OMG! Science Attacks Religion!

[PoliticalChic]

1. Western society remains strongly polarized with respect to God. This is the fundamental conflict, the result of which is a godless secular society. A careful study will convince one that the dichotomy originated in the French Revolution, wherein the efforts to remove the yoke of the monarchy and the Church resulted in an explosive overreaction: the assault on all religion, and the ongoing tirade against God.





2. Finding easy cover, many champion science as the cudgel…even though “ a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power, while 41% say they do not.”
What do scientists think about religion? - Los Angeles Times

a. “But, today, there are scientists who shout from the rooftops, ‘Scientific and religious belief are in conflict. They cannot both be right. Let us get rid of the one that is wrong!’ And, not just tolerated, today they are admired. It is a veritable orgy of competitive skepticism- but a skepticism supposedly built of science. Physicist Victor Stengler and Taner Edis have both published books championing atheism. Both men exhibit the salient characteristic of physicists endeavoring to draw general lessons about the cosmos from mathematical physics: They are willing to believe anything.”
Berlinski, “The Devil’s Delusion.”

b. Before one accepts the support of such “smart scientists” simply because of their vocation, why not question this scientific atheism as merely yet another foolish intellectual fad, successor to academic Marxism, or feminism, or the various doctrines of multicultural tranquility? Ibid.

3. Charles Darwin knew that the theory of evolution placed religion in doubt, and atheist academics and scientists love to quote Darwin on that account. It is less than curious that Alfred Wallace, co-originator of the theory, is far less cited. Could it be because Wallace was spiritually inclined, and remained so throughout his life?





4. Scientific discoveries serve as formidable weapons in this conflict. For example, Darwinian evolution’s explanation for speciation, natural selection, requires variation, wherein one is superior to another. And science has gone further, with the theory of mutation, errors in transcription of DNA. Certainly, errors are evidence against creation: God’s system must be error free….true?

a. Hardly. If God has set in motion a process, as posited by Rene Descartes posited, in which his building blocks self-assemble, then errors that produce change are purposeful, in fact necessary. And disease and other adverse occurrences become explicable, e.g., “how could God let such things happen?”





5. Now, from the other side….science leaves much to be desired. Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), is certainly one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology. He wrote this very revealing comment: “‘We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” Lewontin explains why one must accept absurdities: “…we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” Lewontin on materialism - EvoWiki






a. And, yet, Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist, and atheist-in-chief, has written "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."
Perhaps he's not familiar with Professor Lewontin's admissions.

b. Peter Atkins, professor of physical chemistry at Oxford, denounced theology, poetry and philosophy and concluded that ’scientists are at the summit of knowledge, beacons of rationality and intellectually honest.’
Of course, he is an ardent atheist.






6. So, it seems that in our time, much of science is involved in an attack on traditional religious thought, and rational men and women must place their faith, and devotion, in this system of belief. And, like any militant church, science places a familiar demand before all others:
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Berlinski, Op.Cit.

 

[newpolitics]

you are ridiculous

 

[Gadawg73]

Myths attack themselves as they have no proof to support them.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Myths attack themselves as they have no proof to support them.

So true of much of what is known as science.

 

[Hollie]

1. Western society remains strongly polarized with respect to God. This is the fundamental conflict, the result of which is a godless secular society. A careful study will convince one that the dichotomy originated in the French Revolution, wherein the efforts to remove the yoke of the monarchy and the Church resulted in an explosive overreaction: the assault on all religion, and the ongoing tirade against God.


2. Finding easy cover, many champion science as the cudgel…even though “ a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power, while 41% say they do not.”
What do scientists think about religion? - Los Angeles Times

a. “But, today, there are scientists who shout from the rooftops, ‘Scientific and religious belief are in conflict. They cannot both be right. Let us get rid of the one that is wrong!’ And, not just tolerated, today they are admired. It is a veritable orgy of competitive skepticism- but a skepticism supposedly built of science. Physicist Victor Stengler and Taner Edis have both published books championing atheism. Both men exhibit the salient characteristic of physicists endeavoring to draw general lessons about the cosmos from mathematical physics: They are willing to believe anything.”
Berlinski, “The Devil’s Delusion.”

b. Before one accepts the support of such “smart scientists” simply because of their vocation, why not question this scientific atheism as merely yet another foolish intellectual fad, successor to academic Marxism, or feminism, or the various doctrines of multicultural tranquility? Ibid.

3. Charles Darwin knew that the theory of evolution placed religion in doubt, and atheist academics and scientists love to quote Darwin on that account. It is less than curious that Alfred Wallace, co-originator of the theory, is far less cited. Could it be because Wallace was spiritually inclined, and remained so throughout his life?


4. Scientific discoveries serve as formidable weapons in this conflict. For example, Darwinian evolution’s explanation for speciation, natural selection, requires variation, wherein one is superior to another. And science has gone further, with the theory of mutation, errors in transcription of DNA. Certainly, errors are evidence against creation: God’s system must be error free….true?

a. Hardly. If God has set in motion a process, as posited by Rene Descartes posited, in which his building blocks self-assemble, then errors that produce change are purposeful, in fact necessary. And disease and other adverse occurrences become explicable, e.g., “how could God let such things happen?”


5. Now, from the other side….science leaves much to be desired. Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), is certainly one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology. He wrote this very revealing comment: “‘We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” Lewontin explains why one must accept absurdities: “…we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” Lewontin on materialism - EvoWiki


a. And, yet, Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist, and atheist-in-chief, has written "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."
Perhaps he's not familiar with Professor Lewontin's admissions.

b. Peter Atkins, professor of physical chemistry at Oxford, denounced theology, poetry and philosophy and concluded that ’scientists are at the summit of knowledge, beacons of rationality and intellectually honest.’
Of course, he is an ardent atheist.


6. So, it seems that in our time, much of science is involved in an attack on traditional religious thought, and rational men and women must place their faith, and devotion, in this system of belief. And, like any militant church, science places a familiar demand before all others:
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Berlinski, Op.Cit.

There are a number of fallacies, false accusations, foolish claims in the above cut and paste.

1. The US is a nation of secular laws, not necessarily a secular nation. The genius of the Founding Fathers was the framework of the Constitution they created.

The fundamental method of liberty being preserved was that of the Greeks and that of the Romans (the latter in terms of the actual mechanisms, given larger populations). Certainly various religions may have tried to work backwards to fit their cosmology into the history that went before them (where have we seen that before?), and if great ideas are borne from that, well, that's great. But to claim that Christianity had anything to do with liberty is to fly in the face of the blueprint for Christianity -- the Bible. Please cite your references where Jesus or Paul spoke of the liberty of men to pursue happiness (Jesus asked for worshipful belief, for a communistic approach to social functioning, and for aestheticism over materialism), the tolerance of a pluralistic society, and the right of man to believe in the religion of his choice.


2. Reasoned arguments come from those who spend their time studying the issues. There is a standard debunked creationist claim that Many scientists reject evolution and support creationism.

I couldn’t help but notice that you bolded only a portion of the following: “ a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power…”

For a more accurate rendering, we can look elsewhere and provide links to sources:

CA111: Scientists reject evolution?

“Of the scientists and engineers in the United States, only about 5% are creationists, according to a 1991 Gallup poll (Robinson 1995, Witham 1997). However, this number includes those working in fields not related to life origins (such as computer scientists, mechanical engineers, etc.). Taking into account only those working in the relevant fields of earth and life sciences, there are about 480,000 scientists, but only about 700 believe in "creation-science" or consider it a valid theory (Robinson 1995). This means that less than 0.15 percent of relevant scientists believe in creationism. And that is just in the United States, which has more creationists than any other industrialized country. In other countries, the number of relevant scientists who accept creationism drops to less than one tenth of 1 percent.”


3. One of the many ignorant claims made by fundamentalists as they attempt to discredit science is to cite “atheist academics and scientists love to quote Darwin ...”, as if atheism has any overriding significance on the results of scientific experimentation. Darwin's Origin's of Life made it clear that a creator was not necessarily required.

For all the warm and fuzzy mystical attractiveness grnerated from such perceptions as gods, I must point out that a demonstration or some evidence of these gods is in order before we can move on to something more than wishful thinking. Your “feelings” of gods are firmly in the realm of wishful speculation and it will be a stretch from here to something deserving of more serious consideration.


4. This is a complete and utter fabrication of Darwinian Theory and really speaks to the incompetence of whoever wrote that tripe.

“…One is superior to another…” is a meaningless term in evolutionary theory. Any student of science would be familiar with terms such as “fitness for survival” and “adaptation”. Birds are not “superior” to fish in terms of fitness for survival.

For all the science loathing vitriol spewed by religious fundamentalists, all that remains is the use of evidence and reason to discriminate between which of our competing theories deserves the greatest confidence. And since we actually have direct observational evidence that natural law exists (and has existed as far back in time as we can observe), while we have no observational evidence of any kind that "gods" exist, the choice is not a difficult one. At least... not difficult for an objective judge who has managed to divorce themselves from a prior commitment to dogma.


5. “….science leaves much to be desired…” is a characteristic charge of philosophy in general and theology in particular. When arguing in the void of evidence, the best that can be assembled is an elegant idea with no obvious connection to reality and truth. This is why science cures disease, increase crop yields and send humans into outer space, while philosophy and theology do not.


6. Nonsense. This is a charge leveled by fundamentalists in futile attempts to cover their own lack of relevance and objectivity.

The wording and the claims in the article you've posted is suspect and "substandard" leaps out at me -- and I don't have to read it to know why it's got to be substandard: the article begins by firmly placing itself out of the realm of special pleading and vilifying knowledge.

It's very easy for religionists or ID’ists to pursue this matter in the proper way.

First, establish a solid theory for the idea of something outside of the "materialist" realm (i.e., the "supernatural"). Then, establish a theory that relies on the established theory and shows a correlation. Then the IDists and creationists will have something worth reviewing.

Personally, I for one would welcome it.

Science is based on theory that is backed up by facts and mountains of data. That we all know, and it is demonstrable, even if folks like you cavalierly dismiss it (and sound laughably like flat-earthers by doing so, by the way). ID asserts a supernatural cause and doesn't even answer the most fundamentally flawed elements of its own assertions:

A. If there is required an intelligent designer because existence displays a complex design, then doesn't the intelligent designer also require an intelligent designer to have designer it as well? (Translation: If your premise is: "X" needs a Designer because it's complicated, then the Designer needs a designer because it's even MORE complicated than "X", in order to have designed it in the first place.)

B. What are the characteristics of this "Designer"? Assume the "Designer" assertion is true -- why does this "Designer" become important at all? It may be long dead. It may have no vested interest. Is it at all demonstrable?

 

[PoliticalChic]

1. Western society remains strongly polarized with respect to God. This is the fundamental conflict, the result of which is a godless secular society. A careful study will convince one that the dichotomy originated in the French Revolution, wherein the efforts to remove the yoke of the monarchy and the Church resulted in an explosive overreaction: the assault on all religion, and the ongoing tirade against God.


