Dear God

[Jw2]

chuck is Satan in human flesh.  certainly not a religious type

[Jim]

jim, you clearly misrepresent the United states Constitution, post anti-American information and advocate for the destruction of our government.
 
I can only picture you having to look in a mirror in order to type that.  So, thanks for the laugh.

[Jim]

chuck is Satan in human flesh.  certainly not a religious type
 
You guys really need to listen to yourselves before you post like 15th century settlers still looking for witches.

[Oscar_LaVista]

i am surprised you boys still don't think we should stone adulterers. oh, wait.  Trump would be among the first!!  Nothing like being cafeteria christians!!  just pick which verse you want to believe, and disregard all the others that are the direct opposite!! 

[chuck_curtis]

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

President John Adams in a speech to the military in 1798

[Jim]

i am surprised you boys still don't think we should stone adulterers. oh, wait.  Trump would be among the first!!  Nothing like being cafeteria christians!!  just pick which verse you want to believe, and disregard all the others that are the direct opposite!!
 
Look who's talking...

[KensanIV]

There is NOTHING WRONG with the Judeo Christian ethics that this nation was founded on.  Oh sure, you can find some statements from our founding fathers questioning the nations belief in a Supreme being and or a God. But all in all there is NO doubt of the founding tenets.

In all of the 50 states, there is NOT one which does NOT give thanks to a Supreme being in the preamble or in the first paragraph.

So if you are thinking that religion is a bunch of Hocus Pocus crap embraced by low level IQ's..  Take a look history and the reasons for the founding of this nation.

[chuck_curtis]

There are some deists, but they were the minority.  Most founders went on record to declare that religious faith is essential to the formation of a self-sustaining democracy.  But, most importantly, there are NO atheists among the founders.

[wxzyw]

chuck is Satan in human flesh.  certainly not a religious type

You guys really need to listen to yourselves before you post like 15th century settlers still looking for witches.

Nah, they're posting like 21st century communists looking to destroy America.

[Oscar_LaVista]

 Me: I am surprised you boys still don't think we should stone adulterers. oh, wait.  Trump would be among the first!!  Nothing like being cafeteria christians!!  just pick which verse you want to believe, and disregard all the others that are the direct opposite!!
 
Jim: Look who's talking...

My reaction:  I don't claim to be Christian and do not cry about religious symbols and texts being removed from public places like the Constitution mandates. 



Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Every man "ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience." - George Washington (Letter to the United Baptist Churches in Virginia in May, 1789)

"I believe in one God, Creator of the universe.... That the most acceptable service we can render Him is doing good to His other children.... As to Jesus ... I have ... some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble." - Benjamin Franklin (Alice J. Hall, "Philosopher of Dissent: Benj. Franklin," National Geographic, Vol. 148, No. 1, July, 1975, p. 94.)

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson (letter to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787)

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of... Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."- Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)

"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth." - Thomas Jefferson (Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 363.)

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." - James Madison (Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, 1785.)

"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed.'' - James Madison (Original wording of the First Amendment; Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).)

"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 tranquility, 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." - (Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 - signed by President John Adams.)

"That religion, or the duty we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience." - Patrick Henry (Virginia Bill of Rights, June 12, 1776.)

[Oscar_LaVista]

1. "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man"- Thomas Jefferson

2. "The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs." -Thomas Jefferson

3. "It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet the one is not three, and the three are not one- Thomas Jefferson

4. "And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors."- Thomas Jefferson

5. "There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites."- Thomas Jefferson

6. "Lighthouses are more useful than churches."- Ben Franklin

7. "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."- Ben Franklin

8. "I looked around for God's judgments, but saw no signs of them."- Ben Franklin

9. "In the affairs of the world, men are saved not by faith, but by the lack of it."- Ben Franklin

10. "This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it"- John Adams

11. "The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the prophecies of the Old; if so, it must follow the fate of its foundation.'- Thomas Paine

12. "Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."- Thomas Paine

13. "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."- Thomas Paine

14. "Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies."- Thomas Paine

15. "All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."- Thomas Paine

16. "It is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told, is blasphemously obscene.”- Thomas Paine

17. "Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by the difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be depreciated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society."- George Washington

18. "The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession."- Abraham Lincoln

19. "It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Gov't from interfence in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others."- James Madison

20. "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."- James Madison