Dr Adequate
Banned
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2004
- Messages
- 17,766
Wow, two strawmen in one sentence.
In the real world, the authority for building a wall of separation between church and state (not for "driving God from our nation") is the First Amendment (not any imaginary claim that the words "wall of separation between church and state" appear in "the Constitution or the Bill of Rights").
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Incidentally, when did the Bill of Rights stop being part of the Constitution? "The Constitution or the Bill of Rights?" What?
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The Bill of Rights was drafted by James Madison, let's find out his opinions.
There remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Gov' & Religion neither can be duly supported: Such indeed is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded agst.. And in a Gov' of opinion, like ours, the only effectual guard must be found in the soundness and stability of the general opinion on the subject. Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Gov will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together. - James Madison; Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt
It was the Universal opinion of the Century preceding the last, that Civil Government could not stand without the prop of a religious establishment; and that the Christian religion itself, would perish if not supported by the legal provision for its clergy. The experience of Virginia conspiciously corroboates the disproof of both opinions. The Civil Government, tho' bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success; whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State. - James Madison, as quoted in Robert L. Maddox: Separation of Church and State; Guarantor of Religious Freeedom
Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offense against God, not against man:To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered. - James Madison, according to Leonard W. Levy, Treason Against God: A History of the Offense of Blasphemy, New York: Schocken Books, 1981, p. xii.
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