God kept out of EU constitution

WorldNetDaily.Com ^ | Posted: May 29, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern | © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

[Bobby777]

THE NEW WORLD DISORDER

France leads charge to pander to Islamic immigrant populations

The draft European Union's proposed constitution leaves out mention of God and Europe's Christian roots, despite strong pressure from conservatives and the Vatican, and amid fear of alienating Islamic immigrant populations, reports the Italian news agency ANSA.

The long-awaited preamble to the document used the words "spiritual", "religious" and "humanistic" to describe Europe's heritage and references traditions in Europe "nourished by the Greek and Roman civilizations," but makes no reference to the deity.

The question of whether to include God in the EU's first-ever constitution has been a subject of intense debate in recent months as drafters attempted to cobble the document. Its purpose is to build cohesion within the EU as it expands eastward and grows from 15 to 25 member countries next year.

All current members are formally Christian states, but most make no reference to their Christian roots in their respective constitutions and keep church and state separate.

But many of the 10 countries due to join next year, led by the largely Roman Catholic Poland, wanted "Christian values" mentioned in the constitution.

Poland is due to hold a referendum June 7-8 on whether to join the EU. Cardinal Jozef Glemp, the Polish primate, has said he supports EU entry "but only with God," reports Agence France-Presse.

Likewise the Roman Catholic primate in Hungary, Monsignor Peter Erdoe, is clear on what the union should be founded on.

"Without Christianity, the heart of Europe would be missing," Agence France-Presse quotes Erdoe as saying.

Pope John Paul II also lobbied European leaders for "a clear reference to God and the Christian faith to be formulated in the European constitution."

Former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton formally proposed including a mention of Christianity. He told EUobserver.com, an independent website based in Belgium, he believes "a greater reference should be made to the fact that many Europeans derive something beyond humanity - this would apply to those who believe in all the major religions."

Secularist countries, led by France, contend pluralist modern Europe is beyond the need to reference religion, according to ANSA. Leaders also stressed a reference to "Christian values" would make it more difficult to accept a mostly Muslim country such as Turkey.

In an editorial, Scandinavia's largest daily newspaper, the Swedish Aftonbladet, said referring to Christian values in the constitution and placing them above other values would be a "huge mistake" because it would "exclude groups and raise new walls."

ANSA reports several countries were nervous about creating resentment among their large Islamic immigrant populations.

"We are very glad a reference to God has been left out, it would have created unnecessary barriers in Europe," Terry Sanderson, vice president of the UK's National Secular Society, told EUobserver. "Europe has to be secular for it to be really unified."

Giscard d'Estaing, a former French president and the head of the Convention on the future of Europe, the body charged to draft the constitution, earlier indicated a compromise was possible by having the preamble mention religion. There is no mention of God or religious values in the main body of the text.

Penning the article himself, Giscard dashed the hope of compromise he had raised.

The 105 convention delegates will debate the latest draft starting tomorrow. The individual EU governments will then have the final say.

Editor's note: The May edition of WND's monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled "THE NEW WORLD RE-ORDER, shows how decisions made in the next few months will determine to a great extent whether America remains a free, constitutional republic or yields its freedom to the rule of international law administered by the United Nations.

[Consort]

Mostly copy and paste.

[Kerberos]

"It's all cut and paste."

Yeah I figured it was all cut and past but I wanted to know how you had put it together. It is a great compilation.

Thanks for the info.

[Spottys Spurs]

"France leads charge to pander to Islamic immigrant populations "

France will be "toast" in a few more years! If their Muslim population doesn't cause its downfall, other members of the EU, who will be sick and tired of France's politics and its attempts to "lead" Europe (ha! talk about an oxymoron), will finally take steps to limit its control.

[Consort]

Like I said, search for Gods, Deities, Pantheons, etc. and copy the names you want into Notepad or Word, etc, and format it any way you want. It didn't take me long to do it. For example: This site has several links to names of deities around the world.

[yonif]

God help them.

[freedumb2003]

>>and, don't forget that i'm a tree worshipper and want my tree gods in there! <<

Don't forget Gozer!

[KittyKares]

You should have hand-typed them all; you might have ended up in another dimension with no world strife ;-)

[Clinging Bitterly]

>> I don't get what you all have against metric.

It may be that some of us view weights and measures as we do the English language. It's part of our culture, and we don't want the government trying to change that.

[patriciaruth]

part of our culture

Pounds and shillings and quids were part of our culture in 1788, but we abandoned them for our own decimal based (metric) monetary system of dimes and dollars.

Quarts/gallons and pecks/bushels and acres/rods and feet/yards are insane to figure out the math. And they are English units of measure based on things like the length of King Henry's foot, whereas many people in America have no English cultural/ethnic background or come from backgrounds like mine where we kissed off the British crown in 1776 and joined the militia.

