Ask yourself this, would you rater live in a country of self-proclaimed atheists who are highly concerned about the preservation and protection of the Constitution and its laws and the protections of the rights it both explicitly implicitly enshrines or Christians who believe that "social and economic jusice" requires that we redistribute wealth so that everyone is equal; we could find conflicting quotes from our favorite founding fathers all day, but in 2009, as an atheist, I side politically with a group that is numerically populated mostly by Christians because I believe that they want to defend a document--the Constitution-- that protects my right to privacy and true freedom of religion better than liberal social engineering ever could.

You know nothing about me, but just judging me for a vague elucidation of my worldview. Isn't there something in your belief system about "Judge not lest ye be judged?" I think personally that's a pretty good code to follow and I was always taught by my parents not to treat people in a way I would not want to be treated, which is why I try to the best of my ability to remain civil, even in anonymous conversations with strangers.

Of course, if you look at our founding Documents, other than a vague reference to the Creator and to "nature's God," listed as the source of "laws of nature," there is no mention of God, and certainly not explicitly of the God of the New Testament. "IN GOD WE TRUST" was added to our coinage much later in our nation's history; we didn't have a national currency until the Civil War, in the first place.

I don't deny that many Americans in early history believed in God, nor that religion is an important part of American life to this day, but nonetheless, the Government shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, and if you really care about defending the Constitution, don't you think you should be committed to what was thought to be so important that it was enumerated as the first clause of the first explicitly listed right which mut not be infringed? I.e., If I am willing to stand next to you to defend the Constitution that ensures that the government does not ban your freedom to worship how you choose, why would you have a problem standing next to me to defend the same document that it doesn't permit the government to write a law forcing me to worship a God I don't believe in? Or is the privacy of God more important to you than that of the natural rights, a good set of examples of which are listed in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution? if so, how is that not just a different kind of tyranny--I'll take Constitutional Republicanism over theocracy or socialism both, thank you very much.

Jeez, I am not trying to bully anyone, I was trying to start a discussion about what I saw as a rather unimportant tenet for working towards the political aims of this organization--belief in the Constitution does not, in my mind require belief in God. Apparently most of the members in this organization either do not feel that way or feel uncomfortable or feel it tiresome to have to address this issue. I wish you success in your goals since I do not want to see this government stray further from its underpinning document further than it already has, but I will leave as a final question... if such a relatively trivial matter is enough to be so divisive with someone who agrees with your politics 99%, how do you intend to persuade people who are drunk on the Obama Kool-Aid that the Constitution--let alone religious belief-- are important? I live amongst them as a 20-something New Yorker and believe me they think it "crazy" to think the words of a 200 year old political document mean something, let alone the words of a 2000 year old religious text. I wish you good luck but if your tent is not big enough to comfortably accommodate people who don't care about God then I worry that your success will be limited in reaching out beyond people who don't already watch Glen Beck and believe in most of what you already believe in That'll be the last I'll have to say and I hope that the manifest failures of straying too far from the Constitution are enough to do most of the heavy lifting of bringing people who think the Constitution is a historical--not legal-- document back into the fold of wanting to see constraints on government power.

Indeed. I was honestly not trying to pick a fight, but to point out what I see as an inconsistency between the goals, aims and methods of the organization, I will not be joining, but I wish you all good luck since we share a common political goal.

Agreed, I will not be joining, but I wish you all good luck.

