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'God' is not in our Constitution

In two recent letters to the Village News Mark Corcoran has given us his interpretation of the Founding Fathers’ vision of American democracy.

He quotes from the Declaration of Independence to support his arguments (which mentions God but not Christ).

The problem with Mark’s position is that the Declaration of Independence has no standing in our legal system.

You cannot strike down any law because it’s in conflict with it or base any law solely on its agreement with it.

All our laws are based on the Constitution and nowhere in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights or the other Amendments is there any mention of God or Christianity.

The Founding Fathers were very careful to ensure that there was no mention of God, so that our country would never become a de facto theocracy.

Statements by people that our country was founded as a Christian nation reflect that they don’t know our history.

Many Founding Fathers were in opposition to organized religion and/or anti-clerical and were outspoken about it in speeches and correspondence, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen and Thomas Paine.

Several of the Founding Fathers considered themselves to be deists. Deists reject supernatural events (prophecy, miracles) and assert that God does not interfere with human life and the laws of the universe.

What organized religions see as divine revelation and holy books, deists see as interpretations made by other humans.

Deism became prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries, mostly among those raised as Christians who found they could not believe in the divinity of Jesus, miracles or the inerrancy of scriptures but who did believe in God.

In any case, our laws are based on the Constitution, which ensures that we remain free of undue influence from any particular religious leaning – whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Jewish.

Anyone practicing their religion is free to do so. Atheists and agnostics are also protected to practice their beliefs. This is what is meant by “Land of the free.”

Jon Monday

 

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