2. Finding easy cover, many champion science as the cudgel…even though “ a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power, while 41% say they do not.”
What do scientists think about religion? - Los Angeles Times

a. “But, today, there are scientists who shout from the rooftops, ‘Scientific and religious belief are in conflict. They cannot both be right. Let us get rid of the one that is wrong!’ And, not just tolerated, today they are admired. It is a veritable orgy of competitive skepticism- but a skepticism supposedly built of science. Physicist Victor Stengler and Taner Edis have both published books championing atheism. Both men exhibit the salient characteristic of physicists endeavoring to draw general lessons about the cosmos from mathematical physics: They are willing to believe anything.”
Berlinski, “The Devil’s Delusion.”

b. Before one accepts the support of such “smart scientists” simply because of their vocation, why not question this scientific atheism as merely yet another foolish intellectual fad, successor to academic Marxism, or feminism, or the various doctrines of multicultural tranquility? Ibid.

3. Charles Darwin knew that the theory of evolution placed religion in doubt, and atheist academics and scientists love to quote Darwin on that account. It is less than curious that Alfred Wallace, co-originator of the theory, is far less cited. Could it be because Wallace was spiritually inclined, and remained so throughout his life?


4. Scientific discoveries serve as formidable weapons in this conflict. For example, Darwinian evolution’s explanation for speciation, natural selection, requires variation, wherein one is superior to another. And science has gone further, with the theory of mutation, errors in transcription of DNA. Certainly, errors are evidence against creation: God’s system must be error free….true?

a. Hardly. If God has set in motion a process, as posited by Rene Descartes posited, in which his building blocks self-assemble, then errors that produce change are purposeful, in fact necessary. And disease and other adverse occurrences become explicable, e.g., “how could God let such things happen?”


5. Now, from the other side….science leaves much to be desired. Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), is certainly one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology. He wrote this very revealing comment: “‘We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” Lewontin explains why one must accept absurdities: “…we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” Lewontin on materialism - EvoWiki


a. And, yet, Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist, and atheist-in-chief, has written "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."
Perhaps he's not familiar with Professor Lewontin's admissions.

b. Peter Atkins, professor of physical chemistry at Oxford, denounced theology, poetry and philosophy and concluded that ’scientists are at the summit of knowledge, beacons of rationality and intellectually honest.’
Of course, he is an ardent atheist.


6. So, it seems that in our time, much of science is involved in an attack on traditional religious thought, and rational men and women must place their faith, and devotion, in this system of belief. And, like any militant church, science places a familiar demand before all others:
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Berlinski, Op.Cit.

There are a number of fallacies, false accusations, foolish claims in the above cut and paste.

1. The US is a nation of secular laws, not necessarily a secular nation. The genius of the Founding Fathers was the framework of the Constitution they created.

The fundamental method of liberty being preserved was that of the Greeks and that of the Romans (the latter in terms of the actual mechanisms, given larger populations). Certainly various religions may have tried to work backwards to fit their cosmology into the history that went before them (where have we seen that before?), and if great ideas are borne from that, well, that's great. But to claim that Christianity had anything to do with liberty is to fly in the face of the blueprint for Christianity -- the Bible. Please cite your references where Jesus or Paul spoke of the liberty of men to pursue happiness (Jesus asked for worshipful belief, for a communistic approach to social functioning, and for aestheticism over materialism), the tolerance of a pluralistic society, and the right of man to believe in the religion of his choice.


2. Reasoned arguments come from those who spend their time studying the issues. There is a standard debunked creationist claim that Many scientists reject evolution and support creationism.

I couldn’t help but notice that you bolded only a portion of the following: “ a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power…”

For a more accurate rendering, we can look elsewhere and provide links to sources:

CA111: Scientists reject evolution?

“Of the scientists and engineers in the United States, only about 5% are creationists, according to a 1991 Gallup poll (Robinson 1995, Witham 1997). However, this number includes those working in fields not related to life origins (such as computer scientists, mechanical engineers, etc.). Taking into account only those working in the relevant fields of earth and life sciences, there are about 480,000 scientists, but only about 700 believe in "creation-science" or consider it a valid theory (Robinson 1995). This means that less than 0.15 percent of relevant scientists believe in creationism. And that is just in the United States, which has more creationists than any other industrialized country. In other countries, the number of relevant scientists who accept creationism drops to less than one tenth of 1 percent.”


3. One of the many ignorant claims made by fundamentalists as they attempt to discredit science is to cite “atheist academics and scientists love to quote Darwin ...”, as if atheism has any overriding significance on the results of scientific experimentation. Darwin's Origin's of Life made it clear that a creator was not necessarily required.

For all the warm and fuzzy mystical attractiveness grnerated from such perceptions as gods, I must point out that a demonstration or some evidence of these gods is in order before we can move on to something more than wishful thinking. Your “feelings” of gods are firmly in the realm of wishful speculation and it will be a stretch from here to something deserving of more serious consideration.


4. This is a complete and utter fabrication of Darwinian Theory and really speaks to the incompetence of whoever wrote that tripe.

“…One is superior to another…” is a meaningless term in evolutionary theory. Any student of science would be familiar with terms such as “fitness for survival” and “adaptation”. Birds are not “superior” to fish in terms of fitness for survival.

For all the science loathing vitriol spewed by religious fundamentalists, all that remains is the use of evidence and reason to discriminate between which of our competing theories deserves the greatest confidence. And since we actually have direct observational evidence that natural law exists (and has existed as far back in time as we can observe), while we have no observational evidence of any kind that "gods" exist, the choice is not a difficult one. At least... not difficult for an objective judge who has managed to divorce themselves from a prior commitment to dogma.


5. “….science leaves much to be desired…” is a characteristic charge of philosophy in general and theology in particular. When arguing in the void of evidence, the best that can be assembled is an elegant idea with no obvious connection to reality and truth. This is why science cures disease, increase crop yields and send humans into outer space, while philosophy and theology do not.


6. Nonsense. This is a charge leveled by fundamentalists in futile attempts to cover their own lack of relevance and objectivity.

The wording and the claims in the article you've posted is suspect and "substandard" leaps out at me -- and I don't have to read it to know why it's got to be substandard: the article begins by firmly placing itself out of the realm of special pleading and vilifying knowledge.

It's very easy for religionists or ID’ists to pursue this matter in the proper way.

First, establish a solid theory for the idea of something outside of the "materialist" realm (i.e., the "supernatural"). Then, establish a theory that relies on the established theory and shows a correlation. Then the IDists and creationists will have something worth reviewing.

Personally, I for one would welcome it.

Science is based on theory that is backed up by facts and mountains of data. That we all know, and it is demonstrable, even if folks like you cavalierly dismiss it (and sound laughably like flat-earthers by doing so, by the way). ID asserts a supernatural cause and doesn't even answer the most fundamentally flawed elements of its own assertions:

A. If there is required an intelligent designer because existence displays a complex design, then doesn't the intelligent designer also require an intelligent designer to have designer it as well? (Translation: If your premise is: "X" needs a Designer because it's complicated, then the Designer needs a designer because it's even MORE complicated than "X", in order to have designed it in the first place.)

B. What are the characteristics of this "Designer"? Assume the "Designer" assertion is true -- why does this "Designer" become important at all? It may be long dead. It may have no vested interest. Is it at all demonstrable?

I like the job you did. Far better than most.

Nicely written, but.... fallacies, false accusations, foolish claims...

1. "The US is a nation of secular laws, not necessarily a secular nation."
A distinction without a difference.

Although the Constitution demands that there be the free exercise of religion, the modern education system puts an end to that.
And since the secularists control education, the homogenizing of the public produces a secular nation.


a. "But to claim that Christianity had anything to do with liberty is to fly in the face of the blueprint for Christianity -- the Bible. Please cite your references..."

1. The most quoted source was the Bible. Established in the original writings of our Founding Fathers we find that they discovered in Isaiah 33:22 the three branches of government: Isaiah 33:22 “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.” Here we see the judicial, the legislative and the executive branches. In Ezra 7:24 we see where they established the tax exempt status of the church: Ezra 7:24 “Also we certify you, that touching any of the priests and Levites, singers, porters, Nethinims, or ministers of this house of God, it shall not be lawful to impose toll, tribute, or custom, upon them.”
When we look at our Constitution we see in Article 4 Section 4 that we are guaranteed a Republican form of government, that was found in Exodus 18 “Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:” This indicates that we are to choose, or elect God fearing men and women. Looking at Article 3 Section 3 we see almost word for word Deuteronomy 17:6: ‘No person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses. . .’ Deuteronomy 17:6 “At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses. . .”. The next paragraph in Article 3 Section 3 refers to who should pay the price for treason. In England, they could punish the sons for the trespasses of the father, if the father died.
Roger Anghis -- Bring America Back To Her Religious Roots, Part 7


b. Thirtyr-four percent of all the quotes by the founding fathers came from the Bible. Also, men like Blackstone and Locke, whom the founders quoted, took much of their own quotes from the Bible. Our three branches of government came from Isaiah 33:22. Tax exemption for churches came from Ezra 7:24, which no other nation has today. The book of Deuteronomy was the most quoted book of the Bible by our founding fathers. This book deals much with civil government. This is why America was founded as a republic, not a democracy. We are governed by constitutional law, not by majority law. Our founding fathers, who framed the constitution realized that governments of democracy were short lived and ended in bondage. Democracies are only a step from anarchy. Our Godly Heritage





2. "I couldn’t help but notice that you bolded only a portion of the following: “ a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power…”

You then go on to post what I believe you called a 'cut and paste' which focuses on creationism.

Since that isn't what I posted, your response must be one of those "fallacies, false accusations, foolish claims."

If I have to choose between your 'creationsim' post and the LATimes' 'a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God,' I'm going to give the nod to the LATimes.





3. "One of the many ignorant claims made by fundamentalists as they attempt to discredit science..."

You seem not to be able to grasp the essence of the OP....that there is an abrasiveness that some scientists exude....as do you....when the idea of God or religion is brought up.

I'm not discrediting science, and, in fact, I agree with " Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science, who said that "science and religion do not glower at each other…” but, rather, represent Non-overlapping magisteria. "
(above from Wikipedia).





4. "...a demonstration or some evidence of these gods is in order before we can move on to something more than wishful thinking."

Well, then, "before we can move on to something more than wishful thinking" perhaps you'd like to provide proof of the Big Bang, or how life began from Miller's pot of amino acids, or the source of the energy that became the universe, or,...

... in fact, the ‘multiverse,’ [the Landscape] idea embraced by Richard Dawkins, among others, that there could be an infinite number of universes, each with some permutation of the natural laws of physics, vastly different from ours.

