[Buddha-l] is america christian (was: pinker)

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 14:07 -0400, curt wrote:

> A good test case for Richard's thesis that the US of A is
> not a Christian nation was the reception of Thomas Paine's
> "Age of Reason". The reception was such that Paine fled
> the country for several years and was physically assaulted
> by angry mobs on his return.

Paine's work, like Ethan Allen's, was only one of numerous pleas for
rational religion (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one).
These folks, to whose noble company we could add John Adams and Thomas
Jefferson, argued against biblical revelation and for the idea that God
is the principle of rationality that supposedly inclines us all to
notions of universal justice. Interestingly enough, the radical
liberalism of these fellows was blamed almost entirely on the French.
(As the Eagles almost said, this on this continent change very slowly if
they ever change at all.)

> If a public figure of Paine's stature could not publicly criticize
> Christianity without such dire consequences I don't see how anyone
> could maintain that early post-Revolutionary America was anything but
> a Christian nation.

If a public figure of Paine's stature met such rabid disapproval for
merely stating his convictions, I don't see how anyone could maintain
that early post-Revolutionary America was even close to being
Christian. 

> At the very least it is obvious that America was, and remains,
> intolerant of all religions save Christianity - and that seems to me
> to be a pretty good definition of Christian nation. 

Americans are just intolerant by nature. The country's atheists are
every bit as intolerant of Christians as its Christians are of
secularists. Hell, even the Buddhists tend to be intolerant in this
country. Heaven knows why all this intolerance prevails.

> Just as the fact (if, indeed, it is) that Lincoln was gay 

If he was ever gay, he certainly wasn't when photographers were around.
There is not a single photograph of Lincoln smiling. How gay can a guy
be if he can't even smile? 

-- 
Richard Hayes
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes