Behavior OnLine Forums - The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology

And just to follow-up on my own post, As Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Baptists of Danbury (who were a religious minority in Connecticut and who had written to him to complain that in their state, the religious liberties they enjoyed were not seen as immutable rights, but as privileges granted by the legislature - as "favors granted.") :

Quote:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and state."

And George Washington directly disabuses the uninformed and Cristianist hopefuls in the treaty he signed with the Bay of Tripoli:

Quote:

The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine.

(Ooops. I have subsequently discovered that this quote comes from John Adams, who was president when the treaty was signed, not George Washington, who was president when the treaty was negotiated.)

A happy and Christianist dogma-free 4th of July to all.

Margaret

Note: I found both of these googling. I can't remember where but the descriptive comments are not original.