Sometimes, an email that is received provokes a need to respond with great depth – it challenges the soul and calls forth the truth, rather than just an unwitting “me too.” That was my reaction this morning, when I received an email from a friend which was, I can only assume, meant with all good intentions to continue and ongoing, friendly debate about government.
In essence, this email purported to represent that the United States is a nation founded and built on the principles of the Christian (not Catholic) faith. The salient elements of the email are:
The steps to the Supreme Court, and the doors to the main courtroom of the Supreme Court building have Moses and the Ten Commandments emblazoned on them; inside the courtroom, Moses overlooks the bench at which the Justices of the Supreme Court sit; there are bible verses all over government buildings in Washington (but, no detail about which buildings and which verses,) a “quote” from James Madison that this country was founded on the principles of the Ten Commandments, that Patrick Henry stated that these United States were founded on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that fifty-two of the fifty-five “founders” (which is a typo; they are called “framers,”) of the Constitution were “members of established orthodox churches,” that Thomas Jefferson was afraid that the courts would begin making law instead of interpreting law, that the first Supreme Court Justice John Jay said that “Americans should select and prefer Christians as their rules”
The point of this email is that the United States is a nation founded on Christian (not to say Catholic) principles, and that any effort to turn away from those principles is to turn against the United States itself. With a little dig on activist judges thrown in. The entire email was presented with “agree or delete” as the subject line, as if one was to state that one is a patriot or anti-American based on the content of the email.
I just love emails that have some negative hook in them; I normally hit “reply all,” and send back a torrent of facts and history that utterly disproves such nonsense, except in the cases of some “angel” coming to visit me in an email that will pester me with bad luck and even more hair in my ears if I don’t IMMEDIATELY send it to the next 643 people in my address book WITHIN THE NEXT TWO MINUTES.
I digress. And, I am made crazy by people who choose not to think.
With respect to the inclusion of Moses and the Ten Commandments on the Supreme Court building of the United States, and with deep appreciation for snopes.com:
- The United States Capitol does not house the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court has met in its own building since 1935.
- The Supreme Court building was constructed in 1932 through 1935; more than 151 years after the “founders” (sorry, I just couldn’t help myself) of the Consititution wrote that learned document. http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc78.htm
- Thinking that the predecessor building may have also contained such religious icons lionizing Moses and the Commandments? Think again: Since no provision had been made for a Supreme Court building, Congress lent the Court space in the new Capitol building. The Court convened for a short period in a private home after the British had used Supreme Court documents to set fire to the Capitol during the War of 1812. Following this episode, the Court returned to the Capitol and met from 1819 to 1860 in a chamber that has been restored as the Old Supreme Court Chamber. Then from 1860 to 1935, the Court sat in what is now known as the Old Senate Chamber.
- Capping the entrance is the pediment filled with a sculpture group by Robert Aitken, representing Liberty Enthroned Guarded by Order and Authority. NOT Moses.
- Cast in bronze, the west entrance doors sculpted by John Donnelly, Jr., depict historic scenes in the development of the law. NOT Moses.
- The doors of the Supreme Court courtroom don't literally have the "Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion" — the lower portions of the two doors are engraved with a symbolic depiction, two tablets bearing only the Roman numerals I through V and VI through X. As discussed in the next item, these symbols can represent something other than the Ten Commandments.
Weinman's training emphasized a correlation between the sculptural subject and the function of the building and, because of this, [architect Cass] Gilbert relied on him to choose the subjects and figures that best reflected the function of the Supreme Court building. Faithful to classical sources, Weinman designed for the Courtroom friezes a procession of "great lawgivers of history," from many civilizations, to portray the development of secular law.
- Note that Moses is not given any special emphasis in this depiction: his figure is not larger than the others, nor does it appear in a dominant position. Also, the writing on the tablet carried by Moses in this frieze includes portions of commandments 6 through 10 (in Hebrew), specifically chosen because they are not inherently religious. (Commandments 6 through 10 proscribe murder, adultery, theft, perjury, and covetousness.)
- The wall "right above where the Supreme Court judges sit" is the east wall, on which is displayed a frieze designed by sculptor Adolph A. Weinman. The frieze features two male figures who represent the Majesty of Law and the Power of Government, flanked on the left side by a group of figures representing Wisdom, and on the right side by a group of figures representing Justice. According to Weinman, the designer of this frieze, the tablet visible between the two central male figures, engraved with the Roman numerals I through X, represents not the Ten Commandments but the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights.