Why, then, scruple at the Deity? After all, the theologian need only apply to a single God and a single universe. Dawkins must appeal to infinitely many universes crammed with laws of nature wriggling indiscreetly and fundamental physical parameters changing as one travels the cosmos. And- the entire gargantuan structure scientifically unobservable and devoid of any connection to experience.

Now, get this: Dawkins actually writes, “The key difference between the radically extravagant God hypothesis and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis, is one of statistical improbability.”
Berlinski, "The Devil's Delusion."




I eagerly await that proof.

 

[Gadawg73]

Religion is faith and their followers do not need any evidence to have believers.
Science is fact and does not need followers to believe it.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Religion is faith and their followers do not need any evidence to have believers.
Science is fact and does not need followers to believe it.

Wrong.
You can only say that because you are ignorant of the subject.

From post #6:

1. "...a demonstration or some evidence of these gods is in order before we can move on to something more than wishful thinking."

Well, then, "before we can move on to something more than wishful thinking" perhaps you'd like to provide proof of the Big Bang, or how life began from Miller's pot of amino acids, or the source of the energy that became the universe, or,...

... in fact, the ‘multiverse,’ [the Landscape] idea embraced by Richard Dawkins, among others, that there could be an infinite number of universes, each with some permutation of the natural laws of physics, vastly different from ours.

Why, then, scruple at the Deity? After all, the theologian need only apply to a single God and a single universe. Dawkins must appeal to infinitely many universes crammed with laws of nature wriggling indiscreetly and fundamental physical parameters changing as one travels the cosmos. And- the entire gargantuan structure scientifically unobservable and devoid of any connection to experience.

Now, get this: Dawkins actually writes, “The key difference between the radically extravagant God hypothesis and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis, is one of statistical improbability.”
Berlinski, "The Devil's Delusion."


2. The idea that science should trump all other arguments including the religious just because it is science, is not a scientific concept. Robert Bork points out that science is no different than other beliefs in regard to faith. “A belief that science will ultimately explain everything, however, also requires a leap of faith. Faith in science requires the unproven assumption that all reality is material, that there is nothing beyond or outside the material universe. Perhaps that is right…but it cannot be proven and therefore rests on an untested and untestable assumption. That being the case, there is no logical reason why science should be hostile to or displace religion.
Robert Bork, “Slouching Towards Gomorrah” p.281-282

 

[Hollie]

1.

A distinction without a difference.

Although the Constitution demands that there be the free exercise of religion, the modern education system puts an end to that.
And since the secularists control education, the homogenizing of the public produces a secular nation.

A distinction you’re missing.

The Founding Fathers never intended the United States to be a Christian nation. Jefferson, Washington, Franklin among others of the Founding Fathers were skeptics or Deists; they specifically intended a secular government with an "unbreachable wall" between church and state; they even wrote into the treaty with the Moslem nation of Tripoli a clear statement that, unlike European countries, the "United States is not, in any sense, a Christian nation."

(So clearly understood was the principle of separation of church and state in those days that the treaty passed Congress without any debate on that clause, and President John Adams signed it at once, without any fear that it might jeopardize his political future.)-Robert A. Wilson (Sex and Drugs, 1973)


Your particular religion has no place in the public schools. You may wish to re-write the Constitution and void the clear intent of that document but then again, don’t complain when the school systems teach islamist ideology.
I know you assess yourself as not, but I would say anyone who embraces the forcing of kowtowing to gods is in fact cramming it. Let's try it this way,:

In 250 years (pretend you are still alive and healthy), the Arab population has swelled in the US to a whopping 72%. Islam is the majority religion. Congress, filled with Moslems, enacts a law: Henceforth, the word "God" will be replaced with "Allah (PBUH)" on all coin of the realm, both metal and paper.

Would you feel Islam was being forced down your throat?

If your answer is "Yes", then extrapolate it a few steps to me, and for millions of others who do not believe (or believe differently).

And now you can see why the exclusionary clause of the 1st Amendment should stand inviolate. You still have your freedom to worship as you please and I have the freedom to not.

How utterly fair and simple.

The most quoted source was the Bible.

Your claim is weak.

Your link to “(Pastor) Roger Anghis -- Bring America Back To Her Religious Roots, Part 7”, identifies only “An independent study was done by the University of Houston”.

What “independent study”? Vague references are often vague for a reason.

But if it’s “quotes” you’re after, you have only to read the biographies of the man who wrote the Constitution.


John Adams

"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815


Regarding Government Meddling With Religion

"We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions ... shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power ... we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society."

-- John Adams, letter to Dr. Price, April 8, 1785


"I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself".

-- John Adams, letter to his brother-in-law, Richard Cranch, August 29, 1756


Regarding Religion Meddling with Government

"We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact! There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red-hot poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemers upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated. Adieu."

-- John Adams, one of his last letters to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825. Adams was 90, Jefferson 81 at the time; both died on July 4th of the following year, on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.


"Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."

-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America"


Prophetic Statements Based on History

"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes."

-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814


But Hey, Don't Hold Back.

"Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude....

Of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve ... the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from episcopal fingers."

-- John Adams, "A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law," printed in the Boston Gazette, August 1765


"The Church of Rome has made it an article of faith that no man can be saved out of their church, and all other religious sects approach this dreadful opinion in proportion to their ignorance, and the influence of ignorant or wicked priests."

-- John Adams, Diary and Autobiography



Benjamin Franklin


"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
- Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Richard Price. October 9, 1790.


Pro

"I am fully of your Opinion respecting religious Tests; but, tho' the People of Massachusetts have not in their new Constitution kept quite clear of them, yet, if we consider what that People were 100 Years ago, we must allow they have gone great Lengths in Liberality of Sentiment on religious Subjects; and we may hope for greater Degrees of Perfection, when their Constitution, some years hence, shall be revised. If Christian Preachers had continued to teach as Christ and his Apostles did, without Salaries, and as the Quakers now do, I imagine Tests would never have existed; for I think they were invented, not so much to secure Religion itself, as the Emoluments of it. When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." (Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American statesman, diplomat, scientist, and printer, from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...uotations.html


Con

"In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when present to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?....I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men." (Catherine Drinker Bowen. Miracle at Phaladelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787. New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, 1966, pp. 125-126)


It is rarely noted that Franklin presented his motion after "four or five weeks" of deliberation, during which they had never once opened in prayer. More significantly, it is never mentioned that Franklin's motion was voted down! Fine Christians, these founding fathers. Furthermore, the context is usually ignored, too. He made the motion during an especially trying week of serious disagreement, when the convention was in danger of breaking up. Cathrine Drinker Bowen comments:

Yet whether the Doctor had spoken from policy or from faith, his suggestion had been salutary, calling an assembly of doubting minds to a realization that destiny herself sat as guest and witness in this room. Franklin had made solemn reminder that a republic of thirteen united states - venture novel and daring - could not be achieved without mutual sacrifice and a summoning up of men's best, most difficult and most creative efforts. (Bowen, p. 127)
Quartz Hill School of Theology


A Parting Note.

About March 1, 1790, he wrote the following in a letter to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale, who had asked him his views on religion. His answer would indicate that he remained a Deist, not a Christian, to the end:

"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and I think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble...."
(Carl Van Doren. Benjamin Franklin. New York: The Viking Press, 1938, p. 777.)


He died just over a month later on April 17.
Quartz Hill School of Theology


Thomas Jefferson

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."

SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS,
by John E. Remsburg, letter to William Short


Regarding Government Meddling With Religion

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428


"In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies."
--Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:378


"To suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2: 546


"It is proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe, a day of fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant, too, that this recommendation is to carry some authority and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription, perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed?... Civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428


"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor... otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief... All men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and... the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
--Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2:546


Regarding Religion Meddling with Government

"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science."
--Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:281


"I do not know that it is a duty to disturb by missionaries the religion and peace of other countries, who may think themselves bound to extinguish by fire and fagot the heresies to which we give the name of conversions, and quote our own example for it. Were the Pope, or his holy allies, to send in mission to us some thousands of Jesuit priests to convert us to their orthodoxy, I suspect that we should deem and treat it as a national aggression on our peace and faith."
--Thomas Jefferson to Michael Megear, 1823. ME 15:434


"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man."
--Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moor, 1800.


"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another."
--Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78


"The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion."
--Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173


"Believing... 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 legitimate 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."
--Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802. ME 16:281


"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."
--Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813. ME 14:21



Regarding Criminal Acts

"The declaration that religious faith shall be unpunished does not give immunity to criminal acts dictated by religious error."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:98


"If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise than as if it had happened in a fair or market."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:548


"It is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere [in the propagation of religious teachings] when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order."
--Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2:546


"Whatsoever is lawful in the Commonwealth or permitted to the subject in the ordinary way cannot be forbidden to him for religious uses; and whatsoever is prejudicial to the Commonwealth in their ordinary uses and, therefore, prohibited by the laws, ought not to be permitted to churches in their sacred rites. For instance, it is unlawful in the ordinary course of things or in a private house to murder a child; it should not be permitted any sect then to sacrifice children. It is ordinarily lawful (or temporarily lawful) to kill calves or lambs; they may, therefore, be religiously sacrificed. But if the good of the State required a temporary suspension of killing lambs, as during a siege, sacrifices of them may then be rightfully suspended also. This is the true extent of toleration."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:547




James Madison

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
--James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance


Regarding State Meddling with Church

"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
--James Madison in a letter to Edward Livingston in 1822


"It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will best be guarded against by an entire abstinence of the Government from interference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others."--James Madison, "James Madison on Religious Liberty"


"To the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself."
--James Madison, Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811


"Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform."
--James Madison, Annals of Congress, Sat Aug 15th, 1789 pages 730 - 731.


Regarding Church Meddling with State

"The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state."
--James Madison


"Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and & Gov't in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history."
--James Madison, 1820


"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."
--James Madison


"The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state."
--James Madison, 1819


"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."
--James Madison, 1803

Sources
Little-Known U.S. Document Proclaims America's Government is Secular - The Early America Review, Summer 1997
Madison on church and state
http://atheism.about.com/library/quo...q_JMadison.htm


Thomas Paine

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church." (Richard Emery Roberts, ed. "Excerpts from The Age of Reason". Selected Writings of Thomas Paine.


Regarding State Meddling with Church

"As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith. . . ."
---Thomas Paine, "Common Sense", 1776


Regarding Church Meddling with State

"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law."
--Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, 1791


"Soon after I had published the pamphlet COMMON SENSE, in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous connection of church and state, wherever it had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so effectually prohibited, by pains and penalties, every discussion upon established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that until the system of government should be changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this should be done, a revolution in the system of religion would follow. Human inventions and priest-craft would be detected; and man would return to the pure, unmixed, and unadulterated belief of one God, and no more."
--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794


"EVERY national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

"Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794


"The Church was resolved to have a New Testament, and as, after the lapse of more than three hundred years, no handwriting could be proved or disproved, the Church, which like former impostors had then gotten possession of the State, had everything its own way. It invented creeds, such as that called the Apostle's Creed, the Nicean Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and out of the loads of rubbish that were presented it voted four to be Gospels, and others to be Epistles, as we now find them arranged."
--Thomas Paine


But Hey, Don't Hold Back.

