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David Barton
May. 6th, 2011 01:37 amI've been watching The Daily Show tonight. I was so fascinated by the debate with David Barton that I watched the entire extended interview online. It's fascinating, and it does seem like maybe the press has a few things wrong about him. Maybe his textbooks are actually good, I don't know. He talked a good talk about well-rounded education, and how he only mentions Christianity twice in so many thousands of words, yadda yadda. So maybe he can keep his private beliefs and his history separate, I dunno. But he goes on about how America is a Christian nation, and keeps telling Jon that people are using the wrong definition of "Christian nation," and some schpiel about how the "Christian nation" definition has changed over time.
I will say this for him, though: he had a very good point about how the whole "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" is being misapplied or ignored and gave references to things like people being arrested for passing out pamphlets, and how it's a thing these days to punish people for practicing their religion in certain contexts, giving an example of people being arrested for praying or some such. I suck at explaining this, so just watch the interview and hopefully you'll see what I mean. But still, despite that, the guy failed to see Jon's point about coercion. Frankly, if I were Jon, I would have made an analogy of "imagine you, a Christian, moves into a Muslim community and the public schools there expected you to join in Muslim prayers despite you not being a Muslim. That's what it's like for atheists, buddhists, pagans and the like in places predominantly Christian."
In the end, though he made some interesting points, neither Jon nor I could figure out what he was actually trying to say. In places it felt like defensive backpedaling, and in other places it almost made sense but failed. But in other places it felt like total bullshit. It was fascinating, especially since these two men with such wildly divergent viewpoints were able to have a debate like this without either one of them getting angry.
I will say this for him, though: he had a very good point about how the whole "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" is being misapplied or ignored and gave references to things like people being arrested for passing out pamphlets, and how it's a thing these days to punish people for practicing their religion in certain contexts, giving an example of people being arrested for praying or some such. I suck at explaining this, so just watch the interview and hopefully you'll see what I mean. But still, despite that, the guy failed to see Jon's point about coercion. Frankly, if I were Jon, I would have made an analogy of "imagine you, a Christian, moves into a Muslim community and the public schools there expected you to join in Muslim prayers despite you not being a Muslim. That's what it's like for atheists, buddhists, pagans and the like in places predominantly Christian."
In the end, though he made some interesting points, neither Jon nor I could figure out what he was actually trying to say. In places it felt like defensive backpedaling, and in other places it almost made sense but failed. But in other places it felt like total bullshit. It was fascinating, especially since these two men with such wildly divergent viewpoints were able to have a debate like this without either one of them getting angry.
