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by Rudy Takala |
January 3rd, 2008
Before I began college, I wasn’t a firm adherent to any particular side of the culture war.
Not much time remains until presidential candidates are nominated (at least informally), and Christmas has served as a brief interlude to the frenetic political season. There are a lot of things going on that could serve as fodder for a commentary. But with the sense of divine serenity that accompanies the Christmas season, one issue seems particularly compelling to me.
As I approach the conclusion of my time in college, I look back on the years I’ve spent witnessing a wasteland that can emblemize the product of secular liberalism with no greater purity. Before I began, I wasn’t a firm adherent to any particular side of the culture war. I opposed government interventionism that favored anyone. I tended libertarian.
I still believe that libertarianism is the ideal political philosophy. It’s fair to everyone. It rewards people according to their worth rather than according to a dictator’s moral judgment of their worth.
But it cannot succeed when only one side is willing to play by the rules. Secular “progressives” want to destroy everything that has been considered the American way of life. They want to transform what has been the American value system for over two centuries.
I could provide five anecdotal examples of their moral impositions for every day I’ve been in college, but I will refrain from what would be a redundant detailing. But it has reinforced something about which I was skeptical; that many professors really teach for no other reason than to indoctrinate.
In Dinesh D’Souza’s book What’s So Great About Christianity, he writes about the effort to inculcate students with a belief in atheism. He references the philosopher Richard Rorty, who died earlier this year, and who argued that professors in universities ought to “arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own.”
Rorty noted that students are “lucky to find themselves under the benevolent Herrschaft [dominion] of people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents. I am just as provincial and contextualist as the Nazi teachers who made their students read Der Stürmer; the only difference is that I serve a better cause.”
D’Souza also mentioned currently-living psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, who wrote that, “Parents . . . have no god-given license to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children’s knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.”
Enthusiastic students entering college for the first time, who, unlike me, haven’t spent a decade learning how to articulate their beliefs – or who, in my experience, don’t have much in the way of beliefs – are easy to influence. They’re eager to understand what it means to be educated, and are ready to accept the philosophies of atheism and big-government socialism in order to be seen as “fashionable.” The alternative is to face scorn and ridicule.
Before I began in college, I was libertarian on the marriage issue. If anything, I believed it was a thing to be left to the states. And states would be better left leaving it alone rather than intruding on what should be a matter for the church.
But that was before I spent three years dealing with teachers explaining that we must accept homosexuality in order to be “tolerant,” of being required to take their classes in order to get the “gender” designation required to graduate, and of seeing my student fees go to homosexual activist groups while Christian groups were barred from having similar funds for being “intolerant.”
Today I am unequivocally in favor of a marriage amendment at both the state and national levels. This isn’t about allowing people to live as they wish. It’s about reaffirming democracy. In a democracy, everyone is given a chance to vote, and the majority prevails.
We do not have an oligarchy, in which an elite few impose their values on the majority. But unless they are stopped, that is exactly what “progressive” elitists are going to do.
For some, college is a necessity. But only about thirty percent of American adults have attended college, and I would argue that the seventy percent who have not had to deal with this valueless, ideological whorehouse are all that has kept our nation from falling into the abyss of despotism.
RudyTakala@Yahoo.com
Visit their website at:
Responses to "How College Made Me More Conservative: Part I"
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Technically, the United States is not a democracy, it's a republic. We have a Constitution, rather than direct majority rule. This was specifically set up so that the majority would not "prevail" against a minority in an oppressive way… as explicitly laid out in the Federalist Papers.
I'm having trouble following the justification for deviating from libertarianism with respect to marriage. The author didn't like the apparently arbitrary requirements and decisions of his professors with respect to homosexuality… so therefore the Constitutions of the United States and the various states should be modified? Perhaps this will be addressed in greater detail in part II…
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 3, 2008
You seem to be moving away from libertarianism, but without concern for the liberties that a constitution protects. Democracy, unfettered by any previously agreed limits, can easily be used to oppress and destroy any group that happens to be currently out of favor. Please, try to imagine what happens if you happen to be a member of that oppressed minority and no one is willing to stand up for you.
I am sorry that you have not enjoyed college. Best of luck in the future.
Comment by freelunch | January 3, 2008
Congratulations Rudy for you have truly received an education. You have learned to think for yourself (which probably originated in your homeschooling). You have also successfully sidestepped the drivel-brainwashing that passes for higher education today!
