Glenn Beck in D.C.


Christopher

Recommended Posts

Dennis,

These positions you mentioned are half-truths and distortions injected slowly into our historical culture by Progressives (or liberals, or whoever they call themselves at the time). A simple examination of the original works of both Washington and/or Jefferson show some serious problems with that view. For example, take this quote from Washington's Farewell Address for his second term as President:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

There's oodles of stuff like this, including a few sporadic quotes from Washington explicitly mentioning Christianity and Jesus.

We actually do have a lot of work to do as intellectuals, but perpetrating Progressive myths is not one of them.

Our main task, ironically, is to undo something Beck is doing. He claims that rights are given to mankind by God. And he is backed up by historical documents that our Founding Fathers agreed with that premise. We need to provide a much better source for human rights than God--one that can be accepted mainstream. Rand got close, but her view of human nature is too incomplete for most people to accept as a basis for rights. They prefer God or the state since both cover all stages of human existence.

I see this task--deriving rights from human nature and correctly identifying them--as the most important one we have before us. I will go into this much more deeply later.

For now, I strongly believe that the correct thing is to recognize the past as it happened, not as some historians (starting with Woodrow Wilson) tried to make it. If that means accepting the fact that the Founding Fathers (with a few exceptions) were Christians, if their own words prove that, then that is what we have to accept. Facts are facts and by all means, let us look at the Founding Fathers' own words, not some interpretation by an historian.

There were many Christian factions during colonial days. This was one of the main reasons for the existence of different governments (states). The different denominations didn't even like each other much. Our Founding Fathers tried to maintain unity by not promoting one denomination over the others, not even by insinuation in the way they referred to God, Christ, etc. Instead, they promoted a general view of God that all could agree on. This is not the same thing as them rejecting Christianity, although Progressive historians try to interpret it that way.

So long as false history is accepted by non-religious people who promote individual rights (like us), the religious people who promote individual rights will never listen. And those are the people we have to reach. The Progressives keep us divided that way.

Don't forget that statist collectivism has been atheistic since the beginning in the mid 1800's. That does not automatically make them right about the role of government and a friend of individual rights. .

Conversely, being religious does not automatically make a person an enemy of individual rights.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 115
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Dennis,

These positions you mentioned are half-truths and distortions injected slowly into our historical culture by Progressives (or liberals, or whoever they call themselves at the time). A simple examination of the original works of both Washington and/or Jefferson show some serious problems with that view. For example, take this quote from Washington's Farewell Address for his second term as President:

Michael

Michael,

The Farewell Address which Washington gave in 1796 was actually written by Alexander Hamilton, who was the Founding Father who, more than any other, loved to use religion for public purposes. As I said in my original post, Washington believed that it was important for government leaders to present a certain public image about religion, to uphold the social order. So Washington did mention religion in some of his public speeches—my earlier reference to his public statements should have acknowledged this--but other evidence strongly suggests those addresses did not reflect his actual beliefs. He was definitely not a publicly pious man, and Washington’s own Diaries clearly reflect this fact.

It is true that you can find a number of quotations from the Founders that suggest they were religious, but you can find just as many to prove otherwise. A lot of historians clearly allowed their private agenda to distort their testimony.

False history? Progressive Myths? Man, why would you want to concede a monopoly on truth to their side?

If that means accepting the fact that the Founding Fathers (with a few exceptions) were Christians, if their own words prove that, then that is what we have to accept. Facts are facts and by all means, let us look at their own words.

Franklin, Jefferson, Adams and probably Washington were all Deists, as was Thomas Paine. James Madison’s religious views were also highly doubtful. Hamilton’s piety was opportunistic. As far as I know, there is minimal evidence to suggest that any of these key Founders were devoutly Christian.

Conservatives like Beck want people like you to forget that this nation was the brainchild of the Enlightenment. If you concede their distorted perspective on history, you are helping them accomplish that task, and giving them tremendous ammunition in their war against reason.

Please think again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

. A reading of Suetonius and Diogenes Laertius (two very approachable authors) will tell you just how small modern man has become.

So small that some of us have traveled to other planets and some of us know what stuff is made of. Small indeed! People today know more than those who lived a hundred or a thousand years ago.

As to History. What was it that Henry Ford said? History is bunk.

History is the conventional assertion of what went before of which we know almost nothing. Of a billion things that happened yesterday only a thousand were recorded and only a hundred will be remember ten years from now. History is essentially myth with a surface sprinkling of fact.

The main virtue of The Enlightenment (a mythical construct, by the way) is that it was a start of a journey that has led to Now. And only Now is real.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited by BaalChatzaf
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As to History. What was it that Henry Ford said? History is bunk.

History is the conventional assertion of what went before of which we know almost nothing. Of a billion things that happened yesterday only a thousand were recorded and only a hundred will be remember ten years from now. History is essentially myth with a surface sprinkling of fact.

The main virtue of The Enlightenment (a mythical construct, by the way) is that it was a start of a journey that has led to Now. And only Now is real.

Ba'al Chatzaf

If you don’t learn from past experience, how are you going to prepare for the future?

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As to History. What was it that Henry Ford said? History is bunk.

History is the conventional assertion of what went before of which we know almost nothing. Of a billion things that happened yesterday only a thousand were recorded and only a hundred will be remember ten years from now. History is essentially myth with a surface sprinkling of fact.

The main virtue of The Enlightenment (a mythical construct, by the way) is that it was a start of a journey that has led to Now. And only Now is real.

Ba'al Chatzaf

If you don't learn from past experience, how are you going to prepare for the future?

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning." – Albert Einstein

Which Future? Starting from Now there are many possible Futures, only one of which will be actual on any given future date. There is no The Future. Or do you think what we do is strictly determined?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited by BaalChatzaf
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Which Future? Starting from Now there are many possible Futures, only one of which will be actual on any given future date. There is no The Future. Or do you think what we do is strictly determined?

Or as Yoda put it: Always in motion is the future.

Yoda_high.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

. A reading of Suetonius and Diogenes Laertius (two very approachable authors) will tell you just how small modern man has become.

So small that some of us have traveled to other planets and some of us know what stuff is made of. Small indeed! People today know more than those who lived a hundred or a thousand years ago.

As to History. What was it that Henry Ford said? History is bunk.

History is the conventional assertion of what went before of which we know almost nothing. Of a billion things that happened yesterday only a thousand were recorded and only a hundred will be remember ten years from now. History is essentially myth with a surface sprinkling of fact.

The main virtue of The Enlightenment (a mythical construct, by the way) is that it was a start of a journey that has led to Now. And only Now is real.

Ba'al Chatzaf

What a small universe you live in. History is a four dimensional space, and you limit yourself to the now, a dimensionless point.

The context you are dropping here is your assertion that Washington and Jefferson lived in the 18th century, and hence couldn't be expected to know any better than to assert that America is part of God's final plan.

Ignorant of history, you assert your blindness as a principal, as if we cannot really know anything about how men thought five or twenty five lifetimes ago. History as hoax and a construct? Next you will be claiming that God created the fossils of the dinosaurs in order to fool the godless scientists, and that patriarchal dead white men invented the Roman empire in order to keep the LGBTQ community down.

There is no argument here. We have the proof of the sophistication of our ancestors in texts where they apologize for sins we are not even big enough to commit. Could the Bushes and the Clintons replicate the American Revolution? Could Obama, who cannot bring himself to identify the cause behind "man-caused disasters" free the slaves?

Scientific progress? Who is against it? Moral progress? Where is it? Kennedy set the goal of a man on the moon in ten years. Bush? A prescription health-care plan for seniors. Obama? The cancellation of NASA and the socialization of medicine at gunpoint within ten years.

Now the progressives are proposing that we not teach American history prior to 1877:

Forget George Washington, James Madison, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln—nothing meaningful happened in America before 1877. That's the lesson North Carolina public high schools may start teaching. Under proposed changes in their high school history curriculum, the U.S. History course (which seniorstake) will cover events from 1877 forward only. It will be as if the American Founding never happened.

They want to create in men a blindness which you have already achieved.

Edited by Ted Keer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

History is the conventional assertion of what went before of which we know almost nothing. Of a billion things that happened yesterday only a thousand were recorded and only a hundred will be remember ten years from now. History is essentially myth with a surface sprinkling of fact.

This is true if you don't know what is important. Good history is important stuff, not a "surface sprinking of fact." The pretentiousness of leaving one's area of competence to lecture others about theirs makes a stink all its own. That applies to you as much as Henry Ford.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Conservatives like Beck want people like you to forget that this nation was the brainchild of the Enlightenment. If you concede their distorted perspective on history, you are helping them accomplish that task, and giving them tremendous ammunition in their war against reason.

Please think again.

Dennis,

Beck doesn't think that about the Enlightenment. I have been following him for some time and I have seen nothing stated or written by him that backs your opinion up. On the contrary, he has done things like write a book called Common Sense that was a NYT (and Amazon and everywhere else) bestseller. It even included Thomas Paine's entire text as an appendix.

As to thinking again, I have been.

Very deeply.

Here is a fictional discussion I just made up with a Christian who supports individual rights. My goal is to get him to consider that maybe a "gift from God" is not the source of rights, but instead human nature. I will use your argument about Washington being a Deist.

ME: So you see, just as human nature easily is the standard for morality, it can be used for establishing rights in society.

CHRISTIAN: But rights are a gift from God. Even the
Declaration of Independence
says so. It says, "... all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."

ME: We have to be careful when thinking about that, because many of the Founding Fathers were not really religious.

CHRISTIAN: What do you mean? George Washington was religious.

ME: Sort of. He was a Deist, not a Christian.

CHRISTIAN: Really?

ME: Beyond a shadow of a doubt. For instance, Washington said in the treaty with Tripoli in 1796: "The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded upon the Christian religion."

CHRISTIAN: Tripoli? Didn't he write that to Muslims? As a way of saying that the USA does not engage in religious warfare?

ME: Well, yeah...

CHRISTIAN: And about the writing part, did Washington actually sign it?

ME: Well, no... but it was signed by a representative of the US while he was President...

CHRISTIAN: I see.

ME: So it's the same thing as if he signed it.

CHRISTIAN: Hmmmm... What about this quote from Washington's General Order of July 9, 1776? "The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country."

ME: Well...

CHRISTIAN: Or this quote from General Orders of May 2, 1778? "While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian."

ME: Well...

CHRISTIAN: Or how about this quote from his 1783
Circular Letter Addressed to the Governors of all the States on the Disbanding of the Army
? "I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow-citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for brethren who have served in the field; and finally that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation."

ME: Come on. He didn't say "Christian" in that last one.

CHRISTIAN: He did say "the Divine Author of our blessed religion" and he was writing to a bunch of Christians. What do you think "our blessed religion" means?

ME: It could mean anything. Anyway, those other quotes don't really count. Washington was a Deist and was just saying that.

CHRISTIAN: Supposing you are right, which you are not, does "Deist" mean the same thing now as back then?

ME: What do you mean?

CHRISTIAN: Yeah... right...

(CHRISTIAN walks off, goes to church and prays for my soul.)

The net result is that I will never get CHRISTIAN to look at my arguments. He thinks I rewrite history just as much as I accuse Christians (and Progressives) of doing (and I agree that there have been some humongous tampering from the Christian end). He thinks I ignore the religious statements of the Founding Fathers as much as I think he ignores Jefferson's February 1, 1800 quote from his Anas.

And speaking of that Jefferson quote, here are two very telling renditions of it. See if you do not think that some rewite tampering has been going on. The first is from The complete anas of Thomas Jefferson on Gogglebooks, pages 200-201:

Doctor Rush tells me that he had it from Asa Green, that when the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation, that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address, as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice. Rush observes, he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers, except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the States, when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of "the benign influence of the Christian religion."

I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.

Here is the same quote on Wikiquotes (scroll down), which is devoted to sourcing everything with user help:

When the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never on any occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However [Dr. Rush] observed the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice. Rush observes he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the states when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of the benign influence of the Christian religion. I know that Gouvemeur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets & believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.

If you Google this quote, you will get the Wikiquotes version the vast majority of the time. I see dishonesty in this kind of tampering. It gives the reader the impression that these were Jefferson's original thoughts, not his recounting of what someone else--and even someone else who told someone else--told him.

Did Jefferson agree with this? It's plausible. He pondered it enough to write about it. But as to flat-out agreement, Jefferson did not say he did.

This rewriting reminds me of Valliant and ARI scholars with Rand's works.

What's wrong with accepting facts as they are?

So, on thinking again and again and again, I have decided against using selective omissions while looking at history. Let the facts fall where they may. The distortions will become discredited over time and, anyway, I prefer to drink the truth straight, no chaser.

Michael

EDIT: I just caught something. Notice that Jefferson talks (through Green through Rush) about Washington's letter to the Governors that I quoted in my little dialog. He mentions the phrase, "the benign influence of the Christian religion," as if Washington said this. However, this is a misquote. (Washington's entire letter can be read here.) So even the Jefferson entry contains misleading information.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dennis:

I hate to muddle the issue you are asserting, but this exact area has been of interest to me recently.

Washington and a significant number of the Founders were "religious" in a generic manner. As Free Masons, the divinity of Christ was not a position that they ascribed to.

Moreover, as Masons, you take an oath that you "...believe in a Grand Architect of the Universe." Now you can drive a Deist or Agnostic caravan through that hole!

