34 George Barna and David Barton, U-turn: Restoring America to the Strength of Its Roots (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma Media, 2014), 44.
35 Hanley, “How Much Did the Founders Quote the Bible?”
36 Lutz, “Relative Influence of European Writers,” at 194, table 4; 9 percent of 364 is 32.76 or, rounding up, 33. 364 + 164 = 528. So 33 citations in 528 publications.
37 Ibid.
38 Despite this damning evidence, Lutz still pays lip service to “the prominence of biblical sources for American political thought” that “was highly influential in our political tradition.” Lutz at 192.
39 Franklin was citing Jethro’s advice to Moses, but Franklin actually omitted half of Jethro’s advice from Exodus 18:21, focusing on the singular secular aspect of it and ignoring the bit about needing men to fear a god. Using religion, again, to reach his political ends, worked; the motion was defeated. Records of the Federal Convention, ed. Farrand, vol. 2, page 249. See also Daniel Dreisbach, “The Bible and the Political Culture of the American Founding,” in Faith and the Founders of the American Republic, ed. Daniel L. Dreisbach and Mark David Hall (Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press, 2014), 144–73 at 159–60.
40 LaHaye, Faith of Our Founding Fathers, 196. See https://books.google.com/books?id=UpBp5pu4YJIC.
Chapter 7 • Christian Arrogance and the Golden Rule
1 Robert Ingersoll, “Lectures on the Great Infidels,” in The Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll… , vol. 1. (Chicago: Rhodes & McClure, 1898), 222.
2 William Federer, Back Fired: A Nation Born for Religious Tolerance No Longer Tolerates Religion (St. Louis, MO: Amerisearch, 2005), 88 (“Christian leaders in America advocated Jesus’ teaching” citing Madison and Morris, among others. Federer also labels the “very concept” as “Christian Forbearance,” at 89); Kennedy and Newcombe, What If America Were a Christian Nation Again?, ch. 6, (noting that “Christianity gave birth to the good type of tolerance, as summarized in Christ’s Golden Rule”); Phyllis Schlafly and George Neumayr, No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religious Freedom (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2012), 149 (trying to argue using founders’ quotes that “America is a Christian nation” and has “a Constitution designed for a people shaped by the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments”).
3 Lev. 19:17–18.
4 Luke 10:25–37.
5 Rushworth M. Kidder, How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living (New York: Harper, 2003), 157.
6 John Albert Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1956), 121.
7 David Wiggins, Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2006), 181.
8 Jeffrey Wattles, The Golden Rule (Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996), 29, citing Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.
9 Laozi, The Tao Te Ching, stanza 49, trans. James Legge, in The Texts of Taoism, pt. 1 (Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press, 1891), 91.
10 Analects 15.24; Analects 5.12 and 6.30; see Wattles, Golden Rule, 15–20.
11 Herodotus, Histories; see John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 4 (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 2009), 553–57.
12 Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, 2nd ed., ed. Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2005), 69.
13 Isocrates, Nicocles or the Cyprians, 61; or see the positive formulation of the rule in Meier, Marginal Jew, 552–57.
14 Plato, Crito, 47c; in The Apology Phaedo, and the Crito of Plato, vol. 2, trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1909), 38; see also Karen Armstrong, Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (New York: A. A. Knopf, 2006), 309.
15 Mahabharata, bk. 13, “Anusasana Parva,” § 113, verse 8, trans. Kisari Mohan Ganguli, c. 1883–96, http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m13/m13b078.htm.
16 Tim O’Keefe, Epicurus on Freedom (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005), 134.
17 Talmud, Hillel, b. Shab. 31a.
18 Luke 6:31.
19 Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Penguin, 2011), 182.
20 Peter Singer, How Are We to Live?: Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest, (Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997), 273.
21 John Adams, August 24, 1796, diary entry in Works of John Adams, vol. 3, 423.
Chapter 8 • Biblical Obedience or American Freedom?
1 William Penn, Fruits of Solitude, pt. 1, in The Harvard Classics, vol. 1, pt. 3 (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1909–14).
2 Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, trans. William Benham, bk. 1, ch. 9, in Harvard Classics, vol. 7, pt. 2.
