Fred the Red Shirt wrote:
On Sep 9, 5:20 pm, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
Phil Again wrote:

...


I may be unable to understand this: the constitution was written my
humans, passed by humans, and amended by humans. No Divine inspiration
or intervention is claimed or declared. No Supreme court decision has ...
Utterly false. Virtually every Framer at some point spoke of their
belief in the Divine as animating their political ideals. No matter
how much you put your fingers in your ears and scream to the contrary
you are still wrong in this matter. Notice that I have not - anywhere
in this thread argued *for* more religion in politics. I have merely
argued that you and yours are - and remain - utterly wrong in your
understanding of our history because - apparently - it hurts your feelings.
a
...

Wrong.

What Phil wrote was entirely correct.

What you wrote was entirely irrelevant.

What the Framers had to say at some _other_ point is
irrelevant. The Constitution itself contains not one one
word invoking Divine or religious inspiration or justification.
Religion is mentioned only in terms of prohibiting any
religious test as a qualification for office. (Which, BTW
conflicted with some state constitutions that restricted
public office to Christians.) Subsequent amendments
only prohibit establishment of religion, or discrimination
on the basis of religion.

And they - isn't this fascinating - at no point *prohibit*
the influence of religion on government. Quite to the contrary,
the prohibitions are on *government* not to meddle with religion.
Given the precise legal writing that characterizes the Constitution,
I think *that* is no accident.


As these facts contrast markedly with the Articles of Confederation
and the Declaration of Independence, I do not think the omission
was accidental.

Of course, having read those documents, I may have you at
a disadvantage.


You don't ... I've read all the above at one point or another.
I have the advantage of *understanding them* because I am not
trying to inflict my current worldview upon documents. I actually
let them speak for themselves. You sound remarkably like one
of those "living document" ideologues who - under the influence
of malignant theories such as deconstructionism /post-modernism /
post-structurualistm - can find any meaning in any text they wish ...
thereby robbing the texts of *all* meaning.


Whatever religious beliefs the Framers had, they chose to leave
them out of the Constitution. That they chose to leave their
religion out of their politics for their most important political
work, should serve as an inspiration to today's politicians.

You are being argumentative for its own sake. No rational person
looks at a document like the Constitution in some sort of sterile
isolation. Exegesis of a text requires input from something other
than just the text. I have no doubt the Framers did NOT want a state
sponsored religion. But arguments like Phil's fundamentally
underestimate the degree to which the Framers were animated by
religious principles. They said so, they said so repeatedly.
Suddenly discovering a pure atheist/humanist document in the
Constitution does a disservice to our history and tradition.
One can acknowledge the religious influences without demanding
a theocracy.

Then again, having read a number of these extra-canonical texts
and the words of the Framers, I may have you at a disadvantage.

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Tim Daneliuk
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