| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
17 Nov 2003 12:09:35 PM |
| Object: |
Re: church/state seperation |
(ambrose searle AKA richard gardiner) wrote:
:|Carol Lee Smith <human@csd.uwm.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.OSF.3.96.1031112140106.24885B-100000@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu>...
:|> On 12 Nov 2003, Larry wrote:
:|>
:|> > However I doubt that the founding fathers where concerned that
:|> > religion might offend some people.
:|>
:|> Perhaps you are not familiar with the Treaty of Tripoli.
:|
:|I'm glad you understand the motivation for that treaty. It was,
:|indeed, as stated above, crafted as to not offend the "Musselmen"
:|(viz., Muslims). If ever there was a U.S. document that contained
:|religious language clearly aimed at political convenience, it was the
:|Treaty of Tripoli.
LOL, How about the dicta of Holy Trinity?
* Treaty of Tripoli, 1796: Little-Known U.S. Document Signed by
President Adams Proclaims America's Government Is Secular
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tripoli1.htm
"Does the 1796-97 Treaty with Tripoli Matter to Church/State
Separation?"; Speech given to the Humanists of Georgia on
June 22, 1997 and at the 1997 Lake Hypatia Independance Day
Celebration, by Ed Buckner, Ph.D.
http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/buckner_tripoli.html
"Is The United States a Christian Country?" by Rev. James W.
Watkins
http://www.mainstreamop.org/church2.htm
"The Government of the United States of America is not, in any
sense founded on the Christian Religion "; by Jim Walker.
or
"Little-Known U. S. Document Signed by President Adams Proclaims
America's Government is Secular "; by Jim Walker.
[sometimes the top link doesn't work, so if you have trouble with
it try the bottom.]
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html
* Joel Barlow And The Treaty With Tripoli
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/boston4.htm
:|The founders were, however, very concerned that Atheism would offend
:|and harm many people.
Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
:| S. Adams, for example, wrote to Paine:
:|
:|"[W]hen I heard you had turned your mind to a defence of infidelity, I
:|felt myself much astonished and more grieved that you had attempted a
:|measure so injurious to the feelings and so repugnant to the true
:|interest of so great a part of the citizens of the United States. The
:|people of New England, if you will allow me to use a Scripture phrase,
:|are fast returning to their first love. Will you excite among them the
:|spirit of angry controversy at a time when they are hastening to amity
:|and peace? I am told that some of our newspapers have announced your
:|intention to publish an additional pamphlet upon the principles of
:|your Age of Reason. Do you think your pen, or the pen of any other
:|man, can unchristianize the mass of our citizens, or have you hopes of
:|converting a few of them to assist you in so bad a cause?"
:|
:|--Sam Adams to T. Paine, Nov. 30, 1802, in William V. Wells, The Life
:|and Public Services of Samuel Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co.,
:|1865) III:372-73.
Paine wasn't an Atheist.
NOVEMBER 30, 1802
BOSTON, Nov. 30th, 1802.
SIR,
I have frequently with pleasure reflected on your services to my native,
and your adopted country. Your Common Sense, and your Crisis unquestionably
awakened the public mind, and led the people loudly to call for a
declaration of our national independence. I therefore esteemed you as a
warm friend to the liberty, & lasting welfare of the human race. But when I
heard, that you had turned your mind to a defence of infidelity, I felt
myself much astonished, and more grieved, that you had attempted a measure
st, injurious to the feelings, and so repugnant to the true
interest of so great a part of the citizens of the United States. The
people of New-England, if you will allow me to use a Scripture phrase, are
fast returning to their first love. Will you excite among them the spirit
of angry controversy, at a time, when they are hastning to unity and
peace., I am told that some of our news-papers have announced your
intention to publish an additional pamphlet upon the principles of your Age
of Reason. Do you think, that your pen, or the pen of any other man can
unchristianize the mass of our citizens, or have you hopes of converting a
few of them to assist you in so bad a cause? We ought to think ourselves
happy in the enjoyment of opinion without the danger of persecution by
civil or ecclesiastical law.
Our friend, the present President of the United States, has been
calumniated for- his liberal sentiments by men, who have attributed that
liberality to a latent design to promote the Cause of infidelity. This, and
all other slanders have been made without a shadow of proof. Neither
religion, nor liberty can long subsist in the tumult of alteration, and
amidst the noise and violence of faction.
Felix qui cautus.
Adieu.
