Posted on 03/15/2012 3:59:18 PM PDT by Iam1ru1-2
Nice summary.
Funny, but accurate.
Here's a great page from the Library of Congress on religious tyranny in the early years of the republic:
Religion and the Founding of the American Republic
V. Religion and the State Governments
In 1779 the Virginia Assembly deprived Church of England ministers of tax support. Patrick Henry sponsored a bill for a general religious assessment in 1784. He appeared to be on the verge of securing its passage when his opponents neutralized his political influence by electing him governor. As a result, legislative consideration of Henry's bill was postponed until the fall of 1785, giving its adversaries an opportunity to mobilize public opposition to it.
Arguments used in Virginia were similar to those that had been employed in Massachusetts a few years earlier. Proponents of a general religious tax, principally Anglicans, urged that it should be supported on "Principles of Public Utility" because Christianity offered the "best means of promoting Virtue, Peace, and Prosperity." Opponents were led by Baptists, supported by Presbyterians (some of whom vacillated on the issue), and theological liberals. As in Massachusetts, they argued that government support of religion corrupted it. Virginians also made a strong libertarian case that government involvement in religion violated a people's civil and natural rights.
James Madison, the leading opponent of government-supported religion, combined both arguments in his celebrated Memorial and Remonstrance. In the fall of 1785, Madison marshaled sufficient legislative support to administer a decisive defeat to the effort to levy religious taxes. In place of Henry's bill, Madison and his allies passed in January 1786 Thomas Jefferson's famous Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, which brought the debate in Virginia to a close by severing, once and for all, the links between government and religion.
In Virginia, religious persecution, directed at Baptists and, to a lesser degree, at Presbyterians, continued after the Declaration of Independence. The perpetrators were members of the Church of England, sometimes acting as vigilantes but often operating in tandem with local authorities. Physical violence was usually reserved for Baptists, against whom there was social as well as theological animosity. A notorious instance of abuse in 1771 of a well-known Baptist preacher, "Swearin Jack" Waller, was described by the victim: "The Parson of the Parish [accompanied by the local sheriff] would keep running the end of his horsewhip in [Waller's] mouth, laying his whip across the hymn book, etc. When done singing [Waller] proceeded to prayer. In it he was violently jerked off the stage; they caught him by the back part of his neck, beat his head against the ground, sometimes up and sometimes down, they carried him through the gate . . . where a gentleman [the sheriff] gave him . . . twenty lashes with his horsewhip."
The persecution of Baptists made a strong, negative impression on many patriot leaders, whose loyalty to principles of civil liberty exceeded their loyalty to the Church of England in which they were raised. James Madison was not the only patriot to despair, as he did in 1774, that the "diabolical Hell conceived principle of persecution rages" in his native colony. Accordingly, civil libertarians like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson joined Baptists and Presbyterians to defeat the campaign for state financial involvement in religion in Virginia.
NO SALE.
“The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true.”
—Albert Einstein
The dishonest way that you cherry-picking Bartonbots misrepresent Jefferson is symptomatic of a predatory religious coercion, feeding from ignorance, that is deliberately manufactured upon those within the scope of your purview.
You are fallible and uninspired men who have assumed dominion over the faith of others.
>>You want to be an atheist then be one,
Uhuh. Evidently in the Bartonbot NewSpeak dictionary, 2012 Edition, anybody whose faith is rooted in a personal relationship with their Creator, instead of what some hooting parrot told them to regurgitate, must be an “atheist”.
FAIL.
There must be a paid group that looks for Barton's writings then invade every conversation to call him a liar, when in fact you are the liar.
Take your Alinsky style attacks and peddle them at DU, they will work much better there, because they agree with you.
You might reveal your true agenda, that would start a genuine debate.
That’s amusing consider Jefferson was probably one of the more liberal and intellectual leaders of his day.. Why the left would try to destroy him is dubious.
The Jefferson Bible is comprised solely of the direct quotes of Jesus. He edited, but did not rewrite anything.
Some people seem to think it is OK to lie so long as the lies tend to serve a purpose they agree with.
Others think such lies are a total discredit to any cause in which they enlisted.
I am not paid to point out that Barton, inasmuch as he is any sort of historian at all, is a revisionist historian.
Consider it a public service.
Jefferson WAS a liberal in his day. Liberal then meant a break with the monarchical ruling class to self government by and for the people as well as an interest in furthering humanity through science. Conservatives today are trying to conserve that sentiment. Today’s liberals co-opted the term liberal (when it still had an honorable meaning)...so that now the meaning of “liberal” and “conservative” in the American political sense have switched definitions from Jefferson’s time.
The Truth makes you paranoid evidently.
Quack about Alinsky all you want; it won’t change the reality that Jefferson rejected the trinity and wrote the Jefferson bible.
You are a fallible, uninspired, and disingenuous parrot.
No, I just choose to believe in Jesus Christ, you on the other hand become demented if people do not accept your atheism. Why would any atheist care what anyone believed about eternity.
That is the mystery you would do better to solve. Reference Franklin's admonishment of Paine.
>>if people do not accept your atheism.
But I’m not an atheist, Parrot.
How’come Jefferson rejected the Trinity and wrote the Jefferson Bible?
Maybe he just wasn’t as smart as so many people think he was. Lot of genius types reject God, or Christ or Both.
I am guessing you are one of those types. Low Man.
>>I am guessing you are one of those types.
But I’m not an atheist; and I’ve rejected neither God nor Christ.
And you’re STILL just a fallible and uninspired hooting PARROT who has assumed dominion over the faith of others.
>>Low Man.
Snake eyes. You lose. Wanna roll against the Truth again?
Just a contrarian then, that looks for people that are weak in faith, and give them a little nudge in the wrong direction. Take much pleasure in that do you?
There are facts and then there are things that are accepted as facts they often rarely the same thing. But humans seem to take great delight in finding those facts that advance their own perception, whether they use the truth or someones assessment of the truth.
[There are facts and then there are things that are accepted as facts they often rarely the same thing.]
Which category does Thomas Jefferson’s rejection of the Trinity and his authorship of the Jefferson Bible belong in?
Got Morals and Dogma, Parrot?
I expect you might be able to find a copy exactly 1 mile North of the White Hut, 2 miles North of the Jefferson Memorial.
No need for a reservation as the FRee American folks who laid that cornerstone were evidently expecting you, and your coercive nature, to show up from time to time.
Who are you to judge if the faith of another is weak or not? Perhaps it is merely your own weakness that's being projected; and in doing so providing symptomatic evidence that man should not live by parrot food alone.
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