Why yes, Euromutt, I have read the entire Constitution, even the boring parts, quite thoroughly, and I'm well aware that it applies to the states also. I find your suggestion to the contrary just a tad patronizing. But anyway...

The specific words used matter too, and when they wrote "Congress shall make no law" they meant "Congress," not "Congress and the legislatures of the several states."

The doctrine that things like that apply to the states also was brought in by an (IMHO) activist interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and was unknown prior to that.

As I pointed out in my previous post, that particular phrasing does not only apply to "establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," but also the abridgement of "the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"; in other words, the entirety of the First Amendment. Logically, therefore, your argument entails that any non-federal level of government is free to disregard any or all aspects of the First Amendment. That would make the entire amendment essentially meaningless, which (a) I doubt is what the Founding Fathers had in mind, and (b) is a view which I doubt you'll find reflected in any jurisprudence on First Amendment issues.

Oh, but no. You will find just such a view expressed by Clarence Thomas. Read his opinions in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris and Elk Grove v. Newdow.

Then how do you see the Fourteenth Amendment? And would you agree that if a state wants to, then it can ban abortion, birth-control pills, condoms, liquor, dirty movies and lousy music?

Short answer - yes.

Long answer - There are hundreds of municipalities that have banned most of the stuff you've listed here. I'm in the nation's 3rd-largest city, and I'm still only 15 miles from a town where business cannot be conducted on Sunday, and where alcohol can't be sold in town limits. As for liquor, the 21st amendmend states explicitly that all regulation rests in the hands of the states, which is why 18 of them control either the wholesale, retail or both. In Illinois, you can't buy a car on Sunday anywhere in the state. And dirty movies - sure. Reproductive rights-related materials would be more tricky, given the current interpretation of privacy rights.

As you know I believe the Establishment Clause merely states the government will not establish a denomination of Christianity and nothing more. Therefore I don’t see generic prayer in school, a Navitity Scene or the Ten Commandments an establishment of a denomination of religion. The absolute closest religion has been to being established in our government was during the FDR rule with the New Deal that mirrors a Catholic socialistic doctrine contract between government and church. If America had been in danger of being taken over by religion it would have happened in the 50’s because we had nativity scenes, Ten Commandments and prayer in schools and a politician couldn’t be elected if he didn’t profess strong religious belief. I hardly think the threat exists today that existed in the 50’s and I think you will even have to agree with me there.

The differences in secular views are compounded by science and progressive secularism that trumps the thinking of John Locke that our Bill of Rights is based on. Locke, a “religious secular” thinker of the time gave thought to the theory of the Creator giving the people the kings rights and these basic freedoms came from a higher power. Likewise, William Blackstone translated English Common Law into common terms for the common man in pre-independence period resulted in a seven year war with England as the King was unfairly addressing taxes and burden on the colonies. Well, the constitution adopted these common laws but replaced the king with the citizens as rulers of their destiny and used Locke’s Creator’s God given rights to form our Bill of Rights. Under progressive secularism such thinking may not exist as progressive secular do not believe in God and only believe in science.

When I weigh the fear of Christianity entering the government verses a secular thinking that removes the rights granted by God, the Bill of Rights I fear the secular more. Are you familiar with the human anthropologist Sir Edward Taylor and Lewis Henry Morgan who argued evolution of culture evolved in stages from animism, polytheism and onto monotheism? Well Morgan took it a step further and insisted Western Europe had reached its pinnacle and when Karl Marx read Morgan’s work he decided capitalism and property ownership should end and the government should create the next level of culture called communism.

The ACLU, the majority of university professors and the extreme far left support progressive secularism and support the rights of anti-Christian moral laws that impose limits to morality based on age or sex. These same people endorse communism or socialism and often root for Castro and like thinking societies. They encourage redistribution of income to homogenize classes. I don’t worry about the church entering the government, rather I worry these folks will gain traction.

I've just looked at the two cases you mention, and they both appear to relate the Establishment Clause specifically. So how do these serve as examples of jurisprudence that states are at liberty to ignore the freedoms of speech, the press, peaceful assemble and petition?

Having looked further into the matter, I can find no shortage of cases in which local and state laws were challenged on the basis that they violated an aspect of the First Amendment. One example is Byrne v. Karalexis (1971), another is National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie (1977). Within the context of this discussion, the results of such cases is less relevant than the fact that they took place. The fact that they did supports my contention that, in practice, it is accepted that lower levels of government are subject to the First Amendment to the same extent as the federal government is. Which must needs include the Establishment Clause, since all the other rights enumerated in the First Amendment are subordinate to the same clause that "Congress shall pass no law etc."

That alone, however, is no guarantee that such ordinances are actually constitutional. The way the American legal system works, the judiciary cannot rule on the constitutionality of a particular piece of legislation unless and until somebody files a civil suit challenging that legislation, or someone is brought to criminal trial for violating the law in question and brings up its constitutionality in its defense (and is willing to press the appeal if necessary).

