PART II
From: ambrose searle AKA richard gardiner ()
Subject: Re: Government churches should be constitutionally rabid
View: Complete Thread (150 articles)
Original Format
Newsgroups: misc.education.home-school.christian, alt.politics.libertarian,
alt.politics.usa.constitution, alt.politics, alt.education, misc.education,
alt.atheism
Date: 2003-11-17 20:19:28 PST
buckeye-ELO@nospam.net wrote in message
news:<rsjhrv8v1a4t65sfruk3napobjlumnl1i1@4ax.com>...
:|> (ambrose searle aka richard gardiner) wrote:
:|>
:|> The impartial reader will carefully consider what Ambrose Searle AKA
:|> Richard Gardiner has posted. In fact, I strongly recommend that. I
:|> recommend they carefully examine any cites that Searle/Gardiner has
:|> provided.
:|>
:|> That same impartial reader will then carefully examine all the information
:|> found at he following site:
:|>
:|> Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
:|> http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
:|Let's examine that "impartial" site again, shall we?
OK.
:|Allison's "impartial" page about the non-orthodoxy of the founders
:|fails to deal with that.
Impartiality has already been addressed in Part I.
Let me make on little point here. You have a web site, even though you
still usually profess not to be who you are. The who you are has a web
site.
A web site that we link to from our web site. Our link to your web site
says this about your web site:
"The American Colonists Library: The Creator of this page has made these
comments about the page: "You can find a lot out about what the founding
fathers said about religion first hand. . . . A massive collection of the
literature and documents which were most relevant to the colonists' lives
in America. If it isn't here, it probably is not available online anywhere.
Christianity is a pervasive theme throughout these primary sources. . . . A
massive collection of Primary Sources for Early American History
demonstrating the Christian Character of the birth of America." [It must be
added that this page also serves a double role, that second role being to
plug a book the creator of the page has co-written. The theme of the book
is that Christianity was the most important influence in the founding of
this nation. The book was written to be used as a text book in history
classes in schools. (It would appeal to private religious schools,
certainly.)]"
As I recall when we placed the above link on our web site you replied back
with genuine surprise. Not that we placed the link to your site on our
site, but rather that fact that we didn't torch your site in the info about
it. I commented back to you that was your style, not mine or ours.
The point being, from 1999 to the present you have from time to time tried
to belittle, rag, etc our web site. It indicates our site bothers you,
otherwise you wouldn't pay it any mind.
I have recommended your site to others and have complimented it even. I
even use it every once in awhile. The two sites ate not the same so they
aren't even in competition with each other.
However, you fell compelled to take the low road with regards to our site,
just as you feel a need to take the low road with anyone and everyone who
dares disagree and challenge you. That is very odd coming from a former
elementary history teacher and a man who has trained for the ministry and
is trying to be or wants to be a minister.
:|Allison also makes the claim that the founders were generally
:|insincere with regard to their religious vows:
:|Allison: "What a man might 'pledge' with regards to religion and what
:|he actually believed can be worlds apart. The men of your list would
:|not be the first group of men who said and did one thing for public
:|and said and did another thing in private."
:|As much as its fine and good for Allison to engage in his
:|pseudo-amateur-psycho-history, claiming he can read the unspoken minds
:|and hearts of people, that kind of speculative psycho-history is
:|generally frowned upon by most true scholars of history. Granted,
:|there's an Erik Eriksen and a Fawn Brodie here and there who sell a
:|lot of books with wild psychological speculations, but the more
:|nuanced historians and biographers tend to look at them with jaundiced
:|eyes.
Ho hum.
(1) Many of the founders were born and grew up in a time when and place
that a particular religion was established by law. Some of the things that
meant were legally required support of religion, in some cases legally
require public worship, church attendance, etc, Regardless of personal
beliefs, etc, they had to exist within a certain culture, to the very least
to pay some sort of lip service to that culture, its traditions and legal
establishments. Not really difficult to understand at all. That fact might
explain why Gardiner AKA Searle usually resorts to a condescending,
belittling, sarcastic manner when bringing this topic up and in replying to
anyone who points out the above or what follows to him. The infamous
Gardiner AKA Searle M. O. at work.
(2). . . Congress authorized the meeting, but only for proposing
amendments to the Articles (which, remember, required ratification by all
the states in the confederation). By now, Madison had larger purposes in
mind and that was clear to Washington, who realized that if anything
effectual were to be done, it would have to break the terms of the
Articles.1 Among the many reasons Washington had for resisting the project,
this was the greatest-it would involve its participants in the breaking of
their oaths of allegiance to the Articles. That was--in one plausible
interpretation of what they were up to-- treason. We call the meeting in
Philadelphia, retrospectively, the Constitutional Convention, since it
produced a new constitution. Its participants could not have called it
that, since they could not admit they were up to any such nefarious
business. While the meeting was being held, "the constitution" was still
the word regularly used for the Articles. What they were holding was really
an anticonstitutional convention.
