Florida Freethinkers » government

The Freedom Wall

James Williamson MD — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 02:26:34 +0000

Demolishing the wall between church and state in order to establish a Christian theocracy is the ultimate goal of the Christian Right. Since they believe their version of Christianity is infallible and the only true means of salvation, they can’t understand why their religion shouldn’t be an integral part of our lives and our government as well. They believe they are doing us a favor by saving our souls and think by Christianizing the world they are preparing it for Christ’s Second Coming.

To tear down the wall, fundamentalist Christians flagrantly twist facts. They claim our first presidents, as well as most of our other founders, were Christians, that the essential documents our country was founded on incorporated Christian precepts, and that the founders didn’t really intend to establish a strict separation between Christianity and the government.

I’ll review specific evidence to help refute these claims.

The religious beliefs of the first four United States presidents (George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison) is a good starting point since these remarkably talented men provided crucial leadership in the creation of our particular form of government.

All were strongly influenced by the European Enlightenment, a movement that promoted scientific thinking and religious tolerance. Most of the members of the Enlightenment were Deists, a minimalist religion that promoted the idea of a non-anthropomorphic god, a vague idea of a first cause or a god of nature. Deists thought this pseudo-god created the Universe and then retired to allow it to operate naturally. They did not believe in miracles or any humans, such as Jesus Christ, possessing divine powers. Many historians have classified these presidents as Deists.

The first four presidents were highly intelligent and comprehensively well educated, (Washington had less formal education than the other three) – including the classics and scientific knowledge of the time. They were men of exemplary character. All these attributes eminently qualified them to create a government structure that has endured and been a model for the rest of the world. (I feel a bit depressed when I compare these giants against some of our recent presidents, and I believe we should start critically reviewing what has gone wrong with the selection process).

Although the first four presidents did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and had serious misgivings about much of religion in general, they were tolerant and friendly in their dealings with religious figures. They all believed in complete religious freedom for everyone and stressed that this freedom was only possible when the government remained entirely neutral toward religion.

1. George Washington (1732-1799), the first president of the United States (1789-1797), was the hardest to read of the early presidents concerning his religious beliefs. He realized how contentious the subject of religion was, especially in public office, and simply tried to keep his true feelings to himself. It is understandable that some have regarded him as a Christian since he was a vestryman in the Episcopal Church, which he attended sporadically, less so as he became older.

This superficial appearance of Christianity is countered by considerable evidence:

He never took communion, even though his wife Martha did, which required the family carriage to make a return trip to the church to pick her up. Most Christians took communion at some time;
In his time, church attendance was often a social obligation rather than an indication of a person’s true beliefs;
In Washington’s writings, he never referred to Jesus Christ;
There is no evidence he expressed belief at any time in conventional Christian dogma;
His father was a Deist;
The Reverend Doctor James Abercrombie, rector of the church Washington attended with his wife, in reply to a question about Washington’s religion, said: “Sir, Washington was a Deist”;
Thomas Jefferson noted in his private journal in February, 1800: “I know that Gouverneur Morris, who claimed to be in his secrets, and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more in that system [Christianity] than he did.” (Gouverneur Morris was the principal drafter of the Constitution, a member of the Continental Congress, a senator from New York, a minister to France, and a freethinker);
Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister, in an interview in 1831, stated concisely: “I have diligently perused every line that Washington ever gave to the public, and I do not find one expression in which he pledges himself as a believer in Christianity. I think anyone who will candidly do as I have done, will come to the conclusion that he was a Deist and nothing more.”

2. John Adams (1735-1826) was the first vice-president of the U.S. and the second president (1775-1801). He played a prominent role in the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence and then exerted strong leadership in persuading the Second Continental Congress to adopt it.

Although he seemed to enjoy going to the Unitarian Church and described himself as a “church going animal,” he was a Deist, and a weak one at that, as revealed in his voluminous and erudite (sprinkled with quotations in multiple languages) correspondence with Thomas Jefferson. Quotes from multiple sources attest to his religious beliefs:

In a letter to his brother-in-law, Richard Cranch, in explaining why he rejected the ministry, Adams wrote: “The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching”;
Views of Religion by Rufus K. Noyes records this statement: “When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it”;
Adams made this observation in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: “I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved – the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced”;
Another letter to Jefferson contained this statement: “There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel…. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating the divine authority of those books?”

3. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the third president of the United States (1801-1809) and author of the Declaration of Independence. He was probably our most brilliant president and a prototypical Renaissance man, with a prodigious array of talents and accomplishments.

Jefferson chose this epitaph for his tomb: “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and the father of the University of Virginia.” It is highly significant that he included the Virginia religious freedom statute and omitted his two terms as president. This statue clearly outlined the church-state separation concept and served as the model for the Constitution. His epitaph confirms how important he thought this separation was.

In his religious beliefs he is usually classified as a Deist, but at times he sounds almost like an atheist. Of the four presidents, his views on religion are the most extensively documented. Here are a few quotes that express his beliefs, in his own words:
In a letter to Ezra Stiles, Jefferson wrote: “I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know;”
Writing in Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson observed: “Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth”;
Jefferson, in replying to a letter of John Adams, stated: “If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation of that hypothesis is just, ‘that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it’ “;
He wrote in a letter to Dr. Woods: “I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies”;
Corresponding with John Adams, he noted: “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter”;
Even Jefferson’s belief in God seems a bit shaky in this statement in a letter to Peter Carr: “Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god….”

4. James Madison (1751-1836), the fourth president of the United States (1809-1817), has often been called “the father of the constitution.” Also, more than any other person, he can be considered responsible for making the Bill of Rights part of the constitution. He helped draft the constitution of Virginia and insisted on its providing separation of church and state.

He was a Deist but without much depth of conviction. Here are a few quotes that reflect his attitude toward religion:

In a letter to William Bradford, Jr., he observes: “Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.”
He notes in another letter to Bradford: “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize”;
Addressing the Virginia General Assembly about religious assessments, he said: “Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution”;
Writing in a letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, he explains: “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”

Clearly, our first four presidents were not Christians, and the god they believed in was consistent with a Deistic one. In fact, the Reverend Dr. Wilson, who was almost a contemporary of our early statesmen and presidents, and extensively researched their religions, stated that the founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents elected up to his time, not one had professed a belief in Christianity. The presidents that he was referring to were the four I have discussed plus, in order, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson.

Some fundamentalist Christians claim that our government is founded on the Declaration of Independence, and that this document proves the founders intent was to incorporate Christian principles because of the mention of God. Of course, this contention is nonsense. First, our nation is founded on the Constitution and not the Declaration of Independence. Second, the Declaration of Independence, approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and written by Thomas Jefferson, does not contain any references to a Christian anthropomorphic god. I checked the document and found four references that could be construed as being to a Deist- type entity. One reference is to “Nature’s God,” another to “Creator,” still another to “Supreme Judge of the world,” and finally one to “Divine Providence.” Third, there is no mention of Christ or Christianity in the document.

Our Constitution is the document that defines the structure of our government, and its understanding is crucial to answering claims by fundamentalist Christians that our nation was founded as a Christian nation. James Madison, its chief architect as previously mentioned, keenly recognized the horrors that can ensue if religion insinuates itself into government and quite deliberately constructed an obviously secular document. Not once is there a mention of any type of deity, Christ, or Christianity. In fact, the only mention of religion is in Article 6, Section 3: “No religious Test shall ever be required as a qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” This article clearly separates church and state.

Nonetheless, Article 6 of the Constitution was not strong enough to satisfy everyone and the First Amendment to the Constitution in the Bill of Rights further delineated church-state separation: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;….”

Thomas Jefferson spelled out the meaning of the First Amendment even more precisely in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association: “ Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

And as an unambiguous statement of the non-religious nature of our government, Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli is unexcelled. This treaty was signed into law by President John Adams and reads: “As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion, ….”

At the time of the creation of the Constitution, the colonies were religiously diverse: Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, Lutherans, Jews, Baptists, Anglicans, and others. It can be fairly said that the colonies were predominately Christian. Nonetheless, even though some clergy vigorously, but unsuccessfully, pushed for the insertion of Christian references into the Constitution, most of them, and Americans in general, seemed to understand the concept that strict church-state separation meant greater religious freedom for all. The churches’ acceptance of the concept of strict separation stands in sharp contrast to the situation nowadays where there are unrelenting efforts by fundamentalist Christians to destroy the wall.