A few years ago, I was discussing the Newdow case, and somebody threw out the point "well, if including 'under God' in the Pledge were unconstitutional, why has it been allowed to stand for almost fifty years?" The answer to that is, quite simply, that nobody had challenged its constitutionality in court prior to Michael Newdow's doing so in 2002. Note that I don't intend to derail this thread into the merits or lack thereof of the Newdow case, but simply to illustrate that one cannot assume that any particular piece of legislation is constitutional unless it has actually been challenged and upheld.

I've thought about this and about the times the FF lived in and heres what I think. The FF looked at Europe and the Vatican and decided that when governments are in close contact with a religion with a hierarchy then people within the government will use the religion to get ahead and to gain power within the government. Also I think the FF were trying to prevent a rehash of the Inquisition by insuring that no religion would have that kind of 'respect'. So I'm pretty sure they wanted a Secular government.

That's right. From Thomas' opinion in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris:

"Thus, while the Federal Government may 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion,' the States may pass laws that include or touch on religious matters so long as these laws do not impede free exercise rights or any other individual religious liberty interest."

From Thomas' opinion in Elk Grove v. Newdow:

"Quite simply, the Establishment Clause is best understood as a federalism provision--it protects state establishments from federal interference but does not protect any individual right."

What Thomas is arguing is that if Utah wants to make the Church of Latter-Day Saints the state's official church, it can. If it wants to limit public office to those who belong to the official state church, it can. If it wants to require office holders to swear their allegiance to the official state church, it can. If it wants to turn public education over to the church, it can do that as well. If it wants to require public school students to attend Bible-study class or recite the Lord's Prayer, it can.

By Thomas' reasoning, practically all Establishment Clause cases were decided incorrectly and should be reversed.

[
Thank you, LR. I've been gone a few days, but I see Justice Thomas and I are in complete agreement on this, as we are on many things. In particular, I do think most Establishment Clause cases were decided incorrectly and should be reversed.


Yes, of course the same would apply anywhere else the same wording is used. As Justice Thomas is quoted above in Elk Grove v. Newdow, the Establishment Clause is a federalsim provison; "it protects state establishments from federal interference but does not protect any individual right." That does not make the First Amendment meaningless at all, since that protection from federal interference with religion is critically important, and so is the individual right of free speech protected from the federal government. Let's not forget about the state constitutions, all of which have strong protections for freedom of speech and religion written into them. Do you consider them of no worth?

That recent jurisprudence may indicate otherwise means nothing to me. I think they're been off on the wrong tangent for many years now, and that most of those decisions should be reversed. That doesn't mean I won't obey it as the law, but simply that I think a lot of changes need to be made to get back to what the Founders intended the Constitution to mean.


I'm not a big fan of the Fourteenth Amendment. It was necessary and well-intentioned but sloppily written, lending itself to all sorts of fanciful and expansive interpretations that were never intended. It is part of the Constution now though, and like all the rest of the Constitution, I'm for reading it strictly and as literally as possible, as the language of it was understood at the time, and always with reference to the orginal intent of the authors. I consider using it to turn federalism provisons into national individual rights, overriding state sovereignty, to be a travesty, and certainly no part of what the authors intended.

Yes, mostly I think the states can do those things, but ought not to. In all of those examples, I will champion individual rights over the morality police, but I won't bend what I understand the Constitution to mean to do so. Roe v. Wade was IMO a horrible decision, based on little more than the policy preferences of certain justices, and of course, Justice Douglas' gassy "emanations and penumbras" from Griswold v. Connecticutt That doesn't mean I'm against abortion being legal. In my own state, I would vote for it to be legal with reasonable restrictions, and did so when it was on my state's ballot before Roe v. Wade settled it. I just think that case was perhaps the single most egregious example of judicial activism in the history of US constitutional law, and it badly needs to be overturned.

If he is arguing this, he is wrong. You see while it is true that the 1st Amendment to the Constitution deals with the federal government. The States themselves have Constitutions with a little something known as a Declaration of Rights. What you describe above violates the Utah State Constitution's own Establishment Clause.

Utah Constitution: Article 1. Sec. 4 - Religious Liberty



This one is even more explicit in it's separation of Church and State than the federal Establishment Clause. So... nope.



Section 1 of the 14th Amendment is so obviously not a federalism provision, and it obviously was intended to override State sovereignty when it came to protecting a citizen's 14th Amendment rights.



Roe v. Wade was decided based on the 14th Amendment alone and not on the 9th, as in Griswold.


The Court, in the end, felt that the 14th Amendment applied to the case -- not the 9th Amendment as was decided in the District Court. So even if Justice Douglas was gassy, Roe v. Wade would still have been decided in the same manner.

If you think what you said here in any way contradicts what I said, than you totally misunderstood my point, and Justice Thomas' too.

Of course every state has their own equivalent of the Bill of Rights! I already took care to point that out, the point being that in situations in which the US Constitution doesn't provide protection for an important individual right, we can look to the state constitutions. We don't have to depend on the federal government to protect them, or else let them go unprotected.

