On the fourth of July, 1776, our nation declared its independence.  By God's grace, the founding words of our nation are: "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."

There is no way to believe that all people are essentially of equal worth except by believing in a God who values them equally.  If we do not believe in God but only in what we see with our eyes, we see that people are different.  Some people are strong and some are weak, and if we value strength, then the strong are more valuable.  Some people are intelligent and some are not, and if we value intelligence, then the intelligent are more valuable.  Some people are talented and some are not, and if we value talent, then the talented are more valuable.  If we are pagans (including evolutionists), then we believe that might makes right (the survival of the fittest).  Only if we believe in a God who values the weak, the stupid, and the untalented is there any real (as opposed to illogically sentimental) reason for us to value them.  Else they must be seen logically as of little or no value.  The low value people should be used (like beasts of burden) by the high value elites, or eliminated if they are not useful.  This is the logical conclusion of rejecting God, and that logic will inevitably become reality if we continue to reject God.  Only if we believe in a loving Creator is there any reason to not believe this way.

Our nation was founded on the idea of a loving Creator-God who values all people equally.  We should thank God for that mercy, and for the ideal of inalienable rights for all people, which comes from belief in a loving and just God.

Our nation was founded on the idea that no person is more important than another by nature.  Thus no person should be able to exercise arbitrary power over another.  Since the greatest danger of abuse of power comes from those in the most powerful positions--that is, those in government--our nation was founded on the idea that those in government should be kept from being able to exercise arbitrary power.  That is why we have three branches of government, to balance one branch against another--that is, to have them controlling ("checking and balancing") each other.  When people in government are fighting with each other, that is when the rest of us are safest.

But when we lose trust in God, we begin foolishly to trust those in government (where else can we turn?).  When we lose hope that God will do good for us, we begin to hope that government will do good for us.  We give those in the best and most likely position to abuse us a greater opportunity to abuse us.  We become utter fools when we abandon God.  We abandon liberty for slavery.  We abandon Moses and run back to Egypt and the all-powerful Pharoah.  How pitiful!

Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, suggested that the seal of the USA should be the "children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night."  This statement by Jefferson is engraved on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.:

God who gave us life gave us liberty.  And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God?  That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?  Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.

The Moses of our country was certainly George Washington. He was miraculously spared many times in the wars in which he fought.  He was clearly a man of Destiny, prepared to found our nation.  He was seen praying in secret in the woods.  He could have been made king by the army, but he humbly refused it.  He was our first and greatest president, and he humbly refused to run after two terms, though he could easily have been president for life.  It was he who said, "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."  He declared national days of Thanksgiving to God.  In his first inaugural address he said:

We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps finally, staked of the experiment....

Similar quotes could be given from James Madison, father of the constitution, and Ben Franklin, the elder statesman, and others.  In later years I will hope to increase this page, but I am out of time right now.

If you want to learn a little more about freedom, click here.