It is ironic that the Enlightenment in Europe degenerated into the excesses of the French Revolution but that its principles became established instead in our country. The Enlightenment strongly influenced the thinking leading to the American Revolutionary War and strongly influenced our leaders in setting up our secular republic. We can only speculate what form of government we would now have if our government had been formed at another time with less enlightened leaders.

The founders of our country clearly meant for there to be a wall between any religion, including any form of Christianity, and our government. To maintain this essential separation, our citizens and watchdog groups need to be constantly alert in resisting these incursions.

But to ultimately remove the assaults against the church-state wall, it is essential that another wall eventually come down, a metaphorical one that exists in the frontal lobes of the brains of fundamentalists. This wall, constructed with a material called faith, separates a rational area where truth is decided with logic and evidence from a dark, irrational region where any type of religious belief, no matter how illogical, can exist. Only when this wall is gone will fundamentalist Christians realize their beliefs are not infallible and should not be imposed on everyone.

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FL Governor Crist Assaults Atheist; Apology Demanded

Pamela Dodd — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:02:54 +0000

For Immediate Release
Tuesday, March 9, 2010

ST PETERSBURG, Fla.—Governor Charlie Crist has been accused of assaulting a man for identifying himself as an atheist during a campaign event held in St. Petersburg. On Friday, March 5th, University of South Florida graduate student Michael Middlebrooks approached the Governor downtown and was greeted with a smile and a handshake until he mentioned he does not believe in a god. Crist reportedly became irate, ripping a campaign sticker off the man’s shirt that was placed there by a staffer moments earlier, and then shouting over his shoulder (as he turned his back), “I feel sorry for you!”

Atheists of Florida President John Kieffer sent a letter to Governor Charlie Crist on Monday asking that he issue an apology to the man targeted for this mistreatment.

“Imagine instead if you had ripped a campaign sticker off some other religious minority,” Kieffer wrote, “say a Jew or a Muslim, shouting, as you did here, that you felt sorry for them. The outrage in such a case would create newspaper headlines around the world.” He continued by referring to the event as an attack on a minority worldview which is an affront, an outrage, and possibly even qualifies as a hate crime “because [Governor Crist] committed this battery while denigrating [the victim's] personal religious worldview.”

Kieffer’s letter is available for public view at the Atheists of Florida web site (http://www.AtheistsofFlorida.org), along with a discussion area where others may read or contribute their own comments.

Rob Curry is a native of St. Petersburg and serves as Executive Director for Atheists of Florida. He added, “Crist should be ashamed of such boorish behavior. His actions and words this past Friday deeply dishonor the town we both call home by making it the setting for a grotesque mockery of his constitutional duty to treat all Florida citizens with equal respect under the law.”

Atheists of Florida members have been actively seeking to end official government prayers at Tampa City Council meetings since January, and more recently at Lakeland City Commission meetings. Their stance is that government should be neutral with respect to religion, neither advocating nor discouraging religious beliefs and rituals.

About Atheists of Florida
Atheists of Florida, founded in 1992, is a nonprofit, educational corporation created to heighten public awareness about atheism and to monitor state/church separation issues throughout the state. The organization is a founding member society of the Atheist Alliance International.

Atheists of Florida serves the needs of a growing nonreligious community of reason whose members disagree with supernatural doctrines while valuing personal liberty as a precious heritage for everyone. Recent national surveys show that 16% of the American population is nonreligious, an increase from 14% two years prior.

