{"id":1302,"date":"2010-05-10T15:31:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T15:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/05\/baptists-and-atheists-in-agreement-separation-of-church-and-state\/"},"modified":"2010-05-10T15:31:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-10T15:31:00","slug":"baptists-and-atheists-in-agreement-separation-of-church-and-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/05\/baptists-and-atheists-in-agreement-separation-of-church-and-state.html","title":{"rendered":"Baptists and Atheists in Agreement: Separation of Church and State"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I spent quite a bit of time today recording a phone interview with Luke Muehlhauser for a podcast that will appear on <a href=\"http:\/\/commonsenseatheism.com\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Common Sense Atheism<\/a>. It touched on my \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\/2009\/04\/miracles-and-golden-rule-christian.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Golden Rule approach<\/a>\u201d to historical study and interaction with other traditions, as well as evolution, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clergyletterproject.net\/clergyletterproject.php\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Clergy Letter Project<\/a>, and much else. While we certainly have differences, Luke\u2019s \u201cGolden Rule Atheism\u201d and my own \u201cScooby Doo Christianity\u201d are not as far apart as one might initially assume they must be.<\/p>\n<p>Afterwards I came across this video (via <a href=\"http:\/\/whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com\/2010\/05\/10\/dan-barker-pwns-fox-news\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Why Evolution Is True<\/a>) in which Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation articulates what is also the classic Baptist view of the separation of church and state. Anyone who understands the nature of American democracy and its safeguards for the freedom <em>of<\/em> religion would be unlikely to disagree which anything in the video.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rXVZsAMupos\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rXVZsAMupos<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ffrf.org\/uploads\/images\/JMadison_large.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"249\" src=\"https:\/\/ffrf.org\/uploads\/images\/JMadison_large.jpg\" width=\"640\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>I\u2019ll also share one more of their banners, even though it is worth noting that, while the <a href=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/f\/fe\/TreatyofTripoli.gif\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Treaty of Tripoli<\/a> was signed into law by John Adams, the language itself was penned by Joel Barlow, US Consul.<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ffrf.org\/uploads\/images\/JohnAdams.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ffrf.org\/uploads\/images\/JohnAdams.jpg\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>There are many things that Baptists and atheists might disagree about, but hopefully we can stand together for the separation of church and state, and resist the attempts of some in our time to rewrite the history of the United States in ways that puts religious freedom at risk!<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-8323747232745990367?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I spent quite a bit of time today recording a phone interview with Luke Muehlhauser for a podcast that will appear on Common Sense Atheism. It touched on my \u201cGolden Rule approach\u201d to historical study and interaction with other traditions, as well as evolution, the Clergy Letter Project, and much else. While we certainly have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Baptists and Atheists in Agreement: Separation of Church and State<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I spent quite a bit of time today recording a phone interview with Luke Muehlhauser for a podcast that will appear on Common Sense Atheism. It touched on\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/05\/baptists-and-atheists-in-agreement-separation-of-church-and-state.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Baptists and Atheists in Agreement: Separation of Church and State\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I spent quite a bit of time today recording a phone interview with Luke Muehlhauser for a podcast that will appear on Common Sense Atheism. It touched on\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/05\/baptists-and-atheists-in-agreement-separation-of-church-and-state.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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