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December 2 - December 14, 2022
Peroutka has it backward: it’s not true that the creator mentioned is the god of the bible, and the only “god” mentioned is “Nature’s God”—a concept considerably closer to the “God that is in the wind or in the trees” than the biblical god.
Positive law is the law we make.
Natural law is the law that is.
The Declaration invoked natural law because the founders needed a legal basis to justify revolting against the positive law imposed by Parliament and George III.
Priests condemned as “new Epicureans” those who believed that “there
no other divinity or sovereign power in the world except NATURE,” that “God is Nature, and Nature is God.”43
These die-hard patriots didn’t recognize the words of the Declaration and they assumed the tyrant was Trump, not King George III, which says something about how they truly view their populist champion.48
“A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
The bible is interpreted and enforced by men. And if rights are given by a god, they can be taken away by the men claiming to speak for that god.
priests “dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of day-light; and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversion of the duperies on which they live.”
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.67
Jefferson does not say that rights are a gift from god, but that rights are secured by “a conviction in the minds of the people” that the rights are a gift from god.
Jefferson is saying that most people are not sophisticated enough to ponder moral questions, so they should adhere to religion. This belief actually undercuts the Christian nationalists’ claims because it means that Jefferson, as a member of the elite, along with the other founders, did not need religion and would not have needed it to draft the Declaration.
Rights are agreed on by humans and enforced by society. This is the social contract the founders enshrined in the Constitution.
Human or natural rights are far less susceptible to the whim of preachers. Simply by virtue of being human, of being born, you have certain inherent, inalienable rights. 76
The god-given rights fallacy is also moral relativism masquerading as moral absolutism.
The jarring nature of the slapdash religious interjections is perhaps most evident when looking at the Declaration’s final paragraph as a whole. Like the first paragraphs, it has nothing to do with religion or the supernatural.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they
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Exercising poetic license does not make the Declaration religious; nor does it establish a religion.
atheists like me will think “divine Providence” simply means luck. In psychological terms, the founders were playing to people’s confirmation bias—our innate selection and interpretation of evidence to support our existing beliefs.
“History began on July 4, 1776. Everything before that was a mistake.” — Ron Swanson, a fictional character on the NBC show Parks & Recreation1
The Continental Congress prayed; therefore America was founded on Christian principles, and
ATTENDEES AT THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS appointed a chaplain to pray in September 1774, when the colonies were still subjects of the British king and had not declared independence. That assembly spent a considerable amount of time discussing reconciliation with Britain, not independence.
The Pilgrims and the Puritans are often conflated into one sect, when in fact they were two distinct groups. The Pilgrims established Plymouth in 1620, having first fled to Holland. John Winthrop and the Puritans established Boston and the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. In 1691, the colonies were combined.
In truth, religious freedom is not possible in a Christian nation or any other theocracy. The concepts are mutually exclusive; each destroys the other.
The Plymouth Pilgrims and the Massachusetts Puritans were not seeking religious freedom. They were seeking the ability to form a government and a society dedicated to their particular brand of religion.
rights. The Mayflower settlers were looking for a place to practice their religion and force others to practice it too. That is not freedom. It is dissent from the ruling religion and a desire to impose your own.
They saw themselves as instruments of their god’s holy will: “Such a dreadful Terror did the ALMIGHTY let fall upon [the Natives’] Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished.”
On Puritans killing over 700 Indigenous people
In 1565, Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, founder of St. Augustine, Florida, and his zealous Catholic missionaries slaughtered 111 French Huguenots on the Florida coast for refusing to convert to Catholicism.
Menéndez hung the corpses from trees with a sign proclaiming that they were killed, “not as Frenchmen, but as heretics.”46 Pope Pius V personally commended Menéndez for doing “all that was requisite” to extend “our Holy Catholic faith, and the gaining of souls for God” and also for converting “the Indian idolaters.”
Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the Pope, armed with fire and faggot, and the other is the Pope selling or granting indulgences. The former is church and state, and the latter is church and traffic [as in trade or commerce].57
*Faggot being the British word for welding iron bars.
Although tolerance might be adopted as a Judeo-Christian principle in some enlightened circles, religious freedom cannot be. Religion at its heart is a claim to hold the ultimate truth.
One Puritan preacher, Urian Oakes, later president of Harvard, called toleration the “first-born of all abominations.”62 Another, Thomas Shepard Jr., preached that it is “Satan’s policy to plead for an indefinite and boundless toleration.”
