The founders left God out of the Constitution. It wasn't an oversight.

[Thom Little]

When the Supreme Court, in one of its most important decisions of 2005, ordered two Kentucky counties to dismantle courthouse displays of the Ten Commandments, Justice Antonin Scalia declared that the Court majority was wrong because the nation's historical practices clearly indicate that the Constitution permits "disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists."

The Constitution permits no such thing: It has nothing to say about God, gods, or any form of belief or nonbelief—apart from its absolute prohibition, in Article 6, against any religious test for public office and the First Amendment's familiar declaration that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." From reading Scalia, a Martian (or polytheist) might infer that the establishment clause actually concludes with the phrase "free exercise thereof—as long as the faithful worship one God whose eye is on the sparrow." The justice's impassioned dissent in McCreary County v. the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky is a revealing portrait of the historical revisionism at the heart of the Christian conservative campaign to convince Americans that the separation of church and state is nothing more than a lie of the secularist left.

For the 21st-century apostles of religious correctness, the godless Constitution—how could those framers have forgotten the most important three-letter word in the dictionary?—poses a formidable problem requiring the creation of tortuous historical fictions that include both subtle prevarication and bald-faced lies.

.......

The marvel of America's founders, even though nearly all of the new nation's citizens were not only Christian but Protestant, was that they possessed the foresight to avoid establishing a Christian or religious government and instead chose to create the first secular government in the world. That the new Constitution failed to acknowledge God's power and instead ceded governmental authority to "We the People…in order to form a more perfect Union" was a break not only with historically distant European precedents but with recent American precedents, most notably the 1781 Articles of Confederation, which did pay homage to "the Great Governor of the World," and the Declaration of Independence, with its majestic statement that "all men…are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." It is worth noting here that the Declaration was a bold and impassioned proclamation of liberty, while the Constitution was a blueprint for a real government, with all the caution about practical consequences (such as divisive squabbles about the precise nature of divine authority over earthly affairs) required of any blueprint.


http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/12/original_intent.html

[countmyvote4real]

1. Thanks and kick. The people's choir will appreciate this. n/t

[pinto]

2. kick.

[WarNoMore]

3. Kick! Very good article. n/t

[MountainLaurel]

4. Kickity kick

For all those who appreciate being able to worship the deity of their choice, even if in the minority.

[AX10]

5. KICK

[Yupster]

6. Proof that the omission was noticed and intentional

was when the Confederate government was forming and writing their Constitution, they made very few changes to the US document. They even kept the Electoral College.

However one change they did make was including God in the preamble.

To me that shows the omission was not something that nobody noticed as it just slipped by. It was very well known even back then that God was not in the Constitution.

[Hekate]

7. Kick it into tomorrow. An article worth saving to send to ...

...the usual wingnut spammers.

Hekate
who sends a chorus-line of DU Rockettes
:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[Disturbed]

8. But Karen Huge said that...

the US Constitution has "One nation under God" in it.

[Thom Little]

9. That translates to Arabic as "One nation under Allah"

[win_in_06]

10. "endowed by our creator with inalienable rights"

Where does that come from?

[Solon]

11. Declaration of Independence...

It has no legal standing in the country of today, it is, and always will be, a simple declaration of independence. In fact, the Constitution makes only 2 mentions about religion at all in its entirity. The first is Article Six: "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." and the second is, of course, the First Amendment.

[win_in_06]

13. But was it not penned by the same group of men? Does it not say

something about their intent?

[Einstein99]

20. The Declaration of Independence was written

by a committee consisting of Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams, but Jefferson did most of the work. The Consititution was penned mostly by James Madison. Both were, of course, picked apart by the Congress. I'm not sure, but I think they were two separate Congresses. I'll leave it to one of the experts to confirm or deny this premise.

[NancyG]

28. Jefferson was a Unitarian minister.

Unitarian still being a very liberal religion, which does not require belief in a God.

[thebigidea]

24. no, but your confusion speaks volumes about YOU intent

[hansberrym]

12. "failed to acknowledge" is not the same as renouncing earlier statements

That the new Constitution failed to acknowledge God's power and instead ceded governmental authority to "We the People…in order to form a more perfect Union" was a break not only with historically distant European precedents but with recent American precedents, most notably the 1781 Articles of Confederation, which did pay homage to "the Great Governor of the World," and the Declaration of Independence, with its majestic statement that "all men…are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."


But "failed to acknowledge" is not the same as renouncing the earlier statements you cite. In addition to the Declaration, the Articles, and various state constitutions, there is also Memorial and Remonstrance (Madison) and A Virginia Bill Establishng Religious Freedom(Jefferson) both from 1785, just two years prior to the drafting of the US Constitution and just 4 years prior to the drafting of the Bill of Rights, and both containing references to God as the source of our rights.

