You have written an amazing essay. Your work makes me think of the writings of Thomas Paine—perhaps the most important and influential writer among the founding fathers, at least for the common man.
Given that the Founders linked rights to Nature's God, the Creator and Providence, it would seem that the older Christian tradition still mattered or was there a parallel revolution in theology?
One could think/argue that Pilgrim's Progress is Christian, and that it predates the "founders". So the founders appeal to Nature's God, the Creator and Providence and say Common Sense is found thru the Law rather than thru Christ and thus belongs to Mr. Worldly Wiseman. So one can say that Paine and Jefferson are deists or proponents of secular ethics(which at some point was the law). So it was Puritanism or the influence of Bunyan, that essentially made of law and government a liminal space. That is the Christian moves thru the town or county court house, back into Nature or the woods. That is Nature's God, the Creator and Providence might not have been fully Christian, but it didn't matter because Government wasn't fully Christian (it was worldly wiseman or secular). So it is possible that the founders just cut a better deal with the quasi-rural "puritans". When enough "Christians" wanted to reconsider Mr. Worldly Wiseman they did so.(i.e. they changed opinions on who they considered wise, which is why all these folks are fighting over copyright in the first place). But they already had a separation of Church and State, or a separation of Christ and Law/secular ethics. So essentially the city founders simply overthrew some of the outdated law, or kept the law and refused to pay taxes for using it as intellectual property. Once it became unclear to the city folks why they paid taxes to the English, the country folks didn't consider English law to be from God in the first place. i.e. it is only the "Evangelical" who rescues "Christian" from Mr. Worldly Wiseman...but the English evangelical was a soldier(force) not persuation(rational or spiritual). The Founders started to give new explanations of the Rights Nature and in point of fact to a majority these things were in some sense seen as means to an end(extrinsic motivators) not ends in themselves (intrinsic motivators). As to if all americans ever had a single mind about the DI(as intrinsic ethical motivation), that is unknowable and slightly doubtful, but once bullets started flying extrinsic motivation and community spirit was enough.
Theology is not my strong suite but I think I did understand this. Thanks. I was wondering about the timing in your earlier comment. John Adams who had more than a little to do with the Declaration was at one point in his religious journey a Unitarian which is another form of heresy.
Being Unitarian is not a heresy for "Christian". Heresy is a legal term, it belongs to "Worldly Wiseman" Now it no longer has the same legal teeth, so it belonged to "Legality"...also in practical terms it might offend Civility in the village of Morality. John Adams went to the Village of Morality in Boston to Harvard and was "saved" by Law. Accordingly his sin against the DI, among others was to send his window counters to Philadelphia. There again revolutionaries objected to taxation. There Benjamin Franklin told them that death and taxes are "Natural Law". The odd part about Thompson's history is that it could be written into the script of Pilgrim's Progress. The UU church is philosophical, but it is always believing that it can be saved by Law, by politics, by protest. I find it an interesting question to write American History as a dream of "Christian" where the Village of Morality grows into a City. The more he strays into philosophy or theology the more he gets "woke"(i.e. mugged by reality). If you throw in Mandeville you have a "loop". Notice also Trump's attacks on Harvard designed to sort of get rednecks to talk about it despite having never been there. Statements are only heretical for the sake of a known loop. "Civility" enjoys having people say boxed things, as if the women and children or the boss are around. Of course it also seems like we are in a surveillance state. But what state of vice is more of a surveillance state than a Casino? Your private vice is the public virtue of the Casino. Can history be allegorical and literal simultaneously? Selfishness is whatever you are motivated by intrinsically. Altruism or duty is whatever you are motivated by extrinsically. Altruism might require cash. Selfishness might require love. Problem is that "Christian" at the founding got stopped in the Village of Morality, and here we are today. Which is a good thing says the impartial spectator.
Like I say, theology is not my forte but it is my understanding that UU is a non-Trinitarian doctrine and therefore viewed has heresy by most established churches.
On this the 4th of July a trinitarian pattern is present in the death of Adams, Jefferson and Monroe. But the number 4 is also holy and represents earthly creation. Americans unknowingly celebrate earth on the 4th, but also air and fire with fireworks, washing it down with budlight(essentially water) or watermelon. Symbolic patterns always exist, but one can celebrate or not as one sees fit.
