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Five People Who Fought the Christian Takeover of America

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/16/5_people_who_bravely_fought_the_chr...

everyone here should read this article. i myself bookmarked it for future reference.

sadly, these battles are still being fought today. when Ullyses S. Grant said...

“Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar, appropriated for their support, shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian schools."

...all i can think about are the calls for Voucher Programs, and the Louisiana program that is in effect today violating what Grant called for. i'll let Grant finish:

"Resolve that neither the state nor nation, nor both combined, shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford to every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good common school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical dogmas. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. With these safeguards, I believe the battles which created the Army of the Tennessee will not have been fought in vain.”

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Permalink Reply by Dan Harkins on August 16, 2012 at 3:45pm

Sadly, a more apt title for this article would be: "Five People Who Fought the Christian Takeover of America... and LOST!"

Surely these people made great contributions and I am being a bit tongue-in-cheek, but 150 years since Darwin and 100+ years of fossil findings that culmintated in the can't explain it any other way DNA evidence yet we are still fighting creation-science bullshit. People who believe this get elected president, made speaker of the house, etc. even today while non-believers have held which office exactly in the past 150 years? The christians still hold the power. Okay, not as much and their sharia law-like rules have been curbed, but still, there they are. Winning. Its a one-sided ass-kicking that we win with evidence and they somehow come away with votes.

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Permalink Reply by Lillie on August 16, 2012 at 8:35pm

You are so right, Dan. I wish this article could be more widely distributed.

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Permalink Reply by Madhukar Kulkarni on August 17, 2012 at 8:11am

"At crucial points when the church-state wall was most threatened in America, people rose up to defend it."

This is how the article starts. This is what will happen again. They have not lost. I am optimistic that America is not going in the wrong direction, although there are some occasional ups and downs. This view will be vindicated very soon and I predict that in about 50 years of time there will be an atheism wave that will be the biginning of the end of god and religion.