The Ten Commandments vs. the U.S. Constitution

ToogoodReports.com ^ | 08/21/2003 | Lee R. Shelton IV

[tbird1]

WELL SAID!!
The colonists did not want a Church of England spectre
here.
tbird1

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP

[GOPcapitalist]

No! This is a false argument. An idiot's argument. If the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution did not apply, then STATE governments could impose religion on us at a local level, which is not true.

Actually, it was indeed true during the early years of the republic. No less a source than John Marshall explicitly ruled that the bill of rights restrictions applied only to the general government, not the states. See Marshall's ruling in Barron v. Mayor and City of Baltimore for the details.

http://www.constitution.org/ussc/032-243a.htm

[sheltonmac]

Very well stated.

[4CJ]

Thomas Jefferson was a deist. He did not believe in any religion but did beieve in God.

Another myth. TJ attended church services regularly - services held in the chambers of the House of Representatives.

Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, 21 Apr 1803:

To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.

On 4 Mar 1805 President Jefferson prayed a National Prayer for Peace:

"Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners."

"Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues."

"Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those whome in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of earth."

"In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen."

Thomas Jefferson to Charles Thomson:

Monticello, January 9, 1816.

I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw.

Thomas Jefferson was NOT a deist. He believed in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. A Christian.

[Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS]

"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."

• Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos

• AMENDMENT ONE - FREEPER rwfromkansas

In a 1798 letter to American military officers, President John Adams declared that "The Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the governance of any other." Chief Justice Roy Moore's installation of the Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama Judicial Building recognizes this truth. Chief Justice Moore does not violate the U. S. Constitution. The two federal courts who have ruled against him do. SUMMARY: Chief Justice Roy Moore's Case Defending The Display Of ...

HOSTETTLER AMENDMENTS PROHIBIT FUNDS TO ENFORCE COURT DECISIONS AGAINST PLEDGE, TEN COMMANDMENTS The amendment prohibiting funds for enforcement of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance passed 307-119. The second amendment, which blocks enforcement of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the Ten Commandments cannot be posted in the Alabama Supreme Court building, passed 260-161. United States Representative John N. Hostettler

The Congressional testimony presented in Congress, the Court, and the Constitution, explains how your representatives can ensure the federal courts comply with the Constitution.

Those who support Federalism contact your representatives about voting for Ten Commandments Defense Act of 2003 & Religious Freedom Restoration Act

Those who want incompetent federal judges removed, contact your representatives:

1. Impeaching Federal Judges: A Covenantal and Constitutional Response to Judicial Tyranny
2. It's Time to Hold Federal Judges Accountable
3. Congress Must Curb the Imperial Judiciary
4. WallBuilders | Resources | Impeachment of Federal Judges

The following will educate all but the most implacable anti-Christians on the Church/State issue:

• Federalism And Religious Liberty: Were Church And State Meant To Be Separate?
• Reply To Judge Richard A. Posner on The Inseparability of Law and Morality
• Memorandum of Law on the Constitutionality of Posting the Ten Commandments in Public Places

 

Solzhenitsyn's consistent resort to the context of religion for his social and political pronouncements is apparent in his Templeton Address of 1983, in which he speaks about his own country. He rehearses how he heard his elders explain all the horrors that that the Bolshevik Revolution had inflicted upon the citizenry by saying, simply, "Men have forgotten God. That is why all this has happened." And he goes on to say that if he were to give an account for all the horrors of our terrible twentieth century, he could do no better to provide a pithy explanation than to repeat what he had heard from his elders: Men have forgotten God" Solzhenitsyn On America

1785, If men are so wicked with religion,what would they be if without it? Franklin's Advice to Thomas Paine Regarding the Age of Reason

[E Rocc]

Thomas Jefferson was NOT a deist. He believed in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. A Christian.

Read carefully...he considered himself a follower of the doctrines of Christ, but not a worshipper of Christ as a divine figure. He believed that Jesus did not want to be worshipped. He did not appear to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God.

