This might upset those Beckistanis who think Beckistani versions of history are "better" than the truth...
 
Americans are taught that the fact that we have religious freedom in America is due to colonial resistance to British and European oppression of various sects and that that was why we wound up with the First Amendment.
 
We're also told that Americans rallied to revolt only against British oppression.
 
But the TRUTH is that the revolution was LARGELY a reaction and resistance to religious oppression IN THE COLONIES established BY THE COLONIAL GOVERNMENTS.
 
For example:
 
Virginia mandated membership in a STATE RELIGION and took steps like rounding up and imprisoning offenders [like the Baptists] to enforce it. Not only that - the State churches were all funded by TAXES collected from farmers by armed tax collectors.
 
Virginia was not alone:
 
Congregationalists and Anglicans who, before 1776, had received public financial support, called their state benefactors "nursing fathers" (Isaiah 49:23). After independence they urged the state governments, as "nursing fathers," to continue succoring them.
 
Knowing that in the egalitarian, post-independence era, the public would no longer permit single denominations to monopolize state support, legislators devised "general assessment schemes." Religious taxes were laid on all citizens, each of whom was given the option of designating his share to the church of his choice. Such laws took effect in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire and were passed but not implemented in Maryland and Georgia.
 
After a general assessment scheme was defeated in Virginia, an incongruous coalition of Baptists and theological liberals united to sunder state from church. However, the outcome in Virginia of the state-church debate did not, it should be remembered, represent the views of the majority of American states that wrestled with this issue in the 1780s.
 
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel05.html (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel05.html)
 
 
Thomas Jefferson took on the Baptist's case and won passage in the Virginia legislature REPEAL of all state-support and funding for any individual sect and guaranteeed that NOBODY COULD BE FORCED TO PARTICIPATE IN ANY RELIGION.
 
THAT became the basis as well for the First Amendment to the Constitution.
 
NOT - as right-wingrrrr revisionists claim - to create a Christian nation - FAR FROM IT.
 
 
Watch the new PBS documentary "God in America" for more of the real history of religious freedom in America:
 
trailer:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1493303211/ (http://video.pbs.org/video/1493303211/)
 
 
Part 1:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1610726967/ (http://video.pbs.org/video/1610726967/)
 
Part 2:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1610731418/ (http://video.pbs.org/video/1610731418/)
 
parts 3 and 4 will be broadcast soon
 
 
 
 
 
 

When I started watching Beck I was impressed by his take on government, freedoms etc, but lately he has veered off path with all this religious nonsense. I call it nonsense because religion has caused more death, and havoc upon humanity than any other handy excuse.
Maybe he'll get over it and I can watch again.

Beck won't quit now that he has the full attention of the Cult

Was there a purpose to this post?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

Where is the word "from"?

Despite the expressed prohibition of the free exercise of religion democrats insist on creating laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion!

Byte
 
was there a purpose to your question?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

Where is the word "from"?

Despite the expressed prohibition of the free exercise of religion democrats insist on creating laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion!
 
 
You need to read up on the reason Jefferson fought mandatory participation in Virginia's State  church
 
 
Not to mention 99% of all other history

Religion hasn't caused any deaths, they were caused by ignorance like this poster who started this bullshit...Our constitution guarantees freedom of religion, any religion you want to practice, liberals hate that because religion shines a light on their perverted lives and hate for decency..
 
liberal ignorance is beyond the pale but worst of all they're nothing but pathetic liars..

Kook, Jefferson was against the State establishment of a specific religion not against any mention of religion on government property!
 
 

 

We wont mention that the "Colonial Governments" were simply extensions of King Georges power.  Loyalists who held their office at the sufferance of the English Crown.
 
 

All of the founders, including Jefferson, did not want any one sect of Christianity to become our state religion as with England at that time.   The founders believed and were right that all sects of Christianity should be equal under the US government unlike what Americans fleed from in foreign nations with a state sponsered religion much like what so many Islamists fight for today globally.  The founders were correct to give all Christian faiths the right to practice their faith without government intervention and prosecution as so many had suffered in other nations.  That was the reason for the 1st Amendment.

