I always find it funny that many Christians are willing to jump to the conclusion that use of the words “God” and/or “Creator” is proof that the founding fathers were Christians, but insist that “In God We Trust” and “Under God” are somehow religiously neutral. Obviously, the person who is invoking god is making a reference to their idea of who/what god is. As far as the founding fathers are concerned, they were most likely Unitarians or Deists :

Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution. Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws. The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible.

These beliefs were forcefully articulated by Thomas Paine in Age of Reason, a book that so outraged his contemporaries that he died rejected and despised by the nation that had once revered him as “the father of the American Revolution.” To this day, many mistakenly consider him an atheist, even though he was an out spoken defender of the Deistic view of God. Other important founding fathers who espoused Deism were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and James Monroe.

In fact, the writings of many of the founding fathers espoused a contempt for Christianity :

“Christianity…(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. …Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and imposters led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.”

- Thomas Jefferson

“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

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

-Thomas Paine

“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”

-John Adams

With that in mind, I think it’s safe to assume that when Jefferson wrote “Endowed by our creator”, he wasn’t referring to they guy who turns chicks into pillars of salt.

It looks like George Bush isn’t the only person who’s been waging war against the English language. Here’s a stunning example of reverse political correctness (courtesy of Linkmeister) :

Scientists who study AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases are warned by federal health officials that their research may come under unusual scrutiny by Health and Human Services Department or members of Congress because topics are politically controversial…The scientists, who spoke on condition they not be identified, say they have been advised they can avoid unfavorable attention by keeping certain ”key words” out of their applications for grants from the National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those words include ‘’sex workers,” ”men who sleep with men,” ”anal sex” and ”needle exchange,” the scientists said.

So would Congress and HHS be more likely to approve the grants if the terms “sex workers” and “men who sleep with men” were replaced with “whores” and “fags”?

During the 2000 debates, Bush claimed that he’s “been standing up to Big Hollywood”, but apparently he forgot about all the shitty movies he helped fund during the 80’s :

George W. Bush, who rails against the “pervasiveness of violence” in Hollywood, served for a decade on the board of a company that financed more than two dozen R-rated movies, including one in which a hitchhiker rips a young woman’s body in two.

His presidential campaign said Thursday that Bush played no role in Silver Screen Management Co.’s decision to finance the horror-suspense film, “The Hitcher,” which one reviewer in 1986 described as a “massacre about every 15 minutes” and another called “gizzard-slitting depravity.”

Luckily for us, one Amazon user was kind enough to put together a list of some of George’s R-rated films.

Remember this one? Bush’s plan to combat wildfires is to cut down more trees.

“It is ironic,” said Timothy Ingalsbee, a firefighter and director of the Oregon-based Western Fire Ecology Center, “that in this time of corporate and financial scandals, President Bush wants to completely deregulate the system. They speak with the corporate elite, but never the working people. Not one of the 17,000 firefighters out on the line was ever consulted about how to protect their communities.”

The President’s plan, said Randi Spivak, executive director of the American Lands Alliance, “would basically gut environmental laws, keeping the public and the courts out of the process. It proposes to pay for this work by removing the larger, fire resistant trees.”

Dr. Patrick Withen, a Ph.D. sociologist and veteran smokejumper who has fought fires in every Western state in the lower 48, said “the most effective place to fight fire is in a mature forest. Yet the administration is essentially trading logging [of the largest, most commercially valuable trees] for thinning. This is just increasing the fire danger.”

Of course this is from the same guy who tried to prevent crime by executing more people than any other governor in US history.

It looks like reporters are finally getting sick of Ari Fleischer avoiding their questions :

Q Why won’t you answer the question about —

MR. FLEISCHER: Greg.

Q Hold on. We’re entitled to follow up, Ari — this isn’t homeroom.

MR. FLEISCHER: Greg.

Q Why won’t you answer the question about whether or not — he said there are going to be consequences —

MR. FLEISCHER: David, there are other qualified reporters in here, too, who can follow-up.

Q I didn’t say they were not qualified, Ari. I’m saying you’re running it like it’s homeroom, like we can’t follow-up when you’re refusing to answer a question that’s been posed twice to you, directly. The Secretary of State said that there would be consequences. Why won’t you say what they might be?