Comment by J3 | January 3, 2008
When you aver that a significant number of professors educate for no other reason than to indoctrinate, you are merely parroting an artificial conviction the hard Right has embraced for no other reason than to depreciate education. An artificial conviction because they couldn't possibly be short-sighted enough to believe it.
The reality is that homosexuality is not a choice. An individual does not wake one fine day and decide he or she would like to sleep with members of their very gender. So, considering that fact (not opinion), why is it so wrong to inform students that barring homosexuals from marrying is an arrant violation of the Constitution? And indeed, it is.
This is not a democracy, but I will concede to your assertion — it is a moot point anyway. What I will not concede to is your insinuation that majority rules no matter what. The majority rules insomuch as the Constitution is being adhered to. Ecclesiastical law is not the law of the land (with the exception of the obvious: don't kill me, don't steal, et cetera…), and the majority would never consent to changing the Constitution to make it the law — irrespective of amendments that would be violated in doing so.
I would say that you have been indoctrinated, not by professor, but hard Right wing foolishness. I am a moderate conservative — and damn proud of it.
Comment by ConservativePopulist | January 4, 2008
Conservative Populist contends: "The reality is that homosexuality is not a choice. An individual does not wake one fine day and decide he or she would like to sleep with members of their very gender. So, considering that fact (not opinion), why is it so wrong to inform students that barring homosexuals from marrying is an arrant violation of the Constitution?"
Please cite references for this alleged fact.
Thank you
Comment by J3 | January 4, 2008
It's not an "alleged fact," it is a fact.
http://www.apa.org/topics/orientation.html
Comment by ConservativePopulist | January 4, 2008
I do a thorough amount of reserach before I "contend" anything. I wish the author of this article would have done the same.
Comment by ConservativePopulist | January 4, 2008
"Technically, the United States is not a democracy, it’s a republic. We have a Constitution, rather than direct majority rule. This was specifically set up so that the majority would not “prevail” against a minority in an oppressive way… as explicitly laid out in the Federalist Papers."
Technically, the United States WAS a republic as it was originally founded. I don't think you would argue that the United States no longer operates even remotely the way it was intended to at its founding. It is now more of a pseudo-democracy in which "The Constitution" has been supplanted by the unchallengeable opinion of the Supreme Court in what amounts to essentially a judicial authoritarian dictatorship. Nevertheless, even if our government operated exactly as it was intended to, if a constitutional amendment is proposed and is approved by a 2/3rds majority of the democratically-elected representatives in our republican government, the majority "prevails", as per our Constitution. Minority opinion in that case is overruled. That is not perfectly democratic majority rule, but framed that way, it's not inaccurate to say that "the majority ruled".
"When you aver that a significant number of professors educate for no other reason than to indoctrinate, you are merely parroting an artificial conviction the hard Right has embraced for no other reason than to depreciate education. "
When you aver that based on the proclamations of said professors, with referenced quotations, it's hard to make that case. And even if he were simply parroting the dreaded "Right", what makes that any worse than simply parroting one's professor(s)? Your rebuttal to the argument is that indoctrination is A-Okay as long as it's being performed by a University? Brilliant analysis. If you attended college, go congratulate your social studies professors on another job well done.
"The reality is that homosexuality is not a choice. An individual does not wake one fine day and decide he or she would like to sleep with members of their very gender. So, considering that fact (not opinion)"
How do you know? What makes that a fact? What unassailable scientific evidence has been offered to "prove" that? Your pounding the table does not make something a "fact" anymore than anyone else's pounding on the table does. Or put another way, your pronouncements of truth and justice carry no more weight than the Ecclesiastical. But assuming that your proclamations are gospel, or in fact far better, when does one's in-born, genetically predisposed desire to have sex with members of their very gender awaken? Because you certainly aren't born heterosexual either - sexual development does not take place at birth, so that determination is not possible to make. Assuming that natural selection, using genetics as its mechanism, is responsible for species development through adaptation, don't you find it highly improbable that members of a population genetically predisposed to homosexuality would continue to pass those genes on since homosexual sex does not result in procreation? Biologically speaking, it's difficult to pass genes on when you don't produce offspring. So if a particular gene were responsible, it's highly probable that it would disappear from a selected population over time due to the dramatically reduced probability that homosexuals will produce offspring. But who am I to argue with the "facts"?