Byte - the King didn't impose those laws on the colonial governments

religious nuts DID

All of the founders, including Jefferson, did not want any one sect of Christianity to become our state religion as with England at that time.   The founders believed and were right that all sects of Christianity should be equal in the US government
 
 
WRONG
 
 
Jefferson despised organized "Christianity" for its hypocrisy
 
He certainly did NOT want any sect of "Christianity" to control our futures.
 
 
 
That's why he worked for FREEDOM FROM THE CHURCH


and for COMPLETE SEPARATION of Church from State
 

Wrong Jefferson attended services at the capitol!

kooky doesn't surprise me that he falls for the PBS progressive version of a Godless America.

The history channel's  'America, Who We  Are' is just about as bad from leaving out the critical seminal

parts but advancing the non consequential parts, thus being dishonest.

They've really gone down the tubes since Nancy Dubac became CEO. She has turned it into a bunch of

reality crap that has very little, if anything to do with actual history. Many of the posters on THC board call

it 'The Trailer Park Channel" because that seems to be THC's targeted audience. Nancy Dubac is the same

person who ruined A&E.

So that visit to a church negated all of Jefferson's opposition to a state church, D2D?

NO

Thanks for the good info, cap'n, and the heads up for the further PBS broadcasts.

Fascinating how the bunch of immoral idiots in here scream an holler about their right to practice religion, isn't it?

What religion, is my question?

What religion do the RWFs of aeslops practice?

It sure ain't Christianity, that's for sure.

He didn't visit a church but attended services on government property in the Capitol!

Wow D2D
 
that has deep significance
 
in your shallow mind

If as you say he was for freedom "from" religion, he would have opposed any church services held on public property!

hey nitwit D2Duh
 
by that time there was no longer state funding and support for any particluar sect
 
 
he had won his fight against mandatory participation in and public funding for a state religion

All of the founders, including Jefferson, did not want any one sect of Christianity to become our state religion as with England at that time.   The founders believed and were right that all sects of Christianity should be equal in the US government

 
WRONG

 
 
Sorry, you are wrong and trying to rewrite Constitutional intent..., Liberals do that with their faux, "living document" theory...

liberals are perverts and stupid, they'll believe anything that is against a decent society that religion promotes..
 
Our FF's believed God was the the only one who could make us a great nation just as our constitution was written to do...liberal perverts hate that and smear it with their vile lies..

sorry Sweetie


your revisionist Beckistani history is ridiculously inaccurate

Kook, the founding fathers were not communists!
 
Your socialist masters are lying to you!

now you're foaming at the mouth D2Duh

Kook, you are trying to rewrite Constitutional intent and originialism..., Liberals do that with their faux, "living document" theory...
 
The U.S. Constitution should be interpreted according to the intent of those who composed and adopted it.
 
(http://www.aesopsretreat.com/forum/Smileys/classic/107w9oy.gif)

Sweetie won't give up the revisionist nonsense

a truly mind-fucked yet willing victim of the Cult

Kook, looks like you've lost the argument.  All you have left is ad hominem.
 
Sorry about that.  Better luck next time.

You don't HAVE an argument
 
so what did you win?

Unfortunately Kook, your revisionism means nothing.  Unfortunate for you that is, with this thread anyway...

LOL
 
you have nothing
 
 
yet you keep saying it

This quote reminds me of you kook...
 
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin (http://www.aesopsretreat.com/quotes/quotes/b/benjaminfr383249.html)

Heck, the Pilgrims and most of the settlers came here originally to escape religious persecution in Europe.

Our founding fathers wanted freedom to worship any religion.  No official national religion.
 
Did you know that the states used to have official state religions?  I bet you didn't know that.

Heck, the Pilgrims and most of the settlers came here originally to escape religious persecution in Europe.
 
and what did they do here in the colonies?
 
They established their own system of religious persecution of people who didn't conform to their doctrine
 
 
the very sort of persecution that lead to the American Revolution
 
which is the subject of this thread

Sweet is the one trying to rewrite the constitution. The word "christian" does not appear even once in the 1st. So much for the wacky notion that only christians have freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is for everybody and the government can not play favorites.

