ACLU and "separation of church & state"

[GotZoom]

If someone's conscience is speaking to him and directing him to pray, then he does not need the government to tell him the same thing. If his conscience is not telling him to pray, then he still does not need the government to tell him to do something that only God can tell him to do.



In theory, a pastor or minister is ordained by God and speaks for him on matters of religion. However, it is still the duty of every person to decide for himself who does and who does not have authority from God on religious matters.

On the Great Day of Judgment I suspect there will be no minister, preacher or government there to represent you. When God asks you why you were listening to the government's advice on religion instead of Christ's recommendations, what are you gong to say?

The government is probably not going to save your soul. Jesus might - if you follow his advice.

FVF

So , when someone from the government says, "Let us pray," I don't have it within my right or ability to say, "You know, that is a good idea, I think I'll pray"???

I have a sneaky feeling, on the Great Day of Judgement, that God will be a little more worried about other things than whether or not I really wanted to pray when someone from the government suggested it.

 

[FredVonFlash]

So , when someone from the government says, "Let us pray," I don't have it within my right or ability to say, "You know, that is a good idea, I think I'll pray"???

You can do what you want, but there is no right to pray according to the invitation of the government.

FVF

 

[GotZoom]

You can do what you want, but there is no right to pray according to the invitation of the government.

FVF

Well, thank you for your permission. I feel much better now knowing that you are allowing me to make my own decision as to when I pray or don't pray.

 

[Said1]

Well, thank you for your permission. I feel much better now knowing that you are allowing me to make my own decision as to when I pray or don't pray.

Pretty sucky for a "trail lawyer".


"Do what you want then, I think he's innocent, hmph."

 

[Bullypulpit]

Ya know, if it weren't for the ACLU, Ollie North would hae gone to jail. The ACLU got him off on a technicality.

If it weren't for the ACLU, Rush Limbaugh's medical records would be in the hands of prosecutors and his fat ass would be in jail.

Get over it. Get a life.

 

[FredVonFlash]

The Presbyterian's Argument (Circa 1834) That The National Religion is Atheism​

We proceed now to establish the charge of immorality against the Constitution of the United States.

1. It does not acknowledge or make any reference, to the existence or providence of the Supreme Being. The nation, as such, has no God. This is an essential evil in the constitution, which involves the hideous charge of national atheism! "The general government is erected for the general good of the United States, and especially for the management of their foreign concerns: but no association of men for moral purposes can be justified in an entire neglect of the Sovereign of the World. No consideration will justify the framers of the federal constitution, and the administration of the government, in withholding a recognition of the Lord and his anointed from the grand charter of the nation."[6]

2. The United States Constitution, does not recognise the revealed will of God. All moral government flows from God the Sovereign the Universe, and must be regulated by his will, otherwise it cannot bind the conscience. In the original state of man, the moral law, which we written on his heart, included in it the will of God relative to this as we as all other moral duties. To meet the exigency of man’s fallen condition, God has given a new revelation of his will, in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. All who enjoy this new, and now more perfect revelation of the will of God, are bound to regulate their civil and political relations by it, as well as those that immediately relate to the worship of God. To proceed on the ground that man may dispense with the instruction of scripture in the constitution and management civil government, is unquestionably to set aside the authority of God when He speaks to us in the holy scriptures. The universal depravity of human nature unfits men for performing either the personal or social duties of life, in a manner agreeable to the will of God. The scriptures contain instructions how all these duties are to be performed. "To the law and to the testimony" we are commanded to look. And no moral principle whatever can it be admitted, that men may form their constitutions of civil government according to the mere light nature, when the author of nature has given another and a more perfect rule by which they may be flamed. The authority which binds men to the light of nature, as far as it is applicable, binds them also to the scriptures, as the subsequent and more complete revelation of the will of God. "Revelation contains the true standard of civil government. It prescribes the supreme criterion according to which those states which have ordained this superior light should act in forming their constitutions, choosing their officers, and determining their leading objects."[7] In the Constitution of the United States, however, there is not the most distant allusion to the revealed will of God. The Bible, as containing the fundamental principles of political morality, is not even indirectly acknowledged. Here then is an evident violation of a moral duty.—Men are bound, as has been proved by the preceding observations, to make the Bible the basis of their political constitutions; but the United States of America have entirely excluded it from the charter which binds them together as a nation.

3. The Constitution of the United States acknowledges no subjection to the Lord Jesus Christ. A moral right to exercise universal dominion bas been given to Him as the Mediator, by God the Father, "He hath put all things under his feet, and set him far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come."[8] In the whole universe of created existence there is not a solitary exception to the mediatorial rule of Christ. He has moral authority given to him over all things for the sake of the Church, which is his body. Every intelligent being is bound to obey the Redeemer, and submit to his authority. Civil society, and all communities, are in their congregated character equally bound with individuals to honor Him. On their part it is not a matter of choice—"nations and their rulers are placed in a state of subjection to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of the kings of the earth, and are bound to acknowledge his mediatorial authority, and submit to his law; framing their laws, appointing their officers, and regulating their obedience in subserviency to the interests of his kingdom."[9] The revealed commands of God bind them to give obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ in all their social relations. "Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little."[10] The claim which the Mediator has to the homage of nations is held forth by his mediatorial exaltation and dignity. "He hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords."[11] The constitution and government which have no respect to the Mediator and his authority, as "Prince of the kings of the earth," are in a state of rebellion and opposition against "the Lord and his Anointed." They are destitute of an important moral feature, that justly exposes them to the charge of impiety. The Constitution of the United States is chargeable with this impiety. It makes no mention of the Lord Jesus Christ, nor his right of rule, over the nations. It contemns the commands of God that enjoin obedience to his authority, and as far as moral principle is concerned, the language of the Constitution respecting "the Lord and his Anointed" is, "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us."[12]

