Wednesday morning’s USA Today features a survey of the attitudes of Muslim Americans toward “extremism,” probably to show how such attitudes contrast with the views of Muslims in Europe and elsewhere. The subtext of the survey seemed to be an exploration of the likelihood of homegrown terrorists within the U.S.:
The USA’s estimated 2.4 million Muslims hold more moderate political views than Muslims elsewhere in the world and are mostly middle class and willing to adopt the American way of life, according to one of the most comprehensive surveys of this segment of the nation’s population.
The Pew Research Center study released Tuesday found that “Muslim Americans are very much like the rest of the country,” says Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. “They do not see a conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.”
Muslim Americans, however, have a much more negative view about the Iraq war and the war against terrorism than the U.S. public as a whole, the survey found. The study also found pockets of sympathy for Islamic extremism, especially among younger people. Muslims between the ages of 18 and 29 express significantly greater acceptance than older people of suicide bombings in some cases.
The young show a greater tendency to identify themselves as Muslim first and American second. This faith-first pattern is even more pronounced among Muslims in Europe, according to previous Pew surveys. [Link]
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p>The trend that suggests that Muslims in America are willing to adopt the American way of life is something that I expected. We’ve often discussed here on SM that assimilation is stressed within the immigrant population of the U.S., far more than elsewhere. The fact that Muslims between the ages of 18 and 29 show a greater acceptance of suicide bombing doesn’t surprise me either. If you had given the same survey to members of any other religion I am sure the acceptance of suicide bombing would correlate with age. We live in a world where extreme violence is commonplace, and the youngest among us will therefore accept such violence more readily than the older generations. However, the last highlighted finding above did surprise me as I have personally not encountered such an attitude. Then, as I read just a few sentences further, everything was put into perspective:
Previous Pew surveys show that 42% of Christians identify with their religion before their country. Among white evangelicals, 62% say they identify themselves first as Christians. [Link]
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So Evangelical Christians in America (who are more likely to have been born in America) are more likely than Muslims to put their faith before their country? That’s food for thought. The final finding in the study is also a trend that we’ve discussed on SM before. African American Muslims (particularly those with a prison record) are more likely to accept extremism.
The poll found that African-Americans are the most disillusioned segment of the Muslim American population, a possible reflection of their economic conditions and experience with racial discrimination. [Link]
So maybe what this survey has really found is that people that live under poor economic conditions and face racial discrimination are more likely to be accepting of violence as a means to change their ends. Did we really need to poll Muslims in America to figure that out?
Clueless, @41
My argument was substantiated with facts
Razib @40
You don’t like Islam because there a muslim terrorists. How come your ok with all the atheistic / Christian terrorists? You obviously are convinced that America fights “legitimate” wars and Al-Qaeda are terrorists. The only difference being that America uses missiles and sophisticated weaponry to target their enemies, while AL-Qaeda uses suicide bombers and ground rifles.
The idea is to collectively reject all forms of terrorism. Not to pinpoint and scapegoat one to legitimize another.
America is a terrorist state. Its the only country to have used nuclear arms. The amount of killing America is responsible for = Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, Gulf War, Afghanistan, Palestine, Japan. Its shocking.
It just pisses me off that they get away with it. It frustrates me that they are still considered to be victims and that educated open minded readers of this blog don’t accept that.
America is a terrorist state
So how many of Sepia Mutiny readers agree with this?
So Evangelical Christians in America (who are more likely to have been born in America) are more likely than Muslims to put their faith before their country? Thats food for thought
I think you’re right @34— I attend an Evangelical Church in the US and now the UK— my impression that the multiculturalism that’s so prominentin the UK and becoming more’visible’ to Americans + the strident secular anti religious voices such as David Dawkins Dawkins,Christopher Hawkins etc will increasingly cause more [Americans] to identify by their faith vs nationality. [I would put the latter as a bigger reason in the US,vs.multiculturalism]
The current issue of The American Interest– breaks down ‘Muslims’ into three schools- Holy war and Conquest leaders’ jihad, ‘Reason and Propagation’ Muslim brotherhood, and the Traditionalist/quietistist-according tothe author Amir Taheri- strongest amongst the Shi’a who believe that the first two groups have made Islam unnecessarily political. Finally outside of those three groups- the ‘Muslim’ secularilist– who “experience Islam as a civilization more than a religious Faith.”, and don’t want to meld into a “Christological” Western culture.
