July 01, 2019 Monday
Bedtime Story
Protestantism Revival in 1800
Tonight we shall continue with the excerpt
from the 1802 letter of Thomas Jefferson.
“…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 & State.
Adhering to this expression of the supreme
will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with
sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to
men all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to
his social duties.”
Please do note that it was the President’s
interpretation of the Constitution “thus building a wall of separation between
Church & State” rather than the Constitution making it so explicit.
In spite of this apparent neutrality of the
state towards religion or religions the people as such of this nation are largely
religious to some extent or the other even though they do not wear it on their
sleeves (or on their foreheads and faces) the way Hindus or followers of
Mohammed do.
The display of their religious beliefs is
substantially restrained for most part though politicians as always take great
pains to exhibit it (which is universally true for politicians except for
Chinese ones maybe) with their obstinate and tenacious verbal tick (George
Carlin had put it that way) at the end of their every speed, “God Bless you and
God Bless America.”
United States in and after 1800 saw a great
revival of Protestantism that was accompanied along with birth of several sub
sects such as Adventism, Mormonism (started by one Joseph Smith of New York in
the 1820s) and Dispensationalism.
Adventism was born when a preacher William
Miller declared that the second coming of Jesus Christ will take place
somewhere between 1843 and 1844 (hence the original Adventists are known as
Millerites).
He was in fact far more specific than that
and had earmarked the day as October 22, 1844 based on his interpretation of
verses Daniel 7:25 and Daniel 8:14.
Miller was a prosperous farmer from New
York who had devoted years studying the Bible but more specifically the
prophecies made by Daniel in the chapter eight of the Book of Daniel.
The Book of Daniel is originally a
collection of folktales of Jewish Community that thrived in Babylon and
Mesopotamia between 5th to 3rd centuries BCE.
The Book of Daniel along with Revelation
are the foundation stones of both the theology and Eschatology of Christianity.
Eschatology is that part of theology of any
religion that deals with either the final events of history or the ultimate
fate of humanity and hence is very appealing to the religious zealots.
It is one of the oldest ways of fear
mongering and exploiting the insecurity of apes that arises out of the inherent
uncertainty and tragedies that they are surrounded with.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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