Founding Fathers Kick

We are currently watching the John Adams mini-series that was originally on HBO. Andy has us getting them from our Netflix account and we love it. It kind of has us on a founding fathers kick and we are realizing how blessed we are that our nation had that certain group of men to help launch the founding of our country, its laws and institutions.

As a result, I am planning to read their biographies and have started with the John Adams one. I also wikipedia all the others - ha. So I wikipedia'ed Ben Franklins this morning and found it interesting that he wasn't uber-religious but more of a Deist - believing in a higher power. But he was very pro-religion in general and was always involved in helping to establish churches and faiths of all denominations. He did so b/c he thought morality was fundamental to a democracy b/c of the need to have virtuous men not exploiting the govt and other men.

He wrote to Thomas Paine: "If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it."

Of course, man can be virtuous without religion too... But I wonder with all the corruption that has come to light of our financial institutions, politicians, etc... whether we are in trouble simply because there are fewer people in positions of power who are virtuous.

I was talking to my brother about the Cowboys game we saw last night and mentioned to him that the owner, Jerry Jones, was boo'ed and I thought he said it well - well, he's a thief who has broken no laws. Just b/c something is legal, doesn't mean it is right. It just seems that many of our current leaders in business and politics don't have that sense of right and wrong. And it seems like it is impossible to pass laws and regulation for everything without creating an overwhelming burdensome overhead.