Even simple sentences are philosophically problematic. Theology is also not my forte, and it lies in between that which I am intrinsically and extrinsically motivated towards. There is a lot of historical evidence that the Trinitarian doctrine might have been copied from other cultures, but this is both true and stupid. Essentially the Trinitarian doctrine belongs to a larger universe that Triangulates or represents a whole in terms of three parts. In this sense there may be a TU church(Trinitarian Universalist) as opposed to only a UU church. So Politically: Federal, State, Local or Executive, Judicial, Legislative. Progressive pace Article I sec. 8 clause 8: Copyright, Trademark, Patent. It may be an extension of the theories of Pythagoras who "founded" Math. If some want to understand Unitarians as wanting to have a circle then Pythagoras can also describe that circle as composed of triangles (i.e. the circle of fifths). But it is also unclear to me that a good musician necessarily understands playing a musical instrument in this way. That is it is unclear if the circle of fifth's or basic music theory is a "patent" that enables the copyright(the musical performance), performed by the artist(who trademarks his NIL). One view of selfishness is valuing ones time, but time was represented before the digital days or military time by a circle of fifths or a division of 60 by 12. Of course in a simpler way one could ask if a thing is "heretical" simply because it both reveals and conceals a truth. Heretics or those who disrupt the music were put into stockades. Mr. Wiseman in collaboration with Mr. Legality in the name of Mr. Civility would put the very low i.e. the common murderer and the freethinker who brought cognitive/musical dissonance into the stockade. So some speak of "white guilt", but John Bunyan only of laying down a burden. The continuing vitality of theology or philosophy rests in part on being able to resist cognitive dissonance or simply bunkering down(stoicism). John Bunyan is Calvinist but also Pelagian. Now the legalistic theologians will ChatGTP this "shit" and claim that Calvin and Pelagian are incompatible. But John Bunyan's burden wasn't "historical" or not purely so. It was "textual"(the bible in his hand), or a dialectic between the bible in his hand and the way of the world (specifically the Village of Morality) which in a literal/geographic sense stood between Cambridge and Oxford. Which raises the question: What is the Puritanism that lies between Harvard and Yale?(or our casual American memetics of the Brits). What if the great majority of Americans at the founding, and perhaps even today are morally neutral, or pace Locke/Pelagius born tabula rasa? They only acquire a sense of "sin" through comparison with some "book" or "history" in the hand. There is no established church that will put you in the stockade for agnosticism towards the original Trinitarian Doctrine, but note that if you add an administrative state to an established Trinity: Executive, Legislative, Judicial some folks will flip. If you add trade secret or esoteric intellectual property to copyright, trademark and patent some folks will flip. Jesus is the trademark(goodwill in Pilgrim's Progress, goodwill accounting in the case of Coca-Cola, et al.), the Holy Spirit the copyright or muse, and the father is the patent(the diest) or the laws of nature, collectively they are God just as collectively they are intellectual property. If one cannot comprehend intellectual property as such(or even the USPTO administratively), or Harvard as such, how could one comprehend God as such? "God" is ineffable and as such takes part in the largest ongoing pyramid schemes in human history.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Pace 1st ammendment. Plenty of former catholics in the UU church. Logically possible trinitarians and non professional ones at that exist therein, still a discussion in the "village of morality".
The simplest answer is that the revolution in theology is the founding of Harvard and Yale. Harvard underwent a revolution in theology faster because it was a port city(Boston). In terms of revolution in "theology" one should consider the time it took to get a book. In some sense the answer to this question to the extent it could be answered isn't actually authentic to the people at the founding. But also interestingly enough, Thompson's ethical presentation is superior, because in some sense these are not questions that people seek answers to without being "paid". That is while he does strip a hell of a lot of history, it is possible/probable that history is not an "intrinsic good" but an "extrinsic one". This is why I think Pilgrim's Progress is the "Puritan" work. For Paul Bunyan at least the lawyer(a version of someone who gets paid to do "history") is not going to save him "Christian". So the founders are already "Mr. Worldly Wiseman" in the most generous and civil reading.
