Former Republican Presidential contender, HUD Secretary, and famed retired surgeon Ben Carson said something that sounds persuasive, but is not, and Paul Fidalgo helpfully provides a transcript:
I feel like Ben Carson doesn’t quite get what the separation of church and state is supposed to be about. Call me crazy. He said:
So if [references to God are] in our founding documents, it’s in our Pledge, it’s on our courts, it’s on our money, but we’re not supposed to talk about it, what in the world is that? In medicine, we call it “schizophrenia.”
It sounds like Carson is providing context, but, in this case, he’s providing incomplete context. What’s missing?
The nature of the ‘God’ references.
Which Divinity is referenced? No identification is given. Could be Christian, Muslim, or even Zoroastrian. Could be something far more outre, now couldn’t it? But Christians were the dominant culture, you cry? But the Founding Fathers contain several faiths, and the Deists and, no doubt, Agnostics were among them. Some would argue they even dominated the group, intellectually speaking. Would they have signed documents that might have contradicted their own beliefs as to the nature of the Divine? No.
The recognition that operating on a lack of evidence, as faith and religious tradition do, does not serve society well, leads to the inescapable conclusion that, while a Divinity was recognized as probably existing, its nature was not known. Further, the lessons of history recent to the Fathers dictated the importance of restraining the actions of supposedly Divine-inspired people from controlling government in regard to those supposed principles, for down that Divine path lay blood and division.
The humility of the Founding Fathers in this regard is in deep contrast to the grasping, arrogant assumptions of Carson and his ilk. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to them.
