I find it curious that some Americans think they live in a theocracy, when both the First Amendment and
the Treaty of Tripoli suggests otherwise...
The "Treaty of Tripoli" argument is the go-to secular humanist argument based on what was apparently a flawed translation (known as the "Barlow" translation) of the original Arabic document. The Hunter-Miller Notes explain:
"Most extraordinary (and wholly unexplained) is the fact that Article 11 of the Barlow translation, with its famous phrase, "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion," does not exist at all. There is no Article 11."
The fact that an almost exclusively Christian Senate approved the treaty, and a devout Christian president named John Adams signed the treaty, should give any
conscientious individual second thoughts about promoting that treaty as proof against our nation's Christian heritage.
Arguing against our Christian heritage makes even less sense when one considers the fact that, only a few years before the treaty, one of the first acts of the first Congress was to install Christian chaplains for both the House and Senate; and it makes even less sense when one considers that a few years later, President Thomas Jefferson negotiated treaties with the Indians (ratified by the Senate) which funded out of the public treasury the sending of Christian missionaries to evangelize the Indians.
Even a century later, the opinion of the 1892 Supreme Court stated this is Christian Nation:
"These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. In the face of all these, shall it be believed that a Congress of the United States intended to make it a misdemeanor for a church of this country to contract for the services of a Christian minister residing in another nation?" [Justice Brewer, the Opinion of the Court, "Supreme Court: Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States." Justia, 1892]
Read the entire opinion to see how far our nation has been led astray from its founding principles by those wishing to destroy us.
The bottom line is, this nation was founded as a
Christian Nation. Don't let anyone trick you into believing otherwise.
For the record, I believe this is the final document for the Treaty of Tripoli:
The First Amendment was intended to protect the religious liberty of the states and the people from the federal government, not the other way around. All one really has to do to understand it is to carefully read it:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances."
The constitution-haters (freedom-haters) do not want you to know that the prohibition is
on the federal congress, not on the states, nor the people. They also do not want you to read and understand this part:
"Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the
free exercise [of religion]; or abridging the freedom of speech"
The purpose of the establishment clause was to ensure the federal government did not establish and endorse a denomination to suppress the people's religious freedoms, such as the suppressive Church of England in those days, or like the currently
established and suppressive religion of evolutionism.
The usurpers have tricked many (including you, it seems) into believing the federal government has the constitutional power to restrict the free exercise of religion, and to abridge free speech; when the lawful powers of the federal government are, in fact, few and defined in Article 1, Section 8, and were never intended to suppress the religious heritage of the people.
Dan
