I am in sympathy with some of your views but I fail to understand your
anger. Freedom to believe or not in a god, gods, no gods or what ever does
not detract from having a cordial relationship with your neighbors.

Government, in the eyes of our founding fathers, does not exist to promote a
belief in any religion, but rather to have a system where religions can
co-exist and be tolerated by each other.

Individual questions of what is permissible occur from time to time and are
settled and then we move on. Neither side in the debate on any particular
question usually ends up completely happy.

Consider Thomas Jefferson. As the prime author of the Declaration of
Independence, he wrote of:

"...the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God..."
"...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"
"...appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world..."
"...solemnly publish and declare..."
"...a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence..."
"...pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

But he also coined the phrase "separation of church and state". In a letter
to the Danbury Baptists he wrote:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man
& his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship,
that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions,
I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people
which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus
building a wall of separation between Church & State."

In 1797 the US Senate by unanimous vote (Only the third time *all* of the
Senators voting agreed on anything.) ratified the "Treaty of Tripoli". In
doing so they publicly declared:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense,
founded on the Christian religion..."

Myself, I really like the Jeffersonian concept of the US being the "Empire o
f Liberty", I suspect the reason "we don't just split" is because we are
stronger as one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, and
each of us is left to decide as a matter of personal liberty just what
"under god" means to themselves.

--
Roger Shoaf
If you are not part of the solution, you are not dissolved in the solvent.



"RogerN" wrote in message
m...
Since the people that want religious freedom can't agree with the rest of
the nation, why don't we just split. Those wanting religious freedom can
have their own country to run the way they want. Then they can see if God
blesses their country that acknowledges God. Maybe their constitution can
declare that their government not establish a church but exclude
"Separation
of Church and State". Maybe they can have a pledge of allegiance that
says
"One nation under God" and put "In God we Trust" on their money. Maybe
they
can be free to place nativity scenes on public property, post the Ten
Commandments, and have a Bible in their schools.

I believe God would bless such a nation, I believe it would become a great
nation. But then, others would see how blessed that nation is, and they
would want to come in and enjoy the prosperity but not thank the God that
blessed it. Those who don't believe in the things that made the nation
great would infiltrate it and destroy it from the inside. They wouldn't
be
part of what made the nation great, they would be part of what destroyed
the
great nation. Just like it happened in the USA.

RogerN