Buffman

I just had a very thoughtful Christian gentleman send me an e-mail that contained the identical info you will find in the URL I post at the end of my comments.

He was concerned because he was observing a very old friend of his become more and more involved with fundamentalist hype/positions about C-SS. He wished to know if I could offer him some assistance in countering some of the statements being made in the e-mail from his old friend. He was convinced that many of the statements were contrary to what he had learned in the civics and history courses of his youth.

When I read the the statements, David Barton's handiwork leaped from the page. I had seen a similar e-mail before but had simply ignored it as too absurd for a response from me. So I have a question and an offer to place before this forum.

1. How many others have received this particular e-mail?

2. Though I used a ton of URLs in my response, if anyone would care for a copy (about 32 pages), I would be happy to e-mail them one. I chose to allow others to counter the e-mail statements so a certain degree of research/reading will be necessary in order to adequately counter the e-mail contentions.

Here is an identical copy of the statements in the e-mail letter that I found posted on the Web.

http://www.thecitizennews.com/main/a...on/ltr-03.html

(Thanks for any comments,)

[ October 11, 2002: Message edited by: Buffman ]

theyeti

Buffman, I'm too lazy to do the reseach. Could you post your response here (condensed version if necessary) or failing that, email me a copy?

theyeti

Buffman

E-mail on the way. I feel that an attempt to condense would undermine the the accuracy of the response.

theyeti

Message received. Thanks Buffman!

One part that was a little confusing:

It seemed to me that you were going to referrece another web site pertaining to this argument, but this url is for the original fundie email. I assume that's a mistake.

Other than that, the only criticism I would offer is that you could explain more forcefully at some point that a bunch of non-related quotes add up to a bunch of hooey. First of all, individual quotes from prolific writers yanked out of context can hardly be said to give an accurate description of what those people really thought (and of course in the case of Jefferson, Madison, Washington, etc. they don't give an accurate description). And furthermore, most of these people have counter-quotes that indicate that they thought the opposite from what the fundies wish they thought, at least some of the time. I know most of these quotes are contained within the numerous links you gave, but they would look better in the body of the email (I admit -- I was too lazy to follow up on many of the links). Furthermore, what these people think or didn't think isn't relevant to how our government should deal with CSS issues. No one denies that our nation has a lengthy Christian heritage, and it's no surprise that many of our past leaders paid lip service to Xtianity. But this doesn't change the modern legal issues one bit. And then there's the issue about "America's Xtian heritage has been edited out of text books". The author of the email spam gets pretty far off topic with that, and doesn't explain why these quotes are really relevant to what's taught in school books. I mean, do off-hand remarks that Barton dug up somewhere belong in text books to begin with? Are they relevant to American history? (You addressed this well with the Henry quote.)

Anyway, good work! You might want to polish up the whole presentation and save it for countering this email whenever it pops up. Let us know if you make an updated version.

theyeti

[ October 11, 2002: Message edited by: theyeti ]</p>

SanDiegoAtheist

Here's a wonderful little list of quotes that David Barton HIMSELF admits are 'questionable' (not that he bothered to actually verify any of them during his book writing, and I somehow doubt he calls attention to them during his seminars, etc.)


Wallbuilders "questionable" quotes

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

Buffman

SDA

Thanks! I have it in my "Favorites" list. I prefer to use the information found here (About 2/3rds of the way down):

http://members.tripod.com/~candst/toc.htm

SLD

I'm not sure if you noticed this in you email to your friend, but I noticed a rather bizarre quote in the article that I had not seen before and somehow just didn't look right:

"In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled that Bible reading was outlawed as unconstitutional in the public school system. The court offered this justification: 'If portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could and have been psychologically harmful to children.'"

This isn't how the Supreme Court Justices pontificate. It sounded bogus so I looked up the original quote:

"Expert testimony was introduced by both appellants and appellees at the first trial, which testimony was summarized by the trial court as follows:

'Dr. Solomon Grayzel testified that there were marked differences between the Jewish Holy Scriptures and the Christian Holy Bible, the most obvious of which was the absence of the New Testament in the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Dr. Grayzel testified that portions of the New Testament were offensive to Jewish tradition and that, from the standpoint of Jewish faith, the concept of Jesus Christ as the Son of God was `practically blasphemous.' He cited instances in the New Testament which, assertedly, were not only sectarian in nature but tended to bring the Jews into ridicule or scorn. Dr. Grayzel gave as his expert opinion that such material from the New Testament could be explained to Jewish children in such a way as to do no harm to them. But if portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could be, and in his specific experience with children Dr. Grayzel observed, had been, psychologically harmful to the child and had caused a divisive force within the social media of the school. '"

Thus it is not a quote from the Justices nor their rationale for ruling the way they did, but their quote about what an expert testified to at the trial court level and then that expert was testifying not about the psychological effects on all children, but on Jewish children having to endure anti-semitic remarks in the New Testament that are undeniably there.

