Let us write some Bible
I’m over a year late on my coverage of this story. Sorry. I just heard about it for the first time.
This is a story that originally broke in Jan. 2010. It’s about a defense contractor that makes rifle scopes used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan with references to Bible verses stamped on the scopes. (Disclosure: Wikipedia reports that the company has since discontinued the practice.)
Chapter 4, verse 6 of the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians reads: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
So take that, scumbags! We fight on behalf of Jesus Christ. We are holy soldiers.
[The] verse is rendered on tiny letters on the the scopes, made by Wixom, Michigan-based Trijicon, as “2COR4:6” referring to chapter 4, verse 6 of the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. Source.
The defense contractor, Trijicon, “has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army,” ABC News reported.
According to Wikipedia, Trijicon is one of the “Top 100 Contractors Report on the Federal Procurement Data System lists the top one hundred defense contractors by sales to the United States military.”
Trijicon also likes their religious beliefs. I found this on their official web site this morning:
Morality
We believe that America is great when its people are good. This goodness has been based on biblical standards throughout our history and we will strive to follow those morals.
Seriously. Who dares to claim the lines between church and state and religion and our military are blurred. Ridiculous!
Trijicon is an American company, based in Wixom, Michigan, that manufactures and distributes optical sighting devices for firearms, including pistols, rifles, and shotguns. They specialize in self-luminous optics and night sights, mainly using the slightly radioactive isotope tritium, light-gathering fiber optics, and batteries. Source.
We make shit that kills people. Praise the Lord!
Long story short, I figured that stuff about “light” was way too tame for a company like Trijicon. We’re talking about exploding someone’s fucking skull with a bullet from 600 to 1,000 yards away. (That’s more than one-third of a mile.) I think we can do better. That’s when I had my idea: A Trijicon biblical writing contest!
“Light upon my scope, oh Lord, grant me the strength for my aim to be steady and true, to smite and vaporize the head of my enemy, in your name.”
“Blessed are the children that spake the Lord’s name with itchy trigger finger, that they shall deliver death unto He most high and behold His kingdom and glory.”
How are your writing skills? Can you improve on these and come up with some of your own? It’s not every day you get to update the Bible!
Star Beck: The Wrath of God
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Glenn Beck says America should be about believing in God. Do you think he’s right about that?
What do you think was most important to the “founding fathers?” Freedom? Individual rights vs. the state? Or that we must have a belief in God and laws based on the same?
Which do you think is more important when it comes to the rule of law and the way things work in the United States of America? The Declaration of Independence or the Constitution?
Which document, do you think, was intended to have more sway over our daily lives?
The other day I was flipping through channels and I saw television commentator Glenn Beck on the FOX News Channel hosting some kind of TV show. The studio audience seemed to be comprised mostly of young people. With Beck on stage was a man who would offer up comments regarding things that Beck said. I wish I could find a link to this show but I tried and was not successful.
I admit, I’m not a regular watcher of Beck. But I was momentarily curious. What were my impressions of the man? I have to admit the way he talked was really off-putting. His tone was histrionic and what he had to say seemed to me to be quite full of puffery. That’s just my opinion.
On this particular occasion he was frothing at the mouth about God and the Declaration of Independence. I’ll admit the obvious right up front. Beck is correct. That document clearly talks about a “creator” and so forth.
So what does that mean? That we’re supposed to be a “Christian nation?” That’s what Beck wants you to think. Be a critical thinker, though, and don’t take his word for it. Dig a little deeper.
The purpose of the Declaration of Independence: To announce and explain separation from Great Britain.
The purpose of the Constitution: A national constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation.
Again I ask, which document do you think is supposed to hold more sway over our laws and how we live our lives?
Beck is correct that the Declaration of Independence mentions a “creator.” But what is he leaving out? What you don’t hear him spouting off about all the time is that the Constitution is strangely silent on the subject of God.
The following words do not appear in the original United States Constitution: God, creator, maker, Christ, Christianity, and religion*. Search the text for yourself and see!
