Founding Fathers, Christian Nation Myth, Freedom of Religion, Establishment Clause

Originally Posted On a Myspace Profile Blog -- January 24th, 2007.

(Part I of III) Founding Fathers, Christian Nation Myth, Freedom of Religion, Establishment Clause and ect.  
Founding Fathers on Christianity  

The United States: A Country Founded On Paganism 

Founding Fathers WIKI  

U.S. Constitution WIKI 

Freedom Of Religion WIKI 

Separation Of Church and State WIKI 

Let me start here.

Bill of Rights
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.

From: Wiki on Separation of church and state.

The separation of church and state is a political doctrine which states that the institutions of the state or national government should be kept separate from those of religious institutions. The concept has been a topic of political debate throughout history. Some denominations trace the principle back to the founding of Christianity 2000 years ago. The term "church" refers to religions and religious institutions in general and their relationship to government; in countries with religions more predominant than Christianity, the words mosque, temple, or synagogue are often substituted. However, the "church" is far more similar to the religious institutions of other monotheistic faiths. Other religions (such as The Baha'i Faith, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto, Sikhism, Jainism, and hundreds of animist faiths) have religious institutions with varying levels of authority within the faith. For example, there is no centralized Hindu "temple, " in the way that there is a centralized Roman Catholic Church. There is no contemporary dominant authoritative body for Taoists, Confucianists or Muslims. There is no similarity between religious institutions even inside monotheism.

In the United States, separation of church and state is sometimes believed to be in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and by legal precedents interpreting that clause, some extremely controversial. The Establishment Clause states that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" However, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment (one of the Reconstruction Amendments) makes the Establishment Clause and other portions of the Bill of Rights binding on state and local governments as well, although it is arguable that this restriction on state and local government existed in Article VI of the unamended Constitution and that the Fourteenth Amendment was a clarification on the limitation of government power. Many other democratic governments around the world have similar clauses in their respective constitutions.

The phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the Constitution, but rather is derived from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a group identifying themselves as the Danbury Baptists. In that letter, Jefferson uses the term "wall of separation between church and state" to show the Danbury Baptists that in both Connecticut and the entire United States, religious freedom is an inalienable right that government cannot take away. While Jefferson's letter is often cited by separationists to prove that the original intent of the First Amendment was complete separation of church and state, separationists either consider it irrelevant or might say that it supports the idea that the original intention of the First Amendment was to guarantee religion the freedom to exist without government influence, and say that it makes no mention of government being wholly separate from all religious activity. This is supported by Federal Government decisions on the matter, such as Supreme court Case 43 U.S. 127; 1844 U.S. LEXIS 323; 11 L. Ed. 205; 2 HOW 127, as well as Federal Government's past involvement in printing Bibles, and using the Bible as a textbook in public schools.

James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, wrote in the early 1800s, "Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States." Ulysses S. Grant also called for Americans to "Keep the church and state forever separate."

The belief that religious and state institutions should be separate covers a wide spectrum, ranging between one extreme which would secularize or eliminate the church, and theocracy, in which the government is an affiliate of the church. Some secularists believe that the state should be kept entirely separate from religion, and that the institutions of religion should be entirely free from governmental interference. Churches that exercise their authority completely apart from government endorsement, whose foundations are not in the state, are conventionally called "Free" churches.

(to be continued)
(Part II of III) - Founding Fathers, Christian Nation Myth, Freedom of Religion, Establishment Clause and ect.


In all actuality most of the founding fathers were not Christian..they were Diest and Freemasons who believed that everybody no matter their beliefs deserved to be able to practice their belief or non-belief without fear of persecution or anything of that nature.

Here are some quotes from one of the main-founding Fathers and third president:

Thomas Jefferson (the third President of the United States)

Jeffersons interpretation of the first amendment in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association (January 1, 1802):
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

From Jeffersons biography:
...an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, Jesus Christ...the holy author of our religion, which was rejected By a great majority in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Infidel of every denomination.

Jeffersons The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom:
Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on our opinions in physics and geometry....The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

From Thomas Jeffersons Bible:
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

Jeffersons Notes on Virginia:
Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these free inquiry must be indulged; how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse ourselves? But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?

Additional quotes from Thomas Jefferson:
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition of their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the alter of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth.

In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty; he is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear....Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it end in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue on the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others which it will procure for you.

Christianity...[has become] the most perverted system that ever shone on man....Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.

...that our civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics and geometry.

(to Be Continued)
(Part III of III) - Founding Fathers, Christian Nation Myth, Freedom of Religion, Establishment Clause and ect.

Some more of what they said:

Here are more of the Founding Fathers on religion:

Thomas Jefferson (the third President of the United States)

Jeffersons interpretation of the first amendment in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association (January 1, 1802):
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

From Jeffersons biography:
...an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, Jesus Christ...the holy author of our religion, which was rejected By a great majority in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Infidel of every denomination.

Jeffersons The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom:
Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on our opinions in physics and geometry....The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

From Thomas Jeffersons Bible:
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

Jeffersons Notes on Virginia:
Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these free inquiry must be indulged; how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse ourselves? But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?

Additional quotes from Thomas Jefferson:
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition of their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the alter of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth.

In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty; he is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear....Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it end in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue on the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others which it will procure for you.

Christianity...[has become] the most perverted system that ever shone on man....Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.

...that our civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics and geometry.


James Madison (the fourth President of the United States)

Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments:
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise....During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.

Additional quote from James Madison:
Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.


Benjamin Franklin

From Franklins autobiography, p. 66:
My parents had given me betimes religious impressions, and I received from my infancy a pious education in the principles of Calvinism. But scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself.

From Franklins autobiography, p. 66:
...Some books against Deism fell into my hands....It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quote to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations, in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.


