Rep. Mary Miller ― a Republican from Illinois who once praised Adolf Hitler ― wrote, edited and ultimately deleted a social media post decrying “a Muslim” speaking in Congress.

“It’s deeply troubling that a Muslim was allowed to lead prayer in the House of Representatives this morning. This should have never been allowed to happen,” she wrote Friday. “American was founded as a Christian nation, and I believe our government should reflect that truth. May God have mercy!”

The man leading the prayer was guest chaplain Giani Singh, a follower of the Sikh faith, not Islam. Miller’s Republican colleague Rep. Jeff Van Drew (N.J.) introduced him as such on Friday.

    • bss03@infosec.pub
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      4 hours ago

      the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion

      – Treaty of Tripoli, 1797

    • billwashere@lemmy.world
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      Sometimes I really wish the founding fathers were around to just say, “Yeah, we were all atheists when we did this America thing. It just wasn’t fashionable at the time. So this idea that American was founded on Christianity, is well, just bullshit”

      I mean they were literally fleeing religious persecution. Why would they bake religion into what they were creating?

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        In fairness a lot of the people “fleeing religious persecution” were the nutcases who thought there wasn’t enough of it.

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            Well they weren’t fleeing persecution at all. Most of them were born in the US, years after the Quakers had stopped being persecuted in England.

            Mostly Christians, but in the same way my parents say they’re Christian. A churchless general belief in god and heaven. Deists, I think the proper word is.

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        While they were fleeing religious persecution, they were not atheists. The original Pilgrims were Christians who believed the church of England to be beyond redemption. All of the founding fathers were raised in some Christian belief system, and more or less practiced their respective branches of Christianity.

        They were certainly more open-minded in accepting beliefs that deviated from their own, but also certainly not atheist.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          Eh, some were about as close to atheist as the social norms of the time would really permit. If you look at Jefferson, he made his own version of “the” bible in which he excised all the superstition. In their day, the Inquisition was still going on (ended in 1834) and making your own version of “the” bible was exactly the kind of thing that would get you declared a “heretic”.

          And then there is Thomas Paine…certainly being a Deist is something likely to get you in trouble with the crazy Inquisition types…as well as the Southern Baptists today…

      • Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee
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        they were literally fleeing religious persecution. Why would they bake religion into what they were creating?

        Because everyone thinks their opinions are the right ones.

        Someone persecuting you doesn’t mean you’ll go somewhere else and not persecute others who are not on your side.

  • mad_lentil@lemmy.ca
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    8 hours ago

    Wow just the fact that she feels emboldened enough to dribble out this poison and post it online is telling.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      Who’s doing anything about it? Nobody is marching on their representative’s homes and offices. No letter-campaigns, we can’t even be bothered to vote as a country without it turning into the apathy-olympics.

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    9 hours ago

    The thought path of a short-minded individual: Turban->Muslim.

    I’m all for a minimum IQ to enter politics. This would probably disqualify 50% of Congress & Senate. And 100% of the cabinet.

    • epicstove@lemmy.ca
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      I heard somewhere that one of the first hate crimes against Muslims following 9/11 was against a Sikh person…

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      IQ is a poor metric (for just about anything).

      We do need to work on election reform so that our elected representatives are more representative. Getting more people to vote (turn out in the U.S. is fairly low), avoiding partizan gerrymandering, using something other than FPtP.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      Yeah, that’s the really fucked up part of all of this. Being a USian, I knew this kind of thing, though.

      This Karen is just miffed that xtianity is not given maximum unwarranted special privileges: “oh, we’ll allow you people who have not opted in to our chosen lifestyle to exist (for now), but at every opportunity, we’ll rub your noses in it that we think our chosen lifestyle’s adherents are special little snowflakes that deserve praise for their lifestyle, and use the government to do it.”

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    8 hours ago

    if america is evil genocidal country for funding israel, why does she choose to stay and fund the genocide? i mean why not just leave? wouldn’t that be the more feasable moral thing to do? it will also impact multiple industries.

    just curious

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    21 hours ago

    The US was founded as a secular state… No getting around that. There were only a few devout christians in the original group of founding fathers. Most were deist. They had the recent memory of the thirty years wars where catholic and protestant armies had rampaged back and forth across Europe stealing the peoples food. Raping and burning out anyone who wouldn’t convert. They did this to many who did convert. It was said at the time that they everyone kept two sets of bibles. They just hid one or the other depending on who had taken over at the time. That asshole regressive wouldn’t ever be willing to admit that. Because she is too stupid to learn it.

