In a study done at Kent State University on nursing students in 1999, researchers found there was a significant correlation between homophobia, frequency of church attendance, and Christian Orthodoxy.The Christian religion, especially the Catholic and the Fundamentalist Protestant branches, has contended that homosexuality is a sinful life-style choice, one that is voluntarily entered into, and one than can be abandoned if desired.

Unfortunately, I seldom hear individuals quoting scientific evidence but only biblical references and long held prejudices. Even my fellow physicians are often unaware of the scientific literature on this subject.

Sexual orientation refers to whether a person’s erotic desires are directed toward the same sex (homosexuality), the opposite sex (heterosexuality), or both sexes (bisexuality). A person’s actions may not always match his or her sexual orientation, such as when a person conceals his sexual orientation for practical  reasons. In this discussion we will be focused on sexual orientation.

Seldom do we hear from psychiatrists and psychologists, who encounter homosexuals in their practices, or from scientific researchers. In 1973, on the basis of research findings, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a disorder from their official manual, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Their conclusion was: “The reality is that homosexuality is not an illness. It does not require treatment and is not changeable.” They further added: “There is no  published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of ‘reparative therapy’ as a treatment to change one’s sexual orientation.” In 1975, the American Psychological Association passed a resolution supporting the conclusions of the American Psychiatric Association. The World Health Organization passed a resolution in 1990 to remove homosexuality as a mental illness from its official manual. In 2000, the American Psychiatric Association reaffirmed its position of 1973 and stated that “in the last four decades, ‘reparative’ therapists have not produced any rigorous scientific research to substantiate their claims of cure.” In 2001, The United States Surgeon General, David Satcher M.D., issued a report maintaining that “there is no valid scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed.”

In considering the cause of homosexuality, there are three possibilities: environmental, intrauterine effects during pregnancy, or genetic.

First, let’s discuss the longstanding and firmly held belief that there is something different in the environment that causes a person to be gay. Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters, and Virginia Johnson held that homosexuality was socially learned. Bailey and Pillard, however, researchers that have published the most studies in the field, reviewed all the scientific evidence in 1991 in the Archives of General Psychiatry and concluded: “Previous attempts to test psychodynamic and psychosocial theories have largely yielded negative findings and emphasize the necessity of considering causal factors arising within the individual and not just his psychosexual environment.” This very cautiously phrased scientific statement is basically saying that these researchers reviewed all of the studies and the evidence for any environmental cause of homosexuality is lacking.

Although intrauterine influences are suggested as a factor in homosexuality by a few researchers, the limited amount of scientific evidence available is too fragmentary to determine if it is significant or not. Most of the scientific findings strongly favor a genetic origin. At any rate, sexual orientation is something that people are born with and is not acquired.

Evidence Supporting a Genetic Cause of Homosexuality:

Twin Studies.

Multiple twin studies have demonstrated a hereditary component to homosexuality. Monozygotic twins (ones from a single ovum) share exactly the same genes, whereas dizygotic twins (one from two different ova) share 50% of their genes, the same as any non-twin sibling). The number of gays in the U.S. Population is 3-4% for males and 1-2% for females.

Since monozygotic (also called identical) twins share identical genes, the chance of a match in sexual preference should be evident if heredity is operative. In the case of dizygotic (also called fraternal) twins, since only half the genes is shared, a figure of about one half of that for identical twins would be expected.

As examples, the results of two studies by Bailey and Pillard, are presented, but other twin studies have yielded similar results. One study was limited to males where it was revealed that if one identical twin was gay, the other was gay 52% of the time. If one fraternal twin was gay,the remaining twin was gay 22% of the time. In the other twin study, which was limited to females, if one identical twin was gay, the other one was also gay 48% of the time, and if one fraternal twin was gay, the other was also 16% of the time.