"The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system."
--Thomas Paine, 2000 Years of Disbelief



"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, not by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church."
--Thomas Paine, Excerpts from The Age of Reason: Selected Writings of Thomas Paine, edited by Richard Emery Robers, NY Everybody's Vacation Publishing Co, 1945, p.342


"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason


"People in general do not know what wickedness there is in this pretended word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good; they permit themselves not to doubt of it, and they carry the ideas they form of the benevolence of the Almighty to the book which they have been taught to believe was written by his authority. Good heavens! it is quite another thing; it is a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy; for what can be greater blasphemy than to ascribe the wickedness of man to the orders of the Almighty?"
---Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason


"There is scarcely any part of science, or anything in nature, which those imposters and blasphemers of science, called priests, as well Christians as Jews, have not, at some time or other, perverted, or sought to pervert to the purpose of superstition and falsehood."
-- Thomas Paine



"Yet this is trash that the Church imposes upon the world as the Word of God; this is the collection of lies and contradictions called the Holy Bible! this is the rubbish called Revealed Religion!"
-- Thomas Paine



Sources

http://www.thomaspaine.org/Archives/AOR1.html
http://www.atheism.org/~godlessheathen/Founders.html
Thomas Paine - Wikiquote
http://www.thomaspaine.org/contents.html
http://paganinfo.50g.com/quotes.htm

*****

Now. These are the primary Founding Fathers of the Constitution of the United States of America. There were other Founders who disagreed with them, but these guys won out on the issue of separation of Church and State.



2. You’re free to choose to believe what you wish. However, your article clearly defines “ a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power…”

I will note, again, the selective bolding. A “higher power” could be Amun Ra.

As your article indicates “God or a higher power”, I’m left with defining that “god” is not necessarily your god, (the Judeo-Christian god), as there are many gods. Similarly, the article defines “God or a higher power”. The term “or” excludes your particular gods so we’re left with rather vague descriptions of what you hope to present.

Ok, you claim there is a god(s). let's see the preponderance of evidence, and let's apply critical thinking to it and see if it withstands scrutiny. As a matter of course, everything that you delineate in your reply here that materialism is held against by way of standard, we must also (in order to be fair and impartial) hold supernaturalism against by way of standard.



3. If you want abrasiveness, you have only to look to your Christian bretheren.

The long term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to his Church’s public marks of the covenant-baptism and holy communion-must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel.

-Gary North


I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be.
Jerry Falwell


There will never be world peace until Gods house and Gods people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world.
Pat Robertson


What you chose not to address is that Christian fundamentalists represent a true threat to the advancement of reason and rationality, especially as it relates to education in this country.

I don't want kids being dumbed-down and taught fluff in place of science because we live in a world of technology and we need critical thinkers in order to survive in this world. The USA is painfully unscientific enough as it is, and churning out generation after generation of dreamy-eyed “exploring the film” graduates condemns us to a horrible fate of an also-ran. This is the kind of "Father Knows Best" nation we were in during the 1950's when suddenly Russia started sailing Sputniks over our heads and believe me—I know from my Grand-Dad that fear then was galvanizing. Now, the goofy “easy electiv’ists” want us to go back into that womb of ignorance? I think not. This is a technological world and we better be up on it, or we'll be the peasants running around with decaying weapons, not knowing how to fix or use them, and running around stone icons and trampling one another to death to worship our rocks. I want the USA strong in science because I want the USA strong. So keep the religious studies where it belongs-- in Sunday school, and let our kids learn science based upon knowledge and rational thought processes.



4. I don’t have the proof you want.
However, yours is a tactic typically employed to discredit science. It’s a presupposition that if science doesn’t have every answer, then we must assume “the gods did it”.


I was reading about the first discoveries of DNA where most scientists resisted the idea at all at first, and then decided we'd never even map the genome of a worm-- yet here we are mapping humans. And in fact, science can answer "why" and "what's next" and does so with reliable continuity. From science we learn how stars function – why do they "burn"? And if you want to know when the next eclipse is going to be -- well, you could rattle bones, ask a priest, read tea leaves, …

OR

you could consult an astronomer and get a list of every solar and lunar eclipse for the next 8 millions years.


My point is, many are dismissing the fact that religious institutions have, more often than not, been a yolk around the neck of science and discovery. I think people are vastly more tolerant about scientific truths than they were say, 400 years ago. In large part that’s because religion has been throttled by the secular institutions. Not too many weathermen being burned at the stake these days because they predict a solar eclipse or a drought.

Not so. In mathematics, there are fine distinctions to be made between definite and indefinite articles. "An answer" is by no means synonymous with "the answer." Even when a solution has been demonstrated, the uniqueness of the solution is often a far more difficult proposition. This is natural enough, as there are quite often multiple distinct solutions in nature.

You speak (and I’m paraphrasing what I derive from your posts), of "the" bible as "the" story of "man's" relationship with "God." Each of these concepts presupposes a unique reification.

"The bible" ... There are many interpretations of bibless, many verses and many other holy scriptures and still more general spiritual texts besides.

"The Story" ... There are as many stories as there are consciousnesses to experience them. By what reasoning can a claim be made for the universality of any of them?

"Man" ... The evidence seems overwhelming that man does indeed share a common natural descent with all other forms of life on earth. At what point of our biotic history can we chop down the tree and say, "This creature has a soul?"

"God" ... The essential uniqueness of the Abrahamic God lies in the claims of its uniqueness made by its adherents. Yet the largest branch of Abrahamic spirituality claims their unique god is actually three-in-one. The second largest branch claims 9 billion names for the same divinity leaving the third leg of the tripod to mutter "Oi vey" under their collective breaths. "It's broke it, you've done with that God we gave you whole!"

If there is one thing sure, it is that closer examination of anything will always lead to “differentiatiable” aspects. Gods have a tendency to breed when placed in philosophical intercourse with men. So how are we to discover those aspects, if any, which hold universally?

We can't. We're not big enough. We lack the proper tools. Or, more likely, they’re not true.

 

[Gadawg73]

Religion is faith and their followers do not need any evidence to have believers.
Science is fact and does not need followers to believe it.

Wrong.
You can only say that because you are ignorant of the subject.

From post #6:

1. "...a demonstration or some evidence of these gods is in order before we can move on to something more than wishful thinking."

Well, then, "before we can move on to something more than wishful thinking" perhaps you'd like to provide proof of the Big Bang, or how life began from Miller's pot of amino acids, or the source of the energy that became the universe, or,...

... in fact, the ‘multiverse,’ [the Landscape] idea embraced by Richard Dawkins, among others, that there could be an infinite number of universes, each with some permutation of the natural laws of physics, vastly different from ours.

Why, then, scruple at the Deity? After all, the theologian need only apply to a single God and a single universe. Dawkins must appeal to infinitely many universes crammed with laws of nature wriggling indiscreetly and fundamental physical parameters changing as one travels the cosmos. And- the entire gargantuan structure scientifically unobservable and devoid of any connection to experience.

Now, get this: Dawkins actually writes, “The key difference between the radically extravagant God hypothesis and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis, is one of statistical improbability.”
Berlinski, "The Devil's Delusion."


2. The idea that science should trump all other arguments including the religious just because it is science, is not a scientific concept. Robert Bork points out that science is no different than other beliefs in regard to faith. “A belief that science will ultimately explain everything, however, also requires a leap of faith. Faith in science requires the unproven assumption that all reality is material, that there is nothing beyond or outside the material universe. Perhaps that is right…but it cannot be proven and therefore rests on an untested and untestable assumption. That being the case, there is no logical reason why science should be hostile to or displace religion.
Robert Bork, “Slouching Towards Gomorrah” p.281-282

Robert Bork?
A damn lawyer is your evidence?

 

[PoliticalChic]

1.

A distinction without a difference.

Although the Constitution demands that there be the free exercise of religion, the modern education system puts an end to that.
And since the secularists control education, the homogenizing of the public produces a secular nation.

A distinction you’re missing.

The Founding Fathers never intended the United States to be a Christian nation. Jefferson, Washington, Franklin among others of the Founding Fathers were skeptics or Deists; they specifically intended a secular government with an "unbreachable wall" between church and state; they even wrote into the treaty with the Moslem nation of Tripoli a clear statement that, unlike European countries, the "United States is not, in any sense, a Christian nation."

(So clearly understood was the principle of separation of church and state in those days that the treaty passed Congress without any debate on that clause, and President John Adams signed it at once, without any fear that it might jeopardize his political future.)-Robert A. Wilson (Sex and Drugs, 1973)


Your particular religion has no place in the public schools. You may wish to re-write the Constitution and void the clear intent of that document but then again, don’t complain when the school systems teach islamist ideology.
I know you assess yourself as not, but I would say anyone who embraces the forcing of kowtowing to gods is in fact cramming it. Let's try it this way,:

In 250 years (pretend you are still alive and healthy), the Arab population has swelled in the US to a whopping 72%. Islam is the majority religion. Congress, filled with Moslems, enacts a law: Henceforth, the word "God" will be replaced with "Allah (PBUH)" on all coin of the realm, both metal and paper.

Would you feel Islam was being forced down your throat?

If your answer is "Yes", then extrapolate it a few steps to me, and for millions of others who do not believe (or believe differently).

And now you can see why the exclusionary clause of the 1st Amendment should stand inviolate. You still have your freedom to worship as you please and I have the freedom to not.

How utterly fair and simple.

The most quoted source was the Bible.

Your claim is weak.

Your link to “(Pastor) Roger Anghis -- Bring America Back To Her Religious Roots, Part 7”, identifies only “An independent study was done by the University of Houston”.

What “independent study”? Vague references are often vague for a reason.

But if it’s “quotes” you’re after, you have only to read the biographies of the man who wrote the Constitution.


John Adams

"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815


Regarding Government Meddling With Religion

"We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions ... shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power ... we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society."

-- John Adams, letter to Dr. Price, April 8, 1785


"I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself".

-- John Adams, letter to his brother-in-law, Richard Cranch, August 29, 1756


Regarding Religion Meddling with Government

"We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact! There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red-hot poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemers upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated. Adieu."

-- John Adams, one of his last letters to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825. Adams was 90, Jefferson 81 at the time; both died on July 4th of the following year, on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.


"Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."

-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America"


Prophetic Statements Based on History

"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes."

-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814


But Hey, Don't Hold Back.

"Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude....

Of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve ... the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from episcopal fingers."

-- John Adams, "A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law," printed in the Boston Gazette, August 1765


"The Church of Rome has made it an article of faith that no man can be saved out of their church, and all other religious sects approach this dreadful opinion in proportion to their ignorance, and the influence of ignorant or wicked priests."

