freemonkey

Looks like they read and interpret historical documents in the same way they read the holey babble -- selectively!

pragma

How on earth did you get from "the basis of natural rights is a Deistic God" to creating a "U.S. theocracy"? (I'm not even sure what a Deistic theocracy would look like -- there's really no dogma to base any laws around.)

A philosophic argument is not automatically a legal argument, although legal arguments can derive from philosophical principles.

pragma

Yes, exactly.

Toto

I think that was the point. You can't get there, although the religious right would like to take that vague reference to a God in the Declaration and turn it into the basis of a theocracy.

Arrowman

The Constitution also closes with
Done in convention ... in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eightys seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth...

Meaningless as a precedent of course; it's just a common dating convention. But I have heard this usage cited (in reference to the DoI, which presumably does something similar) as support for the argument that the "God" or "Creator" referred to elsewhere is in fact the Christian God.

Seems one fundy faction will argue that any "God" referred to in things like the Pledge is generic, and another will argue that it's not. A someone else remarked above - it's a bit like Bible interpretation. Only difference being, that unlike the Bible, in this case you have a separate set of documents to use as a guide to the real intentions - the other writings of the Founding Fathers. And from that, the intent is clear.

Jamie_L

I think you misunderstand. My feeling is the religious right believes the U.S. should be a form of theocracy - endorsing and encouraging Christianity, and governing by Christian teachings. They often claim this is what the Framers intended. My point is that the governing documents of our country seem suspisciously light on religious language if that was the intent of the Framers.

If they had wanted a theocracy, they would have spelled it out a little better. Since they didn't, one can rightly assume that was not their intent.

Jamie

pragma

Okay, I thought you were obliquely accusing me of wanting to impose a Christian theocracy on the United States (which, if is not clear, is most certainly not my desire). My apologies.

lpetrich

Also, I don't recall anywhere in the Bible where the Biblical God grants any kind of rights to anything -- certainly none of the "law" sections have any such thing. So one reasonably concludes that the concept of "rights" is unbiblical.

Also, the Constitution starts with
Notice how it claims absolutely zero divine authority, which was a radical step when the Divine Right of Kings had been a favorite theory for centuries. Yes, the Bible has the DRK in it.

Spazmatic

The Declaration has one use, and one use alone. It is the same use as the Danbury letter, and other writings that are not of direct, literal connection. They help courts to understand what is meant by the often cryptic legal language of our Constitution. Shockingly enough, the Declaration is only one document, and in a distinct minority.

gilly54

Toto said: Exactly, and even though the framers may not have realised it at the time, their wording was, as I said, masterful.

Gilly