The Success of the Establishment of the Church of England.

[Thundril]

Atheism does not have ANY founding principles, except where is has been treated as a fetish like it is with Godfree and Stalin.

Quite right, Chaz. Careless phrasing on my part.

The point about the church being established with the state in the UK, is that the democratic system does not allow it to follow up on those principles. In the US the church acts in the other direction - more like a democratic pressure group. That is why US politicians find themselves playing lip-service to the founding principles whilst committing genocide on places like Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and Invading places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

The UK is supposed to be a democracy.

Indeed the US is also supposed to be a democracy.

Most of us are not Xians.

That is factually inaccurate, as the survey shows.

Oops. You're right again. i should have said 'most of us are only nominally Christian'. or something like that.

But it is true that few care much or actively practice it. I content that is simply because no one feels the need because the state and the church are one.

An interesting view, Chaz! I'll have to think about that.

[quote="Thundril'] Most of us don't want this or that superstition-club dictating our laws.

And yet despite religion having representation this does not happen.
At present, the people of North Africa and the Middle East are struggling to find a way to reconcile their version of the authoritarian-genocidal Abrahamic 'faith' with moves toward democracy.
That is how it is presented by the Western press, but the facts seem to be pointing to and anti-tyrrany, tribal based rebellion that has moved Islam up the agenda and not down it. Take a look at what has happened in Egypt - the Muslim Brotherhood has allied with the military to control the government.

I would say your description (of tribalism and encroaching Islamisation) is very much in tune with media coverage. Reading the blogs and tweets, OTOH, there's a lot of argument going on about Islam and democracy, which looks to me like a mirror image of the Xian theology-sites' discussions like 'Which of the candidates is most biblical?'
Now Bachman's out, they're drooling over Santorum.

In the US, it looks like things are moving in the opposite direction, away from democracy towards theocracy..
No, they are obsessively religious through democracy.
There are powerful people who want the UK to follow the US on this track,
Name One!
Tony Blair?
and the survey you cite suggests that the majority of UK citizens would rather not go there. We're not that stupid
Then they shall not have it.
The union of church and state guarantees it.
I'd like to hear more about this theory, Chaz. I'm not getting it at all! (But then, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer!)

.[/quote][/quote][/quote][/quote]

[chaz wyman]

I'd like to hear more about this theory, Chaz. I'm not getting it at all! (But then, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer!)

Naturally as an Atheist I have always wanted the church to be separated from the state, as you can imagine.
But the evidence is clear enough that many a disestablished country seems more religious than established ones.
My main area of focus is of course the UK and the US, as I have family on both it has always puzzled me that the US whose founding was based on the disestablishment of church and state has always been obsessively religious.
Part of the problem was that the UK extricated itself from centuries of killing between Catholic and Protestant that the church was made the centre of toleration and freedom of religion.
The Pilgrim Fathers who fled the UK was not (as most americans think) to escape religious persecution, far from it - they left England because it was too liberal religiously.
The US was made up of dozens of religious nut-cases that were so violent that the State had to guarantee freedom of religion and had to keep the church out of government - how else would they have chosen the 'right' church??
The Victorian Age in Britain was keen to accommodate science so much that by the time Darwin came along it crushed biblical literalism with very little fuss indeed.
But all this was only made possible by the state controlling religious practice.
It's like a drug - make it legal with controls, have the state normalise it- and everyone looses interest.
In the US religions form part of the pressure groups, in the UK they are under the state, in the US they are always trying to get on top of it.
I'm not sure how or why this massive difference exists but as you will agree the Brits don't give a hoot about god when it comes to voting ; in the US the fiorst question a candidate is asked is are you a Christian?

The US is full of wierdos; Alice Cooper is religious for fucks sake! How many rock stars from the UK can say that?

[bobevenson]

The US whose founding was based on the disestablishment of church and state has always been obsessively religious.

Examples, please.

[chaz wyman]

Atheism does not have ANY founding principles, except where is has been treated as a fetish like it is with Godfree and Stalin.

Quite right, Chaz. Careless phrasing on my part.

The point about the church being established with the state in the UK, is that the democratic system does not allow it to follow up on those principles. In the US the church acts in the other direction - more like a democratic pressure group. That is why US politicians find themselves playing lip-service to the founding principles whilst committing genocide on places like Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and Invading places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

The UK is supposed to be a democracy. Most of us are not Xians. Most of us don't want this or that superstition-club dictating our laws.
At present, the people of North Africa and the Middle East are struggling to find a way to reconcile their version of the authoritarian-genocidal Abrahamic 'faith' with moves toward democracy.
In the US, it looks like things are moving in the opposite direction, away from democracy towards theocracy..
There are powerful people who want the UK to follow the US on this track, and the survey you cite suggests that the majority of UK citizens would rather not go there. We're not that stupid.

Unlike the UK and your approval of the monolithic welfare state, conservatives in the U.S. value pluralism and checks and balances as restraints upon the states' and federal governments.

False dichotomies ! The UK is and has always been far more pluralist, despite its smaller size that the US will ever be.
The only difference is that pluralism and multicultural values are allowed some representation in the UK, whereas in the US they are crushed by the monolithic white protestant ideology.

While you have repudiated your legacy from Edmund Burke, we still try to protect "little platoons." http://www.igreens.org.uk/little_platoons.htm And now, we try to protect the little platoons from the foreign liberalism of the Obama Administration.

The US never gave a rat's arse about Burke, they were far more interested in his chief adversary THomas Paine who practically invented the USA.

[tbieter]

Chaz: "The US never gave a rat's arse about Burke, they were far more interested in his chief adversary THomas Paine who practically invented the USA."

I think that you exaggerate the influence of Thomas Paine in the American political tradition. He did not participate in drafting the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, our founding documents. He is important as an intellectual source of the American progressive tradition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_F ... r_founders
Contrary to your exaggeration, there also is a conservative political tradition in the U.S. The definitive work is still Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind http://www.amazon.com/dp/9659124112/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
I note that Thomas Paine is mentioned in the index. Unfortunately, I lost my copy of the book to my evil ex-wife, so I can't consult the work. I usually state that anyone who attacks American conservatism without having read Kirk's classic is culpable.

I also commend Emerson's brilliant essay in which he claims that conservatism and liberalism are eternal opposites. Both are necessary parts of political reality. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendenta ... ative.html

Unlike the essential dualism in English and American conservative political thought, I respectfully suggest that this thread represents an essential monism of matter and a political monism. As an example, you state: "The only difference is that pluralism and multicultural values are allowed some representation in the UK, whereas in the US they are crushed by the monolithic white protestant ideology." Chaz, are you unaware of the Catholic political tradition in the U.S.? Are you unaware of the influential political thought of John Courtney Murray? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Courtney_Murray http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641 ... 12,00.html
Are you saying that English values are now those values that are recognized and allowed by Parliament? Isn't that a political monism?
In American conservative political thought, however, some institutions (family, private property, religion, human dignity) are considered pre-political, pre-state. They originate in the people, not from a government. They have an organic autonomy.

[chaz wyman]

Chaz: "The US never gave a rat's arse about Burke, they were far more interested in his chief adversary THomas Paine who practically invented the USA."

I think that you exaggerate the influence of Thomas Paine in the American political tradition. He did not participate in drafting the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, our founding documents. He is important as an intellectual source of the American progressive tradition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_F ... r_founders
Contrary to your exaggeration, there also is a conservative political tradition in the U.S. The definitive work is still Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind http://www.amazon.com/dp/9659124112/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
I note that Thomas Paine is mentioned in the index. Unfortunately, I lost my copy of the book to my evil ex-wife, so I can't consult the work. I usually state that anyone who attacks American conservatism without having read Kirk's classic is culpable.

I also commend Emerson's brilliant essay in which he claims that conservatism and liberalism are eternal opposites. Both are necessary parts of political reality. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendenta ... ative.html

Unlike the essential dualism in English and American conservative political thought, I respectfully suggest that this thread represents an essential monism of matter and a political monism. As an example, you state: "The only difference is that pluralism and multicultural values are allowed some representation in the UK, whereas in the US they are crushed by the monolithic white protestant ideology." Chaz, are you unaware of the Catholic political tradition in the U.S.? Are you unaware of the influential political thought of John Courtney Murray? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Courtney_Murray http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641 ... 12,00.html
Are you saying that English values are now those values that are recognized and allowed by Parliament? Isn't that a political monism?
In American conservative political thought, however, some institutions (family, private property, religion, human dignity) are considered pre-political, pre-state. They originate in the people, not from a government. They have an organic autonomy.

I did not say anything about the US 'tradition'.
TP has been largely ignored by the US and the French despite the massive contribution he made to revolutionary thinking and human rights in the 18thC. The US was not invented by drafting a the Declaration nor the Consistution. It is really the ideas and the political activism that enabled those papers to be written and realised.
In this, few people did more than TP.
TP is probably one of the most neglected figures of the 18thC, when you consider his importance in his time.
He penned Rights of Man, and Common Sense the 2 most important documents in political and intellectual history during the period. "Common Sense" was so influential that John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of 'Common Sense,' the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.” (Wiki)

Burke was no where in the US.

[Gary]

"The greatest advantage of religion is to inspire wholly contrary instincts.
There is no religion that does not place man's desires beyond and above earthly goods and that does not naturally raise his soul towards regions much superior to those of the senses. Nor is there any that does not impose on each some duties toward the human species or in common with it...This one meets even in the most false and dangerous religions."

Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, pg. 419, University of Chicargo Press, 2000.

I think the success of the establishment of the Church of England is a political victory of moderation, the religious aspect is second place. I think it would be interesting if the US had an established church becasue it would upset the balance because an established church cannot have both types of freedom (religious and political) that the US constitution gives at the moment.

Regards, Gary

[chaz wyman]

"The greatest advantage of religion is to inspire wholly contrary instincts.
There is no religion that does not place man's desires beyond and above earthly goods and that does not naturally raise his soul towards regions much superior to those of the senses. Nor is there any that does not impose on each some duties toward the human species or in common with it...This one meets even in the most false and dangerous religions."

Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, pg. 419, University of Chicargo Press, 2000.

I think the success of the establishment of the Church of England is a political victory of moderation, the religious aspect is second place. I think it would be interesting if the US had an established church becasue it would upset the balance because an established church cannot have both types of freedom (religious and political) that the US constitution gives at the moment.

Regards, Gary

This 'moderation' was a long time coming. The Bill of Rights 1689 first made a definitive claim against Rome, by banning seditious Catholics from political rights. This was the necessary step which, answering the problem of religious strife then enabled the sort of Toleration without fear of sedition to ensure religious peace, across the land. Soon after the Act of Union ensured a statutory as well as numerical superiority of the Protestant state. Much of this was engineered by the theories of toleration of John Locke.
None of this was strict enough and offered too much religious freedom for the likes of the Quakers and other religious extremist who fled England. Rather than escaping religious persecution , as is so often asserted by Americans, they fled religious toleration wishing to establish churches with which they could control their flocks.
It is these religious extremists that formed the social fabric of the early American colonies.

I think this partly accounts for the great difference.

[puto]

Chaz, your response was one of the most un-educated responses I have ever read! What are you a three year old?

[chaz wyman]

Chaz, your response was one of the most un-educated responses I have ever read! What are you a three year old?

Out of the last 25 posts, 20 of them started with the word "Chaz,"
You are sick.
I don't want to be rude, but I am putting you on my ignore list.
When you have some content, then drop me a line, but right now you are looking a bit creepy.

[Gary]

I think the notion of moderation or established church is vital to any state that is being formed. My reading of the Federalists Paper needs brushing up but the US could have included a religion or like France tried to build a Mariane figure to deflect the lack of a state religion. The US does not have the same notion of republic as France but its religious beginings have certainly swayed its politics to the point that I do not feel it could establish a Church without causing massive social rupture. The scenario of the US is then how could any religion gain complete political acceptence over all other religions?