The word “religious” does show up one single time, but it’s not exactly a powerful statement that the founding fathers wanted religion entwined with government. In fact, it says the exact opposite:
From Article VI. “… no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
To my simple mind, this disconnect raises an immediate and important question: If the founding fathers were so concerned about God, why did they fail to broach the subject even a single time in the Constitution? The document that they intended to be the very foundation for our country?
I can see why Beck prefers to avoid bringing attention to this sort of thing. But that doesn’t stop him from appearing on stage with an “expert” and declaring that the word “creator” in a different document means that we’re supposed to be a Christian nation.
In fact, the only logical conclusion that can be drawn from the God disconnect between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is that the authors of the Constitution deliberately went out of their way to keep God out. I mean, what else? You think they forgot? I don’t think so. They seemed to put an awful lot of thought into the Constitution. I find it hard to imagine that they would forget about God unless it was deliberate.
All the puffery and histrionics in the world can’t get around the fact that God is missing from the Constitution and that the founding fathers didn’t want religious beliefs to dictate who could hold office.
Amazing, eh?
One last point: What is “freedom of religion?” That comes from the First Amendment which prohibits the federal government from making a law “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This was later expanded to state and local governments by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Now for a geometrical proof regarding the “free exercise” of religion:
- The Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion in the United States.
- This guarantees every American the right to choose their own religious beliefs (or even have none at all).
- By definition and as required by the Constitution, therefore the United States is not a “Christian” nation.
If every American has the right to believe what they want about God and religion, how can there be any requirement that we are a Christian nation? Such a requirement, even if it did exist, would be a direct violation of the Constitution. We’re all free to worship trees or be atheists or be whatever we want to be. It just so happens that most of us are Christians, but that is not a requirement of being an American. According to the Constitution you don’t have to believe in God at all if you don’t want.
That’s not the way Beck wants it, though. Beck believes that a belief in God is a requirement to being a good American. If so, what happens then? Can religious beliefs other than the most popular be legally discriminated against? Can you be excluded from housing based on having the “wrong” belief? Turned away from a job? Jailed? Burned at the stake? Where are these lines, how are they drawn, and who is going to be deciding how every American’s beliefs will be evaluated and legally acted upon?
By the way, Thomas Jefferson was the first to advocate the concept of the separation of church and state in this letter.
Beck is wrong. God does not belong in politics. God has nothing to do with being an American.
Related reading: You don’t have the Constitution for that
* Except for the First Amendment. The word “religion” does appear there.
You don’t have the Constitution for that
People argue a lot about God and country and the Constitution. Most of it centers around the argument that America was intended to be a “Christian nation.”
For example, someone once said something like this to me: The Constitution makes no mention of a “wall of separation between church and state.”
The fellow who wrote that to me actually misspelled “Constitution” but I feel like being nice so I corrected it so he doesn’t look stupid. He also went on to add that the “separation doctrine” is an invention of the Supreme Court.
I have to admit, those statements made me curious. So I went and did some checking. I examined a document that most of us would probably accept as an absolute authority on the matter – The Constitution of the United States. Grab a copy of the Constitution and you can fact check my results if you want.
So, what does the Constitution of the United States say about God and religion anyway? Not much, it turns out. Based on the following facts, can the wall of separation be inferred, especially in light of comments by certain “founding fathers” that were made later?
From what power is the Constitution of the United States derived? I checked. The word “God” can’t be found there. Nor “Christ” or “Christianity” or “Creator” or “Maker.”
All I can find is a reference to “We the people…” That is where the power of the United States government lies.
The word “religion” is not found, but “religious” does result in one hit:
From Article VI. “… no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
That’s it. That’s all I could find. I’m now going to make an assumption: If this was supposed to be a country based on Christianity, don’t you think some of those terms would have been a skosh more prominent? Might they even have gone as far as to actually mention it?
If it was so bloody important, why on Earth would the founding fathers leave it completely out of the document we hold most dear?
Shouts from the Abyss 
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