The article pointed out the weakness in Western–[IMV American] media in characterizing Islam as a monolith. The social development of “Islamic Banking” insurance, loans, stock exchanges etc. in contrast /spite of ‘historical’ strictures on ursury etc is telling. Taheri points out that a lack of a central authority- has allowed the adaptation of pragmatic approaches to ‘scientific’ issue (invitro fertilization etc).
As far as African American conversion to Islam– I’m sure that is complicated by historical& current factors in America regarding SES, as well as a misguided view that some external really ‘other’ *’brotherhood’ will give you an identity ,sense of belonging that’s an upgrade from being just ‘black’ in America, or the UK. *That said with knowledge of the caste,ethnic, tensions etc between ‘brown Muslims’ much more so towards those of Afro descent. Where ever you go… there you are.
@51 Ba I’m not sure you conflate what @40 Razib said
as an endorsement of
However, people have their biases and Razib reconfirmed his bias of disliking Islam in general more so than other religions.
Yeah, because of some of my past experiences I have had, I hate do it, but I agree with that statement..
Americans let my brother become a surgeon, yet they did not let me study at even a community college !
@Ba – “The idea is to collectively reject all forms of terrorism. Not to pinpoint and scapegoat one to legitimize another.”
This is my understanding of the issue :
There is a difference between killing soldiers and killing civilians. When the WTC was brought down, that was terrorism because unarmed civilians died … When suicide bombs are used to kill SOLDIERS in war, I would call that ‘fair’ , and would rather call it a certain mode of warfare, like maybe ‘guerilla warfare’ . Instead of tossing the bomb, they deliver it in person. That’s not terrorism. That’s warfare.
Al-Qaeda has specialized in killing civilians – And is thus a terrorist outfit. Armies of nations, however, intend at least, to kill SOLDIERs of the opposing faction . Civilians are off-limits here. So I would not call an ‘Army’ a terrorist outfit.
Hiroshima/Nagasaki was absolutely unfair and can be classified a terrorist act, as millions of civilians died there.
I don’t know Clueless what with all the hip-hop fyi;that’s American and whatnot- being exported to other communities- destroying their otherwise pristine morals, I supposte the question must be asked.
@55 – ‘Americans let my brother become a surgeon, yet they did not let me study at even a community college !’
That’s why America is a terrorist state ? Wow
.. i really hope you were being sarcastic
No, I’m not being sarcastic.. I’m serious.. My brother ended up becoming a surgeon, and I ended up being harassed out of a community college..
what does that have to do with america being a terrorist state? “they hurt me. they are terrorists”????
Well I think they used me being an alleged terrorist to harass me out of the college.. But I’m not sure, it could have been for a number of other reasons also..
But that is what terrorists do, they hurt innocent peoples !
“they” are not america. just some americans. they do not represent the state, to call it a “terrorist state” also. if i pull someones hair im not a terrorist. althought the arguement can be made. that is not the arguement.
Interesting indeed. From the Zogby poll numbers and other numbers frequently cited at sites such as democratic underground, 9/11truth, I would have guessed higher skepticism among muslims. Although so much depends on the exact phrasing of questions and that varies a lot. These numbers are probably not very different from national numbers and that is probably a good thing.
Has someone redefined “comment” while i wasn’t looking?
@ Randomizer
America Kills civilians. Hasn’t Iraq been an example enough … there is a count somewhere on the net how many civilians have been killed.
But I can give a personal example. I live in Karachi, my driver hails from NWFP and is Pakhtoon / Pathan (Pakhtoons are generally big in transport). While on holiday to his village in NWFP, the US fired a tomahawk missile (this is something like 4 – 5 months back) onto a house a qtr of a mile from his. Apparently some Al-Qaeda operative was staying there (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0118-04.htm). His cousins something (I forget the relation) was amongst those who were killed. He came back home furious … he hates America, would sign up for Al-Qaeda at even a hint of a chance. He is uneducated and generally uninformed, as far as he is concerned America tried to kill his tribe and he hates them. Just for arguments sake, had America spent its billions, developing the are, won’t the area not be antagonistic towards America??