The impact of Free Masons in our revolution cannot be disputed effectively.

Moreover, the issue of character, oaths and small "r" religious morality was quite distinctly different from what you and others on OL have alluded to coming from the Bible Belt.

I grew up in a Masonic home even though I was nominally born a Catholic.

The bible that George Washington was sworn in on was provided by the local Masonic Temple. Moreover, Washington Irving wrote some decades later that George "...bowed reverently and kissed the bible." Others present maintain that he added "So help me God!" to the oath of office.

I have no problems with small "r" religion.

From a political perspective, as I have mentioned before, I will work fully with the "religious right" as long as they are fundamentally small government, "live and let live folks", which most Americans are.

To deny the impact of religion as a having influenced and shaped the founders thoughts would be myopic in my opinion.

'Historical evidence militates against the view that those who formulated the fundamental documents of American government were Christians. To the contrary, not a few who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the U. S. Constitution were Deists, Theists and Freemasons. Webster's Dictionary defines "theism" and "deism":

Theism
- "belief in the existence of a god or gods; specif: belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of man and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world."

Deism
- "a movement or system of thought advocating natural religions based on human reason rather than revelation, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe."'

This quote comes from an anti masonic website which basically advances the Zionist Judeo-Masonic Plot to take over the world spin, but I love negative evidentiary sources.

Adam

Edited by Selene
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Adam,

Even on the Masonry thing, it is a good idea to see how Freemasonry differed back then to Freemasonry now.

I am not making any assertions on this score yet since I have not read up on it.

Well, there is one assertion. We should not time travel in the sense of taking modern traditions and habits and pretending the people of the past practiced them/understood them in the same way.

But I intend to read up on this. My focus will be on the differences so I can get a more-or-less true feel for what Washington and other Founding Fathers ascribed to within the context of their times.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Michael:

Excellent approach. I agree that a major internal logical error is made when folks transport current perceptions of ideas into the mindsets of folks living in the envelope of their eras.

Good approach. If I can direct you to any info, within my knowledge about Free Masonry, I will gladly provide you with it.

"20 GREATEST NAMES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

  • John Adams - Spoke favorably of Freemasonry -- never joined
  • Samuel Adams - (Close and principle associate of Hancock, Revere & other Masons
  • Ethan Allen - Mason
  • Edmund Burke - Mason
  • John Claypoole - Mason
  • William Daws - Mason
  • Benjamin Franklin - Mason
  • Nathan Hale - No evidence of Masonic connections
  • John Hancock - Mason
  • Benjamin Harrison - No evidence of Masonic connections
  • Patrick Henry - No evidence of Masonic connections
  • Thomas Jefferson - Deist with some evidence of Masonic connections
  • John Paul Jones - Mason
  • Francis Scott Key - No evidence of Masonic connections
  • Robert Livingston - Mason
  • James Madison - Some evidence of Masonic membership
  • Thomas Paine - Humanist
  • Paul Revere - Mason
  • Colonel Benjamin Tupper - Mason
  • George Washington - Mason
  • Daniel Webster - Some evidence of Masonic connections"

This came from a neutral approach.

Adam

Link to comment
Share on other sites

History is the conventional assertion of what went before of which we know almost nothing. Of a billion things that happened yesterday only a thousand were recorded and only a hundred will be remember ten years from now. History is essentially myth with a surface sprinkling of fact.

This is true if you don't know what is important. Good history is important stuff, not a "surface sprinking of fact." The pretentiousness of leaving one's area of competence to lecture others about theirs makes a stink all its own. That applies to you as much as Henry Ford.

--Brant

What percentage of the events that happened on this planet in the last 24 hours have been either recorded or have left a recoverable trace?

There is your sprinkling of fact. Most of the stuff that happened is done, gone and out of our reach.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What a small universe you live in. History is a four dimensional space, and you limit yourself to the now, a dimensionless point.

You and I live in a cosmos with an event horizon with a thirteen billion light year radius and it grows larger each second. By you that is small?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

History is the conventional assertion of what went before of which we know almost nothing. Of a billion things that happened yesterday only a thousand were recorded and only a hundred will be remember ten years from now. History is essentially myth with a surface sprinkling of fact.

This is true if you don't know what is important. Good history is important stuff, not a "surface sprinking of fact." The pretentiousness of leaving one's area of competence to lecture others about theirs makes a stink all its own. That applies to you as much as Henry Ford.

--Brant

What percentage of the events that happened on this planet in the last 24 hours have been either recorded or have left a recoverable trace?

There is your sprinkling of fact. Most of the stuff that happened is done, gone and out of our reach.

Like I said ...

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Like I said ...

--Brant

Like you said: A Historian decides what is important. And what makes him right or wrong? Is there an objective criterion of importance, or is this judgment theory laden in some sense?

Here is a book you might find informative and at the very least, amusing:

-Historians Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought-.

by David Hackett Fischer

ISBN-10: 0710070365

This book is compendium of ill inferred conclusions, biases, beggings of the question and many other inductive and logical errors. Some of the leading historians of modern times have made their blunders which are listed and analyzed in this book. After reading this, the scales fell from my eyes, as it were. I will not be taken in by historians again, anytime soon.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can anyone tell me if Glenn Beck is authentically (personally) religious? He used some Christian terminology in his speech in D.C. It sounds like the typical redneck/retiree rhetoric used in the Republican party to generate support. It's also not a Libertarian position if I understand Libertarianism correctly.

I keep asking myself when he states his opinions: is this guy real?

Does it matter? If he is sincere, then he ill informed and wrong minded. If he is just playing the public, then he is a charlatan. Either way, you should not buy a used car or political advice from this joker.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Conservatives like Beck want people like you to forget that this nation was the brainchild of the Enlightenment. If you concede their distorted perspective on history, you are helping them accomplish that task, and giving them tremendous ammunition in their war against reason.

Please think again.

Dennis,

Beck doesn't think that about the Enlightenment. I have been following him for some time and I have seen nothing stated or written by him that backs your opinion up. On the contrary, he has done things like write a book called Common Sense that was a NYT (and Amazon and everywhere else) bestseller. It even included Thomas Paine's entire text as an appendix.

As to thinking again, I have been.

Very deeply.

Here is a fictional discussion I just made up with a Christian who supports individual rights. My goal is to get him to consider that maybe a "gift from God" is not the source of rights, but instead human nature. I will use your argument about Washington being a Deist.

ME: So you see, just as human nature easily is the standard for morality, it can be used for establishing rights in society.

CHRISTIAN: But rights are a gift from God. Even the
Declaration of Independence
says so. It says, "... all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."

ME: We have to be careful when thinking about that, because many of the Founding Fathers were not really religious.

CHRISTIAN: What do you mean? George Washington was religious.

ME: Sort of. He was a Deist, not a Christian.

CHRISTIAN: Really?

ME: Beyond a shadow of a doubt. For instance, Washington said in the treaty with Tripoli in 1796: "The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded upon the Christian religion."

CHRISTIAN: Tripoli? Didn't he write that to Muslims? As a way of saying that the USA does not engage in religious warfare?

ME: Well, yeah...

CHRISTIAN: And about the writing part, did Washington actually sign it?

ME: Well, no... but it was signed by a representative of the US while he was President...

CHRISTIAN: I see.

ME: So it's the same thing as if he signed it.

CHRISTIAN: Hmmmm... What about this quote from Washington's General Order of July 9, 1776? "The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country."

ME: Well...

CHRISTIAN: Or this quote from General Orders of May 2, 1778? "While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian."

ME: Well...

CHRISTIAN: Or how about this quote from his 1783
Circular Letter Addressed to the Governors of all the States on the Disbanding of the Army
? "I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow-citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for brethren who have served in the field; and finally that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation."

ME: Come on. He didn't say "Christian" in that last one.

CHRISTIAN: He did say "the Divine Author of our blessed religion" and he was writing to a bunch of Christians. What do you think "our blessed religion" means?

ME: It could mean anything. Anyway, those other quotes don't really count. Washington was a Deist and was just saying that.

CHRISTIAN: Supposing you are right, which you are not, does "Deist" mean the same thing now as back then?

ME: What do you mean?

CHRISTIAN: Yeah... right...

(CHRISTIAN walks off, goes to church and prays for my soul.)

The net result is that I will never get CHRISTIAN to look at my arguments. He thinks I rewrite history just as much as I accuse Christians (and Progressives) of doing (and I agree that there have been some humongous tampering from the Christian end). He thinks I ignore the religious statements of the Founding Fathers as much as I think he ignores Jefferson's February 1, 1800 quote from his Anas.

And speaking of that Jefferson quote, here are two very telling renditions of it. See if you do not think that some rewite tampering has been going on.

Did Jefferson agree with this? It's plausible. He pondered it enough to write about it. But as to flat-out agreement, Jefferson did not say he did.

This rewriting reminds me of Valliant and ARI scholars with Rand's works.

What's wrong with accepting facts as they are?

