In serving the dominant political class, myths must change as the ruling class changes.  So, the Greek Gods were dressed in Roman clothes and recycled, but the demand that citizens worship these gods in their new garb or face death reflected the need of the ruling elite for submission to their values.  When Christianity came to Western Europe, the Celtic and Norse Gods were transformed into Christian Saints, but  continuing to worship those Saints in their original form was regularly punished by death after the Universal Church triumphed over paganism.  There are many examples, but certainly the Celtic Goddess of fertility, Brigid, can be seen by anyone with eyes, peeking out from under the cowl of the Pious St. Brigit, one of Ireland's patron saints.  St. Brigit's convent at Cill Dar (Church of the Oak) is located at the site of a Celtic shrine, and, of course, the Celtic priests, Druids, venerated the Oak.  I could go on with literally hundreds of other examples, but St. Brigit suffices to make the point that each new political power transforms myth to serve its' needs.  Even many of the "Christian" holidays, including Christmas and Easter are likely borrowings from pagan societies.  Jesus' birth on December 25 coincides with the feast of Mythras, a sun god popular among 1st century Romans and Easter is the name of a Celtic fertility goddess, hence the eggs and rabbits, not to mention the marshmallow peeps.

One of the "charges" against me is that I created a hostile atmosphere for "Christians" in my classroom, echoing the charges against Socrates.  I challenged the myth that the United States was founded by people who were fleeing religious persecution, the Puritans.  Leaving aside the historical reality that the Puritans weren't even the first people to "settle" America, that honor goes to the native Americans who, for the most part, were relatively peaceful farmers before the arrival of Europeans.  Also leaving asid the fact that the Puritans weren't even the first Europeans, that "honor" goes to the Spanish.  Even the Dutch in New York, then New Amsterdam, arrived before the Puritans. In fact, according to James Loewen in Lies my Teacher Told  Me, the first permanent non-native settlement was probably a group of escaped Spanish slaves in Florida. So, ironically, the first permanent settlement in what became the United States was made up of black people.  Finally, the Spanish were in what is now Mexico for over 100 years before the Puritans set off from Holland.  Yet, you can ask any schoolboy and, tragically, most of their teachers, and they will tell you that the United States was founded by people fleeing religious persecution to establish freedom of religion.  We are all familiar with the nexus of myth that has grown up around the Puritans, those pious people with the buckles on their hats and shoes who loved god and freedom, wrote the first political compact in the new world, embraced the "Indians" at the first Thanksgiving, and burned few witches.  All these "facts" are wrong, and, what Will Rogers said is true, "It ain't what you know that will hurt you, but what you know, that ain't so."  The myths surrounding the Puritans, as with the Greek, Roman, and Celtic myths, serve the interests of a particular political group.  That's why anyone who challenges those myths does so at some peril, especially teachers.    We accept these charming stories at our peril, because our history, our political beliefs, and even Christianity itself, is being hijacked to reflect Puritan views that were often narrow-minded, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, and intolerant.  We all, especially teachers, have a duty to communicate the truth to our young people because informed decision-making is the stuff of Democracy.  

If the Puritans weren't the charming, pious founders, what were they?  Well, they were certainly not people fleeing religious persecution.  They left from Holland, the most tolerant country in Europe then and now, a country in which Calvinism, the Puritan religion, was dominant.   Sure, they had previously been in England were they sought to "purify" the Anglican church of all vestiges of Catholicism, and yes, they had been subjected to some minor discrimination, but their main complaint was that the rest of England refused to follow their particular brand of Christianity.  In short, they fled England because England tolerated religious practices with which they disagreed.   They came to the new world, not to gain religious freedom, but to be free to practice a particularly vicious and intolerant brand of Christianity.  Ronald Reagan's "City on a Hill," copped from a 1630 sermon by John Winthrop wasn't a model that most Americans would embrace, if they knew what Winthrop meant when he used that phrase.  Winthrop's vision was of a nation that required clear evidence of an authentic conversion experience for elevation to church membership and to  political privileges. Which is to say that voting and the right to hold political office was limited to those who agreed with the Puritans and denied to everyone else.  The first President Bush not so softly echoed those sentiments when he offered that atheists shouldn't be considered citizens, but at least he was correctly interpreting the intolerance of the Puritans, most of what  we think we know about them is simply false.

