Supremes Vote 5-4 To Support Public Prayer

The constitution is written using the ideas of the time, which had evolved over time through successive authors into the language we all now know...
1776, Thomas Jefferson

We hold these truths to be self–evident,
That all men are created equal,
That they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,
That among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

1772, Samuel Adams

Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these:
First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property;
together with the right to support and defend them
in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of,
rather than deductions from, the duty of self–preservation,
commonly called the first law of nature. All men have a right
to remain in a state of nature as long as they please;
and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious,
to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another.
When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent.…
Every natural right not expressly given up, or, from the
nature of a social compact, necessarily ceded, remains.
All positive and civil laws should conform, as far as possible,
to the law of natural reason and equity. As neither reason requires
nor religion permits the contrary, every man living in or out of
a state of civil society has a right peaceably and quietly
to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.

also from the same paper:

Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty,
in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing that all men
are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable
laws of God and nature, as well as by the law of nations
and all well–grounded municipal laws,
which must have their foundation in the former...
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any
superior power on earth, and not to be under the will
or legislative authority of man,
but only to have the law of nature for his rule

1750, Samuel Adams

n the state of nature, every man has a right
to think and act according to the dictates
of his own mind, which in that state,
are subject to no other control
and can be commanded by no other power than the laws and ordinances
of the great Creator of all things...
He therefore is the truest friend to the
Liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue...
The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy
this gift of Heaven,
let us become a virtuous people.…

1690, John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government

(A)ll men are naturally in...a state of perfect freedom
to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions
and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds
of the law of nature, without asking leave,
or depending upon the will of any other man.

A state also of equality ... A state of liberty,
yet it is not a state of licence....
The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it,
which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law,
teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being
equal and independent, no one ought to harm another
in his life, health, liberty, or possessions:
for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent,
and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one
sovereign master, sent into the world by his order,
and about his business; they are his property,
whose workmanship they are, made to last
during his, not one another’s pleasure...
Every one...may not, unless it be to do justice
on an offender, take away, or impair the life,
or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty,
health, limb, or goods of another.

God hath certainly appointed government to restrain
the partiality and violence of men.
I easily grant, that civil government is the proper remedy
for the inconveniences of the state of nature....

The natural liberty of man is to be free from
any superior power on earth, and not to be under
the will or legislative authority of man,
but to have only the law of nature for his rule...
(F)reedom of men under government is, to have
a standing rule to live by, common to every one
of that society...
and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown,
arbitrary will of another man....

This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power,
is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation,
that he cannot part with it,
but by what forfeits his preservation and life together:
for a man, not having the power of his own life,
cannot, by compact, or his own consent,
enslave himself to any one...

All these quotes from this article, that I think states things very well...

http://www.avantrex.com/essay/freetalk.html

Basically what this says to me is that the term 'self-evident' does not exclude the divine inspiration of the ideas. It simply states that at the time of the writing, it was common knowledge that inalienable rights came from God. Not necessarily only the christian god, but nonetheless, a deity.

I'd like to highlight something in one of the previous citation...

"that all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature,
as well as by the law of nations and all well–grounded municipal laws,
which must have their foundation in the former..."

Which must have their foundation in the former... the former being the immutable laws of God and nature.

The latter being the laws of nations and municipalities.

The laws of nations must have their foundations in the laws of God and nature.

Something the Dog Said wrote: Yet you still fail to provide any teaching from the bible that states that all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights endowed by their Creator. I agree that the verses cited do support that all men may be created equal in the eyes of the Lord, but none support the natural law philosophy that each and everyone of us, regardless of our religion or lack thereof, have certain inalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those rights were "self-evident".

And who created nature and thus its laws in the eyes of the framers Dog? That would be God, right? Thus the inalienable rights that are endowed upon each of us come from Him, right? That was the central premise, wasn't it? That rights come from God and not from man or the governments created by man to protect what God had bestowed upon them? That was the basis upon which the founders stood in defiance to their king, wasn't it? That the king couldn't take from them what had been given to them by God?

You and I will both agree that the founders and framers were religious men. Against that premise that there is not a single credible argument that can be raised. Given that as a starting point, would not these men, who believed that God created them in His own image and before whom all of them were equal, believe that God had created Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics? That since God created nature He also created natural law? Let go of your ideology and use reason Dog. Reason alone tells you that natural law is part and parcel of Christian philosophy because, in the eyes of the Christian, God created it all.

In the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a reference to the "Laws of Nature and Nature's God". In the philosophy of these men, Nature has the same Creator as they themselves do. Regardless of whether or not you believe in God, anyone who does believes that God created you, that you are equal to them in the eyes of the Creator, that He would have endowed upon you the same rights that he endowed upon them, that He will judge you in the same manner in which He shall judge them. And before you go off on the usual leftist rant about that belief not covering blacks and women, another lie serially repeated by the left, many of those present at the Congress which drafted both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution did include both in the above.

Something the Dog Said wrote: Jefferson and Franklin further stated in the Declaration of Independence that in order to secure those self-evident truths, those inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, not from a god, not from a dogmatic religion, but from the consent of the governed.

Correct - the founders believed that governments were a creation of man, not of God, and as such it was accountable to man just as they were accountable to their Creator, which is why the government was subject to the consent of the governed.

Something the Dog Said wrote: Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and the majority of the Founding Fathers made it unequivocal that the Constitution was not based on a religion, particularly not on christianity (as evidenced by their vehement opposition to the originally proposed 1st Amendment which proposed christianity as a national religion and by the specific inclusion of a ban on religious tests on political office).

Again you attempt to create your own premise about the topic under discussion, assign it to another and then proceed to attack your invented premise. The premise is that the Constitution was based on Christian philosophy, not the Christian religion. Each and every time you attempt to say otherwise you will be corrected, so you might as well stop trying to alter the premise that was offered that you have challenged.

Something the Dog Said wrote: So now your ever shifting stance has moved from the Constituion being based on "christianity" to be being based on "christianity philosophy" to now being "influenced" by the christian religion of the drafters? Is this correct? It is difficult to keep track of your ever moving goal posts.

To the contrary Dog, my remarks have been about Christian philosophy from the get go. You have certainly attempted to alter that since joining the conversation, unsuccessfully I might add, but my stance has not shifted one bit. In fact, I have resisted each and every attempt you have made to shift the topic of discussion away from Christian philosophy. The following is the post immediately preceding your joining the thread:

PrintSmith wrote:

fly off the handle wrote: PS seems to think that Christian philosophy is part of our Constitution.

And for some unfathomable reason you seem to think that it isn't? Where do you think the concept of all being created equal and endowed by our Creator with the same inalienable rights comes from if not Christian philosophy?

Caught lying again Dog. YOU are the one who keeps trying to make the discussion about something other than Christian philosophy. YOU are the one who keeps proposing your own premise to argue against and attempting to assign it to me. You aren't going to be successful in that endeavor Dog, I will point out your disingenuous and intellectually dishonest behavior each and every time you engage in such activities. The sooner you stop being a boor, the sooner we can return to having an intellectually based debate.