Redneck Mystic
Active Member
Today is the 248th anniversary of the signing of Colonial America’s Declaration of Independence, which begins:
Then follows a l-o-n-g list of the Colonists’ grievances against the King of England, which I do not include here.
Then comes the the declaration of independence:
Then come the signatures of the men who signed the document.
I highlighted in bold the 4 references to a Deity from which the signers of the Declaration of Independence drew their authority.
There is no mention of Christianity in the Declaration of Independence, whose principal author, Thomas Jefferson, was a Deist.
Many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Free Masons.
The 4 references to Deity do not resemble Christian names for God.
Amendment 1, US Constitution:
The Founding Fathers were acutely aware of how governments in Europe and the British Isles had become one with the Church and had persecuted, imprisoned and killed “heretics”. The Founding Fathers did not want that to happen in America. Thus, Amendment 1’s, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
After the Revolutionary War, the “Give me liberty, or give me death” signer of the Declaration of Independence, Patrick Henry, became the Governor of Virginia. He tried to get the Virginia Legislature to pass a law that effectively would make Christianity the state religion of Virgina. Thomas Jefferson and another signer of the Declaration of Independence, James Madison, who would become known as the Father of the Constitution and America’s 4th president, led the charge to defeat Patrick Henry's law.
Later, Jefferson cut out of his own Bible passages from the New Testament about things Jesus said, which Jefferson liked, and he made them into his own bible, which became known as The Jefferson Bible. The passages Jefferson liked were about living life differently, much easier to say than do.
Amendment 14, Section 1, US Constitution, made the Constitution and Amendments 1-10, known as the Bill of Rights, applicable to the States:
Every anti-abortionist I have known was a religious-right Christian. In the law is the doctrine, res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself.
Recently, Louisiana’s state legislature passed a law requiring The Ten Commandments to be displayed in Louisiana’s public schools. The Ten Commandments are part of the Jewish Scriptures and are in the Old Testament of Christendom’s Bible. How the 6 religious-right Justices on the US Supreme Court will rule on what Louisiana did is anyone’s guess.
Once upon a time, the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore, a far-right Christian, had the 10 Commandments installed in the Alabama Supreme Court building in Montgomery, the state Capital. During the Civil War, Montgomery was the Capital of the Confederacy after it was moved there from Richmond, Virginia.
From Wikipedia:
Clinton McGee was my criminal law professor at the University of Alabama School of law. After graduating from that law school, McGee joined the US Army and was sent to Germany to defend Nazis during the Nuremberg Trials.He was so good at defending Nazis that he was shifted to prosecuting them and they didn’t get off.
Some years after I graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law, Roy Moore enrolled there. Professor McGee nick-named Moore, “Fruitcake”.
During my last semester in law school, my infant son died of sudden infant death syndrome, I was disheveled, unable to think clearly. Professor MeGee told me the law clerk of a US District Judge in Birmingham had quit in the middle of his term with the judge, and I might wish to contact that judge about being his law clerk.
I wrote the judge a letter. He replied, inviting me to come see him. I drove from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham and we met in his chambers and mostly we talked about ourselves and hunting and fishing. He offered me the job. I memorialized him in the first chapter of A Few Remarkable Alabama People I Have Known, “He used to drink moonshine.”
Judge W. Clarence W. Allgood also cussed and did not attend church, and was the most Godly man I ever knew. His graveside service at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham was attended my more people than I ever saw at a graveside service.
A Few Remarkable People I Have Known is a free read at the internet library, archive.org, which is run by American colleges. Here’s a link to the free read.
A Few Remarkable Alabama People I Have Known : Sloan Bashinky : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
It also can be read at this link:
I actually do trust in God, as the result of countless direct experiences, but that doesn’t mean I trust God will intervene and save America from itself, or its karma, nor does it mean God will do what I want God to do.
