I won’t bore people reading this by explaining this argument in detail. It is pretty simple: Atheists argue that many of the Founding Fathers were at most deists (believing in a higher being, but not a Christian God) and often cite quotes from Jefferson or some other Founding Father that will lead you to believe they disliked religion in general.
Religious Americans will cite quotes that our Founding Fathers did want religion to be part of what defines our country. (People often use the Pledge of Allegiance, or the phrase ‘In God We Trust’ on our money as examples, but the Pledge was not created until 1892, and the phrase ‘Under God’ was not added until 1954, and our money did not have ‘In God We Trust’ until 1957.)
Each side will use quotes and references from the Constitution, and both sides are absolutely certain they are right.
I have one question. Why do we care what they thought?
The Constitution *as drawn up by the Founding Fathers* did not allow for women, slaves or anyone who did not own land to vote. It allowed slavery. Why are we using these men as our moral compass? To be fair though, we should not judge people living 200 years ago by our moral standards today. Can we condemn Jefferson for owning slaves, or Lincoln for saying that blacks should not be allowed to vote? I would say ‘no’.
This idea is really why we should also not care about the Founding Fathers opinion on religion. We know their ideas on slavery are pointless in today’s society, why would we allow our own opinions to be swayed by what these white, landowning men (read: not a well rounded representation of the people in our country at the time) thought about religion? Lets make our own decision, one that works for our society today.
The problem is that Americans from all sides of the political spectrum put these men up on a pedestal like no other. We use their words to try and show people the ‘right’ path for our country to take, and blogs (ahem) often have their quotes on their sites hoping to pass along wisdom to people passing by…
I think though that of all the quotes I have read, only one applies every time, in every situation. It is:
“Do not believe on the strength of traditions even if they have been held in honour for many generations and in many places ; do not believe anything because many people speak of it ; do not believe on the strength of sages of old times ; do not believe that which you have yourself imagined, thinking that a god has inspired you. Believe nothing which depends only on the authority of your masters or of priests. After investigation, believe that which you have yourselves tested and found reasonable, and which is for your good, and that of others.” – Buddha
So lets have a discussion on the merits of religion in society based on facts, logic and reason, and not one based on what a bunch of rich white men thought 200 years ago.
Actually, the constitution clearly states that the laws are here to benefit us all. A few founders did want it explicitely mentioned that all people were equal and such, but the economy and society at the time would not have accepted it. That is also why slavery and other attrocities were allowed to continue for so long. It wasn’t that the law didn’t protect them, it is that the judges and legislature were stupid enough to ignore it. Here is the preamble to the constitution:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 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.”
“We the people,” who is that?
Further, it does matter what the founders of the United States intended, because that is how case law is decided on constitutional matters.
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Why should we care? Because we feel the need to establish a context for the Constitution in order to interpret it correctly. Beyond the letter of the Constitution is the spirit, and that’s what we go to when the letter isn’t clear.
The “wall of separation” is an invention of the court. It’s not found in the Constitution anywhere. The only reference to religion is simply “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” That’s it, nothing else. Apparently it’s not as clear to everyone as it is to me.
So we research the Founding Fathers to get an idea of what they really meant. Of course, opposing sides use different quotes, often out of context themselves. People are dishonest. Hey, that’s why we need laws to begin with.
For those that prefer to think the Constitution really doesn’t state what it says, I would like to remind you that there is an established process for changing it. Any other approach is dishonest. And liars don’t go to heaven, yo.
I love the quote from Buddha. Brilliant.
I am a firm Christian, but I agree, it doesn’t matter what the founders religion was, you need to research and find the truth yourself.
Why do we care what they thought? The answer is that we generally care only when what they thought conveniently meshes with what we think.
I do not think the same thing
I am a hindu, but it doesn’t matter much to me what my founders religion was!! But at the same time I even believe in Jesus. I appreciate your post.It’s very interesting.Thanks for sharing this.
An important difference between the Constitution and the Bible is that the former allows itself to be amended. So since its allowed to change, I don’t suppose what the Founding Father’s thought has any value today.
Besides, I consider myself fairly religious, but I do believe that my faith is no one else’s business, and it doesn’t really matter to me what the Founding Father’s, or today’s politicans, think about religion and its place in society.
I personally believe that church and state should be separated. The two should not coexist, ever, as it creates to many complications and who’s to decide which fairy tale is the proper one. I personally believe that we should focus on what’s better for mankind and the future progression of the way we interact. From my point of view, I think religion causes more trouble than good.
Regardless of what the Founding Fathers believed on this subject, their beliefs were meant to be built upon and improved. What was right for them may not be right for us.
It does take different strokes, after all…
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
is the best reason I can think of for caring what our founding fathers thought and did.
It is important to know where we came from and how we began. They were men who did great things in forging a country for us to enjoy the freedoms and comforts we do today. So we learn from both sides of them, we grow and expand and become more hopefully than they were. Some of their ways were downright detestable, such as slavery or women’s rights (the lack thereof). Some have great merit and deserve recognition even today, such as the first amendment that allows you to speak your piece against even they who wrote it or the people in charge today.
Either way tho, there are lessons to be learned from them and one of the best ways to prepare for the future is to examine our past, our founding fathers questioned the authority that ruled over them and created a great country, if we’re to secure a proper place for ourselves in the world today we need a little of their courage and will tempered by our understanding of how our lives work now and hopefully forge a country worth being a part of the world we live in.
Religion shouldn’t even factor in, they did an excellent job of keeping the God talk out of the constitution especially considering the time they were from and I think that intent was to let people believe what they wanted. I personally am not a believer but people should have the right to peaceably believe in whatever God they want just as we’re allowed to peaceably not believe.
