As one professor (Michael Meyerson)  from the University of Baltimore put it:

"It's a frustrating and disingenuous decision,"

Which any sensible person would agree with. Meyerson's point: The Founding Fathers and framers of the Constitution — Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and others — might have mentioned a specific religion when speaking among themselves, but when they addressed the public they were "incredibly sensitive" not to appear to favor any particular creed.

The New York Times also expressed dismay in an editorial:

The American values of pluralism and inclusion are central to the First Amendment, which forbids government from favoring or aligning itself with any particular religion or believers over nonbelievers.

In a lamentable ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority brushed past those core values to allow the town of Greece, in upstate New York, to begin its town hall meetings with a sectarian prayer nearly always from a Christian “chaplain of the month.” [...] It was disappointing that the Justice Department urged the justices to uphold the prayer practice in the town hall meetings, which skirted the constitutional principle of religious neutrality and caused some residents to feel like outsiders.

Again, one must query the purpose of the Justice Dept. to stick its nose into the mix at all. What has prayer in a gov't setting to do with "justice"?  But again, if the Justice Dept. is also foursquare behind NSA mass surveillance, as it is, we can understand. The prayer thing then is merely another gimmick to try to confer gravitas on government decisions when public distrust of government is at an all time high. It is a cynical maneuver to grant license from "on high"  to back anything - maybe even the Keystone XL pipeline, or drone killings. "If God is with ya, not even your own citizens can be against ya - ya know?"

The ACLU, to which I belong, clearly stated:

"Official religious favoritism should be off-limits under the Constitution”—

Maybe we need to remind the Justice Department, as well as the conservo segment of the Supreme Court,  of some relevant  background here:

Article 11 of Treaty of Tripoli :

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan 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"

(http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html)

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. "  -  Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428

"I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies, that the General Government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises"  - Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:429

"Civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428

"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78

Will any of these quotes from one of the nation's Founders have any effect? Not likely,  given this nation has already veered far off course from honoring and respecting the Constitution (E.g. the NSA mass surveillance, not to mention the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which eliminates habeas corpus).

Christian Pest Tries to Brain Fart His Way to Explaining Reepos' Loss - To BAJANS!

It's no secret that a certain contingent of Americans inhabits Barbados, and they continually attempt to brainwash the island nation's citizens - mainly concerning things political and religious in the US of A. (Especially the basis or cause of electoral outcomes) One of these gadflies - or pests, as I call them -  is a "Paul Kokoski" who also had a letter featured in today's Barbados Sunday Advocate trying to explain the Republicans' loss last Tuesday.

Kokoski's letter is also instructive because, like many other Reepos, it discloses the level of disinformation that they will resort to in order to twist susceptible minds - especially those not as au fait with American politics. Let's then consider some of Kokoski's claims in his letter, starting with his first paragraph:

"The Republicans did not lose the US election because of constituencies or demographics. Neither is Barack Obama the problem. We are! Abortion is. Public schools are. A rotting pop culture is. Modernism in the Catholic Church is. Divorce and homosexual “marriage” are. Obama has been re-elected simply because America, like any nation, will always only get the leaders she deserves. We told God to go to hell a long time ago, and God is now allowing us to see what life is like without Him."

Now, notice he makes no connection whatsoever to the fact that 99% of Reeps are against abortion, and indeed wish Roe v. Wade to be overturned! In other words, to say the Reeps "did not lose the election because of constituencies or demographics"  is to be too blind by half (see, e.g. the previous blog).  The claim that "Americans get the leaders they deserve" is also a snide implication that Mitt Romney would have been  superior to the one (Obama) we "deserved", although, given Kokoski is Roman Catholic, he may well have preferred Rick Santorum, since in later paragraphs he disses Romney as being as "liberal as JFK". But I get ahead of myself.  Btw, the Vatican's assholes are reportedly moaning and groaning about the results of our election. As reported in today's Denver Post, the Vatican hack "newspaper" L'Osservatore Romano "sought to frame itself as the lone voice of courage in opposing the initiatives" voted on in the U.S. Hey you holier-than-thou fuckers, where was your vaunted courage when children were being raped by your pedophile priests?

The claim that Americans or anyone can "tell God to go to Hell" is simply daft and insane, if one assumes: a) a functional God does exist, and b) is a transcendent entity and immaterial. In fact, in such a case, one can't "tell" God anything! The real question Kokoski avoids, as do so many pseudo-Xtian numbnuts, is why God as they postulate him (or It) fails to act when most called upon. This absence of action is the most devastating evidence for arguing (along Victor Stenger's lines) that either a) this God does not exist, or b) it doesn't exist in the fashion Xtians claim.

Case in point: the 6-month old infant (Julian Adams Lacas) whose short life was detailed in today's Denver Post (p. 1A) covering the deaths of more than 72 foster and other children in Colorado over the past several years. In the case of this particular infant, he was born with a cleft palate and severe brain problems and left one day in the care of his father by mom, Krista - who went out looking for work. When she returned she found the infant barely conscious and only able to make squeaking sounds - as its windpipe had been partially crushed and his head turned into a punctured melon after his father flew into a rage and kicked him like a soccer ball. WHERE was the great all powerful God when this was going on? If people like Kokoski are going to insist he was there, but "looking on" then he's useless! But in the same vein, this uselessness also translates into the colossal stupidity of statements such as those made by Kokoski - to wit, we "told God to go to Hell" a long time ago. How can we if he's not paying attention to anything? 

