"The U.S. a Christian Nation? Not According to the" Topic

what is YOUR answer to which church? Mine is all of them and none of them. If the answer is only from a human perspective, it sort of misses the whole point.

The origins and doctrines of the different Christian denominations are just that-different. And wars have been fought and innocents slaughtered because of that. The wars of religion that followed the Protestant Reformation and the religious persecutions because of that event caused the deaths and displacement of millions.

Compare that to the Holocaust in both intolerance and numbers that died because of religious prejudice.

Perhaps these will help:

-The Reformation: A History Paperback by Diarmaid MacCulloch

-Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch.

-A Concise History of the Catholic Church by Thomas Bokenkotter.

-A Concise History of the Catholic Church by Thomas Johnston.

-he Great Awakening: A Brief History with Documents by Thomas Kidd.

And these only concern western Christian religions, not the eastern rites.

And there is still religious prejudice in the west and in the United States among the Christian religions, which doesn't support the idea of 'one church.'

@Kevin

"And there is still religious prejudice in the west and in the United States among the Christian religions, which doesn't support the idea of 'one church.'"

Are you insinuating that religious prejudice and intolerance only exist in the west?? You aren't are you?

No, of course not. However, the postings on religion in this thread concerned that subject, hence the comment.

Yes, humans do evil things, often in the name of or with the excuse of religion. Your human perspective is as accurate as human perspectives ever are

As to the RofT linked to the Hol, I did that. The link is the abandoning of individual virtue or guilt for collective group virtue or guilt. The link is an IDEA.

As to your reading lists, have you read Paul Johnson's history of Christianity? A magnificent work. McClay's Land of Hope does a great job, too (in a general history) of American religious developments.

Yes, humans do evil things, often in the name of or with the excuse of religion. Your human perspective is as accurate as human perspectives ever are

As to the RofT linked to the Hol, I did that. The link is the abandoning of individual virtue or guilt for collective group virtue or guilt. The link is an IDEA.

As to your reading lists, have you read Paul Johnson's history of Christianity? A magnificent work. McClay's Land of Hope does a great job, too (in a general history) of American religious developments.

…have you read Paul Johnson's history of Christianity? A magnificent work.

I've read his rather short biography of Napoleon…I'll pass on his History of Christianity.

Your loss. It is a splendid work.

If the book is in the same vein as his work on Napoleon, then it isn't a loss at all. And it depends on which 'viewpoint' the author is taking.

If it is inaccurate and ahistorical, then there is little to recommend it.

No idea about his Napoleon book, but MODERN TIMES is magisterial.

Sorry, but the subject author is not on my list of credible authors.

Doesn't share your appreciation of Bonaparte?

Paul Johnson just recently died on Jan. 12th 2023. Most unsettling.

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There is a tendency for some religious "enthusiasts" to cast the French Revolution as an example of the sort of out of control Hell-on-Earth results one gets when the Church is cast aside. However, the American Revolution was pretty bloody and had plenty of random, gratuitous violence and there are ample religiously grounded wars with their own mini holocausts.

Robespierre might have been crazy but even his victims got a trial. The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre was a spontaneous event.

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Is a trial in which the accused is almost certain to be found guilty any consolation to them?

All right, Charge, let's see the list of political executions in the American Revolution. NOT deaths in the war. The French event outkilled the American one by thousands-to-one.

It IS true that big wars scoop up and intensify pre-existing animosities; we can see that in, e.g., the Mohawk valley and the Carolinas.

But give us your examples of Whigs executing Tories or Loyalists executing Patriots. They are short lists.

"Lynch law" probably originated when Colonel Charles Lynch suppressed the Loyalist conspiracy against the lead mines in SW Va. So how many suspected Loyalists did Lynch kill? None. He whipped some, disarmed a lot, forced some to enlist in the Continental Army, but no executions.

