http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28288
Amendment: Separation of atheism and state
Bob Just

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. . . . In vain would that
man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these

pillars of human happiness."
- George Washington's farewell address
Imagine that it was not the 9th Circuit, but the United States Supreme

that made the "under God" decision. Imagine that instead of two nervous
circuit judges, it was five brazen Supreme Court Justices declaring the
Pledge unconstitutional in some nightmare future years from now - five
secular devotees who'd been patiently waiting for a chance to save
government from the "ancient superstitions" of its people. And soon more
secular decisions come down from the high court: "In God We Trust" is
rejected as the national motto. Prayers are forbidden at inaugural
ceremonies. And on and on.
No second chance. No appeal. The Supreme Court has spoken, and as far as
government is concerned, "God is dead." Yes, you can worship at home or in
church, says the court, but don't you dare act on your beliefs in the

square.

secularism, but nothing can be done. With a powerful secular media
cheerleading and a huge secular lobby pouring money into Washington,

no real chance to correct the tyrannous

So now America becomes officially a nation under "nothing" - government no
longer recognizes any authority higher than its own democratic opinions, a
true "dictatorship of the people," as Lenin called it. Atheism is thus

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28288
Amendment: Separation of atheism and state
Bob Just

Imagine that it was not the 9th Circuit, but the United States Supreme Court
that made the "under God" decision. Imagine that instead of two nervous
circuit judges, it was five brazen Supreme Court Justices declaring the
Pledge unconstitutional

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28288
Amendment: Separation of atheism and state
Bob Just

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28288
Amendment: Separation of atheism and state
Bob Just

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28288
Amendment: Separation of atheism and state
Bob Just

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28288
Amendment: Separation of atheism and state
Bob Just

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. . . . In vain would that
man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great
pillars of human happiness."
- George Washington's farewell address
Imagine that it was not the 9th Circuit, but the United States Supreme Court
that made the "under God" decision. Imagine that instead of two nervous
circuit judges, it was five brazen Supreme Court Justices declaring the
Pledge unconstitutional in some nightmare future years from now - five
secular devotees who'd been patiently waiting for a chance to save
government from the "ancient superstitions" of its people. And soon more
secular decisions come down from the high court: "In God We Trust" is
rejected as the national motto. Prayers are forbidden at inaugural
ceremonies. And on and on.

No second chance. No appeal. The Supreme Court has spoken, and as far as
government is concerned, "God is dead." Yes, you can worship at home or in
church, says the court, but don't you dare act on your beliefs in the public
square. Finally, religious Americans awaken to see the dangers of
secularism, but nothing can be done. With a powerful secular media
cheerleading and a huge secular lobby pouring money into Washington, there's
no real chance to correct the tyrannous decisions with an amendment.
So now America becomes officially a nation under "nothing" - government no
longer recognizes any authority higher than its own democratic opinions, a
true "dictatorship of the people," as Lenin called it. Atheism is thus able
to rise to a legal dominance never seen before in America, never even
imagined. After all, atheism and secularism are twins - one doesn't believe
in God, and the other can't. The end result is the same: Believers are made
outsiders.

Sound farfetched? It isn't really. An Al Gore victory easily could have
given us a high court that looked like Judge Stephen Reinhardt, the Democrat
appointee who shared the "under God" decision with Judge Goodwin. The truth
is that even now we are only one or two secular Supreme Court Justices away
from a solid ACLU court, and all that it implies - virulent hostility to
America's religious traditions.