America is a terrorist state. Period. And I have lived in America, we were in Miami, Americans are not terrorists like muslims aren’t, but American foreign policy is terrorism oriented. The sooner people accept this the better.
But I can give a personal example. I live in Karachi, my driver hails from NWFP and is Pakhtoon / Pathan (Pakhtoons are generally big in transport). While on holiday to his village in NWFP, the US fired a tomahawk missile (this is something like 4 – 5 months back) onto a house a qtr of a mile from his. Apparently some Al-Qaeda operative was staying there (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0118-04.htm). His cousins something (I forget the relation) was amongst those who were killed. He came back home furious … he hates America, would sign up for Al-Qaeda at even a hint of a chance. He is uneducated and generally uninformed, as far as he is concerned America tried to kill his tribe and he hates them. Just for arguments sake, had America spent its billions, developing the are, won’t the area not be antagonistic towards America??
America is a terrorist state. Period. And I have lived in America, we were in Miami, Americans are not terrorists like muslims aren’t, but American foreign policy is terrorism oriented. The sooner people accept this the better.
We have got ourselves a terrorist generator here. Replace
Karachi – Mumbai NWFP – Gujarat Pathan – Gujarati America – Pakistan Miami – Karachi US fired a tomahawk missile – Pakistan’s ISI put bombs in buses
muslims raised in muslim societies generally should not be allowed to speak up for or try to present reasoned arguments for islam as a religion or for the foreign policy of islamic states or for the motives of terrorist and armed groups. they are usually the region’s equivalent of redneck evangelicals and as such, they do not have the capabilities to enlighten us without resorting to rehashing the catchphrases of quicker-witted western thinkers and “islam is peace” inanities that became trite long years ago in the nearly six after 9/11.
none of your points have functioned as such. you have added nothing and convinced no one of whatever vague thesis you’re trying to articulate. the more you write the more unanalytical you make us look, and the further you’ve drifted away from the topic of this thread. as in the “who’s the real terrorist?” debate you’re laboring to pull us all into, i am certain you, writing from pakistan, would have even less to contribute regarding the mindset of american muslims. running wild with religious emotion helps no one here.
read more dawn than the campus jamaat paper, your muslim brother.
read more dawn than the campus jamaat paper, your muslim brother.
The jamaat has campus newspapers now!
What does it mean to say America is a terrorist state? That it purposely kills civilians in order to forward a political agenda? Civilian casualties, so-called collateral damage (terrible term), are not purposeful; they are accidents and American soldiers take pains to minimize them. Yes, they generally do, despite horrific incidences to the contrary. Purposefully setting off a car-bomb in a crowded market is different than a missile that misses it’s mark. Yes, I agree, the latter is sometimes minimized in our reporting, and certainly not to our credit, but how can they be the same thing? And, when those terrorists flew planes into the WTC, was it only to ‘protest’ American foreign policy? Or avenge American actions? The goals of those terrorists went beyond any tit-for-anti-imperialist-tat; they had political goals which should be anathema to anyone who supports liberalism, democracy, minority and women’s rights. I’ll never understand the conflation of the two…..
*Ba, there was a context to dropping the bomb. The Pacific leg of WWII was horrific. Utterly horrific. In retrospect, does that fact justify dropping the bomb? I don’t know. The more I read about World War II, the more horrified I am about the sheer scope of it and the barbarity of what happened. How long would the war have lasted and how many more people would have died had the bomb not been dropped? It’s not a straight-forward question and a serious point of argument for historians. As for American foreign policy; well, Germany and France supplied Saddam with weapns, India and China make deals with the Darfur regime over oil fields, the French were in Vietnam and Algeria, the Russians decimated Afghanistan. Why, then, is the US uniquely singled out for scorn? I’m not saying scorn isn’t justified at times, but why one standard for the US and another for, well, everyone else?
As for this survey, well, I’ll have to make like a razib and read it first, before I comment.
America is a terrorist state. Its the only country to have used nuclear arms. The amount of killing America is responsible for = Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, Gulf War, Afghanistan, Palestine, Japan. Its shocking.
