Summary of Andrew L. Seidel, Susan Jacoby & Dan Barker's The Founding Myth

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 The book A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington was published by priest Mason Locke Weems in 1800. It was a commercial venture, and it worked. The book sold well, going through some eighty editions.

#2 The story of Washington kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge is a lie. There is no historical evidence to support it. Washington was a man of little or no religion with a strong character that would have prevented showy religious displays.

#3 The Weemsian myth is disrespectful, as it reflects Weems’s character rather than Washington’s. It drags Washington down to an imitable level, as he was not a man of ostentatious piety.

#4 The argument that America was founded on Christian principles is flawed. The founders had personal beliefs about religion and god, but those beliefs do not prove that they used those principles to found a nation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669372219

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Insights on Andrew L Seidel and Susan Jacoby & Dan Barker's The Founding Myth

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The book A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington was published by priest Mason Locke Weems in 1800. It was a commercial venture, and it worked. The book sold well, going through some eighty editions.

#2

The story of Washington kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge is a lie. There is no historical evidence to support it. Washington was a man of little or no religion with a strong character that would have prevented showy religious displays.

#3

The Weemsian myth is disrespectful, as it reflects Weems’s character rather than Washington’s. It drags Washington down to an imitable level, as he was not a man of ostentatious piety.

#4

The argument that America was founded on Christian principles is flawed. The founders had personal beliefs about religion and god, but those beliefs do not prove that they used those principles to found a nation.

#5

The US Constitution’s only references to religion are exclusionary. It excludes the state from involving itself in religion, and religion from involving itself in the state.

#6

The idea of government separate from religion was floating around during the Enlightenment, but no nation had ever attempted to protect the ability of its citizens to think freely by separating the government from religion.

#7

Washington and Jefferson both believed that religion should be kept separate from the government. They believed that religion was best left to the private sphere.

#8

The First Amendment, which separates church and state, was passed in 1786 by Madison. He was also the father of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and he strongly believed in the separation of state and church.

#9

The founders sought to build this wall of separation between church and state, not because they were