Even though the observation that the approximately 50% concordance in homosexuality in identical twins points to a strong heredity component, this figure could also suggest that genetics  might not be the entire explanation. But this 50% figure is still consistent with genetics  alone being the cause. Two examples of hereditary diseases in identical twins will show why.

If identical twins have the genes for Huntington’s Disease, both twins will develop the disease 100% of the time. However, if identical twins have the genes for Type 1 Diabetes, both will have only a 30% chance of developing the disorder. Therefore, even though identical twins have identical genes, the manifesting of the genes can vary, a process called variable penetrance, a phenomenon that is poorly understood at this time.

Animal Studies.

- Recent genetic studies on the geneticists’  favorite subject, the fruit fly (drosophila melanogaster), has provided valuable information to scientists about homosexuality. The fruit fly has a recognizable match with 75% of known human disease genes and has contributed valuable genetic information to scientists for almost 100 years.  Manipulation of a single gene called “fruitless” induces homosexual behavior in either sex. Normally, a male fruit flies’ ritual for the seduction of the female fruit is dramatic and involves such maneuvers as tapping her with his foreleg, extending and vibrating his wings in song, and then brazenly licking her. This male sexual behavior is exactly reproduced in females with the manipulation of the “fruitless” gene. In another recent study on fruit flies, David Featherstone and coworkers discovered that a mutation in a gene they call “genderblind” turns fruitflies bisexual.

- Studies on animal sexual behavior have been revealing. Homosexual behavior has now been well documented in 500 animal species.

Anatomical and Physiological Differences in Gays.

These associated findings are further evidence that homosexuality is biological, something that people are born with. I’ll just list the differences since the list is long:

- Gays are 39% more likely to be left-handed than straight people.

- Men typically have a ring finger that is longer than the index finger, while in women the two are about the same length. Two studies have shown that in lesbians the ratios between the two fingers are similar to those in men.

- One study compared fingerprints in men of the thumb and index fingers. 30% of homosexuals had an excess of ridges on the left hand, whereas only 14% of heterosexuals did. This finding is particularly interesting since fingerprints are fully determined in a fetus before the 17^th week of pregnancy and do not change thereafter throughout life.

- The startle response (eye blink following a loud noise) is masculinized in lesbians and bisexual women.)

- Gay and non-gay people emit different armpit odors.

- There are anatomical and physiological differences in the brain: The average size of the INAH-3 (a part of the hypothalamus) in the brains of gay men is approximately the same size as the significantly smaller one of women. The anterior commissure is larger in gay men than in non-gay men. Three regions of the brain (medial prefrontal cortex, left hippocampus, and right amygdala) are more active in gay men than non-gay men when exposed to sexually arousing material. Gay and non-gay brains respond differently to two human sex pheromones (AND, found in male armpit secretions, and EST, found in female urine).

Behavioral traits.

To varying degrees, gays often show characteristic behavior that appears to be a biological part of their nature. Gay males tend to show variable degrees of feminine behavior and lesbians variable degrees of masculine behavior, and these findings often are discernible in early childhood.  Of course, in some cases gay individuals show behavior that is indistinguishable from heterosexuals.

Casual observers can often judge sexual orientation with very limited information. A 1999 Harvard study found that by simply looking at photographs of seated strangers that undergraduates could identify the sexual orientation accurately 55% of the time. In another study, 112 undergraduate observers saw only the backsides of subjects as they walked on treadmills. The observers correctly identified the sexual orientation of males with over 60% accuracy, but the categorization of women did not exceed chance. As another example of readily available behavioral clues to a person’s sexual orientation, a researcher, Gerulf Rieger shows videotapes of men and women discussing the weather, and observers are able to tell who is gay and who is straight with great accuracy. Rieger states that “even within seconds, people are pretty good at figuring out who’s gay and who’s not.” Rieger thinks his research points to genetics as the source of sexual orientation.