I suggest you crack open a history book and learn about WWII before you start complaining about Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Specifically, you might want to read about the Battle of Okinawa. It’s unfortunate, but the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably saved countless JAPANESE civilian lives since it ended the war before a land invasion of Japan was necessary. The casualty predictions for a land invasion were enormous, both in terms of Japanese cilivian/military and the Allied forces. The carpet bombings of major cities during WWII resulted in many more casualities than the dropping of the bomb. While it’s fashionable to condemn the dropping of the bomb and state the “America-is-the-only-state-to-have-dropped-the-bomb” sound bite, it is also overly simplistic.
With respect to Korea, did the North Koreans and Chinese have anything to do with the Korean War??! America joined the Korean War AFTER North Korea invaded the South AND after the UN voted to send troops to help the South.
WRT to the Gulf War I and Afghanistan, care to elaborate the actions that the US took to warrant the “terrorist state” designation?
I think that Iraq and Vietnam were serious mistakes, but I don’t see how this justifies placing the US in the same category as Stalinist Russia or the Nazis or Iran or North Korea etc.
Nice to see america-haters taking over another thread which was supposed to be about a whole quarter of american muslims supporting suicide bombings.
Good work chomskyites, now bugger off to DU or dailykos.
Really cool article on the subject of pluralistic ignorance here, defined as a scenario in which ““moral principles with relatively little popular support may exert considerable influence because they are mistakenly thought to represent the views of the majority, while normative imperatives actually favored by the majority may carry less weight because they are erroneously attributed to a minority.†… “What is especially disturbing about the process is that it lends itself to control by the noisiest and most visible.”
I don’t want to derail the thread (if such a concept even exists at this point of the discussion) with the linked article’s discussion of opinions on the Bush administration, just wanted to point out that a very similar concept might exist in the Muslim world when it comes to sympathy for suicide bombings or other extremist activities.
so 60% are flirting with something like holocaust denial. this is the underlying bigotry or ethnic chauvanism that breeds terrorism, not unlike the way racism in the general US population gave rise to the KKK. abc should’ve excercised their 1st ammendment rights and fired rosie when she added to the exagerrated sense of victimization these idiots feel.
@md,
i don’t see the US as a terrorist state, and i find it apalling that many compare the al qaeda with US. now osama and bush–they are long lost twins, but not the alqaeda and US. however, i do think you are too much of an apologist for current actions of the US. you say:
do you think invading iraq for no reason other than oil is any different from setting a bomb in a crowded market place?
the thing is there is a legitimate grievance with the iraq war, but islamic terrorism also existed way before that. imo there is no cause and effect here—the islamic terrorists would have created reasons to kill non-muslims. the US would have cooked up reasons to get at iraqi oil. to that extent they are the same. there is one crucial difference: that one side (US) is predictable and acts to better its interests, the other side (islamic terror) is not predictable and acts not necessarily to improve its life but to kill others’.
@Rahul…thanks for that link, great article, great relevance.
So what should America do?. For example do you have anything specific to say about America’s foreign policy goals..
You obviously are convinced that America fights “legitimate” wars and Al-Qaeda are terrorists.
wtf is that derived from? are you a regular reader of this weblog? or the four years of posts i’ve made on my various weblogs? and yes, i think al qaeda are terrorists. america fights some wars worth fighting, and some wars not worth fighting, and some wars worth fighting in a manner that makes them not worth fighting. and now we’ve reached the stage where america-is-all-powerful-evil and the murder of 3,000 americans is equivalent to the extermination of 6 million jews. see why i like to bombard threads early and often before the action gets good?
I think the pollsters’ question about suicide bombing is far too simplistic. I was just reading an assessment of Palestinian strategy by Azmi Bashara, the leading representative of Arab citizens of Israel, which begins like this:
“I am constantly surprised at how, when the subject of Palestinian strategy is discussed, impatient questioners seek to boil the matter down to “Are you for or against suicide operations?†The reduction of the national strategy to this question exemplifies an extreme political poverty in these difficult times, which is also quite tragic.”