SAMUEL ADAMS..
Mr. Thomas Paine
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Letter from Samuel Adams to Thomas Paine, Nov. 30,
1802. Paine, Collected Writings, Eric Foner selected the content and wrote
the notes for this volume. The Library of America (1995) pp 415)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JANUARY 1, 1803
TO SAMUEL ADAMS
My dear and venerable friend,
I received with great pleasure your friendly and affectionate letter of
Nov. 30th and I thank you also for the frankness of it. Between men in
pursuit of truth, and whose object is the happiness of man both here and
hereafter, there ought to be no reserve. Even error has a claim to
indulgence, if not to respect, when it is believed to be truth. I am
obliged to you for your affectionate remembrance of what you stile my
services in awakening the public mind to a declaration of independence and
supporting it after it was declared. I also, like you, have often looked
back on those times, and have thought that if independence had not been
declared at the time it was the public mind could not have been brought up
to it afterwards. It will immediately occur to you, who were so intimately
acquainted with the situation of things at that time, that I allude to the
black times of Seventy six; for though I know, and you my friend also know,
they were no other than the natural consequences of the military blunders
of that campaign, the country might have viewed them as proceeding from a
natural inability to support its cause against the enemy, and have sunk
under the despondency of that misconceived idea. This was the impression
against which it was necessary the country should be strongly animated.
I now come to the second part of your letter, on which I shall be as frank
with you as you are with me. "But, (say you) when I heard you had turned
your mind to a defence of infidelity, I felt myself much astonished, &c."
What, my good friend, do you call believing in God infidelity? for that is
the great point maintained in the Age of Reason against all divided beliefs
and allegorical divinities. The bishop of Landaff (Doctor Watson) not only
acknowleges this, but pays me some compliments upon it in his answer to the
second part of that work. "There is, (says he) a philosophical sublimity in
some of your ideas when speaking of the Creator of the Universe. "
What then, (my much esteemed friend for I do not respect you the less
because we differ, and that perhaps not much, in religious sentiments) what
I ask is this thing called infidelity? If we go back to your ancestors and
mine, three or four hundred years ago, for we must have had fathers and
grandfathers or we should not be here, we shall find them praying to saints
and virgins, and believing in purgatory and transubstantiation, and
therefore all of us are infidels according to our forefathers belief. If we
go back to times more ancient Eve shall again be infidels according to the
belief of some other forefathers.
The case, my friend, is, that the world has been over-run with fable and
creeds of human invention, with Sectaries of whole nations, against other
nations, and sectaries of those sectaries in each of them against each
other. Every sectary, except the quakers, has been a persecutor. Those who
fled from persecution persecuted in their turn, and it is this confusion of
creeds that has filled the world with persecution and deluged it with
blood. Even the depredation on your commerce by the Barbary powers, sprang
from the crusades of the church against those powers. It was a war of creed
against creed, each boasting of God for its author, and reviling each other
with the name of infidel. If I do not believe as you believe, it proves
that you do not believe as I believe, and this is all that it proves.
There is however one point of union wherein all religions meet, and that
is in the first article of every man's creed, and of every nation's creed,
that has any creed at all. I believe in God. Those who rest here, and there
are millions who do, cannot be wrong as far as their creed goes. Those who
chuse to go further may be wrong, for it is impossible that all can be
right since there is so much contradiction among them. The first,
therefore, are in my opinion on the safest side.
I presume you are so far acquainted with ecclesiastical history as to
know, and the bishop who has answered me has been obliged to acknowlege the
fact, that the books that compose the New Testament were voted by yeas and
navs to be the word of God as you now vote a law, by the popish councils of
Nice and Laodocia, about 1450 Years ago. With respect to the fact there is
no dispute, neither do I mention it for the sake of controversy. This vote
may appear authority enough to some, and not authority enough to others. It
is proper however that every body should know the fact.
With respect to the Age of Reason which you so much condemn, and that I
believe without having read it, for you say only that you heard of it, I
will inform you of a circumstance because you cannot know it by ot
er
means.
I have said in the first Page of the first part of that work, that it had
long been my intention to publish my thoughts upon religion, but that I had
reserved it to a later time of life. I have now to inform you why I wrote
it and published it at the time I did.
