Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Doesn’t make much sense?
Mentioning ‘God’ on money is the first step towards the establishment of an officially sanctioned religion?

Well…

In my previous post I posited that property, the concept, is the stepping stone for social order.
I’ll add to that a simple observation. Whenever too much property gets hoarded by a too small number of people, the community which had allowed that to happen is in great danger.

Same thing here.
We have religion – a social phenomenon – and religions.

We have a certain understanding of the world, shared by the members of a community – which allows the community, as a whole, to behave in a coherent manner. Not that much different from what happens when people use a common language. They can communicate. Same thing happens with people partaking in a religion. They ‘see’ things in a coherent manner. Hence can coordinate their efforts.

And we have religions…
To reach the ‘certain understanding of the world’ I mentioned before, each community had traveled a road. A particular road through the particular circumstances in which each cultural community – currently known as ‘nation’ – had had to build their culture. Their identity.
Some communities had put together certain scenarios to accompany them along this road. To help them make sense of what was happening to them.
Some communities have used more than one scenario during that journey while others use more scenarios simultaneously.

Sociologically speaking, all that matters is social coherence.
All is well as long as the community conserves its ability to function. To survive.
As long as the individuals who compose that community continue to have a common enough understanding of the world in which they live.

For the simple reason that they, we, live in the same world!
And if we, individually or in small ‘gangs’, start behaving as if the world is different for each of us…

The Founding Fathers had a common understanding of the world. They belonged to the same (functional) religion despite belonging to different ‘denominations’. For them, the First Amendment was about reigning in the powers of the Government. They had realized that a Government able to impose a certain religion – a certain scenario – upon the entire community would eventually bring destitution.
The Founding Fathers could not foresee a situation in which a few of us would deny the practical daily realities of this world. Invoking their particular scenario as an argument… As the supreme argument for refusing to see the reality.

The reality as it is.
And as it is seen by a majority of us.

I mentioned earlier that some communities have changed their scenario along their history.
They did it when they have found new meanings. They have seen new things about the reality and they have integrated those new things into their newer scenario.
By changing the scenario they have actually built a new reality.
Societies which have clung to their scenario to the bitter end… are no longer with us.
Societies which have somehow found it in their collective minds to adapt their scenarios to the reality changed by their own efforts continue to survive. To thrive, even.

“Hoarded by a too small number of people” means controlled by a handful of people.
Sometimes coordinated.
As it happens in any dictatorial regime. It doesn’t matter who formally ‘owns’ something if the use of that something is tightly controlled by somebody else.
Furthermore, a certain ideology may end up having a lot of clout without being imposed by an authority. Nevertheless, the fact that an ideology dominates, for a while, makes it so that the community which allows this to happen to experience a dictatorial regime.
For whatever reason, some people were convinced that witches were real. And burned them at the stake.
For whatever reason, a lot of people continue to believe that communism might be a good thing.
For whatever reason, some people continue to believe that they are entitled to determine whether a woman may or may not abort a fetus.

What is the difference between an ideology and a scenario?
The manner in which people relate to it.

Having been told that they were the children of the same God made it possible for the believers to stick together. To act like brothers. To respect each-other. To invent and implement capitalism and democracy. Both relying on trust. On mutual trust and on the freedom of the market. Both the market where goods and services are traded and the public forum. Where ideas are traded…

Being told that only one particular understanding of a certain text/idea/concept is correct some people remove themselves from the ‘general population’. Which ‘general population’ becomes ‘the others’.

‘The others with whom we don’t have anything in common’.

Quite an untenable situation, given the fact that the world is becoming smaller and smaller.