"Our struggling economy:  If I had a dollar for everytime someone mentioned a recession - I'd convert them to Euros!"

                                                                                                -Steven Colbert

Guess who?

But from another viewpoint also it would be wrong to make religion, or the Church as such, responsible for the misdeeds of individuals. If one compares the magnitude of the organization, as it stands visible to every eye, with the average weakness of human nature we shall have to admit that the proportion of good to bad is more favourable here than anywhere else. Among the priests there may, of course, be some who use their sacred calling to further their political ambitions. There are clergy who unfortunately forget that in the political mêlée they ought to be the paladins of the more sublime truths and not the abettors of falsehood and slander. But for each one of these unworthy specimens we can find a thousand or more who fulfil their mission nobly as the trustworthy guardians of souls and who tower above the level of our corrupt epoch, as little islands above the seaswamp.

I cannot condemn the Church as such, and I should feel quite as little justified in doing so if some depraved person in the robe of a priest commits some offence against the moral law. Nor should I for a moment think of blaming the Church if one of its innumerable members betrays and besmirches his compatriots, especially not in epochs when such conduct is quite common. We must not forget, particularly in our day, that for one such Ephialtes,  there are a thousand whose hearts bleed in sympathy with their people during these years of misfortune and who, together with the best of our nation, yearn for the hour when fortune will smile on us again.

(Hint:  the same person also said this):

To a political leader the religious teachings and practices of his people should be sacred and inviolable. Otherwise he should not be a statesman but a reformer, if he has the necessary qualities for such a mission.

Already all of us must have heard about the people who call themselves the Fundamentalists.  Their apparent intention is to drive out of the evangelical churches men and women of liberal opinions...We should not identify the Fundamentalists with the conservatives.  All Fundamentalists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are Fundamentalists.  The best conservatives can often give lessons to the liberals in true liberality of spirit, but the Fundamentalist program is essentially illiberal and intolerant.

                                                                                     Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, preaching at the first Presbyterian

                                                                                    Church in New York City in 1922 on the topic "Shall the Fundamentalists win?"

                                                                                    (as quoted in Steeplejacking)

Another quote comes to mind:

"...but how little MAN HIMSELF has changed."

                                     Kahn Noonian Sung

                                     "The Wrath of Kahn"

Neil often refers to "orthodox Christianity", implying that Biblical inerrancy and related doctrines are the original and/or proper approach to scripture.  This gives the IRD the right and license to enforce Biblical adherance as they interpret it upon "liberal" and mainstream churches.

The above quote disputes that, showing in 1922 that it was quite a novel set of concepts.

Here are some more quotes that dispute that view here are three excerpts from this article :

(by Robert Wuthnow

Most histories of American fundamentalism (including the valuable section in this volume written by sociologist Nancy T. Ammerman) trace its roots to Princeton Theological Seminary in the 1880s. There, Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield defended biblical authority against the challenges voiced in the name of science and historical criticism. Warfield's successor, J. Gresham Machen, became a prominent figure in the fundamentalist-modernist debates of the 1920s, having moved by that time to Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia following a dispute with Princeton colleagues to his theological left. The work of Hodge, Warfield and Machen built a solid if narrow intellectual foundation for what is still probably the most cherished doctrine of fundamentalism: the inerrancy of Scripture.

This doctrine has been interpreted variously in subsequent decades, but generally it holds that the written text of the Bible was inspired by God, that the Bible is thus a record of the actual, words of God, and that it therefore can be trusted to be infallible in all its details. Inerrantists differ in how they reconcile scientific and historical problems in the text, but most agree that the scribes and those who determined the canon did not (either accidentally or intentionally) introduce errors into Scripture. Portions of the Bible have figurative meanings, inerrantists usually recognize, but they warn against taking liberties with such an interpretive principle. Fundamentalists consider inerrancy to be a common-sense understanding of the Bible. How widely this doctrine is currently held can be gauged by the results of a recent national poll in which 47 percent of active Protestants agreed with the statement that "everything in the Bible should be taken literally, word for word." In the same study, 48 percent of active Protestants disagreed with the statement that "the Bible may contain historical or scientific errors."

