danarhea said:
If you read the First Amendment, is says that there shall be no ESTABLISHMENT of religion. It does not say that people cannot worship however they see fit, whether that be a citizen or a leader.
Actually the ban is far wider than that. It bans anything that even respects establishment, not just establishment.
danarhea said:
Finally, your argument (actually, you are talking around the Q) does not mitigate in the least the fact that our forefathers were, in general, religious people, who felt that the creation of America was due to divine providence. If you also look at the early history of America, you will find that religious people comprised the vast majority of our leaders. Yes, I would stipulate that the term "under God" was very relevant and, considering the makeup of Amercia today, still is.
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Here are some of the things our founders and some selected other leaders had to say on this issue:
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law"
-- Thomas Jefferson in a letter dated 2-10-1814
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own. ....they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose."
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Horatio Spofford, March 17, 1814
"The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation, is ever more dangerous. Jesus had to work on the perilous confines of reason and religion; and a step to the right or left might place him within the grasp of the priests of the superstition, a bloodthirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel.
That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore."
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Story, Aug. 4, 1820
"The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man.
But compare with these the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin:
"A professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution [the University of Virginia]."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper
October 7, 1814. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich,
eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations,
New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 492.]
"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
-- Letter to F. A. Van der Kamp from John Adams
"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."
-- Benjamin Franklin
"The hocus-pocus phantasy of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson s Works
Vol. IV, 360, Randolph's ed.
"My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them."
-- Abraham Lincoln, to Judge J.S. Wakefield
after Willie Lincoln's death
"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects."
-- James Madison, Letter to Bradford, January 1774,
from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr,
The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom
"The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense."
-- Thomas Paine
"The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation."
-- Treaty of Tripoli (1797) signed by John Adams
(the original language is by Joel Barlow, U.S. Consul.)
"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
-- Letter to F. A. Van der Kamp from John Adams
"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"
-- Letter to Thomas Jefferson from John Adams
"We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions ... shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power ... we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society."
-- Letter to Dr. Price, April 8, 1785, from John Adams
"Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right to religious freedom ... The tendency of the spirit of the age is strong toward religious liberty."
-- Letter to Richard Anderson May 27, 1823,
from John Q. Adams
"In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and both by precept and example inculcated on mankind ..."
-- The Rights of the Colonists (1771) by Samuel Adams
"I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism makes me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not strictly speaking, whether I am one or not."
-- preface, Reason the Only Oracle of Man
by Ethan Allen
"What you should say to outsiders that a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our Association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself shall not stand upon it."
-- Susan B. Anthony: ABiography, by Kathleen Barry,
New York University Press, 1988, p.310
"I have seldom met an intelligent person whose views were not narrowed and distorted by religion."
-- James Buchanan: from Rufus K. Noyes,
Views of Religion, also James A. Haught,
ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief
"All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty."
-- Henry Clay: Address, U. S. House of Representatives,
March 24, 1818, (from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr,
The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom)
"In this country there is no alliance between church and state, no established religion, no tolerated religion -- for toleration results from establishment -- but religious freedom guaranteed by the Constitution and consecrated by the social compact."
-- DeWitt Clinton: 1813, from Albert J. Menendez
and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom
"The sole purpose and effect of it [Article VI] is to exclude persecution and to secure the important right of religious liberty."
-- Oliver Ellsworth: Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner (eds.),
The Founder's Constitution, University of Chicago Press,
1987, Vol. 4, p. 638, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr,
The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom
"I am tolerant of all creeds. Yet if any sect suffered itself to be used for political objects I would meet it by political opposition. In my view church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact. Religion and politics should not be mingled."
-- Millard Fillmore: Address during 1856 Presidential election,
from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations
on Religious Freedom
