Americans are confused about Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims whose Plymouth feast generates the story are remembered as pioneers of freedom of conscience, brave souls who crossed an ocean for the sake of religious liberty. Not quite.
The November feast, with turkeys and cranberries, is a creation myth, starring Miles Standish, William Bradford, and the Wampanoag chief, Massasoit. But the figure who most powerfully created American consciousness, coming a little later, was one who risked everything to rebel against what was begun in Plymouth. What we celebrate on Thanksgiving isn’t the theocracy of Massachusetts, but the ideas of Roger Williams, a Puritan who defended the right, one could say, to be religiously impure.
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A good article and Mr Carroll as always never misses a chance to take a wipe at the Catholic church
Since Roger Williams' role in the making of America is freedom of religion, and since the Catholic Church has shown that it wishes to use the power of government to impose behavior on the rest of us, there was good reason to include it.
James' "swipe" at the Catholic Church was simply a statement of fact. The Bishops did indeed intrude in the political sphere with absolutist arrogance. The Catholic Church has shown over the centuries that when it has political power it is totally oblivious to or opposed to the right of dissent; when not in absolute control it claims the rights of dissenters.
If James "attacks" the Catholic Church perhaps he does so because, like so many of us, he has seen an institution that was part of his very core, implode upon itself. Perhaps he, like so many of us, has seen the hypocrisy and outright coverups of evil by those supposedly moral guardians and said "if they are like this now were they like this when I was in my formative years?" "Can I believe anything I was taught be liars and dissemblers?"
Whether Mr. Carroll takes an unneeded swipe at the Catholic Church or not his point is well taken. There are too many in this country willing to allow the leakage of Church interests into those of the nations interest. A lot of folks like to write about the divisiveness of this political actor or another, but the truth is nothing can be more divisive than the imposition of religion into politics. Deeply rooted in the idea of absolute truths the imposition of religion can lead to nothing except pitting one "absolute truth" against another or even worse pitting "absolute truths" against the "grayness" of politicdal truths. While ideological purity is abhorrent, religious "truths" are downright destructive.
A religion has the oppurtunity to influence politics through the individual vote of its adherents. Further intrusion is undue influence and should be banned,free speech arguments pushed by the GOP, Brown and Ray Flynn notwithstanding.
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This should be recommended ( not required as that would be contrary to Roger's philosophy ) reading to all those who would foist their religious beliefs onto all of us. First Amendment: Freedom of Religion, Speech, Press and Petition. After very lengthy debates, discussions and great input by Thomas Jefferson, this is the deliberate and decisive choice of both being the First Amendment and order of the rights within.
One cannot check out of their beliefs when one goes into the voting booth. Nor should we. However it is my fear that we are devolving into a dictatorship of relativism. There are absolute truths, our country is choosing not ignore them and let people do whatever thy want, pretty soon the unthinkable will be reality.
There are absolute truths--gravity is one. Humans breathe oxygen is another. I have yet to hear, though, anyone who tends to _claim_ that there are absolute truths do anything other than quote dogma at me.
/If there were absolute truths then one would think we could all easily absolutely agree upon them. I can name a few but they all fall in the realm of known scientific facts. Given quantum physics I'm not even sure how well outside of "observation" they hold to being absoutes.
So "frchip" let me know if you have a few. It might add some concrete moments to may rather chaoitic existence.
How about murder is wrong? Is that an absolute truth? I hope so. You guys try to make things complicated, when in reality we see and experience absolute truths all day long. As to dogma, the definition is clear, something held as an established opinion, that's a little different than absolute truth, however in my faith dogma is established and is not a bad word. Those who criticize dogma ought to look at what is dogma in their own world, things like climate change, etc. thanks for the almost civil conversation folks!