Wiki:In several incidents in 1780, Lynch and several other militia officers and justices of the peace rounded up suspects who were thought to be a part of a Loyalist uprising in southwestern Virginia. The suspects were given a summary trial at an informal court; sentences handed down included whipping, property seizure, coerced pledges of allegiance, and conscription into the military. Lynch's extralegal actions were legitimized by the Virginia General Assembly in 1782.

Lynch faced an imminent threat and ACTED, then he reported what he had done to Governor Thomas Jefferson, who laid the matter on the legislature, which in term passed an act indemnifying Lynch and his men (basically prohibiting courts from hearing any lawsuits against Lynch).

How many were murdered/judicially killed during the Terror?

What about the White Terror in 1815 promulgated by the returned Bourbons?

And don't forget the atrocities in the Hudson Valley during the War of the Revolution…

let's see the list of political executions in the American Revolution.

Are you going to provide one?

No. They are hard to find, few and far between. In contrast to thousands in France.

Oh, and white versus Indian warfare, though it had atrocities aplenty, was not POLITICAL: it began long before the revolution and continued after it.

We are contrasting two political events.

All right, Charge, let's see the list of political executions in the American Revolution. NOT deaths in the war. The French event outkilled the American one by thousands-to-one.

Your concern is with politically motivated killings?

"Why are you going to kill me? What have I done?"
"Why, you haven't DONE anything, my good sir. We are killing you for what you ARE."

This applies with equal force to the Reign of Terror and to the Holocaust. It is the abandonment of the idea of individual guilt or innocence, replacing that with group identity, and it springs directly from the philosophy of Rousseau (the General Will) as applied by Robespierre and the Jacobins.

There is a direct link between the Reign of Terror and the Holocaust.

But the same could be said about this recent thread on the CSA targeting soldiers in African American regiments. However, not only did I not see you lose your mind over the inhumanity of it all and proof that the CSA was rotten to its core but you actually tried to have the thread remove because it made you…uncomfortable?

Unless you want to add the CSA's treatment of black POWs as another link to the Holocaust?

TMP link

Some of your point here seems to be that you laud the AWI as clean (We do tend to over sanitize it) because it was restrained by Christian values while the French Revolution was abominable or unnecessarily violent because religion was absented from the policies.

This strikes me as a comment that someone would make if they were motivated by a belief that religion keeps things rational and its absence unleashes the beast.

For instance, you implied that as a result of the French Revolution, Napoleon was given an opportunity to come to power and the result was wholesale death.

…white versus Indian warfare, though it had atrocities aplenty, was not POLITICAL…

Warfare against the American Indian tribes, nations, and empires cannot be lumped together in one pot.

What has to be taken into consideration are the different ways the European colonial powers dealt with the various Indian natives. Spain, France, and Great Britain all treated each differently, and when the United States came into existence that was a fourth way.

And those treatments were most certainly political as the European nations were colonizing the Americas, and that in itself is political.

Way to avoid the question, Charge.

Doc +1

There is a direct link between the Reign of Terror and the Holocaust.

That idea has not been demonstrated, proven, or supported historically.

Kevin, I explained it as clearly as possible. Sorry you cannot see that the same idea was behind both.

Where is your source material?

My own mind and the primary docs I have read. Rousseau's SOCIAL CONTRACT, especially the General Will. Robespierre's Law of Suspects. Loomis' PARIS IN THE TERROR. Any number of works on the Holocaust. Really, it is quite evident that modern totalitarian systems, relying on terror, designate particular categories to be THE ENEMY. Orwell's 1984 is fiction, but he based it on the Soviet and Nazi examples. Soviet show trials did not concern themselves with actual individual guilt or innocence.

Charge, that is ridiculous.

Is it really though?

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I think I am done with you. Stifled.

As Napoleon would've said. Tant pis.

My own mind and the primary docs I have read…

Which documents? Perhaps you could list them and the salient points that influenced your opinion.

A much more accurate analogy with the Holocaust would be slavery, especially the Atlantic slave trade and the souther slavery system.

Are you deliberately playing stupid? I listed several.

I'm done.

You mention Loomis, Robespierre, and Rousseau, but not any citations from those works to support your argument, which would be helpful.

