NOW. But a simple perusal of the history of the Catholic church disputes this in historical terms. Religion did quite well, thank you very much, when it had the hammer of the state enforcing it's values and beliefs.
I correct myself. You did use the word "here". So, agreed.
you are speaking in an historical context but winehole is right when he speaks of the erosion of religion in europe due to the over authoritative church. if not for latin america and africa (where liberation is the breed of catholicism-a far cry from that of the more traditional cathecism) the catholic church would have some severely diminished numbers.
Yeah the Catholic church worked wonders in Rwanda. Another crime of the church no one talks about. And I'm not bashing Catholics, I am one. But the Catholic church, as an organization...has a lot left to be desired, even today.
Admired by Bonaparte, distrusted by John Adams, more a father of the anti-clerical French Revolution and abstract universal rights than of the American one and Cons utionalism, TP was important on the American scene for turning the conversation to independence at a crucial moment.
TP had the ear of influential men and influenced them at the founding, hats off to him for that, but that does not necessarily make him a founder. JMO.
i am as well and i will be the first to bash the church and all of its misgivings and egregious acts and offenses both past and present. i also extol what they get right and embrace the philosophy.
come to think of it i guess that is how i also view our government.
TP, "founding father" of the USA, gave advice to Bonaparte on how to invade England (his native land) and the US (his adoptive one before and after France.)
Last edited by Winehole23; 04-20-2010 at 03:39 PM.
From the wiki:
In 1802 or 1803, Tom Paine left France for the United States, paying passage also for Bonneville's wife, Marguerite Brazier and their three sons, seven year old Benjamin, Louis, and Thomas, of which Paine was godfather. Paine returned to the U.S. in the early stages of the Second Great Awakening and a time of great political partisanship. The Age of Reason gave ample excuse for the religiously devout to dislike him, and the Federalists attacked him for his ideas of government stated in Common Sense, for his association with the French Revolution, and for his friendship with President Jefferson. Also still fresh in the minds of the public was his Letter to Washington, published six years before his return.
Upon his return to America, Paine penned 'On the Origins of Freemasonry.' Nicholas Bonneville printed the essay in French. It was not printed in English until 1810, when Marguerite posthumously published his essay, which she had culled from among his papers, as a pamphlet containing an edited version wherein she omitted his references to the Christian religion. The do ent was published in English in its entirety in New York in 1918.[36]
Brazier took care of Paine at the end of his life and buried him on his death on June 8 1809. In his will, Paine left the bulk of his estate to Marguerite, including 100 acres (40.5 ha) of his farm so she could maintain and educate Benjamin and his brother Thomas. In 1810, The fall of Napoleon finally allowed Bonneville to rejoin his wife in the United States where he remained for four years before returning to Paris to open a bookshop.
Paine died at the age of 72, at 59 Grove Street in Greenwich Village, New York City on the morning of June 8, 1809. Although the original building is no longer there, the present building has a plaque noting that Paine died at this location.
At the time of his death, most American newspapers reprinted the obituary notice from the New York Citizen, which read in part: "He had lived long, did some good and much harm." Only six mourners came to his funeral, two of whom were black, most likely freedmen. The great orator and writer Robert G. Ingersoll wrote:
Thomas Paine had passed the legendary limit of life. One by one most of his old friends and acquaintances had deserted him. Maligned on every side, execrated, shunned and abhorred – his virtues denounced as vices – his services forgotten – his character blackened, he preserved the poise and balance of his soul. He was a victim of the people, but his convictions remained unshaken. He was still a soldier in the army of freedom, and still tried to enlighten and civilize those who were impatiently waiting for his death. Even those who loved their enemies hated him, their friend – the friend of the whole world – with all their hearts. On the 8th of June, 1809, death came – Death, almost his only friend. At his funeral no pomp, no pageantry, no civic procession, no military display. In a carriage, a woman and her son who had lived on the bounty of the dead – on horseback, a Quaker, the humanity of whose heart dominated the creed of his head – and, following on foot, two negroes filled with gra ude – cons uted the funeral cortege of Thomas Paine.[37]"In the summer of 1803 the political atmosphere was in a tempestuous condition, owing to the widespread accusation that Aaron Burr had intrigued with the Federalists against Jefferson to gain the presidency. There was a Society in New York called "Republican Greens," who, on Independence Day, had for a toast "Thomas Paine, the Man of the People", and who seem to have had a piece of music called the "Rights of Man". Paine was also apparently the hero of that day at White Plains, where a vast crowd assembled".
The original burial location of Thomas Paine in New Roc e, New York.
A few years later, the agrarian radical William Cobbett dug up his bones and transported them back to the UK. The plan was to give Paine a heroic reburial on his native soil, but the bones were still among Cobbett's effects when he died over twenty years later. There is no confirmed story about what happened to them after that, although down the years various people have claimed to own parts of Paine's remains, such as his skull and right hand.[38][39]
The Founders were keen to avoid the centuries long religious strife of the Old World.
That perspective influences my own preference for the traditional gloss of the First Amendment as it pertains to religion, but that it effectively established religious freedom in the USA is an under-emphasized bonus IMO.
Well as long as you're using wiki as a source...
lolThomas Paine (February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736[1]] – June 8, 1809) was an author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States
Terminology is a , but that's well played.
Really? I don't remember that. I thought he hated Napoleon.
Paine was difficult, at times contradictory man.
The wiki attibutes a comment to the effect of Bonaparte being the biggest charlatan ever, but I guess that didn't prevent him from giving advice to Bonaparte about invading England and the US when the opportunity arose. (Apparently TP really disliked our anglophilic turn under John Adams.)
The funny thing to me is for a bunch of people who claim to be religious, they know so little about religious history. American Fundamentalism did not develop until over a century later. Today's Fundamentalists would have despised the Founding Fathers.
Oh for sure. Absolutely. Jefferson didn't even believe Jesus was the son of god, but a mortal man. He wrote a 'personal bible' where he edited out the parts of the gospel speaking of Christs miracles.
The idea that this country is a nation founded on Christianity is ridiculous. It was founded on the model of ancient greece and rome.
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