And you of course understand why, right? To not choose a favorite violating separation of church & state if you allow one then you would have to allow all. I doubt you'd be for a big Satanist upside down cross displayed prominently in front of City Hall or in your public park.
Which was a huge problem. Religion when intertwined with politics & government ALWAYS seeks to overtake the authority of said government. No matter what the people may democratically want a religion based (or heavily influenced) government will always revert to... but we know what "God" wants. That pretty much takes the democratic out of democratic government.
Many of the leaders of that period (Constitution signers or not) were in fact Deists... at least at one time or another.
Ethan Allen
Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
Thomas Paine
George Washington
Another interesting point is that many of the founding fathers were Mason's. Mason's like Deists preach the acceptance of all men under one god; however their practices are bizarre and satanic.
Deists of course require reason and reject revelation. The claim that America was founded by Christian’s is weak; in fact, as I know the conservative Christian leadership; they would not tolerate any other religion (if they didn’t have to) and demand everything be modeled around the holy bible.
Founding Fathers that were Masons:
Signers of the Declaration of Independence:
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Treat Paine
John Hancock
Richard Stockton
Joseph Hewes
George Walton
William Hooper
William Whipple
Signers of the U.S. Constitution:
Gunning Bradford, Jr.
John Blair
Benjamin Franklin
David Brearley
Nicholas Gilman
Jacob Broom
Rufus King
Daniel Carroll
James McHenery
Jonathan Dayton
William Paterson
John Dickinson
George Washington (a Mason at some point, all though he may have pulled away later)
This point is further highlighted by official United States of America documents. This one for instance ratified by one of the if not the only unanimous vote ever by Congress.
Treaty of Tripoly
"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, - as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
Not mocking simply stating the fact that modern educated people by some 99+% have established all of those to be primitive misconceptions and without any factual basis. And none of them have any more rights to be preached or taught in schools than any other religious belief or practice. They like Christianity can be referred to in a historical perspective of people of a certain time period. If you want dogma then that moves to either a private school setting or a public school class on religions of the world.
A problem really only presents itself when religious groups want to take over science classes with faith over actual science.
First off there is a fossilized chain of human evolution. To make the case that there may be a missing link here or there does not wipe away the whole rest of the chain. Furthermore with many animals we have COMPLETE lineage. Some that even prove water animals were once land animals and visa versa.
On your second point you are just completely mistaken. Carbon dating clearly CLEARLY shows that the planet earth is billions of years old and not the about 6 thousand that the Bible states. Even if the scientific were off by 10 fold or 100 fold or 1000 fold you're still not even close to the reality.
To make a factual arguement yes one has to prove the positive... the burden lies there. The "practice" to which you refer is not that one can't hold any religious belief that they choose (faith in God being one of them). It's that one's personal religious belief cannot be forced onto others when the only basis is invisable & untestable i.e. faith.
