The Secular Outpost: SUPERLATIVELY SILLY SUPER-SENSITIVE SECULARISTS:
VR: "I would object myself to compulsory religious education in the public schools, which you could have surmised if you, well, read my comment. Of course Dawkins can complain about that; I would complain about it myself and I think, so would C. S. Lewis. My complaint is that some of the people in the New Atheist group start sounding like they want the government to actively support atheism. You can't advocate that and at the same time object to such lovely institutions as prayer in public schools. If you subscribe to the thesis that whoever is in power gets to promote their own favorite beliefs in the area of religion (the thesis that got 1/3 of the population of Europe killed in the 17th Century), then you're on the same page with Oliver Cromwell, Cotton Mather, and Charles V.
In the Soviet Union they didn't send believers to re-education camps, they just made sure that kids were taught Soviet atheism in the public school and prevented parents from teaching Christianity to children. The New Atheists at least sound as if they are suggesting the same idea. If they are saying that, they are making themselves hypocrites when the oppose the sort of joining of Church and State advocated by the Religious Right in America. If they're not saying that, then they need to be a lot more careful about what they say."
12 comments:
VR: "... If you subscribe to the thesis that whoever is in power gets to promote their own favorite beliefs in the area of religion (the thesis that got 1/3 of the population of Europe killed in the 17th Century), then you're on the same page with ... Cotton Mather ..."
Are you *quite* sure about that?
Mind you, I don't claim to be a Cotton Mather scholar. But, what little I do know (or think I know) about the man leads me to believe that you're but echoing secularist calumnies.
addendum: An intelligent and educated person really ought to do better than recycle the prejudices of H.L. Mencken.
I take it Mather didn't believe in the separation of church and state, and did not support full religious freedom in Massachusetts Bay Colony. But if there is evidence to the contrary, I would be happy to retract my claims. Anybody want to stick up for good old Oliver Cromwell? Any names you think I should use to illustrate the hypocrisy of these atheists?
Victor
How about John Calvin, who so hated Michael Servetus for his anti-trinitarian writings that he secretly supplied evidence against Servetus to the Catholic Inquisition in France (who were the sworn enemies of Calvin himself)? When Servetus fled to Geneva, Calvin urged his arrest and execution. Servetus was burned at the stake.
The execution of Servetus sparked a backlash in Europe and resulted in the famous quip, "To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine; it is to kill a man." Calvin wrote a defense of the burning of Servetus, and for general enforcement of religious laws by civil authorities, as did one of his students (and eventual successor), Theodore Beza.
Later, the arguments of Calvin and Beza were passionately refuted by Roger Williams in a tract called "The Bloody Tenet of Persecution," even though Williams himself was a Calvinist. In the tract, Williams invoked Leviticus 25:10, the verse that thereafter made its way onto the Liberty Bell.
Williams was unusual because he advocated freedom of conscience, not just for himself, but for those he strongly disagreed with--including Quakers, Jews and Muslims. And he did so, not on the basis of humanist sentiments, but on the basis of the teachings of Jesus. Williams established Rhode Island as a haven of religious freedom. Perhaps more than any other one man he helped to establish an American tradition of freedom of conscience in religious matters.
This is slightly off topic - but the term 'Religious Right' really bothers me. I am trying to say that such a thing does not exist. Clearly there are people who seem to take direction political direction straight from the pulpit. I think that this is dangerous and can have a very destructive impact on the great cause of Christ.
The issue I have, is that this doesn't appear to be a phenomenon wholly inherent to "the Right". For instance - the radical statements of Jeremiah Wright that have entered the spotlight are pretty much as hard left as you get. I have a hard time believing that he is the only pastor out there that shares these beliefs.
So I guess I don't have a really great point I'm trying to make here - except possibly that I feel the label 'Religious Right' has become - just that, a label. Perhaps also my own view is shaped by the fact that I have grown up and lived in the Pacific Northwest - gone to several fairly conservative Baptist churches my entire life - and have never felt like a political viewpoint was being thrust upon me from the pulpit. The churches I have attended teach Christian values - and encourage people to make up their own minds about political matter based on that value system.
Perhaps things are quite different - in say, the Bible Belt. I guess I just personally feel like 'Religious Right' has become a slightly vacuous generality laden term. It certainly doesn't seem to have been created by people who were understanding of religion.
Once again - no direct point here - just my thoughts and feelings about how people understand the term 'Religious Right.' I think that anymore it needs to be given some sort of definition or context - similar to the way the word 'fascist' must be given a definition (e.g. Genocidal?, Totalitarian, Anti-Semitism, Nationally Socialistic?, all or none of the above...etc.).
Does that make some semblance of sense?
I posted (in certainly not enough words) a bit about this idea the other day: Perceptions vs. Reality of Politics in Church
I do agree with you (Victor) on your larger point. Religious and Anti-Religious ideas must not be controlled by the state unless they infringe on another individuals freedom. This is actually the very crux of true fascism - where the state is given the power to dictate individual choices and freedoms.