Finally, as has been shown, scientific studies strongly indicate that homosexual orientation is something people are born with. Available evidence favors mostly a genetic cause but some intrauterine effect before birth can not be excluded. As genetic research continues to advance, considerable light should be shed on the subject. A single gay gene is very unlikely to be found to explain a phenomenon as complex as human sexuality. Most likely the interaction of multiple genes will be involved.

Understanding the science behind homosexuality is no mere academic exercise but has practical consequences. Studies have shown that the public is more tolerant of gays and legislators are more likely to pass laws protecting their rights when the scientific facts are known.

Related posts:

1. Scientific Conclusion: Prayer Doesn’t Work – Part 2
2. Scientific Conclusion: Prayer Doesn’t Work – Part 1
3. Spot the Flaws: Unpacking the Religion Variable

Of course there are. To overlook the fact is to practice incomplete science and to perhaps mislead yourself and others.

A recent study purporting to demonstrate a positive influence of religion (religiosity) got me thinking about the topic. Or maybe “stewing” is the more accurate word.

In, Greater religiosity during adolescence may protect against developing problem alcohol use, we learn -

[P]eople with a religious background may be less likely to express alcohol-related phenotypes than those from nonreligious backgrounds.

Sounds quite science-y. But what is meant by religious background? Belief in a god and the strength of that belief? Church attendance? Engaging in religious behaviors such as prayer and Bible reading? Self-reported importance of religion to one’s worldview? What?

Religiosity was measured using the Value on Religion Scale

Aha! I guess. A quick Google search led me to a .pdf that contained details about that scale (in the very same semi-bogus study I critiqued in a Skeptic magazine article a few years back). Subjects rated their strength of agreement with these items:

“To believe in God,” “To be able to rely on religious teachings when you have a problem,” “To be able to turn to prayer when you’re facing a personal problem,” and “To rely on your religious beliefs as a guide for day-to-day living.” [source]

That’s quite a range of thoughts. Total strength of agreement with these statements produced the religiosity measure.

An author of the study went on record with this:

“Our study showed that genetic factors could influence problem alcohol use more in nonreligious adolescents than adolescents with a greater religious outlook,” said Button. “This attenuation in religious participants indicates that religiosity exerted a strong enough influence over the behavior of religious individuals to override any genetic predisposition. [all bolds mine]

Wow! With religion you can overcome any genetic predisposition . . . for alcohol use, anyway. Or at least make it less-likely you succumb to genetic predisposition. As was the actual study finding. (How much less likely is a very good question.) But hey, why quibble?

But then there was this curious element:

The same was not true for young adults, however, for whom the genetic influence was consistent across levels of religiosity.”

Button noted that she and her colleagues had expected to find a similar pattern of effects in adolescents and young adults.

Hmm. Seems to me the religiosity measured was more situational than committed, more environmental than integral to the individual.

My guess is that the researchers actually indirectly measured some effect of parenting or family/home life. Thus, once out of the house — as most individuals experience in the transition from adolescence to adulthood — the effect disappeared. Would a real religious influence evaporate like that between neighboring age groups? I wonder.

Now it’s your turn to exercise your critical thinking skills. See what flaws you can spot in this final article paragraph (and how it relates to the claimed results).

“These findings provide evidence that problem alcohol use in adolescents is subject to controlling influences associated with religiosity, even when genetic risks are present,” said Button. “Thus, adolescents who are raised to value religious concepts are less likely to develop problems with alcohol use, even in the presence of a genetic predisposition for doing so.” [bolds mine]

(Hint: think of a shell game in which a ball is hidden beneath one cup and then, with slight of hand, moved to beneath another.)

Ready, set, think.

—

[simultaneously posted at my home blog: 360 Degree Skeptic]

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Quackery became big business after the Civil War, fueled by the large scale manufacture of patent medicines and their distribution in frontier areas  by “medicine men” who traveled in horse-drawn wagons covered with ads for patent medicines. This type of distribution eventually developed into full-blown medicine shows with acrobats, elephants, and magic acts to entertain a gullible audience.