The essay really forces one to go beyond platitudes and raises the bar for those interested in a free Palestine.
so 60% are flirting with something like holocaust denial. this is the underlying bigotry or ethnic chauvanism that breeds terrorism, not unlike the way racism in the general US population gave rise to the KKK. abc should’ve excercised their 1st ammendment rights and fired rosie when she added to the exagerrated sense of victimization these idiots feel.
The 60% are not denying 9-11. I dont believe Rosie denied 9-11 either though who knows. Anyway, these people are not denying 9-11 but suggesting that the culprits were not those 19 men but someone entirely different which is quite fferent from suggesting that 9-11 never happened.
First let me concede. Calling america a terrorist state is provocative and not what I intend to say or mean, as in America is not a terrorist state per se Nazi Germany. However I believe that America is responsible for terrorism through its foreign policy, both in the attack itself and in the response to the attack. Just to make this thread discussive and not argumentative I have two sets questions.
1) Will there be terrorist attacks in the US b/c of the War in Iraq? If you think so, can one consider those attacks a result of America’s foreign policy? Is America’s attack on Iraq terrorism? If America attacks Iran, knowing that Iran does not have nukes or the means to deliver nukes to the US, will that be an act of terrorism?
2) How related is America’s foreign policy to the political will of the average American? Most people I would assume would base there voting on issues such as tax / housing / healthcare, not foreign policy. Is it hypothetically possible for a rogue candidate to satisfy the issues of tax / housing / healthcare, win the election and use America’s arsenal for misguided wars? Is bush walking a tightrope here? The economy has done well under him.
These are more queries and less opinions. Tell me why my thinking is wrong, why you disagree with me? if you do at all.
‘ see why i like to bombard threads early and often before the action gets good‘
And here I thought the reason you did that was to set a tone of somewhat rational discourse and discourage hyperbole and trumped numbers
well, most prominent holocaust deniers don’t deny its existence either, just that it did not occur in the manner and to the extent that we all believe. some are not even ant-semites (they’re conspiracy theorists who love to cross the establishment) but all feed anti-semitism.
rosie is not an islamic fascist, but she is giving aid and comfort to the enemy, as are apparently 60% of muslim americans.
If we had to pick one salient feature of the Holocaust deniers, it would be their scepticism as to the extent of the genocide. I dont think the 9-11 conspiracy theorists are denying the extent of the 9-11 tragedy.
rosie is not an islamic fascist, but she is giving aid and comfort to the enemy, as are apparently 60% of muslim americans.
Who is the enemy, in your opinion?
rosie is not an islamic fascist, but she is giving aid and comfort to the enemy, as are apparently 60% of muslim americans.
By that definition, 22% of Americans, 15% of Republicans are also giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
These are more queries and less opinions. Tell me why my thinking is wrong, why you disagree with me? if you do at all.
i don’t really disagree with you that much. you just assumed i did because i dislike islam.
various islamic fascists, especially those who’re are looking to acquire wmds.
yes, i think much of the american public is in denial, especially since bush is a victim of his own success. i think this reflects the harshness of the democratic rhetoric, acusing bush of going to war for oil, the haiburtan smear, financial ties with saudis thru the carlyle group, etc. this is especially sad since this white house has gone out of its way to not label their political opponenets as unpatrotic.
What the heck are you yakking about?
The genius actually buys the absurdity that Unitarianism is the true orthodox christianity! That reveals your cluelessness.
Rejecting the Trinity is rejecting the Divinity of Christ and rejecting the sacrificial scheme of Salvation, which are the bedrock beliefs of orthodox Christianity whether Catholic, Protestant or Eastern Orthodox. To deny that Jesus is the Son of God is to be a heretic in the eyes of orthodox christianity. Such unorthodoxy could get you tortured and killed in pre-Enlightenment times. You apparently are unaware that it wasn’t Unitarianism but Protestant Calvinism that was the religious orthodoxy/ruling theology of colonial America and that the founder of this sect, Calvin, had notoriously burned at the stake in Geneva the spanish scientist Servetus…..for his Unitarianism.
The Deist and Unitarian Founders of the American Republic were rebelling against both monarchy and christian orthodoxy. The American Constitution is a strictly secular document. It owes nothing whatsoever to the Bible.
What the heck are you yakking about?
you insult and offend with your verbal diarrhea! clean up your mess moron!
