Just received the "Did You Know" email: Supreme Court Christian engravings

[T Roosevelt]

I'm currently formulating my response, but I'm wondering if anyone else has seen/responded to this...


DID YOU KNOW?
As you walk up the steps to the building which houses the U.S. Supreme Court you can see near the top of the building a row of the world's law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who is facing forward with a full frontal view ... it is Moses and he is holding the Ten Commandments!

DID YOU KNOW?
As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door.

DID YOU KNOW?
As you sit inside the courtroom, you can see the wall, right above where the Supreme Court judges sit,
a display of the Ten Commandments!

DID YOU KNOW?
There are Bible verses etched in stone all over the Federal Buildings and Monuments in Washington, D.C.

DID YOU KNOW?
James Madison, the fourth president, known as "The Father of Our Constitution" made the following statement:

"We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."


DID YOU KNOW?
Patrick Henry, that patriot and Founding Father of our country said:
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ".

DID YOU KNOW?
Every session of Congress begins with a prayer by a paid preacher, whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777.

DID YOU KNOW?
Fifty-two of the 55 founders of the Constitution were members of the established orthodox churches in the colonies.

DID YOU KNOW?
Thomas Jefferson worried that the Courts would overstep their authority and instead of interpreting the law would begin making law, an oligarchy ... the rule of few over many.

DID YOU KNOW?
The very first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, said:

"Americans should select and prefer Christians as their rulers."


How, then, have we gotten to the point that everything we have done for 220 years in this country is now suddenly wrong and unconstitutional?

Please forward this to everyone you can. Lets put it around the world and let the world see and remember what this great country was built on.

Thank you!!

[Gman]

1. Just tell 'em that

this country's biggest problem is that, unfortunately, we got the Pilgrims and Australia got the criminals.

[Maat]

2. Oh...if I weren't studying for the Bar...

I would spend time debunking this. Madison and Jefferson repeatedly stated that not only did they not want a state church, they wanted a secular government. I refer Freepers to the Treaty of Tripoli and the Letter to the Danbury Baptists.

[northernsoul]

15. hey, good luck on the Bar!

I'm sludging through my 2L finals right now

[McKenzie]

3. hahahaha...we exported our criminals to OZ, sorry that

we sent you the Christian Taliban.

regards (commiserations too)

on edit: speling..again

[Coyul]

5. LOL....loved that! and how true! N/T

Coyul

When I give food to the poor, they call me a Saint.
When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.
-Dom Helder Camara

[TaraMoon]

13. Thanks

Thanks for that. You gave me my laugh for the day. And how true it is!

[Vincardog]

4. Do you know the framers of our Constitution insisted that Religion

should have NO SAY IN government? Check out the Bill of Rights.
1st Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

This is to protect Government from Religion. Thank GOD

[McKenzie]

6. I must read the Bill of Rights. Thnx n/t

[BattyDem]

7. I love it when the fundies bring Thomas Jefferson into the argument ...

because they have no idea what the man actually believed about religion. :evilgrin:


Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

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Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782


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I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?")

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Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and 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 and State.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802

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Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814


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In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

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Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

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But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

[TwentyFive]

8. 10 commandments. On the door. NOT the Constitution. There is a difference!

I've never seen the doors to the Supreme Court...so I don't know if that is BS. However, I have seen the Bill of Rights and the Constitution....and there is nothing mentioned about religion...except that the government has NO POWER to recognize religion.

[ISUGRADIA]

9. There's a good reply to this e-mail at snopes.com

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/capital.asp

A lot of this e-mail is half truths and lies.

[T Roosevelt]

10. My response (for future reference)

DID YOU KNOW?
That in addition to Moses, Confucius and Solon are also at the center, together representing three great ancient civilizations. The sculptor, Herman A. MacNeil, explained, "Law as an element of civilization was normally and naturally derived or inherited in this country from former civilizations. The 'Eastern Pediment' of the Supreme Court Building suggests therefore the treatment of such fundamental laws and precepts as are derived from the East." Note also that neither Confucius nor Solon are facing Moses, demonstrating their equivalent stature. Also of interest is that the main entrance is the West entrance. Oh, and the Ten Commandments are blank.

DID YOU KNOW?
The two huge oak doors have symbolic representations of something presumed to be the Ten Commandments, since all that is engraved on them are Roman numerals I-V and VI-X. Oops.

DID YOU KNOW?
According to Adolph Weinman, the designer of the frieze above the judges, the tablet visible between the two central male figures, engraved with the Roman numerals I through X, represents not the Ten Commandments but the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights. Hmmm...

DID YOU KNOW?
The statement attributed to James Madison, known as "The Father of Our Constitution", appears nowhere in his writings or recorded utterances, and is completely contradictory to his character as a strong proponent of the separation of church and state. Ummm...

DID YOU KNOW?
The statement attributed to Patrick Henry appears nowhere in his writings or recorded utterances. Well...

DID YOU KNOW?
James Madison, known as "The Father of Our Constitution", was strongly opposed to this prayer practice at its inception.

DID YOU KNOW?
The Founding Fathers, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and Ethan Allen, along with many other early presidents and patriots, were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New testaments. Most were nominally members of one of their local traditional churches, since that was the "thing to do." And most were men who could take their religion or leave it alone.

Regardless, the fact that they were or weren't Christians is irrelevant in regards to the government they left us, one in which the separation of church and state was established in the Constitution.

And let us never forget that in 1797 John Adams signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI:

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 Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan 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.

DID YOU KNOW?
That John Jay never publicly proferred his opinion (this quote was taken from a private letter), and therefore his personal belief is irrelevant to the role of Christianity in American democracy.



America was founded in part by people fleeing religious persecution in their own countries. Many of the leaders of the American revolution were in fact deists. A deist believes that God is discovered through reason; their faith is not revealed by a God or artificially created by man.

Underlying these positions is the originiation of our system of laws. The entire social structure and laws of this country are built not on a Christian foundation; in developing the Constitution, our "law of the land," our Founding Fathers turned to the legal system they knew and admired - the Magna Carta and common law which derived from it. In turn English common law was viewed either as rising from natural law or from custom.

These natural laws and customs can in turn be traced not to any religious document, but to the Code of Hammurabi. Hammurabi was the sixth ruler of the First Dynasty of Babylon, and ruled from 1792-1750 B.C. Hammurabi's code is considered by scholars to be the precursor in important respects to Jewish or Hebrew law. Indeed, the Ten Commandments echo some of the rules that appear in Hammurabi's Code.

These positions are in turn established in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the two documents that are the framework for our government. The Declaration to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," and that "Men...are endowed by their Creator." The Constitution makes no mention whatsoever of God or Creator or even god. Indeed, the oath of office includes no reference to God or the Bible.

Our country is currently experiencing a cultural and religious division caused in part because a small fraction of people truly believe that which has so strongly been struck down time and time again. The sooner they come to accept that because the Founding Fathers adamantly disapproved of theocracy as a form of government, they created an intentionally secular nation, the sooner this country can begin to heal.

[LiberalFighter]

11. There all these excellent pieces and I need to find the best format

for use on my PDA

[justa]

12. Great Reply. N/T

[GOPBasher]

14. That is such bullshit.