SOURCE: James Madison Garry Wills Times Books, (2002) pp. 25-26
The above differs with Gardiner AKA Searle. Historical reality differs with
him.
More about the oaths debate can be found here
Another view of America and it's founders and founding:
Subject: A Series, Founders & Religion [Feb 1, 2003] [10 parts]
Part #1 Part #2 Part #3 Part #4 Part #5
Part #6 Part #7
Part #8 Part #9 Part #10
Especially Part #2 {in some pf the other ten parts as well]
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=6k5q3vohpnsfusk9t43dc1tou36csf7nef%404ax.com
http://makeashorterlink.com/?B58F21796
*****************************************************
:|Allison's cite goes on, in the main, not to quote the founders, but to
:|quote his own selective group of "scholars" opinions about the
:|founders and their orthodoxy.
The article goes on to do both. If he bothered to read the article at all
he had to have done to with blinders on.
The article contains a combination of things, primary source historical
documentation as well as informed opinions and conclusions from respected
established scholars. For example, to offer just one short example of each,
one will find the following contained in this article or in one of the
links given in the article.
(a) A SCHOLAR
At the time of the Revolution most of the founding fathers had not put
much emotional stock in religion, even when they were regular churchgoers.
As enlightened gentlemen, they abhorred "that gloomy superstition
disseminated by ignorant illiberal preachers" and looked forward to the day
when "the phantom of darkness will be dispelled by the rays of science, and
the bright charms of rising civilization." At best, most of the
revolutionary gentry only passively believed in organized Christianity and,
at worst, privately scorned and ridiculed it. Jefferson hated orthodox
clergymen, and he repeatedly denounced the "priestcraft" for having
converted Christianity into "an engine for enslaving mankind, . . .
into a
mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves." Although few of
them were outright deists, most like David Ramsay described the Christian
church as "the best temple of reason." Even puritanical John Adams thought
that the argument for Christ's divinity was an "awful blasphemy" in this
new enlightened age. When Hamilton was asked why the members of the
Philadelphia Convention had not recognized God in the Constitution, he
allegedly replied, speaking for many of his liberal colleagues, "We
forgot."(11)
FOOTNOTE
(11) Nicholas Collins, "An Essay on those inquiries in Natural Philosophy
which at present are most beneficial to the United States of America,"
American Philosophical Society, Trans., II (1793), vii; George H. Knoles,
"The Religious Ideas of Thomas Jefferson," Mississippi Valley Historical
Review, XXX (1943-44), '94·: Henry May, The Enlightenment in America (New
York, 1976), 72-73; Bufler, Awash in a Sea of Faith, 195-96, 214-15; Trevor
Colbourn, ed., Fame and the Founding Fathers: Essays by Douglass Adair (New
York, 1974), 147n.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Radicalism of the American Revolution, by
Gordon S. Wood, Alfred A. Knopf, N Y (1992) pp 330)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(b) HISTORICAL DATA
FEBRUARY 1, 1800
Doctor Rush tells me that he has it from Asa Green, that when the clergy
addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was
observed in their consultation, that he had never, on any occasion, said a
word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and
they thought they should so pen their address, as to force him at length to
declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However,
he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every
article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over
without notice. Rush observes, he never did say a word on the subject in
any of his public papers, except in his valedictory letter to the Governors
of the States, when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he
speaks of "the benign influence of the Christian religion."
I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets
and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington
believed no more of that system than he himself did.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Entry by Thomas Jefferson in his Anas. February 1
1800, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Selected and Edited by Saul K.
Padover , The Easton press. (1967) pp 217-218)
=====================================================
:|But who are these "scholars."
These scholars are well known, valid, respected scholars. There are so many
of them that I had to do this just to list them, and I still didn't list
all of them.
*****************************
Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
FOLLOW UP
http://makeashorterlink.com/?T22952AB6
*****************************
From the above follow up URL one will find the following:
CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY AND THE FOUNDERS
Just some of the cited and excerpted sources used in this over all article
can be seen in the following 7 parts. There are duplications in some
instances, in most I tried to eliminate the duplications.
PART I
http://makeashorterlink.com/?G1F132D96
PART II
http://makeashorterlink.com/?M21255D96
PART III
http://makeashorterlink.com/?L25245D96
PART IV
http://makeashorterlink.com/?E16263D96
PART V
http://makeashorterlink.com/?L37253D96
PART VI
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Y38222D96
PART VII
http://makeashorterlink.com/?B29252D96
====================================
It took 7 additional parts to list some of the sources and scholars.