"I am a moderate conservative — and damn proud of it."
There is no such thing as a "moderate conservative". It's like being gay; you're just born with it. You can't be "moderately" gay, and you can't be "moderately" conservative. That's just the facts. Deal with it. If you don't believe me, then you my friend have been indoctrinated by the hard Sparrow wing in all of their wicked ignorance. What a shame.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | January 4, 2008
I see, the APA is the sole arbiter of fact?
Comment by J3 | January 4, 2008
I have a post hung up in the filter in a similar vein. But to answer your question J3, yes, the study of psychology can definitively answer all questions of the causes of behavior, including biological factors outside its scope of study. I mean, it really doesn't get more certain than:
"There are numerous theories about the origins of a person's sexual orientation; most scientists today agree that sexual orientation is most likely the result of a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors."
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | January 4, 2008
P Mulligan,
I perused the site and read the reference you quote.
Usually go straight to the trenches when encounter something to the effect "most scientists today agree" blah blah blah. Reminds me of bovine methane and global warming!
I do enjoy your genetic selection stance.
You must not be one of the "scientists" alluded to in the article.
Comment by J3 | January 4, 2008
P. Mulligan doesn't impress me as the type of fellow who knows exactly what he's talking about. He sorta of rambles on aimlessly. But I will play along.
You can be a moderate conservative. Strong conservatives are against such things as Gay Rights — I am not. Strong conservatives do not like the idea of welfare — I think it's necessary in some cases. You get the point — I hope.
So, the next time you want to impress someone with your towering intellect, consider things in the abstract for a moment.
Anyway, the APA is the American Psychological Assocation. They've researched homosexuality for over 35 years, and that is the scientific conclusion they came to. I tend to believe them more than the hard Right.
Comment by ConservativePopulist | January 4, 2008
"When you aver that based on the proclamations of said professors, with referenced quotations, it’s hard to make that case. And even if he were simply parroting the dreaded “Right”, what makes that any worse than simply parroting one’s professor(s)? Your rebuttal to the argument is that indoctrination is A-Okay as long as it’s being performed by a University? Brilliant analysis. If you attended college, go congratulate your social studies professors on another job well done."
Perhaps the professors are merely introducing students to a new way of looking at the world. The individual being "indoctrinated" is capable of thinking for him or herself — there is no parroting involved; college gives you the tools you need to formulate your own opinions. The parroting occurs when one claims there is, in fact, liberal indoctrination going on in our colleges and universities, despite any evidence.
Comment by ConservativePopulist | January 4, 2008
ConservativePopulist
The “Fact” you mention is not at the APA site. They only talk about “consensus”, “opinion”, and “continuum”. But they do say, “Sexual orientation is different from sexual behavior”. I think you will find that most conservatives do not object to orientation, but they do object to the behavior. Gay marriage is behavior sanctioned by the state.
Facts are a funny thing. They depend on the environment. Does a feather fall at the same rate as a lead ball? Yes, they do, in a vacuum. The environment in our world is still one of promoting the continuation of the species and at the personal level that means having and protecting children. Homosexual behavior in our society does not promote anything but the satisfaction of the homosexual individual, therefore it is undesirable and should not be protected by law.
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | January 5, 2008
So, homosexuals are not entitled to enjoy the same things heterosexuals enjoy? They are not allowed to express intimate love in the same way you do because people like you think it's wrong?
Again, against the Constitution.
Comment by ConservativePopulist | January 5, 2008
“…the only difference is that I serve a better cause.”
By what standard does he measure his cause to be better?
“Parents . . . have no god-given [sic] license to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children’s knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.”
That’s right! We don’t have the license nor the right; we have the responsibility and the authority.
“…the seventy percent [of Americans] who have not had to deal with this valueless, ideological whorehouse are all that has kept our nation from falling into the abyss of despotism.”
Well said, and a brilliant observation.
"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." – Teddy Roosevelt, 1903
Comment by sedonaman | January 5, 2008
CP
Of course they are! A gay man can marry any woman he wants, the same as I can. They are also welcome to sodomize other men in the privacy of their home. I just don't think the government should sanction marriage between two, or more, people of the same sex. I fail to see how this infringes on your "enjoyment" or "expression of love" or how I said it was wrong. I just said legalization was undesirable.
You seem to like to make up "facts". Where did you find anything about gay marriage in the COTUSA? I found several references in the Ten Commandments that support my view, but that’s another story.
