Start with getting back on the straight path, but how do I do that if I do not know what the “straight path” is? When was the last time you read a book about the founding of this country or of your state? When was the last time that you read the Constitution of the United States of America, The Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence? If you are like me, until today, you have not read them since you were in school and were going to be tested on these magnificent documents. Once you have read these documents, the foundational documents of this country, you will have a better idea of what the dreams of our founders were.
Why am I suggesting that you read these documents? How many times do you hear, watch or read a news article where actions are taken based on these documents? Do you take for granted that those who report the news also provide you the truth?
We need to know what the groundwork is for everything that regulates our lives.
Have you heard about the “Separation of Church and State”? Well, it is not in the Constitution, nor is it in the Bill of Rights, yet you will hear people state it as if it were gospel. In order to understand where this misconception came from we need to read the basic document that people clam this came from, a letter from President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists.
What other documents or books would you recommend that people read to get a better idea of the foundation of their rights?
— Mark Twain
Call to Action
1) Read or listen to these documents and do it more than once. They are tightly intertwined and in reality can not exist without the other.
2) When you hear someone misquoting any of these documents realize that they are doing so because they do not know the truth or are pushing their own agenda.
3) Correct the misquote when ever possible. Do it gently and with a hope that it was made harmlessly, but do correct it.
1 comment:
I agree with what you are saying about the so called "Separation of Church & State." People throw that line out today as if it were explicitly stated somewhere in the Constitution. The notion of separation is derived from the First Amendment, which grants freedom of religion.
America did something unprecedented in its founding in that it prescribed no religion as the formal "religion of the state." This was establish to prevent discrimination and persecution, a reason many came to America in the first place. It did not mean government would function completely absent of religion, it meant that there would be no prescribed preference to any particular religion. "Separation of Church and State" indicates the former, however; this is why the term itself is a misleading one.
Religious ideals, symbols, and notions have been present in American society since the beginning: "Our Creator endowed us with certain inalienable rights...", "In God We Trust", and so forth. An atheist or agnostic perspective on life was not even considered.
The fact of the matter is, the atheist promoters don't really have a leg to stand on. We do live in a secular state without religious discrimination or persecution. And while we do have a strong Christian heritage as a nation, Christianity is not the religion of the state and it does not receive preferential treatment - nor should it.
The United States is the best nation on earth because it is all inclusive and accepting, at least in its formal structure.
I think that if you want to look at some level of common values that we share as American citizens, you would start with the Declaration of Independence (Created with inalienable rights...right to life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness). These ideas were borrowed from John Locke in major way (see his Second Treatise of Government).
Locke based his theory of inalienable rights on "Natural Law", a concept with roots extending from Aristotle. The notion of natural law is based on the idea that if God (or our creator) gave us the ability to act or behave in certain ways, then he endowed us with attributes which inform our true nature. The things that are part of our nature were given to us, and we should therefore have the right to exercise our abilities freely.
To illustrate, since God gave us the ability to use our tongues in order to form speech, we should have the right to speak freely.
Locke declared that any person who seeks to limit the natural rights of another does so unjustly; furthermore, those whose rights are denied have the RIGHT to make war with their oppressors.
Based on this heritage, it seems clear to me that just as atheists have the RIGHT to believe in whatever the hell it is they believe in, so too do those of us with faith have the right to believe in what we believe without interference.
With issues like the Pledge, the Bible in the Courtroom, the dollar bill, I just don't see how atheists are being discriminated against or LIMITED or INTERFERED with in their ability to exercise their right to non-belief.
I drive past Synagogues, see New-Age magazines at newsstands, and get knocks on my door by Jehovah's witnesses - just because I encounter these things regularly but don't subscribe to them does not mean that I am being imposed upon in some way, or interfered with in my ability and right to be a Catholic. God also gave us the natural ability to turn our ahead away, walk with our feet, and to think independently.
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