Portico Darwin: Why Do I Have to Be Christian in America?
TODAY'S RAMBLINGS
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Happy Wednesday, and let me be clear: I mean no offense to anyone - religious or secular - with today's post.
But in celebration of America's founding on the 4th of July, I am pushing back on the ongoing insistence that I observe Jesus Christ as some kind of a God. Taken to the extreme, and with the weird nationalism of the MAGA cult blended in, there is a rise of what many call Christofascism.
It's not what America's Founding Fathers wanted:
While many Founders were personally religious, they intentionally created a government structure that separated church and state. They sought to protect religious freedom for all while preventing the establishment of an official state religion.
That is from Anthropic's AI engine Claude 3.5, and it confirms what nearly every U.S. historian and Constitutional scholar has said to date.
Thus my question: Why do too many Christians insist that others observe their religion, when America:
is not a Christian nation and was created by its founders as the opposite;
guarantees the separation of church and state; yet
also guarantees freedom of religion?
Trust me - it's all right here in The Constitution. Fun Fact: There is no mention of a God or Christianity in it.
That screenshot may be a bit hard for some to read, so here are the important parts.
From the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
From Article VI, Clause 3: "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
Yet, check out these, from a single recent newsfeed of The Economist.
Oklahoma’s top education official issued a directive requiring publicly-funded schools to teach the Bible, and suggested that the state might provide instructional materials.
Last week Louisiana passed legislation that requires state schools to post the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
I've observed many people who insist they're "real" Americans, because they're Christian. Worse, they complain their rights are under siege in general, and that there's a war on Christianity specifically.
But where are the examples of this? Who is stopping anybody from worshiping as they see fit? I am looking for an example of where Christians could not attend church when and where they wanted.
I am not finding one. In fact, I am finding zero.
Yet the response to this guaranteed freedom of religion is to impose their beliefs upon others anyhow?
Isn't that the opposite of what America is supposed to be about?
How about this, instead:
You do your thing, and I'll do mine. That should be good enough for everybody.
Have a great holiday tomorrow and here's a more positive image of our glorious country, taken last Friday.
FROM THE UNWASHED MASSES
If only our election were in the bag for the liberals like it is for my friend Randy Smee in his UK hinterlands. He was giddy over my Barry and Mr. Roarke Go to Washington fantasy, and also signed off on Yes.
It’s like you were in the room!
Great shout on the toons as ever. To show you how much I like (early) Yes, here’s my phone background . . .
Randy then shared a screenshot of his phone's wallpaper, which features the album cover of Fragile, which he somehow thought I wouldn't recognize.
Indeed, the insane rocker (for Yes) "South Side of the Sky" from Fragile is one of my favorite Yes songs, full-stop, closely followed by "Long Distance Runaround." But this was my most recent vinyl purchase. It's the drumming at the end of "Starship Trooper" that gets me every time . . .
Thank you for reading this newsletter.
KLUF
Featuring "Too Much Heaven" and somehow overlooked to date here on KLUF, here are the Bee Gees with Timeless - The All-Time Greatest Hits. To those quick to dismiss this as mere disco pablum, I say only: Listen and learn.
