{"id":471,"date":"2005-02-24T07:09:00","date_gmt":"2005-02-24T12:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=471"},"modified":"2005-12-06T07:28:13","modified_gmt":"2005-12-06T12:28:13","slug":"blind-watchmaker-alien-ant-farm-etc-etc-amen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/blind-watchmaker-alien-ant-farm-etc-etc-amen","title":{"rendered":"Blind Watchmaker, Alien Ant Farm, etc., etc., amen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neat article<\/a> in the Nation<\/span> about the Deism predominant among America’s founding fathers. I’ve always had a chuckle when I’ve heard America referred to as a Christian nation.<\/p>\n

Here’s a snippet from Ben Franklin, a few weeks before his death:<\/p>\n

As for Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It seems to me (and I never really pondered on it before, so cut me some slack, or ramble about it in the Comments section) that the remarks made by the framers regarding tolerance of “Mohametans” are consciously designed to cut the Gordian knot of the Crusades, by directly removing the Christian\/heathen conflict from America’s mythology.<\/p>\n

They envisioned a world that sidestepped those conflicts, avoiding the example of Christian Europe. Unlike Henry IV, there is no Jerusalem chamber.<\/p>\n

Read<\/a> and let me know what you think. I’m still formulating (and procrastinating on the parenteral outsourcing article for my mag).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neat article in the Nation about the Deism predominant among America’s founding fathers. I’ve always had a chuckle when I’ve heard America referred to as a Christian nation. Here’s a snippet from Ben Franklin, a few weeks before his death: As for Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Blind Watchmaker, Alien Ant Farm, etc., etc., amen”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-7B","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1185,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/throw-the-jew-etc-etc","url_meta":{"origin":471,"position":0},"title":"Throw the Jew, etc., etc.","author":"Gil","date":"November 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Ron Rosenbaum prefers the HBO-Borat to the movie version: [T]o me the original Borat segments were more than stupid-funny; they were extremely smart-funny, occasionally even off-handedly profound, as the fake Kazakh newsman \"personality\" managed to tease out moments of appalling honesty from ordinary Americans with a light touch and brilliant\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":802,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/whole-world-hands-etc","url_meta":{"origin":471,"position":1},"title":"Whole world, hands, etc.","author":"Gil","date":"January 12, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"It was a nice birthday present to find that Google Earth is now available for the Mac. It was pretty funny to zoom in on the ark-shaped house next door to mine.","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3575,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/saddest-photos-of-the-week-year-life-etc","url_meta":{"origin":471,"position":2},"title":"Saddest photos of the week, year, life, etc.","author":"Gil","date":"March 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"After moving down the hall to a new office yesterday, I put all of my back issues in magazine boxes. Welcome to the past 10 years of my professional life. No, it doesn't even fill an entire shelf:","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/cpshelf2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":16,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/etc","url_meta":{"origin":471,"position":3},"title":"Etc.","author":"Gil","date":"April 28, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"In other news, I'm having a nice, relaxing time here. Been using SPF 30 sunscreen, so I've been okay thus far. Except that I seem to have sunburned the top of my head, which is pretty irritating (in more ways than one). Can't really douse one's hair with sunscreen, so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "travel"","block_context":{"text":"travel","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1001,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/oops-etc","url_meta":{"origin":471,"position":4},"title":"Oops, etc.","author":"Gil","date":"June 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's an entertaining fashion article in the Washington Post on the meltdown that is Britney: During the \"Dateline\" interview, Spears tearfully implored the paparazzi to leave her alone. Her pleas were reasonable and tugged at the heart. One came close to forgetting that she had encouraged the attention with her\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/oops-etc#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":423,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/best-laid-plans-etc","url_meta":{"origin":471,"position":5},"title":"Best-Laid Plans, etc.","author":"Gil","date":"December 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Holiday plans got scuttled, after the official VM girlfriend came down with food poisoning Wednesday night. We had to cancel our Thursday flight to visit her family in Louisiana for the holidays, as she was in no shape to board a plane, and the person I spoke to at Continental\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/best-laid-plans-etc#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}