Fixing America In 500 Words Or Less Chapter 7 DOES THE ACLU REALLY SUPPORT THE 1ST AMENDMENT? According to the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”  This amendment clearly meant something entirely different to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison than the modern ACLU pretends it means. ¹ Jefferson edited the New Testament while a sitting president and, attempted to have his version become the recognized U.S. version, thus ensuring that it would be read in every public schoolhouse of his time.  Madison stated he believed the 1st Amendment would aid the spreading of Christianity. ² Many so-called “experts” interpret “religion” to mean belief in God, while it is far more likely it meant institutional religion to the framers.  Regardless, protection of free expression has nothing to do with what is actually true about God, science or anything else.  Whether modern evolutionary theory is entirely true or just a poorly constructed fairytale, is not relevant to 1st Amendment protections. According to various polls, over 80% of adults and over 50% of American educators believe in a Designer.  Nevertheless, the ACLU and so-called “progressives” maintain that instructors in public so-called “science” classrooms, should not be allowed to discuss any viewpoint that includes a Designer in the equation.  In other words, they demand that over half of all American educators deliberately lie to our children, pretending they don't believe what in fact, they actually do believe. Some claim that “God is not a question for science”, as if the Creator, true science and the truth are not one and the same.  To teach children only one viewpoint is to teach children questioning what is true is not relevant to education. These are the same “progressives” who are angry over the one-sidedness of talk radio. Modern evolutionary theory does in fact, address the “God question”.  Any theory assuming that everything in the universe is a result of natural “unguided processes” is stating there is no God, not to mention, scientifically, completely wacko. Nobody from our prospective could possibly know the overall process is unguided. Atheism has no more protection under the 1st Amendment than Catholicism.  Is freedom of speech or science really being served when only one unscientific superstitious assumption is allowed? ³ According to biographer Walter Isaacson, Albert Einstein said:  "I have a deep feeling of faith, a deep religiosity that comes from my appreciation of the way the Lord made the universe." 4  Thomas Jefferson said people are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”.  Among the millions of public teachers who represent belief in a Designer are names such as Isaiah, Jesus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, DaVinci, Newton and Francis Collins. Should we allow Isaiah, Jesus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, DaVinci, Newton, Einstein, Jefferson and Collins to teach in our public classrooms?  Should we petition our Creator to toss the ACLU into a bottomless black hole and throw away the key, allowing our children a proper education without any further undue hindrance from the narrow-minded?  You decide. NOTES: 1. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica; various biographies of prominent 18th Century Americans.  The so-called "founding fathers" were not Deists, as some modern advocates for the extremely myopic modern ACLU position pretend.  They overwhelmingly believed in a personal God, while at the same time, many of them harbored a strong suspicion and distaste for organized religion.  Belief in God apart from organized religion is not an example of Deism or atheism, as certain modern shallow minded ner-do-wells would have us believe.  There is overwhelming evidence based on the subsequent known actions of the various Constitutional framers and others, such as Jefferson and Adams, that the 1st Amendment very clearly intends that one can speak any view one personally believes in any public science or any other public place at any time; some might even correctly argue, any privately owned place in the United States, as well. The incredibly narrow-minded and regressive ACLU notion of "separation of church and state", phrased only once in a private letter by one founding father, who was not even present when the Constitution or 1st Amendment was drafted, is as far away from their subsequent actions as the East is from the West.  Freedom of speech to them, very clearly meant, that one can freely express one's personal religious or any other viewpoint anywhere, at anytime, without fear of recrimination of any kind, whatsoever.  Modern intellectuals who pretend that discussing evidence for design in a public classroom is against the intent of the 1st Amendment, are purveyors of tyranny and fascism, having no understanding of the 1st Amendment, the founding fathers themselves, freedom of speech or freedom of anything else.  It is anti-human rights and thus, anti-God and anti-Christ, for any human being, to at any time or in any way, attempt to suppress any other human being's personal religious view or any other opinion.  Freedom of speech means "free" to speak without fear of recrimination of any kind, just as it implies.  Forbidding a public school teacher, student or anyone else from freely expressing what they personally believe, is promoting and practicing the opposite of human rights and freedom of speech. 2. Source: In Search of America; Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster. 3. There is a difference between a teacher stating their opinion, as opposed to a teacher pretending their opinion is scientific fact.  Based on the 1st Amendment, a public school teacher should not be allowed to present their personal opinion as the official U.S. school system version, on any subject, to their students.  However, every public school teacher should be allowed to freely express their own personal opinions regarding any and every subject, as well as every student should be granted the same freedom.  That is very clearly, what the 1st Amendment says.  If and when, enough Americans decide that the 1st Amendment needs to be revised, there is a process left in place by the Constitutional framers to either modify or re-write it entirely.  The Constitution is not subject to arbitrary private interpretation and editing, just because certain modern intellectual Neanderthals are unhappy with the freedom it allows.  Opinions of how human beings arrived on our planet are just that, non-proven and most probably, non-provable opinions. Their is virtually no geologic or fossil record of the first 800 million years of the earth's existence, when life is theorized to have first arisen.  Modern scientific speculation ranges from life arriving here on asteroids or comets, to life appearing first in the ocean, in caves, in or near fresh water, in clay and even perhaps, first under the earth's surface.  Some scientists believe what causes life to form may be very common rather than rare and that life may be able to appear where ever there is a little wetness; others speculate that the earth was originally shrouded in a thick cloud cover and the subsequent "greenhouse" effect was conducive to the formation of life and thus, the earth is no longer conducive to original life forming. The process of how life arose on this planet is unknown; whether life evolved from a single primary source or several, hundreds or millions or even trillions of primary sources, is also unknown.  It is believed that the early earth was bombarded by untold millions of extra planetary objects. Thus, if life itself or the building blocks of life arrived via comet or asteroid, life may have "originated" all over the earth, rather than from a single primary source. And, life may well have originated in diverse places anyway, even if extra solar objects weren't part of the process.  Any and all theories regarding the origin of life on Planet Earth are entirely speculative, not scientifically proven or most probably, even provable; there is no general scientific or other consensus, nor should students ever be taught that there is. Modern intellectuals and others who pretend that there is some sort of unified scientific theory on the origin of life are plainly liars.  Educators who believe we should lie to our children, rather than tell them modern science doesn't really know, should be forced out of their profession, where they cannot harm our children any further.  Because many educated people believe that the universe is a product of design, while other people with degrees believe it is a product of chance, that is what we should teach our children.  If there is no general consensus or proven or provable theory, that is what we should tell our children.  To teach them anything else is to deliberately lie to them. Education is not about including every origin theory in science class, anymore than education is about including the biography of every American who was ever born in history class.  However, education is most definitely about including diverse theories and opinions that are held by prominent scientists, just as education is about including the biographies of prominent Americans, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  If over 50% of American educators or even, if only 10% of modern scientists believe in God, then theories regarding evidence of design belong in every United States science classroom.  Jefferson would likely correctly argue, if Albert Einstein were the only scientist in all of human history who believed in God, then theories of design should still be included, along with the rest of his theories. 4. Source: Einstein: His Life and Universe; Walter Isaacson. 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