-- John Adams, Diary and Autobiography



Benjamin Franklin


"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
- Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Richard Price. October 9, 1790.


Pro

"I am fully of your Opinion respecting religious Tests; but, tho' the People of Massachusetts have not in their new Constitution kept quite clear of them, yet, if we consider what that People were 100 Years ago, we must allow they have gone great Lengths in Liberality of Sentiment on religious Subjects; and we may hope for greater Degrees of Perfection, when their Constitution, some years hence, shall be revised. If Christian Preachers had continued to teach as Christ and his Apostles did, without Salaries, and as the Quakers now do, I imagine Tests would never have existed; for I think they were invented, not so much to secure Religion itself, as the Emoluments of it. When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." (Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American statesman, diplomat, scientist, and printer, from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...uotations.html


Con

"In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when present to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?....I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men." (Catherine Drinker Bowen. Miracle at Phaladelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787. New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, 1966, pp. 125-126)


It is rarely noted that Franklin presented his motion after "four or five weeks" of deliberation, during which they had never once opened in prayer. More significantly, it is never mentioned that Franklin's motion was voted down! Fine Christians, these founding fathers. Furthermore, the context is usually ignored, too. He made the motion during an especially trying week of serious disagreement, when the convention was in danger of breaking up. Cathrine Drinker Bowen comments:

Yet whether the Doctor had spoken from policy or from faith, his suggestion had been salutary, calling an assembly of doubting minds to a realization that destiny herself sat as guest and witness in this room. Franklin had made solemn reminder that a republic of thirteen united states - venture novel and daring - could not be achieved without mutual sacrifice and a summoning up of men's best, most difficult and most creative efforts. (Bowen, p. 127)
Quartz Hill School of Theology


A Parting Note.

About March 1, 1790, he wrote the following in a letter to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale, who had asked him his views on religion. His answer would indicate that he remained a Deist, not a Christian, to the end:

"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and I think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble...."
(Carl Van Doren. Benjamin Franklin. New York: The Viking Press, 1938, p. 777.)


He died just over a month later on April 17.
Quartz Hill School of Theology


Thomas Jefferson

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."

SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS,
by John E. Remsburg, letter to William Short


Regarding Government Meddling With Religion

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428


"In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies."
--Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:378


"To suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2: 546


"It is proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe, a day of fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant, too, that this recommendation is to carry some authority and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription, perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed?... Civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428


"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor... otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief... All men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and... the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
--Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2:546


Regarding Religion Meddling with Government

"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science."
--Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:281


"I do not know that it is a duty to disturb by missionaries the religion and peace of other countries, who may think themselves bound to extinguish by fire and fagot the heresies to which we give the name of conversions, and quote our own example for it. Were the Pope, or his holy allies, to send in mission to us some thousands of Jesuit priests to convert us to their orthodoxy, I suspect that we should deem and treat it as a national aggression on our peace and faith."
--Thomas Jefferson to Michael Megear, 1823. ME 15:434


"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man."
--Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moor, 1800.


"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another."
--Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78


"The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion."
--Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173


"Believing... 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 legitimate 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."
--Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802. ME 16:281


"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."
--Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813. ME 14:21



Regarding Criminal Acts

"The declaration that religious faith shall be unpunished does not give immunity to criminal acts dictated by religious error."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:98


"If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise than as if it had happened in a fair or market."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:548


"It is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere [in the propagation of religious teachings] when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order."
--Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2:546


"Whatsoever is lawful in the Commonwealth or permitted to the subject in the ordinary way cannot be forbidden to him for religious uses; and whatsoever is prejudicial to the Commonwealth in their ordinary uses and, therefore, prohibited by the laws, ought not to be permitted to churches in their sacred rites. For instance, it is unlawful in the ordinary course of things or in a private house to murder a child; it should not be permitted any sect then to sacrifice children. It is ordinarily lawful (or temporarily lawful) to kill calves or lambs; they may, therefore, be religiously sacrificed. But if the good of the State required a temporary suspension of killing lambs, as during a siege, sacrifices of them may then be rightfully suspended also. This is the true extent of toleration."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:547




James Madison

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
--James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance


Regarding State Meddling with Church

"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
--James Madison in a letter to Edward Livingston in 1822


"It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will best be guarded against by an entire abstinence of the Government from interference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others."--James Madison, "James Madison on Religious Liberty"


"To the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself."
--James Madison, Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811


"Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform."
--James Madison, Annals of Congress, Sat Aug 15th, 1789 pages 730 - 731.


Regarding Church Meddling with State

"The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state."
--James Madison


"Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and & Gov't in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history."
--James Madison, 1820


"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."
--James Madison


"The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state."
--James Madison, 1819


"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."
--James Madison, 1803

Sources
Little-Known U.S. Document Proclaims America's Government is Secular - The Early America Review, Summer 1997
Madison on church and state
http://atheism.about.com/library/quo...q_JMadison.htm


Thomas Paine

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church." (Richard Emery Roberts, ed. "Excerpts from The Age of Reason". Selected Writings of Thomas Paine.


Regarding State Meddling with Church

"As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith. . . ."
---Thomas Paine, "Common Sense", 1776


Regarding Church Meddling with State

"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law."
--Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, 1791


"Soon after I had published the pamphlet COMMON SENSE, in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous connection of church and state, wherever it had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so effectually prohibited, by pains and penalties, every discussion upon established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that until the system of government should be changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this should be done, a revolution in the system of religion would follow. Human inventions and priest-craft would be detected; and man would return to the pure, unmixed, and unadulterated belief of one God, and no more."
--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794


"EVERY national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

"Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794


"The Church was resolved to have a New Testament, and as, after the lapse of more than three hundred years, no handwriting could be proved or disproved, the Church, which like former impostors had then gotten possession of the State, had everything its own way. It invented creeds, such as that called the Apostle's Creed, the Nicean Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and out of the loads of rubbish that were presented it voted four to be Gospels, and others to be Epistles, as we now find them arranged."
--Thomas Paine


But Hey, Don't Hold Back.

"The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system."
--Thomas Paine, 2000 Years of Disbelief



"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, not by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church."
--Thomas Paine, Excerpts from The Age of Reason: Selected Writings of Thomas Paine, edited by Richard Emery Robers, NY Everybody's Vacation Publishing Co, 1945, p.342


"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason


"People in general do not know what wickedness there is in this pretended word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good; they permit themselves not to doubt of it, and they carry the ideas they form of the benevolence of the Almighty to the book which they have been taught to believe was written by his authority. Good heavens! it is quite another thing; it is a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy; for what can be greater blasphemy than to ascribe the wickedness of man to the orders of the Almighty?"
---Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason


"There is scarcely any part of science, or anything in nature, which those imposters and blasphemers of science, called priests, as well Christians as Jews, have not, at some time or other, perverted, or sought to pervert to the purpose of superstition and falsehood."
-- Thomas Paine



"Yet this is trash that the Church imposes upon the world as the Word of God; this is the collection of lies and contradictions called the Holy Bible! this is the rubbish called Revealed Religion!"
-- Thomas Paine



Sources

http://www.thomaspaine.org/Archives/AOR1.html
http://www.atheism.org/~godlessheathen/Founders.html
Thomas Paine - Wikiquote
http://www.thomaspaine.org/contents.html
http://paganinfo.50g.com/quotes.htm

*****

Now. These are the primary Founding Fathers of the Constitution of the United States of America. There were other Founders who disagreed with them, but these guys won out on the issue of separation of Church and State.



2. You’re free to choose to believe what you wish. However, your article clearly defines “ a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power…”

I will note, again, the selective bolding. A “higher power” could be Amun Ra.

As your article indicates “God or a higher power”, I’m left with defining that “god” is not necessarily your god, (the Judeo-Christian god), as there are many gods. Similarly, the article defines “God or a higher power”. The term “or” excludes your particular gods so we’re left with rather vague descriptions of what you hope to present.

Ok, you claim there is a god(s). let's see the preponderance of evidence, and let's apply critical thinking to it and see if it withstands scrutiny. As a matter of course, everything that you delineate in your reply here that materialism is held against by way of standard, we must also (in order to be fair and impartial) hold supernaturalism against by way of standard.



3. If you want abrasiveness, you have only to look to your Christian bretheren.

The long term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to his Church’s public marks of the covenant-baptism and holy communion-must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel.

-Gary North


I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be.
Jerry Falwell


There will never be world peace until Gods house and Gods people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world.
Pat Robertson


What you chose not to address is that Christian fundamentalists represent a true threat to the advancement of reason and rationality, especially as it relates to education in this country.

I don't want kids being dumbed-down and taught fluff in place of science because we live in a world of technology and we need critical thinkers in order to survive in this world. The USA is painfully unscientific enough as it is, and churning out generation after generation of dreamy-eyed “exploring the film” graduates condemns us to a horrible fate of an also-ran. This is the kind of "Father Knows Best" nation we were in during the 1950's when suddenly Russia started sailing Sputniks over our heads and believe me—I know from my Grand-Dad that fear then was galvanizing. Now, the goofy “easy electiv’ists” want us to go back into that womb of ignorance? I think not. This is a technological world and we better be up on it, or we'll be the peasants running around with decaying weapons, not knowing how to fix or use them, and running around stone icons and trampling one another to death to worship our rocks. I want the USA strong in science because I want the USA strong. So keep the religious studies where it belongs-- in Sunday school, and let our kids learn science based upon knowledge and rational thought processes.



4. I don’t have the proof you want.
However, yours is a tactic typically employed to discredit science. It’s a presupposition that if science doesn’t have every answer, then we must assume “the gods did it”.


I was reading about the first discoveries of DNA where most scientists resisted the idea at all at first, and then decided we'd never even map the genome of a worm-- yet here we are mapping humans. And in fact, science can answer "why" and "what's next" and does so with reliable continuity. From science we learn how stars function – why do they "burn"? And if you want to know when the next eclipse is going to be -- well, you could rattle bones, ask a priest, read tea leaves, …

OR

you could consult an astronomer and get a list of every solar and lunar eclipse for the next 8 millions years.


My point is, many are dismissing the fact that religious institutions have, more often than not, been a yolk around the neck of science and discovery. I think people are vastly more tolerant about scientific truths than they were say, 400 years ago. In large part that’s because religion has been throttled by the secular institutions. Not too many weathermen being burned at the stake these days because they predict a solar eclipse or a drought.

Not so. In mathematics, there are fine distinctions to be made between definite and indefinite articles. "An answer" is by no means synonymous with "the answer." Even when a solution has been demonstrated, the uniqueness of the solution is often a far more difficult proposition. This is natural enough, as there are quite often multiple distinct solutions in nature.

You speak (and I’m paraphrasing what I derive from your posts), of "the" bible as "the" story of "man's" relationship with "God." Each of these concepts presupposes a unique reification.

"The bible" ... There are many interpretations of bibless, many verses and many other holy scriptures and still more general spiritual texts besides.

