Originally Posted by Idaho_Shooter
Originally Posted by Tarquin


Truth isn't decided by counting its adherents.


And how is truth determined?

In the past, it was decided by the priesthood. And nonconformists were put to death.
Still is in the Islamic world.

In western society today, apparently each person is free to determine his own version of "Truth". No two truths seem to match. No one man's truth seems to be a bit more relevant than the next man's truth.

And since this is America, would we have it any other way?


This was a question the founders really grappled with--they were keenly aware of religious history. Roger Williams wrote the Bloody Tenet of Persecution and expounded on this point. In the end what the Founders agree upon was to provide a moral government based on Biblical morals. They cited no other moral code as an authority other than the Bible. On the basis of this firm foundation as an anchor point they provided a Constitution which would best support Biblical moral principles but which would avoid the establishment of a state religion. They knew that establishing a state religion would degenerate into a battle over which denomination would be endorsed by the state. However they never put all religions on equal moral footing though they granted all religions the right to practice their faith providing they did not go beyond the Biblical morals infused into our founding documents.

The principles of a Constitutional and Republican form of government that was moral but not religious, had no prior precedence and they could not look to history to inform them. From the quotations previously cited its obvious where they looking for their guidance.