Here is the Preamble of the Constitution:
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary forone people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them withanother, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equalstation to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decentrespect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causeswhich impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men arecreated equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienablerights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, governments are institutedamong men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Thatwhenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is theright of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government,laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in suchform, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments longestablished should not be changed for light and transient causes; andaccordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed tosuffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing theforms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuinginvariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolutedespotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government,and to provide new guards for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; andsuch is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systemsof government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history ofrepeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishmentof an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submittedto a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome andnecessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate andpressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent shouldbe obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation oflarge districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right ofRepresentation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidableto tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for thesole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, foropposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, tocause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable ofAnnihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; theState remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion fromwithout, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of theseStates; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners;refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising theconditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusinghis Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for thetenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hitherswarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armieswithout the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of andsuperior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to ajurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws;giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment forany Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trialby Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretendedoffences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in aneighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, andenlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fitinstrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our mostvaluable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaringthemselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of hisProtection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt ourtowns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreignMercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, alreadybegun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in themost barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on thehigh Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners oftheir friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and hasendeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless IndianSavages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of allages, sexes and conditions.
He has waged cruel war against human natureitself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons ofa distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them intoslavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in theirtransportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidelspowers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. He hasprostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibitor to restrain this execrable commerce determining to keep open a market whereMEN should be bought and sold: and that this assemblage of horrors might wantno fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise inarms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, bymurdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off formercrimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which heurges them to commit against the lives of another.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned forRedress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answeredonly by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every actwhich may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittishbrethren.
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by theirlegislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigrationand settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity,and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow theseusurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections andcorrespondence.
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and ofconsanguinity.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, whichdenounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind,Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States ofAmerica, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of theworld for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority ofthe good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these UnitedColonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that theyare Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all politicalconnection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to betotally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have fullPower to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, andto do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firmreliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to eachother our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Here is the introduction of the Bible:
Genesis 1 King James Version (KJV)
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Okay, so I don't know about you, but I'm not seeing a similarity here. Two different balls of wax. None of the words are the same, and the ideals put forth are totally different. Oh, it doesn't matter? why, sure it does. The Founding Fathers of our country were not all Christian. Most of them were Deists, as in they believed in a creator, but, don't state what their faith is, and were also the push behind public education.
The link for the faith of our Founding Fathers is here: http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/4846-faith-of-the-founding-fathers
And here: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1272214/The-Founding-Fathers-Deism-and-Christianity
It stands to reason, that this is true, because of the fact that in England, back in the day, whomever was king, assigned the national religion or faith, and if another group ended up taking over, the new regime set the new national religion. We have also read from other history books, that much of the European countries have had their fair share of the religious wars, and it was one Christian sect against another. To eliminate the issue, for a totally free country, our Founding Fathers put in the First Amendment about religion, because the will to practice how you see fit is considered of utmost importance with the freedom of press, peaceful assembly, speech and petitioning our government. To say the USA is a Christian nation does not stand the test of the Constitution. We are all here to be able to practice our faith at will.
Traditionally, until Ben Franklin founded the first university, many children were home schooled. But, the founding fathers realized that seriously? Not every parent was available to teach their children, but not all parents are fit to be home school teachers. They prided themselves on the fact that an educated public is a well behaved public, and idle hands lead to mischief, to say the least.
The link for the public school founding is here: http://www.nas.org/articles/u_s_founding_fathers_on_education_in_their_own_words
And here: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/founding-fathers-agreed-funding-public-education-is-not-a-debate/article_f05aa5b0-2fed-5c63-be1a-1b013cf49625.html
Oh, so you say I missed the boat? That the Constitution really is based on the Bible? Okay, here. Maybe a look at the Bill of Rights and The Ten Commandments comparison will give us a closer look at how the two beasts (our political system and our faith) are not even overlapping, much less being similar.
The Bill of Rights (which is our governmental 10 Commandments):
Amendment I - Freedoms, Petitions, Assembly
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.Amendment II -Right to bear arms
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.Amendment III - Quartering of soldiers
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.Amendment IV - Search and arrest
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.Amendment V - Rights in criminal cases
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.Amendment VI - Right to a fair trial
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed; which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence.Amendment VII - Rights in civil cases
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.Amendment VIII - Bail, fines, punishment
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.Amendment IX - Rights retained by the People
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.Amendment X - States' rights
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.Here is the 10 Commandments (The Constitution of the Bible):
Exodus 20 King James Version (KJV)
20 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.
18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.
19 And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.
20 And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.
21 And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.
22 And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.
23 Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.
24 An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.
25 And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
26 Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.
Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I love the fact that I get to be a universalist protestant, and you get to be what ever faith you want. This country was based off of the fact that as individuals, we are entitled to be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, Buddhist, Wiccan, or what suits you. If everyone were alike, we'd be talking to the walls.
What then, is it with the same sex marriage issue? Of course, we must remember, no matter what the verses state in the Bible, God never uses the term marriage, and does not outright define husband as a man, and does not define wife as being woman. So that definition is null and void about marriage between a man and a woman. So, if you want a Christian country, you would have to get rid of the preamble and ditch out on the ideas of our founding fathers. If you want to honor The Constitution, you need to accept the fact that all men are created equal, meaning that you can't stop some people from getting married thus having less rights than you do. And, if Jesus were here today? What would He do? He would accept those who are cast out to put them under His wing. More people need to practice the ideal of the Golden Rule "do unto others, as you'd have done unto you".
