On the Compuserve US Political Debate Forum a message has been posted in reply to claims that respect for religion as the foundation of all morality was at the heart of the philosophy of the founding fathers. The message, posted on 1 December by ‘ynnubrettilg’, sets out without comment some splendid quotations. Here is the pick of them:
Following are several quotes attributed to Benjamin Franklin regarding religion.
When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, ’tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.
– Benjamin Franklin, _2000_Years_of_Disbelief_ by James A. Haught
Religion I found to be without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serves principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another.
–Benjamin Franklin
That wise Men have in all Ages thought Government necessary for the Good of Mankind; and, that wise Governments have always thought Religion necessary for the well ordering and well-being of Society, and accordingly have been ever careful to encourage and protect the Ministers of it, paying them the highest publick Honours, that their Doctrines might thereby meet with the greater Respect among the common People.
Benjamin Franklin, On that Odd Letter of the Drum, April 1730
And this is what several of the other founding fathers had to say on the subject:
“What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.”
- James Madison, “A Memorial and Remonstrance”, 1785
“Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”
- James Madison, “A Memorial and Remonstrance”, 1785
“The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes.”
- John Adams, letter to John Taylor
“In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot … they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose.”
- Thomas Jefferson, to Horatio Spafford, March 17, 1814
“History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.”
- Thomas Jefferson to Baron von Humboldt, 1813
“On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.” – Thomas Jefferson to Carey, 1816.
Cheers (three at least)
Brian
http://www.barder.com/
On 3 December, I submitted a letter to The Guardian, which (perhaps predictably) didn’t publish it:
Robin Cook (“A UN for this century, not the last one”, December 3) rightly welcomes the assertion by the UN high-level panel on ‘Threats, Challenges and Change‘ that ‘the international community’ has the right under the existing Charter to override state sovereignty in order to intervene, by force in the last resort, in cases of major humanitarian disasters: but he skates smoothly over the panel’s essential caveat that such intervention must be authorised by the UN Security Council, not by "individual Member States bypassing the Security Council" (para 206 of the report).
Could this be because Robin Cook was among the principal authors of the NATO attack on Serbia over Kosovo in 1999, which — contrary to the current received wisdom — was never authorised nor even retrospectively endorsed by the Security Council, and was therefore illegal, as well as unnecessary, unsuccessful and counter-productive, setting a disastrous precedent for the similarly illegal attack by the US, UK and others on Iraq in 2003? NATO’s pretext for failing even to seek UN authority for the 1999 attack, mentioned in para 87 of the UN report, was that the Security Council was paralysed: but this was only because NATO’s ultimatum to Serbia contained such extreme demands, obviously unacceptable to the Serbs, that Russia and probably others in the Security Council could never have endorsed them. All those extreme demands were eventually dropped, thus enabling the UN to endorse, and the Serbs to accept, a settlement that could probably have been agreed earlier without the need for the NATO bombing. Good intentions are not enough. ‘
Let the record show, however, that Robin Cook has made ample amends for his (no doubt reluctant) role in the Kosovo débacle by his brave and principled stand on Iraq, even if the former forces him to pull some of his punches on the latter.
Brian
9 December 2004
http://www.barder.com/brian/
You’ll probably have seen the latest ‘open letter’ to Tony Blair, published today, and signed by many of the usual suspects including me: it demands (or appeals for) an independent inquiry to try to establish the number of Iraqi war casualties, a rather vital statistic which our elected leaders have shamelessly refused to monitor — or, more likely, which they are determined to keep secret. The text of the letter and list of signatories are at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4077031.stm and there’s also a link to it at http://www.countthecasualties.org.uk/ which includes, in addition, media coverage, background, etc.
I have to admit to being rather chuffed at finding myself signing in the company of a Privy Councillor, a general, a bishop, several professors, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Helena Kennedy, Gillian Slovo and Harold Pinter.
The prime minister gave us all (i.e. the signatories) an irritable rocket this afternoon at PM’s Questions in the House of Commons — accusing us of ignoring the fact that it’s the bad guys, terrorists and insurgents, who are killing the Iraqis to prevent them getting democracy, while the good guys (us) are only killing bad guys so that the Iraqis can have democracy. Fourth Form stuff, I’m afraid. Michael Howard had him on the ropes over Blunkett’s disobliging comments on Blair, Straw, Hewitt, Brown, Clarke, etc., as quoted in a forthcoming biography of the embattled home secretary. Blair seemed unaccountably unprepared for this.