So, on thinking again and again and again, I have decided against using selective omissions while looking at history. Let the facts fall where they may. The distortions will become discredited over time and, anyway, I prefer to drink the truth straight, no chaser.

Michael

Michael,

I read Beck’s Common Sense. One thing that I noticed is that, even though Paine was clearly a Deist and a student of the Enlightenment, neither of those words appear anywhere in Beck’s book. It’s also interesting to note that, while he is eager to praise Paine, neither The Rights of Man nor The Age of Reason are listed by Beck as recommendations for additional reading.

To further underscore the differences between Paine and Beck, note the second of Beck’s “9 Principles” (p. 109): “I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.” I trust I do not need to tell you how drastically that view differs from the Deism of Thomas Paine.

In your imaginary dialogue, you quote two “General Orders” by Washington from 1776 and 1778. Instead of “well,” you might have responded with this quotation from his “General Orders” of March 22, 1783:

“The Commander in Chief thinks it a duty to declare the regularity and decorum with which divine service is now performed every Sunday, will reflect great credit on the army in general, tend to improve the morals, and at the same time, to increase the happiness of the soldiery, and must afford the most pure and rational entertainment for every serious and well-disposed mind.”

As I said before, Washington thought it was important for his troops to attend religious services in order to promote morale and military discipline.

In answer to the Circular Letter of 1783, rather than responding with “he was just saying that,” you might have referred the speaker to the book, So Help Me God, by Forrest Church:

“It requires no great effort--and many have done so—to string together an impressive series of pious-sounding phrases from Washington’s writings to certify that the first president was a true believer. He was culturally Christian [i.e., he used Christianity to promote cultural ends], to be sure, but throughout volumes of correspondence, public and private, Washington mentions Christ by name only once, in a 1799 address to the chiefs of the Delaware Indians composed almost certainly by an adjutant. Contrasting him with fellow Deists Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom expressed sincere admiration for Jesus, the most fastidious student of Washington’s religion [Paul F. Boller] calls his muteness concerning Jesus ‘truly remarkable.’ “

(p. 46)

Then you could have mentioned the fact that one "enterprising" biographer, Parson Weems, created the pious Washington of legend by inventing incidents to bolster his case, because he knew it would sell books. Then you could have mentioned the fact that, on those rare occasions when Washington did attend church, he made it a point not to take communion, even though his wife always did so, and invariably left church early, well ahead of Martha, requiring that the coachmen make two trips to the Washington home.

I found the quoted passage from Jefferson’s journal in two books (both sympathetic to my viewpoint): Moral Minority, by Brooke Allen, and The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, by Franklin Steiner. Both of them begin: “Dr. Rush tells me that he had it from Asa Green...” I’m sure I don’t need to warn you about the dangers of relying on the veracity of Wikiquotes.

You can call it the agenda-driven rewriting of history if you want to. You can claim that you are the one honestly reporting the facts. In fact, you are defending one interpretation of the facts and ignoring an alternate, equally legitimate viewpoint. That’s what I call selective omission.

Dennis

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What percentage of the events that happened on this planet in the last 24 hours have been either recorded or have left a recoverable trace?

History is not the record of random data like the motion of atoms, Ba'al. It is a record of the moral/intellectual development of mankind and his values, politically, technologically, and aesthetically. We have an incredible amount of such knowledge from what is passed down to us by tradition and original texts.

We can even reconstruct an amazing amount from linguistics - for example, the Turkish and Eskimo words for good luck come from a root *kut- which means "to pour out" and which in English exists in both the words gush and God. The implication is that the Eurasiatic culture, some 10,000 years old, shared the ritual of libation, the pouring out of alcohol on the ground or an altar, as a religious ceremony. This continues even today with gang members pouring out malt liquor on the street in remembrance of their fallen comrades. Or consider the discovery recently of a 64,000 year old bow and arrow in South Africa. This implies the existence of a highly advanced technology which requires a huge amount os skill and planning to produce and use.

There is no change in human nature between those people and us. A child of 3,000 generations ago would be indistinguishable mentally from a child of today. The Greeks and Romans had achieved steam power, measured the size of the spherical earth, developed the heliocentric model of the solar system, and identified the stars as distant worlds. The Stoicism (which was Washington's seminal moral influence) and Epicureanism of the classical civilizations were more advanced personal philosophies than the modern Abrahamic religions or politically correct secularism.

A 13 Billion light year radius universe is physically large, but what about our moral, aesthetic, and intellectual universe? Science is mankind's most spectacular accomplishment, but it depends on more fundamental accomplishments such as the discovery of reason and objective law, without which, man lives as a moral beast, and the modern scientific project could never get off the ground. Mankind's greatest achievement in the last three millennia is a moral one, the discovery of objective law. (For a discussion of objective law and its importance see this thread.) Without that, we would still be the subjects of god-kings and their priests in arms.

