Posted on 07/11/2005 9:37:16 AM PDT by Warhammer
The defining legal issue of our generation is not the right to life or even the definition of the family, but whether the United States of America — through its laws, its charters, its magistrates, and its public institutions — can and will meaningfully acknowledge the God of the Bible.[1] The acknowledgment of God is the first principle of liberty, a fact which was recognized by the Founding Fathers who declared that “we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.”[2]The short answer is that leaders may, acting as individuals, freely profess any and all religious beliefs, or none at all. This is protected in Article VI of the Constitution, which states that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
Additionally, the First Amendment forbids Establishment of a state religion. Clearly this forbids the government from taking a position on whether or not the Bible was divinely inspired.
Note that despite the Declaration's references to a Creator, the Constitution is silent on the issue. Save the ambiguous matter of the date, there is no reference to the Bible or to any Deity or other divine figure.
-Eric
This is not a pretty picture, but many of the far right will support his position, and will be demoralized when they find out the Roy Moore is not on Bush's short list for the USSC.
Pro-life
Pro-US Sovereignty
Pro-God (walking the walk, not just talking the talk)
Pro-family
than the republican he's running against I'll be happy to vote for him. I haven't seen one so far. I'd even happily pay higher taxes, well maybe not happily, to a democrat who will uphold these values. Sorry to say, the republicans haven't impressed me with their committment to the above values.
You are absiolutely correct. Men may have opinions on the divinity of the Bible or the truth of any of its tenets, but the government must remain apart from such concerns. Its concern is the worldly sphere, rhetorical flourishes aside.
Men may have any faith they chose, the government may not prefer any one.
The Constitutional forbidding of CONGRESS (AND ONLY CONGRESS) to make any law (i.e. pass legislation) regarding the establishment of a religion was written so clearly and concisely that to glean from it that it would be illegal for a Court to display the Ten Commandments, or for a President to simply make reference to his fiath from the bully pulpit, or for a Supreme Court Justice to make legal decisions based primarily on his knowledge of law, but filtered through the same Christian morals and principles of the men who wrote those laws, is a vile and slanderous assertion.
The Founding Fathers were men, by-and-large, who beleived human laws originated from the Ten Commandments, (that is what was taught in law schools and universities of the times...and is still taught today). Though some of the Fathers adhered to no specific Christian denomination, virtually all of these men's hearts were steeped in Christian morals and principles, as their writings so often reveal. They were men whose minds were educated in Christian Universities such as Harvard, Princeton, and men whose faith was tested in the crucible of religious oppression in their country of origin. To assert these men would cringe at seeing the Ten Commandments in a Courtroom or City Hall, or would wince at seeing a Bible in a public classroom, or would rail over testing the legitimacy of abortion by applying it against Christian morals and values, is not only a vile stretch of the imagination, but a brazen slander of these men, and a dispicable revison of history.
All any honest man has to know about religion and the Constitution is that its authors and their successors in government office for the next 200 years frequently made public statements combining religion and government principles, they PROUDLY hung the Ten Commandment is Courts, City Halls, Public libraries and other government buildings from coast to coast.
The 1st Contintental Congress declared a "national day of prayer", and government gave SPECIAL STATUS to Churches by granting them immunity from taxes. President Truman, on a national radio address declared America to be "a Christian nation".
You tried to separate the Declaration of Independence from the Constitution, but you can't succeed in this treacherous endeavor. The good folks who constructed and signed both documents were one and the same men. Naturally, since they understood they were constructing a government, not a Church, they framed the Constitution in legal/secular terms. But their faith and the principles that guided and inspired them in their construction of the Constitution were forever imortalized on that great document, the Declaration of Independence. It tells us who they were, what they believed, what they fought for, what they wanted for their children and the country they founded.
That Christianity and the Christian God were often spoken about and written about by elected government officials, and public buildings were commonly adorned with Christian icons and references for about 200 straight years (before the atheists, anti-Christians and secularists began to revolt against our traditional way of life), is all the evidence any (honest) American really needs.
But alas, since government has been steadily abolishing Christianity from the eyes and ears of the public, honesty and personal integrity have been steadily burried along with God. ("but fear not, for He has risen", ---- and He will rise again).
Not true. Neither Hamilton and Madison, the two men most responsible for constructing the Constitution and getting it ratified, were in Congress for the signing of the Declaration.
The two documents bear the mark of very different hands.
This is pathetic. Obviously this guy couldn't care less about the Constitution, so why would anyone care about his opinions regarding who should or shouldn't be on the Court? Why did you even post this?
Wow, Sandy. You were able to read much farther than I was.
I agree. It's pathetic. It's also antithetical to what the Founders of this great nation wanted, which makes it un-American.
Actually there were only 6 men who signed both documents.
While I am as certain that there is no God, just as certain as I presume the Pope is that there is a God, still I am certain that there is a moral truth, that we should all seek out and follow. And I recognize that some of the world's great religions (I do not count Islam among such) have led more people to seek that truth than any other way has. I live in a nation founded by Christians and like minded souls. I am proud and delighted that this is so. No one asks or mandates that I hold the same religion. But my fellow citizens do (or should, or once did) expect that I act in a responsible and moral fashion. As well they should.
When I see the word "God" I tend, rather unconsciously, to read it as "the Moral Truth", and see what sense I can make of a writing that way.
I will grant that the author of this piece probably didn't intend that meaning. But so read, it makes decent sense to me. It hits on the basic issue that divides us, whether the ultimate source of the best truth available is each man's own thoughs and feelings, or whether the truth exists a priori, for us to discover as best we can.
The hallmark of "Political Correctness" is the claim that one man's viewpoint is worth as much as the next. In other words, that there is no Truth which can distinguish between a terrorist and an innocent, between tyranny and freedom.
Janice Rogers Brown described it a whole lot better than I can. See her speech Fifty Ways to Lose Your Freedom,” Speech to the Institute for Justice, Washington, D.C. (August 12, 2000).
I suspect that she too believes in God. I sure hope so, and I hope Bush appoints her to the Supreme Court. She gets it -- good. I tend to only support and vote for public officers who follow a Christian or similar religion. Us atheists have made almost a big a botch of things as have the muslims. We are both an embarrassment to humanity, and a danger to civilization.
Huh? What is protected? Just because there can be no religious test, does not mean they have to check their religion at the door. You have a very extreme and misguided interpretation of that.
It is funny how our founding fathers always said prayers before meeting and made numerous reference to God and even Christ in official speeches, but the intellectuals of today seem to think the Founders really did not know what they were doing since what they were doing was unConstitutional by the very same Constitution the Founders wrote.
Politicians today can still make reference to Christ in official speeches. Even Clinton did that.
But when it came to the document that actually created this nation - the Constitution - they kept God and Christ out of it. Why do you suppose that was?
Later read/pingout?
It is nothing short of lunacy. Not very rare, though.
They kind of gave it away in the First Amendment, they did not want the Federal Government establishing a religion. But that has been twisted to the point where a student goes to jail if they say the word Jesus in a Graduation Speech. How twisted is that since the very same Constitution grants freedom of religious expression. Current case law on this subject is preverted beyond repair.
"a student goes to jail if they say the word Jesus in a Graduation Speech"
I'm not familiar with that case. Which one was that?
I don't think it's twisted to recognize that men may have religious beliefs but a government cannot favor one belief over another. That's the very foundation of religious freedom.
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