This article is to American History what a tranquil pool of water is to someone who is not a monk. Cannon Ball! With respect to Christianity it could also hold together as easily if one simply lived: "forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who trespass against us." You do mention Mandeville, and perhaps the founding was saved from lawyers and laws by the simple fact that driving to the courthouse took a long time(historical justification for the surveying of counties). Problem is that all the "sources" are themselves professionally virtuous, thus the essay is slightly hollow tree/or Ivy Tower. Those who were not professionally virtuous experimented in ways less hypocritical. This private vice(selfishness) was itself a "public virtue"(aggregate demand to encourage lawyers and judges to make more laws). Men build casino's and gamble, the casino capitalists emerge. In fact one Casino Capitalist in an extremely literal sense is now our president. Donald Trump's presidency hinges on his capacity to bend Private Vices into Public Benefits. For example he is anti-war/neoconservative adventures. But if a certain Fox News divests certain assets to Truth Social and he can acquire certain assets on the Las Vegas strip suddenly he is interested in bombing Iran, but without a desire to make a long war campaign there. Eat shit Bush, mission accomplished. Trump apparently wants to build a wall(of course that was 3 billion wasted in Texas which mostly went to legal fees and lobbying between contractors(neocon axis of Bush @ TexasA&M). Trump would have to deploy the military to Texas to build his wall most efficiently(material wise). Of course some of this is in part because at least Trump knows that he is gambling with the lives of others, and that even the idea of segregating the "common good" of a draft vs. an all "volunteer force" is somewhat pedantic. Rhetorically speaking the founder of the Puritans is John Bunyan, and the quick view is set forward in Pilgrims Progress and Holy War. So the Puritan view says that the Trump supporters especially the fallen JD Vance(Lord Willbewill) have invited Diablos into the most sacred city of Mansoul. But the Puritans who evolved from and within Yale and Harvard have long since abandoned God, and might not even know this script or be able to articulate it. At best you have Bernie Sanders and a few old left types who cling to Shaddai, and apparently the "CRT" folks from Howard who have argued that Howard being "Mecca" they now pray to D.C. Obviously this is also a simplification.
You have written an amazing essay. Your work makes me think of the writings of Thomas Paine—perhaps the most important and influential writer among the founding fathers, at least for the common man.
Thank you!
Given that the Founders linked rights to Nature's God, the Creator and Providence, it would seem that the older Christian tradition still mattered or was there a parallel revolution in theology?
One could think/argue that Pilgrim's Progress is Christian, and that it predates the "founders". So the founders appeal to Nature's God, the Creator and Providence and say Common Sense is found thru the Law rather than thru Christ and thus belongs to Mr. Worldly Wiseman. So one can say that Paine and Jefferson are deists or proponents of secular ethics(which at some point was the law). So it was Puritanism or the influence of Bunyan, that essentially made of law and government a liminal space. That is the Christian moves thru the town or county court house, back into Nature or the woods. That is Nature's God, the Creator and Providence might not have been fully Christian, but it didn't matter because Government wasn't fully Christian (it was worldly wiseman or secular). So it is possible that the founders just cut a better deal with the quasi-rural "puritans". When enough "Christians" wanted to reconsider Mr. Worldly Wiseman they did so.(i.e. they changed opinions on who they considered wise, which is why all these folks are fighting over copyright in the first place). But they already had a separation of Church and State, or a separation of Christ and Law/secular ethics. So essentially the city founders simply overthrew some of the outdated law, or kept the law and refused to pay taxes for using it as intellectual property. Once it became unclear to the city folks why they paid taxes to the English, the country folks didn't consider English law to be from God in the first place. i.e. it is only the "Evangelical" who rescues "Christian" from Mr. Worldly Wiseman...but the English evangelical was a soldier(force) not persuation(rational or spiritual). The Founders started to give new explanations of the Rights Nature and in point of fact to a majority these things were in some sense seen as means to an end(extrinsic motivators) not ends in themselves (intrinsic motivators). As to if all americans ever had a single mind about the DI(as intrinsic ethical motivation), that is unknowable and slightly doubtful, but once bullets started flying extrinsic motivation and community spirit was enough.
