America's Christian Jihad

The Christian right wing from Tea Party to Member of Congress, would have us believe that the United States was founded and designed to be a Christian nation.  They maintain that the revered founding fathers were true Christians and that they meant for the country they founded to be a truly Christian country.  Hogwash.  

Anyone who knows anything of the reasons for the early emigration of Europeans to the New World knows that most fled religious persecution from nations that considered themselves Christian and demanded allegiance to their versions of religion.  The very concept of a government run according to Christian doctrine was an anathema to them.

Thomas Jefferson wrote: Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.  

George Washington said: The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.  

These days, we are being driven to a fundamentalist Christian theocracy that accepts the Bible as literal truth and refutes science as violating the "truth" of God's world.  You don't have to be an atheist to see this as a recipe for disaster for the great American experiment.  Should we really require that the mythology of "creationism" be treated as having equal merit to evolution?  

These theocrats have been successful in spinning the anti-establishment clause of the first amendment to be 180º from the actual meaning intended by the authors of the Constitution.  They are claiming that freedom of religion should supersede civil rights.  Catholic institutions are claiming that they can deny their civil employees rights granted by the civil government such as contraception in the name of protecting religious freedom.  In fact, the Constitution intends to protect civil society from the abuses of an intrusive clergy.

Jefferson wrote: In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

John Adams said: This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

This general skepticism about religion isn't surprising when you remember that the U.S. Constitution  is a product of the Enlightenment of the 18th century and that, unlike the vast majority of Americans at the time, the wealthy elite who were the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were well read and very aware of the writings of Enlightenment philosophers in Europe.

If the United States of America is to retain its prominence in the future, we must work to protect ourselves from religious zealots and their Christian Jihad.