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

[thereisnospoon]

What about voodoo sacrifices in a town square?

I mean seriously, if you are going to allow a privately funded nativity scene (which I have no problem with) should you not also allow any and all other privately funded religious expression?

That's where we the people invoke "contemporary community standards"..
We as citizens make up communities which gives us the right to find certain things to be unacceptable.
For example, The display of so-called art ( term used very loosely) with the Crucifix sitting in a vat or urine and accompanying other controversial art was essentially run out of town in Charlotte, NC.
The locals just didn't want to see it and lots of people protested. So The exhibit skipped it's planned visit.

So you are for separation of church and state. Got it. Not sure why it was hard for you to admit...but, whatever, thereisnobrain.

You cannot bother me with your childish inane name calling.
I have the facts on my side. You have.....maybe a ham sandwich.

 

[Liberty]

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

 

[Ravi]

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

He was wrong about slavery, too.

btw...quotes taken out of context are pretty meaningless. Do you guys have a list of things you trot out every time someone reminds you that the constitution is not a religious document?

 

[Liberty]

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

He was wrong about slavery, too.

btw...quotes taken out of context are pretty meaningless. Do you guys have a list of things you trot out every time someone reminds you that the constitution is not a religious document?

So, Ravi supports slavery? Did you seriously just admit that? You are saying adams was wrong for writing the alteration to the Massachusetts constitution in 1780 to emancipate slaves in the State? He was wrong for never owning or purchasing one and Abigail was wrong for only hiring free men as workers?

You disagree with this quote: “Consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest of happiness”
John Adams

You are sick!

Ravi...Thank you for showing your true colors, pro-slavery nutcase.

 

[Ravi]

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

He was wrong about slavery, too.

btw...quotes taken out of context are pretty meaningless. Do you guys have a list of things you trot out every time someone reminds you that the constitution is not a religious document?

So, Ravi supports slavery? Did you seriously just admit that? You are saying adams was wrong for writing the alteration to the Massachusetts constitution in 1780 to emancipate slaves in the State? He was wrong for never owning or purchasing one and Abigail was wrong for only hiring free men as workers?

You disagree with this quote: “Consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest of happiness”
John Adams

You are sick!

Ravi...Thank you for showing your true colors, pro-slavery nutcase.

Didn't he sign the US constitution while slavery existed in America. Oh, yeah...he did.

 

[Old Rocks]

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. I see no problem with the 10 Commandments being posted in our court houses. I see no problem with Christmas displays on public property. How far do you want to take all of this?

And you see no problem with quotes from the Quaran displayed prominently in that same courthouse, correct?

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

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

He was wrong about slavery, too.

btw...quotes taken out of context are pretty meaningless. Do you guys have a list of things you trot out every time someone reminds you that the constitution is not a religious document?

So, Ravi supports slavery? Did you seriously just admit that? You are saying adams was wrong for writing the alteration to the Massachusetts constitution in 1780 to emancipate slaves in the State? He was wrong for never owning or purchasing one and Abigail was wrong for only hiring free men as workers?

You disagree with this quote: “Consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest of happiness”
John Adams

You are sick!

Ravi...Thank you for showing your true colors, pro-slavery nutcase.

No, he just showed his woeful ignorance.... that was an attempted knock on those "old bigoted white guys" known as the Founders.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

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. I see no problem with the 10 Commandments being posted in our court houses. I see no problem with Christmas displays on public property. How far do you want to take all of this?

And you see no problem with quotes from the Quaran displayed prominently in that same courthouse, correct?

Wrong.. I do have a problem with it.

 

[Micky G. Jagger]

Identify and explain yourselves please.

If we separate church and state, will the city fire department be able to fight a church fire?

 

[Skull Pilot]

As long as "Congress makes no laws....." then I am satisfied.

I don't have a problem with Christmas trees or menorahs on public property or cops wearing a cross on their uniforms.

I have no problem with "In God We Trust" printed on our money or with the president invoking the deity when addressing the public.

it seems I am a tolerant atheist.

 

[Old Rocks]

I think taking the Idea to such an extreme that a cross or the Star of David or a crescent moon. Can not be displayed on any state or Federal Land. Is an over the top, and out of control, interpretation of the original Intent.

How would you feel if the cross, or the star of david, or the crescent moon adorning federal land was paid for and maintained with taxpayer money?

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.

Note: to this day a copy of the Ten Commandments still hangs in the Supreme court. Now if that plaque somehow violates the constitution why has it been there this whole time. I will tell you why. Because it took this long for courts to Twist the steps the constitution took to Insure we all could be free to worship as we please and not have a government that tells us what we have to worship. Into the idea that mere symbols of Any religion on any piece of State land was establishing a state religion or somehow restricting anyone's right to worship as they please.

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". 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.

Plain and simple.

The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17 NKJV)

1 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.

Unconstitutional. Restriction of religion.

2 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.

Unconstitutional. Restriction of religion.

3 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

Unconstitutional. First Amendment

4 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Unconstitutional. Differant religions have differant sabbaths, or none at all.

5 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

Nice thought, but unenforcible. Except for creating something like Social Security.

6 “You shall not murder.

That one passses.

7 “You shall not commit adultery.

Nice thought, but humans are humans, and what right does the Federal Government have to even attempt to enforce something like that?

8 “You shall not steal.

That one passes. Works if you hold up the local 7-11. But it you steal multiple millions from people retirement funds, you are just a savvy businessman.

9 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

That one also passes. Except in politics, of course.

10 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.”

