“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.” ~Thomas Jefferson.

“That’s the phoniest argument there is. (Referring to separation of church and state) This whole nation was founded as one nation under God.” ~Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.)

Different Americans, Different Traditions

Variety is the spice of life, and different Americans have different traditions. Consider one hypothetical American family’s much-loved Uncle Mert…

Sister Emily

When Uncle Mert visits his sister Emily’s home, Mert and his sister’s family all sit around the dining room table, eat roast and vegetables, followed by dessert. Then they retire to the living room couch and chat over several cups of coffee.

Brother Ralph

But when Uncle Mert visits his brother Ralph’s home, he arrives at 4 AM. Uncle Mert and Ralph don their cold-weather gear, load up the truck, and go spend the daybreak hours in the woods hunting.

Cousin Dave

Uncle Mert has never visited his cousin Dave’s house. And Dave has never even called Mert, even though they live in the same state. As far as Dave’s concerned, Uncle Mert doesn’t even exist.

Sister Martha

However, when Uncle Mert visits his sister Martha’s home, Martha makes him wear a suit and tie. Martha leads him straight to the dinner table, and serves a plate full of Brussels sprouts. Martha’s family and Uncle Mert really love to get together and eat Brussels sprouts.

Martha loves eating Brussels sprouts with Uncle Mert so much, that she wants everybody else to spend their time with Uncle Mert the same way she does — she thinks everybody should spend their time with Uncle Mert eating Brussels sprouts, and ONLY eating Brussels sprouts.

Freedom to Choose

Fortunately, Martha’s relatives live in the United States. Martha’s relatives are not required to spend their time with Uncle Mert eating Brussels sprouts; they’re free to share their time with Uncle Mert in any way they choose.

Likewise, the U.S. Constitution guarantees that every American can spend (or not spend) time with their best friend — even if that friend is a deity — whenever and however they desire. What’s more, Americans aren’t forced to spend time with friends or deities they’d rather not get to know.

And if Martha doesn’t want to live according to the U.S. Constitution, she is free to pursue citizenship in another country of her choice.

Thanks to Blue Gal for getting this rolling.

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Read More: theocracy, religious right, U.S. Constitution, separation of church and state

What is the most serious threat facing our civilization?

According to an interview at The Daily Ablution, author Michael Crichton says: “Loss of classical liberal values in those western societies that embraced them.”

Right Wing News agrees. Sort of. See if you can spot which word is deftly omitted in Right Wing’s echo of Crichton: “I’m with Crichton. The loss of classical Western values is the most serious threat to our country.”

Whitewashing American History

Right Wing News continues:

We didn’t become the greatest nation the world had ever seen by accident, it happened because of our culture and because of the things previous generations of Americans did to make this into a great nation.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Part of our culture, and the handiwork of those previous generations, included cheap slave labor, the Trail of Tears, and a war with Spain over the misdiagnosed sinking of the USS Maine. The Spanish-American war alone netted the U.S. control of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Hawaiian Islands.

Whitewashing Traditional Colonial Family Structure

Right Wing News also mentions family structure:

The more kids, percentage wise, who grow up outside of the traditional family structure, the more this country will decline. …[the] more kids who live in two parent families…the stronger this country will become.

Again, let’s not kid ourselves about the past. What were “traditional” families like when this country was founded? We have this from Digital History:

As early as the age of six or seven, many children were fostered outside their parental home, to work as servants or apprentices or to attend school. Short life expectancies meant that stepmothers and stepfathers and orphans were common. Language underscores the prevalence of multiple mothering figures. A midwife was sometimes referred to as a “good mother,” while older sisters were sometimes called “little mothers,” and the slave women who nursed white children were called mammies. Many men and women who bore no children participated in rearing young people. Social customs encouraged various forms of child-sharing, from indenture and apprenticeship to fosterage and informal adoption.

Lots of dead mothers due to childbirth, lots of stepparents, orphans, adopted kids…not exactly the Donna Reed show, is it?

Whitewashing the Founding Religion

The Right Wing News article ends with this:

This country was built — for the most part — by ambitious, Christian individualists who loved their country and — for the most part — those are still the people making this country work. As long as they’re still around in great numbers, we’ll continue to find a way to make it work no matter what the world throws at us.

