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[from the American History online course; pointers for an essay entitled Liberal Denials About History]

GENERAL DENIALS

The following truths about history are typically denied by liberal history textbooks:

- That "Yankee ingenuity" (American inventions) far surpassed the rest of the world, and brought great wealth to it
- That military battles are an essential part of history, and of preserving freedom.
- That there were valid reasons for past opposition to immigration which had nothing to do with racism; immigration did not enable the North to beat the South.
- That unions caused great harm, including senseless violence and lost jobs.
- That hard work was the key to the success of many Americans.
- That most great Americans, from Abraham Lincoln to Thomas Edison, were homeschooled.
- That Abraham Lincoln's faith grew while he was President.
- That Benjamin Franklin abandoned the Deism of his youth later in his life.
- That Thomas Jefferson's religious beliefs were not representative of the other Founding Fathers.
- That Rhode Island and Thomas Jefferson, and their view of a "separation of church and state," had no role in the formation of the Constitution.
- That there were conservative Presidents before Ronald Reagan, such as George Washington, James Monroe and Grover Cleveland.
- That "anti-imperialism" movements against the United States were really communist or Muslim movements against Christianity, as in denying the Islamic basis for the Philippine insurgency around 1900.

[later...]

SPECIFIC TRUTHS THAT HISTORY BOOKS DENY

- American Indians are too different from Asians to have descended directly from them.
- Rhode Island was the only state to separate church and state, and as a result it became the biggest importer of slaves.[1]
- Thomas Jefferson was not as successful or important as liberals claim;[2] he failed personally and as president, and little in the Declaration of Independence is attributable to him.
- Chivalry was customary throughout most of American history.
- The greatest corruption in government during the Grant Administration was by the Democratic-controlled "Tammany Hall."
- The misnamed "Gilded Age" generated tremendous prosperity for the world, thanks to an absence of stifling regulation.
Public school education in its current form is less than 100 years old.
- Atheist materialism lay behind the genocidal crimes of the Nazis
- Martin Luther King was a Republican who preached Conservative values.
- The so-called Dark Ages brought a revolution in science and learning from the spread of Christianity throughout Europe and the establishment of networks of monastic 'universities'.
- Lenin was a ruthless and violent dictator who oppressed the people of the Soviet Union as thoroughly as Stalin.
Nazism, with its insistence on the collective, was a left-wing doctrine.
- The United States Immigration Service ran Ellis Island as a harsh, unwelcoming and discriminatory institution.

* Moral depravity: The history of the atheist community and various studies regarding the atheist community point to moral depravity being a causal factor for atheism. In addition, there is the historical matter of deceit being used in a major way to propagate atheism from the time of Charles Darwin onward. Also, Bible exegesis points to the moral depravity of atheists. Moral depravity is certainly one of the prime causes of atheism.

* Rebellion: Atheism stems from a deliberate choice to ignore the reality of God's existence [1] (If there was a God, there wouldn't be so much suffering.)[2]

* Superficiality: Noted ex-atheist and psychologist Dr. Paul Vitz has stated that he had superficial reasons for becoming an atheist such as the desire to be accepted by his Stanford professors who were united in disbelief regarding God.[3]

* Error: Some argue that atheism partly stems from a failure to fairly and judiciously consider the facts [4]

* State churches: In regards to the causes of atheism, rates of atheism are much higher in countries with a state sanctioned religion (such as many European countries), and lower in states without a sanctioned religion (such as the United States). Some argue this is because state churches become bloated, corrupt, and/or out of touch with the religious intuitions of the population, while churches independent of the state are leaner and more adaptable. It is important to distinguish "state-sanctioned churches," where participation is voluntary, from "state-mandated churches" (such as Saudi Arabia) with much lower atheism rates because publicly admitted atheism is punishable by death. [5]

* Poor relationship with father: Some argue that a troubled/non-existent relationship with a father may influence one of the causes of atheism.[6] Dr. Paul Vitz wrote a book entitled Faith of the Fatherless in which he points out that after studying the lives of more than a dozen leading atheists he found that a large majority of them had a father who was present but weak, present but abusive, or absent.[7][8] Dr. Vitz also examined the lives of prominent theists who were contemporaneous to their atheist counterparts and from the same culture and in every instance these prominent theists had a good relationship with his father.[9] Dr. Vitz has also stated other common factors he observed in the leading atheists he profiled: they were all intelligent and arrogant.[10]

* Division in religion: According to Francis Bacon, atheism is caused by "divisions in religion, if they be many; for any one main division addeth zeal to both sides, but many divisions introduce atheism." [11]

* Learned times, peace, and prosperity: Francis Bacon argued that atheism was partly caused by "Learned times, specially with peace and prosperity; for troubles and adversities do more bow men’s minds to religion."[12] Jewish columnist Dennis Prager has stated that one of the causes of atheism is the "secular indoctrination of a generation." [13] Prager stated that "From elementary school through graduate school, only one way of looking at the world – the secular – is presented. The typical individual in the Western world receives as secular an indoctrination as the typical European received a religious one in the Middle Ages.[14]

* Negative experiences with theists.
* Scientism: Science has in many ways become a new God. [15]

* Personal tragedy: For example, the death of a loved one (One's mother, father, husband or wife, etc.) can shake someone's religious belief severely, sometimes enough for them to lose it.