In the first place, I saw my life in continual danger. My friends were
falling as fast the guilliotine could cut their heads off, and as I every
day expected the same fate, I resolved to begin my work. I appeared to
myself to be on my death bed, for death was on every side of me, and I had
no time to lose. This accounts for my writing at the time 1 did; and so
nicely did the time and the intention meet, that I had not finished the
first part of that work more than six hours before I was arrested and taken
to prison. Joell Barlow was with me, and knows the fact.
In the second place, the people of France were running headlong into
Atheism, and I had the work translated and published in their own language,
to stop them in that career, and fix them to the first article (as I have
before said) of every man's creed who has any creed at all, I believe in
God. I endangered my own life, in the first place, by opposing in the
convention the execution of the king, and labouring to shew they were
trying the monarchy, and not the man, and that the crimes imputed to him
were the crimes of the monarchical system; and I endangered it a second
time by opposing Atheism, and yet some of your priests, for I do not
believe that all are perverse, cry out, in the war whoop of monarchical
priestcraft, What an infidel! What a wicked man is Thomas Paine! They might
as well add, for he believes in God, and is against shedding blood.
But all this wav whoop of the pulpit has some concealed object. Religion
is not the cause, but is the stalking horse. They put it fonvard to conceal
themselves behind it. It is not a secret that there has been a party
composed of the leaders of the Federalists, for I do not include all
Federalists with their leaders, who have been working by various means for
several years past, to overturn the Federal constitution established on the
representative system, and place government in the new world on the corrupt
system of the old. To accomplish this a large standing army was necessary,
and as a pretence for such an army, the danger of a foreign invasion must
be bellowed forth, from the pulpit, from the press, and by their public
orators.
I am not of a disposition inclined to suspicion. It is in its nature a
mean and cowardly passion, and upon the whole, even admitting error into
the case, it is better, I am sure it is more generous, to be wrong on the
side of confidence, than on the side of suspicion. But I know as a fact,
that the English government distributes annually fifteen hundred pounds
sterling among the Presbyterian ministers in England, and one thousand
among those of Ireland, and when I hear of the strange discourses of some
of your ministers and professors of colleges, I cannot, as the quakers say,
find freedom in my mind to acquit them. Their anti-revolutionary doctrines
invite suspicion even against one's will, and in spite of one's charity to
believe well of them.
As you have given me one scripture phrase I will give you another for
those ministers. It is said in Exodus, chapter 22, verse 28, "Thou rhalt
not revile the gods nor curse the ruler of thy people." But those
ministers, such I mean as Dr. Emmons, curse ruler and people both, for the
majority
are, politically, the people, and it is those who have chosen the ruler
whom they curse. As to the first part of the verse, that of not reviling
the gods, it makes no part of my scripture. I have but one God.
Since I began this letter, for I write it by piece-meals, as I have
leisure, I have seen the four letters that passed between you and John
Adams. In your first letter you say, "let divines and philosophers,
statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavours to renovate the age by
inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity, and
universal philanthropy." Why, my dear friend, this is exactly my religion,
and is the whole of it. That you may have an idea that the Age of Reason
(for I believe you have not read it) inculcates this reverential fear and
love of the Deity, I will give you a paragraph from it:
"Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of the
creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom! We see it in the
unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole is governed. Do we
want to contemplate his munificence! We see it in the abundance with which
he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy., We see it in his
not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful."
As I am fully with you in your first part, that respecting the deity, so
am I in your second, that of universal philanthropy, by which I do not mean
merely the sentimental benevolence of wishing well, but the practical
benevolence of doing good. We cannot serve the Deity in the manner we serve
those who cannot do without chat service. He needs no service from us. We
can add nothing to eternity. But it is in our power to render a service
acceptable to him, and that is not by praying, but by endeavouring to make
his creatures happy. A man does not serve Gdd when he prays, for it is
himself he is trying to serve, and as to hiring or paying men to pray, as
if the Deity needed instruction, it is in my opinion an abomination. One
good School Master is of more use and of more value than a load of such
persons as Dr. Emmons and some others.
You, my dear and much respected fkiend, are now far in the vale of years;
I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I have a good state of
health and a happy mind, and I take care of both, by nourishing the first
with temperance and the latter with abundance.
This, I believe, you will allow to be the true philosophy of life. You
will see by my third letter to the citizens of the United States, that I
have been exposed to, and preserved through, many dangers, but instead of
buffetting the Deity with prayers as if I distrusted him or must dictate to
him, I reposed myself on his protection; and you, my friend, will find,
even in your last moments, more consolation in the silence of resignation
than in the murmuring wish of prayer.
