Reply #6: There is a long history of bloody religious wars in Europe and England underpinning [View All]

[Peace Patriot]

the First Amendment's complete ban on the establishment of religion (the state favoring one religion over another, or having anything at all to do with religion), and freedom of speech. The religious wars included one 'Christian' sect drawing and quartering members of another, the mixing of religion with royal and state power and all their conflicts, and Inquisitions, witch-burnings, pogroms and Crusades against Christians and non-Christians. Our Founders knew this history, and were determined to prevent it from visiting these shores. It is the clearest, firmest, most adamant intention of those who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and who fought the Revolutionary War, to create an entirely secular state that is entirely neutral on religion. Their other most adamant intention was to prevent presidential wars of choice.

The Bush Junta has egregiously violated both of these fundamental principles of our democracy. They have stirred up religious bigotry--such that this most volatile of human hatreds now haunts our land--and have outright sponsored religious institutions with taxpayers' money. As for presidential war, there has never been a clearer case of an out-of-control executive committing this nation to invade and occupy another for no justifiable reason, and in defiance of national and international law, and in violation of the lessons of our own history.

The two things go together. Religion + politics = war. Our Founders knew it. They tried their best to keep them apart, and to subject both to the rules of secular democracy. Now it is up to us to restore those vital principles, or we will join the slagheap of nations that have destroyed themselves with religion-driven hatred and war.