“You’ve put a smile on my face; how wonderful it is to read an atheistic reformer! But then, Marx is the world’s most famous atheistic reformer, and I hope we all share the realization from the history of the 20C that neither atheism nor religion–ideology nor theology–guarantees rational human behavior….”

Atheism is just the belief that there is not god, nothing more and nothing less, although it is strongly correlated with philisophical naturalism which is where my atheism resides. I don’t think Marx advocated oligarchy of the sort that claimed to be Marxist in the history of the 20C but in any case his political philosophy, insofar as I understand it (I have not studied it), was seriously flawed and it never warranted being taken so seriously by so many Russians or Chinese or anyone else.

Also, in addition to never being a Marxist, I am not a Libertarian, I am not an advocate of “mass movements” and nothing concerning “the devout” “Left or Right” and “beloved ideologies” applies to atheism anymore than it applies to a non-religious theism, mono or poly. When it comes to government, I stongly favor freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, the right to be wrong, etc. I also support free enterprise and market economy, and government protection of consumers, workers, and the environment.

I favor what works over any over-reaching ideology. You are very wrong to think otherwise and it is silly for you to slap on all these labels based on nothing more than my being an atheist who advocates non-establishment of monotheism and who also defends atheism as being more rational than theism.

I agree that there was a difference between what the “key Founders” thought and the masses. However, I dispute your thoughts on the “validity” of the key Founder formulation. Indeed, I try to stress this as a particular nuance of our Founding — that the ideas upon which we were founded, at the outer level were consistent with what the orthodox Christians in the masses believed — but at the inner specific level, they were very heterodox and controversial beliefs, not at all in line with traditional orthodox Christianity. This can lead to a criticism that the masses at the time were the victims of a “bait and switch,” that the Founders got the orthodox Christian masses to sign on to a “project” without fully understanding its implications. Indeed, that’s exactly what Michael Zuckert of Notre Dame argues (so does Gary North, and North argues such in the context of calling for an overthrow of the US Constitution and a return to the “theocracies” of the colonial order; yet, North is viewed as a crank, so he doesn’t have much academic authority; Zuckert on the other hand, has a well deserved academic reputation).

These key Founders included, at the very least, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin. Those five happen to be the first four Presidents, the majority of the drafting board of the Declaration, the author of the Declaration and the prime architech of the Constitution. Dr. Gregg Frazer also puts in his Ph.D. thesis G. Morris, Hamilton, and Wilson. Morris, Wilson, and Hamilton also played leading roles, along with Madison and Washington, at the Constitutional Convention. And Hamilton and Madison wrote almost all of the Federalist Papers (with John Jay contributing only a handful). As Brooke Allen points out, these men also happen to be the Founders on our currency. There is nothing “cherry picking” about focusing in on these 5-8 Founders; they were the “key Founders.”

As far as what the state constitutions held; yes, I am well aware of them and know that many of our key Founders could not pass many of those religious tests. THAT should tell you something about the difference between our liberal Founding ideals as expressed by Whig thought and the compromises with those ideals. I blogged about Ben Franklin’s problem with PA’s religious test here. Among other things, he noted he had a problem with it because he couldn’t pass it! Then, he became effective governor of PA and helped to get rid of it.

http://www.positiveliberty.com/2007/01/ben-franklin-on-pas-religious-test.html

I assume you are using “they” to refer to the “key founders”. If so this may be correct, but I doubt the validity of the “key founders” formulation. The Revoultion was fought and the Article’s and Constitution ratified by a much broader base of people than four or five people whom you select as key founders.

The State Constitutions adapted by many States explicitly singled out Christianity for protection, and made it a requirement for office in some cases.

Maryland Constitution; “That, as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such manner as he thinks most acceptable to him; all persons, professing the Christian religion, are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty,”

Delaware: “Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust, before taking his seat, or entering upon the execution of his office, shall take the following oath, or affirmation, if conscientiously scrupulous of taking an oath, to wit: ” I, A B. do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.”

Pennsylvania: “And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: “I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine inspiration. ”

I’ll stop there rather than fill this comment section. You can certainly pick out certain individuals from the era who felt differently, but it seems pretty clear that the mass of Americans at the time were quite religious, and that they were religious in an explicitly Christian sense, not in considering Christianity one good religion among many.

You’ve put a smile on my face; how wonderful it is to read an atheistic reformer! But then, Marx is the world’s most famous atheistic reformer, and I hope we all share the realization from the history of the 20C that neither atheism nor religion–ideology nor theology–guarantees rational human behavior.

