"Roger Shoaf" wrote in message
...
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.


The part I don't agree with it the change in meaning of what the founding
fathers wrote. The things I mentioned such as "The national day of prayer",
"one nation under God", etc. wasn't seen as a violation of the constitution
until recently. Can't change the wording of the constitution? Then change
the meaning of the words in the constitution. You'll notice those who want
to take away religious liberties will use "separation of church and state"
(not in the constitution) instead of "establishment of religion".

RogerN