|
Hannity & Colmes Taking Back America Show - a
little clarity
Sometimes
on "yell TV" it is hard to hear the truth. Here are some
answers to points raised by atheists and
liberals:
1. We need to keep God out of government because
religion is devisive
Like the
moral rules against murder, adultery, theft - indeed, all
moral rules - only two positions are possible, either we
obey the first of the Ten Commandments by honoring God or we
don't. Among free citizens, the majority rules. If the
majority wants to honor God, those who don't can only win by
persuading a majority of citizens to come over to their
point of view.
The danger
that we worry about in the phrase "the tyranny of the
majority" is that the majority will vote to violate a moral
rule. Because rights come from moral obligations, if the
majority voted to ignore a moral obligation they could
victimize the minority by infringing the right protected by
that moral rule. But there is no danger of a tyranny of the
majority when the majority wants to follow a moral rule.
That is true whether we are talking about moral rule that
relates to our relationship with God or our relationship
with others.
2. But isn't mentioning God - and especially teaching
religious doctrines - a violation of the separation of
church and state?
The
separation of church and state is a legitimate Christian
doctrine that is important to free government. It is
articulated in the Old Testament and its modern expositors
include Martin Luther and John Locke.
At its
essence, the separation of church and state means it is the
job of government to enforce the moral rules and the duty of
Christian believers - the church - to tell men how to save
their souls.
The
question that arises is WHICH moral rules should government
enforce? The rules of Islam? The rules of Hinduism? How
about the rules that a majority of free citizens agree are
the true moral rules? Because the authority of government
comes from citizens, government always enforces the moral
beliefs that are held by a majority of citizens.
At the
time the US was founded the vast majority of citizens were
Christians. They recognized that government's ability to
enforce any moral rules faced a practical limitation - it
just isn't possible to put a policemen on every corner. They
also realized that the strongest inducement to follow the
moral rules did not come from law or government but from a
belief in a God who can see into the hearts and who gives
men eternal rewards or punishments depending, in part, on
whether man has obeyed the moral rules.
For this
reason, when James Madison wrote his Memorial and
Remonstrance arguing for the repeal of colonial laws in
Virginia that established tax payer support for ministers of
the Church of England he still said "Before any man can be
considered as a member of civil society, he must be
considered as a subject of the Governor of the
Universe."
Far from
being an establishment of religion, the Founders considered
the mention of God necessary to promote obedience to the
moral rules government was formed to enforce.
The
Founding Fathers included the doctrine of separation of
church and state in the Constitution in the First
Amendment's establishment clause. As with the rest of the
Bill of Rights, this provision applied only to the federal
government. At the time, most states had established
particular denominations of Christianity as their official
religion.
The
Founders were worried that one of these Christian
denominations might become the "established" religion of the
entire US. So the question that is really relevant is what
did the Founders understand to be the legal definition of an
"establishment of religion?"
The US
Senate answered this question in the mid 19th century. To be
an unconstitutional establishment of religion in the
Founders' view, a federal law had to do three
things:
- Make
attendance mandatory at the worship services of a
particular denomination
- Require
tax-payer support for the ministers of that denomination,
and
- Give
special political privileges - like the right to vote or
hold office - to members of that denomination
These
three practices were what characterized the Church of
England, especially in British colonies. Since many US
denominations had been formed by people fleeing the Church
of England, it was these practices the Founders wished to
avoid in the US federal government.
Since the
separation of church and state is, itself, a religious
doctrine, it is ludicrous to suggest that teaching religious
doctrines violates the separation of church and state.
Indeed, the most important concepts in the Constitution -
like equality, the general welfare clause, the enumerated
powers clause, the requirement for compensation in the
taking of private property, and many others - come directly
from religious doctrines. The Constitution of the United
States does not state these doctrines, it reflects them. The
Constitution becomes empty and meaningless if one does not
approach it with a firm understanding of the religious
doctrines on which it is based.
For more
info on why the Founders did not consider honoring God
publicly to be an establishment of religion, see our
Special
Feature on the Separation of Church and
State.
3. The Treaty with Tripoli says the US is not a
Christian nation
We set
this straight on our homepage about 5 years ago but here it
is again:
Article
11 of the
Treaty of Tripoli
opens with the statement "As the government of the United
States of America is not in any sense founded on the
Christian Religion..." and continues with a slavish
declaration of America's support for Islam.
But
none of this appears in the original treaty, and how it got
there is one of the strangest hoaxes in history. The treaty
was negotiated by Captain Richard O'Brien and originally
written in Arabic. O'Brien sent it for signature to Joel
Barlow, the American Consul at Algiers, who had an English
translation prepared. Article 11 of the actual treaty
contains a letter written in poor Arabic that does not say
anything like what was inserted.