Fox New's Bill O'Reilly has been bleating about what he calls, "The War on Christmas" for years, usually blaming liberals and leftist idiots for trying to expel Christmas icons from the public square.  I wonder how many of O'Reilly's viewers know that the Puritans passed a law in 1659 which specified that "anybody found observing, by abstinence from labor, feasting or in any other way, any such days as Christmas day," would be fined five shillings for each offense.  According to Daniel Boorstin, the honored librarian of Congress, it wasn't until the middle of the 19th century that Christmas became a major holiday in the United States.  

The one religious ceremony that most Americans attend at one time or another in their lives, a church wedding, was also outlawed by the Puritans as a secular issue of no concern to the church.  Yet today, many of those who claim to be most devoted to God seem obsessed with definition of marriage.

Sure, the Puritans had a good side.  They did work hard, live simply and they were thrifty.   But the Puritans had a mania against anything that might bring pleasure.  This view was rooted in their interpretation of the Bible, which they called "literal."  They embraced Luke 6:21 which quotes Jesus as offering that laughing in this life can cause eternal damnation.  "Woe unto you who laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep."  Titus 2:2 told the Puritans that they should be "sober" and "grave," and so they passed laws against anything that might cause pleasure. They followed the lead of the founder of their particular form of Christianity, John Calvin, who, in the theocracy of 17th century Geneva, outlawed dancing, drinking, gambling, card playing, ribaldry, fashionable clothes, theaters, and other amusements.  One man was actually imprisoned for smiling during a baptism. Calvin ordered Michael Servetus, one of the great thinkers of his day, burned alive for questioning Calvin's interpretation of the Bible.  The Puritans embraced Calvin's intolerance, sadism, and misogyny.  We all have heard of the twenty witches who were  hanged in Salem, but how many know of the 150 plus who, under torture, admitted to "flying through the air to attend witch gatherings, partaking of witch sacraments, signing a book presented by the devil and/or receiving Satanic baptism?  I'm sure the Puritans believed the tortured confessions, but I suspect the victims made their admissions more to stop the torture than to expiate their sins.  I'm confident we could get the men now held at Guantanamo to admit similar crimes after waterboard encouragement.  

Far from models of American tolerance, the Puritans put to death people who had sincere religious beliefs different from their own.  Mary Dyer, Quaker, is a case in point.  The Quakers, to the Puritans where "blasphemers, open seduces from the glorious Trinity... and from the Holy Scriptures as the rule of life, open enemies of government itself malignant and assiduous promoters of doctrines directly tending to subvert both our churches and our state."  Mary Dyer was an acquaintance of Ann Hutchinson who was banished from Massachusetts as an "instrument of Satan."  Governor Winthrop, Reagan's City on a Hill author, was convinced that Mary Dyer's stillborn baby, which he never saw, was the result of her erroneous beliefs.  Winthrop described the baby he never saw thusly:

"It had no head, but a face, ... upon the breast, ears like an apes grew upon the shoulders, eyes stood far out, so did the mouth, the nose was hooking upward.  The breast and back was full of sharp prickles like a thornback.  The Navel and belly with the distinction of sex were where the lower back and hips should have been, and those back parts were on the side the face stood.  The arms and hands, with the thighs and legs were as other Children's, but instead of toes it had on each foot three claws, with talons like a young fowl.  Upon the back above the belly it had two great holes like mouths, and in each of them stuck out a piece of flesh.  Above the eyes, four horns whereof two were above an inch long hard and sharp."