The home secretary 
I am strongly of the view that Blunkett should resign, not because he has been misbehaving with some American married lady and fiddling his MP’s travel vouchers, but because he is the worst and most illiberal and unprincipled home secretary since H Brooke (unless you reckon that J Straw is next in line for that accolade).
Brian
8 December 2004
http://www.barder.com/brian/
Next week’s Radio Times devotes the better part of 7 pages, including the cover, to a celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Secret Policeman’s Ball (SPB), a 1981 comedy revue in aid of Amnesty International. The event is also to be marked by a 75-minute television documentary to be broadcast next week on BBC4 and later on BBC2, and also by a 5-DVD boxed set of the SPB series running to more than 10 hours of footage. Ten hours!
The other evening my wife and I went to a preview at a London west end cinema of the documentary, preceded by introductory remarks of varying persuasiveness by sundry Personalities, including its producer and director, plus the admirable and eloquent Director of Amnesty UK, Kate Allen: and followed by an ‘all-star’ panel discussion and Q&A session comprising the same celebrities and, ‘in the flesh’ (as enthusiastically emphasised when he was introduced), Rowan Atkinson, whose career turned out to have been launched by the original SPB, on which occasion he ‘stole the show’ – most of the live part of the evening was conducted in this kind of luvvy language. The all-star panel Q&A was to be followed in turn by a screening of the film of the original SPB. I’m afraid that by that time my wife and I had had more than enough, so we made our excuses – as the saying goes – and left.
The SPB brought together three-quarters of the original Beyond the Fringe team (almost invariably sharp and funny), the Monty Pythons (very funny in a surreal way at their best, awful much of the rest of the time, as it may by now be permissible to admit), and assorted other comedians of diverse quality, of whom one of the best was undoubtedly Mr Atkinson, immortalised by Black Adder and some lesser programmes. Mr Atkinson proved a rather good panellist, drily puncturing some of the more inflated inanities of the other participants. He also commended himself to us by being resolutely and deliberately Not Funny. Some of the others seemed under the impression that they had personally presided over some immense and historic national triumph: winning the second world war, perhaps, or finding a solution to the problem of global warming.
Some of the contributors to the interviews in the Radio Times do give the impression of being in two minds about the nature of their achievement, viewing it as both rather amateurish and at the same time unarguably heroic. Michael Palin, for example:
‘[The director’s] style was very impressionistic, very rough and ready, so it all seemed rather underground – which, in our pretentious way, we thought we were. We loved the idea of being subversive: we were the guerrilla army of comedy!’
The guerrilla army of comedy!
And Alexei Sayle (one of the more uncompromising of comedians when at his biting and manic best), recalls discussing on camera with the director of the first three SPBs for the new documentary
‘how unsure we were as to the worth of what we were appearing in, and of the bombastic, celebrity-as-goodness-dispensing-god events such as Live Aid, Comic Relief and Children in Need, of which the [SPB] was the prototype. That part of our conversation was not used: films such as this like to tell a simple, happy story, and celebrity charity events are now above criticism.’
Cleese as Python
Eddie Izzard, from a later generation of comics, told the Radio Times:
‘Benefit gigs can be great for your career: people sit up and take notice of you in a way they won’t if you’re doing your regular show. All performers are aware that it’s not just for a good cause – it’s a good job to get.’
And the SPB director, Roger Graef, winds up the festival of disingenuous self-congratulation by asserting that
‘We achieved a lot – but, sadly, the issues Amnesty is concerned with are more urgent than ever. We were the first people to use comedy to address them.’
I love that ‘but’!
Still, Amnesty is incontestably an outstandingly good cause, so whatever you might think of some of these luvvies’ opinion of their place in history, please go out and buy those DVDs. You don’t have to watch them.
Brian
4 December 2004
http://www.barder.com/brian/
brianbarder[at]compuserve[dot]com
Michael Hewitt, an old friend, has received from an American friend, and passed on to me, the text of a splendid letter to President George W. Bush seeking guidance on a number of knotty Biblical points. It seemed too good to keep to myself, so (with Mike’s permission) here it is.
“Dear President Bush,Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I learned a great deal from you and understand why you would propose and support a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. As you said, “in the eyes of God marriage is based between a man and a woman.” I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example. I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.
I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.
1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify: Why can’t I own Canadians?
2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is, my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?
6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there “degrees” of abomination? Oh, sorry. IS there degrees.
7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?
8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27 How should they die?
9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blasphemes lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them (Lev.24: 10-16)? Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws (Lev.20:14)?
I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.
Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.”
Brian
3 December 2004
http://www.barder.com/brian/
brianbarder[at]compuserve[dot]com