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | January 5, 2008
Ivan,
You confuse me. Heterosexuals are not only allowed to marry the person they love, but they are allowed to divorce and marry someone else. Of course, no one needs to get married to have sex, but that has nothing to do with the question at hand.
What reason is there for a distinction based on the sex of the person being married? Why doesn't that distinction run afoul the 14th Amendment?
Comment by freelunch | January 5, 2008
Ah yes, the 14th Amendment argument.
Let's see, the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868; if freelunch's argument is be taken seriously, then we must accept that every state marriage statute in the United States was invalidated on that date, and "gay marriage" was made legal in 1868. As freelunch has informed us, the 14th Amendment abolished distinctions based on the sex of the person being married.
We've just been waiting 140 years for the Supreme Court to "discover" this.
Comment by stutzenbach | January 5, 2008
"Of course they are! A gay man can marry any woman he wants, the same as I can. They are also welcome to sodomize other men in the privacy of their home. I just don’t think the government should sanction marriage between two, or more, people of the same sex. I fail to see how this infringes on your “enjoyment” or “expression of love” or how I said it was wrong. I just said legalization was undesirable."
Homosexuals are the not attracted to the opposite sex — period. The attraction to the same sex is NORMAL to them — science says so.
"You seem to like to make up “facts”. Where did you find anything about gay marriage in the COTUSA? I found several references in the Ten Commandments that support my view, but that’s another story."
I've made up no facts — I've merely presented them. The 14th amendment, as freelunch mentioned. And I don't care what you discovered in the Ten Commandments — it has nothing to do with the issue at hand. The government does not legislate based on religion — I don't care what Pat Robertson told you. Read the First Amendment, then read the Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11. When you've done so, get back to me.
Comment by ConservativePopulist | January 5, 2008
Why should marriage involve more than one person. In Canada last year a woman married herself. She even went on a honeymoon, alone, as she explained, "to get in touch with myself."
I will leave it up to you to figure out what she meant.
Comment by sedonaman | January 5, 2008
“… The salient fact of our society at the present day, as many others have noted, is that we are engaged in a culture war. It is a war between our cultural elite, the intelligencia and aspiring intelligencia (what has been called the ‘chattering class’), the dominant force in our universities and media of communication, on the one hand, and the ordinary American citizen on the other. The average citizen holds views on a wide range of issues of basic social policy – for example, on capital punishment, prayer in the schools, the permissibility of religious symbols in public places, enforcement of the criminal law, assignment of children to neighborhood schools, the suppression of pornography, flag burning, and, specifically relating to the point of this conference, homosexuality and marriage – that are anathema to our cultural elite. The difficulty with our system of representative self-government, as they [the intelligencia] see it, is that everyone gets to vote, with the result that the views of the unenlightened masses are likely to prevail. The function of constitutional law, in the view of our cultural elite and as it has largely operated in recent decades, is to keep this from happening. The first and most important thing to understand about constitutional law is that it has very little to do with a constitution. It has become essentially a device or ruse for policymaking by judges. Such policymaking is much preferred by our cultural elite to policymaking by the elected representatives of the people because judges, given a free hand in policymaking, can generally be relied on to serve as the mirror, mouthpiece, and enacting arm of liberal academia in general and liberal legal academia in particular. … [R]ulings of unconstitutionality overwhelmingly serve the policy preferences of those on the extreme Left of the American political spectrum. If one wishes so radically to change the meaning of marriage, for example, as no longer to require the presence of a man and a woman, one has virtually no chance of succeeding by appeal to an American legislature. The prospect of success is enormously enhanced, however, if the issue can somehow be removed from the control of legislators and decided instead by judges using the magic and mystery of constitutional law. This is the only reason constitutional law has become so pervasive and important and so enthusiastically supported and defended in legal academia. … The United States Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment, provides that ‘No State shall . . . deny to any person . . . the equal protection of the laws.’ … These provisions, however, do not create a general requirement of equality. The law does not and cannot treat all persons – young and old, weak and strong, rich and poor, male and female, and so on – as equal in all regards. The very purpose of law is to classify (discriminate among) people for different treatment … When judges decide that some homosexual unions have the same legal status as marriage, they are not, as they invariably claim, enforcing a legal or constitutional requirement of equality – there is none. What they are doing instead is legislating for homosexuals’ rights other than those granted by the legislature. … Decisions extending marital rights to homosexual unions do so on no other basis or authority than the fact that full societal acceptance, if not endorsement, of homosexuality is the current cause celebre in today’s academia. The primary function of judicial opinions explaining these decisions is to deny or conceal this fact. …”
“Single-Sex ‘Marriage’: The Role of the Courts”
by Lino A. Graglia, A. Dalton Cross Professor in Law, University of Texas School of Law, Austin, Texas.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3736/is_200101/ai_n8934944
Comment by sedonaman | January 5, 2008
CP
You write, "Homosexuals are the not attracted to the opposite sex — period."
What happened to the continuum that the APA talks about? And, what about bi-sexuals?
I don’t get my ideas from Pat Robertson. I prefer Dostoevsky, who wrote “If there is no God, then everything is allowed”
Now, ready or not, I’m done with you.
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | January 5, 2008
CP,
I find it hilarious that you are trying to talk down to me about my level of intelligence (rather than actually address anything I actually said, of course), and trying only to make a serious rebuttal to something that was said sarcastically. I could chalk it up to a one-time lapse in perception except that you did the same thing with Ivan's 10 Commandments reference. I'd explain the point to you, but I really don't think it would do any good. Suffice it to say, I defer to your keen sense of perception, sir. You are hereby the arbiter of all "facts".
By the way, I've read the First Amendment many many times, and I couldn't find one thing in there addressing homosexuality as a behavior, as a practice, the governments role in homosexuality, or the heterosexuality for that matter. Here, maybe you might want to read it:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
I can only assume that your reference was in some way connected to your complete misunderstanding of the underlying meaning and sarcasm in Ivan's post. In that case, good show. That was a real zinger…
Before you continue, it might be of abstract intellectual interest for you to read the following informational websites. Just purely for academic purposes. You never know, it might be relevant to some material you read someday:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | January 5, 2008
"Conservative populist" seems to be synonymous with leftist, as he (she) parrots leftist talking points verbatim.
First, marriage. There is no right to marriage. Marriage is a privilege. Only those who qualify may marry. There are age requirements, one cannot marry one's cousin, dog, sister, mother, three, four, seven, or twenty other people, etc..
ConservativePopulist, please provide the rationale that would allow gays the privilege of marriage, but would not allow someone from marrying an eight year old?
Regarding The treaty of Tripoli, it is amazing to me that leftists still trot out this supposed proof that America was conceived as a secular nation. However, anyone who has done even a little research on the underpinnings of this country would come to the conclusion that the Founders almost to a man were deeply religious Christians (we would call them right wing extremists today), and that they desired this nation to rest upon Christian understanding, morality, and the Bible.
For an excellent and illuminating discussion of the treaty of Tripoli (the earlier treaty, not the later one which omits the passage in question), see here: http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=125
Last point: "The government does not legislate based on religion." Are you serious? The government has passed numerous such laws. Do you not know that a 501c(3) organization (i.e., a church) cannot advocate for political candidates? That is a law based on religion. What about Ten Commandment displays? Creches on public property? Laws prohibiting murder or theft? These laws have no religious context?
How about laws prohibiting public school teachers from discussing their faith or placing a Bible on their desks? how about landlords who are prevented from denying rentals to people who violate their religious beliefs? Are those not religious-based laws?
Any law that takes a religious position is a religious law.
Comment by Mountain Man | January 5, 2008
However, anyone who has done even a little research on the underpinnings of this country would come to the conclusion that the Founders almost to a man were deeply religious Christians (we would call them right wing extremists today), and that they desired this nation to rest upon Christian understanding, morality, and the Bible.
Please name them. My understanding of history differs from yours. Do you think that Jefferson or Madison were deeply religious Christians?
Comment by freelunch | January 6, 2008
freelunch,
There were 150 Founders. Some were more men of faith than others. Even the most nominal of them were still religous. I did say, "almost to a man," you will notice.
But even the two you cite were men of faith. Sample quotes:
Jefferson: "The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of mankind."
"I concur with the author in considering the moral precepts of Jesus as more pure, correct, and sublime than those of ancient philosophers."
Madison: "[A] watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest, while we are building ideal monuments of renown and bliss here, we neglect to have our names enrolled in the Annals of Heaven."
"I have sometimes thought there could not be a stronger testimony in favor of religion or against temporal enjoyments, even the most rational and manly, than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and [who] are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare their unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent advocates in the cause of Christ; and I wish you may give in your evidence in this way."
You said, "My understanding of history differs from yours." That only means that you have only heard the sanitized, public school version of history.
Comment by Mountain Man | January 6, 2008
Jefferson may have admired Jesus, but he made it clear that he was not a Christian as did a number of others. The modern evangelical Christianity that is so common today hadn't really been invented at the time.
Comment by freelunch | January 6, 2008
I thought I was done with this, but it seems we have two sides here. Those that are for gay marriage and don't beleive in God, and those that beleive in God and don't beleive in gay marriage. Just wanted to point that out.
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | January 6, 2008
freelunch:
We have to go through this exercise every so often because new posters show up who are part of the liberal crowd who want desperately for something to be true that just isn’t. They usually also get around to claiming the Founding Fathers were all deists, so I am waiting for that one next.
The Congress passed, and on August 7, 1789, President George Washington signed into law the Northwest Ordinance that sets forth the requirements of statehood for prospective territories. (This was the same Congress which was simultaneously framing the religion clauses of the First Amendment.) Article III of that Ordinance declares: "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." And that is why all 50 State Constitutions refer to God.
“Jefferson may have admired Jesus, but he made it clear that he was not a Christian …”
Did he make it clear he was not a Christian by writing “I am a Christian”?
Jefferson’s Letter To Dr. Benjamin Rush
Washington, April 21, 1803
DEAR SIR,
In some of the delightful conversations with you in the evenings of 1798-99, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised you that one day or other I would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other. At the short interval since these conversations, when I could justifiably abstract my mind from public affairs, the subject has been under my contemplation. But the more I considered it, the more it expanded beyond the measure of either my time or information. In the moment of my late departure from Monticello, I received from Dr. Priestley his little treatise of "Socrates and Jesus Compared." This being a section of the general view I had taken of the field, it became a subject of reflection while on the road and unoccupied otherwise. The result was, to arrange in my mind a syllabus or outline of such an estimate of the comparative merits of Christianity as I wished to see executed by someone of more leisure and information for the task than myself. This I now send you as the only discharge of my promise I can probably ever execute. And in confiding it to you, I know it will not be exposed to the malignant perversions of those who make every word from me a text for new misrepresentations and calumnies. I am moreover averse to the communication of my religious tenets to the public, because it would countenance the presumption of those who have endeavored to draw them before that tribunal, and to seduce public opinion to erect itself into that inquisition over the rights of conscience which the laws have so justly proscribed. It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. It behooves him, too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion, by answering questions of faith which the laws have left between God and himself. Accept my affectionate salutations.
Th: Jefferson
The following General Orders, issued to the Continental army at New York about three weeks before the Battle of Long Island and known as Washington's Order On Profanity. From The Papers, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 5, June - August 1776, (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1993), 551-52.
Washington’s General Order on Profanity
http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/revolution/profanity_1.html
Head Quarters, New York, August 3rd 1776.
Parole Uxbridge. Countersign Virginia
That the Troops may have an opportunity of attending public worship, as well as take some rest after the great fatigue they have gone through; The General in future excuses them from fatigue duty on Sundays (except at the Ship Yards, or special occasions) until further orders.[1] The General is sorry to be informed that the foolish, and wicked practice, of profane cursing and swearing (a Vice heretofore little known in an American Army) is growing into fashion; he hopes the officers will, by example, as well as influence, endeavour [sic] to check it, and that both they, and the men will reflect, that we can have little hopes of the blessing of Heaven on our Arms, if we insult it by our impiety, and folly; added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense, and character, detests and despises it.
Clarkson and Chase under confinement for Desertion, and reinlistment [sic] into the Artillery, from another Corps, to return to Capt: Bauman's Company until Col. Ellmores Regiment, wh. claims them, comes into camp.
Notes
1. This order was rescinded in the General Orders of 25 August 1776: "The General Order against working on Sunday is revoked the time not admitting of any delay."