Many of the patent medicines’ claims were not encumbered by logic. The King of Pain was good for baldness or deafness, or whatever the patient had. Colder’s Liquid Beef Tonic was sold as a cure for alcoholism, even though it contained over 26% alcohol. Simmons Liver Regulator was a remedy for everything, including “disgust for food and prostration of the system.” One of the best patent medicine sellers of the nineteenth century was Dr. Miles Compound Extract of Tomato, guaranteed to reach a person’s “weak” spot. Today it is known as ketchup.

Rather than being an amusing and interesting relic of history, the “medicine man” still operates in our midst. He is spiffed up and hardly recognizable any longer. He operates out of attractive shops, offices, hospitals, and medical education facilities. What he dispenses is backed up with impressive pseudo-scientific jargon and poorly designed studies. He spreads his message widely to an eager public with advertising dispensed by the best public relation firms. The harsh designation of “quack” is hardly ever associated with him. He is now practicing “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM).

In our culture, “alternative medicine” is any healing practice that is used in place of conventional medicine. It includes measures that lack scientific proof or that have already been disproved, such as naturopathy, chiropractic, herbalism, traditional Chinese medicine, Unani, Ayurveda, yoga, biofeedback, hypnosis, homeopathy, acupuncture, and others. “Complementary  medicine” refers to the same measures used in addition to conventional medicine. Note carefully that for the rest of this article the unwieldy phrase “complementary and alternative medicine” will be abbreviated as CAM.

According to a large federal survey released in 2008, more than one-third of adults and nearly 12% of children use CAM. Overall, the use of CAM appears to have stabilized compared to a study done five years earlier.

The problem with the designation “alternative medicine” is that “alternative” suggests an equal status with conventional medicine and implies that “alternative medicine” would be a rational substitute.

David Eisenberg, director of the Harvard Medical School’s division for research and education in complementary and integrative medical therapies, stated that, “I think the news is complementary and alternative medicine use by the U.S. public is here to stay.” He may be right, but many in the medical field are disturbed by the trend, since most CAM therapy has not been evaluated by well-designed investigations, and those that have been evaluated  are overwhelmingly found to be ineffective.

Wallace Sampson, founding editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, summed up the situation succinctly: “They are either unproven or disproved. Acupuncture is a placebo. Homeopathy is one step above fraud. It goes on and on. The fact that they are so widely used is evidence for how gullible large segments of our society are.” He has also stated: “Most alternative medicine is quackery by another name.”

The most frequently used form of CAM is dietary and herbal products. Currently, the only legal requirement for these products is that they cannot be promoted as preventing or treating disease. The Federal Drug Administration can intervene only when a product is shown to be harmful. The reality is that these products often are promoted for the prevention and treatment of disease, in spite of the legal requirements.

In addition to a gross misdirection of our precious healthcare dollars toward largely placebo therapy, there are other problems with dietary and herbal products:

1. Lack of standardization. When the few herbs that have active ingredients are assayed, the amount is often lower or higher than stated on the label.
2. Contaminants. Sometimes the remedies contain pesticides, heavy metals, carcinogens, and bovine products (remote risk of “mad cow disease”).
3. Occasional serious or even fatal side-effects. Ephedra products have been the most dangerous since they have produced adverse cardiac reactions, including sudden death.
4. Adverse interactions with prescribed medications. Only about one third of patients tell their physicians about alternative products.
5. Using alternative therapy in  place of proven medical treatments. This action can have serious or fatal results.

The government has played a large part in making CAM mainstream, and much of the government promotion has been by one individual, Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa. In 1992 he was a powerful member of the appropriations subcommittee in charge of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and slipped a line in the report accompanying the appropriations bill that created the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) with one million dollars in seed money.

In 1999 President Clinton signed into law an appropriations bill that changed the name of the Office of Alternative Medicine to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). The budget was pumped up to 50 million dollars a year, which enabled the organization to establish a national center at Bastyr University, a naturopathic college outside of Seattle.

