Texas textbook war

[KeithE]

[Chris]

Thanks, Keith, for bringing this link to my attention. I would send it to my conservative friends, but they wouldn't read far enough to learn anything, before they would delete it. They don't want to hear it.

[Dave Roberts]

Myths make much more interesting rhetoric than does truth. The culture wars create history like we wish it had been, not as it was. We are content to believe our own press rather than to search the facts. So proceed the textbooks for Texas, and so a generation there will be deprived of a wider sense of American reality.

[ET]

[Bruce Gourley]

[ET]

[Jim]

BG: Or perhaps you are of the opinion that you are more knowledgeable than those who witnessed the founding of America?

ET: No, I wasn't there, but I can read. Let's see.

J: Obviously, BG is much older than we thought, since all he could possibly do concerning the founding was read about it, and that’s something too pedestrian to even consider in the interest of gaining knowledge or expressing an opinion. That’s what you’ve done – simply not good enough. If reading is not good enough for you, it’s certainly not good enough for him…so, he was there!!!

[Bruce Gourley]

[Jim]

[Bruce Gourley]

Jim, as you undoubtedly already know, "Nature's God" was a Deisitic, enlightenment term, not a Christian term, used to refer to processes in the natural world ... while the term "Providence" was commonly used by persons of all religious persuasions and none. Not to mention that Jefferson was commonly called a heretic and atheist by Christians who were his contemporaries. And the founders purposefully refused to make reference to God in the Constitution.

So again, I ask you, where are your late 18th century primary sources that document America's founding as a Christian nation? Take all the time you need to dig them up. Years, if it takes it. I can wait.

[Jim]

[Bruce Gourley]

[Jim]

[Chris]

I found this, today, while browsing. It seems pertinent.

http://www.thenation.com/article/youve- ... lly-taught

[Bruce Gourley]

Jim, you really don't care that you are relying on fabricated history (lies), irrelevant quotes, and totally out-of-context quotes ... do you?

This is exactly the problem with Christian nationalists - they claim to be seeking the truth, but when it is pointed out they are placing their faith in lies and misrepresentations, they abandon all pretensions to truth and happily go their way clutching the mythologies they prefer to believe.

[ET]

[ET]

[Jim]

[ET]

[Neil Heath]

I support Bruce's reading of the historical issues in this discussion. I'm sure there were varying levels of faith among the founders, and that their own faith may have grown or ebbed over the years. Either way, we have to separate the faith of the founders from their intentions for the institutions of government they crafted. The institutions they created were designed to be secular in nature, though they may have hoped the electorate would be deeply religious.

I also noticed that all but one or two of the references cited could have come from a Jewish stance as easily as a Christian one. They reference a Creator, a Supreme Being, God, Providence, etc. But they don't refer to Christ, the Gospel, or the Savior. It's easy to read into them what isn't there. I suspect other faiths could affirm those quotes pretty easily as well. And that's the point I think Ed was trying to make. While the founders might want the citizenry to be a strongly religious people, they were careful to craft a government that was completely secular in its operations, lest any faith be favored or helped to the detriment of other faiths. If I read you wrong, Ed, I apologize.

Neil

[Bruce Gourley]

ET, I am puzzled by your embrace of colonial theocracies who persecuted Christians (especially Baptists) who disagreed with their state religion, and whose ideologies were rejected by Baptists and the founders of the American nation.

Jim, I remain puzzled as to why you depend upon non-existent and out-of-context quotes to buttress your ideology. But I guess if you prefer mythology, so be it.

As for the myth of America's founding as a Christian nation, the historical documentation simply does not support such a view (which is why Christian nationalists like David Barton spend so much time creating false quotes to support their mythology). In addition, it is very strange how many contemporary fundamental evangelicals insist upon re-imaging deists, universalists and religious liberals as ... conservative, evangelical Christians.

[Dave Roberts]

To me, the problem is not finding support for there having been Christian influences and Christian statements in documents from the founders. The problem lies in making our nation an exclusively Christian enclave. Certainly, the Christian faith influenced various founders, but they chose not to include that in any of the founding documents of the national republic. Also, individuals are Christians, nations are not. That was the heresy committed by the old HMB with its "Good News America--God Loves You" campaigns. God loves Americans, but he also loves Russians, Chinese, Iraqis, and Afghanis, equally. We do not enjoy favored nation status before God. Christianity can influence much of our common life, but a person is a Christian, not a nation.

[Jim]

[Bruce Gourley]

[Jim]