Who here actually thinks that separation of church & state is a bad thing?

[shintao]

I see no problem with kids saying a prayer in school or at a school football game or graduation if that's what they wanted to do.

 

[robot1370]

Why is not buying beer on Sunday such a problem? You can't buy it on election day before noon.
Why wouldn't you just buy your beer on Saturday and buy enough for Sunday?

Why do people still have unwanted pregnancies? With Aides, I would think everyone should at least be using a condom. Why do we need government funded abortion?

The first amendment does not say seperation of church and state. It does seem that lately the government would like it to be "freedom from religion" But what it really says is that the federal government should not interfere with the individual right to practice (or not) their religion.

 

[robot1370]

I would have no problem with the tenants of the Koran being displayed in public either. Or the star of David or any other religious symbol. But I guess the schools, federal buildings could get quite crowded, if everyone wanted to display their religious symbol. I suppose the "no religious symbols" keeps the conflict to a minimum.

My religion allows for others to have theirs, I know this is not always the case.

 

[FA_Q2]

Why is not buying beer on Sunday such a problem? You can't buy it on election day before noon.
Why wouldn't you just buy your beer on Saturday and buy enough for Sunday?

Why do people still have unwanted pregnancies? With Aides, I would think everyone should at least be using a condom. Why do we need government funded abortion?

The first amendment does not say seperation of church and state. It does seem that lately the government would like it to be "freedom from religion" But what it really says is that the federal government should not interfere with the individual right to practice (or not) their religion.

And what you and every other person agrees with that sentiment and refuses to actually think about the issue seem to be ignoring the fact that you CANNOT freely exercise your religion when there is no separation of church and state. Sure, at the moment YOU will be fine if the country is backing Christianity but these SAME people are decrying the spread of Islamic tolerance from the same government. If you want protection from one religion in government you need protection from ALL religions in government. That is why it is included in the first. As I said before, basic moral bases and beliefs WILL influence government and there is no issue with that. The problem is when the establishment that is organized religion is brought into government and favored over another. That is against the principals of freedom that the country was founded upon.

 

[shintao]

Pickingill claimed to be the direct ancestor of "Julia – The Witch of Brandon," burned at the stake in 1071; "since that time each generation of the Pickingill family has served as priests in the Old Religion."

Pickingill established nine hereditary covens in Norfolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Sussex, and Hampshire. Each coven worshiped the "Horned God" and practiced sex magick in its rituals. According to the legend both Allan Bennett and Aleister Crowley (around 1899) were initiates.

“The O.T.O. claimed that sex magic was the key which opens up all Masonic and Hermetic secrets. If Kellner did receive this knowledge via P.B Randolph then Pickingill's influence on the O.T.O. can be demonstrated. The Pickingill Nine employed texts from the Classical Mysteries in conjunction with sexual techniques to contact ancient Divine Forces. P.B Randolph visited London in 1858 and discussed sex magic techniques with Hargrave Jennings, who was one of George Pickingill's pupils.”

Freemasonry: Midwife to an Occult Empire

 

[Micky G. Jagger]

Ah but the People who fight against such things do not discriminate between things that are paid for by the Feds, and a cross some people put up to memorialize dead police officers at their own Expense now do they.

The issue isn't who paid for it. The issue is whether the the intent or effect is civil authority over religion.

A copy of the Ten Commandments still hangs in the Supreme court.

There is no copy of the Ten Commandments hanging in the U. S. Supreme Court. However, there is a depiction of Mohamed on the wall in the Supreme Court Chamber, which proves this isn't a Christian Nation.

The key words the extreme secularists ignore in both the clauses in the Constitution they sight to justify their Extreme Idea are the words "congress shall make no law".

From the Jeffersonian perspective (power limited to those enumerated and no general power to provide for the general welfare), religion, even without the First Amendment, was totally exempt from the cognizance of the U. S. Government.

The mere act of allowing a religious symbol on state land does not constitute the congress making a law that restricts free worship or establishes a religion.

I agree. The test should be whether the intent or effect of the display on state land constitutes civil authority over region.

 

[Father Time]

Buy your beer on a Saturday.... problem solved.

Stop trying to force other people to abide by your religion. Problem solved.

Seriously why should people who aren't religious have to put up with those rules?

 

[Father Time]

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams

Source.

Although Adams didn't write the damn Constitution. It was Madison.

 

[Father Time]

I have no problem with "In God We Trust" printed on our money

Why? It's government endorsing a religion and with tax money to boot.

I mean if anything qualified as respecting a religion it would be that.

 

[Micky G. Jagger]

The first amendment does not say separation of church and state.

True. But, it does separate Congressional legislative authority from religion, and the "wall of separation" phrase coined by Jefferson is a reasonable, but misleading, label for the First Amendment's religious clauses.

Jefferson's remarks in his famous letter to the Baptists are misleading in the sense that they suggest that the Constitution, before the First Amendment was established, granted the U. S. Government power over religion. Jefferson should have said it way he did six years later in his letter to Reverend Miller.

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... from the provision... that...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.