Theology is not my strong suite but I think I did understand this. Thanks. I was wondering about the timing in your earlier comment. John Adams who had more than a little to do with the Declaration was at one point in his religious journey a Unitarian which is another form of heresy.
Being Unitarian is not a heresy for "Christian". Heresy is a legal term, it belongs to "Worldly Wiseman" Now it no longer has the same legal teeth, so it belonged to "Legality"...also in practical terms it might offend Civility in the village of Morality. John Adams went to the Village of Morality in Boston to Harvard and was "saved" by Law. Accordingly his sin against the DI, among others was to send his window counters to Philadelphia. There again revolutionaries objected to taxation. There Benjamin Franklin told them that death and taxes are "Natural Law". The odd part about Thompson's history is that it could be written into the script of Pilgrim's Progress. The UU church is philosophical, but it is always believing that it can be saved by Law, by politics, by protest. I find it an interesting question to write American History as a dream of "Christian" where the Village of Morality grows into a City. The more he strays into philosophy or theology the more he gets "woke"(i.e. mugged by reality). If you throw in Mandeville you have a "loop". Notice also Trump's attacks on Harvard designed to sort of get rednecks to talk about it despite having never been there. Statements are only heretical for the sake of a known loop. "Civility" enjoys having people say boxed things, as if the women and children or the boss are around. Of course it also seems like we are in a surveillance state. But what state of vice is more of a surveillance state than a Casino? Your private vice is the public virtue of the Casino. Can history be allegorical and literal simultaneously? Selfishness is whatever you are motivated by intrinsically. Altruism or duty is whatever you are motivated by extrinsically. Altruism might require cash. Selfishness might require love. Problem is that "Christian" at the founding got stopped in the Village of Morality, and here we are today. Which is a good thing says the impartial spectator.
Like I say, theology is not my forte but it is my understanding that UU is a non-Trinitarian doctrine and therefore viewed has heresy by most established churches.
On this the 4th of July a trinitarian pattern is present in the death of Adams, Jefferson and Monroe. But the number 4 is also holy and represents earthly creation. Americans unknowingly celebrate earth on the 4th, but also air and fire with fireworks, washing it down with budlight(essentially water) or watermelon. Symbolic patterns always exist, but one can celebrate or not as one sees fit.
Even simple sentences are philosophically problematic. Theology is also not my forte, and it lies in between that which I am intrinsically and extrinsically motivated towards. There is a lot of historical evidence that the Trinitarian doctrine might have been copied from other cultures, but this is both true and stupid. Essentially the Trinitarian doctrine belongs to a larger universe that Triangulates or represents a whole in terms of three parts. In this sense there may be a TU church(Trinitarian Universalist) as opposed to only a UU church. So Politically: Federal, State, Local or Executive, Judicial, Legislative. Progressive pace Article I sec. 8 clause 8: Copyright, Trademark, Patent. It may be an extension of the theories of Pythagoras who "founded" Math. If some want to understand Unitarians as wanting to have a circle then Pythagoras can also describe that circle as composed of triangles (i.e. the circle of fifths). But it is also unclear to me that a good musician necessarily understands playing a musical instrument in this way. That is it is unclear if the circle of fifth's or basic music theory is a "patent" that enables the copyright(the musical performance), performed by the artist(who trademarks his NIL). One view of selfishness is valuing ones time, but time was represented before the digital days or military time by a circle of fifths or a division of 60 by 12. Of course in a simpler way one could ask if a thing is "heretical" simply because it both reveals and conceals a truth. Heretics or those who disrupt the music were put into stockades. Mr. Wiseman in collaboration with Mr. Legality in the name of Mr. Civility would put the very low i.e. the common murderer and the freethinker who brought cognitive/musical dissonance into the stockade. So some speak of "white guilt", but John Bunyan only of laying down a burden. The continuing vitality of theology or philosophy rests in part on being able to resist cognitive dissonance or simply bunkering down(stoicism). John Bunyan is Calvinist but also Pelagian. Now the legalistic theologians will ChatGTP this "shit" and claim that Calvin and Pelagian are incompatible. But John Bunyan's burden wasn't "historical" or not purely so. It was "textual"(the bible in his hand), or a dialectic between the bible in his hand and the way of the world (specifically the Village of Morality) which in a literal/geographic sense stood between Cambridge and Oxford. Which raises the question: What is the Puritanism that lies between Harvard and Yale?