One amendment, under God
While so many in the media have been doing their best to make light of the
9th Circuit decision on the Pledge of Allegiance, others recognize the very
real dangers involved in that decision. By most accounts, the ruling is
likely to be overturned, but that doesn't change the sobering message that
was sent to all Americans.
As currently interpreted, our Constitution is choking our religious
traditions out of existence, and there seems to be no stopping it as the
"under God" Pledge decision indicates. Even with a supposedly conservative
Supreme Court, victories against the secular encroachments of government are
too rare, and when they do come, they are attacked on all sides by groups
like the ACLU. It is often a battle for inches.
Recently, a number of congressmen called for a constitutional amendment to
preserve "under God" in the Pledge, but we need more than that. We need
something more historically based, something capable of inspiring average
Americans by eliminating the relativist interpretations of the First
Amendment, something that would help our federal government reclaim its lost
identity.
With so many secular forces in society hostile to the faiths of our fathers,
it's time to codify the "self-evident" truths of the Declaration of
Independence by putting them in the Constitution.
Let us declare ourselves to history by re-establishing the simple, but
essential, political principle that we are uniquely created beings, precious
before God, and that our rights come from God and not from government. There
can be no neutrality in this where government is concerned. We either have
souls or we do not. Our nation is either under God, or it is not.
Of course, no one wants a theocracy, something repugnant certainly to
Christian Americans who are, after all, in the vast majority. However,
decades of overreaching by the high court indicate that secularism is not
the answer either. There must be a third choice, because as long as
"disbelief" is considered to be on an equal footing with "belief," not only
will faith find itself unwelcome in our halls of power, it will eventually
be removed from the body politic like a threatening tumor. This could happen
if we let it.
The case isn't closed
Consider the current situation. Michael Newdow, the atheist who sued to get
God out of the Pledge, says that right now there are four Justices he
believes are favorable to his view: David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsberg,
Stephen Breyer and John Paul Stevens. Newdow also lists Justice Anthony
Kennedy as a possible fifth vote, due to a 1989 church-state dissent in
which Kennedy pointed out that the "under God" Pledge is problematic for
atheists.
Although unlikely, it's also fair to consider Justice O'Connor as a possible
6th vote due to her stated position that citizens should not be made to feel
like "outsiders" by the state when it comes to religion. Let's face it, "one
nation under God" leaves atheists out, and it's no coincidence that Newdow
made this very point a significant part of his argument to the 9th Circuit.
Sadly, radical atheists like Newdow will always feel like outsiders in a
nation under God, and they will continue all efforts to undermine our
religious traditions. That's the reality of it. Newdow doesn't believe his
little daughter has a soul, or that her rights come from anywhere but
government. These beliefs are in direct conflict with the views of most
Americans. And yet, atheist views are more common than any of us would like
to think within America's judicial and political circles, the very people
who will define the future Supreme Court.
So don't be misled by my "shocked" fellow Democrats, and all the pundit
proclamations that the "under God" decision will go nowhere. For now, it may
not, but there's nothing "nuts" about the judicial thinking of the 9th
Circuit decision, and most liberal politicians know it, despite their
election-year religiosity.
It's true that many constitutional experts, including quintessential liberal
Lawrence Tribe, say it's likely the Supreme Court will reverse the 9th
Circuit if the case gets that far. However, whether the "under God" decision
goes anywhere now is not the point. There are many atheist, secular and
anti-traditional organizations in Washington that are determined to win this
fight eventually - and by current constitutional standards they have a case.
That's the problem.
"Nobody can say that the 9th Circuit was illogical," said Washington Post
columnist E. J. Dionne who, despite reservations, considered the decision
"principled." He is not alone among pundits and experts to think that. Yale
law professor Jack Blakin told Time magazine that the opinion was
"technically correct," and writing in Newsweek, famed legal analyst Stuart
Taylor called it "perfectly plausible."
Although Taylor felt the decision was almost certain to be reversed, he made
the larger point about the legal mess we are in. "As much as the ruling
overreached, the California court was clearly taking its cues from a higher
authority - the U.S. Supreme Court."
An ethical foundation built on sand
So, clearly the 9th Circuit decision did not occur in a vacuum. It followed
a well-established pattern of thinking that atheism is on an equal footing
with America's Judeo-Christian traditions. It also revealed another
established belief, that monotheism itself - the pumping heart of Western
Culture - is just another form of worship, essentially no different, as far
as the government is concerned, than, say, worshiping ancient Greek gods
like Zeus and Hera (pagan deities who were always squabbling over one thing
or another).
Does this sound like an exaggeration? Then consider the now-famous words of
Judge Goodwin in June's 9th Circuit majority opinion:
In the context of the Pledge, the statement that the United States is a
nation, "under God" is an endorsement of religion. It is a profession of a
religious belief, namely a belief in monotheism. . . . A profession that we
are a nation "under God" is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to
a profession that we are a nation "under Jesus," a nation "under Vishnu," a
nation "under Zeus," or a nation "under no god," because none of these
professions can be neutral with respect to religion.
This "neutrality" renders government completely dysfunctional. The bottom
line? If you are someone who thinks thunder happens "when the gods are
angry," or if you burn incense to a rock you found on the beach, or if you
believe in nothing at all, you've got as much potential credibility with
this new government as those who believe the biblical worldview that reveals