Absent a renouncement of the earlier writings, it is not reasonable to assume that the Establishment and Freedom of Religion clauses of the First Amendment mean something very different from what Madison and Jefferson (as well others in various state constitutions) wrote just a few years earlier.

While it is apparent from reading the above sources that the Constitution forbids the federal government(including the state governments through the Fourteenth Amendment) from establishing or favoring any religion, including christianity, it is also apparent that it does not forbid the federal or state governments from recognizing that our rights come from God. To say otherwise would lead to the absurd conclusion that both Memorial and Remonstrace and A Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom violated themselves. Note that both cite God Almighty, the Creator, etc. as the source of our rights while forbidding the government from establishing religion. Prohibitions on establishing a state religion
can not reasonably include a prohibition on acknowledging God as the source of our rights since the very same legislative acts contained both.


Furthermore there is no conflict in acknowledging God's power and ceding governmental authority in "We the people". Many state constitutions pay homage to God's authority, ask for guidance, blessings, etc., AND contain provisions which place all governmental authority in the people while requiring the separation of church and state. These are not mutually exclusive.



Like many divisive issues these days, there are extremes on both sides. The Fundies want to remake the country into a Christian Nation, while Michael Newdow and the Godless Constitution crowd would have us believe that government's mere acknowledgement of God(even using the most generic phrasing available) as the source of our rights is unconstitutional. Both of those camps are way off base.

[Neil Lisst]

14. The founding fathers were so much more sophisticated ...

... than this bunch in Washington now. So much better read, so much more committed to REASON, so much less guided by a belief GOD was on their side.

[skipos]

15. What is the history of "God" getting on our money and in our

pledge of allegiance and all that?

[Neil Lisst]

16. The pledge is about 110 years old, and got GOD 55 years ago

Apparently, we did fine without a pledge for the first 100 years, the ones when we actually NEEDED one.

[skipos]

17. Thanks. I answered ny own question re "In God We Trust."

but in case anyone else wants to know...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust

[Neil Lisst]

18. here's the back story on the pledge

Some minister thought it up about 1890 or so, and it caught on, and was adopted.

Then in the post WWII era, when the spectre of the godless communists loomed large, a push came to put GOD into the pledge, to contrast with those godless commies. So the wingers got all over it, and in an era much like the one we are living through now, FEAR and the threat of some sinister foreign group was used to deprieve citizens of freedom.

I said "under God" in the pledge my first year of school, but my older sister by two years had not had "under God" in the pledge when she started school. We straddled that historic cusp.

[Einstein99]

21. The minister who wrote the pledge was

Francis Bellamy, a former Baptist minister and a member of the Christian Socialist movement. He wrote the pledge in 1892 at the request of the National Education Association, which wanted to find a way to unite the various immigrant communities that had infused the schools at the time. As already pointed out, "under God" was added as part of the Red Scare, and if you check the Congressional Records of the day, you will find that the motivation was patently religious--to distinguish the U.S. from the "Godless" communists. The action was clearly a blatant violation of the First Amendment.

[hansberrym]

26. Are these also "blatant" violations of the first amendment?

"Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical...


or maybe this:


We the Subscribers say, that the General Assembly of this Commonwealth have no such authority: And that no effort may be omitted on our part against so dangerous an usurpation, we oppose to it, this remonstrance; earnestly praying, as we are in duty bound, that the Supreme Lawgiver of the Universe, by illuminating those to whom it is addressed, may on the one hand, turn their Councils from every act which would affront his holy prerogative, or violate the trust committed to them: and on the other, guide them into every measure which may be worthy of his dound to their own praise, and may establish more firmly the liberties, the prosperity and the happiness of the Commonwealth.

[Einstein99]

22. As for "In God We Trust" on our coins,

some historians attribute that to Salmon P. Chase, who was Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury and a devout Christian. Chase is also often credited with getting Lincoln to add the words "and the gracious favor of Almighty God" to the Emancipation Proclamation.

[Einstein99]

23. For an excellent rundown of this and related matters

see "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism" by Susan Jacoby, which I have recommended in a separate post. It is a MUST in any intelligent person's library, IMHO.

[NVMojo]

19. then every asshole running government better get out of my underwear

and my life with their version of god.

edit to add, how come right wing whack jobs want the government to deny a woman the right to an abortion and their belief against abortion is religious? Does that mean a woman can fight for her right to have one based on her religious belief in "free will" given by God the creator?

[MissMarple]

25. He can decide what an "unconcerned deity" is?

So, now Scalia is channeling God. Ah huh....where are the straight jacket guys?

[GoneOffShore]

27. Kicked

Thanks for this one.