Politics AND religion - LR's favs
https://sites.google.com/site/anotherdaysjourneybackhome/pray-for-america George Washington's Letter to the Touro Synagogue of Newport, Rhode Island, 1790
“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.”
"The Wall of Separation", Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists, Jan 1, 1802
https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpost.html Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate 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 eternal separation between Church & State.
http://www.christianity.com/church/churc...n-11630340.htmlThe inspired brilliance of the Founders was in:
1. Protecting individual exercise of religion from the state
2. Protecting the state from a theocracy
3. Protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority
They would have been astounded at the idea that our Nation was not established under Judeo/Christian principles and that religion should have no voice/influence in affairs of the state however.
Maybe THIS will get this stinkin' thread deleted!