Homo sum, mihi nihil alienum puto.

Edited by Ted Keer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have no problems with small "r" religion.

From a political perspective, as I have mentioned before, I will work fully with the "religious right" as long as they are fundamentally small government, "live and let live folks", which most Americans are.

To deny the impact of religion as a having influenced and shaped the founders thoughts would be myopic in my opinion.

Adam

Adam,

Thanks for adding your comments about Freemasonry. I certainly do not deny that they were an important influence on the Founders. And it would be a misunderstanding of my position to say that I don’t believe religion had a significant influence on the Founders. It most definitely did. What I strongly disagree with is the view that the Founders were mostly Christian, or that Christianity was by any stretch the belief system that America was founded upon. That is Beck’s traditionalist conservative view, and I think it is disastrous.

Most of the Founders adopted the perspective of Deism from the Enlightenment, and Deism certainly does qualify as a religion. However, it represents a religion in which God is far removed from the despicable Ogre of the Old Testament, and transformed into a (somewhat) secular principle: “Nature’s God” becomes, in effect, a way of understanding our world via reason. This emphasis on the importance of reason over faith represents the Enlightenment influence and is a crucial departure from prior religious perspectives. At the same time, Deism still contains much of the religious residue of Christianity, especially with respect to ethics. Note that even Thomas Jefferson regarded Jesus as an ideal model of ethical conduct.

The important issue to grasp, as I see it, is that Deism represents the Founders’ early, faltering efforts to dethrone traditional religion in favor of reason.

I disagree with you on the issue of small ‘r’ religion. I definitely do have a problem with it, because I do not think we can make the moral case for capitalism without recognizing reason as the foundation of ethics and politics. If you open the door to faith, you open the door to altruism—and I agree with Ayn Rand that capitalism and altruism cannot coexist “in the same man or in the same society.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A 13 Billion light year radius universe is physically large, but what about our moral, aesthetic, and intellectual universe? Science is mankind's most spectacular accomplishment, but it depends on more fundamental accomplishments such as the discovery of reason and objective law, without which, man lives as a moral beast, and the modern scientific project could never get off the ground. Mankind's greatest achievement in the last three millennia is a moral one, the discovery of objective law. (For a discussion of objective law and its importance see this thread.) Without that, we would still be the subjects of god-kings and their priests in arms.

Homo sum, mihi nihil alienum puto.

Most of the law I see being enforced is the kind passed by legislative bodies. That is political law, backed up by guns, chains and dungeons.

As to our moral breadth, I would reckon it about the average size of a human skull that holds a functioning three pound brain. The human race has not changed at the base and bottom since the end of the last ice age. We just are a bit neater and cleaner. As Robert Heinlein has said most of us have learned to wear shoes and not mess up our houses too much. We are, as we were in the past -- the smartest, most talkative apes in The Monkey House.

Look at the condition of the world as reported in the high tech media and tell me how much progress has been made.

And don't look to closely at the Enlightenment either. Consider Jefferson who wrote in the DOI

"we hold these truth to be self evident ....etc". Having written these glowing words we went home to Montecello to see to it that his slaves were busy at their tasks, and not enjoying a single right given to them by their Creator. If Jefferson, who was bright, could not resolve the contradiction, then who could? Answer: Nobody. We had a civil war that left 620,000 Americans dead and 1.5 million maimed and wrecked, all in a country with a population of 32,000,000 people. Some Enlightenment!

And don't look to closely at Geo. Washington. If he lived today he would be a real estate promoter of the same magnitude as Donald Trump.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited by BaalChatzaf
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Transcendentalists (Emerson, Thoreau, etc.) had a strong effect around this time (well, just after, really), one that was against traditional religious thinking. It extended to the fundamental rights of all humans. That was, putting it very simple, that if anyone could just go out and experience nature directly (which pretty much anyone can), they are equal in terms of their existential experience, at least in that way. So, that meant that these thinkers realized that it meant even black people, go figure.

As to the Freemasons, that is a whole other dealio, and rife with the creepiness.

rde

Edited by Rich Engle
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A 13 Billion light year radius universe is physically large, but what about our moral, aesthetic, and intellectual universe? Science is mankind's most spectacular accomplishment, but it depends on more fundamental accomplishments such as the discovery of reason and objective law, without which, man lives as a moral beast, and the modern scientific project could never get off the ground. Mankind's greatest achievement in the last three millennia is a moral one, the discovery of objective law. (For a discussion of objective law and its importance see this thread.) Without that, we would still be the subjects of god-kings and their priests in arms.