-Eric

[Protagoras]

Long on opinion, short on fact.

[E Rocc]

TEN COMMANDMENTS
King James Version
Exodus 20:1-17
1. And God spake all these words, saying,
2. I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
7. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
12. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
13. Thou shalt not kill.
14. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15. Thou shalt not steal.
16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I would say that the bolded parts of the Ten Commandments conflict with the First Amendment "free exercise" clause.

-Eric

[birdsman]

I must have been asleep when the 1st amendment was changed. I remember when there was a Free exercise thereoff clause in the amendment. Seems to me that if the people want that monument to stay, that they should have that right under the 1st amendment. What will the ACLU want next? Perhaps if people on (city owned) sidewalks can hear religious singing from within a church, it'll be unconstitutional? How about crosses in our national cemataries? Although I've never been inside the Washington Monument or the Jefferson and Thomas Memorials, I suspect that God is mentioned somewhere in these monuments, rendering them Unconstitutional. As our Declaration of Independence states that all men are CREATED equal instead of saying that all men have evolved equally, obviously our Declaration of Independence is unconstitutional. This means that we must still be a colony of England. At present, suggesting that singing inside a church when people can hear it on our sidewalks, crosses in our cemataries, and our national monuments are unconstitutional may sound too extreme even for the ACLU, but I fully expect them to make these kind of claims within 20 years. It's time to end this nonsense now, and stand up to these idiots in the ACLU and People for the antiAmerican Way.

[sheltonmac]

I must have been asleep when the 1st amendment was changed. I remember when there was a Free exercise thereoff clause in the amendment.

Most people change or simply drop the parts of the Amendment that do not fit in with their political philosophy:

Congress shall make no law Thou shalt not have any public display respecting an establishment of religion that is even remotely religious in nature, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

[4CJ]

Jefferson called himself a disciple of Christ.

A disciple of Christ is one who
(1) believes his doctrine,
(2) rests on his sacrifice,
(3) imbibes his spirit, and
(4) imitates his example
(Matt. 10:24; Luke 14:26, 27, 33; John 6:69).
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary

[Antoninus]

Thomas Jefferson was a deist. He did not believe in any religion but did beieve in God.

Jefferson also believed that the moral code set down by Christ was the "most perfect" that had ever been conceived--so much so that he actually created his own version of the Gospel for reference, removing all aspects of the miraculous. Look it up.

Most of the other founders, most notably John Adams, were very devout Christians.

[lawdog]

Thanks but I didn't originally say it but I can't find the source. I read this comment among the numerous articles etc. that I have read regarding the false "Seperation/Wall of Church and State" which is a 20th Century fabrication of the Court.

The quote cited nails the original meaning down to a tee. No sense in trying to reinvent the wheel.

[Precisian]

If TJ was such a "devout Chrisitan" how come he didn't partake of the Lord's Supper?

[tpaine]

Regarding religion, the First Amendment was intended to accomplish three purposes. First, it was intended to prevent the establishment of a national church or religion, or the giving of any religious sect or denomination a preferred status.

True enough. Congress could not 'respect an establishment' [a precept, dogma, rule, etc.] of any specific religion.

Second, it was designed to safeguard the right of freedom of conscience in religious beliefs against invasion solely by the national Government.

Solely? There's the rub. -- Our BOR's are part of the supreme law of the land, to which the states are bound therby. [Art. IV]

Third, it was so constructed in order to allow the States, unimpeded, to deal with religious establishments and aid to religious institutions as they saw fit.

The states must have a republican form of government. Thus they are impeded from establishing theocratic forms. [Art IV, Sec 4]

[Antoninus]

If TJ was such a "devout Chrisitan" how come he didn't partake of the Lord's Supper?

Where exactly did I say that? He wasn't what I consider a devout Christian. Then again, he wasn't some airy-fairy deist agnostic like so many of you try to portray him.