With “religion”
defined as “belief in God or gods” (first definition, 1977 World
Book
Dictionary), the existence of an official U.S.A. state religion is
evident from
the word “God” found
(1) in
the U.S.A.
Declaration of Independence,
(2) in
the U.S.A. Pledge of
Allegiance,
(3) on
the U.S.A. coins,
(4) in
the U.S.A. national
motto,
(5) in
the U.S.A. national
anthem, and
(6)
in the opening of each session of the U.S.A. Supreme Court.
The Declaration of Independence, which has not been rescinded by
Congress and
is still in effect today, endorses Thomas Jefferson’s god for entitlement of Congress to their
rights.
Thomas Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence.
Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence
provides
the following doctrine of the U.S.A. state religion:
(1) the Laws of “Nature’s God” entitled Congress to certain rights;
(2) all men are endowed by their “Creator”
with certain unalienable rights;
(3) the Representatives of the U.S.A., in General Congress, Assembled,
appealed
to the “Supreme Judge of the
world” for
the rectitude of their intentions;
(4) the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged with a firm
reliance
on the protection of “divine
Providence”;
and,
(5) the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged to each
other their “sacred Honor”.
The state religion of the United States of America is a religion with
belief in
Thomas Jefferson’s god. Thomas
Jefferson
was a deist. See The
Deist
Roots of the United States of America by Robert L. Johnson.
Thomas Jefferson denied the divinity of Jesus Christ and the miracles
that
Jesus Christ performed as recorded in the King James Bible.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter
that the following are “artificial
systems” “invented by
ultra-Christian
sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him” (Jesus of
Nazareth): “The immaculate
conception of Jesus, his deification,
the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his
resurrection and
visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the
Trinity;
original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy”.
Thomas Jefferson’s definition
of a “real Christian” is
different than many other people’s
definition of a “real
Christian”. Thomas Jefferson was a disciple of the doctrines of the
Jesus of
the Jefferson
Bible but not a disciple of the doctrines of the Jesus of the
King
James Bible.
The First Amendment states that “Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the
free exercise thereof;...”. The First Amendment, signed in 1789, in
effect
stated that the existing U.S.A. state religion could not be changed. In
1789
and after 1789, Congress could make no law respecting an establishment
of a
U.S.A. state religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of a U.S.A.
state
religion, according to the First Amendment. The U.S.A. state religion
was
already established as of July 4, 1776, when Congress adopted the
Declaration
of Independence.
A “Federal”
Reserve
Note is not a U.S.A. dollar. “Most
people
associate the noun ‘dollar’ with the Federal Reserve Note (‘FRN’)
‘dollar bill’, engraved
with the portrait of President George Washington. This association is
mistaken.
No statute defines - or ever has defined - the ‘one
dollar’ FRN as the ‘dollar’, or even
as a species of ‘dollar’”, wrote Edwin Vieira, Jr. in What
Is A
“Dollar”?.
The Coinage Act of 1792 defined the U.S.A. dollar as containing 371.25
grains
(24.06 grams) of pure silver. After 1792, U.S.A. laws, that redefined
the
U.S.A. dollar as no longer consisting of fixed mass of silver but
rather
consisting of a fixed mass of gold, include the Gold Standard Act in
1900. In
the past, Congress has considered defining and redefining the U.S.A.
dollar to
be “Acts and Things which
Independent
States may of right do”.
I am unaware of any U.S.A. law, since 1900, redefining the U.S.A.
dollar as no
longer having the value of a fixed mass of gold. The last time, that I
know of,
that the official U.S.A. price for gold was fixed was in 1973 at
42.2222
dollars per ounce. Public Law 93-110 defined the U.S.A. dollar as
having the
value of 1/42.2222 fine troy ounces of gold.
The U.S.A. Department of the
Treasury values gold at 42.2222 U.S.A. dollars per fine troy ounce. The
“statutory rates of $42.2222
per fine troy ounce (FTO)
for gold and $1.2929292 per FTO for silver are used to value the entire
custodial reserves, which are in the custody of the U.S. Mint and the
Federal
Reserve Bank of New York”, as
stated in the Department of the Treasury’s Annual
Financial Report (pdf document).
The action, of no longer redeeming
“Federal” Reserve Notes for gold for various people, is not the same
thing as the action of defining or redefining what the U.S.A. dollar
actually is.
“No State shall ... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in
Payment of Debts; ...”, according to Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of
the U.S.A. Constitution. Wiktionary's
first definition for the noun “tender” states “A means of payment such
as a check or cheque, cash or credit card” and the second definition
states “(law) A formal offer to buy or sell something”.
In any financial transaction, there is an offer and an acceptance of
the offer. In each and every financial transaction, an offeror makes
something an offer to an offeree. In financial transactions, states in
the U.S.A. have been making so-called “legal tender”, that is neither
gold nor silver coin, an offer in payment of debts. In financial
transactions, states in the U.S.A. have been making so-called “legal
tender”, that is neither gold nor silver coin, a tender in payment of
debts.
States in the U.S.A. have been making cheques a “means of payment” in
payment of debts. States in the U.S.A. have been making cheques a
“formal offer” in payment of debts. States in the U.S.A. have been
making cheques a tender
in payment of debts. “No State shall ... make any Thing but gold and
silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; ...”, according to Article I,
Section 10, Clause 1 of the U.S.A. Constitution.
Email concerning this web page may be sent to David Wozney at dpwozney@ocii.com.
Copyright © 2007-2010 David P. Wozney