Harkin is a great believer in alternative therapies. His conviction in these modalities was cemented when he concluded that his hay fever had been cured by bee pollen. There is no evidence in the scientific literature that bee pollen can cure anything, and it can cause life-threatening allergic reactions. The Federal Trade Commission fined Harkin’s bee pollen distributor $200,000 for false claims.

Harkin’s main motive in establishing the Office of Alternative Medicine appears to have been to promote the use by the public of alternative therapies. Little scientific investigation was done. Harkin criticized the “unbendable rules of randomized clinical trials” and, citing his use of bee pollen, to treat his allergies, stated: “It is not necessary for the scientific community to understand the process before the American public can benefit from these therapies.” Harkin’s office reportedly pressured the OAM to fund studies of specific “pet theories,” including bee pollen and antineoplastons.

When the OAM became the NCCAM, one of the main goals was to evaluate alternative therapies with rigorous scientific studies.  After ten years of evaluating many herbal and other alternative health remedies and spending 2.5 billion dollars, the sad fact is that not a single one has been found effective. Popular herbal remedies such as St. John’s wort, echinacea, saw palmetto, and ginkgo biloba were no more effective than a placebo.

Despite these definitive scientific studies, NCCAM has never stated that these measures were ineffective. Dr. Stephen Barrett, a retired physician who runs Quackwatch, a web site on medical scams, states: “There’s been a deliberate policy of never saying something doesn’t work. It’s as though you can only speak in one direction and say a different version or dose might give different results.” And even if negative findings do reach practitioners of CAM and its enthusiasts in the public, there often is no effect on behavior since such conclusions are based on faith rather than evidence.

The biggest waste of taxpayer money by NCCAM is repeating tests on measures that have already been disproved by good scientific studies and studying measures that have no scientific rationale for working.

An example of repeating studies on measures already disproved is a study on chelation therapy underway on 2,300 patients, even though smaller controlled trials have been negative (and scientific rationale is lacking and deaths have occurred). Examples of funding studies that violate the basic tenets of science are: therapeutic touch for wrist fractures in postmenopausal women, use of Reiki for patients with advanced AIDS, and distance healing in wound healing.

Clearly, by any objective standard, NCCAM has been a failure. Any good studies that it has done could just as easily have been done by other departments of the National Institute of Health with more scientific vigor and better public communication.

Despite its negative findings, NCCAM has continued to promote the proliferation of CAM by offering grants to money-starved medical education facilities. Sixty percent of standard medical schools, 95% of osteopathic medical schools, and 85% of nursing schools teach some form of CAM. With a few exceptions, CAM is not taught as an objective scientific appraisal but from an advocacy viewpoint.

Dr. Wallace Sampson, the CAM expert mentioned earlier, clearly appraises the significance of this spread of CAM to medical education facilities : “Teaching about alternative medicine implies acceptance of it and potentially creates more gullibility and less critical, objective thinking. This will be felt in many indirect ways, including judgment errors, misguiding people with severe diseases, and tax standards and laws.”

Instead of  the “medicine man” of the nineteenth century being relegated to his proper place as a historical relic, he still walks proudly among us enjoying great respect and adulation, sometimes even in the halls of our most prestigious medical educational institutions. Steven P. Novella, Assistant Professor of Neurology, Yale University School of Medicine is certainly right when he states we are in  “the golden age of quackery and anti-science.”

What can be done to counteract this embrace of quackery and anti-science by many in the general public? I am under no illusions that any measures will eliminate quackery and anti-science entirely, but certain ones over time can be helpful. My suggestions are these:

First, eliminate NCCAM and do any research with a reasonable chance of a positive result under already established units of the National Institute of Health. For political reasons this will be difficult since true believers in CAM in Congress strongly support the organization. Strong public pressure to accomplish this will be needed and is lacking at present.