Mary was banished along with Hutchinson, but returned to Massachusetts, in her words, "to try the bloody laws unto death."  She got was Socrates got, in spades.  The pious puritans hanged her on Boston Common.  Her speech from the scaffold puts the lie to the notion that the Puritans were about anything but intolerance.  She said, "I came here to keep blood-guiltiness from you, desiring you to repeal the unrighteous and unjust law of banishment upon pain of death, made against the innocent servants of the Lord, and therefore my blood will be required at your hands who willfully do it; but for those that do it in the simplicity of their hearts, I do desire the Lord to forgive them.  I came to do the will of my Father, and in obedience to his will I will stand even to the death."  They hanged her along with several other Quakers.

I could go on and on about the horrors of Puritan society from laws specifying death for disobedient children to the ban on public displays of affection which saw one man, away for over a year in England, put in the stocks for kissing his wife when she met him at the door on his return.

There are those in America today who believe we would be better off if we returned to those Puritan values.  I suspect that many of these preachers actually do understand what they propose, but I doubt even most fundamentalists would support them if they knew more Puritan history and accepted less myth.  

That these preachers follow the Puritan ethic is proven from their own mouths.  

Pat Robertson said "There will never be world peace until God's house and God's people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world.  How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy moneychangers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top."  Or Reverend Jerry Falwell who said,  "I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools.  The churches will have taken over again and Christians will be running them, what a happy day that will be."  The idea, said Falwell, that religion and politics don't mix was "invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country."  John Ashcroft, our former Attorney General made clear his belief that the Puritan church-state was central to his view of our nation, "America recognized the source of our character as being Godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal.  Because we have understood that our source is eternal."  George Bush said he "listened to a higher father" when he made the decision to invade Iraq.  But, perhaps the founder of Operation Rescue, Randall Terry best reflected the Puritan ethic when he said, "I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you.  I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you.  Yes, hate is good.  Our goal is a Christian nation.  We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country.  We don't want equal time; we don't want pluralism."

Richard Hofstadter in his seminal essay on "the Paranoid Style of American Politics," could have been quoting Winthrop or Robertson when he commented on the reactionary right:  "Since the enemy is ...totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated--if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations."  Jerry Fallwell demonstrated that Hofstadter's observations hit the nail on the head.  He explained the horror of 9/11 in particularly Puritan phrases,:  "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say you helped this happen."  Goodness knows what he would have thought about this gathering.

Setting aside the myth of the Godly Puritans as founders of our great nation, let me turn to the actual founders.  They were men of the  Enlightenment, not a bunch of pious Bible thumpers in the tradition of the Puritans, although  contemporary reactionary politicians and preachers are doing their level best to re-write our history and transform those reasonable men into deeply religious paradigms of their view of Christian virtue.

I'll just take a look at the first three Presidents along with Benjamin Franklin, all among the founding fathers- all integral to the formation of this nation, contributors to Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Their own words will put the lie to the myth of pious founding fathers who believed in a Christian nation founded by the Puritans who, according to that myth, were fleeing religious persecution.

George Washington, the mythical "father of his country" wouldn't recognize himself if he were here today to read what school children are taught about his religious views.  Washington was a man of the enlightenment, a Deist, who's religious views would be considered atheist by most fundamentalist ministers today.  Certainly, any modern candidate who made the sorts of comments on religion made by Washington, would have virtually no chance of election, so well has history been revised and replaced with myth.

There are many paintings of Washington kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge, usually accompanied by a flag.  His words have been re-written, edited and forged to prove he was a devout Christian, but that is the myth, not the reality.  

The Reverand Mason Locke Weems, the author of the first biography of Washington manufactured stories to establish George as a pious Christian, a man who succeeded in part because he prayed for God's blessing and received it.  Weems, and his inaccuracies (including the moralistic "I can not tell a lie" tale about cutting down a cherry tree) have shaped the myth of Washington for two centuries now. Many modern writers still repeat second-hand information of questionable reliability to describe Washington as a traditional Protestant. Those  who describe Washington's life as one marked by prayer and steady attendance at church are often advocates of a religious perspective, who use the myth for the purpose of proving the value of devotion, and the connection between the founding of the country and God's favor.
In truth, Washington gives us little in his writings to indicate his personal religious beliefs. As noted by Franklin Steiner in "The Religious Beliefs Of Our Presidents," In all his writings, and we have much of what he wrote, Washington commented on sermons only twice. He never referred to "Jesus Christ." He attended church rarely, and did not take communion - though Martha did.