Hmmm....... In our society, "Greed is Good" seems to hold far more credance that this little ditty does.

 

[editec]

I suspect that other than insuring that our government does not impose a religion on us, that truly separating church from state is not possible.

Our laws are reflections of our values.

For most of us, our values have something to do with the laws we think make sense.

For example...no Rastafarian has freedom of his religion in this nation.

That's because the state has decided that their religious practive of using hemp as their sacrement cannot be allowed.

And what devil worshipper really has freedom to practive their religion which would include things like human sacrifice?

None, right?

So is our state REALLY separate from the majority view on religion?

Not really.

 

[Old Rocks]

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. I see no problem with the 10 Commandments being posted in our court houses. I see no problem with Christmas displays on public property. How far do you want to take all of this?

And you see no problem with quotes from the Quaran displayed prominently in that same courthouse, correct?

Wrong.. I do have a problem with it.

But then, you have a problem with the whole of the Constitution of the United States of America.

 

[Micky G. Jagger]

Depends on how far you want to take it. and what you think was meant by it originally.

Before our revolution the pope told kings and queens what and when to do things. And they had to do so w/o question or risk being excamunicated (-1sp). many goveners, mayors etc had to have preists, preachers, bishops as advisors.

Basically, most countries were owned by one form of religion or another. And since we had most religions in America, there would have been more and more religious issues that could have kept us apart rather than bringing us together.

In that situation, keep religion out.

If you are talking about tearing down the 10 commandments, or cutting down a cross in the desert that was dedicated to the fallen. then no. It's seperation "of" not "from" religion.

A display of the first of the Ten Commandments - I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me - erected by the civil authorities with the intent or the effect of advising that we should have a certain God is an establishment of religion is an impious usurpation of the Almighty's jurisdiction and a violation of the divine exemption of religion from the cognizance of the government.

 

[Old Rocks]

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

The Christian Nation Myth

Whenever the Supreme Court makes a decision that in any way restricts the intrusion of religion into the affairs of government, a flood of editorials, articles, and letters protesting the ruling is sure to appear in the newspapers. Many protesters decry these decisions on the grounds that they conflict with the wishes and intents of the "founding fathers."

Such a view of American history is completely contrary to known facts. The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists. Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution. Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws. The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible.

These beliefs were forcefully articulated by Thomas Paine in Age of Reason, a book that so outraged his contemporaries that he died rejected and despised by the nation that had once revered him as "the father of the American Revolution." To this day, many mistakenly consider him an atheist, even though he was an out spoken defender of the Deistic view of God. Other important founding fathers who espoused Deism were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and James Monroe.

 

[Micky G. Jagger]

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.

I agree. However, I have a big problem with kids saying prayers at the bidding of the State.

 

[Micky G. Jagger]

I see no problem with the 10 Commandments being posted in our court houses.

I see a big problem if the intent or effect is that civil authorities are advising us to have a certain God before other Gods, not to erect idols and worship them, not to make wrongful use of the name of a particular God or observe the sabbath day and keep it holy.

I see no problem with Christmas displays on public property.

I see a big problem if the intent or effect of the display is to influence opinions regarding the duty we owe to our Creator.

How far do you want to take all of this?

All the way to the righteous and holy obliteration of all civil authority over religion.

 

[FA_Q2]

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. I see no problem with the 10 Commandments being posted in our court houses. I see no problem with Christmas displays on public property. How far do you want to take all of this?

And you see no problem with quotes from the Quaran displayed prominently in that same courthouse, correct?

Wrong.. I do have a problem with it.

And how do you reconcile that with your acceptance of the ten commandments display? THAT is exactly why this is becoming an issue, people like you are NOT for freedom of religion but rather for freedom of CHRISTIANITY. THAT is a clear disregard for what the founders actually stood for, freedom.


By the way, thank you for your honesty. Most would lie and say they had no problem with the tenants of the Koran displayed as the 10 commandments are yet truly would be deeply upset.

 

[thereisnospoon]

How would you feel if the cross, or the star of david, or the crescent moon adorning federal land was paid for and maintained with taxpayer money?

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.

Note: to this day a copy of the Ten Commandments still hangs in the Supreme court. Now if that plaque somehow violates the constitution why has it been there this whole time. I will tell you why. Because it took this long for courts to Twist the steps the constitution took to Insure we all could be free to worship as we please and not have a government that tells us what we have to worship. Into the idea that mere symbols of Any religion on any piece of State land was establishing a state religion or somehow restricting anyone's right to worship as they please.

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". 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.

Plain and simple.

The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17 NKJV)

1 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.

Unconstitutional. Restriction of religion.

2 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.

Unconstitutional. Restriction of religion.

3 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

Unconstitutional. First Amendment

4 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Unconstitutional. Differant religions have differant sabbaths, or none at all.

5 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

Nice thought, but unenforcible. Except for creating something like Social Security.

6 “You shall not murder.

That one passses.

7 “You shall not commit adultery.

Nice thought, but humans are humans, and what right does the Federal Government have to even attempt to enforce something like that?

8 “You shall not steal.

That one passes. Works if you hold up the local 7-11. But it you steal multiple millions from people retirement funds, you are just a savvy businessman.

9 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

That one also passes. Except in politics, of course.

10 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.”

Hmmm....... In our society, "Greed is Good" seems to hold far more credance that this little ditty does.

Umm all major religions have a belief in God. So your attempt to express the Ten Commandments as excluisively Christian is anorexic at best.
These are not rules of government. These are rules of Man.

 

[Liberty]

....wow we sure do have some doorknob lickers on USMB these days don't we...