If you would look back at our founding documents and journals documenting the business conducted in our State and Federal houses which have convened across this land throughout our history, you would find loads of such evidence of our reliance upon the God of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, upon the Holy Spirit, and upon Jesus himself written into the documents and lifted up in prayer and proclamation before the countless governing bodies.

I guess that would make recent comments to the contrary those of either a liar or a fool. Which is it?

And yet the founders were too stupid to make it explicit in the 1st, they assumed it would just be assumed that of course they only meant christian sects and that the athiests, jews and muslims could just rot? As if. Either they were total morons to neglect to be explicit, or you are totally wrong. And even if they actually were that dumb, even if they really meant that freedom is only for christians and to hell with anyone else, too bad, because that is not what the 1st says, it says freedom is for EVERYBODY. So you christians who only want it for yourselves, piss off, too bad for you, that is not what the 1st says.
 
And isn't it insane, those who piss and moan the most about how government needs religion are also the most paranoid about islam? Islam has what they want, religion in government, yet they are the ones again screaming the loudest but against it. Odd. The muslims are doing exactly what the right wants and yet the right calls them the spawn of hell.

When President Harry Truman wrote to Pope Pius XII in 1947 that "This is a Christian nation.", he certainly did not mean that the United States has an official or legally-preferred religion or church. Nor did he mean to slight adherents of non-Christian religions. But he certainly did mean to recognize that this nation, its institutions and laws, was founded on Biblical principles basic to Christianity and to Judaism from which it flowed. As he told an Attorney General's Conference in 1950, "The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and Saint Matthew, from Isaiah and Saint Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State."

Woodrow Wilson, in his election campaign for President, made the same point: "A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.... America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the tenets of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture."


The crucial role of Christianity in this nation's formation is not without dispute, although as Revolutionary leader Patrick Henry said: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship."


Samuel Adams, who has been called 'The Father of the American Revolution' wrote The Rights of the Colonists in 1772, which stated: "The rights of the colonists as Christians...may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institution of the Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament."



In a 1962 speech to Congress, Senator Robert Byrd noted that of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 29 were Anglicans, 16-18 were Calvinists, and among the rest were 2 Methodists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Roman Catholics, 1 lapsed Quaker-sometimes Anglican, and only 1 open Deist — Benjamin Franklin who attended all Christian worships and called for public prayer.


Samuel Chase was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a Justice of the US Supreme Court, and, as Chief Justice of the State of Maryland, wrote in 1799 ( Runkel v Winemiller): "By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion... ." (Maryland was one of nine States having established churches supported by taxpayers at the time of the adoption of the Constitution; these churches were gradually disestablished, the last in 1833. The Maryland constitution, typical of many of the States, restricted public office to Christians until, in 1851, it was changed to allow Jews who believed in a future state of rewards and punishments to also serve).



Justice Joseph Story, who was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Madison, said in an 1829 speech at Harvard: "There never has been a period of history, in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundation." Story wrote several respected treatises or Commentaries on Constitutional Law, in which are found the following: "Probably, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the [First] Amendment...the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. Any attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation."

"The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical patronage of the national government".

Justice Story wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court in 1844 ( Vidal v Girard's Executors): "It is also said, and truly that the Christian religion is a part of the common law... ."

When President Harry Truman wrote to Pope Pius XII in 1947 that "This is a Christian nation.",
 
he was full of shit.
 
 
 

The claim that the nation was founded on christian principles is total rubbish. Based on the bible? Where does the bible advocate any of the bill of rights? Or democracy? Separation of powers, checks and balances? The bible is actually against all of that. The nation was founded on the principles of the enlightenment. That is where you find advocacy for democracy and liberty. Not the bible.

he was full of shit.

 
You're the one full of shit and you don't speak for America, you only represent about 8% of the trash in America..
 
The constitution and bill of rights conclude all our rights are from God, not from a liberal nanny you liberals need to change your diapers..

speaking of full of shit
 
hiya Luuuuuke