This country was founded by men and women who left England so that they could have the freedom to practice CHRISTIANITY apart from the Church of England. It was NOT founded so that everyone could have the freedom to worship the "god" they choose.
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Only partially right. The Puritans left England (basically were kicked out) so they could find a place where they could persecute people the way they wanted. But they didn't found the country. They did have a good ol' time hanging a few witches, though.
And the First Amendment disagrees with you. It clearly states that there will be no government establishment of any religion and no government interference of any religion.
That's why the Puritans came; but even they, as Garrison Keillor put it, came in search of greater religious restrictions than the CofE allowed at the time.
There were a few other "founders," like the gold-hungry tobacco-growers at Jamestown, the Catholics of Maryland, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, the polyglot poor of the Carolinas and Georgia, the Spanish of Florida and the Southwest, the French of New Orleans and all of them thought your precious Puritans were totally nucking futz.
So if we're not free to choose the god to worship, then how was this ever going to be enforced? By social pressure or goading alone? By a special religion police who would go door to door demanding declarations of faith to Jahweh? Even if the latter, how could the god squad ever do its job since anyone could simply pay lip service?
You've stated your opinion there, Tara, but nothing more. What's your suggestion for enforcing your kind of freedom? And don't say "Praise Gawd or get the F out!" because that's not a solution.
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
You're right, I don't see religious freedom in that list. OTOH, I don't see Christianity up there either, and I *do* see something about the 'blessings of liberty' - and if you can't choose who to pray to, I'd have to say your country is pretty far from enjoying said blessings...
Nah. Your country was founded as a place to dump all our criminals in.
Incidentally, point of order; the godfreaks of New England were not Puritans; the term is much abused, as it meant those who wanted to remain in the CofE and 'purify' it. Those who wanted to leave (like the idiots on the Mayflower who didn't think to take a single farmer or plough with them) were called Independents.
Although they had come to America seeking religious freedom for themselves, the Congregationalist were not keen on granting it to others. They accorded "established" status to their own churches, and did not hesitate to use the power of civil government to achieve their religious ends. Only Congregationalists in good standing were permitted to vote in civil elections in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Everyone was taxed for support of the Church, and those who failed to attend a worship service were subject to punishment by the civil government. Sabbath observance was enforced by civil statute ? the first "blue laws."
Modern Congregationalists are rarely "puritanical" in their attitudes toward dancing, card-playing, Sunday observance, and so on. Many of them bend over backward to demonstrate their open-mindedness on questions of private morality. Although their churches are still officially Calvinist in theology, they have carried to its logical conclusion the doctrine that each individual is free to interpret the Scriptures for himself. There is no creed, no set of beliefs or doctrines, that a person must embrace in order to become a Congregationalist. Thus one encounters in Congregationalist (or United) churches a great latitude of belief, ranging from Calvinist orthodoxy to way-out theological liberalism.
http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=1623&C=1566
Hey, Tara, here's what someone who REALLY helped found this country had to say: "But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." - Thomas Jefferson
That entire group seems to be made of scary, ultraconservative, Sarah Palin types.
Hey, guess what, Tara? I'll worship any god I want or none at all if I choose, and there's not a fucking thing that you can do about it but mouth off on the internet. Reality's a bitch, eh?
A high five to Zeus Almighty.
Tara sweetie....perhaps you should study the English Reformation and Church of England. There's a wealth of knowledge on the web and I wonder why you fundies don't take advantage of that. Many opinions abound so you can make a somewhat educated opinion/comment.
Wrong, but, I find I don't care about your delusions.
Mostly I just want to say that you can bite me.
"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."
You're wrong.
This country was founded as a THEOCRACY. It WAS, even if it says on some piece of paper that it was NOT! It was TOO! WAS, WAS, WAS!
Fix'd
"This country was founded by men and women who left England so that they could have the freedom to practice CHRISTIANITY apart from the Church of England."
No, they were a bunch of intolerant religious bigots who were thrown out of Holland for refusing to respect the law. They escaped to the Americas to pursue their bigotry and intolerance and where their spiritual successors are following their not so glorious tradition.
Edit: "they were" not "there were"
This country was founded by men and women who left England so that they could have the freedom to practice CHRISTIANITY apart from the Church of England.
Are you that fucking stupid? Or is your utter lack of basic US history just a symptom of below average par for the course home schooling? The United States and the Pilgrams theocracy are not and have never been one and the same.
The US was not founded by pilgrams who left England fleeing religious persecution, it was founded by mostly american born intellectuals of the enlightenment who rightly felt that they were overtaxed and opressed by their british rulers. American already had several established colonies long before the pilgrams showed up, and by the time of the american revolution no one was looking at their witch burning opressive theocracy as a good idea for model a government on.
It was NOT founded so that everyone could have the freedom to worship the "god" they choose.
Is it now? Well if that is a fact then would you care to explain WHY THEY ENSHRINED THE FREEDOM TO DO JUST THAT when they drew up the document that serve as both the foundation of the republic and the basis for all law in the US ? Or are you one of those history deniers who thinks that they have some kind of "special insight" into the founding father and that you know what the "really" meant, what they enshrined as law not withstanding, because everybody knows that the constitution is "really" a liberal forgery.
Fuck, no wonder the US is falling futher and further behind in nearly ever field other than absolute and utter fail.
So when, exactly, would you say the country was founded? I would think it would be when the founding documents were put into place to separate this country from England, not when people formed colonies from their home country.
A brief history of the 13 Colonies:
Virginia: Founded for economic gain by members of the CoE
READ THE FIRST AMENDMENT. I can worship my gods as I please. I can pray to them, give them thanks and do the best work I can do alive. My beliefs dictate it and are protected by the first amendment.You can worship Jesus and yes it is protected too. As are Muslims, Jews, other Pagans. The atheists disbelief is also protected.
Some of the colonies were protestant and at least one was Catholic. All were ultimately as intolerant as the religion they sought to escape from - Anglicanism. But this was long before the US came into being.
The US is founced on a constitution and a bill or rights. What goes before these is immaterial and irrelevant to the founding of the new country. These allow for the complete freedom to practise any religion or none.
It must also be argued that the country was founded not alone by those whites who came from Europe. The Africans, torn from their homelands by slavers, also played a significant part in the building up of the US. Granted, they would have been very unwilling participants at first, but with succeeding generations the longing for their homelands across the ocean would have faded. The economy of the southern states was founded on their toil as slaves. They certainly would have worshipped their African deities for a long time. Voudoun and Santeria are part of their gift to the US.
Oh, and Tara, I'm not American. How come you know so little about your country that you can make such cockamamie statements?
Then why doesn't the First Amendment say something about Christianity, specifically, instead of religion, in general? Dipshit.
you are a fucking idiot. go read a history book, or maybe, i don't know, take two seconds to google.
No, it was founded because:
A) They wanted to be free from the church having power over politics, and accomplished this by privatizing religion.
And so on. A portion of the founding fathers were, in fact, agnostic, deists and atheists. Many were Christians, this is true, but the matter wasn't seen as a theological one, but one of civil rights.
The name of this country is The United States of America, not Massachusetts Bay Land.
The Puritans came to this country because they were kicked out of England for being religious bigot assholes, then they were kicked out of Holland for much the same reason. The alpha-ape church fathers decided they wanted to go somewhere where they would have unrestricted authority to be on the dishing-out end of religious persecution, much like the fundies of today dream about. The witches were not the only group they murdered. They had fun with the random Catholic and Quaker too.
Next time you try to think, have a nice cup of shut the fuck up instead. If you admire those jackasses, let me add a Morality Fail too.
The Puritans may have had representation in the 2nd Continental Congress but they did not, by any stretch of historical fact, found this country.
Hate to disappoint you, Tara, but Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower had very little to do with the DOI and the Constitution. Just nice stories for children akin to George Washington chopping down the cherry tree.
"Hey, England! You think YOUR church is oppressive? You're a bunch of sissies! Watch us, as we burn a woman at the stake for having hiccups! Top THAT, you limey bitches!"
Never the less, I have this to say:
TREATY OF TRIPOLI, BITCH!
What Brainy said.
"This country was founded by men and women who left England"
Thomas Jefferson was born in Virginia.
Tara Anderson is a liar and an idiot.
Seriously we need to discuss what "founded" means.
The country was "founded" through the creation of the Constitution. Europeans first colonized in order to perform their own Christianity. However, even that fails because Rhode Island, an original colony, was founded on the basis that no religion ruled. It was the first separation of church and state.
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all." The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read, "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.
Thomas Jefferson's Autobiography
I am deeply indebted to Mr Spak for this historical information.
@WMDKitty
Open a REAL history book, you ignorant twit. They didn't want to be RULED BY RELIGION.
Their problem cannot be corrected by a history book, they will just rail about "liberal revisionists" and "activist judges" changing the not only the nature of the constitution, but the very letter of it as well. These are people who have convinced themselves that they, and they alone, know "what the founding fathers 'really' intended when they drafted the constitution. ", and anything that deviates from their godly inspired secret knowledge idiotic and blatantly false fanfic is just part of a massive anti christian liberal conspiricy directed by Satan himself
yes, it was founded so that everyone could have the freedom to worship as they so chose to.
And you just can't stand that, can you?
Technically, it was a country discovered by men who left Spain so that they could spread the mandate to practice CHRISTIANITY in lockstep with the Catholic Church.
What you're talking about falls just between the Conquistadors and the actual Founding Fathers, which is why it falls so short of the actual Constitution.
People left England because they were CHASED OUT. Ignorant twat. If England had more sense, they wouldve been slaughtered. Pilgrims came here to claim America as their own, but the land belonged to NON CHRISTIANS!!! Gotta love revisionists.
Methinks you haven't heard of Thomas Jefferson.
"But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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