[Vision2020] Daniel C. Dennett On Separation of Church And State

[Andreas Schou]

> I hate to disagree with the hero of some of this lists members but, this is
> ass backwards. I seem to recall that early on in the little experiment that
> is this country the thinking was that God grants us certain unalienable
> rights and that governments are instituted among men to help secure these
> rights.

You remember incorrectly. John Adams was a Unitarian. Jefferson was an
irreligious deist, as was Franklin. Madison and Washington were both
Anglicans (later, Episcopalians) and favored separaion of church and
state. No major drafters of the Constitution were religious
conservatives -- though largely more conservative than modern
Americans, they were also largely less religious.

> When the government becomes destructive to these ends it is the
> right of the people to alter or abolish it. The principle that secures
> American religious freedom is that it's Divinely bestowed. Placing God and
> religion subordinate to country is akin to making the master subordinate to
> the servant.

This is an ahistorical crock. The abstract, civic Jeffersonian deity
-- the god that's on our money -- isn't the wholehearted
monarchy-endorsing god of the Bible. It's that particular god that
Jefferson tried very hard to excise entirely from the Bible.

> As an atheist, is the theory that all our rights are  bestowed
> on us by the benign benevolence of the blessed government?

No. As an atheist, I believe that the government is formed by common
consent, and that our leaders are on notice that there are particular
rights that, if removed, will cause the abrupt and violent withdrawal
of that consent. Or do you actually believe that divine intervention
will occur if those rights are taken away? If not, what does a 'divine
guarantee' of those rights mean?

-- ACS