From: kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: U.S. Bill of Rights today
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 16:47:09 GMT

es1 = symanzik@egr.msu.edu (Ed Symanzik) 1st article
cmk = my reply
es2 = Ed Symanzik's second article

cmk> And yet the word "God" appears no where in the body of the 
cmk> Constitution

es2>If the Constitution is to be upheld to the letter, we can make it say
es2>anything we care to and it would therefore be a worthless document.

Huh?

es2>But, since you insist, how about a document that is even more basic 
es2>than the Constitution - say, the Declaration of Independence?

I think the Declaration is important. But I also think we are a nation
of laws and I don't think that the Declaration of Independence is one
of those laws.

es2>    "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"
es2>    "that they are endowed by their Creator"
es2>    "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence"

The first two sound more deists than Christian. The last, from the
last line of the Declaration, is a claim that God is on their side.

es2>I just noticed that after the end of article VII of the Constitution 
es2>it does say:
es2>
es2>    "in the Year of our Lord"

I think the date is important. But I also think we are a nation of
laws and I don't think that date is one of those laws.

[...]
es2>Of course we all know the First Amendment.  But it's not part of the 
es2>original Constitution you say?  Well, the Amendments were done soon
es2>after and by the same men; surely the beliefs of all of them didn't 
es2>change instantly upon the signing of the Constitution.

I agree that the the First Amendment was written by the Founders.  I
don't think what it says supports your thesis that the government
should be Christian.

cmk> Moreover, while many of the founders were Christian, others were not.
cmk> Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine, for example,
cmk> were deists who believed that formal religion was superfluous.
cmk> Jefferson rewrote the New Testament removing all references to the
cmk> divinity of Jesus.

es2>I wasn't aware of that last point.

You can find the "Jefferson Bible" in any big library.

es2>He must have been a very religious
es2>man to spend so much time reading and rewriting the Bible, don't
es2>you agree?

Your conclusion doesn't follow. Isacc Asimov wrote a two volume guide
to the Bible. He was a self-described atheists and secular humanist.

In any case, I didn't say that Jefferson didn't believe in God. I said
he wasn't Christian. He was in fact a Desist which in a nutshell means
that he "argued that the course of nature was sufficient to
demonstrate God's existence and that he regarded formal religion as
superfluous." [_Age of Enlightenment_ by Peter Gay, 1966, p 33]

es2>Benjamin Franklin was a representative from Pennsylvania.  Here is 
es2>a requirement from that state:
es2>
es2>    Frame of Government, Section 10.  And each member, before he takes
es2>    his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz:
es2>    "I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governour of the universe,
es2>    the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked, and I do
es2>    acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be
es2>    given by Divine Inspiration."
es2>
es2>Not the oath of an atheist, is it?

This is exactly the kind of oath that the Constitution outlawed (at
least at the Federal level).


es2>    With no more than five exceptions (and perhaps no more than three),
es2>    they [the members of the Constitutional Convention] were orthodox
es2>    members of one of the established Christian communions: approximately
es2>    twenty-nine Anglicans, sixteen to eighteen Calvinists, two Methodists,
es2>    two Lutherans, two Roman Catholics, one lapsed Quaker and sometime
es2>    Anglican, and one open Deist - Dr. Franklin, who attended every
es2>    kind of Christian worship, called for public prayer, and contributed
es2>    to all denominations.
es2>	Bradford, A Worthy Company, p. viii-ix.

es2>This is a Christian nation founded by Christians.

This is a nation of law founded by Christians and deists who
were influenced more by the Enlightenment than by the Reformation.

es2>  They could not have intended to supress Christianity.

Who said that they did? Or do you consider putting religion off-limits
to government an attempt to supress religion?

cmk> When the First Amendment was enacted _no_ state had an established
cmk> state church or supported one religion over another.

es2>Until 1786 the Church of England was Virginia's only legal church.
es2>Jefferson wrote the "Virginia Bill for Religious Liberty" to give other
es2>denominations equal recognition.

I was under the impression that the "Virginia Statute of Religious
Freedom" (its actual name) completely separated church and state.

"In his own state of Virgina, Madison [the author of the First
Amendment] opposed a 1784 tax bill that would have subsidized religion
_without preference_. As often happens today, those who supported the
bill said they were on the side of God [...], implying that Madison
somehow was opposed to God and religion. Madison replied, just as
defenders of religious liberty do today when they oppose state aid,
that the question wasn't whether religion was good, but whether state
aid was good for religion. He thought no. The proposal for a general,
nonpreferential tax for supporting religion failed [...]
[...] When the Senate was originally considering the First Amendment,
it _defeated_ three motions that would have changed it language to
prohibit laws that established 'one religious sect or society in
preference to others.'"
  [_Visions of Liberty, p. 75, which in turn references the
    _Enclopedia of the American Constitution_ by Leonard Levy, et al.,
    pp. 174-194, 653-655.]




--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Xref: sparky alt.society.civil-liberty:5708 alt.politics.usa.constitution:13