The genius actually buys the absurdity that Unitarianism is the true orthodox christianity! That reveals your cluelessness.
the moron has problems with english comprehension! john & abigail adams believed they were the orthodox christians. they believed in a jesus with supernatural powers who came from on high, they believed in life after death. that could be inferred from the english above, but the moron is semi-literate! assuming that the moron can manage the creature may find some data in The Faiths of the Founding Fathers.
as the moron has noted many a time, south asians have low IQs 😉 it is evidence #1.
You apparently are unaware that it wasn’t Unitarianism but Protestant Calvinism that was the religious orthodoxy/ruling theology of colonial America and that the founder of this sect, Calvin, had notoriously burned at the stake in Geneva the spanish scientist Servetus.
and moron, did you know that except for king’s chapel in boston all the historic unitarian churches in new england derive from the liberal wing of the congregationalist movement, the denominational descendant of new england calvinism? ah, but a moron didn’t know that before prattling on about calvinism.
I think I smell a troll.
Delhiite, you really should get a second opinion before letting yourself be brainwashed by evangelical propaganda. Spend some minutes googling and realize that they have lied to you. There are plenty quotes out there revealing the Deist and Unitarian beliefs of the Founders. Orthodox christians of that time, such as Patrick Henry, considered them infidels and became enemies of the non-christian Constitution they wrote.
Read the following article as a second, truer opinion:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050221/allen
“if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. One of his Administration’s current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones.”
Our Constitution makes no mention whatever of God. The omission was too obvious to have been anything but deliberate
In the eighty-five essays that make up The Federalist, God is mentioned only twice (both times by Madison, who uses the word, as Gore Vidal has remarked, in the “only Heaven knows” sense). In the Declaration of Independence, He gets two brief nods: a reference to “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” and the famous line about men being “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
“In 1797 our government concluded a “Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, or Barbary,” now known simply as the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 of the treaty contains these words:
This document was endorsed by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and President John Adams. It was then sent to the Senate for ratification; the vote was unanimous. It is worth pointing out that although this was the 339th time a recorded vote had been required by the Senate, it was only the third unanimous vote in the Senate’s history. There is no record of debate or dissent. The text of the treaty was printed in full in the Philadelphia Gazette and in two New York papers, but there were no screams of outrage, as one might expect today.”
“The Founding Fathers were not religious men, and they fought hard to erect, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, “a wall of separation between church and state.” John Adams opined that if they were not restrained by legal measures, Puritans–the fundamentalists of their day–would “whip and crop, and pillory and roast.”
“If we define a Christian as a person who believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ, then it is safe to say that some of the key Founding Fathers were not Christians at all. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine were deists--that is, they believed in one Supreme Being but rejected revelation and all the supernatural elements of the Christian Church; the word of the Creator, they believed, could best be read in Nature. John Adams was a professed liberal Unitarian, but he, too, in his private correspondence seems more deist than Christian.
George Washington and James Madison also leaned toward deism, although neither took much interest in religious matters. Madison believed that “religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize.” He spoke of the “almost fifteen centuries” during which Christianity had been on trial: “What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.” If Washington mentioned the Almighty in a public address, as he occasionally did, he was careful to refer to Him not as “God” but with some nondenominational moniker like “Great Author” or “Almighty Being.” It is interesting to note that the Father of our Country spoke no words of a religious nature on his deathbed, although fully aware that he was dying, and did not ask for a man of God to be present; his last act was to take his own pulse, the consummate gesture of a creature of the age of scientific rationalism.”
“Tom Paine, a polemicist rather than a politician, could afford to be perfectly honest about his religious beliefs, which were baldly deist in the tradition of Voltaire: “I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life…. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.” This is how he opened The Age of Reason, his virulent attack on Christianity. In it he railed against the “obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness” of the Old Testament, “a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.” The New Testament is less brutalizing but more absurd, the story of Christ’s divine genesis a “fable, which for absurdity and extravagance is not exceeded by any thing that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients.” He held the idea of the Resurrection in especial ridicule: Indeed, “the wretched contrivance with which this latter part is told, exceeds every thing that went before it.” Paine was careful to contrast the tortuous twists of theology with the pure clarity of deism. “The true deist has but one Deity; and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in every thing moral, scientifical, and mechanical.”
