RE: Crusader Mentality

My point exactly. But beyond that, even the references to “god” in the Declaration aren’t any sort of indication of a connection between the foundation of the US and Christianity.

Then, to be frank, you shouldn’t want Chaplains. They’re unarmed, non-combatants. They can’t, realistically, be any less “in the way” than a civilian, except that the military command can apply greater sanctions against them when they misbehave. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t entirely effective sanctions that could be applied to them as civilians, too.

Then, by the same logic, you’re not entitled to the services of a Chaplain, and the military needn’t provide them. You have the right to use such services, if you want, but you can go get them on your own, the same as a spouse.

Don’t be an idiot. You cannot keep the government out of religion unless you also keep religion out of the government. Most every religion has a rule saying “and we’re the one true religion”. Allow religious concerns into government and their first action will be to disenfranchise the others.

Allow religion into government and you get Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

Jefferson talked about a wall of separation, not a one-way mirror. On the Jefferson Memorial is the quote, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Once again, not the Christian god, as he rejected the idea that Jesus was anything but an ordinary man who offered some useful ethical advice, but the specific tyranny he was writing about was religion getting into politics.

Specifically, there was a movement to institute a religious test for voters, and there were folks among the Episcopalian and Congregationalist sects who were concerned that Jefferson would do everything in his power to oppose their efforts, and his letter affirmed their fears to be absolutely true.

Very many of the key founders, including most of the early Presidents, were Deists, not Christians. They believed that their god didn’t act directly in the world since the creation, and therefore, religion had no business in secular affairs.

The whole point of the separation clause wasn’t to keep government out of religion, as they felt that government properly had no real interest in religion, anyway. The point was to keep religion out of government. The reverse view is just neo-conservative revisionist bullshit.

Well, then you’re entertaining yourself with nonsense. It wasn’t founded on freely practicing cancer.

What America was founded on was Enlightenment liberalism. The Declaration mentions a recognizably Deist notion of a god, but almost the whole text reads like John Locke wrote it. Few people could quote the sentence mentioning the god, but most of ’em know the one about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, which is almost directly lifted from Locke.

The Constitution, and especially the Bill of Rights are also entirely typical of Enlightenment thinking.

A central tenet of that Enlightenment liberalism is the elimination of state sponsored religions. That is, keeping religions out of governments. It emphasized reason over faith, science over superstition, individual conscience over religious dogma.

In other words, it had much in common with what today’s well-known atheists talk about.

Religion, especially conservative, fundamentalist interpretations of religion, are directly opposed to those foundational beliefs. As I said before, they’re a cancer on society.

I don’t fight hard against the reasons this country was founded, but for them. I fight hard to rid us of the pernicious influence of religious zealots who seek to undermine the foundations of America’s freedoms.

I have no gods nor altars, but I, too, “swear eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Just as it was 210 years ago, religion is still among the worst.