Thus, Moses’ appearance in the structure of the building is part of a THEME of great lawgivers, which includes CHINESE people, and GREEK people. This entire line of reasoning fails utterly.
Next point - James Madison, the fourth president, known as "The Father of Our Constitution" made the following statement "We have staked the whole 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 of God."
- Actually, this statement appears nowhere in the writings or recorded utterances of James Madison and is completely contradictory to his character as a strong proponent of the separation of church and state.
- Another spurious quotation. These words appear nowhere in the writings or recorded utterances of Patrick Henry.
- Congress has indeed retained paid (Christian) chaplains since 1789 (not 1777) to open sessions with prayer and to provide spiritual guidance to members and their staffs upon request. This practice was strongly opposed by James Madison at its inception.
- The constitutional propriety of Congressional chaplains has been challenged in an August 2002 lawsuit filed in federal district court by Michael A. Newdow (the California man who won a federal appellate court decision against the use of the phrase "under God" in public school-led recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance). The case is still pending.
- The diverse beliefs and religiosity of America's founding fathers is a complex subject, one which cannot be so neatly encapsulated by an (inadequately substantiated) statement such as the one quoted above. (See, for example, this critique of the above-quoted statement and similar material.)
- Yes, Thomas Jefferson was concerned about courts overstepping their authority and making (rather than interpreting) law, as was James Madison, who said: "As the courts are generally the last in making the decision, it results to them, by refusing or not refusing to execute a law, to stamp it with its final character. This makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended, and can never be proper." However, this issue really has nothing to do with the subject at hand (the endorsement of Judeo-Christian tradition by the federal government), other than in the tangential sense that some people feel one of the areas in which U.S. courts have overstepped their bounds is the body of decisions prohibiting the use or display of religious symbols and references in state-operated institutions.
- John Jay, one of the framers of the Constitution, was appointed by George Washington in 1789 to be the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (and later served two terms as governor of New York). He wrote, in a private letter (1797) to clergyman Jedidiah Morse:
So, we get to the dead LAST assertion of this long email of made-up nonsense before we get to a single point that has a shred of validity. Not that it’s true, nor that it supports the argument advanced, just that it has a modicum of truth to it. It’s just taken out of context. And people say that the liberal “bias” media is a new thing.
While we’re here, let’s take up a few more favorites in the “hit parade” that is the lunacy asserting assailment against God and Christianity in this country.
The pledge of allegiance contains the phrase “under God,” which was a late add-on to a school statement written in celebration of the 400th of the discovery of America by Columbus. On Flag Day June 14, 1954, the words “under God” were added. This to assuage the McCarthyists, who were running rampant over our nation’s Bill of Rights. Read the original words of the pledge, and its three recorded changes here:
http://www.flagday.org/Pages/StoryofPledge.html
How about “In God We Trust” on our coin and currency? From the US Mint’s website:
From Treasury Department records it appears that the first suggestion that God be recognized on U.S. coinage can be traced to a letter addressed to the Secretary of Treasury from a minister in 1861. An Act of Congress, approved on April 11, 1864, authorized the coinage of two-cent coins upon which the motto first appeared.
The motto was omitted from the new gold coins issued in 1907, causing a storm of public criticism. As a result, legislation passed in May 1908 made "In God We Trust" mandatory on all coins on which it had previously appeared.
Legislation approved July 11, 1955, made the appearance of "In God We Trust" mandatory on all coins and paper currency of the United States. By Act of July 30, 1956, "In God We Trust" became the national motto of the United States.
Several years ago, the appearance of "In God We Trust" on our money was challenged in the federal courts. The challenge was rejected by the lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of the United States declined to review the case.
Thus, it’s only been since (gasps) the MCCARTHY time that “In God We Trust” appeared on currency, and on coins the face of which had not been previously marred by a violation of the establishment clause. One Hundred Seventy-One years of observance of the United States Constitution, followed by Fifty-One years of its violation in response to an unfounded scare tactic deployed by an otherwise irrelevant and unaccomplished bully who never once proved that a single Communist occupied a position of authority or power in Washington. Can you say “Al-Qaeda?”