Did you think Justice Thomas and I were out to destroy individual rights? Of course not, our purpose has instead been to protect federalism. I am not out to establish a state religion in Utah, and I like Utah's section on religious liberty just fine.

Neither Justice Thomas nor myself has suggested that cases based on Article I, Section 4 of the Utah Constitution be reversed, nor have we suggested that cases based on similar articles of other state's constitutions be reversed. We have suggested that some cases based on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment be reversed, which is a different matter entirely.

I'm off to bed now, but I'll discuss the Fourtheenth Amendment soon.

Yes, of course, the state constitutions. Why then, was it ever necessary to have the Fourteenth Amendment? Why, then, have so many Fourteenth Amendment cases gone to the Supreme Court if the states are such great defenders of rights?

Why did the Supreme Court hear Loving v. Virginia? Wasn't Virginia protecting its citizens' most fundamental rights?

Why did the Supreme Court hear Brown v. Board of Education? Wasn't Kansas protecting the rights of its citizens?

Why did the Supreme Court hear Griswold v. Connecticut? Wasn't Connecticut protecting the rights of its citizens?

It's a long list, the list of cases in which the citizens of a state had to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to get the state to knock it [some violation of basic rights] off.

State constitutions can and do change. Consider the group known as Christian Exodus. Conservative, evangelical Christians have set their sights on South Carolina. The plan is to show up in such numbers, and to have such political influence, that the state constitution can be turned back to the way it was in 1778, when it held the following:

"The Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed, and is hereby constituted and declared to be, the established religion of this State."

According to Justices Thomas and Scalia, if the state wants to establish a church, it can. If it wants to require a religious oath of office holders, it can. If it wants to turn public schools into parochial schools, it can. And if some Jewish couple wants to put an end to all this, they can't.

Thomas and Scalia have some curious views as to how things should be. If Bush gets to add a few like-minded individuals to the court, then those curious views may become the law.

And that is a disturbing notion.

Idzaari,

I was merely pointing out the flaw that was LyricalReckoner's example. That is why the quote I used was his and not yours. I referred to your argument when I was talking about the Roe comments. I did not state that Thomas was arguing that Utah could make the Mormon church the official church of the State. I stated that if he was arguing that, he would be wrong.

What Thomas is also arguing, therefore, is that states are at liberty--providing they have first amended their constitutions accordingly--to limit, or indeed remove entirely, their citizens' freedoms of speech, of the press, peaceably to assemble, and petitition the Government for redress of grievances, since as I have pointed out a couple of times by now, the rest of the First Amendment is dependent on the same opening clause ("Congress shall pass no law...") as the Establishment Clause. So if I have this right, what you're asking me to accept is the notion that the Founding Fathers believed that the rights enumerated in the First Amendment were important enough to require protection from the federal government, but not sufficiently important to merit protection from the states? Or am I supposed to believe that the First Amendment is intended to protect state establishments' freedoms of speech and of the press, but not those of their citizens?

Man, I can hear the veterans of the War of Independence now:
"Gosh, we can't say or print what we want to or we'll get locked up for sedition, but instead of some SOB from England locking us up, it'll be some SOB from Philadelphia (or Richmond or Trenton or whichever). But the best part is that, after leaving Europe to escape religious oppression there, 51% of the rich guys eligible to vote in this state can impose their religious beliefs on us, so we can be locked up for blasphemy as well. Boy, this was totally worth freezing our nuts off at Valley Forge for!"

I'd like to offer two observations to this debate. First, the originating author's statement:

I'd like to suggest that there's almost nothing in Judeo-Christian values that underlies our Republic. Consider democracy, for example. The concept of democracy is utterly lacking in the entire corpus of Judeo-Christian writings. The idea of democracy comes to us from the Greeks, not the Bible. Or take the concept of the rule of law. That's most certainly NOT a Judeo-Christian concept. Sure, there are the Ten Commandments and the various laws in Deuteronomy -- but the idea that we run the society based on the laws, not the men, never shows up in Judeo-Christian thought. Judeo-Christian thought is the source of the notion of "divine right of kings" -- they are put in place by God Himself, and anybody who questions their rule is not just a traitor, but a sinner as well. Or "due process of law": again, there's nothing in the Judeo-Christian heritage that argues that you can't punish somebody without first having a fair trial. That notion comes from the Greeks (and some ancient Germanic traditions as well). The Judeo-Christian approach was always that right and wrong are clearly defined by God and there's no such thing as uncertainty, and so there's no reason to guard against error in establishing guilt.

Ironically enough, there is one concept underlying our system of government that does have a foundation in Christian thought: separation of church and state. Jesus said "Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." This is a very clear statement that the secular world and the spiritual world must be kept apart. And yet, irony of ironies, this is the ONE Christian concept about government that a great many Christians choose to overlook!

Thomas isn't saying that at all. He distinguishes the Establishment Clause from all the other clauses in the First. He says the other clauses protect 'individual rights,' but the EC does not.

