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>Our Constitution is secular--it never mentions a god or Christian doctrines. It specifically mentions "no religious test." This is NOT anti-religious. Please consider...<<<

You wrote in post 405, "If you diligently study Constitutional history you will quickly conclude that the only reason Christ was not mentioned in the Constitution is because it would have been considered redundant". etc.

However you may choose to gloss it, the fact remains that there is not a single reference to any god or to Christianity in the Constitution. It is the Fundamental Law of the United States of America. It is a secular document. No this was not oversight--a Christian reference was debated in the Constitutional Convention of 1791 and rejected. It was debated again in the State legislatures--and rejected. The First Amendment was added to make it perfectly clear. There shall be no law respecting "an establishment of religion..."

The clear word is "religion", not about one church or doctrine over another.

There is not a single reference to 10 Commandments. No one seriously thinks our laws are based on them.

My reading of history is that none of the Founding Fathers ever intended for Christian evangelicals to hold sway over over the civil affairs of government. Indeed, in Colonial times, several colonies expressly forbade "clergy and pastors" from being elected to Town councils.

Christmas celebrations were prohibited by Puritans. The "Christmas tree" was introduced to the US by Karl Follen from pagan traditions in the 1860s. Follen was a Unitarian. It is a Winter Solstice celebration that pre-dates Christianity. And has been controversial amongst Christian sects for 2000 years.

>>>"It is a secular document."<<<

It is secular only in the sense that it specifically prohibits the congress from respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. There was no prohibition against practicing Christianity, in general, at either the state or federal level. In fact, one of the first acts of the House of Representatives was to establish the position of chaplain to conduct daily prayer.

Jefferson understood that the original intent of the founders was to limit the powers of the general (federal) government on the matter of religion, not the state governments, as follows:

"I consider the government of the U S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment, or free exercise, of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the U.S. Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority." - January 23, 1808.

While Jefferson was President of the United States, he also served as the chairman of the committee on education for the public schools in Washington, D.C. He demanded that two books MUST be taught in D.C. public schools: the Bible and Watts Hymnal.

Two days after Jefferson sent the letter to the Danbury Baptist Association he attended public worship services in the U. S. Capital building. Did you know that he authorized the use of the War Office and Treasury building for church services? That he provided, at the government's expense, Christian missionaries to the Indians? That he put chaplains on the government payroll? That he provided for the punishment of irreverent soldiers. That he sent Congress an Indian treaty that provided funding for a priest's salary and for the construction of a church for the missionaries to the Indians so the Indians might be won to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and, thereby, civilized?

In 1822, four years before his death, Jefferson wrote, "In our village of Charlottesville, there is a good degree of religion, with a small spice only of fanaticism. We have four sects, but without either church or meeting-house. The court-house is the common temple, one Sunday in the month to each. Here, Episcopalian and Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist, meet together, join in hymning their Maker, listen with attention and devotion to each others' preachers, and all mix in society with perfect harmony."

Also in 1822, he wrote, "In our annual report to the legislature, after stating the constitutional reasons against a public establishment of any religious instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging the different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of their own tenets, on the confines of the university, so near as that their students may attend the lectures there, and have the free use of our library, and every other accommodation we can give them; preserving, however, their independence of us and of each other."

The current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, William Rehnquist, got it right when he said, "There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the framers intended to build a wall of separation . . . the "wall of separation between church and State" is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned."

>>>"There is not a single reference to 10 Commandments. No one seriously thinks our laws are based on them."<<<

Not unless you recall that we have penalties for perjury, murder, theft, and, until fairly recently, adultery. Also many states had restrictions for certain activities on Sunday. Some notables considered that all our laws were based on them, as follows:

"The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code... laws essential to the existence of men in society and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws." - John Quincy Adams

"[L]aw, natural or revealed, made for men or for nations, flows from the same Divine source: it is the law of God... Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine... Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other." - James Wilson, Signer of the Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court Justice

"The duties of men are summarily comprised in the Ten Commandments, consisting of two tables; one comprehending the duties which we owe immediately to God-the other, the duties we owe to our fellow men." - Noah Webster

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shalt not covet" and "Thou shalt not steal" were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free." -- John Adams

>>>Indeed, in Colonial times, several colonies expressly forbade "clergy and pastors" from being elected to Town councils.<<<

Yet, many laws of the early colonies were based specifically on bibilical teachings. After the constitution was adopted, several tates required a religious test for public office (the 10th Amendment gave them that authority).

No offense, but on the matter of constitutional interpretation you sound an awful lot like the ACLU.