Barlow
signed the treaty in 1796 and sent it to Washington. But six
months later, James Leander Cathcart, dispatched as Consul
to Tripoli, discovered the error. Cathcart had a corrected
copy of the treaty sent to the State Department - in
Italian! But nobody at State bothered to translate the
Italian and compare it to the original until 1930, and it is
the Barlow translation, with the erroneous Article 11, that
appears in our statute books.
All
of this is documented at the Avalon
Project of Yale Law School.
Bottom
line, don't let the atheists tell you any official American
document actually renounces Christianity. But go read
Barlow's
Article 11,
as Muslims flood into the West, this error will have
consequences. Cathcart's corrected translation is
here.
You
may know that we have never gotten a religious liberty bill
passed. Every one that has been proposed - and there have
been six or seven - has said that America has no founding
religious philosophy. That's simply not true, and God won't
let such a bill be made law. The Declaration of Independence
stakes our claim to freedom on "the Laws of Nature and of
Nature's God," an 18th Century term of art in English Law
that means "the eternal immutable principles of right and
wrong" to which God Himself conforms, found only in the Holy
Bible. Don't believe it? Here's
the source
- the book Jefferson studied as a law student.
4. The Founding Fathers were Deists - or - the
Founders believed in Providence, not God
Here's
where atheists really demonstrate their ignorance. The
dictionary defines deism as:
|
The
belief, based solely on reason, in a God who
created the universe and then abandoned it,
assuming no control over life, exerting no
influence on natural phenomena, and giving no
supernatural revelation.
|
But Deism
was not the view held by America's Founders, because it does
not agree with what Scripture plainly states. Not only
America's Founders but also almost all Americans at the time
of our nation's founding believed, as God says, that He
exercises sovereign control over every aspect of His
creation to direct it in accordance with His will.
This
concept is called "Providence". It is defined fully in what
was - at the time America was founded - the preeminent
statement of doctrine among English-speaking Christians, the
Westminster Confession of Faith. The extent of God's
providential control over His creation was well understood
by Americans at our founding because the principles of the
Westminster Confession were memorized by American children
for over a century before we declared independence.
Chapter
Five of the Westminster Confession is entitled "Of
Providence", and it is sufficient to quote just the first
paragraph of this chapter to see that the concept of God's
Providence means God's absolute control over all
creation:
|
God
the great Creator of all things does uphold,
direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions,
and things, from the greatest even to the least, by
His most wise and holy providence, according to His
infallible foreknowledge, and the free and
immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of
the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness,
and mercy
|
The belief
in God's providence was so widespread at America's founding
that George Washington credits God's providential control of
creation for our victory in the War for Independence and for
the framing and ratification of the Constitution in his
Inaugural Address. In his Farewell Addreses he says God has
providentially connected a nation's happiness with its
virtue.
Thomas
Jefferson - and the 55 signers of the Declaration of
Independence - stated they had a firm reliance on Divine
Providence for the support of the Declaration in the closing
paragraph of the Declaration itself.
George
Mason based his warnings at the Constitutional Convention on
God's providential control of the affairs of nations when he
said the practice of slavery would lead to a national
calamity.
It also
appears in the Federalist Papers. The Federalist Papers are
a collection of articles written by James Madison, Alexander
Hamilton, and John Jay explaining the ideas of the
constitution and why the states ought to stay united. In
Federalist No.2, John Jay credits God's providential control
of creation not only for victory in the War for Independence
but also for the very characteristics of America's land and
people. John Jay was the first Chief Justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court:
|
It
has often given me pleasure to observe that
independent America was not composed of detached
and distant territories, but that one connected,
fertile, widespreading country was the portion of
our western sons of liberty. Providence has in a
particular manner blessed it with a variety of
soils and productions, and watered it with
innumerable streams, for the delight and
accommodation of its inhabitants. A succession of
navigable waters forms a kind of chain round its
borders, as if to bind it together; while the most
noble rivers in the world, running at convenient
distances, present them with highways for the easy
communication of friendly aids, and the mutual
transportation and exchange of their various
commodities.
With
equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that
Providence has been pleased to give this one
connected country to one united people - a people
descended from the same ancestors, speaking the
same language, professing the same religion,
attached to the same principles of government, very
similar in their manners and customs, and who, by
their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting
side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have
nobly established general liberty and
independence.
This
country and this people seem to have been made for
each other, and it appears as if it was the design
of Providence that an inheritance so proper and
convenient for a band of brethren, united to each
other by the strongest ties, should never be split
into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien
sovereignties.
|
|
