Ron Paul makes some serious fallacious claims.

I was reading another article today and ran across a link to an article by Ron Paul that immediately threw up a red flag. I decided to debunk his false claims here. I'm also a bit depressed to see this, as Ron Paul has thus far had a surprisingly solid record on the veracity of his claims and views etc.

From http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html

The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life.

The highlighted section is patently false in the case of the Constitution, and makes a false connection between Christianity and what are only deistic references, quite contrary to Christianity in reality, in the Declaration of Independence, which was written by Thomas Jefferson, who was probably the biggest proponent of Separation of Church and state in the history of the founding of our country, having drafted Virginia's Statutes on Religious Freedom, which espoused his views on Separation of Church and State, and also clearly stating his views in other other correspondence;

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

His references to the deistic God in the Declaration of Independence were "Nature's God", "Creator" and "Divine Providence". Jefferson made it very clear that he was not a Christian and generally abhorred organized Christianity, the church etc.

He even went so far as to re-write the bible in order to remove dogmatic teachings and references to Jesus' divinity etc.

Jefferson did not believe in the divinity of Jesus, but he had high esteem for Jesus' moral teachings, which he viewed as the "principles of a pure deism, and juster notions of the attributes of God, to reform (prior Jewish) moral doctrines to the standard of reason, justice & philanthropy, and to inculcate the belief of a future state." Jefferson did not believe in miracles. He made his own condensed version of the Gospels, omitting Jesus' virgin birth, miracles, divinity, and resurrection, primarily leaving only Jesus' moral philosophy, of which he approved. This compilation was published after his death and became known as the Jefferson Bible.

The only references to Religion in the Constitution are expressly to restrict them or forbid them. There is no mention of God whatsoever anywhere in the Constitution or any of its amendments.

The last paragraph of Article 6 states:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

And the first amendment states in part:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

Those are the only mentions of religion anywhere in the Constitution or any of its amendments.

The Constitution even goes so far as to explicitly spell out in Article 2, Section 1 the oath of Presidency to remove any reference to God or religion, in line with the assertion made in Article 6.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

This is regularly violated immediately with the swearing in of Presidents, as they add the "so help you God" to the end of the oath, even though the Constitution itself forbids a religious litmus test and explicitly states the oath to attempt to prevent alteration of that oath.

It should be clear at this point that Ron Paul's assertions are plainly completely fallacious and rather quite contrary to the truth of the matter.