My God Carries a Hammer-Yours was Nailed to a Cross

Too many people are under the impression religion will solve all of our problems. They reason if they pray and live the bible, all will be fine. They use the argument, “Back when things were different…”. Lets analyze “back then”. How far back can we go? The Crusades?

The Crusades started in 1095 when Pope Claremont preached the First Crusade at the Council of Claremont. The Pope’s preaching led to thousands immediately affixing the cross to their garments – the name Crusade given to the Holy Wars came from old French word ‘crois’ meaning ‘cross’. The Crusades were great military expeditions undertaken by the Christian nations of Europe for the purpose of rescuing the holy places of Palestine from the hands of the Mohammedans. There were 8 Crusades total and they included a children’s crusade. The Crusades came from a doctrine of “just war” and… killing infidels as a valid, if not preferable, way of serving God and the Church. This new view was expressed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux who said that killing in the name of Christ is “malecide” rather than homicide that that “to kill a pagan is to win glory, for it gives glory to Christ.”


Exploration of the New World?

Spiritual responsibility for newly discovered lands originally resided with the Order

of Christ, of which Prince Henry the Navigator was administrator, and was affirmed by the papal bull Inter coetera on March 13, 1456. Beyond the administrative aspects provided by the Church during the European voyages of exploration, there was a significant crusading aspect involved. It was written, “Even the most genial Christian had to regard his religion as absolutely true (and therefore all others as radically false) and heathens as unwitting precursors, or unregenerate enemies, or miserable souls in need of light.” Missionaries from Spain and Portugal went overseas to convert en masse the heathens encountered by sailors in the service to their respective Crowns. In this respect, the Spanish, more than the Portuguese, were focused on establishing what Anthony Pagden calls the Monarchia Universalis, a universal Christian empire. Christian missionaries believed that they were not only bringing a superior religion to these new regions, but also a superior culture.

Separation of church and state

When the Colonies were struggling to become a nation, many of the founders, who remembered how the Church interfered with the Government, wanted a separation of the Church and State. James Madison said, “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.”

If religion was so great for a Country, it stands to reason the founding fathers would have embraced a Theocracy, yet that was not the case. That is why, in the first Amendment of the Constitution it is stated, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Tom DeLay once stated, “I don’t believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church.” This is what, unfortunately, a lot of people believe. It distinctly says the Government will make no law establishing a religion. Period.

It does not matter what spin you put on the subject, you can search the Constitution from pillar to post and find not one single reference to God.

The founding fathers, while writing this document, more than likely debated religion and how it would fit into this new Government they were attempting to establish. Any student of history will know just breaking away from England was an act of treason and had they not won the War of Independence, they all would of hung for their efforts. Now, after the failure of the Articles of Confederation, they needed a document which would guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government’s power in judicial and other proceedings, and reserve some powers to the states and the public. While originally the amendments applied only to the federal government, most of their provisions have since been held to apply to the states by way of the Fourteenth Amendment. Originally, the Bill of Rights legally protected only white men, excluding African Americans and women. However, these limitations were not explicit in the Bill of Right’s text. It took additional Constitutional amendments and numerous Supreme Court cases to extend the same rights to all U.S. citizens.

To further bolster the argument against a Theocracy, all one has to do is study Countries such as Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Each of those countries has laws with deep connections to their religion and in some places, the religious law supersedes all law. Christians say that would never happen here because we are not them. It would and is happening. Right now it is a war on sex. There is a war simmering on what can be taught in school. Evolution is being replaced by creationism, science is under attack as being anti-God, and many now want Christianity to be THE religion of the United States.

It is time to end the madness.