09-22-2009, 07:49 AM
Quote:Hi,
Well, it is a little more complicated than that. The founding fathers ranged from men who were undoubtedly religious to those who were, at the least, free thinkers.
At the end of the nineteenth century, science was still in its infancy and the only established world view required some form of supreme being. In Europe and America, Christianity was the only belief system recognized as a religion. And in many parts of Europe, especially in the South, Catholicism was still the only recognized form of Christianity (it was these circumstances that made it easy for Pascal to decide on his wager -- had he not only to chose whether to believe in the Catholic God, but which god to believe in, he might not have passed it off so lightly). Throughout Europe, religious wars were still ongoing or, at least, recent memory.
It is in this atmosphere that the founding fathers established the concept of freedom of religion. That they might not have meant it as liberally as some do today is not their fault -- they lived in their milieu, we in ours. But, to their credit they did establish the concept, and to our nation's credit, the concept has been expanded (albeit sometimes grudgingly) to non-Christians and even to non-theists. We're not perfect in that, as in much else. But neither have we had quite the persecutions and intolerance that is the hallmark of religious history in Europe. Unfortunately, there are those who seem to think that one of the greatest glories of this nation is wrong. They also believe they have god on their side.
--Pete
Pete, I completely agree with you. My rant was not so much aimed at the founding fathers but more to those who take their view to literally. (the right to bear arms (I know many people here are in favour and I don't want to discuss that) is also a more oldfashioned point that is taken over directly from the constitution as it was written in the beginning. Of course more than half of americans agree with it, so it should remain a right, but the fact of it being legal in the first place is because of the literal reading of a piece of paper that was written in a time when there was no electricity, sewer systems, evolution, and as you say it science was in its infancy.
Further of course it is not just an American thing; in the south of europe things are probably more extreme (even though there is freedom of religion and speech in the constitution).