There is no record of George Washington ever kneeling in prayer, but there are hundreds of paintings showing him in that attitude.  The purpose of those paintings is clear, to lead the American people to the belief that Washington's devotion was, in part, responsible for his success against the British and for our success as a nation.   Washington would likely have viewed the support of God the way Stalin viewed the support of the Pope in WWII.  Stalin, you will recall, famously asked, "How many divisions does the Pope have?"
When trying to arrange for workmen in 1784 at Mount Vernon, Washington made clear that he would accept "Mohometans, Jews, Christians of any Sect, or Atheists."  We have the letter.
One doesn't have to wonder if a modern Washington could be elected today after putting in the public record that he would accept Christians of any Sect, Muslims, Jews or Atheists.  Today's reactionary preachers of the right would surely shout down his candidacy just as surely as they have attacked Barak Obama for his relationship with Reverend Wright.  

None of this is to say that Washington was without religion.  He clearly saw the benefits of religion in motivating his troops and helping with a creation of a moral citizenry.

Yet, he was clearly tolerant of all views to the point that his Christianity would likely be questioned today by the likes of John McCain's Reverend Hagee.  Washington wrote Lafayette in 1787, "Being no bigot myself, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct, plainest, easiest and least liable to exception."  Again, one doesn't have to wonder how the Christian fundamentalist right would accept a candidate who viewed Christians of all Sects with the same equanimity as atheists.  To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in "A few Good Men:" those preachers can't handle the truth, so they've made up one that fits with their view of the United States as a "Christian" nation.

It is almost unfair to use Thomas Jefferson to prove my point because Jefferson actually translated the bible, and left out all the miracles as obviously nonsense.  He wrote the Declaration of Independence and spoke of Nature and Nature's god, but never spoke for Christianity.  There really isn't any need to find further quotes to prove Jefferson's view of organized religion and skepticism about God, but for any who do need such evidence, here are a few gems from the sage of Monticello:

"But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear."

A friend of Jefferson's wrote to him and asked,  "Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?"
 Jefferson responded.  "I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians."

History, I believe, said Jefferson, "...furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

Could a man with quotes on the record similar to those of Jefferson be elected today?  No, the defenders of the American myth would demonize him as a unbeliever or an atheist and his candidacy would, no doubt, fail.

James Madison actually penned the Consitution.  His view of a "Christian Nation" cannot be misunderstood unless one embraces myth at the expense of reality. Madison in a Letter to Edward Livingston, wrote, " I have no doubt that every new example [of separation of church and state], will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Gov will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."

Madison's views were never more clear than when he addressed the Virginia Assembly on the topic of Religion, "During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has 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."

Later in that same address, he expressed his view that religion is the handmaiden of tyranny when politics and religion are mixed:

"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty have found an established clergy convenient allies."

Were he alive, could that great man be elected if his view that tyrants find churchmen "willing allies" were made public?  There is no doubt. He would be swift-boated by pusillanimous purveyors of pious platitudes who stalk our current political system with a Bible in one hand and a flag in the other. Madison clearly views the wedding of church and state as a precursor to tyranny.
Benjamin Franklin,  part of the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence, and Delegate to the Constitutional Convention made very clear his views on religion in a letter to a friend, Ezra Styles,   "As to Jesus of Nazareth", he said, "my opinion of whom you particularly desire, ... I have some doubts as to his divinity, but, I see no harm, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequences, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed; I do not perceive that the Supreme ... distinguishes the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure."
Could anyone with "some doubts" about Jesus' divinity be elected dog catcher in our present climate?  Does anyone doubt that Franklin would be more likely to be harried, savagely attacked and left politically dead?

