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I recently posted this rebuttal letter I sent in to my local newspaper on this site. Yesterday, the letter was published. Much of the information cited in this letter came right from this site and its dedicated members. Thanks, guys (non-gender-specific)!
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In a recent letter, Ms. Hastings complains that liberals "don't even tell our kids what our forefathers said, taking prayer, the Bible and now the Ten Commandments not just out of our schools, but our public buildings." She appears to believe it's important to do as the Founding Fathers intended, and she appears to be of the opinion they intended for Christianity to be forced on everyone. I thought that maybe we should get the Founding Fathers to tell us their thoughts about that. Here's what some of them said:
"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together." -- James Madison in a letter to Edward Livingston in 1822.
"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise ! affect their civil capacities." -- Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom.
"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." -- Benjamin Franklin, 2,000 Years of Disbelief.
James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin are widely known and respected Founding Fathers, but each of these statements was simply a declaration of their personal opinions. To get a real idea of what they officially believed, one would have to look to some sort of official government document. The U.S. Constitution does not mention the Christian God or Christian religion. The only official document to weigh in on this matter was the Treaty of Tripoli (1796-97), written during the George Washington administration and passed during John Adams' administration. Article 11 begins as follows, "As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion!"
I admire Ms. Hastings' desire for our government to be run the way the Founding Fathers intended, and now that she knows what their intentions were, I'm sure she'll be leading the charge toward "taking prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments not just out of our schools, but our public buildings" as well.
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