I was a bit disturbed to see a full-page ad in the July 4 print edition of the Mirror.
Oh, it’s not that I’m naïve; I understood that it was a patriotic holiday, and those at the Mirror aren’t quick to question religious content (especially when the Hobby Lobby is paying for a full-page ad). But what struck me was that Hobby Lobby was trying to make their grandiose case with claims of ultimate authority. If they say our Founding Fathers said it, well, it must be true, huh?
OK, it’s my turn. These are the facts as I’ve learned them as a longtime student of both history and of comparative religions. My quotes reflect those of the very people Hobby Lobby are using for their own purposes. Sorry for the feathers I’m about to ruffle.
Historians long ago established the fact that our Founding Fathers were, collectively, Deists. That means a belief in God based only on reason and nature. Some of those founders were Atheists. To wit:
Thomas Jefferson regarded Christianity as “the most perverted system that ever shone on man.” John Adams also rejected the Bible and Bible-based Christianity. James Madison opposed linking Christianity with government as much as his predecessors. Madison felt so strongly on the issue that he insisted that a Congressional chaplain would be a violation of the Constitutional separation of church and state. For the same reason he opposed paid chaplains in the military.
In 1774, Madison wrote to William Bradford, Jr.: “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.”
The Virginia General Assembly heeded Madison and rejected the call for supporting religion. Instead, it passed Jefferson’s Religious Freedom Act. Madison advocated the “total separation of the church from the state.”
From the famous interview with Jon Butler: “… The principal Founding Fathers — Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin — were in fact deeply suspicious of a European pattern of governmental involvement in religion.
They were deeply concerned about an involvement in religion because they saw government as corrupting religion. Benjamin Franklin was even less religious than Washington and Jefferson. Franklin was an egotist.
Franklin was someone who believed far more in himself than he could possibly have believed in the divinity of Christ, which he didn’t. He believed in such things as the transmigration of souls. That is, that humans came into being in another existence and he may have had occult beliefs. He was a Mason who was deeply interested in Masonic secrets and there are some signs that Franklin believed in the mysteries of Occultism.”
I won’t beat the proverbial dead horse here, and it wasn’t my intention to offend anyone. I’m not openly advocating a “Godless society,” as no two people can agree on what that means anyway. But when one attempts to spread religious/political/ideological views by citing improper authority, it is one’s duty to stop that nonsense in its tracks.
Make up your own minds. And don’t think that it “must be true” just because you read it in an ad in the paper. Especially when there’s big money behind it. We are here because our European ancestors conquered or supplanted the native people, eradicated their belief system, and forced their beliefs on them. Be careful what you’re proud of. We can be better than that.
David McKenzie, Federal Way