Regards, Gary

[puto]

Chaz, just know this: you are not an idiot, dumb, or ignorant. You are just stupid person. You post like a three year old: no research, no education, you are just an opinion that has no merit. You stupid pig-headed person.

[Thundril]

Chaz, just know this: . . . .

Hey Puto! Did you notice this was your 1000th post? Couldn't you have done something more memorable than just another Chaz-rant?
Just askin'.

[chaz wyman]

Chaz, just know this: . . . .

Hey Puto! Did you notice this was your 1000th post? Couldn't you have done something more memorable than just another Chaz-rant?
Just askin'.

You should look at the list of his posts. For curiosity's sake I looked back at the last 25, TWENTY of those started "Chaz,..." and continued with something like you are an idiot, a moron, uneducated etc..
I'm not really sure what he is getting out of it. It's not like I do not know I am educated.
This seems to be his only contribution of any significance.
Maybe I should take it as a compliment!!

[tbieter]

Chaz: "The US never gave a rat's arse about Burke, they were far more interested in his chief adversary THomas Paine who practically invented the USA."

I think that you exaggerate the influence of Thomas Paine in the American political tradition. He did not participate in drafting the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, our founding documents. He is important as an intellectual source of the American progressive tradition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_F ... r_founders
Contrary to your exaggeration, there also is a conservative political tradition in the U.S. The definitive work is still Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind http://www.amazon.com/dp/9659124112/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
I note that Thomas Paine is mentioned in the index. Unfortunately, I lost my copy of the book to my evil ex-wife, so I can't consult the work. I usually state that anyone who attacks American conservatism without having read Kirk's classic is culpable.

I also commend Emerson's brilliant essay in which he claims that conservatism and liberalism are eternal opposites. Both are necessary parts of political reality. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendenta ... ative.html

Unlike the essential dualism in English and American conservative political thought, I respectfully suggest that this thread represents an essential monism of matter and a political monism. As an example, you state: "The only difference is that pluralism and multicultural values are allowed some representation in the UK, whereas in the US they are crushed by the monolithic white protestant ideology." Chaz, are you unaware of the Catholic political tradition in the U.S.? Are you unaware of the influential political thought of John Courtney Murray? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Courtney_Murray http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641 ... 12,00.html
Are you saying that English values are now those values that are recognized and allowed by Parliament? Isn't that a political monism?
In American conservative political thought, however, some institutions (family, private property, religion, human dignity) are considered pre-political, pre-state. They originate in the people, not from a government. They have an organic autonomy.

I did not say anything about the US 'tradition'.
TP has been largely ignored by the US and the French despite the massive contribution he made to revolutionary thinking and human rights in the 18thC. The US was not invented by drafting a the Declaration nor the Consistution. It is really the ideas and the political activism that enabled those papers to be written and realised.
In this, few people did more than TP.
TP is probably one of the most neglected figures of the 18thC, when you consider his importance in his time.
He penned Rights of Man, and Common Sense the 2 most important documents in political and intellectual history during the period. "Common Sense" was so influential that John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of 'Common Sense,' the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.” (Wiki)

Burke was no where in the US.

"Legacy
Paine's writings had great influence on his contemporaries, especially the American revolutionaries. John Adams’ prediction that history would attribute the revolution to Paine’s incendiary pamphlets was borne out by Thomas Alva Edison’s The Philosophy of Paine (1925), which remarked that Paine “was the equal of Washington in making America liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of the one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the pother with his pen.” His books inspired both philosophical and working-class radicals in the United Kingdom; and he is often claimed as an intellectual ancestor by United States liberals, libertarians, progressives and radicals."
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/ent ... ne#Legacy/

"The resources for the principles we hold so dearly today, Israel endlessly repeats, are not to be found in the works of Rousseau, Adam Smith, the Federalist Papers, and the like. They are only fully present in the writings of the great triumvirs of Radical Enlightenment—Diderot, Bayle, and Spinoza—and the host of their followers, including, notably Tom Paine."
http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/boo ... ghtenment/

You are correct in asserting that Paine has been unjustly neglected regarding the intellectual sources of the American political tradition.