According to Thomas (in Elk Grove v. Newdow), "The Establishment Clause does not purport to protect individual rights. By contrast, the Free Exercise Clause plainly protects individuals against congressional interference with the right to exercise their religion, and the remaining Clauses within the First Amendment expressly disable Congress from 'abridging [particular] freedom[s].' (Emphasis added.) This textual analysis is consistent with the prevailing view that the Constitution left religion to the States."

What he's saying is that if the people in a state want to alter their state constitution to declare Catholicism [or whatever] the state religion, that they can do.

So what Thomas is saying, then, is that the opening passage of the First Amendment--"Congress shall pass no law..."--should be strictly literally interpreted when it comes to the Establishment Clause, but should be interpreted more loosely when it comes to the rest of the enumerated rights. That is an inconsistency of such proportions that it beggars belief. It also puts paid to any idea that Thomas is a "constructionist," because logically, one way or the other, he has to be deviating from the original intent of the framers; either the First Amendment serves to protect individual rights (be it from federal, state or local government) in its entirety, or it serves to limit the powers of the federal government alone. I'm inclined towards the former interpretation, and while I could respect the latter, I cannot respect as blatant an attempt to have it both ways as Thomas'.

The first two clauses in the 1st Amendment recognize a freedom of religion and establish how the federal government shall not abridge that freedom. The other clauses also refer only to how the federal government shall not abridge the freedom of the press... etc. However, as the 1st Amendment recognizes these rights of the people (freedom of religion, freedom of the press, etc...), once the 14th Amendment was ratified, the 1st Amendment began to apply to States.

Intent of the 14th Amendment

Hmm...Irrational and ridiculous, Leder? Take a look at this link-

Doesn't look quite so ridiculous or irrational now, does it?


And I don't see it that way at all, Izdaari. Court decisions have not forbidden public displays of religion. Indeed, one can find Nativity scenes and the like during the Christmas season, for instance, just about anywhere you care to look - Outside homes, and churches, in some store windows, etc.

What court decisions have done, is prohibit such dispalys on property owned by the public at large, ie; Government owned property, wherein, people of any and all faiths (or no faith at all) come to enjoin the government for one reason or another. And even then, they don't specifically prohibit such displays, as long as any and all other faiths are recognized as well. Because if all we have at couthouses and government administration buildings are Christian symbols of faith, that becomes a de-facto establishment, in my opinion.

Turn it around. If Christanity were a minor religion in this country, and Fundamentalist Islam were the dominant, and that's all you saw at every government building, wouldn't you feel at least a little intimidated? Feel that maybe they wouldn't take your complaint, whatever it is, as seriously, because you weren't of the "proper faith"? Feel that maybe, in a court setting as a defendant, that if your religion were to be known to the jurors, that it might, just might be held against you, even if it were not done overtly?


Better have me and my car dealership arrested, then Carlitos. I live in Illinois as well, and nearly every dealership in town is open on Sunday. In fact, I purchased my last car on a Sunday. Most of Illinois "blue laws" were overturned in the mid-to-late 70's.

What was in the mind of the Founding Fathers as they drafted the US Constitution, Secular government or a representative government based on Judeo-Christian “Values?”
Secular. Without question. There is no doubt in my mind, that the FF were indeed, for the most part, religious people. There is also no doubt, that for most of them, they wanted Church and State as far away as possible from each other, when it came to the governance of the people. They didn't trust the church not to impose it's own brand of "morality" and persecution on the people under the guise of law, and they didn't trust the government not to persecute people of faith (or of no faith) for believing in any way they saw fit.

If you bought your car on a Sunday, you didn't purchase it from a car dealer in Illinois. Take it to the bank.

I can't find the law, but here is a list of major dealers in and around Chicago. Click "hours" for any or all of them. Closed on Sunday. This is not voluntary, I have a friend in the business.

Apologies, Carlitos, you are correct. My wife tells me it was indeed a Saturday that we bought the car. And checking the website that we bought it from, confirms they are closed on Sunday.

Question is, why should this be so? I remember a time when nearly all retail was closed on Sundays, with the exception of pharmacies and movie theaters and a few restaurants. Everything else is open now, so why the continued forced closure of car dealers?

I just read information that supports my earlier reference to Jefferson and the famous "wall of separation" and I thought I'd share it with you guys.

Reference: Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 99, search key: American Revolution section VI, B Toward a New Religious Order

This is a summation of the above reference to prevent copyright infringement:

Prior to 1776 Americans lived in colonies with established churches and citizens were required by law to contribute to the support of the minister. In New England they were members of the Congregational Church and in the south the Church of England. The exception was Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, founded by Quakers and Baptists respectively, which had no established church and allowed religious freedom.

Freedom from England brought significant changes in American religious institutions, particularly in the South where patriots repudiated their allegiance to the king, the head of that church, and formed the Protestant Episcopal Church of America. In 1786 the Virginia legislature passed Thomas Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom. It declared that all churches had the same legal rights and that no church should receive direct financial support from the state. New York and New Jersey adopted similar legislation.