“Franklin was the oldest of the Founding Fathers. He was also the most worldly and sophisticated, and was well aware of the Machiavellian principle that if one aspires to influence the masses, one must at least profess religious sentiments. By his own definition he was a deist, although one French acquaintance claimed that “our free-thinkers have adroitly sounded him on his religion, and they maintain that they have discovered he is one of their own, that is that he has none at all.” If he did have a religion, it was strictly utilitarian: As his biographer Gordon Wood has said, “He praised religion for whatever moral effects it had, but for little else.” Divine revelation, Franklin freely admitted, had “no weight with me,” and the covenant of grace seemed “unintelligible” and “not beneficial.” As for the pious hypocrites who have ever controlled nations, “A man compounded of law and gospel is able to cheat a whole country with his religion and then destroy them under color of law”–a comment we should carefully consider at this turning point in the history of our Republic.
Jefferson thoroughly agreed with Franklin on the corruptions the teachings of Jesus had undergone. “The metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius, and the maniacal ravings of Calvin, tinctured plentifully with the foggy dreams of Plato, have so loaded [Christianity] with absurdities and incomprehensibilities” that it was almost impossible to recapture “its native simplicity and purity.” Like Paine, Jefferson felt that the miracles claimed by the New Testament put an intolerable strain on credulity. “The day will come,” he predicted (wrongly, so far), “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.” The Revelation of St. John he dismissed as “the ravings of a maniac.”
The three accomplishments Jefferson was proudest of–those that he requested be put on his tombstone–were the founding of the University of Virginia and the authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. The latter was a truly radical document that would eventually influence the separation of church and state in the US Constitution; when it was passed by the Virginia legislature in 1786, Jefferson rejoiced that there was finally “freedom for the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammeden, the Hindu and infidel of every denomination”–note his respect, still unusual today, for the sensibilities of the “infidel.” The University of Virginia was notable among early-American seats of higher education in that it had no religious affiliation whatever. Jefferson even banned the teaching of theology at the school.
John Adams, though no more religious than Jefferson, had inherited the fatalistic mindset of the Puritan culture in which he had grown up…..As an old man he observed, “Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!'” Speaking ex cathedra, as a relic of the founding generation, he expressed his admiration for the Roman system whereby every man could worship whom, what and how he pleased. When his young listeners objected that this was paganism, Adams replied that it was indeed, and laughed.”
“Like Jefferson, every recent President has understood the necessity of at least paying lip service to the piety of most American voters. All of our leaders, Democrat and Republican, have attended church, and have made very sure they are seen to do so. But there is a difference between offering this gesture of respect for majority beliefs and manipulating and pandering to the bigotry, prejudice and millennial fantasies of Christian extremists. Though for public consumption the Founding Fathers identified themselves as Christians, they were, at least by today’s standards, remarkably honest about their misgivings when it came to theological doctrine, and religion in general came very low on the list of their concerns and priorities–always excepting, that is, their determination to keep the new nation free from bondage to its rule.”
Spend some minutes googling and realize that they have lied to you.
moron, you know that to answer these questions you need to do more than just use google? i mean, perhaps that’s all a moron can do. and yes, you are generally correct in you contention from what i know, but that’s because there is a wealth of scholarship which places the correspondence in their proper historical context. you can find this in items known as “books” in places known as “libraries.” semi-literate that you are, you might not be aware that words out of context do not impart their proper meaning, and it seems unseemly for morons to use them to forward their arguments without full disclosure of that context.
Thats really funny coming from the genius who responded to my comment: “Many others were Unitarians who rejected the core christian concepts of Trinity and salvation through blood sacrifice.”, with this nonsense showing his vaunted “english comprehension”:
How the hell does that disprove the fact that Unitarians rejected the orthodox christian belief in the Holy Trinity? Unitarianism is anti-Trinitarianism by definition. Did John Adams believe that Jesus was God or didnt he? As a Unitarian obviously he didnt. That puts him squarely in the un-orthodox camp, regardless of whether he claimed his version of christianity was the true one or not. Thats not how you define orthodoxy. The fact that you are even debating this shows who the “moron” is 🙂
moron be silent with your ignorance! increasing the volume doesn’t make you right, and you are not god to decide who is or isn’t “orthodox.” are you? is deist right and god really isn’t an “intelligence” per se, but a moronical force of nature.
How the hell
and moron, didn’t they teach you to watch h-e-double-hockey-sticks when speaking of g-d?
Lol. Unitarianism is orthodox christianity! Unitarianism is derived from Calvinism! shouts the clueless “genius”. You got screws loose in your demented brain pal. Unitarians were burned alive as heretics by Calvinists and this nut is calling them religious kinsmen! That many Calvinists became Unitarians does not mean that the religious ideology of the latter was derived from the former, for they had antithetical core beliefs in the nature of Divinity and Salvation.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc8.iv.xv.x.html?bcb=0
“Socinianism, as a system of theology, has largely affected the theology of orthodox Protestantism on the Continent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and was succeeded by modern Unitarianism, which has exerted considerable influence on the thought and literature of England and America in the nineteenth century. It forms the extreme left wing of Protestantism, and the antipode to Calvinism.”
“It is chiefly due to Calvin’s and Bullinger’s influence that Unitarianism, which began to undermine orthodoxy, and to unsettle the Churches, was banished from Switzerland. It received its death-blow in the execution of Servetus, who was a Spaniard, but the ablest and most dangerous antitrinitarian.”
moron, if you are god, it would explain why nature is so maladapted! no subtly or nuance! in any case moron, i’ve forgotten more religious history than you can google in a day, trust me. e.g., your “cite”:
It received its death-blow in the execution of Servetus, who was a Spaniard, but the ablest and most dangerous antitrinitarian.
a typical moron would think that this meant that unitarianism wasn’t a big force after the life of servetus (early 16th century). look at the subsequent history of unitarianism in transylvania (well after servetus) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism#Transylvania_and_Hungary
and note the connection between calvinism and unitarianism in the lives of prominent figures. life ain’t so simple moron as your first-book-of-religion sketches.
the point in my critique of you moron is that yes, you are right that evangelical christians make up history when none of the first 6 presidents would be considered orthodox christians by them (and including you and i, moron). but, there was a wide range of beliefs and attitudes toward christianity by the founders. it is no coincidence that despite his nominal unitarianism john quincy adams was attracted to trinitarianism and orthodox christianity of his day. his parents were self-identified christians who were considerably less hostile to the faith than thomas jefferson, who was also inclined toward unitarianism (in 1800 john adams was the assumed ‘christian’ candidate vs. jefferson). the point is that if you are going to make a case as the one you above you open yourself up for selectivity and critique at the hands of non-morons who actually know this junk from things called books (speaking of books, there’s a little one called the reformation published recently which would enlighten you on a lot of these issues). your diatribes are generally right or wrong, obviously, but also invariably manichaean and stark in their gross simplicity. luckily there aren’t many people out there to slap away your rotten low hanging fruit. but it really sucks when people agree with you but have to jump in after you’ve demonized the opposition like they’re apparitions from the lowest levels of h*ll. not cool. stupid even. go ask some of the people who agree with you on what they thing of your modus. your arguments are black and vile, as everyone knows.
Pathetic. According to this pretentious ignoramus Abigail Adam’s declaration that Unitarianism was the true “orthodox” christianity decides that it must have been so! Anyone who has a clue knows that the opposite is the case. Again you reveal your complete ignorance of the Nicene Creed which is the foundation of christian orthodoxy. Here, educate yourself 🙂
http://www.answers.com/topic/nicene-creed
” Nicene Creed: Ecumenical Christian statement of faith accepted by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and major Protestant churches.”
“A formal statement of doctrine of the Christian faith adopted at the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 to defend orthodoxy from Arianism and expanded in later councils.”
Note that Arianism, like Unitarianism, rejected the orthodox christian Trinity; and was considered anathema by the church.
The Nicene Creed establishes belief in the Divinity of Jesus as a core belief of christian orthodoxy:
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God”
pretentious ignoramus
moron, why the recourse toward insulting adjectives to make an argument? did you use thesaurus features on answers.com? ah, the wages of a low IQ….