Let me now turn to how the mixing of church and state and the unholy marriage of neoconservative religious myth that menaces the rule of law and may to plunge the world into Armageddon in the name of God.
Devout belief is not subject to moderation through reason, and perhaps that is good.   But, when politicians try to use belief to further their political aims, they may be successful in getting elected only to find that their political agenda is no longer driven by rational consideration of the interests of their constituents, but by Biblical, Talmudic or Koranic prophecy.  
The war in Iraq has been a disaster by any measure, and while many focus on what they see as the cooked intelligence and lies by the Bush administration that brought us to this sorry state, President Bush himself made clear why he took our nation to war..."God," he said,  "told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."  Save us from his determination.  
As a bible believing evangelical fundamentalist Bush has likely embraced the notion of American exceptionalism, which postulates that America has a special place in God's plan.  Bush believes that the Bible is the literal word of God and, so, for him the apocalypse may not be something that can be avoided, because the bible offers that Jesus cannot return until goodness triumphs on the plains of Armageddon.  As a biblical literalist, Bush must look forward to that day with eager anticipation.
President Bush said, ''Events aren't moved by blind change and chance''..., but by ''the hand of a just and faithful God.'' From the outset he has been convinced that his presidency is part of a divine plan, even telling a friend while he was governor of Texas, ''I believe God wants me to run for president.'' This conviction that he is doing God's will has surfaced more openly since 9/11. In his State of the Union addresses and other public forums, he has presented himself as the leader of a global war against evil. As for the war in Iraq, ''we do not claim," he said,  "to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them.'' God is at work in world affairs, he says, calling for the United States to lead a liberating crusade in the Middle East, and, he offered that ''this call of history has come to the right country.''
Can a man who believes in Biblical prophecy even believe that peace is possible in the Middle East?  The answer must be "NO."  The President may be Machiavellian enough to want to be seen to work and speak for peace, but if he believes the Bible, the battle at Armageddon is inevitable.  For a Biblical literalist, any attempt secure peace, because such an effort work against God's intent, is destined to fail.  More importantly, many pre-millennialsts believe they should do what they can to speed up the fulfillment of prophecy and the return of Jesus.  Their beliefs may lead them to work harder for war than for peace.  Even if Bush doesn't hold that view, many of his supporters, as well as his enemies in the Islamic world, cannot help but conclude his efforts toward peace are more form than substance.
Religion and politics is an incendiary combination anywhere, and particularly in the Middle East where pre-millenialist Christians, often working in tandem with Messianic Jews, promote the formation of a Greater Israel because both want to help fulfill prophecy and hasten the return of Jesus, or the coming of the Messiah.  These people don't fear Armageddon, they embrace it as necessary for their hopes to be realized.
Those who don't subscribe to the end-of-time theology of "dispensational premillennialism" have a right to worry that the agenda pushed by the tactical alliance between Jewish and Christian fundamentalists will transform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a battle between two nationalities into a war of civilizations that will engulf the world.
Ian Lustick, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and a consultant on the Middle East to the last four presidential administrations wrote, "It's a very tragic situation in which Christian fundamentalists focused on Armageddon and the Rapture and the role of a war between Muslims and Jews in bringing about the Second Coming, are also involved in a folie deux with extremist Jews,"
Ironically, both groups work to increase the likelihood of  a final battle, but each expects a different outcome.  Messianic Jews expect the Jewish Messiah, while Christians expect the return of Jesus and the death of all who do not embrace his divinity, including, ironically, most of the Jews.
As for the Muslims, they, like all true believers of every religion are confident that God will not abandon them and so they expect to prevail and see a day when the word or the sword has converted the world to Islam.
The consequence of this trinity of religious zealots is that reactionary Jews and Christians work toward similar goals, but anticipate different outcomes.  Their actions and rhetoric boil the religious soup from which extremists on all sides serve up terrorism.  The resultant terror feeds extremists on all sides.   From this  whirlwind of contradicting religious mythology the world may inherit the wind.
Chillingly, the Bible seems to anticipate nuclear war in Peter 3:10:
"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. ... hastening the coming of the day of God" II Peter 3:10-12  
In short, the unholy alliance between church and state may cause world peace to be sacrificed on the altar of belief unless reasonable people wake up and recognize the inherent danger of bringing religios myth into the political arena.  Religion can never bring us together, it must always divide.