Correction: " I am trying to say that such a thing does not exist."
should read - I am not trying to say such a thing does not exist.
VR: "I take it Mather didn't believe in the separation of church and state, and did not support full religious freedom in Massachusetts Bay Colony. But if there is evidence to the contrary, I would be happy to retract my claims."
Look, I don't make things up. And I am very cautious about making claims (I assert far less than I reasonably believe to be true).
You might try Google: [ "Cotton Mather" toleration ]
Some of the hits will be echos of the same mis-information you currently believe. Some of the hits will be closer to the truth of the matter.
For instance: consider this excerpt from this book preview:
The opening up of the social center to broader groups in the construction of a new social identity is related to the third element, which registered the changing nature of boundaries and social orderin in late seventeenth-century New England -- the establishment of religious toleration. The issue of religious toleration had been one that constantly plagued the colonists in their relation with England.[28] Its long and tortuous history began in the 1640s, with the acceptance by Cromwell in Englans of the principle of toleration, and lasted throughout the century. Even the promulgation of the Act of Toleration in 1689 did not immediately bring about the desired effect. [29] Throughout the whole of this period, the colonists constantly attempted to avoid the demands of either the Commonwealth or, after the Restoration, the Crown, to grant greater toleration to Quakers and Baptists and to allow dissenting sects the right of the franchise. The change in this pattern of attempting to conceal from the English authorities the truth of the New England Way, after the Glorious Revolution and the Andros Revolt in New England, was due to more that the new charter granted by William and Mary.
True, the terms of the new charter, which required the granting of liberty of conscience to all except Catholics, was a strong "motive" in favor of toleration. True, too, that the actual progress of religious toleration (as opposed to the lip service paid it) was slow and staggered. In 1708, for instance, Samuel Sewall refused to sign a warrant for a Quaker meeting house, saying: "I would not have a hand in setting up their Devil Worship."[30] Yet the sense remains that by the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century, something fundamental had begun to change in the attitude of Congregational ministeras and magistrates toward the dissenting sects.[31] Already by the late 1660s, political and entrepreneurial elites successfully protested the expolsion of Baptists from Massachusetts and, in the following decade, the magistrates themselves refused to enforce existing civil laws against Quakers and Baptists. The last whipping of a Quaker occurred in 1677 and in 1682, the Massachusetts General Court testified to the abolition of all laws against Anabaptists from its statute books. More importantly, in 1718, Cotton Mather himself presided over the ordination of a Baptist minister in a Boston church.[32] These facts point to more than a mere acquiescence to laws stemming from England and imposed from without (as had characterized New England for more than fifty years). They point to a changes climate, to a new appreciation by the leaders of the Congregational church of the terms of collective identity and membership. The granting of religious toleration and, more especially, the acceptance of its principle by such foremost religious elites as Increase and Cotton Mather provide further evidence of that restructuring of internal boundaries that began with the Half Way Covenant and was given added saliency with the developments studied above. As with Stoddardism and Mather's religious societies, the principle of religious toleration marked the end of the hitherto existing boundaries between the Church of covenanted saints and the world, and permitted the emergence of a new definition of the collectivity, with would include all members of the society.
[Innerworldly Individualism: Charismatic Community and Its Institutionalization, pp. 166-167]
Not to put too fine a point on it, but to advocate religious toleration is precisely to advocate "separation of church and state."
As I understand it, the current false "common knowledge" about the Matters (and especially about Cotton) was invented and fostered as an exercise of partisan politics by the Democratic Party in response to "Republican" [I use the term loosely, referring to the constellation of Federalists, Whigs, and (early-modern) Republicans] boosterism (i.e. the "Puritan Century" idea; and attempts to trace their intellectual pedigree back to the beginnings of Anglo-American society on this continent).
Mr Reppert, would you also like to accuse (Increase and) Cotton Mather, and the Puritan ministers in general, of fomenting and supporting the Salem witch hysteria? That view, which is common, is *also* contrary to actual reality.
VR: "Anybody want to stick up for good old Oliver Cromwell?"
Perhaps. It rather depends upon the precise complaint.
sorry about the typos in the extract
Roger Williams wasn't *quite* the religiously tolerant man we were taught in school.
WhatTheCrap "... Perhaps things are quite different - in say, the Bible Belt. I guess I just personally feel like 'Religious Right' has become a slightly vacuous generality laden term. It certainly doesn't seem to have been created by people who were understanding of religion. ..."
Naah, even in the "Bible Belt," things are as you experienced in your life and upbringing.
And yes, the term "Religious Right" generally serves to delegitimize (and possibly demonize), rather than describe.
addendum: (I remember writing something like the following, but somehow I dropped it out of the post I actually made.)
As I understand it, Increase and Cotton Mather were leaders in the "Andros Revolt" mentioned in the book extract I posted. As I further understand it, Increase Mather (secretly) journeyed to London to get a new Charter for the colony. You know, the one which is claimed to have "required the granting of liberty of conscience to all except Catholics."
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