God and the Constitution

[Sgt_Tropo]

Bluehawk wrote;
"Our Constitution has some serious defects, very serious defects, produced in total secret against the mandate of the people who sent those fellows to Philadelphia back then... once I read Patrick Henry's version of what happened at the convention my whole attitude about the Constitution changed considerably... "

Okay, I'll bite. How in the world did you come to this conclusion ? The Consttution was written by a group of elected / appointed respresentatives from each of the 13 colonies. Each colony representative had their respective constichuents desires at the forefront as the constitution was being written and voted upon.
Yes, there were many disagreements as to exactly what was to be included and how these desires where to be worded. Good old Patrick Henry was miffed because he couldn't get his way at every turn. However, he DID sign and support the final draft of the Constitution and the subsequent Bill of Rights, which insured that most of his and others' concerns and reservations as to the lack of explict wording regarding certain "freedoms" were addressed.
Yes, the representatives of the 13 colonies met in "secret". This was nessasary to preserve their lives, NOT to conceal their work from the supporters of the revolution. The Framers of our constitution placed their very lives, those of their familes and thier respective fortunes at risk, just to meet and draft our Constitution. Many of these men were hung, shot or otherwise killed as "traitors" by the British, during the War of Independence.
Patrick Henry wrote his memorours during the latter days of his life. He had spent several years nursing a sick and dying wife and died angry and virtually penniless himself a few years later. He was upset at the loss the war had put upon him.
He was a preacher and a pastor of a small congregation when the war began. He was not known as a great speaker or statesman when he and the other brave men began working on the Constitution, but over the course of the work, but by the time it was fionished, he had engaged in many lively debates and had become quite passionate about a few closely held beliefs, which virtually none of the other men agreed with, save the case of liberty.
We owe men like Patrick Henry an unfathomable gratirude for their efforts in creating our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. However, we also owe them the honor of not taking a snapshot in time as their lifelong beliefs.

[Hardball]

It's very insensitive of you to post such Truths.

HB

[39mto39g]

I agree with your first paragraph, The rest is just Christianity spin.
God didn't give anyone 10 commandments, Moses said god gave him the 10 commandments, Big difference. Where do you get off in calling God a HE anyway, why would you think God is a Man?

I belive there is such a thing as a god, I would never claim to understand anything about God, To me it would be about the same as an ant trying to understand the SuperBowl. Its so far out there that it just could never happen.
God has nothing what-so-ever to do with a Fat Chinees guy or a Arab looking guy that wears a curtain and claims to be Gods Son, ALL the religons are made up by humans to fullfill some unseen shortcomming in the lives of the people that made up the religon.

Beliving in some religon gives people comfort and direction in there lifes, If that is what makes you happy then be my guest, worship whatever you want to. And if God is as I sujest, then God wont care either.

The subject of the thread was God in the constitution, So I would say, the constitution needs to have an amendment that states we all must face the north and pray to Ala three times a day, And have a fat Chineese guy on our dash. Also , once a week we have to wear a sheet and shave our heads while walking around in airports.
You think having someones religon forced on you is wrong???
Think about it.

Ron

[revwardoc]

Sgt. Tropo,

The representatives who forged the Constitution didn't do it in secret. It was 1787, some 4 years after the Revolution and 6 years after the fighting had ended. The Constitutional Convention was called because the Articles of Confederation, our first set of national laws, proved to be impossible to enforce the way it was written so our Founding Fathers reconvened in Philadelphia to straighten out the situation. I believe you're referring to 1776 when most of the same men finally, after much debate and compromise, settled upon the Declaration of Independence. Once these men signed the Declaration (especially John Hancock's large signature) and sent a copy to England for King George III and Parliament to ingest, the "secret" was certainly out. As for "many being shot, hung, or killed as traitors"; a few were imprisoned and several lost their wealth and possessions but I'm not sure if any were executed.

[BLUEHAWK]

Tropo -

First, what you said was nicely said, meaning well stated.

I stand corrected as to the teachings of the Koran and how they have been distorted... yet having read a good bit of the Koran, at the very least in places it certainly does leave a lot of room for misinterpretation along the lines of infidels and what must be done with them... and, I have noticed, our own Christian evangelicals sometimes take biblical words to extremes that are unseemly., and with quite violent results (as in Israel today).

My understanding is that the men duly elected to attend Philadelphia were sent specifically to revise the Articles of Confederation so as to bring our government up to speed following a war in the colonies. Instead, they chose of their own volition to create a completely new document, in secret. I further understand that it was not only Patrick Henry who argued vociferously against doing so, and also then for modifying the suggested Constitution so as to better reflect some of the more useful elements of the original Articles upon which the gusto, if you will, of our democracy (if not our Republic) was based. Moving the colonies toward both a Federalist and Republican form of governance was decidedly NOT what many felt best... but in the end the other side won the day. What we have is a precious document no doubt, but one which was written essentially by a VERY few men (Adams, Hamilton etc.) against the strong opposition of their peers who came presenting their own mandates, with General Washington most often demurring from taking sides.

It is in this sense, then, that our Constitution has the flaws to which I alluded... among which were the political and economic causes of a brutal Civil War, as well as a characterization of democracy which includes to this day such inconveniences as the electoral college, closed primaries, super majority votes and gerrymandering.

While realizing that men of good faith can operate under almost any governing document, and that ours is one of the finest ever written, nevertheless, not only Patrick Henry's memoirs, but serious analysis of his efforts (and his group) by many others led me to see that the rosy picture of our Constitution which is usually presented is not an accurate statement of either its genesis nor its consequences.

It is a long conversation, and it is fortunate that we are able to enter into it freely.