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Evidences of Faith
in the Buildings, Memorials, and Forefathers of the United States-Truth!,
Fiction! &
Unproven!
Summary of the eRumor In a time of controversy
over separation of church and state, this eRumor lists what it says
are examples of the role of religion in the foundation and
institutions of the United States.
Some versions say it's from Andy Rooney.
The Truth
First, there is no evidence this was
written by Andy Rooney.
His seems to be one of the new and popular names that people want to
add to a forwarded email in order to try and give it more
credibility.
Let's take each statement one at a
time:
As you walk up the steps to the building which houses the
U.S.
Supreme Court you can see near the top of the building a row of
the
world's law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who
is
facing forward with a full frontal view - it is Moses and he is
holding
the Ten Commandments!-Truth!
But Inaccurate! Above the east entrance to
the Supreme Court building (which is the back entrance, not the
front entrance), Moses is one of three Eastern law givers along with
Confucius and Solon.
Although he's in the middle, Confucius and Salon are facing the
front as well, not facing Moses.
There are figures on each side of the three men facing them.
The tablets in the sculpture are blank and although inspired by the
Ten Commandments, the office of the curator of the U.S. Supreme
Court says they have come to symbolically represent the
"tablets of the law."
The artist, Herman MacNeil, said "The 'Eastern Pediment' of the
Supreme Court Building suggests...the treatment of such fundamental
laws and precepts as are derived from the East. Moses, Confucius and
Solon." As you enter the
Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak
doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of
each
door-Unproven!
As stated above, the tablets are used in the Supreme Court building
as symbolic representations of law.
In some places they also represent not the Ten Commandments but the
first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.
As you sit inside the
courtroom, you can see the wall, right
above where the Supreme Court judges sit, a display of the Ten
Commandments!-Fiction! The wall that is described includes
a frieze that, among other things, has two male figures who
represent the Majesty of Law and the Power of Government.
Between the two male figures is a tablet with the numbers 1 through
10 in Roman numerals.
According to the artist, Adolph A. Weinman, these
represent the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the
Constitution.
There are Bible verses
etched in stone all over the Federal Buildings
and Monuments in Washington, D.C.-Truth! It is true that there are versus
from the Bible on various buildings and monuments in Washington D.C.
James Madison, the fourth president, known as "The Father of
Our Constitution" made the following statement "We have
staked the whole
of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for
self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern
ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to
the
Ten Commandments of God."-Unproven! We've not been able to find
documentation for this.
Patrick Henry,
that patriot and Founding Father of our country
said, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that
this great
nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on
religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ"-Unproven!
We've not
been able to find documentation for this.
Every session of
Congress begins with a prayer by a paid
preacher, whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777-Innacurate! According to U.S. Senate
documents, the chaplaincy for the U.S. Senate was established in
1789.
Fifty-two
of the 55 founders of the Constitution were members
of the established orthodox churches in the colonies-Truth! It was common for leaders of that
time to be a member of a church.
According to research conducted by U.S.Constitution.net, here is the
breakdown of the religion of the framers of the U.S. Constitution:
Some either changed church affiliation in their lifetimes or had
dual membership.
Thomas Jefferson
worried that the Courts would overstep their
authority and instead of interpreting the law would begin making
law....an oligarchy....the rule of few over many-Truth! One of Jefferson's
biographers, Dumas Malone, wrote of Jefferson's views on the dangers
of judicial activism.
In Volume 6 of his series Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of
Monticello, he cites a letter that Jefferson wrote to a William
Charles Jarvis of Massachusetts.
Jefferson was responding to something the man had sent him to read
and which Jefferson felt had included the erroneous doctrine that
Judges were the ultimate arbiters in all constitutional
matters. Jefferson says that he knows of "no safe
depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people
themselves" and that the power did not belong to a judicial
oligarchy. The very first Supreme
Court Justice, John Jay, said, "Americans should select and
prefer Christians as their rulers."-Truth! The exact quote is "Providence
has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the
duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation
to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."
Jay wrote it in a private letter to Jedidiah Morse in 1797.
A real example
of the eRumor as it has appeared on the Internet:
As you walk up the steps to the building which houses the U.S.
Supreme Court you can see near the top of the building a row of the
world's law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who is
facing forward with a full frontal view - it is Moses and he is holding
the Ten Commandments!
As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak
doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each
door.
As you sit inside the courtroom, you can see the wall, right
above where the Supreme Court judges sit, a display of the Ten
Commandments!
There are Bible verses etched in stone all over the Federal
Buildings and Monuments in Washington, D.C.
James Madison, the fourth president, known as "The Father of
Our Constitution" made the following statement "We have staked
the whole
of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for
self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern
ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the
Ten Commandments of God."
Patrick Henry, that patriot and Founding Father of our country
said, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this
great
nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on
religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ".
Every session of Congress begins with a prayer by a paid
preacher, whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777.
Fifty-two of the 55 founders of the Constitution were members
of the established orthodox churches in the colonies.
Thomas Jefferson worried that the Courts would overstep their
authority and instead of interpreting the law would begin making
law....an oligarchy....the rule of few over many.
The very first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, said,
"Americans should select and prefer Christians as their
rulers."
How, then, have we gotten to the point that everything we have
done for 220 years in this country is now suddenly wrong and
unconstitutional?
Please forward this to everyone you can. Lets put it around
the world and let the world see and remember what this great country was
built on.
