I just threw up in my mouth. Thanks Ms. Sharp. You just said nothing but you said it in a way that made me...well ... throw up.

contrary to popular belief (I KNOW this will make MANY people angry!) was NOT founded around God, this country was created as an attempt to ESCAPE RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION! That is the entire reason we have seperation of church and state.

SouthernBelle, GRACE is a VIRTUE

SouthernBelle, I have no desire to become involved in this discussion; however, I see you are sincere and desire to know your heritage. While I am not sure what this has to do with the second (actually third) version of the confederate flag that was used by the Army of Northern Virginia, the main army of the South, led by Robert E. Lee, as a cavalry, artillery and infantry battle flag, which has caused all of the confusion, I can tell you that this country was found in search of spices, wealth and general goods. I know that is not what you meant though.

The early settlers (not founders) did come to escape the monarchy and persecution of the English. However, young lady, please allow me to use an already existing document of great importance to explain in detail why this country was actually 'founded' in the sense of becoming 'Independant and Established':

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

In short, young lady, we wanted freedom. We wanted to be able to own property and to persue business and be treated fairly. We desired to allow others to join us and to help us own land and settle it. We wanted laws that reflected fairness and were written and established. We wanted to be able to say who and if we went to war and who and if we established trade or peace. The men who wrote and signed this document were commiting treason in the eyes of the King and most, although very wealthy, lost everything they owned and had to leave and hide from the King's army. There is however, no direct link to declaring our independance FOR any religion nor any attempt to escape FROM any religion.

Finally, what became of the signers is very interesting and the source of many a legend - some true and some not true. I would conclude my civics lesson for you today by suggesting you read the article on snopes.com regarding the rumor and fact of what became of the signers.

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/pricepaid.asp

In conclusion, I am excited that you are excited about history. Although I worked in the arena of science in my military carrer, I have learned the value of history.

I would be remiss if I did not offer yet another final thought:

About 7,000 African Americans served in the Continental Army, mostly in integrated units, some in all-black combat units. The first American of any race to die in the American Revolution was a black man, Crispus Attucks, who held opinions equally as radical as Sam Adams and James Otis, and was anything but diplomatic in confronting the British "peace-keepers." This "Boston Massacre", as it came to be known, inflamed public opinion all up and down the colonies, leading (in scarcely a decade) to war, the Declaration of Independence, and freedom from British control. There were other notable valiant African-Americans, including, for one, the hero of Bunker Hill, Peter Salem, who in a feat little short of supernatural, single-handedly killed the British commander (Pitcairn).

Whatever reasons them Englishfolk left Great Britain over, It was the Mayflower people who hit Plymouth Rock and immediately established their Puritan form of religion. And those folks in the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery landed at Cape Henry Virginia on April 26th 1607 and planted a Christian Cross - of course they later sailed to Jamestown where Capt Smith began his child molestation of Pocahontas.

Then, when the the Declaration of Independence was penned, it said something like "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator etc..."

Each of the 50 states acknowledge God in their state Constitutions.

NOWHERE in the US Constitution does it say ANYTHING about your imaginary 'SEPERATION OF CHURCH AND STATE'

The Constitution does say "Congress shall pass no laws establishing a religion or preventing the free exercize thereof"

EVERY CHILD in school has the right to say a prayer before school, during school, before school lunch, before a test, during a test, after a test, and before a sporting event.

EVERY CHILD in school has a right to tote a Bible, wear a Cross neckless, ring or tatoo.

That 'seperation' crud is hype and bully tactics by the unGodly like the ACLU and leftists, marxists, commies, and socialists to herd us into neat little sheepish pens of mindless compliance with one world government. Looks like you are a victim...

Oh, I don't know what you were not taught in school (Fayette County most likely) but Georgia was began as a penal colony - (criminals) by Oglethorp

that Southernbelle was a bit off in her knowledge of history. Religion was a major part of the United States since the very beginning, before we were the United States. Christianity, God, played a major role in everything. From the formation of governments/laws at the local level to the national level. I guess students are not being taught history well in schools. I think a lot of people think that separation of church and state is something that happened on the Mayflower. Like they got off the boat and said "We separate church and state" and that is not it at all. They are off a few centuries. The constitution doesn't say anything about separation of church and state. It says what you said in your post. It is freedom of religion not freedom from religion which a lot of people seem to think it says.

I was going to respond,but I changed my mind.