Southern and Mid-Atlantic States were moving toward a separation of church and state, yet some citizens wanted to maintain the traditional system of established churches. These people particularly strong in New England felt that state support for religion would promote morality and respect for authority. In New England there were relatively few members of other religious faiths and most New England ministers had enthusiastically supported the Patriot cause. Massachusetts and Connecticut for these reasons maintained an established church until the 1830s. While doing this they allowed Baptists and Methodists to support their own ministers.

I think a point that has been made here but ignored by those who believe that somehow freedom and the christian religion go hand in hand is how the bible doesn't mention freedom really- it is all about turning your will over to a higher power- and yielding to authority. There is even passages commanding slaves to go back to thier masters-

the consitution, if anything, is anti-christianity, because it espouses freedom instead of servitude.

Your point is well taken but I have a theory that differs. The whole fledgling confederation went through hell when they finally decided no more taxation without representation. There was no central government to fund the war. The articles of Confederation allowed the 13 votes to declare war and make foreign loans for funding but no authority to tax or establish tariffs to repay debts and only functioned under unanimous consent. America fought a war against the homeland with a group of states with separate armies. While it was a home game for the American colonies, inasmuch as British had to supply an army from the other side of the Atlantic, Britain had 80 to 100,000 American loyalists to help them out here in the states.

My theory goes like this, after hostilities ended with England and before the constitution was ratified some real concerns arose. Among them were a secret peace agreement with GB that shorted France and Spain’s interests as coalition partners that aided American victory made by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and Henry Laurens in Paris. This treaty, while in best interest of the US, was in violation of the will of the “unanimous consent” confederation. The states, according to how they were founded under the King of England, had a frame of mind that they owned all land west to the pacific ocean but had been temporarily limited by the king to land east of the appellation mountains. However these guys negotiated differently and favored a strong federal government and wanted the western land to repay war debt.

During the period of July 4th 1776 and the 1789 when the required number of states ratified the constitution much debate took place. After the war a devastating recession put the confederation to its knees because of trade partner losses coupled with war related debt and wealthy lenders wanting repayment. Some states screwed over lenders by issuing worthless money to repay loans resulting with Shays’ Rebellion 1786. British goods flooded the market making domestic products non-competitive. Some states assessed tariffs on imports yet others refused creating black markets out of the control of the confederation government. The loyalist to the king during the war, some 80 to 100,000 were repatriated to Canada, West Indies and Africa and compensated for their property including their slaves by America. During the period the Federalist, our founding fathers, were opposed by the antifederalist, who opposed ratification of the Constitution.


The Federalist, Madison, Hamilton, and John Jay agreed to appease the antifederalist and did so in a series of newspaper articles known as The Federalist. The Federalist were rich white guys desiring the status quo of rich and powerful rule. They wanted a congress representative delegation based on state population and a senate appointed by the congress and a president appointed by an Electoral College. In some states voters consisted of simple property owners and in other states especially the south only elite property owners. The antifederalist were a new breed of people, Americans with the influence of the enlightenment teachings of Locke insisting creator rights along with a desire to depart from a "superior ruler”, be it king or rich white guys. The founders agreed to allow the first congress (almost entirely appointed by the rich white guys) to institute the bill of rights. When the agreement was made the constitution was finally ratified. It wasn’t until the 1900’s and the 17th amendment did average citizen have their will stated.

Conclusion of theory is the antifederalist came from MA and VA/PA where religion and citizens were most connected to the government. In MA where almost all property owners could vote and VA/PA where religious diversity was equally or most accepted pushed the bill of rights.

And your theory has little to hold up to history as far as the actual debate at the time of the consitutional convention as to the role of religion in goverment- then, as today, there were secularlists and those that wanted religion codified into goverment. On one hand you have Patrick Henry- that wanted state sponsored Christianity, and on the other, you had Madison, that wanted a "seperation of church and state"

for all the consitutional debates on this board- the constitution was far from a perfect document, and had the same flaws as well intentioned laws have today- it was created by commitee, something Rober Hienlien once described as having "8 stomachs , 16 legs and no brain" - there was a compromise on several issues - remember, there were 3 other articles in the Bill of rights that were not ratified, and the first amendment would have been the fourth amendment LOL

The cooler heads of the day got through what they could in the end- a secular goverment.

Thomas Paine was villified by American churches for his "age of reason" book- an anti-religious book for the most part - called then "the athiests bible".

So, our constitution, despite opposition by religious scholars, ended up being a secularlist document, which ended up strengthening our nation against the same religious fundamentalism that has torn up religious goverments in the ME.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel05.html

There are a number of long well thought out and well researched responses here already so I'll stay brief.

There is no meaningful mention of god in the Constitution at all. In fact the only mention is the date.

Article 6 specifically bans religious tests for office holders.

Amendment 1 bans anything that even respects the establishment of a religion.

I find nothing in Christian philosophy that call for tripart government.

In short the claim that Christian philosophy was the intent of our founders seems absurd on its face. In fact about the only thin in the original Constitution that was Christian Philosophically that I see was the stain on our national honor called Slavery.