The Mayflower Compact is often used to show America’s Christian principles, but it actually shows Christian intolerance.65 The Separatists aboard the Mayflower referred to themselves, with no apparent vanity, as “Saints.”
We had, as Jefferson would say in his inaugural address, “banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered.”
The bible] is a book that has been read more, and examined less, than any book that ever existed.” — Thomas Paine, in a letter to Lord Thomas Erskine, 1797 1
But neither Lincoln nor Allen can be considered Christian merely because they read and quoted the bible. Many atheists do the same and, according to studies, know the book better than Christians.12
For instance, they claim that the concept of three separate branches of government contained in Articles I (legislative), II (executive), and III (judicial) of the Constitution came from Isaiah 33:22: “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our ruler, the LORD is our king; he will save us.”16 This verse concludes with passages that lay out “the Lord’s plans to reveal worldwide sovereignty,”17 so it is not about a tripartite separation of powers, but about destroying all governments in favor of concentrating power in one being, Yahweh.
Adams, writing a few years later as vice president, was more specific: “The Constitution is but an experiment, and must and will be altered.”26
This lack of influence makes sense because Christian nationalists have never convincingly answered a basic question: How, precisely, did the bible influence American political thought and America’s founding?
The question is even more pressing knowing that the founders did not cite the bible when writing and debating the Constitution. It is assumed that our government was founded on biblical principles, on Judeo-Christian principles. Because this answer is assumed, few bother to explain which specific Judeo-Christian principles and ideas were so influential to America’s founding. Instead, we get vague assertions from men like Tim LaHaye, a Christian nationalist author and co-author of the popular Left Behind series, who lauds “the Christian consensus of our Founding Fathers and the Biblical
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Finally, the argument that the bible also has passages that contradict those cited in this book proves the point that Judeo-Christian principles, as found in the bible, are not a good guide for nation-building.
If the bible says “children should eat peas” and also “children should not eat peas,” it takes no lucid stance on pea-eating. That the bible has opposing messages simply shows that some other moral compass or reasoned analysis is working to help us decide whether or not pea-eating is appropriate. Our country is based on clear principles that are attained by reason, not on a text that repeatedly contradicts itself.
The Golden Rule exists in nearly every society and also appears, in one form or another, in many religions, including “Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and the rest of the world’s major religions,” according to one ethicist.5
According to Adams, the Golden Rule is not a Christian principle: it is a universal principle, a “principle of the law of nature and nations.” Christianity was one vehicle to disperse this universal idea, not its origin.
Christian nationalists are required by their bible to believe in eternal punishment and Noah’s ark; they are free to believe such things because of our Constitution.
That’s why the original sin is not genocide, murder, or rape, but eating a piece of fruit after being told not to.
There are many more passages in the bible that not only revere but also require servility, especially in the New Testament: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.” ~Ephesians 6:5–9. “But I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.” ~John 14:31. “Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” ~2 Corinthians 10:5 “He became to all who obey Him the source of salvation.” ~Hebrews 5:9. “That you may obey Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood.” ~1 Peter 1:2. “As obedient children…be holy.” ~1 Peter 1:14. “We must
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Is it any wonder that slaveholders in the American South found support in the bible? Or that they wanted to convert their slaves to an obedience-inducing religion like Christianity?
Leviticus 24:16. “One who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death; the whole congregation shall stone the blasphemer. Aliens as well as citizens, when they blaspheme the Name, shall be put to death.” Notice that god’s law differentiates between members of the tribe—neighbors or “citizens”—and aliens. Here, they receive the same punishment, but elsewhere, as we’ll see, they are treated very differently.
Being a medium or wizard. Look out, Harry Potter. Leviticus 20:27. “A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death; they shall be stoned to death, their blood is upon them.”
6. Having premarital sex—if you are a woman. Deuteronomy 22:20–21. “[If] evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found, then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house.” Incidentally, if a man falsely accuses his new wife of premarital promiscuity, he is only fined.6
7. A woman failing to cry out for help when she is raped. Deuteronomy 22:23–24. “If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death, the young woman because she did ...
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Numbers one through four are crimes against god—a supposedly all-powerful god. Number five is punished because it is a threat to god’s priests, who couldn’t have magicians stealing some of the awe that is due to their god. The final two crimes are threats to the patriarchy, so the women must be killed.
