[Pharmboy]

The First Amendment re the feds and religion was put there to protect the STATES RIGHTS at the time. Twelve of the 13 states had religious requirements for people who could hold office (some required just a belilef in God, some required a belief in the Trinity, etc.) The states' rights folks (e.g., Patrick Henry and George Mason) did not want the feds to tell the states what to do about their local religions.

The Peace of Augsburg (1555) set the standard of cuius regio eius religio ("whose religion, that religion") or "in the Prince's land, the Prince's religion". What this meant at the time was that if you were a Lutheran and the prince in your local castle was Catholic, please move to an area where the local prince was a Lutheran.

The Founders believed in that to an extent, and did not want the new central governemnt telling people in Georgia, Virginia or New York what their religious requirements might be.

They do NOT teach this in high school history, but true it is.

[BuddhaBrown]

“They do NOT teach this in high school history, but true it is.”

If I remember correctly from my kids’ history texts, that chapter was replaced by the one that states the evil European Republican Christian parked his battleship on Plymouth Rock, drove his tanks over the Indians, sat down briefly to eat the dead natives’ corn and turkey and then started importing Africans in order to infect them with AIDS.

I’m being silly, of course, but you are certainly correct that our faith heritage is either distorted or simply absent from public school.