Now I have gone over board on this site in the past with some of my naïve and irrational arguments about religion. I appreciate the fact that I haven't been booted off of this site, and have been allowed time to read and learn from the great many writers on this site. So I hope you all will give this one a chance...
I came across a group yesterday that has me all riled up, and yes again it involves religion and the Constitution.
There is a group that has recently formed that calls itself
The Ten Commandments Commission. The focal point of their movement is May 7 2006, in which they are calling on all religious leaders who are concerned about traditional Judeo-Christian values to host special celebrations and/or deliver stirring sermons centering on the unifying and reconciling messages rooted in Ten Commandments.
They state on their web site that...
Recent court rulings against the Ten Commandments, along with a host of disturbing trends we witness daily throughout our culture, clearly demonstrates that our nation is moving away from that tradition. These actions have threatened the very fabric and foundation of our culture and faith. The Ten Commandments and all other references to God, which have served as the moral foundation and anchor of our great country, are systematically being removed from public places. Public displays of the Ten Commandments and other symbols of our faith have been a powerful visual testimony to the fact that the United States of America is "one nation under God." Their removal from public places shows that those with a secular humanist agenda are intent on destroying the moral heritage of our nation.
We are inviting all Christians, churches, synagogues, ministry leaders, religious bookstores and everyone who is interested in preserving traditional values to join us in a national and global movement to restore the Word of God to our nation.
Well this whole movement/project is completely disingenuous. It appears to me that these people wish to re-write history.
The "Word of God" was never in our Constitution. In fact it was left out on purpose. So that all religions could flourish and be free. There is a difference between religion and religious freedom. There is a difference between a Christian Nation and a free nation.
These people go on and say something that really bothers me.
secular humanists waging their attacks at home and the looming threat from the international radical Islam - people of faith become the line of defense - this is the "Wall of Jerusalem", and you are the watchman God placed.
So I, being a secular Humanist, am waging an attack on the Constitution and the basic principles on which this Nation was founded? I find that appalling and morally outrageous. And on top of that they group me, and any other secular Humanist, along with radical Islamism! That is borderline crazy.
What I find so appalling is that these people perch themselves upon the throne of moral righteousness. They beat their chest, raise their fist, practically frothing at the mouth, to proclaim their patriotism and love of this nation. They point their egomaniacal fingers at me and proclaim me to be unpatriotic because of my belief not to believe in a Creator. And that because they procure some sort of divine inspiration from aforementioned Creator, they are above my even basic understanding of morality and Human compassion. I say how day thee!
This attempt to change history and attack the principles that this nation was founded on is of great disrespect to the men and woman who have sacrificed their lives to preserve and protect the liberties and freedoms granted to us all by the Constitution of the United States of America. By engaging on this crusade to bring "God" back into the Constitution (which it was never) they show a complete irreverence to the history of this great nation, and to all of those who were and currently are citizens of this country.
George Bush, and the extreme Republican right, may say that we face a dire threat from Islamic Fundamentalism. But it is groups such as the Ten Commandments Commission that threaten the very fabric of our society from within, and have the potential to do much more harm to our nation than any foreign enemy.
I would like to leave with a quote from Jefferson that I like very much. I have used it once before but I'll include the entire paragraph this time. He was such an incredible man and thinker.
The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. 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 the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read, "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.