Mr. Seidel's [of the Freedom From Religion Foundation] original post, outlining his book, The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American is here.
Yeah, whatever. Heard it all before. Wiki-deep.
The discussion with a relatively well-read fundamentalist Protestant was more interesting:
Our Founding Truth said...
I think they just spaced it.
Oh, I don't think you believe that, Jim. It's certainly at odds with everything you just wrote in this thread. You condemned them for not making America explicitly Christian enough. A lack of will, a lack of guts. Not forgetfulness.
I think the explanation is more practical: There was no way you could get it done. Under Protestantism, with its huge disparities in doctrine, there was no way to put together a consensus of what Christianity even is.
Add in Virginia with its Baptists and secularists, and it held a veto on religion in the federal government even while the other 12 states were pretty Christian [yes, even New York].
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Mostly what I'm establishing here is that you are just the sort of Protestant Christian off whom Mr. Seidel and his ilk make their money, by convincing secularists and liberal Jews and Christians that you fundies are poised to impose some sort of theocracy on America.
I don't think you are, either as a practical matter or even as a theo-political matter. YOU are the ones to say that the Founding era blew it, by not making America Christian enough. [The Gary North thing.]
And you are NOT calling for a re-Founding of America, or at least I don't think you are. You surely realize that if they didn't do it back then, the American people are surely not going to vote in a more Christian America here in the 21st century.
So I just want to sort all this out and stay on track, since the topic is Mr. Seidel, his "freedom from religion" advocacy, and the actual historical record which I think is at odds with it.
YOU are his bogeyman. His cash cow. The Christianist fundamentalist Republican theocrat. I find it offensive.
And even if he believes all this sincerely, I don't think you think what he thinks you think.
You are not insisting that the Founders created a theocracy that we need to return to. You quite plainly say they didn't create a theocratic state at all--and that was the big mistake.
It's not that radical an idea, Jim, unless Calvin and Hobbes [the REAL John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes] were radicals!
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