Restoring America: Start with distinguishing "government" from "society"

[Trooper]

I've been thinking about this post, and I really don't think we're that far apart. I do, however, think it's a mistake to equate religion with morality. I think there's an agnostic brilliance to our Constitution, in that its values are stuck to natural law without mentioning a "creator" or anything like that.

I agree with you that it's hard to look at the pre-Constitution England and the United States as a secular society when, for example, non believers couldn't even testify in court. But I think you can see my side on the idea that those who wrote and ratified the constitution were aware that religious spats had divided the people and lead to war and other fights throughout recent history, and it was just easier to focus on simpler, potentially-agnostic values rather than to enforce their vision of religion.

I also somewhat disagree with you that our society has degraded to the point that there's no common morality. I think the modern United States is obvious proof that people of all sorts of religious backgrounds and national origin, for example, can agree about certain morals, even while arguing about others.

As much as I admire the founders as thoughtful men, I would never give up my place in 2012 America for the world in which they lived, either, but that's a topic for another thread.

Hamilton and Madison were the primary authors of the constitution. Both were Freemasons. At that time most Freemasons did not believe in the Trinity (Jesus was not G-D but merely the son of G-D). However they were not agnostic but men of strong faith, just not believers in the Trinity.