I also did a google search and found many fundy web sites repeating the Barton version of the quote, and blasting the Supreme Court for this mis-quote. Barton is a liar, plain and simple. He has propagated the lies about Madison and blatantly misquoted him time and again despite being corrected routinely. He is part of the lying for Jesus crowd.

Here's hoping your friend's friend takes the time to do some real learning.

Buffman

SLD

Thank you for the research. I provided this interested gentleman with a URL that he can use to review all the Church-State cases.

http://members.tripod.com/~candst/toc.htm

(Extract)
Important Establishment Clause Cases decided by the U. S. Supreme Court
· · Introduction
· · Cases from 1899 to 1970
· · Cases from 1971 to 1977
· · Cases from 1978 to present
· · Recently in the Courts (2000-Present)
(End extract)

I believe this is the specific case:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/script...l=374&page=203

There was no way I wasn't going to do what I could to help this man. Here is an excerpt from his first contact. I'm sure he will not mind if I post it since no name or address is given.

"About a month ago a fellow worker gave me a copy of an article that said that there was no "wall of Separation of Church and State". This article quoted several sources including the Jefferson Danbury Letter.

I was upset because after taking High school Civics and College American Government I had always believed that there was a wall of separation. The church I attend also believes in the Wall of separation so I was indeed truly upset. Someone wasn't telling it that way it was, but how could I prove it. I spoke with my brother who has a copy of the book "American State Papers". We looked at all the used book sources but none were available; His copy was a reprint done in the mid 40's, but only 5,000 copies were printed. He went to work and found the Bank of Wisdom website and I ordered the CD. It came last Friday and I hit it hard expecting to have it be a real chore. I can't tell you how surprised and happy I was to find your essay on the CD .Thank you for taking the time to do the research you have done. I have printed out your essay and will be sharing it with quite a few of my friends. I plan to print 10 copies and who knows how many they will share I hope 100's.

May God Bless you for your work -- "Truth will set you free" is what the Good Book says.

Again thank you."

It really "makes my day" when folks take an interest in getting the accurate information...especially if they happen to be Christians who have been exposed to Barton's lies and propaganda...and all the fundamentalist home pages that continue to foist it on unwary believers.

I have been able to provide him several more insights since my first response and now need to give the poor fellow a break before he overloads.

Thanks again for the research and the most welcome and heartening comments.

Buffman

theyeti

(Oooops! Sorry about that. I read SLD's post before yours.)

It seemed to me that you were going to referrece another web site pertaining to this argument, but this url is for the original fundie email. I assume that's a mistake.

You are quite correct. That is a weak spot. I was going to make a stab at finding some information that I had gathered, long ago, about that "number of Christian colleges/universities" comment when I suddenly found the very e-mail letter that this gentleman had received staring at me, in a more formal setting, from that specific home page. I quickly wanted to capture the URL and save it some place while letting this fellow know that his friend had not made this crap up on his own. KERPLUNK! Right in the body of my text. So it wasn't so much a mistake as it was me simply running out of steam and too lazy to go back and explain it to him.

I only type, slowly, with two fingers. That is a constraint on my time and level of enthusiasm when I have been researching information for too many hours. Though I might have been able to counter most of the Barton propaganda without resort to specific URLs, I prefer that folks have more than simply my words available as evidence of a counter-claim. That's what takes the most time...finding specific references for them to review and use if they so desire.

Though I also agree with your analysis of the real issues behind all this, I rather suspect that this gentleman, at the moment, is merely looking for some factual data with which to neutralize (stomp on) his friend's arguments. Since both he and his church support C-SS already, I am assuming that they have the basic philosophy in hand...but lacked the specific facts to counter the Barton propaganda.

(I rather enjoyed the Patrick Henry example my "impish" self. It took some surfing time to find that complete speech. Lots of short quotes, but not the entire speech.)

Let us know if you make an updated version.

Is your keyboard broken? Besides, most of that info is old hat to you...but obviously not to this fellow or his brother...or their friends.

[ October 12, 2002: Message edited by: Buffman ]</p>

fromtheright

I thank my good friend SLD for his context on the Supreme Court opinion cited by Barton. And, as usual, Buffman's research is extraordinary. Though I do still remain on the opposite side of this debate I really do have you guys to thank (Toto, I believe in particular, as I recall) for pointing me to Barton's deceptions.
But--what about many of the other quotes listed at the beginning, from Washington, Adams, and Henry? The Madison quote has fortunately been exposed as a fabrication but the others remain. And I must say that the integrity of Buffman's research is truly laudable as he has shown in previous posts that many of the quotes cited by your side are also taken out of context.
Clearly, the integrity of the research and the arguments based thereon is the key.