I don’t see much difference between the american liberal who holds up Obama , Clinton and Carter as divinely inspiresd and the american conservative that holds up Washington , Jefferson and Madison as divinely inspired. Niether can or did build a political or moral system of anything great that will stand the test of time.
Proclaiming something as self evident truth and Liberty in pursuit of happiness with no set laws of dogma that can’t be changed only can lead to, for example.. A gay person saying they have a right to marriage in pursuit of happiness and a pornographer saying his happiness is the ability and free right to be protected by law to produce pornography for his happiness
You can show speeches of men who spoke about Christian values, but they did not have the backbone to define them into something that could never change. Thus, we are we we are today because of their weakness
These ff’s did not share a united faith, they had many different beliefs with different set of moral beliefs about things like slavery and many other things.
We are less than one generation away from complete moral failure where the next group of WE THE PEOPLE will accept every moral atrocity there can possible be.
This experiment has failed!
The only moral truths that can’t be changed exist in Catholic/Orthodox churches - The Church Fathers are the real hero’s to be looked up to for a better society , not Jefferson, Clinton, Obama, Washington
Separation of Church and State was the death blow to this country
I do not wish to misunderstand what you say, or, as they say, “put words in your mouth.” So is it your assertion that you see no material difference between the phrase “Separation of Church and State,” and the Constitutional phrase, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”?
“This experiment has failed!”
I take it that by this, you refer to what has widely been termed “The Great American Experiment.” Strangely enough it is 0bama that would agree with you on this assertion. And we must assume Clinton and Carter as well, although I am not aware of a statement declaring so from either of these worthies as categorical as 0bama’s flat statement in his Osawatomie, Kansas speech of 7 December (of all days) 2011, that the “Great American Experiment” of free markets has never worked. Jefferson, or none of the others I mentioned (Adams, Washington, Franklin, Coolidge, even Paine, or many another) would agree with 0bama, but apparently you do. It’s true that 0bama has simply declared that this government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed has never worked ~ he has not called it a “Protestant botch.” But then, I can’t say that you have either (see Is America Just a Protestant Botch?, Crisis Magazine, or a discussion is to be found in Free Republic), 12/16/2011).
We are all familiar with the “failures” of the government our Founding Fathers put in place (God knows, they have been discussed enough), both real and fabricated. Likewise, we are also familiar with the manifold failures of various Socialist governmental systems or of various Theocracies that now exist or have in the past existed.
“The only moral truths that can’t be changed exist in Catholic/Orthodox churches - The Church Fathers are the real hero’s to be looked up to for a better society . . . ”
Fine. I’ve not before enjoyed a discussion with you, but I’ve had the privilege of perusing very interesting and valuable conversations between you and boop, so I know that you are a serious-minded Poster, interested in pursuing only matters of importance. But, I asked you a question (see #38, this thread), can you “advance and defend an alternative?”
I’m waiting.
Oh, I don't believe that at all, dear brother in Christ!
To me, the "separation of Church and State" is the secular analogue of Jesus' command to "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's." The First Amendment to the Constitution very faithfully defends this principle, clearly stating that "Congress (i.e., the State) shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion (i.e., the Church), or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
A terrific example of what goes wrong when the State and Religion are not kept distinct from each other is Islam. One can argue the same with respect to Nazi Germany; in both cases, State and Religion are inseparably blended.
The closest thing we Americans have to "holy writ" is the Declaration of Independence, a necessarily secular document — because America is not a Church, it is not a theology; it is a State organized first and foremost to protect the God-given liberties of the human individuals who compose it, of whatever religious commitments they may have, or even no religious commitment at all.
The DoI recognizes the Creator God who creates human individuals in whom He endues certain unalienable rights that no just State may pass laws against, interfere with, or revoke: LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS that life and liberty make possible. The entire federal Constitution that We the People ordained and established — to secure the God-given unalienable rights which are the hallmarks of human nature as created by God, "for the benefit of ourselves and our posterity" — is based on this understanding.
This is not a religious dogma; it is the simple recognition of "self-evident truths" about the human nature that God created that all people of the Founding generation believed. The truths are "'self-evident" because they flow from God and His Laws.
All the crimes of our society today have occurred not because the Constitution has been "successful" in operation; rather they stem from the fact that elites in our society have determined that the Constitution is a dead letter. It is simply ignored by our political class, and is the target for destruction of the hounds of Hell that go by name of Left Progressives....
On my reading, Roe v. Wade is blatantly unconstitutional, because it denies there is a right to Life. The federal income tax (to me) is also unconstitutional, because it is little more than a license to impoverish the People under the color of law (not to mention that it trashes the principle of "equal protection" set forth in the Fourteenth amendment; plus then laughably tells us that the payment of tax is "voluntary." Of course, if you don't "volunteer," your assets will be seized and you will go to jail).
"Same sex marriage" is just a ploy to change the meaning of the very word "marriage." IMHO, marriage is none of the federal government's business anyway. And so forth and so on....
We live in mendacious, corrupt times. If we had simply stuck with the wisdom of the Framers and the Constitution they wrote — which is premised on a divine Creator God and His relations with His human children, and their relations to each other — we'd probably come as close to Justice in this world as is possible for mortal men.
God has blessed America — I pray He will not abandon us now. May He empower the "saving remnant" who are the people of Spirit and Faith and Hope and Love in Christ, that this nation "may not perish from this earth."
And may God bless you, dear stfassisi!