3 Edmund Burke, speech on Conciliation with the Colonies, March 22, 1775, The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, vol. 1 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), 464–71.
4 Albert von Ruville, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, vol. 3, trans. H. J. Chaytor (London: William Heinemann, 1907), 317–18.
5 Thomas Paine, “Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs,” Common Sense (1776), in Writings of Thomas Paine, vol. 1, 1894, 98.
6 Gen. 22:2.
7 Jon Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1993), 12. Levenson is a good source for a scholarly discussion on child sacrifice in the bible.
8 Gen. 22:9.
9 Gen. 22:12.
10 Gen. 22:17–18.
11 Gen. 19:17, 19:26.
12 Deut. 10:12 (emph. added).
13 Rom. 6:16.
14 2 Thess. 1:7–8 (emph. added).
15 Isa. 1:19–20.
16 See, e.g., Carol L. Meyers, Exodus (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005), 5–8; Ernest S. Frerichs, Leonard H. Lesko, and William G. Dever, ed., Exodus: The Egyptian Evidence (Warsaw, IN: Eisenbrauns: 1997); Thomas E. Levy, Thomas Schneider, and William H. C. Propp, Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience (Basel, Switz.: Springer International, 2015).
17 Exod. 19:5.
18 Exod. 24:5–7.
19 See, e.g., Deut. 13:6–10. Compare Exod. 5:15 and 32:13.
20 Num. 20:2–13.
21 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “A Greeting on the Seventy-fourth Anniversary of the Proclamation of Emancipation,” in The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt… (New York: Random House, 1938), 358.
22 Thomas Paine, “Four Letters on Interesting Subjects. Philadelphia: 1776” in Founders’ Constitution online, vol. 1, ch. 17, doc. 19. Paine was not originally recognized as the author of this pamphlet; see Alfred Owen Aldridge, Thomas Paine’s American Ideology (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1984), 219.
Chapter 9 • Crime and Punishment: Biblical Vengeance or American Justice?
1 Thomas Jefferson, “To Edmund Pendleton,” August 26, 1776, FO-NA. Source: Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, 503–6.
2 https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/04/death-penalty-facts-and-figures-2017/.
3 Stephen Fry, Intelligence2 Catholic Church Debate, October 19, 2009, an unofficial transcript at http://www.amindatplay.eu/2009/12/02/intelligence%C2%B2-catholic-church-debate-transcript/.
4 Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 100–101 (1958).
5 See also Lev. 20.14; Jer. 49:2; 2 Thess. 1:7–9; Rev. 14:10–11; Rev. 21:8; Ps. 140:10; Jer. 17:27; 1 Kings 14:9–10.
6 Deut. 22:19.
7 Exod. 22:18 (KJV).
8 Mark Twain, Europe and Elsewhere (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1923), 392.
9 “The terrible Language [of Jonathan Edwards’s sinners in the hands of an angry god] frequently frights the little Children and Sets them a Screaming; and that frights their tender Mothers, and Sets them to Screaming, and by Degrees Spreads over a great Part of the Congregation.” Charles Chauncy, Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England (Boston: Rogers & Fowle, 1743), 106; see also 78. See also th
e story of Phebe Bartlet; a version appears in Jonathan Edwards, Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England, 1740: To Which Is Prefixed a Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in Northampton, Mass. 1735 (New York: American Tract Soc., 1845), 85, but a more accurate breakdown of the story appears in Stewart, Nature’s God, 50.
10 Billy Hornsby, The Attractional Church: Growth Through a Refreshing, Relational, and Relevant Church Experience (New York: Faithwords, 2011), 120.
11 Gen. 37:35, 42:38, 44:29–31.
12 Ps. 49:15 (if we assume David wrote this psalm).
13 Acts 2:24–31.
14 Job 14:13.
15 Mark 9:43–48.
16 Matt. 10:28.
17 Matt. 13:41–42
18 Matt. 3:12.
19 Matt. 18:8–9.
20 Matt. 25:41.
21 Matt. 25:46.
22 Mark 9:49.
23 Luke 16:23–28.
24 Jude 1:7.
25 Rev. 21:8.
26 Rev. 20:14–15.
27 Rev. 14:10–11.
28 J. H. Srawley, The Epistles of St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch (New York: Macmillan, 1919), 48.
29 Five Books of St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, Against Heresies, trans. John Keble (Oxford, UK: James Parker, 1872), 179.
30 Cyprian, The Treatises of S. Caecilius Cyprian… , trans. Charles Thornton, vol. 3 of A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church…, ed. E.B. Pusey et al. (Oxford, UK: John Henry Parker, 1840), 223.
31 Philip Schaff, ed., St. Augustin’s City of God and Christian Doctrine, vol. 2 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature, 1887), 461.
32 Ibid.
33 All quotes from this sermon are taken from Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1739),” Sermons and Discourses, 1738–1742, Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, vol. 22, 400–418, Jonathan Edwards Ctr. at Yale, 2008, http://edwards.yale.edu/.
34 Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” supra.
35 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, supplement to pt. 3, q. 94, art. 1, vol. 5 (New York: Cosimo, 2013), 2960.
36 Tertullian, De spectaculis, trans. T. R. Glover, Gerald H. Rendall, Loeb Classical Lib. 250 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1931), 298–99.
37 Ezra Stiles, The Diary of Ezra Stiles, vol. 3, January 1, 1782–May 6, 1795, ed. Franklin Bowditch Dexter (New York: Charles Scribner Sons, 1901), 345.
38 Voicemail from unidentified female caller left at Freedom From Religion Foundation office phone number on March 24, 2015, at approximately 7:25 p.m. local time. On file with author.
39 Trop, 356 U.S. 86, 99 (1958).
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 According to the Supreme Court, crucifixion and any other method of execution that causes “torture or lingering death” is a cruel and unusual punishment. In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 446 (1890); see also Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 264; Louisiana ex rel Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459, 463 (1947).
44 Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349 (1910).
45 Trop, 356 U.S. at 86.
46 Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976).
47 Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25 (1993).
48 Schaff, ed., St. Augustin’s City of God, vol. 2, 466.
49 Aquinas, Summa Theologica, ed. and trans. T. C. O’Brien, vol. 27, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press), 25.
50 2 Thess. 1:8–9.
51 For an atheist, the death penalty would be a permanent punishment for a finite crime, but not infinite. And the problem is worse if you are a Christian and believe in the eternal soul. Christopher Hitchens, debate with Peter Hitchens, Hauenstein Center, Grand Valley State University, MI, 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcDbMklrOBI. Under the Eighth Amendment, death is the end of the punishment; for Christians it is only the beginning.
52 Paine to Erskine, 165.
Chapter 10 • Redemption and Original Sin or Personal Responsibility and the Presumption of Innocence?
1 Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Twelve 2007), 209.
2 See Hamilton, Federalist, no. 69; also no. 70 (“But in a republic, where every magistrate ought to be personally responsible for his behavior…”).
3 Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are (New York: Dey Street Books, 2017), 260.
4 Judg. 11:30–40.
5 Num. 25:4.
6 See, e.g., Gen. 8:20–21, Lev. 23:12–18.
7 Gen. 7:2, 8:20.
8 1 Pet. 1:19.
9 Andrew L. Seidel, “Chickens, goats, Jesus and the immorality of vicarious redemption,” Freethought Now!, October 2, 2014, www.patheos.com/blogs/freethoughtnow/chickens-goats-jesus/.
10 “Kapparah.” In Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 7 (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1906), 435–36.
11 See, e.g., Todd Venezia, “Fowl Ritual,” New York Post, August 31, 2007.
12 John Adams claimed to have read all of Bolingbroke’s works five times, while Jefferson copied 10,000 of Bolingbroke’s words into his personal notebook, known as his Literary Commonplace Book—six times as much as from any other author and 40 percent of the whole volume. See Adams’s letter to Jefferson, December 25, 1813, in The Works of John Adams, vol. 10, 82. For Jefferson, see the LOC, “Bolingbroke’s Influence on Thomas Jefferson,” http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel02.html#obj060.
13 Viscount Henry St. John Bolingbroke, The Work of Lord Bolingbroke…, vol. 4 (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1841), 301.
14 Ibid.
15 See, e.g., Alexander Volokh, “n Guilty Men,” 146 Univ. of Pennsylvania. Law Review 146, no 1. (November 1997): 173.
16 Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432, 455 (1895).