Thomas Paine

From The Age of Reason, pp. 89:
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of....Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and of my own part, I disbelieve them all.

From The Age of Reason:
All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

From The Age of Reason:
The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion.

From The Age of Reason:
What is it the Bible teaches us? rapine, cruelty, and murder.

From The Age of Reason:
Loving of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has beside no meaning....Those who preach the doctrine of loving their enemies are in general the greatest prosecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches.

From The Age of Reason:
The Bible was established altogether by the sword, and that in the worst use of it not to terrify but to extirpate.

Additional quote from Thomas Paine:
It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible.


Ethan Allen

From Religion of the American Enlightenment:
Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian.

Amazing these men had the wisdom they had...


(The End) Here we are too: Just to give the Witches and Pagans of the Forum some added gratification;

Freedom of Religion: Amendment I;XIV

The Witches Federal Law Memorandum;

The First Amendment; 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 butt, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The Witches Federal Law Memorandum


Statement of the Facts:

Witchcraft in the United States is a living, growing religion. As a religion, Witchcraft is protected by the Constitution. The Law has the obligation to serve and protect Witches in their religious endeavors, equally as much as it protects the rights and freedoms of other groups. In the United States today, Witches are entitled to the same rights and protections as other groups under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

ISSUE I:

Is Witchcraft recognized as a legitimate religion in the United States?

Witchcraft is recognized in the United States as a legitimate religion. In 1985, Dettmer v Landon (617 F Supp 592) the District Court of Virginia pursuant to rule 52 (a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ruled that Witchcraft is a legitimate religion and falls within a recognizable religious category In 1986 in the Federal Appeals court fourth circuit. Butzner, J. affirmed the decision (799 F 2d 929) Since in most cases Federal law, even case law supersedes state law in this type of matter, the affirmation by judge Butzner clearly sets Witchcraft as a religion under the protection of constitutional rights. The Church of Wicca (or Witchcraft) is clearly a religion for First Amendment purposes.

Members of the Church sincerely adhere to a fairly complex set of doctrines relating to the spiritual aspect of their lives, and in doing so they have ultimate concerns' in much the same way as followers of more accepted religions. Their ceremonies and leadership structure, their rather elaborate set of articulated doctrine, their belief in the concept of another world, and their broad concern for improving the quality of life for others gives them at least some facial similarity to other more widely
recognized religions.

While there are certainly aspects of Wiccan philosophy that may strike most people as strange or incomprehensible. the mere fact that a belief may be unusual does not strip it of constitutional protection. Accordingly the Court concludes that the Church of Wicca. of which the plaintiff is a sincere follower. is a religion for the purpose of the free exercise clause." 1985 Williams. J. Dettmer v. Landon Supra. We agree with the district court that the doctrine taught by the Church of Wicca is a religion." Butzner. J. 19864th Circuit. Dettmer v. Landon Supra.

ISSUE II:

Does the practice of Witchcraft fall within the parameters of the First Amendment? protection clause?

The first amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of religious belief. The USCA states that a practice is a religion if it is for an individual a belief system for their whole life. The constitution does not wish to dictate what an individual should hold as a belief system or how it is practiced and will not enter into a ruling on that. "Court may not inquire into worthiness of parties' religious belief to ascertain whether they merit. First Amendment protection, but need only consider whether beliefs are 'religious' in parties' own scheme of things and whether their beliefs are sincere. USCA Const. Amend. I "To be a bona fide religious belief entitled to protection under either the First Amendment or Title VII, a belief must be sincerely held" and within the believers own scheme of things religious. USCA Const. Amend. 1: Civil Rights Act 1964 701 et seq., 717 as amended 42 USCA 2000e-16"

ISSUE III:

Are Witches entitled to rights under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

The equal protection clause is guaranteed to all people and groups. If one group of people is entitled to equal protection than all groups are. Witchcraft is accepted as a religion, therefore, Witches are entitled to the same protections as all other religious groups; under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. ³First and Fourteenth Amendments insures without qualification that a state may not forbid the holding of any religious belief or opinion, nor may it force anyone to embrace any religious belief or to say or believe anything in conflict with his religious tenets. USCA Const. Amend. 1, (14 Africa v. Anderson 542 F. Supp. 224.") (16 FPD 212-216)

ISSUE IV:

Are Witches entitled to the same rights and protections under State Laws. applicable to where they live, as they are under Federal Law?

USCA ARTICLE VII .. 2 states: ³This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be The Supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding."In light of the fact that Dettmer v. Landon supra, being a Federally Adjudicated case. it is thereby protected by the Constitution. No state can override this Federal adjudication. No Witch can be denied his/her civil liberty and right to be a Witch, open and free, in any state in the land; within the parameters of the Law.

CONCLUSION:

Witchcraft is a legally recognized religion in the United States and Witches are entitled to every right and protection for freedom of religion, including freedom from harassment and prejudice as every other recognized religion in the United States.

The United States Constitution, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. supports the right of all peoples in the United States to practice their own belief system and to enjoy this in each their own manner.

Lawyers and Law Enforcement Agencies have the obligation to protect the rights of all people in their religious endeavors, no matter what they may be, without bias or prejudice

Witches desire only to retain their right of religious privacy and to practice their Craft as they see fit within the parameters of the law.

* Therefore; Witchcraft is a legally recognized religion in the United States, as declared in 1985, Dettmer V. Landon (617 E Supp.529) the District Court of Virginia pursuant to rule 52a of the Rules of Civil procedure. Reaffirmed in 1986 in the Federal Appeals Court, Fourth Circuit, Butzner J. (592 F. 2d. 934) Henceforth, Witchcraft and Witches are protected under the United States Constitution (Amendment I;XIV)