But just to name a handful or so here:
George Washington & Religion, by Paul F. Boller, Southern Methodist
University Press: Dallas TX (1962)
The American Historical Review Vol. 104 # 3 June 1999.
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/104.3/br_36.html
Allen Jayne. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence: Origins,
Philosophy, and Theology. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 1998.
Pp. xiii, 245.
B. Wilkerson, The Coronation in History (London: George Philip and
Son,
1953);
William Jones, Crowns and Coronations (London: Chatto and
Windus,1883);
Maclay, Journal, p. 5.
"From Duche to Provoost: The Birth Of Inaugural Prayer", by Martin
J. Medhurst. Journal Of Church And State, Vol. 24, No. 3, Autumn 1982, pp
585-587)
Barry Schwartz, George Washington: The Making of an American
Symbol, New York: The Free Press, 1987, pp. 174-175.)
St. George Tucker's Annotated Blackstone's Commentaries (1803)
*Madison to William Bradford, Orange County, April 1, 1774, cited
in Brant I, p 115
James Madison and Religion A New Hypothesis, by Ralph L. Ketcham.
James Madison on Religious Liberty, Edited, with
introductions and interpretations by Robert S. Alley. Prometheus Books,
Buffalo N.Y. (1985) pp 184)
Nicholas Collins, "An Essay on those inquiries in Natural
Philosophy which at present are most beneficial to the United States of
America," American Philosophical Society, Trans., II (1793), vii;
George H. Knoles, "The Religious Ideas of Thomas Jefferson,"
Mirsissippi Valley Historical Review, XXX (1943-44), '94·:
Bufler, Awash in a Sea of Faith, 195-96, 214-15;
Henry May, The American Enlightenment, Oxford, 1976, page 72,
we find this about George:
William Lee Miller The First Liberty: Religion and the American
Republic,
" No Religious test Shall Ever Be Required: Reflections on the
Bicentennial of the U. S. Constitution., James E, Wood, Jr. Journal of
Church and State. Volume 29, Spring. 1987, Number 2
pp 206-208)
The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson, by Charles B. Sanford.
University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, (1984 --third paperback
printing, 1992)
Meade, William, Old churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia.
(Philadelphia, 1857) pp191;
John Witherspoon on Church and State, by James Hastings Nichols.
JOURNAL OF PRESBYTERIAN HISTORY, 42, (1964) pp 171-73)
WrJM VIII 411--13: Letter to Mordecai M. Noah on 15 May 1818.
James Madison: A Biography (New York 1971) 55-58, 61, 66, 162-68.
Ketcham
Lance Banning, "James Madison, the Statute for
Religious Freedom, and the Crisis of Republican Convictions," in The
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom 109-38.
Republics Ancient and Modern, Inventions of Prudence: Constituting
the American Regime, By Paul A. Rahe, Volume III, The University of north
carolina Press, Chapel Hill & London (1994) pp 53-54
Leonard W. Levy, Edwin S. Gaustad,, John E. Semonche, Gordon S. Wood,
The American Heritage, History of Making the Nation 1783-1860,
American Heritage/Bonanza Books N.Y. (1987) pp 77-78
The Papers of James Madison, Volume 8, March 10, 1784- March 28,
1786. Edited by Robert A. Rutland, William M.E. Rachal. The University of
Chicago Press, (1973) pp 295-298.
Encyclopaedia Britannica s.v. "Religious and Spiritual Belief,
Systems of," (London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.), (1997, 26:569).
The Rise of American Civilization, by Charles A. and Mary R. Beard.
(Vol. I., p. 449.)
Adrienne Koch and William Peden, eds., The Selected Writings of
John and John Quincy Adams (New York, 1946), 291-92
Harold O. J. Brown, God and Politics, Four Views on the Reformation
of Civil Government, Gary Scott Smith, ed. Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing, 1989. p. 132.
Leo Pfeffer, Church, State, and Freedom, Beacon Press, 1967. P.
254, (revised edition).
Garry Wills, Under God: Religion and American Politics, Simon and
Schuster, 1990. p. 383.
Robert Rutland, "The Courage to Doubt in a Secular Republic," in
James Madison on Religious Liberty, Prometheus Books, 1985. p. 209
AND MANY, MANY, MANY, MANY MORE
***************************************************************
The only problem is, the scholars and sources are not those that are
Gardiner AKA Searle approved. Meaning they don't echo his line. However,
there are at least two sides to every topic, story, etc and Gardiner AKA
Searle's is not the only view that counts.
TO BE CONTINUED WITH PART III SHORTLY
.
|