That was my point.

It should also be noted that it was Napoleon that abolished the Spanish Inquisition when he invaded Spain.

He also abolished the Pope's version of the Inquisition and Rome's Jewish ghetto when France annexed the Papal States.

All three were reestablished after Napoleon's fall. Napoleon was a believer in moderation and had not time for either fanatics or ideologues.

He was also a great admirer of George Washington and put the French army into mourning upon Washington's death.

Well since when it comes to famous figures in the US and a common theme in TMP recently of exposing they're bad, while glossing over their good, or ignoring it completely, I guess it is only fair for some of Napoleon's bad be put out here as well. Since we have been reading his good.

I will say, when it comes to Napoleon, I really am indifferent to him. The period is somewhat interesting to me. Napoleon, Wellington, Blucher, etc., less so.

So a list of some of his bad.

Did he not overthrow those in whose service he was in? I believe others have been condemned for this?

"After seizing political power in France in a 1799 coup d'état, he crowned himself emperor in 1804."

Napoleon and slavery:

Subject: Remembering that Napoleon reinstated slavery – DW – 05/04/2021

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Subject: "Napoleon, the dark side" > Napoleon's re-establishement of slavery (< 2 min. read) – napoleon.org

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Family:

"A program of nepotism in which Napoleon's family members were placed on the thrones of several European kingdoms enabled him to consolidate his power and to enforce his civil codes upon populations outside of France. He also created a system of institutionalized plunder of art objects throughout his sphere of influence, which helped stock French museums with artifacts taken from across the European continent."

"Napoleon has imposed Kings Upon Spain Holland Sweden6 Westphalia Saxony Naples &c. The combined Emperors and Kings are about to retaliate upon France, by imposing a King upon her. These are all abominable Examples, detestable Precedents. When will the Rights of Mankind the Liberties and Independence of Nations be respected? When the Perfectibility of the human Mind Shall arrive at Perfection. When the Progress of Manillius's Ratio Shall have not only"

John Adam's in Letter to Jefferson 1815

"Napoleon was responsible for a lot of death and destruction.
Napoleon kept Europe at war for 15 years. This resulted in an estimated 3.5 million to 6 million deaths, and millions wounded. Numerous cities, towns and villages were looted, bombarded, or burned. Thousands were left homeless. An unknown number of women and girls were raped. Institutions were shattered in the territories Napoleon conquered, and the economic life of Europe was severely disrupted. Napoleon's proponents blame other European countries for the Napoleonic Wars, but in many cases Napoleon provoked the allies. He was the one who chose to invade Spain and Russia. He refused to take opportunities for peace when they were offered."

"Napoleon was responsible for the massacre at Jaffa
During the Egyptian campaign in 1799, the French laid siege to the city of Jaffa, in what is today Israel and was then under Ottoman (Turkish) control. After capturing the city, Napoleon allowed his troops to spend at least two days looting the place and raping and slaughtering its inhabitants, including the elderly, women, and children. He also ordered the execution of up to 3,000 prisoners of war (mainly Albanians), even though they had been promised mercy when they surrendered to Napoleon's stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais. The prisoners were marched to the beach and shot or bayoneted. Overall, an estimated 4,100 people were massacred by the French at Jaffa."

"Napoleon left France diminished and bankrupt
Napoleon left France in a weaker position than when he started: exhausted by war; out of money; confined to borders that were smaller than when he came to power; shorn of most of her overseas colonies; and at the mercy of victorious allies."

"Over a century later, French President Charles de Gaulle wrote:
Napoleon left France crushed, invaded, drained of blood and courage, smaller than when he had taken control of her destinies, condemned to ill-drawn frontiers, the evils of which still persist, and exposed to the distrust of Europe which has weighed upon her to this day. But it is impossible to dismiss as of no account the matchless lustre which he imparted to our armies.… (3)"

All those we may hold as heroes or idolize throughout history, have their good and bad. It should be remembered when we condemn one and glorify another.

"Ain't Nobody Clean"
"Glory"

Did he not overthrow those in whose service he was in? I believe others have been condemned for this?

Napoleon was not the instigator of the Brumaire coup in November 1799. He was recruited by Sieyes, one of the five Directors, for the coup attempt. The Directory was corrupt, and one of the Directors, Barras, was involved in a purported attempt to bring back the Bourbons.

…Napoleon crowned himself Emperor…

Napoleon did this to demonstrate to the French people that he would not be subservient to the Church. Church corruption was one of the reasons for the Revolution.

"Napoleon was responsible for a lot of death and destruction. Napoleon kept Europe at war for 15 years…"

Since most of Napoleon's wars were defensive, it is much more accurate to state that the allies, with Great Britain as their paymaster, kept Europe at war from 1802-1815.

"Napoleon was responsible for the massacre at Jaffa…

The Turkish troops executed at Jaffa were found to have been captured and paroled by the French at an earlier action. If I'm not mistaken, if you broke your parole and were captured again, the usual punishment was death.

I'll stop there to keep this answer short. I would like to know where you got you bits of information for your posting.

One of Napoleon's generals once asked him if he wanted to be God. He thought about if for a few seconds and then replied, 'No, it's a dead-end job.'

During the reform period of the Consulate, one of Napoleon's ministers asked him if he would step down when he considered his job to complete. Napoleon answered, 'Who do you think I am, George Washington?'

'Moderation is the basis of morality and man's most important virtue…'-Napoleon, 1800.

'God made Bonaparte, and then rested.'-La Chaise.

Comte de Narbonne replied: 'God should have rested a little earlier.'

I would like to know where you got you bits of information for your posting.

The latter half looks like it's from:

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@Brechtel all I have in quotes above were from the web. I also left out his views on women and homosexuality. I do not feel they are important when judging individuals from the past, but do reflect the views that many today seem to use in their judgements of those of the past.

Women: I tend to believe he was just a product of his time in his views of women, but here you go.
Subject: What did Napoleon think of women? – Shannon Selin

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Homosexuality:

Here it is mixed, depending on the source. I tend to believe he did not care one way or the other, as long as they would fight and did not oppose him.

Non positive
"However, Napoleon's government never showed itself particularly tolerant of homosexual activity and it was determined to enforce the highest moral standards in France. Though the law no longer penalized "crimes against nature", the government never hesitated to take repressive action against pederasts and sodomites."
Oxford Academic

Positive
"What makes the success of the code, in respect particularly to sodomy, so startling is that as late as 1750, men were still being burned to death for same-sex acts. Perhaps the bloody Revolution sated the public's taste for unnecessary suffering. Certainly, the introduction of the code made France and, later, much of Continental Europe, something of a safe haven to generations of well-to-do young Englishmen seeking a reprieve from sodomy laws at home.
This wasn't to say that French queers were perfectly integrated with the rest of society after decriminalisation. Public decency and order laws could still be used to harass young men who forgot to act decorously in the street, and the abiding sentiment for centuries after the Code had passed remained one of moral censure. As late as 1960, the Mirguet Amendment was introduced to a bill ostensibly concerning pimping, but which was expanded to include a number of "national scourges" including alcoholism and, thanks to the Amendment, homosexuality. It wasn't repealed until 1980."

One of Napoleon's most competent and loyal ministers was Cambaceres, who was a homosexual.

I would recommend, based on at least fifty years of researching and writing on the Napoleonic era, is to find credible source material, preferably primary sources.

A good start would be the Appendix in Vincent Cronin's biography of Napoleon which is a critical evaluation of some of the memoirs of the period. Additionally, the Recommended Reading List in the Esposito/Elting Atlas with about 400 entries is invaluable. La Sabretache, beginning in 1893 is also an invaluable resource.

Too many secondary sources, along with some that are supposed to be primary sources, are unreliable and have credibility problems and for the secondary sources, are not well researched.