Saying it's cultural is not an argument that cuts it with me. Saying it would be expensive in a time of economic challenge is a valid argument, however.

[Clinging Bitterly]

>> many people in America have no English cultural/ethnic background

True, many don't, but I think most did, or at least were dominant at the time of the Declaration of Independence and the designing of our new government. The ancestors on my father's and mother's side both came to America about 100 years before the landing of the Mayflower, one side from Sussex and the other from Scotland.

The country's legal system, and that of every state save one, is based on English common law. I believe the system of weights and measures is part of that. That our monetary units were set up as base 10 is probably a blessing, but it's a single exception to what's otherwise been followed here for some 500 years.

>> Quarts/gallons and pecks/bushels and acres/rods and feet/yards are insane to figure out the math.

Doesn't bother me at all. I can work with both systems with equal ease, but I am the one people come to in my office to do their English/metric conversions - the others would just as soon deal with feet and tons.

>> ...or come from backgrounds like mine where we kissed off the British crown in 1776 and joined the militia.

I don't think our independence was fueled by ill regard for the British system, so much as it was a revolt against the Monarch himself. Indeed, the rights that we recognized as being inalienable then were not much different from those Brits had enjoyed for some 500 years prior. The colonists' beef was that King George had ceased to recognise them as being applicable to the settlers here. The only things that were changed much at all were only changed after much debate - and this includes the matter of whether or not we would have a king and queen. I think they went the right way on the nobility question, but it was not assured at the outset (and we had a couple of clans in the last century who seemed to have been trying to change even that - thankfully one of them is nearly extinct, but we still need to be vigilant about the other).

Dave in Eugene

[patriciaruth]

The ancestors on my father's and mother's side both came to America about 100 years before the landing of the Mayflower, one side from Sussex and the other from Scotland.

Is this a typo?

[MattAMiller]

Hey, they actually got something right. We don't have God in our constitution either and it works for us.

[Green Knight]

Wow, those are possibly the STUPIDEST comic characters I have ever seen in my life. Who is it that publishes that garbage? Inquiring minds want to know.

I was about to say that Captain America would kick his butt in a heartbeat, but Captain America's become so sissified and PC lately that he'd probably hold hands with Captain Euro and sing kumbaya.

Oh, and Europa and her "Gaia Theory". What the hell's the Gaia Theory?

[F16Fighter]

"Why didn't the EU just copy Communist Manifesto for their constitution? It would've saved all the hard work spent on this document and said virtually the same thing."

Heh!

[Bobby777]

. We don't have God in our constitution either and it works for us.

true. but as a point of clarification He is mentioned twice in the Declaration of Independence as "Creator" and "Nature's God" IIRC ...

[dennisw]

The Euros are keeping that space blank and reserved for Allah when the Muzzies take over Europe.

[Bobby777]

that may just be the case ... given the demographic shift in progress ...

[Clinging Bitterly]

>> Is this a typo?

Well, yes and no. I had intended to make reference to the time of the Declaration of Independence, but the lifetimes that spanned the turn of the 16th/17th centuries got me thinking Mayflower. I have some references to dates and places that were written by family menbers in the past 50 years, but the only thing that's verifiable is an arrival in New Haven, CT in 1639, of a group of English Puritans, one of whom was an ancestor, who then bought the land that became the town of Guilford. It is said that the other line from which I descend (my dad's side) arrived among the Quakers into MA circa 1650. There's not much written that actually ties my family to this group of immigrants. It seems the Quakers were not highly regarded by the Puritans. The debate then was whether to have them hanged, or to "be stripped naked from the middle upwards, and tied to a cart's tail and whipped through the town". Whatever else happened to them, their books and historical documents were confiscated and burned.

Dave in Eugene

[patriciaruth]

As I recall the Mayflower carried the first settlers to the future United States that have descendants here, as the settlers in the earlier Virginia colony were all wiped out.

Thus your ancestors couldn't have arrived 100 years before the Mayflower, unless they were just exploring and then went back to England. Of course, they could have come 100 years before the Declaration of Independence.

My father used to do genealogy research and had a large library. When I moved him and mother into a retirement complex, I gave most of his library and research to the Mormons. It was quite a treasure trove.

[Clinging Bitterly]

>> ...to the Mormons

Funny, we are discussing connections with early settlers, who ostensibly came here to avoid religious persecution, and I have connections to the Quakers and you seem to have Mormon history (or was that material donated to them just for their interest in geneology?).

In my father's bloodline, he was the last observing Quaker, and his sister became more of a Unitarian. His sister's offspring ignore religion altogether, and I am a believer who does not participate in any religious organization. The last church I went to was a Southern Baptist congregation, and when the pastor said I should continue attending regularly or I would probably go to hell...