Objectives include: (a) advocating state/church separation, (b) defending the civil rights of atheists and others with minority views on religion, (c) educating the public to dispel common misconceptions about atheism, (d) offering social support for atheists, (e) encouraging an inclusive sense of community, inspiration, mutual understanding and respect, and (f) promoting freedom, honesty and integrity

Contact:

John Kieffer
President
(813) 919-9161

Rob Curry
Executive Director
(727) 851-6452

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In God We Trust? – Part 2

Ann Frier — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:40:32 +0000

Let us suppose that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

– John Stuart Mill, Chapter II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion, On Liberty (1859), quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, “Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church

In Part 1 I mentioned the letter written by the Reverend M.R. Watkinson to the Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase. Written November 13, 1861, this was the first request according to the U.S. Treasury Department for the recognition of God on U.S. coins. The Rev. Watkinson was a Baptist minister and Secretary Chase an Anglican/Episcopalian.

The letter reads as follows:

You are are about to submit you annual report to Congress respecting the affairs of the national finances.

One fact touching our currency has hitherto been seriously overlooked. I mean the recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins.

You are probably a Christian. What if our Republic were now shattered beyond reconstruction? Would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation? What I propose is that instead of the goddess of liberty we shall have next inside the 13 stars a ring inscribed with the words ‘perpetual union’; within this ring the all seeing eye, crowned with a halo; beneath the eye the American flag, bearing in its field stars equal to the number of the States united. In the folds of the bars the words, ‘God, liberty, law.’

This would make a beautiful coin, to which no possible citizen could object. This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. This would place us openly under the Divine protection we have personally claimed. From my heart I have felt our national shame in disowning God not the least of our present national disasters.

To you first I address a subject that must be agitated.

Secretary Chase replied:

No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins. You will cause a device to be prepared without unnecessary delay with a motto expressing in the fewest and tersest words possible this national recognition.

“In God We Trust” was approved December 9, 1863.

It seems clear that both Rev. Watkinson and Sec. Chase are Christian. Rev. Watkinson did not say in the second paragraph, “You are probably a non-Christian or Jew or Muslim, but said, “You are a probably a Christian.” He seems concerned that the nation had, in some way, disowned God. I am not sure what he meant unless he is referring to our secular constitution and the men of the Enlightenment who drafted it. His prime motivation for having God’s name on coins is his awareness of America’s past brutal injustices and inequities, calling it a “heathen nation.”

Did Rev. Watkinson think putting God’s name on coins and having an “all seeing eye crowned with a halo” would set things aright, alleviate the “ignominy of heathenism,” and that “no possible citizen could object?” No citizen or any other religious entity was ever asked!

Having God’s name, Christian or otherwise, on currency or any other property has not stopped inhumane practice anywhere in the world. It serves no purpose except in the minds of believers. Human beings commit crimes against humanity and human beings can end these brutalities. Invoking God does nothing.

These two Christians, Rev. Watkinson and Sec. Chase, were responsible for this action. Politicians and other state and federal government officials who are Christian have tried, and are still trying, to inscribe “In God We Trust” (or the Ten Commandments) on federal and state buildings. Making “In God We Trust” the national motto is incredibly disrespectful to those who practice the many other religions in the U.S. (or practice no religion at all). It is equally incredible that it was ever allowed.

What I cannot understand is how the Supreme Court can rule that the motto is not wholly Christian and not an explicit breech of the separation of church and State.

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In God We Trust? – Part 1

In God We Trust? – Part 1

Ann Frier — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:21:32 +0000

In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Black, held:

The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this:

Neither the state nor the Federal Government can set up a church.

Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another.

Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.

No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non attendance.

No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion.

Neither state nor Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs or any religious organizations or groups and vice versa.

In the words of Jefferson, the clause against the establishment of religion by law was intended to erect “a wall of separation between church and State.

For a very long time there has been much controversy and debating about the constitutionality of the national motto “In God We Trust” and the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Are they a breech of the separation of Church and State and the clause against the establishment of religion put forth by Thomas Jefferson? This dilemma may never be settled because of the many different interpretations of Jefferson’s words and their meaning.

The following is my interpretation of how these phrases came to be. It should shed light on whether or not these terms are of religious intent and prefer one religion over all others. The Supreme Court has most often ruled that this not the case.

On July 4, 1776 congress appointed Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to prepare a design for the Great Seal of the United States. In August their first design was submitted to Congress with the motto “E Pluribus Unum,” which means out of many, one. The design was rejected (not the motto), as were five other designs over the next five years.