Do these dopes even comprehend any of this? Doubtful! Meanwhile, the innocents, like little Justin or those two unfortunate Connecticut girls (Hayley and Michaela Petit) raped by intruders in their own home several years ago, then set on fire while tied to their beds - are left without anything to help them in greatest time of need. So, why get "saved" if there's nothing there anyway? Any idiot can make pseudo- threats about unseen bogeys, but if you have no evidence to back it up you really belong on a funny farm, fastened into a straightjacket and on a diet of thorazine. Oh, and interspersed with steady amperes of ECT!

However, as Stenger does note, and all atheists need to take note: not all god concepts are excluded. To quote Stenger :

"Certainly the deist god who does not interfere in the world is difficult to rule out. However, the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, whom I identify with an uppercase G, is believed to play such an active role in the universe that his actions should have been detected, thus confirming his existence.”

Here, Stenger is conceding that some God-concepts can’t be ruled out as possible transcendent realties. He names the Deist concept, but one surely can also include any pantheistic, or impersonal variant, say like Bohm’s  “Holomovement” (elevated to God –concept status).

The Deist deity is important, however, because THAT is exactly the one the Founders (Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, etc.) accepted. To remind people: this deity is responsible for creating the universe, but then it effectively "walks away" - leaving creation to itself. It doesn't personally involve itself in anything. Hence, Kokoski's next claim:

"America is a Christian nation, and our help is in the name of the Lord – not electoral politics."

is total rubbish! Because Deists are NOT Christians! They don't accept a personal God or a personal "savior" a la Jesus Christ.  Hence, Kokoski is trying to feed his readers non-historical BS. To make sure people understand this, and emphasize the distinction, I refer readers to the key passage in the Treaty Of Tripoli, e.g. http://www.nobeliefs.com/document.htm

""As the Government of the United States of America 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."


Now, there will be those who assert this isn't evidence, but we must categorize them as imbeciles and move on. They aren't worth wasting time on.

Kokoski's next bit of insane hyperbole reads as follows:

"Out of fear and sheer desperation, most Americans threw their hats in the ring for a Mormon, big government-backing, sometimes pro-life, moderately pro-gay rights candidate. Even by John F. Kennedy’s standards, Mitt Romney is a rabid liberal who would not have altered the course for America."

This shows the man has no clue, not one, concerning who John F. Kennedy was, and certainly not Mitt Romney either! In fact, by John F. Kennedy's standards Romney would be the next thing to Attila the Hun! Bear in mind that unlike Romney's promised $5 trillion tax cuts for the wealthiest, JFK actually sought to severely limit ANY tax breaks for the rich. This is why he was widely castigated by the financial press of the time! (E.g. WSJ, 8/6/62 'No Cause for Celebration'; p. 6;  WSJ, 3/26/63 'Too Much Money, Too Little Thought', p. 18; WSJ, 8/15/63 'When Friends Become Foes', p. 8 )

If Kennedy were really a Romney double (or vice versa), why the hell would the Wall Street Journal attack him so often (the preceding was just a sampling) while praising Romney for his tax cut plan? Clearly Kokoski doesn't know jack shit or diddly.  Meanwhile, Henry Hazlitt, contributing editor at Newsweek (The Washington Post's then sister publication, now defunct as a print publication) was airing many of the same complaints against JFK. These polemics, appearing regularly in Hazlitt's 'Business Tides', included taking JFK to task for his tax policies - including the proposed tax on U.S. business earnings abroad. Romney meanwhile has taken advantage of tax loopholes to parlay assets into hundreds of billion of bucks from tax avoidance, stashed in the Caymans and Swiss banks.

As for "big government backing" - well, any halfway intelligent person who ever took a real American History course would know Kennedy followed a genuinely liberal tack, but NOT Mitt Romney. For example, JFK established and promoted the "Alliance for Progress' to enable low-interest loans for Latin American American nations, thereby outraging the 'Street" and the other capitalist bastions of thought. He also (in June, 1963) issued Executive Order 11,110  to challenge Fed control of the money supply. (Which under the Constitution authorizes only Congress to create paper money not a private entity) This EO authorized the creation of some $4.2 billion in U.S. Notes - to replace Federal Reserve Notes. These U.S. Notes were issued by Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, and bore his signature.

Beyond that, JFK was into deficit spending for the public good, see, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/thats-right-now-blame-60s-jfk-for.html  while the Mittster wanted to rein in deficit spending for any public benefit but expand it exponentially for tax cuts and the military ($2 trillion without any offsets).

Also, in regard to the latter, Romney not only wanted to plow another $2 trillion into the Pentagon's already overflowing coffers, but he hired on warmonger advisors like Gen. Tommy Franks and John Bolton - former Bushies with hard ons for a war with Iran. Meanwhile, JFK actually issued a National Security Action Memorandum (263) to PULL OUT of Vietnam by calendar year 1965. (When LBJ ascended to power, he issued NSAM 273 to cancel out JFK's NSAM).

Again, Kokoski plays the role of either an ignorant stooge, or maybe a disinformationist. Who knows? In either case he's a pest, like another rabid bible puncher I know who shall remain nameless, but whose rants can perhaps better be explained by appeal to mental illness.

Fortunately, most clever Bajans appear to be on to those like Paul Kokoski, but we have to expect the Kokoskis of the world will never quit trying to push bollocks and baloney down the throats of those who may not know as much about American history as the rest of us! It is up to those of us who know better to expose them and their game!