Second, increase science education and scientific (critical) thinking in schools. These measures over time would probably be the most effective.

Third, scientists themselves must be actively involved in educating members of the general public about science and scientific thinking.

Fourth, the general public should screen candidates for Congress as to their scientific knowledge and their ability to use scientific thinking.

Sometimes I slip into a funk worrying about why some of my fellow human beings aren’t more rational. Perhaps a heavy dose of Dr. Miles Compound Extract of Tomato (ketchup) will reach my “weak spot” and lift my spirits.

Related posts:

1. Scientific Conclusion: Prayer Doesn’t Work – Part 2

Is this Muhammad?

In two days, May 20th, it was supposed to be “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.” Will it be? I don’t know.

In my opinion, if the event is to go on, it should be re-branded, “Everybody Draw a Peaceful Muhammad Day.”

My reasons:

1.) To put the emphasis squarely on free speech, rather than the freedom to offend (they are actually one and the same, but that point conflates and inflames the issue from the get-go — better to keep it simple).

2.) To highlight the fact that most non-believers and secularists of all sorts have no problem with the peaceful practice of religion out of the public square. What believers do in their homes and houses of worship is their business. Provided they aren’t hurting anyone. And here we get back to free speech. When you restrict free speech, and allow people to threaten violence to accomplish it, that hurts the world community, present and future. How so? It pushes minorities into hiding, or, in the least, second-class status. It also restricts the flow of information, etc.

Tolerance of religion is one thing. Tolerance of religious intolerance is another. The second I don’t tolerate. And hopefully I have to the guts to stand up for this essential civil right and democratic value.

—

[This post simultaneously published at my own site, 360 Degree Skeptic]

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More info here: http://www.sg.ufl.edu/accent/

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I know about unemployment offices because two times in my life, when a young adult, I  had the demeaning privilege of asking for assistance in finding a job.

That there are unemployment offices across our land being visited by Christians is evidence to me that their god ought to get in line because he needs a job he can succeed at.

Truth is, thanks to public education, science, technology and the forward march of civilization, there is much less work for a god to do.  The work has not been shipped overseas, but has been transported from the supernatural realm to the natural, where things get done.  Insuring bountiful crops, curing disease, punishing transgressors for their “sins” (crimes) — for these we’ve got agribusiness, the medical profession, and penal systems.  Etc.  Etc.

For centuries the role of gods has been shrinking.  What jobs are left?  To provide humans something mindless to say after a person sneezes?

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To tear down the wall, fundamentalist Christians flagrantly twist facts. They claim our first presidents, as well as most of our other founders, were Christians, that the essential documents our country was founded on incorporated Christian precepts, and that the founders didn’t really intend to establish a strict separation between Christianity and the government.

I’ll review specific evidence to help refute these claims.

The religious beliefs of the first four United States presidents (George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison) is a good starting point since these remarkably talented men provided crucial leadership in the creation of our particular form of government.

All were strongly influenced by the European Enlightenment, a movement that promoted scientific thinking and religious tolerance. Most of the members of the Enlightenment were Deists, a minimalist religion that promoted the idea of a non-anthropomorphic god, a vague idea of a first cause or a god of nature. Deists thought this pseudo-god created the Universe and then retired to allow it to operate naturally. They did not believe in miracles or any humans, such as Jesus Christ, possessing divine powers. Many historians have classified these presidents as Deists.

The first four presidents were highly intelligent and comprehensively well educated, (Washington had less formal education than the other three) – including the classics and scientific knowledge of the time. They were men of exemplary character. All these attributes eminently qualified them to create a government structure that has endured and been a model for the rest of the world. (I feel a bit depressed when I compare these giants against some of our recent presidents, and I believe we should start critically reviewing what has gone wrong with the selection process).

Although the first four presidents did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and had serious misgivings about much of religion in general, they were tolerant and friendly in their dealings with religious figures. They all believed in complete religious freedom for everyone and stressed that this freedom was only possible when the government remained entirely neutral toward religion.

