WHOSE BELIEF SYSTEM?
By William J. Federer

The ACLU, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and similar groups, want "under God" taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance, Ten Commandments removed from public places, prayer prohibited in schools, teachers fired for wearing cross necklaces, etc.

At the same time, the ACLU defends pornography, abortion, polygamy, North American Man-Boy Love Association, and prints "Getting Hitched in Canada" - a guide for homosexual marriage. (see aclu.org)

These groups state they simply want the government neutral with regards to "religion." Their argument sounds reasonable...until one looks up the definition of "religion."

Random House Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language defines "religion" as: "a set of beliefs." Webster's New World Dictionary defines "religion" as: "a system of belief."

The word "belief" is defined as opinions, convictions - thoughts upon which one bases their actions.

Thus, it follows, that as long as a person is doing "actions," they have thoughts preceding those actions - and that collection of thoughts is that person's "system of belief" or "religion."

As long as the government is doing "actions," the government has thoughts preceding those actions - and that collection of thoughts is the government's "system of belief" or "religion."

So there can never really be a separation of "religion" and government - as long as the government is doing "actions" there are thoughts or beliefs underlying those actions.

The ACLU is not trying to be "religion" neutral, but, in fact, it is promoting a religion - a "non-deity-based" secular humanism system of belief.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Abington Township v. Schempp (1963), wrote:

"The state may not establish a 'religion of secularism' in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus 'preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.'...Refusal to permit religious exercises thus is seen, not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism."

The U.S. District Court, in Crockett v. Sorenson (W.D. Va. 1983), wrote:

"The First Amendment was never intended to insulate our public institutions from any mention of God, the Bible or religion. When such insulation occurs, another religion, such as secular humanism, is effectively established."

WHOSE BELIEF SYSTEM?

The question is not whether a religion should or should not be in government, the question is whose religion - whose belief system - will be the basis for the government actions.

The new "non-deity-based" belief system was demonstrated as intolerant when winning Nebraska football Coach Ron Brown was turned down for a coaching job at Stanford University because of his faith. The Daily Nebraskan (4/13/02) reported:

"Pat Tetreault, co-chairwoman of the Committee of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns at University of Nebraska at Lincoln, stated 'We shouldn't be discriminating on religion either, but you get into a slippery slope on whose belief system you value more.'"

"DEITY" vs "NON-DEITY" BELIEF SYSTEMS

Belief in a Supreme Deity was acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence: "All men are endowed by their CREATOR"; in Oaths of Office: "So Help Me GOD"; on Coins: "In GOD We Trust"; in the Gettysburg Address: "This Nation, Under GOD", etc. Even the U.S. Supreme Court, in Zorach v. Clauson (1952), admitted: "Our institutions presuppose a SUPREME BEING."

Benjamin Franklin' wrote in his Maxims and Morals:

"Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God."

Samuel Adams wrote in The Rights of the Colonists, 1772:

"The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty...may best be understood by reading and carefully studying the institutions of The Great Law Giver and the Head of the Christian Church."

Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781, wrote:

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God?"

Alexander Hamilton stated:

"Natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator, to the whole human race; and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice."

Thomas Paine wrote in The American Crisis, December 23, 1776:

"Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated."

Herbert Hoover remarked at a reception on his 80th birthday, 1954:

"Our Founding Fathers did not invent the priceless boon of individual freedom and respect for the dignity of men. That great gift to mankind sprang from the Creator and not from governments."

President Harry S. Truman stated in a letter to John L. Sullivan, 1949:

"America is dedicated to the conviction that all people are entitled by the gift of God to equal rights and freedoms...Our greatness is and will be measured by the degree of our recognition of this fundamental truth."

President Ronald Reagan stated at the Presidential Medal of Freedom Ceremony, 1993:

"History comes and goes, but principles endure and insure future generations to defend liberty - not a gift from government, but a blessing from our Creator."

President Geroge W. Bush, in his State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003, stated:

"Liberty is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity."

CONCLUSION

America's founders had a "deity-based" belief system.

Why? Because:

1) Your RIGHTS cannot be taken away by the government if they come from a power "higher" than the government - i.e. God;

2) There are no second class citizens if each person is EQUAL because each is made in the image of God;

3) You can live in freedom with few laws if the populous keeps internal laws because they are conscious of their ACCOUNTABILITY to God.

Government cannot be religion "neutral." It will always have thoughts underlying its actions. It will always have a belief system - a religion. The choice is whose belief system will be the basis for the government's actions.

If our founder's "deity-based" belief system is removed, then what is based on that belief also ends.

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Three Secular Reasons why America should be Under God
By William J. Federer

Do you like having rights the government cannot take away? Do you like not being a second class citizen? Do you like a country with few laws?

These ideas have origins.

1. - INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS

To have individual rights the government cannot take away, rights must come from a power "higher" than government.

The Declaration states "all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men"

In other words, your rights come from God and government's job is to protect your rights.

In his Inaugural Address, 1961, President John F. Kennedy put it this way: "The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God."

But if there is no God, where do the rights come from except from the "generosity of the State." The State, then, becomes the new god. And what the State giveth, the State can taketh awayeth.

This was espoused by German philosopher Hegel, who influenced Marx and Hitler. Hegel did not believe in the existence of God and thought the closest anyone could come to attaining "eternal life" was to create a government that would exist after their death. Thus Communism teaches that citizens exist for the benefit of the State.

Without God, government transitions from being our servant to our master.

President Harry S. Truman addressed the Attorney General's Conference, 1950:

"The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount…If we don't have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State!"

2. - EQUALITY

President Calvin Coolidge stated in 1924: "It seems...perfectly plain that...the right to equality...has for its foundation reverence for God. If we could imagine that swept away...our American government could not long survive."

The concept of a country where there are no second class citizens, where all citizens are equal before the law, having an equal vote in elections, is based on equality before a Supreme Being.

Harry S Truman stated in his Inaugural Address, 1949: "We believe that all men are created equal, because they are created in the image of God."

But the logic follows, if there is no God - then men are not only not "created," they are not "equal," as Darwin espoused, some are more evolved than others.

In his "Descent of Man," Darwin referred to Africans and Aboriginal Australians as "savages" and stated: "Civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world…The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."

This concept influenced the Dred Scott Case, 1856, which stated slaves "had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order...so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit."

This influenced Margaret Sanger, who, prior to World War II, founded Planned Parenthood and hired Nazi Party member Ernst Rudin as her advisor. In her book "Pivot of Civilization" (1922), she called for "The elimination of 'human weeds'...overrunning the human garden;...for the cessation of 'charity' because it prolonged the lives of the unfit; for the segregation of 'morons, misfits, and the maladjusted'; and for the sterilization of genetically inferior races."

Sanger's thought influenced Hitler to consider the German, or "Aryan," race as "ubermensch," supermen, being more advanced in the supposed progress of human evolution. This resulted in their perverted effort to rid the "human gene pool" of "untermensch" - races considered less evolved, through the gas chambers. Stalin followed this example, exterminating 25 million Ukrainians.

If we chose to depart from President Truman's belief, "that all men are created equal because we are created in the image of God," the potential consequences are frightful.

3. - FEW LAWS

President John Adams stated in a letter to the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, October 11, 1798:

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

In other words, our Constitution was designed to govern people who could govern themselves. We could get by with few laws if people had an internal law.

British Statesman Edmund Burke stated in "A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly," 1791:

"What is liberty without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils…it is madness without restraint. Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without."

Robert Winthrop, U.S. Speaker of the House in 1849, stated:

"All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man."

To be a country with "few laws," citizens must have internal laws for there to be order, but internal laws are powerless unless there is a consequence, such as being held accountable to a Supreme Being in some future state.

Benjamin Franklin wrote to Yale President Ezra Stiles, March 9, 1790:

"The soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its conduct in this."

Daniel Webster, Secretary of State for three U.S. Presidents, was once asked what the greatest thought was that ever passed through his mind. He replied "My accountability to God."

This accountability is expressed in all three branches of government: President's oath of office: "So Help Me God"; Congressmen and Senators' oath: "So Help Me God," and witnesses' oath in court to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - "So Help Me God."

The idea of an oath was to call a higher power to hold you accountable to perform what you said you would.

For example - it was known that witnesses or politicians would have opportunities to twist the truth or do dirty, backroom deals for their own benefit and never get caught. It was reasoned, though, that if a witness or politician believed God existed and was watching him, that person would hesitate when presented with the temptation. They would have a conscience. They would think "even if I get away with this unscrupulous action in this life, I will still be accountable to God in the next."

But if that same person did not believe in God and in a future state of rewards and punishments, then when presented with the same temptation to do wrong and not get caught, they would give in. In fact, if there is no God and this life is all there is, they would be a fool not to.

This is what President Reagan referred in 1984: "Without God there is no virtue because there is no prompting of the conscience."

William Linn, elected unanimously as the first Chaplain of the U.S. House, May 1, 1789, stated: "Let my neighbor once persuade himself that there is no God, and he will soon pick my pocket, and break not only my leg but my neck. If there be no God, there is no law, no future account; government then is the ordinance of man only, and we cannot be subject for conscience sake."

Linn's observation was demonstrated for the world when, after 80 years of atheism, the countries of the former Soviet Union were given liberty - the result was organized crime and the black market took control.

Indeed, from Bill Clinton to Enron, we see where absence of an internal law will take our country - crimes are only wrong if you get caught.

Unfortunately, the less internal moral code we have as a nation results in the government having to pass more external legal codes to keep order - and each new law takes away another little piece of our freedom.

IMPORTANCE TO AMERICAN GOVERNMENT

President Calvin Coolidge, unveiling to the Equestrian Statue of Bishop Francis Asbury, Washington, D.C., October 15, 1924, stated:

"Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive
our reverence for truth and justice, for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind. Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government."

Clarence E. Manion,  Professor of Constitutional Law and dean of the Notre Dame College of Law, was quoted in Verne Paul Kaub's book, "Collectivism Challenges Christianity," 1946:

"Look closely at these self-evident truths, these imperishable articles of American Faith upon which all our government is firmly based. First and foremost is the existence of God. Next comes the truth that all men are equal in the sight of God. Third is the fact of God's great gift of unalienable rights to every person on earth. Then follows the true and single purpose of all American Government, namely, to preserve and protect these God-made rights of God-made man."

President Ronald Reagan summed it up, August 23, 1984: "Without God there is a coarsening of the society; without God democracy will not and cannot long endure....If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under."