tommyedison Posted September 13, 2004 Report Share Posted September 13, 2004 I just got this quote of George Washington of a forum discussion. Is it true? Do not let anyone claim to be a true American if they ever attempt to remove religion from politics.” -George Washington Did George Washington really want religion into politics? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coirecfox Posted September 13, 2004 Report Share Posted September 13, 2004 NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I have a quote from George Washington: "The United States, is in no way, founded on the Christian religion." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlotte Corday Posted September 13, 2004 Report Share Posted September 13, 2004 I just got this quote of George Washington of a forum discussion. Is it true? Do not let anyone claim to be a true American if they ever attempt to remove religion from politics.” -George Washington Did George Washington really want religion into politics? I suspect that this alleged quotation is a hoax. First of all, searches on Google and Alltheweb show that the quote appears exclusively on evangelical Christian web sites -- and usually without attribution. One site (christdot.org) claims the quotation is from Washington’s Farewell Address. But a search of that address at http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/m...ewell/text.html shows nothing even remotely resembling the quotation, although Washington does speak favorably of religion in the speech. Secondly, the language of the sentence is a far remove from the parlance of colonial America. There is a very low probability that a chauvinistic term like “true American” would be used among the founders of the new republic. Furthermore, a glaring pronoun-antecedent disagreement appears between the main and subordinate clauses: “anyone . . . if they” should be “anyone . . . if he.” Washington was no Milton, but neither was he a grammatical dunce. My guess is that some evangelist decided that an authentic quotation from Washington could not be understood by his modern, semi-literate flock. So he took a sentence like “Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports” and converted it into 20th century Americanese. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlotte Corday Posted September 13, 2004 Report Share Posted September 13, 2004 NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I have a quote from George Washington: "The United States, is in no way, founded on the Christian religion." And would you mind providing us with the source of this quotation? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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