1. George Washington (1732-1799), the first president of the United States (1789-1797), was the hardest to read of the early presidents concerning his religious beliefs. He realized how contentious the subject of religion was, especially in public office, and simply tried to keep his true feelings to himself.  It is understandable that some have regarded him as a Christian since he was a vestryman in the Episcopal Church, which he attended sporadically, less so as he became older.

This superficial appearance of Christianity is countered by considerable evidence:

• He never took communion, even though his wife Martha did, which required the family carriage to make a return trip to the church to pick her up. Most Christians took communion at some time;
• In his time, church attendance was often a social obligation rather than an indication of a person’s true beliefs;
• In Washington’s writings, he never referred to Jesus Christ;
• There is no evidence he expressed belief at any time in conventional Christian dogma;
• His father was a Deist;
• The Reverend Doctor James Abercrombie, rector of the church Washington attended with his wife, in reply to a question about Washington’s religion, said: “Sir, Washington was a Deist”;
• Thomas Jefferson noted in his private journal in February, 1800: “I know that Gouverneur Morris, who claimed to be in his secrets, and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more in that system [Christianity] than he did.” (Gouverneur Morris was the principal drafter of the Constitution, a member of the Continental Congress, a senator from New York, a minister to France, and a freethinker);
• Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister, in an interview in 1831, stated concisely: “I have diligently perused every line that Washington ever gave to the public, and I do not find one expression in which he pledges himself as a believer in Christianity. I think anyone who will candidly do as I have done, will come to the conclusion that he was a Deist and nothing more.”

2. John Adams (1735-1826) was the first vice-president of the U.S. and the second president (1775-1801). He played a prominent role in the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence and then exerted strong leadership in persuading the Second Continental Congress to adopt it.

Although he seemed to enjoy going to the Unitarian Church and described himself as a “church going animal,” he was a Deist, and a weak one at that, as revealed in his voluminous and erudite (sprinkled with quotations in multiple languages) correspondence with Thomas Jefferson. Quotes from multiple sources attest to his religious beliefs:

• In a letter to his brother-in-law, Richard Cranch, in explaining why he rejected the ministry, Adams wrote: “The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching”;
• Views of Religion by Rufus K. Noyes records this statement: “When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it”;
• Adams made this observation in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: “I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved – the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced”;
• Another letter to Jefferson contained this statement: “There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel…. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating the divine authority of those books?”

3. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the third president of the United States (1801-1809) and author of the Declaration of Independence. He was probably our most brilliant president and a prototypical Renaissance man, with a prodigious array of talents and accomplishments.

Jefferson chose this epitaph for his tomb: “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and the father of the University of Virginia.” It is highly significant that he included the Virginia religious freedom statute and omitted his two terms as president. This statue clearly outlined the church-state separation concept and served as the model for the Constitution. His epitaph confirms how important he thought this separation was.

• In his religious beliefs he is usually classified as a Deist, but at times he sounds almost like an atheist. Of the four presidents, his views on religion are the most extensively documented. Here are a few quotes that express his beliefs, in his own words:
• In a letter to Ezra Stiles, Jefferson wrote: “I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know;”
• Writing in Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson observed: “Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth”;
• Jefferson, in replying to a letter of John Adams, stated: “If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation of that hypothesis is just, ‘that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it’ “;
• He wrote in a letter to Dr. Woods: “I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies”;
• Corresponding with John Adams, he noted: “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter”;
• Even Jefferson’s belief in God seems a bit shaky in this statement in a letter to Peter Carr: “Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god….”

4. James Madison (1751-1836), the fourth president of the United States (1809-1817), has often been called “the father of the constitution.” Also, more than any other person, he can be considered responsible for making the Bill of Rights part of the constitution. He helped draft the constitution of Virginia and insisted on its providing separation of church and state.

