Framing: Sectarian vs. secular

[gulliver]

Currently the Republicans would have the framing be secular vs. religious. But this isn't accurate. It's secular vs. sectarian. The people who argue against the separation of church and state would like to speak for all religions when, in fact, each sect has its own particular idea of the things it would like to do if the church/state wall were destroyed.

Probably already been thought of, but I haven't seen it so I posted it...

[BOSSHOG]

1. I'm not very smart

but conservatives have me convinced from their words and deeds that they want to replace the constitution with the bible, preferably the one used by small baptist churchs in the south. Their goal is an organized, government backed and supported religion; theirs. And they have been convinced from the pulpit that they have the constitutional right to do so. Such a scenario is not why I spent 24 years supporting and defending the constitution. I consider my oath still valid and I consider the religious right a domestic enemy of the constitution. They'll have to tangle with millions of us old fart "secular" veterans before they have their utopia here on earth.

[jean]

5. hmm - good one. Let's ask how many Christian sects AND bibles there are

The particular fanatics in charge would probably want to burn all other bibles except their version.

[JDPriestly]

2. You are so right.

Hence, separation of church and state. Based on my experience as a preacher's kid, as soon as members of the religious right destroy the boundary between church and state, they will start trying to destroy each other. Each sect believes it is right, and all others are wrong. At this point, each sect believes it could, should and will prevail in the struggle for supremacy because it is right.

My experience and belief: assuming one or the other of the many beliefs and sects is right, and however fervently we each believe that our belief is the right one, no one (outside God, assuming He exists) knows which one it is. Meanwhile, lots of energy is wasted on fighting about who and what are right and proselytizing people of other beliefs.

Just part of the human comedy I guess.

[BOSSHOG]

4. And the incredible irony

is that all divergent religions and beliefs can live in perfect harmony thanks to our constitution. And they want to destroy that document because it allows for diversity of thought and religion and beliefs. And they are convinced that evil liberals want to take their religious freedom away from them. How fucking naive do you have to be to sit mindlessly in a church and be told what to think and who to hate?

[JDPriestly]

10. In so doing, they are betraying the dreams of

the Founding Fathers. See my quotes from Jefferson's letters to Adams below. He and Adams (who represented the "liberal" and "conservative" points of view among the Founding Fathers) saw pretty much eye to eye, with minor differences, on these issues.

[jean]

3. yes - Regressive Repubs mean THEIR version of religion and no other

It's "My way or the highway," "My God" uber alles.

You're absolutely right - this framing must not be allowed to stand. So much regressive think tank framing dominates our language - let's jump on this one.

[ewagner]

6. What religious folk don't seem to

understand is that the "shall not establish" clause wasn't written to protect atheists from Christians or visa versa, it was written to protect Christians from Christians.....

remember, the founding fathers knew European history and that history was replete with conflicts of Protestants against Catholics and Christians vs Christians.....

They should think about that long and hard...

remember after the Columbine shooting when Congress scrambled to display their piety by passing a bill to allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed in the classroom? They stumbled head-long into the dilemma of WHICH version of the Ten Commandments should be displayed: Protestant, Catholic or Jewish? They ended up "compromising" the Ten Commandments!!!!!!

Your point is well taken.

[pdx_prog]

7. I have been debating this for the last three days

With my RW brother in law. There are a lot of references to the "creator" and "supreme being" in the constitution, declaration of independance and the federalist papers. Back then the bible was the most read and most quoted book in the world. This is the language that everyone used, period. We were never meant to be a nation governed by God.......first off, which God would they have used? We know what these zealots are capable of......slaves were taken in the name of God....slaves were killed in the name of God...slave sympathizers were killed in the name of God, and witches were killed by the puritans in the name of God. How would it be any different today?

I have shot down every single one of his talking points for the last three days. He has even stooped as low as taking scriptures out of context to make his points....none of which have worked...lol

[murielm99]

8. Part of the problem with that is

many of these fundies have been taught that the very WORD secular is a bad thing.

They do not understand the definition of secular. And if you try to tell them, they stop listening.

I ran into that with my parents and some of their wingnut friends. Unbelievable.

[JDPriestly]

9. Jefferson on sects

Jefferson's letter to John Adams, Monticello, May 5.17.

"I had believed that, the last retreat of Monkish darkness, bigotry, and abhorrence of those advances of the mind which had carried the other states a century ahead of them. They seemed still to be exactly where their forefathers were when they schismatised from the Covenant of works, and to consider, as dangerous heresies, all innovations good or bad. I join you (meaning John Adams)therefore in sincere congratulations that the den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a protestant popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character. If, by religion, we are to understand Sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your (Adams') exclamation on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.' But if the moral precepts, innate in man, and made a part of his physical constitution, as necessary for a social being, if the sublime doctrines of philanthropism, and deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth in which all agree, constitute true religion, then, without it, this would be, as you again say 'something not fit to be named, even indeed a Hell.'"

page 512

Jefferson to Adams, Monticello, April 11, 23.

"I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or Rather, his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. The being described in his 5. points is not the God whom you and I acknolege and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor of the world; but a daemon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no god at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin. Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a god. Now one sixth of mankind only are supposed to be Christan's; the other five sixths then, who do not believe in the Jewish and Christian revelation, are without a knolege of the existence of a god! This compleatly a <'>gain de cause<'> to the disciples of Ocellus, Timaeus, Spinosa, Diderot and D'Holbach. The argument which they rest on as triumphant and unanswerable is that, in every hypothesis of Cosmogony you must admit an eternal pre-existence of something; and according to the rule of sound philosophy, you are never to employ two principles to solve a difficulty when one will suffice. . . . .
pages 591-592

The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors.
. . . . .
page 594

Lester J. Cappon, editor, The Adams-Jefferson Letters, The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, (U. N.C. Press, Stanley B. Cappon 1987)pages 512-13, 591-594 (emphasis deleted).

Variants

The three main branches of Calvinism today are the Presbyterian Church, the United Church of Christ (the UCC; known informally as the Congregational churches), and the Reformed churches, in America called the Reformed Churches of America. The differences began as cultural and doctrinal, with the Presbyterians as Scots (or the English "Puritans" in the seventeenth century) desiring a system of episcopal oversight by elders ("presbyters"), the Congregationalists as English desiring congregational autonomy (the "Puritan Separatists"), and the Reformed as Dutch; today, these cultural distinctions are still existent, but many theological differences have sprouted. The Presbyterian church today denies limited atonement, that Christ died only for the sins of a few. The Presbyterian, and especially the United Church of Christ, is known today for a "historically critical" interpretation of the Scriptures, believing that the message must be understood in its first-century context, and both attempt in many ways to distance themselves today from some of the teachings of Calvinism, from Calvin himself and many of its adherents in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

http://www.deusvitae.com/faith/denominations/calvinismpage.html

Calvin, I believe is a spiritual predecessor of and closely related in beliefs to fundamentalism -- not the only one, but a major one.