--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428
​

 

[Micky G. Jagger]

I would have no problem with the tenants of the Koran being displayed in public either. Or the star of David or any other religious symbol. But I guess the schools, federal buildings could get quite crowded, if everyone wanted to display their religious symbol. I suppose the "no religious symbols" keeps the conflict to a minimum.

My religion allows for others to have theirs, I know this is not always the case.

If you grant the government power to decide which religious tenants are displayed by the government, the various religious factions will kill each other to control that power.

 

[Father Time]

Why is not buying beer on Sunday such a problem?

Because it's stupid and restricts liberty for no good reason.

Why wouldn't you just buy your beer on Saturday and buy enough for Sunday?

Why can't you just not have those damn laws and let people make their own decisions about when to buy alcohol. Is that such a problem?

 

[Micky G. Jagger]

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

--John Adams

The best way to foster true religion is by separating it from civil authority. The fastest way to destroy it is by uniting it with civil authority.

 

[Ravi]

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams

Source.

Although Adams didn't write the damn Constitution. It was Madison.

It was a letter he wrote to someone to convince that we should not do something...I got the impression that what we shouldn't do was take over another country because we didn't have the capacity to govern another nation.

 

[Liberty]

The first amendment does not say separation of church and state.

True. But, it does separate Congressional legislative authority from religion, and the "wall of separation" phrase coined by Jefferson is a reasonable, but misleading, label for the First Amendment's religious clauses.

Jefferson's remarks in his famous letter to the Baptists are misleading in the sense that they suggest that the Constitution, before the First Amendment was established, granted the U. S. Government power over religion. Jefferson should have said it way he did six years later in his letter to Reverend Miller.

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... from the provision... that...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.

--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428
​

pretty sure jefferson is saying the exact opposite of your point... idiot.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Why is not buying beer on Sunday such a problem?

Because it's stupid and restricts liberty for no good reason.

Why wouldn't you just buy your beer on Saturday and buy enough for Sunday?

Why can't you just not have those damn laws and let people make their own decisions about when to buy alcohol. Is that such a problem?

I often wonder the same thing.
Same goes for wagering. I think it is absolutely stupid for a person who lives in a particular state to not be able to wager on-line while a person that lives in a neighboring state can wager.
I am a firm supporter of State's Rights. However, this is not logical. And it exemplifies my earlier point that yes we do have religious doctirne and chirches directly involved in the creation and enforcement of laws. That is federal as well as State statutes. The point is "seperation of church and state" really does not exist.

 

[Micky G. Jagger]

Alabama has the power to establish a state religion if it chooses to do so.

--U. S. District Judge W. Brevard Hand (1983)​

As a jurist, Hand was known for what longtime Mobile lawyer Tom Haas called "maverick" opinions that were often rooted in his strong Christian beliefs.

--Longtime U.S. judge W. Brevard Hand dies Sunday, September 07, 2008; By Ryan Dezember Staff Reporter​

Was Judge Hand a true Christian or a Satan Worshiper bent on a demonic reestablishment of the union Church and State? I say the latter. What say you?

 

[Micky G. Jagger]

Ken Buck Can’t Explain How Government ‘Goes Too Far’ In Separating Church And State
​

Yesterday, ThinkProgress noted the anti-Constitution stance taken by the Republican Senate candidate in Colorado Ken Buck, who said that “I disagree strongly with the concept of separation of church and state.” The story quickly gained mainstream media attention.

Spokespeople for the Buck campaign insist that the comments were “taken out of context,” and Buck gave an interview to CNN yesterday to defend his comments:

BUCK: My problem isn’t with separation of church and state. It is with how far we have gone in that area. I think when you have a soup kitchen for example that is run by the Salvation Army which has religious ties in town and you have another soup kitchen in town which is purely secular. For the federal government to give one organization money but not the other because one has ties with a religious group is wrong. The idea is that we need to have compassionate programs for people. And if religious organizations are performing some of those functions without proselytizing then I think the federal government should include both.

Buck’s comments were not taken out of context. The original post included the entirety of his comments on the separation of church and state. A video of his entire answer — which was not about the First Amendment, but rather the government’s role in preserving culture — can be found here. As Denver Post columnist Mike Littwin observed, noting Buck’s recent attempt to take back comments he made about global warming, the campaign’s “default position” is “that whenever Buck is quoted as saying something he wished he hadn’t said, he must not have actually meant it.” (As the Wonk Room noted, Buck also said he wanted to privatize Social Security, then insisted that he didn’t.)

Moreover, much like the deceit in his original comments, which falsely suggested that Obama renamed the White House Christmas tree, Buck is completely wrong with his Salvation Army example. According to their 2010 Annual Report, the Salvation Army received over $392 million in government funds last year. They are simply not allowed to use that money to proselytize, exactly as Buck recommends should be done, but certainly can use it to provide “compassionate programs” for people.

Buck has consistently said that the government has “gone too far” with the separation between church and state, yet he’s been unable to give a valid example. Perhaps he’s misinformed about current federal policy and would find it satisfactory. Alternately, perhaps he would like the government to get much more actively involved in promoting religion, but is afraid to give real examples of what that would look like.

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