MR. FLEISCHER: Greg.

Q Do you want to elaborate on what those consequences would be?

MR. FLEISCHER: I addressed it earlier. You heard what I said about consequences.

Q You didn’t address it, which is the point. But you can’t tolerate that kind of dissent.

Looks like Bush and Ashcroft have lost another battle to have Genesis placed in science classes :

The Bush administration has stepped back from a another clash over religion’s place in society, as the Justice Department quietly dropped a probe of a university professor who is actively promoting Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

What nobody seems to be mentioning about this story is that the professor’s guidelines never mention the word “evolution” at all. The question students are asked to answer is “How do you account for the scientific origin of the human species?” If creationism was a valid scientific theory like its proponents claim it is, then they shouldn’t have any problem answering this question. The fact that they can’t answer it is just further proof of why creationism has no place in science education.

Another thing that deserves mention is the fact that the headline uses the term “Darwinist”. What the hell?! It’s obvious that the writer of this article buys into the whole bullshit creationist argument that evolution is as much a religious theory as creationism is. I wonder if they refer to teachers who are “actively promoting” the law of gravity as “Newtonists”?

Finally, why is the justice department wasting its time opening up inquiries into science professors refusing to write letters of recommendation for students who don’t understand science? Don’t they have some cancer patients to throw in jail or something?

I know Democrats are usually the party against term limits, but this is insane :

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.

Resolved by the senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

`Article–

`The twenty-second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.’.

Time Magazine has three questions that Bush should answer as soon as he stops patting himself on the back : “Where is Saddam?”, “Who’s in Charge?”, & “Where are the weapons?”

For months before the war began, everyone from Bush on down argued that Saddam’s arsenal of biological and chemical weapons was so dangerous that destroying it was worth a war. They laid claim to information so certain that Colin Powell was able to provide graphic details to a U.N. audience in February. Pentagon officials were confident that the quality of their intelligence would lead troops to the illicit stockpiles fairly quickly once U.S. boots were on Iraqi soil. Now they’re adjusting the picture: the Pentagon says its soldiers are no more likely to stumble over a weapons cache than top U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix was. “Things were mobile. Things were underground. Things were in tunnels. Things were hidden. Things were dispersed. Now, are we going to find that? No, it’s a big country,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week. “The inspectors didn’t find anything, and I doubt that we will?what we will do is find the people who will tell us.”

However sanguine officials sound in public, in private the pressure is rising. The Pentagon dispatched an entire brigade?3,000 troops?to the search and offered $200,000 bounties for any weapons of mass destruction (WMD) uncovered. Local officers were authorized to make payments of $2,500 on the spot. “The White House is screaming, ‘Find me some WMD,’” says a State Department official, adding that the task is one of many suddenly facing the department. Members of the Administration must feel a new bond with Blix, since they are now the ones arguing that these things take time.

In light of the Sen. Rick Santorum’s comments equating consensual gay sex with incest, polygamy, and adultery, Kevin (of Calpundit) thinks this could be a good “wedge issue” for the Democrats :

I really think the Democrats could make some electoral hay with gay rights as a (secondary) campaign issue. There are just so many horribly bigoted comments about gays from Republican politicians ? comments that go much further than even some conservative voters are willing to tolerate. If it becomes a campaign issue, they are forced to either repudiate the bigots, which will lose them part of their core constituency, or else stay silent, which might well break off a chunk of their moderate supporters. Surely someone can figure out how to run with this?

Personally, I think gay rights is still too divisive an issue to make it a primary or secondary issue. In the midwest and south, homosexuality is still seen by many people as immoral. Rather than campaign on an issue that (1) could possibly scare away as many undecided voters as it could attract and (2) is already one in which the differences between Democrats and Republicans is perfectly clear, I think the Democrats best bet is to combine the Santorum issue with Trent Lott’s comments last December and try to paint the Republican party as the party of intolerance and bigotry. These kinds of Freudian slips on the part of Republicans are common enough that they aren’t much of a surprise anymore. If the Democrats would bring them all back up and put a new spin on them (to avoid being accused of bringing up “old news”), there’s no telling what kind of damage they would inflict on the Republicans chances of courting moderates. Of course with shows like “Will and Grace” being big hits, I could be vastly underestimating the tolerance of the American public.