In every thing which you say in your second letter to John Adams
respecting our rights as men and citizens in this world I am perfectly with
you. On other points we have to answer to our creator and not to each
other. The key of heaven is not in the keeping of any sect, nor ought the
road to it be obstructed by any. Our relation to each other in this world
is as men, and the man who is a friend to man and to his rights, let his
religious opinions be what they may, is a good citizen, to whom I can give,
as I ought to do, and as every other ought, the right hand of fellowship,
and to none with more hearty good will, my dear friend, than to you.
THOMAS PAINE
Federal City, Jan I, 1803.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Letter from Thomas Paine to Samuel Adams, Jan 1,
1803. Paine, Collected Writings, Eric Foner selected the content and wrote
the notes for this volume. The Library of America (1995) pp 416-20)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
:|"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political
:|prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports... And
:|let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be
:|maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence
:|of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and
:|experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail
:|in exclusion of religious principle."
:|
:|--George Washington, Farewell Address 1796
Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
:|
:|"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It
:|is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
:|
:|--John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United
:|States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co.
:|1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.
:|
Ho hum:
context for
Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?L6D731096
:|Ambrose AKA Gardiner
Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
:|Allison cannot show, however, that Madison didn't have a personal
:|disdain for atheism and non-religion. He did. It's a fact. He even
:|doubted the possibility of true atheism (see Madison to Jasper Adams
:|http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/jasper.htm).
For context purposes:
*The Jasper Adams Saga
o Introduction
o Jasper Adams Sermon: Relation of Christianity to Civil
Government, First Edition
http://candst.tripod.com/jasp1.htm
o Jasper Adams Sermon, First Edition
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/jasp1.htm
o The letters to and from Jasper Adams.
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/jaspltrs.htm
o Rebuttal to Jasper Adams Sermon, Immunity of Religion
http://candst.tripod.com/jasprebut.htm
o Jasper Adams Sermon: Second Edition
http://candst.tripod.com/jasp2.htm
**************************
Now for Ambrose Searle AKA Richard Gardiner's rambling discourse I add
this:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[as Gray Shockley said:]
(Your "opinion" is not an adequate citation.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Take anything that Ambrose Searle aka Richard Gardiner types with a grain
of salt. As he has demonstrated time and time again in the past of several
years ago, the past of a year and half ago and finally quite recently,
truth and him with regards to posting are not on speaking terms.
MY EVIDENCE:
*************************
http://snurl.com/2ws8
*************************
http://snurl.com/2wsb
*************************
.
|
|
| User: "ambrose searle" |
|
| Title: Re: church/state seperation |
17 Nov 2003 07:54:57 PM |
|
|
wrote in message news:<af3irv090bl9e62fs0semd8df1ffn7viuc@4ax.com>...
:|> Perhaps you are not familiar with the Treaty of Tripoli.
:|
:|I'm glad you understand the motivation for that treaty. It was,
:|indeed, as stated above, crafted as to not offend the "Musselmen"
:|(viz., Muslims). If ever there was a U.S. document that contained
:|religious language clearly aimed at political convenience, it was the
:|Treaty of Tripoli.
LOL, How about the dicta of Holy Trinity?
* Treaty of Tripoli, 1796: Little-Known U.S. Document Signed by
President Adams Proclaims America's Government Is Secular
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tripoli1.htm
Now there's a real unbiased website!
"Does the 1796-97 Treaty with Tripoli Matter to Church/State
Separation?"; Speech given to the Humanists of Georgia
Humanists of Georgia eh? A real group of unbiased academic scholars!
http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/buckner_tripoli.html
Ah, there's another one. Great unbiased sources, Jim.
:|The founders were, however, very concerned that Atheism would offend
:|and harm many people.
Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
How could anyone argue with your scholarly websites? By the way, who
is the webhost of ~candst?
Bet you won't answer that one.
:| S. Adams, for example, wrote to Paine:
:|
:|"[W]hen I heard you had turned your mind to a defence of infidelity, I
:|felt myself much astonished and more grieved that you had attempted a
:|measure so injurious to the feelings and so repugnant to the true
:|interest of so great a part of the citizens of the United States. The
:|people of New England, if you will allow me to use a Scripture phrase,
:|are fast returning to their first love. Will you excite among them the
:|spirit of angry controversy at a time when they are hastening to amity
:|and peace? I am told that some of our newspapers have announced your
:|intention to publish an additional pamphlet upon the principles of
:|your Age of Reason. Do you think your pen, or the pen of any other
:|man, can unchristianize the mass of our citizens, or have you hopes of
:|converting a few of them to assist you in so bad a cause?"