In 1782 Congress asked Mr. Charles Thomson, the Secretary of Congress, to complete the project. He and his friend Mr. Barton produced a design of an eagle with a heart-shaped shield, holding arrows and an olive branch in its claws. The motto “E Pluribus Unum” was on the scroll held in the eagle’s beak. The design has been modified slightly in that the shield is not heart shaped and there are thirteen stars for the thirteen colonies over the eagles head. This motto was never made into a law but was considered the de facto motto of the United States for 174 years, until 1956. The motto was used on some federal coins beginning in 1795.

In 1812 our young nation, still struggling after the Revolution, found itself at war once again. In 1814 prisoner of war Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner during a very difficult time. His song, as we all know, eventually became our national anthem. The final stanza initially read:

And this be our motto,’In God is our trust.’
And the Star Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O’re the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Many believe this is where the idea for the present US motto came from. This seems to be the first usage of such a phrase but was not applied to anything pertaining to the government until 1864. It has never been used by Jews or Muslims or any other monotheistic or polytheistic religion with the exception of Christianity.

At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, a group of Protestants started a campaign to add references to God to the U.S. Constitution and other federal documents, an process that continues to this day. The Reverend M.R. Watkinson, a Baptist minister, wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase promoting the concept. It wasn’t until 1863 that Mr. Chase asked James Pollock, the Director of the Mint, to come up with a suitable motto for Union coins. After considering several different wordings, he picked “In God We Trust” and Congress passed the legislation in 1864. It took another Act of congress to have the motto placed on other U.S. coins between 1886 and 1916. “In God We Trust” has been in continuous use on the one-cent coin since 1909 and on the ten-cent coin since 1916. It has also appeared on all gold coins and silver dollar coins, half-dollar coins, and quarter-dollar coins since 1908. But at that point it was still not on paper currency.

Another 40 years passed.

On July 20, 1956 the 84th Congress passed a law, approved by President Dwight Eisenhower, declaring “In God We Trust” the national motto of the United States, usurping the de facto “E Pluribus Unum.” It was first used on paper money in 1957 and was on all money by 1966.

This law was, in part, due to the state of our nation. The McCarthy communist witch hunt was rampant; it was the height of the Cold War. People were fearful and distrustful. This atmosphere was ripe for religious fervor to thrive. Paramount on the minds of many was having God on our side to fight the godless communists. The phrase “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance during this same period, authorized by the President.

What interests me is those who insist the motto and phrase are not religious and do not promote one particular religion. Yet it is the religious and those of the Christian faith in particular who were responsible for, and the most vocal about, adding the terms to our currency and pledge. Christian believers today are lobbying to have “In God We Trust” inscribed on federal and state buildings and state license plates, etc.

What would these people of Christian faith, most of whom also proclaim allegiance to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to our Constitution, do if the Muslim community insisted that we have “In Allah We Trust” added to the currency and other prominent places? Allah and God are separate deities worshiped by two different religious groups in America where freedom of religion is protected. Would Muslims have the right to lobby for this? How would Christians respond to this?

What about Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and other religious minorities? And atheist agnostics, secular humanists who reside in America? Could they lobby for their own phrases, according to their beliefs or nonbeliefs, to be included on currency and elsewhere? Wouldn’t that be fair?

What mottos might these groups want included on our currency and government buildings? “In God We Trust, But Not In Jesus”, “In Braham, Vishnu, and Shiva We Trust”, “In The Buddha And Inner Peace We Trust”, and “In Reason, Secularism And Enlightenment We Trust?” The list could go on. Who do you think would be in opposition to any and all of these additions?

“In God We Trust” and “under God” are Christian in origin and represent only one religious faith. While Christianity is the religion of the majority of Americans, this does not mean Christians have cornered the market on God, faith, and belief. Nor do they have the right to silence the voices of other believers or nonbelievers in opposition to these phrases by insisting that the majority rules and that the motto and phrase are neutral, patriotic and inclusive. Plainly, they are not.

A better idea might be to consider reinstating the original motto of Jefferson, Adams and Franklin; E Pluribus Unum - Out Of Many, One.

(to be continued in Part 2)

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In God We Trust? – Part 2