There are principles essential to the moral character of a civil constitution and government, destitute of which, no government can be the ordinance of God. Of three of these essential and radical principles of the ordinance of God, the Constitution of the United States is destitute. That a government may furnish an exemplification of magistracy agreeable to the will of God, from whom this ordinance flows, the constitution of government must explicitly avow and acknowledge the existence, providence and authority of God. It must be framed according to the revealed will of God: and it must include a professed subjection of the government to the Lord Jesus Christ the Mediator. The Constitution of the United States is destitute of all these three essential characteristics of God’s moral ordinance of government. It has no regard to the mediatorial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ; and is therefore chargeable with rebellion against Him. It rejects the revealed will of God; and is therefore infidel. It does not acknowledge the existence of the Supreme Being; and is thus godless.

End Notes

[6] Scriptural View, &c. by Alexander McLeod. D. D. [back]
[7] Application of Scriptural Principles to Political Government, by the Rev. Peter Macindoe, A. M. [back]
[8] Eph. 1:22, 20, 21. [back]
[9] Summary of the Principles and Testimony of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland, p. 55. [back]
[10] Ps, 2:10, 11, 12. [back]
[11] Rev. 19:16. [back]
[12] Ps. 2:3. [back]

http://www.covenanter.org/RPCNA/jurylaw.htm

 

[FredVonFlash]

The United State Was Founded As A Heathen Nation That Disowned God
​

The motto IN GOD WE TRUST was placed on United States coins largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the Civil War. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase received many appeals from devout persons throughout the country, urging that the United States recognize the Deity on United States coins. From Treasury Department records, it appears that the first such appeal came in a letter dated November 13, 1861. It was written to Secretary Chase by Rev. M. R. Watkinson, Minister of the Gospel from Ridleyville, Pennsylvania, and read:

Dear Sir: You are about to submit your annual report to the Congress respecting the affairs of the national finances. One fact touching our currency has hitherto been seriously overlooked.

I mean the recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins. You are probably a Christian. What if our Republic were not shattered beyond reconstruction? Would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation? (He is accusing the Americans of the founding era of being heathens) What I propose is that instead of the goddess of liberty we shall have next inside the 13 stars a ring inscribed with the words PERPETUAL UNION; within the ring the allseeing eye, crowned with a halo; beneath this eye the American flag, bearing in its field stars equal to the number of the States united; in the folds of the bars the words GOD, LIBERTY, LAW.

This would make a beautiful coin, to which no possible citizen could object.
(The rights of conscience cannot be so successfully assailed as under the pretext of holiness)

This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. (His second accusation of heathenism agaist the founding fathers) This would place us openly under the Divine protection we have personally claimed. From my hearth I have felt our national shame in disowning God (Separating Government from the things that one is to render only to God, as directed by the Savior, is distorted into a disowning of God by this evil pervert in the guise of a Christian minister) as not the least of our present national disasters.

To you first I address a subject that must be agitated.​

When Congress passed the 1860's bill that authorized the government to declare the people’s trust in God on the nation’s coins, and the people did not rise up in protest and revolt, they turned their backs on the Christian faith of the founders, and we gave up any claim to be known as a genuine Christian Nation.

FVF

 

[FredVonFlash]

The usage of the words "separation of church and state" in legal jurisprudence came from a 1947 court case instigated by (surprise, surprise) the ACLU:

You have been hoodwinked by David Barton's propaganda. The words came from the 1878 case of Reynolds v. U. S. which was precedent for the 1947 case.

REYNOLDS v. UNITED STATES.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
98 U.S. 145
OCTOBER, 1878, Term
​

The word "religion" is not defined in the Constitution. We must go elsewhere, therefore, to ascertain its meaning, and nowhere more appropriately, we think, than to the history of the times in the midst of which the provision was adopted. The precise point of the inquiry is, what is the religious freedom which has been guaranteed....

Before the adoption of the Constitution, attempts were made in some of the colonies and States to legislate not only in respect to the establishment of religion, but in respect to its doctrines and precepts as well. The people were taxed, against their will, for the support of religion, and sometimes for the support of particular sects to whose tenets they could not and did not subscribe. Punishments were prescribed for a failure to attend upon public worship, and sometimes for entertaining heretical opinions.

This brought out a determined opposition. Amongst others, Mr. Madison prepared a "Memorial and Remonstrance," which was widely circulated and signed, and in which he demonstrated "that religion, or the duty we owe the Creator," was not within the cognizance of civil government.

At the next session the proposed bill was not only defeated, but another, "for establishing religious freedom," drafted by Mr. Jefferson, was passed.
In the preamble of this act religious freedom is defined; and after a recital "that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty," it is declared "that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order."
In these two sentences is found the true distinetion between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State.....

At the first session of the first Congress the amendment now under consideration was proposed with others by Mr. Madison. It met the views of the advocates of religious freedom, and was adopted. Mr. Jefferson afterwards, in reply to an address to him by a committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, took occasion to say: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, -- I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State." Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/reynoldsvus.html