Hoffer wrote brilliantly about this more than fifty years ago; his work in the sociology of mass movements is still–and perhaps always will be–full of the scariest insights imaginable for both the devout and the atheist. His work, “True Believer,” was brought back into print on the first anniversary of 9/11. Late in Hoffer’s life, Mr. Reagan awarded him the Medal of Freedom. Hoffer’s works are eye-openers for libertarians…whether they are devout or not, whether they are Left or Right. Almost certainly, neither our socialist Left nor our religious Right has read Hoffer; he shatters the grounds for their beloved ideo/theologies.

‘Be free,’ EA.

The mid 1st century Koran was written by superstitious tribal people whose notions of justice were parochial and in many ways undeveloped compared to our secular 21st century notions of justice and legal equality. So, wishful hopes notwithstanding, to accomplish your goal you would probably need to adopt a dishonestly selective reading. The ideas of the leading politicians behind the late 18th century founding of the United States probably provides a better foundation than any book falsely claiming divine authorship, for promoting pluralistic, democratic societies.

At some point we need to speak the truth about the applicability, integrity, and merit of the religious faith and myth based standards of the past thusly: Insisting that ideas written down in the ancient past must also set the standards for the present and all of the future is both impractical and counterproductive. The honest path to a better future lies more in the direction of abandoning the addiction and worship of all of the untenably parochial, outdated, authoritarian, and false, faith based religious superstitions of the thousand years old past.

The initial read of the Qur’an by anyone brought up in the tradition and message of Christianity is gong to be at least shocked, if not repulsed, by their first exposure to the revelations in the Qur’an. Much of the shock has to do with the way the Qur’an is arranged: the surahs (chapters) are not in chronological order, as the Hebrew Bible is, in order to facilitate memorizing the entire text. As a result, some of the revelations given to the Prophet which are hateful in the extreme are found in early parts of the book. The shock experienced by a Christian in reading the Qur’an for the first time is much like the shock in reading the litany of slaughters and ‘holocausts’ of the Bible, after the Hebrews entered the promised land.

A key event occurred late during Muhammad’s ministry years, which altered the ‘flavor’ of some of the subsequent divine revelations. If the surahs were arranged in chronological order, and then the individual revelations were matched with the chronological order of events in the Prophet’s life, it becomes apparent where and why the revelations from Gabriel to Muhammad have become so hateful and brutal.

That said, there is plenty within the Qur’an to ‘reform’ Islam and inspire their own Enlightenment. The holy book would not have survived 1,400 years if it did not include numerous inspirations and positive teachings. But just as the evils perpetrated in the name of Christ have plagued Christianity, the evils perpetrated in the name of the Compassionate and Merciful Allah plague Islam.

A constant theme of the Qur’an, and hence of Islam itself, is “reform.” The multi-millennia connection between religion and morality is grounded in the pro-active desire for ‘reform.’ At all times, when considering the religions, including especially the two salvific religions which are proselytizing–Christianity and Islam–remember the operative grounding for their faith is the pro-active psychology of a reformist.

Muslims will ‘reform’ Islam; it is an integral part of their faith. Until then, the world is in for some long years of dealing with brutal and savage Muslim puritans who have an entirely different concept of what ‘reform’ is supposed to be. We Christians burned devout Christians at the stake for two hundred years; hopefully, it will not take Muslims so long as it took Christians to ‘reform’ their reformist faith.

The supreme difficulty facing Islam in its present agony heading toward reform is: the Muslim puritans are going to be nuclear armed. The least qualified person to have possession of nuclear arms is a puritan, whether the puritan is secular (Hitler) or devout (Khomeini) or atheist (Pol Pot), irrespective of the theology or ideology. The Protestant Reformation was a bloodbath which ignited more than a century of horrific bloodletting; and that was without any nuclear weapons. Islam’s agony as it works toward ‘reform’ may become even bloodier than Christianity’s.

The fount of freedom is not in any religion; nor is it found in the long-revered institutions of ‘family’ or ‘government,’ or in the ‘rationality’ of the Enlightenment. The many Euopean Enlightenments are themselves the effects of a related but entirely separate phenonemon, not the causes of sudden freedom. That the Americans Founders missed what actually is the fount of human freedom is not too surprising; they lived the fount every day of their lives (Tocqueville), and like standing so close to a tree that one misses seeing the forest, we and our view-obscured Founders place the fount of freedom in whatever institution we love best.

Christian lovers of freedom can happily credit Christianity with the exponential growth of freedom over the past five hundred years (Weber), even if such a view is particularistic and triumphalist. But if Islam in its present agony over the next two centuries comes to rediscover its traditions of freedom actually lived by their Prophet, then watch a new, ‘freewill’ Islam again sweep across the planet, beginning with voluntary mass conversions by northern European Christians.

Against a ‘freewill’ Islam armed with the Prophet’s actual many personal examples about human freedom, Christianity without any such practical founding examples may well wither.