Letter to the Editor

Your view: Notable quotes

Monday, December 13, 2004

Here it is Christmas Season, and the atheists are out in full array screaming "separation of church and state," telling us how ignorant we are to believe we were founded as a Christian Nation, telling us how it's against the constitution framers' original intent to acknowledge God, or mention God, or revere God or Jesus Christ in public, telling us that to be truly free we have to deny any Christian reference in government or public affairs.

Well, let's look at a few of the of those early founders' statements to see if these atheists (some wearing the title "reverend") speak the truth about the framer's intent:

"Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom."- John Quincy Adams

"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected, in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." - John Quincy Adams

"A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district - all studied and appreciated as they merit - are the principle support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty."- Ben Franklin

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." - Patrick Henry

"The Bible is the rock on which our Republic rests." -Andrew Jackson

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future ... upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God." - James Madison

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." - George Washington

"The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scripture ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evil men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible." - Noah Webster

"Our ancestors established their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, no government is secure which is not supported by moral habits.... Whatever makes men good Christians likewise makes them good citizens." - Daniel Webster

Some have so confused society with government so as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society, is produced by our wants, and government, by our wickedness." - Thomas Paine

John McMillen,

Sikeston