“We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”

Writing for the court, Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952)
Judicial opinions

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William O. Douglas52

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1898–1980

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“The prospect of a generation of American children being raised by women in homes without fathers is challenging for religious institutions whose central conception of deity is father, whose central conception of church is family, whose only conception of family is heterosexual.”

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“It is impossible for the state or society or an institution to be Christian. Since being Christian presupposes an act of faith, it is plainly impossible for an abstraction like the state.”

Jacques Ellul book Anarchy and Christianity

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“There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being.”

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Context: There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.

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“The United Nations, whose membership comprises almost all the States in the world, is founded on the principle of the equal worth of every human being. It is the nearest thing we have to a representative institution that can address the interests of all states, and all peoples.”

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Context: The United Nations, whose membership comprises almost all the States in the world, is founded on the principle of the equal worth of every human being. It is the nearest thing we have to a representative institution that can address the interests of all states, and all peoples. Through this universal, indispensable instrument of human progress, States can serve the interests of their citizens by recognizing common interests and pursuing them in unity.

“It is true of opinions as of other compositions that those who are seeped in them, whose ears are sensitive to literary nuances, whose antennae record subtle silences, can gather from their contents meaning beyond the words. All this presupposes, of course, a grasp of the nature of the Supreme Court's functions — the scope and limits of its constitutional authority — and often, as well, familiarity with the record and briefs of a particular case whose opinion record and briefs of a particular case whose opinion is under scrutiny.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

"'The Administrative Side' of Chief Justice Hughes", 63 Harvard Law Review 1, 2 (1949).
Other writings

“If the moral approval of religious people were withdrawn from the system of individualism, it could be quickly transformed. Just as the churches belatedly called slavery a sin, and later religious institutions pronounced war to be the world's colossal sin, religious institutions should now declare that sanctioning and supporting the profit system is sin.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

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“We know as little of a supreme being as of Matter. But there is as little doubt of the existence of a supreme being as of Matter. The world beyond is reality, and experiential fact. We only don't understand it.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

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“[People-processing institutions are] a type of social institution in which human beings constitute both the raw materials and the products of organizational work. Although all social institutions are involved in some degree in people-processing activities, the term is properly restricted to those whose primary goal is the shaping, reshaping, removing, overhauling, retooling, reassembling, and recording the physical, psychological, social, legal, or moral aspects of human objects.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1960s, Organization for treatment, 1966, p. 163; as cited in: David Shichor (2005), The Meaning and Nature of Punishment. p. 107

“It becomes us, in humility, to make our devout acknowledgments to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, for the inestimable civil and religious blessings with which we are favored.”

James K. Polk (1795–1849) American politician, 11th President of the United States (in office from 1845 to 1849)

First Annual Message to Congress (2 December 1845) http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(sj0374)):.

“We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”

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William O. Douglas52

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