From what I have read over half the Declaration’s signers had some sort of divinity school training, and while John Adams was the most overtly pious, even the non-believers among the Founders, such as Benjamin Franklin, turned to God when trouble came. During the Constitutional Convention, it was Franklin who not only offered a prayer but who added:



Franklin not only went on to quote scripture but stated flatly that “God governs the affairs of men”.

How can we forget the fact that virtually all of the Republic’s early universities were founded by denominations with the intent of advancing the cause of Christ. Not Muhammed, not Buddha, but CHRIST.




Wasn't Jefferson at once time the chairman of the American Bible Society? Hmmmm.




I realize he was not a signer but do you think he could have gotten away with saying something like this if the signers had not been Christian?


How about our first Court Justice, John Jay?
He stated that when we select our national leaders, if we are to preserve our Nation, we must select Christians.




We are not a Christian nation today but we were then. To deny this fact is to deny history. The Ten Commandments are more easily found in America’s government buildings than in her religious buildings, demonstrating the understanding by generations of Americans that the Ten Commandments formed the basis of America’s civil laws.

I believe the signers certainly would have agreed that the “wall of separation” was to prevent one Christian denomination from dominating, and was never intended to be a wedge between the government and Christianity.

This is not true in any meaningful way. I see this stated all the time, and it probably feels great to believe it, but it's not true.

Stirring quotes from some FFs aside, please explain how the Ten Commandments form the basis for America's civil laws.




So it's OK to, for example, support religious conversion efforts with tax money as long as it's conversion to Christianity?

And it's OK to fund Catholic and Baptist grammar schools with tax money, as if they were regular public schools? What about Mormon schools or a "Jews for Jesus" academy? Are they Christian enough to be supported by the state?

Or: it's OK to start public school day with a rousing fire-and-brimstone morning prayer, as long as it is a prayer to the Christian God (Jews and Hindus can listen quietly, thank you very much)?

In other words, what does this hypothetical non-secular government look like, specifically?

[quote=azchurchmouse,Jul 25 2005, 10:41 PM]
[quote]


understanding by generations of Americans that the Ten Commandments formed the basis of America’s civil laws.

I believe the signers certainly would have agreed that the “wall of separation” was to prevent one Christian denomination from dominating, and was never intended to be a wedge between the government and Christianity.

[/quote]


Okay- which ten comandments?

Protestant, Jewish, or Catholic? Because they are quite different, as shown here:

http://www.positiveatheism.org/crt/whichcom.pdf

I see three that can be said to have some basis in legality and law, however, the other 7 are blantantly unconstitutional in every way

"thou shalt have no other Gods before me"- isn't that pretty blantantly unconstitutional?

azchurchmouse- so do you think it is okay for your state to tax it's residents to pay for the operation of churches, like in massachusets? Because that is where the whole concept of "wall of seperation of church and state" law.

azchurchmouse- Instead of just repeating the propaganda of the church, why don't you address the divisions between the founding fathers and the role of the church in the earliest US goverment?

Patrick Henry was certainly an evangilist, but Thomas Paine was almost strung up for his book "age of reason" -known then as the "athiest handbook" as a curse against it. Thomas Paine was far more driven for freedom, and wanted freedom from the church as well.

It is quite a stretch to equate anything biblical in freedom anyway, when the entire book deals with subjigation and turning your free will over to God- there is nothing in the Bible that remotely favors and goverment "for the poeple, by the poeple"- instead, it endorses monarchy- and there was schisms even in the early church over this concept as well.

If you want to consider a nation that bases its laws on the Ten Commandments, then consider Saudi Arabia.

As for the U.S., the First Amendment is clearly inconsistent with the First Commandment.

How many times I have wished this thread would sink into oblivion. Yet here it is again and I’m responding to it.



azchurchmouse,

I really don’t want to copy your entire post, but it is necessary to make my points.

First, I want to take care of a procedural matters and then get into the question Ol Sarge asked many moons ago. You have quoted James Madison, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and John Jay. Yet you have failed to provide a single source for any of your quotations or interpretative statements—none, nada.

Now I don’t want to sit here and refute all the quotations you have used, but I think it would be instructive to consider, say Benjamin Franklin. Franklin started writing as Silence Dogood when he was but 16-years-old.

In 1725 at age twenty, in a piece entitled “A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity,” the young Franklin seemed to be a thorough going Calvinist. Just to give you a little flavor, I’ll quote one passage:



See, documenting sources isn’t that hard, it doesn’t take much typing and it adds loads to one’s credibility.



H. W. Brand, in The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin wrote of Franklin’s theology:



Franklin was ecumenical long before his time. In another note, Isaacson writes:



Finally, a month before he died in 1790, Franklin, wrote this to a minister who inquired of his beliefs:



The point is, azchurchmouse that Franklin was all over the theological map during his long, even by today’s standards, 84 years of life. It’s too simplistic to see him as you said a “non-believer” or a pious Christian as the word is so narrowly used by some in contemporary America. From Calvinist pronouncements in his 20s to the almost death bed statement, Franklin religious views constantly evolved. My grandmother used to say, "smart people change their minds, fools never do." Franklin, by my grandmother's definition, was one of the smart people.

