Indians.
A century after Williams' death, our nation's Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution of the United States of America, and shortly thereafter the first ten amendments to the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights. The man responsible for authoring both bills, appropriately known as the Father of the Constitution' and the Father of the Bill of Rights', was James Madison, our nation's fourth president. He was also known as Thomas Jefferson's protg, and worked by his side in drafting and passing into law The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom'. In the first section of the document Jefferson expounds on various points including two points influential in Madison's First Amendment rights. Jefferson wrote, "The coercion of a person to make contributionsespecially monetaryto a religion he doesn't support is tyrannical and creates favoritism among ministers," and, "Civil rights do not depend on religious beliefs, and what a person thinks is no business of the government." In the second section Jefferson wrote, "...no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." Given this history it is without a doubt that Madison had the explicit intention of erecting a wall between church and state in our Bill of Rights that the Founding Fathers signed into law.
Today's Evangelicals understandably fear their lives being without purpose, and their entire belief system being nullified as gains in evolutionary-science march forth. Many fear the thought of not having an after-life, and the nothingness that life becomes when we as an organism die off. They fear the loneliness that could accompany being without god', and the autonomy they would be left with. They fear not having the comfort they feel from their spiritual protection, and the safety of the omnipresence watching over them. They see the social-society in America running amok from the civil chastity that comforts them. They see our children becoming more open with their sexuality, and more independent with their thoughts, and they fear its contagiousness. They fear their children growing up being influenced
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by Brian Burns
Mend The Wall
For many years now Evangelicals in America have been positioning themselves inside of Washington D.C., and
by Foxbaron
Somebody tell me when did we ever not have a seperation of church and state? It has always been that way since the Constitution
by Liz Orton
In school, you may have learned that the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights provided for freedom of religion, separation
The utterances, exposees and events of the past nine years have served as the ultimate justification for a separation
by Adam Burke
The Constitution of the United States of America is often considered the greatest political document of modern times. It
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The case for the separation of church and state
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