17 See, e.g., Thomas Bokenkotter, A Concise History of the Catholic Church, rev. ed., (New York: Crown, 2007), 132.
18 Coffin, 156 U.S. at 453–4.
19 Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan, March 14, 1785, in Works of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 11, ed. J. Bigelow, 1904, 13. Franklin may have been quoting Blackstone here, who wrote something nearly identical, though his ratio was 10 to 1. See Scott Christianson, Innocent: Inside Wrongful Conviction Cases (New York: NYU Press, 2004), 17. Maimonides put the ratio even higher, at 1,000 to 1, though it seems irrelevant compared to the verses listed. For more, see Volokh, “n Guilty Men,” 173.
20 Different translations render this differently. Voltaire, Zadig (1747) in Voltaire’s Romances (New York: Peter Eckler, 1885), 35–103 at 53.
21 The Supreme Court, in Coffin, discussed the origins of the concept: “Greenleaf traces this presumption to Deuteronomy, and quotes Mascardus De Probationibus to show that it was substantially embodied in the laws of Sparta and Athens. Whether Greenleaf is correct or not in this view, there can be no question that the Roman law was pervaded with the results of this maxim.” Simon Greenleaf himself mentions the bible in a footnote after attributing the maxim to Lord Hale; he mentions Greek and Roman law too. Simon Greenleaf, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence, vol. 3, note 1 (New York: Little, Brown, 1853), 31. Several others have half-heartedly attempted to tie this maxim to the bible. See, e.g., Eric M. Kubilus, “Innocent until Proven (Hypothetically) Guilty: The Third Circuit Condones the Use of Guilt-Assuming Hypotheticals in United States v. Kellogg,” Villanova Law Review 53, iss. 4 (2008): 665, http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/vlr/vol53/iss4/2; Volokh, aside, “n Guilty Men,” 146. None have done so convincingly.
22 Deut. 1:39.
Chapter 11 • The American Experiment: Religious Faith or Reason?
1 Adams, “Defence of the Constitutions of Government,” in Works of John Adams, vol. 4, 292.
2 Matt. 17:20.
3 Matt. 21:21.
4 Michael Novak, “Faith and the American Founding: Illustrating Religion’s Influence,” Heritage Foundation, November 6, 2006, https://perma.cc/2Y6E-DD8M.
5 Heb. 11:1 (KJV).
6 Dr. Peter Boghossian, Lecture, “Faith: Pretending to Know Things You Don’t Know,” May 6, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp4WUFXvCFQ.
7 Clinton Rossiter, Seedtime of the Republic (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1953), 440.
8 Martin Luther, Last Sermon in Wittenberg…Second Sunday in Epiphany, January 17, 1546, in Dr. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 51 (Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1914), 126.
9 Luther, Table Talk, 353, trans. W. Hazlitt (London: David Bogue, 1848), 164.
10 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, query 17, in Works of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 4, 294. This section is often misread by people unfamiliar with Jefferson’s religious beliefs and with his work editing the supernatural out of the bible. In this work, Jefferson also wrote that “reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only.” Ibid., 293. Other passages on the history of Christianity in Rome in this work may even sound pro-Christian nationalist, but they are really a call to reason and free inquiry—a call to test all our beliefs in light of facts.
11 Adams, “Defence of the Constitutions of Government,” in Works of John Adams, vol. 4, 292.
12 See generally Dray, Stealing God’s Thunder; Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004); Hal Marcovitz, Benjamin Franklin: Scientist, Inventor, Printer, and Statesman (New York: Chelsea House, 2009). See also http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/info/inventions.htm.
13 See, e.g., Jefferson to William Drayton, January 13, 1788, FO-NA. [Original source: Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 12, 507–8.]; Monticello as Experiment: “To Try All Things,” permanent exhibit, https://perma.cc/V73N-5CZQ.
14 See generally I. Bernard Cohen, Science and the Founding Fathers: Science in the Political Thought of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams & James Madison (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 65–72, 293; Tom Shachtman, Gentlemen Scientists and Revolutionaries: The Founding Fathers in the Age of Enlightenment (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
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