INDY500 said:
America was founded to be a free nation, not a secular one.
ah, but you can't have one without the other.
and Jefferson knew that.
I'm sure you've visited the Jefferson Memorial. It's right there, in stone.
i have. and Jefferson was pretty far out and brilliant.
i've said that i think the impetous behind the DOI, and Jefferson, is the idea that Bono has talked about -- the idea of the shepherd coming in from the field, smelling of shit, and pointed to the king and saying, "in the eyes of God, i am your equal." revolutionary. moving. powerful. and that idea can be a powerful motivator for social justice -- it's not so much "what if not but for the grace of God that were me" and more "that is me" when we look at the child with AIDS in Africa, when we hear about Iraqi storekeepers have their eyeballs drilled, when there's a cholera outbreak after a mudslide in the Phillippeans.
if we are all from the same place -- God -- then we all have the same rights, and those rights never go away.
beautiful. lovely. i'm a fan.
but that's as far as it goes. Jefferson knew, as did they all know looking back across the water at Europe, that man makes God to fit his institutions. and who's a more powerful authority than God?
hence, we remove man's notions -- and all religion is a man-made notion -- of the Almight/Common Creator/God from the institutions themselves ... but not from the
people who manage those institutions ... and, voila, you have tangible freedom and opportunity.