"The Story" ... There are as many stories as there are consciousnesses to experience them. By what reasoning can a claim be made for the universality of any of them?

"Man" ... The evidence seems overwhelming that man does indeed share a common natural descent with all other forms of life on earth. At what point of our biotic history can we chop down the tree and say, "This creature has a soul?"

"God" ... The essential uniqueness of the Abrahamic God lies in the claims of its uniqueness made by its adherents. Yet the largest branch of Abrahamic spirituality claims their unique god is actually three-in-one. The second largest branch claims 9 billion names for the same divinity leaving the third leg of the tripod to mutter "Oi vey" under their collective breaths. "It's broke it, you've done with that God we gave you whole!"

If there is one thing sure, it is that closer examination of anything will always lead to “differentiatiable” aspects. Gods have a tendency to breed when placed in philosophical intercourse with men. So how are we to discover those aspects, if any, which hold universally?

We can't. We're not big enough. We lack the proper tools. Or, more likely, they’re not true.

"The Founding Fathers never intended the United States to be a Christian nation."

I'm willing to admit that the Founders wished, only, to have a religious nation, a moral one, based on the precepts of the Bible.

That's why I presented the post, which, I don't believe you've been able to deny.



And you did such a detailed job on this post....it's almost a shame that it is so simple to defeat your post.....how do you explain a reference to Jesus Christ in the document that memorializes the law governing the United States of America?

Shall I post it, or would you like to explain such a reference beforehand?


I'll await your response.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Religion is faith and their followers do not need any evidence to have believers.
Science is fact and does not need followers to believe it.

Wrong.
You can only say that because you are ignorant of the subject.

From post #6:

1. "...a demonstration or some evidence of these gods is in order before we can move on to something more than wishful thinking."

Well, then, "before we can move on to something more than wishful thinking" perhaps you'd like to provide proof of the Big Bang, or how life began from Miller's pot of amino acids, or the source of the energy that became the universe, or,...

... in fact, the ‘multiverse,’ [the Landscape] idea embraced by Richard Dawkins, among others, that there could be an infinite number of universes, each with some permutation of the natural laws of physics, vastly different from ours.

Why, then, scruple at the Deity? After all, the theologian need only apply to a single God and a single universe. Dawkins must appeal to infinitely many universes crammed with laws of nature wriggling indiscreetly and fundamental physical parameters changing as one travels the cosmos. And- the entire gargantuan structure scientifically unobservable and devoid of any connection to experience.

Now, get this: Dawkins actually writes, “The key difference between the radically extravagant God hypothesis and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis, is one of statistical improbability.”
Berlinski, "The Devil's Delusion."


2. The idea that science should trump all other arguments including the religious just because it is science, is not a scientific concept. Robert Bork points out that science is no different than other beliefs in regard to faith. “A belief that science will ultimately explain everything, however, also requires a leap of faith. Faith in science requires the unproven assumption that all reality is material, that there is nothing beyond or outside the material universe. Perhaps that is right…but it cannot be proven and therefore rests on an untested and untestable assumption. That being the case, there is no logical reason why science should be hostile to or displace religion.
Robert Bork, “Slouching Towards Gomorrah” p.281-282

Robert Bork?
A damn lawyer is your evidence?

No, silly....

...your ignorance is my evidence.

 

[Hollie]

1.

A distinction you’re missing.

The Founding Fathers never intended the United States to be a Christian nation. Jefferson, Washington, Franklin among others of the Founding Fathers were skeptics or Deists; they specifically intended a secular government with an "unbreachable wall" between church and state; they even wrote into the treaty with the Moslem nation of Tripoli a clear statement that, unlike European countries, the "United States is not, in any sense, a Christian nation."

(So clearly understood was the principle of separation of church and state in those days that the treaty passed Congress without any debate on that clause, and President John Adams signed it at once, without any fear that it might jeopardize his political future.)-Robert A. Wilson (Sex and Drugs, 1973)


Your particular religion has no place in the public schools. You may wish to re-write the Constitution and void the clear intent of that document but then again, don’t complain when the school systems teach islamist ideology.
I know you assess yourself as not, but I would say anyone who embraces the forcing of kowtowing to gods is in fact cramming it. Let's try it this way,:

In 250 years (pretend you are still alive and healthy), the Arab population has swelled in the US to a whopping 72%. Islam is the majority religion. Congress, filled with Moslems, enacts a law: Henceforth, the word "God" will be replaced with "Allah (PBUH)" on all coin of the realm, both metal and paper.

Would you feel Islam was being forced down your throat?

If your answer is "Yes", then extrapolate it a few steps to me, and for millions of others who do not believe (or believe differently).

And now you can see why the exclusionary clause of the 1st Amendment should stand inviolate. You still have your freedom to worship as you please and I have the freedom to not.

How utterly fair and simple.




Your claim is weak.

Your link to “(Pastor) Roger Anghis -- Bring America Back To Her Religious Roots, Part 7”, identifies only “An independent study was done by the University of Houston”.

What “independent study”? Vague references are often vague for a reason.

But if it’s “quotes” you’re after, you have only to read the biographies of the man who wrote the Constitution.


John Adams

"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815


Regarding Government Meddling With Religion

"We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions ... shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power ... we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society."

-- John Adams, letter to Dr. Price, April 8, 1785


"I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself".

-- John Adams, letter to his brother-in-law, Richard Cranch, August 29, 1756


Regarding Religion Meddling with Government

"We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact! There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red-hot poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemers upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated. Adieu."

-- John Adams, one of his last letters to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825. Adams was 90, Jefferson 81 at the time; both died on July 4th of the following year, on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.


"Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."

-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America"


Prophetic Statements Based on History

"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes."

-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814


But Hey, Don't Hold Back.

"Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude....

Of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve ... the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from episcopal fingers."

-- John Adams, "A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law," printed in the Boston Gazette, August 1765


"The Church of Rome has made it an article of faith that no man can be saved out of their church, and all other religious sects approach this dreadful opinion in proportion to their ignorance, and the influence of ignorant or wicked priests."

-- John Adams, Diary and Autobiography



Benjamin Franklin


"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
- Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Richard Price. October 9, 1790.


Pro

"I am fully of your Opinion respecting religious Tests; but, tho' the People of Massachusetts have not in their new Constitution kept quite clear of them, yet, if we consider what that People were 100 Years ago, we must allow they have gone great Lengths in Liberality of Sentiment on religious Subjects; and we may hope for greater Degrees of Perfection, when their Constitution, some years hence, shall be revised. If Christian Preachers had continued to teach as Christ and his Apostles did, without Salaries, and as the Quakers now do, I imagine Tests would never have existed; for I think they were invented, not so much to secure Religion itself, as the Emoluments of it. When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." (Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American statesman, diplomat, scientist, and printer, from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...uotations.html


Con

"In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when present to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?....I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men." (Catherine Drinker Bowen. Miracle at Phaladelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787. New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, 1966, pp. 125-126)


It is rarely noted that Franklin presented his motion after "four or five weeks" of deliberation, during which they had never once opened in prayer. More significantly, it is never mentioned that Franklin's motion was voted down! Fine Christians, these founding fathers. Furthermore, the context is usually ignored, too. He made the motion during an especially trying week of serious disagreement, when the convention was in danger of breaking up. Cathrine Drinker Bowen comments:

Yet whether the Doctor had spoken from policy or from faith, his suggestion had been salutary, calling an assembly of doubting minds to a realization that destiny herself sat as guest and witness in this room. Franklin had made solemn reminder that a republic of thirteen united states - venture novel and daring - could not be achieved without mutual sacrifice and a summoning up of men's best, most difficult and most creative efforts. (Bowen, p. 127)
Quartz Hill School of Theology


A Parting Note.

About March 1, 1790, he wrote the following in a letter to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale, who had asked him his views on religion. His answer would indicate that he remained a Deist, not a Christian, to the end:

"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and I think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble...."
(Carl Van Doren. Benjamin Franklin. New York: The Viking Press, 1938, p. 777.)


He died just over a month later on April 17.
Quartz Hill School of Theology


Thomas Jefferson

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."

SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS,
by John E. Remsburg, letter to William Short


Regarding Government Meddling With Religion

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428


"In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies."
--Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:378


"To suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2: 546


"It is proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe, a day of fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant, too, that this recommendation is to carry some authority and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription, perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed?... Civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428


"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor... otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief... All men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and... the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
--Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2:546


Regarding Religion Meddling with Government

"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science."
--Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:281


"I do not know that it is a duty to disturb by missionaries the religion and peace of other countries, who may think themselves bound to extinguish by fire and fagot the heresies to which we give the name of conversions, and quote our own example for it. Were the Pope, or his holy allies, to send in mission to us some thousands of Jesuit priests to convert us to their orthodoxy, I suspect that we should deem and treat it as a national aggression on our peace and faith."
--Thomas Jefferson to Michael Megear, 1823. ME 15:434


"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man."
--Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moor, 1800.


"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another."
--Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78


"The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion."
--Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173


"Believing... 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 legitimate 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."
--Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802. ME 16:281


"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."
--Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813. ME 14:21



Regarding Criminal Acts

"The declaration that religious faith shall be unpunished does not give immunity to criminal acts dictated by religious error."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:98


"If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise than as if it had happened in a fair or market."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:548


"It is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere [in the propagation of religious teachings] when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order."
--Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2:546


"Whatsoever is lawful in the Commonwealth or permitted to the subject in the ordinary way cannot be forbidden to him for religious uses; and whatsoever is prejudicial to the Commonwealth in their ordinary uses and, therefore, prohibited by the laws, ought not to be permitted to churches in their sacred rites. For instance, it is unlawful in the ordinary course of things or in a private house to murder a child; it should not be permitted any sect then to sacrifice children. It is ordinarily lawful (or temporarily lawful) to kill calves or lambs; they may, therefore, be religiously sacrificed. But if the good of the State required a temporary suspension of killing lambs, as during a siege, sacrifices of them may then be rightfully suspended also. This is the true extent of toleration."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:547




James Madison

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
--James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance


Regarding State Meddling with Church

"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
--James Madison in a letter to Edward Livingston in 1822


"It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will best be guarded against by an entire abstinence of the Government from interference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others."--James Madison, "James Madison on Religious Liberty"


"To the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself."
--James Madison, Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811


"Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform."
--James Madison, Annals of Congress, Sat Aug 15th, 1789 pages 730 - 731.


Regarding Church Meddling with State

"The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state."
--James Madison


"Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and & Gov't in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history."
--James Madison, 1820


"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."
--James Madison


"The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state."
--James Madison, 1819


"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."
--James Madison, 1803

Sources
Little-Known U.S. Document Proclaims America's Government is Secular - The Early America Review, Summer 1997
Madison on church and state
http://atheism.about.com/library/quo...q_JMadison.htm


Thomas Paine

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church." (Richard Emery Roberts, ed. "Excerpts from The Age of Reason". Selected Writings of Thomas Paine.


