posted on Mar, 22 2016 @ 11:09 AM
Constitutional rights God given? A pseudo-treatise-
I heard on Glenn Beck the other day, and I’ve heard it from other conservatives in the past, that “the Constitution of the U.S. is Divinely
Inspired, and that the rights it contains are God Given”.
Well that brings up a lot of questions.
Which god inspired it? Based on the source(s) of the statement I would hazard to guess that it was the Christian god. If so, why are these rights not
found in the Bible? Why the gap from the time of Jesus till 1787 for those rights to be codified? Also, the Constitution only mentions a god in the
form of a date, “in the year of our lord...”, which was custom at the time. If the Christian god was so important, why wasn't it mentioned more
often?
Now, for the sake of argument, let's say it was the Christian god that inspired the Constitution. This brings up the question of “To whom does it
apply”? Did the Christian god intend for these rights to apply only to Citizens (a), or to all people (human rights, if you will)(b)?
(a) If they apply to Citizens only, why was the Christian god so narrow in scope? Does this mean that American Citizens are inherently better than
everyone else on earth because we were chosen by the Christian god to be granted these rights?
(b)If these rights are universal, then why do other countries not have them? Why do we say the people in Gitmo, or refugees/illegals, not have
them?
Both (a) and (b) are the problem with saying the rights Americans enjoy are “God Given”.
Another issue that comes up when you say the Constitution is “God Inspired” is you place it on par with the Bible, the Inspired Word of God. This
brings up the question of why the Constitution is not inerrant like the Bible. The Constitution has had to be amended several times, once to remove an
amendment no less, so that means its incomplete at the minimum. Can you imagine someone saying the same thing about the Bible, that it needs to be
amended or is incomplete? If the inspired Bible, written 2,000 years ago, is still accurate, then why is the inspired Constitution, written a little
over 200 years ago, not?
Let's not forget that a great majority of the Constitution is actually based on the Ancient Roman system of law. This would imply that the majority
of the Constitution is actually pagan in nature, since the Ancient Romans were certainly not Christian. “Concepts that originated in the Roman
constitution live on...to this day. Examples include checks and balances, the separation of powers, vetoes, filibusters, quorum requirements, term
limits, impeachments, the powers of the purse, and regularly scheduled elections.” wiki- Roman Constitution.
Based on the above questions and reason, the Rights of the Constitution are not “God Given”, but given by, and agreed to, by the Framers. They may
have sought help from the Christian god, but this in no way means that the Christian god inspired their solutions to the problems they faced, as the
Framers took more from pagan Rome than the Christian Bible. It is much easier to assume that the Rights of the Constitution is of Man, for the
Citizens of the U.S. only, rather than expand them to all of humanity.