God as "love," that speaks of the struggle between good and evil, and
promises hope of true freedom and eternal peace for all mankind.
Increasingly, judges can view all these approaches to religion as
essentially equal - which constitutionally means government can have little
or no official understanding of life based on anything but atheist science,
whether physical, biological, social or psychological. And as we've seen
countless times, not only do these scientists change their minds regularly,
their conclusions are often based on faulty or prejudiced interpretation of
data. Not a very reliable source of wisdom.
This would be less of a problem if government were not involved in our lives
in almost every possible way, from decisions on when a cause is worth the
shedding of American blood to decisions related to family and the social
order. What are the standards that inform these decisions? Americans have a
right to ask this question, and demand a clear answer.
The one-God problem
Unfortunately, a government that's neutral to the great moral and
philosophical questions of the ages cannot give us intelligent or even
cogent answers to life's urgent questions. It was not always so. Consider
what a 1951 U.S. Naval Officers' training manual says about the need for
good character in military leadership (once assumed as essential for public
office too):
By character is meant integrity, courage, morality, humility and unswerving
determination. Character is a spiritual force. It is a reflection of a man's
grip upon himself, the degree to which he is able to dominate the baser
instincts that beset us all.
This is the kind of wisdom that created a truly great society. But current
court vogue (not to mention some future ACLU court) would look askance at
such presumptions. Atheists would object to the idea of a "spiritual force."
And the very expression "base instincts" suggests a lack of tolerance. Who
gets to decide what base instincts are? Whose morality are we talking about?
A recent Zogby poll reports that three-quarters of American college
professors still teach a post-modern worldview that accepts no universal
right or wrong. So if you cook the books at Enron, it may or may not be
wrong. Only one-fourth of all professors teach that "there are clear and
uniform standards of right and wrong by which everyone should be judged."
Guess which professors are more likely to get secular government grants.
A government that lays claim to neutrality on religious - and thus on
traditional moral - issues is a government that inevitably lacks dependable
standards. This kind of government will be very uncomfortable with any
religion that claims to have clarity on those issues - and that means
monotheism. Thus "neutrality" becomes hostility. George Washington's views
would not be welcome. However, the accommodating vagueness of polytheism and
pantheism doesn't present the same problem to secular government and is
therefore less threatening.
Remember, monotheism has One Creator, God, and thus one truth, and one path
along which people can be guided if they are willing. That's why monotheism
was such a social revolution. There's clarity on core principles - God knows
what He thinks. And there are no squabbling divine personalities because God
knows who He is. Monotheism is by its very nature a "theory of everything,"
a unified field of thinking which allows for great social focus in building
and maintaining civilization. So, when the judicial system tries to rise
above this and treat all religions equally, it will necessarily come face to
face with monotheism.
The other great problem is the court's constitutional respect for atheism,
which is, after all, the most vague of belief systems. But more than that,
atheism also assumes an air of secular neutrality because it believes in
nothing at all. This gives it a dangerous tactical advantage over monotheism
in dealing with secular government. If nothing is done about this,
government will continue to favor atheist organizations within society, and
ultimately to favor religions with an indifferent worldview. Monotheism,
with its sureness of vision and purpose, will become increasingly alien to
secular government, which looks for compromise from its religious junior
partners.
But God doesn't compromise, and He makes a very poor junior partner.
Consequently, under the current interpretation of the Establishment Clause,
monotheism will become an outcast in its own society.
Secular hostility
There is so little understanding of the anti-God bias involved in
government's secular "neutrality" that it is not only quietly accepted by
many judges, and even some justices, it is loudly cheered on by the dominant
media culture. Of course, often this cheering is not rooted in ignorance,
but based on downright contempt.
"We should all applaud the brave decision of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals," said the editorial page of the Philadelphia Daily News. "Let's be
honest about this issue - finally - after decades of mouth-frothing. The
word God doesn't belong in the Pledge, on our money, in anything with the
government's seal of approval."
Indeed, let's be honest. The New York Times called the 9th Circuit decision
a "well meaning ruling," and reminded its readers that "under God" became
part of the pledge "at the height of anti-communist fervor" in 1954. But
then the editorial went on to express its deeper sentiments. When it comes
to understanding the secular culture's contempt for religion, this comment
says it all:
The practical impact of the ruling is inviting a political backlash for a
matter that does not rise to a constitutional violation. We wish the words
had not been added back in 1954. But just the way removing a well-lodged
foreign body from an organism may sometimes be more damaging than letting it
stay put, removing those words would cause more harm than leaving them in.
Yes, nothing like trying to remove a "foreign body" and causing even greater
problems in terms of "political backlash." Better to wait until you have a
6-3 or even a 7-2 majority so you can cut God out cleanly and without much
opposition. Better wait until the public is more ready to accept full
secularism. In other words, now is not the time - but the time will come.
The secular left must be careful that religious Americans don't catch on to
the left's true contempt for religion, especially not in a crucial election
year. The left knows that if conservative America gets control of the
Senate, President Bush will get his judicial nominees approved and that
could mean a return to our traditional moral and political roots guided by
the Founders' original intent. Thus, the struggle in this country! And
