And Now A Few Words from John Adams . . .

One of the great fallacies of our time is how some citizens believe the United States has somehow been deemed to be God's favorite country. I've recently learned that this is not a new idea, either, but more on that shortly. We have televangelists constantly telling their faithful that if the U.S. does this or if the U.S. does that, God's wrath will come down on the country in the form of hurricanes, droughts, tornadoes, and a host of other natural disasters may befall us. In my lifetime I can't count on all of my fingers and toes how many times the likes of people like Pat Robertson have foretold of coming disasters because of abortion,* same-sex marriage, and who knows how many other perceived sins of our nation. Yet people of his ilk are multi-millionaires because the "sheeple" keep sending them money when they beg for it.

This brings me now to the main point of this post, an 1814 letter exchange between Founding Father and 2nd President of the United States, John Adams, and a Mr. John Taylor. Though I don’t have Mr. Taylor’s letter, we can tell from the context of Adams’ response that this idea of “favored nation status” was being discussed. And Adam’s response:

We may make ourselves popular, Mr Taylor, by telling our Fellow Citizens, that they have made Discoveries, conceived Inventions, and made Improvements; We may boast that We are the chosen People; We may even thank God that We are not like other Men. But after all it will be but flattery, and the delusion, the Self deceit of the Pharisee.

Adams was a very religious man and, though he (like all of us) had his faults, he was also a very wise man who could easily see through this “delusion.” Some of us could really learn a thing or two from a man like him.

*A short, but I think important, aside regarding abortion: Did you know that, according to the Talmud (the ancient set of Jewish laws that is second only in importance to people of that faith to the Torah), abortion has long been legal? Legal even in the time of the most famous Jew in history, Yeshua ben Yosef ("Jesus" would be the Latinized Greek version of the name, which in English is actually translated to Joshua, in case you didn't know). Yes, there have always been restrictions on abortion, but over time they have become more lenient and today, according to a 2014 article in the Times of Israel, the Jewish homeland now has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the world. And the Israeli government, the one we send billions in aid to, will even pay for it.