Regarding State Meddling with Church

"As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith. . . ."
---Thomas Paine, "Common Sense", 1776


Regarding Church Meddling with State

"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law."
--Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, 1791


"Soon after I had published the pamphlet COMMON SENSE, in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous connection of church and state, wherever it had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so effectually prohibited, by pains and penalties, every discussion upon established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that until the system of government should be changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this should be done, a revolution in the system of religion would follow. Human inventions and priest-craft would be detected; and man would return to the pure, unmixed, and unadulterated belief of one God, and no more."
--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794


"EVERY national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

"Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794


"The Church was resolved to have a New Testament, and as, after the lapse of more than three hundred years, no handwriting could be proved or disproved, the Church, which like former impostors had then gotten possession of the State, had everything its own way. It invented creeds, such as that called the Apostle's Creed, the Nicean Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and out of the loads of rubbish that were presented it voted four to be Gospels, and others to be Epistles, as we now find them arranged."
--Thomas Paine


But Hey, Don't Hold Back.

"The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system."
--Thomas Paine, 2000 Years of Disbelief



"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, not by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church."
--Thomas Paine, Excerpts from The Age of Reason: Selected Writings of Thomas Paine, edited by Richard Emery Robers, NY Everybody's Vacation Publishing Co, 1945, p.342


"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason


"People in general do not know what wickedness there is in this pretended word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good; they permit themselves not to doubt of it, and they carry the ideas they form of the benevolence of the Almighty to the book which they have been taught to believe was written by his authority. Good heavens! it is quite another thing; it is a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy; for what can be greater blasphemy than to ascribe the wickedness of man to the orders of the Almighty?"
---Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason


"There is scarcely any part of science, or anything in nature, which those imposters and blasphemers of science, called priests, as well Christians as Jews, have not, at some time or other, perverted, or sought to pervert to the purpose of superstition and falsehood."
-- Thomas Paine



"Yet this is trash that the Church imposes upon the world as the Word of God; this is the collection of lies and contradictions called the Holy Bible! this is the rubbish called Revealed Religion!"
-- Thomas Paine



Sources

http://www.thomaspaine.org/Archives/AOR1.html
http://www.atheism.org/~godlessheathen/Founders.html
Thomas Paine - Wikiquote
http://www.thomaspaine.org/contents.html
http://paganinfo.50g.com/quotes.htm

*****

Now. These are the primary Founding Fathers of the Constitution of the United States of America. There were other Founders who disagreed with them, but these guys won out on the issue of separation of Church and State.



2. You’re free to choose to believe what you wish. However, your article clearly defines “ a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power…”

I will note, again, the selective bolding. A “higher power” could be Amun Ra.

As your article indicates “God or a higher power”, I’m left with defining that “god” is not necessarily your god, (the Judeo-Christian god), as there are many gods. Similarly, the article defines “God or a higher power”. The term “or” excludes your particular gods so we’re left with rather vague descriptions of what you hope to present.

Ok, you claim there is a god(s). let's see the preponderance of evidence, and let's apply critical thinking to it and see if it withstands scrutiny. As a matter of course, everything that you delineate in your reply here that materialism is held against by way of standard, we must also (in order to be fair and impartial) hold supernaturalism against by way of standard.



3. If you want abrasiveness, you have only to look to your Christian bretheren.

The long term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to his Church’s public marks of the covenant-baptism and holy communion-must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel.

-Gary North


I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be.
Jerry Falwell


There will never be world peace until Gods house and Gods people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world.
Pat Robertson


What you chose not to address is that Christian fundamentalists represent a true threat to the advancement of reason and rationality, especially as it relates to education in this country.

I don't want kids being dumbed-down and taught fluff in place of science because we live in a world of technology and we need critical thinkers in order to survive in this world. The USA is painfully unscientific enough as it is, and churning out generation after generation of dreamy-eyed “exploring the film” graduates condemns us to a horrible fate of an also-ran. This is the kind of "Father Knows Best" nation we were in during the 1950's when suddenly Russia started sailing Sputniks over our heads and believe me—I know from my Grand-Dad that fear then was galvanizing. Now, the goofy “easy electiv’ists” want us to go back into that womb of ignorance? I think not. This is a technological world and we better be up on it, or we'll be the peasants running around with decaying weapons, not knowing how to fix or use them, and running around stone icons and trampling one another to death to worship our rocks. I want the USA strong in science because I want the USA strong. So keep the religious studies where it belongs-- in Sunday school, and let our kids learn science based upon knowledge and rational thought processes.



4. I don’t have the proof you want.
However, yours is a tactic typically employed to discredit science. It’s a presupposition that if science doesn’t have every answer, then we must assume “the gods did it”.


I was reading about the first discoveries of DNA where most scientists resisted the idea at all at first, and then decided we'd never even map the genome of a worm-- yet here we are mapping humans. And in fact, science can answer "why" and "what's next" and does so with reliable continuity. From science we learn how stars function – why do they "burn"? And if you want to know when the next eclipse is going to be -- well, you could rattle bones, ask a priest, read tea leaves, …

OR

you could consult an astronomer and get a list of every solar and lunar eclipse for the next 8 millions years.


My point is, many are dismissing the fact that religious institutions have, more often than not, been a yolk around the neck of science and discovery. I think people are vastly more tolerant about scientific truths than they were say, 400 years ago. In large part that’s because religion has been throttled by the secular institutions. Not too many weathermen being burned at the stake these days because they predict a solar eclipse or a drought.

Not so. In mathematics, there are fine distinctions to be made between definite and indefinite articles. "An answer" is by no means synonymous with "the answer." Even when a solution has been demonstrated, the uniqueness of the solution is often a far more difficult proposition. This is natural enough, as there are quite often multiple distinct solutions in nature.

You speak (and I’m paraphrasing what I derive from your posts), of "the" bible as "the" story of "man's" relationship with "God." Each of these concepts presupposes a unique reification.

"The bible" ... There are many interpretations of bibless, many verses and many other holy scriptures and still more general spiritual texts besides.

"The Story" ... There are as many stories as there are consciousnesses to experience them. By what reasoning can a claim be made for the universality of any of them?

"Man" ... The evidence seems overwhelming that man does indeed share a common natural descent with all other forms of life on earth. At what point of our biotic history can we chop down the tree and say, "This creature has a soul?"

"God" ... The essential uniqueness of the Abrahamic God lies in the claims of its uniqueness made by its adherents. Yet the largest branch of Abrahamic spirituality claims their unique god is actually three-in-one. The second largest branch claims 9 billion names for the same divinity leaving the third leg of the tripod to mutter "Oi vey" under their collective breaths. "It's broke it, you've done with that God we gave you whole!"

If there is one thing sure, it is that closer examination of anything will always lead to “differentiatiable” aspects. Gods have a tendency to breed when placed in philosophical intercourse with men. So how are we to discover those aspects, if any, which hold universally?

We can't. We're not big enough. We lack the proper tools. Or, more likely, they’re not true.

"The Founding Fathers never intended the United States to be a Christian nation."

I'm willing to admit that the Founders wished, only, to have a religious nation, a moral one, based on the precepts of the Bible.

That's why I presented the post, which, I don't believe you've been able to deny.



And you did such a detailed job on this post....it's almost a shame that it is so simple to defeat your post.....how do you explain a reference to Jesus Christ in the document that memorializes the law governing the United States of America?

Shall I post it, or would you like to explain such a reference beforehand?


I'll await your response.

"The Founding Fathers never intended the United States to be a Christian nation." That is correct.


Otherwise, you’ll excuse me If I don’t accept your self-professed claim to speak on behalf of the Founding Fathers.


Christianity is a proselytizing religion and as such, I understand your insistence that your religion must be shoe horned into the founding documents of this nation.

However, the founding documents of this nation never mention christianity as being an integral part of the framework of the U.S.

It seems simple enough – if the FF’s wanted to frame a “Christian” nation, they could have added language specifically to establish that framework. They did not. The fact is, the wording of the Constitution makes no mention of Jesus, Christ or the Christian gods.

Here’s a bit of enlightenment for you. The entire constitution defines rules that limit the government's involvement in the citizen's lives. It is clearly a muzzle on the state's ability to dictate to the citizenry what it can and cannot do within the paradigm of the federal mandate. Certainly rule of law is to be enforced, but that is also controlled at the local level. It does not take any stretch of imagination to understand that the framers of the constitution intended to place limits such that government is restrained from interfering with, among other liberties, freedom of religion which is by default, freedom from religion.

Re-read Amendment I to the constitution. The wording clearly describes limits on the government’s role regarding interference in the affairs of the citizenry. The fundamental documents of law restricting the government's rights to the liberty and freedom of conscience of the people was worded to ensure neutrality regardless of which religious belief is in the majority.

Could the FF's have envisioned Scientology? Or Mormonism? Or Christian Science? Yes and no. They knew that religions propagate and they knew that once in control, religious tenets are biased towards themselves and poorly disposed towards competitive beliefs systems. We don't have to assume their intent -- even if they were Christians (and some of 'em were), the intent is clear: the state is precluded from dictating any and all religious conscience to any free people. Hence, the First Amendment.

The U.S. Constitution has been designed to flex and to adjust, hence the amendments which have been adopted as society evolves. The answer is in the Founding Fathers ideals that the USA would be a long-flourishing pluralistic nation, hence, "E Pluribus Unum" as the most original and brilliant of mottos. The long range vision of the FF's clearly indicates they did not think such a growth would ever end (and 230 some years later, it still has not) and so the fundamental documents of law restricting the government's rights to the liberty and freedom of conscience of the people was worded to ensure neutrality regardless of a religious ideology that will insist it is beyond criticism.

As I did such a detailed dismantling of your arguments, I’m not surprised that you chose to retreat from responding to the salient points.

As to you claim that you can provide a reference to hey-zeus in the constitution, I’m left under impressed with such melodrama. If you’re referring to the silly claim that a closing salutation includes “in the year of our lord”, you’ve simply wasted your time.

The fact is, hey-zeus gets not a single mention in the wording, framework, structure or definition of the constitution.

 

[PoliticalChic]

"The Founding Fathers never intended the United States to be a Christian nation."

I'm willing to admit that the Founders wished, only, to have a religious nation, a moral one, based on the precepts of the Bible.

That's why I presented the post, which, I don't believe you've been able to deny.



And you did such a detailed job on this post....it's almost a shame that it is so simple to defeat your post.....how do you explain a reference to Jesus Christ in the document that memorializes the law governing the United States of America?

Shall I post it, or would you like to explain such a reference beforehand?


I'll await your response.

"The Founding Fathers never intended the United States to be a Christian nation." That is correct.

You’ll excuse me If I don’t accept your self-professed claim to speak on behalf of the Founding Fathers.

Christianity is a proselytizing religion and as such, I understand your insistence that your religion must be shoe horned into the founding documents of this nation.

