From: gbrown@Rosie.UH.EDU (G. Brown)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle
Subject: Re: Dan's BOOK!
Date: 26 Jan 1993 06:35:12 GMT
Organization: University of Houston
Reply-To: gbrown@Rosie.UH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: rosie.uh.edu

In article <D2150056.oime6e@erics.infoserv.com>, erics@infoserv.com (Eric S. Smith) writes:
>
>
>> degrade, and trivialize the Jewish, and Christian beliefs 
>>   (which is what the Constitution was founded on) 
>
>What!!??! I defy you to make a case for this. You right-wingers think
>you own the foundations of this country, and therefore its founding
>principles must be the same as yours. Have you even read the Constitution?
>It is mostly a pragmatic document, simply laying out the basis on which
>a practical government was organized. It says absolutely nothing about
>Judeo-Christian "beliefs". It doesn't even mention religion, execept
>in the first Amendment, where "free exercise" of religion (unspecified)
>is guaranteed. 

Gee, Eric, you don't go for the jugular here, as you should have.  Not only does
the first amendment guarantee free exercise, but it also PROHIBITS THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION. It is an indication of the fecetic brains of
right-wing fundies that they can actually think the Constitution--establishment
clause and all--is "founded" on all those nutty, ancient middle-eastern
religious beliefs.  You're right to suggest that this guy hasn't even read the
document he pretends to revere (which is true, I think, of all right-wing
fundies).  I suspect that most of these types systematically confuse the
Constitution with the Declaration of Independence.  The latter document does
obliquely mention God--"endowed by their creator with certain inalienable
rights," etc--but that is understandable in a revolutionary document attempting
to ground its lawless rebellion in some higher authority, for rhetorical
purposes, perhaps, more than for anything else.  But it is absolutely crucial
to understand that when the Founders sat down to compose the document that would
constitute the fundamental law of the land--rather than some extra-legal,
revolutionary document--they assiduously avoided tracking about in any of that
religious hoo-doo. Indeed, as I've noted, they went out of their way to make
sure the government wouldn't track about in that hoo-doo either.  That wonderful
establishment clause!  The fundies praise the Constitution, but deny the power
thereof.  Sad, very sad. Hey, if you so-called "conservatives" out there really
want to prove your true conservative mettle, by showing that your are 
interested in preserving the Constitution and what it stands for, then join the
ACLU--the only organization in this country that can claim to be conservative
in any meaningful and respectable sense.  I leave the rest of what you say here
intact, Eric, because it is right on the money

>This nation's founders were not fundamentalist religious
>types; they were secular humanists from the Age of Enlightenment tradition,
>who believed that government should "promote the general welfare" and
>that religion should be kept separate. The authors of the Constitution
>would be horrified at the attempts of today's Religious Right to inject
>their particular religious beliefs into the politics and laws of this
>country.
>


===============================================================================
|Gregory Brown               |    "God is, as it were, the sewer              |
|Department of Philosophy    |  into which all contradictions flow"           |
|University of Houston       |                                                |
|Houston, TX 77204-3785      |              --G.W.F. Hegel                    |
|GBROWN@JETSON.UH.EDU        |      Lectures on the History of Philosophy     |    
===============================================================================
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle