There's a thought, Doug! I expect to go back to Trinidad soon, where I will probably think very little about politics.

Bill - I noticed a couple of odd things in that article. One was:

"but any invocation of one God necessarily excludes Hindus as surely as it excludes atheists."

NOT TRUE! Anyone who thinks that the invocation of one God excludes Hindus sure doesn't know much about Hinduism. The Hindus do believe in a single Godhead...and they believe that that single Godhead has many aspects, like facets of one diamond. Those aspects are characterized as many gods and goddesses, all symbolyzing various powers and attributes of the One Divine. The Post really ought to do their homework before tossing off glib statements like that. Hindus have no trouble whatsoever conceiving of God as a singularity, because the singularity which that Divine is encompasses ALL of existence, including the flipping Washington Post!

Any society will interpret a document, no matter how carefully it is worded, according to the basic outlook on life that they are accustomed to. I suspect that the original intent in the Constitution was to provide an even playing field between CHRISTIAN churches, but not between religions. Most North Americans were religious at the time, and most of them were Christians, so that's how they would have interpreted it.

No traditional Native Americans in the 1700's would have considered a government that excluded religion, because nothing in their cosmology excluded religion. That was their view on things. They were also quite tolerant of new religions, until persecuted by them. This was not so true of Christians, who were exclusivists.

An atheist will interpret the words as separating the government from official religions. A religious person may not interpret it that way. If he's in favour of treating all religions equally, then he'll see it as supporting that.

So...while people can claim that they are living up to the original intent of the Constitution, they will mostly just interpret the Constitution to be conveniently supporting whatever axe they have to grind. Just like they do with the Bible. Surprise, surprise!

And so, yes...it IS a living Constitution. Was then. Is now. And everything else is like that too, including the Bible or any other traditional form of authority. We all make up the rules as we go along, change them as society changes, and they reflect our changing loves, hates, prejudices, ideals, blind spots, and beliefs.

That's why a written law will never serve to adequately protect a nation if the people in that nation seriously lose their sense of morality and equality...or if the people at the top do...But...it's still better than no written law at all.

- LH