In my opinion, Religion itself is now outdated. The bible states many things as gospel, that by todays standards seem ludicrous as they are now everyday accepted occurances (i.e centre of the universe, flat earth etc). Kings were made and dethroned over such issues. Back then (over 400 years ago+) without the scientific evidence for certain issues, religion “filled the gaps”. As did recently a few decades ago when smoking was thought to be cool, and even healthy. However we have scientific proof to prove otherwise, and now that we dont need to fill in the gaps, those with a vested interest are gasping for every last breath.
Bravo, Bravo,
Thats what I like to read. And Buddha…man-o-man thats is so awesome prospective….
Nice post and also very good research. In my opinion now everybody should depend on a system which is logical and brings good to all of us and our society.
I always like the posts on this site. I agree, I don’t see why people use what the Founding Father’s believed to support themselves. That was 200 years ago, and our opinions are now shaped by new findings in science and technology, and our ethics and beliefs have evolved. We need to think for ourselves, and not think that everything the Founding Fathers said was pure truth and gold.
By the way, that was interesting about Lincoln, him saying that he believed whites were superior and blacks should still be suppressed. I’m going to do more research in to that…
What good questions to pose to your readers, I have enjoyed reading their comments and look forward to stopping back by again for more. Thanks for trying to open some minds that have been slammed shut for some time!
Regards,
Cheryl Beckham
It is my belief, that yes the original constitution had some nice ideas, and it was okay.. But not great. And that is why it is important, to keep updating, and improve it. That is why software has different version numbers, and websites often get new themes, because what was the old and past is no longer what is the representative of the future. We gotta look forward, not backwards in order to succeed, and evolve.
Till then,
Jean
Continuing well.
I like the way you write.
A greeting from a English´s student.
Shane, I think you’re absolutely right. Why should we care that much about what some people said ages ago? Some of them were great men for sure (yet that is also up to discussion).
But without entering the political or religious debates, I would say that individuals should develop their own opinions and beliefs, and most importantly live with their time. Times have changed quite a bit since America was funded, and I like to believe that mentalities have too. Past is past, present is what really matters and I personally think we’d better develop our opinions on the knowledge and the facts available to us today than on those that dominated hundreds of years ago.
I really like the Buddha quote by the way…
I strongly believe that there is one God, no matter how many religions there are now on earth. I am a Roman Catholic but I have many friends who have different religions. I grew up respecting other people’s beliefs and I taught my children to do the same. What is important is the faith that we have in our hearts. Thank you for letting me share my thoughts.
I read something about the Bible not be amended. While this is partially true, the bible has in fact been amended many times (although not in the sense of constitutional amendment)
I would invite you to compare a King James English version to a Modern English version. The word choice is so different that many passages seem to mean different things depending on which version you read.
And obviously every time is translated, etc., the meaning changes.
I’m not trying to say that this is anything like how the constitution is amended, it isn’t. But it is worth noting that the Bible changes to a certain extent based on the evolution of mores (thus affecting Word Choice + Word Meaning) in a society.
@Despair, that is exactly true and one of the reasons I think it is silly to let the Bible dictate your morals.
And it is unfair to judge the Founding Fathers based on todays morals, but that is also exactly why we should not accept anything they said as an absolute truth.
thank you for writing this. if i hear one more idiot say that this country was “founded with christian values by christians” and thus we should consider America a christian nation i’m gonna scream. and also, excellent work pointing out that the atheists on the other side trying to argue that they weren’t christian is just as as stupid.
Just because a wise decision was made hundreds of years ago by several wise men doesnt mean there isn’t freedom to move around on their original opinion. A lot has changed since then.
Take that either way. As Shane said, no need to take what they said as absolute truth.
I am a firm Christian, but I agree, it doesn’t matter what the founders religion was, you need to research and find the truth yourself.
Just because a wise decision was made hundreds of years ago by several wise men doesnt mean there isn’t freedom to move around on their original opinion. A lot has changed since then.
Take that either way. As Shane said, no need to take what they said as absolute truth.
I am a firm Christian, but I agree, it doesn’t matter what the founders religion was, you need to research and find the truth yourself.
I agree with others, I think that church and state should be separated. It’s pretty upsetting that I still see the two mix between eachother. Although as time grows on and the internet continues to become more extensive in our lives I believe that we will see religion become less and less popular. We’ll only see though, time will tell.
I think that separation of church and state speaks to the reason we have a constitution and a bill of rights – not to affirm the beliefs of the majority, but to protect the rights of the minority.
Lots of people in the majority (christians) don’t seem to remember that they were persecuted for their beliefs, and would very much like to force their beliefs on the minority.
And remember, it’s religion that keeps the poor from killing the rich.
I think its important to note and care about the founding fathers opinion on religion in the sense of historic context, and because though its supposed to be a living document, people hold the Constitution too strictly. We need to understand what the founding fathers thought in the context of their time, and use it to review the Constitution in that light. It wouldn’t be fair, if at all possible, to look at the Constitution’s original words in today’s contexts.
To the poster who was mentioning how the separation of church and state wasn’t in the Constitution: reading the Constitution and founding fathers’ writings, you can see that was the intent behind the choice of words, as it was also established by early courts.
WHO was the outrageously ignorant clown who wrote this drivel!?
Are you even out of diapers long enough to have worn off the rash??
READ what the Founding Fathers said as they left us clear instructions with even clearer reasons for them and you MIGHT become capable for your own governance one day!