Only after 1919 did fundamentalism become an organized movement. That year 6,000 people attended the first World's Christian Fundamentals Association conference in Philadelphia. The following year a coalition of fundamentalists formed in the Northern Baptist Convention, and about the same time a similar coalition emerged among Presbyterian conservatives. Increasing numbers of fundamentalists also began to oppose the teaching of evolution in schools; their struggle culminated in 1925 with the famous trial of John Scopes in Dayton, Tennessee. Paradoxically, it was the opposition in these years of liberals and modernists such as pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick and the American Civil Liberties Union that did more to crystallize the identity of fundamentalism as a single movement than any of the efforts of its own leaders.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

                                                 -- Sinclair Lewis

"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, Virginia, 1785

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize, every expanded prospect.”

-- James Madison, in a letter to William Bradford, April 1,1774

"Wherever we cast our eyes, we see this truth, that property is the basis for power; and this, being established as a cardinal point, directs us to the means of preserving our freedom.  Make laws, irrevocable laws in every state, destroying and barring entailments; leave estates to revolve from hand to hand, as time and accident may direct; and no family influence can be acquired and established for a series of generations - no man can obtain dominion over a large territory - the laborious and saving, who are generally the best citizens, will possess each his share of property and power and thus the balance of wealth and power will continue where it is, in the body of the people.

A general and tolerably equal distribution of landed property is the whole basis for national freedom:  The system of the great Montesquieu will ever be erroneous, till the words property or lands in fee simple are substituted for virtue throughout his Spirit of Laws.

Virtue, patriotism, or love of country, never was and never will be, till mens' natures are changed, a fixed, permenant principle and support of government.

                                     --Noah Webster

                                        "An Examination into the Leading Priciples of the Federal Constitution"

                                        (Italics in the original)

So, am I alone in thinking that he is saying that if the people more-or-less equally possess the sources of wealth in the country, the country will be safer and more stable?  Oh dear.  One more "socialist" founding father advocating the redistribution of wealth for the good of the country.

"The powers lodged in Congress are extensive; but it is presumed that they are not too extensive.  The first object of the constitution is to unite the states into one compact society, for the purpose of government.  If such a union must exist, or the states be exposed to foreign invasions, internal discord, reciprocal encrochments upon each other's property - to weakness and infamy, which no person will dispute; what powers must be collected and lodged in the supreme head or legislature of these states.  The answer is easy:  This legislature must have exclusive jurisdiction in all matters in which the states have a mutual interest.  There are some regulations in which the states are equally concerned - there are others, which in their operation, are limited to one state.  The first belong to congress - the last, to the respective legislatures.  No one state has the right to supreme control, in any affair in which the other states have an interest; nor should congress interfere in any affair which respects one state only."

"This question is of vast magnitude.  the states have very high ideas of their seperate sovereignty; altho' it is certain, that while each exists in it's full latitude, we can have no Federal Sovereignty.  However flattered each state may be by its independant sovereignty, we can have no union, no respectability, no national character, and what is more, no national justice, till the states resign to one supreme head power of legislating, judging and executing, in all matters of general nature."

                                                               --"A citizen of America" [Noah Webster]

                                                                  "An examination into the leading priciples of the Federal Constitution.

"How barbarous, to deny men the privilage of pursuing what they imagine to be their proper concerns and interests!  Yet, in a sense, this is what you are doing when you allow your indignation to rise at their wrongdoing; for after all, they are only following their own apparent concerns and interests.  You say they are mistaken?  Why then, tell them so, and explain it to them, instead of being indignant."

                                                                           --Marcus Aurelius Book VI note 27

I realized that I had been neglecting Marcus Aurelius, and it does show in my approach to life recently.  Since I found this one instructive, I thought I'd share it.

After all, my fellow citizens, it is neither extraordinary or unexpected [sic]that the constitution offered for your consideration, should meet with opposition.  It is in the nature of man to pursue his own interest, in preference to the public good; and I do not mean to make any personal reflection, when I add, that it is in the interest of a very numerous, powerful, and respectable body to counteract and destroy the excellent work produced by the late convention.  All the offices of government, and all the appointees for the administration of justice and the collection of the public revenue, which transferred from the individual to the aggregate sovereignty of the states, will necessarily turn the stream of influence and emolument into a new channel.  Every person therefore, who either enjoys, or expects to enjoy, a place of profit under the present establishment, will object to the proposed innovation; not, in truth, because it is injurious to the liberties of his country, but because it affects his schemes of wealth  and consequence.

                                                                                                         --James Wilson, Philadelphia speech, Oct. 6 1787

Skatje had this quote up in her blog, and I liked it, so you can have it too.  Enjoy.

"Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakeable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time."
-Richard Dawkins

"By sect. 8, of the first article of the proposed plan ofgovernment, 'the Congress are to have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, but all duties, imposts and excises, shall be uniform throughout the United States.'  Now what can be more comprehensive than these words; not content by other sections of this plan, to grant all the great executive powers of a confederation, and a STANDING ARMY IN TIME OF PEACE, that grand engine of oppression, and moreover the absotute controul over the commerce of the United States and all external objects of revenue, such as unlimited imposts uponimports, &c -- they are to be vested with every species of internal taxation; -- whatever taxes, duties and excises that they may deem requisite for the general welfare, may be imposed on the citizens of these states, levied by the officers of Congress, distributed through every district of America; and the collection would be enforced by the standing army, however grievous or improper they may be.  The Congress may construe every purpose for which the state legislatures now lay taxes, to be for the general welfare, and thereby seize upon every object of revenue."

                                                                                  --Samuel Bryan "A Most Daring Attempt to Establish A Despotic Aristocracy"

                                                                                     Independant Gazetteer (Philidelphia), October 5 1787

                                                                                    (Emphasis in original)        

It's interesting that some of the people who opposed (anti-federalists)the constitution were worried about the same things as some of the people who claim to be defending it today (anti-federal "Libertarians").  I'm not sure exactly what the means, but it is interesting.  

What seems clear to me, is that the anti-federalists didn't trust "the people" to do their job as checks of government over-reach, while the Federalists counted upon it quite heavily.        

[Personal note:  I'd better watch it and stop quoteing Samuel Bryan, or the accusations will fly that I'm some sort of reincarnation of a Samuel Bryan fan-girl who wants to give birth to his clone or something)  :-)  Oh well, people WILL talk.]                

I have been quoting Federalists as a general rule, but here is a quote from an anti-federalist, an opponant of our constitution, describing what he sees as (one of) it's weaknesses.

"A Republican, or free government, can only exist where the body of the people are virtuous, and where property is pretty equally divided, in such a government the people are sovereign and their sense or opinion is the criterion of every public measure; for when this ceases to be the case, the nature of the government is changed, and an aristocracy, monarchy or despotism will rise on its ruin.  The highest responsibility is to be attained, in a simple struction of government, for the great body of the people will never steadily attend to the operations of government, and for want of due information are liable to be imposed on.  If you complicate the plan by various orders, the people will be perplexed and divided in their sentiments about the source of abuses or misconduct, some will impute it to the senate, others to the house of representatives, and so on, that the interposition of the people may be rendered imperfect or perhaps wholly abortive."

                                                                                       --Samuel Bryan "A Most Daring Attempt to Establish a Despotic Aristocracy"

                                                                                          Independant Gazetteer (Philidelphia) October 5, 1787

Mr. Bryan's solution for this issue was a unicameral legislature with short term limits.  I think his conclusion would not fix the problem, but his apprehension of the dangers was uncanny.  I don't think that  we have had an historical problem with the complexity of the legislature's composition, but instead by an apathetic populous, and a corrupt and degraded Anna Nichole Smith Ghoul Squad press.

I saw this in the comments section  of a Pharyngula post, and it made me laugh out loud.

"If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby."

                                             --James Randi

"But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes?  Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born -- a world furnished to our hand that cost us nothing?  Is it we that light up the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance?  Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on.  Are these things, and the blessings they indicate in future, nothing to us?  Can our gross feelings be exceited by no other subjects than tragedy and suicide?  Or is the gloomy pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrifice of the Creator?"

                                                                          -- Thomas Paine The Age of Reason

"Ye simple men, on both sides of the question, do ye not see through this courtly craft? If ye can be kept disputing and wrangeling about church and meeting, ye just answer the purpose of every courtier, who lives the while on the spoil of the taxes, and laughs at your credulity.  Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instruct him to be bad."

                                                                      --Thomas Paine "Rights of Man (part two)