remember, it is not a partisan struggle. One of the two 9th Circuit liberals
was a Republican. There are secularists in all parties.
The sleeping giant
Most religious Americans do not grasp that the culture war is really about
religion. Howard Kurtz, media critic for the Washington Post, made a
revealing observation right after two high-profile First Amendment decisions
on the "under God" Pledge and religious school choice. "The culture wars,
after a brief time-out for such mundane matters as fighting terrorism, are
back," said Kurtz. He gets it.
America's cultural struggle may take many forms, but at its heart, it's
about God, who He is and what He expects from His people. The atheist and
pagan forces in American society also know this, and that's why even
"ceremonial deism" makes them nervous. God needs to be eliminated, but
they've got to go slowly to avoid waking up the sleeping giant. According to
an ABC poll, 89 percent of the American public is in favor of keeping God in
the Pledge of Allegiance. That's a problem for radical secularists.
So what's going on now - and has been for decades - is a kind of seduction.
Police officers have a useful expression for it when it comes to the
corruption of innocence. They call it "progressive involvement." In child
molestation, for example, each step involves the child a bit more, until the
victim submits to sexual activity he or she would have run from earlier.
That's how progressive involvement works, and secularists have been using it
for years, one step at a time. Slowly our values are changed. Slowly our
laws are changed. Slowly God is squeezed out - until it is too late to turn
back.
However, now the embarrassing 9th Circuit has gone too far, too fast, and
the secular left is nervous that the people are catching on to the motives
behind "judicial progress." All eyes are on Judeo-Christian Americans. The
sleeping giant may yet awaken.
Protecting our future
Because of the outrage over the appellate court's rejection of the "under
God" Pledge, people might be willing to stem the tide of secularism. Most
Americans are tired of court rulings like those that forbid prayer at high
school football games and graduations. They just don't know what to do about
it, especially since the supposed "wall of separation" has become so much a
part of our social, political and media culture. However, after years of
being intimidated by groups like the ACLU (which agreed with the Pledge
decision, of course), the people might be ready to de-fang the beast.
Even William Rehnquist, chief justice of the Supreme Court, thinks the 1947
"separation" decision was a disaster. "The metaphor of a 'wall of
separation' is bad history and worse law," said Rehnquist. "It has made a
positive chaos out of court rulings. It should be frankly and explicitly
abandoned."
But the question is how? We know for sure that radical secularists won't
cooperate. Faith terrifies them. So how do we protect American principles
from being dismantled one at a time or in bunches? How can we guarantee our
children and grandchildren that they will inherit a government that is
officially allowed to recognize they have a soul? How can we prevent them
from being ruled over by a secular government that thinks of them as mere
"human resources" and that rejects any firm standard of truth or justice?
And how do we do all that without undermining our First Amendment freedoms?
It can't be through this continual high court battle of inches, where
nominees to the Supreme Court are forced to play a cat-and-mouse game to
hide their religious views from a supposedly religious Senate, where
hearings have become a quietly vicious arena in which people are destroyed
by lies and innuendo (the atheist left excels at playing that game). Nor can
we tolerate anymore this atheist hypocrisy of using every attacking question
to "expose" a conservative judicial nominee except the one question they
really want to ask: "Are you a believer?"
Most of us want a return to the "political prosperity" George Washington
talked about in his farewell address, but again the question is how? How do
we stop this national breakdown of character and conscience? How do we cut
the Gordian knot that binds any sensible discussion of "religion and
morality" in public policy? How do we break through to common sense? There
is an answer.
"America came into this world with a message for all mankind," said
President Bush on Independence Day. "That all are created equal and all are
meant to be free."
The third choice
In 1947, a Supreme Court dominated by secularists took those words "wall of
separation" from an incidental letter Thomas Jefferson wrote during his
presidency and used them to build the basis of the Separation of Church and
State decision. Jefferson, by the way, had no part in writing the
Constitution. Without precedent, the high court decided that government
could be separate from the one thing our founders thought was essential to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - faith in the reality of God.
Those justices believed something truly disastrous - that government can be
neutral to truth. They made one of the worst and most destructive judicial
decisions in history based on their own personal, secular assumptions about
life, and as a result, America is losing her identity. Our freedoms are at
risk. As President Bush said recently, "There is no capitalism without
conscience."
Well, there is no conscience without God. So let the following deeply held
words of Thomas Jefferson now come to the rescue in the 21st century as a
constitutional amendment:
"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights . .
."
These few words from the Declaration of Independence have rung true to
Americans throughout our history. They are the foundation of our freedom. We
have lived for them and died for them - and so have others, for they have
inspired freedom-fighters around the world. But, as important as they are,
they are not law. So let us now give them constitutional permanence.
How wonderful it would be to know that these self-evident truths are not
just ceremonial sentiments, but are actually part of our legal relationship
with government - part of our social contract.
And while we are considering this course of action, let us consider also
these other words of Thomas Jefferson:
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be
secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of
God?"
Words to think about. And words to act on.

Atheism teaches that there is no God, hence no God-given rights. That
ideology coupled with a system that believed in the superiority of the state
at the expense of the individual was murderously synergistic.