However, it was not.

It seems simple enough – if the FF’s wanted to frame a “Christian” nation, they could have added language specifically to establish that framework. They did not. The fact is, the wording of the Constitution makes no mention of Jesus, Christ or the Christian gods.

Here’s a bit of enlightenment for you. The entire constitution defines rules that limit the government's involvement in the citizen's lives. It is clearly a muzzle on the state's ability to dictate to the citizenry what it can and cannot do within the paradigm of the federal mandate. Certainly rule of law is to be enforced, but that is also controlled at the local level. It does not take any stretch of imagination to understand that the framers of the constitution intended to place limits such that government is restrained from interfering with, among other liberties, freedom of religion which is by default, freedom from religion.

Re-read Amendment I to the constitution. The wording clearly describes limits on the government’s role regarding interference in the affairs of the citizenry. The fundamental documents of law restricting the government's rights to the liberty and freedom of conscience of the people was worded to ensure neutrality regardless of which religious belief is in the majority.

Could the FF's have envisioned Scientology? Or Mormonism? Or Christian Science? Yes and no. They knew that religions propagate and they knew that once in control, religious tenets are biased towards themselves and poorly disposed towards competitive beliefs systems. We don't have to assume their intent -- even if they were Christians (and some of 'em were), the intent is clear: the state is precluded from dictating any and all religious conscience to any free people. Hence, the First Amendment.

The U.S. Constitution has been designed to flex and to adjust, hence the amendments which have been adopted as society evolves. The answer is in the Founding Fathers ideals that the USA would be a long-flourishing pluralistic nation, hence, "E Pluribus Unum" as the most original and brilliant of mottos. The long range vision of the FF's clearly indicates they did not think such a growth would ever end (and 230 some years later, it still has not) and so the fundamental documents of law restricting the government's rights to the liberty and freedom of conscience of the people was worded to ensure neutrality regardless of a religious ideology that will insist it is beyond criticism.

As I did such a detailed dismantling of your arguments, I’m not surprised that you chose to retreat from responding to the salient points.

As to you claim that you can provide a reference to hey-zeus in the constitution, I’m left under impressed with such melodrama. If you’re referring to the silly claim that a closing salutation includes “in the year of our lord”, you’ve simply wasted your time.

The fact is, hey-zeus gets not a single mention in the wording, framework, structure or definition of the constitution.

Silly claim?

The fact puts you in the corner, huh?



Despite the secular nature of our national government, there is one unambiguous reference to Christ in the Constitution. Article VII dates the Constitution in "the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven."

 

[Hollie]

"The Founding Fathers never intended the United States to be a Christian nation." That is correct.

You’ll excuse me If I don’t accept your self-professed claim to speak on behalf of the Founding Fathers.

Christianity is a proselytizing religion and as such, I understand your insistence that your religion must be shoe horned into the founding documents of this nation.

However, it was not.

It seems simple enough – if the FF’s wanted to frame a “Christian” nation, they could have added language specifically to establish that framework. They did not. The fact is, the wording of the Constitution makes no mention of Jesus, Christ or the Christian gods.

Here’s a bit of enlightenment for you. The entire constitution defines rules that limit the government's involvement in the citizen's lives. It is clearly a muzzle on the state's ability to dictate to the citizenry what it can and cannot do within the paradigm of the federal mandate. Certainly rule of law is to be enforced, but that is also controlled at the local level. It does not take any stretch of imagination to understand that the framers of the constitution intended to place limits such that government is restrained from interfering with, among other liberties, freedom of religion which is by default, freedom from religion.

Re-read Amendment I to the constitution. The wording clearly describes limits on the government’s role regarding interference in the affairs of the citizenry. The fundamental documents of law restricting the government's rights to the liberty and freedom of conscience of the people was worded to ensure neutrality regardless of which religious belief is in the majority.

Could the FF's have envisioned Scientology? Or Mormonism? Or Christian Science? Yes and no. They knew that religions propagate and they knew that once in control, religious tenets are biased towards themselves and poorly disposed towards competitive beliefs systems. We don't have to assume their intent -- even if they were Christians (and some of 'em were), the intent is clear: the state is precluded from dictating any and all religious conscience to any free people. Hence, the First Amendment.

The U.S. Constitution has been designed to flex and to adjust, hence the amendments which have been adopted as society evolves. The answer is in the Founding Fathers ideals that the USA would be a long-flourishing pluralistic nation, hence, "E Pluribus Unum" as the most original and brilliant of mottos. The long range vision of the FF's clearly indicates they did not think such a growth would ever end (and 230 some years later, it still has not) and so the fundamental documents of law restricting the government's rights to the liberty and freedom of conscience of the people was worded to ensure neutrality regardless of a religious ideology that will insist it is beyond criticism.

As I did such a detailed dismantling of your arguments, I’m not surprised that you chose to retreat from responding to the salient points.

As to you claim that you can provide a reference to hey-zeus in the constitution, I’m left under impressed with such melodrama. If you’re referring to the silly claim that a closing salutation includes “in the year of our lord”, you’ve simply wasted your time.

The fact is, hey-zeus gets not a single mention in the wording, framework, structure or definition of the constitution.

Silly claim?

The fact puts you in the corner, huh?



Despite the secular nature of our national government, there is one unambiguous reference to Christ in the Constitution. Article VII dates the Constitution in "the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven."

As you will notice, I addressed that bit of nonsense already.

As noted, If you’re referring to the silly claim that a closing salutation includes “in the year of our lord”, you’ve simply wasted your time.

The fact is, hey-zeus gets not a single mention in the wording, framework, structure or definition of the constitution.

Kind of embarrassing for you.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Silly claim?

The fact puts you in the corner, huh?



Despite the secular nature of our national government, there is one unambiguous reference to Christ in the Constitution. Article VII dates the Constitution in "the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven."

As you will notice, I addressed that bit of nonsense already.

As noted, If you’re referring to the silly claim that a closing salutation includes “in the year of our lord”, you’ve simply wasted your time.

The fact is, hey-zeus gets not a single mention in the wording, framework, structure or definition of the constitution.

Kind of embarrassing for you.

It seems not.

Clearly, you're not able to deny that "the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven." is a part of the Constitution of the United States of America.


Since the above 'embarrasses' your precis, and supports mine....


....your statement "Kind of embarrassing for you" actually moves you into the disreputable category.....
....doesn't it.




Sticking to the truth is a moral directive of the Bible.
Think about it.

 

[Hollie]

As you will notice, I addressed that bit of nonsense already.

As noted, If you’re referring to the silly claim that a closing salutation includes “in the year of our lord”, you’ve simply wasted your time.

The fact is, hey-zeus gets not a single mention in the wording, framework, structure or definition of the constitution.

Kind of embarrassing for you.

It seems not.

Clearly, you're not able to deny that "the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven." is a part of the Constitution of the United States of America.


Since the above 'embarrasses' your precis, and supports mine....


....your statement "Kind of embarrassing for you" actually moves you into the disreputable category.....
....doesn't it.




Sticking to the truth is a moral directive of the Bible.
Think about it.

Clearly, your argument self-refutes.

As noted, your attempt to insert your religion into the constitution is contrary to the clear intent of the FF's.

Why do you think the FF's chose to adopt a constitution that limited the govt's ability to interfere in the lives of the citizens? Isn't it a simple exercise to understand that if the FF's had any intention to promote christianity, they would have included hey-Zeus by direct reference? Yet, they did not.

If sticking to the truth is a moral directive of the bibles, why aren't you doing so?

 

[PoliticalChic]

It seems not.

Clearly, you're not able to deny that "the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven." is a part of the Constitution of the United States of America.


Since the above 'embarrasses' your precis, and supports mine....


....your statement "Kind of embarrassing for you" actually moves you into the disreputable category.....
....doesn't it.




Sticking to the truth is a moral directive of the Bible.
Think about it.

Clearly, your argument self-refutes.

As noted, your attempt to insert your religion into the constitution is contrary to the clear intent of the FF's.

Why do you think the FF's chose to adopt a constitution that limited the govt's ability to interfere in the lives of the citizens? Isn't it a simple exercise to understand that if the FF's had any intention to promote christianity, they would have included hey-Zeus by direct reference? Yet, they did not.

If sticking to the truth is a moral directive of the bibles, why aren't you doing so?

Did you deny that "the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven." is a part of the Constitution?

Can you explain the phrase 'our Lord' sans religion?
No?



So....why are you claiming that I am not telling the truth?

Obviously you are the one in that situation.

 

[Hollie]

Clearly, your argument self-refutes.

As noted, your attempt to insert your religion into the constitution is contrary to the clear intent of the FF's.

Why do you think the FF's chose to adopt a constitution that limited the govt's ability to interfere in the lives of the citizens? Isn't it a simple exercise to understand that if the FF's had any intention to promote christianity, they would have included hey-Zeus by direct reference? Yet, they did not.

If sticking to the truth is a moral directive of the bibles, why aren't you doing so?

Did you deny that "the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven." is a part of the Constitution?

Can you explain the phrase 'our Lord' sans religion?
No?



So....why are you claiming that I am not telling the truth?

Obviously you are the one in that situation.

Are you really so deserate to force your religion on others that you will hope to insert your gods in the wording of the constitution where they don't exist?

Don't the bibles allude to lies and falsehoods as... you know... not good?

 

[Pogo]

As you will notice, I addressed that bit of nonsense already.

As noted, If you’re referring to the silly claim that a closing salutation includes “in the year of our lord”, you’ve simply wasted your time.

The fact is, hey-zeus gets not a single mention in the wording, framework, structure or definition of the constitution.

Kind of embarrassing for you.

It seems not.

Clearly, you're not able to deny that "the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven." is a part of the Constitution of the United States of America.


Since the above 'embarrasses' your precis, and supports mine....


....your statement "Kind of embarrassing for you" actually moves you into the disreputable category.....
....doesn't it.




Sticking to the truth is a moral directive of the Bible.
Think about it.

Oh please.
This isn't embarrassing; it's pathetic. "A.D" and/or its English equivalent has been the standard appellation since the Gregorian Calendar spread through Europe in search of a standard. Its origin was Christian-based because at the time that's who held the keys to both political power and the means to education and science (such as it was). "Year of our lord" is eighteenth century legalese for a legal document, put there to avoid ambiguity; a measure that would be clear to anyone in the world -- which for their purposes meant the Eurocentric world. And the Christian domination of that world was in large part what the Founders were distancing themselves from; that's why the first ten words of the Bill of Rights get right to the point, stating categorically: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." . They weren't exactly being cryptic there.

Language is by nature conservative, and legalese even more so. "A.D." no more directly invokes Jesus today, or in 1776, than our appointment next Wednesday has anything to do with the deity Woden. That's illogical as hell (and in like manner that expression invokes no belief in a netherworld).

Pathetic flailing attempt at righting an errant ship. Let's face it, Hollie owned this thread.