(or our casual American memetics of the Brits). What if the great majority of Americans at the founding, and perhaps even today are morally neutral, or pace Locke/Pelagius born tabula rasa? They only acquire a sense of "sin" through comparison with some "book" or "history" in the hand. There is no established church that will put you in the stockade for agnosticism towards the original Trinitarian Doctrine, but note that if you add an administrative state to an established Trinity: Executive, Legislative, Judicial some folks will flip. If you add trade secret or esoteric intellectual property to copyright, trademark and patent some folks will flip. Jesus is the trademark(goodwill in Pilgrim's Progress, goodwill accounting in the case of Coca-Cola, et al.), the Holy Spirit the copyright or muse, and the father is the patent(the diest) or the laws of nature, collectively they are God just as collectively they are intellectual property. If one cannot comprehend intellectual property as such(or even the USPTO administratively), or Harvard as such, how could one comprehend God as such? "God" is ineffable and as such takes part in the largest ongoing pyramid schemes in human history.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Pace 1st ammendment. Plenty of former catholics in the UU church. Logically possible trinitarians and non professional ones at that exist therein, still a discussion in the "village of morality".
The simplest answer is that the revolution in theology is the founding of Harvard and Yale. Harvard underwent a revolution in theology faster because it was a port city(Boston). In terms of revolution in "theology" one should consider the time it took to get a book. In some sense the answer to this question to the extent it could be answered isn't actually authentic to the people at the founding. But also interestingly enough, Thompson's ethical presentation is superior, because in some sense these are not questions that people seek answers to without being "paid". That is while he does strip a hell of a lot of history, it is possible/probable that history is not an "intrinsic good" but an "extrinsic one". This is why I think Pilgrim's Progress is the "Puritan" work. For Paul Bunyan at least the lawyer(a version of someone who gets paid to do "history") is not going to save him "Christian". So the founders are already "Mr. Worldly Wiseman" in the most generous and civil reading.
This article is to American History what a tranquil pool of water is to someone who is not a monk. Cannon Ball! With respect to Christianity it could also hold together as easily if one simply lived: "forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who trespass against us." You do mention Mandeville, and perhaps the founding was saved from lawyers and laws by the simple fact that driving to the courthouse took a long time(historical justification for the surveying of counties). Problem is that all the "sources" are themselves professionally virtuous, thus the essay is slightly hollow tree/or Ivy Tower. Those who were not professionally virtuous experimented in ways less hypocritical. This private vice(selfishness) was itself a "public virtue"(aggregate demand to encourage lawyers and judges to make more laws). Men build casino's and gamble, the casino capitalists emerge. In fact one Casino Capitalist in an extremely literal sense is now our president. Donald Trump's presidency hinges on his capacity to bend Private Vices into Public Benefits. For example he is anti-war/neoconservative adventures. But if a certain Fox News divests certain assets to Truth Social and he can acquire certain assets on the Las Vegas strip suddenly he is interested in bombing Iran, but without a desire to make a long war campaign there. Eat shit Bush, mission accomplished. Trump apparently wants to build a wall(of course that was 3 billion wasted in Texas which mostly went to legal fees and lobbying between contractors(neocon axis of Bush @ TexasA&M). Trump would have to deploy the military to Texas to build his wall most efficiently(material wise). Of course some of this is in part because at least Trump knows that he is gambling with the lives of others, and that even the idea of segregating the "common good" of a draft vs. an all "volunteer force" is somewhat pedantic. Rhetorically speaking the founder of the Puritans is John Bunyan, and the quick view is set forward in Pilgrims Progress and Holy War. So the Puritan view says that the Trump supporters especially the fallen JD Vance(Lord Willbewill) have invited Diablos into the most sacred city of Mansoul. But the Puritans who evolved from and within Yale and Harvard have long since abandoned God, and might not even know this script or be able to articulate it. At best you have Bernie Sanders and a few old left types who cling to Shaddai, and apparently the "CRT" folks from Howard who have argued that Howard being "Mecca" they now pray to D.C. Obviously this is also a simplification.