The First Amendment of the United States Constitution reads thusly:  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof: The same meaning of two words establishment and religion used by the founders must be determined to understand the amendment. According to Webster’s 1828 Dictionary it means, The act of establishing, founding, ratifying or ordaining. Definition 6 is The episcopal form of religion, so called in England.

That is the foundation for the use of the word in the First Amendment which can be verified by diligent research. In other words, the founders were not going to and did not allow the establishment of a national religion. Religion as used by them is defined by the first three entries in the Webster Dictionary. The definitions make it plain that God was the basis of the founder’s belief system when they used the word religion in the amendment. (Most of them had denominational background which also has to be considered in their use of the word religion.)

In addition, Article 6 complements the First Amendment: but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. It simply means that membership in any particular denomination cannot be used to deny someone a public office; but it does not mean that God can be denied by a potential office holder as the ungodly spout. Note that it says to any Office or public Trust under the United States. Early on, some states had religious requirements which were not in violation of Article 6. The 9^th and 10^th Amendments allowed that freedom for the individual states.

Having established the meaning of the words and the reason for the amendment, an issue that was caused by the Supreme Court must be addressed. It is popularly held that religion (belief in God) cannot be used by the government (1947 case Everson v. Board of Education) was issued by Justice Hugo Black who twisted the meaning of Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. It is further believed that the wall of separation exists in the Constitution which prevents using religion in government. Actually, it is government that cannot meddle to prevent religious belief from being used to run the government.

Justice Black and the others who made the ruling overlooked several points to arrive at their unconstitutional ruling. One, the amendment says Congress. What is it the Court didn’t understand about the definitive word Congress? The next problem was ignoring the 9^th and 10^th Amendments. There is nothing in the United States Constitution that prevents the individual states from exercising whatever type reverence to God or practice, or instruction that those in the various subdivisions of any state might choose. It is also noted that Justice Black ignored the words or prohibiting the free exercise thereof: The ruling most certainly blocked the free exercise of religion (belief in God) due to his deliberately wrong rendering of the plain meaning of the words and other content of the Constitution. It seems that the courts are all too eager to trample on the rights protected by the Constitution in order to appease the ungodly amongst the citizens.

It is undeniable that the various rulings of the many courts have undermined belief in God and have robbed society of the foundation that helps maintain a stable society at all levels. Humans by themselves without proper guidance are not capable of devising the needed rules to keep society operating properly within the bounds of what at one time was known as common decency by a law abiding citizenry.

The next part will link the needed foundation for morals and the fact that evolution cannot and does not give that foundation.

© 05-17-2013 DE

       Link to rulings of the United States Supreme Court.

 http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/church-state/decisions.html         

                                                      Next Ungodly Government Part II