He was a Deist but without much depth of conviction. Here are a few quotes that reflect his attitude toward religion:

• In a letter to William Bradford, Jr., he observes: “Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.”
• He notes in another letter to Bradford: “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize”;
• Addressing the Virginia General Assembly about religious assessments, he said: “Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution”;
• Writing in a letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, he explains: “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”

Clearly, our first four presidents were not Christians, and the god they believed in was consistent with a Deistic one. In fact, the Reverend Dr. Wilson, who was almost a contemporary of our early statesmen and presidents, and extensively researched their religions, stated that the founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents elected up to his time, not one had professed a belief in Christianity. The presidents that he was referring to were the four I have discussed plus, in order, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson.

Some fundamentalist Christians claim that our government is founded on the Declaration of Independence, and that this document proves the founders intent was to incorporate Christian principles because of the mention of God. Of course, this contention is nonsense. First, our nation is founded on the Constitution and not the Declaration of Independence. Second, the Declaration of Independence, approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and written by Thomas Jefferson, does not contain any references to a Christian anthropomorphic god. I checked the document and found four references that could be construed as being to a Deist- type entity. One reference is to “Nature’s God,” another to “Creator,” still another to “Supreme Judge of the world,” and finally one to “Divine Providence.” Third, there is no mention of Christ or Christianity in the document.

Our Constitution is the document that defines the structure of our government, and its understanding is crucial to answering claims by fundamentalist Christians that our nation was founded as a Christian nation. James Madison, its chief architect as previously mentioned, keenly recognized the horrors that can ensue if religion insinuates itself into government and quite deliberately constructed an obviously secular document. Not once is there a mention of any type of deity, Christ, or Christianity. In fact, the only mention of religion is in Article 6, Section 3: “No religious Test shall ever be required as a qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” This article clearly separates church and state.

Nonetheless, Article 6 of the Constitution was not strong enough to satisfy everyone and the First Amendment to the Constitution in the Bill of Rights further delineated church-state separation: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;….”

Thomas Jefferson spelled out the meaning of the First Amendment even more precisely in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association: “ Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

And as an unambiguous statement of the non-religious nature of our government, Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli is unexcelled. This treaty was signed into law by President John Adams and reads: “As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion, ….”

At the time of the creation of the Constitution, the colonies were religiously diverse: Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, Lutherans, Jews, Baptists, Anglicans, and others. It can be fairly said that the colonies were predominately Christian. Nonetheless, even though some clergy vigorously, but unsuccessfully, pushed for the insertion of Christian references into the Constitution, most of them, and Americans in general, seemed to understand the concept that strict church-state separation meant greater religious freedom for all. The churches’ acceptance of the concept of strict separation stands in sharp contrast to the situation nowadays where there are unrelenting efforts by fundamentalist Christians to destroy the wall.

It is ironic that the Enlightenment in Europe degenerated into the excesses of the French Revolution but that its principles became established instead in our country. The Enlightenment strongly influenced the thinking leading to the American Revolutionary War and strongly influenced our leaders in setting up our secular republic. We can only speculate what form of government we would now have if our government had been formed at another time with less enlightened leaders.

The founders of our country clearly meant for there to be a wall between any religion, including any form of Christianity, and our government. To maintain this essential separation, our citizens and watchdog groups need to be constantly alert in resisting these incursions.

But to ultimately remove the assaults against the church-state wall, it is essential that another wall eventually come down, a metaphorical one that exists in the frontal lobes of the brains of fundamentalists. This wall, constructed with a material called faith, separates a rational area where truth is decided with logic and evidence from a dark, irrational region where any type of religious belief, no matter how illogical, can exist. Only when this wall is gone will fundamentalist Christians realize their beliefs are not infallible and should not be imposed on everyone.

Related posts:

1. In God We Trust? – Part 1
2. In God We Trust? – Part 2
3. FL Governor Crist Assaults Atheist; Apology Demanded