I am trying to start a discussion, I'm sorry if you perceive any challenge to your personal beliefs as picking a fight that can generate only heat but not light; I am not asking a movement of 600k+ people to change their core beliefs so that I can feel comfortable joining. I am simply pointing out that I will not be joining since it feels hypocritical to me to join a movement based so much on honesty and fair play--things I strongly believe in-- when one of the main tenets is also religious faith, something which I do not share. Perhaps this is something you might want to ponder; you--the general you, as in 9/12ers-- can run your organization however you want, but it requires cognitive dissonance, or at least it seems that way to me, to pick and choose that I believe with all but one of your tenets but not one and that I'll just ignore that. In other words, I agree with everything you believe in with one glaring exception. Now maybe there are few enough libertarian atheists that not getting my support and support from people who think like me does not matter to your organization, that's your prerogative, the obligation to not make an act regarding an establishment of religion applies to the U.S. government, not private organizations. However, I would just put out there as food for thought that basically every other belief seems to be secular in its scope and its aim. Why then, is there one belief--while certainly important to many members-- has nothing to do with the changes that are going on in this country for the worse. Is Obama's mission focused on trying to build a country of atheists? Would you rather live with neighbors who were people (and forget about me, personally) who were moral, good-hearted atheists who supported the Constitution or nominal people of faith (what faith is not important) who were glad to trample on the Constitution and make all sorts of laws that established national religious laws? And what issue, frankly, is more at stake right now, the loss of our religious freedoms or the loss of other freedoms like the right to property, to not have the government confiscate more than is necessary to provide for the common defense and other Constitutionally enumerated powers or the right to bear arms, or the right to believe as you so choose? I am not trying to pick a fight nor am I in any way even suggesting, let alone demanding, that such a large group change its core values. However, if you cannot tolerate even constructive criticism from someone who probably agrees with 99% of what you believe (at least politically) then how do you react when you meet someone who you need to convince about the goodness and rightness of a movement that seeks to reinstate the primacy of the Constitution?

Our freedoms are not created by man; but the idea that they are endowed by an unnamed "Creator" does not imply--to me anyways-- that believing in the Constitution requires an explicit belief, let alone the centrality in my life, of the Judeo-Christian God. Why is it inconceivable that human being simply _have_ rights that are not endowed by anything other than the fact that they are human beings that no man can rightfully take away, be they "endowed" by the Creator, the Universe or the Flying Spaghetti Monster? It is an affront to human dignity to think that rights can be airbrushed in or out of existence--for instance the right to self-defense existed as long as humans have existed... the spurious "right" to health care required that modern health care and its practitioners existed first. Ditto education as opposed to freedom of conscience.

I am all for not allowing Rahm Emanuel--or any other human being-- to simply assert by fiat that we all now have new human rights imposed by their fiat. Our rights are inborn and innate and do not require any participation on your part to fulfill them except not making an explicit choice to violate them. For instance, I respect your right to life and to religious freedom simply by not physically injuring you or coercing you to abandon your faith. Those rights don't necessarily seem to need to come from a Creator to me, and certainly not the JudeoChristian God. Yet the "right to healthcare" seems to compel the friendly doctor down the street to render his expensively bought knowledge and skills for free, that right hardly seems like it could be innately born into all human beings.

Many of the founding fathers were Deists and probably would have been agnostics or atheists in a different time. Thomas Paine, it is clear, would have basically been the equivalent of a far left Democrat and he was expelled from Congress and eventually left the country after criticizing American war profiteers in the 1790s. He would probably be closer to an anti-Halliburton zealot than a conservative Republican despite having written Common Sense some 20 years earlier. But that's not really the point; the point is that the two statements (the one about all being welcome, and then the other being that this is an organization about what people believe and that a very important one of those beliefs is in God, and that God is central in your life) are simply incompatible. Cognitive dissonance may be OK with you and is clearly OK with our President and many in the Majority Party (such as House Speaker Pelosi who apparently was aware of waterboarding for 6 years during which she spoke not a peep but was later comfortable crying like a banshee about its wickedness) but I am not comfortable holding two contradictory ideas to be true at the same time.

No, I don't want to whitewash any reference to God from the United States; I don't deny that this nation was founded in Judeo-Christian values. It is completely fair to accept that we can all believe in our own way; the thing is, with this organization, I see that most of the beliefs seem secular in their goals; I want to be a better person, to try to do better for my country and to leave my children a better country than the one that Obama seems to be planning for them-- one in financial ruin. I would like to feel comfortable amongst such a large group of like-minded people and to me the fact that we do not share the same religion is almost immaterial. I will not proselytize about my lack of belief in God--that's almost oxymoronic-- I simply would like to not feel like a hypocrite in supporting this organization.

How is an atheist supposed to feel welcome in a movement based entirely in believing in 9 believes and #2 is "God is a central part of my life." If there were a project similar to this one--getting America back towards fiscal discipline, etc, but it had as a central tenet "I will not oppose affirmative action for it is racism," but you agreed with every other tenet, would you join?