2. The order against profanity doesn’t seem to have been rescinded.
The following is from “The Writings of George Washington From The Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799;” John C. Fitzpatrick, Editor:
“Head Quarters, V. Forge, Saturday, March 14, 1778: At a General Court Martial whereof Colo. Tupper was President (10th March 1778) Lieutt. Enslin of Colo. Malcom’s Regiment tried for attempting to commit sodomy, with John Monhort a soldier; Secondly, For Perjury in swearing to false Accounts, found guilty of the charges exhibited against him, being breaches of 5th. Article 18th. Section of the Articles of War and do sentence him to be dismiss’d the service with Infamy. His Excellency the Commander in Chief approves the sentence and with Abhorrence and Detestation of such Infamous Crimes orders Lieutt. Enslin to be drummed out of Camp tomorrow morning by all the Drummers and Fifers in the Army never to return; The Drummers and Fifers to attend on the Grand Parade at Guard mounting for that Purpose” [emphasis in the original].
http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=761
Space limits the numerous examples of the religious character of the Founding Fathers. Suffice it to say, I find it inconceivable that someone would write, “I am a Christian” (however he qualifies it) when all along he means he is not; and that a non-religious person would write, “… we can have little hopes of the blessing of Heaven on our Arms, if we insult it by our impiety,” and “… with Abhorrence and Detestation of such Infamous Crimes orders Lieutt. Enslin to be drummed out of Camp tomorrow morning by all the Drummers and Fifers in the Army never to return.”
Finally, liberals are constantly harping that “Bush is taking away our rights.” I find it the height of absurdity to claim you have rights at the same time you claim in essence they don’t come from a Creator; for if they don’t, you have no rights except what Bush or any other president decides that you have.
Comment by sedonaman | January 6, 2008
freelunch,
I did not say that the Founders were like modern evangelicals. Please try to understand what is posted before trying to refute something I did not say.
Jefferson was deeply religious, and wrote voluminously about his faith. Of course there was a great diversity of faith and doctrine during that time, but that is expected, just as there is in any period in history, even today.
"A number of others." How many? 3? 5? Does the existence of a handful of less religious Founders change anything I said? Those few, are they sufficient in number to back up your understanding of history, or was your understanding based on an agenda-driven education, or perhaps bias in favor of a secular founding?
The Tripoli example above is a good example of how leftists have to dig really deep to bolster their pre-conceived notions of history and society, while simultaneously ignoring, minimizing, or burying the vast amount of contrary evidence.
I assert that the vast majority of founders were deeply religious. Prove me wrong.
Comment by Mountain Man | January 6, 2008
Mountain and sedona men -
I guess I've been in too many places where there are Christians who are very picky about who gets to call himself a Christian. Certainly, I am happy to call myself a Christian as a part of my cultural heritage, just as you are willing to extend that to Jefferson. As long as your definition of Christian is fully inclusive, I have no problem with your characterization of the founders as Christian.
Comment by freelunch | January 6, 2008
freelunch,
Very magnanimous, thanks.
It is worth pointing out that we don't get to decide who is a Christian. A Christian is someone who follows the teachings of Christ. It is exclusive/inclusive to the extent that the Bible itself excludes/includes. The Bible is the standard for that determination.
Since it appears that you are comfortable deciding who is not being a good Christian ("I guess I’ve been in too many places where there are Christians who are very picky about who gets to call himself a Christian"), I wonder, don't you think others should be able to do the same?
It is easy enough to find out what a Christian ought to believe and how they should act. Non-believers seem very willing to judge Self-professed Christians by that standard.
Since you seem to have formed some ideas on what makes a good Christian, I am genuinely interested in you sharing your opinion on the matter.
Comment by Mountain Man | January 6, 2008
As I said, I don't mind that you call Jefferson a Christian. I think that people who reject teachings about the afterlife should be free to call themselves Christian.
Comment by freelunch | January 6, 2008
Sedonaman writes:
"I find it the height of absurdity to claim you have rights at the same time you claim in essence they don’t come from a Creator; for if they don’t, you have no rights except what Bush or any other president decides that you have."
Oh my, I wish I had thought of that! I hope you won't mind if I put it with my list of quotes for future reference along with George Orwell and Fedor Dostoevsky.
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | January 6, 2008
freelunch,
Again, a Christian is a follower of Christ. What did Jesus say about the afterlife?
Comment by Mountain Man | January 6, 2008
Mountain Man,
Go fight with sedonaman about whether Jefferson was a Christian.
Comment by freelunch | January 6, 2008
freelunch,
You brought up Jefferson, you brought up the afterlife. Did you expect to make bare assertions without being asked to explain them? I was just asking a question.
Comment by Mountain Man | January 6, 2008
freelunch:
If you call a horse's tail a leg, how many legs does it have?
Comment by sedonaman | January 7, 2008