"Where do you get that from?"


Amendment # 1 from the first 10 amendments to the Constitution AKA  the "Bill of Rights."
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging 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. "

"These were extremely intelligent men."

And extremely religious men, does it sound reasonable that they would want to separate God from their nation?

"Those that actually wrote that Constitution disagree with you."


Those that actually wrote that  Constitution seem to agree with me:

"Nothing less than that superintending hand of Providence, that so miraculously carried us through the war (in my humble opinion), could have brought it [the Constitution] about so complete, upon the whole."  Charles Pinckney

"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it a system, which, without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests."  Hamilton

"Acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness." Madison

[QUOTE=faith713;294948]


"Acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness." Madison[/QUOTE]

Actually, Madison never said this. It was part of a declaration stated by George Washington, which Congress' Joint Committee(not even the majority of members agreed this should be part of the address) asked him to give to proclaim the official celebration of Thanksgiving as a national holiday.

http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/mil … _read.html

[QUOTE=faith713;294606]"Where do you get that from?"


Amendment # 1 from the first 10 amendments to the Constitution AKA  the "Bill of Rights."
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging 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. "

"These were extremely intelligent men."

And extremely religious men, does it sound reasonable that they would want to separate God from their nation?[/QUOTE]

Considering there were many men who signed the DOI, and the Constitution, assuming they were all extremely religious men is off the mark. Many of them were Deists. Some were not so religious as you would think, others were more religious. They were quite a diverse bunch, who realized that the only way such diversity could exist without creating religous civil war was to keep Church and State mutually exclusive from each other.

Did they each at some point thank their idea or version of God in their own way? Sure. But that did not mean they thought religion should have undue influence over politics and laws. That's why they wrote the Constitution- to create a basis for our government and laws entirely OUTSIDE of religion.

You do recall that our various ancestors were largely fleeing states that imposed Christianity on its citizens with threat of violence or death, yes? And that surely the founding fathers were aware of the evils of governments basing their laws and system of rights upon religion, as Europe had been doing for over 1000 bloody, violent years?

And even if the founders DID intend this to be a Christian nation(which my reading of them clearly leads me to answer "no"), what they wanted has nothing to do with how our laws have evolved and taken their current shape over time.  Some of them owned slaves. Should we start owning slaves just because they thought it was the moral and Biblical thing to do? I certainly think not.

Where do you get the idea that separation of Church and State leads to separating God from those who believe in him? It seems to me that America is a very religious nation, as well as a religiously DIVERSE nation. Freedom of Conscience is a beautiful thing. Anyone who wants to impose their set of religious beliefs and/or morals on the rest of the citizenry in the guise of that very precious freedom of conscience we are all guaranteed in the First Amendment, clearly does not care at all about the Constitution or freedom of conscience, but only about imposing their own will onto their neighbors. No, keeping church influence out of the state and state influence out of religion has led to America being the most spiritual nation in the world.

[QUOTE=faith713;291786]Got anything in the law? Or is all you have a bunch of meaningless side arguments?

Then why are the Ten Commandments depicted all over the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress and on the floors of the National Archives --it's far from meaningless.

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of the government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." -- James Madison, 1778[/QUOTE]

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments."
-- Complete Fabrication; sentiments not found in any known Madison writings and "inconsistent with everything we know about Madison's views on religion and government," say noted Madison historians

This is a complete fabrication that dates back to the 1950s. A variation of this fabrication -- and there are several -- was read into the Congressional Record by Representative Dannemeyer on October 7, 1992. Another variation was later read into the Congressional Record by Florida Representative Scarborough on March 5, 1997, in defense of Judge Roy Moore's practice of posting a condensed version of the Protestant variant of the first tables of stone rendition of the Hebrew Decalogue on his courtroom wall, in full view of the Jury Box containing what would otherwise have been an impartial jury. Scarborough used this fabrication long after David Barton, its most vehement proponent, had declared the alleged quotation "false" and had asked people to stop using it (see Rob Boston's 1996 article "Mything in Action: David Barton's 'Questionable Quotes'").

source: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quo … m#PHONYMAD

Feel free to scroll above the phony quotes at that site to read some authentic ones. They may surprise you.