Reagan Speech

I heard this speech on the Drudge Report radio show and was very impressed. Here is a part of that speech:

Religion played not only a strong role in our national life; it played a positive role. The abolitionist movement was at heart a moral and religious movement; so was the modern civil rights struggle. And throughout this time, the state was tolerant of religious belief, expression, and practice. Society, too, was tolerant.

But in the 1960's this began to change. We began to make great steps toward secularizing our nation and removing religion from its honored place.

In 1962 the Supreme Court in the New York prayer case banned the compulsory saying of prayers. In 1963 the Court banned the reading of the Bible in our public schools. From that point on, the courts pushed the meaning of the ruling ever outward, so that now our children are not allowed voluntary prayer. We even had to pass a law -- we passed a special law in the Congress just a few weeks ago to allow student prayer groups the same access to schoolrooms after classes that a young Marxist society, for example, would already enjoy with no opposition.

The 1962 decision opened the way to a flood of similar suits. Once religion had been made vulnerable, a series of assaults were made in one court after another, on one issue after another. Cases were started to argue against tax-exempt status for churches. Suits were brought to abolish the words ``under God'' from the Pledge of Allegiance and to remove ``In God We Trust'' from public documents and from our currency.

Today there are those who are fighting to make sure voluntary prayer is not returned to the classrooms. And the frustrating thing for the great majority of Americans who support and understand the special importance of religion in the national life -- the frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom, and openmindedness. Question: Isn't the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? [Applause] They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives.

If all the children of our country studied together all of the many religions in our country, wouldn't they learn greater tolerance of each other's beliefs? If children prayed together, would they not understand what they have in common, and would this not, indeed, bring them closer, and is this not to be desired? So, I submit to you that those who claim to be fighting for tolerance on this issue may not be tolerant at all.

So true. In their arrogance, vanity and ignorance they have continued to attack anything to do with God.

We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. We command no worship. We mandate no belief. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave it bereft of belief. All are free to believe or not believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief, to apply moral teaching to public questions.

I submit to you that the tolerant society is open to and encouraging of all religions. And this does not weaken us; it strengthens us, it makes us strong. You know, if we look back through history to all those great civilizations, those great nations that rose up to even world dominance and then deteriorated, declined, and fell, we find they all had one thing in common. One of the significant forerunners of their fall was their turning away from their God or gods.

Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

If only our leaders were as brave today. Mankind is incapable of governing itself. We have had the greatest country this world has ever known, more freedom, more wealth and more knowledge for more people than has ever been before. Yet, we have people who grew up in it trying to destroy it, tear it apart from within. And they have succeeded in fooling roughly half the country into believing that they are doing the country good! Not to mention those trying to destroy it from without. The pressure is building and I don't know how long this country can hold itself together, but I believe the end will come suddenly and without warning to those who are not paying attention. The writing is on the wall - Islamic countries who have vowed to their god to destroy Israel and America are on the verge of atomic weapons and they have no self preservation instincts, they will kill themselves right along with us - it is their duty. It will set off Europe too , who will occupy much of the Middle East, including Jerusalem - not Europe in it's present form, but a sudden change will take place - watch it happen.

God will step in to save us from ourselves at the last moment, just when we are about to obliterate all life from the planet. Jesus Christ will return as a conquering King and He will set up the government of God, the Kingdom of God on the earth and will reign for 1000 years as final proof that His way is the only way. There will finally be peace.