Now azchurchmouse I will answer the original question in the context of your post.

This is the question to debate: What was in the mind of the Founding Fathers as they drafted the US Constitution, Secular government or a representative government based on Judeo-Christian “Values?”

You can quote the pietistic statements of the founders all you want. It’s irrelevant. None of it found it’s way into the original Constitution of the United States or in subsequent amendments. It’s a totally secular document. Perhaps the founders, particularly the more pious of the lot, understood inoculating themselves against their own, if you will, “demons.”

Will post this quote again.



If Madison was a primary author how does one explain this statement he made? Why would he have been so bold as to make this remark in front of the rest of the signers?

Today there is a bias against anything Christian. Secularists say fine have a religion as long as it remains a private affair and doesn't have anything to do with morality, education and politics. That is not the America of history.

The claim that America has a Christian heritage doesn’t mean that every American is now or ever was Christian. And it doesn't mean that Christianity should be forced on anyone. But it doesn’t change the facts.

Most Americas earliest founders were self-professing Christians and the documents at this time expressed belief in a Christian worldview.
Read Alexis de Tocquevilles Democracy in America.

If you want to see what an impact Christianity had on the country, read individual state constitutions. Delaware, New Jersey, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North and South Carolina, Pennsylvania.....they all acknowledged God had a hand in their founding. And what is interesting, is that in most states you had to be a Christian to hold office.

If you look at the Constitution you see that it's linked with the Christian calendar. Article 1, section 7 exempts Sunday as a day to be counted within which the president may veto legislation.
If the framers had wanted to strip everything about religion away why include a reference to an obvious religious observance?

When did the drafting of the Constitution take place? I believe it says "in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven."

Who do they mean by Lord?

The evidence is overwhelming that we were at that time a Christian nation, and that most the founding fathers, had a belief in God, and Jesus Christ.

AZchurchmouse
BOF has some good stuff on the looseness of Franklin religious views.

I would add that Thomas Jefferson's vies can best be summed up by his own version of the bible http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible




For other good reading

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/JefJesu.html
http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/

Both, along with Thomas Paine are considered to have fallen along the lines of Deists.



Probably because that was how everyone understood the days of the week--what were they do do--start everything here by scratch. No one argues the fact most Americans were and are christian. However some do fight to prevent some christians who believe they have a right to force others to think as they do.

Fine, but you still haven't provided the source where you got this.



Not only is this irrelevant, it's total propaganda.



There are more people on this board than you could imagine who are familiar with de Toqueville. Please quote specific passages from de Toqueville to support your arguments. This is an excellent time-honored source. Try using it.



The Constitution of the United States was independent of any and all state constitutions.



I think you are grasping at straws, but…

Sunday was undoubtedly the prominent day of worship at the time. That does not mean that everyone attended church. Some who did, including orthodox Jews worshipped on Saturday.

Again from Isaacson’s Franklin Reader:



Further, there were bands of Christian Sabbatarian worshippers in the colonies.



http://www.biblestudy.org/godsrest/ephrata.html



Again, you are grasping at straws, but…



http://www.sunnetworks.net/~ggarman/yearoflord.html



I have no doubt you are correct in this assertion, but it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t make the Constitution a Judeo-Christian document.

That quote was popularized by Dan Barton in his book The Myth of Separation. But it's bogus. It's an instance of someone trying to rewrite history to his liking.

Even if Madison did say what Barton says he said, it doesn't turn the Constitution into a religious document and it doesn't mean our government is based on the Ten Commandments. The argument is silly. Just compare the First Amendment to the First Commandment.

Perhaps, but they do seem to have forgotten this when they wrote the Constitution. Consider: nothing in the Constitution reflects anything from the Ten Commandments. Not one of the commandments gains expression or manifestation in the Constitution. Not one.

It gets worse. I can't think of a single Biblical admonition that is expressed or manifested in the Constitution. I'm sure that it's possible -- after all, you can mine the Bible for just about anything you want. But from that treasure trove of sometimes contradictory guidelines, the founders didn't find a single one to implement in the Constitution. I suspect that a better Bible scholar than I can dig out something that the Constitution is at least congruent with, especially from Kings, but as far as specific guidelines rather than grand generalities, I can't recall anything.

That's pretty bad. If the Constitution were a Judeo-Christian document, you'd think that they'd have implemented something from the Bible. But to chalk up a complete zero, a total miss, almost suggests that they went out of their way to avoid the Judeo-Christian heritage.

This makes some sense if you understand your New Testament. There were many suspicions (and hopes) that Christ was going to create a new Jewish kingdom. When asked about this, Christ explicitly denied any temporal intentions: his kingdom was not of this world, but of heaven. Christianity wasn't supposed to have any truck with governments. He was even more explicit when asked about taxation: render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God. A clearer statement of church-state separation cannot be found.

