| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
09 Sep 2006 06:29:13 AM |
| Object: |
Religion and the Continental Congress, 1774-1789: |
Religion and the Continental Congress, 1774-1789: Contributions to Original
Intent (Religion in America) (Hardcover)
http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Continental-Congress-1774-1789-Contributions/dp/0195133552/ref=sid_dp_dp/002-8362726-1845601?ie=UTF8
Book Description
How did the constitutional framers envision the role of religion in
American public life? Did they think that the government had the right to
advance or support religion and religious activities? Or did they believe
that the two realms should remain forever separate? Throughout American
history, scholars, Supreme Court justices, and members of the American
public have debated these questions. The debate continues to have
significance in the present day, especially in regard to public schools,
government aid to sectarian education, and the use of public property for
religious
symbols.
In this book, Derek Hamilton Davis offers the first comprehensive
examination of the role of religion in the proceedings, theories, ideas,
and goals of the Continental Congress. Those who argue that the United
States was founded as a "Christian Nation" have made much of the
religiosity of the
founders, particularly as it was manifested in the ritual invocations of a
clearly Christian God as well as in the adoption of practices such as
government-sanctioned days of fasting and thanksgiving, prayers and
preaching before legislative bodies, and the appointments of chaplains to
the Army.
Davis looks at the fifteen-year experience of the Continental Congress
(1774-1789) and arrives at a contrary conclusion: namely, that the
revolutionaries did not seek to entrench religion in the federal state.
Congress's religious activities, he shows, expressed a genuine but often
unreflective
popular piety. Indeed, the whole point of the revolution was to distinguish
society, the people in its sovereign majesty, from its government. A
religious people would jealously guard its own sovereignty and the
sovereignty of God by preventing republican rulers from pretending to any
authority over
religion. The idea that a modern nation could be premised on expressly
theological foundations, Davis argues, was utterly antithetical to the
thinking of most revolutionaries.
***************************************************************
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the US and a couple from overseas as well]
***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
****************************************************************
USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
****************************************************************
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