Church and State

[theim]

Our garbage?????? Is this a WWII reference?
Literal garbage? America is the king god emperor of that kind of garbage.
Hello! You think terrorism is something to worry about! We- and you in particular are racing headlong into the environmental abyss. Won't be long now. The oil's running out. Even in Iraq.

Yeah. How dare we concern ourselves with such mundane things as terrorism when the average global temperature has risen 2 degrees.

 

[theim]

You see I am generally curious about this current European mindset. You seem to unquestionably support oppresion of religion by State law. You call this freedom?

 

[ScreamingEagle]

I'm curious too. Why are you all so anti-religious? What do you have in its place that is so great? Statism?

If you want to know what our very first President thought about religion, check my signature line. Our current President feels the same way as Washington did.

 

[Hobbit]

Now, stereotyping aside, here I am to analyze the situation.

8236 obviously has some form of superiority complex. It's not unusual, but it's especially pronounced in someone of such differing views who doens't know (or care) how to express them in a more polite and open way.

8236 seems to believe religion is a blight on society and that only its annihilation can stop whatever misery (s)he thinks it spreads.

8236 believes that terrorism is a minor issue compared to the environment. This is a fallacy, as the environment is not anywhere near as fragile as people seem to think it is and can stand up to regulated logging and a surprisingly large amount of pollution. Most of the environmental damage done isn't done by the U.S., anyway. It's done by people in tropical countries who are clearing rain forests for farmland, not realizing that the land sucks and will produce a substandard yield. Human life, however, is very fragile in the face of bullets and bombs.

8236 seems to think that a 35% GDP is normal when it is only normal in "Big Brother" states where the government basically decides the best way to spend everyone's money rather than let everyone decide what to do with most of their moeny.

Now, that having been said, I have a few things directed towards 8236.

If you believe religion is a blight on society, you've obviously never seen faith in God carry someone through a tragedy. You've never seen people devote their entire lives to helping others because God says it's the right thing to do (Mother Teresa). Those who believe that atheism is the only way will live cold and empty lives. They may not think so, but I've seen them. They don't have the vibrance of those who believe there's a higher power driving the universe.

If you honestly believe income redistribution and rediculous taxes, why not grade point redistribution? Everybody in school gets a 3.0. That's fair, right?

The European media lies to you, mainly about how evil Bush is.

Terrorism is killing people right now and action is needed right now to solve. The environment is an ongoing problem and no sudden action is going to help it without undermining the global economy, so slower, long term actions are being used. Terrorism is the biggest threat to us right now and I don't appreciate a foreigner from any country trying to lecture us on our own national defense. I think we understand the situation better than you do.

I you want to talk, talk. If you want to be inflammatory towards all things conservative, go to democratic underground and leave us alone.

 

[Merlin1047]

Reference to 1945 was meant to be sarky and more general. That's when we stopped being (generally) idiotic and started looking at the world in a more sensible/compromising/diplomatic way.

You never stopped being idiotic, you just turned into a pack of cowards. You euroscum have hidden behind Americans while the Soviets were breathing down your necks and now that the Soviet threat has disappeared you think yourselves superior to those who saved your sorry asses from certain subjugation.

You claim to be "sensible/compromising/diplomatic". Bovine fecal matter. You are nothing of the sort. You are spineless cowards who are unwilling to take the responsibility for your own defense. Your "compromising/diplomatic" approach is what helped Saddam continue to arm himself and murder his people. Strange that you should make the statement "Saddam: We all (except Americans it seems) knew he was a joke." Apparently there are hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis who aren't laughing - asshole.

Your "compromising/diplomatic" attitude is the reason that genocide continues unabated in Darfur.

And this statement of your's really cracked me up: "Fair enough, you personally may be aware of foreign things, but in general, the larger a country the more insular and non-internationalist(for want of a better word) a country is. This is very noticeable to me when I go from Holland to say France, or the UK. It is inevitable. Just as it is inconceivable for me not to have a passport, so it is unusual for the average American to have one."

Many of you eurodips from small countries suffer the equivalent of penis envy on a national scale. Some of your itty-bitty countries are roughly the size of a single county of a state here. You overcompensate for your lack of influence in the world by bitching, posturing and finding fault. And as far as having passports - who the hell cares? You can bet your sorry ass that every Amercian would have a passport if he had to cross an international border every time he wanted to take a Sunday drive longer than 100 miles.

 

[Flying Duck]

You can bet your sorry ass that every Amercian would have a passport if he had to cross an international border every time he wanted to take a Sunday drive longer than 100 miles.

Damn, that's funny. The euroscum also don't know that Americans can also freely visit their neighbors (Canada and Mexico) without even having a passport because our neighbors trust us.

 

[CSM]

Damn, that's funny. The euroscum also don't know that Americans can also freely visit their neighbors (Canada and Mexico) without even having a passport because our neighbors trust us.

Most Europeans have little idea how big the United States really is. They cannot fathom the concept that even driving at highway speeds here in the US it can take 5 days to get from one coast to the other. But then again, most of them dont care to know anything about the US and its citizens; that would require some effort on their part to learn the truth.

 

[sagegirl]

Is it illegal to be president if you have a religious label?

Our founders wrote a lot of opinions about the role of religion in government in the Articles of Confederation. Actually there were many who favored disallowing any member of the clergy from holding political office. The states had mostly adopted constitutions before and during the drafting of the US Const. and each state basically wanted their region's religion (some were protestant, baptist, and catholic) to become the new countries religion. Our founders, in their wisdom, did not adopt a national religion nor did they make it any of their business to deny religion to anyone. They did not want any support (taxes) to be levied for religious purposes but neither did they tax religion. It was a BIG issue. The final decision thusly was to maintain seperation of church and state.

 

[acludem]

I do not believe religion is a blight on society. I believe government sponsored religion is a blight on society. It is very clear from the way the Constitution was written that the founders decided that religion should be left to the individual and that the government should not interfere with the free practice of religion. This means the government could also not have an official religion since that would interfere with the free practice of other religions. Separation of church and state was very important to leaders like Adams (a devout Unitarian), Jefferson, Madison and Franklin (all of whom were Deists).

acludem

 

[Hobbit]

I do not believe religion is a blight on society. I believe government sponsored religion is a blight on society. It is very clear from the way the Constitution was written that the founders decided that religion should be left to the individual and that the government should not interfere with the free practice of religion. This means the government could also not have an official religion since that would interfere with the free practice of other religions. Separation of church and state was very important to leaders like Adams (a devout Unitarian), Jefferson, Madison and Franklin (all of whom were Deists).

acludem

See, this is a much more reasonable liberal. This is one who believes that religion is not a bad thing, just that it should remain largely seperated from government (to completely seperate is impossible, as all politicians have their own views, and religion shapes views). That's how it should be, and while I think Christianity above all others is being militantly oppressed under "seperation of church and state," I agree with it as a concept.

As much as I hate to, I'm gonna have to bump acludem's rep for this one.