If instead you want to turn to Graeco-Roman thought, you find a mountain of results. The Senate is taken directly from the Roman Republic (so's the word "republic", for that matter). Democracy is a Greek concept, not a Judeo-Christian one. In all of Judeo-Christian thought, there is nothing supportive of democracy. There is no such thing as a "constitution" anywhere in Judeo-Christian thought -- that's a Greek idea. "Rule of law"? Again, that's an idea that the Greeks invented, and the Judeo-Christian heritage ignores. Legislature? Greco-Roman, yes; Judeo-Christian, no. In Judeo-Christian thought, laws are dictated by God; in Greco-Roman thought, laws are created by legislatures. Our Constitution flatly rejects the former idea and openly embraces the latter idea. Liberty? Libertas is a Latin term, and one that shows up often in Greco-Roman writings. I can't recall a mention of the concept in the Bible, although there are references to slavery and servitude. Tyranny? Again, a Latin word, often referred to in Graeco-Roman writings, but I can't recall any reference to the concept in the Bible. Vote? Again, a Graeco-Roman concept, alien to the Bible. Majority? Graeco-Roman, not Judeo-Christian. Rights? Graeco-Roman, not Judeo-Christian. Justice? Surely Graeco-Roman; the Judeo-Christian version is more concerned with the idea as primarily something that God enforces, and only secondarily as something that human institutions address (as in Solomon's decision). There's no jury anywhere in the Bible. The concept of a trial is ancient, and there are trials in the Bible, but they are pretty slim affairs: the plaintiffs take their case to the religious expert, who hears testimony and renders judgment. The notion of proper legal procedure is alien to the Bible; the court can decide anything it damn well pleases. Our notions of trial procedure spring from Greek notions of how trials should be conducted.

If you have any remaining doubts, consult the Federalist. It's chock full of references to Greco-Roman experiences. I'm sure that there's gotta be some references to the Bible, but off the top of my head I can't recall any. Can somebody else provide some?

The evidence is really clear: in designing the Constitution, the founders ignored the Judeo-Christian heritage and based everything on the Graeco-Roman heritage. Our Constitution draws its inspirations from Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Justinian, not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

azchurchmouse,

When you posted this about Tocqueville’a Democracy in America or as it was entitled in Feench De la démocratie in America, I remembered reading it perhaps as an undergraduate or maybe in my first years of grad school. After 40 years or more, my memory was a bit hazy—I remembered that he was an observant Frenchman, who visited the U. S. and wrote a perspective account, so I looked to see if I could find my copy. I couldn’t, so I purchased a new one this afternoon. It is interesting to note that de Tocqueville was born in 1805 (18 years after signing of the constitution and 14 years after the last state, Vermont, ratified the document.)

http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html

De Tocqueville visited the U. S. for nine months in 1831-1832 and published the book in 1835, nearly a half century after the events in 1787 in Philadelphia.

While de Tocqueville’s work is insightful, it is a secondary, not a primary source.

Despite, the time line, I found one passage in the book of interest:



It sounds like de Tocqueville’s words highlighted in red support the notion many of us have that The Constitution of the United States is a secular document.

Note: Background information on de Tocqueville taken from the brief biography at the front of the Bantam mass market reissue, 2004. The quotation is found on page 515.







My guess is that LyricalReckoner is correct about the origin of the Madison quotation.

David Barton is founder of a Christian group called Wall Builders, an ironic name, since their intent seems to be tearing down the wall of separation of church and state. He bills himself as a historian, but his only academic credentials seem to be an unspecified Bachelor of Arts degree from Oral Roberts University and an “honorary” doctorate from Pensacola Christian College. In my opinion, honorary doesn’t count.

http://www.wallbuilders.com/events/dbartonbio.htm

I tried to find a copy of The Myth of Separation at Borders and at the Public Library. I was unsuccessful. Admittedly, I didn’t check Christian bookstores.

Apparently, the book is out of print—amazon.com lists only used copies—and a slightly improved version Original Intent has taken its place.

Reviews of the book on Amazon.com were mixed. People either loved or hated it. Here’s what one reviewer wrote:



http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/092...7699837-0680127

Again to return to the question:

What was in the mind of the Founding Fathers as they drafted the US Constitution, Secular government or a representative government based on Judeo-Christian “Values?”

Even the words of de Tocqueville, whom you mentioned as support, seem to the contrary, to find the Constitution a secular document. I would suggest, that if there is anything left in this topic, we stick to quoting verified words of the founders themselves or interpretation by qualified scholars—historians who are knowledgeable about the Colonial period.

“Judeo-Christian” is not a Religion I remember hearing mention before. Is this some kind of ‘New Religion’? And doesn’t the Constitution say that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”?

This is the question to debate: What was in the mind of the Founding Fathers as they drafted the US Constitution, Secular government or a representative government based on Judeo-Christian “Values?”

I think some historical context is required when discussing this issue. The reason the constitution says no established religion was a result of the religious persecution many colonialists faced in Europe. This topic comes up repeatedly and I don’t get it. I especially do not understand the prayer in schools issue that evangelicals are caught up in.

It seems this debate is being driven by the extremes. I also do not care of the 10 commandments are posted on a monument. If you look at the Lincoln memorial, there are plenty of references to God. The declaration of independence mentions the Creator.