America, Wake Up!!!!

Why don't you look up and read the debate around the 1st amendment by the framers of the Constitution? It is widely available and has even been posted on this board.

 

Moore faces these punishments because he disobeyed court orders to rectify his mistakes. It's one thing to do something wrong and yet another to keep doing them after a higher authority tells you to stop. He deserves every bit of his punishment.

 

The 10 commandments, as far as I can determine, are not mentioned in any legal document as any sort of "guiding principle" of our government at its foundation or since.

Being too lazy at the moment to find & bring out any of my books, I did a quick Google search on the words principles usa "founding fathers". I expected to examine a number of documents to make my points; but my very first hit covered the matter of Christianity as the source of our "founding principles" brilliantly & thoroughly.

http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html

Some excerpts from it:

A few Christian fundamentalists attempt to convince us to return to the Christianity of early America, yet according to the historian, Robert T. Handy, "No more than 10 percent-- probably less-- of Americans in 1800 were members of congregations."
The Founding Fathers, also, rarely practiced Christian orthodoxy. Although they supported the free exercise of any religion, they understood the dangers of religion. Most of them believed in deism and attended Freemasonry lodges. . . Masonry welcomed anyone from any religion or non-religion, as long as they believed in a Supreme Being. . .
The Constitution reflects our founders views of a secular government, protecting the freedom of any belief or unbelief. The historian, Robert Middlekauff, observed, "the idea that the Constitution expressed a moral view seems absurd. . .

The article goes on to document what is known of the religious beliefs of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, & Benjamin Franklin. It then discusses the U.S. Constitution, saying in part:

. . . nowhere in the Constitution do we have a single mention of Christianity, God, Jesus, or any Supreme Being. There occurs only two references to religion and they both use exclusionary wording. The 1st Amendment's says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. . ."

On the Declaration of Independence, the article states:

Many Christians who think of America as founded upon Christianity usually present the Declaration as "proof." The reason appears obvious: the document mentions God. However, the God in the Declaration does not describe Christianity's God. It describes "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." This nature's view of God agrees with deist philosophy but any attempt to use the Declaration as a support for Christianity will fail for this reason alone. . .

and further

. . .it holds no legal power. . .

The article goes on to discuss the Treaty of Tripoli:

. . . legal document written in the late 1700s explicitly reveals the secular nature of the United States to a foreign nation. Officially called the "Treaty of peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, of Barbary," most refer to it as simply the Treaty of Tripoli. In Article 11, it states:
"As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." . . .
So here we have a clear admission by the United States that our government did not found itself upon Christianity. . .

On the point of argument that our common law came from British common law, which was based on Christianity, it quotes Thomas Jefferson:

. . . common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law. . . This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century . . .

Regarding the Pledge of Allegiance, it states:
The original Pledge of Allegiance, authored by Francis Bellamy in 1892 did not contain the words "under God." Not until June 1954 did those words appear in the Allegiance. The United States currency never had "In God We Trust" printed on money until after the Civil War. Many Christians who visit historical monuments and see the word "God" inscribed in stone, automatically impart their own personal God of Christianity, without understanding the Framers Deist context.

(BTW, for an excellent discussion of the history of the Pledge of Allegiance, check this out: http://history.vineyard.net/pledge.htm)

The article concludes:

The Framers derived an independent government out of Enlightenment thinking. . . .

I couldn't say it any better than this. And no, I did not quote the entire article It's a great piece & well worth reading in its entirety though.

None of this is to say that our government & laws weren't formed with some basis in values; just that they weren't specifically Christian values. There are some principles of Christianity that aren't restricted to Christians alone.

 

I agree that his disobeying the court order justified the loss of his position as a judge. I just think any effort to forbid him to practice law at all is going too far.

 

While it is true that the founders expressly want to avoid a government-religion relationship like the ones they had left behind in Europe, that article is not accurate in describing them or America at that time. I'm not sure how the author defines "congregations," but the vast majority of Americans at that time identified themselves as Christians. It's also grossly incorrect to say that "most" of the founding fathers were deists, although some of the most famous ones were. How devout they were in their personal beliefs is anyone's guess, but the fact that Thomas Jefferson and others felt compelled to make a show of their supposed Christianity even if they were deists should tell you something about the character of the nation at that point. It is a nation founded by a predominance of Christians and undeniably influenced by Christian principles, but it was not intended to be a Christian government.

That's the whole point of having a bar, to insure that those who practice the law will uphold it. Moore proved that he will put his personal beliefs above the law, and as such, he has no right to practice it anymore.

 

I really didn't expect you to respond. How many of the commandments are actual laws in our country?

I'd just like to point out that the pledge of allegiance wasn't written until over a century after our country was founded and "under God" wasn't added until almost 2 centuries after it was founded.