(October 9, 2012 at 1:02 pm)Doubting_Thomas Wrote:(October 9, 2012 at 12:50 pm)Brian37 Wrote: .it was the case originally, before the separation of church and state in US. Different states had different rules.
I think all one has to do to foster more political diversity is simply remind younger people of "no religious test". It blows away the argument that one has to claim some oath to some sect of Christianity to hold office. That is patently false and was never the case, which is why we have Jews two Muslims and an Atheist in our congress.
Agreed. The conolies before the Revolution were much more religiously based and religiously divided. There is a false revisionist history that freedom of religion started on the Mayflower. No the early invaders(I hate the word settlers). The people who came over here from Europe were not interested in fleeing from their oppression to set up secular pluralism, they wanted freedom to set up their own monotheistic click.
Freedom of religion was modled after Jeffersons Religious Freedom act written prior to the Constitution which Madison modled the First Amendment on. The United States did not have any universal right to freedom of religion until the ink was dry on the Constitution.
The colonies were nothing but political and religious clicks that at best tollerated each other, but the tribalism was profound until the founders convinced the masses that they had a more important enemy than the differences that divided them.
I also hate that revisionists try to treat the Declariation as law. Certianly part of history yes. But at the time written we were not a nation and there was no given right at that time that that would become the case. The united States did not become an official nation until the war was over when we knew we had won and the Constitution became official.
THAT is when freedom of religion began.
