[risk]

TG, any attempt to link the beliefs and writings of devout men of the Enlightenment, the Founding Fathers, or anyone else contributing to the founding documents of this great nation to the notion that Christianity (of any sect) were established as our form of government are destined to fail. This we know because the Founding Fathers, down to a man, knew that the state could not declare a preference for a religion and govern its people equally. The two notions are as foreign as night and day. The United States of America must never announce that it has a government that by law is Christian. To do so would undermine its commitment to form a more perfect union, representing the aspirations and beliefs of all Americans.

For the state to announce primacy in sectarian beliefs is for it to expose itself to massive upheaval, the spiritual oppression of its people, and abuses in the name of abstract beliefs that can't be reasoned or explained. If the state takes a position on religion, religion becomes a fixed entity with the bulwark of state force behind it. The state becomes an arbiter of religious truth. The state becomes a deadly force preventing believers from declaring their own interpretations of religious truth. I do not believe that you want this. I believe you have been manipulated by profiteering and power-hungry people into believing it.

To reply to your next message, I did not, and I would not mock honest faith. But Falwell and the other two TV "ministries" I mentioned have made a mockery of their professed faiths with profit-mongering, pandering to the fears of innocent Christian people, and attempting to influence government in ways that clearly betray the founding principles of this great nation.

I apologize to you if I have attempted to dash one of your intellectual guiding lights without due patience and kindness. But these men do not speak for me. I think they speak for their pocketbooks. And I think millions of Christians around this great country know that. These men pose as devout, but their words and their deeds betray their lack of foresight. It's clear to me that they find great profit in misleading Americans politically.

Selected phrases they use may be attributed to Lincoln, Locke, or Livius, but this does not make them honest ministers. They've found formulae that invoke strong emotions among certain of the devout, but this in no way proves their sincerity. If they were sincere, they would defend the notion that government needs to keep out of the business of organized religion. For organized religion to flourish, government should not interfere.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Humane Laws are measures in respect of Men, whose actions they must direct, howbeit such measures they are as have also their higher Rules to be measured by, which Rules are two, the Law of God, and the Law of Nature; so that Laws Humane must be made according to the general Laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive Law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made. - John Locke, Two Treatises on Government

Lastly, those are not all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of toleration. - John Locke, Essay on Toleration