    • billwashere@lemmy.world
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      I would take it one step further and say they (founding fathers) were possibly even atheists, or at the extreme, very agnostic theists with the idea that IF god does exist, he doesn’t care or bother about us (which of course is deism). It would have been very unpopular back then to say god doesn’t exist, so deism was a step in that direction. Just my theory.

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        In some cases sure. Hamilton was very religious. He was also tolerant of other. The main consensus among the founding fathers was tolerance of differing beliefs. Something these ignorant fools today never learnt or most probably ignore.

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          Today’s reactionaries hate the (actual) American project as much as Tories way back when did.

          They hate it with every fiber of their being. All their rhetoric about “America first” and the flag-waving and the pearl-clutching over “the troops”…all performative bullshit. They hate liberal democracy, they hate the Constitution, they hate the rule of law, and they hate freedom.

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      A secular nation shouldn’t be having in house prayers from any denomination.

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    GOP keeps saying ‘this is a Christian nation’, but they don’t want understand separation of church and state.

    There is no state religion. If you open a state body to prayer, then all prayer is allowed, not just the prayers you want.

    Long live the satanic temple.

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    23 hours ago

    This is indeed deeply troubling. Whoever voted for that racist piece of shit should be ashamed

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    Bet she doesn’t even know the whitehouse holds a shill PR ramadan iftar event every year regardless of the party in power lol

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    22 hours ago

    Tax exemptions for religion are in part to stop the majority religion from taxing minority religions out of existence.

    • Zenith@lemm.ee
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      Also taxation means representation. It’s not that churches should be taxed, they should be stripped of their status for political activity. I do not want any church having the right to representation in my secular government

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      Ignorant cunt at that. Calling this a Christian nation is a joke to anyone who isn’t a fascist hoping to use religion as a bludgeon.

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    American was founded as a Christian nation

    – Every American Christian Bigot

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

    – First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States

    🤔

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      These dumbasses still have not figured out that the very first of the Ten Commandments and the Bill of Rights are in direct conflict, LOL. If they want a xtian nation, they should fuck off and move to the Vatican.

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      Don’t forget:

      The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.

      – John Adams

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        Honestly who could say what they meant by that, it’s such an open to interpretation remark.

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            The thing you have to realize is that some words change meaning over time. If you check a dictionary from the time, you’ll find that back then “regulated” meant… oh, looks like it meant the exact same thing it means today. Huh, looks like it’s meant the same thing since it was taken from Latin. Fancy that.

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        “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religious or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslim peoples], and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” - Treaty of Tripoli, signed 1797.

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        Thomas Jefferson had his own personally edited version of the Bible that focused on the philosophies and stories in the Bible, and left out the supernatural mythology and fairy tales. There were parts of the religion he liked, but he was clearly uncomfortable with the actual religious parts of it.

        And he actually WROTE the founding documents.

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      It literally says “Congress,” of which she is a member.

      Every newly elected Congressional Rep and Senator should have to pass a difficult, graduate-level test on the history of the United States, and the Constitution, before being sworn into office. You can’t be sworn in until you pass the test. These people are tasked with leading our country. Knowing the basics is the least we can demand of them.

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        I’m with you in your frustration, but this only furthers a class of elites being eligible to govern. The test needs to be at a level that anyone going through compulsory education could pass. Eg 8th grade.

        Additionally, I would do the test at candidate registration. There is no pass fail, but the electorate can decide if they’re qualified enough (as it’s the right of the electorate).

        Maybe it doesn’t fix it fully but we can directly point to who is a moron, and who voted for said morons.

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          8 hours ago

          Valid suggestions. My suggestion was just a starting point, and yours offers some good adjustments. I worry the educational standards being different in all states may make it harder for those in some states to pass the test.

          Besides, I don’t think we want some schlub off the street that barely knows an 8th grade level of history/civics running our country. I want people who take it seriously, and have sought further knowledge, education, and insight into the government. I don’t see anything wrong with experts managing the country. Part of the problem we have now is that we have evil morons whose entire political and historical education has come from the Conservative Propaganda Machine, and believe that Intolerance is a virtue.

          I have always had a problem with the word “elites.” Somehow it has become a term of disparagement, often a dog whistle for Jews. Oxford dictionary defines it as:

          a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.

          Isn’t that who we want running our country?

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      Why the FUCK would I Care about the Constitution or Founders?

      -Pro Life People who Defend MASS CHILD KILLERS because of the Second Amendment!