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I'd like to point out that it should defend a persons right to atheism as much as it defends others' rights to theism.
And idle Christian rhetoric is no longer an integral part of our society as it was back then. Jefferson was barely a Christian, if at all, yet he used that language.
While I agree with you fully that it should, I'm against the modern trend of finding stuff in the Constitution that people think "should" be in there that is in fact not in there. If Congress wants to write an atheist protection act, by all means. Yet, as was pointed out, someone thought there should be a separation of church and state written into the Constitution, but if that was the original intent, the Constitution itself would have been broken by writing it. Or, more accurately, the way people interpret the interpretation would mean the Constitution was unconstitutional. I would argue that an official state sponsored religion, much like they escaped from in England, is different than an abstract notion of a higher being. With the exception of atheists and polytheists, a God with a capitol G isn't exclusionary to Christianity.
And personally I don't buy the argument that any religious references were merely part of the lingo of the day. Founding documents are hardly the place for that and doesn't explain the ten commandments being etched into the side of the Court itself. It was symbolic, not fashion.
People have every right to disagree in principle with the values and history of the founding of this country, but rewriting it out of the history isn't the way to go about it.
Dammit, you guys sucked me in again!
Edited by SE_Sport_Driver (02/10/2005 17:30)
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Brad B.