Homo sum, mihi nihil alienum puto.

Most of the law I see being enforced is the kind passed by legislative bodies. That is political law, backed up by guns, chains and dungeons.

As to our moral breadth, I would reckon it about the average size of a human skull that holds a functioning three pound brain. The human race has not changed at the base and bottom since the end of the last ice age. We just are a bit neater and cleaner. As Robert Heinlein has said most of us have learned to wear shoes and not mess up our houses too much. We are, as we were in the past -- the smartest, most talkative apes in The Monkey House.

Look at the condition of the world as reported in the high tech media and tell me how much progress has been made.

And don't look to closely at the Enlightenment either. Consider Jefferson who wrote in the DOI

"we hold these truth to be self evident ....etc". Having written these glowing words we went home to Montecello to see to it that his slaves were busy at their tasks, and not enjoying a single right given to them by their Creator. If Jefferson, who was bright, could not resolve the contradiction, then who could? Answer: Nobody. We had a civil war that left 620,000 Americans dead and 1.5 million maimed and wrecked, all in a country with a population of 32,000,000 people. Some Enlightenment!

And don't look to closely at Geo. Washington. If he lived today he would be a real estate promoter of the same magnitude as Donald Trump.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Again, you drop context. I said that you cannot pretend that we are morally more advanced than the founding fathers and you respond that if I think things are so good I should look at what the modern media reports? I say that humans of 64,000 years ago were no different in nature from us, and you say in response that we haven't changed from the end of the ice-age, 13,000 years ago? You are so wrapped up in your cynicism and desire to contradict that you can't keep the story straight from one post to the next.

As for your assertion that if Washington were alive today, he would be Donald Trump, does the reverse hold? Were Donald Trump born in the 1700's, would he be George Washington?

Isthis series of non-sequiturs where your Objective Hate gets you?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dennis:

I disagree with you on the issue of small 'r' religion. I definitely do have a problem with it, because I do not think we can make the moral case for capitalism without recognizing reason as the foundation of ethics and politics. If you open the door to faith, you open the door to altruism—and I agree with Ayn Rand that capitalism and altruism cannot coexist "in the same man or in the same society."

Firstly, thanks, I thought that you were not being monolithic about certain statements. The two [2] "third rail issues" for the Framers were religion and slavery.

Michael made the critical perceptual and conceptual point that we have to place our minds in that era with no hindsight. The religion that many of the deists and certainly the Free Masons were in literal terror of being established in the government was Catholic or Roman. The issue of Jesus Christ being God in the Trinity and the Pope as being the only conduit of God's words on earth was not ascribed to by most, if not all, of the Founders.

Therefore, many of the Founders were "Christian", but not Catholic. I make that distinction.

Furthermore, the whole "separation of church and state" and "religion in the public square" are not stated or implied in the Constitution.

There are only two [2] sections of the Constitution that even touch on religion. The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. A tension is created by these two [2] clauses, but it is, in my opinion, a good or positive tension.

However, "At an absolute minimum, the Establishment Clause was intended to prohibit the federal government from declaring and financially supporting a national religion, such as existed in many other countries at the time of the nation's founding."

This is where it should stop.

The Framers were attempting to create a "free" nation which for the first time in recorded history sought to make individual rights within each person directly from God or Nature.

To then transport this to Ayn's attempt to develop a purely secular ethical and moral justification for laissez-faire is irrelevant to the Framers problem.

Ayn's definitional use of altruism as a moral imperative made its point with me, but misses the mark with most folks because most folks get a selfish pleasure out of helping their fellow man.

I understand your point about Ayn and capitalism and agree with you.

Adam

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Again, you drop context. I said that you cannot pretend that we are morally more advanced than the founding fathers and you respond that if I think things are so good I should look at what the modern media reports? I say that humans of 64,000 years ago were no different in nature from us, and you say in response that we haven't changed from the end of the ice-age, 13,000 years ago? You are so wrapped up in your cynicism and desire to contradict that you can't keep the story straight from one post to the next.

I drop no context. We are, and we have been for at least 150,000 years the smartest primates on the planet. Our main distinction from our forbears is that we have accumulated knowledge because of a trick learned about 10,000 years ago. It is called writing. Other than that we are not much different at the emotional and mental level. But we have learned to wear shoes, dispose of our shit and we keep our houses reasonably clean.

I see little glory in the past.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now