So why aren’t they seperate? Constitution sure says they should be.
The back of a dollar bill says “In God We Trust.” Whaddup wit dat?
Federal workers don’t work on Sunday. No small coincidence that Sunday is the Christian sabbath.
Counties around the country have rules forbidding the sale of liquor on Sunday, again the Christian sabbath.
I am CONSTANTLY seeing Congressmen defend the illegality of homosexual marriage based soley on their little black bibles. (Sort of. There’s only ONE line in the whole friggen bible suggesting homosexuality is wrong)
Oh and for the record, I’m a married heterosexual male, so it’s not like I’ve got an axe to grind here about the gay thing. I just think that what they’re doing is wrong.
Even if we DID base our laws on religion, they still wouldn’t be this cruel. Do you think Jesus, who was hanging down with the lepurs and prostitutes, would discriminate against ANYONE???
Great observations! Thanks. But in this preauthoritarian republic in which we find ourselves, politicians will do whatever is politically expedient despite any law or document. Jesus so despised politics that a central theme of His ministry was the repeated warnings to religious leaders who were behaving like politicians.
“They search to the ends of the earth to find one convert,” He said of them, “And when they find him they turn him into twice the son of hell they are themselves.”
“They are like whitewashed tombs,” He continued, “all clean and white on the outside, but on the inside full of dead mens’ bones and decay.”
That pretty much hasn’t changed.
“It is lucky for rulers that men do not think.” — Adolf Hitler
My impression is that the founders of America and the writes of the constitution, when speaking of “separation of Church and State”, were mostly thinking of the necessity to avoid the government sponsoring a particular brand of Christianity, as in France, which in the 17th century saw several massacre of protestants, or England, where the reigning monarch was also the head of the Anglican church. But I imagine most of them had a belief in God/a god.
Nowadays, when American society is more diverse, we realize that the separation of church and state should also mean not favouring christianity over other religions such as hinduism, islam, judaism, etc…
Many of the disagreements we see in current society (e.g. school prayer) arise because of the idea that we should not be favouring religion (i.e. belief in God) over the absence of religion (atheism.) I’m not sure that was truly what was intended by the “founding fathers”, but that doesn’t mean it’s not just and right.
Obviously the “founding fathers” didn’t mean for women to vote or to abolish slavery. But nowadays we recognize that those are essential in a free society.
Those are just my ideas, I’m not as familiar with american history as some of the other posters on this board. I imagine someone can come along and correct my misstatements/misconceptions.
La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l’on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l’on dit.
H. de Livry
Not really. Most of what I see is debates about posting the Ten Commandments, Christian prayers before ball games, and all that other good stuff. 9.9999 times out of 10, when someone is trying to foist their religion on you, you can bet it’s a Christian.
You do make some good points, though, about atheism vs. monotheism in the original intent of the laws.
Still, I see many, many laws favoring and making exceptions for Chrisitianity, but never any laws making it easier for, say, a Rastafarian to practice. After all, the Christian sacrament is legal, but the Rasta’s isn’t.
Regarding what I said about gay marriage, I can see how the laws are probably less about homophobia than they are about pure greed. After all, if gays were allowed to marry, insurance companies would have to give their partners benefits. If 10% of the population is gay, that’s a helluva lot of benefits!
Add that to the perception that gay males are more likely to get AIDS and the high costs of
health care for AIDS patients and you can probably see how the insurance industry has their hands planted firmly in the pockets of, and is probably tickling the scrotoms of, a good few congressmen.
Socialized medicine and campaign finance limits are the two things this country needs more than anything.
That’s exactly why insurance companies shoud be free to insure (or not) whomever they please. Church is not the only thing the State should butt out of.
“It is lucky for rulers that men do not think.” — Adolf Hitler
Actually, the government couldn’t have less to do with insurance, and that’s why the system is so screwed up (because it’s not regulated).
As for puffington’s comment about only Christians “foisting” their religion on others, I most definetly resent that remark. Granted, maybe most of the examples of religion foisting that you see are perpetrated by Christians. This is invalid data, however, since the majority of the society that you live in is Christian. Chances are that if someone isn’t trying to foist their religion upon you, they are also Christian. Your ideas might be different if you lived in, say, Israel or India. But anyway, let’s try to keep religious stereotypes out of this.
P.S.–Socialized medicine is the last thing we need. Start another thread if you want to hear why.
The IQ of a group is equal to the IQ of the dumbest member divided by the number of people in the group.
The Constitution does not actually say “separation of church and state.” It only says that religious tests cannot be made a requirement of Federal office, and that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
It was in a later letter to the Danbury Baptists, penned by Thomas Jefferson, in which the phrase “separation of church and state” was first coined. The Baptists were worried that the Federal government was going to declare Episcopalianism as the official religion of the U.S., so T.J. wrote them to give his assurance that the First Amendment prohibited any such action.
We now return to our regular broadcast of In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash already in progress.
A bit off topic here… It should also be noted that the the establishment clause of the first amendment is intended to protect the chuch from the state, not the other way around.
It’s a long way to heaven, but only three short steps to hell.