Wait, wait, wait…hold on a second. Saying the Founding Fathers were all Christians is too generic and misleading. Asking what type of Christianity the Founding Fathers followed is more relevant, because the Christianity of the Founding Fathers wasn’t what most think of as Christianity today.

John Adams was a Unitarian and flatly denied the doctrine of eternal punishment. He believed all would eventually enter heaven. Most Unitarians reject the Trinity and accept all religions as valid faiths.

Benjamin Franklin described himself as a thorough Deist. Deists do believe in a good eternal God, but reject any sort of personal relationship with him. In Franklin’s own words:

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is like to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it.

Thomas Jefferson was also a Deist. He studied the teachings of Jesus, thought them wise, but rejected that Jesus was any more divine than the next person. Jefferson even wrote his own version of the New Testament with all the miracles removed. In a January 14, 1814 letter to John Adams, Jefferson writes:

The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.

So, yes, the Founding Fathers (most of them) did believe in a supreme being, and many regarded Jesus as a wise man whose advice was worth following. BUT, the Founding Fathers weren’t Amway Christians — Christians who’ve forgotten that the original message of Jesus was to give away all your possessions and help the less fortunate. And the Founding Fathers didn’t celebrate how rich Jesus had made them, or combine Christianity with capitalism without seeing the contradiction.

In the end, I wonder…what did the Founding Fathers consider the most serious threat facing our civilization? At least one cited public ignorance:

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” ~Thomas Jefferson.

Read More: right wing, whitewashing, founding fathers, fake history

Quiz time. Thanks to La Sirena for the link.

I’ve long been a fan of synchronicity, and the theory that there’s more order to reality than should be present by chance. I don’t believe in coincidence, but it happens often, and therein jumps the rabbit hole…

You scored as C.G. Jung. You are more of a spiritualist than would be immediately apparent. Some of your notions are questioned by the cynical, but deep down you know the human consciousness is more than the flesh and tissue can account for. You tend to take a scientific observationist look on matters the average person wouldn’t even begin to analyze. You personally are responsible for most of the ideas that are floating around in modern psychologist’s/psychic’s paltry little skulls. On the down side, you tend to be associated with that asshole Freud.

Read More: Jung, synchronicity, psychology, world history

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According to the 2001 Census, Jedi Knight is the fourth most popular religion in England.

The 2001 Census was the first census that asked people to identify their religion. In addition to a check-box list of major religions, the census form had a write-in space.

When the results were tallied, it was discovered that 7 out of every thousand people in England and Wales wrote “Jedi” in that space.

The reason for the sudden popularity of the Jedi cult can be traced to an internet campaign that—inaccurately—claimed the belief system made popular by the Star Wars films might receive official government recognition if enough people claimed it. To quote one of the emails, “Do it because you love Star Wars…or just to annoy people.”

Jedi Knights Around the World

The religion of Jedi Knight wasn’t limited to Great Britain. The census turned up more than 70,000 Jedis in Australia and 20,000 in Canada. But New Zealand had the highest percentage, at 1.5%. That’s more than 53,000 Jedis.

Religion by the Numbers

The 390,000 Jedis in England and Wales made The Force the fourth most popular religion (0.7% of the population of 52 million), but what were numbers 1 through 3?

Christianity was number one, with 72.0% of the population.

Muslims made up 3.1%.

Hindus made up another 1.1%.

And 14.8%, heathens who will soon be burning in hell for eternity (Hey! I’m joking, alright…), simply said they weren’t religious.

The Creator

George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars and Jedi Knights, was baptised and raised as a Methodist. Lucas expanded his religious views through studying Eastern religious traditions. In an interview with Bill Moyers, he expounds on The Force:

I would hesitate to call the Force God. It’s designed primarily to make young people think about the mystery. Not to say, “Here’s the answer.” It’s to say, Think about this for a second. Is there a God? What does God look like? What does God sound like? What does God feel like? How do we relate to God? Just getting young people to think at that level is what I’ve been trying to do in the films. What eventual manifestation that takes place in terms of how they describe their God, what form their faith takes, is not the point of the movie.

Read more Amazing, Orgasmic, and Fantastic Facts: Amasnic Fact Off Archive.

Read More: Jedi, Star Wars, census, George Lucas