:|
:|--Sam Adams to T. Paine, Nov. 30, 1802, in William V. Wells, The Life
:|and Public Services of Samuel Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co.,
:|1865) III:372-73.
Paine wasn't an Atheist.
Right on. But Adams felt that his Age of Reason was tantamount to a
defense of "infidelity" and he was very concerned that it would offend
most Americans.
That's a fact. That's what I claimed. Everything else you posted is
tangential and irrelevant, as per usual.
:|"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political
:|prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports... And
:|let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be
:|maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence
:|of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and
:|experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail
:|in exclusion of religious principle."
:|
:|--George Washington, Farewell Address 1796
Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
Another neutral citation, eh Jim?
It's a really bad page as shown at
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=fe9a0c54.0311120917.17a16707%40posting.google.com
:|"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It
:|is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
:|
:|--John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United
:|States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co.
:|1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.
:|
Ho hum:
context for
Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?L6D731096
Ah, the old, "Adams was just being political, rhetorical, etc."
Convenient, isn't it Jim? But when your favorite pet letters of
Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists or the Treaty of Tripoli, or other
such political rhetoric is identified for what it is, you are the
first to say "take it at fact value!" Well, as you said in the link
above, IT WON'T FLOAT. Can't have it both ways, Jim.
You have no ability to see things remotely objectively. You are a
highly biased ideologue. That is why you'll never get where you really
want to be. I advise you to moderate your radical views a bit, then
someone might take note of what you say.
Searle
.
|
|
|
| User: "Carol Lee Smith" |
|
| Title: Re: church/state seperation |
17 Nov 2003 09:08:48 PM |
|
|
On 17 Nov 2003, ambrose searle wrote:
* Treaty of Tripoli, 1796: Little-Known U.S. Document Signed by
President Adams Proclaims America's Government Is Secular
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tripoli1.htm
Now there's a real unbiased website!
The message. The message. What about the message?
You are attacking the messenger.
"Does the 1796-97 Treaty with Tripoli Matter to Church/State
Separation?"; Speech given to the Humanists of Georgia
Humanists of Georgia eh? A real group of unbiased academic scholars!
The message. The message. What about the message?
You are attacking the messenger.
What about the message?
http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/buckner_tripoli.html
Ah, there's another one. Great unbiased sources, Jim.
The message. The message. What about the message?
You are attacking the messenger.
what about the message?
But I repeat myself.
:|The founders were, however, very concerned that Atheism would offend
:|and harm many people.
Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
How could anyone argue with your scholarly websites? By the way, who
is the webhost of ~candst?
Bet you won't answer that one.
The message. The message. What about the message?
You are attacking the messenger.
What about the message?
But I repeat myself.
Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
Another neutral citation, eh Jim?
The message. The message. What about the message?
You are attacking the messenger.
It's a really bad page as shown at
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=fe9a0c54.0311120917.17a16707%40posting.google.com
<snip>
You have no ability to see things remotely objectively. You are a
highly biased ideologue. That is why you'll never get where you really
want to be. I advise you to moderate your radical views a bit, then
someone might take note of what you say.
You have lost an opportunity here.
You might have informed us all had you addressed the messages instead of
the messenger.
.
|
|
|
| User: "ambrose searle" |
|
| Title: Re: church/state seperation |
18 Nov 2003 06:19:27 AM |
|
|
Carol Lee Smith <human@csd.uwm.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.OSF.3.96.1031117205111.14572D-100000@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu>...
On 17 Nov 2003, ambrose searle wrote:
* Treaty of Tripoli, 1796: Little-Known U.S. Document Signed by
President Adams Proclaims America's Government Is Secular
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tripoli1.htm
Now there's a real unbiased website!
The message. The message. What about the message?
You are attacking the messenger.
Oh, I forgot, that kind of tactic is only legitimate when Buckeye
Allison is engaging in his lengthy posts of no substance whatsoever,
other than focusing on the poster.
Well, thank you for this post. I will cite it routinely the next time
you or Buckeye launch into one of the typical "we know who Ambrose
Searle is" posts...
The message. The message. What about the message? You have been
attacking the messenger.
Face it. You two are the epitome of hypocrisy.
Searle
.
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