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  • 2003-11-05 (xsd:date)
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  • Religious Symbols in the U.S. National Capital (en)
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  • Although the intent of this piece is to demonstrate a government endorsement of Judeo-Christian tradition through the symbols and words used in U.S. federal buildings and the writings of America's founding fathers, much of the information it presents is inaccurate. As you walk up the steps to the Capitol Building which houses the 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 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! 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 about 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. 1 Some critics contend that anything that is tablet-shaped cannot possibly be interpreted as representing the U.S. Constitution, because that document was not written on tablets. But one could use that same argument to contend that anything bearing the common version of Roman numerals cannot possibly represent the Ten Commandments, because that numbering system was not yet in use at the time of the events described in Exodus. 2 Although the authenticity of the Weinman letter has been challenged because it does not bear the hallmarks of his other business correspondence, there are several prosaic reasons that might explain the differences, such as that the item is a draft of a letter (which may or may not have been formally prepared and sent) or an archival copy of a piece of correspondence whose original has since been lost. (en)
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