@ Brechtel. Yes, sadly that is so true of so many individuals in history, of all countries. I guess we are saying, one should not base our judgments on someone, solely, or in very large parts, on the writings of todays "historians" alone.

Being an author is not the same thing as being a historian.

35th, here is a partial list of Napoleon's accomplishments as head of state:

-Introduced the Civil Code, followed by other legal codes such as a new Penal Code, one which was less punitive than that of Great Britain.

-Restored the Church.

-Issued a ‘pardon' to the emigres and urged them to return to France.

-Ended the political and social problems in the Vendee, ending the civil war there.

-Completely revamped French public and private education. Napoleon spent more money on education than on any other civil function.

-Built roads, canals, harbors, bridges, and drained swamps.

-Established orphanges and hospitals, and public sanitation.

-Established a Paris fire department.

-Established the prefect system.

-Reformed the National, later Imperial, Gendarmerie.

-Guaranteed basic civil rights.

-Guaranteed freedom of religion.

-Granted Jews full citizenship.

-Introduced gas lighting.

-Introduced the smallpox vaccine to the European continent.

-Abolished feudalism within the Empire.

-Built three trade roads through the Alps.

-Trees were planted along France's roads.

-Established a government office to protect France's forests, lakes and rivers.

-Established better water and sewer systems for Paris.

-Balanced his budgets and established a sound financial system.

-Because of his insistence on public finance, the franc became the most stable currency in Europe by 1810.

-Encouraged and sponsored improvements in agriculture.

-Insisted on honesty in his officials and established an agency to ensure that occurred.

-Was a patron of the arts.

-Established the Legion of Honor, open to all both civil and military.

-Established France's first bureau of statistics.

-Reestablished horse-breeding in France.

-Improved French industry.

-Brought full employment, stable prices, and an improved balance of trade.

-Law and order was reestablished in France after the chaos of the Revolution while keeping in place the social gains of the Revolution.

Compare these with any accomplishments of his fellow heads of state, especially those of Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

@Brechtel I never claimed he did not accomplish good things. I just pointed out, like all of those in history, he did bad as well as good. It is that way with almost all those of the past. It's easy to judge their faults, criticize, attack and degrade them, if one is so inclined.

Hopefully this point reaches someone, and they will think twice, before they decide to attack some other historical figure(s). I have slim hopes, but I have hope.

As I said before: "Ain't nobody clean". Wise words.

"…. he did bad as well…"

Who don't?….

Armand

Armand that is my point.

…I just pointed out, like all of those in history, he did bad as well as good…

And the good things Napoleon did far outweigh the 'bad', especially when compared to his fellow heads of state who, quite literally, did nothing to help their own subjects/citizens. And that is one major difference because of the French Revolution-the French people were no longer subject, but citizens. That's quite a difference.

@Brechtel, you realize that is strictly going to be a point of view of those who were impacted, negatively or positively? To a slave in the French Caribbean, it was not good. To a soldier freezing to death in Russia, or conscripted and dying in Germany and France in 1813 and 1814? To a supporter of the Royalist cause?

Hopefully you understand the point I am trying to make. All people in history are flawed, just like we are all flawed. But in "discussions" on TMP, we are all too quick to decry some individuals but defend those who we admire or are our heroes. I throw out Madison, Jefferson, Washington as opposed to say Napoleon.

Any historic conclusion should rely on research and an assembly of facts to come to that conclusion and should have little or nothing to do with innate bias or prejudice.

That process is called historical inquiry.

Regarding Paul Johnson's short 'biography' of Napoleon, the myriad errors in the book make it unreliable as a source.

There are no notes, and there is no bibliography, just a 'Further Reading' section of two pages. And some of the sources listed there are incredibly inaccurate, such as Frank McLynn's inaccurate biography and Chateaubriand's and de Stael's incredibly unreliable books. Further, Alistair Horne is referenced which I have found his How Far From Austerlitz a poor source.

Johnson's book is a diatribe against Napoleon, and the material in the book cannot be used as a reference because of the inaccuracies that permeate the text.