There is no mention of God or Jesus Christ in the United States Constitution. There is but one mention of “God” in the Declaration of Independence. The Founding Fathers were quite openly Deists, not traditional Christians. The United States was founded on principles that were intended and designed to prevent the religious persecutions that had been so recently experienced in England and France. The whole line of reasoning is utter nonsense (I felt like using a much stronger word here, but knowing that a lot of people are going to read this caused me to temper my typing.)
Now, I’m going to REALLY spin you.
These Ten Commandments – how confident are you IN them? The Bible itself, and the various VERSIONS of the bible are inconsistent with what the Commandments are, and in which order they appear. If they were the word of God, then, shouldn’t we be using the word of God delivered to his Servant closest in time to the actual telling? Not the modified versions presented by the later interpreters of God’s word? What if what we think of as the Ten Commandments aren’t really the Ten Commandments at all?
Which Ten Commandments?
Positive Atheism Magazine www.PositiveAtheism.org
The Second Tables
of Stone (Ex. 34)
(“the words that were on the first”)
1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).
2. Thou shalt make thee no
molten gods.
3. The feast of unleavened
bread shalt thou keep in the
month when the ear is on the
corn.
4. All the first-born are mine.
5. Six days shalt thou work,
but on the seventh thou shalt
rest.
6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.
7. Thou shalt not offer the
blood of my sacrifice with
leavened bread.
8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the
morning.
9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring
unto the house of the Lord thy God.
10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.
K. Budde, History of Ancient Hebrew Literature
The First Tables
of Stone (Ex. 20)
(later smashed by Moses)
1. I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for
yourself a graven image. You
shall not bow down to them or serve them.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your
mother.
6. You shall not kill.
7. You shall not commit
adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false
witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet.
Adapted from Microsoft Bookshelf 98
Ten Punishments
1. He that sacrificeth
unto any god, save unto the
Lord only, he shall be utterly
destroyed.
2. And he that blasphemeth
the name of the Lord,
he shall surely be put to death.
3. Whosoever doeth
any work in the Sabbath day,
he shall surely be put to death.
4. He that smiteth his
father, or his mother, shall be
surely put to death.
5. He that curseth his
father or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
6. Whosoever lieth
with a beast shall surely be put to death.
7. If a man lie with
mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.
8. And the man that
committeth adultery with another man’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.
9. He that believeth
not, shall be damned.
10. And now, O ye
priests, this commandment is
for you. If you will not hear,
and if ye will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name,...behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces.
Jyoti Shankar, Bubbles Online Magazine
So, which is it? None of these look too familiar – especially since none of them represent the Bill of Rights as it’s honored in our Supreme Court building. (sorry, I just couldn’t HELP myself.)
Let’s talk for a moment about the Founding Fathers.
The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."-George Washington
"The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels."-The Rev. Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister and historian (lamented in an 1831 sermon)
So, if Rev. Bird Wilson, so close in time to our Founding Fathers, spoke of them as Infidels (meaning, that they were without God,) how can we NOW be parroting their virtue as good Christians, who intended that we all of us pray in schools, at government meetings and be good little believers in the Ten Commandments? It’s inconsistent.
Following are a number of quotes from the most famous “Founders” of our Constitution
(I just can’t help myself – if someone’s going to get all worked up and write this crap, can they at least use the correct terminology?)
Read ‘em and weep, Commandment Slaves –
George Washington
George Washington to Tench Tilghman, (March 24, 1784):"I am a good deal in want of a House Joiner and Bricklayer, (who really understand their profession) and you would do me a favor by purchasing one of each, for me. I would not confine you to Palatines. If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans, Jews or Christian of an Sect, or they may be Atheists."
John Adams
From a letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756):“Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.’”
A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787–88:“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. … It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service [forming the U.S. government] had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. …Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery… are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind”
Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11: Written during the Administration of George Washington and signed into law by John Adams.
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, (July 16, 1814):"Cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires."
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, August 10, 1787"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moore, August 14, 1800"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law, & ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man. They are still so in many countries & even in some of these United States. Even in 1783, we doubted the stability of our recent measures for reducing them to the footing of other useful callings. It now appears that our means were effectual."
Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800“[The clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man”
Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1801, First Inaugural Address"And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Dowse, April 19, 1803"I will never, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others."
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, January 19, 1810"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."
Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."
Letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 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 to his own”
Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, January 10, 1816"You judge truly that I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying & slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain. I have contemplated their order from the Magi of the East to the Saints of the West, and I have found no difference of character, but of more or less caution, in proportion to their information or ignorance of those on whom their interested duperies were to be plaid off. Their sway in New England is indeed formidable. No mind beyond mediocrity dares there to develope itself. If it does, they excite against it the public opinion which they command, & by little, but incessant and teasing persecutions, drive it from among them. Their present emigrations to the Western country are real flights from persecution, religious & political, but the abandonment of the country by those who wish to enjoy freedom of opinion leaves the despotism over the residue more intense, more oppressive. They are now looking to the flesh pots of the South and aiming at foothold there by their missionary teachers. They have lately come forward boldly with their plan to establish " a qualified religious instructor over every thousand souls in the US." And they seem to consider none as qualified but their own sect."
Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, May 5, 1817"I had believed that [Connecticut was] the last retreat of monkish darkness, bigotry, and abhorrence of those advances of the mind which had carried the other States a century ahead of them. ... I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character. If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.'
Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823"One day the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in the United States will tear down the artificial scaffolding of Christianity. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
Jefferson's Autobiography“[A]n amendment was proposed by inserting ‘Jesus Christ,’ so that [the preamble] should read ‘A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion’; the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination”
James Madison
Letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774:"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise"
Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, Section 7, 1785:“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.”
Ibid, Section 8:“What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries”
James Madison, introducing the Bill of Rights at the First Federal Congress, Congressional Register, June 8, 1789:"[The] civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner or on any pretext infringed."
James Madison, Detached Memoranda, believed to have been written circa 1817."The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship against the members whose creeds and consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with that of Roman Catholics and Quakers who have always had members in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers. or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor."
James Madison, letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819"The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State."
James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822:"I observe with particular pleasure the view you have taken of the immunity of Religion from civil jurisdiction, in every case where it does not trespass on private rights or the public peace. This has always been a favorite principle with me; and it was not with my approbation, that the deviation from it took place in Cong[ress], when they appointed Chaplains, to be paid from the Nat[ional] Treasury. It would have been a much better proof to their Constituents of their pious feeling if the members had contributed for the purpose, a pittance from their own pockets. As the precedent is not likely to be rescinded, the best that can now be done, may be to apply to the Const[itution] the maxim of the law, de minimis non curat."
Benjamin Franklin
From Franklin’s autobiography:“Scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself ”
“...Some books against Deism fell into my hands....It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quote to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations, in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.”
Benjamin Franklin, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin: London, 1757 - 1775"If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practised it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England, blamed persecution in the Roman church, but practised it against the Puritans: these found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England."
Ethan Allen
From Religion of the American Enlightenment:“Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian.”
From "Reason: The Only Oracle of Man""Though 'none by searching can find out God, or the Almighty to perfection,' yet I am persuaded, that if mankind would dare to exercise their reason as freely on those divine topics as they do in the common concerns of life, they would, in a great measure, rid themselves of their blindness and superstition, gain more exalted ideas of God and their obligations to him and one another, and be proportionally delighted and blessed with the views of his moral government, make better members of society, and acquire, manly powerful incentives to the practice of morality, which is the last and greatest perfection that human nature is capable of."
Thomas Paine
Excerpts from The Age of Reason:
"My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
"Whenever we read the obscene stores (of the Bible), the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the Word of God."
"...when I see throughout the greater part of this book (the Bible) scarcely anything but a history of the grossest vices and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonor my Creator by calling it by His name."
"(The Christian) despises the choicest gift of God to man, the Gift of Reason; and having endeavored to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls if 'human reason' as if man could give reason to himself."
“Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself than this thing called Christianity”
Thomas Paine, Answers to Friends regarding The Age of Reason, Paris, May 12, 1797
"As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case. You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran, from the Old Testament, or from the New."
"It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No. Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?"
If you’re read this far – I applaud your interest in expanding your knowledge. And, I have a question for you:
If the Founding Fathers of our Country felt that Christianity was a dangerous thing that MUST be kept out of government, then, aren’t the “Strict Constructionist” judges like Scalia, Alito, and Thomas who are trying to force this crap down our throats the “Activist Judges” that Jefferson warned us about?
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